Tailspin, page 28
“So how come I get to pass this and get shipped out?”
“All I’ve been told is special circumstances.” She handed me her bag, and I took it, heading for the bathroom first. We both used it and met once again in the hall.
“Fucking special circumstances,” I mumbled.
“You’re not the usual case,” she carried on. “As far as I know, Declan’s got to follow proper military schooling, which is years, not terms. You’re doing things no one would believe.”
“The more I hear of this ‘special circumstance’ that surrounds me, the worse I find it,” I said. “How do you get to see what I am?”
“Because I…” She looked around. “I’ll tell you inside.”
She opened the new room. It was about twice as wide as the other was, but it did have two beds. That was nice. I threw my bag on the left-hand bed, and she did the same to the other, sitting.
“No one but a select few will know your background,” she said. “Just like no one knows mine. I got to see a bit more because I went to my CO and asked. I needed her to help me understand your motivations and personality.”
“That’s because we have to really match, right?”
“Yes, it’s not a regular working partnership, and I don’t just want that, either. Sure, there’s some out there who do the minimum, working the system. I want something different because the helo we’re aiming for needs that.”
“You’re not even talking about something like the DH 1 are you? There’s something else?” I took my boots off, then asked, “They won’t see my background, but they’ll know I’m different, just like they see rich, right?”
“I can’t hide that, and most of the kids there can’t either.”
Malaki stripped off her uniform and slipped a large T-shirt on, then her underwear came deftly off and PJ bottoms went on next. I took that as a cue to undress as well and stripped down. I pondered what to actually sleep in. I wasn’t used to anything, but being naked just wasn’t a good idea. “We’ll have to get used to sleeping in uniform, won’t we?” I asked, unpacking my small bag of belongings.
“Not just yet, but long term, yes. We’ll sleep in clothes in the field. Saves precious minutes when it comes to rushing off in an emergency.”
“Underwear it is, then,” I said. “I’m not quite as deft as you at stripping under a shirt.”
She laughed and slid into bed, lying on one elbow to watch me. I did catch her wince at seeing my flesh once more. I don’t think that was going anywhere soon. Not just yet.
“I don’t mention my parents because they’re high up,” she said. “Mostly dealing with a lot of things that none of us can talk about. They are rich, but they never get to spend it.”
“That’s sad,” I replied.
“For what they do, they love it. They don’t care about money, but it meant I got the offer of better and better upgrades all the time.”
I pushed my covers back but stayed on top of the bed for a bit. “You said no, right? I can’t see any tech.”
“No sounds so final,” she said. “For now, I’ve said no. I wanted to go up the ranks properly. Learn the right ways, not the enhanced ways.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “If things fail and you’re stuck with no tech, you need to be able to get out without it.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I know I can fly a helo with nothing but the dials. If the sights are good, I can aim and fire without the need for enhanced zoom or metadata.”
“I won’t get to do my job without the tech.”
“No, you won’t, but you’ve got a natural instinct when it comes to tech. You know how and when to push, even if you don’t quite understand it yet. I have no doubt that in the near future you will.” She threw the covers back. “Shit,” she said. “Almost forgot your nanite cream.”
“Really, again?”
“It will help the tech. Don’t panic. It won’t turn you into a pretty boy.”
She rummaged in her bag, and I was about to tuck myself into bed.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me put some on your side.”
I hesitated, but she’d dolloped it on her hand and was warming it up.
“I’m not mean,” she laughed. “You don’t want it on cold.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands, so I put them under my head and just watched her work. She covered my side in the cream and then massaged it in with deft fingers. “Face!” she said and moved in closer.
I turned my face to the wall, and she traced my jawline and scarring. “It’s ugly, right?”
“You’re meaning the X1, right?” she queried. “Because you’re not ugly at all.” The cool liquid still felt odd on my skin.
“I’m not ugly?”
“You know you aren’t,” she mumbled. “Can you tell? Or even see it?”
“Yeah, I’ve tried to see what it is, but I couldn’t. I just look like me.”
When she finished, she ordered, “Sit up.”
I complied, still feeling more than a little conscious of her being so close to me with our semi nakedness. She moved to wipe her hands on an old shirt, then slung it in the can at the end of the room. Picking up her data pad, she sat back next to me.
“I’ll show you. You will understand a bit more about yourself and your tech in a minute.”
The picture of me then popped up on her pad, and I stared at it. “You got this from the CO?” I gave her a side-eyed glance.
“Err.” Her face flushed pink. “No. I had a friend hack your system.”
“Friend wouldn’t be called Niko, would he?”
“How did you know?”
“Just a hunch,” I said. “I met him a few nights ago at Rise, his—”
“Cousin works there.” She turned to me. “Wait, you’re the reason he and Lacy weren’t in their bunks?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Shit, that all makes sense now. I busted them both and used that to get the info on you when I first saw you.”
“So”—I indicated the data pad—”what do you see, then?”
“This is the X1.”
The 3D image of my skull came into view. “You had a lot more than broken bones in that crash. I don’t even know how you weren’t passed out on the side of the street.”
I technically had been…
33
“You had internal injuries. You’d smashed your face and skull in a few places, mostly tiny cracks, but they were enough to warrant a different kind of implant.”
The next image that overlapped it was half metal. “They cut here and here, broke your nose bone, and replaced it all.”
I went to touch the side of my face, but she stopped me. “It really is a protective gel,” she warned. “The nanites cover your skin so you can heal, let them do their job.”
“That’s heavy shit.”
“The tech of the X1 actually sits with the eye,” she said and pointed behind the socket. “Your eye was perfectly fine, so they let you keep it, for now.”
For now… My stomach churned. “But I have that extra view?”
“Yes, it uses nites when it needs to. They flood over your eye and can do as requested without the need for the X6.”
“Yet?”
“Depends how you keep responding to the constant irritation of the nites. They’re not so great over a real eye.”
“That’s why it itches?”
“Speak with the tech doc when you can, but yes. Any side effects they’ll need to know over the next year.”
“Is it better to have the X6 and 7?”
“Not cost-wise, no. You’re talking about adding another few million a piece on the price.”
“Shit.” I sighed.
“Yeah, eyes aren’t cheap, at all. They only do that when they’re sure you’re worth it. If you stick to the course, all of it, and go into service higher up.”
“Like the Black Bears?”
“That is classified,” she emphasized.
“But you know, right?”
She stared at me, looked away, and flicked the image on the data pad again. “This, I wasn’t expecting, the X24.”
“I still don’t know why this is more expensive than anything else,” I said, watching the 3D view of my hand instead now.
“This is a fully constructed endoskeleton structure of every bone in your hand. There’s nothing like it. It’s so expensive because it’s so intricate; every tiny bone is there. It’s all been replaced with the highest-grade military metals. They’re more responsive than your own fingers ever could be. They’ll feel and will do everything you ask of them and the best part for a pilot, you can VR control almost anything with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want to be a DP, right?”
“You shouldn’t know any of this.” I pointed out.
“Please don’t think it’s a violation,” she said with a cringe.
“But it is,” I said. “Not only have I got tech inside me I never really asked for, a much higher quality than I could ever pay for, but there’s jus—”
“What?”
I shook my head. “It’s just all weird.”
“The X24 and its upgrades means you could easily control through VR multiple ships, multiple of anything your mind can manage.”
“Six drones wouldn’t be an issue?”
“Six or sixty,” she said.
“I’m not sure I can manage one yet.”
“No, and you’re not going to be training with any for a while.”
“What can I do?” I sighed. “The dream of, well, anything like that DH 1 seems so far away.”
“You know how long it took Papa Bear to get where he is?” she asked in a low whisper.
I shook my head. But she knew his team, and she knew him well enough to call him by his personal sign.
“Twenty-two years,” she added.
I frowned. “Wait.”
“No, he’s not my father either.” She laughed. “Would have been fucking awesome if he was.”
I reached for her data pad and brought up the next image, one that I knew I’d spend many years looking at. “This was always what I wanted.”
She stared at the TAP as it spun round and around. “That’s expensive, and it’s not M-Corp, so it’s full of faults.”
“It would have been in my price range, eventually,” I said, feeling like the bum I was.
“No, no way.” She tapped the screen. “This is the lowest grade you can join me with, fully.”
What came on the screen next was something else. “That’s not just a TAP.”
“No.” She started at the bottom. “If you look closer, each node is graded too; the metal nails are tapped straight into your coccyx first, where the brain of the unit logs with the X1 in your case. Its other locator nails are hit into every single vertebrae of your spine. It runs the nerves of the system, then they stretch out every other vertebrae up your back where the nodes are placed, to a max of eighteen nodes.”
I watched her bring up a view of one of the nodes. This was the connection to the helo. To pilot the drones from within, each one essentially was their own side of Aug-World. “Every node represents a connection, a possible control point.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ever seen anyone with all twenty-four vertebrae tapped?” I probed.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think anyone could handle that. The most I’ve seen is seventeen.”
“That Trevor’s partner Casey?”
“No, you never met him? The Black Bears’ main DP is named Frank.”
“Probably, I just didn’t get to speak with them much, or, well, NDA stuff.”
“Fair.”
“How much is that for a starting point?” I asked her.
“You can’t buy it,” she said, and she dropped the pad onto her knees. “This has to be earned. Which is another reason I wanted you with me. I know we can do it together.”
“A lot of plans,” I said.
“I’m really not messing around here,” she said. “I have to redo year two, and I want the best; that means…”
“I have to pass ground school, then I’m jumping headlong into year-one flight training at almost at the end of their term, too,” I said. “Then I have at least a year with you to get that TAP?”
“I haven’t known anyone do it in that short a time, but, no, you need it sooner.”
My heart sank. There was no way I was going to skip half school and pass the courses.
“Rus,” she said. “I think you’d be more than capable of it.”
“No guarantees, though?”
“There are never any guarantees in life. The tech could fail, something could happen.”
“True. Can we push you through any faster?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I have to stick to the course. Take my punishment.”
“So when I pick DP, I’ll still train with you, but what we take are a few different, what, lectures?”
She shook her head again. “No, this is all extra.”
“Fuck, I’ve got so much to catch up on already. My schedule runs from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. every single day for a long, long time.”
“I’ll help,” she said, but her face fell.
“I’m sure you’ll do what you can,” I said. “But this is on me, and what I can do.”
“Rus,” she said and put a hand on my arm. “I kinda liked Jonas, but I didn’t connect with him, not like this. He’d have tried to fuck me last night. You didn’t.”
“I still thought about it,” I admitted. “Even if I’d been totally out of it, I still had that one stray thought.”
“Thinking about it and making that decision not to are different. You’re right for me, I know it. I’m not bothered one bit in putting my all into this, into you. Or waiting for you.”
“You didn’t connect with Jonas like this?”
“No,” she admitted.
“You’re really a year three student?”
“I would have been.” She sighed, checking her HUD. “It’s really late. Feel ready to face tomorrow?”
“No,” I said and turned over in bed, curling into my pillow.
“You can do this,” she encouraged. “Trust me.”
I turned back to her. “Thanks,” I said. “Sleep it is.”
She dipped her head and returned to her own bed, knocking the light out.
“Night, Rus,” she whispered a moment later.
“Night,” I said and turned back to face the wall, wanting the cream to do the best it could, while it could. Not plant it into the pillow.
***
I woke up a lot earlier than I should have, but I wanted to walk, to do something. I snuck out of the room to use the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. I really couldn’t tell now, though, I could slightly feel the scar of the operation. The bruising had massively faded since my attack, and the cream she’d put over my face and side had turned into a white flaky substance. I washed off both before I went back to bed.
Closing the door this time disturbed her, though, and in the darkness, she asked, “You okay?”
“Toilet,” I said and scratched the side of my face. “Needed a wash, too. This stuff is itchy.”
“I can see that,” she said. “It restricts the stress the skin goes through as it penetrates and heals on the inside.”
“I’m going to surf for a bit,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Not sure I can,” she said. “Nightmares.”
“Oh,” I replied and slipped into bed, my sheets cold. “Want to—”
“No,” she said. “I’m going to go for a run instead.”
“Need company?”
“You’re not running anywhere today. Stay.”
“But—”
“No one will mess with me,” she affirmed. “If they do, I’ll kick their fucking ass.”
“You’re sure?”
“Only tech I do have in my HUD is extrasensory, which is specific to being on my own out in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be fine.”
“Wish I’d had that the other night.” I sighed.
“We can sort you something out at some point. I know the best places to get it.”
“Legit?”
“Yes, legit tech. Not everything I do is shady,” she griped.
“Just some of it, right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”
“You’ll have to share your contact information at some point.”
“Maybe,” she said again and grabbed her bag. She was out the door in a minute, returning only after changing. “Be back in about an hour. I’ll comm if anything comes up.”
“Okay.” I tucked back into the bed, and when she closed the door, my idea of surfing the web vanished as the lull of darkness and still feeling under the weather hit.
My alarm went off a little while later, and I got up to dress, ready for my lecture. This was going to be a full day, even if I couldn’t do the practice due to being bounced around inside a cockpit.
This time, when they saw me in the lecture hall, they all nodded my way, and a couple of them actually asked me if I was alright. I noticed Declan too, and he also nodded my way.
“Feeling a little better?” he asked. “Face looks more normal.”
I touched it instinctively and winced still. “Yeah, it’s doing better,” I said. “Got some good meds that are helping.”
“You can sit here,” one girl invited. “I can take a different seat today.”
“That’s no bother,” I said. Then I noted the chair she was in. “Extra padding?”
“I struggle to sit for long,” she said and smiled. “It was made just for me, but you can seriously have it, I can go one day without it.”
“Thank you,” I mouthed. I watched her move and took her seat.
The young man next to me smiled. “Is it true you that almost saved Kuri’s life?” he probed.
I swallowed. “Look,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff I can’t talk about. What happened out there was something no one ever wants to see.”
“A full public report went out this morning. They’ve finished their investigations,” Declan said.
I didn’t know that was done. It was over. I checked my HUD.
Yes, there was the notification. I’d just had everything switched off while I slept and was healing. My body didn’t need the stress.
