watch me dance

[autokinetic]

Fractal makes commander. Bella doesn't replace him as toon leader - she's only eight and her commander still doesn't know how to use her - but Fractal's replacement, a vet traded in from Platypus who goes by Brighteyes for some reason, does. He spends a chunk of Flame's practice sessions every day putting Bella properly through her paces, and in their battles, he uses her like she was meant to be used: a dancing wildcard, too fast to hit, torpedoing herself into formations with laser precision and shooting from glorious whirling motion with the steadiest arm in school. Bella likes Brighteyes, and he tells her that when he makes commander he'll swap for her if he has to give up six soldiers to do it.

There is an announcement of a rules change: you are not allowed to perform the victory ritual without freezing or disabling all of the enemy.

This rule change is generally attributed to the antics of a Thomas "Sue" Sanderson, who coordinated his toon across the room without commander authorization and won the game before more than four soldiers, total, had been taken out.

It's a month shy of Bella's ninth birthday when Flame and Meerkat once again meet in the battle room.

"Freeze their mutie," Flame's commander tells everyone. "Don't look at me like that, Aegis." (People have occasionally started calling her this; she always picks it as her username or her space station name or whatever she's allowed to christen, and it's started to stick.) "You're not that kind of mutie, but theirs is. He can't do his hivemind shit once he's froze or he'll get iced. That's everyone's priority, clear?"

"Yessir," says each toon leader in unison.

They form up in the corridor.

Comments

[autokinetic]

"The problem with the exo is it doesn't need proper mind control for somebody to possess it. Somebody with proper mind control could be just as dangerous using anybody without an exo. They'd still be controlling the body at the speed of thought," says Aegis. "The point of the exo is to be suggestible, that's how it works, that's how that one guy killed sixteen people with someone who had a prototype on. If you could shout at the part of my brain that works it you could move me. But you can't."

[pythbox]

"...Pretty sure I couldn't," he says. "I'm a weird kind of telepath, I don't go into people's heads."

[autokinetic]

"You don't?" she asks. "What's the difference?"

[pythbox]

"I've had a telepath talk to me," he says, "when they were figuring out about my power, and it's nothing like getting words pushed to me. It's not even like getting thoughts pushed to me. It's like he just stepped into my head and made the words appear there. The way I do it... like I said, it's separate. What's in my head is still in my head, what's in their head is still in theirs, I'm just linking us up so they're getting some stuff from my head, and if they want they can show me some of their stuff back."

[autokinetic]

"Oh." She turns these pictures over in her head. "All right. Maybe even if there wasn't a wall you couldn't possess the exo. So that's two reasons they won't take it even if they find out, and they won't, so that's three."

She is much more relaxed now.

[pythbox]

He grins.

"That's good. I don't want them taking your exo. It makes you happy."

[autokinetic]

"It makes me alive. I almost died before I had it. You can see the scars a couple places -" She traces a line on her cheek, and another along her wrist. "If the exo goes, I get iced, I go to planetside school someplace, I walk around with a cane maybe or try to do without anything at all, feeling like my arms and legs and hands are cheap rentals, and if I live to to be fifteen it's because I never climb a flight of stairs and I definitely don't fly."

[pythbox]

"Yeah," he says, and he looks unusually serious. "I know. I don't wanna get iced either. Different reasons, same deal."

[autokinetic]

Aegis remembers. She nods.

"I got made toon second," she adds in happier news. (This is not secret; this sort of position is official and it'll appear as a little symbol next to her name in the standings as soon as Brighteyes submits the change.)

[pythbox]

"Congrats!" he says, all smiles again.

[autokinetic]

"It's cause I got you and the last toon second made a stupid mistake," she explains.

[pythbox]

"If I had an army with you in it, I'd make you toon leader," he says. "I'd make you lieutenant of however many of my best people were too many for me to link."

[autokinetic]

"How many's too many?" asks Aegis. "And Brighteyes says he wants me when he makes commander, too, maybe you get into a bidding war with him and somebody who likes flex maneuvers like Rabbit's commander." She's smirking.

[pythbox]

"I can do my whole toon now, I don't know how many more," he says. "Maybe I'll just let 'em have you, so there'll still be somebody out there who can beat me."

[autokinetic]

"Why doesn't your commander have you syncing up as many people as you can, anyway? That's what I'd do if I had an army and you were in it. Everybody except me in a linkup, if they didn't like it they could transfer, that's how useful that is."

[pythbox]

"It's the other toon leaders," he explains cheerfully. "One hates muties, one thinks I'm a bugger in disguise, and one's just scared of me 'cause I don't make sense."

[autokinetic]

"They close personal friends of the commander? He let his religious ones turn down battles on whatever Sabbath too?" she snorts. "If you could link me up and I didn't think the teachers'd ice me for it I'd go in a link if I had you in an army that was all mine. Doesn't matter if it's comfy unless uncomfy makes you worse, matters if it wins."

[pythbox]

"It wins," he says, grinning. "But there's no point just winning all the time. Losing makes you learn more."

[autokinetic]

"Enh. I like almost losing for that. Best of both worlds," she grins.

[pythbox]

He gives her a quizzical look.

"You care?"

[autokinetic]

"For games? Yeah. If it's the kind of game where winning happens, I mean, not like the minefield where it'll just throw them faster and faster until you die and the question is how long that takes."

[pythbox]

"Oh. I don't," he says. "I don't even try to win unless I feel like it or there's something in it for me."

[autokinetic]

"Then why were you sending your toon Aegis-hunting?"

[pythbox]

"Because it makes them happy to be useful, and I like my toon."

[autokinetic]

"Huh." She starts flying, idly. (Idly she only looks like a regular soldier in top condition trying as hard as possible, not like magic.)