i command armies

[autokinetic]

Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.

They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.

And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.

Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.

Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.

Comments

[autokinetic]

I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, she says, turning her face into his shoulder again, and this time sharing is easy, there's no hurdle to clear or circumvent, and she sends a rush of feelings - the sack-of-cement awfulness of her traitor limbs and the terror that it's permanent and she'll never, ever fly, the creeping fear that now her brain's exposed to the elements and someone less friendly than Sue might notice and hurt her where she lives, impotent fury at the IF and their clumsy, stupid, secretive misrule and she could do it better, and she is so glad Sue is on her side but she doesn't know what she wants her side to do, she's defiant and terrified all at once.

[pythbox]

If we can get off this rock, he says, and get back to Earth, I guarantee you you can have your exo again. Howlett's a pilot, I bet he'd be in if I tapped him. It'd be risky, but we're fucking geniuses. We could get it done. Or we could knuckle under and do what they want and get it back fast, unless and until they decide to fuck us over again. I'm with you either way.

[autokinetic]

How would getting back to earth get my exo back? There isn't another one back home. I have the only complete set.

[pythbox]

My mom would cry buckets over you, is how. Enough money will get just about anything done.

[autokinetic]

Aegis is not so sure, and sends so.

On the other hand, if they knuckle under now, that'll just set them up for next time, if there's a next time.

[pythbox]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, he says to the latter. And I promise you, if it is physically possible to build you another exo, my family can get it done. The one you've got didn't just appear out of thin air one day; people built it.

[autokinetic]

If we leave the station now we're fugitives. They don't have to let us go anywhere till we're eighteen. We could get caught, especially if anybody starts doing something obvious like getting exoskeleton specs. It was originally supposed to be military hardware, the IF definitely has people involved in whoever's keeping the plans.

[pythbox]

Yeah, and then we let out they gave a minor illegal drugs against her will, he points out. Mutie suppressants are banned by international law.

[autokinetic]

It's our word against theirs and - I just don't think we'd win - but - I could tell them that I know how to let you in even when I'm in working order, she sends slowly. That I've been doing it for years and it's safe...

[pythbox]

You trust them with that?

[autokinetic]

I don't trust them with shit. But if they want something and they'll do whatever they have to to get it and I can tell them that they can get it without hurting me so bad...

[pythbox]

Sure, he says decisively. And we can tell them we're not doing shit until you're back in your bones.

[autokinetic]

Aegis takes a deep breath.

"Whatever your name is," she says to the old guy, "...Sue could already link me. I had to let him in, he couldn't just do it whenever he wanted until you fucking drugged me, but he could do it, and I didn't ever let on because I thought you'd take my exo, but now you've gone and done it anyway, so give it the fuck back and then we'll link and play your fucking game."

The old guy blinks. He was clearly not expecting this.

[pythbox]

Sue smiles.

[autokinetic]

"...Go back to the office where Swan was sent yesterday," says the old guy. "Tell it to him."

Aegis pushes the directions at Sue, scowling to herself.

[pythbox]

Sue carries her thataway.

[autokinetic]

Here's hoping this works.

In some ways it's nice for communication to be this effortless, but on the whole Aegis wants her wall back, wants it to be her choice, wants this to be a special bird privilege and not something anybody could do.

[pythbox]

They arrive at the office in question. The door opens at their approach. Sue carries Aegis inside.

Your show? he says over the link.

[autokinetic]

"You didn't have to drug me. Sue can link me regardless," Aegis tells the bureaucrat flatly. "And we're not doing shit if you cripple me either which way."

[pythbox]

He blinks. Twice.

"Fine," he says. "You can go to the infirmary for the antidote and your assistive tech on my authorization, or go back to your quarters and I'll have them waiting for you."

[autokinetic]

"I'm glad you are not being difficult about that. Infirmary please," she tells Sue.

If I do ever want to make a case about this, infirmary means witnesses.

[pythbox]

The bureaucrat sends a message on his desk and makes a shooing motion.

Sue carries Aegis out of the room.

[autokinetic]

The infirmary gives Aegis an injection of something that burnsburnsburns and she winces and hisses and her wall slowly uncrumbles back into place.

And they give her her exo, and she scrambles into it with practiced urgency.

And she vaults off their table and spins and says "Well, I know who I'm going to pretend the enemy ships contain next time I play the sim."

[pythbox]

Sue laughs and hugs her.

[autokinetic]

She runs ahead of him back to their room, pausing occasionally for a cartwheel or a turn, and checks her desk for a revised schedule. Sure enough, there is one, with rather tightly blocked simulator runs. Including one in ten minutes.

"You playing?" she asks Sue.