There she is, walking in late wearing our money blatant as you please.” Ah, Viper. Itching for a fight.
“Penelope released her finances since we landed on this planet until this moment. That EVA suit was purchased with funds she had acquired prior to your mission, Viper.” Katie reprimands him. “Unless you have questions about my ability to provide an accurate accounting, I suggest you cease your baseless, uniformed finger pointing.” She waits to see if he has more to say, and seeing only a sneer from him aimed at me, she continues.
“Viper has put forth a motion to re-distribute the monetary rewards from yesterday’s mission. Penelope seconded the motion under the caveat that a detailed motion be provided to the council. I received said motion last night. The motion was delivered with desired distribution percentages under the auspices of being compensated for effort, personal risk, and responsibility. The percentages provided did not appear to have a data-based assessment to validate those percentages. Those numbers are displayed on the far left column.”
His proposed adjustment cuts Francesca and Melissa almost completely out of the AE award.
“I have run multiple models based on the video and data recordings taken. The first is apparent effort alone. Second apparent effort with apparent risk. Third is effort and risk with materiel sources and mission preparation calculated in it. The final document is a baseline of what the Andromeda Matrix provided. The data is a correlated average of the tech-based citizens of Astoria’s Ais. Symbiote users were excluded from the calculations due to their limited focus.”
I low key want to argue against that, but it would only hurt me here.
“I propose that the three data-based distributions be added to the motion under consideration.” Katie states.
“I second,” Francesca nearly shouts.
“Vote for the inclusion of these items.” Four council hands rise. “Those opposed?” Viper and his crew raise their hands. “I would note that there are only five current council members per previous agreement. The items are included in a vote of 4 to 1 in favor.”
“May we have a short recess to review the new data sets?” I ask Katie.
She raises an eyebrow for disrupting her flow, but otherwise nods.
“That seems reasonable. Say three hours for lunch and consideration?”
Nods all around. I wonder what other strategy they’ll try to cook up.
I walk outside to the ansible to order some food and a beer when someone decides to poke at me.
“Spending more of our money, Penny?” he chuckles, “Get it? Money Penny? James Bond? Guess you can’t buy culture.”
“Dude, I don’t know what suddenly crawled up your ass and helped you decide to fuck with me, but I’m tired of this. Councilor O’Connell already explained that I didn’t spend anything I was awarded yesterday. But fine, here you go. A fucking guarantee.”
//This is a system-wide alert. All funds awarded yesterday, the 427th day after founding, are to be frozen in all accounts until after this matter is adjudicated by the council, and released by Councilor O’Connell.//
“There you go. Now we all must be honest. Hope you didn’t go on a shopping spree yesterday.” I walk away from the ansible more calmly than I feel, knowing that despite my proclamation, it would look bad if I went right back to spending.
“I didn’t know you could do that.” Melissa walks up next to me.
“I took your and Katie’s advice and looked into what kind of authority I have and what I can do with it. Turns out, I have absolute authority. Sure we have a council, but no one has tried to limit my authority, so I still have it. The only thing the Matrix says that I owe my citizens is subsistence and shelter. That is it. I bet some of Viper’s team find out today that daily rations are free.”
“Why not just tell everyone?”
“Because none of them seemed interested in what I have to say. That and Katie helped me set up what could be considered a daily ration. Our logistician knows these things better than I would ever care to. She even convinced me to throw in the rum ration from old navy days. So every 90 days, Astoria buys everyone a beer. Want to eat a ration and have a beer with me?”
“Sure? Do we go to the dorm mess hall?” I nod, we don’t have to, but it’s the best optic right now.
I haven’t been to the dorm in ages and I’ve certainly never slept there. We walk in to find it has not been well taken care of. In fact, when I get to the bank of dispensers, I see the ration drink dispenser torn off the wall. I’m embarrassed for them, but it’s all terribly funny. I made the dispensers look like a bank of vending machines that I installed. Instead, I enchanted a metal plate to have button regions and a dispensing region and tied it to the Exchange with Tessa and Katie’s help.
I concentrate on turning my middle finger into an engraving stylus and lo and behold the damn thing sharpens and forms a runnel and fills with Aether. That is convenient as all get out. I draw some shapes to fix the metal panel back to the wall and ask Mel for help in propping it back up. I affix the bin back to the plate to catch containers and we should be set. I hit the button for ration “A” and hit the “Beer” button twice. A pizza-sized box appears in the slot for my food, and two clear-glass bottles of beer are “dispensed” into the bin.
Katie hits ration “B” and then the “Rum” button twice and then buys a fruit juice from the Exchange proper before following me to the cleanest table we can find.
“That is a smart way to use the rum ration. Giving me Daquiri vibes.”
“Mm. I do love daquiris.” She agrees, dismissively while inspecting the contents of her ration box and comparing it to mine.
“So, uh, I don’t know when I last ate in front of you was, but I eat a lot?”
“Are you embarrassed that you like food Penny?”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I mean, yeah. And also that I have to eat twice what I used to just to not be hungry.”
“Gods, you’re adorable. You told me you had a metabolism mutation when we were still on the ship. And I don’t care how much you eat, you’re so skinny now I barely recognize my girlfriend. When that and the changes from this morning.” She pats my face and turns back to her fish and chips dinner portion.
“What do you mean? What changes?”
She snorts and coughs a little. “Baby, when I saw you doing your hair, I thought maybe you teleported a sister here. You’re fit, your face thinner, and at least a dozen small changes to your face structure. I had Ophelia compare because I couldn’t tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me.”
Oh, no. Does she not like the changes? Do I try to turn them back? How would I even do that if my subconscious made those changes. Would it make them again if I went to bed?
“Stop Pen pen. I can see the panic racing through your head. I still want to see you next to me when the changes stop though, okay? Even though the pixie direction you are taking is super cute.” She reaches up to touch my ear and traces the outside. I reach up to feel my other ear, and it’s pointier than it was yesterday.
“Curse my stupid brain and insecurities. I didn’t mean to do any of that.” And now Melissa is laughing at me. I grump as I shove a pork-adjacent BBQ sandwich in my face. I stuff an egg from breakfast in there too.
“What’re you two doing here, eating our food, drinking our beer?” A familiar voice accuses yet again.
“They’re subsistence rations, Viper. Everyone in Summer Station is entitled to one a day, and beer every 90 days of service. You’ve already figured out that none of it is actually stored here, so why try to claim any of it?”
“Penny, don’t poke him. It’s not worth the conflict. You can have the rest of my food, Viper. Let’s go babe.”
I pick up my box of food, not wanting to share, and my beer and follow the Psionicist.
“Leave the beer.” Viper has the audacity to command.
I raise and eyebrow and look at Melissa, she shrugs. I shrug back and toss my unopened beer over my shoulder toward him while we leave. We see Meeker and Beecham on the way out and Mel stops to talk to both of them. I begrudgingly stop eating in front of them after she chastises me.
When they mention that they’re worried about food for the day because they’re broke and so are the vending machines, or so Viper had told them. Mel told them about it being a daily ration, and that they could just pick theirs up at the ansible if the machine in the Dorm stops working. Their eyes brighten and they dash back to the ansible.
“Thanks for managing me back there, Mel. I definitely wasn’t helping the situation.”
“Yeah. You should not be the one talking to leadership when we get back to Earth either.”
“Good think I have the prettiest and best-est PR person in the whole of Astoria working with me!” I hug her tight.
“With the added benefit of reading non-Astorian minds.”
“Oh? I had wondered about that.” She then proceeds to describe her morality for excluding Astorians from her abilities, and that forcibly narrowing her result yields some unexpected benefits. One that benefits me specifically is that she gets more depth and fidelity when trying to prevent hostilities.
As we walk up to the Ansible building, we see Meeker and Beecham sitting on the bench in Katie’s garden eating their Rations and chatting with smiles on their faces.
Alright, Tessa, is there anything I should fear from Katie’s combat analysis and money distribution?
No. Ophelia shared the proposal and scenarios with me this morning, which is why I spent so much of what you had left on your EVA suit.
Lady, this is way better than I could have hoped for, and I get the feeling that it does way more than look cool and protect me from space.
Yes, for 15k AE and a future delivery of two sundering staves, I should hope it does more. It’s ballistic and plasma armor, it has an emergency shield that draws from flight aether stores and can keep pressure in your suit until you find your helmet. The part I figured you’d like the most is that it has advanced maneuvering capabilities in and out of atmosphere and gravity. I had your left glove modified to lock into your Aether port so that you can re-supply your flight system in an emergency or to re-charge. It also has uplink and data storage capabilities, but those are mostly for me. It also has some stealth capabilities and an Orbital Drop mode that I didn’t spend time to look in to.
What the hell am I wearing? The most over-engineered uniform of all time. This is some T-2 shenanigans.
Because of your Moon-Breaker bomb. Your personal tech rating is T-3, but your Aether access rating is only T-2. The V’tek Collective is currently bringing your case to the Supercluster Forum and should hear from them in 1/16th of a Galactic Standard Mark (GSM), or about 7 months. For reference, a half Mark is about a second, and a full mark is around 8.5 Earth years, or more conveniently, just over 8 Astorian years.
Blarg. So, what if we rounded all that business to eight years and divide by powers of sixteen. A hex would be half a year, or 211 Astorian days, square-hex would be 13-ish days, cube-hex 18ish hours, and last bit of math I want to do, a quad-hex is 68 minutes. That’s doable. Can we put together a calendar? Fourteen months with a remainder of two. Or Sixteen months with six remaining. Something like that.
You certainly went down that rabbit hole. Yes, we can make an Astorian Calendar. Should I come up with month names?
Sure, if you want to. But back to the Vote. If I’m not gutted on any of the options, I may as well vote for the options that help highlight the efforts of our support team. Which seems to be the last presented option. I suppose I could read them, but that is not what I’m interested in doing right now.
***
“Three hours have elapsed, all five Council members are present. I call for a vote on the re-distribution options.” Katie says from her work station.
“I reviewed the data and I don’t agree with them. They ignore certain intangibles of leadership and combat.”
“Councilman Viper wishes to invalidate data sets due to their lack of subjective criteria. Do I hear a second?”
“I Second that,” the other symbiote user whose name starts with a “G” says.
“Does another council member second Viper’s motion?”
“That’s bullshit! You can’t just ignore us! We have every right to be heard.”
“No, you don’t. Not in this meeting.” I say, reclining in my chair. “You had months and months to indicate you wanted to be involved in our government, but only Eyes did at the beginning, then bailed for some reason. It is too late to demand better representation for this topic, as Viper has already agreed to this vote.”
“What gives you the right . . .” he might have been about to say something inciteful, but I interrupt.
“Your complacency did! You were content to suckle at the teat of the Matrix’s and our generosity, and now you think you are owed more? For what? Because you threw my bombs at a bunch of trees? Because you got tossed around while I saved your lives in my ship? Or is it because your pride was wounded when, in the face of adversity and imminent death, you took a fucking nap? And when Katie and Doc help me finish the job, you would deny them their due? You deserve to be ashamed of yourselves!”
Before I know it, I am glowing and my hands are on fire, and every last person looks afraid. Fuck.
“In light of the fact I could just make a ruling, and I am furious, I recuse myself of these proceedings.” I leave the room with loud, heavy steps.
It may not have been ideal, but it was past time for the people that don’t know you to understand why you are in charge.
I don’t think I deserve an atta-girl for this one, Tessa. I do think I’m going to get the rest of my suit and start a project on the moon.
You thought of a name for it yet?
I appreciate that Tessa is letting me ignore parts of my situation until I can handle them.
“Yeah, Mercy. Because if I come back with even a shred of mercy with me, they should thank the fucking heavens.”