Curls was sitting in the same position as when I left her, just scanning her phone instead of my info packet. Hair still covering her damned face, the mystery of her appearance and the carefully calculated approach to life I’ve seen so far meant that the obfuscation was deliberate.
“It’s good to see the person I’ll be sharing a room with will not be shaming my eating habits. There are enough containers to feed a platoon, or like three of me.” She tilts her head in response, in a way that would be looking at my arm full of supplies if I could see an eye through the messy bouncy-ness that I suddenly want to pull my fingers through.
“Oh, that’s more than I thought with the drinks. Let me help you with that.” She leans forward to stand. And then stands some more, and by the time I can see her knees straighten I realize I’ve bamboozled by a baggy night shirt concealing an absolute treant of a woman.
“Holy shit.” Escapes my mouth before I can stop it. It causes Curls to still as though I cursed out her mother. “You are going to develop horrible back problems on a space ship.” She sighs at my continued word vomit, but I can’t tell if it’s in relief or frustration.
Whatever it is, she reaches from halfway across the country and grabs the food box from my arms, leaving me to manage the bags dangling from my arms. While she’s unpacking the box and organizing and stacking based on type and quantity, I’m staring at her hands and how it’s possible for such massive things to look so delicate, I mean I bet one of them could cup a whole ass cheek. And now’s when Penny needs to do something to keep her mind from going down a dirty little rabbit hole.
I start displaying the beer on the window sill, finishing with a pop and a fruity IPA sliding into my belly. Alcohol isn’t a great idea, but there’s something so irresistible about beer and take-out. “I got a little bit of everything, but nothing I wouldn’t drink myself so it won’t go to waste.”
“Mmm, sensible. I would like a lemonade please.” I’d gotten them on a whim. Glad I did. I twist off the top and leave it in front of her. “Thank you.”
The last part is whispered for some reason, so I look up to see piercing green eyes attempting to catalogue and quantize my soul. The flecks of yellow and a shimmer of hazel on the outside pull me deeper into her gaze. My eyes flick briefly to check for a hint of fangs before realizing that her hair is pulled back into a curly puff on the back of her head, revealing a sharp jaw and the flawless complection of a thousand years of refined living. I’m being held in place by a noble vampire in pajamas. One that has a sweet tooth.
I wonder how she’d like my taste.
“What?” She accuses.
I shake my head a little “What? Oh, nothing. I can see why you hide your face is all.” God, the things that face is doing to me, other people can’t be immune to this reaction.
“Excuse me?! And what is wrong with my face?!”
Wait, what? What did I say? All is said is that I understand why . . . oh shit, what did I just say?! “No no, that’s sounds terrible. I’m sorry, it’s just you have this ageless vampiress thing going on and . . .” I shove my beer in my mouth before I can make any more mistakes. When I look back she still has a sneer on her lips, revealing a canine that has never been worried or filed to blunt it. I shudder imagining the feeling of that tooth dragging across my neckline.
Her eyes still demand answers.
“I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t expecting the fierce eyes and neutral features,” I fidget at the beer label, looking at it very intently, “it kind of startled me, you know?”
“That doesn’t excuse the rude comment. I’d waited to eat so we could share a meal as a peace offering. Then you thank me with insults? And people say I’m socially inept.”
“Oh, I’m extremely awkward, and clearly the filter between my brain and my mouth could use some work. But I didn’t intend to insult you. Your calculated manner is a little intimidating, but combined with, well your physical gifts, it’s basically an insecure person’s nightmare.”
Well, if I’m going to burn a bridge down, might as well do it properly and plan for my escape and emotional isolation. I drain my beer, grab another, then start popping containers to see what I’m working with. “Are there plates in here, or are you okay with eating from the bins?”
She tilts her head and pinches her eyebrows together as though I’d just asked her to calculate a rocket trajectory to the moon. “I ordered extras that we both wanted so that we wouldn’t have to share if you didn’t want to.”
“Oh! That’s very considerate, thank you.” I flash a grin at Curls before full on smiling at the food. I grab one of the 3-section Styrofoam containers and find vegetables and rice noodles with some meat in a side section. I plop a cup of thom ka on the lid portion and surround it with spring rolls and plop dipping sauce next to them. Fully distracted by the tastiness in front of me, stuffing food into my face with one hand and prepping the next fork-full of meat and noodles with the other. About three minutes in I take a breath and look up to see that Curls is still staring at me, not having touched a single spec of food. Her lemonade is half empty, so she was doing something to interrupt that air of judgment surrounding her.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Oof, now I feel super uncomfortable about my behavior. “Uh, sorry. I know it’s a little gross how I eat sometimes. I just get so excited. And hungry. I can take my dining experience to the lobby if it grosses you out.”
The sharp intake of breath alerts me that she finally heard me. “No, your eating fervor doesn’t bother me. It would if you tried to speak during it. No, I was thinking about what you said about my appearance causing you to feel insecure about yourself. I’ve heard about those types of thoughts regarding celebrities and models, but it’s always been tied to constant visual reinforcement via media. And then I considered why I’d never thought to apply the same type of logic to being in someone’s presence. And then I wondered why someone with your apparent intelligence would feel this way.”
She blank stares while under heavy computational load. That’s kind of cute. Her comment comes of as accusatory though, suggesting that my intelligence should be able to walk me out of an emotional reaction. Does she really believe that?, Or is she trying to reinforce her approach to handling emotion. Hmmm, I consider while switching to a plate of Pad Thai.
“Eh, I guess I could try to isolate those emotions, but if I focus on that, will it squash emotional reactions when I’m working? Will it stagnate my creativity? That last risk is what I constantly worry about. Though my emotions are why I have been exiled from my research community, that passion is also how I came up with a workable concept for an Annihilation Propulsor. I’m not willing to trade a little crippling body anxiety for my creativity.”
Her face stills for a moment and then nods and finishes her lemonade. She tilts the empty bottle and glances at me in askance. I can’t help but smile at the silent communication as I grab another for her. Curls thanks me with a peak at her sexy damn tooth as she starts collecting containers in front of her.
While she displays her mastery of chopsticks, I slide out my info packed from under our hoard. Muster at 0600, meeting with the Big Boss at 0700 followed by a security briefing and gear issue. Gear issue? What gear? Anyway, that’s through lunch and then study periods at the ‘Gon scheduled until 1800 when they kick me out for a meal, and then self study until 2200. Rinse repeat from 0600 to 2200 until 1800 on Thursday where a ‘readiness evaluation’ is scheduled. Exam from 0900 to 1400? Shit. That sounds more like a thesis defense than an exam.
“They’re giving us a week to prepare for a six-hour exam.” I say incredulous at the pit of excrement that I willingly dove into.
“Mm. I’ve been here for a month, the previous class of nuclear variant ratings had a month as well and have already moved on. It’s why I was so interested in talking to you.”
“Wait, your hiding your face and then staring at me was an attempt to talk to me?!”
“Of course. What else would it be. If I wait long enough, people either start talking or leave. Since you can’t really leave, I figured you’d talk.”
Wow. Wooooooow. “How often does your logic twist on itself like that?”
“That logic wasn’t even remotely convoluted. And you ended up talking to me, so I consider it validated.”
“So, when I came back with you on your phone, were you Googling me?”
She nods as she shoves Pad Thai in her mouth, showing both of her pointy canines. I want to lick them.
“Guess I can’t blame you, I would have done the same thing, but you haven’t given me your name.” I stare at her. She keeps eating. I stare at her more, she looks up for a moment, and then back to the most interesting plate of noodles in the world.
Ugh, fine. She left her schedule on the table, so I pick it up and browse. She probably left it out as a compromise for snooping into my schedule, an invitation to invade her privacy after invading mine. I wonder how long my packet sat there before curiosity overcame whatever respect for others she might have had.
Logistics Specialist 2nd Class Katie O’Connell. That name is Irish AF. Similar schedule, but none of it seemed classified, so there were topical bullet points for recommended progress to be ready for the exam on Friday. Some of them had cool names like relativistic resupply; food, soap, and clothing; and Reuse, Refurbish, and Recreate. I like that last one. Copernicus and Gallileo are supposed to have some impressive fabrication suites and anything that helps me take care of my baby girl piques my interest.
“Are you familiar with the onboard fabricators?” I keep looking at her schedule, noticing we can likely have meals together if she’s interested.
“Mm. The engineering ones have a lot of conditional break-down and fabrication rates. I’ve been told that they’re impressive but right now they’re just a soup of numbers. The standard loadout is ten years-worth of material for repair parts. Up to fifteen with optimal recycling.”
I whistle at that. Plan for five, supply for double, ration for triple. Space is dangerous so I’m down with a large factor of safety.
“How long between resupplies on the reactor? It’s one of the things they won’t tell us until we get to the Copernicus prep program.”
One glance up and she knows I shouldn’t tell her about reactor stuff, but she’s asking anyway. I shrug and grab a pilsner. “Depends on what design they decided on. One design, the re-supply is fairly constant, but the materials are cheap and easy to change with a mid-life overhaul. Another design would be like modern submarines and carriers designed for 40-50 years of service with one to two major refueling efforts. Both have pros and cons, and I have no idea what they decided on to scale-up those devices.”
Curls sighs, “That’s going to bug me for the next four months.”
“I hear that. I’ve been itching to find out what bastardization of my project ended up in a space ship for almost three years.”
“How are you still sane?”
“Not sure that I am.”
Her laugh tinkles through the hotel room like sinister wind chimes.