Interlude-Steam
Caleb had been weird yesterday. It wasn’t hard to guess why.
Still, Nora was staying positive about getting thrown in the deep end of alien interactions. Poring over the psionic dictionary with Nerin last night had been fun.
The two of them had both made a game of synonym making.
That dictionary was scary . Hell, psionics in general were scary.
They were so damn useful, it felt insidious.
The very first day Nora had been exposed to them, she’d created a new one of her own: a lockbox.
In a way, even that had been unsettling. The intro module had been so intuitive, it was overwhelming for the first few minutes. The feeling of her mind connecting to these structures…
Her first instinct had been to lock it away, just in case.
Half the trouble was, psionics were too intuitive. As soon as she comprehended the problem, she realized the solution.
She’d knew it was possible and so Adepted the lockbox around every psionic construct Caleb shared with her. The whole process of recognition, analysis, and creating a solution had taken maybe five seconds total.
It was just scary touching something with just a thought…so very scary.
But so awesome too.
It turned even ordinary tram-ride conversation into something gripping.
“So you studied literature?” Nerin asked.
Nora had quickly become used to sifting through the English-Starspeak dictionary. Caleb had gone above and beyond in making it. The initial version had been little more than a document that needed to be searched through manually.
Or…mentally.
But within two days he’d delivered an update in the form of a tool that tied certain numerical ratings to certain configurations of words, attempting to predict how likely they were to occur in conjunction with other words or phrases.
It was like predictive text, in real time.
Nora would have been worried about over-relying on something so convenient, but psionics didn’t work that way. It was all in her head. Her mind was privy to every step of the process.
Every time she used the dictionary to translate a word, she got a vivid firsthand reminder of what the word’s meaning was. The more that happened, the less she actually needed the dictionary.
“Yes,” Nora replied. “Didn’t not even make…through my first…semester…[Shit, I think I butchered the conjugation there.]”
She wasn’t the only benefitting from psionic assisted language acquisition.
“Yeah, yeah you did,” Nerin grinned, providing corrections to the sentence psionically.
Caleb’s dictionary was almost flawless with root words and definitions, but contextually modifying verbs, tenses, and other constructions still had some kinks to work out.
“Getting abducted sounds like a ride,” Nerin said. “Especially within, what, three months of starting school?”
“Worst part is I had a certain class I… was really looking forward to,” Nora said, pausing to ensure the correct verb.
“What topic?” Nerin asked. “I’m curious what kind of things Earth studies. Once a planet starts contacting aliens, they never get to study just themselves ever again.”
“A…arguing course…argumentation,” she corrected. Technically it was advanced rhetoric, but Caleb’s dictionary, for all its strengths, was not all encompassing.
“I hate arguing my medical decisions,” Nerin said. “The first week you were here, I had to sit for a hearing asking why I cut you open.”
“It still weird you were…surgery…ing for me. [Caleb is younger than me, and you’re even younger than him.]”
“Hey, I still am a surgeon,” Nerin said. “A good one too. But…yeah, I’m pretty young even for Farnata doctors. It comes with the territory when you have Nai for an older sister. She makes me…driven.”
“…Competitive, goal-focused, hardworking—” Nora recited.
“Very funny. I’ve got the same dictionary in my head,” Nerin said. “I know you’re just rattling off synonyms.”
Nora grinned. Practicing Starspeak with Nerin was fun, a lot like working with her campers. Except the Farnata was an accomplished physician at age fifteen. Fourteen?
Caleb’s explanation of alien age equivalent’s was not crystal clear.
“I’m just wrapping my head around someone younger than me having medical license,” Nora said, looking out the tram window. “[Wait, where are we going?]”
Nerin didn’t reply quickly, taking a few seconds to run the English through her dictionary.
“Caleb has a…friend? Stalker? Enthusiast? He’s got a Casti helping him out looking at Earth tech. Caleb asked me for a favor, and while I’m there I might as well drop off some medication they asked for.”
“Fun,” Nora said. “I am curious to meet more of the aliens Caleb has met.”
This morning after physical therapy, Caleb and Nai had gone to practice Adeptry while leaving Nerin free to observe her patient.
Not alone though.
Two of the body guards shadowed them. Both of them Casti with their big flat heads and smooth pastel skin. The two of them just followed implacably like wide-eyed little terminators.
Nora felt bad thinking it, but Casti unnerved her.
Nai and Nerin’s expressions gave her a more human impression of the Farnata, and even Vorak body language was vaguely intelligible.
But until now, every Casti she’d met just wigged her out.
Was it because one had shot her?
Nora didn’t think so…but then again she did vividly remember seeing some Casti trooper’s face right as she felt metal go through her torso…
Hard to say.
Meeting Shinshay was at least very different.
Their tram dropped them off a hop, skip, and a jump from an R&D laboratory that Caleb had entrusted with Earth technology.
“Real quick,” Nerin said, “before you meet them, you should know that they’re really different for a Casti. Avoid gender referencing them unless you want them to go on a very long tangent. Long story short is that young Shinshay has rare congenital chromosome disorder.”
“Ahh…[slow down,]” Nora said, rummaging through the dictionary.
“Starspeak, Nora,” Nerin chastised. “Force yourself to use it.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Just say again?”
“Shinshay’s not male or female, genetically,” Nerin said, “it shouldn’t be a big deal, but I just wanted to prepare you for their appearance…Hello! You must be Shinshay! I’m living with Caleb. Call me Nerin.”
Nerin walked over, exchanging a hand gesture with a pasty yellow Casti who must have been Shinshay.
Nora was mortified.
Her brain was descending into full on panic, because if Nerin had said nothing, she would have been perfectly fine. Hell, even if she’d said everything except the very last phrase, there would be no problem.
But as Nerin greeted the Casti, Nora could not for the life of her figure out what Nerin meant by ‘their appearance’. Big eyes, smooth pudgy skin. They were exactly within what little experience Nora had with Casti.
“This is Nora…Clarke, right?” Nerin said, gesturing to her.
“[Yes,] Yes!” she said aloud. <[Help,]> she also sent Nerin. <[I’m panicking. What did you mean about their appearance?]>
“A pleasure to meet you,” Shinshay said, a little too smoothly. Almost like a robot.
Nora felt like her face was going red, and for the first time, she was glad she needed a breathing mask. Maybe it would help cover up how flustered she probably looked.
Wait.
No.
Think it through properly, and stop panicking… she thought.
I don’t know ‘normal’ Casti appearance. They don’t know ‘normal’ human appearance!
That helped. The knowledge that it didn’t matter if she hid her embarrassment made it all the much easier to actually do so.
“Good. To. Meet you too,” Nora said haltingly.
Shinshay’s expressions were difficult to decipher, but it seemed like some tension went out of them.
“Oh good,” they said, relieved, “you’re as bad at this as I am.”
Nerin snickered. “No, she’s still learning Starspeak—well…actually she could be.”
“Oh,” Shinshay frowned. “Can she understand me?”
“More or less,” Nerin said. “She’s got…well it’s complicated, but she can translate what she hears decently, even if she’s still learning to speak.”
Shinshay brightened back up. “Oh wonderful! I wanted to pick Caleb’s brain about the electronics he left with me, but he was diverted last time. I don’t suppose I could ask her to answer some questions about the devices…?”
“Hey, talk to her,” Nerin said. “I’m just watching my patient and delivering your meds.”
“Yes, yes of course,” Shinshay said. “[Miss] Clarke, correct? Could I trouble you for some questions about your homeworld’s technology?”
Nora was struggling to keep up with the pace of the conversation, but she’d at least she wasn’t flustered so much now.
“[Umm…yes,] yes. I can…answer,” she said.
“Come, come!” Shinshay led Nora to a smaller room in the lab with an airtight partition. Behind the window, two phones were in similar states of disassembly.
The sight caught her off guard, saddening her. One of the last conflicts to break out before she’d left had been someone’s phone screen getting cracked by someone else.
Unnervingly, Shinshay, like most Casti she’d met so far, proved better at discerning her expresssions than the other way around.
Seeing her distress, however slight, they reassured her. “I’ve taken apart both devices multiple times, they both remain functional. They’re truly fascinating engineering. The components are tiny! It’s incredible.”
“Most of…your technology,” Nora began, “does seem big.”
“The buttons,” Shinshay nodded. “Even Farnata complain about Casti hands. Handling these has certainly been a challenge for how precisely I can hold a tool…”
Nora was doing her best not to get left behind, but Shinshay spoke with the swiftness and intensity of a well caffeinated squirrel.
“Slow…” Nora asked. “Please go slower. I am…not keeping up.”
“I’m so sorry!” Shinshay said, immediately rummaging through a stack of papers on the nearest counter. “Erm…Hello, my name is Shinshay. A pleasure to meet y—…oh we already did that part.”
The Casti pored over several pages of what seemed to be conversation flowcharts.
<…I’m. Surprised. How well Caleb. Has. Handled. This many. Aliens,> Nora said.
“Ah! Got it!” they cried out, finding the papers they wanted.
What Nora had thought might be conversational flowcharts, was actually a rigorous series of technical questions.
In the course of dissecting the phones Caleb had lent them, Shinshay had written down more than a thousand questions.
Nora was not a computer scientist. She’d been a English literature student, but even in that language she couldn’t have answered most of Shinshay’s questions.
Capacitance, resistor composition, battery chemistry, it all flew over her head.
And…now that she thought about it, Caleb’s head too. Most of the technical terms Shinshay was leaning on weren’t in the dictionary.
“Alright, basic circuit construction is dense, but not unrecognizable. You see this kind of high purity, high precision in Vorak wiring. They’re the ones on the cutting edge of material composition, alloying, and purifying quantities…” Shinshay said. “But your Earth tech completely loses me when I look at what the simple circuitry is actually wired into, what the wires actually deliver their current to. These components are…well, they’re just lumps! I can’t even figure out where your microprocessor strands are. That’s not even mentioning the display…”
They continued, and Nora struggled to tell whether she should give up all hope of understanding what was said. They just talked too fast to understand, but she’d catch a phrase every third or fourth sentence that reminded her how much could be learned from this endeavor.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she didn’t actually need to respond at all.
This was just an excursion. Giving both herself and Caleb some room.
But she just wasn’t in the habit of letting problems go unconsidered. Even if she knew she was going to relegate this topic and let Caleb struggle through it, she didn’t want to shut down Shinshay without some due diligence.
It was overwhelming.
Two hours passed without Nora actually helping Shinshay learn anything. Not that they seemed to mind though.
Nora had to fight her habits. For the last seven months she’d been surrounded by humans, maybe not all her own age, but at least close-ish. Even just inside Shinshay’s small corner of the lab, she saw more aliens in one morning, than every single one of those months.
“—but I can’t just throw these into a recycler just to find out their composition, it would destroy them! So, please, could you hazard a guess at what element the transistors’ cell membranes rely on?”
Wait. Transistor. That word actually was in the dictionary. Semiconductor computer component.
“[Yes!]” Nora blurted. “Yes, yes…uhhhh…”
Processors were made out of elemental silicon right?
Only Caleb hadn’t translated the periodic table in its entirety. Most of it was just English names with numbers attached.
Atomic numbers. Okay that would have to be good enough.
“Element fourteen,” Nora said. “I…can’t recall more. Too much…”
Damnit, it was so hard to operate like this. How had Caleb managed to adjust?
Nerin, bless her, didn’t miss the signs.
“Shinshay, I’m sorry to cut you off like this, but I’m still her doctor and she seems like she’s going to pass out if she continues.”
The Casti nodded vigorously, already digesting what they’d been told. “Yes, yes, completely acceptable…fourteen…fourteen…silicon?”
Nora thought they were going to ask one more question, but once again the Casti caught her expression.
They instead scribbled a note into a folder, and showed Nora toward the door.
“Oh…uh…wait! Senior Nerin! My medicine,” Shinshay asked.
“Don’t call me ‘Senior’. You’re older than me, by plenty,” Nerin smiled. “And I gave you the vials. You set them down on your workbench.”
“Oh. Oh yes, of course, thank you again for delivering them. You saved me a trip. I hate hospitals.”
“Administer every twelve days, right into the gland,” Nerin reminded them.
Nora wasn’t listening. She felt bad about that. She didn’t have a headache. She wasn’t about to collapse.
It was just too much.
As she and Nerin exited the building though, two armed Casti stepped right up to them.
Startled, Nora took a sharp breath.
The bodyguards. Right.
“Sorry,” the taller one said. ‘Fenno’ judging by the nametag.
“[Whatever,]” Nora said, shaking it off. “We go home now. Need food.”
·····
That afternoon Nerin had duties at the hospital, which put Nora back in Caleb’s orbit for the remainder of the day.
He’d been gone this morning and missed the window of Earth-like gravity in the gym every morning.
Lucky for him Nai knew where and how to adjust the gravity field for their building’s basement.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Caleb was stretching, and Nai was reading when Nora found them.
“[You were avoiding me this morning,]” she accused him.
“[I…]” he glanced at Nai, who stayed focused on her book. “[…feel like I’ve been crowding you since you woke up. You’re the first human I’ve gotten to talk to in too long, and I didn’t want to drive you crazy.]”
“[I’ve still only talked to a single digit number of Vorak,]” Nora said. “[For all those months, I was interacting with humans. You being awkward and pushy is right in the middle of my comfort zone.]”
“[…Am I really that awkward?]” he asked.
“[You’ve had your moments,]” she admitted. “[But you shouldn’t worry about it. It would be weirder if you were completely well adjusted, you know? Besides, you don’t even rate next to some of my campers. You ever gotten to try defusing a heated political argument between two middle-schoolers?]”
Caleb blinked in surprise, almost falling over in the middle of his stretch.
“[Middle schoolers have political arguments? No, scratch that, middle schoolers have political thoughts?]”
“[Not most of them,]” Nora chuckled, feeling better already. “[But the ones that do get heated.]”
“[…So what’s it like being in charge of two-and-a-half middle school classrooms?]” Caleb asked.
“[It’s more like, one-and-a-half middle school classrooms, half a grade school one, and half a high school classroom.]”
Caleb smirked, “[Just sayin’, that probably averages out to what I said.]”
“[It’s complicated. But good. I liked helping everyone realize why we needed to get along. It was getting easier over time. I’m…really frustrated with myself the longer I’m away though.]”
Half the reason she’d been so effective up until now was her willingness to communicate with even the youngest of them. So when she’d promised them ‘no more than two weeks’…
“[Because of the timeframe you gave them,]” Caleb guessed.
He was perceptive...
“[Yeah. I feel like I had good reasons when I first decided to sneak out, but it’s a lot harder to justify to myself after things went so wrong.]”
“[We’ll find them,]” Caleb said. His certainty sounded ironclad. “[Serral’s right, there’s only so many buildings on Archo that fit the description.]”
“[Yeah,]” Nora nodded. “[I’m still going to worry every single second until I’m back with them.]”
“[I’m sure your ‘campers’ can handle themselves if anymore middle school politics come up.]”
“[That doesn’t even compare to when we laid down ground rules…]” Nora said. “[One of the first rules we implemented was a very strict and very quiet ‘absolutely no sex’ policy.]”
“[Ohmygod,]” Caleb said. “[Suddenly I’m thrilled to have been all alone this time. How do you even manage that? Why, even? Wait, no. Obvious why…]”
Nora snorted. “[You sounded a bit like Shinshay just then.]”
“[Oh yeah! Nerin said you met them this morning. How was that?]”
“[Stressful,]” Nora admitted. “[But I think anything involving me on my own with aliens will be for the foreseeable future.]”
“[I’m nervous around humans,]” Caleb chuckled. “[You’re skittish around aliens. It seems our social graces are somewhat opposite.]”
Nora was a little surprised to hear him describe himself that way. He was lively and energetic talking with aliens, but…now that she thought about it, he’d handled her with kid gloves the first few days after she woke up. It was only in the last day or two that he’d started to show any exuberance talking with her.
And then yesterday he’d clammed right back up.
“[I think you’re doing better than you think you are. Unless you try to hit on me, again]” Nora joked, testing for his reaction.
That made him wither a bit. It was petty of her, but she took a bit of satisfaction in watching him recall sticking his foot in his mouth.
“[I was not hitting on you. I have a girlfriend,]” Caleb defended, rolling his eyes.
Except then he immediately winced, realizing what he’d just said.
Nora stared blankly at him.
Was…was he talking about an alien? Nai or Nerin?
No. Definitely not.
“…You mean back on Earth?]” Nora said, trying not to laugh.
“[Yeah, I…]” Caleb began. “[Oh just kill me.]”
“[No, no, I mean, I’m just surprised!]” Nora said, still trying, but failing to stifle her laughter. “[Because I’m pretty sure you haven’t called her in…ten months. That ship has probably sailed.]”
“[Laugh it up,]” he said, taking his lumps. “[Regretted it as soon as I said it.]”
“[Sorry, I really shouldn’t laugh,]” Nora said. “[You’ve been on your own. Not exactly alone, but still. No one from home with you.]”
“[There’s…a lot of stuff from home that you’re bringing up,]” Caleb admitted. “[I’m…not sure what it says about me that I haven’t thought that much about people I knew back on Earth. I had friends. Family. Feels…callous, not to have thought about home much.]”
“[Makes sense to me,]” Nora said. “[Why torture yourself thinking about everything you’re missing?]”
“[Still…]” Caleb said, not totally convinced.
Nora’s camp counselor instinct lurched.
Caleb wasn’t perceptive by coincidence. Drinking in as much information from his surroundings had become a survival strategy.
Nora might not have been in the same life-threatening situations to cultivate the same instinct, but months of watching her campers hold it together had seen her notice the small things that stressed people.
He needed cheering up.
“[Enough,]” she said. “[I want to move. Let’s play a game.]”
“[I’m…down,]” Caleb hazarded.
“[I haven’t done a lot of sports. But I did play some B-ball sophomore year,]” Nora suggested.
“[Baseball?]” Caleb asked hopefully.
“[As if. You see a ballpark around here? Hoops,]” she replied, materializing a basketball in her hands. “[Play me.]”
“[We need a basket,]” Caleb pointed out.
Nora tossed the ball to him and went about creating one.
“[You’ve done that before,]” Caleb recognized.
She had.
It was just a backboard, rim, and net, but she added a dense mass of black tendril to the back, before flinging the other end up to a point on the wall.
“[Would you call that three meters?]” Nora asked, still holding onto the materialized hoop.
“[Three hundred…ten centimeters,]” Caleb said.
What. Did he have a psionic tool for eyeballing distances?
“[…You made that up,]” Nora guessed. It would have come up before if he really had one.
“[I can neither confirm nor deny the parameters for this measurement,]” Caleb said, without missing a beat.
Nora just grinned, releasing the backboard and letting her tendril snap it into place on the wall.
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on her method.
“[I have done this a few times,]” Nora said. “[We did regular game nights with Adeptry. Board games, cornhole…”
“[And pickup games,]” Caleb nodded. “[Alright, I’m game. What are we playing exactly? Horse?]”
“[Nah, half-court,]” Nora replied.
“[You’re like five-one, and I’m like five-ten,]” Caleb said, “[is this even going to be fair?]”
“[Fuck you, I’m five-three,]” Nora grinned, starting to dribble. “[…and no, not for you it isn’t!]”
The basement gym’s gravity was indiscernible from 1G. According to Halax, the Vorak had matched the gravity and air accommodations to the data from the A-ships.
It meant Caleb should have been a disadvantage. He’d spent months under unmodified Yawhere gravity.
Then again, Nora was still recovering from a coma, so it probably evened out.
She took an early lead before Caleb started to notice his mistakes.
Caleb dove past her, making up for his inexperienced dribbling with raw acceleration. Nora found herself bumped out of the way and out of position.
That was technically a foul…
He dashed up and tried to do lob a simple layup for a point, but he misjudged the distance. The ball bounced off the rim, and Nora was ready to catch it and take it back to their imaginary half-point line for her turn.
“[You don’t actually have to guard me,]” Caleb frowned.
“[Guard? Yes. Block? No. You’re three for ten,]” Nora said. She dribbled forward slowly, drawing within few inches of the three-point line Caleb had temporarily marked on the gym floor. “[Meanwhile I…]”
Nora stopped her advance and took the open shot. Caleb wasn’t guarding her close enough either. The ball swished right through. Nothing but net.
Was it cheating to abuse the difference in experience this much?
“[…haven’t missed yet.]” Nora said. “[Ten-to-three.]”
They weren’t playing for points. Just scores.
“[Okay, I see you,]” Caleb said, catching the ball for his turn on offense. “[There’s something you should know…I did theater for a few years, and the last show I did was ‘Annie Get Your Gun’.]”
“[So?]” Nora scoffed.
Caleb dribbled cautiously, weighing his approach. “[Well…because anything you can do…]”
He sang the line before jumping for a three-point shot just like she had. Nora had been guarding properly, but he’d set himself up well. Maybe without even realizing it.
The jump was quick and clean, and Nora couldn’t move quickly enough to reach the shot.
It sailed in just like hers had.
“[I can do better,]” Caleb sang, “[I can do anything better than you!]”
“[Oh, it is on,]” Nora said, retrieving the ball. “[Keep talking smack and I’ll make you sing little orphan Annie instead!]”
As much as she hated to admit it, Caleb took the momentum. Mainly because in copying Nora, he must have realized how much he could abuse his stature.
The height wasn’t so much a problem. Nora could feel the augmentations in her limbs making up that difference. But his wingspan made things harder. He was guarding her much closer now, and he could reach further whenever she tried to dribble past him.
She might have had the lead, but his wingspan actually helped more on offense. It made it that much harder for her to stop him from driving toward the basket.
Caleb muscled his way forward. Nora tried shuffling laterally, keeping herself between him and the basket.
She was keeping her eye on the steal. Caleb might have held physical advantages, but he was playing the game very simply. She could predict where he was going to put the ball.
Her timing was good, and she lunged for it. But Caleb was damn fast with his hands. He ducked down the instant he saw her hand snatch out.
He changed his dribble, catching the ball closer to the ground, before Nora could reach. He pushed forward, knocking her aside and dumping the ball in for an easy basket.
“[That’s so charging…]” Nora complained.
“[What’s charging?]” Caleb asked.
“[Exactly what you just did with your shoulder,]” Nora panted, “Nai! Caleb keep rule breaking. Need you to…[referee].”
“What are the rules?” the Farnata replied.
“No clue,” Caleb said. “Which actually might be the problem.”
“[Alright—no, Starspeak Nora. Get in the habit,]” she chastised herself. “Uhh…the…net is…”
It took a minute to explain the rules, and Nora wasn’t totally sure Nai understood.
But she made for a decent referee anyway. She’d been paying just enough attention from her book to know in what ways both players were at a disadvantage.
Interestingly enough, Nora felt a strange energy ripple out from Nai through the floor. Even when she wasn’t looking at them with her eyes, she seemed to track the game via where they stood. Was this tactile cascading, like Caleb had mentioned?
It was just one more thing Nora needed to learn about aliens.
She stuffed away her curiosity for the moment, focusing on winning. They settled on a game to twenty-one points.
Nora felt like she could have gone longer, but at the rate Caleb was learning, he’d overtake her points if the game went longer.
“[Give it up, girl,]” Caleb taunted, “[I’m getting the hang of this! Give up before I have to embarrass you more.]”
Nora was on offense, still clinging to her lead. Nineteen to Eighteen. Caleb was guarding her closely now, arms up, constantly denying her an opportunity to shoot.
“[You’ve got the height, the wingspan, and the reflexes over me,]” Nora conceded. “[But your game sucks!]”
She dipped her knees even lower, dribbling as quickly and as close to the ground as she could.
Caleb still didn’t understand his own advantages well enough. At least not in this sport. His learning speed could be abused, because he was overcorrecting. Now he was guarding her too closely.
Nora pushed in, planting both her feet barely in inch away from Caleb’s own. Almost committing a charging foul of her own.
But he expected her to keep moving, and his momentum continued. His reflexes outpaced his own legs. He saw she stopped, so he stopped backing away.
His own momentum tipped him backwards when he stopped shuffling his feet.
The result spilled him backwards, like he’d tried to sit down on a chair that wasn’t there.
Nora tossed the ball in completely uncontested.
Caleb frowned, flustered. But he seemed to be enjoying himself anyway.
“[You don’t know this game as much, so you wouldn’t know what that’s called,]” Nora said, helping him up. “[But I just broke your ankles so hard…]”
She helped him back to his feet.
“[I know what it’s called,]” Caleb grinned, magnetizing the ball to his outstretched hand. “[Ten bucks says I can get the next point, guaranteed.]”
“[Adeptry is cheating,]” Nora called.
“[Of course,]” he replied, letting the ball drop.
Despite how he first took the momentum, Caleb was not a good outside shooter. The further he was from the basket; the better Nora’s odds were.
He was progressively getting better at dribbling at least. It was fun to watch someone improve over the course of an hour. He was copying her, definitely. He tried to dribble with her own timing, but with more than two inches of height difference, he was still struggling to find and keep an appropriate rhythm.
Still, he was getting sharper and faster. From what he’d explained of his augmentations, she’d expected sharp pivots on his ankles.
And he didn’t disappoint. He pushed forward, more judiciously now with Nai doing her best to call fouls. But still, he dove back and forth, trying to catch Nora in a mistake.
But Nora was getting a feel for her own developing augmentations.
She wasn’t making his mistake of guarding too closely. He knew he was better under the hoop. He knew Nora knew he knew.
Nora was struck with the vivid impression he was trying to outwit her by going for the shot he was technically worse at, just to surprise her. He wanted to shoot it in, Nora had read so, and she could exploit that.
She was ready to block his shot as soon as he jumped.
Except Caleb did the unexpected-expected thing and actually tried dribbling around her, moving closer under the hoop again. He was going for another layup.
He was fast on his feet, but Nora kept herself between him and the hoop, ready for the ball to leave his hands.
And it did!
But in the wrong direction.
Without looking, Caleb threw the ball almost completely sideways, and sidestepped Nora the other direction.
For a split second, she froze. It wasn’t even a conscious dilemma, but her reflexes didn’t know whether to follow Caleb or the ball.
She picked the ball.
He’d probably tried a fake out, but lost his grip without the benefit of the magnetic Adeptry.
Except the moment she turned, Nora saw that Caleb had cheated.
Nai caught the ball, hurling it up towards the hoop.
It was close enough for a jumping Caleb to catch it in both hands and slam it through the hoop.
“[Alley Oop!]” he yelled with a grin.
Nora grinned. He’d cheated, but it was hard to be mad. In a way, it was even poetic. He’d won the point because he was friends enough with Nai to know she’d help.
He hadn’t even coordinated psionically with her. He’d just hurled the ball at her face, and she knew what he’d wanted to do.
“[But ow! That would have been a lot cooler if I hadn’t bashed my wrists against the rim…]”
“[Yeah that’ll happen,]” Nora said, still marveling at the feat itself.
Most high schoolers couldn’t dunk. But Caleb had augmentations in his tendons and joints especially. Even if his muscles were mostly normal, he could put a lot more force through his knees and ankles than even most adults.
It got her thinking…
She bounced on the balls of her feet, trying to get a better sense of just how her augmentations were laid out in her body.
Caleb had said there were two broad types of augmented Adepts: general and specific. Specifically augmented Adepts had more concentrated effects. Most of Caleb’s body was totally ordinary. But the closer you got to joints, nerves, and tendons, the more resilient his tissues were.
His hands were chock full of all three, enough that the reinforcing structures actually bled out a centimeter or two, enough to strengthen the whole hand. But technically, his augs didn’t make his legs any stronger. Or, if they did, it was by such a small margin as to be imperceptible. But they could still feasibly help him jump, at least some.
Nai, by contrast, was generally augmented. Most of the tissues in her body were strengthened in some way. The most visible of those would be in skin, muscles, and bones. Go figure, they were the most significant systems. She would be physically stronger.
If Nora was correct, then she was more like Nai than like Caleb.
“[Gimme,]” she said. It was her turn.
Caleb tossed her the ball, and Nora tried her own run up.
He was getting excellent at guarding her on the ground, but too many of her shots today had been uncontested. Caleb didn’t understand how to transition from good guarding into good blocking.
So when Nora leapt, he wasn’t prepared.
He froze for a second, and it was all the time she needed to leap right over him, making a dunk of her own on the basket.
She put the ball through the hoop and dissolved them both a second later when she landed.
“[That makes twenty-one for you,]” he said. “[Nice jump.]”
Nora had to stare at her hand in disbelief for a moment.
“[…You don’t think that’s weird?]” she asked.
“[What?]”
“[Caleb, look at me. I just dunked a basketball. Me.]”
“[You’re not that short,]” he said.
“[For the WNBA? I’m tiny,]” she replied. “[You know there’s only like ten women who have ever dunked in an actual match?]”
Caleb frowned, not following her point.
“[What’s the problem?]” he asked.
“[…I…well…there isn’t one,]” Nora admitted. “[Or, at least not yet. I’m just…disquieted. I’m nineteen, and positively superhuman. I...this makes me think of home, and what’s going to happen when we make it back.]”
“[I haven’t thought about it,]” Caleb said, glancing at his own superhuman hand. “[By design, really. It’s putting the cart before the mother of all horses.]”
“[I know, I just can’t help but worry about it. There’s going to be more questions than I think any of us will be able to answer, and I am… so very not prepared to answer them.]”
“[…And you’re going to have to,]” Caleb followed. “[Since your campers put you in charge.]”
“[I’m…blown away by how you learned… adapted to all this,]” Nora admitted. “[I gotta learn it all too, and it’s weird. You’re younger than me, but you fit into all this better than I do.]”
“[It’s barely been a week,]” Caleb said stiffly. “[Don’t…don’t be hard on yourself. You’ll get the hang of it. I…will teach you. Starting with Adeptry.]”
“[I know Adeptry,]” Nora said. “[Halax taught me.]”
“[Not well enough,]” Caleb shook his head. “[You prepare yourself. Because tomorrow? I’m giving you the crash course in cosmic creativity.]”