“Want to come to the company hanger later today?” They’re eating breakfast together on day five, in what Lanis already considers an irrevocable ritual, when Mirem casually poses the question between bites of fruit.
Lanis can barely swallow her bite of oatmeal. “Seriously? Are you going to put me in a Suit? Do I need to sign anything first? Liability waivers?”
Mirem has to cover her mouth so that food doesn’t spray out from her laughter. “Of course I’m not going to put you in a Suit!” She pauses, considering. “Anyway, the master armorer does that.” She barely gets the words out, nearly choking on her own mirth.
“God, you do think you’re funny, don’t you?” Lanis says, but she’s laughing too.
They’ve debriefed their days over dinner— that’s what Lanis likes to call it, after her years in Fleet— and she told Mirem about beginning to apply to jobs, or at least researching the process. She opened up her Admin ID Profile after a deep meditation on the second day and was reminded that, technically, she was medically discharged with Veteran Status, Class B, which, apparently, makes getting a Planetary Administration job a whole lot easier. She was also awarded dual master's degrees in Artificial Intelligence Pairing Logistics and Physics, with minors in Administration, Cybersecurity, and Philosophy. What the hell. They never told her anything about this while she was in Fleet, though Lieutenant Tran did offhandedly say that she shouldn’t have trouble finding work. She wonders what a hiring administrator will make of all of this.
Anyway, she hasn’t actually applied to anything yet, but Mirem shook her head in disbelief when she showed her the resume. “Right, um, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding a job, especially after I give this a few tweaks. Pairing Logistics, awarded by the Orbital College of Science? Dear God. Do you know that their graduation rate is like ten percent? Any corp with half a brain will interview you, if nothing else than because they’ll be damn curious. We can practice the interviews: You’ll crush it. Then a practical exam. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bidding war. I’d love to see that,” Mirem says, her voice trailing off in wonder, glancing at Lanis with even more respect, if such a thing was even possible.
Practical exam. Left unsaid is that the last time Lanis was in an AI pairing she basically lost her mind. Then again, that was with a Jupiter-class AI mind under emergency protools. It was the Entity and the Warp that gave her the psychotic break, not the Demeter. Right? Right.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Still, she hasn’t touched a near-equivalent AI since, and she’s nervous, despite her newfound mental stability, or maybe because of it. The fleet doctors said there probably wouldn’t be an issue, to just take it slow, and let her mind heal. “Probably? What do you mean probably?” She remembers asking a tall, severe looking consultant. “Oh, not more than one in five that you won’t make a full recovery regarding your AI-pairing abilities,” he said dryly, as if that was supposed to be reassuring. Her face must have said something, because he quickly added, “Quite good odds, all things considered.” She’s been thinking about that conversation a lot recently.
They’ve talked about the Arena Games too, of course, Lanis peppering Mirem with questions over dinner. She’s been reluctant, Lanis can tell, to bring it up again after that first night, after finding out what she has about Lanis’ past. She’s not just some Versk client anymore, lured in with sex. Still, Lanis has been insistent. She wants to see Versk, see the Armored Suits, and hopefully even the AIs.
“Well, I’m excited to see where you work,” Lanis says, carefully spooning another bite of oatmeal to her mouth, too late in trying not to betray her excitement. “I feel like Versk is this other lover that you have. Not that, you know, whatever,” she adds.
Mirem rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I only visit the hangar when I’m taking a prospective client on a tour, or when my boss asks me to drag along a VP to show them where all the money is going. It’s pretty much all 5-tonne Suits there, along with a few one tonne Corp security units. Oh, but did I tell you? No! You’ll love this,” she winks, and springs up to the kitchen counter, rummaging in a drawer for a moment. “Here. Your favorite!” She tosses a protein packet over the counter to Lanis.
Lanis catches the packet and lifts it up, running her fingers across the blocky Murkata-Heisen logo that’s proudly stamped across the foil. Underneath is the food division’s mascot, a fat brown cat with eyes squinting in contentment.
Mirem continues, beaming: “Murkata-Heisin bought a five-percent stake in the company last month. The geniuses in the mining division are killing it, and Murkata wanted in. Anyway, what matters to us is that they sent over a couple of ten-tonne Suits— outdated models by their standard, but still great tech. Something for the engineering team to play around with or even salvage for parts. God, I don’t even want to know how drunk my boss had to get with their team to swing that,” she says, shaking her head in wonder. She looks back to Lanis, clapping her hands.
“So, are you in for this trip?”
Lanis bites into the protein packet, sticky strawberry tang flooding into her mouth. The taste is reassuring.
“Let’s go.”