14) Getting stuff done.

My morning routine usually started out the same.

Wake up and open the back door to pet the dogs while giving them a scoop of fortified dog pellets each, then fill their water bowls. Scoop out nasty bits in the kitty litter and fill its water bowl up as well.

The Mice fed the cat what they called offering, so that was covered, but they weren't going near the kitty litter.

Then it was outside where I went past the gathering horde of Murder Geese to pour out a morning allotment of enriched dried oats for Chester. And socialize with him for a bit.

Outside again I waded through the damned geese who always got in my way and headed for the solid slab of cement that covered the cement canister I kept the bags of dried corn for the geese and the crows which had gathered up around me on branches and rooftops crying out “Morning” and “Grace.”

None of the birds needed to be fed, at least during the summers. Both kinds of birds picked off the bugs in my gardens and the surrounding grass as well as in the pond with the geese. Which during the summer was more than enough for them. Other than in the winter they didn’t need me to feed them.

Besides the dried corn wasn't more then a snack, the Genius designed soybeans in the barn are what kept them fed, but the corn was a treat which helped keep them around my farm rather than out terrorizing the countryside.

After feeding the Super animals it was time to give my chickens, safely secured in their chicken run around the coop, the cheaper soy brand feed that the crows and geese turned their beak up at after getting the good stuff first thing in the morning.

Later on in the day, they had a tendency to raid the chicken feed. But Scorn had taken care of that, with her Empathic abilities and a few smacks upside the heads of the geese they got the message when they were being bad birds.

After that, I cleaned up Chester’s stall while he was ambling out to inspect his pasture along with the two older mares, which Scorn had added to the stable because she said Chester was feeling lonely and the mares would have been killed otherwise.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had always gotten depressed when he outlived the other horses that had once shared his stable, as a Regenerator 2 he just kept outliving them. Maybe Scorn knew best though, she could deal with him on a level I couldn't.

Depending on the time I had ten to twenty minutes to play with the dogs before I had to head inside to eat, shower, dress, and head to the Subterranean subway station, or just plain Substation, to ride into the Substation at Con-U for my early morning classes.

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Regenerators normally don’t need much sleep. Fatigue poisons get broken down which leaves us with only a need for the mental downtime which only takes a few hours. I mainly get by on five hours of rest, the first hour of which is mostly spent trying to get to sleep.

The Pre-med classes go by pretty quickly, a lot of them are things I already audited online years ago on the suggestion of the Mice, while the rest of it was early enough in the semester I didn’t need to cram for any tests yet.

Which left me free to hit the Super gym at the Academy in the early afternoon, at the same time as Shimmer.

Unlike me, Shimmer was younger, and not a regenerator, so she did need her sleep. She only took early classes since she was a chronic overachiever, and unless something happened at night, she would turn in early.

Something had happened last night, but she had still gotten up early for her classes and had still made it to her daily workout.

It took some heavy duty exercise machines for a Brute to keep in shape, while like most Regenerators I was already at my best strength, and my body healed too well and too fast for the damage that exercising did to muscle tissue to make them stronger to work for me. Which is why I normally stick to Yoga, for stress reduction as much as anything else.

You would think Super could just do Yoga at a normal class but Brutes needed Brutes to help them stretch and get into the poses. You didn’t want to accidentally launch your teacher who was a regular human across a room and through a wall.

So Shimmer was a little surprised when I showed up in the weight room and positioned myself to spot for her. "Hey, I think I've seen you around school. What's your major."

She gave me a tired grin. “Funny. Can you take this much weight?”

I looked at the weights. "Oh hell no. But I can help you with it well enough for you to use your force panels to brace it, or just get out from underneath the bar. But seriously, what is your major, I don't think you or any of the others ever mentioned it around me."

She lowered the weight, then lifted it five times quickly before holding it in place for a moment. “Force planes please, force panels sounds like I’m doing drywall. And I’m in political science."

I rolled my eyes. Of course she is.

I let her finish her set and gulp down some water as she switched from the massive barbells to taking a seat on a bench and a big guy with blue skin took her spot.

As she wiped off some of the sweat from her forehead and upper chest she gave me a suspicious stare.

"Okay, why are you really here?"

I waved my hands around for a moment, "I didn't even think about asking what you were doing in college until I got here, but I'm glad I asked. No, the reason I came here is to ask a question and give you a head's up."

She waved at me to continue as she took another sip of water.

At this point, I would like to mention that as a relatively young man, I was entirely aware of how attractive Shimmer was with her dark blond hair, light colored skin and a fit, well formed body which was very healthy in the chest area.

But I had watched this girl being held in her mother’s arms on TV when I was already eighteen, and then I had seen her grow up. Even at eighteen she very much looked like the teenage girl she still was, despite the fact she was now in college.

Although I was physically and in appearance only a few years older looking than her, I had a lot more mileage on me. Her and me were like an older cousin who had watched a distant younger cousin grow up from a child into a nice young woman who I hoped would find someone decent to be in her life.

Back to the confrontation. Shimmer finished her sip of water, “The question?”

“Can I start training a, my, sidekick to take over monitor duty for the team?”

She tilted her head at me. “I didn’t even know you had a sidekick… It's the sidekick who you wanted to give me a head’s up for.”

I nodded at her. “The Mice from my house want the job. Which would make it political since it would recognize them as people, rather than Super animals, by giving them an official government regulated position.”

I glanced over at the blue guy who had finished upping the weight on the barbell. “So how do you want to handle this, because while I hate putting you on the spot, I am making them my sidekick either way.”