“Hey, what are you doing, Abellar?”
Abellar’s face remained blank as he watched Ivy out of the corner of his eyes. “Ninth Seat Verox, I’m allowing our new recruit here a test drive of her power armor. Do your eyes fail you today, because things are as they look.”
“We haven’t run her vitals, and she’s months of training too early to even attempt this!” the woman hissed, throwing down a clipboard and crossing her arms. “You come into my lab and do what you want like you own the place. See if I don’t have you sitting before the others for a council review of your behavior.”
“Hush now, darling. Let the child fail. Surely you’ve seen her brother’s footage?” Verox flinched back, a tinge of fear in her eyes. “Yes, that is the correct response. So what if we bend some of the typical rules to get her to fall in line, and with her, him. She lacks talent, but that is not something we condemn here. A rather difficult one, she is, so to make sure things run smoothly from here on out, I’ve taken it upon myself to express creative liberties in this recruitment.”
The girl finally figured out how to take a step, toppled over forward, then flipped over entirely to land in a wobbly handstand thanks to the armor’s incredibly sensitive gyroscopics. From the combination of laughing and shrieking going on, Abellar wasn’t entirely sure if it was intentional or not, but it was certainly non-standard.
“Creative liberties indeed. Is that why you’ve given her the experimental prototype for advanced drivers? One that isn’t even available to our top, most dedicated forces?” The suit flopped over onto its back with a screech of metal on stone, and Verox winced. “I’ll have you know, any damages incurred from this aren’t coming out of my budget.”
“Not to worry. I assure you, this will be more than worth the investment.”
The girl finally managed to right herself and took off at a bouncing jog, swiveling wildly from side to side with each step until she looked almost like she was dancing. Or drunk. Or both. On the moon.
“Yes, I see,” Verox said dryly. “A major investment indeed. How could I ever have doubted you.”
They walked to the opening to the training area and watched her progress.
“Hey!” shouted one of the other drivers, as Ivy careened into him and knocked them both to the ground. “Stay in your own sector!”
“I think she’ll learn quickly enough,” Abellar said. “To manage this much control with no training, she has the spirit for it.”
“She’s using the wrong impulse mode. It’s going to stall out if she’s not—”
Sure enough, as she went to push herself off the other trainee, the glowing lines flickered out and she flopped forward in the now-inert armor. Muffled complaints were all that could be heard from her direction. The other man, being properly trained, pushed himself upright and lifted her off.
“I won’t pretend to understand your methods, Abellar, but I won’t undermine them.” Verox sighed. “Leave it to me. I’ll have her integrated within the month.” She retrieved her clipboard and gave him a firm glower. “Now, with all due respect, get out of my workshop.”
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With a new mission to obtain schematics for Senior Shop to be able to reproduce, Shen Ai set about collecting information. First, she sought out information brokers, using her connections with the Expansionists to get introductions.
What she found there was little of promise, but she had a couple of leads on different cards and potential items. Namely, one she thought Senior Ivy would appreciate. Some kind of new generation power suit the Ascensionist faction was attempting to keep under wraps.
The specifics of where she’d have to look were far from enlightening, which pushed her plans back to provide Senior Ivy with a token of appreciation. However, she thought there was a good possibility she could raid some of the known locations of power suit manufacturing to get base level and intermediate schematics, do some independent research into them with the shop, and engineer something for Senior Ivy herself, then just pay for whatever they could come up with out of her own diminishing reserves.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The biggest lead came from the leaderboards.
Each and every person in the top hundred had a vast network and history behind them she easily delved into with casual access to the Expansionist archives. With great fervor, she threw herself into the texts, discovering it was common policy for a family’s aging or retired ancestors to use a ritual to remove and store valuable cards, often multiple copies, for generations.
Thus, the accelerated top tier spots. Those with inheritances that singlehandedly made every person under rank thousand look less intimidating than a newborn slave.
Further searching proved that those without connections to ancient historical families were little more than newborn slaves. Contract out low ranking cards, require the contracted to increase their card ranks, while simultaneously farming other cards for the contractor. Slap on an impossible to pay interest rate, and they’d never be free, their cards reaped in the time the contract expired.
Predatory, not unlike the very world she came from.
But in this world, there was no hope for them to keep their own power. There was no personal cultivation. All cards could be reaped through ritual, and anybody that attempted to flee or hide cards would be worse off than surrendering the rest of their lives.
“Where there is power, there are those who wish to keep it,” she muttered as she jotted down a third name, a family who had a great inheritance with no current successor. She let a momentary grin tug her lips. “I will enjoy this.”
She exited the Expansionist archives, located on the seventh floor, and quickly descended to the first floor. As she passed through the crowds, inconspicuous, despite her exotic appearance, her Aware card caught news of something curious.
Quiet whispering caught her attention. “Did you hear? An Epic card is going up for auction tonight. Apparently a third party contractor got a great windfall.”
“Do you believe everything you hear?”
“It’s credible.” The first speaker paused. “Could it be that you’re too poor to afford it, so you’re going to slander good intel?”
“Just shut up, won’t you?” The second speaker departed, but seconds later, she heard them speaking to someone new. “Listen up, there’s this auction…”
Her plans of inheritance theft would have to wait.
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"I need you to understand the gravity of the responsibility you are undertaking as ELS's pilot. Right now, you have a conditional pairing, but once we advance the connection to a full link, no one else will be able to use this."
"Okay," Ivy said breezily. "So how do I use it?"
"ELS represents the combined efforts of our research and development team over the past three and a half years. You have been offered a position half our riders would kill for."
"Does that mean I'm in danger?"
"I hope not. I'd like to believe that we can put the collective good above our own preferences, but who can say for sure?"
"So how to use it?" Ivy was beginning to bounce on her tiptoes impatiently. "It was working there, until it didn't."
"You were running on the starter boost. The ignition process jump starts everything else, giving you this grace period in case you're under immediate attack and need to move quickly. That boost, however, drains the starter battery very quickly. Continuing to power it from such a reservoir is ineffective in the long run. That's why we need drivers to link with it. It interfaces with your cards, draws power from them and can absorb a portion of any experience you earn to recharge its starter. There are three starter charges, each of which is isolated from the others to prevent a full drain. Each can be refilled with ten to twenty enemies, so it is highly recommended that you activate it where you know you can obtain some kills once you are down to your last startup charge. Otherwise, you'll have to let it drain your experience directly, and I'm told that's quite an unpleasant process."
"It sounds to me like you're just describing a soulbound item. Can I absorb it?"
Verox stared at her. "What?"
Ivy nodded to herself. "Alright. Something to look into. So, basically, this is really expensive and cool, I should treat it with respect, and kill lots of enemies. Right?"
"Yes. If you wish to be utterly simplistic about it, that is correct."
"So. How do I use it?"
Verox sighed and held out a small pad. "Sign here. Verify you have received your… briefing and understand the responsibilities you're undertaking."
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Laril stared after the strange newcomer with a mix of envy and frustration. Everyone knew the ELS program was coming. Everyone knew it would be big. And everyone knew they had to be at their very best if they were to have any hope of convincing the higher-ups to give them a chance at it.
For its maiden voyage to not only be weeks ahead of schedule but in the hands of a frivolous child who seemed to be treating the entire thing as a game? It rubbed Laril very much the wrong way.
The girl had no right, and Laril knew the rest of the dedicated riders and higher ups wouldn’t stand for this. Determined to see a wrong righted, he slipped away.
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