by Scott Rhine
He got up and led the way.
“Meta-pod?” she asked.
“Sorry, buzz phrase. They cluster eight standard rooms around a big room that’s about six meters in diameter and call it a pod. The units are pre-fabricated, just like moon base except we have air-conditioning . . . most weeks. They put eight two-level pods around a core service area and call that a meta-pod. There’s a faculty meta-pod, two men’s, and a girl’s. Technically you share yours with the teaching assistants because there aren’t that many female students.”
She shrugged. “It’s right next to the port, handy for me. Why the clinic?”
“So it’s closer to evacuate people in emergencies.”
“I meant why am I going there?”
“You replaced a guy, and it’s not like you can share bunk beds with his roommate. There aren’t any vacancies on the girls’ side. I’m guessing they fixed you a cot in the nurses’ quarters till someone else washes out.”
“I don’t like hospitals,” Red said. “You said you’d take me somewhere people hang out.”
“Meta one, center is the student cafeteria. It’s where anyone who’s anyone gets face time.”
****
The cafeteria resembled a typical, crowded, urban high school. Conversations were buzzing through the white geodesic dome, as was the occasional paper airplane, orange, and container of lip gloss. “There are so many people,” Red said.
“Two hundred twenty of us, plus about a dozen TAs and other staff,” Sojiro explained. “TAs are allowed eat at the faculty restaurant, but it’s expensive.”
She pointed to a poster of a popular cola that bore the caption: “Soda breaks bones.”
“Yeah. People smuggle carbonated drinks in here, but that sucks the calcium out of bones. Keeping your bones strong is a big problem in space.” He grabbed a seat behind a column where they could watch people going through the line. “Did you want anything for lunch? My treat until you get your badge.”
“I have a special diet.” She never ate or drank anything prepared by someone without a security clearance. “But you can grab something while I people watch.”
A beautiful young woman strode by, half-Asian and almost six feet tall. She wore calf-skin, knee-high boots, black tights, and a lingerie top. “OMG, who’s the fashion amazon? My grandfather would say she walks like she has her own theme song.”
“She does,” he said shaking his head. “‘Sway.’”
“I’d call it more of a lioness stalk.”
“‘Sway’ is the hit song by Purple Rockets. Kaguya Mori toured with the band last July. They wrote it for her as a tribute to her perfect sculpting.”
“Oh,” Red said, disappointed that poking fun wasn’t going to be easy. “Her breasts are pretty incredible.” Her own chest was barely an A cup.
“Sonic sculpting. She synthesizes voices by combining other artists. She adapted the Fortune bio-archetype algorithms to human voices instead of bodies. It earned her a scholarship here.”
“Mori: isn’t that the Japanese video-game billionaire?”
He nodded. “Her dad supplies half the computers here.”
Red half-heartedly suggested, “I bet she’s stuck up.”
“She gives free massages at the student gym. The waiting line is three months long.”
“Now I’m depressed,” the girl in the flight suit said. “Is everybody here this spectacular?”
“Stiff competition, girlfriend. I’m getting lunch.”
After Sojiro left, she scanned the crowd with her goggles until she located someone on her watch list. A heavy-set Latina was hiding beside the kitchen, slowly unwrapping a mass-produced chocolate-and-lard cake from its plastic. The pop-up text next to her said she was seventeen and a prodigy at structural engineering. Red glided over to the girl and whispered, “Don’t do it!”
The Latina looked around to make sure Red was talking to her. “Excuse me?”
“Suicide by cupcake. It’s never pretty.”
The other girl dropped the dessert, as if struck in the face. When she didn’t say anything, Red added, “Sorry. There are just so few girls here my height and under-aged. Come jogging with me instead. I’ve been sitting in the same cockpit for days. I heard you have paths around the outside.”
The Latina curled her lip. “Look at me. Why would I run? Are you just planning on laughing at the fat girl?”
The pilot took off her goggles so the other girl could see her sincerity. Red had enormous eyes, the most feminine thing about her. “Okay, we can walk. I just want to talk to you. You can leave the self-pity here. This is the honors table. You get fantastic grades even among these geniuses. Let’s start over. I’m Red, a pilot and math freak.”
“I’m Risa—alien engineering.”
“How many languages?”
“Four,” Risa said, looking for the catch.
“I’m planning on starting my own team freshman year. I need a good engineer. But you have to pass the physical requirements.”
“That’s not till year three.”
“I want to help. If you start now, it’ll be easy. If you don’t, it’ll be impossible. You can be the first at so many things. Just step away from the fat pill.”
“Okay, I’ll walk. I can show you the agro pods.”
Red texted Sojiro on the way out. “Back by noon. Risa’s taking me on a tour.”
On their way out, the pilot asked her new friend, “So help me out; I’m trying to find some way to slam this Mori queen bee.”
“She’ll have VD by twenty-five, and be divorced twice by thirty. Of course, I probably won’t even have a boyfriend by then.” As she warmed to Red, the Panamanian girl spoke with increasing speed, like popcorn in a kettle.
“Quality over quantity,” Red insisted. “My parents were married for life. That’s what I want. We don’t have boyfriends because we’re career women. We have every moment planned till we’re twenty-one, and we’re going to succeed.”
“When you say it like that, I believe you.”
****
Since the two girls hit it off, they went back to Risa’s study area. The tiny room was only three meters across, so Risa’s roommate in the bedroom next door overheard Red complaining, “I wish I had someone to room with. I’m alone enough as it is. Because of the space crunch, they have me assigned to some broom closet in the nurses’ quarters.”
“Private quarters?” said the roommate “I’d take that in a heartbeat, even if I had to sleep standing up.”
“When she says sleeping, she means . . .” Risa said suggestively.
“What?” asked Red.
“I have a Senior boyfriend who I never get to be alone with,” explained the older girl.
“I’m sorry; my last friend was my sparring partner.” Red left off the bit about her leaving to train for the Olympics. “You’ll have to spell this out.”
“S-e-x,” Risa spelled.
The roommate demanded, “Do you want to trade or not?”
“Definitely,” said Red. “Risa and I . . .” But the other girl was already gone to claim her new room.
“It’s short for Sonrisa,” said her new friend. “It’s Spanish for laughter. My mom always says, ‘men plan, and God laughs.’”
Red snorted. “I truncated mine, too.”
“What’s Red short for?”
Red scanned her watch for indications of bugs. Finding none, she said, “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I swear by the Virgin.”
“Redemption.”
Risa nodded. “Yeah. I guess the name got popular after that story in Time Magazine.”
“Yeah. Well Dad was the religious one. But we never went to church—too dangerous.”
“Someone tried to kill him?”
“Lots. But he was worried about the other people attending. Dad said he couldn’t live with himself if someone blew up a church to get to him. He was the real deal. People were always mad at him for taking a stand of some kind.”
Risa nodded. “My father’s a politician, too. My family goes on Sundays and holy days of obligation so people can see us attending, but he doesn’t live it. He steals millions but smacks me for swearing. Hypocrite. I’d love to meet your father over the next break.”
“He didn’t last a year after Mom died. He missed her so much, doted on her. As far as I know they never spent a night apart, even when she was in the hospital.”
Risa sighed. “I want a marriage like that. My dad has a mistress now.”
Their chat was interrupted by a pounding on the door. “Security!” When Risa opened the door, the guard looked inside and announced, “Found her.”
The guard practically dragged Red by the ear to the first floor of the main school building. Then he escorted her to the martial-arts dojo, shoving her though the door and closing it behind her. Professor Horvath was seething and no one wanted to be around to witness the confrontation.
Red gave her the once-over and said, “You’re dying your hair now. Trying to cover the grey?”
Horvath shouted, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?!” She didn’t use the name, not even in her sanctum, not even this angry. “Do you think your flimsy cover is going to hold together?”
Locking eyes, the tomboy said, “Yours did. I have a media shadow attending ladies’ finishing school in Paris. Even Grandma thinks I’m there.” The professor calmed a little and backed up for another angle of attack.
“You had a Stanford scholarship. Your father was so proud.”
“My father’s not here,” said the girl. “You are.”
The instructor closed her eyes, waiting for the blow.
In a soft voice, Red said, “You abandoned our family when I was six.”
“I had a husband to care for.”
“So it was him over me?”
“I tried to come back, but there were . . . complications. You had other people who loved you.”
“I lost everyone, except that old harpy. You didn’t even come back for their funerals. You didn’t visit once in ten years!”
“It’s complicated.” Trina sat down on the mat, her breathing irregular. “We need to call Rebecca. If she finds out . . .”
Red shook her head. “I’m emancipated now.”
“How?”
“I traded my board-of-directors’ vote to Grandma Rebecca for the next two years.”
“Mien Gott, that part of your inheritance alone is valued at almost a billion.”
“It was worth it to be free of the old crone who told me every day how worthless a woman is without a man, and how you all ruined my dad’s life.”
Red stood over her to whisper the coup de grâce. “I had to find out from her that you were my birth mother.”
Chapter 3 – Sparring
“Did you throw yourself at Dad when Mom was sick?” asked Red.
“Benny would never do that,” explained the woman who was using her maiden name, Nena Horvath.
Guards burst through the door, confused to see the head of security on the floor, panting, and this slip of a girl standing over her. “Sir, your heart monitor tripped the alarm. Is everything okay?”
“Whiskers on kittens: Julia Andrews,” said Trina. The man relaxed at the safety confirmation code. “I told her she’d have to spar for her first three weeks’ credit in self-defense, and she ambushed me. My fault.”
“This kid knocked you down?” asked a guard with a receding hairline and the name ‘Grunt-Monkey’ taped over his badge. Students, drawn by the commotion, were milling around in the hall.
“Two out of three falls?” Red played along.
Propped on her hands, the professor’s legs shot out, but the girl flipped out of the way.
“Acrobatics training. This could be interesting,” commented the guard. People began to file in to watch.
The new freshman avoided every strike and slipped every grab for minutes. The audience cheered for the underdog like a new toreador at a bull fight. Then Trina switched styles, and grabbed her in a headlock. “Point. One all,” shouted Grunt-Monkey.
In the buzz, the professor whispered, “For this job to work, I have to win.”
“Your problem, not mine,” the girl said, smashing down in a move that would’ve obliterated the kneecap of a real mugger. As they broke apart, Red went on the offensive.
“Is that kick boxing?” asked the referee.
“Probably Tai Bo,” joked a student.
When the professor cornered her and reached for the headlock again, Red used a staff from the wall to block. “Can she do that?” asked the student.
“Marquis of Queensbury rules. The boss wants to find out what she knows.”
But her staff work was weak, for emergencies only. When Trina grabbed another bamboo stick and disarmed her in thirty seconds, the girl shifted into a form that most had never seen. Red dodged or blocked each of Horvath’s staff strikes, knowing where it would go before it got there.
“Heart-rate, boss,” warned the referee.
“This is the longest I’ve ever seen a newbie go.”
“Twenty bucks she goes the full ten minutes.”
Trina swung the staff one-handed. When Red leapt into the air to avoid, the instructor shot two rigid fingers of her left hand into the girl’s solar plexus. The blow knocked the wind out of her just long enough that she splatted onto the mat with a groan. “Still champion and undefeated, Professor Horvath,” said Grunt-Money. “Does the candidate qualify?”
Trina gave a wordless thumbs-up as she caught her own breath. The crowd applauded and dispersed. “Let’s hit the showers,” ordered the teacher, offering her hand.
Red stood as soon as she was able and bowed to the woman. “Sensei.”
“Today’s lesson was humility. You passed.” The words were bold, but Trina limped to the shower. When they were alone in the changing room, she risked a personal comment. “You need to see the doctor. It’s been almost a week since your last exam.”
“Emancipated,” Red sang, taking off her jump suit.
When the shower head was on, the professor hissed, “It was Jezebel’s egg. I just carried you.”
“You were my mother, too.”
“Not according to the law.”
“You could’ve fought.”
“I had a bigger fight on my hands—taking care of Daniel. He’s better here, less strain on his limbic system.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
Anger made her Dutch accent flare. “For which you came to beat my ass? I’ll admit that given another few months’ training, you might succeed at that. But I’ve got 200 other kids now. Half the world’s trying to kill them, too.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I can’t tell you everything; I have my reasons. This has been a nice visit, but . . .”
“I’m staying.”
“It’s too dangerous. Your schooling should come first. This isn’t Stanford.”
“I can take the math online.”
“I forbid it!”
“No. I did some prep-work. Grandma didn’t know about all the Swiss accounts. I now own fifty-one percent of the academy’s emergency transport system, as well as the master codes to your new shuttle.”
“Don’t ask for anything you can’t take.”
“I’m only asking you to treat me like any other student who earned a place here and to answer one question honestly. Then I’ll sign control over to your shell company.”
The woman nodded.
“Why didn’t you come to Mom’s funeral? She was your best friend.”
Trina bit her lip. “What’s your security rating?”
“Sirius 2 for now.”
“There was an explosion on moon base as we were landing. Most of the people living there were killed; we barely limped away. Our ship’s air system was leaking. Daniel plugged one hole with his bare hand, causing capillary bruising and frostbite. Still, we weren’t going to make it. Jez pulled one last rabbit out of he
r hat to save us. None of us knew that planning the rescue mission and computing our new orbit killed her. We were on L5 station in the infirmary during the funeral.”
Red stared at her. “You were on the shuttle? The shuttle Mom died for?”
Trina offered a hug, but the teenager wasn’t ready to accept those yet. The teacher left her to cry alone in the shower.
****
When Red was dry and dressed, Trina asked, “What do you plan on doing here? Why is this so important to you?”
“I need an accredited college to get access to my trust fund.”
Trina cocked her head. “Really?”
“Three things. One: I wanted to meet my birth mother.” The instructor smiled at this. “Two: I want to get a higher security clearance so I can listen to Mom’s last message to me.”
The woman wrinkled her brow. “She left over a hundred hours for you. She always worried that she wouldn’t last and wanted to be there for you somehow.”
“Thanks to the Feds, all but twenty minutes was Classified Sirius three and above.”
Trina cursed. “And the last goal?”
“When I know you better,” the girl stalled.
“You need to learn subtlety.”
“Did my mother?”
“No, she gave her all, her whole heart to people, even those who didn’t deserve it.”
“What’s wrong with that?” the girl demanded.
“I want you around longer than she was, Mira.” The trained killer put a hand on her face in a flash of gentleness.
“Red, the name is Red. Am I a student here or not?”
Trina knew by the set of her jaw that the girl wasn’t going to yield. “Work with me inside the UN program until you’re nineteen.”
“That’s compromise.” Her diplomat father had used the word frequently, and it sat in her mouth like raw cauliflower.
“Take it or leave my island.”
Red shook her second mother’s hand, smelling vanilla.
“But no favoritism if you’re going to keep your cover,” the teacher insisted. “And for your math, by internet won’t do. You need a good tutor, the best.”
