Pico's Crush

by Carol Van Natta

  She flexed her knees, started to inhale, and took the shot. Two seconds later, she smiled and turned to him, looking smug. “Even up, Commander. Your shot.”

  He sketched a salute, then put his cap back on and lowered the visor as he rolled back into position next to his custom Ishum Mark 30 Gamaura railgun. Its manufacturer designed it to be used with high-tech scopes, sophisticated targeting systems, and smart-powered projectiles, but he’d customized it to also handle bullets with no built-in AI, and he practiced with it regularly to keep up his skills. Technology made it possible for average shooters to be effective, but when technology failed, so did they. His Forward Intelligence unit had relied on sniper support that always worked, not just when the equipment did.

  He took a slow, deep breath, then let it out just as slowly as he loaded and locked the single projectile into the chamber. Out of habit, he visually checked that downrange was clear, though it was unlikely anyone would be there, because the only other shooters in the facility that afternoon besides himself and Andra were two quiet older men. Nineteen hundred meters downrange, tiny target rings lit up, only visible through his scope of custom-printed and tuned glass. He’d made longer shots without tech systems, but not often. He nudged the projectile velocity higher, but still subsonic.

  His attention was pulled when he heard a half-mumbled song to his left, which made him smile. Andra was famous for using distraction techniques to win. He remembered she’d once put ice cubes down Dom DeBayaud’s shorts during a sparring session. She’d hidden the ice in her bra and waited for just the right moment. He’d been the brigade’s reigning middleweight freeform champion, and it was the only time any of the unit had ever beaten him.

  He let the memory slide away as he leveled the gun again and looked through the scope. He wasn’t liking the recommendation from the new targeting system he was trying out. It felt loose to him, as it had intermittently since they’d been there. He let his eyes lose focus as he reached out for the target with his small telekinetic talent, then adjusted the gun’s power and angle setting manually. With his talent still on the target, he took the shot. He watched until it hit, then allowed himself a slight smile.

  “Dead center,” Andra said beside him. Her ocular implants were as good as a spotter’s scope. She bowed low to him with a sweeping arm gesture. “You are still the wizard.”

  Jerzi grinned. It felt good to be praised for something other than his muscles. “You did pretty good yourself with your old Hellrim.”

  “Thanks.” She knelt to lay her rifle in its open hard case. It was a marked contrast to her soft gun bag, which was so obnoxiously bright and floral that civilians probably took it for a simple gym bag. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about the security of the labs being hit and miss. I know I said it was probably just the feast-or-famine funding cycle the university seems to operate under, but now I’m not so sure.”

  He pushed up to his knees and sat back on his heels. “Why?” He wiped his hands on his gray cargo pants. He was glad he’d chosen to wear a sleeveless shirt, because the gun range was bordering on hot. He was more acclimated to Etonver’s cooler weather.

  “All the new security measures you noticed are in the Chem building. I vaguely remember hearing about thefts, but why are the new camera eyes only on the third-floor Chem labs, and why does only the Chem building’s freight lift need a key and a code? New sponsors like their names on visible things, not boring security systems. And if they had a new co-sponsored project to protect, the university’s PR machine would be burning up the net to get the word out.”

  He shook his head. “You’re the D-level professor. I’m just a simple gunnin with an A-level in general studies. What would be worth stealing? Is there anything that can only be accessed by the Chem building’s lift, maybe on the fourth or fifth floors?”

  “That’s just it. You saw how the buildings are connected by the donuts.” That was the nickname for the curving, translucent walkways on each floor that interconnected three of the four buildings on the floater. “All the labs have valuable goods, and all the other freight lifts have no security at all. The only thing preventing thieves from taking Chem lab stuff to the stairs and the other lifts would be laziness.” She frowned. “The building airpads are wide open, and the stackers are free for public use.”

  “Maybe they’re adding security in phases, or maybe they’re protecting something else.” He frowned. “I wish I could be more help, but it’s not my area of expertise.”

  She smoothed back a lock of hair that had escaped from the loose pony tail she now wore, instead of the slicked-back, tight knot that seemed to be her professional look. “I know more than I did before, so you were plenty of help.” She made a face. “Probably not how you planned to spend your vacation time, so thank you.”

  “Well, no, but the range time is a fair trade.” He glanced at the readout on his Ishum and saw it was close to five thirty local time. He debated taking more shots to narrow down the potential problem with the targeting system, but decided it could wait. He started to power down the gun, then had an idea.

  “Do me a favor?” he asked. “I think this targeting system is bad. Could you set it up for a shot, then see what your oculars tell you?”

  “Sure.”

  She stood and stepped into his lane behind him. He duck-walked sideways a couple of steps so she’d have room to lie down prone on the pad.

  She turned her head to look back at him. “Sorry, I don’t know how the system works.”

  He rocked forward to kneel behind her. He put one arm on the pad near her shoulders and leaned over her to point to the controls as he named them. “Distance, gravity, curvature, wind, angle, projectile velocity.”

  It suddenly came to him that she was warm, and close, and she smelled good. Really good. He reared up and sat back on his heels before she could notice he was sniffing her hair. He flushed as he looked up at the ceiling. He needed to get a life.

  No farking way was he ruining a renewed friendship with Andra by having sex with her, then leaving on the next interstellar transit. He’d never been that kind of man, and he didn’t think she was that kind of woman, at least, not anymore. Not to mention, he wasn’t sure she even saw him as a potential lover, or would be interested in a relationship with someone who wasn’t as smart or educated as she was.

  The truth was, now that he was no longer married and could acknowledge it, he’d felt an instant connection with Andra De Luna from the first day he’d met her. They just… synced. Even though he hadn’t seen her in five years, it was still true. That kind of friendship was as rare as order in chaos, and should be cherished. His stupid hormones could take a hike.

  “The targeting system is definitely off,” Andra said. “Furthermore, it’s not consistent. I tried the same solution twice, and got two different answers.” She raised herself to her knees.

  “I was afraid of that. I bought it just before I left, so I haven’t played with it until now.” Jerzi dusted his hands off on his pants. “I’ll ask Pico to check the math in the AI. Might be a rounding error.”

  He hit the shutdown sequence of the Ishum, and closed and stack-locked the three projectile cases. He’d only brought simple projectiles with him because Nila Marbela banned AI bullets for civilian use, and it hadn’t been worth applying for a security-professional waiver. He pulled off the suspect targeting system and tucked it in its case, then separated the glass scope and put it away as well. He wasn’t usually sentimental about guns, but this one had survived a crash landing on an uncharted planet and saved his life a few years ago, so he was fond of it. He pushed it into his soft-sided, dull gray, flexin-lined gun bag. He liked it because it looked more like it held a vacation trip’s worth of dirty laundry, rather than a very expensive, customized sniper rifle, various scopes, and enough ammo to take out a space platoon.

  Andra stood and went to pack her rifle in its case. “Hey, want to take a few last shots with my old Lipara?” She pulled a smaller case out
of her gun bag and peered through its clear lid. “Looks like I only have about twenty flechettes, though. I keep meaning to get a new box.”

  “Sure, if you let me pay for what I use.” He got to his feet as she powered down and packed her Hellrim, then opened the small case for the Lipara. He used her lane’s wallcomp to order the target to move closer. “What, about ninety meters?”

  “Better make it eighty,” she said as she unfolded the hand weapon’s grip. “The flechettes are heavy, and the range charges extra if they have to dig them out of the floor.”

  He programmed the distance and told it the type of ammo, then stepped back. She pulled out a mostly empty case of twelve-centimeter flechettes and selected one to load. She confirmed the target distance on the wallcomp, then glanced downrange. She casually held the gun up with her left hand and pressed the trigger. The gun coughed quietly. The wallcomp dutifully reported a dead-center hit.

  He laughed out loud. “You evil, evil woman,” he said. “You played me.”

  She maintained an innocent look for about two seconds before she grinned wide. “Oh, yeah.” She waggled her eyebrows and whispered. “Gotta make up for your mystical teke targeting talent somehow.”

  He was surprised, and yet not, that she knew about his minder talent, such as it was. He fought to keep himself from tensing up. “How long have you known about it?”

  “Known? Not until just now. Suspected it, though.” She bent down to pick up the box of flechettes. “A gunnery instructor I knew believed all the best snipers she trained were low-level telekinetics that minder testing hadn’t detected. Not that she said anything, of course, because they’d have had to transfer to the CPS Minder Corps, whether they wanted to or not.” She fished a flechette out of the box. “Even during combat, when nothing else was working, you made miraculous shots look easy, so it stood to reason.”

  “It doesn’t make you, uhm, uncomfortable?”

  She tilted her head in puzzlement. “No, why should it? I’d love to have a talent like that, or any minder talent at all.”

  “Not everyone would,” he said carefully. “Some people think it’s cheating, or worse.”

  Andra snorted. “Then they’re civilians or flameouts.” She paused a moment, then handed him the gun and the flechette. “There’s no cheating in war. You use what you have—talent, experience, brains, oculars—whatever it takes to survive. To win.” She pointed toward the target. “Use your talent and take your shot.”

  He loaded the gun and stepped up to the line. He raised the gun to sight, then lowered it. “To be honest, my talent’s never been good for flechettes or needlers.”

  “Well, then,” she said smugly, “I know who’ll be buying the first round of beers.”

  He knew she was using his competitiveness to challenge him, but it was still effective.

  The gun’s grip was too small for two of his big hands, so he turned sideways for a one-handed stance and extended his arm. He felt for the target with his talent, but it wasn’t working. He frowned and tried again, but it was like trying to grab mist. Finally, he gave up and just used the gun’s scope and his experience to make the shot. It hit the outer ring of the target, so at least he didn’t embarrass himself by missing altogether.

  She wordlessly handed him another flechette, which he loaded.

  He turned sideways again. She came up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders to knead his tense trapezius muscles a few times. “You’re not making it look easy.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he willed himself to relax. She stepped back, and he raised his arm and shot without overthinking it.

  It was better, almost touching the line between the center and second ring. His next two shots hit close to dead center.

  Andra took the gun when he offered it back to her. “So I’m guessing here, because you have the sexy minder talent and I don’t, but maybe you’re used to dealing with long-distance targets and close-to-supersonic speeds with your talent, and have to teach yourself about close-range and slow.”

  “Could be,” he conceded. He was more struck by the revelation that she found minder talents sexy. Large segments of civilization were prejudiced against minders, sometimes virulently so, even against minders with negligible or one-trick talents like his. He’d avoided experimenting with his talent because he didn’t want to be hated, but it hadn’t changed anything.

  She was just loading another flechette when a tinny synth voice informed all patrons that the range would be closing in fifteen minutes. They’d arrived late because the tour of the labs had taken longer than he’d thought. While the three-story Materials Science building only had one large lab on its top floor, the five-story Chemistry building had multiple labs of various sizes on four out of five floors. He hadn’t imagined they’d have so many of them, and that didn’t even count the separate three-story Math building’s labs, which they hadn’t visited. He’d hate to be in the lab manager’s boots, keeping fourteen labs stocked, functional, and clean. Not to mention, dealing with scheduling conflicts, like the one Andra and Romila had engineered to their advantage.

  “I say we call it a tie,” said Andra. “Besides, I need to get home and submit something for work.”

  They packed up their gear and loaded it in the flitter, then strapped themselves in for the flight to her apartment building. The sunset was paradise-perfect as Jerzi released control of the flitter to the traffic system. He let the beauty of it infuse his mind for a long moment.

  Andra cleared her throat. “Look, it might be none of my business, but, well, Pico has some nova-class math skills, and she’s hiding them. I only noticed them because she slips up once in a while.”

  He sighed heavily. “I know. She pretends she doesn’t speak Marathi, too.” He quirked a corner of his mouth. “She’s mad at her mother.”

  “Oh,” said Andra. Understanding dawned on her face. “Ohhhh,” she said again. “Dhorya is still a top-level accountant?”

  He nodded. “The hell of it is, I doubt she’d care, even if she knew.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite.” She crossed her arms. “Why?”

  He debated what to tell her. It wasn’t only his secret to tell, but then again, Pico had revealed some of it already. “You probably guessed Pico is a teke, from the bit with the umbrella the other day.” Andra nodded, and he continued. “Dhorya’s family, the Sankirnas, think minders are, at best, a genetic defect, and at worst, an amoral abomination. Some in their oldest generation still openly advocate for purification. When I finally figured out my talent was real and not just good hand-eye coordination, I told Dhorya about it, not knowing what she’d been raised to believe. She said she loved me and didn’t care, but I never brought it up again.”

  He adjusted the angle of the holomap, to give his hand something to do. “I think she really wanted to believe she was different from the rest of the Sankirnas, that it really didn’t matter, but then Pico started showing signs of talent. She flatlined in age-twelve testing, though, so Dhorya convinced herself she’d been imagining things. Then… well, to make a long story short, when Pico was sixteen, something happened at space camp and she discovered she was a pretty good microteke.”

  Andra looked thoughtful, then nodded. “I get it. It was one thing for Dhorya to marry a minder, but another thing to produce one, because that meant her DNA might be defective, too.”

  Trust Andra to cut right to the heart of things. “Yeah. Took me a long time to figure it out. Dhorya never looked at Pico the same way again. Or me, for that matter. Pico didn’t understand why her mother withdrew and could hate her for something she was. Pico denied her talent, even deliberately failed the seventeen-year testing, but it didn’t bring back Dhorya’s love, and all I could do was protect Pico the best I could. When Dhorya finally left, she made it abundantly clear she wanted nothing to do with either of us ever again. The Sankirna Trust is paying for Pico’s education on the condition that she never use the Sankirna name, and never go to sc
hool anywhere on Vaylamoinen.”

  He looked to the darkening sky without seeing it, awash in memories. “Pico can’t afford to turn down the money, but she doesn’t want to be her mother’s daughter anymore.”

  “That’s really rough. Poor kid.” She shook her head. “I spent a lot of years proving to my family that I was tough enough to be a gunnin, then smart enough to be a professor in a top university, but the only thing they notice is that I don’t have children.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “They did know Da’vin was a woman, didn’t they?”

  “Si, claro. It was no problem. They contracted with a sperm donor on my behalf.” Her smile had a feral quality to it. “He wanted to come on the wedding trip. Da’vin sent him a holo of her dressed like a blood-splattered pirate-clan warrior, beheading a training dummy with her family’s samurai sword. She told him she was looking forward to seeing his sword. He canceled the contract and moved to another planet.”

  It was a good thing the flitter was flying itself, because Jerzi laughed so hard he had to wipe away tears. “That’s priceless. I wish I’d seen it.”

  “I’ll show it to you sometime.” There was a wistful quality to her smile. “It’s a good legacy, better than a memory diamond, any day.”

  The flitter banked right, and they were soon setting down on her apartment building’s flitter pad.

  He intended to thank her for the afternoon and say goodnight, so he was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth. “Want to hunt down a beer later this evening?”