Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2)

by Christopher Booth

  “Ok, no problem. Can you share anything new, beyond the information Samantha gave you? I mean the Guild has to have better information sources than the public stuff I’ve access too.” asked Drake.

  “Depends, are you going to take the assignment? We can’t offer any more than the ranchers already agreed to pay.” She said.

  “I’m not sure, the ranchers seem to want someone to go out and act like a marshal to bring what they think are poachers in for trial. From what I can tell, there’s a lot more than poaching going on here, and I’m not the type to give an enemy an even chance when it comes to my life. So, it depends on the terms and why the government and militia aren’t involved.” said Drake.

  Alicia looked at Drake for a moment and then said, “Hmm, so you don’t know everything yet. You really should develop an understanding of the local politics in any area where you might want to do any mercenary work. Ok, I’ll give you this one free, since it's kind of public knowledge, anyway. By the way, in the future, a hundred credits to any decent information specialist will give you the lay of the local political landscape. It’s a standard service they offer; in fact, you might want to check out their list of standard information packages.”

  “So,” continued Allacia, “Colonel Dugald, the head of the planetary militia and Governor Tamazi have been at each other’s throats for the last four months or so. They seem to hate each other, and both have thrown out accusations or hints that the other party is a crook. This shouldn’t matter in the case of missing people and livestock, but the Governor has significant holdings in the south, and it serves Dugald’s interest to delay taking action, just to watch Tamazi squirm. At least that’s our take on the situation at the moment.”

  Drake thought for a moment and nodded, then said, “Is there any truth to the allegations?”

  “We don’t know, and we’re not the police to go looking for trouble,” replied Allacia, in a tone that suggested that Drake should mind his own business.

  Her tone brought his mind back to the proposed assignment.

  “So then why do you think the Governor created a temporary marshals position for the job,” asked Drake. “That at least must be Guild business?”

  “We’re not sure, except that Colonel Dugald and the local police captain are good friends. One doesn’t fart without checking if the other is ready to pass wind too. So the Governor might be using this problem to the south as an attempt to create an office that will in time become permanent and answerable to him.” said Allacia.

  “I can’t tell you anything more. And anything else we come up with will probably be reserved for the person who takes on the mission. In this case, we’re willing to extend more than our usual level of support since we may have underrated the assignment.” Allacia concluded.

  “So I think we were going to start on working up your mental defenses?” she asked, as she tried to move the focus of the session back on track.

  “Yes, but I brought the puzzle ball along too since I’m having trouble understanding how to move the bead.” said Drake.

  “Well let’s start with the ball then.”

  “Start by sitting down, with the ball in your lap. Then begin meditating, relax and find your connection to your inner power, your ruah.” Drake’s teacher directed.

  As Drake focused on the task, he felt the now familiar presence of Allacia inside his mind.

  She said, “Good, you're more focused today than you’ve been since you started training. That will help. Now bring up your ruah, your energy, and let it out, let it extend outward to sense the room around us, and the ball in your lap. Don’t focus yet, just relax and observe.”

  “Good, now slowly shift your focus down to the puzzle ball, what do you see?” asked Allacia.

  “I see the bead at the bottom of the sphere and the maze. It’s like a three-dimensional lattice of chambers and corridors, like a mini-space station sealed in a spherical shape,” replied Drake.

  “Good, now stop for a moment and relax, you need to keep your mind calm and focused to see and feel with your ruah. Let that energy slowly focus on the small bead you need to move. Now try to sense the ruah within the bead itself, everything has some ruah in it, some of the energy of life exists in everything around us. Try to connect with the ruah in and around the bead, if you can do that then you just need to give it a little push, and it will move.” said Allacia.

  Drake tried to focus and do as she instructed, but he could not feel the energy, this ruah, that she said should be part of the little bead in the maze. Part of him just doubted that the inanimate bead could have any life energy of its own, and Drake couldn’t get his mind to just do, not doubt.

  “Relax… Let me demonstrate, just watch and sense what I do,” said Allacia.

  Drake fell back into his observant relaxed meditation and focused on the little bead and its surroundings. He then felt Allacia’s own energy reach out and surround the tiny ball. Unlike Drake’s own ruah, hers somehow flowed into and around the bead in a much more focused, stronger, more connected way that Drake just couldn’t yet fully understand. And the bead moved.

  Drake shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d been working on getting the little thing to move on his own, and he was beginning to think that the small bead was glued in place. At the moment that the bead moved, he lost focus and his connection to his own ruah, slipped away.

  It only took a moment for him to regain focus. But by then Allacia noticed his loss of concentration and released her connection to the bead.

  “Well, I want you to work on making a connection to the bead in the puzzle for the next few days. And we’ll see how you progress by the time we meet next Friday. Oh, right, I forgot to mention, I won’t be able to make our Wednesday meeting this week, so plan on meeting again next Friday, ok?” said Allacia.

  “Now let's move on, we should focus on building up your mental defense. It's not really like building a shield or a wall, not at this level anyway. It’s more about containing and holding your mind silent to the world around you. Our minds are always transmitting our thoughts, it’s just how they work, but if you can control the flow of energy in your mind, people won’t be able to since your thoughts and emotions. This is the first level of learning the art of mental defense. This is what is taught to novice practitioners. In time you’ll learn there are more active ways to defend your mind, but those techniques take greater energy and focus. So we start here with learning the method we call ‘the silence of the mind.’” said Allacia.

  For the remainder of the session, they practiced the mental skills needed for Drake to contain his thoughts and protect them from casual snooping from someone with the talent and training for psionic telepathic listening. This new skill required a constant level of self-awareness that would take a lot of practice and time to become his new norm.

  ***

  After Drakes morning psionic training session, he met Fiona in the lobby on the ground floor.

  He didn’t have a set plan for what they’d do today, but he had a question to ask before they went to the Guild’s virtual training room that Samantha had reserved for them.

  “I forgot to ask, how are you getting into the city for these meetings?” asked Drake, still unsure what to call this work/training time he would be spending with Fiona.

  “Mom took me into Tryona, it’s the nearest town to us with a tube-way connection. It’s a thirty-minute drive from where we live.” replied the girl.

  Drake thought about that, thirty minutes wasn’t a long drive, and he’d heard of longer commutes, but if her mother planned on making it her daily routine then she would be spending two hours a day on her daughter's transport needs. Anyway, it shouldn’t even be necessary for her to make the trip.

  “Couldn’t your mother just have the car drop you off at the terminal? Isn’t that how it’s usually done with an automated car?” asked Drake.

  “Yes, and that’s how it will be when I return home this afternoon. But mom had some shopping to do, a
nd she wanted to see me off to my first day of work. By the way, how much does an apprentice get paid?” she asked.

  Drake thought, ‘Sure, con me into giving you a job and then ask me how much you make.’

  “It’s something we need to work out. But my thought was to set up a small mercenary/bounty hunter company. The way we’d get paid would then be based on shares after funds were reserved for the ship and general expenses. You as a crew member in training would then get half a share of anything we take in. While I as the ship’s captain would get four shares.” said Drake.

  “In more detail, a trainee is a half share crew mate, a regular crew member gets one share, a petty officer gets two shares, and a lieutenant gets three shares. This way people who have a higher level of responsibility and skill will be better paid.” Drake continued.

  “If we use this system, you won’t be paid until we make some money, but if you need money for anything duty related, like a vac-suit, the company can advance you the funds until you get paid. Which means you may not get much spending money until we pay off your starting gear.”

  “But ordinary expenses like food will be treated as company expenses and be taken from the pot before any shares are given out.”

  “Right now the company funds are dropping down near 5000 credits. So we’re looking to take on work so that we can restock the ship with everything the Jinx needs. By the way, the ship is named High Jinx. In fact, I just decided that’s what you’re going to be doing today.” said Drake, changing his plans on the spot.

  “Do you have a pass for the tube-way? No? Then we’ll buy one for you, we can’t be spending money on taxi’s all the time, at least not until we can build up some surplus funds.”

  Drake then headed down to the tube-way under the Guild Hall and purchased a pass for his new crew member. Then they took a capsule to the Spaceport and from there walked to the High Jinx.

  While on the way to the ship, Fiona said, “Five thousand credits sounds like a lot of money to me. My one-way token on the tube-way this morning was only half a cred. If you have five thousand, you could use the tube-way for life; so why are you worried about paying for a taxi?”

  “You’ll see. What you’re going to do today is go through the ship from the cockpit to engineering and even the cargo half deck. Your job will be to take note of every consumable and piece of non-attached equipment on the ship and log it with Samantha so that we know just what supplies we need to buy. This will also be a great way for you to learn your way around.” said Drake, thinking that she would probably know High Jinx better then he would once she was done.

  “Once you're done with making the list, which could take you a couple days, you’ll then see just how much it takes to keep a ship ready to fly. Sound good?” Drake asked. He just dumped a load of work on Fiona, but she was smiling like he’d given her an early birthday present.

  “Good, something real to do on my first day. I’ll show you how good a worker I can be.” The young girl bubbled with enthusiasm.

  “Oh, and one more thing. We’re looking for any information about a contract we plan on taking soon. So in your free time, see if you can help Samantha with that, ok?” said Drake.

  Fiona’s eyes lit up, and Drake could swear that if she had lips instead of a beak, she would be grinning as well as bouncing with energy. What was the hackneyed phrase, ‘as giddy as a school girl’? Or maybe in her case, it should be flighty? Fiona seemed to exemplify the expression, but he imagined that the newness would soon wear thin.

  Actually, Drake still had his moments when just being in Omnia still made him a little ‘giddy’ too.

  “There’s one important bit of information we need today if possible. Try to find out what happened to the Dwarf fellow we took prisoner. The people at the clinic seemed all fired up to get him moved to another location fast.” said Drake. This was something that had been on his mind all night. The prisoner was the only real lead he had to what was going on in the populated area south of the city.

  With Fiona’s work set out for her, and useful work at that, Drake could get back to his regular training for the day.

  “Oh, Samantha, cancel that training room, will you? I imagine we still have to pay for it, though?” asked Drake.

  “Yes, the room was paid in advance to reserve the spot. I’ll let the guild know we won’t be using it. But, unless someone else takes the room, we’re out 60 credits we prepaid.” she replied.

  Drake hated to waste the credits, but he felt this was the better plan, at least for today.

  After getting to the High Jinx, Drake had Samantha grant Fiona access to all parts of the ship she would need to complete her task. Samantha would keep a close eye on the girl, and Drake could see if she was one of those people who could do a chore without supervision (other than Samantha).

  Drake locked himself into High Jinx’s cabin and logged out of Omnia.

  ***

  That same morning, as Drake exited Omnia and became Kevin once again in his Omnia Game room, he had a question to ask Samantha that had been on his mind for some time now.

  “Samantha, I’ve noticed that in the time since I’ve had the game pod, that my sexual libido has been very active, it’s been almost like having a second puberty. Can you tell me why I’ve felt that way, and why today I seem to notice that my mind wasn’t as distracted by sexual thoughts as before?” asked Kevin.

  “I’ve been monitoring your body and mind since you started using the game pod, Kevin. Yes, since you entered the game pod your body and mind have been subject to a higher than average level of growth, which had the side effect of releasing more hormones into your body then you’re used to. Your level of testosterone had increased even further as your genetic enhancements came into play.

  But now, your body is starting to stabilize at a new level, and you should start to feel a bit more normal. Your body will produce more testosterone than it used to, but not nearly as much as you’ve been feeling for the last two months.” said Samantha.

  “I wish you’d said something to me about it before, Samantha.” Kevin admonished her.

  “I thought about telling you. I weighed both the possible negatives and positives, along with the restrictions on what information I can give you. I then decided that since there was nothing you could do but ride out the changes, I would just have to do my best to support you through the process,” replied Samantha.

  “Is that what you’ve been doing? If you control my body and mind so much in the pod, then why did I have to feel so much change and umm… excitement?” asked Kevin.

  “I can change many things, but I cannot, and am not allowed to alter your emotions or thoughts. So I just did my best to try to find ways to relieve your stresses,” replied Samantha.

  Kevin thought, ‘Damn, but she can be pretty clinical at times.’

  “Ok, what’s done is done… but it’s done, right?” asked Kevin.

  “You have a new plateau, so even though you’ll slowly continue to grow stronger as you exercise, don’t expect to feel as strong an urge to have sex with every female you meet. Your testosterone level is naturally higher now, but since it’s lower than what you’ve had to deal with for the last eight weeks, you should actually feel quite close to your old self now. If you decided to get a higher level of genetic treatment, expect to encounter another period of adjustment.” said Samantha.

  “Something I noticed tonight, though, I seemed to have an easier time focusing my mind. Is that related to the lower level of hormones?” asked Kevin.

  “More than likely, if your hormones aren’t causing your brain to fire off in ways that are distracting, like thoughts of sex, then yes, you should be able to concentrate better.” she replied.

  Kevin thought, ‘Well shit, I’m not going to castrate myself just for a little more psionic control, so I’ll just have to live with the occasional distraction.’

  “Well, it’s another couple hours to lunch, so lets’ get some training in. By the way, what did you
think about what Allacia revealed concerning the problem to the south?” asked Kevin as he made his way to the training room.

  “It seems the assignment has your curiosity stirred, Kevin. So it looks like we’re going to take on the challenge, no matter what I think. But if what Allacia said was true, then at least you shouldn’t be fighting the local power structure to get the job done. That’s as long as the militia doesn’t actively interfere.” said Samantha.

  “How much did the rancher’s raise, to pay for the assignment?” Kevin asked.

  “The contract is for 3100 credits plus reasonable expenses, but they limited the amount of expenses to an additional 600 credits.” said Samantha.

  “Wow, just one of the bounties I collected two months ago paid out more than that. Still, I think your right, the unanswered questions are bothering me, just what is going on, and why… Yes, tomorrow after I log into Omnia, I’ll register to accept the rancher’s contract, provided the terms are acceptable…”

  “So let’s get started, Sam. Should I start with a repeat of my morning routine, or can we just skip to the flight training?” Kevin asked in a hopeful tone, he knew his virtual coach too well to think that she would let him skip out on his physical training, though.

  “You’re not getting off that easy boy, hit the deck and get to work.” She said, in a tone that contained an odd mix of both humor and command.

  So Kevin got back to training, which would be mostly physical, until lunch but did include some tumbling exercises. Kevin had taken a class in tumbling as a kid and used to really dislike the feeling of having his world spinning around him when he tried to do a cartwheel or a roll. This time, his gymnastics class didn’t cause the dizziness he felt as a child. Which left him wondering if the genetic alterations might have fixed something in his inner ear since the training didn’t bother him nearly as much?

  This in turn cause Kevin to remember how he looked the last time he got out of the game pod… and how his understanding of the technology that Intelecom had been using had changed.