She had one device, in the form of gloves connected to a headset, which combined alpha brain wave commands with physical gestures to control three pillars she’d placed on the stage. I arrived after that demonstration, but Tristan explained to me that the pillars were collapsible, and that she’d fished them out of her back pocket and had casually thrown them down in front of her. They weren’t very tall, but still over three feet in height. That fact that they’d been built to fit three of them in your pocket was impressive in its own right.
Qek had gone up to assist with her demonstration and stood at the other end of the stage, the pillars in between the both of them. The recruit had instructed the Strongman to come and attack her, and he’d begun began to walk forward. When he’d passed between the pillars, the recruit made a gesture with her hands to tell him to stop, holding them out in front of her with her palms facing forward. When Qek had continued to walk forward, strands of cable shot out of the pillars and wrapped around his wrists and ankles. Qek had laughed, stopped for less than a second by the pillars, and continued walking forward. The slack in the strands had let him take another step, the pillars unmoved, and the recruit gestured to stop again, her hands still out in front of her. With the second gesture, a massive stream of electricity had flowed through the strands and into Qek.
Qek had seemed stunned for a moment by the shock, and the recruit had turned to the GHS officials to tell them the pillars were set to twenty milliamps, which sounds like a lot. She’d then turned back to Qek and made a thumbs up with both of her hands, the pillars glowing a bright red as she did. The noise they’d made as the electrical output increased was this sort of low humming that, in spite of its softness, felt like it filled the inner ear of each audience member. It was very hard to hear the recruit as she turned to the GHS officials to explain that the pillars were then putting out forty milliamps. That was enough to stop Qek from moving forward, his body rattled with convulsions. The recruit didn’t allow the current to run for long at all before she swiped her hand through the air to cause the electrical tendrils to release themselves and suck back into the pillars. Qek relaxed with an audible sigh and shook her hand as she said he could exit the stage and allowed him to wobble his way back to his seat.
I arrived shortly after that and watched as she called up Hilly, the GHS officials collectively sat up a little in their chairs. I definitely agreed with their excitement. Having something that would be effective against a Fast One would be worth a lot more than just placement onto a notable Cape team. I don’t know that she’s ever had to, but it’s fair to assume Hilly could dodge any projectile that wasn’t made of light.
As Hilly stepped on stage, the performing recruit turned to the GHS officials, explaining to them how she approached the feature she was going to demonstrate. She spoke to a sparring session she’d had with Hilly, where she understandably did not come out on top. In fact, she explained, she’d been easily defeated in a matter of seconds after requesting that Hilly not hold back. She said that at first, she’d tried to figure out how to design something that could get in front of a Fast One. She’d tinkered with devices that could read and measure movement much faster than the naked eye, but hit a sort of speed wall when it came to how quickly her device could respond, as it was tied directly to the response of the user. And that was where the headband really came in.
“There’s not really anything I can do to stop Hiltrude from punching me,” the recruit explained. “So I decided not to even bother.” We all watched as the recruit told Hilly that she could proceed whenever she was ready, and quicker than I could blink my eyes, Hilly had traversed the length of the stage and struck the recruit. The strike was open-handed, Hilly hitting the other girl in the chest. As Hilly struck, and the recruit was forced back, the nearest pillar fired a small bean bag, scoring a direct hit on the back of Hilly’s right knee, striking the leg she’d had her weight on. Hilly promptly fell to the floor, and she clasped her hand over where the bag had struck, the site of what would no doubt be a sizable welt before the sun was down.
The room was stunned, though one of the officials managed to think through the awesome display of engineering.
“That was impressive,” one of the GHS officials said, “But what if she were to continue striking? What if she moved as she struck?”
The recruit turned to Hilly, asking her if she would feel comfortable continuing the demonstration to answer those questions. Hilly nodded, and walked back over to the other edge of the stage, trying to work some of the mobility into her limbs, bringing her knees high as she walked. Again, the recruit signaled her to proceed whenever she was ready, and Hilly was over once more, faster than we could perceive.
This time, Hilly continued to strike, dancing around as she did to avoid the projectiles. I was able to see five bags shot before the sixth one hit Hilly on the side of her hip, her reaction not unlike when a baseball player is hit with an errant pitch. She held her side and said she was done, grabbing a bar of food from one of her pockets as she walked off the stage. The recruit, who’d suffered a bloody nose and a quickly bruising eye from the assault, explained through her puffy but unbroken lips that her belief was if she’d coupled her pillars with any of the already existing technology designed to prevent a full-on assault from someone who could run as fast as Hilly could, she would have ultimately sustained much less damage. The panel then thanked her for her demonstration, and she went to sit down.
The GHS officials called Tristan up next, prompting the two of us to rise from our seats together for his demonstration.
There was a moment of nerves when we were setting up where Tristan turned to ask me if I felt ready, and I nodded, and then promptly asked the voices if they were ready.
We are always here for you, Little One.
I felt weird smiling at how serious their answer was, and I hoped that to everyone else it just looked like I might be a little excited.
Tristan’s headset had gotten much more streamlined in comparison to any of the previous iterations I’d seen. It was sleek, with no running wires, a simple metallic headband that fit perfectly around the circumference of my skull and rested just above my eyebrows. It flattened my hair a bit, but I didn’t mind. Tristan was wearing one as well, an aspect of the demonstration we hadn’t discussed. He’d had a small table brought out, a twelve-inch speaker sitting on top.
Tristan turned to the GHS officials after placing the machine on my head and explained to them the process he’d developed, weaving bits about my personal life in. He told them about the years I’d spent not having any idea how my power worked, and how it inspired him to develop a communication device that could bridge the gap and make identifying the beings Communicators could talk with easier. Ultimately, Tristan told them, when he had enough data, he would be able to reverse the process to develop a universal language. Everyone with one of the devices would be able to harness the power of Communicators. Surprisingly, this resonated deeply with one of the GHS officials, who it turned out was a Communicator herself. She broke in, explaining to Tristan she could talk with felines.
“That’s wonderful!” Tristan said. “I actually had the academy tabby brought in for the demonstration.” One of the Senior Capes walked on stage then, a very regal tabby at his heel. The Senior Cape placed a pedestal next to Tristan, and the tabby promptly jumped up, proceeding to lick its paw as it landed. “Please, feel free to introduce yourself,” Tristan said.
The GHS official looked almost embarrassed, but after a moment began to meow softly. The tabby looked over, offering a slow blink to the woman, who slow blinked in return. The tabby meowed plainly before returning to its grooming. “He says that you all call him Buttons,” the GHS official said. The Senior Cape confirmed the woman’s statement.
“Excellent,” Tristan responded. “As you can see, I’ve brought a sister device to the one that Ivy is wearing. I can assure you all, I’m a Tinkerer. I’ve never had an intelligent conversation with anything other than a human i
n my life, and even then, I don’t know that I could really be sure.” The crowd snickered. “But as you can see, when I turn the headset on…” Tristan pushed the button on his headset and continued to talk, introducing himself to Buttons. As he did, he grabbed the speaker from the table, and meowing similar to the sounds the GHS official had made emanating from the twelve-inch device in his hands.
Buttons turned to Tristan, offering him a slow blink. The speaker in Tristan’s hand issued a robotic reply, “I AM COMFORTABLE.”
Tristan powered down the headset, then offered Buttons a few scratches behind his ears for the effort. The GHS official meowed loudly, a firm call to Buttons, a low whine following quickly after. Buttons jumped off of the pedestal and into the GHS official’s lap, purring as he nuzzled against the woman. “Buttons is impressed with your device,” she said. “I am as well. Though, unlike him, I do not think scratches are ultimately more important. Please, continue the demonstration.”
Tristan smiled. “Absolutely, and thanks to you both. For this part of the demonstration, I’m going to have Ivy communicate with whatever it is she is able to talk to. The headset will record the sounds and,” Tristan removed a small electronic notebook from one of his pockets, “in the event that I don’t have the animal already programmed, I’ll be able to see what sort of beast or other… thing, for lack of a better term, she is communicating with on here. Whenever you’re ready, Ivy.”
“Alright,” I said. The speaker in Tristan’s hands softly echoed my speech, and he looked down at the device in his hands. The audience laughed at the comedic timing behind his reaction, and Tristan smiled to ease the tension, then motioned for me to continue.
So, they want me to talk with you now.
That is alright with us. What would you like to talk about?
It doesn’t matter, I guess. I’m not sure how long we even need to talk for. What did you think about the last part of the demonstration? It might be kind of neat to talk to a cat.
We like cats very much, though we’ll leave the talking with them to you and Tristan.
“Is that enough?” I asked. The speaker echoed my words again, operating in the reverse to how it had behaved when Tristan wore the headset.
Tristan coughed lightly before he answered. “Uh… Just a little more.”
“Is the device reading anything?” the GHS official who could talk with cats asked. “She’s not saying anything.”
“It is,” Tristan responded. “I can see it here. She doesn’t speak out loud to… uh, anyway, she talks with them in her head, I guess. I’m getting readings. Just keep going, Ivy.”
Have you all met very many cats? How about other animals? This is only the third cat I’ve ever seen.
We have known many cats, yes. If you find Buttons to be impressive, you should go and see a larger feline. They are magnificent.
You mean like a lion?
Yes. We know there is one only a few miles to the north, though it is asleep right now.
Oh, right. There’s a zoo not too far from here. How do you know it’s asleep? Is that where you are? At the zoo?
Why do you ask if that is where we are?
How else would you know the lion is sleeping?
Sometimes you say it is too hot outside. How do you know when that is?
Because I start sweating? I know it’s too hot when it feels too hot.
That is how we know the lion is sleeping.
Alright. This conversation is getting a little too metaphysical for me, I think.
“Tristan, how’s that? They’re being… uh… I mean, that was a lot of talking. Did you get the readings you needed?” I lowered my voice as I continued, the echo of the speaker making it hard for me to concentrate on what I was saying. “How come the speaker is doing that?”
Tristan cleared his throat again and turned to the GHS officials, each of them looking everywhere that wasn’t at the demonstration. The official who was also a Communicator was having a soft conversation with Buttons, scratching him behind both of his ears, his head curling up and pushing into the woman’s nails.
“Well,” Tristan said, grabbing their attention, “Did I mention that my specialty is suits?” The Senior Cape from earlier wheeled out the suit that Tristan had been using when we’d sparred in the soft-sand, and he got inside. It powered up quickly, and he called Qek up on stage. The Strongman still looked a little dazed from the previous demonstration, but he made his way up quickly. Tristan asked Qek to punch him, and as Qek did so Tristan caught the Strongman’s fist with his own, then easily pushed back the Strongman. Qek tried to land another blow, but Tristan side-stepped, slamming the Strongman down into the ground. Qek laughed, and asked if that was enough, and Tristan nodded his head. “As you can see, the suit offers quite the power boost to the wearer.”
“Excellent,” one of the GHS officials said. “That was quite impressive, young man. We’ve got a lot of cities a suit like that would be a real help. Great work.” Tristan smiled, seeming sure that he’d saved his demonstration, and he removed the headset from my head without saying anything. By that point I wasn’t sure why I was still up there as the demonstration had clearly moved on. I kept trying to catch his eyes with my own, but he actively avoided my gaze. When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything, I got up from my chair and sat back down in the audience, where I waited for Tristan to join me. He gathered his things and took them to the right of the stage. By the time the next demonstration started, I could see he wasn’t going to come and sit back in the audience.
I started to watch the recruit on stage. It was much less technical and easier for me to understand, and I almost decided to stay until the end. The recruit on stage was a Striker, his gene ranked at the level just below Supreme. People with a Striker gene are different from other fighters in that they don’t excel at any particular style of martial arts, regardless if they have a weapon or are fighting hand to hand. Strikers have the unique ability to develop their own style of fighting, no two Strikers moving quite the same way. From what I’ve read, there was a long time, in the early days of classification, where the line between Tacticians and Strikers was blurred. We know now that Tacticians see the battle before it happens, allowing them martial prowess through foresight rather than innate talent.
It was only over the last few years that Sink had been able to help the GHS make the distinction between the two. The recruit on stage was so fluid in the way he moved, I remembered all over again why I’d avoided sparring with him.
He was fighting four copies of Fibre at once, using every part of his body to score hits, rolling and flipping easily to dodge the hands and feet that flew his way. It almost looked like Fibre hit him at one point, a kick coming directly into the Striker’s right side, but the recruit caught Fibre’s foot in his arm and struck down into the Senior Cape’s knee, bending it the wrong way and causing the copy of Fibre to dissipate. It was quite the show, and was almost enough to keep me from looking for Tristan. Instead, I forced myself up.
I walked out the side door of the auditorium and found that Tristan hadn’t gone far at all. He was standing just outside the nearest exit holding up his electronic notebook, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared intently at whatever was on the screen. His fingers occasionally poked and brushed the surface, signaling that he was combing through some kind of data.
Tristan looked up as I approached, his face unchanged. “What the hell, Tristan?” I asked. Tristan didn’t acknowledge my question, looking at me for a moment before he went back to his screen. I tried again, “Tristan, seriously. What’s the deal here? What happened up there?”
Tristan looked up at me again, his eyebrows resetting to a calm position, and his eyes focusing as if he was only then seeing me for the first time. “Hey, Ivy. Sorry, did you say something?”
“Like five times. What happened on stage before? What did the machine say? Why’d it stop working when I tried to use it?”
“Sorry, I get in the zone, you know? Uh… al
right, let’s take a walk. I think it will help.”
“Help? Help who?”
“Yes,” Tristan said, stepping forward at a brisk pace. I caught up after a moment. “Alright. So, the machine read that you were communicating with something. And I know what it wasn’t.”
“Okay… Are you saying you don’t know what it was?”
“Well, here’s the thing, Ivy. The headset was performing as it should have during the demonstration.”
“What? No it wasn’t. When you talked with the cat—”
“No, Ivy, I can assure you that it was. All of the readings were accurate.”
“Okay, well, I don’t understand.” My heartbeat was starting to pick up as we walked. Tristan had really quickened his pace; I was about to get short of breath if we didn’t slow down. “Just explain it to me.”
“The speaker doesn’t…” Tristan took a breath, then stopped in his tracks, a maneuver I was thankful for. “The machine… it doesn’t do what it was doing when people are speaking. It didn’t echo me. It shouldn’t have echoed you.”
“But it did,” I said, my breath almost catching.
“But it shouldn’t have.”
“So, what? You’re saying I’m not human?”
Tristan looked at me, the side of his mouth rising with his shoulders. He brought both of his hands into the air as well, palms facing upward. “I mean…” he trailed off, his voice getting a little higher at the end of his phrase.
Ivy Page 20
