by M. D. Cooper
Tanis nodded absently as she brought up the STC data she’d pulled, and looked through the departure queues.
“Damn…there it is.”
Pushing herself upright, Tanis pulled off the white helmet she’d almost forgotten about—until she laid down on it. “Looks like we have another ship to book. Do we know where in the JC they’re going?”
“Not while she’s in control of the Jones, no. Too risky. Besides, now that the oligarch isn’t in danger anymore, we have a bit of leeway to find out who is up to all this.”
“So where do you think they’re going?” Tanis asked. “The flight plan only has initial vectors and Jupiter’s nearspace as a destination.”
“Really?” Tanis arched an eyebrow as she rose and rolled over to the crates, popping the first one open. “If she’s going to take out the oligarch, wouldn’t she go to the Cho?”
Tanis pulled out one of Claire’s dresses, a short, flouncy number with a solid white bodice made of hard plas. “Could be worse,” she muttered about the dress, and tossed it onto the bed. “Why’s your money on Europa?”
A few more outfits passed muster and landed on the bed, while only one landed in the ‘hell no’ pile.
“I suppose that makes sense. Europa and Ganymede are only half a day’s travel apart, as well, so if we guess wrong, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Uh huh?” Tanis asked while holding up a strange silver outfit.
“Picking out Claire’s wardrobe. I want to have at least some say in it.”
“Keep it handy in case we need it when we get there, but I kinda like travelling in style. I finally figured out how to be Claire the way she should be: flamboyant—not hiding and aloof.”
“Only once I understand what it is.”
Tanis nodded. “The Taoist quasi-cyborg monk capitalists who abhor motion?”
“Sounds…complex.”
Tanis quickly packed up Claire’s outfits, including her roller-girl getup, which she planned to wear again. She almost left the corset behind, but Darla convinced her that it was necessary to ‘pull off the look’.
Once the room was cleaned, and the cartons that would come with her to Europa were separated from the ones that would go into storage, Tanis prepared herself for the Golist-inspired debacle she’d decided to brave.
Golists abhorred motion so much that they couldn’t even abide the idea of legs moving—to that end, most of them had their legs, and often arms, removed. Even wheels were too much for them, so much of their body mass was dedicated to various sorts of hover-tech, from magnetics to turbines.
In Tanis’s mind, turbines blasting out air to keep a person aloft counted as motion, but it seemed to be an accepted incongruity for the sect.
She wasn’t about to remove her legs for fashion—not that she had the time for that sort of mod surgery before she was due to board the liner bound for Europa—but luckily, the outfit Darla had purchased didn’t require it.
“I feel like I’ve graduated,” Tanis said as she looked at the teardrop-shaped bottom part of the costume. “I’ve been in powered armor far less imposing than this.”
Tanis pulled the half-meter-wide disk out of the crate and set it down.
Since she—and presumably most people who wore the outfit—was not prepared to cut off her legs and use the space for levitation tech, she needed a more conventional way to hover. The disk had well concealed wheels and appeared to glide over the ground. It would create a magnetic field on which the bottom half of the Golist costume would float.
“I shoulda called Sergeant Ava to help me,” Tanis said with a laugh as she laid down on the bed and folded her calves back against her thighs. “Here goes.”
She grabbed the thick, supple material and pulled it up over her legs, to her waist. The top half had a pocket for her legs, and the lower half contained the magnetic field generator that would allow her to hover as high as two meters above the base. It also contained biohookups, which seated themselves once she snugged the top of the teardrop around her waist.
“Yup, just like powered armor,” she said, wincing slightly as the biosystems tested their connections. “People who devise these things are sadists.”
“Maybe I just like you a lot, Darla, and I’m trying to make you happy.
Once the bottom half of the outfit ran through its initial checks, Tanis moved to the edge of the bed and slid off to hover a meter above the pad.
“OK…this is actually kinda fun.”
The lower half of the costume had been loose and flexible when Tanis pulled it on, but once it was hovering, it expanded and solidified into a gleaming, inverted teardrop. She rapped a knuckle against it, and it rang like a bell.
“I guess when Connie calls me ‘old iron pants’, she won’t be resorting to hyperbole anymore.”
“Well…no, but I could see her doing it.”
“So demanding,” Tanis muttered as she picked up the top part of the Golistic attire.
Unlike the bottom, which didn’t reveal her figure at all, the top part was perfectly form-fitting, to the point that it was a bit of a struggle to get on. Once she managed to do so, the torso section solidified as well. Accessing the controls for the magnetic field she hovered on, Tanis spun and looked at the stylized helmet that lay on the bed.
“I’m not so sure about that, it makes the automaton mask look like child’s play.”
“OK, OK.”
She picked up the back piece of the helmet, set it into the high collar, and waited for it to draw her hair up and out of the way before she pulled it forward until it sat snugly against her head. Two connections seated into her cranial heat transfer ports, and then her HUD flashed an update that she had enhanced neural cooling abilities.
“Huh, I guess that’s cool.”
Tanis picked up the mask piece and set it in place on the front of the helmet. It all but sucked itself tight against her face, and then a notice flashed on her HUD: Fashion-G Suit Ready.
She activated the room’s holomirror and looked herself over. The helmet had two large, wing-like fins sweeping off the back of her head, which matched the ones coming off her shoulders. Her face was clearly visible, though covered in the helmet’s mas
k. She gave a slight smile, and the mask pulled her face into a wide grin.
“I guess this is the satirical aspect of this thing?” Tanis asked, her voice varying in pitch and overemphasizing certain words.
“What about my arms?” Tanis asked, holding up her uncovered hands.
Tanis found the option and triggered it, surprised to see flowmetal pour down her arms and cover her hands, and then keep going until long tentacles reached the deck.
“Seriously?” she asked with a chuckle that came out as guffaw.
“This much flowmetal must cost a fortune,” Tanis whispered excitedly as she held up her arms, carefully manipulating the tentacles by twitching her fingers.
“I look like some sort of stylized planter with a chrome venus fly trap growing out of the top.”
“No,” Tanis shook her head. “Claire approves.”
“If Tanis saw someone wearing this, she’d have to work real hard to keep her inner hyena at bay.”
WHISKEY TANGO
STELLAR DATE: 02.24.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Insi Ring
REGION: Ceres, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Getting to her scheduled liner, the Whiskey Tango was rather uneventful, considering that Tanis couldn’t move her legs, and her arms were three times their normal length.
She ended up wrapping them around her waist to keep them out of the way, which nearly caused a catastrophe when the spaceport maglev’s magnetic field interfered with her hover-pad, and she quickly had to unravel her arms to grab a nearby safety strap.
Tanis replied as she sifted through the FGS’s control systems.
She switched to the higher setting, and felt the gentle rocking motion cease and the magnetic field’s grip strengthen.
The AI snorted a laugh.
Despite Tanis’s bizarre outfit, she barely rated much notice from the locals, and bit by bit, she realized that folks on Insi were open to just about anything.
It was a lot different from her staid upbringing on Mars, or the more functional clothing and decorum she normally encountered in the TSF sectors of the stations she frequented.
Tanis even saw a few variations on the roller-couture outfit she had worn the day before, their tweaks and flourishes giving her a few ideas for the next time she wore it.
As the maglev pulled into the terminal, a realization that she had never considered before hit her.
<…with stupid rules.>
Tanis couldn’t help give a small laugh, which her FSG’s mask turned into a tittering laugh. Keeping up appearances, she touched one of her tentacles to her lips—pleased that she’d managed to master such fine motor control of the flowmetal—and tilted her head in a foppish manner.
Darla laughed as Tanis spoke, and her mental avatar nodded in agreement.
Tanis countered.
The maglev reached the terminal, and Tanis disembarked with the other passengers. A group of teenaged boys and girls were behind her, smiling and pointing at her. Then two of them stepped up onto her rolling platform and wrapped their arms around her.
“Awesome FSG,” the girl on her right said, while the boy on her left planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Totally nailable…if you weren’t all covered up down here.” He knocked a fist against her lower half, the sound echoing loudly around them.
“Hey!” Tanis exclaimed, but couldn’t help laugh as the boy winked and hopped off, followed by the girl who blew her a kiss.
“You should add color!” one of the girls in the group said over her shoulder as the teens raced down the concourse. “I vote reds, greens, and yellows.”
“Uh, thanks!” Tanis called back.
Tanis laughed softly to herself as she worked her way toward her terminal, wondering what Darla would do if she were to follow the girl’s advice.
Probably take control of the thing and change it back.
Passing through the Auth & Auth security arch at the entry to the ship took a bit longer than usual, as the system registered too many superconductor batteries for a single passenger—not to mention that the magnetic levitation tech messed with its ability to see through her lower teardrop shell.
The two guards managing security at the entry shared a look of consternation as a line began to form behind Tanis.
“Can you step—er…roll—over here, ma’am?” One of the guards gestured to a cordoned off area next to the Auth & Auth arch.
“Of course,” Tanis replied, a sour look forming on her face. “Will this take long?”
The man rubbed his brow, a sheepish look on his face. “Well, the scanner is getting too much interference from the magnetics in your…uh…floating teardrop thingy.”
“OK,” Tanis said, waiting for the man to propose a solution.
She knew what she’d do if someone was trying to board her ship dressed as she was, but Claire was a wealthy, paying customer, and this guard was going to have to consider his options carefully.
“So…uh, is there any chance you can just get out of it?” he asked.
Huh…I guess he did suggest what I would have made someone do. Her scowl deepened, and she shook her head. “Absolutely not! I will not undress in front of you.”
“Umm…I don’t know what to do, ma’am. I can’t let you pass through the Auth & Auth if it can’t scan you.”
Tanis intertwined her tentacles. “Well this is your job. What do you propose we do?”
The man scratched his forehead, then glanced over at the machine ne
xt to him. “Well…I could put you through the cargo scanner.”
Her squeak of indignation was not faked in the least. “There is no way you’re going put me in the cargo scanner!” With each word, her voice rose in amplitude until she was nearly yelling, and the guard’s face was beet red.
“Please, ma’am, I’m sorry, I just…. Look, my supervisor has it in for me, and if I have to call her down again today, she’s going to make me do something horrible, like clean the decks with my tongue. Is there anything we can do to avoid that?”
Tanis couldn’t help but feel pity for the poor guy. The last thing she wanted to do was get some person in trouble for just doing their job.
“You can carry me.”
“Pardon?”
She gave him a wink, which the mask turned into a saucy gesture that involved half her face. “You look strong. Pick me up; I’ll turn off my magfields, and you can carry me through the Auth & Auth. Parents carry young children through, so I know it can handle two people.”
The man looked visibly relieved. “Uh…yeah, I think that just might work.”
“Just have your friend over there bring my base. I’m not going to have you lay me on the ground like some luggage afterward.” She jerked her head back to indicate the guard’s partner, who was barely holding in laughter as he waved less ridiculously attired people through the security arch.
“Terry!” the guard called out. “I’m going to need you to bring Miss Claire’s base through after her. OK?”
“Seriously, Rich? Can’t she just roll it through?” Terry called back.
“No, you idiot, the ship’s not going to let that many SC batteries just roll on. One of us has to take it through.”
“Oh, yeah.”
The first guard, Rich, approached Tanis and paused, uncertain as to where to grasp her.
She chuckled. “You’re just going to have to go for it.”
“Umm…sorry about this,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her handily constricted waist and lifted her up.
Tanis did her best not to laugh, as her steel breast pressed into the side of the poor man’s face, while he strained to lift what she estimated to be nearly one hundred and fifty kilograms, between her and her outfit.
