Date Point: 6y 10m 3w AV
Finchley, London, England, Earth.
Sean Harvey
“Lazrik’s coming up behind them here, this could be—He sticks one Elder Curse, instant cooldown, sticks the second, that gets two—FOUR down with Agony—FIVE! SIX!! Is he about to-? HE HAS!!! SEVEN DOWN!!!! Lazrik just got a TPK as a Godsinger with Thronefall and Universal Core, versus a team using Void Blades and Law of the Jungle…So much for the banner meta!”
“Yeah, that was some old-school instakill meta, but a lot of skill on show there, keeping Loss of Clarity subdued with Universal Core and two ECs, and I don’t know how LOC are going to come back from that…“
”…They are speaking English, right?”
Sean, being seated sideways across the easy chair, flipped a sort of lazy salute to Ava as Charlotte dashed across the room and jumped onto Ben’s lap. To everyone’s surprise, they’d turned out to be a good match, and had kept on going beyond their first weekend. Mercifully, they’d also toned down the making out in company. That had earned them a great many thrown objects those first few days.
“Drinks are in the fridge.” he said, by way of a hello. “Mine’s a Desperado.”
“Sweet of you.” Ava smacked him playfully on the top of the head as she made a bee-line for the kitchen. Sean glanced at Ben and Charlotte to make sure they weren’t paying attention, then helped himself to a good look at those tight jeans Ava liked to wear.
“How did you afford this place, anyway?” Charlotte asked, wriggling around in Ben’s lap to sit upright, interrupting his sightseeing.
“It’s my Gran’s old place.” Sean told her. “She left it me.”
“Dench of her.” Ben commented.
“Yeah. Mum wasn’t happy, she wanted to sell it, but it was right there in the will, so…”
“So what the hell are you watching, anyway?” Ava asked, handing Sean his asked-for beer and sipping down something colourful that had been on offer in Bargain Booze as she dragged through one of the dining chairs from the kitchen and sat on it. Sean had quickly figured out that Ava’s taste in drinks were fairly simple—so long as it was brightly coloured and sweet, she liked it.
“MLG. Mythos Arena championships.”
“Wh–? Actually, never mind.” Ava sipped her drink and watched the screen. “Pretty cool.”
“I’ve got ten quid on Happy Place Gaming to win the finals.” Ben said, squeezing Charlotte round the waist.
“Nah, cause it’s DTE versus Vangion in the quarters, and HPG lost seven of their last nine games against DTE.” Sean declared.
“It’s just a tenner, and I’m getting seven to one.” Ben replied.
“Fair enough, then.”
“You follow esports, Ava?” Charlotte asked.
“No live streams on Cimbrean.” Ava shrugged. “Besides, Papa watched baseball and football, that’s what I grew up on.”
“You’re like the archetypal country lass, you know that?” Sean asked.
“Me?! Sean, how the hell am I a country girl? I was born and raised in San Diego!”
Everybody looked at one another. That fact hadn’t yet come up in conversation—it was hitherto unknown to Sean, and judging from their expressions, to Charlotte and Ben too.
Sean cleared his throat. “…You were?”
Ava’s expression was the awkward look of somebody who’d not intended to share that particular information. “Uh…yeah. We were on vacation in Florida when…well. Yeah.”
“Ava—” Ben began.
“No sympathy, please.” Ava sighed. “I’ve dealt with it, okay? I lost my family and my friends, and the only reason I’m not dead too is because I was on vacation with Adam and his dad, but I’ve…I’m dealing with it. I don’t need sympathy.”
”…If you’re sure.” Sean agreed.
“Let’s just…HOW am I a country girl?”
“Just like…not having live streams, not knowing about nanotattoos. That sort of thing.” Ben told her.
“Yeah, but Cimbrean’s not, like…we’re not yokels!” Ava protested.
“Yeah, but you know how the country always gets the new things way after the cities do, and the cities have got new new things by then? Phone network coverage, broadband, digital radio, that kind of thing? That’s what it’s like with Cimbrean and Earth.” Sean told her.
“No it’s not!”
“Darling, it’s like that.” Charlotte agreed.
Ava stood her ground. “We had lots of stuff first!” She insisted.
“Like what?” Sean asked.
“First solar energy force field, First xenobiology lab, first interstellar jump array, first variable-gravity gymnasium…”
“Those would all be the Scotch Creek facility.” Ben corrected her. “Except for the Gym, that was the Extraterrestrial Environment Training Facility on Salisbury Plain.”
“Oh come on, how do you know that?” Ava demanded.
“He’s a giant fucking nerd, that’s how.” Sean grinned at his friend, who just inclined his head in a please sort of bow and tipped an imaginary hat, as if Sean had pointed out that he was immaculately dressed.
“Well…we’ve got…” Ava floundered, then deflated. “Small school, small church, walks in the woods, swimming in the lake…Oh Christ, I’m a country girl.”
“There’s no need to sound so bloody despondent.” Sean told her, as Loss of Clarity slumped to a decisive defeat and on screen the players stood, shook hands and parted ways to make room on stage for the next two teams, saving a round of backslaps and high-fives for Lazrik.
“Don’t forget the flannel shirt and boots.” Ben added, earning a playful smack in the upper arm from Charlotte.
“I can’t be a country girl.” Ava sulked. “I’ve never even seen a horse! I listen to R&B!”
“And Dean Roscoe.” Charlotte added, referring to a chart-topping country musician who even Sean had to admit as a straight guy, was thoroughly fuckable.
“I thought you were taking her side!” Ben complained.
“What kind of R&B?” Sean asked, sparing Ava’s discomfort.
“Huh? Oh, uh…Santos, Leila Perez, Manny B…”
Sean shrugged, not recognising any of them.
“Maybe not such a country girl after all, then.” Ben commented, nodding.
“What about you?” Ava asked him.
“I like anything.” Ben said. “But I guess metal’s my favourite? Soldiers and Queens, uh…Buying Time…Bring Me The Horizon, Granuloma…”
Sean nodded vigorously before Ava could ask him, so they all looked expectantly at Charlotte, who smiled sheepishly. “I like all the stuff my grandma was listening to.” she confessed. “The Beatles, and the Beach Boys and the Who and…”
“Anybody whose name started with ‘the’?” Ben teased, and smiled at another playful slap in the arm.
“Dean Roscoe, though?” Sean asked.
Ava looked defiant. “He’s hot!”
“Thought you only had eyes for this Adam of yours.” Ben teased her.
“Oh come on everyone’s allowed to think a celebrity’s hot.”
“Actually, what’s he look like?” Charlotte asked.
“Dean Roscoe?”
“Adam!”
Ava frowned at her. “I’ve shown you. Haven’t I?”
Charlotte just shook her head, as did the guys when Ava looked to them, so she dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone—a slightly old touchscreen one—and swiped through her photo gallery.
“Here.” she handed the phone to Charlotte. “I took this at Christmas.”
Charlotte studied it, doing her ‘boy candy’ face again. “Ooooh…”
“Hey!” Ben and Ava objected simultaneously, prompting her to hand the phone to Sean with an apologetic smile for Ava and a kiss for Ben.
Sean examined the photo, a selfie. Adam was shorter than Ava, but BIG, as broad as two Seans across his shoulders and it took Sean a second to realise that he was actually holding Ava in his arms with the same easy strength as Sean himself might have lifted a large book, smiling warmly.
”…He looks like a nice guy.” he conceded. He also looked handsome in a military-fit, stubble-headed kind of way.
“Yeah!” Ava took the phone back and stared at the picture for a second, then a second longer. Sean was about to get her attention when she blinked and put the phone away.
“You okay?” He asked.
”…yeah.” She nodded a little too vigorously, only barely getting the word out.
Sean glanced at Ben, who delivered the most subtle little head-shake, and so the matter was dropped. Instead, Sean just extended his bottle, and Ava tapped her own off it.
“And we’re off, looks like GOC and Splitting Hairs are ignoring what happened in the previous round ‘cause they’re both still going with a banner build team, Looks like plenty of angels on the field there, and GOC take an early rush on Bravo…”
Date Point: 6y 10m 3w 1d AV
Huntsville Alabama, USA, Earth
Adam Arés
Drew Cavendish actually accompanied the SOR in PT the next morning. Obviously, he couldn’t perform at anything near their standard, but he took part and did surprisingly well for a civilian engineer. Then again, as he had ably demonstrated in zero-G training, operating a spacesuit required fitness, and he was an experienced spacewalker.
They were all motivated and alert therefore when they were shown into a lecture theatre and sat down in the front row.
“I’m told there’s a grand military tradition called ‘death by Powerpoint’.” Cavendish said, once they were all settled. “Fortunately, we’ve got something better here.”
He played with the computer for a second, and a life-sized spacesuit materialized next to him, forming like a ghost in mid-air, and then flickering into apparent solid reality, spinning slowly on the spot.
“You know, most of the idiots at this school STILL just use the holographic projector for Powerpoint slides?” Cavendish joked. “Looks bloody silly to me when they do that.” There were some chuckles, but everyone was looking at the suit. “Anyway. This is ExtraVehicular Military Activity Space Suit. EV-MASS.”
Adam studied it. It looked like a comparatively ordinary modern suit of body armor, borrowing elements from several different armor systems. Really, anybody wearing one wouldn’t have stood out among a lineup of soldiers in combat gear, except for the mask that covered the nose and mouth, and the sturdy metal ring around the jawbone and base of skull that was the dock where that mask and the helmet were joined to the rest of the suit.
“EV-MASS is designed with the mission profile of allowing you to deploy, and fight, in zero-G and vacuum, as well as on space stations, starships, and the ground, and to be able to translate from one to the other without vehicles if need be. Originally, we toyed with the idea of including a power-assisted exoskeleton, but…well, that one’s still science fiction for now. The suit is moved exclusively by its operator, which is why you gentlemen need to be so strong. There is no such thing as a light spacesuit.”
He clicked something, and the holographic suit became three suits, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“The system comprises of three suit components: under, outer and mid.” Cavendish said. He stepped over to and grabbed one of them, physically turning it around as if it were a real object, and leaving Adam thoroughly impressed by just how far holographic technology had come in a short space of time.
“The outersuit consists of your camouflage, load carrying equipment, and the rigid structures on your helmet, forearms, shins and thighs which are designed to receive mission-specific modules and equipment. It also includes the control panel mounted on the inside of your left wrist-” he raised the holographic suit’s arm to demonstrate “-though the modular system allows that to be worn on the right arm instead, for left-handers.”
“It also includes the environmental systems-” he indicated a football-sized pack mounted on the suit’s pelvis “-the heat exchanger and forcefield emitter-” both of which were mounted horizontally on the shoulders “-capacitor bank-” which ran down the spine “-and kinetic thrusters and gyroscopes.” he indicated surprisingly small protuberances at the shoulders and waist.
“Any questions about the outersuit before I move on?”
Sikes raised a hand. “Sir, is the helmet considered part of the outersuit?”
“No, the helmet and breathing mask form part of the midsuit. What you’re seeing here is the digital camo skin of the helmet.” Cavendish answered.
BASEBALL had a question. “Sir: Gyroscopes?”
“You remember Firth’s demonstration of angular momentum yesterday? Well, gyroscopes exploit that same phenomenon to keep you stable in space. They’re spinning weights, controlled by an optical tracking system mounted on your helmet that tracks visible features around you—the walls and floor, or distant stars, whatever—figures out your movement, and stabilises it. So long as the gyroscopes are powered, it’s literally impossible to throw yourself into an uncontrolled tumble or spin.”
He gave a second for any further questions, then moved on.
“The midsuit. This is the actual pressure suit and armour, built in several layers. The outermost is kevlar-aramid fabric, offering first-layer defence against bullets and micrometeorites.”
The hologram’s outer skin vanished, revealing a dull silvery fish-scale layer. “Below that is the scale layer, which is your most serious protection. It’s a layer of metallo-ceramic composite fine scales, designed to resist penetration and to distribute impacts across a wider area.”
“Below that? Padding and impact gel, for further protection and to help with the weight of the scale layer. Below that are the insulation, pressure and environment layers, all of which keep you from being exposed to vacuum, and finally the heat-activated memory gel that conforms to your body contours for compression.”
He tapped something the size of a smartphone installed under the helmet’s hard armour layer, on the back of the head. “The CPU for all of the suit’s active components is housed here, below the armour, on the basis that a penetrating hit to either CPU or skull is going to kill you anyway so we may as well put them both in the same place. And in the event that the CPU hit WOULDN’T kill you, then the extra protection it offers might just save your life.”
He looked around at them. They all were giving him their full attention. “Again. Any questions about the midsuit?”
Firth raised his hand. “Sir, how much protection does this thing offer?”
“Its SAPI rating is somewhere upwards of level four.” Cavendish told them. “The mechanism for that being that those scales are small, and they deform rather than shatter. The impact is conveyed to the padding and gel layer underneath that’s hugging you so tightly. In destructive testing, the midsuit withstood sustained rapid-fire seven-point-six-two at point blank without breaching. We emptied an AK into the bloody thing and the worst an operator would have suffered was some bruising.”
Nobody actually spoke, but the impressed changes to their body language made a gentle susurrus around the room.
“And against nonhuman weaponry?” Powell asked.
“Effectively invulnerable to kinetic pulse and electrical discharge weapons.” Cavendish told him. “There’s no known protection against nervejam, and coilguns and plasma weapons are classed as heavy weapons, which the suit’s not rated for anyway.”
He waited. No further hands went up, so he turned to the final holographic mannequin.
“Finally, and most importantly, the undersuit.” he said. “Without this, the whole system would not be viable.”
The undersuit looked like something Superman might wear. It was skin-tight, and covered in an arterial network of wide, flat structures that echoed the load-bearing mechanical lines of the human body. Aside from a zipper up the thoracic vertebrae and a pair of inlet/outlet ports just below the kidneys, it was otherwise featureless.
“This thing performs five hugely important roles for you, the first of which is orthopaedic pressure. That suit hugs you better than skin-tight, keeping your muscles and joints compressed and supported, reducing the risk of strain and injury while using EV-MASS. Second, it whips sweat away from the skin, and into those transport structures you see all over it.”
“Now, this is where it gets clever. Those structures are made from a polymer invented for us by the Corti according to our specifications. It’s flexible and squishy, but only in certain ways and up to a point. It’s dynamically compressible, in other words, AND it’s watertight. The practical upshot of all of that is that it A: further helps to support and distribute heavy loads and mechanically assist your legs and back, and B: it transports water, pumping it with the motion of your own body.”
“That water serves three roles. One, it’s part of the support structure too, because it’s incompressible. Two, it passes through the heat exchanger and is refrigerated before returning to the conduits around your body, nice and cold, so it transports heat away from your body. Third, pumping it passes it through filters—it comes out the other side completely potable, and is connected to a sippy straw in your breathing mask. In other words, you will ALWAYS have cool water on tap while you’re wearing this thing. The mask can load cartridges of electrolyte powder, sports drink mix, whatever.”
He paused, and with a few clicks of the mouse, recombined the three sub-suits into one unit.
“One thing you lads are going to have to learn and learn well is resource management.” he said, coming out from behind the lectern. “Your own body heat is an environmental hazard, you’re going to sweat out all of your salt and electrolytes while using this thing, and every sports scientist on our design team all agreed that there is no way to do anything at all in this suit and break even for calories.”
“But:” he added “They also all agree that it IS possible to move and be effective in this suit. Thanks to the therapy you’re already receiving you’ll get there rather quickly, but by the time you’re fully up to standard to use the suit in the field, you’re going to be large enough that those concerns about body heat will apply even outside of the suit, at least while at very strenuous activity. Fortunately, the suit solves that.”
“Without the suit, you will overheat and fail quickly. Without you, the suit is just an inert lump of technology. The two of you together can accomplish things the likes of which nothing else in the galaxy can even conceive. And I look forward to training you in its use and operation.”
He rubbed his hands. “That concludes the introduction. Any questions, before I start breaking it down component-by-component?”