Shinji Ikari Raising Project

[robkelk]

Yet another dialogue monster. These are so damned hard.

I find them quite easy, actually. It's action scenes that I have trouble with...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ECSNorway]

Hmmm, nice bit. Better scene than I could have written, for sure.

Altho I don't think that anyone sent a Strad along. I know I didn't...

(But, really, me as Gendo expy? Well, I -do- seem to be a bit of an empire-builder....)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Dartz]

I find it hard to make it seem like people aren't just standing around talking to each other when they're just standing around talking to each other. Dialogue can be painfully dull at times....

That, and giving people something to say

----------

It was very early in the thread.... way back before schedule slip kicked in. The Scarmpella was mentioned.... and Marsden brought *an instrument* but the exact make was never mentioned, only something about Stradivarius never making a guitar, so I took a guess. The white-gloves and glasses were also mentioned....
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Ace Dreamer]

I find it hard to make it seem like people aren't just standing around talking to each other when they're just standing around talking to each other. Dialogue can be painfully dull at times....

That, and giving people something to say

I'm told the secret is chopping-out anything except for the bits of dialogue that convey what you want to say.  But then, my creative writing tutor seems to support the "show don't tell" school of writing, an area I fall down badly on, sometimes.  It is the interactions that make dialogue interesting, I think, and hints at the agendas and preconceived ideas that the various people have.  Glimpses at their world views...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Dartz]

Jesus this is a big story/topic

Going to try and wrap it up in the next two pages.

Everyone had either gone to bed, or had other duties to see to. Benjamin seemed to crash hard, coming down from the sugar-rush of the Gods, and had to be helped to his quarters by Gina.... who insisted on calling him an idiot with a warmth and affection behind it that made Shinji's heart ache.

Jet's puppet disappeared soon afterwards, followed by Ford, then Kotono and Daryl. Anika hung on until her watch began and took Nene with her, while Marsden left with Rei when she said she was tired.

Before long, it was just himself, Pen to the Penth, Yayoi and a few curious exocomps. Some of the local ones in their industrial grey seemed to be admiring the garish paint on another. Shinji wondered what time it actually was, before getting the idea to check his network connection.

05:32:27.635 Jan 23 2023

Shinji didn't feel tired, not one bit. He mused on that, while concentrating on following the direction o the hologram, reading the music on the sheet, and marvelling at how easy it all seemed. It was, he thought, just further proof that he really was something other than human.

They finished playing, and Shinji rested his bow on the music stand. "You're much better than you were when we first played, Yayoi-san."

"You're getting better yourself, Shinji-kun. But I doubt either of us are good enough to get a recording contract yet." She smiled as she stood up and walked over to a chair facing her companion. "Are you feeling more relaxed now?"

He thought for a moment. "A bit, yes. As...." He caught himself "Ah, Gina. I didn't know she could play too. I never saw Asuka do it."

"Do you remember earlier that I told you there was another secret, but it wasn't mine to tell you?" When he nodded, she went on. "It's her secret. How much did she tell you?"

"She..." he stopped again, thinking it through. "She told me she wasn't Asuka. But.... they seem the same."

Yayoi nodded, but didn't say anything for a moment. "Let me tell you about Sora. She's my sister, in the same way that Anika-san is your sister."

"How common is that?"

"It's more common than most people realize. If you're curious, ask Nene-san about her brother sometime. But that isn't important right now. When Sora first woke up in this universe, she was a quiet, almost mousy girl, and she stayed that way for years because she thought that was all she could be."

"Why would she think that?"

"Because she's like us - she was built to look and act like a person out of a story. And our father didn't help her realize that what she was isn't the same as what she is, so she stayed 'just Sora' for years. But then she met somebody who she thought she knew, and she didn't know that person at all."

"Like me and Asu- Gina."

"Something like that, yes. And that shook my sister to the core, but it also gave her the confidence to stop being 'just Sora' and make her own way in the world. And now she's the chief engineer on a spaceship that I can only dream of flying in, and she isn't a mousy little girl any more - she's a woman in love with a good man who loves her in return."

There was something behind the smile, a distant sadness hollowing her gaze

"Just like Gina is in love with Rhodes-san. I wonder if there's anyone out there who I could love."

Yayoi smiled, her motherly smile. "I'm sure there is, Shinji-kun. But whoever she is, she won't come to you - you have to go out and find her."

He thought for a moment, then grinned. "You're just trying to get me out of the house."

She grinned back. "Is it working?"

"Maybe. What are we going to play next?" He picked up his bow.

As Yayoi walked back to the piano, she asked, "How about some heavy metal?"

"You can't play metal on the cello."

"I have a recording of 'Thunderstruck' played on the bagpipes. You can play anything on anything, Shinji-kun! You're only limited by what you think is possible."

If there were any passers-by, they could have heard their laughter out in the hall.

-------

Shinji awoke in his room again.

He was naked, again.

The last thing he remembered was stepping into a hot shower, allowing a day's grime to wash from his body while his thoughts seemed to just slow down, smothered by clouds of steam. He ignored the warning....

And then.... snap

He was awake in his bed.

"Dammit," he mumbled, staring up at the by-now familiar ceiling. It was his room now. His riding gear was left folded for him, along with some clean clothes. Shinji cursed the design flaw that'd keep him from ever enjoying anything hot again.

The boy sighed and gathered up some fresh clothes to wear for the day ahead. They were still too large, but that probably couldn't be helped. He padded around, getting used to the refreshing chill rising through his body from the concrete.

The thought occurred to him to try a cold shower in the mornings instead of hot. If he wasn't really a human being, then did normal human comforts really apply? He pondered on that as he slipped the communicator onto his wrist.

It didn't seem quite as alien anymore when it entered awareness, pinging out into the local network. It told him he'd been out for over an hour. And that Jet and Anika were somewhere called 'Grey Room'.

Outside, the smell of breakfast lingered in the air. He padded around a living area that'd been meticulously cleaned and arranged. There was nothing left in the sink to be cleaned. The television sat idle, a red standby light glowing.

A note was taped to it, handwritten in a mix of kanji and hiragana.

"Shinji, We're up in the Grey room if you need us. Otherwise, do what you'd like today. There're a few things you might like to watch preselected, to help get you a feel for the world - Kotono"

Nothing at all was expecting of him. So he did exactly what was expected of him.
-------

For some reason, this was on the 'doc. Cool
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dartz]

-------

The grey room was normally used for customer conferences. It had once been the boardroom for the New-Birmingham mining company. The sense of power and self importance seemed to be seeping back out from the walls.

It was laid out with intent to impress. Three of the four walls were covered in various firearms, from a selection of handguns and assault rifles to a diamond bazooka labelled SHATTER-15M. All sheltered within glass cabinets. The fourth wall was a projected map of Survival Shot itself.

In the centre of the room, a conference table was surrounded by leather chairs, occupied by three of the most influential people in Fenspace, a cyborg, an android and a woman who was trying her level best not to burst out laughing.

"...I found him naked in the shower, unconscious. He must've overheated again."

Kotono surpressed a giggle behind her hands.

"It's a misfeature," Anika added, doing a bad job of hiding her discomfort "Not a design flaw."

"Why would anybody add something like that on purpose?"

Marsdens hard gaze completed the implied accusation.

"It's a long story." Jet answered. "I've already sent his schematics to A.C. She's offered to make the modifications."

The obvious conclusion being that it was some well meaning idea that backfired. First time builder's mistake.

Chris sighed, his smile returning. "Well, I've been speaking with Rei and we'd like to offer him a place to stay on Greenwood. He can be close to Rei, there's space for him to grown and to ride his bike through the city. " He scanned the room "Legally, Rei'll end up being his guardian and he'll probably have to attend high school until he can test majority. That's U.S. Law. "

Gina sat back in her chair, which'd been cranked up high enough that her legs were pressed against the bottom of the table. "And if he doesn't want any ties with a government? Well we can probably find a place for him on Atalante."

Marsden glowered. "Because being thrown into a fighter's cockpit is going to be great for his PTSD."

"That's a stereotype. There's plenty of things he can do that aren't related to being a pilot." She marked the point with a raised finger "Besides, for the next few months we're going to be pretty close to Frigga so he can always run home if he needs to. Or even stay here. And if he needs to head in-system he can even have his own ship."

Anika threw her as angry a glare as she could manage. Rei watched on quietly, analysing.

"We're here because we want to give him options other than staying on Frigga. It's too lonely out here for him," said Jet, trying to cool the argument.

"But we don't want him to think we're sending him away either," said Kotono "We have to be careful. If he wants to stay, we should give him that option too."

"But that's still puts him pretty far from Rei," said Yayoi. "Stellvia's close to Greenwood, close enough that he could travel with little trouble. It's close to Grover's Corners. There're no mundane ties. And if we found him a job, it'd definitely give him a sense of purpose. He's good enough to earn a job as a session musician on his own merits. " She gave everyone a slightly cheeky smile "And being Vice-President does give me some pull when it comes to hiring."

"Y'know. This is exactly the sort of thing that's annoying him!" Everyone's head to snapped towards Anika, who immediately regretted speaking up. She quailed back down into her chair as Gina loomed over her ."We're all doing this behind his back. I'm just saying it should be his choice is all."

"Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive," said Rei, her voice quiet, but certain.

Whatever Chris Marsden was about to say just died in his mouth.

Jet settled back into her chair. "We just want to give him some options, so he doesn't feel overwhelmed. It's his choice, that's a promise."

-------

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

"Anika, you're right, we're wrong, and I'm sorry." Yayoi bowed to her host. "Will you allow us to make a list of options for Shinji, including the option to stay here if he wants to?"
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[ECSNorway]

Rei Banzai.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Dartz]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch a sort of clash of culture...

It was a British man. In a spacesuit. Bouncing around the moon amongst the wreckage of a staged shuttle crash gathering supplies and trying to make himself noticeable from orbit.

"The suit recycles everything to try and keep me alive. It recycles the air I breath out. It even recycles bodily fluids." He sucked on the end of a straw inside his helmet. "It means, in a way, I really am drinking my own pee." He took another sip. "Tastes like strawberries."

"Yuk."

Shinji changed the channel with prejudice, and tried hard not to think about what was going on up the Grey Room. The original Gundam series was on, but Amuro was just painfully whiny.

Click. "That kid has problems."

Part of him wondered if anybody'd ever said that about him. Maybe he was just giving Amuro a hard time. Or was there some android Amuro out there who might be offended?

Some of the disks left for him were just as unapealling. There was something called The Race to 400, with the cover image being an empty desert, with a speedometer. A bunch of Soviet documentaries, labelled with the names of alien planets with a picture of an old space shuttle on the cover. There was a whole series called The Worlds at War.

What was Boskone? Sounded like a cheap videogame villain.

Along with that, some stand-alone films. None of them seemed especially interesting. There were a thousand more things hidden on the recorder under the television itself. He cycled through it, stopping cold halfway through the list. The unmistakeable image of Rei Ayanami, standing in front of a blue moon.

Neon Genesis Evangelion. (1995) Hideaki Anno. Action. Mecha. Psychological. Teen
15 years after the Second Impact nearly annihilated mankind, 14 year old Shinji Ikari is summoned to Tokyo-3 by his father, and forced to pilot the Evangelion in battle against the mysterious Angels.

He stared at it, his mouth hanging open. Half his mind was daring him to push play, just to see what it looked like. The rest of him dreaded the thought of living through all of that again and worse...

He'd get to watch each and every single one of his mistakes, over and over again, with the added penalty of not being able to do a single thing to correct them.

He could hear Misato's voice again. It was the only way he'd ever be able to hear her voice again.

He got enough of it in his nightmares. Begging him to survive. Begging him to fight. The iron taste of blood on her tongue as she gave him that adult kiss.

Shinji turned the television off. He couldn't control when he woke up from his nightmares, but he could choose what to watch on T.V. Silence filled the apartment as he searched for something to occupy his mind and keep it from drifting back to places he was quietly desperate to avoid.

While he busied himself making a more complicated breakfast than was strictly necessary while Pen to the Penth played through the Y's soundtrack again. Kotono Mitsuishi was the closest he'd ever come to Misato's voice.

Misato Katsuragi never existed. He wasn't the Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, but his own person. He desperately hoped she would come through that door anyway.

The knock on the door made him jump out of his socks.

"Who is it?"

Did he dare hope that some form of android Misato had been found?

"S'only me. Ben."

The disappointment was crushing.

Shinji sighed. "Yes."

The door cracked open, Ben's perpetually smiling face appeared. It must be an American thing, Shinji surmised.

"I just wanted to make sure I didn't make a fool of myself yesterday.. Had to burn a little midnight oil to get Gina's Valkyrie running again and might have overdone it."

"No.... it's okay." Shinji tried to smile back, but it just fell utterly flat. What came out was a twisted mass of nerves crushed down and only qualified as a 'smile' on a technical level.

"You mind if I come in?"

"Technically it's not my apartment but..... Kotono won't be back for a while."

It was hard to say no.

"Great." he stepped inside, closing the door behind him "Well, truth be told, I was also kinda hoping to get a look at that cool bike of yours again, and maybe talk a little if you'd like."

"Kotono left a message to say I was supposed to find out more about where I was..."

In other words, he'd really rather not.

"Oh that's easy. Shinji," he grinned broader and broader. "Fenspace is the place where you can try be the person you want to be,"

Shinji was about to say that that wasn't what Kotono'd meant.

"Y'see," he carried on, taking a seat by the breakfast table "I always wanted to be a jet-jockey. I got my start as a courier launching in an old handwaved Volkswagen. And Gina.... she started as a laptop, she wanted to be my spaceship, and ended up becoming my wife and the mother of my daughter. Who was my spaceship."

"Eh?"

Shinji blinked. The man was a bulldozer. No wother Asu.... Gina liked him. They were so alike. They had something to say, and they just sort of said it. Americans had no sense of self restraint...

Ben chuckled. "It's complicated. You should ask her when you meet her. You two'd get along like burst oxygen line on fire."

"Ah," Shinji held his hand up, ready to answer.

"I guess my point is. You really can become anything. That's the magic of it. You could be a real fighter pilot and hero. You could be a fighter jet if you wanted, screaming through space in control of yourself, dancing among the stars. You could remake yourself to be a grown man... or woman. The only limit is what you want, how hard you want to try to achieve it."

Ben almost seemed to be bragging, like it was his own personal achievement somehow. There was a zeal and fire in his eyes.

Shinji gave him a brief glare that betrayed his frustration. "I want to be myself."

Ben's expression grew far more serious, his s*mile dampening down. He glanced at Shinji, then out of the window, clearly thinking it over. Shinji was quietly amazed to realise he'd actually listened...

"That's a damn good start," Ben said, with a smirk on the edges of his lips. "Now, about that bike."

The smile returned. The smile brooked no argument. It just wasn't the Japanese way of doing things.

"I have the user manual for the Judy. It might be able to tell you more about it than me. I never read it. "

Ben snorted. "Yeah, you're related to Jet alright."

Shinji frowned at the man sitting at the kitchen table. The back of his mind reminded him that he should've offered Ben some tea or something, but doubted he'd drink it.

"I got a better idea. Why don't we both head on out for a ride? We can talk on the way. Better for you to show rather than tell I think."

Shinji forced himself to look away from the smile. There was one thing he had to ask.

"Do you mind if I say no?"

Ben shrugged. "Well, if you want to stay here and watch some T.V. or something it's up to you."

Shinji offered him a thin smile. "No. I'll go. It was just nice to have the option."

"Great!"
-------

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

"Kotono left a message to say I was supposed to find out more about where I was..."

That line tickled my muse... I don't know whether you want to make this a scene or a side-story.

As so often happened during their evening duets, Shinji put down his bow at the end of a song. This particular song was the Beatles' The Long and Winding Road, a request from his partner, and he was pretty sure he knew why she had requested it. "I mentioned to Rhodes-san ... Ben-san ... that Kotono told me I should find out more about where I was, but I'm not sure he understood what she meant."

Yayoi smiled. (For a brief moment, Shinji wondered whether Yayoi always smiled when somebody told her something.) "He probably didn't, Shinji-kun. As close as we are, there's still a fundamental gap between our two peoples."

"Humans and..." He didn't want to finish.

"I was thinking 'Nihonjin and Americajin,' actually. But neither of us are quite Nihonjin in the way the term's used here, are we?"

"I guess not."

She nodded. "So let's set that aside. Where is Ikari Shinji-kun? Right now, you're 1.2 meters to the left of my piano, but I doubt that's what Kotono-san meant, either."

He smiled at that, and suddenly thought he knew why Yayoi smiled so often. Then he had an idea. "Yayoi-san, where are you?"

"I was wondering when you were going to ask something like that. I can't answer that without telling you where I've been, so this is going to take a while. Let's leave the instruments here and go get some tea."

A few minutes later, they were sharing a bench outside the auditorium, a flask and two cups sitting between them. "Back in 2008, I woke up in a room I'd never seen before, with a man and three women I'd never seen before by my side. I smiled at them because somehow I knew they were my father and my sisters. That's how I came into this world."

"I woke up alone."

She didn't smile. "Oh, dear. But it took me months to stop being 'Fujisawa Yayoi, character from a terebi show' and start being 'Fujisawa Yayoi, person with interests outside of the archetype,' and even when I started being someone other that the girl in the show I was still a pilot for the longest time. You're making the change from 'character' to 'person' much faster than I did."

"What made you realize that you were changing, Yayoi-san?"

She thought for a moment. "It was about a year after I first woke up here. I heard about a group of people on Luna who were inviting people to join them, and what they were saying made a lot of sense to me even though it was nothing like what I'd experienced before. I didn't end up joining the Senshi, at least not officially, but I did give them some help when they needed it the most. That's why those girls called me 'Sailor Stellvia;' they insist that they're never going to forget how I set them on the path to where they are now. Which is silly, because all I did was buy them a few things and tell them something that they needed to hear."

Shinji though of how casually Yayoi had brought a Steinway and a Scarampella along on her visit to Frigga, and decided to ask someone else what the "few things" she had bought for the Senshi really were.

"But it wasn't until two years after that when I started doing things that the me in the story never did. That was when I asked my father to set up an astroball stadium."

"Astroball?"

"It's a sport, or a game, that people play in small spacecraft and with a large ball. You can find some matches on FenTube if you're really interested. But I had never been interested in sports before that, and there I was on the first really serious team - me, Cal from New Yavin, Minagi from Tsunami, Akuryua from Abliarsec, and J.B. Fargo from Genaros." She frowned. "I don't like Fargo any more."

He couldn't stop himself from asking, "What did he do?"

"He called me a sexaroid! To my face, no less!"

Shinji relaxed a bit. "Why?"

"People had just found out that my sister Sora - I told you about her already - is an AI, and Fargo jumped to the conclusion that I was an AI as well."

"You are an AI."

"Yes, but he didn't have any proof. And then he assumed that anyone who was built instead of born was ... well, not a 'real' person." She took a deep breath. After a moment, she went on, more calmly. "I slapped him, of course."

"I can't imagine you slapping anybody."

"It's the only time I've ever slapped anyone. Then Cal took Fargo aside, and I don't know what happened. I only ever saw Fargo once after that, when he gave back the keys to his astroball ship."

"I think I'd rather be like Cal-san than Fargo."

Yayoi nodded. "Cal Calrissian is a very good man, and a good friend. The only thing I wish he'd do is stop asking to have sex with me. I've told him that I'm not interested in men that way."

Shinji's eyebrows went up. "You're a ...?"

"The word you're looking for is 'lesbian,' and yes. I'm also in love with a woman named Ginny who loves me for who and what I am, and that's all I'm going to say about our private life." She raised her voice. "So don't even bother asking, Mackie."

"Is he listening to us?"

"Maybe, maybe not." She pointed quickly at an intercom on the wall. "But I wouldn't put it past him to have a system daemon scanning the intercoms for particular keywords and recording conversations that interest him."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because we do that on Stellvia. Not for gossip about people's sex lives, but for advance warning of possible threats to the station. Everybody who lives in manufactured space stations does that, ever since the incident on Over The Rainbow."

"Incident?"

"I'd rather not talk about that right now. You asked where I am, and that isn't part of my story. Let's see... I've told you about my sisters, I've told you about the Senshi, I've mentioned Cal and Ginny. But I haven't mentioned A.C. yet."

"I remember Jet mentioning somebody named A.C. Peters."

Yayoi nodded. "That's the same person. She built my body. I get a lot of my forthrightness from A.C. and her immediate family. She's strong, determined, very intelligent, and ... well, she has a few problems, but doesn't everybody?" She stopped for a moment, then continued, "And I can't forget about Leda-san. She's smart, and strong-willed, and a Senshi, but most of all she's my father's wife and the mother of my flesh-and-blood sister Helen."

"You have a complicated family, Yayoi-san."

She smiled. (Again.) "Yes, I do. And I haven't even mentioned the sisters that Noah built on his own, after The Girls visited." She noticed him notice the capital letters. "The Girls had a big effect on me, too. They're not from around here, and I have no way of following them to where they came from, as much as I wish I could. And I want to follow them so much ..."

Shinji realized that this was the first time he'd ever seen Yayoi cry. He had no idea what to do.

It took Yayoi a few minutes to regain her composure. "But that door is forever closed to me. I know now that their biggest effect on me happened after they left, and Noah started building more of my sisters. He was so busy with them, neglecting work, that somebody had to run the business - and that somebody was me. I hated it at first. I was stuck behind a desk and wasn't flying very much. But then I discovered I had a talent for working with other people, and, well, here I am - vice-president of one of the largest trading companies in space."

Shinji whistled. "You're that important a person? And you're still spending every evening playing music with me?"

She nodded. "You're an important person, too, Shinji-kun. We care about you - as a person, not as a character from a story - and we want to help you succeed. We're just showing you some possibilities and waiting for you to tell us what you want to succeed at." Yayoi's smile turned into a grin. "And you're helping me take the first vacation I've had in three years, so don't start thinking that you owe me anything."

He stood up. "That's a lot to take in, Yayoi-san."

"And I left out quite a lot, including how we met Yuu-san. Would you like to play anything else this evening?"

He shook his head. "Right now, I want to go think about things. Good night, Yayoi-san."

"Good night, Shinji-kun... Shinji-san."

--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

That's a damned fine scene right there. It makes for a nice reason for Shinji to choose Stellvia...

Although, I think Shinji would say something more about how he's seen things that he thought was impossible right up until they happened. Or, at the very least be thinking it.

Anika would be a little bit offended at the suggestion that she monitors people through the intercom.... hiding the fact that they really don't have the technical ability to do that sort of voice-speech analysis, or time to go through all the false positives. And Partly because Mackie would abuse it like that, and nobody wants *that* controversy.
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[robkelk]

Feel free to tinker with the scene as needed for the story.

And it wasn't Anika that Yayoi accused of using the intercom to monitor people - it was Mackie. Considering his behaviour in BGC, it's a reasonable expectation for her to make... I think.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

Yayoi isn't wrong....

It's more the implication that Mackie was able to sneak it in without her noticing..... Anika maintains the majority of Frigga's information systems. Which probably specifically don't have that feature because Mackie would abuse it just like that.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[LynnInDenver]

Yayoi isn't wrong....

It's more the implication that Mackie was able to sneak it in without her noticing..... Anika maintains the majority of Frigga's information systems. Which probably specifically don't have that feature because Mackie would abuse it just like that.

And Nene would be willing to take a look every so often herself, if she's asked, to make sure such features didn't get quietly added in places Anika might not have looked. She knows Mackie, she knows his tricks, and she knows he's not going to sit idle when it comes to trying to get advantages in this particular information war.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[robkelk]

And I recall that Nene is part of the Hacker Underspace, so she has access to that group's collective knowledge of security holes - a much larger database than any one person could accumulate.

Anika might want to join up, just for "library privileges"...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

It's mentioned in her profile that she's involved with the Underspace and getting coaching within it.... I just haven't added her to the list on the wiki yet.

She's not so much a virtuouso, as someone who can be relied upon to learn how to do something and do it. Anika's steadily turning TITANIC from a jumbled mass of modules bashed together to 'work' into something that might actually hold water as a whole system. And has improved efficiency enough that they've been able to hold off on upgrading the old powerline-based system far longer than otherwise.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

The door cracked open, Ben's perpetually smiling face appeared. It must be an American thing, Shinji surmised.

I can just hear Gina now... "You'd be surprised how often he's not smiling."  And then if/when asked, segues into his side as a protective family man and military leader, as well as not being happy about any of his machines not working as it should.

[Dartz]

Snrk....

And more

Benjamin's single-cylinder trailbike receded away behind as Shinji tickled at the throttle. The Judy dipped into what felt like an infinite well of electric power. It surged forward with a whine from the motors. The turbine didn't even bother waking up.

"Hey, hey, you want to hold up up there Shinji?"

The drawl tickled through the earpiece in his helmet. Clearly, Benjamin Rhodes was not used to being left behind. And that thought made Shinji grin. It warmed him from the core with a smug satisfaction. Shinji eased back on the throttle just enough to allow him to catch up.

It was.... it made him feel powerful. He could set the pace. He could choose to leave. He could choose to allow Ben to catch up, or not. He could lead, rather than be dragged. Shinji had control.

"How much power's that thing got?"

Someone Benjamin seemed almost out of breath, asif it'd been his personal effort to keep up and not the Yamaha's. Shinji cycled through the displays until he found the one labelled 'available power;

"3500 kilowatt hours.... " He checked the guage. "And It's about a third empty."

He didn't really know how much that was, but it seemed like a lot.

"Shit. I'm going to have to find out what that Tanalloy stuff is, if it's unwaved."

"I really don't know."

"Remind me to bug Jet for the plans because I'm going to want to built one of these for myself.

"You know Jet?"

"She worked for me up until about three years ago. Why, you want to know more about her?"

Shinji immediately felt just a little uncomfortable.... "Well..."

Yes, but he didn't want to say so out loud.

Ben sighed aloud "I'm not sure how much I should really tell. Best I can say is, they're both good people who try to do the right thing, and succeed about as often as we all do. They both want to be good people. Jet's a real warrior... I mean really, while Ford's the sort of person you can always trust to get your back in a pinch. Both of them like things that make a lot of noise and go really, really fast, both of them are pretty good at making things that make a lot of noise and go really, really fast.

Shinji tweaked the throttle a little bit. It made noise and it went fast

"And they've probably both saved each other lives just by meeting each other and getting together."

He glanced over at the other rider, turning it over his mind, trying to fit it all to the people. It made sense that Jet was military. Used to bossing people around and telling them what to do. Ford had always seemed like a decent sort.... just as American as Ben, but not quite has upfront. Her accent was different...

"I see," he said, more to demonstrate he was listening.

"That's about as far as I can go without betraying private secrets. But If you want an idea about who they might be, watch Bubblegum Crisis for Jet, and read Gunsmith Cats for Ford..... and don't ever ask Ford where Minnie May is." There was a pause. Ben chuckled deeply "Or do, because you can get away with it and it's always fun to watch."

Shinji was certain that, behind the stark white chinbar of the helmet was a big fat grin

"So they based their lives on fiction?"

"Not really. Jet, yes.... Ford is just sort of the same enough that people are starting to comment on it. It's pretty common." The rider shrugged to show it was no big deal "Some people fight against it because they don't want the attention, others embrace it and just have a good time. Haven't you ever watched a TV show and just wished you could do that. Well now you a can."

"No Not really," he admitted, quietly . He wanted to say that he never even saw a TV until he was ten, but that wasn't him, was it? And even when he was asked to pilot the giant robot..... "I never wanted anything for my life. I just sort of carried on."

"Hmmm.... Have you found anything you like doing?"

"I've only been here for a few days..."

He didn't want to say he'd only been alive for a few days.... as true as he knew it was, it just didn't feel right.

"You gotta have some idea.... something you found you like?"

Shinji grinned, then squeezed the throttle down as hard as it would go. The turbine engine wailed to life to, screaming like a pained animal. The power meter was pegged at 'discharge' , while the digital numbers on the digital speedometer were a green blur. Shinji was dragged backwards by some giant hand trying to pull him off the back of the motorcycle.

He was laughing like a madman as the pressure eased, the speedometer reading a steady 334 kph, with the world 'Limit' flickering in yellow letters.

Benjamin Rhodes and the barking single-cylinder Yamaha...... had disappeared. It's headlight was a spark far behind, and quickly getting further. It was nearly lost in the glow of his own red taillights. The tunnel lights bled into a pair of continuous white strips lighting the way forward, broken only by the occasional burned-out gap. The roar of the wind rushing past drowned out the wail of the turbines.

It was lightspeed. It was ludicrous speed. It was a mad rush of power that seemed to surge through him. And it was under his control. It was his choice.

He'd left Benjamin long behind.

He released the trigger. The turbine coughed and cut tout immediately, the whine from the motors deepening as he coasted down. The power meter showed maximum regen as speed fell away. 160 felt like walking pace

Shinji'd come to a complete stop by the time the headlight re-appeared. He was waiting, still giggling inside his helmet while being secretely terrified that Ben would be annoyed by is sudden escape run.

The thrumm of the single cylinder engine grew deeper as it closed in, the spark of a headlight growing fast. It squeaked to a halt beside him, engine popping

Shinji opened his mouth to apologise, but what came out was hard, sharp laughter.

"God damn Shinji, you are one of Jet's." He was... impressed. "Of course, if you think that's quick, I'm going to have to put you behind the controls of a Valkyrie. "

"One of those big jets?" He glanced nervously behind him, as if expecting one to suddenly sneak right up on him.

"Well yeah. You can even call that an official job offer if you like. If you're ever stuck for work, we could always find a place for you as a pilot."

"But I don't know how to fly?"

It was the polite way to try to say no.

Ben shrugged his shoulders. "Neither did I at first. You can be anything you want to be. You're only limited by how hard you want to try. Dare mighty things, Shinji. rather than live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

------

The original description was:

"They're both what we call Gearheads. Car nuts, gun nuts, mecha nuts sort of people" "Best thing to say is, they're the sort of people who, if they discovered another asteroid was going to smash into their home in two years - instead of scooting out and just sticking a small thruster on it to inch it away and never worrying about it again, would spend the next 23 months rush-designing and building a Nu-Gundam replica to push it away at the last dramatic moment, just because they could."
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

The original description was:

"They're both what we call Gearheads. Car nuts, gun nuts, mecha nuts sort of people" "Best thing to say is, they're the sort of people who, if they discovered another asteroid was going to smash into their home in two years - instead of scooting out and just sticking a small thruster on it to inch it away and never worrying about it again, would spend the next 23 months rush-designing and building a Nu-Gundam replica to push it away at the last dramatic moment, just because they could."

I do believe there's room on the Gearheads' wiki page for that quote...

(copies and pastes)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Rakhasa]

"They're both what we call Gearheads. Car nuts, gun nuts, mecha nuts sort of people" "Best thing to say is, they're the sort of people who, if they discovered another asteroid was going to smash into their home in two years - instead of scooting out and just sticking a small thruster on it to inch it away and never worrying about it again, would spend the next 23 months rush-designing and building a Nu-Gundam replica to push it away at the last dramatic moment, just because they could."

See? That is what is wrong with the Gearheads. Wasting their time like that when they could have spent those 23 months designing an Absurdly Big Spacegun to blow up the asteroid (and possibly several nearby celestial bodies) at the last moment.

[robkelk]

"They're both what we call Gearheads. Car nuts, gun nuts, mecha nuts sort of people" "Best thing to say is, they're the sort of people who, if they discovered another asteroid was going to smash into their home in two years - instead of scooting out and just sticking a small thruster on it to inch it away and never worrying about it again, would spend the next 23 months rush-designing and building a Nu-Gundam replica to push it away at the last dramatic moment, just because they could."

See? That is what is wrong with the Gearheads. Wasting their time like that when they could have spent those 23 months designing an Absurdly Big Spacegun to blow up the asteroid (and possibly several nearby celestial bodies) at the last moment.

Well, that's the sort of thing that Noah Scott would do if he didn't think it was bad for business... and Noah suspects Ben Rhodes has already built a Spacegun and is just waiting for an excuse reason to use it.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

The difference between a spacegun and a Nu Gundam is that a Nu Gundam's not just for show

Even if the local insignia is derived from the Titans.... because a squad from the AEUG were literally the first customer through the doors and someone thought it'd be fun.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dakota]

"They're both what we call Gearheads. Car nuts, gun nuts, mecha nuts sort of people" "Best thing to say is, they're the sort of people who, if they discovered another asteroid was going to smash into their home in two years - instead of scooting out and just sticking a small thruster on it to inch it away and never worrying about it again, would spend the next 23 months rush-designing and building a Nu-Gundam replica to push it away at the last dramatic moment, just because they could."

See? That is what is wrong with the Gearheads. Wasting their time like that when they could have spent those 23 months designing an Absurdly Big Spacegun to blow up the asteroid (and possibly several nearby celestial bodies) at the last moment.

Actually most of the Gearheads would have still been arguing about how to best deal with the asteroid while the level headed ones like Sabre Fang have already started nudging it onto a different track.
"We've finally settled on big space gun to deal with the asteroid! Work will have to start right now for even a small chance of stopping it!"
"It's already been dealt with."
"WHAT!?"
"We nudged it onto a different course while you lot where still arguing. Maybe the next one you can blast with a big honkin' space gun."
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Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota

[LynnInDenver]

Dakota wrote:
Actually most of the Gearheads would have still been arguing about how to best deal with the asteroid while the level headed ones like Sabre Fang have already started nudging it onto a different track. 

"We've finally settled on big space gun to deal with the asteroid! Work will have to start right now for even a small chance of stopping it!"
"It's already been dealt with."
"WHAT!?"
"We nudged it onto a different course while you lot where still arguing. Maybe the next one you can blast with a big honkin' space gun."

This is, of course, predicated upon the assumption that they had not already built that cannon during their downtime "just in case"... and they've now got a really good target to test it out on...
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[robkelk]

There's another reason to not simply shoot asterods:

"So, you had one big target that you needed to nudge away. But you blew it up. Now you've got hundreds of small targets you need to nudge away. Great, just great..."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012