Heh. No, this is the montage song:
I spent the afternoon going through everything in my helmet. I
did it in the Mansion, to make use of the mainframe's search
power -- after all, I'd been dropping my helmet on the docking
stations for how long now? Everything I'd added in my travels
had *long* been tranferred, scanned, indexed and cross-referenced
by the applications that were launched every time it detected my
helmet on a dock.
What I was looking for was... well, anything that would enhance
or open up metatalents in someone who had them. Which in this
case included the mage gift, even the half-assed pipsqueak one
the wizards of this world possessed. If I could boost that to
what I considered bare minimum useful, and maybe reset their
plasticity so they could acquire alternate styles of magic, I
could turn them into a force that could steamroll Lord Emo into
a pale pink paste.
I'd never really done this before; I'd only ever approached it as
a theoretical exercise, but I already had a couple of candidates.
Queen had a good song. And there was that one from the Disney
film which had come out just before I'd been ejected from
Homeline.
Yeah, let's start with that one.
"Computer," I said, feet up on my desk, hands behind my head,
leaning back in my nice comfy chair in front of the Big Board.
(Which, being as the Mansion was just a simulation, was blank
except for readouts from the mainframe.)
"Command?" the synthesized voice responded.
I could have used the keyboard which sat five or ten centimeters
past my heels, but I was feeling lazy. "Song database."
"Ready."
"Display lyrics and metadata for 'I'll Make a Man Out of You'."
"Working... displayed on screen nine."
I glanced through the words of the song. *Let's get down to
business/To defeat the Huns...* Yeah, I remembered this right.
I'd gotten the feeling I could use it as a kind of high-speed
'boot camp' effect. I reached out for the paper cup of tea to my
right and cautiously took a sip. It had cooled enough to drink
comfortably, so I took another as I read through the lyrics for
what had to be the first time in years.
Right, my original plan had been to confirm that it did what I'd
thought it would, and then give Gracie, Ruth and Nina first shot
at trying it. Too bad, girls, now the DA was going to get the
benefits of this song before you. Taking another mouthful of tea
I dragged my finger up along the screen to scroll to the next
page. I'd just give my notes in the metadata a once-over then
head right over to the Danger Room and...
I spit out my tea. *Thirty-four uses of the song logged?*
When the hell had *that* happened?
I paged to the notes. It *should* have held a one or two-
sentence description of my feel for the song's possible effect.
Should have. Instead...
"'This song produces a time-compressed "training camp" effect,
squeezing six to eight subjective weeks of intensive study,
instruction and practice into its objective duration'," I read
off the screen. "'By default it produces a standard "boot camp"
experience, but any subject known to a sufficient degree by *any*
participant can be imparted to everyone under the song's effect,
if the choice is made to do so at the outset of playback. Only
one skill or set of related skills -- boot camp training, a
single martial art up to fifth dan equivalent, or a semester's
worth of high school algebra, for instance -- can be imparted per
use of the song. No food, drink or rest is required for the
subjective duration of the song, however, participants will find
themselves exhausted and famished upon its completion, though not
dangerously so. Any instruction in physical skills will need at
least a week of 'real world' practice to 'anchor' them, or the
acquired benefits will fade away. Purely mental skills require
no "rehearsal".'"
"Holy. Shit," I whispered. When had I used this song so often
that I could write up an abstract that detailed? I had no idea.
But I had a pretty good guess who had benefitted from those
thirty-four uses. Seven Japanese schoolgirls of whom I had no
memory whatsoever.
But now I knew I had to have trained them to be *major* badasses.
Who *were* those girls? And why had I gone to such lengths for
them?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I spent the afternoon going through everything in my helmet. I
did it in the Mansion, to make use of the mainframe's search
power -- after all, I'd been dropping my helmet on the docking
stations for how long now? Everything I'd added in my travels
had *long* been tranferred, scanned, indexed and cross-referenced
by the applications that were launched every time it detected my
helmet on a dock.
What I was looking for was... well, anything that would enhance
or open up metatalents in someone who had them. Which in this
case included the mage gift, even the half-assed pipsqueak one
the wizards of this world possessed. If I could boost that to
what I considered bare minimum useful, and maybe reset their
plasticity so they could acquire alternate styles of magic, I
could turn them into a force that could steamroll Lord Emo into
a pale pink paste.
I'd never really done this before; I'd only ever approached it as
a theoretical exercise, but I already had a couple of candidates.
Queen had a good song. And there was that one from the Disney
film which had come out just before I'd been ejected from
Homeline.
Yeah, let's start with that one.
"Computer," I said, feet up on my desk, hands behind my head,
leaning back in my nice comfy chair in front of the Big Board.
(Which, being as the Mansion was just a simulation, was blank
except for readouts from the mainframe.)
"Command?" the synthesized voice responded.
I could have used the keyboard which sat five or ten centimeters
past my heels, but I was feeling lazy. "Song database."
"Ready."
"Display lyrics and metadata for 'I'll Make a Man Out of You'."
"Working... displayed on screen nine."
I glanced through the words of the song. *Let's get down to
business/To defeat the Huns...* Yeah, I remembered this right.
I'd gotten the feeling I could use it as a kind of high-speed
'boot camp' effect. I reached out for the paper cup of tea to my
right and cautiously took a sip. It had cooled enough to drink
comfortably, so I took another as I read through the lyrics for
what had to be the first time in years.
Right, my original plan had been to confirm that it did what I'd
thought it would, and then give Gracie, Ruth and Nina first shot
at trying it. Too bad, girls, now the DA was going to get the
benefits of this song before you. Taking another mouthful of tea
I dragged my finger up along the screen to scroll to the next
page. I'd just give my notes in the metadata a once-over then
head right over to the Danger Room and...
I spit out my tea. *Thirty-four uses of the song logged?*
When the hell had *that* happened?
I paged to the notes. It *should* have held a one or two-
sentence description of my feel for the song's possible effect.
Should have. Instead...
"'This song produces a time-compressed "training camp" effect,
squeezing six to eight subjective weeks of intensive study,
instruction and practice into its objective duration'," I read
off the screen. "'By default it produces a standard "boot camp"
experience, but any subject known to a sufficient degree by *any*
participant can be imparted to everyone under the song's effect,
if the choice is made to do so at the outset of playback. Only
one skill or set of related skills -- boot camp training, a
single martial art up to fifth dan equivalent, or a semester's
worth of high school algebra, for instance -- can be imparted per
use of the song. No food, drink or rest is required for the
subjective duration of the song, however, participants will find
themselves exhausted and famished upon its completion, though not
dangerously so. Any instruction in physical skills will need at
least a week of 'real world' practice to 'anchor' them, or the
acquired benefits will fade away. Purely mental skills require
no "rehearsal".'"
"Holy. Shit," I whispered. When had I used this song so often
that I could write up an abstract that detailed? I had no idea.
But I had a pretty good guess who had benefitted from those
thirty-four uses. Seven Japanese schoolgirls of whom I had no
memory whatsoever.
But now I knew I had to have trained them to be *major* badasses.
Who *were* those girls? And why had I gone to such lengths for
them?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.