Kimberly Shan had time to kill, in a major way. It was the start of summer vacation, her fourth year of university. She had completed multiple courses of study, all paid for by the state. She now held multiple degrees in Astrophysics, Quantum Computing, and Ansibilics. And none of it interested her.
Kim tapped her fingers over her phone’s screen, bored. Kayley was going to arrive in a few minutes, but, well, that was a few minutes from now.
Kim tapped her fingers over her phone’s screen, bored. Kayley was going to arrive in a few minutes, but, well, that was a few minutes from now.
The Military-the Junta-had offered her one of the Ansiblic Communicators that their own personnel used, but she had turned them down. If the government needed her, every planetary communication network had ansibles at some point, so it wasn't like they couldn't contact her. And she sure as hell wasn't going to enlist, no matter what they did for her.
A message popped up at the top of her screen-Jonathan Ross, a friend from MCT. He fancied her, but was out of her league in pretty much every department, at least, all that counted. He was apparently attractive, but she had decided long ago that, as far as relationships went, that would just be an added perk to her. Plus, since he was a freshman, that made him three years older than her, which was just creepy.
Such were the dangers of being a wunderkind, she thought wryly.
She dismissed the text from Ross just in time for her device to vibrate again, this time with a text from Mom.
‘Almost@main entrance’ it read, ‘Were RU?’
Kim sighed, then replied ‘I’ll be at the Main Entrance in five minutes.’ Why was she the only one who cared about things like spelling, grammar, and punctuation anymore?
‘txh’ was the reply. Not even ‘thx’-’txh’.
Kim sighed, pocketed her phone, and strolled over to the huge entrance to ‘Madame Redfairy’s Wonderful Toy Land’. The place was, she had to admit, genius. It had taken the art of separating people from their money to something far more advanced than it had any right to be.
It wasn't a store, it wasn't a theme park-it was something perfectly balanced in between, to make money off of both sides of the coin. She had actually been hired by them at one point to look over some stupid idea some executive had had to make ‘Ansibilic communication throughout the park’.
Had she not been forced by her age-14, at the time-to be using an assumed identity to talk to him, she would have slapped him. What she had done instead was inform them in no uncertain terms that putting two ansibles anywhere within a few miles of each other would cause distortion of things ranging from the speed of light to pi. That was why they didn't give civilians ansible phones-get two in the same spot, and weird things happened. Get the thousands per square mile that was routine in some cities... No-one had tested what would happen then. Words like ‘naked singularity’ were often thrown around, but they were idle conjecture. The one thing that was agreed upon was that it would be bad.
Even warships had to have complex, automated systems-and cutoff switches-to detect the warping of the universe’s fabric due to them. There was one story she had heard about the UTFS Valkyrie, where it had approached a derelict that still had a functioning ansible. The two ansibles had entered an Interchange State, which culminated in the derelict exploding.
Kim spied her family’s car, a sleek, new, gravcar, fully automated to enable it to navigate both ground and airlanes. A gift from the military, of course. They had issues with the word ‘no’.
The car was descending, slowly circling downwards. She smiled, and waved in greeting. Her parents, she could frankly do without. Her sister, Kayley though...
Consciously, Kim knew that Kayley was her way of imagining that she had a normal life. She projected her own desires onto Kayley, as part of a method of coping with her isolation.
Subconsciously though, she loved her sister. She could explain the complex biological reactions, hormones, experiences, genetics, and neural programming that caused this, but she prefered not to. Sometimes you needed to channel your inner monkey when dealing with this kind of-.
Something was wrong. One of the Gravitic thrusters on the car didn’t sound right. It could still fly, but it couldn't land.
She took her phone out, and started to type out a text. Then she froze-it would take too long.
Her mind ran through options. Text. No. Phone. No. Shout? Jump? Attract attention some other way? The landing sequence was loud, and the AI was supposed to take care of these anyway.
Logically, she knew what was happening, even as she calmly dialed the emergency services number. Her family was chatting, oblivious to the outside world. She couldn't be heard over the engine-she knew that from firsthand experience.
Any attempt to attract attention would either take too long, or go unnoticed, so she watched, helpless, as the car continued to descend, airspeed lessening, the loss of lift increasing the load on the gravitics, increasing the likelihood of a failure each second.
“Redfairy Funworld, this is Kim Shan, at the main gate. There’s a Gravcar crash in progress over here. There’s three passengers, one of them a child.” She said.
Thirty feet above the ground, it happened. The port forward thruster flared, then went dead.
There was a moment of serene calm, then the craft began to shake and tip, slowly at first, the effect growing greater and more chaotic as the moments passed. About half a second after the failure, the car careened off in a seemingly random, chaotic direction, and slammed into the dirt, top down.
Kim’s instincts-backed by reason-kicked in immediately, as she dashed over to the crash site.
She eyed the crashed car. She could identify what looked like two pairs of limbs sticking out from it, neither child-sized. She couldn’t move the car, obviously, so she glanced around for Kayley, fear and horror rising in her.
She forced the emotions down as she spied the body. Just treat them like any other patient. Be calm. Survival rates for these crashes area upwards of fifty percent, they’ll likely be fine.
She tried not to think about the fact that what those survival rates actually meant was that the chances of one or more members of her family dying were seven in eight.
She ran over to her sister’s body. She was face-down in the dirt, which was good-it minimized the risk of a spinal injury.
Kim did a superficial inspection, noting multiple lacerations, and very little if any apparent blood loss. Those were all good signs, of course.
She began to give basic first aid to her sister, at least, as much as she could without potentially jeopardizing her if she had a spinal injury.
You always had to watch for a spinal injury.
The Ambulance arrived a moment later, in an aircar of their own, touching down perfectly. A half-dozen EMT’s stormed out, like a squad of soldiers, one holding a Jester device-the gravitic manipulators used to move heavy objects, like downed Gravcars.
Now that they had arrived, Kim allowed her body to sink into shock as she answered the EMT’s questions.
She was ushered into the ambulance, and given a warm drink. She couldn't tell what it was.
Hours later, at the hospital, they finally got around to telling her about her family’s conditions.
Father: Dead.
Mother: Dead.
Kayley: Unconscious, but alive.
A man approached her in the atrium as she sat, absorbing that news. He was Indian, and wore a dark gray military uniform, with the the five star insignia of an Admiral of the Fleet. Only one man in the Republic held that rank.
Julian Shishani, First Citizen.
She knew exactly why he was here as soon as he sat down beside her. That didn't make it any less disgusting when the words came out of his mouth.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He said, extending a hand and placing it on top of hers. “I can’t imagine how horrible this is for you.”
Kim sat silently through his speech, suddenly conscious of the fact that she wore a blood-stained tank top and pair of short shorts. They weren't her usual attire, which was why she had donned them today-she hadn't wanted to be identified by anyone if she could avoid it.
“I wish there was something that we could do to help you.” He said.
“You’re going to say now that you’ll pay for her treatment if I join the military.” She said, voice cold and flat not just because of what he was saying, but because of the fact that she simply had no more emotion left to feel.
“I’m not going to deny that such a deal would be possible.” He said, voice perfectly calibrated to be caring and concerned.
“Did you kill them?” She asked.
“What?” Julian looked genuinely surprised.
He didn't get to be First Citizen by letting anyone and everyone see his true emotions though. She reminded herself.
“Did you kill my family?” She repeated. “Be honest with me, Julian. You gave them that car-was it programmed to fail like that?”
Julian hesitated for a moment, then bowed his head, and said “Yes.”
She looked down, and said. “Thank you. I’ll do it.”
He furrowed his brow. “What?”
He obviously knew her reasons, but she stated them anyway. “You've just proven that you’ll stop at nothing to get me in your military. If that includes murder, blackmail, whatever, you’ll do it. I’m a danger to whoever I’m around, whoever I love if you think like that. I’ll do it.”
He nodded, clearly able to respect the decision. “I won’t require anything more than that. We’ll stabilize her, and revive her if and when we can. I assume that you can find a ROTC Unit or Recruiter sometime in the next three years?”
“It would be better for everyone involved if you just have me transferred to Advanced Fleet School after I finish this year at MCT.” She answered. “Red tape won’t teach me tactics.”
“Old Mad Cal...” He smiles wistfully. “I remember my days of University... Your teams always fought like hell, but could never seem to get a good season in anything.”
She nods, and her face lifts a touch. “You should see our Robotics team this year. Not amusing for Blackacre’s team.”
She knew that her attempt at light humor was a coping mechanism. That didn't stop it from working.
Julian stood, and took off his military cloak, offering it to her. “Welcome to the fleet, Midshipman Shan.”
She hesitated for just a moment before taking it. Then, shaking herself, she touched it, and though she knew it to be illusory, she could feel a spark of static jump from it to her.
Her fate was sealed. She belonged to the Fleet now.
A message popped up at the top of her screen-Jonathan Ross, a friend from MCT. He fancied her, but was out of her league in pretty much every department, at least, all that counted. He was apparently attractive, but she had decided long ago that, as far as relationships went, that would just be an added perk to her. Plus, since he was a freshman, that made him three years older than her, which was just creepy.
Such were the dangers of being a wunderkind, she thought wryly.
She dismissed the text from Ross just in time for her device to vibrate again, this time with a text from Mom.
‘Almost@main entrance’ it read, ‘Were RU?’
Kim sighed, then replied ‘I’ll be at the Main Entrance in five minutes.’ Why was she the only one who cared about things like spelling, grammar, and punctuation anymore?
‘txh’ was the reply. Not even ‘thx’-’txh’.
Kim sighed, pocketed her phone, and strolled over to the huge entrance to ‘Madame Redfairy’s Wonderful Toy Land’. The place was, she had to admit, genius. It had taken the art of separating people from their money to something far more advanced than it had any right to be.
It wasn't a store, it wasn't a theme park-it was something perfectly balanced in between, to make money off of both sides of the coin. She had actually been hired by them at one point to look over some stupid idea some executive had had to make ‘Ansibilic communication throughout the park’.
Had she not been forced by her age-14, at the time-to be using an assumed identity to talk to him, she would have slapped him. What she had done instead was inform them in no uncertain terms that putting two ansibles anywhere within a few miles of each other would cause distortion of things ranging from the speed of light to pi. That was why they didn't give civilians ansible phones-get two in the same spot, and weird things happened. Get the thousands per square mile that was routine in some cities... No-one had tested what would happen then. Words like ‘naked singularity’ were often thrown around, but they were idle conjecture. The one thing that was agreed upon was that it would be bad.
Even warships had to have complex, automated systems-and cutoff switches-to detect the warping of the universe’s fabric due to them. There was one story she had heard about the UTFS Valkyrie, where it had approached a derelict that still had a functioning ansible. The two ansibles had entered an Interchange State, which culminated in the derelict exploding.
Kim spied her family’s car, a sleek, new, gravcar, fully automated to enable it to navigate both ground and airlanes. A gift from the military, of course. They had issues with the word ‘no’.
The car was descending, slowly circling downwards. She smiled, and waved in greeting. Her parents, she could frankly do without. Her sister, Kayley though...
Consciously, Kim knew that Kayley was her way of imagining that she had a normal life. She projected her own desires onto Kayley, as part of a method of coping with her isolation.
Subconsciously though, she loved her sister. She could explain the complex biological reactions, hormones, experiences, genetics, and neural programming that caused this, but she prefered not to. Sometimes you needed to channel your inner monkey when dealing with this kind of-.
Something was wrong. One of the Gravitic thrusters on the car didn’t sound right. It could still fly, but it couldn't land.
She took her phone out, and started to type out a text. Then she froze-it would take too long.
Her mind ran through options. Text. No. Phone. No. Shout? Jump? Attract attention some other way? The landing sequence was loud, and the AI was supposed to take care of these anyway.
Logically, she knew what was happening, even as she calmly dialed the emergency services number. Her family was chatting, oblivious to the outside world. She couldn't be heard over the engine-she knew that from firsthand experience.
Any attempt to attract attention would either take too long, or go unnoticed, so she watched, helpless, as the car continued to descend, airspeed lessening, the loss of lift increasing the load on the gravitics, increasing the likelihood of a failure each second.
“Redfairy Funworld, this is Kim Shan, at the main gate. There’s a Gravcar crash in progress over here. There’s three passengers, one of them a child.” She said.
Thirty feet above the ground, it happened. The port forward thruster flared, then went dead.
There was a moment of serene calm, then the craft began to shake and tip, slowly at first, the effect growing greater and more chaotic as the moments passed. About half a second after the failure, the car careened off in a seemingly random, chaotic direction, and slammed into the dirt, top down.
Kim’s instincts-backed by reason-kicked in immediately, as she dashed over to the crash site.
She eyed the crashed car. She could identify what looked like two pairs of limbs sticking out from it, neither child-sized. She couldn’t move the car, obviously, so she glanced around for Kayley, fear and horror rising in her.
She forced the emotions down as she spied the body. Just treat them like any other patient. Be calm. Survival rates for these crashes area upwards of fifty percent, they’ll likely be fine.
She tried not to think about the fact that what those survival rates actually meant was that the chances of one or more members of her family dying were seven in eight.
She ran over to her sister’s body. She was face-down in the dirt, which was good-it minimized the risk of a spinal injury.
Kim did a superficial inspection, noting multiple lacerations, and very little if any apparent blood loss. Those were all good signs, of course.
She began to give basic first aid to her sister, at least, as much as she could without potentially jeopardizing her if she had a spinal injury.
You always had to watch for a spinal injury.
The Ambulance arrived a moment later, in an aircar of their own, touching down perfectly. A half-dozen EMT’s stormed out, like a squad of soldiers, one holding a Jester device-the gravitic manipulators used to move heavy objects, like downed Gravcars.
Now that they had arrived, Kim allowed her body to sink into shock as she answered the EMT’s questions.
She was ushered into the ambulance, and given a warm drink. She couldn't tell what it was.
Hours later, at the hospital, they finally got around to telling her about her family’s conditions.
Father: Dead.
Mother: Dead.
Kayley: Unconscious, but alive.
A man approached her in the atrium as she sat, absorbing that news. He was Indian, and wore a dark gray military uniform, with the the five star insignia of an Admiral of the Fleet. Only one man in the Republic held that rank.
Julian Shishani, First Citizen.
She knew exactly why he was here as soon as he sat down beside her. That didn't make it any less disgusting when the words came out of his mouth.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He said, extending a hand and placing it on top of hers. “I can’t imagine how horrible this is for you.”
Kim sat silently through his speech, suddenly conscious of the fact that she wore a blood-stained tank top and pair of short shorts. They weren't her usual attire, which was why she had donned them today-she hadn't wanted to be identified by anyone if she could avoid it.
“I wish there was something that we could do to help you.” He said.
“You’re going to say now that you’ll pay for her treatment if I join the military.” She said, voice cold and flat not just because of what he was saying, but because of the fact that she simply had no more emotion left to feel.
“I’m not going to deny that such a deal would be possible.” He said, voice perfectly calibrated to be caring and concerned.
“Did you kill them?” She asked.
“What?” Julian looked genuinely surprised.
He didn't get to be First Citizen by letting anyone and everyone see his true emotions though. She reminded herself.
“Did you kill my family?” She repeated. “Be honest with me, Julian. You gave them that car-was it programmed to fail like that?”
Julian hesitated for a moment, then bowed his head, and said “Yes.”
She looked down, and said. “Thank you. I’ll do it.”
He furrowed his brow. “What?”
He obviously knew her reasons, but she stated them anyway. “You've just proven that you’ll stop at nothing to get me in your military. If that includes murder, blackmail, whatever, you’ll do it. I’m a danger to whoever I’m around, whoever I love if you think like that. I’ll do it.”
He nodded, clearly able to respect the decision. “I won’t require anything more than that. We’ll stabilize her, and revive her if and when we can. I assume that you can find a ROTC Unit or Recruiter sometime in the next three years?”
“It would be better for everyone involved if you just have me transferred to Advanced Fleet School after I finish this year at MCT.” She answered. “Red tape won’t teach me tactics.”
“Old Mad Cal...” He smiles wistfully. “I remember my days of University... Your teams always fought like hell, but could never seem to get a good season in anything.”
She nods, and her face lifts a touch. “You should see our Robotics team this year. Not amusing for Blackacre’s team.”
She knew that her attempt at light humor was a coping mechanism. That didn't stop it from working.
Julian stood, and took off his military cloak, offering it to her. “Welcome to the fleet, Midshipman Shan.”
She hesitated for just a moment before taking it. Then, shaking herself, she touched it, and though she knew it to be illusory, she could feel a spark of static jump from it to her.
Her fate was sealed. She belonged to the Fleet now.