"Control, this is Test, we're ready to begin."
She watches the status readings, as the various thermal sinks began doing their best efforts to contain the rapidly rising
temperature of the new design's main plasma drill. Choosing this isolated area of Antarctica as a test site was ideal, given that no one would particularly
care about them tunneling through several hundred feet of the coldest, hardest ice in the world to see how far they could press the thermal shear, and they
were unlikely to do any lasting damage, to say the least.
"Proceed, Test-1. Begin the first test pattern."
"Right, marking first drill area."
***
Ritsuko Akagi was perhaps the most brilliant student on campus, but brilliance only rarely correlates to social skill. As such, Ritsuko was also one of the
most reclusive of the students at Paragon University, with dozens of rumors spread across the campus as to what bizarre and curious habits she might indulge in
during her free time. Truthfully, however, Ritsuko was really just rather lonely, as her intelligence and reputation intimidated those that she would have
socialized with, and those less concerned with her reputation were more concerned with her stunning good looks. She was no stranger to the concepts of romance,
but she hardly intended to be some trophy conquest, and so her isolation had continued apace.
That is, before the Dean of Students had called her in.
"Miss Akagi, you're aware of our tutoring program?"
Ritsuko nodded, mentally sighing as she deduced the reason she'd been asked here.
The Dean gave her a sympathetic look as he continued. "There's a student who's been having a bit of trouble in areas that we're aware
you're somewhat skilled in, and so we were thinking that possibly you could give her a bit of assistance. Of course, it's entirely voluntary,
but..."
Ritsuko heard the translation from his tone of voice. Yes, it was voluntary, but refusing would be a black mark that would stick out to recruiters in other
finishing schools, especially if she kept getting these requests and refusing them. Still, there was little either of them could do.
"I'm happy to help, sir. Who will I be tutoring?"
The Dean nodded, pulling out a small file. "She's a freshman in the engineering track. Her name's Misato Katsuragi."
***
"Ten meters in, Control. No sign of instability."
Ritsuko watches the temperature readings, but more out of habit than anything. If Misato's voice is anything to go by,
this is entirely routine so far, and she tested every system three times over before letting Misato near the thing.
The target was heated and then dropped from the air, allowing it to bury itself fairly deep in the glacier. As cold and hard
as this ice was, any conventional cutting tools would've taken three times the time to get this deep. Ritsuko allows herself a sharp smile of satisfaction
in how her design's worked out. Miss Chang will be pleased.
***
"God, you have no idea how good it is to get out of that damn campus," Ritsuko noted, taking a drink of her beer as Misato knocked back a slug from
her can and nearly drained the entire thing in one go.
"Tell me about it. I mean, it was worse when I didn't know what I was doing, but even now...damn intellectuals need to learn how to relax and let the
stick slide out of their collective ass," she grinned, getting a laugh from Ritsuko.
"That's the truth. Really, I'm not blind or anything, but if they realized I wasn't going to bite their head off for not being a genius about
hypertension artificial muscle fiber theory, they might realize I'd be just as happy to see a movie as anyone else. And the ones that ignore that entirely
are all pigs," she noted with a snort.
"So, which one do I fall into?" Misato laughed.
"You're no genius mechanic, but you're also too damned confident for me to intimidate you if I tried," she chuckled, taking a drag from her
cigarette and getting a dirty look from Misato. "What? You're abusing your liver more than I'm abusing my lungs. Just by sheer quantity."
"Guess so, but really, you're ruining your enjoyment of the beer."
Ritsuko shook her head, but crushed out the cigarette. "Fine, Miss Alcoholic Connoisseur."
***
The screen shows the prototype almost 100 meters into the ice, and the power output has yet to so much as twitch. Leaning
back, she sips at her bottled water and watches the digging continue. Misato's probably wishing she had a beer now, but the woman was too professional by
half to consider getting buzzed while operating the test equipment.
Well, that and the extremely detailed explanation that Ritsuko'd given her of what would happen if she let herself get
sloppy because she was buzzed while behind the wheel. Sometimes the only way to get the proper response out of her was to put the fear of God into her. Ritsuko
chuckles at the thought of it.
***
"Happy birthday!" Misato grinned, stepping in with a small box. Ritsuko smiled, welcoming her into the apartment even as they sat down on the couch,
the rather small, private party something Ritsuko was far more comfortable with than the larger public one that Misato'd arranged for her earlier in the
day.
"So, one has to wonder what you'll do for an encore after that surprise party and coming out of the cake personally," Ritsuko noted bemusedly,
getting a laugh from Misato.
"Oh, that was worth it just alone for the look on your face. I think for about ten seconds, you were certain you'd fallen asleep near the chem
lab's fumes again."
"You popping out of a cake has nothing on that experience," Ritsuko chuckled slightly. "Freaking bats, man."
"You and your chemical induced hallucinations," she chuckled, handing her present over to her. "I figured you'd appreciate this," she
smiled.
Ritsuko looked at her curiously for a second longer, then undid the ribbon and lifted the top off the box....at which point the small gray kitten inside meowed
at her. She stood there for a full twenty seconds, just staring at the little cat, before reaching forward to pet it.
Misato blinked as she jolted her hand back a second later, concerned. "Did he bite you or something?"
"No....just....static electricity," Ritsuko laughed. "Well, that settles your name, little guy. Guess I'll be calling you Tesla."
***
"I'm getting some strange readings here, doc."
Ritsuko glances over as the monitor, frowning at the heat signatures. They're garbled, as if refracted through ice, and
the drill shouldn't be putting off enough heat to spread that far out. That'd take a drill the size of a Rikti dropship from the old war movies.
"....Misato, this is Control. Shut down the drill. I'm getting strange telemetry here and if the drill's
beginning to develop quirks..."
"Wha......at abou,,the dr....Con...l? Yo...e break....u.."
Ritsuko's eyes narrow as she feels a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.
"Misato, this is Control. Shut the drill down now. Repeat, SHUT THE DRILL DOWN NOW."
***
"Your work is exemplary, Doctor Akagi," Lei Chang noted, rustling through the papers. "We'd be happy to have you here. But it notes at the
end you have a condition for employment."
Ritsuko nodded, internally swallowing before pressing ahead. "I'd like to bring along a person I've worked with before. She's more than
competent in the areas you'd be hiring her for, and we've worked well together in the past."
Lei Chang considered her, the CEO steepling her fingers in front of her for a long moment. "...very well," she said finally, and Ritsuko refused to
let herself sigh openly in relief.
"Your terms are acceptable. This dossier contains the plans we have worked up so far, so if you'd just look through them and get back to us..."
***
"The drill's power output is spiking!"
Clamors of voices resound in her head, but Ritsuko already knows what they're saying. Something's gone wrong.
Misato's been completely out of contact for ten minutes. She's supposed to check in every five in case of a
communications glitch. The temperature readings don't make sense. There's too many, too close to the drill to fit within the test parameters. And now
the power output is spiking. In seven minutes it'll reach its limits to contain the output. And they can't remotely get anyone there in time....
Ritsuko runs the numbers a dozen times, but they all come back the same, leaving her waiting to see Misato's transponder light up showing her bailing out
of the apparently malfunctioning device. And, for the first time in her life, praying.
Six minutes and thirty seconds, the transponder activates, radio signal coming in the clear over the dedicated line.
"Misato, where are you?!" she practically yells into the receiver.
"Rits, there's something out here....interfered with the drill. You've got t-"
Three seconds later, there is a brief, two minute long double sunrise in Antarctica, the shockwave rattling every
installation for a ten mile radius. The transponder goes dark again.
***
Ritsuko groaned as she sat up in bed, sweat-soaked undershirt clinging to her. She wasn't going to be in top shape tomorrow. The nightmares never stopped
with one iteration. Never. They always continued over and over, all night long, when they came.
But she had work to do. Their work. She had enough to do for both of them, now. And so she curled up in bed, Tesla and a few others cuddled against her in vain
attempts to comfort her, and tried to sleep.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
She watches the status readings, as the various thermal sinks began doing their best efforts to contain the rapidly rising
temperature of the new design's main plasma drill. Choosing this isolated area of Antarctica as a test site was ideal, given that no one would particularly
care about them tunneling through several hundred feet of the coldest, hardest ice in the world to see how far they could press the thermal shear, and they
were unlikely to do any lasting damage, to say the least.
"Proceed, Test-1. Begin the first test pattern."
"Right, marking first drill area."
***
Ritsuko Akagi was perhaps the most brilliant student on campus, but brilliance only rarely correlates to social skill. As such, Ritsuko was also one of the
most reclusive of the students at Paragon University, with dozens of rumors spread across the campus as to what bizarre and curious habits she might indulge in
during her free time. Truthfully, however, Ritsuko was really just rather lonely, as her intelligence and reputation intimidated those that she would have
socialized with, and those less concerned with her reputation were more concerned with her stunning good looks. She was no stranger to the concepts of romance,
but she hardly intended to be some trophy conquest, and so her isolation had continued apace.
That is, before the Dean of Students had called her in.
"Miss Akagi, you're aware of our tutoring program?"
Ritsuko nodded, mentally sighing as she deduced the reason she'd been asked here.
The Dean gave her a sympathetic look as he continued. "There's a student who's been having a bit of trouble in areas that we're aware
you're somewhat skilled in, and so we were thinking that possibly you could give her a bit of assistance. Of course, it's entirely voluntary,
but..."
Ritsuko heard the translation from his tone of voice. Yes, it was voluntary, but refusing would be a black mark that would stick out to recruiters in other
finishing schools, especially if she kept getting these requests and refusing them. Still, there was little either of them could do.
"I'm happy to help, sir. Who will I be tutoring?"
The Dean nodded, pulling out a small file. "She's a freshman in the engineering track. Her name's Misato Katsuragi."
***
"Ten meters in, Control. No sign of instability."
Ritsuko watches the temperature readings, but more out of habit than anything. If Misato's voice is anything to go by,
this is entirely routine so far, and she tested every system three times over before letting Misato near the thing.
The target was heated and then dropped from the air, allowing it to bury itself fairly deep in the glacier. As cold and hard
as this ice was, any conventional cutting tools would've taken three times the time to get this deep. Ritsuko allows herself a sharp smile of satisfaction
in how her design's worked out. Miss Chang will be pleased.
***
"God, you have no idea how good it is to get out of that damn campus," Ritsuko noted, taking a drink of her beer as Misato knocked back a slug from
her can and nearly drained the entire thing in one go.
"Tell me about it. I mean, it was worse when I didn't know what I was doing, but even now...damn intellectuals need to learn how to relax and let the
stick slide out of their collective ass," she grinned, getting a laugh from Ritsuko.
"That's the truth. Really, I'm not blind or anything, but if they realized I wasn't going to bite their head off for not being a genius about
hypertension artificial muscle fiber theory, they might realize I'd be just as happy to see a movie as anyone else. And the ones that ignore that entirely
are all pigs," she noted with a snort.
"So, which one do I fall into?" Misato laughed.
"You're no genius mechanic, but you're also too damned confident for me to intimidate you if I tried," she chuckled, taking a drag from her
cigarette and getting a dirty look from Misato. "What? You're abusing your liver more than I'm abusing my lungs. Just by sheer quantity."
"Guess so, but really, you're ruining your enjoyment of the beer."
Ritsuko shook her head, but crushed out the cigarette. "Fine, Miss Alcoholic Connoisseur."
***
The screen shows the prototype almost 100 meters into the ice, and the power output has yet to so much as twitch. Leaning
back, she sips at her bottled water and watches the digging continue. Misato's probably wishing she had a beer now, but the woman was too professional by
half to consider getting buzzed while operating the test equipment.
Well, that and the extremely detailed explanation that Ritsuko'd given her of what would happen if she let herself get
sloppy because she was buzzed while behind the wheel. Sometimes the only way to get the proper response out of her was to put the fear of God into her. Ritsuko
chuckles at the thought of it.
***
"Happy birthday!" Misato grinned, stepping in with a small box. Ritsuko smiled, welcoming her into the apartment even as they sat down on the couch,
the rather small, private party something Ritsuko was far more comfortable with than the larger public one that Misato'd arranged for her earlier in the
day.
"So, one has to wonder what you'll do for an encore after that surprise party and coming out of the cake personally," Ritsuko noted bemusedly,
getting a laugh from Misato.
"Oh, that was worth it just alone for the look on your face. I think for about ten seconds, you were certain you'd fallen asleep near the chem
lab's fumes again."
"You popping out of a cake has nothing on that experience," Ritsuko chuckled slightly. "Freaking bats, man."
"You and your chemical induced hallucinations," she chuckled, handing her present over to her. "I figured you'd appreciate this," she
smiled.
Ritsuko looked at her curiously for a second longer, then undid the ribbon and lifted the top off the box....at which point the small gray kitten inside meowed
at her. She stood there for a full twenty seconds, just staring at the little cat, before reaching forward to pet it.
Misato blinked as she jolted her hand back a second later, concerned. "Did he bite you or something?"
"No....just....static electricity," Ritsuko laughed. "Well, that settles your name, little guy. Guess I'll be calling you Tesla."
***
"I'm getting some strange readings here, doc."
Ritsuko glances over as the monitor, frowning at the heat signatures. They're garbled, as if refracted through ice, and
the drill shouldn't be putting off enough heat to spread that far out. That'd take a drill the size of a Rikti dropship from the old war movies.
"....Misato, this is Control. Shut down the drill. I'm getting strange telemetry here and if the drill's
beginning to develop quirks..."
"Wha......at abou,,the dr....Con...l? Yo...e break....u.."
Ritsuko's eyes narrow as she feels a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.
"Misato, this is Control. Shut the drill down now. Repeat, SHUT THE DRILL DOWN NOW."
***
"Your work is exemplary, Doctor Akagi," Lei Chang noted, rustling through the papers. "We'd be happy to have you here. But it notes at the
end you have a condition for employment."
Ritsuko nodded, internally swallowing before pressing ahead. "I'd like to bring along a person I've worked with before. She's more than
competent in the areas you'd be hiring her for, and we've worked well together in the past."
Lei Chang considered her, the CEO steepling her fingers in front of her for a long moment. "...very well," she said finally, and Ritsuko refused to
let herself sigh openly in relief.
"Your terms are acceptable. This dossier contains the plans we have worked up so far, so if you'd just look through them and get back to us..."
***
"The drill's power output is spiking!"
Clamors of voices resound in her head, but Ritsuko already knows what they're saying. Something's gone wrong.
Misato's been completely out of contact for ten minutes. She's supposed to check in every five in case of a
communications glitch. The temperature readings don't make sense. There's too many, too close to the drill to fit within the test parameters. And now
the power output is spiking. In seven minutes it'll reach its limits to contain the output. And they can't remotely get anyone there in time....
Ritsuko runs the numbers a dozen times, but they all come back the same, leaving her waiting to see Misato's transponder light up showing her bailing out
of the apparently malfunctioning device. And, for the first time in her life, praying.
Six minutes and thirty seconds, the transponder activates, radio signal coming in the clear over the dedicated line.
"Misato, where are you?!" she practically yells into the receiver.
"Rits, there's something out here....interfered with the drill. You've got t-"
Three seconds later, there is a brief, two minute long double sunrise in Antarctica, the shockwave rattling every
installation for a ten mile radius. The transponder goes dark again.
***
Ritsuko groaned as she sat up in bed, sweat-soaked undershirt clinging to her. She wasn't going to be in top shape tomorrow. The nightmares never stopped
with one iteration. Never. They always continued over and over, all night long, when they came.
But she had work to do. Their work. She had enough to do for both of them, now. And so she curled up in bed, Tesla and a few others cuddled against her in vain
attempts to comfort her, and tried to sleep.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."