Finding the colonial communications center was easy. After paying off her hotel room, grabbing a quick nondescript breakfast of locally-produced proteins, carbohydrates, and what was optimistically called ‘coffee’ at an equally nondescript vendor-shop, Nanami quickly headed for the core colonial administration complex and the accompanying cluster of Administrative-Utilitarian architecture sprouting from it. The tall tubular frame pyramid of aerials atop the bunker-plex told of a tachyon-pulse comlink, just what she wanted.
Nanami presented her credentials to the bored-looking male secretary/technogeek manning the door to the public communications center. Behind her , a technician worked on the air conditioning; the air was close and stuffy inside the tech-center, redolent with the smell of hot plastics and ceramics, and too many people. To Nanami’s enhanced senses, it was a punch in the face.
So distracted by the aural assault was she that she didn’t notice the flaring of the man’s nostrils, the dilation of his eyes, and the sudden flush to his skin.
So she was extremely grateful when the suddenly helpful technician buzzed her in, ahead of several other people who had already been there. Fortunately, the inner commcenter was air conditioned (more for the benefit of the electronics than for the people) and blessedly well ventilated.
She quickly found an available communications kiosk, slipped in, fed in one of the credsticks she had on her, and booted up the terminal.
Let’s see; download the last few months of public news dispatches, do a quick read-thru of recent news, and compose a few messages. Okay, let’s get to work.
Mudpie lived up to its name; dingy and brown, but once away from the acrid smells of burnt propellent and mineral dust at the spaceport, the air was humid and smelled of a combination of fresh turned earth and thunderstorm.
Ranma and Kodachi breathed it all in as they walked along one of the roads into the town; it wasn’t as bad as Tokyo smog, at least as they remembered it.
To the casual eye, the two might have looked like just a pair of tourists, a young couple out to find their fortunes in the universe, not yet in a hurry to get places and do things, but more wrapped up in each other, as they walked along, rather than take the more convenient mass transit around the colony.
They’d only be half-right; the two WERE wrapped up in each other’s company, but they were hardly NOT unaware of their surroundings.
All the time, Ranma was studying the land and its lay, watchful for possible threats. He was also looking for useful places; practice areas, where he might train without interference, bol-tholes, where he and his pack might come and go unnoticed, resources, that might be used, paths of retreat, if it came to that. Memories of traveling under a father who’d rather go noticed and live off the land without paying, combined with instincts to find dark places to hide and to den, and complemented each other with unexpected efficiency.
And as for Kodachi...
She too, shared the same alertness and attention to her surroundings, but with even greater attention to possible places to nest.
She could feel the new life growing inside her, how many and what form she could not know as yet, but she knew that any offspring born of her and Ranma would be glorious.
She felt a shifting inside her, and her hand dropped down to touch a deceptively still-flat stomach. She could sense the eagerness of the life within to blossom, to grow, and to finally make its way out into the outside world, but their situation dictated otherwise. Until they knew more, and were more familiar with their new lives, she dared not let her pregnancy proceed at the pace it was capable of. It would not do to endanger that life or bring it into the world under less-than-optimal circumstances. And so she managed to slow it down, control its maturation, until conditions were better.
Patience, little one(s), patience. Your Mommy and Daddy just have to make things right, and you can come out, grow big, grow strong, and we’ll be one happy family.
”I’m telling you, the THING that fucked up Rolleye and Simmie was a damn COMBAT SYNTHETIC! Some freakin’ corp weapons platform gussied up as a girl! The corps musta imported it in and slipped it into the colony to test it...or worse! Kessler’s complained about the ‘colonists getting uppity’ before! Maybe they mean to quietly take us all down with this thing!”
”You’re always going on about the Company bringing in exotics to take care of the ‘problem’, Shaggy! Face it, Rolleye bit off more than he could chew and got hammered for it, and you ran like an Earth-rat with your tail between your legs! So shut your piehole and go away!”
”Actually, Dean, Shaggy might have a point, for once. ”
”Since when do you get off defending a loser like Shaggy, Doc?”
”Since that ship arrived yesterday. By Shaggy’s description, that lady he ran into got off it with two other people. Supposedly technicians, but they sure don’t act like them. Unless they’re big corps times, they were sure traveling in style for ‘techs, but they’ve been snooping around the colony rather than staying up at the corporate housing ‘plex. Instead, one of them wanders into the MishMash? Either that lady was damned stupid or looking for a fight.”
”You think Shaggy’s actually RIGHT?”
”Corps have been known to do uglier things than slipping in enforcers to shake up the working stiffs, Dean. And Rolleye, Simmie, Batman, and Kurs all look like they got walllooped by something MEAN.”
”Okay, okay; I still not believin’ the Company would bring in a combat team just to take down the likes of Rolleye and scare Shaggy, but keep an eye on the newbies. If it IS a corp takedown or weapons test on us, I don’t wanna be caught with pants down.”
Let’s see. More colonies dropping off the air, bans on travel to and from several systems, including some of those missing colonies. Quarantine cited in some cases, maybe even genuine disease in some of them. Yeah, Bugs or Hunters, maybe even the damn Space Jockeys, whoever they are. CMC reclaiming a few of them, but with large casualties...double or triple those figures for the civilian losses. The national governments were calling for bigger defense budgets, there was a lot more recruitment advertising going on, and the ICC was pondering new trade taxes to pay for security. Rumors of new weapons being deployed in the field; hah! Wonder if I had any input on those? Not that I’m likely to ever know, or get credit.
Overall, if one read between the obvious propaganda and the unofficial nay-sayers, the truth was probably this; the CMC was spread dangerously thin, the line was holding just barely, and the ICC was quietly praying that nobody else unexpectedly jumped onto the bandwagon against Humanity.
Nanami then skimmed the corporate news; a merger here, a breakup there, minor fluctuations in stock, but the big fish seemed unaffected by war or plague. Surge in defense contracts, but that was to be expected.
Yutani-Umbrella activity remained quiet, their latest stock figures and analysis unremarkable and noncommittal. No clues there, but to a cynical observer inactivity suggested bad times indeed if they weren’t trumpeting expansion.
Finally she finished skimming, and booted up another comm function at her rented work station.
”Okay, let’s see...(*click*click*click*clat*)” To: Professor Masamichi Fujisawa, University of New Tokyo. Hey, Prof! Doubt you expected to hear from one of the old gang like this! I can’t go into detail about what I’ve been up to and where I’ve been, but I find myself remembering old times. You remember old Prof. Xavier’s lectures on evolution? How it took a slow and steady course, but sometimes suddenly made unexpected leaps and bounds? I sometimes feel like I’m living that lecture all over again...”
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(Posted Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:11)
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