BSC 4 Snippet 2

 Sitrep:

So, still sorting things out with Rea.

  I am struggling with the J8 cover, I've had 2 false starts so far. Unusual for me, I've only had that problem twice.

  In other news I'm pretty irate over my phone disabling my MP3 player. I admit, I'm a bit of a Luddite so I don't like streaming on my phone. I text, make calls, take pictures, and play my music. Oh, and use the calculator and notepad. That is IT. No games, no movies, no streaming. No Google store. (which still uses gigs of data a month for some reason even though I don't have it linked to my Google account or drive.) 

  The great Google gods disabled the music player this morning and the phone says I "have to delete my MP3s and sign up for Youtube music streaming," and oh, pay if I want it ad free.

  I don't stream. Period. Why would I stream something I have on the damn device? I just need it to exercise with. Ten songs, that is it. GRR. Besides, to stream I have to increase my bandwidth which means my phone bill will triple in price. PASS.

  I'm looking into downloading an alternative FREE app now. Either that or buying a cheap MP3 player. I hate corporate crap like that. Why can't people leave shit well enough alone? "Adapt, change is good." Yeah, in some circumstances I get that, but I'm also a firm believer in:

 "IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T "FIX" IT!!!"

 GRR.

 Let's squeeze as much money out as we can! GRR. $5.99 a month, $13.99 a month... grrr...

Rant over.

Anyway, here is the snippet:

 

Chapter 2

 

Jacklynn was grateful that Akira finally installed the new rotors for the Skycrane. The bird wasn’t used often but she hated having it down for any length of time.

The process of making the new rotors had gotten Akira and Candy to make a couple of spares. Each had been carefully balanced. They had also made a run of spare components, all common parts. She was pretty certain it was with an eye to making another helicopter in the future.

At the moment there weren’t many calls for helicopters or air cars. They were short ranged birds and had limited utility. A drone could fill the surveillance role easily without risking a large craft and a precious pilot.

The only real call for a helicopter was as an air ambulance. She hoped they would look into that soon but with so many other projects going on, she doubted it.

>>>*<<<

Mitch took a tour of the school section within the base. It had been expanded after the first exodus to the first apartment complex. The hallway was lined with posters and pictures that the kids had made.

He looked in a window in a door and smiled as he saw his son. Tucker was chronologically 5 Terran years but hit all the marks for an 11 year old. He was enjoying school and seemed to suck it up like a sponge. He also looked more and more like Mitch. It was a little spooky to some people. He tried to think of his son as just that his son, though he had most of the same genetic package.

Most in that he was 99 percent Mitch’s genetic package but the memes had added something to make him grow faster than normal and some giant cell in his reproductive system to manage that. They knew that the one in women intercepted sperm and then created the clones. They were not so certain about what the one in the males did however.

It was just one more question for the scientists to solve. He returned his attention to the school, watching the kids as they did a math lesson. His son looked in his direction and he waved before moving on. He didn’t want to distract or embarrass the kid.

Kathy had restructured the school system. The kids learned the basics, reading, writing, math, health, first aid, and science, but along with them computer skills, animal identification and avoidance, art, music, and history. History was more of a general history of the world as well as the history of their present world.

She loved to put in new discoveries during science time.

Geography class was limited to the basics about what hills and mountains were, continents, and so on. Mitch remembered having to memorize every state, every capital, then countries, capitals, and major cities around the world. It had been tedious. The syllabus was more focused on their present world. The other 11 continents were mentioned but the geography lesson was focused on their continent and communities.

He envied Tucker and the kids. They just had to memorize 23 communities.

He also envied them for not having to get into specifics on some subjects. A lot of the knowledge they had to memorize when he had been a kid was redundant. Who needed to know the name and location of every river in the world? Knowledge was easily accessible on the net. Kathy was focusing on teaching the kids to access that knowledge and think for themselves.

“They are growing up so fast,” Josie murmured, nodding her chin the classrooms.

Too fast,” Mitch murmured. He felt a bit of resentment over his son and the other kids losing their childhood and being forced to grow up so fast. He hoped they didn’t age too fast later in life. Cassie and the other doctors were supposed to be looking into it sometime soon.

Josie nodded.

“Are you considering having a kid soon?”

She grimaced. “I’ve got to find a guy first,” she said with an eye roll. “You lot like to get killed off here or snagged.”

He snorted. She was one of the former long term patients that had been in hospice care. She had been a part of Chief Robert’s drop and community. She and others like Mary and Charlie had been badly chewed up by the shark hounds during their run to Copper Town.

She’d spent years getting her wound packed and her body hooked up to machines until Cassie had intervened. Cassie’s determination to not just accept things as they were but to redress them had awakened many to the possibilities of the new world. She had learned cutting edge regenerative medicine with the hopes of helping her own rebuilding but also her friends.

Josie was a case in point. She’d lost a good chunk of her torso from a bite. There had been too much to replace so the wound had been open. It had been gruesome. Sandra had tried to do something about it but had failed.

Cassie however had worked with Ducky to essentially industrialize regenerative medicine. They had cultured stem cells in vast quantities from each patient, and then grown what was needed to rebuild them.

Once she was on her feet Josie had stepped up her work with the school and college.

“Well, if you can’t find someone and still want a kid there is always the frozen popsicles. And Cassie has made it so you can choose if you want to have a clone or a normal kid or even carry an independent fetus to term,” he said.

She nodded. “I dunno. I’m thinking about it,” she said. He nodded. “I just got my life back you know? I may take a year or so to really get my feet under me.”

“No pressure,” he assured her with a smile. “Sorry if I sounded like I was.”

“What about you?”

He snorted. “Sandra is about to go walk about again.” She nodded. Everyone knew about the upcoming launch of Mercy Flight II in the late spring. “I doubt she’d want to travel pregnant and morning sick.”

Josie made a disgusted face at the idea and nodded again.

“Still,” he turned back to Tucker’s classroom. “It would be nice to give Tucker another sibling before he’s too old to appreciate it. Not that he doesn’t love Cassie and vice versa.”

She smiled softly.

“Anyway, any problems?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just a question about the school and college. Are they going to be constructed this year?”

He nodded. “That’s the plan. But plans change and I understand that Brian has been ‘convinced’ to build the next apartment complex early.”

“Convinced?” she asked as she wrinkled her nose at him.

He snorted. “Let’s just say the 2 ladies he’s with did the convincing.”

Josie blinked and then chuckled.

“Granted having a kid with them in that small apartment suite probably pushed things further along,” he said as he cocked his head. Josie nodded. Caroline was growing like a weed. She definitely had lungs though; Mitch had heard her bawl several times when she’d been teething.

Gina passed them and waved her new hand. Josie grinned. ‘Still breaking it in?”

Gina nodded. She did her best to wiggle her fingers. They moved though slowly. “It’s a work in progress.”

“Keep on it. The more you move it the more you’ll get used to it,” Josie said.

“Oh I know. Agnes gave me homework to do while she was back home. I’ve been doing it as much as I can,” Gina said. She pulled a little red heart out and made a show of squeezing it. “See?”

Josie nodded.

“I don’t think you are up for arm wrestling just yet but eventually,” Mitch quipped. Gina snorted.

“I’ll settle for texting and typing,” Gina said. “And being able to shoot,” she said as she indicated the pistol in the holster on her hip.

“I thought you learned to use your other hand?” Mitch asked.

“I did. But the chief wants me to use both. Phyllis too,” Gina replied. Mitch nodded as Josie crossed her arms. “Are we going to build an indoor range sometime in the near future?” Gina asked.

Mitch smirked. “Why? Don’t like going out in the cold?”

Gina leveled a look on him. “Damn straight!”

He chuckled. “Well, we could set up something. Maybe in that cavern you lost the original hand in… think we could have centipedes to target practice with?”

She shuddered. “Don’t even go there. Though I’d love to blast some of the bastards into goo,” she growled. “Arby set up a video game for me to do that last year. It was good therapy.”

Mitch blinked and then nodded. “Well, I hope you never have to face that situation again. But hopefully if you are in it you will survive it.”

“That’s the plan,” Gina said dryly as she waved her new hand again and then took herself off.

Josie nodded politely to him and then went back to the office. Mitch nodded back and then went back to doing his rounds.

>>>*<<<