Chapter Sixty-Two - Xenocide Act III; Leah's Pod And Leah's Gift

Oniomania, on·i·o·man·i·a

An obsessive or uncontrollable urge to buy things.

“Onio. It’s funny how the Greek word for shopping is so similar to the Japanese word for demon.”

– Dr. Yovenheit, Linguist

 

***

 

I was busy daydreaming tangents, when a whump and a splash made me turn around.

There was an…egg settled into the mud next to Leah, who was busy being eaten by some weird super-black goop?

What was I watching?!

As I walked over, the egg thing unfolded four powerful spider legs and stood up. All the mud and water just ran right off, without leaving a fleck of residue.

That insane black made picking out any details nearly impossible, and as I approached, I realized that didn’t change with distance. Thin golden lines acted as both decoration, but also, in some manipulatively dominating way, as succor for the eye and mind. Something to anchor you, something to hold on to.

Leah’s new…something, had finished forming up around her, and had created a cowl around her head. At the front, mist pooled down in tiny intricate streams to create a translucent veil that served to obscure her face ever so slightly, while her incredible hair was a riot of rich red curling and bouncing in front of her chest, highlighted by the utter black of the suit and just really, really there in an extreme contrast. 

The front of the egg opened up, and from within a small pilot’s couch emerged on a boom. I could see some spaces for additional items, say, prosthetic limbs, behind the couch, along with four rather slender robot arms hidden away at the bottoms.

Panels opened up at the top with two new turrets readying themselves. More arms at the bottom of the, I guessed, cargo space.

So much stuff to unpack!

“What’s this?” I asked Leah, who grinned at me and said, “Pilot’s pod! This is actually supposed to be inside a proper Warforge Technologies tank, but they’re way too expensive for us to afford. The scout units start at five thousand points, battle tanks start at twenty thousand, and the real frontline heavy-duty ones, they’re fifty thousand minimum. I also can’t control those with the prosthetics chip in my head. They’ll require dedicated pilot’s implants instead.”

She looked back at the egg and patted its side. “This thing’s the piloting pod for any of those, and it’s meant to be emergency bailout, too, with life support and everything. See that hollow space there, underneath the turrets in the cube? Usually there would be a tiny jumpjet engine in there along with some survival machinery, but I couldn’t afford that. We can use that space for freight instead. Say, that lure, once we’re done here?”

Big tanks that had a pod for the pilot? Real fucking Sci-Fi! Cool!

“And your suit-thingy?” I asked, poking Leah in the side. She didn’t even squirm. Shit. Was that anti-tickle armor?! Boo! No fair!

Leah read my face and smirked at me. She straightened up her posture and set her arms akimbo with that knowing grin, as she answered with a dry tone. “Under-armor suit. It’ll protect me from anything as long as I’m not trying to play volleyball with a tank.”

I squinted at her, and remembered something. “Hey, Leah. You know, when you first put on my overall, I punched you a little to let you see how it worked, yeah? Since you have new armor, I think we should do that again.”

She looked sideways, pursed her lips a little, and said, “I can still suffer broken bones and bruises if I get hit hard enough. I just won’t get perforated.”

“I’ll be gentle, I promise. Just a little. Just the tip!” I held a fist up, but Leah caught the obvious innuendo and snorted at me.

“Fine, fine. Messing around or not, I should probably know how it’ll be like to get hit anyway, right?”

She moved to stand with her legs shoulder-width apart and clenched her muscles, ready to receive my fist.

I scratched the back of my head, feeling a little cringe. This was meant to be a joke, but Leah, well, she just turned it around on me, huh?

Although, yes. She wasn’t exactly wrong either. I breathed out and put the discomfort aside.

“Alright. Don’t bite your tongue, yeah?”

“Mmm.”

I dropped my hips a little and made fist at about the height of my stomach. Stepped forward, letting momentum and weight connect with her gut, pushing through a little as I turned with the move. A slow punch, less about explosive energy, and more about using my body mass and gravity to drive into her.

The material of Leah’s suit didn’t react to it, but Leah oofed at me, and let the strike carry her back a step.

She looked down and rubbed her tummy, breathing deeply, the other hand over her mouth as she swallowed dry. A moment later she looked up and said, “Well, probably shoulda said this first, Tinea, but the suit absorbs hard and fast impacts. It hardens up and forms a shell just like the old one, but better, more efficiently. It doesn’t trigger from something this slow.”

Oops.

“Um, sorry? Are you, uh, okay? Need, like, a bag? To puke in?”

Leah huffed at me, amusement in her eyes. “Nah, I’m fine. Wasn’t expecting that in particular, but my stomach is already settling.”

Soo, uh. I wasn’t exactly up to properly punching her. Um.

I scrunched my eyebrows at her, and she laughed. Put her hand behind my head and pulled me in for a hug, tucking me under her chin. “It’s fine, Tinea. I’m not gonna ask you to hurt me. Funnily enough, now I know what it’ll be like to get hit too slow for protection, so I guess you helped me anyway.”

Slow hits… Oh.

“Um, Leah, could you still wear the overall above that? It’ll still stop those tentacles from beating you up.”

She soothed me with slow strokes of a hand down my hair. "This one will already stop those since they're fast enough, and the overall would hinder some of the suit's defensive functions. Plus, the pod would do a better job than the overall at protecting me in melee combat. If something can break past the egg, it was going way too fast anyway, right? That's what the suit is for, to protect against spalling, shockwaves, and to be a last-ditch effort at survival. I could've gotten one that acted against any hard contact, but it would've been much weaker in combination with the pod as a result. And very soon I'll replace this thing for a much advanced version that'll do everything, anyway." She plucked at the skintight suit.

I gave her a squeeze and stepped back, looking around us. At the ATVs next to the lure.

Pointing at hers I asked, “What about your quad? Are we leaving it here?”

Leah shook her head. “Nah. The pod can follow us until the bike breaks down or we can sell it or something. The egg’ll basically be a second set of turrets on an extra-large drone, or something.”

I nodded. That’d work. Um. Last thing… Maybe some proper weapons for Leah herself? I looked at the point counter and realized we had only twenty points left, combined. Oh my, that pod had been expensive, huh?

I looked at it again, and considered that a little more. Fair enough, it was supposed to be the heart-piece of rather imperious-sounding battle vehicles.

So, not enough for a weapon. 

I pointed my thumb at her ATV and asked, “Hey Leah, want to get yourself a primary? That Foxteeth is nice and all, but it’s a bit anemic, all things considered.”

She grinned at me. “Don’t worry, I’ve got something in mind. I’ll have Ypsi deliver it as soon as we’ve got the points.”

“Right. I guess we’re ready then? Shall I set off the lure?”

“One moment!” Big smile. Hmm?

She rummaged around in her shawl, tip of her tongue between her teeth, and then presented me with two somethings.

A tiny orb with some sort of miniaturized jack at the top, and, a beautiful…earring? No, not quite. It did have a pretty dangly bit, but it wouldn’t quite work as an earring with that long bar of gold. Hmmmm? I tilted my head sideways.

Leah smiled at my interest and laughed at my confused expression, carefully brushing my questing antennae out of the way.

“It’s a present. For you.” Then seriousness stole the easy smile from her face. “And also a thank you. For rescuing me, and keeping me in one piece. Mentally speaking.”

Everything that I was refocused on her, looked into her eyes and found the weary relief in there. The pain and terror she’d gone through, the helplessness that had sought to destroy her.

For just a moment, I was back in that cell, where I found her lying nearly shattered on her bed. That intense need to love and provide flashed through me again, and tears sprung to my eyes.

Overwhelmed little sobs escaped me, and I didn’t know what to say. So I glomped Leah and kissed her on her collarbone, the same spot she’d used so many times to signal togetherness before she could talk, or walk.

Leah hugged me right back, aww’d at me a couple times, made lots of soothing noises. And just held me, while this…tiny bit of an emotional flashback shook me.

Eventually, after a few minutes of hugging and crying and lots of gentle headpats, my tumultuous brain calmed down. Leah released me while wiping the tears from my cheeks with warm metal hands, smiling tenderly and letting me feel very not alone.

I thought back to my own childhood, and thought, Girls are great. So easy to just share love and contact, no having to worry about somebody messing with you over it…

I tore my thoughts away from that whole depressing topic with a shake, and instead looked at Leah again. She still smiled that lovely smile, and I decided to return it with a brilliant one of my own.

“Thanks.” I said, nose all stuffy. “So, what’ve you got for me?”

She chuckled and dug out the presents again.

“I designed this with Ypsi and Tynea’s help. We combined your esoteric defenses catalog, and my Warforge Technology one, to create this rather powerful field emitter. From mine, comes the micro-reactor slash capacitor combo inside this bar.”

She held up the jewelry-looking thing, which had a bar that was maybe two fingers long, and maybe half, or a quarter, of a finger in diameter. It had some very thin wires lying flush against it on one end along with what I now recognized as the female mate to the orbs jack, and was wider and flatter on the other end with what looked like a three-way combination of a hairclip, comb, and adhering pad.

“And this here,” she lightly flicked the pendant hanging from the socketed end, “is the force field emitter, from your catalog, with the gem being the core itself. That powerplant-emitter combo lets this thing be quite a bit stronger than it should be, really. It can stop a single tank shell at maximum output, according to Ypsi. Although, it’ll need to go through a lengthy recharge after that, so it’s a one-time-save-your-bacon kinda thing. And only for your head - the forcefield is really small. I’ll let Tynea give you the specific details.”

The pendant was an artistic rendition of a leaf with a little gem in the lower third of it. Beautiful filigree, and it reminded me a little of my own antennae with the way those ‘veins’ of the leaf were swung. Or maybe it was more like the golden filigree I often saw on Leah’s Warforged stuff?

Either way, that sounded like some seriously impressive power out of this tiny thing.

“Want me to help you put it on? It goes on your forehead, by the way. And it’s removable, of course.”

Oh! Indeed not an earring.

I nodded, and said, “Thank you!”

Leah grinned at me, and her words made me giggle. “Nope. Thank you.”

She touched the blob with the jack to my forehead, just slightly off-center, and I felt warmth penetrate my skin.

“This is an over-under-skin tektoo that provides the computing. I’ll share my view with you in a second.”

“Mhm!”

Then she…combed my hair with the bar? And tucked the thing against my scalp once she had created a nice and neat spot, where it held itself with the adhesive pad.

Finally, she jacked the jack into the slot, and with a ping against my aug, the new device greeted me.

“Oh, hello!”

“Hmm?” I’d surprised Leah a little with my outburst.

“Ah, it’s working, and saying hello. Um, let’s see. On-off switch, and, oh! I can change the default shape of the pendant?”

“Yeah, it is the antenna for the emitter and modulates the forcefield. It needs to be able to reshape itself for that.”

“I see. I’ll leave it as it is, though.” I said, as I flashed her a smile. “And color of the gem?”

“It’ll glow a bit, like a bright LED. I set it to a color to match your antennae’s particular rainbow spectrum. By the way, about the forcefield. Um, remember when I hinted not to bother with anything expensive for the rain? You could set the forcefield to very low output to keep your head and antennae dry. It’ll last for hours like that.”

“Oh, sweet!” I toggled that on, and a pinkish glow illuminated my bangs and undersides of my antennae. Strong enough to be noticeable, but not strong enough to be annoying. Neat. Then an ultra-thin layer lit up the electromagnetic senses of my antennae for half a second, before it settled into a very low barely-there background hum. Little zaps crackled where raindrops hit a barrier. Nice!

“And finally, it’s asking me for sensor input. Hmm.” I tried feeding it the raw data stream from my antennae and voilá, it worked!

Leah looked at my forehead and said with satisfaction, “There you go.” 

A few eye swishes later, she shared her view with me. I upsized the window, and watched as tiny orange pinpricks spread a few centimeters from the connection point, chased by midget wires that made them look like mini constellations. The little wires that had lain flat against the bar sprouted, and formed cybertech-looking connections to several close spots of this tattoo.

I was very happy with it. My vanity—greetings!—was happy, too. It looked beautiful, it looked functional, was functional, and it definitely worked with my face.

I squeezed Leah tight, which she happily accepted.

Then she poked my nose, thumbed at the lure, and said with a big smile, “I think we’re good now. Wanna go for it?”

I grinned, nodded definitively, and flicked a switch. “Yup, let’s!”

The device extended its pole, and the familiar hypnotic hum of a Six streamed from it at nearly ear-shattering volumes, made bearable by the painkilling spray.

My grin grew a lot more vicious.

 

***

 

Remember the pendant from the illustrations? I’ll post it again, here: