22.3 Li'l Alycia and the Blackboard

Li'lycia draws nicely. ("I didn't even say good-bye to Brigand," Jason suddenly says. "Jeez.") Also, I have no doubts Li'lycia could reach the top of the blackboard. There was this time with an orbiting space laser and the only clue the main baddy had that it was about to blow up was a rude word scribbled on the outer housing, right where the security camera was focused. She never did tell me how she did that.

*** Dave H. said: ("I didn't even say good-bye to Brigand," Jason suddenly says. "Jeez.") I assumed that was part of the "very slow, entirely non-suspicious exiting of the premises." Actually... Amir offers to have Brigand go with you. "He's love a visit to Halcyon, I'm sure."

[Well, I literally never thought of Brigand on exiting, hence Jason feeling guilty about it, but ...] A thousand reasons why that's a bad idea cross Jason's mind. Getting Brigand out of there overrides all of them. "Oh, hey -- sure, that's a great idea. I'm sure he'd love to see the old place. Thanks!" [Insert appropriate and distracting, "Ready to go for a plane ride, ol' buddy?" dialog.] [This is assuming Brigand's gotten over his wiggins over Numina. If not, we'll still cope.]

Brigand has spent most of his life associating the smell of Chin created robots with "danger," and unfortunately, Numina still carries a hint of that, thanks to some of her components.

Ah! I thought it was just a general "She doesn't smell / move / perceive right" thing. That makes perfect sense. I have no doubt that Nunina will eventually win him over, because that's what she does. Unless his failure to reconcile with her becomes a dramatic metaphor for how she's Other and Will Never Be Accepted.

*** Dave H. said: Ah! I thought it was just a general "She doesn't smell / move / perceive right" thing. That makes perfect sense. I'm glad! I wasn't sure if it came across in the scene, but I was having similar misgivings about MANY parts of that scene, so...

I'm not sure (as Jason reflects) that I understand many parts of that scene, but confusion and mystery are a natural part of Jason's life, so yay. (Also, there's also a high-pitched dog-audible whine from the antigravs that might be irksome to him. In which case, when she's "sitting down" in the copilot seat, he might actually get more friendly with her.)

I'll see if I can provide you with some sort of transcript that highlights stuff I intentionally got wrong with Amir as opposed to things I might have accidentally got wrong

Classic writing group review problem. You can just say, "It all gets cleared up next chapter" and we'll believe you. :-)

It turns out it almost all intentionally wrong! Go me!

Doyce T. said: It turns out it almost all intentionally wrong! Go me! Yeah, the only thing that was overtly off was that Amir was ostensibly a paraplegic ... which is No-Prized away by any number of things, from over-pessimistic initial diagnosis, to Jason's mind-fuckery expanding on how badly Amir was hurt and how guilty he feels about it, to Quill-backed medical rehab and bionics, to handwaving Arabian mysticism, to it being an error in the simulation, all without even touching on the GM just making a continuity error. :-)