Blindsided
An Argento Soma Fanfiction
By Prospero Hibiki The Grandmaster Mongoose God of Misdirection, Caffeine, and Those Socks You Lost Last Tuesday hell_frost@hotmail.com
Brought to you by Frozen Hell Productions
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the sole property of their creators and owners whoever they may be. The characters of the series Argento Soma are being used without permission. No profit is sought nor will any be received for the production or publication of this work.
Accidents & Fate
Here is where I belong. It's where I should have been all along really. I loved being a pilot, but somehow a part of me was always most at home in a research laboratory. Looking around I can see that this room certainly qualifies as one. It was an unused room before they started moving in the things I had asked for. Funny that they had so much unused space available here, only three levels down from the command center. I think Commander Inez knows, or at least suspects, who I really am. There was almost no resistance to my suggestion of working like this until I get better. If I get better. No, I need to keep a positive outlook on things. I will get the vision back in my right eye. Nothing else is acceptable.
For the first time ever I'm the only person in a particular lab and so it's setup completely to my specifications. I'm not required to keep it artificially neat to accommodate other researchers unable to remember where everything is. My own miniature network sits strewn across the room on various tables, with the main server standing tall in the corner. Each node has it's own processor and can function on its own and can grab time from the server's as needed to work on the various projects I have running at all times. Cables are everywhere underfoot since I'm constantly moving terminals around to clear space for other things. Things like an inch/foot scale model of Frank, which can be disassembled into his original parts. The same with the Sarg, or at least the parts that I've been able to find complete schematics for. Yet another mystery I need to solve. Schematics of just about everything I could think of line the walls. The Sarg, Frank, the Ulysses, the GTO fighter (Ground To Orbit for those who don't know), and gun systems from hundreds of weapons all find their way onto any free space of wall and many must fight to prevent being covered.
Constantly hundreds of ideas are bouncing though my head. I've found that the impulse to speak out loud hasn't diminished and I've taken advantage of that by positioning recorders at each terminal as well as hanging overhead microphones throughout the room. One computer is devoted solely to not only tracking my movements to ensure that the nearest recorder to me is on, but using a voice recognition system developed by Maki it also sorts the contents of each file by various reference points before sending links to the computer containing research on that topic. At any moment any ideas on, say, gravity projects get shuffled off to the computer where I do gravity research. I'm running out of chairs with all the moving around I do from one station to another. I'll have to see about getting some more.
People always stare at me whenever they stop by for whatever reason, but I push them out of my mind as unimportant. I think I've managed to piss off most of the staff in the complex with this attitude really. Commander Inez and Captain Heartland are among those that are just amused. In fact, they keep commenting on how I need an assistant in here. I really don't want someone else in the lab more often than I can help it. There are ideas that I've had that I don't want anyone finding out about, and some nights I wake up in a cold sweat having dreamt of what could happen if the military got a hold of my ideas on sympathetic vibration. I think some people are already too curious about Excalibur as it is. But at times I silently agree with them. I'm getting way too many ideas to concentrate on any of them properly. I really need someone to force me in one specific direction at a time the way Guinevere did while I was in the hospital.
Hattie spends a little bit of time each day in here. At first it was something of a bother because she reminds me so much of Maki, but over the past week that I've been here I've gotten used to her being here. Often she reacts to my verbal thoughts as if they were requests, directing me to the very station that containing the files I was talking about. I'm slightly wary of her though for I think she's discovered one of the biggest secrets in my lab. Angel was Maki's last project before taking off to work for Professor Naguchi. An adaptive AI, Angel is the secret behind my research project system. Ever so slowly, as I add additional processors to the network, she's getting smarter and faster. With her main terminal hidden inside the floor no one will ever know about her. Hattie thinks of Angel as a nickname of the network, and I've tried to encourage that attitude. More than anything else the thoughts of Angel in the hands of anyone else is too horrible to even consider. Soon she'll be able to communicate with me verbally as well as the reverse.
My musings are cut short by a slender hand being waved in front of the monitor that I am currently looking at. Following the hand around to my blinded, right side I can see that it belongs to Lt. Green. "Yes?"
"You need to go home now Lt. Soma. It's already 2100 hours. Even mad scientists need to sleep occasionally." She sniffs lightly. "And might I add showering to the list?"
Staring at her I can't help but wonder about her once more. She's almost as mysterious as I am, and knowing my own past what does that say about hers? "I'll probably be here for a few more hours. Have a nice night." Turning back to my monitor I continue to type in my notes on possible armament upgrades for the Sarg's main gun. It's always seemed to be incredibly unstable as evidenced by...my thoughts are cut off as Guinevere reaches across my line of vision once more and this time she turns my head to face hers.
"You don't seem to understand my dear Lt. Soma. You are being kicked out of your office until 1000 hours tomorrow morning." My expression must have displayed my confusion because she continues. "These orders are directly from Cmdr. Inez so there's no use arguing with them. She also told me to make sure that you eat something, and since the cafeteria closed several hours ago that means that something else has to be done."
Exasperated by being interrupted once more I wave my hand a few times. "Sure, sure. In a few minutes." When she releases my head I turn back to finish off my thought until the monitor turns off. "Or I can save and come with you now if you'd prefer." Seeing her nod I sigh. Turning the monitor back on I do a quick save and head over to the record computer. There I'd installed a special button under a protective, plastic flip cover that will execute the sort and link program for the day's data as well as turning off the recorders.
Guinevere rolls her eyes at me as I walk to the door. "If you're finally ready?"
"So what exactly does this something else entail?" I'm really hoping it doesn't mean much because I really just want to go back to my apartment and work from my computer there. I don't think I'll mention this to Guinevere though. The thought of getting her any more upset with me is rather disturbing. Instead it might be good to use her tactics against her. "After all I am rather in need of a shower and a change of clothes."
"Well that's true." She looks over at me as we get into the elevator. "Well for that I'm just going to have to take you to your place so you can get washed up and changed before we head out." She continues ignoring the look of horror I must have on my face. "From there we have reservations for dinner at a rather nice place that's slightly off the beaten path." I have no response for that and so the rest of the trip to my apartment passes by in silence as I wonder just why she's doing this.
True to her word Lt. Green lets me out of her site only long enough to take a shower and when I'm finished she's already set out a nice button- down, dress shirt and some slacks, neither of which I can remember buying. But some how their style seems familiar. It occurs to me once I've put them on and look in the mirror that they are something that my devil might wear. Guinevere pushes me back into my bathroom telling me to shave and once I look into the mirror I can't help but agree. I do look a sight with my scars, eye patch, and remaining unshaven would certainly not add any respectability to my appearance. Agonizingly several ideas that would have furthered my work on the armament upgrade have come and gone by the time I finish shaving, and I resolve to soon install some microphones in proximity to the vanity.
As I'm patting my face dry, I step into the main living area of my room only to stop in horror. Lt. Green is holding in her hands a framed photo that I know for a fact wasn't in this room when I left this morning. Several of my friends from my college days are in it with Maki trying unsuccessfully to hide behind someone in the background. The only thing that saves me from complete discovery is that I was the one taking the picture. Still I can see that something in the photo is bothering her. I can only try to distract her and hope for the best.
"I see that you've found that old photo of my cohorts." She looks up questioningly. "Yeah, those are some friends from my restless youth, before I settled on becoming a pilot."
"There's something familiar about this photograph." My heart speeds up slightly in panic, and almost bursts when she looks up at me sharply. "There in the background. Isn't that Maki Agata?" She reaches out with the frame and I take it trying to stall for time.
"Oh, yeah. I met her at this barbeque. She was there with her boyfriend or something. She'd done some work with us on our video game. Wrote the voice recognition portion all on her own in a week. Gave us a copy of the program in case we wanted to use it on other things. It's pretty good. It's what I use in my lab. Don't know what happened to her after that." I look up at her quizzically praying beyond all hope that she'll buy this. "How do you know her?"
She looks at me like I'm an idiot, which is probably a lot better than if she were looking at me like I was a liar. "Don't you know that Maki Agata was Professor Naguchi's primary assistant when he built Frank?"
"What? I had no idea. Everything I've come across just said 'his assistant' or some such. Her name was never mentioned." Right now I can see my life flashing before my eyes, and I swear that I will at least maim my devil when I next see him. "So are we ready to go yet? Now that I'm not working, I'm starved. I should probably put a mini-fridge in the lab so I can at least keep some food for when the urge strikes me." Tossing the photo onto the bed, I take Guinevere's elbow in my hand and lead her to the door.
The trip to Guinevere's apartment isn't as silent as the earlier one with her asking me about some of the things I'd been working on recently. Several times though she stops me saying I'd passed beyond the realm of small talk and into the realm of a research discussion. Every time I'm with her, Lt. Green manages to expand beyond any of my previous views of her. At first I'd thought of her as whimsical, something, which made her fearsome reputation as a pilot and her more spectacular one as a marksmen so hard to believe until I had seen her in action. Now I can see some of what has been eluding me before. Whatever she does Guinevere always devotes all of her energies, making it the most important thing in her universe. I'd seen it at work, but now it was obvious that she did the same at other times.
Stepping into Guinevere's apartment revealed quite a bit about just how seriously she took her free time. Even the entryway had evidence of past exploits in an enormous collage of photos showing her participating in various activities. Hanging by a single hand from a rock face in the Rocky Mountains, skydiving in Egypt, surfing, skiing, camping, and anything and everything else.
I hadn't noticed that she wasn't beside me any longer until she stuck her head back around into the small hallway. "Just make yourself at home in the living room while I get changed." Just as quickly as she appeared, she ducked out of sight and very shortly after I could hear the shower running in her bathroom.
My first reaction to her living room is one of shock. She obviously cared enough to request an apartment larger than mine, and the room is practically packed with what I can only call stuff, for the lack of a better term. There are strange items everywhere, from a sword attached to the wall next to a rifle, some famous impressionistic paintings or rather good fakes, a fur rug belonging to what I sincerely hope was an artificial tiger sitting before a television with most every game system known to man hooked up to it. Sitting down on a rather nice leather couch, I jump up in surprise when I hear a noise from under me. It's a whoopee cushion. Picking it up, I hold it in front of my face and stare at it. This does not bode well for whatever evening Guinevere has planned tonight.
Trying to regain some of my perspective on the evening I walk over to her bookcase to see just what she's placed inside of it. To my surprise there seem to be over a dozen, floppy, soft-cover books all containing riddles and word games of the sort that she threw at me while I was in the hospital. I'd think it an excessive reaction to helping out a sick friend if the covers on most weren't battered with age and use. Moving on along the shelves I find quite a few books and journals on physics and various space sciences. One of the journals had even published an article of mine, but my quick browsing doesn't find that particular issue. Most of the items on this topic are ones that I've read, though a few of the journals have me itching to check them out. I'll have to remember to re-subscribe to them now that I'm researching again. There are also quite a few books on biology. They cover a wide variety of subjects within the field but I soon notice a pattern. Aside from the standard texts, most of the others are devoted to different aspects of treatments for a wide variety of ailments or conditions. These too appear well thumbed through as do the journals of this type.
Backing up to the large, puzzle books I find other books on just about every physical activity I can think of off of the top of my head, as well as many I wouldn't have ever thought of. These in contrast to most of the others appear almost unused, with but the occasional fingerprint marring their covers or pages when I care to check. Other books litter the remaining shelves ranging from the trashy romance novels that Maki used to read every so often to classics written by Melville, Twain, Tolkein, Kircher, Asimov, Bradburry, Plato, Weber, Hemmingway, and many countless others.
Turning around I almost yell in astonishment when I find Guinevere standing in front of me with her head tilted, a curious expression on her face. "Do my bookshelves pass inspection, Lt. Soma?"
I don't know why, but I feel the incredible need to answer her. "I used to subscribe to several of the physics journals before my accident. I was thinking how I should renew since I'm going to be researching once more." As soon as it leaves my mouth I know I've said too much, but she doesn't seem to notice. Instead of having to cover up my mistake I find myself taking in what she's wearing for the first time.
It's nice, is the first thing that comes to mind. Very nice. The sort of thing that many a guy would love for a blind date to show up wearing, especially if the person in question filled it out as well as Guinevere did hers. It was a green, silk dress, in a Chinese style that hugged her curves from her shoulders to her knees. The sides were slit up the leg dangerously high and it took all of my concentration not to have my eyes look for more of her leg to expose itself. In changing the direction of my gaze I finally notice the pattern embroidered upon it in gold thread. It's an Asian dragon that coils around her waist and around to her back with the dragon's head coming over her right shoulder and resting on top of her heart. The design itself gets a chuckle out of me.
"What is it?" She turns around and I get a much better view of just how well the dress fits her before she stops in her original position. "Does it look okay?"
My heart stops. This is one of those questions that I've always feared answering. Do I tell her the truth that she looks absolutely stunning and risk getting thrown out, or do I brush it off as adequate seeming suave and sophisticated and subsequently offending her? Oh God, please just open the ground under me now and swallow me whole. After an agonizingly eternal second I decide to go with what made me chuckle in the first place. "It's just that my name literally means Dragon in Japanese. It's a beautiful dress and you wear it stunningly." Dear God, did I actually say that? The ground did swallow me up because this must be hell!
Of all of the possible responses, the one I didn't anticipate at all was Guinevere bursting into laughter. "I'll have to remember that. This one is my favorite because its color matches my name." She turns and walks back towards her kitchen area. "Dinner will be in about twenty minutes." Stopping once more, she turns. "Unless you would like to give me a hand in the kitchen?"
By Prospero Hibiki The Grandmaster Mongoose God of Misdirection, Caffeine, and Those Socks You Lost Last Tuesday hell_frost@hotmail.com
Brought to you by Frozen Hell Productions
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the sole property of their creators and owners whoever they may be. The characters of the series Argento Soma are being used without permission. No profit is sought nor will any be received for the production or publication of this work.
Accidents & Fate
Here is where I belong. It's where I should have been all along really. I loved being a pilot, but somehow a part of me was always most at home in a research laboratory. Looking around I can see that this room certainly qualifies as one. It was an unused room before they started moving in the things I had asked for. Funny that they had so much unused space available here, only three levels down from the command center. I think Commander Inez knows, or at least suspects, who I really am. There was almost no resistance to my suggestion of working like this until I get better. If I get better. No, I need to keep a positive outlook on things. I will get the vision back in my right eye. Nothing else is acceptable.
For the first time ever I'm the only person in a particular lab and so it's setup completely to my specifications. I'm not required to keep it artificially neat to accommodate other researchers unable to remember where everything is. My own miniature network sits strewn across the room on various tables, with the main server standing tall in the corner. Each node has it's own processor and can function on its own and can grab time from the server's as needed to work on the various projects I have running at all times. Cables are everywhere underfoot since I'm constantly moving terminals around to clear space for other things. Things like an inch/foot scale model of Frank, which can be disassembled into his original parts. The same with the Sarg, or at least the parts that I've been able to find complete schematics for. Yet another mystery I need to solve. Schematics of just about everything I could think of line the walls. The Sarg, Frank, the Ulysses, the GTO fighter (Ground To Orbit for those who don't know), and gun systems from hundreds of weapons all find their way onto any free space of wall and many must fight to prevent being covered.
Constantly hundreds of ideas are bouncing though my head. I've found that the impulse to speak out loud hasn't diminished and I've taken advantage of that by positioning recorders at each terminal as well as hanging overhead microphones throughout the room. One computer is devoted solely to not only tracking my movements to ensure that the nearest recorder to me is on, but using a voice recognition system developed by Maki it also sorts the contents of each file by various reference points before sending links to the computer containing research on that topic. At any moment any ideas on, say, gravity projects get shuffled off to the computer where I do gravity research. I'm running out of chairs with all the moving around I do from one station to another. I'll have to see about getting some more.
People always stare at me whenever they stop by for whatever reason, but I push them out of my mind as unimportant. I think I've managed to piss off most of the staff in the complex with this attitude really. Commander Inez and Captain Heartland are among those that are just amused. In fact, they keep commenting on how I need an assistant in here. I really don't want someone else in the lab more often than I can help it. There are ideas that I've had that I don't want anyone finding out about, and some nights I wake up in a cold sweat having dreamt of what could happen if the military got a hold of my ideas on sympathetic vibration. I think some people are already too curious about Excalibur as it is. But at times I silently agree with them. I'm getting way too many ideas to concentrate on any of them properly. I really need someone to force me in one specific direction at a time the way Guinevere did while I was in the hospital.
Hattie spends a little bit of time each day in here. At first it was something of a bother because she reminds me so much of Maki, but over the past week that I've been here I've gotten used to her being here. Often she reacts to my verbal thoughts as if they were requests, directing me to the very station that containing the files I was talking about. I'm slightly wary of her though for I think she's discovered one of the biggest secrets in my lab. Angel was Maki's last project before taking off to work for Professor Naguchi. An adaptive AI, Angel is the secret behind my research project system. Ever so slowly, as I add additional processors to the network, she's getting smarter and faster. With her main terminal hidden inside the floor no one will ever know about her. Hattie thinks of Angel as a nickname of the network, and I've tried to encourage that attitude. More than anything else the thoughts of Angel in the hands of anyone else is too horrible to even consider. Soon she'll be able to communicate with me verbally as well as the reverse.
My musings are cut short by a slender hand being waved in front of the monitor that I am currently looking at. Following the hand around to my blinded, right side I can see that it belongs to Lt. Green. "Yes?"
"You need to go home now Lt. Soma. It's already 2100 hours. Even mad scientists need to sleep occasionally." She sniffs lightly. "And might I add showering to the list?"
Staring at her I can't help but wonder about her once more. She's almost as mysterious as I am, and knowing my own past what does that say about hers? "I'll probably be here for a few more hours. Have a nice night." Turning back to my monitor I continue to type in my notes on possible armament upgrades for the Sarg's main gun. It's always seemed to be incredibly unstable as evidenced by...my thoughts are cut off as Guinevere reaches across my line of vision once more and this time she turns my head to face hers.
"You don't seem to understand my dear Lt. Soma. You are being kicked out of your office until 1000 hours tomorrow morning." My expression must have displayed my confusion because she continues. "These orders are directly from Cmdr. Inez so there's no use arguing with them. She also told me to make sure that you eat something, and since the cafeteria closed several hours ago that means that something else has to be done."
Exasperated by being interrupted once more I wave my hand a few times. "Sure, sure. In a few minutes." When she releases my head I turn back to finish off my thought until the monitor turns off. "Or I can save and come with you now if you'd prefer." Seeing her nod I sigh. Turning the monitor back on I do a quick save and head over to the record computer. There I'd installed a special button under a protective, plastic flip cover that will execute the sort and link program for the day's data as well as turning off the recorders.
Guinevere rolls her eyes at me as I walk to the door. "If you're finally ready?"
"So what exactly does this something else entail?" I'm really hoping it doesn't mean much because I really just want to go back to my apartment and work from my computer there. I don't think I'll mention this to Guinevere though. The thought of getting her any more upset with me is rather disturbing. Instead it might be good to use her tactics against her. "After all I am rather in need of a shower and a change of clothes."
"Well that's true." She looks over at me as we get into the elevator. "Well for that I'm just going to have to take you to your place so you can get washed up and changed before we head out." She continues ignoring the look of horror I must have on my face. "From there we have reservations for dinner at a rather nice place that's slightly off the beaten path." I have no response for that and so the rest of the trip to my apartment passes by in silence as I wonder just why she's doing this.
True to her word Lt. Green lets me out of her site only long enough to take a shower and when I'm finished she's already set out a nice button- down, dress shirt and some slacks, neither of which I can remember buying. But some how their style seems familiar. It occurs to me once I've put them on and look in the mirror that they are something that my devil might wear. Guinevere pushes me back into my bathroom telling me to shave and once I look into the mirror I can't help but agree. I do look a sight with my scars, eye patch, and remaining unshaven would certainly not add any respectability to my appearance. Agonizingly several ideas that would have furthered my work on the armament upgrade have come and gone by the time I finish shaving, and I resolve to soon install some microphones in proximity to the vanity.
As I'm patting my face dry, I step into the main living area of my room only to stop in horror. Lt. Green is holding in her hands a framed photo that I know for a fact wasn't in this room when I left this morning. Several of my friends from my college days are in it with Maki trying unsuccessfully to hide behind someone in the background. The only thing that saves me from complete discovery is that I was the one taking the picture. Still I can see that something in the photo is bothering her. I can only try to distract her and hope for the best.
"I see that you've found that old photo of my cohorts." She looks up questioningly. "Yeah, those are some friends from my restless youth, before I settled on becoming a pilot."
"There's something familiar about this photograph." My heart speeds up slightly in panic, and almost bursts when she looks up at me sharply. "There in the background. Isn't that Maki Agata?" She reaches out with the frame and I take it trying to stall for time.
"Oh, yeah. I met her at this barbeque. She was there with her boyfriend or something. She'd done some work with us on our video game. Wrote the voice recognition portion all on her own in a week. Gave us a copy of the program in case we wanted to use it on other things. It's pretty good. It's what I use in my lab. Don't know what happened to her after that." I look up at her quizzically praying beyond all hope that she'll buy this. "How do you know her?"
She looks at me like I'm an idiot, which is probably a lot better than if she were looking at me like I was a liar. "Don't you know that Maki Agata was Professor Naguchi's primary assistant when he built Frank?"
"What? I had no idea. Everything I've come across just said 'his assistant' or some such. Her name was never mentioned." Right now I can see my life flashing before my eyes, and I swear that I will at least maim my devil when I next see him. "So are we ready to go yet? Now that I'm not working, I'm starved. I should probably put a mini-fridge in the lab so I can at least keep some food for when the urge strikes me." Tossing the photo onto the bed, I take Guinevere's elbow in my hand and lead her to the door.
The trip to Guinevere's apartment isn't as silent as the earlier one with her asking me about some of the things I'd been working on recently. Several times though she stops me saying I'd passed beyond the realm of small talk and into the realm of a research discussion. Every time I'm with her, Lt. Green manages to expand beyond any of my previous views of her. At first I'd thought of her as whimsical, something, which made her fearsome reputation as a pilot and her more spectacular one as a marksmen so hard to believe until I had seen her in action. Now I can see some of what has been eluding me before. Whatever she does Guinevere always devotes all of her energies, making it the most important thing in her universe. I'd seen it at work, but now it was obvious that she did the same at other times.
Stepping into Guinevere's apartment revealed quite a bit about just how seriously she took her free time. Even the entryway had evidence of past exploits in an enormous collage of photos showing her participating in various activities. Hanging by a single hand from a rock face in the Rocky Mountains, skydiving in Egypt, surfing, skiing, camping, and anything and everything else.
I hadn't noticed that she wasn't beside me any longer until she stuck her head back around into the small hallway. "Just make yourself at home in the living room while I get changed." Just as quickly as she appeared, she ducked out of sight and very shortly after I could hear the shower running in her bathroom.
My first reaction to her living room is one of shock. She obviously cared enough to request an apartment larger than mine, and the room is practically packed with what I can only call stuff, for the lack of a better term. There are strange items everywhere, from a sword attached to the wall next to a rifle, some famous impressionistic paintings or rather good fakes, a fur rug belonging to what I sincerely hope was an artificial tiger sitting before a television with most every game system known to man hooked up to it. Sitting down on a rather nice leather couch, I jump up in surprise when I hear a noise from under me. It's a whoopee cushion. Picking it up, I hold it in front of my face and stare at it. This does not bode well for whatever evening Guinevere has planned tonight.
Trying to regain some of my perspective on the evening I walk over to her bookcase to see just what she's placed inside of it. To my surprise there seem to be over a dozen, floppy, soft-cover books all containing riddles and word games of the sort that she threw at me while I was in the hospital. I'd think it an excessive reaction to helping out a sick friend if the covers on most weren't battered with age and use. Moving on along the shelves I find quite a few books and journals on physics and various space sciences. One of the journals had even published an article of mine, but my quick browsing doesn't find that particular issue. Most of the items on this topic are ones that I've read, though a few of the journals have me itching to check them out. I'll have to remember to re-subscribe to them now that I'm researching again. There are also quite a few books on biology. They cover a wide variety of subjects within the field but I soon notice a pattern. Aside from the standard texts, most of the others are devoted to different aspects of treatments for a wide variety of ailments or conditions. These too appear well thumbed through as do the journals of this type.
Backing up to the large, puzzle books I find other books on just about every physical activity I can think of off of the top of my head, as well as many I wouldn't have ever thought of. These in contrast to most of the others appear almost unused, with but the occasional fingerprint marring their covers or pages when I care to check. Other books litter the remaining shelves ranging from the trashy romance novels that Maki used to read every so often to classics written by Melville, Twain, Tolkein, Kircher, Asimov, Bradburry, Plato, Weber, Hemmingway, and many countless others.
Turning around I almost yell in astonishment when I find Guinevere standing in front of me with her head tilted, a curious expression on her face. "Do my bookshelves pass inspection, Lt. Soma?"
I don't know why, but I feel the incredible need to answer her. "I used to subscribe to several of the physics journals before my accident. I was thinking how I should renew since I'm going to be researching once more." As soon as it leaves my mouth I know I've said too much, but she doesn't seem to notice. Instead of having to cover up my mistake I find myself taking in what she's wearing for the first time.
It's nice, is the first thing that comes to mind. Very nice. The sort of thing that many a guy would love for a blind date to show up wearing, especially if the person in question filled it out as well as Guinevere did hers. It was a green, silk dress, in a Chinese style that hugged her curves from her shoulders to her knees. The sides were slit up the leg dangerously high and it took all of my concentration not to have my eyes look for more of her leg to expose itself. In changing the direction of my gaze I finally notice the pattern embroidered upon it in gold thread. It's an Asian dragon that coils around her waist and around to her back with the dragon's head coming over her right shoulder and resting on top of her heart. The design itself gets a chuckle out of me.
"What is it?" She turns around and I get a much better view of just how well the dress fits her before she stops in her original position. "Does it look okay?"
My heart stops. This is one of those questions that I've always feared answering. Do I tell her the truth that she looks absolutely stunning and risk getting thrown out, or do I brush it off as adequate seeming suave and sophisticated and subsequently offending her? Oh God, please just open the ground under me now and swallow me whole. After an agonizingly eternal second I decide to go with what made me chuckle in the first place. "It's just that my name literally means Dragon in Japanese. It's a beautiful dress and you wear it stunningly." Dear God, did I actually say that? The ground did swallow me up because this must be hell!
Of all of the possible responses, the one I didn't anticipate at all was Guinevere bursting into laughter. "I'll have to remember that. This one is my favorite because its color matches my name." She turns and walks back towards her kitchen area. "Dinner will be in about twenty minutes." Stopping once more, she turns. "Unless you would like to give me a hand in the kitchen?"