7. GRAND DESIGNS

"Hi!" I called out as I strolled into the briefing room. I hadn't felt so good about myself in ages, and I guess my elation showed. Even Priss realized something was up.

"You're cheerful tonight, Nene-chan. What happened, you finally find yourself a new "Hello Kitty" bento box?" Priss was lounging on the couch in our small meeting room, cigarette burning in the ashtray balanced on her chest.

"No I did not! And even you can't spoil my good mood this time, Ape-woman, so don't even try. I'll have you know that I qualified on the pistol range today!" It had taken a lot of practice, time I'd rather have spent on other things, but I'd finally done it! Sylia was going to be so happy when she heard. Qualified, I could assist Field Investigations, and she'd been wanting me to have legitimate reasons to snoop around into things that weren't in the ADP computers.

Priss snickered. "Look out world, Nene-chan's got a gun! Just be sure you don't shoot yourself with it."

Before I could think of a comeback, the conference room door banged open, bouncing back off its hinges. "What's up?" Linna walked through the door and across the conference area, flopping into a chair at the table, kicking her omnipresent gym bag underneath.

"Just waiting for Sylia," Priss replied as she stubbed out the cigarette and joined her at the table. "Hey Nene-chan, use some of that energy to get us some coffee. None of that canned shit, either. The real stuff."

Hmph! I heard Priss laugh and then begin talking with Linna. I think Linna was giving her grief again over her smoking. I'd like to give her some grief, that's for sure, but she never takes me seriously. Someday I'm going to show her that I'm not useless, like she thinks I am. Like both of them think I am.

I finished pouring the coffee, including one for myself, carried the three cups back to the table and sat down. Linna glanced at Priss, this sly look on her face. Uh-oh. I think I liked it better when they were trying to kill each other instead of working together to pick on me.

"So what's this good news that's got you so happy, Nene-chan?" A set-up, I'm sure, but no telling what Priss told her... "Are they handing out free ice cream samples outside? You'd better watch your waistline, if you want to fit into one of those suits Sylia has been talking about."

"Now wait just--"

"Speaking of suits," Sylia interrupted from the doorway, "if you'll follow me, there are a few things I'd like to show you this evening." We all jumped a little, startled. None of us heard her come in. How does she do that? Mirrors? She turned, and disappeared down the corridor.

Linna and Priss got up and followed, but Priss turned back at the door. "Better hope those suits come in larger sizes, Nene-chan."

"Look, you--"

"Romanova-san! Asagiri-san! Where are you?"

Priss just grinned and headed off. "Coming!"

"Questions, ladies? Comments?"

I was pretty impressed, despite myself. It was obvious a lot of thought had gone into these 'hard suits' Sylia and Doctor Raven had designed. I thought we'd get to try them out, but Sylia said there had been some 'technical difficulties,' and they weren't quite ready yet. Instead she'd been boring us with the technical specifications. Quite important to know, I'm sure, but not when I'm tired.

"Hey Sylia, how come Nene-chan doesn't have any weapons in her suit? Since she's an expert shot now, she can show us all how it's done."

"Yes, congratulations on your qualification, Romanova-san. In addition to increasing your value to the AD Police, it will be a great asset to our organization." Priss looked a little deflated at Sylia's praise of Nene. I don't think she intended for her wisecrack to lead to a compliment. Nene just smiled, proud of herself. Justifiably so, I'd say. Nene can be OK. Sometimes.

"There will be weapons installed in all the suits," Sylia continued, addressing all of us, "but not until initial testing is completed. Because of the power drain caused by the onboard electronics suite, Romanova-san's suit will carry purely defensive weaponry only. Everyone else will have a range of offensive and defensive weaponry installed in their suits."

"That means we'll have to watch out for her as well as ourselves and carry out the job as well, right?" I asked.

"Correct."

That's one thing I like about Sylia. No beating around the bush. Priss, on the other hand, looked like she'd swallowed a rotten egg.

Over the past few months the one thing I'd learned about Priss was that she wasn't much of a team player. Oh, she'd help you out if you asked, but something weird was going on inside her head, and everything else was secondary to that. One of these days I'll figure out what her problem was, but it didn't take a mind reader to figure out what her immediate problem was. She wasn't happy at learning she'd be watching out for Nene along with everything else. I don't know what she thought she'd be doing -- Sylia was always saying that we had to work together, after all.

"Um... Sylia-san?" As cheery as Nene had looked just a couple minutes ago, she looked really uncomfortable now. "I don't like the color."

I think I felt my jaw hit the floor, and mine wasn't the only one heading south. "What's wrong with the color?" Sylia sounded surprised. "That color scheme was specifically selected for your suit for its heat radiation properties and for ease of identification."

"I don't like red and gold. That gold trim around the hips will make me look fat."

"FAT!" Priss totally lost it at Sylia's exclamation, laughing so hard she was quite literally on the floor. I'm not sure if it was the look on Sylia's face, or that Nene was actually trying to stand up for herself.

Sylia quickly composed herself, glanced around as if making sure no one had seen her lapse into humanity, and cleared her throat. "All right, Romanova-san. I'll consider modifying your hardsuit's color scheme. Any other meaningful comments?"

Well, now, if Nene could do it... "I've got to admit, Sylia-san, she does have a point. I'm not too crazy about red, blue, gold, and white myself. To be honest, it's kind of ugly."

"But..."

"And I don't like lime green, white, and gray. Maybe something in black. With red racing stripes." Racing stripes. Of course. Priss would want racing stripes on her armor.

"But..."

"And while you're at it, do something about those tank treads for feet, will you? I like to ride my wheels, not walk on them."

A soft tapping on Doctor Raven's office door brought us back from the world of heat sinks and microcircuitry. He looked up just as Sis slipped into the room. "Ah, Sylia, how did your meeting go?"

"Overall, quite well, Doctor." Uh-oh. Something was up. She sounded as calm and cool as ever, but she had this look in her eyes that I hadn't seen in a long time. The one that on anyone else might be described as 'impish.' "But there are a few things that we need to go over. Do you have a few minutes?"

Pops grumped around a bit before admitting that he could talk with her right away. I think he does that just because he thinks he has to. He'd never admit that he'd do anything she wanted him to do.

"Mackie, would you excuse us?"

"Uh, sure. OK, Sis." I got up and headed for the door. "You sure you don't need me, Pops?"

"It's Doctor. And I think you've got a vehicle to work on, young man. Now go." He grabbed me by the elbow and walked me to the door, while Sylia just stood there, that look still on her face.

Something made me turn back to give him a bit of warning. "You're on your own, Pops," I said as I left the room.

"DOCTOR! And what do you mean, I'm on my own? Come back here, you--" Whatever else he might have said was muffled by the Sylia's closing the door behind me.

Things didn't stay muffled for long. A few seconds later I heard this bellow, loud enough to shake the prints tacked to the walls. "THEY WANT WHAT!"

Girls. Probably want to do something stupid like paint the suits pink.

"This is stupid!" Priss yelled as she dashed the stack of schematics off the table in our small meeting room. "Why the hell does she think we need to know all this crap! All I'm here for is to shoot at things; I don't need a technical readout on how the goddamned gun works!"

Priss in full roar might scare lesser mortals. I just sat there on the couch and let her have her tantrum.

"Who does she think she is, anyway, shoving us around like that? C'mon, Linna, let's go in there and try the suits on."

To say that Sylia's declaration that no one could try out their hardsuit until they had demonstrated basic knowledge of how their suit's major systems worked had annoyed Priss was an understatement. The fact that she had to wait until I had tried my suit on had irritated her, but Nene being first in line had really pissed her off.

I got up, setting my cup of tea aside, and walked over to the table. "Look, Sylia-san has her reasons, Priss. Would you let someone ride your bike without them knowing the basics about how the engine works?"

"Nobody but me rides my bike," she declared flatly.

"You know what I mean. Now pick up your mess and start reading. The sooner you finish with that, the sooner you'll be in your suit."

Priss opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by a loud crash. We looked at each other, and I walked toward the door. I could hear someone calling for help from the direction of the suit storage area. "It's Nene!" I yelled, then sprinted in the direction of her voice.

The sight that greeted our arrival was pretty funny looking. Nene's freshly repainted suit had somehow come unanchored, and had fallen forward, knocking her flat on her back with the pink and lavender armor on top of her. She was trying to push it off of her, all the while making these little "ow" noises.

Priss started laughing. "Hey Nene, I know you're desperate for some action, but, uh, isn't this a little extreme?" I closed my eyes and shook my head. Leave it to Priss. Mind always in the gutter.

Nene was not happy, to say the least. "Don't just stand there, get this stupid thing off me!"

"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow."

Here came Nene, right on schedule. As she limped through the door, I gave her a dirty look. This cute bit had to stop, now, or I was going to do something she'd regret. "Nene, it's been a week, and all you had was a pulled muscle. Now act like an adult and quit whining!"

Nene put this martyred expression on her face. "But it still hurts!"

"It wouldn't if you'd done the stretching exercises I showed you for keeping it loose!" Linna cut in. Well well, this was interesting! I do believe she was as fed up as I was.

"You two are always picking on me!" Nene shot back, using her usual line for anytime someone looked at her cross-eyed.

Linna stepped over to Nene. "Want some cheese with that whine? That's all you're good for, you know. Whining. About everything."

"You know, Nene-chan," I added, coming up on Nene's other side while her face got red, "you better learn to take care of yourself. There isn't always going to be someone around, and you wouldn't want something bad to happen, now would you?"

"Yeah, Nene-chan. You better shape up fast, or else what are you going to do the next time something bad happens? Having your hardsuit fall on you is the least of your problems."

Of course, Sylia walked in about then. From the look on her face, she'd heard at least part of what we'd said. Nene looked like she was going to cry, and Linna looked a little guilty. She had to learn how to hide her feelings better. What was said needed to be said. I was not going to spend my time babysitting Nene.

Sylia just stood there, looking at us, absolutely no expression on her face. What was she thinking?

"All right, ladies," she finally began, as she motioned Nene toward her suit. "Tonight we'll be going over the various displays and functions available from your suit helmets. At the same time, we'll fully seal the suits for data acquisition purposes. This means the external air supply will be cut off. You will be breathing air provided by suit systems, and there will be plenty to breathe. Any questions?"

Sounded about as clear as anything else she says.

"No? All right, everyone put on your helmets and seal your suit's systems. Outer visors will be up. You have to be able to see to be trained on this." Sylia smiled at that last. Was it supposed to be a joke?

Sealed up, visors open, we all stood there watching the master display while Sylia took us through "Everything You Want To Know About Helmet Displays" for about the 43rd time. The canned air wasn't too bad. It certainly wasn't fresh -- actually it smelled a little funny -- but I guess that's normal.

After a while, I got bored. It wasn't easy to see in these helmets. Sylia had messed with them a little, and had promised us things would be taken care of. But for now, I decided to come up with my own entertainment.

First up was to see what I could see of the others. Maybe someone else was as bored as I was. But Sylia was intent on the subject at hand. As usual. And Nene was paying attention to the screen. I think. I can never tell what she's doing when she's in that suit of hers.

Maybe I should be a little more careful about what I say to her. The brat might get some guts some day and cyberjack my bike's ignition computer or something. Nah. If she did, she'd die, and she knows it.

Linna, though, looked a bit red faced and watery-eyed. "You okay?" I asked over a private channel.

"Fine. All of a sudden my eyes started watering, and my head's stopped up, that's all."

Her voice sounded a little funny. "You sure? It could be something with the system. Maybe you should open up."

"Priss, I told you I... I... I'm... aCHOO!"

Huh. You don't see this every day. Ought to liven things up, that's for sure. "Uh, guys," I interrupted the lecture, "I think Linna's got something more interesting on her display." They looked over to see a fine mist of water droplets now covering the inside of Linna's visor. I think they were water droplets, anyway. And other stuff.

At least I didn't have to clean up this mess.