Stasis 2.7

Sunday, after church, I was dropped off at the PRT.

Today, I was publicly debuting as a Ward. I had thought I was ready, but now, I was all nerves. A part of me had the thought that, at the very least, I wouldn't have to speak. I told that part to stop being funny; it was still going to be terrifying.

But first, good news. My costume was finished! But, I had to sit through a briefing on its functions before I could put it on. But the briefing was by Armsmaster. Silver linings.

So, at the moment, I was stressing out over going out in a few hours while trying to pay attention to a briefing about awesome things I could do once I got through today.

"… and this switch can be toggled by pressing your tongue against your upper lip, just above your right canine. It toggles the keyboard fitted into the armor on the underside of your left forearm, and turns the holo-panel above it from the usual display to a small screen. Options on the screen include text display, text to speech, to comms, and to loudspeaker, as well as backups for most mask functions. You may also program a few short phrases to play with certain gestures, although this feature is disabled while in sign-language translation mode…" and so on.

It had a bunch of cool features, and only needed 10 minutes charging a day, with enough battery for two days if necessary. Not to mention, it looked really cool. The costume consisted of a dark red-and-black undersuit with silver trim, which I had been informed was fairly durable, small arms fire proof, actual fire proof and waterproof, and also contained the battery and contacts for all the armor pieces that needed power, as well as the gesture sensors.

The armor pieces were cherry red with gold trim, and most of them featured holo-panels of slowly rotating mandalas from an album on a microSD in the left forearm. They consisted of modular, interlocking halves coming together around the suit at the forearms, around the chest, and on the feet, and snap-on panels on the upper arms, knees, calves, thighs, groin, and onto the gloves to make half-gauntlets.

The mask was a smooth affair that reached from ear to ear, covering my mouth and nose and attaching to the bodysuit with hardened contacts at the neck. It was the main switchboard for my suit's functions, although the keyboard could be a redundant control if needed. As for looks, it was a gradient from the dark red of the bodysuit neck to the bright cherry red of my armor panels, lined with gold along the edge and down the middle, where the section covering my mouth could retract for breath attacks.

The full set looked like a sleek, cut-down, futuristic, and red dynastic Chinese military armor, mixed with a ninja mask; the only part that wasn't form-fitting was the shoulders, which swept out and slightly up, staying out of the way. They offset this slender look with a few formal attire attachments, mostly a piece of cloth that turned the half-chestplate into more of a short unbelted ghi with a gold-embroidered slit down the front, which came down to just above my knees at its lowest points. I actually liked it more with that on, but I would have to keep it nice, so no fighting in it. Either way, it was quite a sight, and I was under the distinct impression that they wanted me to be a big deal right out of the gate. Why else would they kit me out with so many features?

That thought actually helped with the nerves a little.

A half-hour of interesting tidbits interspersed with boring how-to's later, I was finally allowed to don the set and try it for myself. The fit was perfect. The bodysuit was easy to get into, with a zipper down the back, padded so I couldn't feel it much inside the suit. The armor took a bit to put on, but mostly just because there were so many pieces. The lower back was the hardest part; it had a segmented spine protector that led to a lower back compartment, and needed to snap onto the robust zipper of the bodysuit in several places. I could go without it for non-formal wear, but I might miss the storage.

The hassle was worth it.

I looked awesome.

I worked through the checks like I had been instructed, pressing switches with my tongue and chin to activate and deactivate various functions. Finally, I pressed the holo-panel activation switch. A decent portion of my armor flashed white before turning to various slowly rotating mandala on a red background. They didn't actually emit light, but unlike those old e-paper displays, it was full color and had depth to it. The symbols themselves were varied, ranging from large, ornate designs that told entire myths at once to refined glyphs surrounding a quartered circle.

In the middle of my chest, one design stood stationary; my new logo. Stylized images of the four elements were incorporated into a circular landscape; a mountain range, a volcano, a river, and a swirl of wind on a plain; in the center, a red figure that matched my armored silhouette, complete with gold and silver trim. Amazing artwork, easy to simplify, and gave an idea of my power in a creative way.

Glenn may dress weird, but boy did he deserve his job.

Anyway, the tech worked perfectly, the suit only took a few minutes to put on, and I cut a pretty cool figure. It was slimming, made me look older than I was. I puffed out my chest a little as I looked in the mirror. I could do this. I could go out there and be Mandala the hero. I would do great at the reveal later.

After a few more warnings from the technician about various small maintenance, I was allowed to leave. I headed for the Wards HQ. Not everyone would be there, but I figured Missy might, and to be honest, I wanted to show off a bit. As I stepped up to the door and hit the buzzer, I flipped out the keyboard. I was far from proficient in sign language or Morse, so the more seamless communication would have to wait a while.

The door opened, revealing Shadow Stalker, Aegis, Vista, and Triumph sitting around the room, the latter three playing a card game, the foremost sulking at the consoles. Everyone but Stalker did a double-take, then complements came from the couches, along with an invitation to sit. I spent a few minutes answering questions, showing off features, and asking advice, and came out of it feeling a bit less nervous about the upcoming disaster.

I was dealt in to what turned out to be a game called BS, which I was soon dominating at. Turns out it's easy to bluff when you can't make any vocal tells and are really tiny. Unfortunately, I was soon outmatched as Missy got the right cards to win, consistently being able to play without bluffing, right down to her last card. Us boys just groaned (or sighed in my case) as her final hand turned out to be legit, and she proceeded to do a victory dance.

Pfft. It was luck. I'd get her next time.

After that we scattered around the rec room, heading for couches and chairs. I pulled out a booklet and practiced signing.

The thing most people, myself included, don't realize about sign language, is that it's exactly what it sounds like; a language. It has its own grammar, there are signs that don't directly translate, punctuation just weird sometimes, and sentence structure was based more on emphasis than anything. To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed by the idea of learning a new language, but it was my backup way to communicate, and Dragon went to so much trouble to code a translator system, so I was determined to learn.

Tap code was actually super easy, and Morse slightly less so. Unfortunately, both were too slow for conversation, only good for when I needed to send a message and couldn't get out my keyboard. Both would still have to be learned, because they wanted me to have options if I wasn't wearing my suit, or it malfunctioned. Combined with English and Spanish class, I was now going to be learning three different languages, three new alphabets, and still had to do PR classes, Parahumans 101-104, and martial arts training, plus school and patrols and paperwork and homework.

At some point, I also had to spend time with my family.

I sighed. At least I didn't feel like I was wasting my time with the Wards stuff. I thought about maybe testing forward in school, but it was a toss-up between being bored and unchallenged, or adding yet another load of actually hard work to my plate. I figured I could maybe test up at the end of the year, skip to fifth grade for next year. That way I would be done with most of the language learning and PR stuff, and take on new challenges next year. I'd have to ask my mom and David what they thought; maybe it would be better to take it on after winter break, get the second half of fourth grade, and repeat that if it did turn out to be a bit much.

I finished my basic signing exercises a few minutes later. I really only knew a few very basic words, and was still learning the English alphabet signs. The hardest part was positioning and speed; to sign, you not only needed the correct hand motion, but also the correct location, position, and movement speed relative to signing speed for it to be interpreted correctly. I kept jabbing myself and stuff from being imprecise, and unfortunately my thinker power only seemed to help with motions with applications in some form of combat, from ritual to actual, so few motions of sign language came easily.

Maybe if I designed a ritual fighting style based on it. That… was easily the most absurd solution for learning a language I had ever heard. I mean, designing a fighting style based on a series of hand signs, just so I could learn those hand signs? I give up, wandering thoughts part of my brain. You win. That thought was so silly it made me feel permanently less intelligent, so it was only a matter of time until that was the only kind of thought I could have. I mean, how would I even design the thing without knowing sign language already, and if I knew sign language, why would I design it?

Ugh. I need to stop getting meta in my own head. I thought back to that one time, shortly after I had learned of the concept of infinity, and the idea that parallel universes might be infinite, when I spent over two hours basically imagining infinite timelines branching infinitely every moment, like some demented dimensional bush of infinitude. I was like 99% sure that was not at all normal for a 7-year-old to imagine when his mind wandered.

And I'm wandering again. I really needed to focus. What would I 'say' at the press conference? Let's try the gesture tool out. Where was the documentation again?

I went on like that awhile, trying to ignore my sense of impending doom.