'Oh, my god! Did you see the readout when she hit the target? That was amazing!'

'No, I was too busy looking at her rack!'

'You guys are so gross!'

'That's only because you've got a fat ass.'

That one exchange seemed to cement some of the things EDI had heard of teenagers. Everything that they experienced was done so in the extreme.

The handful of gifted biotic students that had been brought aboard the Normandy after Cerberus had ransacked the Grissom Academy had spent the first few days aboard ship trying desperately to get the famous hero Commander Shepard to show them some more of her biotic talents. And after three days of being pestered by them, the Commander had finally obliged and the backlash from the display had provided EDI with a new investigation...that of jealousy.

EDI had allowed the students to infringe on the end of her latest training session with the Commander, sensing that Shepard might like the chance to practice her boitics with others. The Normandy was woeful short of such individuals, so Shepard only had Liara to train with. But the asari was often too busy to help the Shepard, much to her dismay.

Acceptance was a virtue that EDI had been blessed with and she felt it would only be right and proper to extend that to those that had given it freely. It made her feel happy, to give something, even the intangible, to another.

The male students had become somewhat infatuated with the female crew members of the Normandy. Some with Shepard when they had seen her training, others had looked favourably on Liara when they had briefly seen her during meal times. Even Specialist Traynor had gained furtive looks when she had coordinated where they would sleep (girls in the port observation lounge and boys in the starboard lounge), while Privates Westmoreland and Campbell had stared some of them down, causing those that had tried flirting with them to be ridiculed by their peers.

Were human males always so mercurial with their affections? She noticed that Jeff seemed to find a vast array of different women appealing. Would his affections for her only be for a specific amount of time? Would he stop finding her attractive? This thought worried EDI somewhat. However, there were many other instances of people remaining faithful to one person. After all, the Commander was still in love with Major Alenko and, despite the constant flirting with and from James, she had remained faithful to him.

Conversely, the teenage boys seemed to be constantly lusting after others, this made the girls jealous. Although one or two of them seemed to have developed crushes on James, where they seemed to follow him around and giggle when he looked at them, it mostly seemed to be done to rile up the boys. This unwarranted attention had caused James a fair amount of consternation and gave Garrus a lot of opportunities to poke fun at him. It also meant that the students verbally fought and argued a lot more too.

The boys would say inappropriate things, the girls would sometimes react. Sometimes they would stay quiet, even when they were being engaged by the boys for other reason. EDI discovered this was universally known as 'The Silent Treatment', and often made the boys pay even greater attention. Then there was the trying to beat the boys at their own game...mostly done by ogling James when they were practicing in the hanger.

'Rodriguez! Put your eyes back in your head and focus, your barrier is faltering!' Jack had scolded her, after following the girl's attention to the muscled posterior of the Lieutenant.

'Sorry Ma'am.' Rodriguez blushed, clearing her throat, squaring her shoulders and getting back to the task at hand. Her opponent, Prangley frowned, grinding his teeth and flaring his biotics, knocking his training partner over.

EDI noted that the two had an attraction for each other. They were always together; they worked, talked and laughed in each other's company. But when Prangely had made a comment on the content of Shepard's vest when she had given then a demonstration, Rodriguez had become prickly towards him. They squabbled, then she gave him the silent treatment and now she was making a show of lusting over someone else, and finally it seemed she was getting to him.

To EDI, jealousy was a obviously a powerful thing, both sides of a partnership, even one that didn't seem to have been completely established and, as EDI watched their drama unfold, that jealousy also seemed to spur people into action.

That evening, the two students fell into a blazing argument over what had happened in the hanger bay. EDI watched them throwing insults at each other, saying truly horrible things to the other until Rodriguez stepped forward and slapped Prangley right across the face. There was a stunned silence before they fell into each others arms, kissing passionately as if their lives depended upon it.

This was interesting, EDI pondered, extreme emotions leading to more extreme ones. Would Jeff be susceptible to this, she wondered? Jeff tried his best to hide his emotions behind a thin veneer of humour. Maybe if she acted jealous when he paid attention to others, and then gave him the silent treatment, she could coax out of him his true feelings. She thought on this, but decided against it. It would be unfair to push him. Jeff was a much more sensitive soul than people realised, and he had shown this to EDI many times, simply due to their interaction with each other, and the respect he had for her.

However, EDI mused, it might be fun to make him realise how much he liked her himself. More investigation was needed.