MA: And many good-looking MochWarriors have used that to advantage when faced with capture. I'm talking about other clothes.
NK: Like skin-tight leather pants?
MA: That' s a good example.
NK: The pictures you are alluding to are publicity shots, posed on the field after the rubble has started to cool. Some are even shot inside studios and then combined with different backgrounds. (Laughs.) I hope this isn't a shocking deception.
MA: No. It is part of my job to recognize posed pictures from action shots. The problem is, there aren't many action shots of your unit. You don't have a unit photographer or cameras in your 'Mechs, do you?
NK: No. I think that is a ridiculous practice. If we makea brilliant move or a gross blunder, we can remember it. We don't sit around arguing who finished off which Marauder. We have no need for such vanities.
MA: The are very few combat, pictures of the Black Widows. It seems anyone you fight ends up with their 'Mech-mounted cameras busted.
NK: Hey, it's a battle out there, not a holovid studio. Was there something you wanted to know about us?
MA: How is it that you never look the same in two pictures?
NK: Different hair, different makeup, different clothes.
MA: Different face?
NK: That's mostly a trick of the lights, and makeup, and hair. Look, if everyone is sure of what I look like, there's no mystery. More important, I'm easier to spot off the field, when I'm an easier target. And I hate being mobbed by adoring fans.
MA: It's remarkable. It's like there are several Natasha Kerenskys.
NA: Perhaps there are. Perhaps I'm not one of them. Oonoooohhhh scary! Anything else we should let posterity chew over?
MA: Oh-what do you wear to a battle?
NA: Something nice. I like to dress for dinner. Eighty percent of all MechWarriors are men, and you know what they're like. Easily distracted.
MA: Dress for dinner?
NK: It's a custom among some upper classes...
MA: I know. I thought perhaps that was what you called going into battle.
NK: Perhaps. They don't call me the black widow because I have eight legs, you know.
Interviewer's Notes
From this interview, it is painfully obvious that Kerensky does not talk about her past, and is adept at not dropping so much as a clue. She does exhibit a concern with youth and age, as these are mentioned more than any other single theme. As with her ‘emotional' outburst, it is difficult to tell whether this is real feeling or clever manipulation by a master of the art.
The only time Kerensky was slightly hesitant was in response to questions about her appearance. Perhaps this is because few have dared to query her about these matters.
Supervisor's Notes
The schoolgirl who wants topractice being a historian is an excellent role with further uses while it is still available, Misha. Unfortunately, Kerensky was no place to start. Getting an interview with her was quite a coup, but she's impenetrable.
All this tells us is that Kerensky is just another woman who may have had plastic surgery to preserve her youthful good looks.
PAINTING THE TOWN
-Mark O'Green
‘No more.’ Sergeant Gunnar Toshira steadiead himself against the armored personnel carrier's uneven movement, and pulled off his helmet. After wiping the sweat from the bald strip down the center of his short-cropped black hair, he tugged the helmet's padding loose. ‘Somebody please get the hatch. I'm burning up.’
Before anyone else could move. Recruit Miko Wanabe quickly slid out of her sling seat and started working the upper hatch mechanism.
Toshira prodded the cooling unit. ‘No more of this.’ He readjusted the padding and bent to test the helmet again. ‘Twice a year we cross the desert to Sibitsu Station and at least once my helmet fails.’
The hatch popped open. A folding fan of late afternoon sunlight slanted to the back of the vehicle. Recruit Wanabe eagerly turned to Toshira. smiled, then hustled back into her place.
‘Twice a year. One week out—’ Dust swirled in and circled Toshira. He sneezed once and was about to again when the dust he inhaled triggered a coughing fit. Voice raspy, he tossed the offending head gear to the painted steel floor. ‘That's it. My last tour.’
The helmet skidded into the feet of Recruit Aragi Naiku. He arched his long neck and glanced down, trying unsuccessfully not to smile as he reached out to pick up the helmet.
Sergeant Toshira opened his hands, gesturing for Naiku to toss the headgear back. ‘Going to take a picture of yourself with my helmet?’
Naiku's smile opened into an expanse of white teeth as he dropped his free hand to the camera bulge in one pocket. His eyebrows flicked twice, and then he gently tossed the helmet back to his Sergeant.
‘By the way, Aragi, got that timer working yet?’ The Sergeant made another pass across his bald patch. ‘What a relief it will be. No more gadget-crazy Recruits. No more riding in rolling steel cans.’ He coughed again. ‘I will have a life.’
Toshira heard laughter. Wanabe nodded furiously and clenched one fist in a gesture of determination. ‘I. too. plan to go on to be a pilot It is a good thing.’
‘Wha—’ Realizing that the Recruit had interpreted his words to fit her personal dream. Toshira smiled gently. ‘No, Miko. I'm not going to be a 'Mech pilot. I meant a life where I don't get up before the sun. One where I don't guard paint factories in the middle of a desert.’
From the back of the APC, hard face illuminated by wavering light, Corporal Toragi Mannimoto called out. ‘She's expecting a big promotion for opening the hatch. She will become an officer anda man!’
More laughter from the back. Miko flushed, wishing she could sink through the webbing and disappear into the bulkhead.
‘And I won't have to put up with too-smart troops.’ Toshira said.
Naiku patted Miko reassuringly and addressed his Sergeant. ‘Then returning your helmet makes me head of Internal Security Force.’
Toshira snorted. ‘No. I think that position is already filled,’ he told Mannimoto.
The Corporal glared back. ‘The woman has to learn her place.’
‘As you should learn yours. Corporal?’ The Sergeant held eye contact for a moment, then moved to the hatch opening. Before disappearing, he turned back. ‘No more.’
Toshira stared to the southwest, across the top of the Scorpion tank left and forward of him, searching for specific mountains. The armored formation was staggered, supposedly to reduce dust, but even the foothills were hazy. Toshira bent down. ‘Not too much longer.’
A voice from below called out. ‘Sergeant? Is Teddy Kurita going to be there?’
‘Teddy?A close, personal friend of yours?’ Toshira tried to identify the speaker.
The only answer was Naiku's snicker.
Toshira's face wrinkled up, and his mouth became a wide gash as he mimicked Aragi's smile. ‘No, Teddyis not coming. Why would he want to come here?’
‘Do you question the way of authority?’
‘No, Mannimoto. I'll leave that to you.’
Toshira heard murmurs as he stretched back into the hatch opening. He stood silently, enjoying a rare breeze that had suddenly come up.
In the distance, he could now see his landmark hill, a worn mound with a pasty white streak. Old Man's Curse, he called it Anyone who saw it once was destined to see it enough times to become old, too.
A speck of sand made him blink. As his eyes caught a hint of blue, he looked back to Old Man's Curse.
The top ot the Scorpion was gone.
Then the concussion hit, Shrapnel tore noisy holes in the surrounding air. The force buffeted Toshira and he rolled with it, tucking his legs to a fall inside the vehicle. ‘Full speed!’ he yelled to the driver. ‘Veer right!’ Then he shouted. ‘We're under attack!’
The squad scrambled, and a series of nearby blasts rocked the APC. ‘Right side hatch.’ Toshira barked to Wanabe, who was already breaking the seal.