Dev could feel the rumble move through her, and she looked out over the surface of the water, seeing a seething motion that seemed never ending. She edged forward and looked down over the wall, seeing the white foam at the base of the cliff washing over the rocks and rushing in and out of holes she caught a brief glimpse of.
They were standing on a small niche, with room for probably a dozen people on it. “What is this for?” She asked Jess. “This little place?”
“Just for us to look.” Jess answered. “To see storms coming in.” She pointed a a line of gray. “That’s what’s keeping us here tonight instead of going out. See those flashes?”
“Yes.”
“Electromagnetic surges. They’ll knock a carrier right out of the sky. Shorts the systems out.”
“Oh.” Dev could see the crackling bolts, and the flashes in the far off clouds. “That sounds difficult.”
“We have a cavern downstairs.” Jess said. “Sometimes we go down there, when it’s calmer, and swim.”
“Swim?”
“We jump in the water. In the ocean.”
Dev looked at her with unabashed wide eyed astonishment.
The rumble got a lot louder, and Jess turned and keyed the door. “Time to go in. Storms too close.” She waited for the panel to enter, then ducked inside and closed the door as soon as Dev cleared it. When it shut, the sudden lack of sound was almost ear ringing.
Dev ran her fingers through her hair, straightening the wind blown disarray. “That was amazing. Thank you for showing it to me.” She licked her lips a little. “It’s salty.”
“Yes.” Jess agreed. “Ocean’s full of salt. We scrub it to make it drinkable and then the salt’s used for cooking with the rest of the stuff they scrape out of it.”
They walked along in silence for a few minutes. “Do the colors mean something?” Dev asked as they crossed from the gray back into the dark blue, heading for the lighter blue of the residential corridor.
“Sort of. They say they used to all be the same color, and everyone spent all their time getting lost so they changed them up so at least you can see if you’re in ops.. that’s the blue tones, or med, that’s yellow, or security, that’s red, and so on. There’s a chart in the docs in the system. You can look it up.”
Dev thought about that. “They did that upside too.” She said. “You could tell where you were, what level, and that kind of thing by the walls.” She paused. “But it wasn’t as big as this and there was nothing like what you just showed me. The only thing a little bit like that was the null grav gym.”
Jess keyed her door open. “The what?” She waved Dev forward.
“Null gravity gym. It was a big padded place they turned off grav in, and you got to play catch me, and ball, and do exercises.” Dev said. “It was in the top of the crèche, and it had a clear ceiling, You could float for a minute, sometimes, and just watch the stars.”
“Stars.” Jess paused in the center of her quarters. “I’ve read about those.”
Dev stopped at the internal door between their quarters and looked back. “If you ever come to the crèche, I’ll show them to you.” She offered. “I think they’re really nice but not nearly as exciting as the ocean is.”
Jess met her eyes, then looked away with the faintest of smiles. “Get some rest.” She ordered. “The alarm will go off at 0300. Then we’ll get to see if Bricker and Bain were right, and you’re worth something to the job or not.”
Dev nodded, then passed through into her own bunk, letting the door shut behind her.
Jess looked at the door briefly. Then she started towards her workspace, but midway there changed her mind and went back to her bed instead. She lay down on it and put her hands behind her head, looking up at the mica infested ceiling of the chamber.
“Stars.” She murmured. “Huh.”
**
Dev went to the wardrobe module and examined the drawers again. In the crèche, she’d slept in the soft paper garments they all changed into before getting into the sleep pods, which would be sucked off and recycled the following morning.
Here she wasn’t really sure what to do. After a few moments thought, she stripped out of the jumpsuit and hung it up, leaving her in her underwear. Then she put on a light undershirt she’d found on the shelves, that came down to her mid thigh, and had half sleeves.
That seemed all right. She went over and pulled the covers down on the bed, climbing into it and pulling them back over her. The surface of the bed conformed to her at once, and the lights dimmed, and she felt the covers warm to her skin.
She was tired. With the time alteration and the early start to her day, the tension and the activity had kept her on edge since they’d left the crèche and now she was glad to relax her body, and know she had some time to rest before her first big trial.
It was exhausting, she’d discovered, to be in such a strange place, with all strange people, all disliking her for various different reasons.
No one really wanted her to be there. She was a little sad about that, because having a placement here had been so exciting for her, despite how hard and strange the programming had been. She had been looking forward to being able to use that training, and it made her feel bad to know that so many people here were against that.
Only the man with the gun seemed to be for it, and Doctor Dan. The agents didn’t seem to trust her, and the other techs definitely didn’t want her around.
Then there was Jess.
Dev thought about Jess. She wasn’t really sure what Jess’s view on her was. She’d gotten the impression, in fact, Jess had said outright that she was working with her just because the ma with the gun wanted her to.
She had said, also, that she didn’t consider Dev a real part of her team, just a driver.
It seemed quite clear.
But really, Jess had been the only one in the place so far who had a friendly word for her, and who had offered to help her find her way.
Was that because the man with the gun wanted it that way? Dev rolled onto her side and settled her head comfortably on the pillow. If so, she was glad. At least there was someone who was willing to talk to her like she was a real person.
She wanted to do well for Jess. She’d gone through the sim a dozen times, and hoped it would be enough to let her drive the carrier for real.
She trusted her programming. She only hoped Jess would trust her.
**
The alarm bonged softly at 0300. Jess blinked, as the lights inside adjusted and produced a quiet glow that gently illuminated her quarters. With automatic motions, she got out of bed and shook herself, letting the last shreds of sleep fall away.
Wisps of her last dream faded with them and she didn’t’ try to recall what it was. There was an aching tension in her shoulders that meant it was a bad one and she was just glad it hadn’t gone on long enough to wake her screaming.
She retrieved a mug of kack from the dispenser and opened it, taking a long swallow as she walked into the sanitary unit as the lights helpfully came up inside. She used the facility, then she started the shower running, pausing before she entered to go back into the main area and trigger comms to the overhead speaker on listen.
The familiar drone of the ops center filled the air and she listened for a minute, hearing nothing alarming, and then went back and took off her sleepware and stepped into the steaming water.
It felt good and she stood for a bit, letting the water pound against her. She pulled in a breath full of steam, the flat metallic scent of the water so very familiar to her. She took a handful of scrub and burnished her skin with it, then used another handful and washed her hair.