“It is good to meet you all face to face.” lied Casey.
She saw that everyone had their earbuds in, so she fetched hers from where she had magnetized the case to her helmet.
“We shall all do introductions once everyone arrives.” informed Tempo as a third Asian pilot walked in. He got a dirty look from one of the other two Asians in the room. She guessed the Iranian was the one sitting on the common areas’ two couches, so she deliberately went to sit near him. It wouldn’t do to look as though she was scared of anyone here. It only took another few minutes of awkward silence for the remaining pilots to arrive. Casey wasn’t surprised to see she was the only woman in the room.
“And now for introductions.” Started Tempo. “In no particular order, we have...
From Russia, Mladshiy Leitenant Petrov, given name is Alexey.
From South Korea, Sowi Cho, given name is Do-Yun.
From England, Sub-Lieutenant Davies, given name is Leo.
From Türkiye, Aste?men Demir, given name is Mustafa.
From Iran, Navban Dovom Karimi, given name is Mahdi.
From the United States, Ensign Trainor, given name is Cathasaigh
From China, Shao Wei Chén, given name has been redacted by request of the Chinese government.
From India, Sub-Lieutenant Rao, given name is Santosh.
From North Korea, Sowi Jeong, given name is Hwan.
From Japan, Kaigun-shōi Tanaka, given name is Kazuo.”
As each person was named, Tempo put a holographic arrow above their head.
“Many would take this time to force participation in some shallow and ultimately meaningless team building exercises, but we believe it best to build camaraderie by working together. We are aware that many of you have professional or cultural reservations about working with the other nations represented here, but if your world is to move forward and interact with the galaxy as a whole it is time to heal those wounds.” Tempo continued.
“Most of you come from countries that have done each other no favors, and in some cases have done great wrongs. It is worth noting that those great wrongs were the deeds of your ancestry, and not stains you carry for yourselves. The only deeds the ten of you can be considered culpable of in this generation are those born of inherited low-grade animosity and not the horrors of the wars in your history.”
Tempo interrupted the murmured responses of the assembled pilots. “I recommend everyone find your assigned rooms and lay down. We will be instructing the nanofactories to resume the build order queues shortly, and that may do strange things to your neurological functions for a time.”
Casey took the opportunity to locate her temporary quarters. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it.
“It probably goes without saying, but these rooms are secure?”
“Secure enough for your peace of mind, Ensign Trainor.” Tempo assured her. “Please make yourself comfortable. The clothes in the locker are your size.”
As she changed, Tempo continued.
“The princess has informed me that you took to the backup Input system quite well, and while we cannot link into your nervous system directly at this stage, we can read your body language well enough to see that you are practicing with it almost continuously.”
“Oh? What are my tells?”
“Certain tensions in your face and body indicate concentration as well as working to ensure you move the correct arms, as fictional as they are. There is also a minor bit of twitching if you get it wrong.”
“Just tell me I don’t look like a tweaker.”
“Ensign, you should probably just relax.” Casey tossed her ship suit in the chute in the wall with the appropriate label on it and climbed onto the bed, which was small and high like operating tables tended to be.
“So for the backup output we will first be duplicating the neurological hardware for your eyes so your brain thinks you have three. We use this third eye to inject visual elements into your brain in order to present you with relevant information, which for humans will probably use text and certain visual elements to emulate what you'd see on a computer screen.”
“Are you guys aiming for mythological overtones on purpose?”
“It’s a quaint anthropological oddity that most sentient species have primitive lore related to extra body parts. Humans are not unusual in this regard.”
“Fair enough, I suppose.”
“For the primary input, we will have a sensor net spread throughout your gray matter which will map neural activity to your use of the backup inputs. When the heuristic system obtains enough data, it will gradually start to take over controlling the system. It will be seamless and all you will notice is a very gradual increase in command speed. Eventually, you will be able to stop moving your imaginary hands and yet still give commands to the system.”
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“You make it sound like some lit RPG, isekai story.”
“One moment while I look that up. Ah, no. This isn't some cosmic mystery system dispensing magic or superpowers or whatever, just a command line terminal interface to the computer in your head. It's no more powerful than the network devices you authenticate into.”
“All this talk about augment builds and I still haven’t heard anything about primary output.”
“That doesn’t become relevant until you are much more machine than organic.”
Casey kept up the small talk while the nanomachines did whatever they were programmed for. After turning in for the night she woke to discover a series of text strings had appeared in her vision. Blinking made it momentarily disappear.
“It seems my new eye is installed. Why does blinking shut it off?”
“You need some method of disabling it, and blinking serves as well as any other method. You are fortunate, our species doesn’t have eyelids. You can practice blinking that eye independently since fictional eyes don’t dry out.”
“This is taking some getting used to, having four arms and three eyes. The Indian pilot must be having a field day with this, conceptually.”
“He’s Islamic, actually, but he has commented on it much the same way you just did.”
Casey dressed in a fresh ship suit from the locker in the corner and wandered out into the common area in search of food. One of the asian pilots was sitting at the table with a bowl to his face, annihilating the contents. Casey saw that a wide range of food items had been set out on the counters, seemingly with common breakfast items from all ten countries represented.
Casey made a few selections from the items offered, but she didn’t see coffee anywhere.
“Tempo, are we not doing coffee today?”
“I am afraid not, Ensign Trainor. We want clean scans for today.” Casey let loose with a pained moan, which got her a strange look from the Iranian pilot who just entered the room. Casey shrugged at him.
“They won’t let us have coffee today.” She explained as she took her plate to the large table. A second trip with some juice and yogurt had her ready to go. She was surprised as the Iranian sat across from her with his own plate. He looked like he was having to work himself up to speaking to her, so she took the initiative.
“What are you thinking?” she asked him in Farsi, which got her a shocked expression. “Didn’t think I had it in me?”
“Most Americans do not.”
“I started learning when my mother died.” She replied between bites. “Please tell me what you want.” Not to be out done, he answered in English.
“The princesses are in agreement that you are the most driven of us and have progressed furthest in our lessons.”
“And this conflicts with the perceived stereotype that Americans are lazy?” he just shrugged.
“Psychology in a professional setting in the United States is pretty brutal. Most Americans are pretty driven to succeed, and in most cases if we seem lazy it is pushback against supervisors that ask too much. Also, I am a woman so misogyny in professional settings means I have to work twice as hard to get half the recognition. This has resulted in there not being a gram of quit in me.”
“So you think you are better than us?” He looked like he really wanted a reason to dislike her and was having to dig for it.
“No. Half the reason we push ourselves as hard as we do is that we have it continually reinforced throughout our lives that we are not good enough.” This got her a thoughtful gaze. Casey took the opportunity to finish her food, and since Karimi didn’t seem inclined to continue the conversation she headed back to her quarters.
“So what’s on the agenda for today other than just waiting?”
“Several long series of repetitive questions to test neurological functions. It’s going to be a boring day, unfortunately.” And so it was. By the time Tempo was ready to call it a day Casey was ready to tear her hair out.
“Have we established that our brains are still working correctly?” She asked as she flopped onto the firm pad that passed for a bed.
“We’ve established that you are the only one who hasn’t started yelling at me today.”
“Should I have? I can start now if you are feeling the lack.”
“No, I think I will get along well enough without.” Tempo hypothesized.
“Your loss. I have it on good authority that I excel at dressing down.”
“And double entendres too, I see.”
“Whatever. It’s wasted on you anyway.” Casey brought up the display on the wrist of her ship suit to show the language translation primer she had been studying last before casting the image to the larger wall screen. At the same time she resumed practicing giving commands to her neural processor with hand signs from her fictional arms
Linking into the environmental controls for the room was by design not challenging and she practiced her speed and motor control by ordering the room to change the hue of the lights by a few degrees at a time. Once she got the hang of that she changed it up to ordering the sound system to play the tones for the words she was reading in her primer. She spent two hours sounding out the text one tone at a time before she broke for a late dinner.
Shao Wei Chén and Mladshiy Leitenant Petrov were sitting at the table playing chess on a holographic board being projected from overhead. Sowi Jeong and Sowi Cho were very conspicuously sitting across the room from each other where they could see the other quite clearly and pretend that they didn’t.
The others were watching either the Koreans stare daggers into the vague direction of each other or the two playing chess. The Iranian promptly started watching Casey.
“What have you been doing, American?” he asked in Farsi. Casey responded by ordering her wrist display to play the tones translating to ‘Learning how to read.’ in Galactic Standard at a speed she doubted that she could match with her vocal chords. She smiled on the inside as all nine of the others twitched when their third eye provided the translation into their default languages.
She got a respectful nod from the English pilot. The Iranian licked the tip of his index finger and traced an invisible line in the air acknowledging the score. She was less thrilled about getting the undivided attention of all nine, and several did not look happy.
“It seems that the Ensign is aiming for Admiral,” said Tanaka slowly in Japanese; the translation scrolled by on the screen in Casey’s third eye. “We have some catching up to do.”
“And on that note, I have new ship assignments.” Announced Tempo. “All the princesses have transferred to new hulls, and your possessions have also been transferred. Everyone will be ferried to their new commands in the morning.”
Casey nodded thoughtfully as she shoveled forks of cold chicken salad into her mouth.
