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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 19:55:29 GMT -5
"Five hours." Picard answered. "Might be a bit cinchy in the last part of it." Pilar relayed that information to ground control.
"So be it." Rolph-Carl shrugged his sides. "Let's make this as quick as we can." He signalled his own crew to assist with loading.
Dylan blinked as the shuttle girl approached. The rest of the group ranged in age from seven to twelve years of age. "No... my great-grandpa says we're ... uh... unique. My name's Dylan, and that's my mom n' dad over there."
Zoe and Jon looked on quietly, not moving from Christine's side. They smiled to the children, but left it up to them whether or not to approach.
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Post by elizar on Jan 21, 2009 20:12:03 GMT -5
"It was a localized change." Phoebe said. "You've heard of the stages of changes, haven't you?" She asked her, more to show that while the shuttles had pretty much planned future, they were educated.
"Yeah." Gloria said. "Localized, family, clan and global. And it is either distributed or contained." Distributed meant that it occurred in several places on earth, and contained meant that aside from the original pioneers, the model would only continue from bloodline of the pioneers.
"The Okas are distributed and global, these were part local and part family, and contained." Phoebe explained. She knew her history, but wasn't going in the darker side of it just yet.
Miles sighed. You could only double or triplecheck something so much before repeating. "How does control think we should spend the time?" He asked.
"We're probably going to be few days at sea." Harold said. "Depending on the kid, and how much he can recharge in a given time."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 20:56:39 GMT -5
Pilar looked up, adjusting her headset. "That's it for a little while."
"I suppose they'll want us going over the retrieval routine again." Lionel sighed. "Let's get out of these suits now." He wanted to go to the mid-deck.
"Sharp kids." Jon muttered.
"So..." Zoe thought for a moment before saying anything else. "Did they tell you about the Oberlin shift yet?"
"You've got that worked out, I assume." Rolph-Carl hmmm'd. "What is his recovery time now?"
They were just about loaded up now.
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Post by elizar on Jan 21, 2009 21:10:00 GMT -5
"I'm not reading that far ahead in the books." Gloria said. "But Connor told me something about it. Said that a helo got turned into a human to be in a battle."
"I'll be watching you from here to begin with." Helen said as she brought up the biomonitor for the crew. Gates and Miles rose up and got out of the suits. Miles opened a locker to retrieve a clipboard and a pencil, a checklist for the routine.
"We haven't tested it extensively." Harold said. "The shortest time we've gone between shots before was a week, but he had most likely recovered before that. I'm currently feeding him some high-energy mixture. Special blend."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 21:37:44 GMT -5
"Interesting." Rolph-Carl smiled. "We should be able to get quite a bit done, then." He noted that the last bit of equipment was aboard. "Ready to cast off."
"We know that helo and her family." Zoe answered. "While trying to figure out what the user did to her and how it took place, scientists were also able to figure out how genetic changes happened between generations."
"That's a lotta big words." Dylan grimaced slightly.
"You'll figure out what it means eventually." his father reassured him.
The others shucked and stowed their suits, leaving their blue coveralls. Pilar maintained her own tablet and headset to maintain communications. "Yeah, this is the most boring part, isn't it?" Picard sighed. "Nothing else to do, no experiments or anything like that."
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Post by elizar on Jan 21, 2009 21:52:41 GMT -5
"Well, we can mess with your voice synthesizer." Miles smirked. "Make you sound like that ship AI of a movie that dad forced me to watch. HAL something.
"Nah, how about the AI from that Portal game? If the game hadn't been so short, she would have freaked me out." Gates said.
"It was also over my head." Gloria admitted.
"Don't worry. You'll learn about it eventually." Phoebe said.
"Hey, you want to meet the others?" Gloria asked Dylan. "My name's Gloria, what's yours?" She rushed to him slightly, hoping to get him outside to meet the rest of the shuttles. They were both Delta wings, and that was enough for her to relate to him. There weren't many kids aside from the shuttles around.
"It's okay." Phoebe said, encouraging Dylan.
"Let's get the crew on board then." Harold motioned the others. Kam had been transported inside the container as gently as possible. They didn't want to chance anything when so close to the goal.
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 22:10:28 GMT -5
"Eh, no monotones for me, thank you." Picard whuffed. "I saw that movie you're talking about, that voice just gave me the creeps."
Kam Yung stamped his displeasure as he felt the container being shifted around. It was audible as thumps through the steel walls. "You'll have to get that kid settled." Rolph-Carl warned as the container was secured.
Dylan approached the others diffidently. "So you all live together here? What about your folks?"
Zoe turned to Christine and Phoebe. "So what kind of environment do they have here? My grandparents were creche-raised up to the point that they had to leave, but it's kind of rare these days."
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Post by elizar on Jan 21, 2009 22:31:20 GMT -5
"We just have the same sitter and school." A twelve year old shuttle said. "Most of our parents live here nearby."
Gloria shrunk a bit by the comment.
"It's more of a boarding school, but accommodating the parents as well." Phoebe said. "Those parents who choose to be with their kids get housing and a little bit of help with finding jobs. All of the kids but Gloria live with their parents. Hers just told us they didn't want anything to do with her and dumped her here."
"Yeah, let him keep his character." Gates said. Helen walked from the cockpit and into the mid-ship.
"And he wouldn't sound very good as a female." Miles said.
Helen had promptly ignored the comments and dragged out the recreational board. While it was dangerous to have magnets around, they still had to have some way to get stuff to stick to each other. Velcro had been a contender, but then it was reasoned that having plastic board and cars that wasn't quite easy to remove from each other, but doable, would do the trick. The lifetime of the boards wasn't good, but it was still cheap and no risk to sensitive data.
"Anyone want to play cards with me?" She said as floating the board towards the other, holding the deck of playing cards.
Ursa sighed and proceeded to the container.
"No wait." Harold said and cut in front of her. "Let me."
Ursa shrugged and nodded. "Alright."
Harold opened the doors and let himself inside. <Be calm. Nothing bad happen.> He said in a rather broken Korean as entering. He had to admit he was memorizing translations from the English-Korean/Korean-English book.
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 22:39:12 GMT -5
Dylan's eyes went back to Gloria as he saw her wince. "Are you OK?"
Zoe's eyes widened, then narrowed in consternation. "How could they do that?" She might have spent a considerable part of her growing years away from home, but her own parents and family were never out of reach.
Kam's eyes shifted suspiciously to Harold. He was tired of being cooped up in the container and no longer shy about hiding it. He just settled and glowered sourly at the adult car.
"Better keep him quiet while we're still in the harbor." Rolph-Carl warned. "Later, he can make all the noise he wants."
"Sure." Lionel nodded. "Not like there's anything else coming up in the meantime."
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Post by elizar on Jan 21, 2009 22:50:57 GMT -5
<If good, home soon, circa month. If bad, no home.> Harold warned the kid as he saw that talking in a gentle voice was not going to do it. He went outside and closed the doors, but not before leaving another energy drink.
"There's more to the container than you see." He said. "Soundproof, and when connected to the laser, draws the energy of the kid."
"They're all Boeings." Phoebe said. "I managed to get a family photo of them, there's zero diversity going on. You aught to figure out now the reason why."
"Yeah." Gloria said. Connor smirked slightly.
"How about some rimball?" Connor asked Dylan. "Then we can finally have some even number while Picard isn't around."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 21, 2009 23:20:13 GMT -5
"OK." Dylan checked out Connor, drawing in his scent. Another was bringing the ball forward, nosing it out into the center.
"Yes." Zoe nodded. It had implications for her family line as well.
"Very ingenious." Rolph-Carl pronounced. "If you implement my suggestions, you should be able to improve the reliability of the process. We'll talk about that once we're out."
Pilar was at last able to remove her headset, at least for the duration. She turned on the feed from the mid-deck to ground control. They also watched.
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Post by elizar on Jan 22, 2009 9:37:02 GMT -5
The rest of the shuttle kids were quick to pick up the game and soon the game was into full swing. Teams were formed quickly, and despite some of the age gap, the game was quite even.
"So when one deviated, they simply didn't want anything to do with it, but going with what they know." Phoebe said. "That's why I hate hick family formations, while the chance of a gene jump is slim, but when it happens, it's the kids that suffer."
Harold sighed. "I don't know yet. Currently, the risk outweights the advantage." He said. "Because of today's event, there is little margin for errors."
Soon enough, a poker game was formed in freefall.
"I got to give the R&D department one thing." Miles said. "I wonder how much it actually cost to make recreational stuff for freefall conditions."
"That's nothing." Helen said. "Our biomonitors are good enough for Control to know who's bluffing and who's not. Gives them quite an insight into ourselves, probably more than we would want to."
"It's a risk we all knew we would be taking." Gates said. "We're exposed to everyone. While no one can really visit us in space, it doesn't mean that there are a lot of news programs going about this."
"And it will be a while until the Space Program will just blend into the background. Hopefully before the shuttle kids really feel the ramification of it." Miles said. "They are barely suited for anything else but space missions."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 22, 2009 17:30:33 GMT -5
If Zoe and Jon had figured that Phoebe's statement in any way reflected on their family, they didn't show it. Nevertheless, they knew that was how many people perceived their family line as well. "We would say that as much as those people pride themselves on their purity, they have no class." Zoe answered. "Some people would argue that our own family isn't much different, but then having the government of your own country trying to put an end to you would induce some impulses to keep the line going in spite of everything." She watched Dylan scoot after the ball along with the shuttle kids. "However, we can't go on like that, and we've started talking to other outmode families, especially delta-wing types."
"It won't be so... crude ... as what I had before." Rolph-Carl said in reassuring tones. "No pain, just happy-happy when he does well."
"Don't forget the video feed. Who knows how many people are watching right now?" Picard's tones, spoken privately through the earpieces, transmitted an eye-roll even if it was not visible. "Though NASA wouldn't be doing anything of the kind right NOW. I can just imagine some of the cranks down there going "Your tax dollars at work, for poker games in space!"
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Post by elizar on Jan 22, 2009 17:47:40 GMT -5
"It's the procedure itself that I'm worried about." Harold said. "Losing time when I shouldn't have to." He sighed. Rolph was somewhat right to bring it up. "It today's work will not do it, I'll see about it."
"Well, what are we going to do if we couldn't bring the spacelab with us?" Helen asked. "There is though one experiment that never got to be done in humanverse space, and requires little." She said grinning, and then went silent.
"I'm sorry." Phoebe said. "I should have been clearer. Hicks that are too ignorant to properly take care of their children. It's obvious that you do." She said and smiled apologetically.
"Have you done any outbreeding?" Christine asked Zoe and Johnathan. "The model line in whole that is, not just you two."
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Post by Evangeline on Jan 22, 2009 18:05:35 GMT -5
Pilar laughed. "Didn't someone write a song about that?"
"Yeah." Lionel smirked. "I've got it on MP3."
"It won't take long." Rolph-Carl assured. "And the current technique is not... invasive."
"There's already a few "unofficial" outcrosses, thanks to one of the other males gleefully spreading his genes around wherever he goes." Zoe sighed, not naming names. "One or two of those, the family might recognize, depending on how they turn out. Like I said, outcrosses with other delta-wings get the best results."
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