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Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.
They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.
And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.
Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.
Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.
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autokinetic
Tell me about it.
autokinetic
Tell you what? You know more than I do. Have you got guesses?
Not really. Whatever it is, Old Guy is in it big. I think he's mad at me for kicking his ass that one time.
Well, that's just it, says Sue. I think it was supposed to be some kind of psychological thing, to keep me off balance or something. I think he was supposed to win. But instead I wiped the floor with him. So now he's pissed off.
autokinetic
That's idiotic. If he's supposed to win, they should've made sure he was able to.
I think I was better than they were expecting, he says smugly.
autokinetic
You been getting in unconventional forms of practice they can't track or something?
Nope. So I guess they're just not paying attention.
autokinetic
That's... that's even stupider than I expect from the people we're talking about, here. There has to be some other explanation. Was the guy even particularly good? Was it close? Could they have some reason to think you wouldn't kick his ass when provoked?
Well, he's old? hazards Sue. And he tried to fake me out a couple times, like he was hurt too bad to keep fighting, but man, I know when I've hurt somebody too bad to keep fighting. He was good, I'll give him that. But I think he was expecting me to hold back on him, and I didn't.
Old, says Sue. And irritable. And cagey. Well, not really irritable - he tries to act like he's my 'enemy', but that's fucked, he's obviously here to teach me. That's part of what's weird about all this. Why the fuck are they giving me this nasty old fart as a teacher, and why the fuck is he dressing it up like his job is to make my life hell?
autokinetic
Dunno. Maybe he'll be less cagey if I meet him? Am I likely to do that, given they'll have to put you and me in a room since they don't know we can link?
Who even knows, sighs Sue.
I hope they bunk us again, except then the nasty old fart would be waking you up at all hours too.
autokinetic
He wakes you up? In the middle of the space-night? Why, what for?
Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.
autokinetic
What does he try to do, though, is he calling you to - read things, do things, talk to people...?
Anything. Sometimes he just stares at me for a while, or says something about how the enemy ever waits, and then lets me go back to sleep. He hasn't done it since I quit, but it hasn't been that long, so I don't know if it's just not time yet in his nasty old fart schedule.
autokinetic
Well, we'll see if I can run interference. Let him read my psych file if he wants it and decide what to do from there, they're less confused about me than they are about you, they have a few years of me reading my own mind and laying it all out in English for them.
You're the best, he says happily.