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In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".
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"Since they might come back, it's important to be ready," she says.
"If everyone who can go to Battle School does, that's all of the smartest children in the world learning only things that will make them better at killing buggers. I don't think we need to be that ready. Smart people are useful for more things than war."
"They test things besides smartness. I almost didn't get in because I had to have my exact mutation to pass any of the physicals. And there's psych tests, I had to take a lot of those. And they want a specific kind of smart, military smart, not like just artists or something."
"I don't think their tests are that good."
"Why?"
"Well, what do you mean by 'military smart'?"
"Strategic and tactical type of thinking, and sort of ruthlessness and opportunism and being able to do all your thinking really fast and change your plans. Somebody could be a really good doctor or something without any of that."
"The tests I took didn't look for that sort of thing very well."
"Didn't they? I wonder why. How do you know?"
"It was obvious."
"What do you think a test that tested for that would've looked like then?"
"I'm not sure the format allows for it."
"How would you do it?"
"Differently."
She huffs and folds her arms. Briefly. Then she goes back to swaying and fidgeting in her seat.
"What was that?" says Oat, puzzled.
"What was what?"
He tries to formulate a question, then gives up. "Never mind."
"...Okay."
Sit sit sit.
Handwave-dancing.
Eventually after a long boring hungry flight they reach the station. They are introduced to their "launch mom", a fellow named Crane, who makes a joke about Bella's surname ("Swan") and seems to be trying to establish rapport, if hierarchical rapport. They are assigned a barracks, code blue yellow yellow, and are to divide the bunks amongst themselves. Bella takes a top bunk about halfway into the room that nobody else seems to have their eye on.
Eventually after a long boring hungry flight they reach the station. They are introduced to their "launch mom", a fellow named Crane, who makes a joke about Bella's surname ("Swan") and seems to be trying to establish rapport, if hierarchical rapport. They are assigned a barracks, code blue yellow yellow, and are to divide the bunks amongst themselves. Bella takes a top bunk about halfway into the room that nobody else seems to have their eye on.
Oat has no surname. Oat takes a bottom bunk at the front of the room.
Oat keeps staring at the person who took the bunk across from him.
The person who took the bunk across from him notices. "What?"
"...Nothing," says Oat. He looks away.
Oat keeps staring at the person who took the bunk across from him.
The person who took the bunk across from him notices. "What?"
"...Nothing," says Oat. He looks away.
Bella signs on to her desk (username "Bella", password "extremely specific keysmash she couldn't reproduce as actual characters on demand if she tried"), investigates the software in a cursory manner, and then sets about introducing herself to people and learning their names now that she has a place to write everything down once she's learned it.
The boy in the bunk across from Oat is, "Sindri. You were sitting beside that kid in the shuttle, right? Do you have any idea why he keeps looking at me like that?"
"I think he might not have any social skills," says Bella.