523 A Typical School Day

Before Gloria climbed into bed, she sent off the message she should have sent the night before. With an empty day and no one else but herself to take care of, her emotional state was borderline depression as she pulled the blanket up over her head and plunged herself into warm darkness. It was a fitting place, since it matched her mood almost exactly.

Just as she cuddled in on herself, she received a message back from Veder, and it surprised her. He had wanted her to go with him to school, to prove that he was getting better and that he needed her supervision between classes to make sure the doctor's diagnosis was correct. He had actually wanted her to go with him the day before, except she had been busy looking for David and dealing with her own stuff.

Gloria wanted to refuse, she really did... and then decided she should be the one to remove the bandages. If she left it in Veder's hands, he might damage himself trying to pull them off in weird ways, or worse, just grab the entire bandage on the back of his skull and then yanked on it to take it off. There was no way she could allow that to happen, so she reluctantly agreed.

She hadn't been under the blanket long, so she hadn't sweated or needed another shower. She dressed in her work clothes, choose the green blouse that Veder liked, and put on her EMT jacket and left the apartment. It didn't take her long to reach his apartment building and she signed in at the security desk.

Her eyes caught the previous entry, which was when Syn had left earlier that morning, and noticed it also had a notice attached that she wasn't coming back.

Gloria forced down her immediate happy reaction and made it to the elevator before she lost the fight. She smiled widely and let out a little laugh, then coughed a couple of times and brought herself back under her usually stern control. If she was lucky, she could take over the night shift from now on and Veder going to school wouldn't affect her at all.

She entered the apartment and saw Veder waiting for her. He was dressed up in an altered uniform and she had to admit to herself, that even with the casts on his forearms and feet, he struck an imposing and quite handsome figure.

“The upper cast gives me football player shoulders.” Veder said when he saw her looking at them.

Gloria couldn't help herself and barked a laugh. “It's maybe an inch or an inch and a half thick, just enough of a brace to stop your neck from bending to the sides.” She motioned to his shoulders. “Most of that is you filling it out, V.”

Veder shrugged a little and the entire coat lifted an inch.

“Come on, we can take my car...” Gloria started to say.

“No, thank you.” Veder said and pointed to the vidscreen. It showed a taxi service was booked every morning for the next three months, right up until graduation. “The fees are already handled, too.”

Gloria held in her surprise at hearing that. The gratuity alone would be expensive as hell for that long and he had booked a taxi ride for twice a day, to and from school, for the next 90 days. It was mind boggling! He could probably hire a couple of professional joytoys for less than that for the same amount of time.

Veder saw the expression on her face and laughed as he picked up a backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Let's go. Delemain should be downstairs waiting for us.”

“But... your bandages...” Gloria said as she walked with him back out of the apartment.

“I brought the first aid kit with me, so you can handle them on the way.” Veder said and she nodded.

They rode the elevator down to the lobby and Veder sent Tank something that made the bigger man sit up straighter, then grin like a Cheshire cat. He gave a thumbs up in return and they left the building.

“Should I even ask what tat was about?” Gloria asked as she took the backpack and helped Veder enter the luxurious taxi.

“I gave him the password for the vid subscription I just bought. It can get boring watching normal television through the security cameras.” Veder admitted and leaned back into the plush faux leather seat. “Hey, Delemain. How's the biz?”

“Smooth as a baby's bottom.” Delemain said and waited for Gloria to sit before he closed the door and pulled away from the curb. “That is such an interesting phrase, isn't it? How did something like that get added into humanity's collective consciousness and be accepted in society as a measuring stick for how smooth things are, both physically and colloquially?”

Gloria stared at the little screen as Veder had a philosophical discussion with a goddamn taxi. It took her several minutes before she remembered she had a job to do and opened the backpack to dig out the first aid kit and retrieved the scissors.

As Veder talked, he kept his head still as she worked off the same piece of tape she had used to check him yesterday and then used the scissors to cut away at the rest of the bandages and peeled the surgery tape off from the other side, since it was still attached to the cut bandages.

When it was all off and left Veder completely bald, Gloria couldn't resist running her hand over the back of his head to check that it really was smooth and there were no gaps or anything in the synthetic bone graft Victor Vektor had to use to fill in part of Veder's skull that used to hold a huge metal plate.

Gloria felt relief that her caresses didn't reveal anything, except for Veder's quite obvious reaction to her petting his head like that. He used his fingertips as he tried to adjust himself and she had to clamp her mouth shut to stop from laughing at him struggling to do such a simple thing.

Without saying anything, Gloria took things in hand as she opened his pants up and adjusted him, being careful to only touch him above his boxer shorts, since neither of them were anywhere near a water source or could wash their hands. It wasn't until she had zipped him back up and put the scissors back into the first aid kit that she saw there were surgical gloves inside and she could have touched him directly if she wanted to.

“Thank you.” Veder whispered, his face red.

Gloria only nodded in response, since she couldn't tell him she regretted not seeing the gloves before, and packed the first aid kit back into the backpack. Her hands stilled when she saw what she thought was a sealed container of fruit. She didn't take it out or anything, though. Instead, she sat back and gave Veder a look so intense that it would have burned a hole through him if she had Heat Vision.

If she could have read his thoughts, she would have known he had seen a similar look from other women before and he wasn't surprised that she was capable of it, too.

The taxi arrived at Arasaka Tower and came to a stop well away from the main area where the other cars were dropping off other students. Gloria hopped out when the door opened and hefted the backpack onto her own shoulder temporarily before she helped Veder out.

“Thanks, Delemain.” Veder said and patted the roof of the car. “I'll dig through my other stuff later to see what else you might like.”

“Sounds good, choom. See you later.” Delemain said and closed the door, then he pulled out into traffic and playfully honked the horn in goodbye.

Gloria opened her mouth to comment when a group of Arasaka Academy girls pretty much swarmed her and Veder.

“Your head's okay!” Carrie exclaimed and reached up to rub it. Her face went a little red as she did so, which meant the other girls had to try it as well.

“I'm not a magic lamp.” Veder said and let out a little laugh. “Rubbing it three times isn't going to earn you a wish!”

That made all the girls laugh and most of them backed off. Carrie gave his head another couple of caresses before she glanced down and saw how hard he was. She slowly ran her hand down to his neck and blushed as she pulled her hand away, mistakenly thinking she was the cause.

I did that, you corpo bitch.Gloria thought vindictively and barely managed to keep the anger off of her face.Where the hell did that come from?

“Bruno already replaced the door handle and told us to warn you about not showing off again.” Kei said as the group, plus Gloria, walked over to near the stairs.

Veder laughed and shook his head. “I brought a set of hired hands to help me with the everyday stuff I can't handle until tonight.”

The girls looked a little sad before Carrie caught on to what he said.

“Tonight? Why then?” Carrie asked.

“My ripperdoc's paying me a home visit and said these are coming off.” Veder proclaimed and lifted his cast-covered forearms and hands that only had fingers and his thumbs showing.

The girls all looked surprised for a second and then gained interested looks as the congratulated him on getting out of them early, then they started talking about what they would be learning today.

Gloria wasn't sure why she felt a spike of jealousy from those looks. She was in the midst of a fit of denial and trying to keep her distance, while also wanting to remain close to Veder to protect him from the corpo sluts that would abuse his good nature.

The door was soon opened and the students flooded into the school, all except Veder and the group of girls with him. Gloria helped balance him to walk up the stairs and walked with him to his classroom.

“We shouldn't be long. Lunch is early and a double period today.” Veder told her. When Gloria tried to hand her the backpack, he shook his head. “I won't need it until lunch.”

That statement had the girls all tittering and whispering excitedly, so Gloria knew that they suspected what he had in the backpack. The very things she had seen that were sealed inside a biohazard container.

“There's a bench near the cafeteria for you to...” Veder started to say when the girls pulled him inside the classroom and the door shut in her face.

That was rude.Gloria thought and glanced around the pretty much bare hallway.What else can you expect from corpos like them?

There was nothing even remotely close to being somewhere to sit nearby, so Gloria took Veder's advice. She went to the cafeteria and saw the bench near the double door entrance. It looked comfortable, at least. Gloria sat down and she stayed there for quite some time as the temptation gnawed at her to peek inside and check the backpack's contents.

*

I sat in class and listened to the teacher's introduction to today's topic, which was the current upper echelons of the Arasaka Company. We needed to memorize the names of the top ranked corpos and also all of the directors and their vice directors. There were a lot of names and most of the class groaned at the huge list they needed to memorize, then would have to maintain it and keep it current on their own initiative for the last three months of school.

This would prepare us for the upcoming corporate world we were about to enter and would also let us know who was viable to petition for favors or to butter up with gifts to consider our name if any openings were made available. Either that or we could make a spot available in whatever department we hoped to enter. There was no such thing as healthy competition in the corpo world.

I was pretty sure I wanted to ignore all of that and go directly into research and development. I needed some kind of cover as I introduced more versatile tech and released patents for some of the things I had in my inventory. Even basic things would net me a huge influx of cash, since some of them were pre-DataKrash inventions and were lost to time.

Then again, I could easily enter the intelligence branch of the company, or more accurately the counter-intelligence department. My methods to dig out tech designs, company secrets, and everything else was almost priceless in a world run by big corporations. That thought reminded me I had a pile of Arasaka secrets to go through, too.

“Please enter the Green Room and initiate the meditation phase.” The teacher ordered and we all dropped into VR and appeared in the clearing. Her avatar appeared and she produced a file for us to assimilate and made enough copies for us and distributed them. She gave me a pointed look and I was sure it wasn't because I had stored the file and absorbed the information instantly.

“I'll refill my pocket before going to lunch, miss.” I told her and she smiled and went to the meathead that almost never succeeded in downloading the files to help him.

“So, you did bring more.” Evelyn said as she and her friends surrounded me.

I glanced at her and saw she had filed away almost half of the huge list already. “I also brought extra hands, just in case.”

“To keep us from taking them all?” One of the other girls guessed.

I laughed. “No, to protect the table when everyone else sees I brought a few more examples of seedless fruit for you all to taste test for me.”

“Seedless?” “Taste test?” “You have more fruit?” They all asked at the same time.

“I was playing around with the single cell protein a lot before I ended up hurt here.” I said, truthfully. I had done a lot with it back in the Matrix. “I managed to create a great substitute for pasta noodles, which work great in ramen and other dishes, some meat products that are as close in taste to the real thing as possible, and a few other things. It wasn't until I did some private research here that I figured out how to make fruit and things as well.”

That last part was also the truth. Arasaka had their own bio-organics division to try and break into the solid market hold that Biotechnica had on the food industry. They weren't really successful, since they didn't own huge tracks of land to convert into protein farms to produce enough biological material to make enough food to defer the initial costs of starting up such an expensive and expansive project.

What they didn't have was my personal knowledge of much smaller and compact greenhouses where nearly all of the internal space was used for growing various crops. They had been quite successful back in Smallville and hugely successful in Westeros and the wastelands near Old Valeria.

I decided to make everything seedless, just so other companies couldn't steal them and produce them on their own, cutting me out completely, or possibly eliminating me to remove their competition. Having an assassin after me, or an entire squad of them, was not something I needed right now or in the near future. I wasn't worried about myself, though. It was the other people near me that could be in danger.

“Did... did you say... you can make meat? Like, real meat and make it taste like real meat?” Carrie asked, her eyes wide and full of hope.

I chuckled at her reaction and saw the other girls had similar looks on their faces. “Well, just between you and me...” I said in a soft voice and they all leaned in close to hear. “...my faux bacon is even better than the real thing, because there's no fat or bad carbs. It's healthy and delicious with no downsides.”

A couple of the girls gasped and Kei let out a little moan.

“We need to set up a meeting with my mom A.S.A.P., Veder.” Carrie said, her voice firm.

I blinked my eyes at her in surprise. “What? Why?”

“Because she's in charge of the Reclamation Project, a minor division under Arasaka's R&D department. She only has a small staff, barely anyone notable, since the higher-ups think it's a waste of time and resources.” Carrie explained and half rolled her eyes before she stopped herself. “She even had a hand in recreating the Bonzai Trees in the park behind the Tower, in cooperation with the Japanese, Chinese, and Russian governments.”

I nodded in understanding. “It's a money sink to do research like that and there's barely any returns, since it's mostly aesthetic work and doesn't impact any real parts of the industry, except maybe landscape design.”

“Exactly.” Carrie said and took my hand. “Your ideas alone will make the project stand out. Add in your design and programming knowledge, with the work you've already done to recreate edible food, and you could easily rise up through the division to become her assistant in only a month or two.”

That comment made my thoughts pause. “Carrie, isn't that your path to success?”

Carrie looked embarrassed for only a moment before she lifted her head and looked at me proudly. “I might have to change my skill focus into the Acquisitions and Procurement department. I've been finding out that I'm not really suited for the same career path as my mom.”

“What?!?” A couple of the girls gasped.

“You're plenty ruthless when you need to be.” Evelyn complimented her.

Carrie blushed at the praise. “Thank you.” She said and looked back at me. “The problem is, I'm not creative enough. Ideas like yours have never crossed my mind, so how can I help her department grow to become something more important?”

That I had the perfect answer to. “You are literally doing that right now.”

Carrie and the others looked shocked at my response.

“You might not think you have the right creativeness to help; but, you had the presence of mind to seek out those that do.” I said and used my free hand to caress her cheek. “If that's not helping your mother's department to the best of your ability, then trying out for another department isn't going to change that.”

Carrie blushed again and she looked conflicted.

“We're in class. PDA has to wait for a more appropriate time.” I whispered and she nodded.

“I'll call home when class ends for lunch.” Carrie promised and started talking to Evelyn about making up a diagram with the various branches of the company, with movable slots for each position.

When a corpo was either demoted or promoted, they could easily move things around without having to edit the entire thing. They would also ignore the lesser ranked corpos, since they changed so much that keeping track of them was a fool's errand. Their discussion let the rest of the girls absorb the executive list fairly quickly and they all chimed in on how to best achieve their chosen class project.

The teacher passed by us and gave me a nod. She clearly approved of Carrie's initiative and it reflected a positive attitude and awareness of just how dangerous being a higher ranked corpo really was.

With Carrie's offer to call her mother to introduce me, lunchtime was definitely going to be an interesting time.

As I stood there and listened to the girls gab, I also thought about Syn's hasty departure that morning. I had a feeling she was going to quit after what happened, and learning Victor was coming over to remove my casts, cemented it in her mind. She tried to refuse the bonus I paid her, so I worded it as a severance pay and she appreciated the gesture. It also gave her some breathing room in her finances and she left feeling both happy and sad.

As a parting shot, I had told her that she wasn't alone and that I was going to miss her, too. She looked surprised and then blushed, gave me a quick wave, and fled. I doubted I would ever hear from her again, though. She was too embarrassed about taking advantage of me to not see herself doing that every time she looked at me.

Oh, well. You win some and you lose some.I thought and Carrie's hand in mine tightened. I smiled at her and she gave me a smile back. I volunteered some of my programming expertise to the project and was soon after fully involved with their discussion.