Аннотация: Fishing. A conversation between two farmers about Jane and the army.
Chapter 10.2 Fishing
It's late morning. My friends and I are sitting with fishing rods on the shore, it's already hot, the fish won't bite. A crowd of elementary school students stomps by, singing our guerrilla song. They look at us, smile, wave, and we wave back. At the head of the column is their classmate, a cheerful blonde girl, Svetlana Tkachuk, our school entertainer, the head of the amateur theater group and a teacher of rhetoric. Al Hartman walks beside her, full of importance. Joseph sent him to look after the youngsters, he has two younger twin sisters in the column. His face, however, is sour, and his feelings are melancholy. He looked at us, smiled weakly, and we showed him clenched fists - be strong, muchachos! (guy) He just rolled his eyes in response. Two weeks with a fine, br-r-r!
I remember last year, when we were invited to the same event. Well, the class leader, the best biotic of the school, an excellent student and blah blah blah, should show the younger ones by her own example what a real colonist should be. Evgenia, we hope for you, show us the class! I was outraged by this assignment to the limit - I thought I would start breathing fire. It's good that Rien noticed, came over, hugged, and comforted. As a result, I took Gina with Nain, Al Hartman, two of our Turians, and Feron, and went on a guerrilla mission. Everything went well, in general. Instead of two ropes, there is now a normal suspension bridge on metal cables at the ferry. So it's difficult to fly away from it.
There were guys in the column a year younger than us, their faces are serious, Ivan leads the column. He struts with such an important air that don't come near - of course, instructors, don't fuck with him! The blue-skinned Nair closes the column, her protruding tummy is already clearly visible, our biotics instructor will become a mom very soon - what a guerrilla she just went! That's responsible, of course, the kids are in the wilderness, without proper supervision, with a very kind Svetlana, there's no order!
Nair came to replace her former mentor, who had problems in her family and needed to leave urgently for Tassia. This blue-skinned former paratrooper, who has a bioprosthesis instead of her right leg, with her cheerful and easy character, instantly fit into the school team, becoming a universal favorite. She quickly became friends with the entertainer Sveta and became the real mascot of the school's biotic team.
She was an excellent coach, albeit harsh and demanding, but I really liked her approach and methods - a kind of mother commander: I'll tear anyone's mouth off for my own, but I won't let myself down. It's a pity, but I took everything she could give me a year ago - an absolute memory helps a lot in learning. I thought that technology was something complicated, but it turned out to be extremely accessible. With my engineering education, trained spatial thinking, and years of working with drawings of varying degrees of complexity, it turned out to be easier to memorize linear force constructs. Of course, this is true only with my memory - other girls puff for a long time and will puff for a long time. As it turned out, all these gestures are absolutely unnecessary... except as an auxiliary tool. What is important is to accurately determine the distance to the target. Look out, determine the distance, form an impact, fill it with power - and now the singularity is hanging over the enemy's head, and he is being dragged there with terrible force. However, as the distance increases, the degree of control of structures decreases, so far I have a radius of only 300-350 meters, when for Nair it is up to one and a half kilometers.
It is very important in biotics to correctly and quickly solve spatial equations in your mind in order to form and fill with power - that's brain-bending mathematics. This is exactly what most biotics need implants for. Well, an ordinary person doesn't have a computer in their brain to solve double integrals in their mind, and they don't have the time, like azari, to learn! So they put dangerous gadgets in their heads to make life easier for biotics. The same controversial L2 is a great chip ... only it doesn't have a limiter for work, and it's just hard for a child to stop, and instead of winning, it turns out to be a sensitive and mental overload, a terrible migraine, or even a catatonic stupor. Instead of a fighter, the army and the family get a semi-paralyzed disabled person - a tragedy for everyone! It is good that, under public pressure, the implant was modified by installing a limiter and getting a less powerful, but safe L2n carrier. Yes, now I understand why Alenko was such a bore and a pedant. With L2, it's only with this mindset that you can work normally. Oh, it's a good thing I don't need an implant!..
In the process of learning, I learned that kinetic barriers do not save from biotic influences. Therefore, biotic fighters are a huge advantage if you have a biotic in your team, but the opponent does not. If it's the other way around, then you know. My grandfather once told me about a case from his service.
"Once we went to Bekenstein, I was a drop then, and we had a couple of wizards in our landing team", He told us. "They were having an affair. But, in general, this did not affect the discipline, although it seems to be prohibited in the charter. The guys were golden - the landing party was ready to carry them on their hands. Thanks to these two, in a year, after thirty amphibious operations against pirates, not a single dead paratrooper. And so, our witch went to a restaurant at the spaceport, and there the local majors were hanging out - what they forgot there, the devil knows. They rolled up to her, but the girl was like a doll, just a pretty girl. She sent them far and for a long time. The vile ones were offended, they scared the bartender, and this bitch added tavlon (1) to our witch's cocktail. (Tavlon is a drug, a psychocorrector-suppressant, reduces the critical assessment of a person's actions to an almost complete minimum, causing irresistible trust in others. Under the influence of tawlon, a person can spill everything he knows, can kill on order. It was used during the fighting between people, for emergency interrogations of prisoners. During the validity period, the fiction is prohibited, and distribution is punishable.) She stuck together, the vile ones took her away with them and mocked her, thinking that she was a simple flight lieutenant from the Marines. And as soon as they realized who it was, they took a shit, and they killed him. The case immediately began to be hushed up - the sons turned out to be some local bosses. And the guy waited and waited, couldn't wait, lost his temper, went off on his own, took the bartender from the restaurant by the ass. He surrendered the entire Camarilla out of fear. The sorcerer, without thinking twice, came to the local club, where the whole gang was drinking that day, and this club was the father of one of the majors. Well, he pressed the group. And the dad who was in the club, that dumb deer, tried to bribe and intimidate the guy at the same time, and he lost his mind. And since there was no one else in the club at that time except these clowns, he took them all down: the merzyukes, the daddy, and the daddy's guards. The locals heard these freaks screaming as they died, the cops were called, they cordoned off the club, and let's offer the guy change. Anyway, the rope was already shining on him, and he sent them. They came running to us, Cap went and talked to him, and sent all these freaks to such and such a mother. You've started this mess, he says, and you're clearing it up. And the guy wasn't going to give up. The cops refused to storm the building. And one of these bastards' dads hired mercenaries. Two platoons entered the club, two platoons... The fight went on for four hours - and back, out of fifty people, five came out, the rest stayed in the club forever! For the company of our boyfriend. Eh... what a guy he was! Our landing party commemorated them both every year...."
Because of their power and rather cold nature, as a result of working with the implant, ordinary soldiers call biotics sorcerers, witchers - and they don't really like them. Biotics, in return, pay everyone else in the same coin.
Four years ago, as soon as she arrived and looked around, Nair laid eyes on our city sheriff. William Grayson, a lone former high-security investigator from the Ohio State Police. While working on a case, I managed to cross the path of someone from the powerful of this world. They staged a real hunt for the law enforcement officer: they killed the bride, made false accusations of all mortal sins. When the cop was completely desperate, he accidentally came to the attention of one of RM's human resources agents - God only knows how he got to the States. The corporation helped William fight off the charges and took him to Mendoir, out of harm's way. Here he was put in charge of public safety in Leonov, and he quietly moved away from what had happened in his life. Local unmarried gossips made eyes at the gloomy handsome sheriff with terrible force, but for several years he remained cold to their advances, apparently mourning the bride who died on Earth. Nair Bill immediately liked her very much, and she, in the best traditions of the landing, staged a real assault - as a result, six months later, after fluttering listlessly, our sheriff, to the universal grief of the gossips, was dragged down the aisle, and now sparkles with a gold bracelet on his right hand. And the coach has found some feminine happiness, and she is already pregnant. Gossips, of course, sometimes hiss about a blue, lame witch who brazenly stole "such a guy"... and azari just laughs. Good girl! Ha, those fools would have been snapping their beaks even longer! Our coach is a real paratrooper. "Where we are, there is victory!" is about her.
Last year, I mastered the full range of biotic effects of the Asari landing with her, and even those techniques that Nair herself cannot use due to limitations on the capacity of the biotic channel. But she was able to remember them and showed them to me. These are mainly effects of mass application, such as a deformation field or a detonation wave. So far, I've only used them at the landfill. Delight! The impressions are the strongest, the Asari girls were also impressed. Especially from the wave of detonations: a solid wall of explosions, fifteen meters wide, and pieces of plastic target containers flying in different directions, and dust clouds. I hear someone whispering behind me: "The redhead is strong! They're like weapons of mass destruction!" Otherwise, we Shepards are like that!
I'm twelve. The body is slowly changing, and I feel that the rate of change is increasing. As an engineer in the past, I am interested in the experience of the development of the female body - it is different from the male. Despite my consciousness, I feel more and more like a woman. I find myself with a changed worldview - although I still rely more on logic, but the further I go, the harder it is to keep my feelings in check. But hormonal changes haven't started yet... what will happen after that? It even gets scary sometimes when I think about it.... How different we men and women are-they're not even different galaxies, they're just different universes! And it's amazing to me how we get along together! That's probably why we get along, because we just complement each other. The view from the other side was stunning. How much I fought with my new nature... the desire to cry for any reason and for no reason was worth it! The mind waits for one type of reaction, and the body demonstrates another. How it infuriated me at first! I'm used to it now, and I've even learned how to use it. Girls also grow and change, only Gina changes more slowly, she is, in fact, still a child. Batarians grow up a little slower, but at this age it is very noticeable, especially in contrast to Nain - Turians grow up faster than humans. The sister already looks quite like a girl and no, no, and casts glances at the guys.
Yes, guys have joined our company. These are, as it is not difficult to guess, Alex Hartmann and Feron Tanris. Hartman, as Nain whispered to me, had a crush on me. Too bad, the Citadel has opened ... otherwise I do not know! Oblomingo will wave a wing at Sanya, but don't drive him away, it's a pity to offend a good person. The main thing is not to give reasons, it will pass by itself, especially with such a vicious ulcer like me. How we giggled when we overheard Joseph talking to his neighbor in the Galamarket, a fellow farmer, only a Turian, Marcos Jarvis, the father of my twin classmates, which is incredibly rare among Turians. They stood at the counter of a small cafe in a megamarket and looked into the hall. Gina, Nain, and I were sitting at a table eating ice cream, and they didn't see us.
"Listen, Joe, your little one's been visiting the Shepards a lot, but he's hanging out with their girl and her friends all the time. Have you fallen in love?"
"Don't tell me, Marcos, I'm in love... He follows the redhead around like a chick on a string, looking into her mouth. I just don't know what to do with it."
"Have you tried to talk? It's kind of early, they're only nine years old yet.... And what about Eugene? How does she feel about you?"
"She needs him like muklik needs a brake light! She's an army bone - all the relatives are in uniform! She'll be joining the corps in five years-that's all they saw of her. The older brothers over there are both already in the corps. And they say she lathered up there. If he does, that's at least thirty years in the Navy! And, taking into account such a grandfather, she will not stop until she reaches the rank of admiral or lays down her head. What kind of daughter-in-law is this? So I think it's nothing! Her character is like steel! Take one into the house, and in a month my whole farm will be marching and saluting. Well, fuck it! I've had my fill of all this stuff in the Navy... even at home, like in a barracks! A wife should obey her husband, not the other way around. And this one will obey, wait!"
"Do you think it will pass by itself?"
"It will pass. As soon as the sweetheart leaves for Earth, he will forget about her. Not right away, but he'll forget. And that's good. I'm a farmer, Marcos, like you, and my job is to plow the land and feed the people. And theirs is to protect us all. And my awesome wife needs a farmer to know and love this life. And which of the soldiers is a farmer?"
"You gave it away, Joe! Do you think I'm a bad farmer?"
"Marcos, what kind of soldier are you? He served the mandatory ten years and then moved here, bought a farm. You say yourself, I grew up on a farm, your father and grandfather are farmers. After all, I also gave ten years of my life to the Navy - my father sent me to the Space Marines at the age of 17. "Go," he said, "and repay your debt to your country, or are you not a man?" And while I was paying back my debt to the motherland, the corporations squeezed the farm from us. I came home and my friend, Liz, the neighbor's daughter, was sitting on our porch and crying. Their farm had been taken away the year before, and the whole family moved in with us. Her father didn't survive it, he died. And mine is really bad too. I came and sat next to her, and she told me everything, and she buried her face in my chest, and she cried even louder. I'm sitting next to her, and I'm so sad, Marcos.... This farm belonged to us, the Hartmans, for 300 years, there's a whole cemetery of my ancestors nearby... and now it's been taken away. Apparently, this is how the motherland needs us.... I've been under bullets for ten years, I came home, and the house was taken away! It's good that I accidentally saw a note about the recruitment of colonists to Mendoir. He married Liz, took her, his mother-in-law, his mother and father, his sister and her husband, and moved here. And you know, I've never regretted it! Let's say that Russians have a bad democracy... you know what, Marcos? Fuck her, this democracy! Here in the States, it's also weird - whoever has more money is a fucking Democrat... and the Native Americans still live on reservations, just like they did three hundred years ago."
"Maybe you're right. My younger brother is going to join us too. He says he'll serve a year and quit. When he arrives, will we help him, neighbor?"
"Of course, we will help! The more farmers, the better! You and I, neighbor, are plowing, plowing, and other farmers are also busy, but everyone is the same - we have to bring a third of the food to the colony. This is not the case! So the society will only be "for" and will be glad to have a new owner on the land, there it is, how much land is empty - it's bad, we need to develop it.... How about a drink, buddy?"
"Come on! While our wives are shopping and don't see us. Girl, pour us two two hundred vodka bottles, and a couple of pickled cucumbers." Jarvis replied, making a characteristic gesture with his fingers.
After all, farmers don't recognize containers smaller than a glass, then or now, and it doesn't matter that it's not Land, and one of them is an American and the other is a Turian. The interlocutors clinked glasses, exhaled, drank and crunched cucumbers.