“Aemer!” Jack called to his daughter from the front entrance. “You have a guest.”
A muffled voice came screaming back from one of the simulation rooms, and Jack winced slightly. “IF IT’S THAT- THAT- THAT JERKASAUR JACOB,” Jack closed his eyes, knowing that if she was talking to anyone else any number of expletives would have come streaming out of her mouth instead of ‘jerkasaur,’ “TELL HIM TO GO AWAY. I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO TODAY THAN DEAL WITH HIS… JUNK FOR BRAINS.”
Jack sighed, and glanced over at his companions. Melissa Miles was an old friend from school, a former bioengineer and wife of a councilman. Even though she was some years older than him, she’d never treated him any differently, and Jack had been hoping Aemer would be on her best behavior for her visit. He looked down at her son.
For a 12-year-old, the boy looked a bit small and had fluffy brown hair, blinking his angular black eyes uncomfortably from behind a pair of glasses perched almost politely on his nose. Melissa had told Jack that he one day wanted to be a bioengineer, and asked if their children could practice together, since Aemer was supposedly so good at it. But when he’d heard the shouting, the boy had flinched slightly, and Jack didn’t really think nerves like that were well-suited to life in war. Then again, if anyone could fix those nerves of his, it was Aemer.
“Give me a moment.” He told them, and walked over to the room, walking inside. “Aemer.” That was when he realized she was in one of the simulation pods.
“Can’t you just tell him to go away?” She answered, petulantly.
Jack frowned at the closed pod and screwed a projector into a port at its base, projecting the image onto the wall. This particular simulation came with captions for the mental conversation that was going on. Aemer was in the middle of a program largely focused on communicating with the Calamar, no mech assigned. Those things required concentration. How she was holding a conversation, even an ill-tempered one, while running this program was a mystery to him.
“Aemer. This isn’t Jacob Danby. It’s a friend of mine with her son. He wants to be a bioengineer like you. At least come out and meet him.” He said, frowning at the wall screen, since he couldn’t frown directly at her.
“I’ll do it when I’m done.” She snapped.
“It would be better if you persuaded them to switch targets.” A boy’s voice said, clearly still in the process of breaking. Jack whirled around, realizing he hadn’t closed the door behind him and Melissa’s son had followed him in. The boy no longer looked completely clueless, eyes trained on the captions on the wall with a laser focus.
“What?” Aemer asked, sharply, a little surprised, but Jack saw her taking his advice into account, telling a group of squid to shift targets instead of trying to get them to stop attacking outright.
“Coordinating a blitz with another bioengineer might work with the group to the right.” The boy added helpfully.
“Hey, shut up!” Aemer said, and instead convinced two groups at a time to pincer attack one mech, reaching out to the targeted mech in question, and getting them to jump up at the last minute and fire a missile below them.
The boy seemed surprised, but continued watching thoughtfully. He seemed to have made an impression, because a little menu in the corner flashed, buttons lighting up quickly as options were scrolled through. A window popped up. “Run last_boss.exe early?” The confirm button lit up briefly. Jack had almost never seen Aemer finish a program early without his nagging. What happened next was no surprise to Jack, but he watched the teenager, well-prepared for the bug-eyed look of shock the younger male showed as he watched the screen.
The image sharpened suddenly, the perspective widening, and both of them knew she had activated a second parasite. The 14 year old girl commanded several groups of squid at time. Since she had triggered the last attack early, there were more squid on the battlefield than normal, but there were fewer mid-bosses as well, making it easier for her to take control of the situation. Last bosses meant close combat was required, but Aemer tried to keep the last bosses farther back, sending elite mechs to face them, while getting the lower level squids to swarm in clever little patterns for the mechs to take advantage of.
This type of simulation, a bioengineer without a mech relying only on open communication lines, was never easy. Knowing Aemer’s preferred settings, she was likely running what was colloquially known as “certain death,” a program designed to make the bioengineer lose. Sometimes Aemer lost. Today, she was almost definitely dressing to impress.
By the end of it, Melissa’s son was shaking slightly, and he backed away when the squidpod sim opened like a blooming flower and Aemer hopped out. Jack had retreated to a corner of the room, and she didn’t seem to notice him at first, but it may have also been a result of her curiosity about her new spectator. “Who the hell are you?” She snapped, inspecting him curiously.
“I- I- I- I’m Jensen.” He said, retreating further, and seeming almost to shrink into his skin.
Since adopting Aemer, Jack had read everything he could get his hands on about the Calamar and bioengineers. Not everything had made sense, but there was one thing that had stuck with Jack through everything he’d read: Calamar had a hierarchy that they established without words. Even the humans who saw them understood the differences between regular squid and the bosses, but it was a mystery how that hierarchy had come to exist, and how the Calamar themselves knew who was whom. Jack had never forgotten what Albert had said the first time he’d seen Aemer, how she’d established rank without even needing the mental sync.
When he’d adopted her, he hadn’t thought much of it, but this was one thing about Aemer Jack could never decide whether to laugh at or be anxious about. With the right people, Aemer liked to establish dominance, and she was very good at it. This Jensen was definitely much lower on the totem pole. “Dad said you were a bioengineer in training.” She said, putting her hands on her hips. “Why are you here?”
“Well, I- my mom-“
She scowled at him and he stopped speaking immediately. “You’re here because your mom told you to?”
“N-no. Mom said- She said you could help. Or uhm, that you were- I mean, you are good. She thought- well, since she’s friends with your dad-” He didn’t finish his sentence, and had now been backed all the way up to the wall.
“Since she’s friends with my dad, what?” She demanded, impatiently. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Sh- she thought we could practice together.” Jensen said, looking very much like he wanted to back up further.
Aemer looked at him thoughtfully, though her face was still scowling just the slightest bit. “Try the simulation. I want to see how you run a battle.”
She grabbed his hand and began dragging him towards the pod, and the boy dropped onto his butt and burst into tears. Aemer whipped around in shock and let go of his hand as if it was on fire. Jack couldn’t help it, and had to cover his mouth to stop a laugh. As unpleasant as Jack knew most people found his daughter, he also knew she did care about people, and didn’t like to upset them, provided they didn’t upset her first (the only problem was that it was very easy to upset Aemer). “What did I do?!” She asked, looking terribly confused and taken aback.
“You’re fucking scary.” The boy sobbed, in a manner quite undignified for a 12-year-old.
Jack fully expected her to get angry. Instead, to Jack’s utter shock, his very angry teenager gave a very surprised laugh and said, “What the hell? That’s fucking adorable.” She leaned down, and gave him a hug, patting his back and pulling him upright at the same time.
Jack stood up abruptly, mouth dropping open. The sound attracted Aemer’s attention, and she squeaked in surprise, dropping Jensen. “Dad! You’re still-” She cleared her throat to calm herself, looking a bit ashamed. She still didn’t like to swear in front of him. “Well, I was just, uh…”
Jack adjusted his glasses, and walked to the door. “If you’re going to practice together, you have to move to the middle simulation room. That’s the only one that has paired Calamar bioengineer pod simulation units.” Of course, Aemer already knew this, but he had to say something. “I’ll go get your mother, Jensen.” Then, he fled the room.
Four hours and a few joint sessions later, Aemer and Jack saw the Mileses off at the door. The practice had gone well, especially considering one partner was Aemer and the other was mortally terrified of her. Jensen was a little pale, but putting him in ‘battle’ had seemed to calm his nerves greatly, and he’d stopped crying eventually. Aemer, on the other hand, had been smiling more than he’d seen her smile in months. This wasn’t shocking, as he knew Aemer did enjoy practices when they went well, but it did feel a bit odd to see the expression on her face. It had been a trying year for her at school.
Aemer wasn’t looking at him, staring at the closed door, but she said cheerfully, “I’m going to marry him someday,” and turned around humming. “Dad, let’s watch a movie!” She called to him, from where he was still standing at the door, dumbfounded. Jack sighed, and prayed for that boy’s sake that this was just a phase.