Jillian stood in the corner of the room, supervising the children coming to test the sims as part of their career day. With her rank as it was, certainly no one forced her to attend these things, but Jillian still remembered her first time sitting in a mech sim, the weird sense of exhilaration and certain purpose she’d felt as she’d run through the commands and sliced through her first, pixelated squid. And she’d gotten good at spotting the other kids at these events who felt the same. Some would find other passions, some would try and fail, some would hate it now and find their talent when thrust into it later in life, but there was always one or two who knew, like she had, that this was what they wanted, and would fight for it.
Most of her colleagues in the room were soldiers in the combat track, who’d been placed in the reserve category for one reason or another. They were helping children get into the machines, carefully strapping them in, setting up the programs. She was one of the only supervisors there watching the action from afar, so she was the first to see the two girls burst into the room, one hot on the heels of the other.
A red haired girl, hair braided into pigtails, with very light freckles across her nose was poking the cheek of a younger girl with brown hair, who looked extremely annoyed to be disturbed. A bandage was wrapped around the younger girl’s right wrist, and her long hair was tucked awkwardly, but firmly into the neck of her shirt, an effect Jillian could not imagine the reason for, but seemed to be intentional. They were having an animated, if slightly one-sided, conversation, but even as they talked, the brown-haired girl made a beeline for one of the bioengineer sims, clearly knowing the difference. They wouldn’t have made much of an impression to Jillian, but one of their faces nagged at her memory, and she found herself watching them. Perhaps one of them was related to a bioengineer she knew.
The little girl waited impatiently for the other kid to leave the machine, and then she hopped inside, pushing the soldier’s hand away as she settled herself in. Jillian stepped forward, tapping the soldier on the shoulder.
They started slightly, “I’m sorry, ma’am. This girl, just-“
“Never mind that, Primary Sevvins. I’ll take over from here. You watch the room for a bit.” The younger woman nodded, though she looked a bit surprised, and retreated to the corner where Jillian had been standing.
Each pod had been equipped with its own little external monitor, so other kids could watch while waiting for someone else to finish using it, and Jillian watched with the few others crowded around the monitor. The result was interesting, to say the least. The girl slammed through the set-up controls without any apparent need for guidance, and began the sim with a voice of cool professionalism unfitting for a girl who clearly had barely hit her teens. These sims did not come equipped with compatibility testers, and were not fully mental the way proper bioengineer sims were, as that would be a bit much for primary schoolers to handle right away, so communication with the squids were all verbal. The girl didn’t seem to mind. She set about demanding obedience from squid and driver alike, and the battle ran unlike almost anything Jillian had ever seen at one of these career fairs.
When the simulation was finished, the little girl unhooked herself and hopped out as easily as she had scrambled her way in, and somewhat to Jillian’s surprise, her lips were pursed in disappointment.
“Woah, what was that?” Her friend, said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
The other girl scowled, “This sim sucks. I couldn’t see everything and messed up a couple commands.”
“Really?” The redhead asked, looking curious. “I couldn’t tell that you hesitated at all.”
Truthfully, Jillian couldn’t either. She understood what good bioengineers were supposed to be capable of, but from the start, she’d always been a mech-driver. That was where her expertise lay, and the girl had, as far as she could tell, done extremely well.
“I didn’t hesitate,” The girl retorted, rolling her eyes, “But I missed a couple groups at one point. That squid shouldn’t have been able to almost knock my driver over, remember about halfway through?”
The other girl blinked at her, then grinned and shook her head, “Nope! No idea what you talking about.”
The little bioengineer girl gave a long, beleaguered sigh. “Fine. Anyways, I do better with the fully mental versions, that’s all you need to know.”
“So you’ve tried a proper bioengineer sim before?” Jillian interrupted their conversation, smoothly, still trying to put a memory to the face.
The girl glared up at her. “Who are you?” She demanded.
Jillian opened her mouth, but paused for just the briefest of moments. “I’m Jillian, but you can call me Jill.” She decided to say. She had been about to introduce herself as she always did, as Battlefield Commander Jillian Shane, but she got the feeling that the girl would have known exactly what that meant and still would have just glared at her and asked her what it mattered. “What about you, what’s your name?” She asked back.
“I’m Aemer.” The girl said, defiantly, frowning up at her. Aemer… Aemer…. The name clicked into place. Aemer Correny. She hadn’t heard that name in three years, no wonder she’d forgotten. This was that girl who’d survived the squid breaking through their defenses, not long after Jillian herself had been promoted to Battlefield Commander. After discovering some anomalies in her bloodwork, they’d conducted some tests and found that the little girl was able to withstand enormous amounts of pure venom, and even appeared to be able to communicate with the squid under… unique circumstances. A fierce debate had then begun about what to do with her, but that had quickly been shut down by her subsequent adoption.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Aemer. You did a really good job in that sim, you know.”
The girl didn’t take the compliment well, “Not good enough.” She snapped.
Jillian laughed incredulously, “How much better do you want to become, then?”
The squidling answered without even a moment’s hesitation, staring up at her with brown eyes full of fire. “Better than everyone. Better than anyone who’s ever lived.”
Jillian’s eyebrows shot up on her face. “And at what point would you ever be satisfied?”
She wasn’t sure if the girl could understand the deeper meaning behind that question, but she received a prompt answer, once again, “When they’re all dead. When all the squid have been killed off for good, then I can stop. And I’m going to do it. I’m going to walk out there someday, and convince all of them to die, so they never come back.”
Jillian couldn’t find an answer to that ridiculous statement, but she met the girl’s gaze calmly and saw in those eyes a pure, unadulterated rage undimmed by her youth and inexperience, and for whatever reason, she believed her. This little girl wasn’t going to stop until all the squid were dead. Or she was. How very interesting of her. How very squid of her.
Jillian smiled. “Very well then, Miss Correny. I look forward to seeing you manage that, someday.” And without another word, she returned to her post.