A short personal piece dated 115.02.03 in the wake of the New Caldari incident.
My Cranial Angel
The pleasant feminine voice is the first thing I hear every morning.
Sometimes she's the last thing I hear at night, too, but she always commands my mornings. Something in my wiring tells her when I'm properly awake, so her speeches are timed with my precise ascension to wakefulness. Despite her chatty tone she never wastes words and she has ways of demanding my complete attention. Sometimes I love her for her efficiency.
This morning I hate her for her perky intrusiveness.
"Good morning, Tuulinen-haan, the time is Oh-Four-Thirty hours, standard. You have thirteen new messages. You have appointments today. Oh-Six-Hundred hours, standard - training with Falklen-haani. Oh-Eight-Hundred hours, standard - crew debriefing for Caracal Cruiser 'Vector of Hope". Oh-Nine-Fifteen hours, standard - STPRO briefing on the state of the Warzone. Ten-Thirty hours, standard - pre-flight, DCS and tactical database assimilation. Ten-Forty-five hours, standard - Fleet Operations. No other appointments today.
Last night's Splinterz game was cancelled and could not be archived and saved. MediaCrawlers have identified your name in four mainstream media reports last night and these have been archived. You were also named in twenty-two thousand six hundred and forty-two citizen or specialist media channels. These are being processed for redundancy by expert systems. Process is 65% complete and should be finished in thirteen minutes and 42 seconds. "I remember when mornings used to be easier. Today I roll up to a sitting position and I can feel the pull of strained muscles, the ache of stressed joints. In particular my left index finger throbs spitefully, the broken bone a lingering reminder that I must train harder to become faster.
Usually I'd be nervous about the physical instruction cycle to come, the adrenaline and anticipation a delicious electricity that would quickly carry me out of bed. Next to me a soft, warm, body stirs and this morning the temptation is to roll myself up in the covers and go back to sleep, but my cranial angel is already reading out the titles of my waiting messages. The day has begun and my participation is expected.
I stand, a cacophony of gristly pops and clicks marking the mechanics of the action, and make my way out of the opulence of the Executive Bedroom to the opulence of the Executive Master Suite bathroom. I am not used to the luxury. I do not rate it on the merits of my own position and I am far too self-conscious to pay the very affordable surcharge to bump myself onto the list. Officially I'm assigned to pilot barracks, but a week after I moved out to Nonni my spartan bunk remains unslept in - a tiny white lie that Station Management has likely not even taken notice of.
A very minor lie, in the grand scheme of things.
The face that regards me in the floor-to-ceiling mirror is barely recognisable from a month ago. The beard rustles as my fingers stroke the width of my jaw, my hair still short but no longer shaved down to the bone. But I'm not truly assessing the neatness of the beard or the length of my hair, it's the eyes that I think have changed the most. It's not that fatigue has made them dull, although I'm as tired as I can remember. It's not that stress has made the skin around them tight, although I'm under more than I thought possible when I was still a cadet. I look at them directly and see the questions in them that demand answers. Answers I don't have. I look away again and wonder how long ago it was that I could last meet my own gaze squarely? Oh right. Yesterday morning. It already seems like weeks.
A soft knock disturbs my focus and I start guiltily. A quick query and my Cranial Angel reminds me that I have to leave the apartment in the next three minutes so that I can depart Local in time to make my appointment in Malkalen. Unbidden she begins to list the knock-on effects if I miss or delay my appointment, but with a frown I cancel this exercise of her initiative into silence.
Instead I raise my voice to say "All yours,
hak taashtiin!" and the moment of painful introspection is left behind in the give and take of another day.
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Topic: Cranial Angel - Short Fiction (Read 2146 times)