Invaders (a sequel to Vaz, Tiona and Disc) (19 page)

Tiona nodded, “Especially if that person was the daughter of my mother’s best friend.”

They talked a little longer, then Tiona asked, “Did anyone else help you come up with this idea?”

Reven’s spirits fell. “Yeah. A kid named Eddie Scott. He used to be a friend of mine.”

“Not anymore?”

Reven just shook her head, hoping Tiona couldn’t see how miserable the revelation made her. However, her voice broke a little as she said, “No, he’s got a new girlfriend.”

“You used to be his girlfriend?”

Reven shook her head, “No,” she said around the frog in her throat, “just his friend. But his new girlfriend doesn’t like me.”

Quietly Tiona said, “Maybe you’re better off without him?”

“Yeah,” Reven practically whispered, though she really didn’t think so.

“Well, we still need to figure out what his contribution was. Did he helped design it or build it or anything like that?”

“Nah. We just used to talk about how cool it would be a few years back when the thruster discs just first came out. He didn’t help with the actual sky-board. He’s not even excited about it anymore.”

Tiona snorted, “Actually, I’ll bet he is. The video of you riding it has been
all
over the net! He’s probably feeling pretty jealous about now.”

“Good,” Reven said, turning to look out the window so she could surreptitiously wipe at the tear threatening to dribble out of the corner of her eye. There was a minute or so of silence. Tiona didn’t say anything and Reven was waiting to get her emotions back in control. Finally Reven turned back toward Tiona and found the young woman biting her lip uncertainly. “What?” Reven asked.

Tiona didn’t say anything for another minute, then looking very uncomfortable she said, “Would you like some advice on how to make him even more jealous? How to look good so he wishes he’s with you instead of the… girlfriend?”

Reven felt a warm feeling flow over her. Tiona looked good now, but Reven had seen her on the net many times and knew that Tiona could look
beautiful
if she wanted to. Reven admired her much more for the things she’d done, but, if Tiona could teach Reven how to look
that
good… “Yes!” she breathed.

Tiona got an embarrassed look on her face. She glanced down, “I… really shouldn’t be trying to give you any relationship advice. I’ve had a whole series of crappy boyfriends.”

In surprise Reven said, “I thought you were going with Nolan Marlowe?!”

Tiona shrugged, looking very sad. “We may be breaking up. Another in my long series of failures.” Her eyes came back up to focus on Reven and she quirked a wry grin, “You probably
shouldn’t
take any advice from me.”

Reven grinned at her, “Don’t give me relationship advice… Just teach me how to make Eddie jealous. That’s all
I
need.”

Tiona grinned back, “I think I know how to do that. Wanna go shopping tomorrow?”

Reven’s eyes widened, “
Yeah
!” She frowned, “But I don’t have very much money.”

Tiona said, “Think of it as an advance on the licensing fees for your sky-board.”

***

In her car on the way to pick up Reven, Tiona tried to steel herself to call Nolan. She still hadn’t had a serious conversation or even set a time to talk to him. She felt guilty about it. Sometimes she thought about how much fun she’d had being around Carolyn and thought that it was perfectly reasonable that Nolan would have spent time with the pretty blond. Other times she felt betrayed that he had. Every time she tried to picture calling him, she couldn’t decide how she would initiate a conversation when she did.

Sometimes she would decide that she’d answer the next time he called, thereby letting
him
begin the dialogue. But, he’d stopped calling—perhaps because she’d had her AI start replying to his calls with a message that she didn’t want to talk to him. A message she’d removed and felt guilty about now.
But don’t I deserve a little more persistence than that?
she asked herself.

She’d just opened her mouth to ask her AI to put through a call to Nolan when her AI said, “You have a call from Eldon Weiss.”

Relief washed over her that she didn’t have to talk to Nolan right now. Also, she felt excited to talk to Eldon, who she really liked. “Put him through… Hi Eldon,” she said, trying not to sound
too
excited, “what can I do for you?”

“Um,” he said, not sounding at all happy, “I’m trying to find out what’s going on with the next asteroid mission? You said I could go and I’ve been waiting to find out when I should show up. But since it’d been several days and I know they usually go out after a two-day layover, I finally called down to GSI to ask. Uh, they told me it’d already launched? Can that be? After all, you’re still here.”

Tiona’s heart had jumped into her throat when she realized that during the depths of her funk she’d forgotten that she’d promised Eldon a ride on the next mission. She didn’t want to tell him she’d forgotten him, but she didn’t really want to tell him the truth either. After a moment she settled for saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have told you that the mission parameters were changed. They’re going on a long mission to pick up a very large metallic asteroid and wouldn’t have time to stop off for prospecting other types like you want. I felt sure you wouldn’t want to go, but I should have checked in with you so you’d know what was going on.”

“Wouldn’t have time?” Eldon said doubtfully. “It only adds a couple of hours.”

“Well, yeah, but this is a three-week mission by itself so they’ll be getting pretty antsy about any added hours. Besides, you wouldn’t want to go on a mission that long anyway, would you?”

“I would if it might mean getting access to some more specimens,” he said. “Especially since it’d be happening during summer session when I’m not teaching. I’ve got a couple of papers I could be writing and some analysis I could do while we were in transit.” He sighed, “Are there any other missions going, or is this the only saucer that goes to the asteroids?”

Tiona found that she didn’t really want him going on a mission if she wasn’t getting to go with him. She wondered if she would have felt this way if her relationship with Nolan hadn’t tanked. It didn’t really matter that much though, since she could tell the truth on this one. “We don’t have as many space-worthy saucers as a lot of people assume. A lot of the saucers people see are ones that aren’t sealed for vacuum. They’re meant to work within the atmosphere for heavy construction, large object transport, firefighting and things like that. We’ve leased out quite a few twenty-five meter orbit capable saucers that are being used to launch satellites and deorbit junk, but they aren’t set up with radiation protection for deep space travel. At present NASA has the one we gave them on a long-term mission to Neptune. GSI has a pair out surveying the moons of Saturn and one chasing a comet. We only have the one seventy-five meter one that goes out to the asteroids and back.”

“That reminds me,” Eldon said, “I thought we were going to go look at that cometary type NEO that came around the sun?”

“Yeah, sorry. After I talked to you about it I realized that we were only going because somebody at NASA had their underwear in a bundle, wanting to know what it was right away. Essentially, they were asking us to invest significant resources so they could learn something that they’ll be able to determine
without
any significant expenditures if they just wait a few months.”

“But aren’t you curious yourself?” Eldon said, sounding very disappointed in her.

“Sure I am. But I’m also running a business. If I impractically expend large chunks of the resources of that business every time somebody wants an answer to a question
now
, at our expense, instead of a few weeks later for free, we’ll go broke.”

Still sounding disappointed, Eldon said, “I think you’re better funded than…”

Tiona interrupted, “But we
won’t
be if we start haring off over trivial questions every time some
impatient
nerd wants an answer
now
instead of tomorrow.” Tiona felt chastised and she was getting really irritated about it. Her car was descending at the Davis farm so she used that opportunity to say, “Sorry, I’ve have to go. Got a meeting.” She had her AI break the connection.
Maybe I don’t like him as much as I thought.

Riding in Tiona’s flying car had Reven highly excited. She gawked out the windows and exclaimed over the views. When they’d landed at the mall, they couldn’t go in until Reven had had time to look at the big lift discs underneath the car, then in the trunk at the fusors and the thrust discs and finally under the front hood at the small electric motor that powered the brakes and the steering when they were on the ground.
Not much of a girly girl,
Tiona thought as she practically towed her away from the car.
Reminds me of myself when I was younger.

Once they were in the stores, Tiona realized she’d really never had much experience shopping with other women. She knew her own sizes and how to find what she liked, but little about what might fit Reven, or look good on her, or be in style for her age group. They were in a store that catered to teens, wandering around and randomly trying on things, none of which seemed to work.

Tiona saw a salesgirl across the store who appeared to be about Reven’s size and coloration. She was a little older, but wearing a cute outfit that looked like it had been purchased there. Tiona made a beeline for her.

The girl looked a little apprehensive, probably because Tiona was focused on her all the way across the store. When Tiona arrived, the girl said, “Um, may I help you?”

Tiona pointed Reven out, “We’re buying clothes for that girl…” she paused at the sales girl’s moue of distaste. “Yeah, she’s not very stylish. That’s what we’re doing here—trying to fix that issue. You look like you know what’s in style and you’re probably about her size. I’m hoping you can help her pick out some stuff.”

The girl frowned, “That’s not my area of the store…” she began.

Tiona held up her hand to interrupt the girl while she spoke briefly to her AI. “I’ve just had my AI transfer $100 to your AI. There’s a
lot
more where that came from if you make this happen and do a great job.”

The girl’s eyes widened. Tiona thought that, working in a store that catered to teenagers, she’d probably never had anyone try to tip her before. Actually, she realized, most people that worked in these types of stores probably never got a tip. In a few minutes the girl had swapped her responsibilities to another girl and started towing Reven around the store, picking out stuff for her to try on.

Her arms loaded with clothing, Reven called a halt. “You can’t buy all these for me!”

Tiona pulled Reven off to the side a little and said, “Reven, I already have more money than I could spend in several lifetimes, GSI’s making me even more money, and someday I’ll inherit a lot more money from my dad. Think of it this way—by letting me spend money on you, which is a lot of fun, you’re actually doing me a kindness.”

Wide-eyed, Reven gave a jerky nod.

There followed a whirlwind orgy of clothing appraisal. Once the salesgirl knew that cost was no limit she was out pulling things off of hangers while Reven was putting them on in the dressing room. It quickly became obvious that Lisanne was right, Reven was hiding a slender, shapely body underneath her farmer’s clothing. Reven did draw the line at some things that she thought were too frilly, but the salesgirl quickly picked up on that as well. In about an hour, they had a substantial stack of snug jeans and varying lengths of dressier pants from shorts to a set of drag-the-floor bellbottoms that the salesgirl claimed were
about
to be all the rage. They also had a pile of blouses and tops, a couple of belts, and Reven had even agreed to a few skirts. The salesgirl said, “That’s all we really have here, but there’s some really nice stuff down at Delly’s and,” she glanced down at Reven’s feet, “you need some cute shoes! I can send you to a friend of mine at Delly’s and another one at Shoeshop if you like?

By the time they left the mall, the girl from Shoeshop had to help them carry all their bags. Tiona left three
very
happy salesgirls in her wake.

As they drove back to Reven’s place they were giddy for a bit. The conversation died out for a few minutes then Tiona hesitantly said, “If you’ll accept one bit of advice from someone who
shouldn’t
give advice because she’s had nothing but crappy relationships?”

At this Reven snorted, “I haven’t had
any
relationships, so I’ll take any advice I can get.” She glanced at Tiona, and gave her a wry grin, “You should at least be able to tell me what to avoid, right?”

“Yeah,” Tiona said with a depressed sigh. “Whether it’s any good or not, here it comes.
Don’t
chase after the handsome-sexy-jerk of a guy, thinking that once he loves you he’ll change his ways. Men are
not
fixer-upper’s. I’ve seen you in those new outfits and I can guarantee you your old friend Eddie’s going to be thinking about what he missed out on once he sees you in those clothes. But, if he gets friendly again, remember how he’s been treating you. Pick somebody else. Somebody who’s nice to you anyway, not just now that you’re the hot girl with the sky-board.”