An Eclectic Engineering of Elevation

[Ilana Logan]

Ilana paid the cab driver and hefted her things onto her shoulder. She walked into the compound and headed for the ship. As she walked, she contemplated how she was going to do what she set out to do. She knew the literal how of the job at hand, it was more the how to arrange it most efficiently that had her wondering. The easiest way often proved to be the way that you had to redo too many times. Of course the hardest way often proved to be the one that took the longest and included a multitude of unnecessary steps. She thought about it the entire walk to the ship, and about how she had a good deal of work ahead of her. Work always tended to calm her down because it took her mind off of the things that were bothering her.

She reached the ship and walked up the ramp. She climbed the stairs and walked the hall to her bunk. She climbed down the ladder into the relatively large room as far as crew quarters went, towing the heavy bag the whole way. Once inside she put the little bag of tomatoes on her dresser, and the other huge bag on her bed. She began pulling things out and separating them by what she needed for this, and what she didn't.

Once that was taken care of, she went to the engine room and hauled her tools back with her. She needed them for this job, and there was another whole set of them in the engine room anyway, so she wouldn't have to worry about returning them immediately. During this whole thing so far, she'd managed to push away the events of the bar. That's not to say it wouldn't come back to her later, because it undoubtedly would, but for the moment, she was content.

She put the bar stool together first, as she would need it to do the rest, at least to do it comfortably, besides, it was the easiest. Then she put the metal shelving together. She placed the stool under the cortex panel in her room and began the work of disconnecting it and pulling it off the wall. It took about six minutes to remove it completely from the wall without damaging it. She could have done it faster, but she would have most likely broken it, or broken part of it, and even if it was just the screen that broke, she didn't want to take the chance that it would damage the entire workings.

When that was done, she carried the whole workings to her desk. She left it there and went to her bed. She put the metal shelving together, which took about seven minutes. Then she carried the contraption back to the place the terminal used to be. She installed the metal shelving just under where the new terminal would go, which took about three minutes. Then she drilled two small holes in the top where the cables would go in, and returned the drill to her tool set. She went back to her bed, picked up new screen, and placed it on her desk. She sat down and set to work.

She removed the old screen and set it to the side. She ran two cables from the terminal, and connected two connection slats to each cable. Each connection slat had four ports in it. She didn't need that many just now, but this way she wouldn't have to rewire anything should she get the urge to add more stuff to it. Then she carried the, as yet screenless terminal to the wall and reconnected it, which connected it to the ship, and ran the cables and connection slats into the shelf.

She went to the bed, and picked up the memory expansion drive. She looked it over, picked a cable out of the box, and went back to the wall. She set it inside the metal shelf, connected the cable to one of the new ports in the terminal, and plugged it into the drive. When the drive whirred to life, she smiled.

She repeated this procedure with the dedicated sourcebox, the holo-image development suite, encyclopedia, xerosecurity, fed band scanner, and the terminal end of the wireless adapter for her databook. Then she went and got the new screen and wired it onto the terminal. Finally, the tricky part, she wired the electronic lock on the door of the shelf into the terminal. Then she used the terminal itself to access the security center she had just added. She closed the door and changed the security from password protected to fingerscan protected. She pressed her thumb against the screen and waited while it read and recorded what it saw. The panel beeped and she pulled her thumb away.

"Fingerprint recorded," a woman's voice said.

"I wonder if I can wire my door lock to the terminal like that?" she mused. Then she sighed and said, "Not today."

She plugged the other piece of the adapter into her databook and stuffed a cable and her databook into her rucksack. Then she put the ballistic mesh into her dresser and looked around her room. "What now?" She thought aloud.

[Ilana Logan]

Immediately after she finished with the terminal, a call came through the cortex for Marcus, who wasn't there. She told the man as much and after an incredibly brief conversation, she recorded the information he sent her in her databook, so she didn't forget where it was, and sat on the stool wondering what she would do with the rest of her day. It had only taken her somewhere around two hours to revamp and reprogram her cortex terminal, and less than five minutes for the conversation with the mystery man.

She sat there thinking, wondering what to do to occupy herself for the time being. The ship was in perfect working order. After the big issue on the compound, Longstreet had generously paid for their medical care and the repairs to their ship, even though none of it had been his fault. Ilana hadn't needed much in the way of medical care. She had a pretty nasty concussion from the wrench she took to the head, but the bullet wound had been superficial. Only a graze. It had still hurt, but not like the one she'd taken to the gut a few years back.

She shook off that train of thought, knowing it wouldn't lead anywhere good, and brought herself back to deciding what to do in her spare time today. She thought for a moment, thinking of and rejecting several ideas, before a good idea finally came to her.

She pulled up the call screen on her terminal and punched in a series of familiar numbers. She'd called this number many times in the last eight years. She waited, watching the screen do it's weird swirling thing that it did while waiting for the call to be answered. Finally, the face of an older woman filled the screen. She looked tired, and the lines in her face had deepened, but Ilana still thought she was beautiful. And she was smiling, so that had to be a good thing.



"Hi Mom," Ilana said.

[Ilana Logan]

"Hello nǚ yīng," Alessia said, smiling. "It's so good to hear from you. It's been a while since you waved me."

"I know Mom. I've been real busy workin'," Ilana said, feeling bad for never waving her mom unless she wanted something.

"So what's wrong?" Her mother asked.

"What do you mean?" Ilana asked, wondering how she always knew.

"Come on child. I know you love me, but you only wave me when something's wrong. So spill," her mother said.

Ilana sighed heavily, knowing her mother always got it out of her eventually. Hell, that's why she'd called in the first place, and Alessia knew it. They both did. "I'm screwing up," she said finally.

"What did you do that makes you say that?"

Ilana considered whether to tell her mother everything. Carefully. Once she said these things, she couldn't take them back, and she hated the thought of her mother thinking poorly of her. Finally, she decided to just blurt it all out, in hopes that her mother was still as understanding as she had always been.

"What I always do. Piss people off. I can't ever just not say what I'm thinking. I think John inherited both brain to mouth filters, when one shoulda come to me. It doesn't matter if I'm right. What I mean never comes out the way I want it to. At least, it doesn't come out in a way that would make anyone listen to, or believe a gorram word I say," Ilana said, rambling for a minute, just spilling as fast as she could because she was always terrified of disappointing her mom.

"Child, you've always been that way. You had more spirit than anyone could handle, but you always manage to make things right," her mother said.

"No, I always made things right when I was working for Roman. And when I didn't, no one cared because I was part of their crew. The crew I'm with now is so full of misfits that none of us quite belong, least of all me." she said truthfully. She felt like she had a job, but she didn't really feel a part of things on this ship. She figured she would eventually though.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I nearly cost us a navigator today. Not only that, but the navigator is a woman, which means that I wouldn't be the only woman on the ship anymore. Instead of just letting her insolent tone and backhanded compliments roll off of me, I went straight for the jugular like I always do," she said.

"Well, can't you just apologize and explain to her what you're telling me?"

"I don't see that going over very well. 'Hey Lulah. Sorry I threatened to cut your tongue out. You offended me that's all'," Ilana said, mocking herself.

"You threatened to cut her tongue out, nǚ yīngi?" Her mother asked, sounding shocked.

"Yeah," Ilana said, red faced and chagrined, even though her mother had said nothing outright to make her feel that way. It was her tone, and the look on her face at finding out her daughter had said something like that to someone.

"But why? What could she have done to make you do that?" her mother asked, still sounding shocked.

"She offended me, but not badly enough to warrant such a harsh statement, I'll admit that. I could have said anything else, but I've always said the first thing that pops into my head. It's a rare occassion when I manage to keep my mouth shut about anything. I don't do it on purpose. I just can't seem to help myself," she said, not even fully knowing herself why she sometimes said the things she said. She only knew what she felt, and when she got angry, her tongue became very sharp.

"What are you going to do?" Her mother asked.

"Probably nothing to be honest. I just wanted to talk to someone about it. I know I fucked up, but I won't say that that girl is totally innnocent either. She was hostile from the moment I arrived, and it set me off. I cant' explain it, but I can't absolve her of fault, because I while I wildly overreacted to her tone, she did have that tone in the first place. I wonder if she wasn't trying to sabotage her own chances of getting the job before I said a word," Ilana said, frustrated. She couldn't explain exactly what about the girl's tone and demeanor had made her act the way she had, she just knew the girl had rubbed her the wrong way from the moment she started to speak.

"Well, maybe you should take the high road this time. Apologize to the girl, and clear the air so you're not running tense the whole time you two are trying to work together?" Her mother suggested.

"When have I ever been known to take the high road?" Ilana asked, with a tight laugh.

"Not very often," she admitted. "But maybe it's time you start."

"Maybe...." Ilana said, thinking that there was no way in hell she would apologize.

"Do you feel better?"

"Yeah, a little," she said. "Thanks mom."

"You're welcome, nǚ yīngi. Wave me more often. I miss you," Alessia said.

"I miss you too mom."

Ilana pressed the button at the top of the screen to end the call. She sat in the stool for a long moment afterwards, just thinking about whether she would take her mother's advice or not. She decided that she probably wouldn't, of course. She rarely did. She knew her mother was right, that starting over with the girl would be a good idea, but she couldn't do it. She would never be able to start over with anyone. Ilana couldn't just forget things, or let them go like so many people seemed to be able to do. She'd just have to deal, and maybe try to be nicer to the girl from now on. Hell, ignoring her completely would be nicer than their first meeting, so things couldn't get any worse. Right?