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When the boy finally comes back to the door, it opens on --
The inside of the bunk-truck. Exactly where the boy was intending to go before.
How long has he been standing here?
The boy has a watch, but he doesn't think to look at it. He just hurries forward to grab Takashi's toolkit. It's compact, but heavy for a small boy all the same. No-name has to grip the handle with both hands, and set it down to push the curtain aside. It makes hurrying awkward -- he has to hold it to one side to take big steps, and he has to dodge around underbrush, and obstacles like stairs and gnarled roots make him slow down no matter what -- but he trots towards Takashi's Leo as fast as he can.
But Takashi just greets him with a grin and a wave. "Hey, no-name! That was fast. What'd you do, run?"
The boy thinks, it was? But he only shrugs, more awkwardly than usual with the toolkit pulling at his shoulders, and sets it down by Neimou's neotitanium foot.
"Whatever," says Takashi cheerfully, and pushes the discreet button that lets down the cord from Neimou's cockpit. "Whaddaya think, kid, can we do this without a scaffold?"
Takashi likes to teach. It's annoying sometimes, but mostly it's one of the reasons no-name likes him. The boy considers the mobile suit, before he says, "Not the magnet-coating. But the rest of it."
"Good answer."
The work is familiar, and that's comfortable, and steadying. The nameless boy is learning to pilot, but he's not quite good enough to be trusted in regular combat yet; that'll take another few months of training, and another inch of growth will help him reach all the controls at battle speed. But he's been helping with maintenance for as long as he can remember. He helps out with everything -- cooking, shopping, first aid and injury care, repair and reloading -- but it's the work with engines and machines that he likes best.
He tells Takashi about the strange bar, a little. But Takashi thinks he's talking about a normal daydream, a few moments of woolgathering, and just reassures him that imagination's a good thing in a budding tactician, and that he wasn't slow with the toolkit. It's not right, but the boy doesn't know how to say what he means.
He'll monitor himself, he decides. If this recurs -- if there are any more strange changes in the world, if he starts experiencing gaps in time -- he'll tell the captain. It's important that the commanding officer know about anything that might compromise a soldier's ability to function effectively in battle and support his squadmates. Captain Singh has told them all that often enough.
But this has never happened before, and there wasn't any significant time loss. The boy doesn't want to be stupid, worrying about a dream. Dreams aren't real. This might be a single aberration. He'll wait and observe himself carefully, for now.
As it turns out, it's a long while before anything of the sort happens again.
The inside of the bunk-truck. Exactly where the boy was intending to go before.
How long has he been standing here?
The boy has a watch, but he doesn't think to look at it. He just hurries forward to grab Takashi's toolkit. It's compact, but heavy for a small boy all the same. No-name has to grip the handle with both hands, and set it down to push the curtain aside. It makes hurrying awkward -- he has to hold it to one side to take big steps, and he has to dodge around underbrush, and obstacles like stairs and gnarled roots make him slow down no matter what -- but he trots towards Takashi's Leo as fast as he can.
But Takashi just greets him with a grin and a wave. "Hey, no-name! That was fast. What'd you do, run?"
The boy thinks, it was? But he only shrugs, more awkwardly than usual with the toolkit pulling at his shoulders, and sets it down by Neimou's neotitanium foot.
"Whatever," says Takashi cheerfully, and pushes the discreet button that lets down the cord from Neimou's cockpit. "Whaddaya think, kid, can we do this without a scaffold?"
Takashi likes to teach. It's annoying sometimes, but mostly it's one of the reasons no-name likes him. The boy considers the mobile suit, before he says, "Not the magnet-coating. But the rest of it."
"Good answer."
The work is familiar, and that's comfortable, and steadying. The nameless boy is learning to pilot, but he's not quite good enough to be trusted in regular combat yet; that'll take another few months of training, and another inch of growth will help him reach all the controls at battle speed. But he's been helping with maintenance for as long as he can remember. He helps out with everything -- cooking, shopping, first aid and injury care, repair and reloading -- but it's the work with engines and machines that he likes best.
He tells Takashi about the strange bar, a little. But Takashi thinks he's talking about a normal daydream, a few moments of woolgathering, and just reassures him that imagination's a good thing in a budding tactician, and that he wasn't slow with the toolkit. It's not right, but the boy doesn't know how to say what he means.
He'll monitor himself, he decides. If this recurs -- if there are any more strange changes in the world, if he starts experiencing gaps in time -- he'll tell the captain. It's important that the commanding officer know about anything that might compromise a soldier's ability to function effectively in battle and support his squadmates. Captain Singh has told them all that often enough.
But this has never happened before, and there wasn't any significant time loss. The boy doesn't want to be stupid, worrying about a dream. Dreams aren't real. This might be a single aberration. He'll wait and observe himself carefully, for now.
As it turns out, it's a long while before anything of the sort happens again.