‘I don’t think he answered any of the questions well,’ Melissa said.
‘That is being kind,’ Nava responded. ‘He was insipid. The man doesn’t have a personality.’
‘I’m not exactly the life and soul of the party,’ Rochester said, ‘but even I think he was boring. Someone trying to kill him was the most exciting thing about his performance.’
Mitsuko’s lips twitched, but she refrained from commenting. Why do so when she could appear magnanimous and let her companions denigrate her opposition. ‘Tracey Spears is slightly down.’
‘She showed too much of herself,’ Nava said. ‘She’s probably managed to alienate almost the entire support stream population.’
‘She does poll most strongly among the combat students. I am a few points up. Even with Sebastian Ranta’s rise in popularity, I do still seem to be ahead of the others. This would be a lot less clear if the other candidates had stuck with it.’
‘We would probably have had more dead ones by now. The SSF would be hard-pressed to guard all of them.’
‘Do you think that assassin will try again at the next debate?’ Melissa asked.
‘No, she’ll try something different,’ Nava said. ‘She knows at least one person can see through her invisibility. If she has any sense, she’ll figure out that the senior members of the SSF can do it too, now they know what’s needed.’
‘She’s lost a hand,’ Rochester said. ‘Doesn’t that mean she’ll have to back off? Even if they send someone else, that one’s out of the picture.’
‘That would be worse. We have a likeness of that girl…’ Nava paused, remembering the drawing she had helped to create and wondering again why the face seemed so familiar. ‘We know what she looks like. If they sent someone else, we’d be back in the dark. Besides, I’m not sure there’s anyone else involved. Not in the active portion of the mission. I think she’ll be back, even if she does have to use her left hand. I’m ambidextrous. No reason why she can’t be too.’
235/2/22.
Friday night and Mitsuko was sitting at her terminal working on her notes for the debate which would happen tomorrow afternoon. She was not reflecting on this for two reasons. One, she was busy. Two, there were lessons on Saturday mornings, so the students generally reserved partying for Saturday nights.
Nava was not reflecting on the disparity between the kind of life students were supposed to have and the reality of the situation because she was not exactly a party animal anyway. She was, however, beginning to think that Mitsuko was spinning her wheels. The polls still put her ahead of the other two by a respectable margin. Tracey Spears had been haemorrhaging votes all week thanks to various poorly judged press releases. Most of those jumping ship were combat students who had jumped to Mitsuko. Tracey was just coming across as too gung-ho about the superiority of the combat stream.
‘It’s almost midnight,’ Nava said.
‘I just want to–’
‘Lack of sleep is more likely to trip you up than something you haven’t thought of in your notes. You’re just going to ignore them when you get on stage anyway.’
Mitsuko knew that was correct, annoyingly enough. ‘Making the notes helps to organise things in my mind. Anyway, I’m too wound up to sleep.’
Nava got to her feet and walked over to the dining table where Mitsuko had her terminal set up. Mitsuko was still in her uniform, which was unusual. That did not stop Nava from squeezing Mitsuko’s high breasts through the fabric. ‘If you stop now, I can help you unwind. If we wait much longer, there won’t be time.’
Attempting to ignore Nava managed to work for about three seconds. Mitsuko let out a groan. ‘Okay. Alright. You win. I want to take a shower before bed.’
‘Sex in the shower sounds good to me.’
‘It sounds good to me too, damn it!’
235/2/23.
Mitsuko’s body strained against the coming of what she knew would be the last orgasm of the night. She was not exactly sure of the time, but they had been ‘destressing’ her for a couple of hours, in the shower and then her bed. Nava was enjoying what they were doing, but she was also the kind of girl who would eventually place practicality above pleasure.
To Mitsuko, it was as though her entire body was rising and falling with the waves of pleasure washing in toward her core. Each wave drew her in and higher. Each wave crested without quite pulling her over with it, but she knew she would hit that peak soon and she wanted to stave it off as long as possible. Nava was relentless, however, and she had learned well what her companion needed. Mitsuko vibrated with the tension of holding back the inevitable. Her fingers twined into Nava’s hair, half pulling her closer, half pushing her away. But you cannot hold back a tsunami and, inevitably, the wave broke.
When Mitsuko’s senses returned to something like normal, Nava was lying beside her. Mitsuko’s body was still trembling from the aftershocks. The room was in darkness and had been for thirty minutes, but Mitsuko could see lights. ‘I think you broke me,’ she whispered.
‘If that means you’re ready to sleep now, good. You’re sleeping in the wet patch.’
‘Don’t care,’ Mitsuko lied. Well, right now she did not care, but she was sure she would at some point. She was unaware of the fact that the debate had not entered her mind once in over two hours, but she would have been pleased about that if she had thought of it. ‘I can sleep now. Well, when I’ve stopped shaking.’
‘Good. It’s twenty past two.’
Mitsuko grimaced, not in pleasure this time. She might get five hours’ sleep. Six if they skipped breakfast. It was not enough, but it would have to do. ‘Okay. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Suki.’
Silence fell.
~~~
No one had invented a way for cameras to bypass magical invisibility. That was a useful consideration which was
