Dragon Kin

29

Victor

We met again at breakfast. She was wearing her new clothes, which they finished for her yesterday. They were able to give her a couple of changes from existing stock, but these fit much better. The sight of her boots caused a small grin.

She was eating a berry-muffin, off a plate with eggs and sausage in waiting. Her attention is on her ebook screen.

"What's the topic today?" I asked. I believed she had more titles on that reader than were countable in this whole city.

"Huh? Oh, um, spider silk," she says and returns to reading.

"What's special about that?" I ask as a server puts my plate down. I notice he has a gash healing on his forehead. I thank him for his effort.

She puts her ebook in her pack, "It's amazing stuff. Stronger than steel, even stronger than human hair."

"Human hair? Sounds odd and creepy. Is hair really all that strong?"

"Stronger than any metal, when comparing similar thicknesses," she says in an instructional manner.

"Why don't we make things from it?" I asked, trying the eggs first. They weren't bad.

"It's a crap weave," she answers.

"Really?"

"Really. It's too thick, so the material would be coarser and itchier than coarse wool, with suck thread counts," she adds.

And we would be wearing human hair... which sounded creepy no matter how I thought about it. Odd.

"So spiders are the way to go," I said, wondering why that sounded oddly awesome, and human hair sounded so creepy? They were spiders, right? Spiders.

"I just can't figure out how you could mass produce enough silk to harvest for even a small amount of cloth," she said, and her frustration sounded genuine.

"You miss that, Internet thing, on your computer," I acknowledged. "What about social media?"

"God yes," she sighs, then she straightens up, "I feel so vulnerable without it."

That's an odd response, and I say so.

"All my life I've had the answers at my fingertips, and now I'm cut off from everything. I have what I have. I can't ask ... a source," she said, her hands coming up and splaying apart into claws, and she grrrs.

"Yes, very handy that," I said, finishing the eggs and stabbing a sausage. "Even have the voice commands now, don't they. Just call out your question and it gives you an answer. Very convenient. But we got that here. Not to worry."

"You... what? You have talking computers?" she asked, her eyes narrow, warning not to play with her needs.

"Well no, not computers," I said. "Hey Jeffery? What time is it?"

Jeffery, our server standing a couple of yards away said, "It's just after nine, sir."

"Jeffery?" I asked, "How many appointments do I have today?"

"Five sir," he reports, and I can tell he's trying not to laugh now.

"And what time is high-mark today?" I asked, finishing off my sausage.

"Two-fifteen this afternoon, sir."

"See?" I said back to her, and her eyes have narrowed so much they make Uncle Max's look wide. "It's fun. You should try it."

She shakes her head, but then sits up and turns to Jeffery, "Jeffery? How can you mass produce spider silk?"

"Brewer's yeast, miss," he responds.