Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Chapter 4: a watch?

Harper wished he could print some device that could count down the seconds before lunch. He would wear it on his wrist and glance down when he needed cheering up. He didn't mind working on the builds team, at least, not usually, but this was his first earthstorm coming up and he rather hoped that everyone seemed to overreacting to it. Edison wasn't here, instead at some congress meeting, and that left Thatcher in charge and generally being more irrational about labeling everything.

Harper glanced at Joan who shrugged her shoulders as Thatcher ranted about bolts and washers. She never said anything about it, but Harper liked to believe she thought he was a rotated madman too.

"Yes sir," he parroted with everyone else, though not knowing what it was about.

"So finish out the day, and take the rest of the week off," Thatcher said. "We're all on call the whole time during the earthstorm, so rest and eat now."

Perhaps Harper should have been paying better attention. That sounded important.

Someone's holo-rib buzzed: lunch. The group headed out of the shop and toward their various berths.

"What was that about getting time off?" he asked Joan.

She rolled her eyes. "Harper, you have to stop spacing out. Thatcher is going to notice eventually."

"Maybe," he allowed. "So?"

"You heard the end of it. No one gets a free day during the earthstorm, so we have time off, contingent on nothing breaking. If something does, we're called in by seniority. Since you're the newest crew member, you'll be the first one called. You really should pay better attention."

"Next time," Harper laughed. "Thanks, Joan."

"Anytime, Harper."

He was always surprised by how much he liked Joan. She was Lincoln's partner, and for a long time, he had tried to hate her because of it. But still, he worked with her closely and she wasn't a bad person, regardless of the monster she was partnered with.

Harper split from the group, arriving at his berth and entering. Cameron wasn't home, so he started water boiling, deciding on spicy noodles. He had never had anything spicy until waking up on the planet and found he loved spicy foods. Cameron was ambivalent, so spicy it was. He messaged her, wondering if she was coming home for lunch.

"I am," she said, walking through the door a moment later. "Sorry, I didn't see the need to respond; I was already on my way back."

He held up the pan. "Noodles?"

"With what vegetable, Harper Harris?" Cameron asked.

He groaned. "Um, carrots?"

"That's fine."

He wrinkled his nose, sighing dramatically while he pulled carrots out of the refrigerator. Cameron watched him do it with amusement. Vegetables were another thing he had never had until now, and he found that he hated most of them. Cameron was not ambivalent and so every meal she had a say in there was something green or leafy in. Carrots were neither of these things, and he could palate them a little better.

"How is your day so far?" he asked.

"Mundane," she replied. "For which I am grateful after yesterday's fiasco. I need to stop letting Keller work weekends by himself."

"No one else wants to," Harper reminded her.

"I know. I might start making people sign up for at least one weekend in a cycle," she mused. "I may bring it up in the congress meeting later. Also, I think I figured out how we're going to get the blueprint."

"What? Really?"

Cameron set her holo-rib down on the counter and helped slice the carrots.

"Lincoln has to transfer from his tablet to his holo-rib to connect to the topo-hover," she explained. "Ibsen can't make it compatible, and Dashiell finally ordered that we phase out the tablets anyway."

"I'm glad there's one thing our captain can be good for," Harper grumbled. "So the blueprint?"

"It's either on Julius's or Lincoln's tablet. Victoria and Charles use holo-ribs and so then you could have found it. Regardless, they'll need someone to transfer the data and they're not going to trust Aeneid personnel. You and I are perfect options."

She beamed. Harper stirred the chopped carrots into the noodles and put the lid on.

"How are you going to keep them from noticing we removed it?" he inquired.

"We'll need a fake blueprint," she told him. "I've asked Lully for a holo-rib plan, and we could modify it? It just needs to print something L shaped and handheld."

"And the file name needs to be the same," Harper pointed out. "But doable. Sunshine."

He reached over to kiss her, and Cameron snaked her arms around his waist, pulling him closer. She giggled.

"It sounds weird when you use Aeneid phrases," she said.

"You're the one who told me I should," he pointed out. "And 'rotated' makes more sense than 'pear-shaped' and all the other military jargon that comes out of your mouth."

"Which you also need to start using," she told him. "A lot of people are looking to us to be the model couple."

"Seasons preserve us," Harper sighed, and fanned himself with the spatula.

Cameron pulled out plates and Harper divided lunch before they moved to the small bedroom to eat. The mattress was under their own bed and the frame had been taken apart to build a desk. Harper had his tekcom station nearly built, his holo-rib sacrificed to become a server that would soon rival some of the comm bay's. Even now, it was more computing power than anyone outside of communications used.

"When do you think we'll get that blueprint?" Harper asked. "The replacement, I mean."

"Later today, I hope," she replied. "Oh, I saw some old tekcom parts in the back of personnel storage. Do you want me to bring them by? I don't know how useful any of it would be."

"It can't hurt," he shrugged. "I'm a little stumped on how I can order more parts without suspicion. I don't know why people are so skittish about laypersons using tekcom."

"Given what we're using it for, I don't blame them," Cameron said.

When the holo flickered to life, Harper pulled up the map of the base, little dots lighting up the screen where holo-rib were on desks, pockets and counters. Nearly three hundred dots littered the base, moving about, doing work. Harper liked watching the movement, he found it oddly calming.

"When is Lincoln doing the transfer?" he asked.

"As soon as you are ready. I told him I wanted to test run it with my old tablet so that we didn't have data loss," Cameron answered.

He grinned at her. "Accidental data loss, you mean."

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And now, you have at least a little of Harper and Cameron's plan. And a little name dropping as to our new captain, so that's exciting too. Bonus update because I just finished writing the first draft today. I wrote 42,000 words in 12 days and that is just moonshy. Now comes the hard part; editing! Thanks for reading!