Scene: Marigold Station hangar deck
Jill and Celestia walked across the metal hangar until it ended in a carpeted hallway that would lead them to the station's commercial promenade. Jill had many questions. "Um, Tia, is it?"
Only mildly offended, Celestia calmly responded with her given name. "Celestia."
Jill began to unload her questions. "Celestia. I'm not at all clear what's going on. Why is this space station here? Who built it and why haven't the Lizards attacked it yet?"
"It is--" Celestia quietly started, but Jill interrupted her with more questions.
"Why are there people here?" Jill continued, demanding answers but providing no time for them. "How are there people here? This, this all makes no sense! Sorry for interrupting you."
Celestia patiently waited for a time to intercede. "It may take some time to understand. We have traveled to a different order of worlds. The word that Mick uses is 'dimension'."
Jill blinked and thought about it. "We're in a different dimension? That would explain it."
"You are familiar with the concept?" Celestia was a little surprised that Jill accepted this answer, but few things surprised her greatly anymore.
Jill was indeed familiar with the concept. "They had it on TV shows all the time. Bad sci-fi. The kind of stuff I never watched."
Celestia was not familiar with the words 'TV' or 'sci-fi' but understood the concepts of shows and watching them. "Do these words TV and sci-fi refer to a sort of play?"
Jill was a bit surprised at Celestia's question. "Yes. You don't know what TV is?” She remembered that her companion was wearing a medieval suit of armor, so she explained the term. "It's like a play that they record so you can watch it again any time you want."
Celestia was intrigued. "Perhaps some day you might show me the theater of your world?"
Jill was sadly reminded of the destruction that was brought to her Earth. "Sorry. There has not been any working TV in years, and there’s not gonna be."
An alarm blared as Jill and Celestia approached a security checkpoint. A blue-armored figure stepped forward and motioned for them to stop.
"Miss... Miss." He was talking to Celestia. "You'll need to power down your armor to twenty gamps or below before you can go any farther. Station regulations."
Celestia was baffled. "My armour is not powered."
"Maybe you forgot to turn it down, unless our sensors are picking up the flower power from your friend here." The guard chuckled at Jill and her woven-reed dress. "We don't get too many antitechs in space for the obvious reasons. I hope you enjoy your stay here."
"I am very sure that there is no power in my armour." Celestia argued. "Can you check again?"
Jill stepped several paces away while the guard drew a black baton and waved it in front of Celestia. The guard put the baton away. "You're off. I don't even see the power source. What kind of armor is that, anyway? I've never seen anything like it."
"It is custom." Celestia said. "I am sorry if there was a problem."
"No, no problem at all!" The guard assured her. "I'm sorry that our systems flaked on you. Have a nice visit."
"Thank you." Celestia thanked him and continued onward.
Jill rejoined her and trust a fist into the air. "Flower power!" The two women shared a laugh.
Celestia asked Jill if she was serious. "Do you truly think it was reacting to you?"
Jill nodded. "Yeah, it probably saw my nanofield."
Celestia could not understand what Jill was talking about, but she now knew there was a name for whatever hidden power she already suspected Jill must have had for Mick to consider her valuable.
Scene: Space Station promenade
"Oh, wow." Jill was the first to react when they reached the promenade.
The mall was a series of small shops stuck together on each side of a walkway, like the malls that Jill suddenly remembered from before the invasion. What struck both women with awe was the novelty of the equal scene on the roof seven meters above. It was not a mirror, but the roof was a second floor with shops and people walking, all upside-down from their perspective. After every few shops, a artificial gravity arch on each side wall connected the two floors.
Jill thought about the scene. "How come the artificial gravity on the roof doesn't cancel out the artificial gravity on the ground?"
Celestia shrugged, the question being above her head, but then she saw a possibility. "There might be a regulator between the roofs here and the roofs above."
"Probably." Neither of them understood the technology involved, but that answer was enough to satisfy Jill's curiosity, so she walked forward into the mall. "Hey, that looks like a clothing store." Jill turned and hurried toward it.
Scene: The wrong clothing store
Jill went to the nearest rack and examined a yellow sweater with sleeves that were wider than usual and far longer than the body. "What kind of style is this?" she wondered.
The insect behind the counter answered. "The human clothing store is five spots down and around."
"Thank you, sir." Celestia said as the two women exited in embarrassment.
Scene: Pedestrian arch
Jill and Celestia stopped as they reached one of the arch walkways that connected the two opposite floors of the space station's mall. A thin vertical sheet of transparent plastic walled off either side to keep teenagers from jumping off the middle. A handrail was attached to the walls.
Jill bent backwards to look up to the upper floor. Seeing no one there, she smiled and took a deep breath. "I think I can do this."
"Do what?" Celestia asked.
Jill answered by bending her knees and leaping up into the air with just enough momentum to pass through the zero-gravity layer, spinning as she reached the midpoint and and falling onto the upper floor. Having spun too far to land on her feet, she cushioned the fall with her arms and let out a small shriek when she hit. She picked herself up, recovered a sandal that had been knocked off in the fall, then sat down in a cross-legged position and looked back up at Celestia on the opposite floor.
Celestia looked up to see Jill sitting and waving at her. The small crowd that had gathered to stare at Jill began to disperse after seeing her do nothing more than sit on the floor. Celestia looked down for a few moments, quietly attempting to summon some of her own power.
"Tia?" Jill called her. "Come on up here!"
Accepting failure, Celestia turned toward the arch and began to walk, her boots clomping on the archway. She soon disappeared behind the advertisements lining the plastic walls. As she neared the halfway point, she looked through a gap in the paint and saw lines of red lights embedded into the walls between the roofs of the shops. Did these regulate the gravity somehow? She quietly continued walking until she completed the arch.
Scene: Clothing store
The space station's humble little clothing shop carried a greater and more exciting variety of items than either of the women was used to seeing. They engaged in a few seconds of aimless browsing and exploration before a salesman came to help them. "Might I serve you young ladies?"
"Oh, yes!" Jill answered.
Celestia added some details. "We are looking for clothing made of a strong material that can stretch and is somewhat resistant to fire and tearing."
The salesman visibly suppressed a laugh. "Madam, all of the most common materials in production today should account for your needs. You will want to look for items made with Durafibre, Tenstrong, or Joove Microthread, which should be everything in all of these racks--" his wave covered nearly the entire store.
Jill smiled. "Oh. That's good, then. Anything would work."
The salesman drew their attention to they luxury rack in the women’s section where the items did not meet the ladies’ requirements but he would earn a greater commission. "-- and the items over here are made with different materials to provide you the best in style and comfort. For example, these scarves on display are made with an all natural material called cotton."
Jill began looking through the clothes in the women’s section to begin selecting what she would be wearing for the foreseeable future. She preferred simple and comfortable styles and was glad to find them. Unfortunately, the clothing sizes were in an unfamiliar measuring system: centimeters. She turned to the shopkeeper with an implied request. "I guess I’ll need my measurements taken."
The salesman smiled. "Over this way." He led Jill toward a low platform that looked like a scale. A square arm rose up from the back of the platform and ended at a pair of attachments, a green light and a small black box with a wide mouth at the bottom. Simple outlines of shoeprints were drawn on the platform, making it apparent what Jill was supposed to do. The salesman warned Jill. "You do not need to remove… whatever it is that you are wearing. Simply step on the platform." She did so. The green light flashed, and the black box printed out a paper slip of numbers that gave her weight and measurements with a computer-scannable graphic code at the bottom.
Jill took the paper slip, looked at it, an then placed a hand on the printer. The salesman did not see her nanites leak into it. Jill smiled. "Neat." She withdrew her nanites into her hand and returned to look for clothing.
A black dress with lacy white shoulders caught Jill’s eye. She compared its size to the numbers on the slip. "It would fit."
"Do you like it?" Celestia asked.
Jill did like it but did not like to admit it. "It’s not something I’ll wear every day, but it’s nice."
The salesman picked it up for her. "A good start to your collection."
Jill noticed that Celestia was not looking at clothing. "Do you want to pick up anything for yourself?"
Celestia refused. "It would be an abuse of trust."
Jill looked at the underwear display and then back to Celestia. "Do you think he would mind if I got fancy underwear, or would that be an abuse of trust?" she asked half-jokingly, as if to challenge Celestia’s formality.
Celestia inhaled before choosing the less serious of the answers that came to mind. "Would he know?"
Jill laughed. "No! I’m just wondering, would he see it in the bill and get upset or what."
Celestia chose to give a serious answer this time. "Remember the reason you are here. Your clothing should be chosen for that purpose." She did not know if it was appropriate to mention combat in the presence of a third party. "Once you have enough for your needs, Mick should expect that you will pick up a few additional items. After all, what you choose here will supply your entire wardrobe."
Jill glanced around the store. She had a question for the salesman. "Where are the socks?"
"They are on the other side of this rack," the salesman answered swiftly.
"Sir." Celestia caught the salesman’s attention. She had remembered something that Mick had said earlier. "We have another question. Might you have something called a soft suit?"
The salesman was surprised to be asked that. Doesn't everyone know that a boutique is not an armory? Apparently not these two, and from the looks of them they might have good excuses for not knowing. "Oh, for a softsuit you will want to go to the civilian armory on the opposite level."
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