Life After-Part Seventeen

Storm took her time getting back to the medical ward. It was about twenty minutes later when she got there. Jess was sitting next to Storm's bed with a small pile of sheets in front of her. She started as Storm walked in.
"Storm! Hi," she said. "I've been waiting here for a while because you were at the memorial funeral thing and Erik forgot to tell me that you wouldn't be here but now you're here so that's good."
Storm took a seat on her bed and put the crutches next to her.
"Do you always talk this fast or are you just nervous?" she asked.
"Most of the time I talk like this but maybe I'm just nervous all the time. I don't really know. So I have a few sheets for you to read about strategists because if you want to get into strategy then you're going to have to take an actual test-test on these."
Jess offered the stack to Storm. Storm looked at it and rolled her eyes.
"I'm not doing that," she said. "I don't read. Talk me through them if you'd like but I'm not going to waste my time sitting around and reading that."
Storm nodded at the stack of sheets. Fighters didn't like reading. Everything was done through speech either at Tellings or before combat. There were records, but most fighters ignored them. The ones who had to add to them usually wrote in Norse or in shortened phrases that were difficult to interpret.
"I can give you a summary but the test-test thing is going to be hard," Jess said.
"I don't fucking care. Clarissa's going to let me in there if it's the last thing she does before I step over her cold dead body."
Jess's eyes widened and she brought the pile of sheets up to her mouth.
"Do you mean that?" she asked.
Storm shrugged. "You'll find out if Clarissa doesn't let me in," she said. "So let's make sure she does. Give me a summary."

A week was spent doing this. It was nerve-wracking for Jess and merely annoying for Storm. Since they didn't seem like they were going to kill each other, Erik spent a lot of time getting to know the techs. Around the programmers he tried to go unnoticed. They didn't need a lot of minding. Once the week was done, Storm got her second chance at getting into strategy.
She showed up ten minutes late, alone. Clarissa had said that the test would have to be completed without interference from the spare as Jess was supposed to be Storm's advocate. Rebeka had wanted to do some extra tests to make sure that any adrenaline getting into her system wasn't going to do anything terrible. Rebeka and Storm were getting back onto speaking terms, but Rebeka tried to let Randall do most of the talking to the fighter.
Storm entered the room. Clarissa was sitting in her normal spot. Without turning around, she pointed towards a sheet on the floor.
"Your test," she said. "Go ahead and take a good, long look at it. It won't do you any good."
Storm sat down on the floor and let the crutches drop next to her. It took a bit of moving before she got into a position that was comfortable for her leg. Despite the medications, her leg hadn't been getting better. Storm was just thankful that it wasn't getting worse. She scanned through the heavily worded questions. There wasn't one that was fewer than ten words long. Half of them were short answer. Storm did a quick scribble in one of them to test out the interface before rolling up the sheet.
"I'm done," she said. "Your test? Worthless. Means nothin' to someone who's been out there. You wouldn't last five seconds in real combat. Hell, I don't think you'd be able to do a thing without your computers."
Storm stood up and crushed the sheet with one of her crutches. Jess bit her lip and glanced at Clarissa. She had turned around and a smile edged onto her face.
"Just as I suspected. The fighter's not cut out for this kind of work," Clarissa said. "I told Erik that this wasn't going to work out. I told Jess, too. And yet no one believed me. You've got your proof now."
Storm returned the smiled.
"You're gonna die for this," she said.
"Not if you're locked up in med ward."
Erik came in. Storm glanced back at him as the door opened.
"What're you doing here?" Clarissa asked.
"I....Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Test's unfair. I'm not takin' it," Storm said.
"She threatened my life."
"She's keepin' me from doin' somethin' useful with what's left of my life."
"I'm really not qualified to deal with something like this. Why don't we go back to med ward and talk…about something?"
Storm shrugged as much as she could with the crutches and left the room, Erik trailing behind her.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Clarissa gave me a shitload of work to do just to get into their fucking group because I'm a fighter. I said that I was going to kill her for it."
"That's a little bit…extreme."
"Not planning on killing her. Maiming, but not killing. She needs to learn that she wouldn't last a fucking minute in combat."
"There might be better ways to do that, Storm."
"Can't think of any."
They walked in silence for a minute.
"You know, if you ever want to talk…" Erik started.
"I know. You're always ready for me to talk to you."
"Just keep that in mind, okay? I don't want you trying to kill Clarissa. Or maim her. Or whatever. They'd lock you up."
"Net. They'd sedate me. I'm fighter."
"And Clarissa is a civilian."
"Told you this before. Killed civs. A civ. Doesn't matter. She's being a bitch and I've got to do something about it."
"I'll talk to Copernicus—"
"Don't," Storm said. "Look. I promise that if I do something that I'll talk to you first."
"Okay. I'll take that."
"As long as you don't tell Randall or Rebeka what just went down."
"Clarissa—"
"Won't be saying a fucking thing. She knows that I know what's going on."
"…What's going on?" Erik asked.
"I'm not telling."
Erik sighed and shrugged.
"I guess I'll have to take that," he said.
"You will."