Ice Pie [SpyxFamily][Si]

[MudkipSage]

This is a really great story OP.

 

[Goldenlima]

Industrial cyclonic separators were patented in 1885 IIRC. Adapting it for home vacuum cleaners is novel but the principles should be known.

 

[BlueRanger O-Doom]

Industrial cyclonic separators were patented in 1885 IIRC. Adapting it for home vacuum cleaners is novel but the principles should be known.

Click to shrink...

I think it was more the RAPID leap in logic she showed. Let alone the fact Loid and/or someone at his HQ would've had to research just what she was talking about.

 

[macdjord]

which would circulate are to keep it from getting too hot.

Click to shrink...

'are' -> 'air'

 

[SeriasGrey]

Didn't expect for recipe in NSFW qq thread. But it is certainly welcomed. Going to try that oatmeal candy recipe later

 

[Nugar]

Beyblade, beyblade, let it riiiiiip~!

Inb4 actual supernatural magic starts getting attached to those spinning tops, forcing Anya and friends to go on a globe-trotting tournament to stomp out a cabal.

Though... my brain ain't quite connecting the dots on the Fairy Flier...

Click to shrink...

Those nineties toys where you pull a ripcord and send a helicopter blade, sometimes with figure attached, spinning like six feet in the air, I think.

I can't help but think Loid is going to dig into the orphanage and find out Anya has been to multiples and come to the (partially correct) conclusion that Anya wears a mask because she's seen the worst of people, even if he doesn't become aware of the telepathy.

Click to shrink...

...Oh yeah, I think I saw those as a kid.

Click to shrink...

https://money.cnn.com/2000/06/27/recalls/q_recall_toys/index.htm There's a lot of different versions of them, but most of them were made by Mattel or Hasbro back in the day.

Industrial cyclonic separators were patented in 1885 IIRC. Adapting it for home vacuum cleaners is novel but the principles should be known.

Click to shrink...

She's specifically referring to the Dyson Cyclonic vacuum which was being developed in the 80s or so. Dyson vacuums are fascinating both from a technical and business perspective.

I think it was more the RAPID leap in logic she showed. Let alone the fact Loid and/or someone at his HQ would've had to research just what she was talking about.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Loid's new situation with Anya is actually idea for WISE. He's not just becoming a deep cover generic spy, but could potentially become a real player in Ostania's business world. And there's no reason for anyone in Ostania to suspect he's a spy, because what kind of insane foreign country comes over and starts developing technology and sharing it with the locals? Generally speaking, the way technology spying works is, you either use the host country's money and men for the development, then ship the finished product home. If the spy is at the top of the company, they get more control of the direction of development, or if they're in the lower levels, they just get to send the blueprints home for minimal investment.

But Loid isn't bringing over technology developed in Westalis. Anya's producing that on her own. None of it (so far) is military, so it's actually in WISE's interests for Westalis to respect the patent, because it improves Loid's situation.

'are' -> 'air'

Click to shrink...

Thanks, fixed.

Didn't expect for recipe in NSFW qq thread. But it is certainly welcomed. Going to try that oatmeal candy recipe later

Click to shrink...

This isn't NSFW. This is SFW creative writing. Glad you enjoyed. You should try the recipe. It's pretty good.

 

[Skosh]

I can't help but think Loid is going to dig into the orphanage and find out Anya has been to multiples and come to the (partially correct) conclusion that Anya wears a mask because she's seen the worst of people, even if he doesn't become aware of the telepathy.

Click to shrink...

Well, she had rather bluntly told Loid she knew about prostitutes because she researched them expecting to end up one since she was a female orphan. Stating that expectation so matter of factly and even acting to prep herself for something like that is pretty bleak. Extrapolating from that to other terrible stuff isn't too hard.

The issue though is how readily and easily Anya jumped to hiding things. This kid is accounting for aspects of their cover story and fabricating evidence to support it. Sort of like the Eden Entrance Exam, she's leaning too hard into it.

 

[Nugar]

xxxxxxxxx Chapter 17


"Maybe you're feeling ordinary,
Maybe you don't feel right-
Maybe you wish for something better o/~
Maybe it's about time,
We got bridges to burn and dreams to realize-

I sang softly to myself as I danced around my room, getting ready for the big day

No, not the start of school big day. I wasn't looking forward to that at ALL. No, today was the special meeting with the administrators of the school about my placement. The big day where the products of the past month are carried up and plopped down in front of all those elite old monsters and figuratively plopped my aggressively lower class but absolutely enormous intellectual cock down on their desks and being like, 'What up, bitches?'

Alright, so I've got a chip on my shoulder, sue me. This isn't the first time I've gone through this kind of thing. I was 'gifted' in my first life.

And I didn't amount to shit.

"It's a great big world and a big bright sun o/~
Shinin' on everyone-
SHY nin on every~one-OHJESUSCHIROPTERAN-"

Loid was standing behind me, because of course he was.

How do you sneak up on a telepath?

Mushin. The state of no mind.

Loid didn't even know I was a telepath, didn't even SUSPECT I was a telepath, I think, but he's used to being able to sneak up on people, and somehow the bastard had learned to do it to ME by being so nonchalant in his approach I don't notice.

That or this really is anime and he's able to, I dunno, erase his presence or something. A valuable warning.

That or I'm just getting used to hearing him at all times. Still, my heart was pounding in my goddamn chest and I was pounding a tiny little affectionate fist into his thigh.

"Don't do that!" I demanded.

There may have been some whining in my voice. Hey, no one likes to be startled, and I get startled more easily than many. Just ask all my friends who had the unfortunate circumstance to walk up behind me in a first person shooter game that has friendly fire.

So many blue on blue deaths…

Don't fucking startle me, though.

"Sorry, sorry," he said with a chuckle, accepting his punishment with grace. "I was just listening to you sing. I don't think I've ever seen you this happy. Is that a new song?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess. I'll write it down later."

"You don't have to," he replied neutrally. "What you've got now is fine. I was just enjoying it. It's a nice change from the ones you've already written. Much more upbeat."

His thoughts were pleased about that.

Loid mentioned the songs because we'd worked out a 'set piece' for later on. I had 'written' some songs, supposedly about the pain I felt losing my mom, and they were mostly somewhat depressing. I've no head for music but I can remember lyrics. For my earliest efforts, I offered up a couple of Veggetales songs, 'If It Doesn't Have a Tail It's Not a Monkey' the solo singer version, and 'The Bunny', and for my 'sad period' I made a version of Under the Bridge which was about Berlint and death instead of Los Angeles and heroin, and pretty much just straight up plagiarized Bittersweet Symphony. Lyrics only, as I said, I really can't do music.

Loid was going to 'surprise' me by bringing up my music, and I would protest, and it'd be a thing that kinda explains the depressive and creative slump I fell into after 'mom died'.

The song I was singing earlier, though, was Great Big World. One I'd never told Loid about. And I'd made a big deal about not wanting to get too into music, because I didn't think I'd do very well with it.

Consistency, your name is not my name. John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt isn't, either, both because that's an old song which may or may not already exist, and also because there's a chance it might have some sort of connotation in this world.

Honestly, the hard part with the other songs was translating them into Germanic. Doing stuff in Anglais would be easier. But I still don't know shit about actual music.

Sighing, I went back to getting ready. I wasn't technically a student yet, so the school uniform was inappropriate. But I did need to be in my best outfit.

You know…

"I'm gonna show you something," I told Loid. "Something my mom gave me, that I've kept hidden."

The whaleknives had, in fact, came in. They were cheap and easy to make, and didn't even have proper handles beyond a bit of thin leather wrapped tightly around the tails. I used one to carefully slice open the threads of a seam on the stuffed chimera I'd been left at that first orphanage with, so long ago.

Deep inside the fluff lay the only other two items I'd owned for most of my new life. Two weird little cone shaped clip barrettes, black silk with gold embroidery. They actually went pretty well with the official uniform of Eden Academy, thought the pattern is different, but I probably wouldn't wear them. Frankly, I hate having things on my hair. Headbands, glasses, things like that are fine, but I don't like hats.

Still, I'd had to fight, scream, bite, and steal to keep chimera and its secrets. I'd been over the stuffed animal and the cones inside and out, and never found any coded messages or anything like that, but they were my only link to the circumstances of my birth.

The probable mom, or at least birth giver, and ultimately, the mad science project that created me. The chimera horn hair ornaments felt heavy in my hands.

I handed them over to Loid with due solemnity.

"Mom gave these to me. I was dropped off at the orphanage with them, and the stuffed animal," I explained. "I was afraid to lose them, so I hid them inside. I haven't had them out since shortly after I got there."

Loid turned them over in his hands, looking at them closely.

Truthfully, there might be some sort of coded microfilm or something inside. I had never dared take them apart to see. They're made of a lacquered black wood frame with black silk stretched over it, and two metal hair clips underneath. Nothing rattled when I shook them, but you can never be sure. Still, I didn't dare take them apart. I couldn't bear to.

"Will you put them in my hair?" I asked. "One here," I said, pointing to one side of the top of my head, "and one here."

He nodded carefully, then clipped them in my hair.

I went and checked my reflection in the full length mirror.

I looked…

Well, I looked like a child. A young girl. I was 'short for my age' though, when I'd looked up the information, I was actually within the normal range for a girl of six. I still had some baby fat, which, you know, props to the orphanages for at least feeding me, but I was starting to get a little bit thicker in arm and leg with all the exercises I'd been doing. I'd grown both up and in weight since I'd been adopted. I was, to use the medical term, thriving.

And in other ways, too. I had a family, as charmingly bizarre as the Addams. I had a nice home. I had art supplies and books. I had projects and inventions. I had a meeting with the administration of the finest school in the land, where I was about to dazzle them with charm and baffle them with bullshit to put me in the kind of program for the academically gifted that the entire goddamn state of Louisiana couldn't match.

I had a future.

But I couldn't forget my past.

"Here's to you, Mom," I whispered. "Thanks for everything."


xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx


"It's really rather unconscionable on their part," Loid explained to Yor as he drove us through the streets of Berlint.

"I had no idea," Yor admitted. "I had no reason to doubt you, but it did strike me as a little odd that this school would be so… so…"

"Stuck up? Elitist?" I volunteered. "Dedicated to the preservation of their class and privileges to the point they actively scheme ways to keep out what they see as mere riff-raff?" I sneered. "It's certainly been a bit frustrating. You can see why I've got an attitude about it. It's not that I think I'm so great as to deserve special treatment or anything, it's that I think everyone deserves the same opportunities."

"Hmm. Anya and I differ on that a bit. I agree that every child deserves access to quality education. But although I am self admittedly biased in this, Anya's gifts mean she doubly deserves the finest education. She, no, we are lucky that you agreed to help us meet the requirements for their school. Without you, your willingness to go along with our deception… I fear my hopes would have been dashed." Loid looked appropriately somber at the thought.

Hey, we had to tell the woman something, right?

The big story Loid hooked her with was that my 'dead mother' wanted me to go to the finest school in the land, Eden academy. And to that end, Loid was running a number of deceptions all aimed at convincing the school, and any other interested parties, that we were a perfectly normal upper class family. Yes, my 'original mother' was dead, and Loid was a widower, but he'd remarried out of love and duty. It certainly wasn't a sham marriage for social status reasons, no sirree.

And Yor knew the score. Although the Ostanian constitution had officially dissolved the powers of both the niederer adel and the hochadel, the nobility and the royalty of the Germans, after they'd lost the last war against Westalis, the separation was recent and, much like my original world's UK, the family names and titles still meant quite a lot both politically, socially, and economically.

Most importantly, like the English, and here the Anglish, the entire country kind of treated the whole 'nobility' thing as some sort of national point of pride. And Westalis, the western half of what had once been the Germanic kingdoms, was sort of like, say, Ireland, in that they'd historically been treated pretty badly by the nobility.

I saw it once described as a family that was obsessed with clowns, and had clown holidays and clown decorations and favorite named clowns, with a neighbor whose grandparents were horribly murdered by clowns. The very clown ancestors of the clowns being fetishized next door.

Anyway. Yor's familiar with the concept that the former nobility have managed to maintain some of their old power and prestige, and while they legally have to let in commoners, they aren't letting them in easily.

Yor also murders people who fuck with the status quo.

I mean, presumably. I'm not sure of the politics or the goals of the shadowy group that employs my new mom as an assassin. But they apparently like her, and are giving her the freedom to experiment with having a family.

Yay for employee benefits?

But the point is, hide a candle in a bonfire. Yor knows we're lying to the government. So we, I mean Loid and I, have brought her into it. Asked suggestions, shared plans, everything. We're just not giving her that pesky final detail that all of this is technically about spying for Westalis.

Yor is pretty indignant on my behalf, actually. Loid's really hammered home the whole 'genius' thing with me, and Yor agrees that I absolutely deserve to go to school with the finest, and that keeping me out just because my 'mom died' is really a massively shitty thing to do.

Thanks, Mom.


xxxxxxxxx

AN: Yup, pretty fast turnaround this time. Though this chapter is short, it's because of somewhat awkward scene balancing. The next chapter is out on my patreon and is over twice as long, and primarily covers the actual meeting.

I'm gonna finish expanding the next Then Be Batman chapter on my patreon, because it needs more substance, and I'm also thinking of doing another, shorter, informational post, but in character like the last one. However, thanks to some patreon requests, I'll be releasing one more chapter of Ice Pie before another real chapter of TBB. My speed is pretty good right now, so hopefully this won't be long!

Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon

Also, as requested by people who justifiably hate Patreon, I have a Ko-Fi now.

https://ko-fi.com/nugar

 

[BlueRanger O-Doom]

Now that is a clever way to hide/lie by telling the truth…from an angle. I am seriously wondering how Loud and co will deal with the realization they'll have in a few years. That the bright little girl they're using for this long term spy game is likely the next Einstein, Maxim, or Tesla.

PS for anyone interested. Look at the breadth and VOLUME of how many different things Hiram Maxim patented and/or created.

 

[Lucho9]

Now that is a clever way to hide/lie by telling the truth…from an angle. I am seriously wondering how Loud and co will deal with the realization they'll have in a few years. That the bright little girl they're using for this long term spy game is likely the next Einstein, Maxim, or Tesla.

PS for anyone interested. Look at the breadth and VOLUME of how many different things Hiram Maxim patented and/or created.

Click to shrink...

wait till Anya publishes her first manuscript. Viva La Rebelión.

 

[Ajlove]

A thought occurs, maybe Anya could introduce Pokémon trading cards?

 

[Iseeyou]

A thought occurs, maybe Anya could introduce Pokémon trading cards?

Click to shrink...

Just introduce all the gacha and make bank. Yugioh card, baseball cards, fifa stuff. Drown this world in the horrors of gacha and feed off the tears of the whales.

 

[NihilSupernum]

Instantly followed. Spy x Family is such a gem.
Pity that there's not a lot of stories of it.

 

[CoolJacketjack]

Since anya thinks of herself as a psychic penny gadget I wonder when she'll invent some sort of spy or assassin gear for Loid or yor.
maybe the assassin gauntlet of assassins creed as it has a blade, grapple hook and dart dart gun function (poison, hallucinogen or sedatives) thrower in it. The gauntlet is easily concealed and perfect for spies or assassins like Anya's parents.

since spy x family is set during the Cold War the dvd propably hasn't been invented yet so that's another thing for anya to work on, and hear Frankie mock her about how it works by spinning like all her other stuff.

 

[Nugar]

xxxxxxxxx Chapter 18.


We showed up to Eden Academy in a rented van loaded with all of my shit. It's not that we brought that much, really, but the Fairy Stump could not be transported in the back of a truck or strapped to a roof, and wouldn't fit in a normal small car.

Personally, I thought Loid should look into getting a permanent vehicle, but then I'm American and I still sort of think it's odd not to own long distance transportation.

Once we got there, we were shown to a meeting room, and porters helped us carry everything in, so it only took one trip.

The meeting room was amazing. All mahogany and ebony and ivory and alabaster. Polished wood hundreds of years old, antique but sturdy furniture, decorations so valuable and tasteful it's a wonder the Anglish didn't try to steal them for a museum.

Henry Henderson, the big elegant sasquatch himself, was there to greet us. After pleasantries were exchanged, he explained his presence.

"It is my pleasure to inform you that, in light of our interactions, I will have the honor of having your daughter in Cecile Hall, of which I am the Housemaster of."

I got the 'squatch? Cool. I made appropriate noises and genuflection and kow towing and such.

Interestingly, Walter Evans showed up soon after, and there was another round of greetings and congratulations.

"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Evans," I announced to him particularly. "I've had time to read some of the writings of Saint Bonifact. Although I confess I don't have all of the context needed to fully understand the environment he worked in, as there is quite a lot of writing about the man I haven't had a chance to read yet, I do vastly admire a man as dedicated to education and reform as he is. I'm proud that a man of such goals is our national saint."

He was quite pleased by that.

Although they, and the others that showed up in ones and twos, all expressed interest in the various documents and art pieces we'd laid out, everyone took their time with small talk while they waited for the final guests.

Headmaster Goodfellow and Theobald Goddard, head of the Imperial Scholars program, who came in together.

These people were the high priests of this little educational cult, and were treated appropriately, with a variety of respectful gestures and greetings.

I kept my mouth shut as Loid took charge of our delegation, a decision mirrored by Yor. I wasn't particularly intimidated, I didn't need to hide behind Yor's skirts, but this is social combat at a level far, far beyond anything I have the skills to handle.

Also, rather frustratingly, there were just slightly too many people in this room for me to easily pick out thoughts. The meeting room was not small, but all eleven of us were at one end, clustered around the head of the table.

Worse, all of these people, with the sole exception of Yor, were thinkers. It wasn't so bad when they were talking, as most people's thoughts and spoken words are identical, but when they stopped talking, they started thinking.

So it was like they never really stopped talking.

At least until they started listening to the Headmaster.

Loid was personable without being obsequious, and had things well in hand as introductions went around, establishing bonafides and areas of interest.

Amazingly, two of them had some recollections of Yor! Both admitted to following the Berlint University's fencing and ballet programs, and Yor had been a standout performer during her time in the school. 'Personal reasons' had forced her to get a job rather than continue as a ballerina, and she lied and said that she had never really gotten into fencing despite her talents.

One of the guys who recognized her, the art teacher, Topher Temple, expressed particular disappointment at that. Apparently, Yor's ballet trained legs made her lunge particularly devastating.

Having seen the woman perform a Grand Jete that Loid could walk under, I absolutely believed it. Imagine that kind of power propelling a sword at you.

But that's a state trained assassin for you, I suppose. As an aside, I believe that they sent her to college as a way of giving her the skills and certificates needed to slot her into any governmental role they wished as a day job. Yor wasn't an intellectual like Loid or I, but she slotted in to her government job like a round peg into a round hole.

The peg just happened to be particularly long and pointy, if you'll forgive me stretching the simile.

Loid's background as a clinical psychologist at the Vivante Klinik didn't result in any vocal 'ah-ha's from the assembled personages, but there were several mental 'ohhh's. His doctorate, which he likewise earned honestly, and his career were respectable but not particularly notable, the way the nobility liked out of the commoners who were upper class but not actually worthy of being peers. Quiet experts in fields the nobility generally don't want to do, but fully agree is necessary.

Especially when you've got a murderous cousin or a disabled sibling that needs to be very quietly interred into a pleasant but restrictive facility… somewhere else. The Ostanian elite clearly took after the Anglish.

Once all the social roles had been defined, ourselves as the better sort of commoners, petitioning our betters, and the various hierarchies of the faculty, things turned to the reason everyone was there.

Me.

God it sounds arrogant to say that. But it's true. This is my big chance for a first impression. I had to perform. So I kept a polite, refined smile and only spoke when spoken to, but I let myself fidget just a little, as if I was eager to show off. Loid 'cautioned' me to calm down once, which I obeyed.

Frankly, the initial process was a little bit boring. There were four primary groups we were there to talk to.

Housemaster Henderson, mostly representing himself, since I'll be in his house, but also there with Housemaster Evans, who's just interested.

Topher Temple, who taught art, and Ormonde Werhner, who taught advanced history, and was also only there out of curiosity.

Jochim Harman, math and physics, and Korbim Dalhaus (MULTIPASS) who did general science.

And of course, the Headmaster and the guy that ran the Imperial Scholars program.

Every teacher there, with the exception of Ormonde Werhner, would be one of my teachers for the first several years. There would be others, of course, but not everyone could make it, and these old guys seemed to have seniority. I decided that thinking of them as being like tenured professors at a college rather than general faculty. They were there to give their impressions of my 'early efforts'.

Would have been nice to have a woman or two, and maybe a literature teacher, but whatever. Obviously, I really needed to impress the head honchos more than any individual teacher, but I'd need to get closer to the two dudes before I could accurately read their minds.

Loid decided to start big.

The Fairy Stump was already plugged in. Someone got the lights.

I hit the button.

Bam! Nobody expects the rainbows, motherfucker!

"My word," Walter Evans said quietly to himself. "That's rather lovely."

"May I?" the art teacher asked, kneeling down beside it.

I showed him the controls and let him go at it, speeding up and slowing down the color change.

"Hmm. But how much did she do, really?" the math teacher murmured to his companion.

"AN EXCELLENT QUESTION!" I all but yelled, pointing directly at the man, having been waiting on that sort of comment.

I got several frowns because of how loud and borderline uncouth I was, but more eyes turned to Harman, because I wasn't the only one to have heard that.

And then I dropped to my knees and started unscrewing wing nuts.

"I have to admit: much of this was done with the assistance of my parents," I said, grunting just a bit as I started pulling out components. "Father, will you show them the notebook?"

Loid pulled the design notebook off the top of the stack, opened it, and handed it to the nearest man, who happened to be Henry Henderson. Someone turned the overhead lights back on so everyone could see.

The Housemaster took a moment to focus, with two of the others leaning over his shoulders in unabashed rudeness, such was their eagerness. Ol' Squatch blinked rapidly, then started turning pages.

"I had the idea after reading some fairy tales," I explained. "I love nature, and I confess to a certain predilection towards things others might consider gross and overlook. Spiders, grubs, insects of all types, all those sorts of things that form the foundations of the world around us. And I'm especially fascinated by fungi. Mushrooms, bracket fungi, molds… They're so mysterious. Many refuse easy categorization." I slowed the colors until one of the fake fungi was lit up appropriately, and stopped the progression. "And so many are beautiful! Look, here's Calocera corna, the yellow finger jelly fungus. And here's Clathrus archeri, the octopus stinkhorn, with red fingers erupting from opaque white balls."

I played with the controls, pointing out various fungi, and even noting which ones shouldn't be growing on the stump, like fly amanita and a morchella.

"So when Mother and I were out hiking, and I saw a mossy stump, it struck me how beautiful it was in decay. Almost magical, really. And when I thought about magic, I thought about fairies. Tiny little people, fey and free, dancing around mushrooms and toadstools. And when I think about magic fairies… I think about rainbows. And then I thought… what if mushrooms glowed in all the colors of the rainbow? Everything you see here stems from that concept. From the need to create that scene."

I finished unscrewing the last nuts, and the main component board dropped down into my hands, which meant the light in the mushrooms died.

That was okay, because now I was holding something just as amazing. A twisted, three part star pipe and a spinning color filter wheel with attached motor.

"May I see that for a moment?" I asked the Housemaster, who passed it over.

"It's quite striking," he said as he handed me the notebook. "Not quite what I would call elegant, but definitely fey and wild."

Okay? Is that bad? I think that's bad. I mean, in his terms. But he didn't seem unhappy with it, either. Weird guy.

I thanked him, then flipped to the beginning, held the notebook up, and started explaining.

"What I wanted was an easy way to make translucent mushrooms that would light up in the colors I wanted. What I got was an education in finding acceptable solutions." I then proceeded to go, step by step, through the whole process of coming up with a design. Then I halted and sighed.

"But yes, Mr. Harman, I admit. I had to prevail upon father to have these light pipes made by a professional glass blower. Mother and father did most of the actual physical work involved with drilling out the holes for the light pipes. Heh, if you'll forgive the expression, I made the molds for the molds, but Father wouldn't allow me to heat them to drain the wax. Likewise, I wasn't allowed to solder the components in place, or saw the boards to fit, or many of the actual mechanical processes for making the piece. It's very frustrating, being this small," I complained.

"I am a psychiatrist, not an artist. Or an electrical engineer, for that matter," Loid said quietly. "I helped Anya find the reference material she needed, but the design was all hers. Even, and this is something that I confess that all my experience with Anya failed to prepare me for, the wiring diagram for the controls and the timer. I took her to the library, helped her get a stack of books as big as she is, and the next thing I know, she's talking about Ohm's law and electronic circuit notation. Gentlemen, I do not know what some of those squiggles mean. But she does. Ask her anything you like."

The math and physics guy did just that, when he found my diagram. He asked a few basic questions to see if I actually knew the notation, then tried to trip me up by asking what amounted to more of an opinion sort of thing about why I had set the timer circuit up like that.

I countered by showing him the 15 minute button. One push, fifteen minutes of activation, and then off again.

"I prefer to sleep in the dark, but it's nice to have some light to see if I need to get up in the middle of the night," I explained.

The art guy had more relevant questions to the actual artistic merits of the piece. I showed him sketches of different mushrooms, went into why I chose them, but ultimately agreed that the balance off the piece was off.

"Yes, Sir. I don't actually consider it finished yet. Ideally, it will have some fairy figurines. Either some winged figures on wire, flitting around it in motion, perhaps, or some small brownie type figures hiding among the moss. What I really want to do is some figurines of my parents and I. I've got sketches here…." I flipped to the appropriate pages of the book. "But my early efforts were crude. A mushroom may have erroneous lumps and still be a mushroom. People are… harder. But I'm working on it. It's just not my only project."

"It's still a beautiful piece," Mr. Temple admitted. "Would you mind leaving it here for a while, so I can show some others?"

"Of course!" I agreed. "With one request. Keep the notebook, and show them the insides. I like the art. But the beauty is in the making."

"The elegance is absolutely on the inside," Henderson agreed. "And what elegance it is. A fine example of starting with a goal, and taking logical steps to achieve that goal."

Loid took center stage again, passing out notebooks and sketchbooks and stacks of bound, typewritten pages.

"Art is not her only focus, though she does enjoy it. Her math is particularly advanced for her age, as noted by the equations for the gears for the piece, and the wiring diagram, but she primarily uses math in pursuit of some other goal. Really, she is driven to be creative. Here are a selection of some of the things she has thought of over the years."

He pulled the whole fidget spinner set out of a box and passed them around, as well as a few of the stuffed animals.

"Her early efforts were primarily toys, like these, which I had made according to her designs. These days, however, she has advanced past even pure art pieces like the Fairy Stump, and is thinking about everything from household appliances to industrial processes."

"You really weren't kidding," Walter Evans admitted. "Anya got every question correct on the entrance exam, and that's certainly a sign of genius. But this…" He looked up in concern. "Why didn't you publish? Anya could have been celebrated as the next precocious polymath. She should be celebrated for her gifts."

Loid sighed and looked ashamed.

"We would have," he admitted. "We were going to. But then…"

"Mom," I said quietly. "My first mother."

"You have to understand. Anya went from being bright and happy and enthusiastic… and then withdrew. We both did. I'm afraid that, in my grief, I did my daughter a disservice," Loid admitted sadly, not meeting anyone's eyes.

Yor patted his shoulder consolingly, and he put his hand on hers.

"It's not Father's fault," I insisted. "I read the books on grief. We were both saddened by her loss. It's normal to avoid doing the things that constantly remind you of someone you've lost. It's normal!" I insisted, louder. "Everyone grieves! It would be weird if we didn't!"

"But think about where you could be now if we'd just… kept going. Kept pushing you with new challenges," Loid replied. He looked around. "Do you understand that Anya may be one of the most precociously gifted children the world has ever seen? There have been many savants who exceed her in their given areas of focus. Math prodigies, eidetic memories, or artists who could draw an entire city after a moment's glance. But the last time such a wunderkind appeared was in 1964."

"Silas Beck," Headmaster Goodfellow said quietly.

You know that thing that writers use sometimes? Where a character is kept really quiet, so when they do speak, their words have greater import?

Every person in the room was staring at the Headmaster.

Silas Beck. He may or may not have existed in my original world. I don't know, I don't exactly memorize lists of child prodigies. Here, though, he had shown up in some of Loid's research.

Beck was your usual sort of gifted child, if there is such a thing. The first studies of him were done at the age of four, when he was showing some precocial traits. From there, he practically exploded with talent. He had a photographic memory, perfect pitch, could calculate large numbers in seconds, and knew algebra before he went to his first year of school.

Kinda like me!

Except obviously I'm faking. I'm a cheater. Isekai for the win.

"He went here, you know," Headmaster Goodfellow continued. "Silas Beck, the treasure of Ostania. He was an investment for the entire nation."

Oh shit, really? I didn't know he went to Eden Academy, and if Loid knew, he didn't tell me. I glanced at my erstwhile father in concern. I mean, it does make sense now that I think about it, where do you send the prodigy but the best school in the nation, but at the same time, I can think of one very big reason why Beck's enrollment at Eden isn't publicized more.

Loid inclined his head, because of course he knew. Motherfucker is keeping secrets from me.

"It was a tragedy," Theobald Goddard said in disgust. "Many people failed their duties."

Yeah, uh.

I don't want to be the next Silas Beck.

"I will not allow that to happen to my daughter," Loid said quietly, with no small amount of menace.

"Nor will I," Yor agreed.

I went and stood between them, because that's what you do when your parents quietly swear to protect you.

"However," Loid continued, "Anya Forger is not Silas Beck. I am not Todd Beck, and Yor is not Pernille Beck. And none of you are Lovrenco Perkovic." His tone was full of quiet menace, a kind of warning of 'you fucking better not be'.

"There's no such thing as a 'typical' wunderkind. The human brain is too complex, too many faceted. Anya has an excellent memory, but not an eidetic one. She is talented at math, but takes time with her calculations, and is not above the occasional mistake. However, her intuition and logic are, if anything, noticeably superior to that recorded of Beck. I won't lie and say that Silas Beck isn't something of a cautionary tale in our family. However, at the same time, it would be a shame if Anya became anything less than the best she can be. Anya isn't the next Silas Beck."

He smiled.

"She's the new Anya Forger."

Loid is lying, of course. We've talked about Beck like, twice. Long story short, parental pressures and the psychologist who documented him fucked with Beck until he went bugfuck. Total insane megalomania, paranoia, and eventual suicide. It was basically like one of those Hollywood child star situations.

None of which actually applied to our situation, and we both knew it.

This was its own entirely new flavor of fucked up! With spies and assassins and genetically modified telepaths, oh my!

So, that sort of killed the mood of the meeting. Bit of a downer, you could say. Instead of doubting the veracity of my efforts, they instead quietly worried about my potential to go bad.

…Was that deliberate? Is this part of some long play thing on Loid's part to keep an eye on someone as potentially volatile as me?

In any other situation, that question would drive me nuts. I'd worry, I'd feel guilty, and it would color my whole interaction with Loid. An anxious introvert's 'are you mad at me?' given a shot of cold war era paranoia steroids.

But I can read minds. Loid is literally thinking 'Better that they fear her than doubt her. Anya will win them over.'

So, thanks for the vote of confidence, Papa? Would have been nice to have been consulted beforehand, but I do know he doesn't like to rely on my acting ability too much. He likes to control variables, and I am very much a variable.

My 'records' were wholly given over to the school, and they did take some time to discuss the issues of inventions and patents. Although it's never really come up before, given that even Silas Beck predates modern Ostanian patent law, Loid was able to hammer out some sort of agreeable deal.

Actually, it was a very generous deal, where Eden agreed to be totally hands off from anything I created… so long as, at their discretion, they could brag.

Cautionary tale of genius gone bad notwithstanding, they did like the idea of having someone they could put on an international pedestal.

The Headmaster and his buddy excused themselves to step outside for a discussion while the others talked with Loid.

I 'accidentally' dropped a few nuts and washers in such a way as so they rolled over near the door, so I was obliged to go get them. And if I lingered a bit long, well-

Loid glanced across the room and smiled at me.

I gave him a bright smile back.

Because, despite being down the hall a bit, I could hear the Headmaster and the Imperial Scholars guy's thoughts as they talked.

"Do you think she's the real deal? That is startlingly advanced material for a six year old."

"The father is a psychiatrist, if anyone were capable of such a fakery, it would be someone like him. However, he had a point. Faking achievements such as those before school is one thing, but he sincerely believes that his daughter is going to continue to produce miracles. No, he believes that she is going to positively ignite with even more ideas as she learns."

"If he's right, his insistence on protecting her patentable ideas makes sense."

"Exactly. We don't induct first years into the Imperial Scholars, anyway. There will be time for her to prove herself, or to falter."

"And if she proves herself?"

"Then she is exactly the kind of student the Imperial Scholarship is made for."

"Ah, but what of our other promising young scions? The Desmond child, and the Blackbell heir, in this year alone."

"Politics? We don't do politics in the Imperial Scholars. It is merit by which they are judged, and merit only."

"Not what I mean at all, old friend. What I'm saying is-"

But I had to go back and put the Stump back together. Dammit.

Still, that sounded good, right? I think it sounded good. Some doubt, which, Loid aside, I prefer to fucking fear. I wonder how many fake geniuses they had to see to get so cynical about their students?

I got everything put back together, and showed the art teacher the process. Only one of the secondary light pipes was removable, since I didn't want the others falling out and breaking. I also pointed out the heavy use of insulation, so that it was safe to leave plugged in and show the light generation.

"Music, too?" one of the men commented.

"We should have brought Martha."

"Anya's birth mother was more musical than I, and Yor's art of choice is dance. Anya was always making up silly rhymes and simple songs… before. Afterwards… Well, she got better as she got older, but after she wrote Bittersweet Symphony, she said music made her sad, and stopped trying."

"Hey! Hey, hey! You weren't supposed to bring any of that!" I cried.

"They're good songs, Anya. You shouldn't be ashamed of them," Loid protested.

"They're not FINISHED! I never actually set them to music or anything. I still don't understand those tadpoles!" I protested.

Loid glanced at the other men. "She knows the notation, but keeps saying she doesn't 'get it'. If she doesn't get it, I don't know what getting it looks like."

"I don't, though. I don't get it. I know what an eighth note looks like, but I don't hear it when I read it. You've got to hear it to get it."

"I've heard you sing it, though," Loid said again. "You hear the music you want to make."

"But I don't know how to play it! I can't even write it down the way I hear it! Besides, I'm much better at writing. Did you see those stories I wrote?"

"Please, young Anya, don't change the subject," Henry Henderson interjected. "You're talented at so many things, and I look forward to seeing them all. But you've got me curious. Please, sing for us."

I wavered.

I wavered hard.

My chin veritably quivered. I was proud of that, actually. Do you know how hard it is to make your chin quiver on command?

Actually, I really, truly, did not want to sing. I'm not a good singer, in this life or the last. No training, no immediate talent. The only thing I have going for me is a high, sweet voice.

But I am here to perform.

Dance, Anya, dance!

So I sang a solo variant of the classic Veggetales song, 'If It Doesn't Have a Tail It's Not a Monkey', a classic about the problems with binary categorization in a complicated world, which I then talked about at length. The missing two people hurried back in for my performance.

"I had just read about Diagones making fun of Plado by screaming 'Behold, a man!' while holding the plucked chicken. And I realized we essentially make the same mistake, at least by a strict definitional reading, with the classification of mammals." I gave them a sardonic grin. "Take the coconut. It produces milk. It has hair. Behold, a mammal!"

That got a good chuckle.

"Obviously, we solved that by adding more and more conditions. Live birth, a placenta, warm blood, and so on. But you can still run into edge cases. The African naked mole rat cannot regulate its own temperature, and I think there were a couple of others. The platypus doesn't have mammary tissue or teats, but produces a thin milky fluid which flows down its chest hair. This is one of the reason I'm fascinated by fungi. Many of them are deeply, seriously, intensely weird. I find I learn the most about the world where I find the places where simple statements of description can be turned in on themselves."

"Fascinating. Although it would be uncouth to bring a child to a drinking establishment, you would be the toast of the evening at the next meeting of the Hadrian Club," Korbim Dalhaus said with a chuckle. "All bon mots and clever turns of phrase."

"I certainly hope I would pass any judgement of you and your fellows," I said politely. Mangled it a little. I'd been trying to come up with a 'pass' reference to use on him since I'd heard his name.

"Childish, but brilliantly so," one of the others praised.

"She was thirty-two months old when she came up with that," Loid lied. "It's one of the few she liked well enough to write down."

"What about her more recent works? I find myself intrigued by the title 'Bittersweet Symphony'." Goddard asked.

I winced. "I uh. I'm not sure I can sing that one without crying. I was… not in a good place, mentally."

That's true. I listened to that song a lot when my wife died in my first life. It still hits pretty hard. But it's also not really the same without the actual music.

"I suppose I could give Under the Bridge a go," I said with a sigh.

One of The Red Hot Chili Pepper's greats. And not quite as obviously about California, sex, or heroin as so many of their others. Instead, it's just about Los Angeles.

Replace 'City of Angels' with 'City of Berlint', and a few other issues with translating it from English to German, and you can imagine my rendition of it.

Teared up a little, too. Finally just gave up and stopped so I didn't have to fight with the repeating chorus.

Everyone clapped, but in a serious, somber sort of way.

That was basically it for the meeting, so we started gathering up what little we were carrying home. I saw several of the men approach Loid with condolences and offers of concern and support, for both Loid and I.

Hell, I can't leave it on a sour note like that, pun intended. Not after concerns about a previous wunderkind going nuts.

"You know, you asked me earlier today, if I'd finished that new song," I said loudly enough to get attention. "You know, the Anglish one."

"Oh, Anya. I didn't mean to put you on the spot," Loid said, lying, putting me on the spot.

But obviously I'm willing, or I wouldn't have brought it up.

"So, I haven't written this one down yet. I've been working on it in Anglish, so forgive me if I bobble, I still make mistakes in the language. For that matter, I still make mistakes in our language, but learning is a process, right? Anyway. I stopped making music when music made me sad."

I gave them all a crooked little smile.

"But you know what? Things are better now. I love my new mother, Yor. There's nothing that says I can't have two Mamas. And Papa is happier now, too. Things are honestly going pretty great. So, uh, I've been thinking happy thoughts."

And so I sung them 'Great Big World', by Kari Kimmel. It's quite a bit more childish than the two 'sad songs', but it's also bright and happy in ways I haven't genuinely felt in years.

It's a song of hope and joy.

And I had to dash a few tears from my eyes while singing it, too.


xxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxx


Years come and years go, bringing with them fresh crops of young students. Heirs, also rans, bright prospects and barely acceptables, with potential Scholars seeded amongst them.

But this year was special. A diamond had been found, unpolished but sparkling with promise, standing out even among the scions of some of the most powerful families in Ostania.

For some, this incredible young girl was a reminder of failure and shame.

Others saw her as a promise of things to come.

The best decided that she was deserving of an education no better, but no worse, than the absolutely best efforts they gave to all of Eden's apples, and that it was a joy to see every child flourish.

None, however, considered her unremarkable.

No one called her 'The new Beck'. But she, and her art, and her stories, and her test scores, were the subject of a number of discussions, even amid the rush of back to school preparations.

X
X
X

"You called for me, Housemaster?"

"I have a… mission, shall we say. Should you choose to accept it."


xxxxxxxxx


AN: Sorry it took me a while to get this out. Got sick, AGAIN, after that burst of productivity. Whole week got wasted. Bleh. Anyway,, the next chapter, which is actually a bonus chapter for my highest tier patron, is available on my patreon. Next, I'm going back to Then Be Batman for probably two weeks. I'm kinda liking this two weeks one, two weeks the other, because I don't have to make my mind flip as much.

Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon

Also, as requested by people who justifiably hate Patreon, I have a Ko-Fi now.

https://ko-fi.com/nugar

 

[macdjord]

but this is social combat at a level far

Click to shrink...

'is' -> 'was'

since I'll be in his house

Click to shrink...

'I'll' -> 'I'd'

I decided that thinking of them as being like tenured professors at a college rather than general faculty.

Click to shrink...

'that thinking' -> 'to think'

given that even Silas Beck predates modern Ostanian patent law,

Click to shrink...

'predates' -> 'predated'

 

[FarJackal]

Love how our little SI is doing, but i'm also curious on how they will interact to the children characters compared to canon. So far thier social interactions has been with adults only.

 

[TotallyDapper]

I'm wondering what the effect will be when, as everyone grows up, her classmates catch up to her, and maybe even surpass her intellectually. The advantage of Isekai knowledge aside, she may or may not actually be smart enough to make it into Eden Academy on merit alone. Of course,the Isekai knowledge, and the fact that Eden mostly caters to the children of the upper class and not just the exceptionally brilliant ones, means she'll still be ahead, but probably by a lot smaller of a margin than she is now.

At that point, as she and her classmates grow up and they catch up to her in experience and education, her advantage will shift from making her look absolutely brilliant to making her merely look smart and mature for her age, with lots of good ideas. Not a bad outcome, but it will be an interesting data point for everyone watching from the outside.

Perhaps she can blame it on her psychic ability letting her hear how adults think, and trying to match that as a small child? If her abilities are ever shared, of course.

Of course, her psychic abilities will give her another extra advantage, but that's less directly useful for this sort of thing. Knowing what your teacher is thinking isn't that much better than listening to the lecture, although you'll probably learn some fun facts that way.

 

[CoolJacketjack]

Not sure if the spy x family world has entered a period where things like computers are wide spread but if they are anya should try to recreate early games like tetris or pong to show off her abilities.

 

[bluepencil]

At that point, as she and her classmates grow up and they catch up to her in experience and education, her advantage will shift from making her look absolutely brilliant to making her merely look smart and mature for her age, with lots of good ideas. Not a bad outcome, but it will be an interesting data point for everyone watching from the outside.

Click to shrink...

Business doesn't care about MENSA scores. The only thing that matters is success. If she is slowing down academically, as long as she is already filthy rich then most people will think she is more focused on real world matters.

She is also more a creative thinker than an analytical one, and if she is moving to arts, media, and literature - as long as she has scripts or more new IPs to pitch (coughpokemoncough, coughsamuraipizzacatsscough, coughgijoecough, text adventure rpgs for early computers, etc.) for marketing collectibles she will always remain brilliant.


[edit]
Companies also have self-refreshing value. Apple, for example.

As long as someone sees a signboard with the name ANYA'S, it counts as her accomplishment. How many geniuses fail to pass that final hurdle of commercial success and are instead just spend their lives working for someone else?

 

[FarJackal]

Business doesn't care about MENSA scores. The only thing that matters is success. If she is slowing down academically, as long as she is already filthy rich then most people will think she is more focused on real world matters. She is also more a creative thinker than an analytical one, and if she is moving to arts, media, and literature - as long as she has scripts or more new IPs to pitch (coughpokemoncough, coughsamuraipizzacatsscough, coughgijoecough, text adventure rpgs for early computers, etc.) for marketing collectibles she will always remain brilliant.

Click to shrink...

Plus most what would be consider smart people didn't really invent the stuff, they either stole it or made a deal with the person who made it who can't market it. Anya would still look to be impressive since her ideas would be seen as orginal along while also getting filthy rich. No can suspect her ideas are stolen because thier from an alternative world.

 

[Nugar]

xxxxxxxxx Special bonus chapter 1


"This place is amazing, and I want to live here," I announced as I wandered the aisles like I was at a museum.

Or a zoo.

Jupiter Hanza Markt was THE electronic store in Ostania, and probably one of the best in Europe. This is the mid-80s, the time when consumer electronics are hitting the big times. Back in my original life, RadioShack was the amazing place full of opportunities, a hardware store but for electronics. Unfortunately, I lived in the middle of fucking nowhere, so the RadioShacks I got to go to, on the rare occasions, were fairly small. But this is Ostania, and they do things the Germanic way.

Is this what Akihabara is like? I bet this is what Akihabara is like.

JHM Berlint is the largest one in the nation and boasts four floors and 10000 square meters of floor space. Not only does the place have things like televisions, radios, stereos, and appliances, it also has a floor devoted to music and movies, and other floor devoted to things ranging from toys to vehicle electronics.

But the big one. The Mecca for tech geeks like Frankie and I…

One entire floor, 2500m^2, is dedicated to electronic parts.

Bins of resistors, capacitors, and even microchips. Solenoids, motors, batteries, blank circuit boards, acid, gears, tools, all of it.

And if they don't have what you need?

They can order it!

Not quite as convenient as having everything available at your fingertips on the internet, but it's nice to be able to pick things out same day.

They even had a sort of advertising area where they could put you in contact with various shops that do custom electrical work, which reminded me a little of how Lowes could set you up with a carpenter or whatever.

Frankie and I were there getting stuff for the Fairy Stump. It was in the middle of the day, and both Loid and Yor were busy. Technically, Frankie was babysitting me, but we were shopping with my 'parents' blessing. And money.

There's no real point reinventing the wheel, so we bought an off the shelf power unit that could output various voltages. We spent a while going through the fancy lightbulbs and ended up picking a small mercury vapor bulb that put out a lot of lumens and managed to be a fairly white colored blue-white.

They did have LEDS, but they had exactly one color. Red.

Obviously, we got several to use as visual indicators that a circuit was powered, given that a major point of the Fairy Stump was to take it apart and show how it worked.

Figuring out which of a number of electronic timers was the best to go with actually took the most of our time. The clunky old things were the size of bricks at the smallest, and had actual dials with numbers on them. Programmable chips existed… but weren't really a feasible option. Not at this level.

"Sometimes, I think maybe I should have played your mom," Frankie mused as we toured the store.

"Hah?" I asked, having not caught whatever thought had been bouncing around in his head. There were a lot of people around, so I was trying to tune everything out, unless we were talking to a clerk.

"You really are like some sort of cross between Loid and I," Frankie explained. "You pick up on stuff from people like Loid, but you like electronics like I do."

"Aww, thanks, Frankie," I replied. "Honestly, I think I'm actually a lot closer to you than Papa. I mean, yeah, I understand people. But I don't actually LIKE them. I mean, most people are surprisingly decent, I've found. Which really was as surprise because for a while it seemed like the only people I ran into were evil. But I don't like dealing with them. Even if I can get away with not really having to have a conversation with someone because I'm six, it's exhausting just being around them. Give me a book, or, well, a circuit board."

He gave me a kind of side eye. "You always seem energetic when I'm around."

I scoffed. "Yeah, but I actually like you, Uncle Frankie. You get it."

'If you say so,' he thought, but didn't deny.

I mean, yeah, I could tell he was a bit weirded out by me, given the package I came in, but if I'd been a guy his age, we'd probably be friends in that sort of introverted way nerds do. We'd be drinking buddies, if I drank.

I didn't blame him, though. I would freak myself out a bit, too.

I did like Frankie, though. It'd taken a while, but I'd pieced together some of his history, particularly his history with Loid. Turning against Ostania because they'd sent him to die for no good reason made perfect fucking sense for me. He was jaded in ways I could emphasize with, but still made efforts to be a good person.

"You know, when I finally build up enough patents for it to be worth starting my own company, I'm gonna hire you to run it."

"Oh? You think you're gonna invent that much stuff?"

I had stopped on a row that had electric motors.

An entire fucking row of nothing but electric motors. From fifty pound, five horsepower monsters, down to a couple of different choices of tiny little things no bigger around than a magic marker.

The kind of thing that would be perfect in a vibrating toothbrush, or razor.

Which reminded me.

I hustled back to a small section devoted to quartz timepieces.

Piezoelectric crystals.

Squeeze a tiny piece of quarts, and it produces a zap of electricity. That's how a surprisingly large amount of cigarette lighters light.

But send electricity through a tiny piece of quartz, and it vibrates. That's how quartz timepieces work, using the consistent vibration to keep time.

That's also one of the ways of generating ultrasonic noise.

You know, for an ultrasonic toothbrush. Or potentially an ultrasonic razor.

They didn't have an entire row devoted to piezoelectrics, but they DID have some.

Frankie caught up with me a few moments later as I was picking out some likely pieces.

"Frankie, I've already thought of that much stuff," I said with a grin. "You want to be rich, right?"

"Anyone would," he admitted warily.

"Then let's get rich."

Toys were one thing. But there were only so many really interesting toys I could remember how to make, at least until we hit the computer age. Maybe I can do a tickle me Elmo at some point.

Of course, there were also interesting 'adult toys' I remember. And I'm not talking sex toys.

Well, not just sex toys. I'll probably wait until I'm at least well into my teens before inventing any of those.

But I mean the kind of shit the Sharper Image, or the Skymall, or Amazon pushed on people. Stuff too complicated for kids, but absolute catnip for tech geeks. The kind of thing where you can kind of consider it mass produced art.

Stuff like the Fairy Stump, but simpler.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to get ahold of some liquid nitrogen and make a hover thing, but I've got some other stuff in mind. Next, after the stump, I'm going to make an art piece called 'Perpetual Motion Machine and Batteries for Perpetual Motion Machine.'

I explained it to Frankie. "Have you ever seen a marble race track?"

He hadn't, so I explained the basics to him, but also included the fact that I needed the marbles to actually be steel ball bearings.

"The fundamentals, of course, involve the marbles rolling and clunking around on a complicated series of simple machines. Ramps, rollercoaster tracks, falling and hitting tiny drums or piano keys, things like that. An endless series of semi-hypnotic motion and sound for you to just… watch."

"Does it spin?" he asked with a grin.

I rolled my eyes. Technically, almost anything that involves movement has at least some spinning, because electric motors spin. His snide little comment slightly depressed my excitement for making the vibrating toothbrush/razor, just because of that. But I actually did appreciate that he liked me enough to give me a little bit of shit back.

"Actually, what I'm going to make doesn't," I said primly. "I just need a tiny little metal detector, to sense the steel ball, and a capacitor based electromagnet to give it a boost as it falls. That's where the seemingly perpetual motion will come from, since the outsider won't be able to see the magnet. You know there's no such thing as perpetual motion. Energy is always, always lost to friction."

I explained the idea in more detail. At one point in the marble race, the steel ball will roll down a track. At one point, it will be sensed by a tiny metal detector, which will activate an electromagnet beside it, which will give the steel ball a yank. But then the electromagnet will turn off, and the ball bearing, with increased momentum, will go back up a ramp which launches it to the top of the bearing race. It was the kind of toy you could buy on the internet in the future.

"But I'll include a spinney bit, just for you," I said. "Probably a funnel for the ball to roll around in a bunch before it goes down the center hole back onto the tracks."

"That does sound kind of neat," he allowed. "But what's the point?"

"For people to believe I'm a genius, I've got to be seen doing genius things, right?" I prompted.

"Anya, you are a genius," he countered.

I scoffed. "Genius is as genius does. If I want people to buy into my ideas that will actually make us money, I need them to pay attention. So the art stuff is just for show." I paused. "I mean, if anyone wants to pay for them, or for a replica or something, that'd be nice. But I don't think I'm going to make much money off silicone mushrooms, glowing or not."

I went through and picked up some quartz stuff and some tiny electric motors just to get started. While I think the cyclonic vacuum is a cleverer idea than a vibrating toothbrush, I'm willing to bet fucking Phillips made more money off those damned multi-blade razor heads than Dyson made off its vacuums. Fifty fucking dollars a pack, man. Highway robbery.

A shame, really. I remember really liking the closeness of the shave.

Huh. I'll have to make a point of giving Loid a kiss, or nuzzling him or something when he's got a five o'clock shadow. It'll give me a reason for making a better razor.

Forger sonic razors? Forged sonic razors?

I want my name on it for branding, but I wouldn't mind licensing the patent. I suspect the nitty gritty of actually owning a manufacturing company would suck.

The best thing about the JHM store was that, once we got done on the components floor, there were three other floors.

Well, two, really. Neither Frankie nor I gave a shit about normal home appliances. I mean, we'd walked through there once, but that was it.

I also wasn't much for ordinary toys, even if JHM tended to have the fancier electronic ones. A toy firetruck is a toy firetruck, whether it has flashing lights and 'real firetruck sounds!' or not. Frankly, even in my first childhood, my imagination outstripped conventional toys when I was still in the single digits.

But, though this was only 1984, they had personal computers!

PMI, Professional Machines International, had literally just released the PMI PC-AT. A 16 bit 12 MHz 80286 processor based personal computer with two HD 5 ¼ floppy drives, two DD 5 1/4s, a 20mb HD, EGA graphics, and 512kb onboard RAM with a further 1 MB in expansion slots. It also came with PMI DOS 3.0, which had preliminary networking support.

And it could be mine for only $6500 marks!

That was the high end one, of course. I could get a low end one for only four grand.

I won't lie, I wanted it pretty bad.

But…

I've seen the PC magazines. The 80386 32bit processor is due to come out next year. And that was a processor you could do some shit on. Also, proper networking support for MT DOS was due to come out next year as well. In addition, Microtech is working on Windows 2.0, and it's supposed to come out next year as well, probably along with the actual MT DOS 3.x with networking.

So what I'm saying is, I want the PMI PC-AT, because I miss having a computer. But at that price, and knowing that it's gonna be pretty shit compared to the 32bit stuff coming out next year… I just need to be patient. Loid's got some resources behind him, but I don't think they're going to be willing to drop $6500 on a kid's seeming whim sort of resources.

If the 32 bit stuff comes out and I still haven't made any money of my own, I'll start negotiating. And if I stumble over six grand in the near future, maybe I'll revisit the PC-AT. But for now, I'd be patient.

The first computer my family had in my first life was an Atari 520ST, their ill-fated venture into the personal computer market. My brother, ten years older than I was, saved up his money for quite a while to buy one when he was in late high school, 1987. Then, because he was into Atari stuff, he found an old Atari 2600 and a bunch of games used. We also ended up getting a lot of Atari games saved to floppy disk, which would run on the ST. I never got another console, until I briefly had a PlayStation one in 1998, and got an Xbox and PS2 in 2003. I was a PC guy all the way.

Here, Kiai Inc., has released various consoles and associated games. The Kiai 5200 has been out for a while and has a lot of games available.

Frankie and I end up sitting down in a little kiosk thing with a 5200 and playing some Joust for about fifteen minutes. It was fun, but it was a mindless sort of fun I didn't want to get too into.

Too much to do, you know.

I could probably get Loid to buy me a Kiai, but really I figured I'd hold out for whatever came out of Japan. Ironically, I remember playing the original Mario Brothers game on the Atari. It sucked. Super Mario Brothers on the NES, the one everyone actually played, was way better. The video game market has totally crashed out right now, so there's not much really going on. I think that's part of the reason Kiai is trying to get into personal computers, but I know better than to give them money, this time.

Right now, the Famicon is a big thing in Japan. I think it's got a bit before they release it internationally, and video games come back in a big way.

Waiting, again. Bleh.

"The Kiai 2600 has been out a long time, right?" I mused as we left the game area. "Do you think you could find a used one and a box of used games?" I asked Frankie.

"I suppose I could check around," he allowed.

After that, we hit the rest of the media.

Music and movies.

There I spent some of Loid's money.

Ostania didn't loathe western society like East Germany and the USSR did. While there had been a fairly significant Eastern Bloc alliance called the Kalugan Accord, and Ostania had been in that alliance, it wasn't 'communism vs capitalism'. Also, the Accord ended up being pretty shit, because when Ostania invaded Westalis in the early 70s, the USCR had refused to start all-out war with the Atlantic Defense Coalition. They'd still supported Ostania, with money and materials and 'advisors', but the simple fact was, even the USCR recognized that Ostania was being pants on head retarded in its attempt to reunify the country. And as a result, Ostania got its shit pushed in.

But, like I said, this was less ideological in nature and more rank greed pushing nationalism. Communism was strangled in the crib by Rasputin and his cult, in service to the Tsars of Ruska. The uprising that finally overthrew them had been much more restrained than Stalin and his purges.

Also, some comments by Loid indicated that Rasputin's secret society had just coopted the leaders of the Revolution, anyway. So while the USCR is still a fairly unpleasant place, it's unpleasant in that historically Russian peasant way, rather than the ideological horrors of soviet communism.

Ostania was still allies with the USCR, but they'd found much more in common with Albion and Romagna, which was alternate Italy. So Anglais was in vogue as the secondary language of choice, and we actually got a lot of Anglish music and movies.

The US is sort of a thing, as the UNAS, United North American States. The US had split up in the Civil War, and it had been North vs South in the World War, of which there's only been one, in the 30s.

Unfortunately, it was the Confederate States which went full fucking Nazi in this timeline, with genocides and purges in addition to the slavery. On the bright side, they got turbo fucking rekt and virtually all the plantation owners had been hung in the war crimes trials after they got crushed by the coalition forces of the northern US, Kanata, and the EUM. Tens of millions dead across much of North America, and the survivors banded back together as the United North American States, literally covering the continent, with everyone chipping in to crush the evil confederate fucks under the mighty boot heel of reform.

So American bands and movies are kind of a crapshoot. Jazz still exists, but it doesn't look like anything I'm familiar with.

But that's okay. There was plenty of Anglish stuff. We didn't have a VCR yet, but I saw that there was a lot of Monty Python's Travelling Circus available, which was nice. Music wise, I managed to find a copy of the Yes album on vinyl. It was even called the Yes Album, and the band's name was still Yes. Roundabout, here I come! But even better, personally, was the album 90210, and the slightly changed Owner of a Broken Heart. That was my favorite song and album when I was a kid in the 80s the first time, and I was glad to have it back.

If I had a Stand, it would be named either Owner of A Lonely Heart, or perhaps Hole Hearted, which was a song by the band Extreme, which unfortunately wasn't a thing yet, and might never actually be a thing.

Hole Hearted had dethroned Owner of a Lonely Heart as my favorite song in the early 90s, about the point I got my first computer, a Packard Bell 386. My college going brother introduced my pubescent self to hentai and the Doki^2 Waku^2 BBS, and I spent many a horned up night looking at 16 color gifs while Hole Hearted played on the hits radio station. I pavloved to that fucking song for decades.

Speaking of anime, Nippon has been producing it as you'd expect, though there are some differences. They'd never been nuked, and had a significantly more peaceful history, with only some brushfire wars against the USCR and some mainland countries that sat where China and the Koreas should be. Without the weird censorship imposed on them by the US, anime didn't quite develop the same, though I could see elements of what would be a thriving hentai industry in the future. Dream of the Fisherman's Wife predated American notions of propriety by quite a time, after all.

Not all of it made it to Ostania, but the giant robot stuff was available, as a new genre. Macross, Gundam, Mazinger type stuff. Some of it was live action, with giant monsters. I also spotted what I'm pretty sure was Lupin, and Urusei Yatsura, all subtitled, which is automatically more Japanese media than I expected of the 80s.

Come to think of it, I'd spotted a Nipponese company in the supermarket, Super Oishii, which even my limited Japanese recognized as 'Super Delicious'. Weird. I'm not 100% on the history here, but there's some sort of link between Ostania and Nippon.

Again, I couldn't pick any of it up yet. I was supposed to get my own television, a VCR, and a bunch of tapes when I got my second Stella. I looked forward to it.

For the moment, all I had was a record player, and a portable cassette player called a Soundabout. It was actually Frankie who convinced Loid that I needed both, as I hesitated to ask for them both. But music for studying is different from music for walking about, and also cassette fidelity isn't that great. A few extra marks for a tape in addition to an album wasn't a huge deal for the Forgers the way it had been for my original family, anyway.

Weirdly enough, the CD already existed, which I had forgotten about. But CD players were nearly as expensive as VCRs, and the format was new enough that it didn't have huge catalogues of music. Something for another time, I suppose.

The early to mid-80s is such an awkward time, technologically speaking. The precursors are there, but we haven't arrived yet.


xxxxxxxxx

This chapter was written for Cosmic, who made a big donation, and is set back in the interludes, time wise. I'll go back and change its position in the threadmarks later, I want people to see it for now. It's less than he deserves. There are other people who have donated big and I hope to be able to give them chapters or stories for whatever they want as well.

Things have been rough the past several weeks. I've not been able to write much. Frankly, I've not been able to DO much. When the nerves in my brain reconnected, they crosswired my fucking balance and I've spent the whole time dizzy, nauseous, and vomiting. Just starfished on the bed, holding on. I've had more intense periods of misery in my life, but rarely have they lasted so long.

Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon

I have a Ko-Fi now.

https://ko-fi.com/nugar

 

[MorbiIIionaire]

Are legos a thing yet? If not she'd make a killing.

 

[Nugar]

Are legos a thing yet? If not she'd make a killing.

Click to shrink...

Legos are pretty old, they already exist. I haven't come up with an alternate name for them yet.

 

[MudkipSage]

Doesn't Spy X Spy take place in the 1960/1970's ? The tech seems a bit early for the time frame.

 

[Skosh]

I think Author pushed the timeline downstream a bit so it's set in the 80's.

 

[Fijili]

Legos are pretty old, they already exist. I haven't come up with an alternate name for them yet.

Click to shrink...

Hangons!
or CALTROPS.
(or BuilderBrix, Bildabrix, GigaBrix, omniBlox, etc)

 

[Lamb]

PMI PC-AT

Click to shrink...

This is great and all for the 80s.

But can it run DOOM?

 

[Stove]

i'll spare the spiel for this one, but honestly? for being an afterthought, that yor is like, my favorite part of the image

yor is good civilization

 

[Nugar]

I think Author pushed the timeline downstream a bit so it's set in the 80's.

Click to shrink...

I can't remember exactly where, but I think it's actually stated that its 1984. I wouldn't have picked that date for the story myself. I'd have gone with 1986, so Anya could share my actual birthday, July 12th, 1980. As mentioned in the story, siAnya thought she might be 4, pretending to be 6, but she's more likely over five, or maybe even actually six and just smol.