Oeufcoque wrapped the stark naked Balot from top to toe. A black bodysuit covered her from her fingertips to the ends of her toes. Both of her palms were stuck together, as Oeufcoque couldn’t turn into two things at once.
Balot peeled her hands apart with the gentlest of motions. Savoring the sensation of the bodysuit—comfortable, flexible, tight—she went to take a peek at herself in the mirror.
She was a little disappointed.
–It’s not very stylish.
“Maybe not, but it is heatproof, coldproof, shockproof, pressure-resistant—and can magnify your snarc. Oh, and there’s a zipper at the back, so please use that to take me off when I’m turned out.”
–Doesn’t it come in any other designs?
“You can modify the design as you like, all you have to do is think about it—but let’s not get bogged down with the trivial stuff just now.”
–You get bogged down with trivial stuff like your pants, Balot answered back as she put on her boots.
She left her room and headed toward the elevator. The giant building, the former mortuary, was in fact full of rooms that were formerly used as morgues—and, therefore, despite the size of the place, not much of it was serviceable as living quarters.
Balot used the elevator used for goods arrivals to head down and got off at the underground garage, where she noticed a number of gasoline-fueled cars.
The red convertible was there too.
–Did you make these cars yourself, Oeufcoque?
“Yup, apart from the license plates, the gas, and a couple specialist patented parts. Took me the best part of the month to make a single vehicle. I’m very meticulous about my designs—it’s the artist in me.”
–I wish the artist in you was meticulous about the designs for my clothes.
“Uh…sure, well, let’s focus on our training for now, that’s our first priority.”
They entered into the garage proper, and by one of the walls they saw the Doctor, piling up some complicated-looking machinery.
He smiled as he saw Balot come toward him.
“Isn’t it great? Using the funds we requested for your Life Preservation Program I was able to source some first-class diagnostic equipment, tinker around with it, and polish it up into these. These beauties knock the training equipment used in the Major Leagues right out of the water!”
Balot snarced the throat of her suit, producing a crystalline sound.
–Looks like everyone’s an artist.
She looked around at the machinery, somewhat nonplussed.
“It’s important to be artistic now and then if you’re going to enjoy your life—the trick is to stop just before you end up on the wrong side of autistic.” The Doctor was in his element, able to fiddle with his machines to his heart’s content. “Are those clothes Oeufcoque?”
“That’s right, Doc. And I was told off by Balot for not being artistic enough in my own designs,” said Oeufcoque.
The Doctor nodded in agreement. “Get her to teach you some style, then. Now, Balot, I’m going to stick these on you, okay?”
The Doctor showed her some circular stickers. Balot nodded, and the Doctor started placing them all over her—knees, elbows, back.
–What are these things?
“Designed to send your biorhythmic data straight to this machine. They’ll capture your movements with a margin of error of less than 0.1 millimeters. Now, could you move around a bit? Do some stretches, that sort of thing.”
The Doctor took a seat in a pipe chair and balanced a laptop on his knees. Multicolored cords extended from the back of the monitor and plugged into the sprawling machinery.
Balot moved as requested. Some warm-ups. She snarced the suit here and there as she limbered up. A few patterns started appearing on the suit and eventually formed themselves into what could be described as a rough design, complete with colors.
Balot still didn’t seem satisfied, exactly, but at least she was getting there.
“You’re pretty limber,” Oeufcoque said as Balot performed a split, backside now on the floor. He seemed impressed.
Balot smiled and, from the same position on the floor, leaned forward until her chest touched the ground. From that position she spread her arms toward her feet, deftly touching the tips of her toes.
“Well, that’s one skill I don’t have. We have ourselves a bona fide gymnast!”
–I just like physical activity. It makes me feel like I’m in charge of my body.
She spoke without the electronic voice box, communicating with Oeufcoque directly.
“The Doctor calls me unfit because I can’t run twenty meters in less than a minute.”
Balot chuckled as she got back up.
–Would you like me to keep moving around?
The Doctor shook his head as he pounded on the keys, relentlessly entering new data. “No, we’re okay. Now, could you just stand on that platform there? Yeah, the one in front of those contraptions.”
Balot did as she was asked and stepped up onto the silver platform.
It too had a number of wires running from it. It turned out it was some sort of scale. A small display on one of the corners of the platform revealed some numbers, with the numerals to the right of the decimal blinking and changing rapidly.
A number of other displays could be seen, each flashing up different sets of numerals.
Balot looked somewhat sullen and turned to the Doctor with a puzzled scowl.
“I’ve taken some scales that they use to weigh baggage in an airport and modified them so that they can display biorhythmic indices as well. This thing’s accurate down to the last milligram and can pick up everything from your circulation to body fat percentages.”
–That’s the sort of thing you should have told me before I got on!
“Huh?”
–It’s indecent.
The Doctor looked suitably chastened.
Oeufcoque’s laughter could be heard emanating from Balot’s left hand.
“Don’t be like that, please. Any sort of proper training needs an observer on the sidelines to measure the progress.”
–In that case, Doctor, I’ll just have to think of you as part of the furniture.
“That’s not much better…” the Doctor grumbled.
–Very nice furniture, of course.
Balot was teasing him now.
–I’ll let you tell me whatever you need to say.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, but Balot could tell he was playing along now. She laughed and looked at the numbers on the indices.
The numbers to the right of the decimals whirled around when she shifted her balance from foot to foot. When she stabilized, the numbers started changing much more slowly, but she still couldn’t get them to stand completely still.
“Ahem,” the Doctor coughed, ready to start. “Your skin was originally developed to withstand the weightlessness of space vacuum, to allow you to move freely without losing your equilibrioception.”
Balot nodded and watched the figures on the displays.
“Parts of your brain—in particular your cerebellum—work by receiving these electronic impulses, which are constantly processed and updated. Your sensory nerves act as neural pathways, as in a normal person, but as a result of your new abilities the time it takes to transfer this information is drastically reduced—or, to put it another way, your brain is accelerated many times over. So, theoretically you can use your snarc both outwardly and from the outside in.”