She was not helping, though her boyfriend had come to terms with her body by this point and could actually look directly at her no matter how much cleavage she had on display. In truth, he was a lot better than he had been as a virgin, while Melissa was still shy and had really needed to psych herself up to wear the dress she had bought for the occasion. It was short, well above mid-thigh, and made of metallic-red nanofibre, so it was more bold than her normal outfits just based on the colour. It had no left arm, while the right one was wide and made of finer mesh. She had teamed the dress with strappy red sandals with heels which pushed her closer to Rochester’s height. Nava had told her she looked very sexy in it, which had been an ego boost. Rochester had not seen the dress yet and Melissa was looking forward to seeing his reaction.
‘You’ve seen what Nava’s wearing, right?’ Mitsuko said, walking over from checking on the first band to play tonight.
‘I have,’ Melissa replied.
‘She wouldn’t show me.’
‘I’m aware. She wanted it to be a surprise. Has she seen your dress?’
‘She’s seen it, just not on me.’ Mitsuko was in sky-high pumps and a faux leather minidress with plenty of zippers. The zipper which went up her right thigh to her hip was clearly not meant to ever close all the way. The two-way zipper from her right shoulder – there was no left shoulder on the dress – to her left hip could be closed, but it was not. The open section in the middle acted as a cleavage window. As usual, Mitsuko was sex on long, long legs. Melissa considered it likely that Mitsuko could look elegant, composed, and really sexy while wearing an oily boiler suit. ‘I have no idea what she’s wearing. Are we going to clash?’
‘Technically, since you’re not an openly acknowledged couple, that shouldn’t matter.’
‘Well, no, but–’
‘However, I actually think you’ve selected something which should complement her outfit quite well.’
‘And you’re not even going to give me a hint?’
‘I thought I just did. Oh, they’re initiating the illusions.’
SAS2 was a magic school so, of course, they had people there skilled in illusion. While it was, ostensibly anyway, aimed at developing military magicians, it attracted people with all sorts of aims because it was one of the best sorcery schools in the Clan Worlds. Even if the combat students looked down upon the academics, every year people enrolled with the goal of following the academic stream in their fifth and sixth years. The academic and support streams both produced magical engineers ranging from those who maintained and operated magical devices of various kinds to those who improved those devices or invented entirely new ones. Illusionists usually came out of the support stream too. There were plenty of military applications for illusions – including those ‘holographic’ projection displays so beloved of old science fiction movies – but most ended up in the entertainment industry.
Tonight, just about every illusion specialist in the school was involved in conjuring about ninety percent of the decorations in the hall. The council had borrowed more or less every holoprojector in the school and placed them around the hall in strategic locations. Holoprojectors had nothing to do with holograms. They were a magical device which, when used by an illusionist, allowed an illusion spell to be maintained without the magician’s continuing presence. Power came from a built-in quintessence aggregator, so you cast your spell through the device and then the device took over to keep it going as long as it was plugged into the mains.
The entrance to the hall was now flanked by static images of sand dunes. Around the sides there were animated illusions of a tropical beach complete with rising and falling waves and gently swaying palms. The illusions were animated as part of the magic; no direction from the magician was required unless you needed to do something specific rather than ‘what waves and trees do naturally.’ On stage, behind the band, the ocean expanded out to a horizon which was all clear, blue sky. Overhead, illusory seabirds – none of which could be found on Shinden – sailed through a projected blue sky. As the evening went on, the sky would darken into a starry night, or so the Art Club had said.
‘It looks good,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Cold drinks are going to be going like hot cakes with that sky.’
Melissa giggled. ‘Nice analogy. I think we’re ready.’
Mitsuko nodded and raised her voice. ‘Okay, everyone. It’s time. Unleash the horde!’
~~~
Nava strode toward the hall, heels clicking on the concrete paving slabs. She was getting looks from the other students who were going the same way to do approximately the same thing. She paid little attention to those looks because she did not really care what people felt about her, but she got the impression that mostly she was seeing a mixture of lust and jealousy. Some of the latter was verging on hostility. She could live with that.
She did wonder how Mitsuko was going to react to her outfit. It was… a little unconventional, which Nava felt fitted her image. Was Mitsuko going to like it? Probably. Was she going to think it appropriate? Less clear.
Nava spotted the back of someone’s head and knew who that hair belonged to. She vectored in that direction and rapidly caught up with Rochester. ‘Hi, Chess,’ she said as she slowed her pace to match his. A glance took in all there was to see. ‘You’re looking good. That’s an unusually sexy look for you.’
‘I-it is?’ Rochester asked in reply. He was wearing his jeans, because they were about all he had to wear for a party like this, along with a pair of grey loafers which matched reasonably well. He was also wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt with the arms folded up to just below his elbows. The shirt had no buttons and his smooth, tanned chest was visible as the garment moved.
‘Yes, it is. Mel’s going to love it.’
‘Uh, thank you. You look… dangerous.’
‘Thank you. Looks like the doors are open. Let’s hope we can find Mel and Suki in there.’
‘I’m sure we will. If the worst happens, I’ll use Sorcerer’s Eye to get a bird’s eye view. Didn’t you work out how to do a location spell?’
‘I think that might constitute abuse of magic, but I’m willing if it comes to it. Looks like Kyle is on door duty.’
Kyle acknowledged Nava’s nod of greeting with a raised eyebrow and a spreading grin. It was the outfit, she figured. The man himself was actually more conventionally dressed than Rochester: dark-grey slacks, a cap-sleeved shirt in black, and tennis shoes. His shirt had buttons and the majority of them were done up. However, the short sleeves showed off Kyle’s arms, especially biceps, which flexed and shifted under his dark skin in an appealing manner. You could almost feel the humidity rising as women drooled over him. Several men too, though the general male reaction was more jealous than lustful.
‘Nicely crafted illusions,’ Rochester commented as they got through onto the open floor, now stripped of its usual rows of seats.
Nava took in the beach scene spreading around them and nodded. Up on stage, a group of musicians were playing instrumental rock. Nava had no idea whether what they were playing was original or a cover; sooner or later she was really going to have to try to figure out Shinden’s pop culture. There were few people dancing to it at the moment. Most were involved in grabbing food at this point of the evening. Nava kept scanning until she located a head of black hair sticking up above the crowd. Technically, that was not an absolute method of locating Mitsuko, but she was very tall, and she had very black, straight hair; Mitsuko stood out even when surrounded by most men. Kyle was fractionally taller in bare feet, but Mitsuko would be wearing heels.
‘This way,’ Nava said. ‘At least, I think I spotted Suki. Hopefully, Mel will be nearby.’
Sure enough, Melissa was with Mitsuko. They were chatting beside one of the buffet tables. Mitsuko was also watching what was going on nearby. Well, both of them were, but Melissa’s range of vision was significantly reduced by her relative stature. She did spot Rochester as soon as he got through the throng. She smiled. His jaw dro
pped.
‘That,’ Mitsuko said, ‘is the kind of reaction one expects from a boyfriend.’ Her eyes fell upon Nava, prowling closer. They widened; Mitsuko was far too composed to let her mouth hang open.
Nava had elected to forgo the more usual dress in favour of a sleeveless, full body, faux leather catsuit. It fitted her body perfectly, showing every curve. Much of the front was nanomesh, a window through the leather that started at her collarbones and went down in a V past her navel. There were nanomesh panels diagonally over her hips too. The back of the suit was open, with laces closing the bottom of the opening. Matching bracers – gloves without the hands – encircled her arms from above her elbows to her wrists, and she was wearing her tall boots to finish off the ensemble. She rarely wore makeup, so the dark shades around her eyes and the deep-red lip gloss and nail varnish stood out. She looked dangerous: a fetishist’s wet dream or a character from a dark superhero vid.
‘I d-don’t suppose we can leave early?’ Rochester asked, his eyes still on Melissa. He absently repositioned the bottom of his shirt so that it covered his crotch.
Beside Melissa, Mitsuko nodded as if to say ‘me too.’
‘Sorry,’ Melissa said, ‘I’m on duty until midnight.’
‘Yes,’ Mitsuko agreed on a sigh. ‘I’m afraid we’ll be here for the rest of the night. Aside from breaks. I’m even going to have to ask you to let Mel dance with other men, Chess. She’ll be helping me to get the wallflowers on their feet. Frankly, I’m too tall for some of them.’
Rochester nodded. ‘I understand the dictates of duty. And the issue of standing around the wall looking lost at parties.’
Melissa giggled. ‘Yes, it’s usually me wishing someone would ask me to dance. And dreading that someone will.’
‘It won’t be an issue for the first hour,’ Mitsuko said. ‘They’ll be stuffing their faces for most of it. Uh, we should get food while the selection is still reasonable.’ She let Melissa and Rochester shift toward the buffet first and moved in beside Nava. Bending slightly, she lowered her voice as far as she could without being inaudible. ‘There’s no way you’re wearing anything under that.’
‘There are ways,’ Nava replied. ‘I did some research and there are ways. I just didn’t use any of them.’
‘How am I supposed to keep my hands off you until the party finishes?’
‘Self-control? I like your dress, by the way. Those zippers are very tempting.’
‘You’re evil. Self-control is second nature to you. I have to work at it.’
‘Oh, but you will control yourself, Madam President. Otherwise, I’ll have to punish you later.’
Mitsuko made a little whimpering sound. ‘Evil,’ she said. ‘Totally evil.’
~~~
‘Okay,’ Melissa said, ‘here’s something I don’t get. It’s been bugging me for a while so… Spell complexity. It’s measured in Tammys, which is really cute, but it doesn’t really seem to be about how complex a spell is. I mean, it is, but it isn’t.’
‘We’re at a party,’ Mitsuko said, ‘and we’re discussing metaphysics. How sad is that?’
‘Can’t dance all the time. So, like, um, Armour, for example. First rank Armour is a twenty-three Tammy spell. I did the math. With difficulty, but I did it, and I get why it’s twenty-three Tammys. But second rank Armour is thirty-four Tammys and the higher the rank, the higher the complexity. Except that second rank isn’t more complex than first rank, it’s just… tougher.’
‘That,’ Rochester said, ‘is because “complexity”’ – he made air quotes with his fingers for emphasis – ‘is being used in an unconventional manner. Metaphysical complexity is actually a measure of the resistance reality has to a particular sorcerous manipulation.’
‘That’s also a simplification,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Part of the complexity is actually how conventionally complex a spell is. Every spell requires the magician to process information about how it’s going to work and the perceptions of reality which must be overridden to make it happen. The more difficult it is to do that, the higher the complexity of the spell.’
‘But,’ Nava continued, ‘what Suki just said leads into what Chess said. The “perceptions of reality which must be overridden.” It’s harder to make reality think you can stop a bullet than it is to make it think you can stop a knife. Part of the complexity rating of a spell is the magnitude of the perturbation of the Q-field you need to generate to make the spell work.’
‘Oh! That’s what that term means!’ Revelation had, apparently, dawned upon Melissa. ‘Come to a party, learn something new. Who’d have thought it possible?’
‘Not me,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I thought we did things like this when we got together for study sessions.’
‘We do.’ Melissa giggled. ‘Chess and I have paused for metaphysics discussions during sex.’ She frowned. ‘I mean, when we’re taking a break. We don’t suddenly stop to talk about magic.’ She glanced at Rochester to discover that he was scarlet. Luckily, the illusions were shading toward night now and the sunset colouration made it harder to tell how embarrassed he was. ‘That might have been too much information,’ Melissa admitted.
‘I don’t know,’ Nava said. ‘I’m always up for hearing more about your sex life.’
‘I’m going to assume that was sarcasm.’ Melissa looked at Mitsuko. ‘Should we be mingling?’
‘Well, I’ve mingled,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘I’ve even dragged a couple of reluctant first years out to dance.’ She glanced at Nava. ‘Not this reluctant first year, but some. I’m taking a mingle break.’
‘Oh. Seems fair.’
‘Have you seen Courtney?’
‘Uh, yes. That’s an un-Courtney outfit she’s wearing. Maybe she has a wild side.’
‘A shiny metallic-purple microdress with nothing over the stomach and a low-cut top. It’s not necessarily something I’d expect to see her in, no. She does look good though.’
‘It’s the purple that got me,’ Nava said. ‘High-heeled purple pumps with an ankle strap too. She’s usually in more muted colours.’
‘I believe the term would be eye-catching,’ Rochester said, happy to have the conversation shift away from his bedroom habits.
‘That’s a good phrase, sure. I mean, she’s hardly the only one. People have really come out of their shells tonight. Marie Royce is in a scarlet mini that barely hides her assets. She’s always struck me as the quiet type.’
‘Not according to rumour,’ Mitsuko said, lowering her voice to conspiratorial levels. ‘If you believe the gossip, she has a different man in her bed every night.’
‘I don’t,’ Melissa said. ‘Believe the rumours, I mean. For starters, that seems like far too much work. Some nights, everyone wants to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and a book.’
‘I never have,’ Mitsuko said. ‘I don’t like hot chocolate. I don’t actually believe the rumours entirely though. Still, I’ve never seen her with the same man twice. Maybe she has commitment issues.’ Mitsuko shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s not entirely out of character for her to be wearing something outrageous.’
‘What about Darius?’ Melissa asked. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Uh, no, I don’t think I have.’
‘He’s wearing this iridescent shirt. Sort of a metallic rainbow. It’s loose, like Chess’s. I can’t help but think he’s looking for someone to take back to his apartment tonight.’
‘Darius has a thing for blondes, or so I’ve heard.’ Mitsuko looked around at Nava. ‘You’d better be careful.’
‘I doubt he could overcome his aversion to support students,’ Nava replied. ‘Not without alcohol anyway and there’s none on offer.’
‘He’s going to be at the symposium, isn’t he?’ Melissa asked.
‘Yes,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘As a general attendee. Kyle is doing the same, though that’s partially because I persuaded Courtney to help us with the panel. She is also interested in a couple of the other panels. There’s one on sorcery and how it relates t
o the ASF’s policing role she said she had to go see.’
‘They’re coming to this townhouse of yours, right?’ Nava asked. ‘Courtney and Kyle. If you’ve invited Darius–’
‘I have not invited Darius. Courtney and Kyle will be arriving on Wednesday. They have a few things to wrap up here before they can leave. Technically, so do I, but Darius has agreed to do the legwork so that we can do the prep work for the symposium. It’s just admin and he’ll flag anything to me which needs my attention.’
‘Is he getting soft? Volunteering to handle grunt work doesn’t sound like him.’
‘Oh, I started giving him more to do. Suggesting that he was important to the smooth running of the dance, for example. And he is, at least to some extent. I’m sure we’d make do without him, but I wouldn’t be able to take breaks. He’s capable enough. He just doesn’t see eye to eye with me on certain policies.’
Nava gave a little shrug. ‘To be fair, he’s a fine example of a high proportion of the general population. Clan Worlds society glorifies combat. Most of the citizens have never seen any, so it’s easy to romanticise.’
‘Metaphysics and now sociology.’
‘I’m complex.’
‘At least eight hundred Tammys,’ Melissa said.
‘Is that because I’m inherently complicated or because I’m hard to get reality to accept?’
‘I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I might get punched on the nose.’
~~~
The evening was drawing to a close and there had been no disasters. Well, there had been a slight emergency when the amount of LanCor Cola had got low and Melissa had had to organise a team from the Athletics Club – which did far more than just athletics – to carry new barrels over from the kitchens. Nava could not understand why the drink was so popular since she thought it tasted like shredded tyres soaked in sugary water for several months, but it was the current favourite of children and young adults. In fact, it was solely responsible for the recent rise in fortunes of the Landon family, part of the Corley clan, hence the name. Melissa had received effusive thanks from Mitsuko for her quick and decisive actions in saving them all from a riot. Melissa had blushed.
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