Chapter 3: Flights and Fancies

The evening out at Kew Garden had been more fun than I'd allowed myself in a long time. Rebecka and the other girls from the office had gone out of their way to make sure I was always having fun — either with good conversation, food or yes, even dancing. The dancing was fun, if frustrating to a degree. There were no slow dances for Spider, and no sense of physical intimacy while dancing.

I did feel a little of that while we were sitting though. One of he girls always seemed to have a hand on my arm or shoulder. Sometimes I even had one girl on each arm!

With this being an office party, we had our share of office talk and gossip. The birthday boy was Brian Kennedy, from the accounts receivable department. I only knew him by name, and it quickly became clear to me that he was a bit of an asshole. He considered this birthday as an excuse to flirt with all the women present, and several of them a bit outrageously. I realized that there were several of us men who were seen as islands of refuge in the sea of sexual innuendo that was Brian from accounting. Peter Sands was one of my fellow islands, and during a mass visit by the ladies to the restroom, Peter sat by me for a moment, and I confirmed it.

"Is Brian like this whenever you guys go out, or is it just because its his birthday?"

"He's more or less like this every time," Peter confirmed. "He's almost as bad at the office as he is here, but being out from under the eyes of the managers makes it worse."

"I'd complain, if I were these girls," I said. "He seems particularly bad with Rebecka"

"Yeah, well every single guy and some of the married ones in the office, except for you, has asked her out, and she's always turned them down. Kennedy is the only one who didn't get the message. If anything, it just made him worse."

"Well, if I'm just here as a refuge, I'll gladly play my part," I volunteered. "I've avoided socializing far too much since the accident, and its time I got back in the swing of things. Things like these nights out are just the ticket for me."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. You have been the object of a lot of office gossip..."

I must've given him a sharp look, Peter held up his hands in a defensive gesture and grinned. " ... hey, its been mostly supportive, and only a little of that 'cripple sympathy' I'm sure you hate."

"Yeah, I do hate that. You sound like you're familiar with it."

"I have a cousin who's a few years older than me. She's been blind since she was five. She got that kind of reaction all the time, especially back when she was dating. I was the sympathetic ear, so I got to hear exactly how much she hated it."

"How'd she handle it?" I asked.

"Better than I would have. She was and is a pretty attractive woman, so she didn't have to worry about suffering the fools for long, 'there are so many fish in the sea', she used to tell me, but then add in disgust, 'but so many stupid fish!'"

I grinned at that, and Peter shook his head as he joined me. "Yeah, she's a riot."

The ladies returned from the trip, and we were once again back to mixed company. Birthday Brian came wandering back to the table shortly after the ladies, having wandered off to annoy a few women at another table, and the social dynamic went back to where it had been. Peter immediately asked Adeline to dance, and rose from where he had been sitting beside me to escort her on to the dance floor. Rebecka sat down in the chair he vacated and slid her hand onto my arm.

"So, you and Peter were visiting?" she asked.

"Yup," I answered. "I realized that he and I were you ladies' main buffers against the birthday boy, and I asked him if that was normal."

"So you got talking about Brian, and about us ladies?"

"A little," I answered. "Peter seemed willing to accept that role."

"How about you? Do you accept that role?"

"I don't know. He also told me every single guy at the office has asked you out and you've shot them all down."

"What do you think of that?"

"Well, I'd hate to fall into that role before getting my chance to be rejected."

"Oh." She said, blushing. I blushed right alongside her, but about then the music changed, and Rita came over and asked for a dance.

I wasn't sure if I was glad for the interruption or not, but I didn't get a chance to expand on that conversation again, and a half hour later, the party began to break up, and then we were busy dividing up the bill and paying our tab. I got some very nice kisses on the cheek from Rita and Adeline, as well as Diana and Maggie, two of the other girls from the fourth floor, and one from Rebecka as well. It was probably only my imagination that hers lingered slightly longer on my cheek, and that her breast pressed into my side more firmly than the others when she did.

The next day at work was more of the same, as far as my newly inspired open mind and attitude went. I did see Rebecka Anderra again that day, first when she came past my section carrying a report of some kind and gave me a wave and a hi, and second when I went by her section, on my way to nowhere in particular, and gave her a spin salute with my wheelchair as I tossed off a greeting of my own.

Where was the sudden interest coming from? I don't know, maybe it was there all this time and I'd been too self-absorbed, too focused on my own problems to notice what the people around me were doing, or how they were acting. Maybe it was just that my new attitude was generating some renewed interest. I guess I'd find out down the road, if things progressed. It did make the next three days at work very, very interesting, especially when Rebecka suggested that I should call her Becka. That suggestion was welcome, but was somewhat overshadowed that night by Serenity''s reappearance.

"I hope you've had a good week, because you're mine for three days starting tonight, and you're muscles and your brain are both going to be complaining before we're done."

As a seer, Serenity McKesson was pretty good. At least she had a knack for predicting my future. Friday night we spent going over the same material we had covered the weekend before, but at lightning speed. We didn't stop when we got something wrong, in fact we didn't keep track of what we got right or wrong, Wing did.

Wing, it turns out is not just a ship, it is also the intelligence that runs it, and that intelligence is artificial. The for real kind, not the fake kind like Ava, the fortress' interactive control system. We opened a very formidable looking inner compartment in the ship, and there she was, all pink and purple and sparkling.

"I call them brain sponges," Serenity told me. "I found them in a place I called Sand Song".

"Are they alive?"

"Yes, in their way. The vital part, what I call the helix, is made up of the structural secretions of a microscopic colony organism that builds up into these large nodules.

"Kind of like coral, in the coral reefs?"

"Very much like that, but free floating, like jellyfish."

"Because of their unique structure, they are particularly sensitive to certain kinds of energy. Mental energy. It is almost a symbiotic thing. The structure remaps itself almost instantaneously in the presence of another thinking being. Its almost as if the organism borrows the intelligence of the animal it is closest to."

"Indiscriminately?" I asked, thinking of a situation where the creature reconfigured itself to resemble a less complex, but closer animal.

"I haven't spent a lot of time on research, so I can't say. I do know that Wing doesn't seem to notice the difference between me and any other human, when they're nearer. She doesn't reconfigure herself every time someone else is the nearest person."

"This tour of Wing is pretty cool, but why are we doing it?" I asked, suddenly curious.