After I finished my presentation for Technica, she once again invited me to dinner. At first, we talked about the designs I had shown her, which exact parts to use where, how to get them and even a few improvements I had not considered. It was interesting, she clearly showed that, while she took the Powered-operations and such seriously, she was a scientist and engineer at heart. Part of me wondered if she would have been happier without her power, or rather, without the responsibility, the duty, foist at her due to that power and the obligation coming with it. For just a split-second, I saw a vision of a happy family, with my own father tempered due to Technica’s presence, able to look at me, with my brother, maybe less cold, thanks to having a mother in his life, all of us sitting around a dinner-table, maybe in a restaurant such as the one we were in, with Mother and me talking about some interesting scientific discovery while Father and my brother looked upon us with gentle eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Technica asked, suddenly looking concerned. I reached to my face, wiping away an unbidden tear and looked back into her eyes.

“Nothing, I was just thinking. Visions of a life that could have been.” I answered, trying to shake the melancholy that had gripped me. It certainly was not me, thinking about could-have-beens, would-have-beens and should-have-beens.

“Now, what do you think about this?” I changed the topic, suggesting another design-change, this one more adventurous than the previous versions. I had originally neglected weapons, but the stubby wings presented themselves as mounting-points for a missile or three.

Technica seemed to have followed my thoughts to a degree and simply nodded, accepting that I did not want to talk about it further. She was less enthused about the idea to mount rockets on my flight-frame, especially once I started to consider ways to get the biggest bang per pound. I thought that nothing was a warmer welcome than a fuel-air explosion. She disagreed, for some reason. Fuel-air was only my second choice, I would much rather figure out the destabilisation-mechanism of my energy-crystals, once they were fully charged, they had such a nice energy-density. Mount a good-sized one onto a rocket and you would be able to rearrange the local geography, add a few lakes and valleys, things like that.

We continued our dinner and topics slowly shifted from the design to other topics, at first simply chatting about interesting scientific developments we had heard about and our thoughts on those before switching to more personal topics, like my schooling of the day. At that point, I failed to resist and started ranting about my first lecture of the day, the Professor who thought that his class was still in Kindergarten and needed to be read to. After maybe five minutes of me ranting, Technica started to giggle, making me rather miffed. When I was about to switch my ire to her, she held up her hand for a second and pulled out the tablet she used to interface with her network.

“Give me a moment, please.” she asked me, still trying to suppress her laughter.

I waited, wondering what was going on. Luckily, I did not have to wait all that long, before she handed me the tablet. Looking down, I recognised the script as the one the Professor had read from the morning and I was about to hand the tablet back, I noticed something. The header on the script was from over twenty years ago. And, at least the part I was reading, was identical to the one used on me, just today.

I looked back to Technica, who was trying hard to keep in the laughter and, with a single raised eyebrow, could only ask, “Seriously?!” causing her to double over in laughter.

Amused, I waited until she caught herself and was able to speak.

“I’m sorry, your story just reminded me of a lecture I had to attend, back in the day. It seems the new professor simply took the old script and started running with it. He has yet to stop.” she managed to get out between laughs.

My only response was a growl.

“Hey, there’s an upside, if he reuses the script, what are the chances that he reuses old exams?” she asked, after she had managed to suppress her laughter into a mirthful tone in her voice.

“Non vitae sed scholae discimus, hm?” I asked, after having Galatea look up the exact quote, causing Technica to smile some more.

“I see you didn’t neglect your general education, that’s good. But in this case, yes, the class is simply there because of institutional inertness. When the courses were designed, they took the basic structure from the best institutions of higher education and used them to make their own curriculum. Combine that with the fact that Professors need to teach a certain numbers of hours to keep their chair, you get some courses, like that one, that are simply there for the Professor to go through the motions.” Technica explained, making me frown. It seemed like a pure waste of time, for both the Professor and for all the students. Surely, there was a better way to go about things.

My thoughts were interrupted by the waiter bringing the dessert menu and the thoughts about the boring lecture were banished by visions of rich chocolate-creme cake and dark coffee. But there was a vanille-dessert, described as a mix between a flaky pastry and a vanilla-cake that sounded divine as well. Technica noticed my internal struggle and asked what I was considering, only to grin when I told her.

“You just named my two favourite desserts here.” she explained with a smile. “Tell you what, why don’t you get the chocolate cake, I get the vanille-pastry and we swap in the middle?” she suggested, making an excellent point.

We ordered and soon, we both had a cup of coffee before us, with a pot on the table to refill at our leisure, and I took the first fork of my chocolate-cake. I managed to suppress the moan that wanted to escape at the taste, it was divine. Rich, without being cloying, sweet without being too sugary and just the right amount of bitterness. After swallowing, I took a sip of coffee and now, the moan actually escaped, causing me to blush. A short look over the table showed me that Technica had a similarly blissful expression on her face, making me look forward to our swap. But first, there were more forks of chocolate-cake to be had.

After switching, I tried the vanille-pastry and while the taste was vastly different, it was just as good. Or maybe better? It was then that I wanted the chocolate again, just to try to figure out which was better. But, looking at Technica’s happy smile, I had a feeling that I would not get it back. Next time, I would have to try the chocolate again, just to make sure that the vanille had not had some advantage from being the second dessert to be tried.

Another sip of coffee and I was certain that I would be back, if only for the dessert.

Far too soon, the dessert was finished, Technica paid our bill and we parted ways with me promising to finish the design and start the construction-process in the next few days. One big advantage of the association with the Guild was that I had access to their suppliers, Technica had given me the necessary details before, so now, I was able to order parts that normally would raise an eyebrow or two. But for a Guild-member in good standing, it seemed to be no problem to order anything necessary to make large-scale fireworks or write a Doctor’s thesis on urban demolition. Or maybe Technica had given me some sort of special access to her personal supplier. Hopefully, that was the case, some of the things I could order were rather scary. I had expected to make the warheads for my missiles on my own, only ordering the base-explosives. But if I wanted to, it seemed that simply buying them was an option as well. And they were not even that expensive, not with Galatea dutifully playing the markets for fun and profit, lots of profit.

Back at the dorm, I was caught by Sophia, apparently waiting for me. I had sent her a message before going to dinner with Technica, just so she would not wait for me. Not that she seemed to have been bored, she had been sitting with a few other students, only one of which I knew and that one was Leona, her roommate. Another pleasant surprise was that she stood the moment I entered, walked over and gave me hug, whispering into my ear as she did.

“You didn’t tell me how popular you are. It seems I need to stake my claim.” she whispered, her voice quite amused.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” I answered, speaking just as softly.

“I know.” After answering, she pulled back, taking my hand and walking with me to the elevator.