Stark Industries, Monday

[endsthegame]

If anyone thought that Ender would be in late today because of his late radio night (and subsequent walk home with Ben; he still didn't quite understand the appeal of waving all of those flags, but he had a good guess about the whys) they would be completely mistaken. With the work done on the satellite at last, his hands were free to tackle other problems.

Such as entomology. Fiona had reawakened the urge to go picking through terrestrial biology books in him, and Ender spent an awful lot of time reading off the screen of his laptop.

[ open! and all beware the spamming I'm about to inflict on you ]

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[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

The door opened and in walked a stack of books.

Of course, there was someone holding the stack of books, someone whose legs were visible beneath the stack, but it was a big enough stack that the most of her face was unseen. Leaning back against the door once it was open, she tilted her head to the side to peer around the room.

"Ender?"

When she spotted him, she walked forward.

"Books," she said proudly.

[endsthegame]

He didn't recognise her face due to the size of the stack of books, no, but Ender was pretty good with voices at this point. He closed his laptop with one smooth movement. "Hi, Fiona," he said, and added, good-naturedly, "Thanks for telling me."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She rolled her eyes at him but didn't comment as she brought the stack over to the counter and put it down. They were mostly older books, some of them the kind of antique volumes that would make a collector swoon though they were obviously well used. Respected, though. Books were probably the only thing that had ever been sacred in the Post home.

"Entomology, molecular genetics, behavior, biomechanics, biochemistry, systematics, physiology, developmental biology, ecology, morphology, paleontology, anthropology..."

She breathed out with a satisfied grin.

"And the pertinent sections are marked with post-its, though you're welcome to read the rest."

[endsthegame]

"I have to admit I'm impressed," Ender said, freely. Because they were an awful lot of books; they'd keep him occupied for weeks, and he was somewhat desperately grateful for it. In his own way. He picked a book off the top of the stack and looked at the edges of the notes sticking out with his eyebrows raised.

Even considering the library, he wasn't used to books. Not like this.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

She ran her hands through her hair to try and straighten it.

"If you want anything specific like texts on coleopterology or orthopterology, just let me know and I'll try and get my mother or Cee to send those. I just didn't bring them with me since Eliot's more of a zoologist than I am," she admitted with a quick grin.

[endsthegame]

"I think I'll tackle this first," Ender said. It was only a touch wry - he doubted it would be that much of a challenge. But just enough of one, for now. "If there's anything that needs clearing up, though, I'll be by."

He took a few more books off the stack and put them away somewhere, out of sight. He didn't want to deal with Ben if he found out. "I heard you've been busy."

Ender listened to the radio a lot.

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"Oh?"

She wondered who he might have been talking to before she remembered the squirrels.

"Radio?" she asked, just to be sure.

[endsthegame]

"Radio," Ender repeated, "I actually had my own try at it last night-- don't think I'll make a habit of it."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

Her lip curled in a touch of sympathetic distaste.

"Did they wake you up as well?" she asked.

"That's the worst of it. Reading notes is fine, but why wake someone up?"

[endsthegame]

"I was still awake."

Ender spent most of his nights mostly awake, so that wasn't out of the ordinary. "But I think they take a perverse kind of masochism out of forcing people to read the notes; Ben wasn't pleased."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"There's a non-perverse kind of masochism?" she asked with a touch of amusement, "or did you mean 'sadism'?"

"It's a bit creepy, don't you think? The whole thing."

[endsthegame]

"Involuntary masochism," he said, "And I meant that word - it can't be particularly uplifting to be yelled at and threatened by angry radio hosts every evening."

At her last statement, though, Ender shrugged. "It's the way the world works," he said, vaguely. "Acquaint yourself with your reality."

[cutsthestrings.livejournal.com]

"I meant more that we had to talk about things we'd done on the air, like a report," she said with a wry grin.

"I know I'm watched."

She leaned against the counter.

"And involuntary masochism is still perverse. It's just involuntarily perverse. But I get your point."

[momslilassassin]

Ben was running a little behind today--he needed to take an extra few minutes to take his stuff back to his dorm room--but he stopped in as usual.

With a list. Also as usual.

"Ho, Ender."

[endsthegame]

"Ho, Ben," Ender said, glancing up over the edge of his laptop - also as usual - "More parts?"

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "We're back in the dorms. I can work on my big droid now. Maybe add in a squirrel detection system."

[endsthegame]

"Still traumatized from last night?" Ender asked, "I thought you'd have a better constitution, too."

[momslilassassin]

"Not traumatized," Ben said, looking a little disdainful. "Just annoyed."

[endsthegame]

"I told you not to insult the squirrels." He motioned for the list.

[momslilassassin]

"I think they have easily bruised feelings," Ben said, "and are far too free with the projectiles."

[endsthegame]

"Which is all well and good, but it's not going to keep the projectiles from being aimed at you."

Life lessons from Andrew Wiggin.

[momslilassassin]

"I'm not going to throw them back," Ben said. "They're squirrels."

[endsthegame]

"Or you could try to adjust your social habits to the needs of your environment," he said, "But we haven't covered that with Lady Ghanima yet."

[momslilassassin]

"There's only so far I'll adjust," Ben declared. "Or else I'd be learning squirrel and trying to fix their obsession with our lives."

[endsthegame]

"So you're not flexible enough to keep yourself from facing possible squirrel doom?" Ender checked.