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Tachyon is two years old.
She might be too small to know why, but she knows she’s not supposed to run around much. If she does, mom gets worried, maids get worried, everyone gets worried, and her big sister gets scolded for allowing herself to be chased.
Tachyon doesn’t really like when everyone gets worried and mad.
There’s something wrong with her, that’s why it happens.
She’s too little to figure out what, but sometimes, sitting on her bed alone, listening to noises from outside her window and not joining them, like a good girl, she gets a weird feeling that all of this isn’t very fair.
***
Tachyon is four years old.
She learned to read early - what else is there to do, when she’s not running? Now she knows clever words like ten-dons and tis-sue and glass-legs-syndrome. Still figuring out the “syndrome” part, but basically what she concludes is she was correct and there IS something wrong with her. The doctors say it more words, but that’s the gist of it. Her legs aren’t meant for running, and that’s that.
...which isn’t a very satisfying answer. “That’s that”? That’s just stupid. Sure, she isn’t an adult, but even she could tell you nothing in this word is “that’s that”. Would you believe it, in a book she read just yesterday it said people used to believe Earth was flat and standing on elephants? She bets they were also saying “that’s how it is, and that’s that”.
But then science happened.
Scientific books are Tachyon’s favorite, even though the maids are shooting her confused looks when she’s devouring tomes clearly not meant for her age. Well, true, maybe she doesn’t understand ALL the words yet, but that’s what dictionaries are for. And context. And a little guessing from pictures, maybe.
Anyway, those books are captivating. So many things previously unknown were discovered through science. So many stupid things proved wrong. So many “deadly” illnesses cured. So much specific information on umamusume and their differences in skeletal and muscular build, development rates, even fragility. So many cases of the latter being overcome.
Between the lines of anatomy schemes and old medical recipes and pictures of complicated lab equipment Tachyon finds a world infinitely more bright and interesting that the dim hallways of her family’s mansion she’s confined to ‘cause the stadium outside is for her father to train children who don’t have something wrong with them. Mansion where she’s expected to sit still and not cause trouble by being wrong.
With all the confidence and determination of someone who is four and has just read a ton of smart books a bit over her level Tachyon decides she can do what those scientists did. The medical ones, the ones who invented new medicine and cured what was thought incurable. She just needs to put her mind to it instead of saying “that’s that” like those doctors she hates visiting ‘cause they never say anything good and only make it harder for her parents to look at her for long. She noticed. She’s a child, not stupid.
So she sets out to make An Invention. She collects all healthy stuff she can find in the kitchen: milk and beans and nuts and fish for her bones, eggs and lemons for vitamins, salad and the leftover bone broth ‘cause those are supposedly good for tendons, and also some garlic for innu-- inm-- immune system.
Surely if she mixes it all together she’ll end up with one super healthy potion and then she’ll just need to drink it every day or something. It makes perfect sense.
Tachyon is in the very beginning of her scientific journey, so she’s not taking notes yet, but if she did, the results of this experiment would be as such:
- Healthy potions don’t work like that.
- She absolutely HATES throwing up.
- She needs to get some test subjects before she tries something this unknown on herself ever again. That’s what proper scientists in those books do anyway. Now she knows why.
***
Tachyon is six years old.
She has read all the books in the family’s library that were of any interest to her.
She also learned about things like “component compatibility” and “side effects”.
What she also came to understand is that all those books do not, in fact, have “so much information” on umamusume. Quite the opposite, in fact, the lack of proper research on their organisms is astounding. Second millennium is upon them, and still no one has bothered to figure out how exactly they are able to maintain the speeds they do, or have stamina reserves and lung capacity no human is physically capable of possessing. It’s like no one is even curious. They are more interested in what umas can do, not how. Not even, actually - they are perfectly content with taking some racer’s singular record and proclaim it a limit of umamusume capabilities.
And this is the science Tachyon is supposed to trust in the matters of her legs? As if.
Even if her parents do, for some reason.
Boggles the mind, honestly, that even other umas don’t seem to be that bothered by the lack of research on their own bodies. Perhaps Tachyon just has way too much time to sit and think about matters like these because she can’t, well, run.
She can build a perfectly functional model of an uma body out of paper and make THAT run. But not herself.
Well, she can sneak out at night when no one is looking and run around at the stadium, sure. Her legs are perfectly functional, and if she puts everything she’s read in training books to use she can even run pretty well, albeit unstable because of lack of practice.
It feels good. To run and not have anyone there to tell her she can’t. Makes her feel like an uma kid she’s supposed to be.
It also feels endlessly frustrating because by now she cramped enough knowledge into her little head to know that all this is ultimately a risk with no reward, ‘cause it doesn’t bring her closer to anything.
Visitors her parents sometimes parade their children in front of - mostly not Tachyon ‘cause she is, what’s the expression, “a touchy subject”, but they can’t exactly hide her away either - say that her eyes are too mature for her age. It apparently makes them nervous.
She is told not to look at them like that.
She’s not sure how else she is supposed to look at people if not with her eyes.
Not sure how she’s supposed to play the role of a normal child they are expecting to see when she’s not even allowed to run around with other children. A doll standing in the corner looking pretty and proper with nothing else to do will look like a doll. It’s just logic.
She still does not have test subjects. Not a one.
A while ago she asked a butler to try her medicine for her. He complied, thinking he’s playing along with a silly child game, but ended up having to call in sick the next day.
Since then all the staff has been instructed to not “play along” with her “scientist fantasy”.
How is she supposed to know if her ideas work, then? Going back to experimenting on herself is out of the question for a while - mostly because that would also get her banned from the kitchen in fear of “poisoning herself”. There have been incidents.
So this dilemma is just weighing on her, whatever she does. She is already six. That’s not a lot if you know how to count to a billion or so, but it still feels like a lot. And still all that she has are incomplete books that can’t tell her anything about the more intricate workings of her own body and human doctors taught on those same books telling her “that’s that”.
Frustrating. Kids her age should be frustrated with broken dolls or some drama with peers, she supposes. Well, as established: something wrong with her. Also: no peers in this mansion. No one who would play with her instead of running outside, anyway.
The chance comes on one random day. It’s just her and one maid in the room. The girl is new and a little bit nervous being left to watch over the masters’ kid for the first time, but Tachyon is a quiet child who learned to not cause trouble, so everything is going smoothly.
Until Tachyon, sitting in a chair with her feet on the seat - a habit she’s been sternly told to ditch, but keeps coming back to when no one she takes seriously is around - sinks deep into her thoughts and starts rocking side to side. It helps her process sometimes.
It also, this time, helps her to accidentally tip the chair over and tumble on the floor.
When a kid falls, it’s always a scare. When it’s your master’s kid you’re currently responsible for - doubly so. When it’s famously THE very fragile kid everyone is scared to breathe on in fear of her keeling over or some such? Oh, that’s terrifying.
The poor maid is scared out of her mind.
Tachyon isn’t even hurt. Not even a bruise on her. Kids can be bouncy like that, even the scrawny breakable ones like her.
She doesn’t say it, because she finds it hard to talk when there’s a panicking adult grabbing her and seating her on the table and fussing over her limbs like she’s some expensive porcelain, not a living person.
The girl doesn’t really mean it like that, Tachyon knows. She’s just spooked. Afraid of repercussions.
It would be kind to open her mouth and let her know that everything is okay.
Tachyon wants to.
But Tachyon is also scared, for reasons this maid can’t even fathom, probably. Been scared since the first ever visit to the damn doctors in that unfamiliar, cold, sterile room where something in her mother’s eyes dimmed forever, and Tachyon felt it, but couldn’t name it. That sterile cold is stuck under her skin forever.
She wants it out.
And right now, staring at the frantic young woman in front of her unblinking, uncommitted, Tachyon thinks she would like to make a trade.
If she’s an expensive breakable object, well, the least she deserves is something in return for her supposed expensiveness.
“Please don’t tell your mother and father of this, okay?” the maid stutters, finally coming to conclusion that the kid doesn’t seem to be hurt anywhere. “It’ll be our little secret, okay?”
“...okay,” Tachyon says, but before the other is able to breathe a sign of relief, she adds: “But only if you try my medicine.”
The maid’s face freezes. Surely she was already told of the “little miss’ habit of playing a scientist” and what that entails. It’s clear she doesn’t really want to become a part of the “game” and experience the full deal.
And that’s despite all the trouble Tachyon went to to make sure it tastes decent and doesn’t have anything too outrageously conflicting in it. She even added some of patented drugs from the medicine cabinet - those should be tested and safe already, right?
“Miss Tachyon, I can’t really...”
“Or I will tell,” Tachyon says, staring at her for emphasis. The allegation that her eyes unnerve people is apparently proving to be true. She files that confirmation for later in her head. “I will tell that you let me fall.”
It’s unfair and mean and the poor girl doesn’t deserve it, but Tachyon doesn’t deserve a lot of things that keep happening to her either so they are both stuck in this sticky unfairness together.
Fear of her parents wins in the end. The maid does take the offered sample and drinks it, squinting her eyes shut and clearly praying it wouldn’t do anything nasty to her.
It ends up making her sick anyway.
Tachyon feels bad about it for days. She was sure she checked everything. When the girl is back to work a week later she brings her chocolate to apologize. The maid doesn’t take it.
She quits some month or two later.
New experiment results as follows:
- Tachyon dislikes bribing people into being her test subjects by being mean. Her experiments are meant to help, not to make people scared and sick.
- Some mistakes are irreparable.
- Mixing up existing medicine is not how this works either.
- Her face sometimes makes people squirm. It’s just her face. Course of action unclear.
***
Tachyon is eleven years old.
She got a permission to possess her own computer a year ago and very quickly figured out how to use online shopping.
She can finally have a somewhat proper lab with beakers and materials and chemical substances she can work with. There’s still a lot of equipment she got banned from obtaining, for various reasons that mainly amounted to “sounds unsafe”, but she’s finally free from being confined to the kitchen and the medicine cabinet. Well, technically, they locked the cabinet. Unrelated, she knows how to pick locks now.
The window she uses to sneak outside at night is also locked. For naught.
If she doesn’t move her “glass legs” at all, they will only get glassier. She needs the supporting muscle, she needs the movement, she needs them to be at the very least prepared to run so that the action itself doesn’t immediately shatter them with misuse.
It turns into a delicate balance between too little training and too much strain, and she figures out that line all on her own, because her doctors would’ve thrown a fit and her parents would probably tie her up.
Well, perhaps nothing THAT drastic, but she’d lose what little freedom she clawed out for herself in this limbo of “the child we don’t talk about”. And she decidedly doesn’t need that.
So it’s her little secret. The lab isn’t, but by now “the scientist game” has become a good excuse to let her to her own devices. Look at her, she’s keeping busy and not feeling abandoned. Everyone can pat themselves on the back and not feel bad about the poor little fragile Tachyon fading into the background.
She prefers it this way, honestly. The less pitying eyes on her, the better. And no one is shoving their opinion into her workflow to tell her what is possible and what is not and what is the limit and what’s “that’s that”. She still hates the terminally incurious finality of that approach.
There’s nothing quite so black and white about the criminally underresearched potential of an umamusume body.
That said, everyone leaving her alone also means the staff avoiding her like a plague these days, apart from keeping her fed and periodically checking in that she’s still breathing.
Once again, Tachyon finds herself with no test subjects.
Worse, this time she could really use one that’s a fellow uma herself, and those she sees even less of these days.
She did try the new sample on herself, actually, if for nothing else then out of desperation and also growing confidence in her abilities. It didn’t have the expected effect. It was supposed to make her step a bit bouncier - take the impact load off of her feet a little. But it didn’t.
Just to be sure, however, she needs a control subject. Preferably one with proper fine legs and a racing career fast approaching.
Tachyon spins around on her chair, staring at the ceiling and tapping her fingers on the armrests.
Well, there is An Option.
One that she’s been explicitly, strictly and especially forbidden from entertaining.
But it’s summer break, their parents are away and the amount of staff around has been temporarily cut down on, so. As good a chance as any.
So she hops up from her chair, snatches a vial with a prime and ready sample, carefully hides it under her sweater - it’s too big on her and is also covered with chemical stains and burns, so anyone “proper” would’ve fainted upon seeing her in it and it’s been almost disposed of multiple times already, but it feels better on her skin than any other of her clothes so she absolutely refuses to let go of it - and walks out of the room.
The hallways are warm and dusty like only summer can be. Tachyon’s gotten good at telling the weather apart from inside the house, with how little she ventures outside - consequently, where she’s currently going. It will be too hot for her sweater out there, but she doesn’t really care. She runs a little bit cold anyway.
She passes big important portraits of family past. All accomplished racers with shiny records, with her grandmother and mother at the end. Tachyon has long ago learned all their records and races and styles and career twists and traumas endured. One day there will be a new portrait added to the line on the wall.
Should she even entertain the possibility it could be hers? Probably not.
Pushing the doors open, Tachyon weaves through the back garden, past all her favorite childhood hiding spots that were so good while they stayed secret, but were all eventually discovered. Sneaks up to the fence, finds a hole in it that everyone pretends not to know about because even some of the staff need a secret escape to have a smoke sometimes, and climbs outside.
It’s a short walk from there to a little overhang over a river running nearby. She knows where to look because a certain someone forgot her blueprints laying around again, and there’s only one place to test something like that out.
“Something like that” is a wooden construction sort of resembling a plane, if you’re talking one of those ancient prototypes that were more floating than flying. Primitive, but fairly realistic to construct by hand because of it.
And “a certain someone” is, of course, her older sister, Agnes Flight, who still hasn’t kicked her passion for inventing stuff despite having the entire house’s racing ambitions currently pinned on her.
In that vein, Tachyon supposes she can see some family resemblance between them. The invention. Not too clear which ancestor they got it from, though.
“Planning to truly live up to your name, I see,” she says, walking up closer. Flight, currently balancing on the top of her apparatus and tightening the screws, whips around so fast she almost falls down from up there. Tachyon almost winces - a fall is the last thing they both need right now.
“Tachy!” Flight’s face immediately relaxes upon realizing she has not been busted by an adult, and she climbs down to meet her. “Didn’t know you still could walk under direct sunlight without melting, you hermit.”
“Well, by that logic, I’m starting to suspect you aren’t able to enter the house without an invitation.” Ever since she was little, Flight loved being outside. Had to be dragged back inside kicking and screaming on more occasion than once. She was allowed to be loud sometimes, you see - guess being the main prospective runner of the family earns you some lenience.
“So we are both vampires. Got it.” Flight leans on the side of her “plane” and rubs her neck. “So. What’s the occasion?”
Despite growing up in one house, they barely knew each other. Enough to afford some teasing sibling banter from afar, but not quite substantial to know what to do when faced with one another.
Thankfully, Tachyon is here on a mission.
“If I may, your construction looks a little bit shaky,” she says, walking around the plane. “I bet I could make it more stable with specialized glue of my own creation.”
“Uh-huh,” Flight nods, watching her. “And how long that would take?”
“Less than an hour. It’s not a complicated formula to make.” Tachyon actually got it on accident while trying to create a nutrient-rich gum. Thankfully, the error was immediately obvious and no one got their teeth stuck together.
“Right. And what do you get out of it?” Flight squints. Tachyon peeps at her through the gap in wooden details and smiles wide and honest.
“A test subject, hopefully?” she procures the vial out of her sweater and shakes it a little for emphasis. Flight groans.
“Ah, but of course. And if I don’t tell anyone about you testing your stuff on me, then you don’t tell anyone about the plane I’m definitely not supposed to be making before tomorrow’s mock race, is that it?”
“Naturally!”
Her sister rolls her eyes and pushes off the wood to stand straight.
“Fine, you little devil, you win. What’s the concoction?”
“Oh, it’s just a little booster to increase the rebound in your feet without putting additional strain on your tendons and bone structure! Theoretically speaking, it should make slight adjustments to your collagen levels and increase the talocrural flexibility to add some bounce to your step, sort of like the amortization in runner-specific shoes but boosting your foot’s natural ability for it!” Tachyon quickly walks back around to join Flight at the other side of the plane, proudly presenting the fruit of her recent labor. “This one proved to be especially tricky because the first attempt exploded the vial all over the space, so I had to tweak the proportions a little bit, and then make adjustments to make the smell feasible for consumption without calling for vomit response...” noticing the way Flight’s eyebrows bunch up, Tachyon catches herself and course corrects: “I think you would be pleased to know that I actually tried the final sample on myself and came out unscathed so it’s totally safe for consumption! That said, I do need a control test to determine if...”
“Okay, okay, slow down, you walking encyclopedia,” snorts Flight, plucking the vial out of Tachyon’s hand. “All that reading instead of talking to people did horrible damage to your speech, are you aware?”
“I find my speech perfectly adequate,” Tachyon huffs, proudly tipping her chin up. So what if normal children don’t talk that way at eleven. As established, she’s hardly concerned with the norm.
“Sure you do.” Flight swirls the vial’s contents around, lifting it up to the light. “So this is sample number...?”
“Eight,” Tachyon readily supplies. “Took me three weeks.”
“Sheesh,” Flight says quietly, wistfully to herself. “With all the meetings and the training I barely have time to get one prototype in. You sure are lucky.”
Tachyon’s throat tightens at that. She’s not too sure why.
“Yeah. I’m lucky.”
Flight jolts a little, as if only now catching up with her own words, and winces, glancing over with awkward guilt all over her face.
“Crap. Sorry, Tachy.”
“Whatever for? I agree.”
She is lucky. Lucky to have her own lab, most of the resources she needs, a green light to do her thing, no parental supervision and no pesky obligations that would distract her from her work on a subject far more broad and interesting than a single racing career. She’s lucky to have freedom most of her peers don’t get.
There’s a bitter aftertaste in the back of her throat. Which she ignores.
“Yeah. Right. Well, uh. Better start cooking that glue thing you promised,” says Flight and salutes her with the vial. “Bottoms up.”
The desired effect doesn’t happen for Flight either.
But at least her plane holds when she eventually tries to float down into the river, which is a very safe and responsible thing to do right before a race.
As promised, it all stays between them.
Results filed as follows:
- Sometimes an absence of a result is still a result.
- Saying you are lucky doesn’t make the sterile cold under your skin any less frustrating.
- When Flight goes away to start her career shortly after, they don’t even write to each other.
The last thing Flight says to her is an awkward “sorry”.
Tachyon frankly wishes she didn’t say anything at all.
***
Tachyon is fifteen and she is leaving.
There’s no way for her and her research to grow inside these walls. She’s running out of space and equipment, her ambitions are being smothered by fears of those around her, she can’t damn breathe in this image of her they created and plastered onto her, but most importantly she’s entirely devoid of subjects to watch, research, examine and test her breakthroughs on.
Luckily, she knows where to find plenty, and she’s finally old enough to break entirely free.
She applies to Tokyo’s Tracen Academy. A place that’s surely filled with the best examples of uma physiology the current generations have to offer. If Tachyon wants to get closer to the truth about their limits, their raw potential, that’s where she needs to be. Up close and personal. Putting her own legs on the turf is not the key here.
That said, the last thing she wants is to be under constant medical supervision and suffer the same pitying looks and unwanted advises and opinions on what she can or cannot do.
So she forges her own medical records when applying.
It’s laughably easy.
And now no one in Tracen will know about her legs. About the curse of her broken birth. Her condition will finally, finally be hers alone to manage and to judge. Deep inside she can’t wait for the day where no stuffy doctor will look at her with fake empathy and repeat some doomed diagnosis based on an incomplete research and she won’t have to see her mother’s face squished in uncomfortable disappointment right after. No thank you.
Then again, “I am going to run professionally” is not something you say to your parents after they spent your whole life mourning your career first and awkwardly putting up with your existence second. Not under the gazes of family portraits who would sure be disappointed should she stain their shiny legacy with her feeble legs.
So she forges that too. As far as her family knows from the totally legit Tracen acceptance letter, she actually filed for the Support track for future trainer assistants and such. Much more suitable for the child that’s not supposed to stand out much.
After all, she’s not exactly planning on a proper career as of now. She just needs to get closer to the topic of her research.
And if she ever deems her condition worthy of actually trying out Plan A, it will be far too late to do anything by then.
So that’s how Agnes Tachyon finds herself at the gates of the Tracen Academy.
She does shamelessly use her status one last time to get copious bags of equipment and materials delivered with her, but that’s it. She’s on her own from there. No butlers to drive her, no maids to follow her. Just she and herself, and air she can finally breathe with full chest.
There are so many great examples of umamusume around. They are variously built, they move in subtly or not-so-subtly different ways, they consume different amounts of food and they have different running styles. For the first few days Tachyon just walks around and sits on the bleachers and just soaks in the stream of information her brain is plucking out of everything she sees.
Her first direct interaction with someone not assigned to help her settle in goes well, actually. She questions the head chef of Tracen about the food and its nutritional value and the reasons for constructing the rations the way they are, and that woman happily obliges her and gives her plenty of interesting data. A resounding success.
The second time Tachyon decides to approach someone directly doesn’t quite go that well.
She notices a girl at the track one day, sitting on the grass and looking utterly defeated. Curious. Clearly something in her performance is troubling her. But improving umamusume’s performance is what Tachyon’s main study subject is! So she doesn’t ponder for long before approaching.
“My, is something troubling you?” she asks, swinging her legs over the railing. The girl startles and looks at her with big confused eyes.
“Sorry... who are you?”
“Agnes Tachyon,” she raps out the introduction just to be done with it and swat it away. “I’ve been doing research into matters of umamusume potential. If you want to improve your performance, I believe we could benefit each other!” She plops on the ground next to the girl and leans in really close, unable to hide her own excitement. Is this it? Is it her first willing subject? “Tell me, what is bothering you!”
“Well... o-okay,” the girl stutters. “I just... it’s my gait. It feels like no matter how fast I move my legs, they are just too short to cover much ground. It’s frustrating.”
“Oh! Do you wish your legs would be longer, then?” Tachyon exclaims, practically vibrating. The girl leans just a little bit away from her with a nervous smile.
“Ah-ha... Sure, I guess...”
“I have just the thing!” Tachyon’s hands immediately start flying in expressive gestures, ‘cause really, isn’t this so delightful? Finally a chance to share her research with someone who can make actual use of it! And so much potential data for her to collect! “Actually, I was initially aiming to make something to strengthen the bone structure, but ended up with a condiment that shows more so potential of making the bones grow! We can apply it to your legs here, here and here--” she grabs the girl’s leg in a few places, not noticing the uncomfortable squeaks,”and if everything works right then your bones should stretch! Like this!” she makes a motion of stretching something with her hands and makes a convincing creaking sound of a bone changing shape. The girl goes a little bit green in the face, but Tachyon’s thoughts have already jumped forward.
“Ah, but of course if it doesn’t work there may be other effects or consequences. You see, I haven’t had the opportunity to test it yet. But now you can contribute to the research of umamusume potential personally! Isn’t that great? Personally, I think it’s worth the risk. Of course, I’d try it myself, but in case of my legs any stretching will probably cause them to snap, so--”
“You know what,” the girl hurriedly says, getting up on her feet, “I just remembered I have homework to finish. Sorry, really, I’ll... another time, okay?”
“Wait! But I haven’t finished talking...” But it’s already just her and an empty space. The girl does glance over her shoulder a few times, as if afraid that Tachyon would follow her. She could. But she doesn’t.
Tachyon slowly lowers her hands onto her lap and lifts her gaze up to the sky. Well, she tried. She really thought that at Tokyo Tracen of all places the umas would be willing to go the extra mile to break their limits. Perhaps not. Or perhaps she once again underestimated the unnerving factor of her eyes.
Perhaps all these people would also prefer her quiet and non-intrusive, much like her parents.
Too bad.
Filed for the future:
- She may have to result to blackmail, threatening or bribery after all.
- Because she’s clearly incapable of just establishing a willing connection.
- She is not going to hide and police herself again.
- She is not.
***
Tachyon needs a lab. Everything she brought with her is stacked uselessly in the corner of her dorm room and the small standard desk is not a sufficient work space. And even if her roommate swears up and down that she’s totally okay and she’ll give up her own desk if needed, that’s just not enough.
She’s used to having her space. She needs a lab. A proper lab with her own rules.
So, as a totally normal student of Tracen Academy, she dons her best “normal” face and appeals to the Student Council.
It both doesn’t work and it does.
Air Groove, for one, is rearing up as soon as Tachyon voices her request.
“We already have a laboratory for the Support class,” she says, rubbing her temples, as if she already feels a migraine coming. “Surely a separate one is not a smart allocation of resources.”
“I only need space, I’ll provide everything else myself,” Tachyon says, subtly rocking back and forth on her heels. “But sharing it with too many other curious minds would be too restricting for us all. Not to mention, I intend to spend a lot of time there.”
“You are a student who needs to be out there training, not building up a lab,” Air Groove starts, but she gets softly interrupted.
“Wait, Air Groove.” Symboli Rudolf stops her with a hand on her shoulder, then turns to Tachyon, looking at her pensively. “What is your need for a lab of your own?”
Tachyon really tries to bite her tongue, but she lasts but a second before it spills out of her again.
“I am interested in researching the limits of the umamusume physiology!” she exclaims, throwing her arms open. “Haven’t you noticed how shamefully unresearched we are? We sit content with the latest record as if that’s the highest we can go. We hesitate to push ourselves further, ‘cause no one bothered to figure out just how much strain we are built to actually handle. In books there’s no answer on ‘how’ and ‘why’ we are able to do the things we do. Just imagine how far every student at this Academy can go if we look deeper inside something more than just cleats making!” She’s walking back and forth in front of the president’s desk now, agitated. “Do you know the human doctors still often deny umamusume anesthesia because we are supposedly ‘more durable’ and so ‘can handle more pain’?”
“I’ve heard,” Rudolf calmly says. “I’ve been fortunate not to meet with such doctors myself.”
“But that’s because you are a famous racer! Less known umamusume are getting neglected every day, because, again, the lack of research into our bodies is truly appalling!” Forgetting herself, Tachyon plants her hands on the desk, leaning closer to Rudolf. “I want to find our limits. And then break them. And then figure out how to fix the broken. This is why I came here, and this is why I need proper working conditions.”
There’s a pause. Then Air Groove, side-eyeing her with a new kind of wariness, huffs out in disbelief:
“You are obsessed. How do we know you won’t blow up half the school?”
“You don’t.” Flatly says Tachyon.
Air Groove is momentarily lost for words, and Rudolf chooses this moment to chuckle.
“Passion. I like that. It’s been a while since someone got in my face like this about her believes, too.” She leans her chin on her entangled hands. “This school is built on the principle of letting our students reach their fullest potential and capture their dreams. In a perfect world where everyone is smiling, I suppose, a true researcher must do her research.”
Rudolf chews on the side of her cheek for a bit, then nods.
“It’s decided. Agnes Tachyon, you will have your lab. I will provide you with keys to a currently unoccupied classroom for you to equip as you see fit.”
“Marvelous!” Tachyon exclaims at the same time as Groove hisses out “Rudolf!”
“But,” Rudolf adds, lifting a finger up, “to give our Air Groove here some peace of mind, you will be sharing it with one other student. She will be the one to monitor your activity.”
“Oh? Another scientist?” Tachyon cocks her head to the side. Rudolf smiles and shakes her head.
“No, she needed the room for other reasons. But from what I know, she occupies less than a half of it. I’m sure you will be able to come to some kind of an arrangement.”
And so, Tachyon arrives at the abandoned classroom with a box of the most crucial equipment in her hands. Rudolf leads her there personally, even graciously helps to carry some. The whole way there Tachyon chatters away about her theories, and perhaps Rudolf tunes her out and just hums automatically, she will never know. Either way, she’s glad to have an ear.
They stop in front of a room that has a sliding door and a stained glass window looking out into the hall. Rudolf knocks. After some time, a girl appears. She’s looking weirdly thin and somewhat sickly, and her big yellow eyes are looking owlish under the heavy bangs of thick black hair. She looks at Tachyon. Tachyon beams. The yellow eyes squint.
“Manhattan Cafe,” greets Rudolf. “I believe you were warned about having to share this room with miss Tachyon’s laboratory?”
“I was,” the girl says quietly, almost listlessly. “I still don’t like it very much.”
“Despite the spirit of rivalry that we cultivate here, getting along with other umamusume is also a skill that we deeply value and encourage,” says Rudolf. Somehow her deceptively soft tone rings with metal notes of finality. Cafe evidently hears it too, because she sighs and steps aside, gesturing for Tachyon to come in.
“Thank you!” Tachyon makes sure to exclaim. As soon as she takes a step into the room she beelines for the emptier space near the window and starts setting up. She packed an impressive amount of stuff in the two boxes she and Rudolf carried. It will be enough for a base.
When the council president takes her leave, Cafe quietly relocates on a sofa in a directly opposite corner. Now that Tachyon thinks about it, there’s a thick coffee aroma in the air here. She scrunches her nose, but doesn’t comment. After all, whatever she will be cooking next has full potential to smell worse. Glass houses and all that.
Cafe watches her, barely blinking, so intently that Tachyon feels it with her back without looking.
“I don’t know,” Cafe suddenly says.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” After some hesitation, the girl decides to spare them the awkward pause. “So... Tachyon, right?”
“Ah, yes!” She whips around. What others think is of no concern to her, but in this case it may be beneficial to make a good first impression. They will be sharing a space, after all. Plus, if she gets in especially good graces with this girl, she might at last have a willing volunteer for a subject! Right here, at her hand’s reach! Wouldn’t that be amazing?
“Agnes Tachyon,” she introduces herself. “Here to research the limits of umamusume potential.”
“...Manhattan Cafe,” Cafe replies for formality, considering that Rudolf already voiced her name.
“Nice to meet you, Cafe!” Tachyon chirps, omitting the way the rest of her intro was ignored. “I hope we can become friends, you and I!” A bit of a lie. Tachyon isn’t too sure what having a friend is like. But it sounds nice. “Oh, or maybe lab partners?”
“I’ll pass.” Cafe takes a sip of her coffee, eyeing Tachyon cautiously.
“Cold! You haven’t even seen my inventions yet!” Tachyon quickly eyes her up and down. “For example, there’s a concerning lack of coloration in your skin. I have a special potion chock-full of nutrients and vitamins, just a little sip would charge your up like a hundred bowls of veggie rice at once! Actually, as a token of our friendship, I’ll give you a bottle just because, no strings attached. Do be sure to try it where I can see it, however...”
“No, thanks.” Tachyon’s hand halts, having taken the aforementioned bottle out halfway. Cafe squishes her eyebrows together in concern, looking at it. “I am not interested in... being part of whatever this is.”
There’s a barely noticeable film of sourness at the root of Tachyon’s tongue, but she swallows it with a smile.
“Are you sure? It’s your loss, really. Well, the offer still stands! Ah, and I could also share the taste amplifier I created for my tea, I don’t personally get how you drink that horrid stuff, but I am sure it will work on coffee, too! Speaking of coffee, if you’re concerned with staying awake I have this energy mixture... although you do have to be careful with the dosage, I once spent a whole week without sleeping. You’d think that left more time for research even, but unfortunately on the seventh day I did start hallucinating...”
“I’ll be back. Feel right at home.”
Cafe leaves, causing Tachyon to quiet down in between words.
She’s alone in the room now. A rare occasion in a school as full and busy as Tracen.
Being left completely to her own devices sort of reminds her of home.
She suddenly finds herself keenly wishing that Cafe would come back soon.
Shaking it off, Tachyon claps her hands and continues unpacking, quietly narrating each item to herself just to break the silence.
Notes scribbled later:
- Isolation seems to be connected to a mental trigger. Shouldn’t cause much trouble, since there is so many people around.
- Even though they are avoiding her.
- She can learn to tolerate the smell of coffee.
***
“Still no,” Cafe says sternly, but without any bite.
“You wound me, Cafe,” Tachyon groans, rolling between worktables with a knee on her chair and swiftly switching vials in her ongoing experiment. “You’ve known me for so long and I still do not have your trust?”
“It’s because I’ve known you for so long,” softly comments Cafe and sighs. “Besides, don’t you have a guinea pig of your own already?”
Ah, yes. Some time ago Jungle Pocket had the confusing, yet extremely beneficial idea to make a pact with her: becoming her test subject in exchange for being able to ask questions about Tachyon’s, well, everything. One experiment, one question. So far Pocket has been very respectful of Tachyon’s refusal to broach certain topics - like reasons for her retirement, for example. However, it was still baffling to the scientist that she was that interesting at all. Pokke didn’t even ask about her work that much. The most valuable part of her.
Speaking of Pocket. Tachyon can hear heavy agitated steps approaching down the hallway and smiles to herself. She pointedly keeps her back to the door, pretending she doesn’t hear. Because that second of being ignored gets on Pocket’s nerves every single time, and Tachyon is still easily amused with how easy it is to push her buttons.
The door aggressively rattles open.
“TACHYON!”
Oh, that’s especially loud. Wondering what could possibly cause such a reaction this time, Tachyon does lazily turn around with her mouth already opened for the traditional exclamation of greeting...
...but she bursts out laughing instead.
Because Pocket is glowing bright yellow from head to toe. And she’s fuming, which unfortunately for her only makes the image more hilarious.
“This isn’t funny, you asshole! You turned me into a walking light bulb!” Pocket yelps in indignation. Behind her Tachyon notices Dantsu Flame, who is also glowing, yet, curiously, pink. Still chuckling in pure mirth, Tachyon waves them in with her sleeve.
“Come in, come in! Don’t worry, this is harmless and it will go away in approximately an hour. You may spend that time here, as to avoid unnecessary attention.”
“Was planning to!” Pocket shoots back, walking in like it’s her place.
Dantsu waves a “hello” and immediately relocates to the couch. Cafe seems to like her company. What a turn of events.
“I see you shared my potion with Dantsu,” Tachyon notes with an easy smile.
“Yeah. She asked.” Pocket shrugs. Dantsu blushes.
“Pokke said it was supposed to make you feel lighter, so you can run faster... I got curious...”
“Right, right, so how did it go, besides the side effects? Spare no detail!”
“Well, I think it kinda worked?” Pocket scratches her chin. “But it kinda felt, uh, wobbly.”
“Wobbly?”
“Yeah, like... it was harder to cut the corners correctly.” Pocket waves her hand around.
“Pokke is saying that you feel so light you’re almost floating,” chimes in Dantsu. “And it’s hard to keep the grip on the ground when your feet are floating away, even if it’s an illusion.”
“Yup, that.” Pocket jabs a finger in her direction. “Thank you, Dantsu.”
“Exactly, thank you very much, Dantsu!” Tachyon exclaims, and then adds, noticing Pokke’s pout: “Thank you, both of you. Pokke, you are just better at being a subject than describing it.”
“Thanks? Or screw you, I can’t tell.” Pokke shrugs again, clearly a bit tired. She watches Tachyon for a bit, then says: “You didn’t come to train again.”
Tachyon bites her lip, using the fact that no one can see her face to her advantage. She was planning to. After all the promising progress these last few months, she was finally ready to risk training with others.
And then earlier that day her leg shot up in pain while she was walking down the stairs. She almost fell. Right now there are cooling patches on her ankle, hidden under the uniform stocking. This is the actual reason why she’s rolling around with one knee up on her chair instead of just walking. Masking need for rest with what could pass for her general eccentricity. Pocket doesn’t need to know that. Nobody needs to know that. It’s under control.
“Ah, sorry about that. A new idea came up and I got carried away. The science doesn’t wait, as you know!” She waves her sleeve around. It works. Pocket rolls her eyes, but doesn’t see past the cracks in the lie.
“Whatever. I just want to run with you again is all. And you’ve been stringing me along.”
“Yet you are the one being willingly strung along,” Tachyon hums. “It’s not like I tied you to a chair. Which I could’ve, you know.”
“I know,” Pocket snorts, then leans forward. “Okay, gimme the next poison.”
“You haven’t asked your question for this one yet.”
“I’m thinkin’.”
“Of course.” Happy to switch topics, Tachyon rolls herself to the other desk and starts musing, looking through her samples. “Well, I shouldn’t give you this one yet, it’s not quite ready for testing and I have no idea what the side effects could even be. I mean, if it works it should be a great help in clearing your airways for better oxygen intake, but if it doesn’t it could be... concerning, so--”
“You do know you’d have much more people to test on if you didn’t do this crap with that face?”
Tachyon pauses. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Pokke standing right next to her and drilling into her with a stare. She turns her head, making a point to open her eyes extra hard and smile extra wide.
“This is just my face, Pokke!”
“Cut it out,” Pokke groans, lightly pushing her shoulder. “I am serious. All these creepy words and the laughter and the eye thing, that’s what scares people off. You’d have more volunteers if you were more clear about the good you’re trying to do.”
There’s a pause again. Tachyon looks at her for a couple seconds, then:
“Is that your question today, then? Do I know that my face scares people off?”
“Not what I said, but I guess. Yes, it is my question.”
Tachyon hums, turning back to her vials and trying real hard to focus on them. Even though Pokke doesn’t breach the taboo subjects, her questions sometimes still hit harder than she knows.
“I do know,” Tachyon says carefully, as a matter of fact-ly. “But I mean it, it’s just my face. Attempts to change it haven’t brought any degree of success. I know the result is likely to be a refusal, so instead of molding myself into something quieter I decided that I won’t. That way the results generally match my expectations, so no outcome brings negative emotions.”
“So... it’s like a, what’s it called. Protection kinda thing? If you give them a reason to reject you, the rejection kinda becomes your choice, not a, uh, weapon against you or something?”
Tachyon’s hand freezes. It... sounds logical, what Pocket is saying. Against her scientific nature, for once Tachyon does not like the sounds of that logic. She’s free. She’s out of her family’s mansion and she is free. She does not still technically tie herself to other people’s expectations by purposefully acting against them.
She does not.
And Jungle Pocket of all people isn’t the one reading into her like that right now.
While she neglects to answer, Pokke continues to look at her with those cat-like eyes. She doesn’t laugh, she doesn’t try to prod or mock her.
And then she heaves a sign and trusts her hand forward.
“Gimme that untested one you were just lookin’ at.”
After a bit of hesitation, Tachyon turns her head.
“As I just said, the effects of that one are thoroughly unpredictable as of now.”
“Don’t care.”
“Why?”
“Because you made it.” Pokke says it so straightforwardly and earnestly, that all the years of words read and spoken leave Tachyon’s head for a second. She just stares at her. Pocket shrugs. “What? For all the scary tales it’s not like your stuff ever actually killed or harmed someone. You’re a good scientist, even if you are nuts. I trust you.”
“You... what?” the words fall from Tachyon’s lips without her feeling it.
“You heard me.”
“It...” she’s nervous for some reason and she immediately dislikes it. “It can prove to be too much.”
“I can handle it.” Pocket says with weight, making sure to look her right in the eyes. ‘I can handle you’ hangs in between them, implied, unspoken.
Tachyon’s throat goes uncomfortably dry.
Pokke does not avert her eyes. In this light they seem warm, like honey.
Something in that cursed sterile cold under Tachyon’s skin starts melting, sending goosebumps all over her arms and neck.
And then she suddenly starts laughing.
It doesn’t sound like her usual confident or excited laugh, nor is it the condescending laugh she gave Pocket once a lot of months ago. It is not a laugh she can hide behind, like the one she answered Cafe’s refusals with.
She laughs so hard there are tears welling up in her eyes and she frankly can’t tell if she’s actually crying. She laughs so hard she snorts and wheezes.
And when she’s finally completely out of breath, she wipes her eyes with her sleeves and straightens up. Pokke doesn’t look too taken aback by her outburst, although her face is a bit nervous, as if concerned for Tachyon’s well-being.
Tachyon gives her a rare crooked smile that almost feels half-forgotten on her face.
“You are completely, positively insane,” she says, almost with affection. Pocket splutters at first, then thinks about it for a second, and, finally, huffs a laugh.
“Duh. I’m hangin’ out with you, do I not?”
“Indeed you do,” Tachyon agrees, amused. “...But I am not giving you the potentially dangerous sample. Have this other one, you’ll tell me if it still causes rapid hair growth all over the body.”
“It causes WHAT.”
Experiment results are filed for her this time:
“I never saw Tachyon smiling like that,” Dantsu whispers to Cafe, both watching quietly from the couch. Cafe ever so slightly hides a smile of her own in her mug.
She did glimpse if once before. But she can’t help but notice the ever so slight ease in Tachyon’s shoulders as she goes back to her favorite activity of making Pocket squirm.
Secretly she hopes that one day Tachyon realizes that she doesn’t need to risk her legs in running just to belong.
That one day Tachyon realizes that she already belongs.