My name's Aranck, and I'm a reboot addict. pt. 2

"My name's Aranck, and I'm a reboot addict." I actually had some enthusiasm in my voice at this meeting.

"I know I haven't been to a meeting in a while, but I'm about to head out for a long stay in Colonia, so I figured I should at least come back for one more before I go."

Most of the faces in the poorly made circle seemed completely lost in thought at best, and totally disinterested at worst.

Ariella knew I was leaving for a bit, and wanted to make sure I was going to be okay, so she showed up.

"Well, why do you think you wanted to come here before leaving?" She asked, but she already knew the answer. I watched as wandering eyes suddenly snapped to attention, waiting for the next part of the story.

"I want to tell you about Theia. Not what happened to her, that's for another time. I want to tell you about her, and why that has anything to do with me being a 'booter."

Some eyes began to wander again, but I could tell that at least some of them were going to listen, and I needed to get all of this out of my head before it made me want to 'boot again.

"She was better than me. At everything. I knew this from the moment I first met her. I was only 10, and she was 8, but I could already tell that she would outgrow me before we were adults. It's funny to think about now, because she never did. Or, if she did, she never let on. That's why I always flew her wing, she was an amazing pilot, always was. She even joked that once we had enough money to buy an Anaconda, she'd let me fly it because it's so slow and clunky. I knew she was serious though, she said she'd fly second seat. If she were here today she'd be..."

I trailed off, and started thinking about that world. That wonderful world where every memory, good or bad, could be accessed at a moments notice and experienced in any way you wanted. I know, though, that it's not real. Or rather, it's not real NOW. I quickly hopped back on my train of thought and continued.

"Even when we were living in the 'combs, she could make anything with an engine do things that would make even the most vetaran of racers do a double-take. I remember there was this old man, we always called him Mr. Moon 'cause that's all he ever talked about. '"You kids don't know what it's like to have a real moon! People went crazy every month and the seas shook! All you have today is that blasted projection on the walls and ceilings!"' Anyways, he had an old hover-quad that one of the local mechanics bought and fixed up. He put some governors on the drives and let the kids play around with it. Well, when we were around 13, she figured out how to take the governors off. I tell you, she broke the laws of physics that day."

A few people had a little laugh, others asked what she did. Ariella, she just smiled.

"I'm here, and she's not. She was always better than I was, at just about anything anyone asked her to do. If she were here, and went out to Colonia, they'd be hard pressed to make her STOP helping people out there. So, I'm going out there and I am going to do my best to do exactly what she would have done, which means I can't reboot. I'm taking my Anaconda, The Blue Jay, out there. She'll be riding second seat the whole time. I have to be more like Theia."

I gave a slight nod to Ariella, snapped a couple times to let Apa know it was time to leave, and off we went to board The Blue Jay and head out.