I'm just posting left and right today, aren't I?

Here's the delayed (blame the Ren Faire) third part of my mina_de_malfois story, "Case Study," wherein Case and Jamie meet in person, and Case gets his mission, should he choose to accept it...

(As usual, the story has been updated at the Mina de Malfois fanfic archive as well.)

A few days later, I was coming off of a sixteen-hour nightmare of system
administration and emergency repair. I'd been updating some of our blades
with new hardware when our datacenter had sudden Issues. I never got the
full story out of them, but I caught a rumor about a drunk and disgruntled
employee...anyway, I spent far too long handling disasters and I was about
ready to commit bloody murder when everything was done.

But since even the brilliant legal team employed by HGR wouldn't let me
claim a justification defense, I decided to head to Eva's place--which was
near the datacenter anyway--for the evening.

Jamie, who had been aware that something was going on with the servers but
not the details--I'd pretty much kept the effect from trickling into the
active world--met me at the door. "Wow, you look like hell," he said.

I handed him my jacket and collapsed onto a couch. "I've just spent
sixteen hours with my finger in the dyke," I said.

"Huh, I thought you hadn't done that since college. And sixteen hours at
your age? Impressive." The smirk in his voice was so clear I could almost
taste it.

I admit it, it took me a second. I can only plead abject exhaustion. When
it hit me I glared up at him. "Get your mind out of the gutter. And get me
something to drink."

Jamie's a smart boy usually; he certainly knows when to shut up and listen
to his elders. "You got it. What would you like?" I indicated my
exhausted, prone form on the couch and he nodded. "Right. Scotch older
than I am on the rocks. Be right back."

He returned moments later, bearing a lowball glass well-proportioned with
the Scottish Water of Life and ice, and a wineglass with a Neil Diamond
song in it.

I accepted my glass with as much of a salaam as I could achieve the way I
was lying, and then gestured at his glass. "You're still underage, what's
with the wine?"

"Well, Mom generally doesn't mind my taking a sip or two, if I'm with
family...so?" He gave me a pleading look.

I sighed. "Far be it from me to moralize on the evils of alcohol," I
mused. He grinned and held up his glass.

"To the demise of our enemies." Clink.

"How is everyone?" I asked. "I'll go and see your mother once I've
fortified myself."

"She's busy anyway," Jamie said. "She said you'd be coming by, I should be
kind and attentive and a good host, and she'd be down when she could.
She's dealing with the alien invasion."

"Oh," I said, and nodded. I wasn't too tired to forget the grand crash of
the Space Battle Universes MMO hard a few days prior, and Eva's request
that I quietly allow some cross-patching into SO. She was probably
figuring out how to best capitalize on the publicity and exposure. Maybe a
buyout. I hoped not. Jamie wasn't cleared for any of that, though, so I
didn't enlighten him. "In that case...I'm going to lie here until such
time as I can consider goals more long-reaching than my next sip of this,
so if you want to be a good host, engage me in some conversation. I can
handle that even when I'm passed out on the floor."

"So I'm told," he mused. "Well, not a whole lot new has been going on here
of late, really. I've been getting into a new fandom, which I'll show you
once you're mobile again."

I shook my head. "Don't tell me you actually came at it from the
perspective of 'I want a new fandom,' please. If you got into something,
talk about it first."

"Sorry," he said, though he didn't sound apologetic. "Anyway, I'll show
you later."

"Fine."

"Besides that...not a lot. I'm gearing up for Wands Across soon, you
know. The con circuit is good this year."

"Of course."

"You going to WA?"

"I haven't decided," I said. "I'm not sufficiently enmeshed in the
relevant mythos to go on those merits. I think I'll stick with the
general-purpose cons. Like the Big Show."

"Yeah, makes sense. Well, I'll have some fun for you."

"Not too much," I said archly, "I'm too young to be a grand-uncle."

He flushed a little, which I took as my own back for the "dyke" comment.
The wonders of modern private-school education had relieved the need to
give Jamie the birds-and-bees speech, thankfully--I had a nasty feeling
that task would have fallen to me--but it was still worth it to play
Vorkosigan--both Vorkosigans--and remind him of the subtler questions of
moral responsibility.

The conversation turned to lighter topics, and eventually I felt
sufficiently fortified to go look at Jamie's latest project.

He showed me to his room, and slipped into the bathroom for a moment while
I admired the collection of gears and cogs and clockwork whatzits. I
rolled my eyes even before he re-emerged, wearing a white lab coat and
flight goggles.

"You've gone steampunk," I said.

He smiled. "I found some great designs for steampunk-style monitors and
keyboards, and just had to try them. Since then I've just been
encountering more and more great stuff..."

"A while ago," I reminisced, "I put together a steampunk costume for a Ren
Faire."

He looked at me strangely. "What? There was steampunk in the Renaissance?"

I laughed. "Not exactly. I went as the Victorian time-traveller who
traveled back /to/ the Renaissance. Professor Hugo C. Potts, Huge
Crack-Pot to his detractors."

He chuckled politely, then gestured to his own computer--still modern, I
noticed. "Where'd you put the new monitors?"

"My condo," he replied proudly. I shook my head and let it go. "I was
wondering," he said, "if you could show me some of the better examples of
steampunk..."

I smiled. "Absolutely." I crossed to his computer and hit the web.

------

A few hours later, while Jamie was still absorbing the /Girl Genius/
archives--OK, so technically they're "gaslamp fantasy," I don't care--I
wandered back downstairs and ran into Eva. I kissed her hello and she made
noise about dinner, which I realized I hadn't eaten.

Over our food, she asked me about Jamie.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Look, to be perfectly honest, what you spoke with Judy and Nan about
isn't news to me. I realize that I was a large influence on Jamie and that
to say the least this isn't necessarily good."

"Nor is it necessarily bad," I felt obliged to point out. "You certainly
gave him a moral center."

"Nor is it necessarily bad," she agreed. "Still..."

"Yeah," I said.

"He looks up to you in a way he doesn't to his family. You're a mentor."

"Like it or not," I mused.

"Yes, I know. It's not the job you signed up for. That job you've been
doing fine on, by the way."

"Patches for the aliens still working properly?"

"Yeah, they'll do the trick, and no one realizes who set them up. Should
make the conversion easier and help to keep the brilliant mystique."

"If we weren't both committed to the mystique, you know, SO would have
collapsed. Scary thought."

"Yeah. But about Jamie..."

"Hm?"

"He's getting older, and encountering more and more freedom. I've tried to
help him, but I can't always. And..."

"I'll keep an eye on him," I promised, and she relaxed. "Looks like I'm
going to Wands Across after all..."

"Thanks."

About then Jamie burst in. "I thought you should know," he said, talking
to me and not to his mother. "There's something up with Mina."

I glanced at Eva, and saw her roll her eyes. Good. She was sticking to
what Judy had asked of us.

"What's up?" I asked.

"She said she's afraid for her life. Offline problems with Josh Amos."

That got my attention. I looked sideways at Eva and confirmed that she,
too, was in on that decision. No surprise, as Josh/Jen was a scholarship
kid. But I could see why Mina was worried, if she thought her roommate had
bad intent.

"Oh?"

"I told her she could crash at my condo--that's what it's there for, after
all, people to crash. But...I'm a bit worried."

"Keep an eye on things, then," I advised, "and if anything else troubles,
let me know and I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks," he said, and ran off.

I turned to Eva. "That was interesting."

"You don't know the half of it," she said.

"Oh, there's more?"

She nodded. "Call Judy and let her know...and then I need to tell you the
story of Razzberry Martini."