From Cassy's diary
We were assigned an important school project this week, so both Venus and I are studying even more than usual.
Venus: (amused) You weren't kidding when saying that your hair made your head itchy, you didn't resist even for two days!
Cassy: Well, people could this is a prehistoric sense of fashion, but I prefer this way, it's just so much more comfortable to me... Rather, have you already calculated the propulsion force of the rocket?
Venus: No, I'm still reading about the aerodynamics part.
We are really studying a lot. Propulsion physics, fuels chemistry, stellar coordinate astronomy... You may be wondering what we need all this stuff for, isn't it, my dear diary?
We need it to complete the project assigned to our class, of course!
Venus: The teacher wasn't joking when saying it was a wreck...
Cassy: At work, c'mon!
I, Venus, and our other schoolmates have been working to reassemble this wreck for weeks. If we want to get an A, we must at least be able to take off!
Venus: So cute, it looks so retrò!
Our parents always say that, back in their day, they didn't study these things at school. At most, they were asked to connect two potatoes to a light bulb to turn it on, or to look at sections of plants under a microscope. Here at Nuova Sixam, on the other hand, the school curricula have been completely changed to include the basic technological knowledge of the sixamians inventions.
And to understand the functioning of an old rocket was considered a preliminary exercise to the study of the functioning of spaceships, teleportation and the matter recomposer. Cool, isn't it?
Human schools sound so boring, in a school like this I’d be bored to death.
It is taking a long time to finish assembling all the electronics, fuel tanks and navigators on board, but we are moving forward quickly!
We can't all work together on the rocket, so we often take turns. In my breaks I often play chess with others, although they often complain that it is not so funny for them because I always want to win at all costs.
To be clear, I'm sure I would have won anyway...
Venus and I also play with the school basketball team, so we also need to find some time for training. Our team doesn't win very often, but in the end the whole team plays more for fun than for the cups. Even if winning from time to time wouldn't be bad!
Venus: Wow, good shot!
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From Luke's diary
I'm continuing to organize public readings of my books at the library once a week. The number of participants is always quite limited, but at least it seems to attract some new visitors by time to time.
Luke: Following the establishment of New Sixam, our country has decided to keep its borders open to all the other nations. However, on the other hand, our interlocutors have only shown interest in acquiring and purchasing our technologies, while maintaining the prohibition for us sixamians to ever set foot on their lands. This has led to a gradual cooling of our relations with foreign countries, to the point of reaching the situation of almost complete isolation we nowadays found ourselves in. Paradoxically, we can reach any point in the universe by setting its coordinates in a teleport machine, but we cannot visit a city on our own planet a few hundred kilometres away from us...
Venus: (whispering) How can others not understand he's the one who wrote those books, he's always reading them with such an emphasis!
Misty: (whispering) He prefers to do so, I don't see the point to upset him just for this...
The most problematic part of these public readings is the state of total disorder affecting the library at the end of each event, where did all this dust come from?
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TV: AHHH! He's turning into a ghost!
Venus: As if ghosts really existed, come on!
Misty: Rather, what's wrong with Taz? He has been growling alone for almost ten minutes at this point...
Venus: Ooookay, it's time to go for a walk, right?
Taz: (happy) wof!
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The months are passing, and winter is approaching. For once we got a small taste of the cold season even in here, this morning we saw a few snowflakes falling! That's probably the first time the girls see any snow at all, they were quite excited about it (and then quite disappointed, when they realised it wasn't going to stick to the ground).
Snow might be one of the things I miss the most about Windenburg, the winters were so beautiful up there...
But it was time for a new family party, it was Harvestfest time. This time I tried to prepare the traditional turkey by myself, even if I would not define the result as haute cuisine...
Traditions like this are also the ones that remind me most of my childhood. The turkey at Harvestfest, the exchange of gifts under the tree at Winterfest... In the end, the traditions that we all are fond of are the same as the ones of the surrounding countries. Although by now we call ourselves exclusively sixamians, above all we remain, unequivocally, earthlings in culture.
Lyra: Misty, are you sure you're okay?
Misty: apart from the spots, I'm not feeling that bad, don't worry.
Lyra: It won't be contagious, though?
Luke: We already got it as a child, you don't need to worry about it.
Nick: Rather, what happened to your little dog? I wanted to say hello to him too!
Luke: If I have to guess, he's probably in the garden causing some other trouble.
Luke: ... We really need to be patient with you, you know?
Taz: Wof?
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Misty, in the meanwhile, has received the order to continue investigating that crashed airplane not far from here. Many irregularities had emerged from the first records collected on that strange girl who was prowling the area, and Misty was assigned the task of further investigating to collect as much evidence as possible. Then, soon after, the rest of her team will break in, take the presents into custody and interrogate them with mind reading.
Misty: Uhm, let's see, the radio signal comes from... below me? Bah, how strange...
Under the airplane she had found an entire hidden bunker, leaving now very little doubt about the location of the foreign spies' hideout.
???: Hey Hello! Here again, I see!
Misty: I was jogging around the neighbourhood, this is a good shortcut, you know?
To be safe, Misty had also placed new microphones on all the fake soldiers she saw passing by. As she usually does, she wanted to do the best job she could.
But working hard is not always enough...
Misty: C'mon, two more recordings and then I can go to sleep!
Misty: So they're from SimCity, I see...
Working hard is important in any profession, but the environment of the army and secret services is particularly strict, they don't admit any mistake. And the phone call she received that evening proved it fully...
Misty: Good evening Captain.... What... Oh...
Luke: hey Misty, what happened?
Misty: (frustrated) those spies hidden under the airplane had placed microphones also on me, and in this way they were able to record what was being said in our headquarters and also pinpoint its position. Because of me, they collected a lot of information that had to be kept secret, and also about the plan we were making to break in and take them into custody. This way, they managed to run away with a lot of intel about us...
Luke: ...
Misty: Let's say my bosses weren't very impressed... As punishment they demoted me, I was reassigned to train the new recruits. What the heck...
There's not much I can say to console her, she feels guilty and humiliated for making a mistake she considers as silly.
Luke: It could have happened to anyone, I don't think you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. The most important thing is that you didn't get hurt, we were so worried about those assignments...
Misty: ... uhm.
She says she just needs some time to process the bad news, and that training new recruit wasn't such a bad job. However, I still suspect that for a few weeks the mannequin they use down at the training camp for hand-to-hand combat will have the face of one of those two spies hiding under the airplane...
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