Work Text:
Evelyn heard the footsteps first, and then she felt the small arms thrown around her waist and the small face pressed into her shoulder.
"I want to go." Elliott grumbled.
She'd had this argument three times, and lost every one.
"Isaac won't pack you in his bag?" she asked, hoping to draw a smile, however bittersweet.
"Didn't get to ask." he mumbled.
In a twisted, logical way, she understood why Isaac left without telling them. Her sons were all answering the same call - marching off to the Frontier War, one by one, biting back tears as they boarded the transport. Elliott always ran for the ship as the doors closed. If not for his age, he might have joined them already.
Evelyn Witt looked at her workbench, and held Elliott close.
"What if I told you I had an idea?" she asked.
Elliott sniffed and turned his head.
"Make me a fake ID?"
"Better - be my lab tech. Help me keep those brothers of yours alive."
---
The morning of Elliott’s eighteenth’s birthday crept up on her. Evelyn woke to the slam of the front door and prepared herself for every possibility - bad news, good news, everything in between. They rattled around in her head with each step she took downstairs.
He’d sworn, once, a year after they began developing the Holo-Pilot technology together, that he wasn’t leaving. Not ever. Not even if they asked. But some days… days when a new project frustrated him, when his brothers were slow to send news, on those days it seemed like his age was the only thing keeping him home. Who knew how he’d really answer the call of the war.
A thud. A curse.
Evelyn froze at the bottom of the stairs, peering into the gloom of the hallway, illuminated only by the light that spilled through the slightly ajar kitchen door. Something rolled out - a small can - and Elliott burst out after it, trapping the can underneath his foot as he clutched an over-full bag of groceries to his chest. Quiet, but too late.
Elliott blinked, and grinned, conspicuously drawing out his words as he tried to kick the can back into the kitchen behind him.
“Heeey. Mom- could you get the lights? Thanks. All this stuff? Oh you know, went for a walk, had a genius idea, the usual. Never thought I’d out-invent you, right? I was thinking, we shake it up today. You take it easy, and I make you my famous mac and cheese.”
Evelyn cupped her jaw, a mirror of his smile bursting onto her face.
“On your birthday?” she asked. Elliott shrugged his shoulders dramatically, nearly dislodging a box of macaroni from its precarious position in the bag. “I promised I’d make today about you.”
“Okay, but get this - you can! When you try it, all you’ve got to do is tell me it’s the best mac and cheese in the galaxy.”
---
The smell of the galaxy's best mac and cheese drifted into the lab long before Elliott did, holding two full mugs of it.
"We gotta talk about the bowl situation, right here, in this house." he declared, placing Evelyn's mug - well-used, well-loved - just out of reach of her workbench. She sighed, fondly, and stepped away from her work. It was part of the deal, the agreement he invoked more and more often; first he made it a monthly thing, to celebrate his bar-tending paycheck or an especially generous tip. Now, more nights than not, he would finish work and head straight for the kitchen, making her promise that she'd take a break for dinner. Then he'd talk her into taking the rest of the night off. Even an expert in his tactics couldn't refuse.
"What about the bowls I washed up this morning?” Evelyn asked,"Too ugly for mac and cheese?" they both knew the ones she meant. The mismatched set came to them from distant relatives she never got around to calling back. They were printed with an unfortunate, indescribable pattern. Probably a manufacturing error. Evelyn adored them.
Elliott flinched.
"This morning, huh? You sure you-" he caught himself. "Yeah, yeah, gotta respect the food, you know? Didn't even see- didn't even look at them. You know what? We're serving everything in mugs now. Why? Handles. Don’t have to burn these to bring you some hot mac." he waggled his fingers at her. “Who needs gloves?”
"Is your cooking process that dangerous?" she asked with a chuckle, eyeing his apron. Elliott glanced down at himself, and sniffed. What counted as the bar's uniform was a thick, mottled apron, heavy with alcohol fumes. “Left the bar in a hurry?”
He set his mug down, and launched into his pitch.
"So I was working hard - employee of the month, six year streak, no big deal - and the whole place is staring at the TV. Nobody’s talking, nobody’s tipping, I just got upstaged by the Apex Games.”
“Those tasteless brawls I never should have let your brothers watch?” she winced at the memory. “I thought they were cancelled when they got boring and moved off-planet?”
“Well get this - they’re back on Solace. The new competitors they got? They’ve got pilot tech, it’s crazy-” he leaned in, lowering his voice with a smirk. “I think we’ve finally got some competition.”
“Finally. What’s the plan?”
“We study.” Elliott pulled a disc from his apron pocket. “Word is, season 86 is where it really gets good.”
She grinned. Even an expert in his tactics couldn’t refuse.
---
Elliott rolled his shoulders, adjusting his balance to account for the Holo-Rig strapped to him like a backpack. Makeshift, but it looked better than most of the things they welded together in the lab, all controlled by sensors wired into his glove. With just a click of his fingers, he activated the suit.
Holo-equipment was never exactly light, not in this part of the Frontier, where the latest technology could only be found on the black market. He’d grown up with rigs as large as cars, loud and power-guzzling for the sake of a single, robotic avatar. Portability was a novel development on its own, but who else but Evelyn Witt could pull it off with nothing but spare parts and the family brains?
He looked down at his hands as the rig thrummed, the warm note running up and down his spine and to the tips of his fingers, crackling across his palms.
The hologram appeared in front of him.
They didn't generally do that - appearing. Holograms sputtered and buffered and screeched before they resembled anything you wanted them to. Even then, the details - the faces, the hands, the eyes - were never quite right.
Not this one.
Faced with an exact - if slightly blue - mirror image of himself, Elliott reached up to fix a loose curl, and all but jumped when the hologram did too. He peered at the faintest freckles, touched his jaw and watched his copy do the same, pulled his goggles off and shook his head and saw every strand of hair bounce into the same ruffled array.
The effect was uncomfortably familiar, like a study of him, fluid and natural and nearly convincing. Especially at a glance - all he’d need, in the heat of battle.
He thought about the games and his upcoming debut match. His stomach churned. The prize money would be life-changing, not just for him. Landing a slot in the roster of competitors should have been impossible to keep to himself, but explaining to his mom where he’d really been when he was working ‘overtime’? Maybe he’d wait for it to come on the news, act like he meant to surprise her all along...
"How-" he glanced back and forth between the hologram and his mother, watching intently. She seemed less interested in the composition or abilities of her invention, just the joy in her son's expression. “Mom, you did all this?”
Her smile was more than worth it.
She hopped to her feet and joined him in the cleared space in the middle of the lab.
“I thought it could help you out at work - I know, I know, but when I thought about letting you go out there, with that old rig…”
Holo-Elliott leaned in to peer at something just beyond Elliott himself, and reached up to fix a loose curl.
“Mom.” he said. “We’re still talking about the bar, right?”
“The promoters called, they wanted a quote for the poster. You know, from your mom.” she looked briefly apologetic, and raised her arms for a hug. “What do you think?”
He met her halfway, laughing.
“First thing I do when I win, I’m getting you on that poster too - no, I’m getting you your own poster. I owe you. I mean it. You just made me a champion. You’re gonna be so proud.”
“I’m proud already.”
“I mean it, mom.”
“Me too.”