Mary smiled at the Butler. "You know that's not the worst thing she's come up with since she left home. I swear that her talent for accessing technology led her to the wrong parts of the Data Net before she was ready, and her mind came out a bit warped. She's a good girl, but she's far too creative when it comes to punishment."

"You know, I'm standing right here, right?" Nico pointed out.

"Oh, yes, Darling. I just thought you needed another reminder since I'm not sure that Max remembers to do it on my behalf." Mary replied sweetly.

"Of course he does. He eliminates the fun option first every time, and then we pick from what's left over." Nico grumbled.

Most of the Family members had already heard the stories about her, but only a few of them had met the elusive younger daughter of Mary Tarith, and her appearance didn't match her reputation. Surely someone who was known to have taken a single team to end an entire hive city in a day should look or at least act like a fierce combat veteran.

Those who served in the more intense battles usually had a particular look to them by the time their service was over, and they were ready to join the Reavers. A hardened stare and a sense of presence indicated their experience. Max did, and most of the others here did, but Nico somehow managed to deceive their perception, and it made them wonder if it was a System Skill of hers.

If she could hide the cues that usually gave away a hardened killer, she would be the perfect spy or assassin, both of which were in high demand among the Reavers because that's what customers were always in need of. It was just a shame that she was already spoken for, as far as they were concerned.

The friendly banter between mother and daughter was interrupted by Nico setting off an alarm on her mother's wrist device that alerted her that dinner would begin sitting in ten minutes.

Mary glared at Nico as she read the message. "I am well aware of what time it is. I don't set alarms ten minutes before activities when I'm already there."

Max smirked at his partner as her diversion tactic failed, despite the number of times that it had worked on Max.

"I have no idea what you mean, mother. Are you implying that I could tamper with your secure wrist device and set the alarm for a random time?" Nico asked innocently while subtly changing her face to look younger and more distraught.

"It's a good thing that she was born as Mary's daughter. She would have run roughshod over the rest of us. Even though I know that it's a trick and that she's almost guaranteed to be lying, that look makes me want to just melt." One of the other women of Mary's generation stage whispered.

A short round of giggling followed. She had a point. Nico had mastered the puppy eyes to the extent that very few of them could withstand. But Mary was made of sterner stuff and had fallen for it enough times that she wasn't going to let her instincts get the best of her.

"You hear that change in the vocal tone and the soft buzzing that goes with it? That's the exact pattern and tone that the human mind is susceptible to. If I didn't have resistance, her pleading attack would have made me think that her subliminal suggestion was my own thought.

For your own sake, I would suggest not arguing with my daughter. I don't know how Max deals with it." Mary informed the crowd before Nico pranked them as well.

"He's so logical and boring that he just totally ignores invasive thoughts most of the time. As I said, he always eliminates the fun options first." Nico pouted.

"It's not that. I can read your mind. I can't tell which is your attempt to implant a subliminal message and which is your thinking about the attempt because I hear them at the same time." Max laughed.

"No wonder those two never lose a battle. One can read all your communications, and the other can read your mind before you send them. It's got to be a bit like bullying the blind when they get into a fight." Someone laughed in the background.

"Or beating up the handicapped."

Max laughed at that. "Actually, it's the opposite of that. The dumb ones don't plan anything in advance, they just go on instinct, so you don't get any advance warning of what they're about to do until they're doing it, at which point a simple sensory optimization during your early System Advancements would have made you able to detect it.

"You hear that, Jason. You're in luck. You stand a better chance than anyone of winning a fight." Someone yelled out.

"What was that? You think you can beat me in a fight?" Jason yelled back, and the Family members near Max all began to laugh.

historical

A bigger, dark-haired Tarith man came stomping over. "What's all that? You looking for a fight again, little brother?"

"No, I found you the perfect opponent. The dumber you are, the harder it is for him to fight against you, so you've got the best chance of anyone here." The man who shouted snapped back.

It was just about to come to blows when the ring of metal on metal drew everyone's attention. A servant was banging a metal stick against a steel triangle on the porch, alerting them that dinner was about to come out.

Nico looked at her mother with a smile. "See, I told you it was coming out soon."

"That wasn't ten minutes. Did you even check the timers in the kitchen first?" Mary countered.

"No, I figured I would be close enough by guessing, but the point was never for the alarm to be accurate." Nico countered, fully aware that you couldn't lie to her mother any more easily than you could trick her.

"Come take your seats. You're right next to me, and Max is beside you. I just need to make sure my husband doesn't run away again. He seems to think that just a few more children are being unreasonable. It's not like he's got any problem practicing making them." Mary sighed.

Once they were all seated and the plates were brought out, the conversation turned to more business sorts of matters that every Company was facing, most of them due to the rapid demand for expansion now that they had so many new customers.

"To think that the Black Market could be so short on proper delivery ships. The Death Wind Territory didn't even have it that bad before they joined the Trade Group. Seriously, I was at a customer this week who really thought that bribing officials was the only way to break a blockade." The man across from Max was laughing.

"Aye, that was a fun run." The man on his left agreed, then the first man elaborated for the rest of the table.

"We both picked up from this customer, but one of the deliveries was blockaded by a business rival who had tied them up with the regional government, so I had the ships of my fleet open a small portal, then came up on it at maximum orbital entry velocity, and deployed the cargo out of the bottom cargo hatch with a delivery drone.

By the time the blockade team even had time to realize that something had happened, I had closed the portal and was long gone from the spot where we opened it, and the cargo was at full retro thruster headed for the recipient's cargo bay.

They never did figure out what happened. All they could tell was that a portal was opened, but there was no power signature because the retro thrusters are fuel burn thrusters, not an energy drive." The man laughed.

That was genius. Max had expected that they would have a way to detect and prevent that, but a few seconds wasn't enough to get to a portal location, and the Alliance had a huge blind spot for low tech solutions, so simply strapping a chemical or nuclear rocket to a box and hurling it at the planet would totally evade everything but their object detection radar.