It didn't take Aaron long to find the room he had been
directed to; the building was very well-signposted. Before long he was stood
before a door with "UNIFORM DESIGN DEPARTMENT" printed on a sign
above it. Unsure for a moment whether to knock, he eventually decided to just
head straight inside.
Opening the door, Aaron found himself confronted with
what could only be described as organized chaos. The room was extremely
cluttered, with all kinds of desks strewn about the floor, and all kinds of
papers strewn about the desks. The walls were covered with papers as well, and
there were even a few scattered around the floor. it was a little overwhelming,
and Aaron's immediate thought was to wonder how on earth whoever worked here
could possibly find anything.
Amidst all the chaos, it took Aaron a moment to locate
the person he was here to see. Stood before one of the desks, shuffling a set
of papers around seemingly at random, was a girl with long mousey-brown hair,
wearing a blue tie-dyed shirt and jeans. She didn't seem to have noticed his
presence. "Uhh… excuse me," said Aaron.
The girl jumped, a sheet of paper flying off the desk and
fluttering to the ground. Turning around, she put her hand to her heart and
breathed a sigh of relief. "God, you scared the living daylights out of
me," she remarked. Aaron noted her distinct English accent. "Sorry, I
didn't hear you come in. Er, you must be Aaron Price, right? The new guy?"
"Yeah, that's me," said Aaron.
"Hang on a minute…" The girl picked up her
fallen paper, laid it back out on the desk, and after a moment's pause, shuffled
a few more papers around, before muttering, "No, that still doesn’t look
right," and giving up, making her way towards Aaron. "Sorry about
that, I've got some stuff I'm working on." She extended a pale hand
towards him. "Alice Summerbell. Pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise," said Aaron, shaking her hand. Her
grip was surprisingly firm. "So, uhh, you're going to be designing my
costume, or something…?"
"Ah, yes," said Alice, clapping her hands
together and nodding. "That’s my job." She headed off towards another
desk, searching amidst the papers for something. "Gone are the days when
superheroes would sit in their basements and stitch their own outfits out of
spandex and old tights; now they're made of cutting-edge technology and design philosophy.
I'm the one who does that last bit. Ah, there you are." She had finally found
what she was looking for, a self-retracting tape measure, and retrieved it from
underneath the mess of papers, turning back to Aaron. "Okay, let's get
started."
Heading back over to him, Alice began taking various
measurements of Aaron, starting with his height. "I'd better ask you a few
questions," she said, "just to get an idea of what would work best.
Your power is electricity, right?"
"Electricity and electromagnetism," said Aaron.
"Well, I can't really work with electromagnetism, I
can't really design around that, so electricity will have to do," said
Alice. "Can you fly?"
"Nope," said Aaron. "Oh, actually, that
reminds me, Martin said I'd be getting a car. Are you going to-"
"You won't be getting a car," Alice
interrupted. "You won't be needing one. Trust me, we'll take care of
that."
"Then what will I be getting?" asked Aaron.
"I can't just walk around the city, and Martin said-"
"Jetpack," said Alice. "Or… some kind of
jet. Something that can make you fly. You can power things just by touching
them, right?"
"I can," said Aaron.
"Then some kind of electrically-powered jetpack or something,
that runs off your natural electricity, and that you can control just by
thinking about it," said Alice, thinking out loud. "I'll have to
think about the implementation, and of course, discuss it with the techie
people, the ones who'll actually be making it. Maybe jet boots, like Iron Man. Maybe."
She shrugged and continued taking her measurements.
"So I'm gonna be able to fly?" asked Aaron.
"Wow, that's pretty cool!"
"Well, that's the theory," said Alice.
"Like I said, I'll have to discuss it with the techie people, and if they
can't pull it off, then… but I imagine they can, I mean, that's their job, and
they do all kinds of amazing stuff for other supers, so there's no reason they
can't do it for you…" Her tape measure suddenly snapped back into its
housing. "Alright, that should be everything. Now to start sketching out a
design."
Alice crossed over to a large desk pushed up against the
wall and retrieved a large A1 sheet of paper, which she pinned to the wall with
drawing pins, humming quietly to herself as she did so. Aaron wondered if her
constant talking was her way of coping with working on her own. He expected her
to pick up a pencil, but instead, she merely touched a finger to the paper.
Inky lines suddenly blossomed from where her fingertips touched the blank
sheet, sketching their way effortlessly across the page. Aaron was astounded by
this, and moved closer to the paper, transfixed, as the lines slowly converged
into a perfect outline of his own body.
"Pretty cool, huh?" said Alice, noticing the
expression on his face. "I can project my thoughts onto paper. Words,
drawings… quite literally anything I can think of. Of course, it's not very
useful in the field, which is why I'm only a Tier 2, but when it comes to doing
graphic design, it's invaluable. Saves me a lot of money on pencils and ink as
well. Anyway, let's get started on the design… first, the colour. With
lightning, there are only two roads you can go down colour-wise; there's
electric blue, and there's bright yellow." Little scribbles of each colour
appeared on the page as she said this.
"Now, electric blue is a nice colour, a calming
colour, it says, "everything's gonna be okay"," Alice continued.
"Since you'll be flying, however, you'll end up blending into the sky, and
that's not good; you want to be a visible presence, you want the public to know
that you're there, flying above them, keeping you safe. Yellow is a good colour
for that: it's high-visibility, it stands out. It says "caution: danger
ahead", but it also says, "sunshine, happiness, optimism". So I'm thinking, maybe, your suit will be
mostly yellow but with electric blue patterns on it. Obviously some kind of
lightning-bolt motif, as you can't not have lightning bolts…"
As she spoke, the drawing beneath her finger continued to
change and evolve. It turned bright yellow, then two blue lightning bolts appeared
on the front. These then disappeared, replaced by jagged blue markings on the
figure's arms and legs. A pair of slightly chunky boots appeared on its feet,
with surprisingly realistic flames spouting from the bottom: Alice's concept
for the jet boots.
"Uhh…" Alice paused suddenly, for possibly the
first time since Aaron had arrived, thinking. She then seemed to remember that
Aaron was still there, for she suddenly turned to him and said, "You don't
have to be here for this, you know. I've gotten everything I'll need from you
to make the first draft, or I should do, anyway; now it's just the boring
stuff."
"Nah, I'd like to stay," said Aaron. "It's
actually quite fascinating to watch you work."
Alice seemed a little taken aback by this. "It
is?" she said. "Well… if you say so." She shrugged, and returned
her attention to her design. "Right, you'll need a mask as well… that's a
tricky one. If you hide too much of your face, people will think you're
untrustworthy. If you don’t hide enough of your face, people will guess your secret
identity. It's a difficult balancing act. "Hmm…"
Another sketch began to shape itself on the paper, this
time a close-up of Aaron's face, adorned with a simple domino mask. The mask
turned yellow, then black, then two yellow lightning bolts were affixed to the
ends, running down Aaron's cheeks. The bolts turned blue, then yellow again, as
Alice deliberated. "What do you think looks best?"
"Uhh… I dunno," said Aaron. "You're the
designer."
"And you're the one who's gonna be wearing it,"
said Alice. "I could design something that I think is the best outfit
ever, and then show it to you and you'd be like, "Nah, I don't like
it". So I wanna make sure you like it as well."
"Fair enough," said Aaron. "Maybe… make
the whole mask blue? But maybe a darker blue? Like, navy blue?"
"Like this?" asked Alice, and the mask swiftly
turned dark blue.
"Yeah, like that," said Aaron. "That looks
okay."
"Alright then," said Alice. "Now, let's
think about how it'll look from the back…"
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