Duke was enjoying himself playing a new game, "Progeny". He had managed to talk his Mum into letting his subscribe, selling the points that he was now earning his own money, and that the subscription covered multiple games. Rowena had finally agreed, on the condition that in his efforts to "get his moneys' worth" didn't interfere with his education or his ability to do his job.
Although he hadn't had a lot of time to play since it came out, Duke was having fun experimenting with breeding different units. Perhaps because he was a hybrid himself, testing what traits came out in these hybrids facsinated him. He did wish, though, that real life cross-breeding was as straightforward as it was here. 5% of the time there were defects (although this percentage could be modified through research, treatment of the parents, and genetic heritage of the parents), but otherwise a 50-50 Moar/Slugang hybrid got you the exact same abilities.
Unlike in real life, where some human/dathrians had powers and others didn't.
Duke had to admit, he always had kinda envied Miette and Oliver for having powers, although he had a healthy enough fear of his father to avoid making those feelings known.
He was just building a recreation centre for his units (good way to avoid rebellion), when the assistant director pulled up a seat and sat down next to him.
"Good game?"
"Great!" Duke said enthusiastically. "It's called 'Progeny' and you have to breed your units, instead of building them. Which, when you think about it is much more logical than games where you have to build them, because you don't build people, you breed them. But then some games use the word 'train' for units, so... that makes sense too. And you can cross breed them. Crossbreeding is fun."
"Uh huh. Listen, I want to talk to you for a bit."
"Fire away," Duke said, turning his attention away from the screen.
"You've been spending a lot of time playing games."
"I know, but I haven't been neglecting work. And there's no school at the moment either."
"Well, I know I haven't spent every waking hour with you, but you did recieve a new script this morning, and I haven't even seen you glance at it."
"Oh, I've read it," Duke replied. "Don't worry, I know all my lines."
"Already?" the assistant director raised his eyebrow.
"Yep. I even know the lines from scenes I'm not even in. Ask me anything. I can recite any scene for you without a mistake," Duke challenged.
"Really? Huh. Okay, what about, scene 5 from... 'Red Wire'?"
Duke cleared his throat and began to produce the scene from memory. He even opted to say the lines as if he was performing them, rather than a straight recital. Halfway through, the assistant director held up his hand.
"Okay, I'm convinced," he said. "Photographic memory?"
"Sort of," Duke replied. "I wasn't born with it. It was something I just trained myself to do over the years."
"Huh. Well, try not to show off okay? I don't really think that learning everyone's lines is really neccesary. And you may want to spend sometime with your co-workers occasionally, practicing and getting to know them."
"Yeah, I will," Duke promised.