by Kurt Johnson
Mieant stared thoughtfully at the experian’s lights just a few kids away from us. “My parents said they were coming to talk to the principal about the guards’ attack on me and Cri’s role in helping me escape. And”—he waved generally to the crowd, the security, the hovering police cruisers—“apparently other things as well.”
“Didn’t you talk to them this morning, before school?” Cri asked, turning her gaze from me to him.
“We vidded last night.” He shrugged at the normality of it, “They were out of town.”
“Oh,” Cri said, thinking. She smiled and grabbed his arm, “Wouldn’t that be nova if it were your parents? I’ll be the first Ceridian Ascendant to meet the Quadrant Governors!”
“Cri!” Panic rose from my belly. I was sure one of the cruisers was tracking me. I pulled Cri’s other arm, hard. “What the nova? We’re supposed to be in school. And make it through the day. Only that!”
She spun, grabbed me under my arms and around my ribs—which hurt—and picked me up so I was eye level with her. I wasn’t prepared for her fury. Her eyes blazed.
“YOU,” she said through clenched teeth, “SHUT UP, and do what I SAY for a change!” My teeth rattled as she shook me with each word. She’d never done this before. “Not everything is about you! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? SISTER!” she yelled. Now other kids were staring. I flushed with embarrassment.
“Cri…,” I started.
“SHUT UP!” With that, she threw me backward. I didn’t fall completely but stumbled through the crowd, bumping kids as I windmilled to keep my balance.
And stumbled into the news crew’s lights!
“This is Nyla Jax, independent GNN news investigator, here covering the Quadrant Governors’ major policy statement this morning. The Quadrant Four Co-Governors have chosen the Blue River Educational Facility to make their…OOOOF!”
I lurched into the petite, silver-haired Glean. The center of my back connected with her stomach, and the vid drones captured a tangle of Human and Glean tumbling to the ground. I squinted against the lights, arched my back, and pulled a round tube, wide as my fist and as long as my forearm, out from underneath me.
Turning my head, I faced Nyla’s golden eyes. Her mouth was pursed into an “O.” Her surprised expression fled like my dignity, and she snatched the thing I’d been holding, which turned out to be her experian controller and voice recorder. “I’ll take that. Ar.” She shifted. “Oh.”
I pulled my arm out from under her leg and she lifted me off of her stomach. I grunted as we accidentally elbowed each other.
Finally untangled, Nyla stood, straightened out her pantsuit and then her hair, and fixed me with a stare somewhere between curiosity and “stay the great gravity wells away from me.” Then she turned to—I swear—the largest Glean I’ve ever seen. Dressed in leather crisscrossed by thick belts studded with pockets, this giant looked the part of an old-fashioned fantasy monster. He was holding a camera that was likely as big as I was, but against his hulk, it looked like a ridiculous toy.
“She’s the tiny one…Nyla,” the Glean said, regarding me through a pinched thumb and forefinger from where he towered, practically a kilometer above me.
Nyla’s eyes widened as she took me in and jabbed a finger toward his camera. The mountain called Nolan looked at the blinking green light on his recorder and muttered something to the device. Whatever he’d said turned it off. Vid drones ceased hovering around us and retreated to their charging station.
“NOVA. You’re the Human! What’s your name? Where’s your synth?” she asked me as she pushed a card into my hand. “I tried transferring my contact information to you and you don’t seem to have one.” She frowned. “No matter. That’s my card.”
“I…” I stuttered, standing and dusting myself off. She folded my fingers around her plasti-paper card and took a step back. Kids had cleared a ring about two meters around us. My friends hovered at the perimeter, wearing worried expressions; well, all except for my Sis’. Cri glared at me, because somehow this random collision with the GNN reporter was supposed to be her interview. WELL, MAYBE SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE THROWN ME AT THE REPORTER. I seethed at the violation, the break in trust, the….
“C’mon, don’t be shy,” Nyla encouraged me. I blinked, looking at her anew.
“Her name’s Raystar, Ms. Jax. I’m her sister,” Cri called out, worming through the ring of students. Nyla turned to Cri and then back to me.
“Raystaaaaar?” Nyla prompted me with a small wave of her hands, expecting more.
“Ceridian. Raystar Ceridian. She’s my adopted sister,” Cri said, standing a little in front of me.
“Fascinating. An adopted Human,” Nyla said, her pretty face crinkling into a slight frown. “Nice to meet you, Raystar,” she added, reaching out a hand in greeting. Cri intercepted and shook it, prompting the GNN reporter to raise an eyebrow.
“I’m Cri. Cri Ceridian, Ascendant of the Gathering,” Cri said, gazing into Nyla’s eyes. The reporter’s expression shifted, as if she saw something in my sister’s gaze she wasn’t comfortable with. But Nyla’s hesitation shattered as she realized what my sister had said.
“Novas and gravity wells! Nolan!” The petite reporter clapped and looked up at her giant coworker and then back to each of us, like she’d just found a large pile of unclaimed money. “Well, Cri Ceridian, Ascendant, we at GNN were not aware that Nem’ was home to this level of nobility. Unless you go to offworld schools?” Nyla paused, “Wait, that can’t—because the Human, er, Raystar, goes to school here.” She frowned at us as she made connections. Suddenly, Cri was an attention-grabbing, overexaggerating teenager instead of a breaking story.
I edged away while Cri beamed at the attention. “We live on a farm about twenty kilometers outside of Blue River. We go to school here.”
“A farm.” Nyla’s expression shifted to blank. We were no longer a pile of money. “Well, Cri, we, uh, must be off. Today is a busy day, but I’ll be sure to interview you when I come back for a piece I’m doing on the school attacks,” Nyla said.
She thought Cri was lying. I looked at Cri, who had a completely happy, twisted grin on her face. Nyla’s disbelief was fine by me, though; I continued to edge away from the two of them. The fewer people who knew about us, the better. And if Cri didn’t notice Nyla’s disinterest and thought she’d secured a future interview, well, that was fine by me, too. Today wasn’t a publicity stunt. It was a day to survive, and then escape.
Anyway. I was boiling over at what Cri had done to me, and these assessments were struggling to find a place in the storm of my anger. Cri and I were going to have words.
Nyla moved off toward the center of the crowd. Waves of kids and security guards parted in front of Nolan like meteors being parted by a juggernaut’s gravity-bow wave.
“Was that wise?” Mieant asked me as we waded through the sea of kids. Nonch arched his head over Mieant’s shoulder to hear my response.
“NO!” I yelled, turning to both of them. “Wise? You don’t have anything to say about Cri throwing me?” I turned from them to stomp off into the crowd and bumped into Cri. She was in her own world, no doubt daydreaming about her interview, when I collided with her.
She had humiliated me. MY SISTER. In front of all my classmates. It wasn’t enough that I was already picked on, that I was already smaller than everyone else, that I was the only one of my kind in this school.
But to have my own family turn against me, publicly? I snapped.
She had been about to say something to me. My open-handed shove caught her in the chest while my left foot hooked behind her right ankle. I followed her down, landing my knees on her chest hard enough to knock the wind out of her. I pushed my elbow on her throat with my weight and cocked my fist above her face.
Cri had as much training as I did. She was stronger and had four arms. I couldn’t take her in a fair fight. Yet. I was fast, and lately, I had become stronger, and life wasn’t fair. She moved her arms and made to buck me off, but
I leaned my weight on my elbow as I touched my forehead to hers. I stared into her eyes and snarled, “Do you understand me? Sister?”
Frustration from the past week was coursing through my veins, making me tremble. It was whirling around inside, boiling up and threatening to spill out, all while overwhelming my sense of control. Cri’s eyes widened as she looked from my face to my fist.
Sharp hooks pulled both of my shoulders back, gently. Nonch.
“Peace, Raystar,” he said. “Peace.”
I rose from Cri. She jumped to her feet as she rubbed her throat. Mieant was at her side, speaking in rapid, low tones and ready to hold her off me. Nonch moved me farther from Cri.
“What were you thinking, Cri?” I shouted at her, shaking.
She coughed. I could see tears welling up. “This whole thing is about you, Raystar! Raystar’s small. She’s so smart. Mom’s always like, ‘Raystar’s so alone!’ Raystar needs to be protected! Dad’s not taking ME ON WALKS AT NIGHT. WHAT ABOUT ME??!!” She yelled the last part, leaning forward and slapping her chest for emphasis. Mieant caught her shoulders, and she let him pull her back while she glared at me with burning, wet eyes.
“What?” I said, dropping my arms to my side, staring at her. “Mom and Dad love you! I AM the adopted one! And not a day goes by, Cri, when I’m not trying to fit in. NOT A DAY! Each morning I see”—I waved my hands at the crowd—“that I’m not one of them. I don’t want to be the alien!” My eyes were getting moist now.
“You’re ruining my life,” she half-sobbed, her gaze revealing the admission’s surprise to herself. Mieant put his arm around her, and she leaned into him.
Her words stabbed the belief that had kept me whole. That I had a family. That I belonged.
“We’ll catch up to you,” Mieant said to Nonch as they walked away into the crowd. He turned, talking softly to her.
I was drained, exhausted. A random backpack hit my shoulder, knocking me off balance and into Nonch.
“You are salting, Raystar,” Nonch said. I leaned into him.
I closed my eyes hard, took a deep breath, and opened them. Stay cool. Right. I let my breath out and became aware of something crumpled in the fist I was wiping my eyes with.
Nyla’s card.
Nonch’s arm claws shielded me from the buffeting kids as I uncrumpled the card and memorized her information.
Nyla and I would talk again.
30
“Enemies? Friends? How can we tell the difference except over time?” Nonch said as I stuffed Nyla’s card in my pocket. I squinted up at him.
“If enemies are friendly for a short time, are they our friends for that time?”
Security had herded the students into a U-shaped formation around the Blue River Educational Facility’s doors, with the open end pointed at the doors. We were a churning mass of different sizes, shapes, and colors. Thunder boomed in the distance, from the Mesas…the Storm Wall. I felt the vibrations in my belly and in the soles of my feet as the rumble moved across the sky. The Facility, an upside-down, octagonal pyramid, was lit from underneath. The lights flicked on, giving the appearance of a ship landing in the night. Technically, it would have been landing on kids in the night, but it still looked like a ship landing.
If we were going to see anything, we needed to move forward. I looked around at the very active plasma turrets on the force fences.
I didn’t want to see anything. Leaving immediately sounded great. Still, if we were not going to do that, we should definitely understand what in the GREAT GRAVITY WELLS was going on here. I grabbed Nonch’s arm claw and pulled him with me, and he followed with the same sensation as when you pull something heavy with wheels. It takes a bit to get it started.
“And if a friend is friendly for a long time,” Nonch continued, “and then becomes an enemy, is she only then the enemy, or has she been a hidden enemy all along?”
“Shells, seriously. My head hurts.” I could feel the pressure of the storm. The familiar ache. The fight, or argument, or whatever, with Cri would have given me a headache anyway, even under non-Storm-Wall circumstances.
Nonch spoke again. “How do we ever know, except through each encounter, measured moment by moment?”
“Moment by mom…wha?” I looked back at him. His orange primary eyes were more iridescent than normal, and his sensor stalks fanned out. He always looked like that when he was really into a thought.
“When we first met, I was directed to be your enemy.”
I snorted, turned my back on him, and resumed pushing my way through the students. We were five when we’d first met. “You should have told me then.”
“There would be no way I could have told you when we met. It would have defeated whatever plans I—ah. Sarcasm. I am ignoring your comment. At that time, Broodmother indicated that Humans were deadly. To be feared above all others. That Humans’ size and apparent weakness were deceiving.”
“Right,” I said, but I was thinking about AI. I’d sure acted like his enemy. How had he treated me?
“Even to those unfriendly to you, Raystar, you show kindness, restraint. It is not true the other way around. I have witnessed others be horrible to you, because you are a Human.”
My eyes unexpectedly burned. They had been horrible to me. “Please, Shells, enough with whatever you’re doing,” I struggled for words. “I’m living my life. I know people don’t like me, so, uh, what’s your point?”
“Raystar,” Nonch said, then stopped. I jerked to a halt and faced him. I didn’t need to analyze my feelings, didn’t need to open up holes in my life and let the fears inside out. I was confronting enough of the world outside of my head. Then he continued. “If people are friends and enemies at the start, because that is what they are, and only time is the revealer, I fear that we are in a time of revelations.”
That wasn’t ominous or anything. He leaned into me, and I blinked as I imagined the last view his prey saw. But he touched my head with his two sensor stalks and said, “I have been your friend since the start. You have been mine. I will stand by you. Remember.”
Nova. I swallowed.
“Something is going to happen with my people,” he said simply. I stopped the other thoughts in my head, the thoughts of Godwill, of the autocannons, of my sister’s pettiness, and faced him fully with my mind. And listened.
“Nonch?”
“Broodmother has hinted about something and told me about other things. That we should not be slaves to the Galactics.”
“Shells,” I whispered, leaning close to his midnight-blue, armored head and resting my hands on either side of his mandibles. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I fear, Raystar,” he said back. “And I do not want to be part of it. Do you remember my favor?”
I swallowed and gave him a slow micronod.
“Take me with you. I know you are planning on leaving Nem’. It is the only option to you. I do not want to fight. I do not want to be part of an uprising. I am Broodmother’s heir. Central to her plans. She will make me into a warrior, and I will not do what she requires.”
“Raystar! Nonch!” Mieant’s familiar voice called through the cacophony of students.
Nonch gently wrapped his feathery sensor stalks around my head and whispered, “This is your promise. This is my request.” And then he let me go and thrummed back a meter, giving any who would care to see us the appearance that we were having a normal conversation.
“There you two are! My parents are just through that crowd,” Mieant called out. He and my sister were weaving their way toward us. He waved a hand toward a denser part of the crowd, and he and Cri were clearly walking together as a couple. His arm was around her waist. He glanced at Nonch and me and said, “What were you two talking about? It looked serious.”
My eyes grew wide, and then I frowned at them both. “Not as serious as that.” I pointed at their embrace and turned my hands upside down in a “what the nova?” shrug. No way was I sharing Nonch’s conversation wi
th anyone. Mieant returned my frown and Cri glared at me.
Nonch stared at them a millisecond longer and then rose to his full, nearly three-meter height. His hindmost sections supported him. He looked like a giant, deadly, midnight-blue caterpillar reaching for a leaf as he peered in the direction Mieant was pointing.
“They are indeed here,” Nonch said, his words breaking us out of our four-way staring contest. He extended a blade claw toward the thickest portion of the crowd. Mieant and several security guards followed his gesture, thinking he was perhaps pointing out the Quadrant Governors in a menacing way. They started pushing their way toward us.
“You have to meet them!” Mieant shouted over the noise and sprinted in the direction Nonch had pointed, pulling Cri with him. The bombshell Nonch had dropped on me had disconnected my brain from my legs, and I stood there, staring at my deadly, centipedish friend who had just entrusted me with his life. The Crynits were going to do something. He was a part of it, but he wanted out. I was the out. Somehow, my thirteen-year-old self was an antigravity well that excluded things like playing, cupcakes, and birthday parties and only attracted craxy Jurisdictors and freedom-loving Crynits.
He was my friend. I had flushed my other friend down a toilet.
I’d promised Nonch.
Soft feathers with the density of a good pillow bapped me on the side of the head, gently but effectively breaking me out of my freakout-to-be. I blinked as Nonch regarded me, tilting his head to one side, while pulling his sensor stalk back for another bap, if I needed it.
“We should follow them,” he said. “We will talk more at a different time.”
I nodded.
“We should follow them, with haste,” he said again.
I nodded again. My body was nearly left behind as Nonch jerked my arm in pursuit of Mieant. We wove our way through the children. Our sprint caught the attention of school security, and they gave chase to the blazing-fast Crynit pulling the purple-haired Human through the crowd of oblivious students.