The Joining: The Saga of the Shards Book One (The Cycle of the Shards 1)

by Chris Stephenson

  “Since when do you talk about the military? We’re two years away from having to worry about that. Unless you want to lump in with ROTC and no thank you. Waving the flag around and tossing around guns, not for me. Myself…” He paused to take a bite out of a peach, today’s fruit choice. “I’m gonna play it by ear.”

  Critock played along as he followed him to their seating area, beginning to get more used to accessing Kyle’s memories to get information about the world around him without prodding too deeply into Kyle’s own life. “No college? No career?” He noted the teacher Phelps in his peripheral vision, glancing around the room, and he made a point not to attract his attention. Last thing he needed was to let anything else slip about the way the universe actually worked.

  “Never knew you to be one to worry about the future either. Big world out there, plenty of things to worry about. Why pigeonhole ourselves now? We’ve got forever.” Critock nodded. For a non-forward thinking species such as this, he supposed this point of view made sense. Whereas for most Marconians, they were placed into programs and teachings according to their aptitude. While they were allowed the freedom to opt out and pursue other courses of study, most didn’t. Much more organized than this freeform approach to education, Critock thought. It didn’t make much sense to him to just throw every possibility of education at these kids and hope something stuck with them.

  Daniel led them to the usual table that their friends sat at, thinking nothing was amiss, but for Critock, other than the flashes of stolen memories, he had never met any of these people before. Daniel sat down next to a blonde girl in a tie-dye shirt and ripped jeans, who Critock was able to pick out as Claire. Next to them to the right in the circle was Blonde haired Jim, speaking with a southern twang, who rolled his eyes as Claire climbed into the lap of her boyfriend. Not wanting to stare, Critock glanced around the rest of the table. Across from the overly cuddly pair he saw John, staring daggers at Daniel and Claire, as she stuck out her tongue at him and went back to gossiping about something mundane. And then next to John was an empty chair, and Critock sighed, knowing that instead of getting started with planning saving this world and a hundred more, he was going to have to engage in conversation with the children. He sat down slowly, still not used to the uncomfortable seating that was provided, and listened to the ongoing prattle.

  “I’m just saying, Jim, there’s nothing wrong with the show! It’s funny, it makes you think…” Claire was talking about an entertainment program, Critock could figure that much out. What exactly it was, or what it was about, he couldn’t figure out. Looking at Kyle’s brain was no help whatsoever. It wasn’t like he could use his own personal knowledge, most entertainment in the Empire was done by essentially plugging your brain into a simulation and just living in some other world for a while. Just being a passive observer and watching was still done of course, that would never go away entirely, for the most part Critock hadn’t taken part in anything like that in a thousand years! He sat quietly as Jim answered.

  “How? How does it make you think? It’s a bunch of idiots on an island!”

  Claire countered. “It’s a forest this year!”

  “Island, forest…Fast food restaurant, wherever!” John put his head on the table when Jim mentioned the restaurant. “It’s all scripted, none of it’s real or reality, you’re wasting your time.”

  “It’s fun! And it’s real. Just because you can’t get on the show. I know you’d rather have us watch your cartoons.”

  “THEY’RE NOT CARTOONS! They’re more grown up than that.” Jim never seemed to know a losing battle when he was fighting one.

  Critock could not have been less interested in this conversation if he tried, and of course just by thinking that it caused John to mutter, his head still down. “I don’t care, Daniel doesn’t care, Kyle, do you care?”

  Critock gave a stone face. “I do not care.”

  “You see? Nobody cares. Can we please move on? Don’t you guys argue enough at home?”

  Jim scoffed. “I would be happy to leave it at home but somebody has to bring it with her everywhere she goes!” He paused to fake wretch, along with John, when she turned to Daniel for a kiss that was far deeper than it should have been.

  “Don’t they have rules about this sort of thing?” Critock muttered to himself, and was unfortunately overheard, as he hadn’t quite mastered Kyle’s volume control. Daniel just smiled.

  “Oh come on, Kyle, if you had someone you’d be making the rest of us sick, and you know it!” Daniel smirked, knowing his friend. “We don’t have much time here, might as well take advantage of it.”

  You don’t know how true that could be. Critock thought, as he finished mentally removing all of his ‘friends’ from serious consideration as Pt’ron possibilities despite not being able to see their eyes. He couldn’t imagine that even after all this time had passed that his enemy would have had the ability to go this native. Wasting time talking about inane things light years behind where the Marconian Empire had progressed to, displaying displays of affection out in front of everyone without a care in the world, and just generally…being children. Whoever Kyle was, he at least didn’t make a point of forming friendships with mass murdering warlords. Responding to Daniel, he just smirked. “If I had someone, I doubt I’d be sitting here right now.”

  There was a resounding response of fake-offense from the group. John’s jaw dropped. “Ouch. Why would you want to just spend all of your time alone with a girl when you can bring her over here, introduce her to us! Impress her with your knowledge of fine ladies and gentlemen.”

  Jim fake burped, and there was a round of laughter. “I think the problem with Mr. Edison here,” He drawled as Critock had to quickly remember that was his last name, “Is that he’s already got his eye on a girl, and she knows us, and probably wants to keep her all for himself.”

  “Who?” Daniel added in. “You can’t mean…”

  “Well, who else has he been mooning over for the last year?” The southern accent was getting less soothing to Critock, and he really didn’t like being the center of attention, lest he accidentally let something slip that gave away the truth about what was going on, or at least that he was not actually who he said he was.

  “Can we just drop it? Can’t we just talk about…” Critock stretched for the name of the program that they had been talking about. He failed. “The show?”

  “You don’t even know the name of it! Stop trying to change the subject! You’re talking about Shanna, aren’t you?” Daniel finished, her name he had said a bit too loudly and everyone looked across the lunchroom to her and see if she had heard. Critock followed their eyes and could make out a red headed girl, and he could at least admit that she was attractive in a high-school sort of way, today due to the chilly weather wearing a green sweater and jeans. He could feel from somewhere deep in his mind Kyle trying to force his head to swivel back around. He chuckled as he mentally reassured the rightful inhabitant of his body that he had no interest in her. But he also was caught in a trap that if they knew that Kyle was interested, then he had to act the part.

  For Shanna’s part, she was oblivious to any discussions that were happening about her. In fact, she wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation around her either. The endless prattling of these bubble head plastics were annoying her and she was currently immersing herself in dark thoughts about each and every one of the assorted group of cheerleaders and other hangers-on when one of them called to her. Stacey, maybe? Probably spelled with an I with one of those little hearts over it?

  “Look! Those weirdoes are looking at us!" She glanced in their direction, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

  Critock attempted to deflect the accusation. “Come on guys, I’m not going after her, that would be crazy.”

  “You’re right, she’s out of your league. I mean look at her! It’s not even a game day but I can’t stop seeing her in the outfit!” John seemed to lose himself in thought before se
eing Claire glare at him.

  “You’re a pervert.” She sniffed.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny.” He stated, then pretended to find his lunch very interesting as Claire continued to speak.

  “Kyle, he’s not wrong. Why do you want to mess with someone like that? Look at her. Look at the people she hangs around with Look at the way she acts!” Claire was as animated on this subject as she was talking about her favorite entertainment program, and Critock wondered if she ever didn’t have a strong opinion about anything.

  Jim shook his head. “Way she acts when? She’s always been nice to us, and yesterday even after Kyle here decided to take on the biggest jackass in the school, she still hung out with him. You should have seen her in Computer period. She finished that assignment in record time while still non-stop talking with us. You think she’s a plastic? Just because she's a cheerleader?”

  “Well…If the skirt fits...” Claire started.

  “And Oh God, can she wear it.” John finished, and there was a mixture of guffaws and groans.

  “You know what I mean! You can tell a person by the type of people they hang around with! And look at them!” She gestured towards Shanna and the people she was sitting with, and from all appearances, everyone at that table was the same type of person, at least from looks. All of them, save Shanna, were various shades of blonde, and all of them either appeared to be cheerleaders or were of that body type and apparent personality. Critock did recognize something that Claire was missing. She wasn’t really talking to them. All of them seemed to be loudly talking about subjects even more inane than a television program, and gesturing wildly, but Shanna was sitting quietly, eating her lunch in small bites and only barely communicating with the others. She had a distinct look of wanting to be anywhere else than where she was, which is a look Critock could relate to all too well right now. He was struck also by something Jim had said. “Jim, you said computer period?” He interrupted Claire’s latest tirade, that had John putting his hands over his ears to try and block out the stream.

  His mouth was full of the unidentified meat product that the lunch workers had shoveled out, but he tried to answer, though the southern drawl and the food made him difficult to understand. “Yeah, you were there, you’ve gotta remember.” He swallowed. “Was really cool, you don’t see too many girls that can put in code and keep a conversation going.”

  “That’s sexist!” Claire tried to get her control of the conversation back.

  “Phh. Can you code? How many of those blonde bimbos can do that? No, she’s pretty special Kyle. I’d make a move, before someone else does. Hell, before John does, the way he’s been checking out the skirts.”

  John turned red. “I’d never jump in line like that. Bros before….” He glanced at Claire, who seemed to be visually daring him to finish his sentence. He did anyway, but in a very different manner than he first seemed to intend. “Friends. Pretty, pretty friends.” He then found new energy in devouring his remaining lunch.

  Critock turned back around and looked at Shanna, and was surprised when he saw her looking right at him. Rather than nervously turning around quickly upon being caught, she held his gaze and smiled. He would swear that he had no control of his face but soon he found himself in a smile too, and he tried to regain control. It seemed at times that Kyle still could jump to the forefront, something he would have to work on. Only one of them could be in control if they were both going to get through this.

  “Coding, computers, whatever. You can’t trust anyone that hangs around those sort of people.” Claire took a bite of her peach and sounded triumphant, until Critock turned to her quickly.

  “You’re discriminating.”

  “Huh?” She stopped, momentarily confused, and not used to quiet Kyle of all people accusing her.

  “Well, specie…I mean racism or sexism really doesn’t work here, but you’re discriminating against someone by the company they’re around. How do you know her? Do you know who she is? Why she’s there? I mean, compared to the rest of them, she looks like she’s pretty miserable.” While he was talking, he was accessing, with some difficulty, Kyle’s memories of Shanna. To his relief, there was no time that he could locate where she was acting the way that Claire was accusing her of. “Look, she’s pretty and a cheerleader, we get that, it makes her a target, but come on. If someone was down on you based on the company you keep, well look at us.” He waved around the table. “We’re not popular, we’re not very good at anything.” Jim was about to protest before Critock kept going. “We don’t stand out, hell I think we’d all rather disappear. But we’re pretty happy with ourselves, aren’t we? We’re happy with most of our lives. We sit here every day and have fun and yell about stupid things. But look at her. Can you tell me one minute when she’s acted that way with your plastic people? I mean, it’s probably cause you want to be where she’s sitting and you’re stuck with us, and we’re sorry for that, but don’t take it out on someone that’s got nothing to do with that.”

  The entire table was speechless as Critock finished, and Claire’s face was red. It was no secret to the rest of them that Claire had tried out for cheerleading and failed, and it was a silent mutual agreement to never bring it up, yet Kyle had just blurted it out for everyone to hear. The remarkable thing to the table was it wasn’t done in an angry fashion, and even though it ended up defending the girl it didn’t sound like that saving Shanna from her wrath was the intent. It was just a matter-of-fact take down of Claire’s point that she wasn’t prepared to dispute, and it came from someone who they were lucky to get two sentences out of in an average lunch period.

  Finally, Jim let out a “Damn.” Critock was as shocked as any of them. Where had that come from? He had just meant to quiet her down, but images kept coming up and ideas springing to life as he spoke and he quickly found he couldn’t stop. He figured that Kyle would have some repression to him, but he certainly wasn’t expecting that. He watched, feeling slightly guilty, as Claire slowly stood up, obviously struggling not to cry, turned, and then ran out of the lunchroom in the direction of the closest girl’s bathroom.

  The others looked at him, and John felt he had to diffuse the moment. He raised his hand. “Ooh! Ooh! Roast me next!”

  There was slight chuckling but mostly silence as nobody knew quite how to react. Critock mentally cursed himself where the guttural language couldn’t hurt his human throat. He was a General! He had fought wars! What was he doing getting involved in this young nonsense! He worried that the hormones and age was affecting him in a negative manner, and he just wanted to get back to figuring out a plan to find Pt’ron, and get out of this horrible situation. Maybe Shanna could help…He could use someone good with computers if he could salvage some semblance of the plan.

  It was at that moment that he realized, due to the stress of what had happened, that he had forgotten about something very important. Or actually: someone. Through the open door to the courtyard he saw a small wisp floating through the air, zooming around from one side to the next, before finally slowly floating inside, and then speeding up, making a beeline towards…

  “Oh no.”

  “What?” John looked at him, not understanding why Kyle was upset now after he just did the most epic takedown he had ever seen. He should be dropping a mike or spiking a football or something!

  “Uh, nothing. I’ll see you guys later.” Critock stood up and started to run and try to intercept Tomkari before he could get to his destination, the man that was originally supposed to be joined with:

  Mr. Phelps.

  12

  It wasn’t the first time today that William Phelps would think it, and it wouldn’t be the last. How in the hell did he get into this situation? He was going to be a college professor. He was going to touch people, and change lives! He was going to bring the magic of learning and science and education to developing minds!

  He mentally spat. He bought into the cliché of teaching hook, line, and sinker. At first, he had be
en fine. Despite a lack of any children of his own, he fell right into the trap of caring for his students. He knew going in the problems, with the lack of pay and funding, and the fact that the parents largely either didn’t care or cared too much. Beyond it all his first few years were fantastic as he wet his feet in elementary school, where just the simple act of bringing up Mars filled kids with wonder when you started talking about the truth of the planet, not the stuff seen in movies or television. Back when the world was wonderful. He had almost changed his career plans to stay with those kids. But in today’s world, it was not a realistic career path. In this day and age, male teachers were largely looked at with untrusting eyes, as though every one of them were in the profession for unsavory reasons. Eventually the pressure was too much, and though he still needed to save up enough money to go back and finish his schooling so he might even have a chance to live his College dreams, he chose a different path in this High School. Here it seemed his spirits were going to be crushed forever.

  It wasn’t that most of the kids were bad, though there were a few he wished would just disappear from the school system entirely. It was just nobody really cared about the things that he was saying. A lifetime of being taught to the test, he supposed. And then there was the make-work that the teachers had to do due to the constant understaffing. Like today, for example. For the second time this week he found himself being a glorified chaperone in the lunchroom, watching to make sure that there were no fights, nobody making out in the dark corners, and certainly no food fights. These kids were capable of things that he would have never thought of when he was their age, he thought.

  At least today was a good day. Kyle Edison had finally woke up from his stupor! They had an actual conversation! Things like that anymore were so few and far between. He hoped that kid would hold on to that interest, there was nothing sadder than someone finding themselves and what they like and then drifting away from it for fear of humiliation. Maybe that fall he took, regardless of the reason for it, had knocked some sense into him. Something had to come from the constant presence of Brian Boyd and his cabal of troublemakers.