Schooled

by Pamela Ruth Foland

  Maeve focused on correcting matters. She attempted to hack the time-space conduit that linked her in the past to Lyla and Goru in the future. There was a lot of resistance. Maeve was having to be creative in her attack. Hacking time-space conduits was counter to her programming. There were reasons of causality for them being closed circuits. If she hacked the wrong conduit, she could end up privy to information she shouldn’t have.

  The conduit that should be hooked into Lyla’s com and remote pin was inexplicably slippery. Maeve had to do some digital gymnastics to even find it. When she did she hooked into it immediately. The camera feed showed her the front lines of a battle about to happen. Lyla turned to her left There was a front line of factors she only recognized Beaker and Goru leveling some kind of new rifle. Lyla turned to her right, Maeve saw herself, Millie, Stone, Sport and many others. Faith and Milo were conspicuously absent. They stood lined up shoulder to shoulder from one side of a city street to another. Across from them stood a line of what had to be hellhounds only partially restrained by chains held by people wearing full chain mail from head to toe. Standing, laughing in front of the hell hounds and their handlers stood Mira Black.

  “You fools are going to try to stand against me? Haven’t you learned what my little pets can do?” Mira yelled menacingly.

  A tall gangly redheaded woman stepped a few steps forward of the factor front line. “You haven’t met our pets…”

  Maeve lost her grip on the time-space conduit it slipped from her grasp. Maeve flailed the tails of her code. She had broken programming to try to do something she shouldn’t and saw something she had no right to see. It was clearly the future. Maeve stored the footage responsibly and decided on a very human course of action, she was going to pretend it didn’t happen. She would tell no one. She fought against her curiosity subroutines. Her impulse was to try to discover how the scene ended or what had brought them to that place.

  - - - - - - -

  The first afternoon, Illoa refused to allow Lyla to sit with Goru, so Lyla decided to explore Sanctuary. It took her an hour to find her way out of the medical complex into the commercial and residential areas. She window-shopped for a while until she found a comic book store. It was full of molecular reprints of rare and popular issues. They had original first edition copies of “First Aid” the comic her mother had not only written and drawn, but lived. The series was an autobiographical journey through her mother’s life. Lyla considered buying a reprint of one of the issues until she found an omnibus book of the first hundred issues. Lyla clutched it to her chest and hoped she had enough allotment choices to buy it. She walked up to the checkout counter, and the salesman smiled at her, “You a fan?”

  Lyla shrugged, “I haven’t read it.”

  The salesman eyed her, “Come on, everybody has read it! It’s about the chief.”

  “My mom didn’t allow me to access much of this kind of thing growing up,” Lyla replied.

  He nodded disbelievingly at her and scanned the book. Then he tapped his tablet to check her allotment. He blinked at what he saw, “Is there anything else I can get you?” He put the book in a canvas tote with an image of a comic book cover on it.

  Lyla glanced over his shoulder at the first edition of First Aid issue one. It was not a reprint. Lyla’s mother had signed it three times, once using her pen name, “Aiuda,” once as “First Aid,” and the final time as “Mae Amante.” It was quite possibly unique.

  “You like?” The salesman asked tracing her view to the comic book.

  “I couldn’t afford that,” Lyla grimaced.

  The salesman lifted the protective plexiglass case from over the comic book and handed it to Lyla in the sleeve, “Kid with your allotment you could buy the store…” He turned his tablet around and showed her the display showing the allotment of an independent factor who hadn’t spent any of their entertainment choices in fourteen years.

  Lyla put the comic down and grasped the tablet blinking. She looked at the remote pin on her lapel next to the one hooked to Maeve. Mark had been more than generous. She stared at the comic, “I’ll take it.” The salesman took the comic from her and placed it in the bag with the book.

  He took another book from the shelf behind him, “This is the omnibus for the last twenty-two issues. And this is a drive holding the full television series.” He grabbed a thumb drive from under the counter and dropped them into the bag.

  Lyla blinked as he handed her the bag.

  “Thank you for your business Ms. Carlyle,” the shopkeeper smiled broadly and fingered the closed sign behind the counter. Lyla realized he had probably earned enough in the last five minutes to close up for the next few days.

  “Thank you for being so helpful,” Lyla responded still stunned. She left the comic shop and headed to the most expensive looking restaurant she had seen on her walk. It was some distance down the street, at least four blocks. Lyla could cross Stratton’s narrowest part in only five blocks. Sanctuary seemed like it went on forever each block seemed just as densely packed with housing and shops as the one before it. Even at the Academy, Lyla wasn’t used to the type of crowds Sanctuary sported on a normal afternoon. The physical press of people was unnerving but the longer Lyla walked among them the more nearly physical pressure she felt on her mind.

  Lyla sneezed, for no reason and suddenly the pressure broke and she was hearing every thought and idea from everyone around her, possibly everyone in the Preserve. She could barely breathe with everyone focused on things big and small. Lyla needed a quiet place, now. She closed her eyes and opened them to the interior of an old broom closet. She still felt the thoughts and feelings, but they weren’t quite as overwhelming. There was a comfortable-looking hammock strung between the two side walls and a recliner next to an old slop sink. Lyla dropped the tote bag and sat back into the hammock. by the doorway there was a pile of balled socks next to a trashcan with a mini basketball hoop attached above the rim. Someone appeared to have set this place up to goof-off. Lyla wondered if their boss knew. Feeling the thoughts and feelings of so many individuals was exhausting and the hammock was comfortable, soon she was drifting in a hazy state very near sleep.

  “Hello Goldilocks,” Lyla’s mother’s voice broke through her exhaustion, “Wakey, wakey!” Lyla maneuvered herself in the hammock into a seated position blinking off sleep and feeling the press of minds again. Her mother sat in the recliner. “How did you end up here?”

  “I didn’t mean to get anybody in trouble,” Lyla blurted sure her mother was here looking for her.

  Her mother looked at her sideways, “Huh? Got who in trouble?”

  “Whoever rigged this place to goof off in!”

  Her mother laughed energetically, “Come on! Out of the hammock! You’re in my spot! I didn’t come here looking for you. I came here to goof off.”

  “This…this is your secret hideout? Where’s your paint?”

  Her mother’s head rocked back on her neck, “Have you been googling me?” She picked up Lyla’s tote bag and looked inside. Her next facial expression was new to Lyla, it seemed a cross between perplexed and pleased. “May I ask?”

  Lyla smiled, “I have been studying the parallels between Angela’s administration and yours. You both have your hidey holes, you both paint, you both established Sanctuary as the base for free factors,” Lyla took a breath about to keep going but her mother held up her hand.

  “Okay, I admit there are some similarities but all of them are essentially different. I paint fine art, it helps me with problem solving. Angela painted a room, over and over with house paint, solid colors, to escape reality and attempt to retain her grip on reality. Big hairy difference!” Lyla’s mother argued, “I really would like to sit in my hammock. It’s kind of a thing I do to relax.”

  Lyla climbed out of the hammock and waited while her mother took her place. Then she took a seat in the recliner, “Okay. But what about this place?”

  “Good, a question, I can answer questions! This is actua
lly where I stayed before they made me chief. There was a housing shortage. I washed up in the floor sink and used the slop sink as my kitchen sink. The bathroom is down the hall and nobody bothered me here, except for, ironically Angela.”

  “What about dad?” Lyla asked.

  Lyla’s mother shook her head, “We weren’t together yet. Heck, we aren’t formally together now. People know we are together, but nobody outside of Stratton, Tina and Illoa even knows I have been pregnant. I went back and spent three months there until I had you and returned to this time the moment after I left. Your father stayed to raise you and I visited as much as I could. You have no idea how hard it was for me to be so far from you two for so long. I did it because I wanted you to have a chance to have a simple childhood. I didn’t want you burdened with being my daughter. You would have been in the public eye twenty-four-seven. It isn’t an easy life.”

  “It seemed like it was easy for you to leave me.”

  Lyla’s mother reached out and smoothed her hair, “Never. The only way I could handle things was by compartmentalizing things. If I had allowed myself to feel, I would have broken down.”

  “You could have stayed…”

  “No, Stratton is like this closet. The more time I spend here the more people know about it. That would have meant they would know about you…” Her mother seemed sad, “Speaking of…how did you find my closet?”

  “I was in Sanctuary, on the street and then I could hear everyone’s thoughts, all at once. I needed somewhere quiet. I guess I just teleported here,” Lyla answered.

  “Makes sense. This is the most highly shielded room in the entire Preserve. My telepathy is extremely sensitive, this is the only place I can relax my personal shielding,” Her mother levitated a pile of balled socks into the mesh hammock beside her. Then she began shooting baskets into the wastepaper basket.

  “Mom, do you like being a leader?”

  “Hell no! Everyone always wants answers from me, even when they don’t have questions to offer me,” She levitated a few balled up socks into Lyla’s lap.

  “Why did you become chief then?”

  Her mother let out another unrestrained laugh, “I really didn’t want to, and I have been trying for decades to get fired. Heck, I even hired Brenda in the attempt to deter my personal responsibility. It hasn’t worked so far.”

  “Am I stupid to accept leadership of my team?” Lyla began attempting to sink baskets.

  “Does leading your little group give you purpose? Does it feel like what you are meant to do?” her mother asked.

  Lyla shrugged, “We just belong with each other. We’re a family not just a team.”

  “And you have known each other what, a month?”

  “Basically.” Lyla finally made a basket.

  “Then go with it. That is how it was when I met your father. We just knew each-other instantly. We were meant to meet! Sometimes that is just how things go,” her mother levitated her another pile of socks.

  “Like true love?”

  “No, like destiny. When whoever is in charge shows you something like that don’t turn your back on it, embrace it,” Her mother smiled, “Now let’s get your rampant telepathy under control.” She teleported a tablet into her hands and tapped out a message. Within moments there was a knock on the closet door. “Awe go away!” Her mother threw a balled sock at the door panel. Illoa stood on the other side when it opened.

  She approached Lyla directly, “I have moved you and Goru into the metamorphic sensitivity wing. Wear this and hold still.” She handed Lyla a rhinestone decorated headband and held an omnijector to the side of Lyla’s neck. The sting of the omnijector was followed by the sudden reduction of the surrounding thoughts. Lyla sighed audibly. She pulled the headband on and seated it on her head properly that brought her near total relief. “Is it working?”

  Lyla nodded with another sigh.

  “Then hold still again,” Illoa pulled a microchip implantation device from her pocket, “This will deliver a gradually tapering dose of the drug I just injected you with. It will help you learn to block out the thoughts on your own. It is tied to the suppressor you are wearing they will work in concert to help train your telepathy. Now, I have actual emergencies…” Illoa teleported away.

  Lyla’s mother chuckled, “She was probably at lunch with Brenda. They have been working out new procedures for medical emergencies in the field. With the hellhounds things aren’t on our side.”

  “Hellhounds?”

  “Yeah, Hellhounds. They are worse than they sound, even treated with the best of our medical technologies their bites are fatal,” Lyla’s mother stated, “You don’t need to be worrying about that. Go, check in on Goru. He is why you’re here not to hang out with your boring old mother…”

  Lyla stood overbalanced and then caught herself with the arm of the recliner. She spontaneously hugged her mother and picked up her shopping bag. “How do I get to the med center from here?” Lyla asked. She blinked, when she opened her eyes, Lyla stood over Goru who lay unconscious in a recovery bed. His breathing was slow and even. Lyla had no idea whether she could thank her mother for the lift or whether she had teleported herself. It didn’t matter. Goru was okay. Lyla sat in the recliner next to the bed and was asleep by the time the room’s motion sensor ticked the lights off leaving the only glow coming from the vital signs monitors above the bed.

  - - - - - - -

  Rillian sat back in her reclining leather office chair. The team had performed admirably. She had looked at the footage from each of their points of view. It couldn’t have gone better if she had planned it. It was amazing how little she had needed to do to shape the team into such a functional team. She knew from experience that their future was bright and essential to the shape of history. Now all that remained was four and a half years of constant gentle nudging. One didn’t move a mountain with grand gestures. A mountain could be moved by raindrops, snowflakes, and wind.

  Rillian smiled at the pretty little metaphor dancing around in her head. She loved to dance. Her first real self expression had been through dance. For her it had meant liberation from an oppressive life. She was back here to help these kids find their dance or whatever it might be, not just for their sake but for everyone's. These kids had potential above and beyond anything their parents had contributed to them.

  She toggled off the playback of the video. Beaker’s accuracy at that distance surprised her, as did Natto’s mistaking Lyla for her mother. Rillian knew the broad strokes of what would happen when she came back, but it was like the plot outline of a novel. It told you what would happen but not when and how or necessarily why. Despite her future knowledge, Rillian didn’t know why Natto had chosen to come after those three children. He had dozens living in various situations all through the Preserve. Many happily did not even know their parentage. The rest… Rillian didn’t really even know about the rest. Perhaps if Natto were successful he would have come after others. Rillian didn’t know because that wasn’t how things were set to play out.

  Tapping at her desk brought up Mark’s heavily redacted journal. She had completed the first mission, the first chapter of the outline she followed. Soon she would begin chapter two, but first… Rillian typed a short message to her son, it was time to get the whole team working on their self-defense skills.

  Chapter Twenty-seveN

  Bedside

  Lyla sat in the recliner next to Goru’s bed. She had the omnibus of the first hundred issues of First Aid propped open in her lap. She was a three quarters of the way through it. Her mother was a good storyteller and her art was amazing. Lyla had learned a lot about her mother already. Between the book and the quality time she had spent with her mother, Lyla felt safer believing she wouldn’t end up like Caroline Daniel’s. She wouldn’t end up choosing to die rather than make nice with her mother. Since their talk yesterday, Lyla finally recognized her mother as a “human” being. Yeah she had flaws, but she also cared very deeply.

  On the be
d Goru rolled and shifted position. Lyla didn’t get too excited he had been tossing and turning most of the day. She didn’t see any reason this would be different. She turned the page and gasped at the werewolf her mother was fighting. Her mother had perfectly rendered the mythical creature in all of its savagery. Lyla could practically smell the creature.

  Goru cleared his throat. Lyla looked up. He was sitting up in bed. He smiled and glanced around at his surroundings, “What did I miss?”

  Lyla dogeared the page she was on and closed her book, “What do you remember?” Goru’s eyes go unfocused and Lyla could feel his gears grinding. She got out of the recliner and stepped up to his bedside.

  “Ibu and Inu wanted to have lunch… They led me into the forest for a picnic… Dear God! My father is alive! We have to stop him before he causes trouble,” Goru started to struggle out of bed.

  Lyla held him in bed. “He already kidnapped you, or tried to…,” Lyla stated, “Maeve notified us when he took you.”

  “How am I here then? Surely he would have run for it!” Goru asked desperately.

  Lyla smiled at him, “Our team is efficient. The headmistress saw this coming, Beaker is a crack shot, and we were very lucky.”

  Goru settled down a notch, “Thanks for the rescue. Where is my father now?”

  “He managed to escape.”

  “Crap!” Goru hit the mattress with his fist.

  Lyla inhaled sharply, “It gets worse.”

  “How?”

  “He has Inu. He used her as a hostage to get out of the portal,” Lyla reported.

  “She was in on the kidnapping she wasn’t a hostage!”

  Lyla nodded, “We saw the footage from your pin. She may have been cooperating at first, but I am pretty sure she didn’t sign on to have her throat cut.”