Question Silver

CHAPTER 1. Out of place, or mind

When he left for the first day of high school, he felt nothing. He went because he had to, not because he wanted to, but he felt no particular reluctance or foreboding. He stepped out of the car driven by his mother who had just enough time in her life to do this one thing for him, and walked across the pale sidewalk teeming with countless children his age, who were children no matter how hard some of them argued that they were older, more mature than the label. He walked between the ones who recognized friends and stopped to talk and compare schedules, past the ones who weren’t sure where to go, or were overcome with despair at their return to public education, around the corners he had memorized during the orientation day, to his first class, if it could even be called that, as it was nothing but a stopgap poorly disguised as a framework for inter-grade social groups. They called it a homeroom, but he found that it was nothing like home. There were far too many children, all of them talking, creating useless noise while he waited for the bell to ring, releasing him to get his education over with, so he could go back home, eat, sleep, and repeat. The homeroom teacher was taking roll, which was her duty, but she was treating it like a privilege. She was the sort to try getting close to each of her students, to form special relationships, to endear herself to them. He wasn’t interested. When she called out his name, he responded in a tired deadpan.

“Ashworth, Charon.”

“It’s Char. Present.”

He sat back in his seat and watched the ticking of the clock, the steady jolting motion of the red second hand relentlessly regular. What was the point of being here? He wasn’t going to learn anything like this, being asked inane questions as part of enthusiastic icebreakers. Only two of the fifteen minutes of pointlessness had expired. She was handing out papers, and the students were looking at theirs and at each other, as if trying to decide how seriously to answer the questions the worksheets posed. When his paper slid across the surface of his desk, stopping under the friction of its various scratches and scars, he rolled his eyes down to look at it, reluctant to put more effort into something that might be optional. It was titled at the top ‘Goals for after High School’. It was a little early to be considering the future, but the assignment seemed to be mandatory, judging solely by the text reading ‘return this paper to your teacher when completed’, and if that wasn’t enough, he looked around the room in time to see the first student complete his worksheet and walk it to the teacher’s desk. She accepted it, and looked expectantly at the rest of them.

The first blank was for career aspirations. Aspirations. The word irritated him, like an itch somewhere in his brain. Sighing silently in resignation, he pulled a pencil from the pocket of his backpack and began to write in his usual lazy but legible scrawl. Less than a minute later, he was finished. He sat back in his seat from the hunched position he had assumed in order to work, and relaxed into peaceful, pointless waiting.

When the bell rang, he grabbed his backpack with one hand and stepped out from behind his desk. His paper still sat there. He hadn’t gotten up to take it to the teacher yet, because it would have meant an extra trip. Now, he could just take it to her and leave. This he did, turning away from her as he went to the door, and because he wasn’t facing her, had never looked at her face in the first place, he never saw the concerned frown that she assumed when she saw what he had written. By then he was already out the door, and halfway down the hall to his first real class.

The day passed uneventfully, with introduction kept to a minimum in his remaining classes. The teachers handed out textbooks he was expected to read and assignments he was expected to complete. He wasn’t going to defy their expectations, so he listened to their clumsy lectures and let his brain handle the comprehension as it always had. Only one person talked to him, which was a relief. The fact that anyone at all tried to pull him into a social situation was unpleasant, so he pretended to be deaf to the boy’s words. Which, for all intents and purposes, was true. He managed to completely block off that unnecessary voice, mitigating it to a drone, that eventually fell off to nothing.

At home, he found his mother waiting. She was frowning, which was not a good sign, but she didn’t smile all that often, so he was unsure if it was a bad sign. When she began to follow him to his room, he decided she wanted to talk to him, and that it would be foolish to try to avoid it. So, he turned around asked her.

“What happened?”

She sighed. “I got a call from your teacher. She’s concerned about you.”
Other people’s concern was something he had experienced before. It made him feel the same way almost everything did: one more step closer to exhaustion on the short sliding scale of resignation. In fact, at that very moment he was becoming aware that his bed was a mere 5 feet away from him. His mother was elaborating on what the teacher had said, but he had stopped listening almost immediately. He knew she wanted him to respond, so he let that small part of him that could talk to others move to the front of his mind.

“Ah, mother, I apologize, I was distracted. What were you saying?”

The creases that were already prominent between her eyebrows peaked in concern deepened. “You wrote on a goal sheet that you plan to work hourly at some convenience store,” she said. “I know you can do better. Your teacher knows. We’ve all seen what you’re capable of when you’re motivated. Why do you act like this?” Her eyes were dry. This was a repeat of countless similar confrontations that had used up too many tears. She knew what to expect.

“I don’t know.” There was no inflection in his voice. He sounded tired, but not sad, unable to understand what he was missing that others could see ahead of him, because he couldn’t imagine himself making an effort beyond the bare minimum. He couldn’t know that his minimum effort produced work of a quality that surpassed many of his peer’s best efforts, that his parents were forced to explain that their son wasn’t interested in more difficult classes, that he wasn’t working too hard. They denied the last claim vehemently, not wanting to consider the possibility. The days following such meetings, they took special care to confirm that their son was taking his medicine properly. The past haunted them almost as much as the absence of his future.

Charon turned away from his mother so he could begin his schoolwork. He pulled out the first textbook, a standard-issue English brick, about 90% full of stories most students will never read. He wasn’t necessarily supposed to do the reading by next class, but he had gotten into the habit of doing assignments as soon as possible. “If I need to do this eventually,” he thought, “I should do it now.” He looked at his backpack, and reconsidered. “If I want the longest uninterrupted rest time, I should wait until tomorrow and do this work and the new work in one sitting.” Satisfied with this logic, he lay on his bed, closed his eyes, and stopped thinking for a time.

Some hours later, his mother returned to his room to wake him for dinner. He made it about halfway down the stairwell in full auto before he realized that he had been sleeping in his shoes. This confused him, because he usually remembered that sort of thing. Slipping out of his sneakers was an automatic response when he walked into his house, on most days. In fact, this kind of misstep hadn’t happened in years. He wondered if he was somehow becoming less capable, or if his mind was failing him. This bothered him, but he couldn’t grasp why, exactly. He took the last few steps and made his way to the little dining room, where his parents were waiting. They ate their dinner in the usual silence. His parents would talk later, in private, because they had nothing new to say to him, and he had nothing to say back. This was their routine, and it was all tolerable. His mother and father finished eating quickly and left. They had much to talk about, but nothing they wanted their son to hear. When Char was done with his meal, he went back to his room, intending to sleep some more. For some reason, he was distracted by the sight of his backpack, there on the floor, the homework he hadn’t started safe inside several binders nestled in it.

Not quite thinking it through, he reached inside and grabbed one of the binders, and looked at it. It was his math binder, new, because the one he had used since elementary school had been filled with worksheets and started to fall apart at the edges. He wondered where that old binder was, and remembered placing it at the back of his closet, in a box filled with similarly full binders. He felt almost as though he wasn’t commanding himself as he retrieved it. Now he was turning the pages to the very back, where several pages lacked the fresh edges of printed worksheets. A sense of unease overcame him as he flipped closer, like he was approaching a precipice. It made no sense to him, that he would be able to fall anywhere, being at a constant low. But still, he felt nervous. He uncovered the first old page, written in a hand he could no longer recognize. It was almost too legible to believe that he wrote it all that time ago. The page contained only one line of text. It was repeated all across the page with lines for emphasis under every word. He wasn’t sure if someone had made him write it that way, or if he had decided on his own that the thought was significant enough to warrant such repetition.

“My cousin Kaycee is a hero.”

His head was a mull of vague recollections and a growing headache, and he knew that this was something that had been important to him at some point. But the idea that at any point anything had been so significant was impossible for him to grasp. He needed to sleep, and welcome that comfortable darkness that asked for nothing. Something stopped him, a small part of him that refused to be subdued forever in a stupor. He turned another, to reveal more pages similarly filled with text.

“Kaycee is the strongest and the best.”

The name was familiar, but he could not recall a face to match to it. Unbidden, several images surfaced from some closed-off part of his mind. They were warped, like pictures taken through an old and damaged lens. There was a girl, taller than him, older and stronger. She seemed almost radiant, in a way that inspired reverence. An unsupported feeling of respect was commanded by the figure. Char did not like the feeling, but he could not stop that side of him that wanted to know more, to recall those events long buried.

“Kaycee says I am weak.”

What was so special about Kaycee? Every time he thought the name he could feel a barrier between his conscious thoughts and any useful information. It almost made him curious as to what she was to him, and what she was doing. The text on this page was pressed so far into the paper surface it was almost tearing in several places. The pencil lead was so dark it rubbed off on his shivering fingertips, even as his grip threatened to crumple the page. He tried to force himself to relax, but there was a wall of densely packed words between him and peace, and he could not avert his gaze. Not yet.

“I must be strong like Kaycee.”

There was only one page left, but he didn’t want to read it. He wasn’t sure how he should react to what he had already seen, but the fact that it obviously came from a completely different person was disconcerting. His vision wavered and blurred, he could almost see the intensity of purpose emanating from the page. He closed his eyes and turned the page. Anything to escape the thought of himself, as a child no more than 5 years old, a greater individual than the shell he was now.

“Kaycee says I can be a hero too.”

Char felt one of the walls in his mind give way. He remembered, clearly now, what the word Kaycee meant to him. It was a singular, untainted desire to be more. Kaycee wasn’t some phase, wasn’t even a person. She was a light at the end of an unimaginably long tunnel, that he would climb forever if he had to, just to see the end. He didn’t want to understand this, to feel that he could be more. This lurking sense of motivation was destabilizing everything he thought he was.

It was too much for him. He shoved the binder away haphazardly and fled to the bathroom to run cold water over his head. It wasn’t comfortable, but physical discomfort was the last thing on his mind. His mind felt like it was overheating, divided into two selves. One felt an affinity with the child who wrote so passionately in the loose pages at the back of his binder. The other was bound and tied, kept obedient and calm by daily doses of an unknown drug, but he could feel the bonds growing weaker with every passing moment. He didn’t like this feeling of half-freedom, the openness that now threatened to pull him out of his comfortable calm. He was sweating so much that he tried to wipe it with his sleeve before he realized his face was still under the faucet. After retrieving his head, he glanced at the bathroom cabinet, where his medicine was stored. That would help, he thought, to tie him back down so he could get back to his room and sleep like always. With shaky hands he opened the mirror and pulled out the bottle of pills. After a half minute of struggle with the cap, he had a single pill in the palm of his hand. He placed it on his tongue and downed it with a gulp of tap water. Within seconds he realized the foolishness of straying from the prescribed schedule, and was left gagging over the open toilet. He tried to fill his now-empty stomach with more water, but he could only spit it right into the toilet on top of the vomit that was already there. His parents appeared at the door as he was flushing it, and he gave them no answer when they asked if he was alright. He wasn’t sure. His mother sat by him for a while until she was sure he wasn’t going to reject the water he was sipping. She left a bucket by his bed just in case. By the time he fell asleep his mind had cleared considerably, almost to the point of emptiness. His sleep was unnaturally deep that night.

[formatting is confusing. forgive my inexperience]

CHAPTER 2: Sleep is a secondary concern

Char woke up twitching. Specifically, it was his left eyelid that was fluttering and generally making a nuisance of itself. He slid off his bed and prepared for school like he usually did, and after being ignored for a period of time, the muscle spasms ceased. Char checked his medicine box where it sat in the kitchen, and took his daily pill - correctly this time - with his breakfast. He didn’t feel like throwing up. All was well. His mother saw that he wasn’t ill, so she did her part in getting him to school on time.

The area in front of the school was only slightly less crowded than it had been the day before. He made it to class without difficulty. Homeroom was limited to one day a week, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that particular teacher for another six days. To his irritation, he was in the same class as the boy who was bothering him the day before. He didn’t recognize this himself, having taken no time to memorize the boy’s face at their last meeting. He saw now that he would have to make an exception to his usual rule, in order to avoid this boy whenever possible. A quick glance-over revealed the other boy to be quite tall, with loose black hair similar to his own, but parted instead of tangled, and dyed blue on one side. The other boy’s skin was darker than Char’s, but that wasn’t a surprising observation. Char was an indoors person, and he disliked direct sunlight. The other boy looked athletic in build, but wore a fairly fancy jacket and slacks, an odd choice for a high-schooler. Satisfied that he would be able to recognize the boy from a distance, Char turned away from him to focus on his classwork. The other boy, who had been trying to say “Do you remember me? I’m Mithras! We were in a few classes together last year,” was a bit irked at this behavior, but resolved to catch his attention sometime later.

Unfortunately for Mithras, Char did a good job of discreetly avoiding him for the rest of the day. And the day after that. There didn’t appear to be any long term side effects to the incident with the binder, which was now taped shut and stuffed at the back of the closet. Several days went by uneventfully, just how he liked it. He did his work, turned it in, received more work, did that, and so on. That Friday, in English class, the students were given a group project to work on over the weekend. They were to meet in groups to do some small amount of research and write two pages on their topic of choice, with “sufficient depth”. The other students were quite reasonably distraught, for they had no clue how to write an entire two pages in three nights, without so much as a rubric to work off of. Unbeknownst to them, their teacher also had no idea how to teach an English class, and was making it up as he went. Char was assigned to a group with a boy and a girl. The boy did not look too put off by the assignment. When the girl insisted that they share phone numbers to communicate about the project, he took a scrap of paper, scribbled down a sequence of digits, and slid it across to them. In the same motion he leaned back precariously in his chair in a show of nonchalance. The girl ignored him, as did Char. They were busy trying to get the majority of the planning done in class so they wouldn’t have to meet over the weekend. Char didn’t want to spend more time with other people than he absolutely had to. She probably had plans for the weekend. They decided, after some debate and a surprising input from the reclining boy, to write their report on dark cults. The girl was very interested in such things, so her background knowledge would come in handy when writing the paper. Her vigor when talking about the sacrifices and the blood and the dark gods made Char feel nervous, but he was to a certain degree glad that he was working with someone motivated to do well, instead of someone like himself. He felt almost like starting work on the project sooner rather than later, because it would mean he could see what that girl could accomplish with her passionate interest.

Whatever positive mood had possessed him was crushed when he got home, and realized that the number the reclining boy had given him was fake. He tried the number of the girl, but he couldn’t reach it, could only reach the answering machine. In a fit of desperation, he resolved to try their numbers again on Saturday, ate his dinner, and went to sleep.
By 8 in the evening, he was feeling an intense pressure to have the project completed, but he still couldn’t reach that girl. He found himself growing frustrated, which was unlike him. His philosophy was, if you don’t put forth effort yourself, you cannot judge others for their own slacking. Somehow, despite his best efforts to assign responsibility for the project to his unavailable groupmates, his mind kept cycling around the looming due date. Finally, he sat at his computer and began searching for information on cults.

He glanced at the time displayed on the monitor. Several hours had passed since he began gathering information. He wasn’t feeling tired, so he continued his efforts, cross-referencing every source, compiling spreadsheets of information to make up for the incomplete accounts of cult activity. He was starting to see a clear division between the kinds of cults referenced. The first type was what he had been expecting, with a persuasive leader leading a small group to perform bizarre rituals and dangerous practices, such as seclusion, even going so far as to induce group suicide when confronted with disbandment by the government. The second type was far more dangerous, and only scattered glimpses could be found, but Char felt he was getting close to figuring out what they were about. These cult-like groups rendered members incurably insane, with varying degrees of anarchic and psychotic behavior. They were said to have connections to powerful otherworldly beings that gave them supernatural abilities. Char kept reading, adding every new fact to a growing network of ideas that expanded to take up the whole of his thoughts. He knew it was getting later and later, the darkness that had fallen hours ago began to fade to dawn. This did not concern him. He hadn’t been able to truly focus on a task for years, and it was invigorating him to a level of feverish energy he had never achieved before. At least, as far as he remembered.

His father and mother were free for the weekend, but they had their own personal lives keeping them busy, so they weren’t home to see the thing they feared most come to pass. Char felt hungry, so he ate a quick breakfast, all the while his brain automatically picked out the information that had the essence of correctness. He forgot to take his medicine. That small resistant part of his mind was expanding, and it wouldn’t allow him to restrain it any longer.

At around 5pm that evening, when his parents were both home and preparing for dinner, he had about fifteen pages of report written. This was no longer about the assignment. Char, off his medication for the first time in years, had a purpose, and nothing to hold him back. His parents did not know that he had been working since the night before, and he assured them he was almost done, and would get some rest. The lie came easy, and was indistinguishable from truth in his parents’ eyes. He turned back to his report, now twenty pages of single-spaced text. It wasn’t enough, could never be enough, he thought. He didn’t want to lose this rush, the blazing single-minded purpose that was driving him. It had a comfortable familiarity, and he knew that this part of him had been subdued for a very long time. It was now stretching itself as much as possible before it was forced to settle in. It fully expected to be discovered, and tied down, but it would not be giving up without a fight.

He worked until a few minutes before his parents were due to wake, slammed the print icon, and bolted for his room, just in time to feign sleep for his mother to find him, sluggishly getting ready for the school day like usual. At breakfast, she reminded him to take his pill, and refill his box. When he went to take it, he realized that yesterday’s was still there, in plain view. Carefully, he palmed both pills into his pocket. He would throw them away later. His mother noticed.

“Won’t you take your pill, Char?” She asked. She seemed normal, but she was now on high alert. This was one of the warning signs. The other was the presence of dark bags under his eyes. She stared him down until he took the pill out of his pocket and swallowed it properly, reluctantly. Satisfied, she let him gather his things, including the massive thirty page report, not including diagrams and charts. She could do nothing for her son until he showed the third and final warning sign, and he insisted he had to go to school to turn in his work.

He started off the day at full energy, but soon, he began to feel the repercussions of about 36 hours of near-constant focus. By his second period he was struggling to pay attention to what his teacher was saying. Between second and third period he was having trouble walking, his backpack felt too heavy, and each step threatened to unbalance him. His third period was English class. Rather than sit down, and face the possibility of standing to deliver the report to his teacher later, he stumbled straight to his desk and shoved the pages across. They scattered, because he had forgotten to staple them together. He admonished himself for the oversight, even as he turned and searched the class for his ‘group members’. The reclining boy was still reclining, even as he met Char’s unsteady half-lidded stare with an easy smile that said “Thanks, buddy. I knew you’d come through.” The girl looked away for a second when their eyes met. Char tried to take a step so he could return to his seat, but his legs didn’t match properly. His center of gravity shifted forwards, and he lacked the reaction time to catch himself. Before he could feel the impact of his body on the floor, his vision went dark.

CHAPTER 3: Nothing to see

Char’s senses returned over the course of several minutes. At first, he could hear a low hum, subtle shifting noises, distant footsteps muffled by a closed door. Then he became aware of a clinical odor, and his mind began to put together the pieces. They must have brought him to a hospital after he collapsed. He was lying in a bed, which was surprisingly comfortable, and he couldn’t see. They had placed some kind of covering over his eyes. He tilted his head slightly to the left, where the shifting noises were coming from, trying to determine if someone was standing there waiting for him to wake up. He heard a pronounced breath, like a small gasp. Now certain that there was someone listening, Char tried to speak. His voice sounded odd to him, slightly different from before.

“Why can’t I see?”

He heard more movement, and the person beside him drew nearer, possibly rising from a chair next to his bed. He heard his father’s voice.

“Char, we brought you here because you were suffering from acute exhaustion. You should really get more rest, then we’ll have our discussion with the doctor.”

Char was a little confused. He didn’t feel tired at all, and whatever they had placed over his eyes was making it very difficult to analyze his situation. If anyone seemed tired, it was his father, judging by his voice alone. Still, he knew that he was being watched, and would most likely be forced to rest if he didn’t comply. He decided to lay back and consider the possible outcomes. The most obvious course of action his parents might take would be to keep a tight watch on him and make sure he took his medicine like he was supposed to. He didn’t want this to happen. He had become aware of the medicine’s effect on his psychology, and would do everything he could to avoid taking it, even if he had to resort to deception. His thoughts did nothing useful for him. He still wasn’t feeling tired, though, so he let them stew for an indeterminate length of time, until he heard the door open. He tried to sit up.

He was firmly pressed back down. “I thought I told you to go back to sleep,” his father said, annoyed. “Should I call in Lana?” He was speaking to the person who had just entered the room, who was most likely the doctor, here to deliver the news about his condition.

“No need,” the doctor said, “She’s right behind me.”

There were more footsteps, and now there were three presences in the room. Char still couldn’t see, and it was making him uneasy. “Someone tell me why my eyes are covered.” It was a demand more than a question, but he said it passively, to get the ball rolling. The faster he knew what was going on, the faster he would be able to get out of this situation. He was feeling a pressing need to know what the doctor was doing out of his sight. The door closed, and there was the sound of blinds being pulled down, or up. Char assumed the former, and paid greater attention. The doctor’s behavior indicated that the news he was about to deliver was fairly confidential.

“Don’t worry Char, we’ll get those bandages off of you soon enough.” Drawers were opened, and small metallic tools clinked off of one another on the other side of the room. Char was pulled into a sitting position, and a hand held his head still. A thin cold edge pressed against the skin of Char’s forehead, as a scissor blade was carefully wedged under the stiff cloth. As he worked, the doctor spoke quietly to the parents in the room. “Now, I must ask you two. What is your stance on mutants?”

His mother spoke first. “I wouldn’t say we hate them. We’ve had relatives emerge before, and never had any trouble from them.”

“That’s good, good… Do you know the common signs that a child has emerged?”

“Yes, that would be a change in eye color, right?”

“That is indeed the case, Mrs. Ashworth. All right then, Char. You can open your eyes now.” The doctor removed his bracing hand and tugged the bandages free of Char’s hair.

When he felt the fabric pull away from his head, he instinctively squeezed his eyes tight shut. The lights in the room were brighter than he expected, even through his closed eyelids. Not wanting to spend another minute in forced blindness, he forced his eyes wide open and gritted his teeth at the jab that went through his pupils as they shrunk to points. His parents gasped when they saw it, though they had been expecting this.

“What is it?” Char wanted to ask, but he decided it would be faster to see for himself. He glanced around the room, scanning for a reflective surface. Anything would do, but he spotted a mirror above the sink almost instantly. He slid out of the bed and was standing in front of it faster than anyone could react. He stood there for a solid thirty seconds. The first ten were spent taking in his new eyes. The irises were now a brilliant silver, reflective to the point that they seemed luminescent. The next twenty were spent searching for other changes. His hair seemed slightly longer than before, and his skin less pale. He almost looked healthy. He returned to stand in front of the doctor, and waited for more information. The doctor glanced nervously between him and his parents, but when he saw that nobody was about to start screaming, he relaxed.

“..You seem to be taking this well, so I’ll continue. Your son appears to be in good health, no permanent aftereffects, despite the unexpectedly long recovery time…” He looked at Char, who chose to put a questioning expression on his face. “...Of one week. However, he seems to have manifested as a mutant. Currently he does not appear to be undergoing any significant physical changes, but that may change as time goes on. I suggest you return every few weeks or if you notice anything. You are probably aware of the … attitudes some people have regarding mutants. You may have assumed, correctly, that I would like to keep your son’s emergence a secret. I believe it is for his own safety that you get him colored contact lenses so he won’t be targeted. As of now he has not shown any evidence of mutant abilities, but again, that may change. If or when that happens, more drastic measures may be necessary. For now, just keep a low profile, and don’t let anyone examine him too closely.” He paused, both to take a breath and to think of how to break the next bit of news. “There is… one more thing… I performed a blood test soon after Char arrived here, and I found no trace of his medicine. You did tell me that he had another episode. How long was he off of his medicine before this happened?”

“I’m not sure,” said Char’s mother. “I thought I had him take one that morning. I made sure of it. But that can’t be right, the medicine is supposed to last over 48 hours, even when the schedule is broken.”

They looked at Char. He looked back. At length, he spoke. “I did take my pill that morning.” To himself, he thought, “But I didn’t want to.”

“This is unfortunate,” said the doctor. “I think what we are seeing here is the effect of the Exemplar trait. Your son has increased resistance to drugs. I believe that this trait began to develop some time before his manifestation, and he has since become almost totally immune to the medicine. Or, more accurately, his body has adapted to metabolize it extremely quickly. His current treatment schedule is no longer effective. I’m not sure if any dosage will be effective any longer.”

This had a much stronger impact than any of the previous news. Char almost smiled. His mother visibly slumped, and staggered to the chair to sit down. His father looked like he had forgotten how to exhale, and was making a fishlike face that Char found faintly amusing. Then he remembered that his parents were probably reacting out of fear on his behalf, which made him laugh a little quieter on the inside. His father’s lungs filled completely with air, and he tried to talk as they deflated, resulting in gasping, spluttering speech until he ran out of air and could breathe normally again.

“You’re sure? I mean, there isn’t a stronger dosage, or a different medicine, or treatment plan, or…. *breathe* There’s nothing we can do?”

“Mr. Ashworth, I’m sure you know, that your son’s condition is very unique. It was only after much trial and error that we found a medicine that alleviated the worst of it. And even that came at a cost. I could not, in good conscience, prescribe Charon with a stronger drug unless his life was on the line. And I’m not so sure that he is so likely to reach that stage. Your son is not as fragile as he used to be, and unless his condition worsens, you will have to forgo the medication. I am cancelling his prescription until further notice.”

After that point, Char didn’t care what they were arguing about. He just knew he wouldn’t be tied down anymore, and could finally exercise his freedom to try. He hit a mental roadblock right there. What did he want to do? What could he do? He wasn’t sure. He knew there were a lot of things out there, but until this point he had never taken the initiative to find out what they were. In the background, his parents, still in shock, finished their discussion with the doctor, who gave them a set of contacts for him to wear, and a pair of sunglasses for him to use until he knew how to use the contacts. He was still thinking when they got home, and he bolted to the computer to do some research, on mutants, on things to try, there were so many things he needed to know. He was buzzing with energy.

His parents silently walked up the stairs to get some sleep. They forgot to leave their shoes at the door.
Char didn’t remember to sleep until midnight. It wasn’t until 1am that he reluctantly left the computer to rest. He had school to go to the next day. Maybe that would help him decide on a path.

[title drop. also, shorter chapter]

CHAPTER 4: Talk Irony to me

In homeroom, Char was confronted with several moderately concerned students curious about his absence. He waved them off as best he could, and sat down to wait for the bell. Within seconds he recognized that he was bored, and while he was appreciative of the fact that he was now awake enough to see it, he knew that homeroom was going to be torturous if he didn’t find something to occupy his attention. His mind was spinning from one subject to another, but it couldn’t settle without new information to process. As he considered, he realized he had already taken visual inventory of the classroom in the last minute alone. He walked to the shelf at the back end of the classroom, upon which there were stacked extra textbooks for classes scheduled in that same room later in the day. For the next 25 minutes, he skimmed a Psychology textbook. As usual, he automatically divided the facts out of every passage he read, to sort through and consider later. When the bell rang, he replaced the book and collected his backpack. It’s heft made him feel foolish. He didn’t have to fret in the first place. He had books with him all along. Before he could leave the room, the supervisor-teacher asked if there was anything she could do. Char didn’t think so. He left abruptly, eager to test his focus in a more information-rich environment.

At lunch, Char reevaluated his assumptions. School was not, as he had supposed, rich in information. There was barely enough content covered in most of his classes to occupy him for 20 minutes, let alone the hours that had passed since homeroom. In fact, he was probably better off reading the textbooks, because with his ability to focus restored, he could follow his natural inclination to pursue significant threads. As it was, he was being strung along mind-numbing lesson plans designed to keep those students around him interested long enough to pass a few tests. He briefly considered quitting school to learn at his own pace, but just as quickly a more plausible alternative occurred to him. The teachers must have materials prepared to teach their students, assignments and classwork that he could ask for in advance to keep him busy during class. He would end up finishing the class early, if he did that. Maybe they would allow him to test out of it at that point. He resolved to look into the possibility of accelerating his education when he got home. The bell rang, and with his lunch long finished and trash disposed of, Char was the first to arrive at his English classroom.

As was the case in every class preceding it, several of the students were curious about his absence, to a point. They quickly lost interest when he paid them no attention, and returned to their seats to have a few pre-class discussions with their friends. A girl approached, and leaned down to speak to his ear confidentially.

“You know, our group was the only one that got full marks.” She waited.
“So, where did you get that paper from, hmm? I won’t tell anyone, I mean, it was partly my fault in the first place.” She didn’t add that telling anyone would reveal that she had contributed nothing to the final paper.

“No, I wrote that myself.” Though his face didn’t show it, Char was irritated at the implication. Why would he steal someone else’s work when he could do it himself, and learn more in the process? It takes a few seconds for him to realize that he answered her directly, something he has been avoiding all day to dissuade conversation. It strikes him as odd. He thinks back several moments before, considering what had prompted the automatic response. Then he thinks back to the time before that, when he had last spoken to someone. There was something about the way he had organized his thoughts both times, to avoid speaking plainly. It was as though a distinct and separate part of his mind had shuffled into command, ready and willing to handle the confrontation. At this very moment it was hovering at the front of his mind, controlling his expression and body language to appear like any other person casually shrugging off accusations of plagiarism. What he had mistakenly assumed before was that this was a natural, uncontrollable reaction, that he was instinctively trying to mimic the reactions of others. Now that he focused on it, on his mind and its internal structure, he could see it for what it was. To test, he closed his eyes and pretended he was alone in the room. After a few seconds, he felt the inclination settle back, and he was in full control of his surface thoughts and inclinations. Looking back at the girl, who was still standing by him, unperturbed, he kept his mental senses as open as possible, keeping his awareness even as the analytical part of his mind, his self, was superseded by the usual social persona. Now aware of the exact line of division between the two parts, he knew that this was merely a mask, that could speak to others where he could not. The mask was pretending to be interested in what the girl in front of it had to say, but behind it, he knew that he was only interested in finding out why she was so interested in him, so he could convince her to leave him be. Even before he woke to himself, when he didn’t care about anything, he had no room in his life for useless interactions. Now that he cared about himself, he had even less time for them. Every second was precious, to be spent learning, expanding his capabilities, reveling in his freedom of mind. To squander it on the thing he hated most would be tragic.

Char was very deep in his thoughts at this point, so he didn’t notice when the girl turned to look at someone, then spoke to him, began to doubt he was paying attention, and waved random objects in his line of sight to see if his eyes changed focus. She finally broke through by poking him in the forehead, but it was too late for her to say anything more. Class had started and the teacher was at the front of the classroom going over his notes one last time, praying as always that nobody would notice his incompetence. ‘Just one more time, please. I need this job, how was I supposed to know it would be this hard? I’ll sacrifice some stray cats if that’s what you want.’

Nobody heard any of this, of course. He was muttering it very softly, but even if they came close enough to see the drop of sweat hanging from the tip of his nose, they would not understand, because he wasn’t saying the words in english. If he was a proper teacher, he might have acknowledged the irony in this. But he didn’t. He finished and called the class to order as best he could. He noted the girl leaning on Char’s desk. Those two were on his watch list. He looked pointedly at them, waiting for her to return so he could begin.

As the girl headed back to her desk, she whispered to Char, “And there I was, thinking you were staring at me.” She took her seat, shaking her head. Char was busy being surprised at his lapse in attentiveness. It was unusual for him to stop taking notice of his surroundings, even when his mind was on other things. He felt himself on this train of thought to take in the whiteboard. The small homework section of the board hadn’t been erased in over a week, so it was getting very cramped, with the text slowly decreasing in size and legibility as it neared the bottom. They had only been reading from the textbook since last week. He had thought he would have to talk to the teacher after class about catching up, but it seemed as though he could do so with just an hour or two of reading. Satisfied he would be ready by next class, he listened to the teacher until it became clear that he wouldn’t be learning anything here until then. The class was discussing a story they had just finished reading. In order to tune out any spoilers that would corrupt his interpretation of the reading, he returned to his thoughts, back to the reason behind his unnatural inattentiveness. He backed up his train of thought carefully and examined it. The information from his senses had dulled about the time he started paying attention to his mask. Supposing that this was a cause and effect relationship, he should be able to replicate the results at any time, which would help his current situation by allowing him to devote his attention solely to his internal development while his environment was lacking. But why would focusing on his mask cut him off? If he thought of his mask and his ‘self’ as two separate entities in his mind, the mask was what kept track of his senses and passed the information onto the inner ‘self’ while it was active. In that case, when he had become aware that his mask was active, he had deliberately surrounded it with his inner mind without rearranging them first. That is to say, he had taken off his mask to look at it, but he had left his glasses on the mask, so almost all of his awareness was directed inwards. The metaphor seemed appropriate, given the current unit, Figurative Language. He was about to try and deliberately activate this introspective state when he heard his name mentioned. The teacher had directed the girl from earlier to help him catch up. He sighed a little, and with a deliberate shift, brought his mask up as strong as he could. Moving his seat to one side to give her room to place her own at the same desk, he was overcome with a sense of relief, and a kind of awe. The way he was moving, it looked from the outside like everything was normal. But the part of his mind that considered itself Char, the person, was completely removed from the action. It was like watching some kind of boring first person movie, and he knew that if he wanted to, he could just ignore the sensory information if he wanted, and autopilot his way through almost anything. Of course, he wasn’t about to do so, not now. While his mask appeared to be doing fine right at that moment, he couldn’t be sure that there weren’t any limits or caveats. For now, he would use it, because to neglect it would be allowing paranoia to limit his development. He would do more testing later.

The girl opened her textbook on the desk. Mask-Char glanced at it, but he could tell it was a random page. He waited patiently for her to flip to the correct place to begin the review. She didn’t. Instead, she leaned a little closer and started to ask questions in her confidential low voice again.

“Why were you absent? Did you really do all that work yourself? Did you already know all that stuff about those cults? Because I’ve seen your essay and it’s VERY thorough.”

Char shifted away from her abruptly, and she stopped talking, quietly waiting for a response. Then she realized she had been leaning a little too close, and backed away to a more reasonable distance. His posture relaxed noticeably. He tried to answer her questions as simply and vaguely as possible.

“I passed out, had to get some rest, because I did a lot of work. All of the work. Myself. Why didn’t YOU do any of the work, if you’re so concerned, and interested?”

“That weekend … I already had something planned. I had to go there, to see if I could find anything.” She was being evasive, which Char took to mean he could get her off his case if he pressed her on it.

“What did you want to find?” He asked.

“Well,” she glanced around, and saw everyone else apparently hard at work. She rightly did not trust the outward appearances, so she simply turned to Char and whispered, “Meet me sometime outside of school, and maybe I’ll tell you. I think you’ll find it really… interesting.” She grinned, then turned the textbook to the first page of the story everyone was discussing. The rest of the class time was spent showing Char the pages and assignments from the classes he had missed.

At his desk, the teacher felt satisfied that he was doing a halfway decent job. Most of the students other than Char had no idea what they were supposed to be doing to finish the classwork and were rereading the same stories in an attempt to gain insight into their situation. It was proving remarkable effective, as the stories were all coincidentally thematically relevant to their plight. Mithras from where he sat behind Char, tried this best to settle his negative sentiments in regards to the interest the girl had shown towards Char. It was hard. He didn’t hate him, but he couldn’t stop the tiny pangs of jealousy that he felt when he looked at them sitting next to each other. He cursed his weakness, and resolved to take the matter directly to the source if it escalated any further.

CHAPTER 5: An empty mask

Back home from his first day at school since awakening, Charon Ashworth was exhausted, but he couldn’t rest. His classes had frustrated his new capacity for learning, and his classwork was already over halfway caught up. He went to his room and locked the door. He suspected his parents were going to be keeping an eye on him for a while, and he didn’t want to have to deal with interruptions while he finished his assignments. He sat at his desk and pulled out the first worksheet. Looking it over, he felt the unease that had followed him all day grow into an ominous dread. Even without opening a single book, without more than a second of thought, he could already solve every problem. He did as much, and moved on to the next. The results were the same. Ten minutes later, he had 2 days of homework completed and shoved to the far side of his desk. Before an hour had passed, these papers were joined by all of his make-up work. For about the hundredth time, or more precisely, the 48th in as many minutes, Char checked the time on his watch, then his desk clock, then the wall clock. Time seemed to be going by too slowly. He had thought that a backlog would be able to hold him over until at least the end of the week, but it hadn’t lasted a single evening. What would he do? His mind, far from feeling tired and overworked, was energized and straining itself to find a focus, anything to occupy itself. As he stared at the papers on his desk, he was also aware of the grain of the wood they rested on, the play of light on their slightly uneven edges, the slight creaking of his parents footsteps in the hall, the whine of the electrical outlet the TV down the hall was plugged into, even the varying degrees of pressure on his legs and back as he shifted his weight on his chair. He could hear his heart beating, pulse quickening as he saw, heard, felt everything simultaneously. He couldn’t be sure if he was imagining these things, or if his senses were enhanced, or if he could have heard these things at any time just by focusing on them. It didn’t matter, because whether they were real or not, they were in his head, and they constituted useless information, he couldn’t use or retain them if he tried. His mind was like a sieve, trying to catch rocks in a rainstorm, but the rocks were all hidden away and all he could do was be aware of the downpour of his senses and if only he had some rocks there wouldn’t be so much water. His whirling thoughts caught on something. Metaphor, literary devices, dulling of the senses, yes, he had just today discovered such a technique. He reached into his mind and brought out his mask. With that motion, what he had perceived before as a mindless assault of details coalesced into a single picture. He could see the minutia if he felt so, but he wasn’t stuck in that state of constant awareness. It was peaceful, and simple. He closed his eyes in relief, and his consciousness rested.

When his eyes opened a second later, it was as a mask.

“How could this be?” It said aloud. Being a mask, it had no thoughts of its own, existing as a construct to speak on behalf of its wearer. At the very least, this is how to mask viewed its existence, in its roundabout, not-thinking way.

It stretched Char’s arms. “As long as I’m here, I might as well make myself useful.” It looked around, commenting on every object it saw, so as to have a statement to compare.

“This homework is all done. I’ve finished it, and now I am bored.” Though Char was in a state akin to sleep, his intents and desires were still an open book for his mask.

“I should find something to think about later,” it said, “like those textbooks I’ve only partly read. Can’t waste a good textbook, you know.”

Sitting up and hauling the textbooks to the desk was the first time the mask had ever been used to perform a physical rather than social task.

“I think I like this. Lifting things, moving around. It’s very useful, and on top of that, it’s healthy! Maybe I’ll go for a jog…. No, that would probably be inconvenient at this time. Dinner can’t be missed, of course!” The mask grinned and checked the time. “Ten minutes to go, huh? Alrighty then, I’ll just go see what cool stuff I’ve got hidden in the closet.”

The mask was, of course, aware of the binder Char had hidden at the back of his closet, but being a mask, it wasn’t averse to inspecting it more closely. Instead of flipping straight to the back, like Char had done, it flipped through randomly, reading pages throughout.

“Hmmmm. I didn’t really do much of anything as a kid, did I? Or maybe I just never wrote anything down? Gaah, how useless. Oh well, I’ve got a hang of the time period now, so I can look through some photo albums. Where would those be kept…”

Char-the-mask stepped out of his room and checked the hall closet. There was nothing there aside from the usual towels, shampoos, soaps, oral hygiene, etc… everything in triplicate at least. Nothing would be running out anytime soon. It snickered a little at the huge amounts of toilet paper on the top shelf, then stopped.

“Can’t be laughing now, can I? That would be vulgar, hehehmmm. I wonder if there’s something hidden behind all that toilet paper.” It climbed up a few shelves, noting aloud their sturdy construction. Char’s parents, who had been sneaking sly looks from around the corner every few minutes now stared in horror at their son’s nonsensical babbling. The mask dropped down, turning to face them. Its search had been in vain. Apparently there was just a lot of toilet paper in the Ashworth household. The boy’s face quickly adopted a neutral expression.

“Do you know where a photo album might be? Is it in the attic? Do we have one of those? Never mind that, do we have any photos? I can’t remember the last time I saw a camera.”

Mr and Mrs Ashworth were still shaken, and they couldn’t quite wrap their heads around this new behavior. The doctor had warned them that Charon’s behavior might change in the coming weeks, but not to such a degree. He had just asked them four questions in a row, a total of 37 words, all in one breath. For as long as they could remember, such a thing had never happened, even before they started him on his medicine. The closest instance they could think of was about that time…

“You don’t think he might be remembering, about that time? Should we give him the speech?” His mother was whispering in hushed tones to his father, but it could still make out what they were saying.

“Remembering? He just said he DIDN’T remember. I think he’s just being curious, looking for old pictures. That’s normal isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s really normal, completely.” Char’s face leaned in close to theirs. “Are you going to tell me where I can find some old pictures, or are you going to give me this speech?”

His mother poked his father pointedly in the back. “Ow, uhm,” he glanced at his wife, who jerked her head and poked him again. He sighed and shoved her hand away before she could poke him a third time. “Give us a few minutes to talk this over.” The parents retreated into the bedroom for a conference. They locked the door behind them, and then moved into the bathroom, where their voices could no longer be understood. The mask waited patiently by the door.

When the door opened again, his father was carrying a thin binder with plastic pages. The parents hurried down the stairs to the kitchen table. This seemed like the most appropriate place for important family meetings. Also, dinner was done. The mask ate Char’s share of the casserole quickly, but despite their initial purposeful posturing, the parents were taking a suspiciously long time to finish theirs. If they were being perfectly honest with themselves, they would be happier if they never had to have this conversation. It was connected with far too many bad feelings and worries, most on behalf of their son. But they had decided that it would be best for everyone if they took this opportunity to lay out the truth.

Their resolution wasn’t so firm that they wouldn’t take every opportunity to delay. But, all good things must come to an end, and the casserole was only moderately good. Soon they were sitting at a clear table, with stomachs full of food and figurative squirmy creatures that make butterflies seem luxurious. The mask waited patiently as always. It had no inherent sense of urgency, or of time. It simply knew that Char was in need of a focus, and it might find one in his past.

Finally, his mother spoke, laying open the binder as she began her carefully prepared speech.

[Okay, I may have rushed this chapter. I had a chain of events set out but it kinda ran away from me, so you're about to get some background info way sooner than I planned. But it's also a cliffhanger. :< to make it up to you, here is a nice picture I made. |http://imgur.com/RGlMoez|]

CHAPTER 6: Memory || Yromem
(memory and reflection)
***
When you were five years old, your cousin came to stay with us. Her circumstances back home were getting dangerous, because some hateful people found out that she was a mutant. She was about the same age you are now, 15, with the same silver eyes. That was how they found her, by the way. One day she fell asleep during class, and when she woke up, her eyes were shining like mirrors. One of the kids in class let slip to a Humanity First member, and the next thing she knew, vandals were targeting her house.
“That sounds terrible. Do you have any pictures of her?”
Not anymore. We got rid of them all.
“Why’d you do that?”
I’m getting to that part. She stayed here for about a year, then she went off to some school for mutants. And while she was here with us, you two were very close. At the time, your father and I were happy for you. We thought having a friend would be good for you, and at school you never even talked to the other children. Maybe that’s what blinded us to what was really happening.
“....And that was?”
We never really found out. Neither of you would talk about it. But we saw the effects. You started following her around, treating her like royalty, with an unnatural level of deference. The respect you showed her was too serious. To you she was like an idol or something. You even dressed like her for Halloween. That’s really weird isn’t it? Most kids would choose a hero, or a monster or something. And then you didn’t even go out and get candy, because she wanted to stay home and watch a show. You didn’t even change out of your costume. The sight of the two of you sitting on the couch watching television… you weren’t even watching, just mimicking her. It was like she had a clone. At the time I thought it was cute… Anyways, all that stuff, um, those behaviors we thought were normal for little kids, they took on a much different light when she had to leave. You were distraught, you didn’t know what to do with yourself without her around to tell you what to do. And we thought that was okay, that you’d work through it and go on, that it was a phase. But then you started wearing the costume around the house, saying things like, ‘I’ll be Kaycee’ or….. Ah. I said her name. ****, and it was going so well.

There was an awkward pause, broken by the clatter of Char’s chair being pushed back suddenly. He was stirring, and the mask was muttering under its breath, trying to organize its purpose before he became fully conscious.
“This is bad… I know these memories…. I shouldn’t have asked, that’s the bad place, the light place. I shouldn’t remember this, can’t, they were sealed. What to do… I can’t let myself know this, nothing good can come of it, I’m still not ready. Aha! I can remember this because I am already in the sealed part, that makes some sense. So if I remember this for myself then when I am myself I won’t remember it anymore. As myself. It makes sense, I’m sure of it.”

Aloud, it said, “Excuse me, I have to go think about this for a while… I don’t think we should talk about this anymore.” And the mask fled to Char’s bedroom, to his desk, and opened the first textbook. Its eyes drifted shut, and Char opened them. He glanced at the time. It was past dinner, but he wasn’t hungry. His senses tugged at him, but he shrugged them off to get some reading done. And he read into the night.

*******
Lana Ashworth cursed for about the 100th time since her son had fled the discussion of his past. She didn’t know the exact number because it didn’t matter. Her husband nodded sagely beside her. They both knew it would be a very long time before they could mention this topic again. It was the same every time. And every time they were filled with regrets. Not just the events that transpired with Kaycee, but with their treatment of their own son in his younger years. If they hadn’t been so scared, maybe they could’ve dealt with the problem without leaving behind so much pain and mental scarring. As it was, they didn’t know if Charon would ever be able to face himself, or his cousin if they ever crossed paths again.

They stayed hunched over the old tabletop for an indeterminate length of time, long after the sun fell out of sight, its unmarked surface further proof in their eyes that they had wasted their son’s childhood.

[It is a mini chapter to finish that cliffhanger. People don't carry on very long conversations in this family, do they. ]

CHAPTER 7: Solve for why

Char’s school textbooks managed to tide him over until Saturday afternoon. Then, he spent the rest of the day checking the problems at the back to see if there were any he didn’t think he could solve. He was testing his ability to predict the extent of his knowledge, something he had noticed after completing a few more homework assignments. Somehow he had a way of knowing at a glance how difficult a problem would be, before he really knew what it was asking. His experiment was straightforward. He would select ten problems at random from each chapter, then write his predictions on a separate paper. Then he completed the problems and timed how long it took. He repeated the process until his times wouldn’t go any lower. By then, he had streamlined the process to the point where he didn’t even need to write down his answers. He simply completed the work in his head and stopped the timer.

He brushed some hair out of his eyes to carefully examine the tables of predictions and times. It wasn’t very useful. Near the end, every prediction was “too easy” and the times were under a second.

“If this is all there is, shouldn’t I ask to move up?” He thought to himself. He was careful not to vocalize his thoughts, even if they were harmless. Several days of using his mask had made it a reflex, but sometimes he ended up using it even when he was alone. The mask wanted to talk, and he suspected it would say anything to break the silence if he didn’t keep it in check. He could never really know when his parents were listening, after all. He put away his books, planning to bring some back to school on Monday so he could ask for some new ones. He wasn’t sure if that would work, but it would be less awkward than coming right out and asking to test out of class because it was too easy.

Char didn’t think it outright, but he wanted to avoid starting conversations. While his mask was very useful at fending off small talk and appearing attentive in class, it tended towards an odd cheerfulness that didn’t suit him. It almost seemed to be encouraging people to interact with him, especially that one girl. She wouldn’t stop asking him to accompany her on some expedition or investigation thing.

He fully intended to never take her up on that offer, but then he looked around the room. He searched his house. He tried to do some research on the computer, but the quality of information was too low. It had started to feel tainted after his English teacher gave him a lecture on Internet sources.

“Your paper was very good. Almost flawless. But look at these sources. Every single one, is a website, or a blog post, or an article from an online newsletter. You can’t trust everything you read on the internet, even if they sound legitimate. Anyone can put information out there on the internet. It’s publishers that will have the proofreaders and fact-checkers. Next time, I’d recommend that you find some reference books, nonfiction, just to check against. Again, excellent work, just keep that in mind.”

Char rubbed his eyes. His contacts were very irritating. The doctor had said he would get used to putting them in and taking them out after a few weeks, but it still felt like he was poking himself in the eyes. He blinked a few times, and glanced at the oven. There were a few minutes left on his frozen dinner, but he was hungry and tired, and didn’t want to wait around with nothing to do. The chicken nuggets turned out okay, even if they weren’t quite piping hot. He drenched them in ketchup for flavor, and read the nutrition facts while he ate. He memorized the words he didn’t recognize to look into later, because anything other than ‘chicken’ and ‘flour’ seemed awfully suspicious.

In the shower, he turned the water as hot as it could go, then an eighth turn the opposite direction as it started to scald. Suddenly remembering, he hopped out soaking wet to remove his contacts, which he had been wearing on the off chance a package arrived, and to get used to them. He glanced at the mirror, temporarily mesmerized by his own eyes. They were very pretty, in the same way a well-polished surface is, something that should be matte now holding a reflection. He decided to finish his shower before he made too big of a puddle, and kicked the towel over to where he had been standing. When he was finished, the mirror had become blurry with fog, and he couldn’t see more than a silhouette of himself in it. He wiped away the moisture in a small stripe to stare once again into his own eyes. They felt familiar and comfortable, in a different way than before. He felt like they belonged to someone else. But he couldn’t remember who, and he was cooling off fast. He changed into the pajamas he had brought into the bathroom with him, performed his usual presleep tasks, and went to bed. He dreamed of a silver pool that night, rippling slowly outwards, as around him shapeless figures moved in a deep white fog.

He woke up at exactly 7 AM Sunday morning. He peered out from under his blankets, confirming the early hour. He wanted to close his eyes again, to return to the peaceful soft light, under his soft blankets and his soft pillow to block the hard light of the sun. His eyes would not close. He rolled off of his bed quickly, landing heavily on the floor. No. He would not sleep. Lethargy and comforts were for the old Char, the lazy one, the boy who was so inhibited by his so-called medicine he couldn’t even work up the energy to get breakfast most days. He was different now, he was awake, and he would do anything to stay that way. He was going to…. Char tried to think of something to do. There weren’t any books worth reading left in the house, and his parents weren’t home so he didn’t have access to a vehicle or their money. The internet was informative, but he had no idea what to do with it, had nothing in particular he wanted to know. That left one option. He would have to take that girl up on her offer to go “investigate” something. She never did say what that was about.

*********

The girl in question was already awake, and preparing to leave her home. She did this every day she didn’t have to go to school, and her parents were heavy sleepers, so they didn’t mind. It had taken some time to convince them she could protect herself, out and about at all hours, but in the end, they knew she would run off anyways. There was no point in stopping her. She had a cell phone, after all. She wasn’t really alone.

She looked at the cereals in the cupboard. All the good ones had run out, leaving the bland, healthy types her dad liked. Or at least, claimed he liked. Most of them hadn’t been touched in weeks, and the sweet cereals had run out awfully fast. Scowling, she grabbed an orange and a granola bar instead. She could eat them at today’s destination.

She paused at the door, sensing a low buzzing from somewhere in her backpack. Someone was calling her cell. It was a rare enough occurrence that she dropped her things where she stood and began rummaging for it, trying to catch the call before it went to voicemail. Her fingers managed to hit the talk button just in time.

“Hello, Dice here, who is this?”

“Char speaking, I’m bored, so I thought I’d accept your invitation.”

“Huh? What invi- Oh! Yeah. I’m heading out on one right now.”

“So, can I join you? I’m curious what it’s about. Sounds mysterious.”

“Yes! I mean sure, you can. Can you be at the forested area on the other side of the park that’s behind the supermarket near the library in about fifteen minutes?”

“I… am not sure where you are talking about. Is there an address or something I could use to look it up?”

“You mean you’ve never been to any of those places? Ah, forget it. You can tell me where you are and I can pick you up on the way. Does that work?”

“You’ll pick me up? Is that legal?”

“I’m not kidnapping you. By the way, leave a note or something. For my sake.”

“Nah, my parents are out all day. This won’t take the whole day, will it? Anyways, what I meant was you can’t have a driver’s license yet.”

“Oh. I have a motor scooter that I use.”

“That … is also not legal.”

“Nobody’s stopped me yet. It’ll be fine, lighten up. If you’re so worried, ride a bike.”

“You know what, sure. Ride your scooter. I’ll give you my address.” Char didn’t have a bicycle. He didn’t own much of anything, really. He told her his address while he finished putting together a bag to take with him. It contained a water bottle and raisins. He hung up and placed the phone back on its charging cradle. He grabbed a hat and cracked the blinds to check the sky. He hissed through his teeth, averting his gaze from the sun. He added sunglasses to his shortlist of things to gather in the next ten minutes.

Eleven minutes, twenty seconds later, his time, she almost ran into him on a bicycle.

“That isn’t a motor scooter.”

“Shut up.”

[Is it just me or am I notsogreat at dialogue? ._. Anyways. Uh. Stuff is happening. Soon, soon. If something is obviously lacking let me know so I can go back and fix it. Thanks for reading]

CHAPTER 8: Some choice expletives

Ten minutes (approx.) earlier:

Eurydice ‘Dice’ Peterson looked sadly at her transport of choice, the motor scooter she built with her own two hands and assorted tools. It was originally a normal, foot-powered scooter, but she had upgraded the wheels and installed an electric motor in the rear wheel, modifying the brake to act as the accelerator. It no longer had any brakes, but it didn’t move fast enough to hurt too badly if she had to bail out, a maneuver she enjoyed executing even in situations when it wasn’t necessary.

Dice thought about her conversation with Charon. She hadn’t been entirely honest. She had, in fact, been stopped by a local officer once while riding her scooter, but he just let her off with a warning to wear a helmet and ‘be safe’. He was a cool guy, and too lazy to find out the exact laws about these kinds of things. And now that she thought about it… she didn’t see how two people could ride it at the same time. The foot space wasn’t large enough, and the motor probably couldn’t handle the strain. She didn’t want to leave it behind, though. In a rush, she just went along with the first idea that popped into her head. Luckily, it was a good one.

Ten minutes later (approx.)

“I never realized that riding a bicycle was so tiring,” Char said through clenched teeth, “could you slow down a little, please? By the way, that’s a nice scooter, where’d you get it?” He was trying to keep up with that girl, Dice or something. She hadn’t seemed too pleased at his initial observations. Not the bike bit, that had been a nice opening for her to pull out her scooter and reveal her plan.

“See, this way, we can both ride! Do you want to ride the scooter, or the bike?”

“Isn’t the scooter a little… small?” Char had his doubts about its stability, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had even seen a scooter before.

“I guess you’re riding the bike then.” And she left him with the bicycle, rolling smoothly down the street on her scooter.

“Oh. So it really was a motor scooter.”

Char pedaled harder, trying to keep up. The burning in his legs was a clear indicator that he needed to get out more. Not for the first time, he cursed his sloth. The experience wasn’t altogether unpleasant, though. At the speed he was traveling, he didn’t have to worry about boredom or lack of focus, and the air flowing over his body created a unique and enjoyable sensation. Just when he was starting to get used to it, they came around a corner, and arrived at the park. Dice led him across the grass to a particularly large tree a short way into the surrounding forest. She took the bike from him and a length of chain from her pack, and tied the bike to the tree with it.

“Okay, the investigation starts now. We’re going to visit all of the places in these woods that I’ve found that look like ritual locations. Your job will be to keep your eyes peeled for anything… culty. Cultish? You get the idea. I’ll be counting on you!”

“Yes, I will be the watchful eye, looking for signs of cult activity using my extensive knowledge gained through hours of research!” Internally, Char frowned. His mask was going a bit overboard with the excitement. But she was unfazed by his outburst, flashing him a wide grin before leading him on a weaving path deeper into the woods, where the trees were closer together, and the shade darker. He slipped off his sunglasses and dropped them into his backpack, scanning the surrounding undergrowth for the warning signs. An old fire, leftover smudges of chalk on trees, dropped trinkets, spilled blood, anything out of place. He didn’t see anything besides the occasional dead animal and some trash left behind by hikers who weren’t adventurous enough to travel far, but still wanted to rough it a little. When they stopped for a minute to drink some water, he wondered if there really was any cult activity in the area. It seemed far-fetched, but one could never be certain one way or the other, until people started disappearing. These groups would sometimes become very bold after passing under the radar for a long time, moving from animal sacrifices to human ones in hopes that their rituals would be more successful. There weren’t any reports about what happened after that, but it couldn’t be good. Char wouldn’t want to get involved with those kinds of people, he was sure about that. So he was obligated to ask.

“Is there any particular reason we’re looking for cults here? I mean, do you think we might actually find evidence?” This was a question not asked out of a polite interest. He really wanted to know if he should be watching his back, or keeping an eye out for missing persons articles in the newspaper.

Dice looked at him with an appraising expression. “You can keep a secret?” Before Char could give her the obvious ‘Yes’, she continued. “The truth is, I met some actual magic people last year. Like, wizards. I’m totally serious. And they told me, well, not me, but their son, I just heard it from the other room. They said they were keeping an eye out because someone was interfering with their magic in this area, but they couldn’t find who did it. And I thought, ‘This might be some evil dark stuff going on right in our hometown.’ It’s a scary thing to think about, isn’t it?” Char was a little concerned on her behalf, and not just because she hadn’t blinked or taken a breath since she started talking.

“Wizards? How’d you meet a couple of….” He quickly went over her words in his head. “They weren’t the parents of someone at school, were they?”

She blinked then, and finally took a breath, to Char’s relief. “So you aren’t going to say magic isn’t real? That I’m misunderstanding something? That’s what people usually say.” She smiled again. “Well, I should have known you wouldn’t be like that. You wrote a whole paper on cults, after all, and you didn’t skip over the good stuff. Anyways, that’s enough talking, let’s go to the next spot.” Reaching across with her right hand, she slipped her water bottle into the left side pocket of her pack, and set off at a brisk pace. Char did the same and followed, continuing his observation while thinking about the possibility of actually finding evidence, which was sounding more plausible with every passing minute. Wasn’t there something off about those dead animals from before? He would have to check that on the way back.

They came out of the dense part of the woods into a clearing, shaded by the long branches of the trees on all sides. Char’s took a quick gulp of water and looked to Dice for instruction.

“What are you waiting for? Here we are, at suspected location numbero one. Start looking for evidence. I’ll check the edges, you get the inside part.” She looked him right in the eyes, her own narrowed in concentration. Then she nodded and moved to the trees, looking for hollows or disturbed dirt, places where things might be hidden from view. Char turned his attention to the ground between the trees, the short plants all around, comparing the growth in the clearing to that outside. He noticed something odd, something about the trees. He walked back to the outside edge to see both sides at once. The side facing the clearing was a different color. He checked the tree next to it, and saw the same effect. The trees on the edge of the clearing were somehow less vibrant than those farther out, were almost gray instead of brown. He reported to Dice.

“The inner trees seem to be leeched of color,” he said, “and the effect seems to vary on individual trees. The backs of the trees also have more color than the sides facing the clearing.” He waited to see what her response would be.

“Oh, good eye. Unfortunately, that isn’t conclusive, because everyone knows light bleaches the color out of things (even though it’s a very local effect and these trees aren’t in direct sunlight, so it’s odd nonetheless). Keep looking, I’m sure there’s something else.” So she had noticed the bleaching, that much he should have expected. She wasn’t the type to miss something right under her nose, Char had determined that quickly. At school she seemed careless, but out here in the dim forest, she was constantly vigilant. He was sure she was testing him here, seeing if he could spot everything she had. He renewed his efforts with vigor. He paced the entire area, scanning the ground visually, then pushing aside the low plant life with his hands. It took an hour, but he found three points worth mentioning. He relayed them to Dice.

“In the center of the clearing, and about five feet out, I found mixed into the dirt small crystals like sand. Next, I compared the plant life inside the circle to that outside it and found that the inside contains only short ferns, there is no sign of moss or grass inside like there is outside. Also, all the plants inside the clearing look a bit shorter than those outside, even though they are in more light. Lastly, there are several root systems originating from within the clearing, but the trunks have been removed and the roots covered in dirt. This is a man-made clearing.”

Dice thoughtfully walked to the center of the clearing and scooped up some dirt in her hand. It sparkled slightly when she held it in one of the light spots. She walked back. “I knew about the dirt and the shrubs, but how did you find out about the roots without digging? Do you have x-ray vision or something?”

“No, I could tell where the roots were by the rise and fall of the ground, and by the sound it makes when you stomp on it. This clearing has a lot of shallow mounds, but they are hidden by the ferns and ridges caused by the roots. And that isn’t how x-rays work.”

“Where did you learn how to do that? You aren’t secretly a ranger or something, are you? Is it your mutant power?”

“It’s just something I thought of. Like how you can knock on a plaster wall to listen for studs, or whatever. This isn’t anything superhuman, it’s just a hunch.” Char was really glad that his mask didn’t show his thoughts, because he was starting to freak out. Dice was really pressing the mutant topic for some reason. He couldn’t be sure she wasn’t joking with a straight face, but she also might have reason to suspect him. What had he done? It couldn’t just be the report, or the time he collapsed in class and came back all healthy, that wasn’t weird. He wanted to ask, but that would be a dead giveaway. So he tried to play it cool.

Then he remembered, that he hadn’t put on his contacts that morning. He thought some choice expletives.

“Oohh, you mean my eyes. Haha, do you like my new contacts? I had them custom made, do they look cool?” An easy grin spread across his face. He could fake his way out of this, surely.

“Nah, the ones you wear at school look more natural.”

Or not. Char swore more than just a little then. Still in his head, of course.

[+1 to anyone who thought of the contacts. Not that my typical style of leaving out details until they are important lends itself to that kind of prediction. Thanks for reading, if you see mistakes let me know]

CHAPTER 9: What makes you special is all in your head

“So you think I’m a mutant?” Char had to confirm before he could continue to more important matters, like asking Dice to keep his manifestation under wraps.

“Well. If you put it that way, I have the following word for you: Duh. You couldn’t have been more obvious, even before you left your contacts off to come meet me. What were you thinking? Sheesh.” She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know, I forgot. That happens sometimes. And what was so obvious? I’m not using any powers, doing anything a normal person couldn’t.”

“You do realize, that when you came back from your ‘medical leave’, you were a whole inch taller than when you left? No, you didn’t. You got lucky, because you had nobody close enough to notice. But I did, because I am always watching for these kinds of things” She made it sound like something anyone could do, but it was pretty impressive that she could make that kind of judgement about a stranger. Char was starting to believe she had been watching him in particular for some time, but he couldn’t reason why.

“Lucky… so you won’t tell anyone?” Char’s mask tried for a hopeful expression, but only came halfway before grinning like an idiot.

“What, you thought I would go out of my way to take you into the woods for some quality investigation time, then waste it all by spilling to some idiot with a grudge? No way, not when I finally got someone to come out here with me. You’re like the second person to believe anything I say about this cult stuff. To sum up, I want you to hang out with me, so your secret is safe.” Dice stuck out a hand. Char looked at it, trying to determine whether it was a handshake or an odd high (low?) five. He left it up to his mask to decide. He grasped her hand in his own and they shook on it.

When she finally let go of his hand, Dice had decided to postpone their visit to the second possible cult site.

“Instead, show me what you can do.” She waited expectantly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are your powers. You’re a mutant, so there has to be something you can do that’s ‘super’. Can you run really fast, move things with your mind, that kind of thing.”

“Oh,” he said, thinking about it for a minute. What exactly could he do, that he couldn’t do before? “It’s hard to say, but I think I’m a bit smarter now. I’ve finished with all the textbooks from my classes so far, and I can solve any question in them. And I can do this, uh, mask thing.”

“You ‘think’ you’re smarter? Why so unsure? Seems pretty clear to me.” Though her words were skeptical, Dice’s face showed nothing but interest. She really wanted to know the exact meaning of his words. It made Char a little nervous, and he checked the reigns on his mask a little.

“I’ve always been a good learner, but the time I manifested as a mutant was also the time I became immune to my, uhm, medication. So I’m not certain if I’m naturally this smart or if it’s because of the mutation, you know? I was always really tired before, but I still managed high grades somehow. Anyways, I don’t want to talk about that, it isn’t important.” He was trying very hard to change the subject, but his mask kept shuffling his priorities, making ‘answer the question’ higher than ‘avoid talking about uncomfortable subjects’.

“Uh huh.” Clearly she wanted to ask more on the subject, but Dice could see that even if she pressed him, he wouldn’t say much more about it. Plus, she didn’t want to make him leave. That would be the worst outcome. So she followed up on an earlier thread.

“You said you had some mask thing? Can you change your appearance? Shifting is a pretty useful ability, even if it is a little sketchy.” She noticed that she was getting ahead of Char, and forcibly stopped talking. She gestured for him to speak. He leaned back against a tree and tried to think of the best way to explain.

“Well, if you’re asking about my mask, you’re looking at it. It’s me, right now, talking to you. It’s like a small part of me that I use to improve my interactions with other people. It makes me easier to get along with.”

“Oh, so it’s like a kind of charisma ability. So if this is you with the ‘mask’, what are you like without it? Show me.” Dice took a step back and narrowed her eyes, waiting for him to comply. She told herself it was just to confirm the power of his ability, to see if it was this mask was feeding her interest in him. But deeper down, her motivations were darker, less reasonable than simple curiosity. She wanted to see him vulnerable, this boy who, though careless, never faltered, never showed his core. Watching from afar, or nearby, even asking him directly, she couldn’t tell what he was hiding. She knew the mask wasn’t as simple as charisma. It was a perfect poker face, revealing nothing the wearer didn’t want her to know. Most people would show parts of themselves they weren’t even aware of, if they were watched long enough. So far, Charon Ashworth’s behavior had been too perfect, too in line with what he appeared to be. She hated that kind of lie. And that’s why she commanded, rather than asked, him to take it down.

Char let his thoughts touch upon his mask. He supposed, that he could just for a little bit, try to be without it, see what it was like. It shouldn’t be too hard, after all. He hadn’t had it until recently, and he had survived up until this moment. But still, he hesitated.

“Will you take your mask off for me?” Dice asked, calmly. She clasped her hands together in front of her, lightly brushing the pointer finger of her right hand with her thumb. When he continued to hesitate, she let her left hand drop, leaving her right to hover awkwardly in front of her, still moving her thumb in slow circles on the nail of her finger. The finger twitched, and she thought, wouldn’t it be easy to just point at him, and make him do it. She remembered the last time she thought on those lines, and her thumb halted, then tucked into a fist that she slowly lowered to match her left hand. No, now was not a good time for that. Impatience had never served her well, and it wouldn’t start working now. She decided to let Char make up his own mind.

Char had already decided. He would try it, and see how it went. Now was as good a time as any, better, in fact. His parents weren’t around to freak out, and he had someone with him to give him a focus if his senses overpowered him again. The only problem he could think of was how exactly to go about it. If he did it wrong, he would just activate his introspective state, and that wouldn’t be much use.

Finally, he worked it out, and took down the mask. It was more difficult than he had supposed. Since the day he realized he had it, the mask had been active any time he had to interact with someone. The longer he used it, the easier and more reactive its activation became. On this particular trip he had even been able to tell when Dice was watching him because it would activate on its own, influencing his posture, his expression. Several times, the same thing had happened when he wasn’t looking in her direction, meaning it could tell using factors aside from sight. To keep such a powerful part of his mind inactive on purpose felt unnatural, like holding back a sneeze until it faded away, leaving him blank. But the feeling passed, and there he was, in the forest. Just Char, barefaced with nothing to say.

“I… id.. t” His voice was shuddering and quiet. It was drowned out by the soft background of the leaves rustling.

“What?” She couldn’t hear him. And she couldn’t see his face either, because he was holding a hand over his eyes and speaking downwards. She moved closer to hear better, and he shrank back, pressing himself against the tree behind him like he wanted to just pass right through it. He didn’t have such a power, so he walked around it to lean against the other side. She followed him, annoyed, but he just kept circling the tree until she grabbed his arm. While he was restrained she, used her free hand to pull the hand away from his face.

She took a long hard look into his eyes, then released him. He stood very still, then he closed his eyes and sat on the ground, his knees to his chest. She extended her right index finger, and spoke in a firm voice.

“Go back. Reactivate your mask. This is my request.” The nail on her finger sparked, showing a small, intricate circle on its surface, that just as quickly faded. Char stiffened, then sprang to his feet, anxiety plain in his demeanor.

“Okay, you’d better have seen all you needed right then, because I’m never doing that again. Do you understand?” He paused. “Did you just magic me?”

****

When Dice looked into Char’s eyes, she knew she had done something terrible in convincing him to remove his mask. They were the eyes of a dead person, blank and staring. His face was expressionless, and he made no move to remove himself from her grasp. Intuitively, she knew what kinds of emotions he must be feeling, but from sight alone she couldn’t see anything, and that was the scariest thing she had ever had to think about. This kid’s mask wasn’t some power, it was the part of him that controlled his entire exterior, and when it was gone, he was cut off. She had asked a person to turn off a part of their brain, and she wasn’t even sure what that entailed. Well, she wouldn’t let that hang over her if she could help it. Karma is the balance of good and bad deeds, so to make up for this unkind act, she would give something in return. Something that would build Char’s trust in her. So she decided to tell him about the magic in their town.

[ wow, I sure am updating kinda frequently. I guess that could be attributed to my roughly 5-page chapters. Regardless, here we go, about to dive into the bizarreness that is the small town Char lives in.(hint it involves wizards, who knew). as always let me know of any errors etc etc.]

CHAPTER 10: The Mansion and the residents thereof

Dice considered how to begin. There were many topics of interest, but shortly she condensed them into four important subjects: the wizards, the mansion, the situation with the town, and the Astronomy Club. Or was it the Astrology Club? Regardless, she would have to start somewhere. The best thing to do was test the waters, so to speak.

“What do you know about magic?” This should simplify things. If he didn’t know, she could explain it, then transition to the town, then the mansion, then the wizards, and maybe the Astrosomething Club would come up.

“I just assumed it existed because I read that some cults use a specific kind of magic. This is my first time actually seeing it.”

“Yesss- I mean, I’ll explain the basics to you then. Magic is when you use special energy stuff to make things happen. The energy is this kind of stuff you find some places, or you can make it yourself if you’re really good.” She stopped when she saw Char’s eyebrows raise. “Stop that, I know what I’m talking about. I just don’t like the ‘official’ terms.” She put air quotes on the word ‘official’. “If you really want to know, it’s called Essence. But I’m going to call it special magic energy. Anyways, most people who do magic slooowly make their own magic energy or gather it over time from the environment. And the places where there’s the most special energy to gather are on these things called ‘ley lines’. Well, this town happens to have more than just a few ley lines crossing it, so we’ve got more than a few magic using people living here. It’s really useful, so they can practice more and get better faster.”

“Is that why you can do magic? They ley lines helped you practice?”

“Hahaha, no. This isn’t exactly my magic. I mean, it certainly isn’t coming from my personal stores. If I was using those, I could barely move a pencil, maybe two. Three? Maybe I’ve improved. No, the magic I just used is something I took from the VIP’s of this area. Y’know how I said I heard some stuff from some wizards? That was them. The Distevar family. They’ve been living in this huge mansion around here since before the town even existed. They basically called dibs on the best ley-line intersection for about a hundred miles, and they have their house rigged up full of enchantments so they can use it freely on their property. So, I found my way into their library, and copied down a few spells I thought would be useful, and took the time to learn to use them.”

Char’s eyes narrowed. “You broke into their house? Isn’t that really stupid? And how do you just ‘learn’ how to use someone else’s spells without any training?”

“Hey I never said I wasn’t trained. And I didn’t break in, I was invited. That’s really important, because that’s how I still have access to some of their magic to use these spells. See, the last time I was in there, I left a little magic energy holder where they couldn’t find it, but I could get to it without, y’know, breaking in.”

Char smirked a little. “Did you just leave it in the bushes or something?”

“Wh- No, don’t be ridiculous. I buried it under the bush. I’m sure they won’t notice. Basically, I leave it there to recharge every few days, and it serves as my personal magic source. That way I can do some of the cool stuff without spending like half my life training my capacity. ‘Course, I still have to practice a lot to get the stuff I do have working properly. See, look here.” She held out her hands, palms down. Concentrating, she put a small amount of essence into the circles on her nails, not enough to activate them, but enough to make them visible.

“Huh, so you use magic circles?”

“Yep. Well, that’s pretty much all the Distevars do. It’s their specialty, and they are very good at it. Drawing magic circles, I mean. Look at the one on my pinky nail. You know how long it took to get it just right? A year. Yep, one whole year redrawing that stupid thing every day, just so I can make light without a flashlight. She lifted her hand, pinky extended, and whispered her activation chant.

“Lights on. This is my request.” A baseball-sized orb of soft light popped into existence above her pinky finger. She grabbed it in her left hand, cupping her right around it so it shone in front of her. She waved the beam around a bit, then got bored and cut it off.

“A whole year. Well, I can write equally well with both hands now, so that’s something. I guess it didn’t help that I was drawing on my fingernails. Magic circles do not go well with curved surfaces. Uh, where was I?” She remembered the plan, then scowled, also realizing she had to talk about the Club now. She still wasn’t sure if it was Astronomy or Astrology.

“Anyways. There’s one more important thing you should know about. There’s this… Astrolomy Club, and pretty much everyone who knows about magic around here is in it, and even some who don’t. The exceptions are the Distevars, ‘cause they’re always off on jobs to pay the property taxes on their giant house. The Club is crazy obsessed with stargazing, and when they aren’t doing that, they’re drooling over ‘gifted’ children, ‘ones blessed by the stars’, stupid stuff like that. Having big ceremonies like ye gods have deigned to bestow their kid with great potential or something. I was forced to attend those meetings for years. Anyways, point is, if you’re too smart, they try to get you. And then you have no time to get anything done. If you have to, pretend to be dumber than you are, and whatever you do, don’t ask to move up. Learn stuff on your own time, like me.” She paused for breath.

“What the hell is wrong with this place?” Char looked, for once, visibly angry. “There are people who’ll pick me out for being smart, but then they won’t let me exercise my intelligence?”

“For them it isn’t about you. Everyone is a little selfish, it isn’t a bad thing. But some people will force their ideas and their wants on you for their own gain. It’s terrible, and it shows a ridiculous level of hypocrisy, for sure. But they have the authority here, so our best bet is to keep out of their way.”

Char was quickly running out of expletives, and he didn’t want to sound repetitive. “.... Buncha hopped up imbecilic fools, holed up in their delusions, oppressors and tyrants, all of them…” He kept that train of thought mostly to himself, muttering a word under his breath here and there. But it wasn’t helping, so he turned his attention to something he had thought about while Dice was still talking.

“Where’d you get the storage device? They magic energy one? Did you steal that too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I made it myself. I’m very good with my hands, in case you hadn’t noticed from my excellent custom-built scooter, that you didn’t want to ride. I did steal the instructions, though, and some of the materials. And I used the Distevar’s magic a bunch in the process… I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Are you a mutant, too?”

“Oh, Char, I’m almost offended. Can’t you tell? I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill child prodigy. ‘Gods-blessed’, etc. No, they would never have let me off if I was genetically predisposed to be amazing by something detectable like a metagene. And would you look at the time! It’s still relatively early in the day. Let’s go look at the rest of those cult sites.” She set off at a brisk pace, leaving him to follow, scanning the trails like before, but with a lot more to think about.

[Wow. Just look at all that information. Was I really just looking for a good opportunity to dump it? No way, what are you talking about, this was done with the poise and delicacy of a ballerina writing a story on her own back, in cursive, with her foot. Or his. It might be a man ballerina. ballerino?]

Interlude 10.5: Family

It’s dark, outside the old warehouse. Though it seems abandoned, its owner still keeps some goods there, when other locations are full. Tonight, however, it is mostly empty. On the side of the building, a loose window swings open and children begin to jump out, one after the other. They come in all shapes and sizes, mostly boys but there are some girls. What they have in common is the expression on their faces. Slightly nervous, but triumphant, afraid of being caught, they are yet caught up in a frenzy of malicious glee. They glance back a few times, but nothing has changed, so they keep running. Then it is quiet again. Inside the warehouse, their victim stirs.

It’s hot, but there isn’t anything new about that. He opens his eyes and stretches out a bit, slightly stiff from his wounds and the stress of healing repeatedly in a short period of time. He tries to feel his back to check the status of his shirt. No good, it’s torn to shreds after all the junk they threw at him. His pants aren’t much better, and if he wants to leave with any dignity, he should probably put out the fire. Standing slowly, he rolls his arms and neck, and picks his way to the edge of the junk pile. A lot of it is on fire, and rolling in the broken glass, bricks, and metal isn’t going to put him out. His blood is what started the fire in the first place, shedding more of it will only make things worse. He calmly pats out the worst parts, ignoring the heat. Burns heal faster than anything else, to the point he almost doesn’t feel them.

He sighs, trying to come up with a good explanation to give his foster mom, for why he’s out so late. Would she believe he was in a study group? Well, probably not. She’s seen his grades. He looks back for a second, wondering if he should clear out the trash strewn all around, and his eyes widen. Oh, no. The fire is spreading. Some cardboard boxes on one of the tall shelves had probably been splattered, and now all of them are burning merrily, giving off a warm glow. Sure, like arson is all that jolly. He has to get out fast, or he’ll have more than the angry foster-mom to deal with. He jumps out the window into the alley, and hears the sirens approaching fast. He runs for the street, realizing a little too late that his burned shoes won’t hold him. Now he’s barefoot, sprinting on the cracked asphalt, sparks flying every time his foot hits a shard of glass or a torn beer can. The bright lights come around the corner behind him, signalling the arrival of the authorities, and shouting voices indicate that he’s been spotted. This really isn’t his day.

He looks for somewhere to duck out of sight. It’s been pretty quiet, which means the mech cop for this area is sure to be on the way, if they aren’t, they will be within a minute. And there’s no way he’ll be able to get away from one of those guys. Best to just come easy, if it comes to it. Low headlights from the other side of the intersection catch his attention. A lady gets out, holding a large box in front of her. She glances at it, then looks directly at him. Looks up the street, where the fire is now a blaze and people are milling about. Soon someone will point the mech cop this direction and he’ll be in a huge amount of trouble. His fretting is interrupted when the car pulls in front of him. The door pops open, and the lady hisses at him, to get in quick, if he doesn’t want trouble. Obliging, he shuts the door behind him. The car accelerates away at a speed that he’s sure isn’t legal. Thanks for getting me away from the police, he says. She replies, what police? That makes him shut up for the rest of the short trip. He looks out the window, trying to figure out where they are, or where they are going. Suddenly the scenery changes, and he isn’t looking at drab buildings and closed-down shops, but drab trees and a gas station that should have been closed a long time ago. The lady makes a quick left off the road, and turns back towards the city.

The car finally stops moving behind an abandoned strip mall. The lady fiddles with the levers on either side of the wheel, of which there are about seven, and the ground rises on all sides to envelop them in darkness.

He wants to ask, what she is going to do with him. He’s realizing that it may have been a better idea to go with the police and explain himself. He speaks up.

“Where is this? Who are you? What are you going to do with me?”

“Ahhhh shut up, shut up. Modulant doesn’t answer questions, I just reveal information as she sees fit. And here in my lab, new test subjects do not speak until Modulant speaks to them! She means you... “ She waved her hand at him questioningly.

“Uh, I’m Jason Arch? Do you not know who I am?” He doesn’t mean to imply that he is well known, but he is wondering why she picked him off the street without knowing that much.

“Bah, Jason is a boring name. I’ll come up with something better when Modulant makes an MID for you. After she does the testing, of course. Modulant loves testing.” She leads him out of the darkened garage, through a surprisingly clean white-tiled hallway, to a very large room. It’s so large, he can’t compare it to any he’s ever seen. About half of it is taken up with training things, like treadmills, weight machines, odd colored boxes, pointy things on chains suspended from the ceiling, a cage full of small reddish cubes, and a teddy bear. He isn’t sure about the last few. The other side of the room is taken up by a single massive machine, half finished by the looks of things, with a big cone on the end of a multi-jointed arm.

“Woah. Are you a mad scientist or something? Cuz this place looks awesome.”

The lady’s eyes narrow. “Modulant is never mad. But slights against my sanity are the best way to get on her bad side. You wouldn’t do that, right, my little Giblet? Who’s my best subject?”

Jason is perplexed. “Giblet? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s me! Me, I’m Giblet! Who’re you? Are you another test subject? I won’t let you beat me, I’m the favorite.” Jason looks to see who spoke. There is a short boy in a red wetsuit standing in front of the cage. Behind him, where before there had been a mass of red cubes, there is nothing.

“Oh. Hello, uh, Giblet. I’m Jason.”

“Booooriing. I’m gonna give you a better name, just you wait. What do you do?”

“Do? Like, skills and talents? I dunno, I’m not that great at anything.”

“No, no, Mother picked you up on her mutant detector, that’s why you’re here. You have powers, so tell me what they are.”

“Oooh. Why should I tell you? I don’t even know what’s going on here. For all I know you guys could be planning to turn me over to the MCO, or maybe you ARE the MCO, and you’re gonna disappear me or something.” Jason doesn’t actually think this is the case, but he wants to have the upper hand here, and he isn’t as afraid of this kid as he is of Modulant, who is no longer listening in and is being distracted by her giant spike-arm thing.

“Hmph. I think I get it. You wanna know my power first! I’m Giblet. That’s cuz I can turn into little cubes of flesh, like giblets. Okay, I went. Now you.” He looks at Jason expectantly. “Tell me… please? Or I’ll eat your arm. Then we’ll see if you heal as well as me.”

Jason doesn’t like the sound of that, so he decides the best option is to talk. “My blood catches on fire when I bleed. That’s why my clothes are like this. I was bleeding a lot earlier today. But then it healed.”

“Uh huh. I can use that. Gimme a second, I’ll have a cool name in no time. Lesse, fire, blaze, flare, flame, booring. Pyro is where it’s at for fire. Now blood, hmm, yeah it’s plasma, no question. Pyroplasma?”

“Oh, that sounds awesome, I like that -” The name is decent, and Jason can’t think of anything better. He doesn’t want it to turn into something stupid.

“Too long, that’s like four syllables. It has to be 2, for sure.”

“Huh?”

“I know! You can be Pasma.” Giblet grins widely, and Jason barely has time to glimpse a grid of lines appearing on his face before he’s traveled the length of the room as a red blur, only to reform on top of the part Modulant is working on. Jason can imagine the conversation, and resigns himself to the name. It may be odd, but at least it isn’t cheesy.

Then he lets the shock set in. “I’ve been kidnapped!” He thinks. “Now I’m separated from all of my loved ones. That would be …. Uh….” He tries again. “Now I’m separated from all the people I hate, and the police who probably think I’m responsible for about five cases of arson, and the people who throw sharp things at me and are actually responsible for those fires…” A positive outlook is essential in times of stress, he tells himself. I’m just rationalizing, there’s no way I could actually be better off here. No way. I bet those experiments are going to be SUPER painful, then I’ll regret staying.

“Hey, Modulant, are you going to cut me open and stuff?”

“Huh? Why would she do that?” Giblet and Modulant reply in unison. “Do you want her to?”

“No, just wondering.” Jason stays silent for a long time, thinking.

“Tell me more about this testing,” Pasma says.

CHAPTER 11: He just likes books THAT much

Almost two weeks after his first meeting outside of school with Dice, Char was going over his most recent test scores. The minimum was in History, with a score of 77%. The maximum was in English with an 82%. The rest fell somewhere between these extrema. Though the numbers were undoubtedly lower than he was capable of, he should feel better about it, because this is what he had aimed for. Dice had advised him to appear average, so he tried to predict the grading methods of his teachers from his quizzes and homework assignments, and made sure he knew every last detail of the material to be covered on each test. This was all in an effort to get an average of 80% in every class, slightly above the supposed C average (he had a hard time believing anyone could score that low on accident, though he acknowledged the evidence). He had made extra plans solely for the purpose of staggering the fluctuations in his scores for the rest of the year, so nobody would get suspicious looking at his reports. But now that he was looking at the first set, he wasn’t sure he could force himself to continue the charade.

It wasn’t an issue of honesty. Char lied regularly with a straight face, and considered it the most useful attribute of his mask. Rather, he took issue with the fact that he was sabotaging the only real metric he had to measure his knowledge with. If he stopped and looked back, would he be satisfied in his mastery of the subject matter?

The memory alone could never suffice, because his memories were flawed. He sometimes forgot the little things just seconds after they happened, he forgot names and faces as fast as he heard and saw them unless he made deliberate efforts, as he had with Mithras and Dice. Even those memories were fuzzy. What color was Dice’s hair, again? And hadn’t she mentioned her full name at the end of their meeting that Sunday? He couldn’t recall what it was. These shortcomings were only frustrating in certain contexts. It wasn’t as though her hair color or full name were useful, he knew her when he saw her and nobody called her anything but Dice. The problem was the principle. If he could forget a classmate’s name, couldn’t he forget the name of a president?

Thoughts of that nature caused him brief bouts of concern several times a day, until he began to focus on the important things, like reading next year’s textbooks. He was almost done with the last of them, the English one. It had some interesting stories, that he had been taking the time to analyze for components such as ‘theme’ and the omnipresent ‘figurative language’. Soon he would have to figure out a way to sneak them back into the school without being noticed. Maybe he would have to learn how to pick locks and move stealthily in darkness. He doubted it. Those kinds of interesting skills weren’t all that useful in a normal life, which is what he was currently approximating. He paused in his thoughts. Supposing he did study up on lockpicking, there wouldn’t be any harm in it, so long as he didn’t plan to use it. He made no promises.

He turned his attention to a matter he had been putting off. Pulling up a map on his computer, Char searched for his town, then located the public library. A minute later he had printed directions, that he folded up and set on his desk. It was a normal Saturday, so his parents weren’t in the house.

“Well,” he thought, “if I go here like this and start reading all the reference books, someone might recognize me. Should I come up with an excuse, or disguise myself?” It wasn’t a real question, in that he already knew the most effective choice was the second one. Even if the excuse was solid, he could be remembered, and if he wanted to visit regularly, it would wear thin. Closing the tabs with the directions, Char opened a new search on the basics of disguise.

***********

Dice was in the habit of visiting the library several times a week to read graphic novels and old psychology texts. Today, as usual, she walked through the front door and waved a courteous greeting to the librarian, Miss Carsen, continuing past on her way to the Graphic Novel and Audiobook shelves. But the old woman wasn’t waving back today, she was waving her over. Casually, Dice came close enough to have a low-voice conversation.

“Yes, Miss Carsen? What is it?”

“Do you see that girl over there at the reading tables? I’ve never seen her before. Look at all those books she has piled up. Would you mind asking her to sign up for a library card?” Dice looked behind her, to the girl in question. She was a little amused. Miss Carsen was always asking people to sign up for cards, because the library’s budget was dependent on the number of cardholders. Then she was confused as well. The girl she was looking at was about her age, with long black hair in a single braid down her back, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, and a raggedy baseball cap. She was poring over one of three reference books open on the table in front of her. When she got closer, Dice could see a diagram of a padlock and its inner workings on one of them. A quick glance at the other books stacked next to them showed titles such as: “One Hundred or so Ways to Kill a Man with Your Bare Hands” and “An Introduction to Parkour”. There was a conspicuous lack of ‘Dummies’ books in the assortment.

“What are you, a guerilla in training?” She said, sitting across the table.

“No, I was looking for information on locks, and this other stuff looked interesting too.” Dice looked at the girl again, more carefully. Her voice was awfully familiar, but she didn’t know any girls that read these kinds of books… She took in the appearance of the person across from her, as a whole, and reconsidered her assumptions.

“Char, is that you?” She hissed.

“Was it that transparent?” He asked, flipping the page and scrutinizing a cross section of a double door locking mechanism. It might not be so easy to get into the school after hours, he supposed. Maybe after this book he would read one about working with metal, or he could use the internet to look for ways to make a lock pick set by hand.

“No. And might I ask, what the hell?”

“Why are you so surprised? Isn’t one of the fundamentals of disguise to actually be as far from what you appear to be as you can convincingly manage? People think Char is a boy, so they won’t make the connection between this image and me. And that means I’ll be able to come here as much as I want without risk of betraying my average image at school.”

“Well, for one thing, I wasn’t aware that you could pull this off. Are you wearing makeup? And second, even if you are in disguise, you’re still in plain view, reading a mountain of books.’’ She ticked the reasons off on her hand, which got a little awkward when she tried to think of a third and Char turned back to his reading. After a pause, he decided to remind her why she was here.

“So, can I sign up for a library card under a fake name, or is it an official process?”

“You heard that from way over here?”

“It’s awfully quiet in the library, you know.”

“Not that quiet.”

“Look, if you want to interrogate me, could you wait until tomorrow? I have a lot of material I want to get through today, and I’m finding it hard to talk to you with all this reading I’m doing.” He continued to stare at the book. Pointedly.

“..... Fine. I’ll pick you up. And no, the card doesn’t require ID, so feel free to sign up with whatever fake name you want. And don’t blame me when something goes wrong with this disguise plan.” Dice turned sharply on her library-class swivel chair and walked back to Miss Carsen.

“So what did she say?”

“It’s a definite maybe. That kid’s hard to read. Why didn’t you send Carl to ask, anyways? He’s your assistant.”

Miss Carsen sighed. “He quit. Said he had better things to do that restock library shelves for minimum wage. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Not much of a book lover, was he?”

“I guess not….”

“Well, I have some comics to read. Wish you luck looking for a new assistant, Miss Carsen.” With those parting words implying that she wasn’t interested in the job, Dice quickly retreated into the shelving units to grab the latest volume of her favorite series. “A Fool Speaks Only Truth” was always a good pick-me-up after an annoying experience.

[Char finally goes somewhere that isn’t the woods or the school. Or his house. It’s the library! Watch in horror as he devours the books one after another, with titles like, How to Not Be Convicted of Assault (hint, it’s self defence), 50 Cars and How to Steal Them, and The Fairly Intelligent but Uninformed Person’s Guide to Computer Hacking. Watch as his girl disguise causes him no grief, because nobody ever visits the library! Wait, did I say no grief? WRONG wahahahahah. Huh. anyways, we’ll see about that. And forgive me if the first third of this chapter if odd, I should have went to sleep 3 hours before I wrote it.]

CHAPTER 12: Two Truths and a Librarian

Char glanced at his watch. The library had a sign on the door that said the hours were from 10am to 7pm on weekends. The time was 6:28, so he wrote down the title and author for each book he hadn’t finished yet, and returned them to their appropriate shelves. He kept the parkour manual and the locksmith’s almanac, thinking he would check them out once he had a card. These were topics best learned while practicing, he guessed.

The lady librarian at the front desk smiled at him as he approached. “May I help you?” she asked, eagerly waiting for him to ask about the library card. Her hopes were up because he had books with him.

“Yes, I’d like to check these out,” he said, placing the books on the desk, “but I don’t have a library card. Can I sign up for one?”

“You certainly can, young lady. Here, let me get the blank card, and you just fill out this form. Write your email there, your name there, and check this box if you live here. In town I mean. Even I don’t live in the library.” She smiled warmly as she brought out the paper and walked into the Employee Only room behind her desk.

Char was pleasantly surprised at how simple the sign-up process was. Obviously rather than automate it, the library lady here had opted to use a system of personal recognition. Well, the way it worked was fine by him, if it let him sign up as his disguised self. He filled in the email space with the alternate account he had created that morning, before leaving his house. It was made to match his fake name, which he wrote in next. To finish, he checked the ‘local’ box. The other was for a ‘visitor’ pass, and would require more contact information, to prevent people from skipping town with books. At least, that’s what he thought it entailed. He double checked everything to make sure it matched.

Name: Addalyn Jacobs

Email: AddJabs13@ angnet.com

Everything seemed to be in order, and Miss Carsen (according to a plaque on her desk), was back with his card. He took it graciously, exchanging it for the paper, and signed his fake name on the line, as directed. Pocketing it, he was reminded of what he had overheard earlier, about the librarian’s assistant. He thought he might be eligible for the job, and he wanted to ask about it. First, though, he was going to test a new theory he had about his mask. He knew it could adjust its behavior based on what it perceived as the mood, and he had glanced through a chapter of a Psychology textbook at school the other day during a supremely boring homeroom block. At the time, a certain word had caught his eye, prompting a small research break when he got home.

--- ‘Persona’, something akin to a behavioral mask, is used by a person to project their character to those around. It can change depending on the situation, and depending on the person may hide a large portion of their personality.

From his search, he happened on the idea that his mask was a kind of persona, or at least it created one. Combining the idea with his new disguise, Char wondered if he couldn’t get his mask to form a semi-permanent persona to make Addalyn more believable. If he got the job, it would quickly be necessary to upgrade the quality of the disguise, because it would be under more scrutiny. For now, it was just loose clothing, a neat hairstyle, and makeup to redefine his features and make him look less pale. He could think of several improvements off the top of his head, but that would have to wait until he was back home.

Visualizing the Addalyn that was asking for work at the library, Char tried to activate his mask with the image as a blueprint. His concept was simple enough. Addalyn was very similar to himself, but she was more interested in the kinds of skills one can’t learn in school. He had based her off of Dice, in this respect. Her manner of speaking would be different from his own, as well. Less questions, more direct observations and a way of steering conversations away from herself. This was an extra defense mechanism, to dissuade people from looking into her nonexistent affairs. Until he had an idea of how much would be expected of her, he would leave it at that level of detail.

Miss Carsen tilted her head to look at the girl on the other side of the counter. She had been fumbling with her books for the past minute, staring off into space.

“Excuse me, miss. Would you like to check out those books? I’d be happy to do that for you.” The girl started slightly, then turned on her heel to face the older woman.

“Yes...Please.” She placed her books on the counter, and her card next to them. There were three blips as the librarian scanned first the card, then the books.

“Do you need a bag for these?”

“No….Thanks anyways.” She paused. “I like this place. I would like to work here. I heard you say the assistant position is open.”

“You mean, when I was talking to that other girl a few minutes ago? You heard from way over where you were sitting?”

“Everyone acts so surprised that I hear things people saw in here, like the library isn’t the quietest place they know.”

“Well, that is true… but I didn’t hear what you two were talking about, so it can’t be that simple. Did she tell you about it? Wait, no, I told her after you were done talking…”

The girl was beginning to look very uncomfortable. Miss Carsen assumed it was from the attention. Actually, it was because Char’s mask was having a hard time balancing priorities between not revealing information and not asking questions, and couldn’t think of a good way to get back to talking about the job.

“I….. My hearing is quite sharp.” She nodded at her own words. That was a satisfactory answer. “I would like to continue talking about the job.”

Miss Carsen’s eyebrows went up. She might be a little odd, but this girl was hitting all the right buttons. “Unfortunately, I can’t hire anyone younger than 16 years old.” It really was too bad that there were laws against child labor. She checked herself there. Inappropriate sentiments, Julie, watch it.

“I’ll volunteer, then.” She bit her cheek. There she goes, just implying her age, revealing information. From his interior vantage point, Char decided to tone down that trait next time. It was getting to be a real pain. At her words, the librarian looked thoughtful, then amused, then she was just grinning with a hand over her mouth, shaking her head.

“It’s a bit sudden, but you couldn’t have come at a better time, that’s for sure. I’m about to close for the day, and I could use an extra set of hands.”

“I do have hands.”

Rolling her eyes, but still smiling, the old librarian stood up and made her way to the other side of her desk. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Addalyn. You haven’t even done anything yet. Come with me, I’ll show you how to close all the windows with this stick.

When Char returned home, he was an hour later than he anticipated, but he had his books, a new technique for his mask, and a volunteer position at the library. His parents were also home, so he had to pull down his hair and rinse the makeup off his face with the hose before he could go in. A bit damp but still satisfied, he ate his dinner and went to bed.

He slept well, with only hints of silver in his otherwise normal dreams.

[Is that a new character? No, it’s the same old Char, pretending to be a new character! The kidder. Man, I’m tired. I gotta stop writing these after I’m supposed to be asleep. Did you know/care? I write each chapter in one sitting, so I don’t lose my train of thought. That’s why they’re all about 5 pages. Anyways. I’m not sure how soon, but some serious stuff is gonna go down. Reeaaalll serious. And at that point we will have another scene with Pasma and pals. Ok I just looked at my last update. Dang, man that was less that 12 hours ago. Get a life, me.]

CHAPTER 13: Stop Caring Please

As they had arranged at the end of their first meeting, Dice met Char in front of his house, where she let him use her bike, and she brought out her scooter for herself.

“Why don’t you ask your parents to get you a bike of your own? I mean, not that it’s a problem to travel this way. It just sounds inconvenient. For you.” She watched impatiently as he checked his contacts again. Since forgetting them just once, he’d been a bit paranoid about making sure they were on before going anywhere. She was willing to bet he’d already checked them inside his house, maybe more than once. It was frustrating, to see be so cautious about such a little thing, when he was so noncommittal about the Club. He didn’t seem to understand what being caught would mean, no matter how many times she heavily implied it would be bad. For someone so smart, he stubbornly refused to take a hint.

Char could feel her staring, like a prickling sensation about six inches from the back of his head. She was probably annoyed that he was taking longer than usual to get moving. This was intentional, in order to test a hypothesis he had been sitting on. If he was right, when he looked to his side at the image reflected in the door of his parent’s car, he would see her attention focused on him. Careful not to move his head, he looked askance and saw, in blue monochrome, that he had been right. He moved on to the second part, and tossed a ball of paper he had in his pocket over his shoulder, high enough so Dice had to tilt her head back to track it. He watched for the moment her eyes snapped away from his head, and noted that the prickling had stopped. Now confident enough in his idea to share it, he stood, and smoothly stepped past her to pick up the fallen paper and return it to his pocket.

“You’d better do some real explaining when we get there, or else,” said Dice. Or else, she’d make him divulge the information with force, or magic. She hoped he was thinking of those two things and hadn’t just assumed it was an empty threat. That would be embarrassing, and she would prefer to not have to use magic on him again.

“I was planning to, either way.” He wasn’t exactly sure why she was so irritated. It may have been something unrelated to him affecting her mood, or something he did, or multiple things he did over the last few conversations they’d had. There was no way of knowing. He had no perfect recollection of the details. It could’ve been anything, really. Maybe she didn’t like his disguise. He’d end up talking about that anyways, because it was part of his ‘persona’ theory that he wanted to consult with her about.

They rode in relative silence, until they reached the park. They chose a new tree to park the bike at, for variety, and Dice brought out her handy length of chain to secure it. Once her property was safe, she led the way to her personal favorite of the investigation sites, number 8. It was an old twisted maple tree with a natural hollow at its base, a good size for two people to sit across from each other comfortably. It was just starting to drop its whirligig seeds, and here and there they could be spotted spinning slowly to the forest floor. They brushed some of them aside as they sat inside the tree. Both of them took a breath to speak first, but Dice was slightly faster.

“Before you start, I’m going to take a wild guess at what you have to talk about. Earlier, with the paper tossing, you were trying to test some ability, right? All I wanna say is, don’t do that stuff without talking to me first.”

“I wanted to try to confirm it before we talked about it.”

“That’s what I mean. I want to be involved in all of it, including the little tests… Look, do you have an email?”

Char hesitated. “I do… have two emails.” Dice gave him a funny look.

“Why do you need more than one? I mean, you don’t know anybody.”

“The first one is for websites that require accounts, and maybe I’ll eventually have to email somebody. Who knows. The other one is for work.” He waited for her to realize what he was implying.

“You’re too young to work. There are child labor laws and stuff.”

“‘Children’ are still allowed to volunteer, though.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, I did. I’m not after the money in the first place. Now I have a connection to the library, and an excuse to give if anyone asks why I’m there so often.” His face adopted a smug expression.

“You can’t exactly tell anyone. Cause, y’know. You’d have to explain why you’re in drag.” Dice felt like saying ‘I told you so’, but it didn’t have the proper set up. She hadn’t actually told him so, to her chagrin.

“It isn’t drag, it’s a disguise. Addalyn Jacobs is an alternative identity, albeit one lacking documents. Oh, that reminds me, I found this cool trick with my mask-”

“No, no, no. You aren’t changing the subject. Remind me again why you decided to get work dressed as a girl?”

Char’s face twisted as he wrestled with his mask, trying to prevent it from saying anything embarrassing. In this situation, the truth was by far the best answer. As it usually was when talking to Dice. “I kinda want to be a spy. Wait. It isn’t that simple. I want to at least try to learn the skills I associate with spies, like disguise, hacking, lying, escaping danger, and combat. These are all very cool abilities, and being able to do them would make me feel more capable.”

“Ah. So you want to be badass.” Her eyebrows were itching to lift in incredulity. She had had him labeled as the academic type. “I don’t see how that explains you dressing like a girl.”

“Well…. So far as I remember it, I was searching for information on disguises, and I came upon a helpful article about getting started, without the fancy stuff, like bio-masks. It said, aside from wearing different kinds of clothes than usual, I should wear my hair differently, and try to redefine my face with makeup. Nothing complicated, I learned the basic procedure and how to apply it in about an hour. Then, I thought, I already have my hair tied back and makeup on, I might as well go for it. So I altered what I had already done slightly, and chose my clothes so nobody would pay much attention. Are you satisfied with that level of detail?”

“Only a little. It’s still ridiculous. Now if you want to keep the job you’re going to have to dress like that every time.”

Char leaned his head on the bark behind him and rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand why you care so much about what I’m doing or how I’m dressed at the library.”

“I mean, isn’t it a bit creepy? People will see a girl, but it will actually be, you know… you.” Dice was starting to get the feeling that the stubborn one here wasn’t Char.

“Dice. I’m not 100% sure, but wouldn’t it be equally creepy if I disguised myself as, say, an old man? But that kind of disguise would take a lot more effort and be more easily discovered. I. Don’t. Care. Think it’s creepy or whatever all you want, but I think it’s very useful, and you don’t have enough arguments to convince me to stop. So why don’t we just drop it and get to the important topic.” He paused. She stayed silent, and avoided eye contact. “I think I’m psychic.”

[It took a little longer than usual, because I wasn’t working on it…. But here’s a picture of the Addalyn disguise for those who wanna see a shoddy representation of the author’s mental image. Ugh, this chapter got sidetracked by a line of dialogue I hadn’t planned for. And it's pretty long, by my standards, too. Uh, not to imply that I’m just making this up as I go. I’m tired, so please let me know of any errors, thanks]

CHAPTER 14: An Extra Sense or Two

“Okay. What kind of psychic? Are you an out-psych, an in-psych? Both?” Though she felt a strong urge to continue the argument from moments before, she was wary. From what she’d seen of Char these past few weeks, he didn’t rile easily, and that topic of conversation brought out an unusual stubbornness. She took the easy route, and dropped it in favor of superpowers.

“I’m guessing that out-psych refers to things like mind control and telekinesis, and in-psych to things like mind reading?”

“You got it.”

“It’s the second one. I can tell when people are looking at me.”

“Ah. Now I get it. The thing with the paper ball was to make me look away to see if you could tell the difference. An interesting experiment. OR you could have asked, and we could do a more thorough set of tests without pissing me off.”

“I assumed we would still do the extensive ones anyways. Do you not want to?”

“I never said that. I just said I’m annoyed and that didn’t have to happen. I hate when people don’t consult me, Char.”

Char decided to move the conversation along using a timeless technique. “Okay then, the first step of any experiment is to frame the question. I think it should be: Do I have the ability to sense when someone is looking at me, without any indicators from the usual 5 senses? Your thoughts?”

“You’re ignoring me! You could just apologize. That would be easy, then we’d both get what we want.”

“I agree, that is question to use for the first experiment. Basic, but fundamental. Now for the hypothesis. In this case, it would be: Yes, Char detect when someone is looking at him through a sense other people do not have.”

Dice gritted her teeth. “Chaarrrrooonnnn.” Char flinched and changed tactics.

“I am sorry I offended you by not telling you my suspicions when I first had them, about six days ago. So please only call me Char, thanks very much.” He didn’t know why, but as far back as he could remember, he had never gone by anything other than his nickname, even with his parents. He felt deeply irritated that Dice had used it against him, but he would let it slide until the second offense. There were things to discuss.

Char continued where he left off. “But in all seriousness, do you agree with the question and the hypothesis? I have some ideas for the actual procedure…”

“Nah, we aren’t going that specific for the initial tests. Here’s what we can do, I just thought of it: You go stand over there, and face away from me. I’ll look at you or away from you at varying intervals, and you will write down which one you think it is every ten seconds on this paper.” She pulled out a pair of clipboards and pencils from her bag. This other one is for me. I’ll write down the actual, to compare to your supposed values.”

“Oh. That’ll work.” He walked from under the tree to a point about twenty feet away and sat on the ground. He balanced the clipboard on his leg to write. When Dice gave the signal, he started the timer on his watch and tried to tried to focus on the tingling he associated with being watched. For a few seconds there was nothing. He marked a tentative ‘no’ on the paper.

Then another, and another, until he had twenty. He wondered if he had imagined it. Maybe, though, he was thinking about it wrong. Because every other time he had felt the tingling, it was on the back of his head, he had assumed that was the default. But, what if that was just where most people were looking when he was facing the other way? Then he would be sensing not only the fact that someone was watching, but where they were looking. He loosened his focus, and checked his senses for that odd out-of-body quality. Finding nothing after another ten seconds, he decided to shut out his other senses, to focus on finding that particular sensation.

Closing his eyes, Char reached into his mind. He felt where his self ended and the mask began. The connection was narrow but strong, and he extended his reach through it, searching out the connections between his mask and his senses. After the extended periods of mask activity he had become accustomed to, they almost exclusively passed through the mask’s filter, so it took some effort for him to retrieve the threads communicating his bodily sensations. Interestingly, there were many more than the five related to the usual sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound. He set those aside. He was looking for a something more exotic. One by one he checked them for activity. Many of them seemed to do nothing, so he bundled them up with the main five to save space. Others were normal ‘extra senses’ such as balance and body sense, so he left them as they were. Finally he managed to narrow them down to seven. He dipped into them one after the other to check their purpose.

The first three were very similar, each showing him the flow of energy both in and around him. The energies varied slightly in their type, but the patterns of movement and intensity he sensed from each differentiated them. One was very defined and had himself as the boldest and most complex structure among many, simpler forms. Far behind him, where Dice sat, was a form like unto his own, but not as strong. He thought he might be able to use this to detect intelligent life. The other was more fluid, with a gentle ebb between himself and the environment, and a strong signature further below and a slightly weaker one at Dice’s location. He wasn’t exactly sure what that one was about. The streams of energy were weighty with significance, but he didn’t have enough context to place them. The third made him feel like he was observing a world of leaky balloons full of colored steam. Within himself, he could tell there were a multitude of currents following an organic pattern, but he could only see the outside of the life around him. The trees were more subdued, but scattered around, moving constantly, there were trails that he assumed came from animals moving about. He would have lingered on these senses more, to figure their purpose, and how to access them, but it would have to wait.

The next thread he tried turned out to be the one he was looking for. It was much more limited than the previous three, encompassing only the volume within a few inches from his skin, surrounding his body like a bubble. He was instantly aware of the sparkling waver on his knee. At that point, the field thinned into a thread, extending behind him, to where Dice was watching, marking down another data point on her paper. She glanced at her watch, taking her eyes off of him for a second, and as her gaze shifted, so did the thread tying her eyes to his field, tracking, then bending, until it couldn’t keep the connection and snapped back, leaving his bubble seamless.

Char retracted his awareness cautiously, keeping his sense threads where he could access them without going into an introspective state first. Thankfully, when he opened his eyes, everything was still in working order. He looked over his clipboard. Most of the points he had recorded were probably wrong, because he hadn’t been using the sense correctly, and Dice had been looking at his knee for some reason.

He walked over to the hollow to ask. “Why were you looking at my knee? It made things more difficult than they had to be.”

“Huh? Oh, I was trying to tell what you were writing. To see if you were getting it right. Which seems pretty likely, cause I can’t think of any other way you’d know that.” She collected the clipboards and tossed them into her bag, taking a peek at his results as she did so. She smirked. “You’re absolutely certain you can do it? Your results don’t show it.”

“That doesn’t count. I figured it out while the experiment was in progress.” Char was reminded of his school test results, and how they didn’t reflect his knowledge. But those were different. It wasn’t like he was going to forget a whole sense, not like he could forget a Shakespeare play. He made a note to reread the collection next time he felt bored, to see if he had forgotten anything important.

“So, is that it, you can tell for certain when I’m watching you?”

“Yes. And some other things as well. I think I have at least 3 other senses, but I can’t figure out what they are for.”

“Do you know what this means, Char?”

“More testing?”

“No. You are going to tell me what you see… er… sense with these senses, and I’m going to figure out what they are. Which may or may not require testing. Who knows?”

[And so, the author was FED UP WITH THE SLOW PACED TESTING SCENE AND TOOK A WHOLE WEEK TO NOT EVEN FINISH IT. >m< I’ve been planning a lot and uggghhhhh I want to skip ahead so badly but it won’t transition well at this point (see above ending. It sucks). anyways, take this pic.]

CHAPTER 15: Nearsighted

Dice looked at the notebook where she was recording Char’s observations. “Hmm, so that’s just the first four senses, leaving three you haven’t checked yet. Veeery interesting. We’ll take a look at those in a minute. For now, I’ll just take a few educated guesses at what you perceived. The first sense could be several things. It doesn’t immediately make me think of anything in particular, so maybe it’s unique to you. The way you describe the patterns you attribute to me and yourself makes me think that it isn’t a direct visualization of energy flow, but a representation of some information unique to us as people. That would explain the sharp boundaries between us and the environment not present in the other senses. However, I can’t determine what exactly the patterns mean with a tiny sample size of just us two. If you can ..look.. at some other people at school or whatever, that could narrow it down.”

Char nodded, thinking. In retrospect, the first sense was heavily focused on people, with the enviroment disappearing entirely. Those simple shapes he detected around him might be small animals like birds or squirrels.

Dice continued. “This second sense is almost definitely special magic energy. You felt it all around, in yourself, but most strongly underground and in my direction. Underground is where ley lines are, I think. And my bag is full of magic energy, so it would look pretty bright. Additionally, the way you described it ebbing is consistent with my own experience. Though I’ve never heard of anyone being able to see the stuff, feeling it isn’t too hard with a little training, if you’re in a place like this. The best way to check this one would be to visit the Mansion. It should look like a giant bubble of magic energy.”

“So-”

“We’ll go look at the mansion later. Now, this third sense is probably for seeing auras, albeit in a really roundabout way. I’m not really into that stuff, so I don’t know much about it, aside from the fact that seeing them is most common among people with ESP.”

“Extrasensory Perception?” Char said, interrupting her.

“No, that would be EP. It should be … Extra Sense Powers?” She made a face. “It sounds just as bad, doesn’t it? Try Extra Sensory Perception. Anyways, it’s kinda like being psychic, but these so called ESP-ers can’t read minds. The name basically says it all for me. They have extra senses…. and they percieve things. With those senses.”

“So, technically, I’m not psychic, I’m an esper?”

“.... Why does everyone do that?”

“Because esper sounds better than ESP-er.”

Dice was a little miffed at being interrupted earlier, and now Char was answering her questions when she was deliberately being vague. This was more confusing than annoying, but she wasn’t about to let him control the discussion.”The fourth sense. You said it was like a field around you, and that’s how you can tell when someone is watching. Do you think it’s an actual field, or just a mental construct?”

“I don’t really know. It isn’t like I’m able to tell the difference. Maybe with time.”

“Ah, whatever. What about the last three? You said there were seven, but you stopped at four.”

“Oh yeah. I didn’t check them once I figured out which one was associated with detecting people looking at me. Do you want me to take a look at them now? I tried to make them more accessible on the way out, and I kinda want to see if it works.”

“Go ahead, I’ll be doing a little research on my phone,” Dice said, retrieving a sleek black tablet from her bag. She turned it sideways and began tapping away with her thumbs on a virtual keyboard.

Char took a few steps back and closed his eyes, reaching for where he had left the threads of his extra senses. Without dipping into them, he could still tell which ones he had already experienced, and which they were. Passing over the familiar, he picked one of the three untouched senses at random, and let the information flow into his mind. The world around him bled into a gradient of hues, the plants and ground fading into general uniformity. Against this background, he could feel the brighter colors bleeding off of Dice just a few feet in front of him. It took him only a second to determine the nature of this sense. This was thermal vision… or some approximation. It was hard to compare it to sight, when he could ‘see’ both Dice’s glowing form and the dull coolness of the tree bark immediately behind her. In fact, if he concentrated, he could ‘see’ the far side of the tree, and through it, Dice’s back, then himself. Interested in this ability to see from other directions, he tried to extend the distance, using the next tree back as a reference point. When there was no problem, he selected another tree, farther back, and tried to see on the other side of that one. Though it didn’t feel like he was traveling in the space between, he found himself halted by some force halfway there. Was this the limit of his reach? Experimentally, he tried to push past the resistance.

Char’s sight, as it was, shattered into hundreds of splintered colors, blinding him. Like a shutter snapping back when pulled too hard, he retreated back to the safety of his base five senses. He had a strange headache, that felt as though his mind was slightly offset from his brain, leaving his movements awkward and uncomfortable. Luckily, there was no pain, but he was still wary. Maybe he would wait until the awkwardness faded to test the final two senses.

Dice saw that he was dazed, something his mask seemed temporarily unable to conceal. “What happened? Did you see something really awesome, or did you mess up?”

“I, ah, the second one. I did figure out the, uh, first of the three. It’s infrared? Or something. Looked almost exactly like false-color IR photos.”

“And how did you mess up?” Dice was more than a little interested in how he could possibly have thrown his own mask off balance.

“Ummm, I was trying to see farther, and I think I think I hit my limit. A little too hard. This is like whiplash? I dunno. I need a break.” Char lifted an arm to wipe some sweat off his forehead. He missed, and smacked himself in the face.

“Fine, you’ve convinced me. We’ll break for the day, as soon as you think you can walk back without running into any trees.” She smirked. She didn’t tell him she was planning to go home soon regardless. Her phone was almost out of battery, and the signal out in the forest was terrible, making her search for information too slow. “Ah,” she thought, “that’s a good idea for a new project.”

They waited for about ten minutes, then set out for the park. Dice walked closer to Char than she usually did, to make sure he didn’t trip and smash his face on a root or something. Though it was a bit funny to watch him stumble around like a drunk, if he got injured, she would have to explain to somebody why they were wandering around the forest together. At best, they wouldn’t be able to meet again, if his parents were as overprotective as she thought they were. At worst, they might catch the attention of the Astrologomy Club.

When they had retrieved the bike and scooter, they had to spend a minute to make sure Char wouldn’t fall over. As it became clear that he definitely would, Dice relented and let him use the scooter. Char felt a gaze when they left the treeline. Deciding against using the sense to see who it was, he glanced around with his normal sight. He stopped.

“What’s Mithras doing here?”

“He’s WHAT?” Dice said, so Char pointed him out, sitting on one of the swings, looking right at them.

She promptly turned and sped off. Char looked at her retreating dust, then back at Mithras, who hadn’t moved, and decided to follow her. He wasn’t sure what she had against the other boy, but there was no sense waiting around. He’d ask about it later.

[Okay, we're going to get some more interesting stuff. yaay. I have another picture, because that's what I do when I can't think what to write. I wonder how long it will be until the last two senses are revealed? ... no wait that's my decision, I don't ask you that. One thing I'm trying to work on is Char's tendency to dick around in his own mind without a care. He might be realizing the downsides to that. ish.]

CHAPTER 16: The Sorcerers’ Son/ Nanos Save the Planet

Mithras sighed heavily, the chains of the swing creaking as he kicked backwards into motion. It really was a shame, that Charon had gotten involved with Eurydice. He should have said something sooner. Well, that much was obvious. It was pretty much the singular truth in his life. No matter how much he saw or supposed, he never acted until it was too late. Too late for his decisions to matter, his advice to be followed, or his claims to be believed. He swung higher, looking over his shoulder to see the pair as they rode away. Falling back, he lost them, and when he looked again, they had already rounded the corner, where he couldn’t see them. A noise on the playground’s tube slide distracted him. A lanky young man crawled out the end, and lost his balance at the end, getting wood chips all over his hooded sweatshirt. He scrambled to his feet embarrassed, and made his way to the car that pulled up to meet him.

Odd, Mithras thought. It was almost as though that man had been waiting for a pair of teenagers to leave the forest. For what reason, though? He thought of endless possibilities, most of them improbable, some impossible. The majority were a variation on a theme. The local cultists had their eye(s) on a new victim or two. He was pretty sure this was the case. His hunches were usually correct, especially when he used a scrying circle to come up with them. Not that he was in the habit of invading the privacy of others. On purpose.

Once again, things were looking bad. What would he do about it? Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a solution, before it was rejected, stomped on, and left to an early grave by reality. Nobody gave a damn what he said, as far as 9 out of 10 of them were concerned, he was delusional, and the other two wouldn’t give him the time of day unless his own life was at risk.

There was something wrong with the math there? He didn’t think so. The two in question were his parents, and they got along so well they were practically the same person. A memory surfaced without warning, of one of those few times they were around and giving him their attention.

“Okay Mithras, let’s hear your alphabet.” It was his mother. She was holding a laminated sheet of paper with a bunch of characters made of lines on it. She held his hand and moved it over each character, waiting for him to name it before moving to the next.

“Okay… A, B, …. L? That’s not right, mommy, these letters are all wrong.”

“No Mithras, this is the OTHER alphabet. Mommy and Daddy want to hear you say your runes.” That was ‘Daddy’ speaking, probably. He was always getting them mixed up, in his memories. They spoke in the same tones, said the same words. They didn’t look alike, though. Otherwise he would suspect them of secretly being twins and not his real parents. When he was little, he didn’t think about those things.

“Huh. That’s not A? Is it…. D’lan?” His little mouth had a little trouble forming the complicated sound, but he managed, because he liked the proud smiles he got when he did well.

“And what does it mean? What is the significance of D’lan?” They looked expectantly at him. What did they think he would say? That D’lan signified a grouping of a familial nature, but in an aetherial rather than physical sense? No. He was a four year old. He barely had a firm grasp of his letters, and they expected him to skip over the phase of ‘words’ and ‘sentences’ and go straight to complex magic theory? He could have guessed his reaction even if he didn’t remember them.

“I… I don’t know? But look, the one that isn’t really B, it’s really Luaess, then there’s Hrojeb, and…” They were already looking away, completely ignoring his near-flawless pronunciation. Did they think he couldn’t read the disappointment hanging in the air? Then his face lit up as he thought of a solution: “You can teach me! Then I’ll know all of the significances.”

With that attitude, he managed to hold his parents’ attention for another year. He memorized all of the runes they showed him, their names and ‘significances’. But after making his way through all 53 basic runes, they wanted him to learn how they worked in conjunction with each other in spells. It was too much for him to take in, and his pace fell dramatically. Weeks would pass without progress. They stuck with it for several months, but when it became clear that Mithras would not be the young spellmaster their first child was, they stopped trying to teach him magic, and sent him to public school.

Some children have trouble adjusting to life away from their parents. They cry and throw fits when they realize they must spend hours in a foreign environment ‘alone’. Mithras was one of these, but his parents would have none of that. They told him he would be going, and then he was there, no room for complaint. So he sat in the overly cheerful kindergarten classroom, sullen and serious like he was the only adult in the room. Even the teacher was unnaturally happy about her job, or at least she acted that way. The other children were so carefree, that Mithras couldn’t understand them, and they didn’t want to play with him.

The thought had crossed his mind many times before that this was the time his ostracization really began. But on the second day of kindergarten, a new student arrived, that the young Mithras recognized as someone he could get along with. He was a boy, pale with messy dark hair, whose demeanor was simple cold indifference. He was introduced by his mother as Charon, like Pluto’s moon. This boy, at first glance, appeared to be shy. He looked down, to avoid meeting the stares of his classmates, as his mother spoke on his behalf. But the second the introduction was over, his eyes flicked up, flickering around the room like he was taking in every detail. They settled on Mithras, and soon Charon was sitting in the empty seat on his left.

“I’m Mithras,” he said, “I hope we can be friends.”

Charon looked at his hands, and said nothing. The class moved on and began an arts and crafts project that involved drawing themselves as they wanted to be when they grew up. Twenty minutes later, when Mithras was putting the finishing touches on his picture of himself as a wizard, Charon finally spoke up.

“It depends on how you define the word ‘friend’.”


Mithras smiled at the recollection. Charon was too cool for his own good. He always spent too long to answer any question with nuance, not because he couldn’t think of an answer, but because he tried to consider ever answer. Well, that was then. Before his stupid cousin showed up and took him away.

A dark expression crossed his face. That was his first sin. He let his first friend be wrapped up with that twisted girl. It didn’t matter if she was bigger, or that she was scary and possessive. He had done nothing, even as Charon became more distant, and less like himself. If he had said something, anything, would he have had to suffer, all that time? Even then, after she had left and Charon was left in that empty state, he should have defended him, and his right to live. Not being able to think of a simple way to help, always contradicting his own thoughts, he had let ten years slip by, until the problem resolved itself, only to be replaced with another one.

And still he did nothing. That would have to change. Mithras slipped off the swing, which was no longer moving, and began the long walk home.

******************************************************

Modulant frowned at the computer screen, which displayed the full contents of Pasma’s blood. If it was correct, and not buggy, then she would have to revise her assumptions about his mutation. She had initially thought that this was a simple case of GSD and the Regenerator trait. But according to this, the blood sample she was looking at was not, in fact, Regenerator blood. It also contained a large amount of particulate metals, which explained the sparking. She put one hand on her chin in a classic ‘thinking’ pose. What was it, then, that kept Pasma from dying? A thought occurred to her.

“Pasma, Giblet, come over here for a second.” The boys reluctantly stopped trying to hurt each other, and did as she asked. “Pasma, what do you think of when I say the word ‘nanomachines’?”

“I dunno. No wait, they can do stuff on a molecular level, right?”

“Correct. Modulant has been looking at your blood, and she thinks that you have nanomachines, or nanos, in you.” She showed them the screen, then went over to the terminal to change the scanner’s function. The chart changed to a high magnification of the blood. “Do you see those dark shapes that aren’t blood cells? Modulant thinks that they are… wait a second.” She ran back and clicked a few times, zooming in on one in particular. She looked at the screen again.

“Oh.” She said.

“What?” Pasma asked. Giblet was still looking at the cool tiny robot picture, he had nothing to say.

“These, uh… Modulant made these nanos. Waaay back, like fifteen years ago. For a project. But that project failed ages ago.”

“Really? Cool. No wait. Why are they in my blood then?”

“Well-,” She said, “the baby who grew up to be you may have been part of the project. We did have some babies there. One of them survived. Maybe that was you.”

There was an awkward pause.

“ONE of them survived?”

“Hey, you can’t hold Modulant accountable for EVERYTHING. She didn’t feed the nanos to the babies. That was, uh, the bio people.”

“It’s still terrible. Did you know they were doing this?”

“I - er - Modulant thought they had permission! They had forms signed by the parents, and everything. And it was for the good of the planet.”

“HOW? I mean like, all of it.”

“Honest, the parents signed the babies over to the researchers. And don’t ask Modulant about laws, you two are technically not in her custody, things could get messy. As for the good of the planet, do you know how much pollution is produced every year by humans?”

“No, but I have been tossed in garbage more than a few times. It’s a lot, right?”

“Yes, it really is. The project’s aim was to find a way to modify a human so they could break down their own trash. The plastic, at least. The way we settled on was nanos, obviously. Modulant provided them. They are her best work, even if they didn’t really work. They have the capacity to modify the human body in response to the introduction of new materials. If they functioned as planned, not only would the subject be able to digest all kinds of synthetic waste, they would be immune to all kinds of toxins. I suspect that you have these traits now, with some additions.”

“But I don’t, I mean didn’t. I’ve gotten sick from things I ate before.”

“Like what? It could’ve been a biological illness. The nanos don’t protect from those… as well.”

“Uh… no, I think it was bleach or something. Lye?”

“Ah, Pasma. I don’t know what you were thinking, but a normal person would not easily recover from that. When was this?”

“I think I was ten.”

Giblet set aside the screen to give him a hard time. “Shouldn’t a TEN year old know BETTER?” He grinned triumphantly. “You can’t call ME crazy anymore.”

“Huh….” Modulant was temporarily lost in thought. “The odd thing is, the project was supposed to be a failure. Even before they could begin tests feeding you small amounts of plastic, the babies’ bodies rejected the nanos inside them.”

“Is that why they died? The nanos killed them?”

“Technically, the nanos didn't do anything, they just got pooped out.” She half smiled. “It was hilarious to watch those researchers trying to recover their tech from a bunch of diapers.” Her smile inverted itself. “But then, it wasn't funny at all, when every subject suffered fatal immune reactions from the rejection.”

“I thought you said one survived, though. That’s me, right?” Pasma wasn’t a fan of all this double talk or whatever it was. He preferred simple stories.

“Well, they were never working officially. Or legally. That could never be true when they’re doing things like experimenting on children, babies, even. No, they had a front. They were a daycare/nursery/orphanage for parents that didn’t want to deal with their own children. All sorts of suspicious documents had to be signed, nondisclosure and all that, to prevent repercussions. When everything went to hell, they decided to abandon ship, and take you with them if they could get away with it. One viable subject is better than being caught.” Modulant grimaced. The rest of the story was hard to tell. Giblet noticed, and saw an opportunity.

“Mod, Mod, you can be nice sometimes Mod. Nobody here cares if you act nice here.” He pooled around her feet, tugging at her ankles like a puppy made of little cubes.

“Fine. When I heard about their escape plan, I decided to get you out. I’m not all cold-hearted, I like kids. I didn’t want to see another one die. Didn’t even expect the others.... Anyways, I faked your death, made a fake, uh, baby corpse for them to find, and pulled you out to a real orphanage. And you know how it turned out after that more than I do. I mean, Modulant do. Does.” Helpfully, Giblet reached up and moved her palm to her forehead.

“Oh. Well, thanks then.”

“What?”

“You saved my life, or something. Is that right? And it seems to me you’re the reason I have powers now. It’s the nanos, right? Still, now I know my parents weren’t dead, I wish I could’ve met them.”

“No you don’t. Listen to m- Modulant, and listen close. Your parents were shit. They knew full well what was at risk, and they gave you up with no reservations. They didn’t WANT you, didn’t even give you to the normal orphanage like a half-decent person. They took money, Pasma. They-” She turned the other way so he wouldn’t have to see the loathing in her face, rapidly contorting her features. When she was calm, she faced him again. “Pasma. As things are, even if your parents are still alive, they aren’t. I mean, they shouldn’t be, your parents. Ugh, this is always so hard… If you want, I’ll be your parent instead. Just… forget about them.”

“You mean, you’ll be my mom?” Pasma was embarrassed. He’d never called anyone his mother before. It was a foreign concept, to someone who’d only had temporary guardians.

“Please don’t call Modulant that, Modulant is… Modulant, okay.” Her face was reddening to match Pasma’s. She was in no way more comfortable that he was having this conversation. Giblet looked at them from below, bemused.

“So, Mod, what happened to those other researchers? Did you track them down, when they let their guard down did you kill them?” Giblet asked.

“Well, no,” Modulant said, glad for the distraction. “When Modulant checked on them last, they had all been killed in their sleep, by someone else. The pattern and cause of death matches what the cops call Silversnick. They wouldn’t give her any more information than that, and Modulant isn’t the hacking kind of Devisor.” She shrugged. “They got what was coming to them anyways, but now Modulant’s hands are (relatively) clean.” They all stood in silence for a few minutes, with nothing to say. It became a bit awkward.

“I think I’ll go get some sleep,” Pasma said. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”

“Yes, sleep little Pasma, I’ll be ready to face you when you wake,” said Giblet. Their fight wasn’t over just because it was interrupted. Pasma acknowledged the challenge, and walked out of the room.

In the hallway, Pasma smiled. It was nice to think he had a family, even if they were all crazy.

Back in the lab, Giblet and Modulant also smiled, as they thought the same.

[Oh noes, my swear counter just dinged. I try my best, but sometimes it just kinda slips, yknow. Anyways, this is kinda a double chapter cause I didn't want to take up a full normal chapter each with these sideish stories. So here's this long one. Have fun. Oh yeah, and here's a pic: ]

[also, this chapter was a real slog, so if there are any, i dunno, annoying parts or errors or typos, let me know.]

CHAPTER 17: Hot Like a Summer Day

Char's fall played back through his mind. He was trying to catch up to Dice, who was somehow faster on the bike than he was on the motor scooter. He assumed the handles were the accelerator, like they were on a motorcylce, but he wasn't moving fast enough for that to be the case. He thought that maybe the battery was low, but a small meter between the handles indicated otherwise. Confused, he tried to stop by pressing on the footbrake over the rear wheel. Instead of slowing, the scooter's whine increased in volume, and it doubled its speed. Ah, he thought, Dice must have changed it, when she realized the new wheels no longer worked with the existing brakes. Then he thought he knew how it worked, so he relaxed.

That was a mistake. As he loosened his grip on the handles, they sprung back into their original position. The scooter, which had been moving at a sprint before, bolted into new territory. The brakes, he thought. He was going to twist the handle again to ease off, but a wave of heat overcame him. It started at the edges of his ears, and spread across his face, until he felt like he was dipped headfirst in a sweltering summer day. Without trying, his senses began to flicker. The world dissolved into points, that seemed to be in the shape of the air and the ground, but that never resolved into an image. All meaning was lost, yet he somehow knew every point contained more information than he could comprehend. Everything was so different from everything else, that it all became the same, and his senses couldn't distinguish the earth from the sky. He was no longer using his general five senses, and he didn't have access to the specific bodily senses he was used to either. No longer able to determine whether he was upside down, laying in the grass, or dead, though he didn't think the last one was likely, Char felt somewhat at ease.

It must be ironic, he thought, that in experiencing this overwhelming sense of everything, I am calmer that I ever was with those senses duller by magnitudes. It was the solitude that did it. There was nowhere else he could feel so alone. At school, it was expected that he would be surrounded by his peers at all times. At home, he never knew when his parents would be home to enact their particular brand of supervision. In the forest, Dice was always there. In the library, the librarian could see him at any one of the tables, from her desk near the front of the small building.

Char had always assumed that this was how the world was: nobody was ever alone. Everyone was always surrounding and being surrounded by each other. Sure, some of them didn't interact with the others as often, but they were always aware. Aware that someone could at any time enter any space they reserved from the busy world around them, making it impersonal. Constantly reminded, through the marks left on their surroundings. But here, here was his idyllic solitude. No matter what was happening around him, in this blizzard of data points, he had no way of knowing which belonged to a person, and their was no means of communication.

Unfortunately, his peace, like any, had to come to an end. He resigned himself to it, as his brain, working overtime, managed to parse some of the information from the points into a form it could recognize. It was like someone took the world's most complex dot-to-dot puzzle, and started drawing lines, from every point at once. Every one of these lines was tipped by a small triangle. Arrows, he thought. He checked himself. Vectors, representing motion, most likely.

And with that, he knew where he was, what he was doing, and the motion of everything around him. It wasn't as simple as just knowing, of course. But in a relatively short amount of time, he had determined the ground to be the area where the arrows were very small, the air to be where the arrows were larger, but pointed in all directoins, and his body to be where the arrows pointed in cycles as the blood pumped through his veins. Because of the vastness of the arrowfield in his range, and the depth of detail to which it went, he had to focus a little in order to really process anything, and he only really gathered the gist of the the directions and magnitudes. It was enough, though, to make the world concrete.

With no reason to stay locked into this sense, Char quickly retreated into himself, and emerged again into the usual. He was hit with a blinding pain in his head and lower left leg. He was overheating, burning up, and he hadn't even noticed because his sense of pain was blocked. He tried to feel past the pain, to get his bearings. He was tipped downhill, and the prickling on his face and arms was a sign that he was laying in the grass. Pulling himself to his knees, he noted that the pain in his ankle was different from the pain in his head. It was reactive, and whenever he moved the limb in question, it flared indignantly. Probably broken, at least sprained. He forced his eyes open and looked for the scooter, a much more viable way of getting home than walking at this point. The resulting flash of heat in his head made him squint, keeping his eyes almost closed until he cooled to a more manageable level.

Char thought that the heat he was feeling was caused by excess blood flow to his head, and that it had something to do with his senses, particularly the new ones. It was a reasonable conclusion, that he could say was his own, since Dice wasn't there to point it out first. Where was she, anyway? He thought she would be more concerned about her scooter being wrecked. Slowly, so his head wouldn't hurt any more, he looked about for the device that had dumped him unceremoniously down the thankfully shallow embankment. The reflection of clouded sky on metal caught his eye, and he worked his way up the hill to find that, despite what he had supposed, the scooter didn't have a scratch.

She does good work, he thought, and it explains why she wouldn't be so worried about it falling over.

Excellent craftsmanship or not, he still had to get home, and dunk his head in a cold shower. He hadn't read any medical or first aid books yet (though that would have to change), but in one of his middle school Phys Ed classes, they had mentioned something about heat stroke. That may have been about dehydration, though. They didn't go into much depth, aside from telling the kids to drink lots of water. The closest water fountain he could remember was at the library, and in his condition it might take over ten minutes to get home even with the scooter. A little test told him his ankle could probably handle pressing on the accelerator, if his weight was supported by the other foot. Careful to keep the handle twisted, he whirred along the sidewalk to the library.

The second the librarian saw him, she stood up from her chair in concern.

"Oh dear, are you all right?" The old lady made a vaguely concerned-looking hand gesture that did no justice to her face.

"I... I need water?" His mouth was very dry, but he didn't seem to be producing any saliva. This is bad, he thought, I might actually need to get real medical help. He turned to walk to the water fountain.

"No, no, you look terrible. Here, take this." Miss Carsen took a bottle of water from her desk and walked around to hand it to him directly. To her surprise, he only took a small sip. This child already knew to rehydrate over time, something she thought she would have to explain.

When Char finished with the water, she directed him to the bathroom to wash up. Obediently, he limped to the doors. He stopped and looked back. Something was nagging at him, seemed off. The librarian was watching him, expectantly. But expecting what?

Ah..., he thought. Maybe she's recognized me, now that I've appeared in this building two consecutive days, in disguise and out. If that was the case, there were two responses. One, he could pretend that any resemblance was superficial, and go on as normal. Two, he could pretend that he actually was Addalyn Jacobs, but underdressed for a day of outdoor activity. That would rely on the librarian not recognizing him as a boy. Three, he could try to pretend Addalyn was a relative. There was no way he would try that, it was just too risky, and cliche. And hard to prove, since he couldn't easily just bring in Addalyn at the same time. He would have to test the waters, so to speak, to determine the best course of action.

He flashed Miss Carsen a carefully calculated confused look and stepped into the men's room. Then he set about doing what he came there to do. He walked over to the sinks to wash his face.

"Wha?" His reflection stared back at him, scarlet faced like he was the most embarrased person on the planet. That, or he looked furious. If he looked closely, the veins in his temples stood out slightly, as they had expanded to support the blood flowing to his brain. His neck was also looking more like vampire bait than it had the last time he checked. Covering it all like a garnish was a dusting of broken stalks of grass. Looking like this, being recognized shouldn't be my primary concern, he thought. Still, he didn't like how he looked, and he was feeling thirsty again, so he stopped the drain and filled the basin of one of the sinks with cold water. Dunking his head felt marvelous, so he kept at it until the redness was just a slight blush.

Now, he thought, I have to figure out what to do about this situation.

[Okay, so I basically did a crude copy-paste of everything so far from my google doc to ywriter. Now im working from there. So far so good. btw there may be actual typos, due to the new software not having autocorrect, so if you catch any, please let me know. As always, enjoy... the picture! cause its too late to enjoy the chapter if you didn't already... :l ]



Edit: I couldn't help myself.

CHAPTER 18: Fourshadowing

Cautiously, Char pushed open the bathroom door. That old librarian lady was still there, but that was no longer a problem. He had decided just a few minutes before, while he was drying his head with paper towels, that it didn’t really matter what she might have thought when he arrived. If he was ever going to be seen like this by her again, she must not make a connection between him and her assistant Addalyn. The best way to ensure this, he thought, was to establish that his current appearance was another face of Adds. That, and it would be an interesting opportunity to test his disguise skills.

He was dressed like always, in a long sleeved shirt (today’s was a dull blue) that masked how thin he was, and in a pair of sleek black sweats meant for jogging, though as of yet they had never been used as intended. That was good, if he was wearing a t-shirt it would be hard to pretend he wasn’t a prepubescent boy, but with this level of body masking he would pass easily. The face was the most important part, though. Obviously the last time he was here as Addalyn, he had the same face, but he had to wonder if he wasn’t too obviously male without makeup…. Hold on, he thought. He looked more carefully at his face. It differed slightly from the one he was used to seeing. He couldn’t place it, and he wished he had that perfect memory Dice said mental Exemplars should have. Oh well. There was nothing for it, he would just have to make do. The next few minutes he spent untangling his hair and doing it in a braid, tying it with the drawstring from his sweatpants. It had elastic in the waistband, so he reasoned it wouldn’t do any harm.

Having just confirmed that he wasn’t at risk of overheating, Char put on his Addalyn mask and stepped out of the bathroom. He, or she, if persona is your measure, glanced at the sign on the door and narrowed her eyes. Well. Seeing as how nobody else was in the building, it shouldn’t matter if she got the wrong bathroom. She turned back to face Miss Carsen, who had returned to her seat. At the sight, she rushed over.

“Oh, Addalyn, I thought it might be you. Are you all right now? Are you still thirsty?” She had another bottle of water with her, which she held out as she peered down at her assistant for any remaining signs of illness.

“I am.” She took the water with a nod and drank deeply, eager to stave off the last remnants of her heat-induced headache. Pausing for breath, she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to be rude, just guarded. “Thank you… very much.”

Miss Carsen smiled in relief. She had been worried about this child before, but when she thought it might be her new assistant, well. It was all the more important that nothing happened to dissuade her from working. Some people (mostly her parents) said she invested herself too much in the institution. She argued that nobody else she knew was paid by the government to sit and read books all the time. To that end she had almost single-handedly saved the library from closing twice now. But now they (the town council) were demanding library records and check-out quotas! Absurd, truly absurd. But she was getting distracted in her thoughts again, rather than the situation she was poised to address.

The librarian had a brilliant idea. “Are you busy, Addalyn, dear?”

In response, the girl blinked twice. To be certain, she said aloud, “No.”

“Well then,” she said eagerly, “why don’t we start your job training right now? I mean, volunteer training. What do you think?”

The expectation practically dripped off of her.

“I’m not busy,” Addalyn-mask said, pointedly. In response, Miss Carsen clasped her hands in joy, and began her lesson with a happy spring in her step.

For the next hour, Miss Carsen walked Addalyn through the various tasks she would have to do as a volunteer, including taking returns, reshelving, light custodial work, checking shelves (reshelving as necessary), and managing the online catalogue. She listened intently at every step, confident that she would not have to hear the same guidance twice.

“So…. this is the library website. I can find books with this.” She looked at the computer monitor. “I don’t see it.” She smiled. It was funny, because she meant it two ways. She didn’t understand the existence of the website, because she would have known about it, and she also couldn’t see the screen because her eyes refused to focus. That was a bad thing, wasn’t it?

“Unfortunately, our library doesn’t get enough visits to warrant an online system,” Miss Carsen said. “It hasn’t been functional for years. It’s too bad, I’m sure some people would be more likely to visit, and get library cards if they knew they could check if a new book is here from home.”

Addalyn tilted her head uncertainly, eyes heavy-lidded. It was getting a lot harder to parse the old lady’s phrasing. Did she just say there was no website? She tried to ask, but the words got jumbled in her head. What was so tired? Could she need to sleep? It didn’t make sense that the website would be mentally exhausted, shouldn’t even be conscious at this point. She squinted, trying to make out the screen, but that didn’t help at all. Her eyes were already closed.

Miss Carsen saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and saw her assistant fast asleep on the keyboard. “Oh dear, you must be so tired. I’m sorry I didn’t notice.” She berated herself for getting too caught up in her own excitement. Then she reminded herself that sleeping people can’t acknowledge apologies, and she decided to do the more practical thing, and move the sleeping girl off of her computer, and onto a rolled-up sweater.

“I guess for now it’s still just me.”


*********************************************************************************

“It was nice knowing you,” said Giblet. “I hope you enjoy your last supper.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” said Pasma. “You’ll ruin my appetite.” He was seated halfway along the long side of a rectangular table. On the table, there were various bottles and buckets, of everything from air fresheners to motor oil. Nothing before him could be considered edible by any stretch of the imagination. Idly, he spun the only plate on its edge. He was shirtless, to make room for an array of sensors taped across his torso. Thin wires ran each one, leading to a single computer with several monitors. There sat Modulant, who had just finished the final calibrations. If Pasma’s health dipped at any point during the test, she would call it off. Probably.

“Modulant is ready, whenever you want to get started, Pasma.”

With a clack, he snapped the spinning plate down flat on the table. He had already decided which item to try out first, in the time it took to get everything ready. Reaching over a box of washers and a fly strip, he grabbed a tall glass of dirty brown water. Resting gently on the bottom was an old rusted bolt he had found lying on the ground outside. To start, he took a small sip. He could taste the dirt and metal on his tongue. At first it was unpleasant, but shortly he acclimatized and the earthy aftertaste faded. He took another drink from the glass, larger this time. The flavor had changed, or more specifically, his sense of taste had been adjusted to appreciate it.

“This is pretty good. Like carrot skins, but in liquid form. Slightly bitter.” He tipped his head back and poured the entire glass down his throat all at once. He set the glass back where he found it, and started on the bolt. Several minutes of uncomfortable crunching and cracking followed.

“How was it?” asked Giblet.

Pasma made a face. “The first few bites broke a few of my teeth, I think. Then the metal got softer or something and it was like chewing a lollipop. Blood flavor.”

“Modulant’s guess is that the nanomachines increased the hardness of your teeth while fixing them, broke down the bolt, or some combination of the two. She has an idea about the taste, too. The nanos are probably adapting you in response to the foreign substance. Why don’t you try something more…. extreme this time?”

Pasma considered his selection. Extreme, she said? He grabbed the drain cleaner, and poured some into the glass, about an inch worth. It foamed on the dirt coating the sides of the glass.

“Cheers!” He gulped it down.

When he stopped gagging and spitting bloody sparks, and waited for Giblet to stop laughing, he gave his verdict.

“I could go for another glass, maybe. It wasn’t so bad. Fiery, but tastes a bit like soap.” This time he poured a little less, and sipped it, letting the burning ease off before swallowing. “Yeah, I think it’s an acquired taste. I don’t think most people would appreciate it the first time.”

“I think most people would die.” said Giblet.

They repeated the process with every item on the table. A pattern developed. Pasma would initially find the toxin disgusting, but not lethal. After a certain amount of time, though, he found everything to taste unique, and pleasant in its own way. The time it took seemed to depend on the toxicity of the substance.

“Initially, Modulant thought there was a chance that the nanomachines were simply breaking the chemicals down to harmless components. Now she isn’t so sure. Can Modulant take a blood sample? She wants to check something.”

“Go ahead, I wanna know, too.”

While the tests were running, Pasma and Giblet started having fun making ‘dishes’ for him to eat. Giblet wore a hazmat suit, because even he could be hurt by acid. Luckily, Modulant caught them before they could blow anything up.

“If you are going to play with these chemicals, you do it in the Clean Room, okay?” She waved them away. They ran off carrying armfuls of dangerous chemicals, obediently moving their fun to the appropriate room. She watched them go in the reflective glass surface of her monitor.

She smiled. They were tough kids. At their level of Regeneration, Death would never touch them. To be their mother would mean never fearing on their behalf. Well, she would never be their mother officially. With her background, no sane person would let children live anywhere near her. Luckily, the boys didn’t seem to mind being cooped up in this underground complex. Her smile faded, as she recalled another young man, happily spending time with her in a similar but smaller facility. Before she had a contract with the MCO, making sensory arrays and scanners, before she had the money to install safeguards, of which the Clean Room was one among many.

You know what they say, she thought. It’s all fun and games until someone goes and dies.

There was a rumble and a crash from down the corridor, followed closely by the echoes of raucous laughter.

*******************************************

Miss Carsen quickly slipped a bookmark into her book, slipping it out of sight, into a drawer. A moment later, a lean young man walked in. Though he lacked his usual nervous tension, the librarian recognized him immediately.

“Carl! My goodness, where were you? Are you back for your job? If you are, I’m afraid I’ve found a new assistant. That’s what you get for leaving without notice, you know.”

Carl approached the desk so smoothly it was like his legs had no hinge to them, and were bending freely. He stopped just opposite his former employer, on the visitor side of her desk.

“Sorry, Ms Carsen, it was a bit selfish of me to leave like that. I just had to… take care of some personal problems. Some irrational fears that were holding me back. I took the most excellent class, truly unbelievable.” His eyes glazed over, then refocused. “So I came back to apologize, for all those times I didn’t work to my full potential, and for leaving, I suppose.”

Miss Carsen forgave him, of course, though she might not have been so willing if she hadn’t already replaced him. She chalked his oddness up to his new confidence, and he warmed up as soon as he realized she didn’t mind him visiting. As they chatted a bit, Carl leaned over the desk like he always had, putting his weight on his elbows to speak more easily to his old employer. Then he noticed the figure slumped on the desktop next to her.

“Who is that? My replacement?” He tried to get a better look, but her face was turned away from him, cozied into the sweater.

“Yes, actually.” She seemed a little embarrassed, having just remembered herself. She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, Carl, now isn’t a great time to talk. Was there anything else you wanted?”

“I was just going to stop by, but on second thought, maybe I’ll browse.” And he did, prowling around the library with his new smooth, confident walk, looking for an interesting book to read. Every so often, though, when he was hidden behind a row of shelves, he turned, and peeked between the books, making sure the new assistant hadn’t left. In this town, the library was an odd place to visit in the first place. Anyone who elected to spend more time here than absolutely necessary was worth investigating. This new girl might have potential, said the small voice at the bottom-left of Carl’s head, and you should keep an eye on her. Carl didn’t hear the voice, but he obeyed it all the same.

Carl found a book, and read it until closing. The assistant was still asleep, but he couldn’t stay, since he was just a visitor. He didn’t know why he was disappointed when he walked out the front doors, waving goodbye to Miss Carsen.

********************************************************

At Char’s house, Mr. and Mrs. Ashworth wallowed in their worry. We should be going to our meetings, they said to each other, but neither of them moved. That morning, and all through the day, they sat around the house, wondering what Charon was doing. He was leaving the house, without them. That was unlike him, and it worried them. He was doing well in school, and spending time on his homework beyond what was necessary, which was unlike him. It worried them. He no longer looked tired just after waking up, right before bed, and every time in between, which was unlike him, and it worried them. The other day they discussed this. Char wasn’t what he used to be, and they were all tied up in knots over it. But they quickly realized, after some unfortunate resistance, that he wasn’t changed for the worse.

They started worrying about how much they worried, which, instead of replacing the earlier worry, only compounded it. Mr. Ashworth tried to joke that all this stress was going to age them. Neither he nor his wife laughed. It wasn’t funny, because it was happening to them. Maybe it would be funny later, but that wouldn’t relieve them in the moment.

When they woke up that morning, Lana Ashworth turned to get out of bed, and stopped. She was so tired. Maybe she could use the rest. So she pulled the blankets back and tried to relax. Unfortunately, sleep did not come to her. When Aaron woke up a few minutes later, he found her still beside him, and lost the will to leave the covers. They did have to leave eventually, to eat, but only for lunch, when it became truly unbearable. Char was already gone by then, to who-knows-where. He wouldn’t tell them if they asked, they were sure.

They turned on the TV, but didn’t really watch it. They could only think about their son. Hours passed. Finally, Lana spoke up.

“This isn’t good for us.”

Slowly, Aaron nodded. “No, and it can’t be good for Charon, either.”

“We can’t live only for our son, not like this.”

It went unspoken, for some time, that the evening meeting was approaching. But both of them were aware of it, watching the clock hands creep around with typical unfair uniformity. Just before it would be too late to leave, Aaron took a breath to talk.

He almost didn’t. But he remembered, distantly, how his life used to be, before he got wrapped up in this obsession, that had lost its purpose. He used to have things he would do with Charon for fun. They used to watch action movies, and cheer for both the protagonist and the villain, when they did something particularly daring. He used to read comics with his son. Now, both the movies and comic books were stowed in boxes, along with so many other things, that he had never felt ready to do, with his son in that state.

He wanted that back.

When she heard the hesitation, Lana also remembered, those things that brought her happiness. Buying new clothes every year, bringing Charon with her because he liked knowing what his options were. Running from place to place in the clothing store, and trying on more things than they really needed. For him, it was all about the aesthetic, not the style, and he always ended up looking like a colorful mess. At home, she’d help him with every project he decided to work on. One week, he’d make a lightsaber from a cardboard tube, and embellish it with paint until it positively glowed with colors, the next, he’d be stapling and cutting a trash bag to make a cloak. He never got it right the first time, always doing it over and over until it looked how he wanted. She loved watching him work, because whenever he finished he smiled wider than he did at any other time.

She feared he had lost that.

Together, Charon Ashworth’s parents decided that before they could help their son, they had to help themselves. They prepared quickly, and drove off to their weekly meeting at the Astrolomy Club, the large building across the street from the Community Center. They slipped into the back just as things were getting started. If anyone noticed their disheveled appearance, they didn’t say anything. There were hushed conversations all around, but they fell silent when the Club President stood to begin.

Mr. Trent was not a particularly interesting man to look at. He preferred it that way. Though he ran the town’s hospital, he would never stand to be called Doctor, and said he only needed one title. When he was President Trent, though, he was more charismatic than most politicians. His muddy brown hair, short and wispy, was fuller when he stood before the Club, his voice boomed, his back straightened and he gained several inches of height. He smiled easily and well. Many members believed that the Club would be less than half its size without him leading it.

Today, he began like always.

“Welcome, my Fellows! Today, we meet to pursue our skyward passions, but first, Business! Let us begin right away, so we can all have a little more of our precious Sky in our lives as soon as possible. First, the minutes from our last meeting…”

And it continued into the part where he reminded everyone of the Club’s subgroups.

“If your interest is the stars, you’re in luck! The Astronomy group has a brand new, high powered telescope, and some absolutely Fantastic new star maps and planetary calendars. You have the rooftop observatory all to yourselves. For those of you who wish to discuss the future, the Astrology group meets in the back room. As usual, some of you wish to mingle, you can stay here in the main room, or one of the unused side rooms to talk in private. And remember, if you find yourself burdened by fear, the Healing group is always willing to accept new members into our group therapy sessions, which happen every other week, in the basement. This is one of the meeting weeks, so you who lack courage, feel free to join us!” Finally, President Trent stepped down. People began to mill, going their separate ways.

Usually, Mr. and Mrs. Ashworth would be with the Astronomy group. They had been in the Club since before they were married, and the observatory was where they had their first date. But today was different. They were going to begin the path to conquering their fears tonight.

Mustering their courage, they followed the President of the Astrolomy Club down the stairs, into the soft and welcoming darkness.

[Welp, here is a very long 'chapter', most of which i did over the past day. So if anything seems weird or doesn't make sense, typos, etc. please let me know so I can fix them up tidy-like asap. hmmmmmm I think I have a picture for this post. Also, big thanks to Malady for being a sounding board for me, it really helped.]

CHAPTER [null]: Void

Char was in a deeper darkness than he had ever experienced. He didn’t know if he was falling or drifting, and when he thought of it, he had no sense of his own form. His senses were oddly absent, and when he tried to find the point of access in his mask, he found himself reaching for nothing. But he wasn’t afraid. This darkness was an absolute absence, but he was an absolute presence in this non-place. In an inversion of his waking experience, instead of an encompassing awareness of everything within his limited space, with little means to interpret the information, he had a limitless knowledge of the void, that which had no definition or meaning, no beginning or end.

He tried to ponder the experience, to properly enjoy it. Words refused to come to him, that he could use to describe it, similar to the way his senses weren’t there when he reached for them. His mind was hitting some wall, or it ended prematurely, somehow cut off. Unnerved, he tried to think of the events that led to this circumstance, only to have his memories similarly barred. What was going on?

With nothing else to do, and only nothing to contemplate, he waited what seemed to be an eternity in the void. Though he didn’t feel the same need for focus as he did when he was awake, he hit drop-dead boredom fairly quickly. Unfortunately, the empty space around him didn’t react to his unrest, and he was forced to wait it out. It had to stop eventually. Hopefully.

From one instant to the next, the void became less than infinite. There was something now, a single point that by virtue of its existence became the center of his universe. He examined it, and found his memory to have expanded slightly, because he could still remember when the point was not there, even as he beheld it. But retrospect, the eternity of waiting wasn’t as long as it had felt at the time. Now, it seemed, the void was but a moment, left in the past. On the other hand, he could still remember his ever-growing boredom, the closest thing to a sense he had, and it was almost painful. He didn’t want to go back to that feeling.

The point was vastly more interesting than the void. For one, it had properties, or at least, he assumed it did. With only nothing to compare it to, properties were meaningless. If it was in motion he wouldn’t be able to tell, because the void was continuous, with no concept of location. These were the thoughts that he entertained, one after the other, as he waited for the world to expand again, as he supposed it might, because it already had, once. The time he waited was miniscule, the firing of a single neuron, but he had no way of knowing.

With the introduction of a second point, he was given many things. Comparison became possible, and he gained an axis. He still had no words to describe them, and he was bored again. For another firing of a neuron he explored the duality of the points, every way they were different, and the ways they were the same, but it was with the detachment that one has when separating colored candies.

From that time on, new points kept appearing, and every time, he gained further understanding and complexity of thought, at a decreasing rate that leveled off over time. Eventually he realized that these points weren’t separate from himself. Each one held a concept, and as a whole, they represented his interpretation of his own senses. The reason he couldn’t remember, was that his memories depended on fragments of sensory information, and he couldn’t use words properly because they were all in some way connected to such memories. The void wasn’t a place, it was the absence of his senses, while they recovered from whatever had been going on just prior.

When he couldn’t stand it anymore, Char shattered the void with a thought and a memory.

“On the other side of every darkness there is some light. If you don’t find it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It means you didn’t look hard enough.”

He had read that somewhere, he thought. He remembered it, and the slight hope he felt when thinking of it. But there was nothing here to read, so the words to heart and passed on to the other side of the darkness. For want of a book, he reached out, and turned away the void, stepping out of the pit into a bright place.

He was standing on a silver pool. Its familiar glow made him feel warm inside, and erased any leftover nihilistic desire to return to the void. He took a few experimental steps to confirm that it would hold him, though by all appearances it was indeed fluid. He took a quick inventory, to make sure that he wasn’t still a vague intelligence, and to his relief he did have a form. But it wasn’t the form he expected. Looking down, he could see his reflection on the pond’s surface. Staring back at him was the face of a girl. He knew that face, somehow, which confused him. It wasn’t Dice, and he hadn’t memorized the face of any of the other girls his age. It wasn’t his mom, either, from what he remembered from some old photos of her in an old album.

Did he remember that, actually? He thought hard about it, and concluded that he did not actually have any album-related memories at all. It confused him, because he thought he had seen one sometime in the last month. It occurred to him that at this moment he was sleeping, so this must be a dream. He looked around. There wasn’t much of anything around the silver pool. Deep clouds drifted above him, and fog on every side.

This isn’t much of a lucid dream, is it? He thought. I should be able to affect it.

He imagined himself with a book, as a test. Nothing happened. A bit disappointed, he tried to will away the fog instead. Again, nothing happened. He took a step into the fog, to see if he could travel through it, but like real fog, it seemed to recenter itself around him at his new position, with everything else fading after a few feet.

Char returned his attention to his reflection. It was partially shrouded by the distance between his eyes and the surface, so he got down on his knees for a closer look. When he placed his hands on either side for support, he felt the silver give slightly. He pressed harder, digging his fingers in, the face in the mirror scowling in concentration. The surface tension of the dream-silver was incredible, but this was a dream, so he technically didn’t have to use his usual weak muscles. This was probably an expression of will, he thought. Mental fortitude, something like that.

The reflection of his face was no longer copying his movements. It appeared to be saying something, but whether the silver blocked the sound or it lacked the capacity in the first place, he could hear nothing other than the general whooshing of a fog-stirring breeze. He leaned closer still, trying to guess the words by making the same shapes with his own mouth.

Hmm. Was it ‘What’s up, the best’? Probably not. The problem was that, (ironically) he no longer had a reflection of himself so he could compare his own mouth shapes when talking to what his reflection was trying to say. He added lip reading to his growing list of skills to learn. He also started to question his own mind’s dream sense. This was getting boring again, and he couldn’t even change anything.

The not-really-a-reflection stopped trying to talk and walked away, out of view. It was a bizarre sight, because she was standing on the underside of what he thought was a reflective surface, and he could see the bottoms of her feet. Char was left staring at an empty space, wondering if maybe the silver was really transparent, and there was something worth looking at on the other side. He pressed his head almost flat against the cool metal, looking at an angle in the direction she’d left. There was still fog on that side, or maybe it was just the reflection of the fog. He didn’t know how abstractly he was supposed to be thinking about it.

Far below the surface, a speck appeared. It grew and grew as it approached the surface, ever faster. He stood up quickly, not wanting to be laying down when it reached him. Then he did a double take, as he recognized it as his reflection, somehow approaching from far below. Was there even gravity below the surface?

That was a stupid question, there didn’t have to be gravity, this was a dream.

He squinted down at the person falling up towards him. He could tell she was yelling something, but that wasn’t going to do him any good if he couldn’t hear….

He froze. He did hear it. But not from below. That made him start thinking of how sound worked in a dream and to what degree it mimicked reality-

“WAAAAKE. UUUP. DUMBAASSSS.”

He didn’t have a chance to look up before the falling reflection landed feet first on his back. With the force of a cannon, he was slammed into the peaceful pool of silver, unyielding and cold.

***

Miss Carsen was getting uneasy. The time she would usually go home passed her by some 45 minutes ago, and her assistant, bless her heart, was still snoozing on the desk. Every time she went to shake her awake, she’d see that peaceful sleeping face, and be reminded of how it looked when she was red from the heat. It was concerning, given the weather outside was cloudy, fair at best, and nowhere near hot enough for heatstroke to be a problem. The only plausible explanation she could come up with on her own, was that Addalyn was suffering the results of overexertion. It wouldn’t take much, she thought. The poor girl was practically sticks and string. Little wonder she confused her for a boy at first glance.

The librarian paced some more. She didn’t have a pressing reason to return home just yet (her refrigerated leftovers weren’t going to get any colder). On the other hand, she was starting to wonder if Addalyn’s parents knew where she was, and it crossed her mind more than once that she didn’t have a way to contact them. Luckily, before the waiting pushed her worry down another notch to panic, the girl stirred.

“Tha’s one way to wake up.” she mumbled. Looking a little confused, she rubbed the dust from her eyes and drool from her mouth with one sleeve. As she worked the stiff out of her neck she caught sight of Miss Carsen, who was waiting, bemused, off to one side. ‘She’ remembered where she was, and who she was supposed to be. “Ah.” Quicker than thought, the drowsiness left her face and posture and her eyes became serious and unreadable. Addalyn-the-Mask did not like being seen as sloppy.

“Did you have a nice sleep, dear?” the kindly old librarian lady asked her underage volunteer assistant.

“....Yes.” said the assistant reluctantly. Her mouth was pressed thin to hide her embarrassment, but that only made her look sheepish.

“Do you need me to drive you home? You must be very tired.” Miss Carsen was getting some jabs in, but it did her ego no good to take leaves from her own mother’s book of tricks. She dropped the sweetness from a 6 to a 4. “I’m about to leave, myself. The library closed a few hours ago.”

“No. I’ll ride the scooter.” Char did a quick check, confirming that he was stable enough to ride. Strangely, he didn’t feel physically rested, but his thinking was clear, and there was a nice buzz to his vision when he looked around. No pain, no heat, no problems, he thought.

“Well, I’ll see you… when will you be here to work? I forgot to arrange the details, I was so busy.” Actually, she had been invested in a new book series by her favorite science fiction author, but she saw no reason to say that. She needed to look like a responsible adult if she was going to command any authority.

“I can work… weekdays. After 6. PM.” Char didn’t want this library work to cut into his weekend discussions with Dice. He was starting to enjoy them.

“Well, I guess I’ll be blessed with your assistance starting tomorrow.” She hurried Char out the door. She waited for him to get on the scooter and start humming away, then she checked the doors and drove home, eager to get some sleep of her own.

[Whoops, first upload, forgot the endlog. Hello. Hmm, what else.... Oh yeah! This picture is drawn using the Pen tool, instead of the Pencil tool, making it completely different from normal! Fascinatingg. Also I wrote the dream part of this twice. FUN.]

Chapter 19: Definition

Char’s parents weren’t home when he got there. It was a bit odd, because it was so late, but he took it as a stroke of good luck and used the opportunity to stow the scooter in the garage. He briefly entertained the idea that he might call her and tell her that he still had it, but he didn’t want to sour his mood with conversation.

The cause for his present contentment was the slight buzz he had noticed in his eyes since waking up from his recovery nap. It took him a while to get the dregs of sleep out of his system, but when he did, he realized it wasn’t just an imagined feeling. He was seeing better than he ever had before, and it was true sight, not some inhuman supernatural sense untethered to a physical means. In a glance, he saw with perfect clarity the entire contents of the garage, its various yard tools and … not much else. Several cans of paint sat in one corner, and there was a string hanging from the ceiling leading to a loft. He shut the door and tried again in the next room. The couch, the bookshelf with a few boring books sitting on it (he didn’t have to look in their direction to know their titles), the television (turned off), and the cupboard it sat on. He paused. What was stored in that box? He’d never seen it opened before, and it had a layer of dust on the lip of the door and the handle. There were shelves higher up on the walls with a few trinkets balanced on them. There was a small model Stormtrooper, and a kaleidoscope with just the most beautiful colors he thought he’d ever seen, and behind him, through an open door, lay the kitchen, and the table, unset. The cupboard under the television (ah, he was distracted) had something in it, but to go check he would have to walk over and open it. And there was so much to see even without moving! He stared for another second. The house was unfairly sparse, he thought. The only color came from the walls, which were painted in wide vertical stripes of lavender and … he didn’t know enough names of colors to accurately describe them. One was a dark purple and the other was a pale green. He liked them individually, and he didn’t really mind them next to each other, either. He wondered why he hadn’t given this much thought before. Colors were fantastic.

Oh, the cupboard. He had almost forgotten when he started investigating the savory woodstain of the tabletop. The finish was so clear, he couldn’t help dimming the lights a little to reduce the glare. There was a picture hung up on the wall, of his parents smiling over a little boy. He had the same hair as his father, but his face more resembled that of the mother. It was probably him. He walked to the bathroom to check in the mirror, and was immediately struck down in awe. What was this perfection he beheld, with features refined after the image of the finest model, its smooth surface and gently curving? No, it wasn’t the toilet, though aesthetically, he had to admire its design. The sink too, really. The craftsmanship was marvelous, but, aahh, it was the mirror that he saw, no, the reflection. This couldn’t possibly be his face, his eyes. Those were the eyes of a person too good to be him, the images caught in the silver of his irises reflecting into infinity. Faced with such glorious recursion, he found it difficult to turn away.

It was a good time to leave the bathroom alone, he thought as he stood in the hallway, collecting himself. Things got a little weird in there for a second. Now, back to the cabine- there was something shiny in the other room. He thought about the mirror. He decided... not... to go looking at every reflective surface within walking distance, if only to stop himself from worshipping his reflection. There were better things to do with his time that bask in the glory of- never mind. He tried to focus on the cupbinet, whatever it was. Somehow, it was plain enough that every time he thought of looking inside anything else was more interesting. That was ridiculous, because how could he know that the contents were boring, for all he knew, they could be… not… that.

He coughed a little at the dust that lifted into the air when he disturbed the little door on the front of the thing. Maybe he wouldn’t be having such a hard time thinking about it if he had the sense to look up the names of specific articles of furniture beforehand. He grabbed the dictionary from the bookcase and looked up cupboard and cabinet. A few minutes later he returned it to the shelf, puzzling over what he had just read. The definition of cabinet used the word cupboard, which would imply cupboard with the more general term, but then the definition for cupboard described it as a cabinet or closet. He supposed they were synonyms. But then, which word should he use? As he puzzled over this, closing his eyes in thought, the buzzing faded. He opened them again, but it was no longer there. He looked around quickly, whipping his head to check his perception. It was noticeable duller than before. The colors were less vibrant, the reflections less… entrancing. His positivity started to slip into neutral.

He sighed, and thought about how all the cool things he experienced were fleeting. He sat back on the couch and looked at the cabinet’s door. It occurred to him, that his enhanced sight was just another aspect of his sensory abilities. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Should he treat it like one of his extra senses, or was it separate? Why wasn’t it permanent? It wasn’t as though he was doing anything different now than he was a few minutes ago.

No, that was incorrect. Now, he was thinking, wrapped up in ideas and abstractions. Those were the opposite of how he was going about when his sight was enhanced. Then, he wasn’t analyzing, but experiencing his surroundings. He wanted to see if he could call back that enhanced state at will, but this was quite unlike using his extra senses, which were paradoxically accessed by retreating further into himself, away from his typical perceptions.

There was nothing for it, he was just going to have to abandon thought for the moment. He relaxed where he sat, until he was still without having to exert himself to stay balanced. Then, he concentrated on his senses. He started with touch. He felt the pressure of the cushion supporting his weight, and the cool of the floor through his thin socks. He took in the textures of his clothes that separated him from the air, and on the exposed bits of skin on his neck, hands, and face, he traced the slight movements of the air every time it shifted one of the nearly-invisible downy hairs that covered those areas. He noticed the weight of his hair on his head, and the tension of the muscles that he hadn’t realized were still supporting him. He felt his heart beating, steadily pumping blood. He felt himself trying to think about all of this, but he refused to be distracted.

The buzzing returned at a snail’s pace, beginning with his fingertips, sending him stronger and clearer sensations that before. He could feel the weave of the fabric on the couch, the size of the threads, the softness of its surface. The buzzing spread upwards to his wrists, then up his arms. He felt the drape of his shirt over them, the way it folded and hung loose. Like with the couch, he could tell the method by which the shirt’s fabric was pulled together, and the kind of threads it was composed of. The buzzing spread still further, it now rumbled within his lungs like an unheard sound, he could feel the air, feel the expansion and the winds through his throat, and deeper. He could feel its subtle resistance with every shallow breath. He inhaled deeper. The air had a level of purity determined by the particles floating in it, and by the extra gasses mixed in. He didn’t have a means to analyze this, but by his judgement the air was slightly dusty, but not stale. There were only trace contaminants.

He felt the buzzing through all his body but his head now, like standing on the crest of a wave, balancing on a fluid surface that should not be able to support his weight. As he let it build, it grew and his sense of touch sharpened and resolved into a kind of image in his mind. Not one of sight, but on pure sensation, not universal like an extra sense, but beautifully limited to a single contained surface. He did not know what lay around him except by the way it interacted with his borders. He did not let the feeling go to his head, so to speak, for fear that it would overwhelm him.

He held the image as long as he could stand it, then released it. As it went on to oblivion, his sense of touch returned to its default state. This time, he did not attempt to reinitiate the buzz. He had some things that he wanted to study up on. Maybe he would start by finishing the book on lockpicking. He was interrupted by the muffled sound of a car just outside. His parents were home.

__________________________________________________

Char couldn’t say specifically what it was, but something had changed about his parents. He eyed them from around the corner, as they prepared a late dinner of … something that required a lot more effort than usual. His father was looking up the recipe on his phone, while his mother collected what raw ingredients they had and attempted to follow the instructions as he relayed them. Char scanned them up and down for other indicators. They weren’t dressed differently than usual, and their hairstyles looked about the same… no, it was something about their faces. They were… smiling? How peculiar, he thought. That wasn’t something his parents did. No, wait. He walked over to look at the picture. They were definitely smiling for the photo, but did that mean they had actually been smiling back then? Regardless, he wanted to know why they were smiling now.

“Why are you smiling?” He asked. This was directed at his dad, but it was his mom that answered.

“Your father and I, well, we decided that we were worrying too much about you. It wasn’t doing you any good, and it made us feel awful too. Really, just a cluster**** of bad decisions and guilt. Today, we decided to get off our ***es and help ourselves. As you may have noticed, We. Got. Results.” She grinned. “We’re happy, Char. We aren’t held back by our fears for you anymore.” His dad made a small cough at her language, but nodded in agreement.

“So, you won’t worry about me any more?” Char wasn’t sure what to make of that. On the one hand, he didn’t like it when he could tell his parents were hovering over him, waiting for something to go wrong. On the other, in an odd way that was what he was accustomed to, and it was hard to imagine how they could act any other way and still be the same parents that raised him.

Lana Ashworth put down the cookware and turned to face her son. She leaned in to level her gaze with his, and spoke with overflowing warmth.

“Charon, you aren’t a weak child anymore. You don’t need us to smother you or hold you back anymore, and the sad thing is, I don’t think you ever did. That was our mistake, and I want you to understand, that everything we are doing now, and from this moment forwards, is to make things right. I know how you must feel that things are changing all around you, with your mutation and high school and, I don’t know, puberty? Help me out here. But change can be a good thing, and I’m sure that from here on out, things will only get better.”

“You don’t know that. You’re guessing.” Char was having new experience overload today. Too many things were happening one after the other. He couldn’t track them all, but they kept happening anyway. He’d been trying to put off processing it for when he had nothing else to do during school. His distractions weren’t working anymore. Now it started crashing in from all sides. Extra senses? Work at the library? Did the librarian know who he was? HE FELL ASLEEP IN THE LIBRARY!?!? Abstraction? Buzzing? His parents were happy? Dice actually had blonde hair and was scared of Mithras? What did it all mean? He fell off a motor scooter? Why was he asking questions out of order?

“We don’t have to talk about this now, if you want time to think about it. I just…” Her smile wobbled and unexpected tears made her blink hard. “I just realized how long it’d been since I told you that I loved you. I was just scared, and worried, and stuck on the negative emotions, I didn’t give it any thought. But it’s important to me, Char, that you know it. I love you.”

“That was unfair, now I get to sound like I love him less because you said it first.” His dad knelt in front of him, head bowed. “I am so sorry. I failed you, as your father. I love you.”

Char was so confused. He fought against his mask, tearing it away before it could give a meaningless ‘I love you too’. With a strangled voice, he asked them:

“What does that even mean?” His mask gone, his expression revealed his turmoil. He was lost. Nothing made sense anymore when he tried to fit it into the world he knew. He wanted to understand what everyone was talking about, but their words were puzzles. Dice was the only person who seemed to make an effort to understand anything, but she still had an understanding of what she talked about beyond what she said out loud. He wished that people talked like his textbooks were written, carefully and without ambiguity, so he could absorb it with ease. His eyes hurt. He wasn’t certain if it was natural or a result of his mutation.

He felt something wet roll from the corner of his eye down his cheek. So it wasn’t the mutation, he was just crying. That made him feel worse. He couldn’t remember ever crying, he just didn’t.

“Aw, ****” said his mom. “Aaron, help me out here, we need a definition. Maybe multiple.”

“Gotcha. Let’s see. Ok, Charon, I’m going to define ‘love’ for you, okay? Listen carefully. When a person ‘loves’ another person, they are saying they value that person regardless of any action that person does. They want to do everything they can to make that person happy. Love means different things to different people. When we say we love you, it means that to us, you are the single most important thing. If someone made us choose between literally anything, and you, we would always, always pick you. Sometimes, we think that we can see things that you do not, and we will try to act on that in order to help you. You might not understand why we do something, but we hope that you can know that because we ‘love’ you, we will not choose something that is going to hurt you.” He scratched his chin stubble absently. “Does that help, Char?”

Char did listen carefully. He thought very hard about what his dad said, and the focus helped him. It allowed him to ignore, for the moment, the unexplained things he hadn’t addressed, and deal with the most immediate item. It took him five minutes and thirty-four seconds to respond. He was watching the clock on the oven.

“So… you love me, so you decided to stop being scared, because you being scared was not good for me. It was also bad for you, which made it hard for you to help me. Now, you aren’t scared, so you won’t always watch me, but you love me, so you still won’t let bad things happen to me. Right?” He was more relaxed now, still confused, but at ease.

“Right,” his parents said.

“But, I don’t know, whether I ‘love’ you. I don’t know what I would do for you.”

“That’s okay,” said his dad. “It is enough for us that you recognize that we love you, and let us help you. We’re your parents, that’s how it’s supposed to work. You can figure out what ‘love’ means to you when you are ready. Until then, and after, we want to be happy with you.” He hesitated. “Can I give you a hug?”

“No thank you.”


[oh, my. That chapter took a LOT of editing. I kept thinking, no, that part should not go that way, what am I doing even, etc. The second half made my eyes water. Such emotion. You had to be there. wait... Oh, yeah. have 2 whole pictures. Yeah. you read me right. 2. If only I could capitalize letters. 2.]

Color Time


This is the Closest thing to a Family Tree I will ever draw.

Chapter 20: Puts the Me in Memory

“How’s the food?” Char’s mom asked.

He swallowed his experimental bite of lasagna, and responded carefully.

“It isn’t bad… but because it was you who made it…”

“Yes?”

“It tastes weird. I can taste how you cooked it.” He considered the rest of his serving on his plate, then took another bite anyway. He was hungry.

She frowned and looked to her husband for a second opinion. In response, he gave her a grin and gestured to his empty plate. “I’ll have seconds. I, for one, think you did great. Food wasn’t meant to be machine-perfect. Maybe I’ll try my hand at it one of these days. Cooking, I mean.”

“I reserve the right to not eat it if you do.” She said, playfully waving her fork at him as he walked past to get more lasagna.

Char tracked his steps by sound, without meaning to. He noticed that if he exerted a slight focus on the individual scuffs and taps, he could tell where his father was facing, and where he stood. He shook off that sneaking focus (not around the parents), and took another bite. He wasn’t sure if it was good, really. He knew its texture and its taste, but as with most things recently, he couldn’t compare it to anything. It was easy to eat, and it didn’t have the salt or the preserved flavor of the processed food he had always had to eat before. It was certainly healthier, and was made with higher quality ingredients, but that wasn’t a guarantee of good flavor, was it? He puzzled over the problem, until he placed his fork against his plate and found there was nothing left to eat. He supposed he would call it good, because his mom put effort into it, and he didn’t want her to stop cooking.

“Do want me to grab a second for you while I get my third?” It was his dad, getting up again, plate in hand. The empty hand edged uncertainly towards Char’s plate, eager to achieve symmetry. Char’s gaze traveled from that hand up to his father’s face.

“Ah, no thanks.” He picked up his own plate, and took it to the sink. He stopped on the way to the stairs, to say that one thing to his mom. “It was good.”

“You’re going up already?” His dad said, trying to express his distress by frantically waving at him to stop. He had to set down his plate to do so. Char wondered if that meant he was extra serious.

“I’m done.” Char explained.

“But, don’t you want to do something? We could do … something. As a family?”

“What?” Dinner was over. Together time was over.

“Um,” his dad caught sight of the television set, the cupboard beneath it, and the small door that sat slightly offset from a full close. It reminded him, of those happier and more carefree memories he had of his time with his son, that had spurred him into action just that day.

“Do you want to watch a movie?”

_________________________________________________



Char sat heavily on his bed, several hours later than he intended. It was very late, and after everything that had gone on that day, despite sleeping in the middle of it all, he was very tired. He tried to think why, because it didn’t make sense to him. All he’d done was watch a movie with his parents, which he had enjoyed. It was an old classic about a young man who dressed sharply and shot a lot of people on his way to stopping the equally well-dressed old man with a big machine designed to kill people more efficiently than the young man could. The young man eventually stopped the old man, and the big machine exploded, killing all the old man’s helpers in one go. After the young man had asserted his superior killing efficiency, the movie ended, leaving Char to wonder whether he killed people like that often or if it was something he only did when someone was threatening to beat his record. As a whole, he liked how the director kept finding new ways for the young man to kill people, and he thought it was a nice twist that he DIDN’T kill anyone in the old man’s base until he made it explode, killing all the people who would otherwise be spared. If he had to decide on his favorite scene, though, it would probably be the part where the old man described in detail how he would kill a large group of people with the help of his machine. It was brilliant, really, the way he showed his power over the capture young man by forcing him to listen to a long lecture on how he would lose at killing. And it had almost worked, except he hadn’t counted on the young man being the badass of the film. The badass always finds a way to defeat those less badass. This badass, for example, managed to use his powerful muscles and excellent timing to break free from his prison and dodge all manner of death traps, and use one of the traps to kill the old man.

Char wondered, for a moment, where this concept of the ‘badass’ had come from. He’d heard it from his fellow students at school, certainly, but never in this context. They used it to mean almost anything they thought was different in a cool way. One boy had said someone’s shoes were badass, but Char didn’t see those shoes doing backflips on the heads of nameless grunts, or more appropriately, kicking anyone through a wall. There was that fuzzy memory, again. That sense that he could recall what he was thinking of, but that he shouldn’t. Usually this feeling was enough to discourage him from trying, but dammit, if he had seen a movie like that one before, he wanted to know. Oh, and he also wanted to know where he’d first heard about badassery, too. Just not as much.

For the time being he set aside his tiredness, physical, mental, and emotional (still no idea where that was coming from), and really tried to focus on the elusive memory. It cleared up a little, almost came within his grasp, but before he could process it, it slipped away again. Not to be discouraged, he didn’t let it disappear to wherever his lost memories hid, and locked in on it. This was more difficult than he thought. Something was trying to keep him from remembering. He focused harder, his senses dimming as he put all available concentration on that one… stinking…. Memory. He could feel distracting thoughts trying to interrupt him, technicalities of a word in his thought train. No. He would not be fooled so easily, not when it came to Badassery. Because how ironic would it be to… no. He was almost caught, then. Whatever was trying to distract him knew what caught his attention. First it was improper word choice, now it was the use of irony. What next… it almost had him again, this time with speculation. There was nothing for it, he would have to abandon words as his thought medium. The distractions were too strong otherwise, to put aside completely in favor of a mere wispy memory.

………..

An image appeared in Char’s mind. A girl his current age, standing over him, no, sitting next to him as they watched a movie. Or rather, they weren’t watching it. It was nothing more than a backdrop to their conversation. She looked like him. She had the same black hair, but shorter. She had the same silver eyes, the same nose, but a sharper chin. The biggest difference between them was her sheer vibrance. She practically radiated health. Her muscles were defined, her skin warmly tanned. Unlike himself, who rarely smiled, and felt ingenuine when he did, she had an easy smirking grin.

She spoke. “Hey Charcoal, do you think I can do what that guy just did?”

He glanced up at the screen. The protagonist had just jumped over a speeding car, shooting the driver and passengers in the process. He nodded vigorously.

“Y-y.. ca-d..” He wanted to tell her what he thought, but he couldn’t talk fast enough. The words kept mixing themselves with the other ones he had planned and coming out all wrong. He settled on just one.

“Anything!”

Her grin stretched a little more than usual. “That’s right, I can do anything. You wanna know why?”

He nodded again, watching her teeth, sharp like a wolf’s. Wolves were cool, like powerful angry dogs, except he never had to go anywhere near them.

“I am a Badass. Definition: A person who is strong enough to do what they want, smart enough to not get caught, and has a stylish disregard for the rules.”

“Oooh…” So ‘badass’ was like an ever better version of ‘cool’.

“Ha ha! That’s right, I AM cool. But I prefer awesome, because ‘awe’ is the reaction I’m gunning for. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’d be a good idea for me to go public just yet. People might get jealous, and waste my time attacking me. Once I’m trained and licensed, though, I’ll be an official super hero. For someone like me, that’s gotta be the best job possible.” Her smile turned sly. Extending one arm, she set a finger on his forehead.

“How’d you like to be my first fan?”

______________________________________________

Char snapped back to the present, mind whirling. He caught the time in glowing numbers on his desk clock, and compared it to when he’d last glimpsed it. An hour had passed, but he wasn’t sure how it was divided. Was the majority spent tracking down the memory, or reliving it? Come to think of it, that wasn’t how memories were supposed to work. Memories, if he remembered correctly, were patterns of associated concepts. He reconsidered what he had just done. It wasn’t truly experiencing, not in the sense that he was now. It was more like a simulation than anything else, which made sense. He couldn’t easily interpret a memory from associations alone, so he had translated it into a more straightforward format.

He was comforted by the thought, until he realized it meant he couldn’t really be sure of that memory at all. Logic sucks, he thought. He sat in a stew of muddy disappointment for a minute or so, then the time sunk in, and he decided to get ready for bed. He added the memory to his list of things to put in order during school tomorrow.

As always, he couldn’t walk into the bathroom without snagging his attention on the mirror. He gazed ponderously at that familiar face. How odd, he thought. It was very similar to the memory of … well, that girl had to be Kaycee, didn’t she? He braced himself for an epiphany. None came. There was no way to know if that was actually how her face looked, or if he was simply filling it in with the face he knew most clearly. Still, he had the sneaking suspicion that his memories had been shuffled when he wasn’t looking. Every time he grasped a new piece of the puzzle, something snuck one away from his collection.

He was so tired.

Char looked away from the mirror to undress. He let the spray of water drown out his thoughts for a while. His memory was a pain to think about, and avoiding it was preferable in the short term. The long term as well, if he could manage it.

The initial rinse stage took about three times as long as it should have. His eyes were heavy with warm water. He recognized that if he stayed too long, he risked falling asleep where he stood, which might be dangerous. He finished as quickly as he could, but he only barely managed to dress in his prepared pajamas, before he blacked out.

But only for a second. He didn’t want to sleep on the bathroom floor. He considered getting back to his feet, but opted to crawl instead. His legs couldn’t be trusted to hold him up at the moment.

Char’s day ended before he could get to his bed. The next morning, his mother found him sleeping soundly on the floor.

[Okay, this one took longer than I wanted it to... Lots of stuff going on (nonstory work to do). BUT to make up for it, I've got like 3 pictures. whee. Also, look at the FAMILY TREE pic from the last chapter. It's been updated! Unless you just came from that chapter... In which case it's probably still the same.]

It's a game! Guess the face


Wait a second this is only 2. Crap.