Chapter One
Part 3
The adults all whispered as if a single wooden door and a pane of glass was going to stop Saxori's ability to just feel what was going on. They might as well've had the conversation in front of her in the form of an opera. It might've not been as subtle, but it would've been just as easy to hear.Part 3
She could hear that the fall out was... confused. Her father was particularly insistent that he had noticed the bruises on her arm from where people had grabbed her and that the bus driver had done little despite the protests of several parents for various incidents. The boy, though, was currently in the hospital. Severe concussion. Whiplash. And mild blood loss. Saxori, the driver and the school principal insisted, was a danger and she could've gone through any number of 'proper channels' to report the incident, but her father knew she already had.
Saxori's focus on the discussion was interrupted by the door opening and the heavy clacking of two sets of hooves clipping and clopping on the hardwood floors. The main administrative lead for the school walked in her tight two part suit and skirt perhaps a little too risqué for a school on an agri-planet, but it was normal fashion on her own home in the Voon system. Behind her was a gentleman in government regalia, including a number of medals that hung from below his name tag.
"g-Cerxus, please. The principal will be finished..." she cleared her throat, "shortly."
"No they won't," Saxori said.
Cerxus, who had until that moment been completely unaware of Saxori, glanced over at her.
"Oh. t-Saxori, I didn't see you there."
"I... uh... was here when you left."
"Was it that gang again?"
"Yup."
The administrator looked from Saxori, to Cerxus, to the principal's door, where a hand had just grabbed the knob but hadn't gone as far as to turn it, and then back to Saxori. She squinted her eyes at "What happened?"
"I defended myself."
"You wh—"
"What happened?" Cerxus asked.
"Oh. Nothing. I'm sure," the administrator said, giving Saxori a sign to stay quiet.
But Saxori didn't want to stay quiet. "Some kids attacked me. So I defended myself."
Cerxus gave her an incredulous look. "You?"
"Yes. Me," Saxori said with a little flick of her chin. "Is that so hard to believe?"
Cerxus looked at the administrator for some sort of answer, but she only motioned toward the coffee machine. "Can I get you anything, g-Cerxus?"
He lingered over Saxori for a few seconds, before quickly snapping his head to the administrator, who tried to keep his attention with a little look and holding the pot up off the heating pad. "Sure. I'd love some."
"Cream?"
"Just sugar, please."
So what happened?
His voice was as clear as day.
Saxori gestured toward the door. They're not exactly being quiet about it.
I want to hear it from you.
Bullies came. I defended myself. Not so sure what makes that a big deal.
It's not about what you did, is it? Y—
"g-Cerxus, your coffee."
"Oh. Thank you."
"Let's take you back to my office for the time being."
"That sounds perfect, thank you. We shall talk more on the matter soon enough, t-Saxori." He reached into his breast pocket, produced a small holographic chip, and handed it to her.
Saxori didn't muster any response other than to take the card. She didn't even give him a little nod, but instead tracked the official and the administrator as they headed off through an identical door to the one separating her from what was apparently her fate here at the school, having been so close to escaping it forever anyway.
Both locks clicked nearly at once and she quickly stashed the card in her bag.
From the principal's office, her father emerged, hand firmly on the nod, face clearly showed he had no time for the spineless hemming and hawing whataboutisms of the school administration.
"t-Saxori. You're coming home with me."
"t-Salnon, if you take her we will be forced to mark her truant."
"Fine. Better truant than tortured."
The principal scowled.
Her father turned, hand still on the door, and thrust the other at a full point toward the principal. "And don't think that I don't know that boy isn't your nephew. The flower never falls far from the cactus and you're all just bad bacanora from bad pulque."
Saxori sighed at her father's mixing of folksy farm idioms.
He turned back toward her. "Let's get going."
"What about the job faire?" Saxori asked.
"What about it?"
"If I don't go, do I graduate?"
Her father bit his lip before dropping the weak look and looked back to the principal, his finger falling limp at his side.
Of course not.
The thought floated across his mind, and he wasn't necessarily wrong, just heavy-handed in his use of his authority. But just as quickly as he thought it as he looked over at Saxori, acutely aware that she was listening to the unspoken.
"t-Saxori, How much did you hear?" he asked.
She couldn't help but let a little smirk cross her face. "Hear?"
Her father mirrored her smile, even chuckled, but the principal's brow furrowed deeper. "You know what I mean."
Anger
"No I don't," she lied.
The principal's face twisted up for a second, but he tempered his anger with a deep breath. "t-Salnon, just get her out of here. We can figure out what that means later."
Lie
Dad. No. Saxori whispered.
Salnon froze up, then leveled his finger back at the principal's chest. "No. You're trying to make this my fault. You figure out what's going on now, and not later, when you can concoct some justification after-the-fact."
The principal brushed it away. "Fine. She can graduate, but she might as well lose the whole year without the faire. But let's be honest, she was going to end up on that little farm of yours regardless."
Saxori felt her father's anger flare up, above and beyond anything she had ever sensed. She didn't know what to do, or if there was anything she could do, but she reached out for him in the whispers between them, and when she took hold of him, it was like a wire was connected, and the anger flowed out of him, and into her. Her own blood boiled and she felt every tendril of power seeping out of her.
They wrapped themselves around the principal. Invisible and unfelt, for now.
It was taking over.
Down to the core.
She had to do something.
Click.
Silently one of the tendrils reached under the door, up to the deadbolt, and clicked it into place.
"Good-bye," Salnon said, taking hold of Saxori's arm and pulling her away.
The administrator was standing in the hall, Cerxus beside her. "Oh, t-Salnon, sorry we have to run into each other so soon. And t-Saxori?"
Saxori's father didn't stop to make pleasantries, just kept marching to the door. Saxori managed a wink as a roar came from the principal, who must've just found himself locked out of his own office. Cerxus gave her a serious look and signed a rectangle with his fingers, to which she patted the side of her bag.
"Cheers, t-Saxori. t-Salnon," he said.
Outside, Salnon fumbled with the fob to unlock the doors of the old pickup, but Saxori beat him to it. "Dammit, t-Saxori. I told you to stop using doing shit like that out in the open."
"I just unlocked the doors, dad."
"You think that's what I'm talking about now?"
"Of course not," she said, feeling especially bold with this morning's events. "But I didn't mean to. It just sort of... happened. You know?"
"You know I don't."
"Well, that's what it's like. It just sorta gets away from you. And when some creep is grabbing at you... well... I guess I was done with it."
"Apparently he's hurt pretty bad."
"Good."
Salnon was silent as he hit and held the start-up button to get the turbines turning. He held this flat, stern face, breathing only through his nose, so Saxori knew even without her powers that he agreed with her, but also knew he couldn't say it.
"He's lucky I didn't throw him through a window."
"He is. And you're lucky you didn't get your year revoked. But the principal's right: I don't know what you're going to do without the job faire. You'd have to wait a year anyway or travel to one of the bigger systems, and we don't have that sort of money right now."
His voice was tinged with a sincerity that Saxori had not expected.
"Also, who was that city-chap with a-hAracyra?"
Saxori reached into her bag as the communicator on the dash of the truck lit up.
"It's the school," her father said with a worried glance toward her.
She smirked.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing," she lied.
"You locked the door, didn't you?"
Her smile curled just a little further and he mirrored it as he hit the 'reject' button.
She pulled the card out of her bag and looked it over. It had some basic info and a play button.
Urrai g-Cerxus, Officer Second-Grade (Retired)
Psy-Corps Recruiter: Trans-Selean Worlds
gCerx12 AT psycorp DOT ts DOT gov
Psy-Corps Recruiter: Trans-Selean Worlds
gCerx12 AT psycorp DOT ts DOT gov
Psy-Corps?
"What's that?" her father asked, rejecting a second call from the school.
"He gave me a card while you were in the office fighting."
"Card?"
Saxori hit the play button. A little government march played a holographic form of Cerxus appeared to walk out of, and up onto, the card. "Greetings. I am Urrai g-Cerxus, Retired Officer Second-Grade of the Psy-Corps, now serving as a recruiter in the Trans-Selean—"
Brother
Pain
Fear
Anger
Hatred
Fear
Fear
Fear
Pain
Fear
Anger
Hatred
Fear
Fear
Fear
She couldn't shake the wave of fear that washed over her from her father, much like the wave of anger, but there was nowhere to channel it to, or anyway to let it even enter her. It was like water behind a dam. There. Always at risk of running over. But contained and guarded.
"No," her father said flatly over the card's continued formalities. "Throw it away."
She paused the recording. "What?!"
"No. Not listening to anymore."
"Dad!"
"No. Do not 'dad' me, t-Saxori. No. Absolutely not."
"What is it?"
"No."
"I'm not asking for a yes or no, I want to know what it is," Saxori insisted.
"No."
Final
He turned the corner onto the old dirt road home, the anti-grav suspension creaked and groaned in protest as he took it at a few kph over the posted limit, hitting the bumps and potholes with only a half-mind to the road. She looked the card over while she though he wasn't looking.
GRAB
Salnon reached over with his right hand, trying to grab at the card, eyes shifted away from the road for just a second as the anti-grav suspension tried to keep the vehicle on the straight and level.
"DAD!"
"Get rid of it."
"THE! ROAD!"
The left front anti-grav gave out for a second, but it was long enough to pitch the vehicle left, for her father to over-correct, and then for the vehicle to pitch violently to the right, right at a line of trees and an irrigation run-off ditch.
Stress is a function of force over an area.
Localized high stresses can cause plastic deformations.
Redistributing force over a greater area.
Localized high stresses can cause plastic deformations.
Redistributing force over a greater area.
The old pickup slowed like it had been caught in a giant net, the front half dangling dangerously over the irrigation ditch, far above the height the anti-gravs should've been able to support it, but it was solid enough, and soon the loose knick-knacks inside the cabin settled in new locations.
"Dad!"
Salnon sat there, frozen, both hands on the wheel, staring straight out into the field they had nearly died in.
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