Pale...by aeon
White against the dark blue-grey of the dome, it soared through the air
until it looked like it would just keep floating forever. The girls in the
yard craned their necks, following the arc until it became clear that its
trajectory would take it well out of the confines of the courtyard. Even
Anna, who was busy reading against the far wall, watched, impressed, as the
sphere sailed down the block, across the street, and onto the roof of a
two-story building.
Who would have thought that a ball could go so far.
"Nice going, sasquatch."
"Shut up."
The game was over. That much was clear. You couldn't keep a game of kickball
going without a ball to kick, and there was no more ball. Well, there was,
but it was up there. In the Gardens. And nobody was going up there. That was
a place for adults. Only adults.
"You ruin everything, whitey."
"I said shut up, bitch."
It wasn't the first time, of course. Last week, it had been a soccer ball
that went over the edge. They'd watched it fall through the tangle below
them, past the condensers, past the walkways, down eighty or ninety or a
hundred stories until it hit the ground and exploded with a pop. Of course,
they didn't actually see or hear it blow up, but that's what had to happen
to it. It was what happened to Elise last year, which was why there was a
big fence around the courtyard now.
She sighed and shook her head, dragging her sock through the chalk square
that marked where home base had been, ignoring the jibes and jeers as the
other girls grabbed their stuff and filed out, leaving her alone to clean up
the chalk on the ground. She was usually the one to clean up anyway. The
weird one. The one with the big feet. Pale skin. Flat chest. Two years
behind everyone else because she'd started school late. She had nothing
going for her, and she knew it, and so they knew it. She was lucky they let
her play with them, but after this, and the soccer ball (Elise wasn't her
fault, honest), this was probably the last game she'd be invited to play.
Squatting down, she reached for her shoes and slipped them back on, not
bothering to wipe the chalk from her feet. The Sisters didn't care if your
socks were a little gray, but God forbid your shoes get scuffed. She'd
learned that lesson the hard way. She still had welts on her overly
sensitive, pale skin. A few calluses from kicking a ball around in stocking
feet was a small price to pay to avoid the cane. Besides - if she jammed a
toe, it would remind her to remember her sneakers next time.
She took her time lacing her shoes up. She had nowhere to go, after all.
Classes were done for the day, and since tomorrow was Sunday she had the day
off. Except for breakfast, and church, and confession, and evening prayer,
of course. But tonight, she had nothing to do. None of them did, which was
why kickball had been their sole source of amusement for a half hour. Now,
thanks to her big feet, she'd lost the ball.
It was a home run, too. She didn't know if that made it better or worse.
Technically she'd won the game. But only a boy would argue that point. She
knew better.
Boys...she propped her elbows on her knees and laid her head down, staring
off into space. Were the other girls with boys now? Would they be tonight?
Some of them, probably. Like Anna. She was two years younger, and already
Anna had been with three different boys. Or so she said. Anna was a bit of a
bitch, so maybe she was lying. Although she'd never tell Anna that to her
face. The last girl who called Anna a name got her arm broken in fifteen
places. Ashley hadn't even known there were fifteen places to break in an
arm. But then, Anna was a little bit different. Anna was...
Anna was staring at her.
She shifted her legs underneath her, prepared to get up and run. Wait. Why
run? What had she done? Why would Anna come after her? This was silly. Anna
wasn't staring at her. She was just looking this way and they'd happened to
lock gazes for a moment. It was just a coincidence. She settled back down
and tore her gaze away, staring at her fingernails, pretending to be looking
anywhere but at Anna, who pushed off from the wall and slowly walked to
stand right in front of her. She looked up as Anna spoke.
"Hey Ashley."
"Um...hi?" Anna was wearing mirrored contact lenses today. They made her
eyes look like snake eyes. It was very disconcerting to see your own face
inside someone else's eyes, so she lowered her gaze. This, however, meant
she was uncomfortably close to peering up Anna's kilt, so she lowered her
head further and opted to stare at the ground. Anna had dirty shoes. She
probably got beat senseless by the nuns every night for that.
"I'm going out. You wanna come?"
"I..." She stammered. Go somewhere with Anna? Someone wanted to go somewhere
with her? Not possible. It had to be a trick. "I don't know."
"Well, either you do or you don't. Jeez...for a senior, you're sure
indecisive. Have you even picked a major yet?"
They both giggled. Anna had obviously been kidding. Nobody got past seventh
grade without picking a major. She was an English major. Anna was... what
was Anna? She realized that despite all the talk and rumors, she actually
knew very little about this girl. Like Ashley, Anna kept to herself mostly,
but Ashley shunned crowds because they picked ON her, whereas crowds avoided
Anna because they didn't want to be picked UP. And flung against a wall. But
those were just rumors. Anna couldn't be all that bad, could she?
"So are you coming or not?" said Anna, tapping her foot impatiently.
"Sure...I guess," she said, standing quickly and brushing off her kilt. "But
what about the chalk? We have to clean..." she broke off as it became clear
Anna wasn't listening, and scuuried to follow as Anna stalked towards the
gate, ID card in hand.
"Where are we going?" she asked as Anna slid her card through the lock,
which gave her a green light and slid open. Anna walked through, leaving
them separated by a wall of bars. Somehow, Anna looked right at home behind
bars.
"We're going to get your ball back," said Anna just as Ashley slid her card
through the lock. It clicked and turned green, deducting a point from her
card, but she just stood there, unmoving as the gate slid open. "Come
on...you don't move it, you're gonna waste a point."
"But..." A leather-clad arm snaked through and grabbed her arm, pulling her
through as the lock reddened and the gate slammed shut. She left a few
strands of whitish-blonde hair behind, but made it through.
"But..."
"Shut up and come on."
"We can't get in there. They card at the door." Secret Gardens was
technically Euro property, and they had more strict laws there. Being
"adult" there meant you were twenty-one years old. She'd heard that was how
it used to be here, too, but nowadays adult in Americorp just meant "old
enough to know better". And she did. "Besides...I've heard...stuff..."
"Oh, come on. It's perfectly safe. A few naked people, but no worse than the
locker room after gym class. We'll be fine. We're just going in to get a
kickball, right? We go in, we get the ball, we leave. Simple."
"Simple?"
"Simple." Ashley gave in and mirrored Anna's steps as they headed east down
Welkin and across the street. When they reached the corner of the building,
she looked back and whistled.
"What?" asked Anna.
"I had no idea I could kick that far."
"It's those big feet of yours," said Anna. Seeing her pout, she quickly
added "Oh, come on. That's not an insult. I've got big feet too. And you
know what they say about girls with big feet, right?"
"No, what?"
"I have no idea. I was hoping you knew." Asshley grinned as Anna turned and
rang the buzzer next to the door. They were committed now. They could run,
but the camera over the door had their images. They wouldn't get away with
it now. Not to mention the fact that there weren't a whole hell of a lot of
Catholic Schools in the city. "Now shut it. Let me do the talking."
A panel in the door slid open, two eyes peered down at them. A low voice
grumbled, "No kids," and the little door slid shut again.
"Let's just go. it's getting dark anyway..." Ashley took a few steps back,
but Anna merely grumbled and pulled her kilt up over her thigh. Ashley
stared as Anna apparently pulled a small object from inside her leg. She
looked up, saw Anna staring at her, and blushed.
"Sorry...I..."
"No problem. It's not what you think. Here...feel." Anna grabbed her hand,
and before she could pull away her hand was being pressed against the back
of Anna's thigh, where...
"It's...what is it?"
"Microweave. Same texture and color as my skin. You can stick stuff
underneath it and it's hidden, 'cept for a little lump. I find it useful for
carrying things around school, if you know what I mean."
She did. No pockets, no backpacks meant no place to hide makeup or money or
anything. They kept their ID cards around their necks on a small chain, the
only jewelry they were allowed to wear. The only thing that was allowed to
look different was their underwear, and that wasn't something you showed
everyone. This could be useful.
"Cool. It goes all the way down?" She realized she'd been rubbing her hand
along Anna's leg to feel the material, and pulled away, flushing. Anna just
smiled.
"No. Just a band of it, a few inches wide. My mom's got more. I'll see if I
can hook you up. Now, let's get in, shall we?" She rang the bell, and the
little door slid open again.
"I said no k...," began the voice again, as Anna held the card up in front
of the door, standing on tiptoes to reach.
"Official business," she said, pulling the card back and hiking her kilt up
again to tuck it away, intentionally giving the guy behind the door a nice
view of her purple underwear.
"Ok...five minutes. Then you're both out." The little door slid shut, the
big one opened, and Anna dragged her in before she could even squeal.
The big voice belonged to a big hairy guy. Rager, prolly. Euros didn't like
goths and wouldn't tolerate shifters. Yeah, rager. The twitch in his cheek
gave it away. He was wearing the black and green uniform of a Secret Gardens
employee, which, as it turns out, wasn't much of a uniform at all, what with
the amount of skin he was showing. He had a bit of a belly, but most of it
was muscle, and he filled out the suit nicely. Ashley noticed Anna sizing
the guy up, realized she was doing the same, and blushed again, suddenly
quite interested in the wallpaper.
"We're here to get a ball," said Anna. Ashley missed the innuendo, but the
big guy didn't. He raised an eyebrow, and seemed unsure of what to say. Anna
bailed him out after a few long seconds. "A kickball. About this big. Vinyl.
White. Kinda dirty."
"Oh. Yeah. In Gethsemene." He handed them a small black key. "It's on the
balcony. Don't wander. You got four minutes. Go."
"Gone," said Anna, tugging on her arm, half-running around the bar that
occupied the center of the lobby. It being early in the day, there was
hardly anyone here. Those who were were staring at them. Anna playfully
flipped her skirt up at them and giggled as they approached a large black
gate, ivy twined around the metal.
"Eden?" Ashley read the inscription above the gate. "That's like some place
in the Bible, isn't it?"
"You ever actually read that Bible they gave you?"
"Sometimes."
"Eden's not where we want. We gotta go upstairs to the other garden."
"The other garden? There's more than one garden in the Bible?"
"Yeah."
"What's that one?" Dance music was pouring out of an open gate. Inside,
colored lights swirled and people did various obscene things to one another.
"That room's called Babylon."
"That from the Bible too?"
"Yes. Sorta. Not the garden, though. It doesn't matter. We gotta go
upstairs. Here." They reached the staircase and headed up.
"How do you know so much about this place anyway? You been here before?"
"Nope. My mom's company did the construction. I saw the building plans. You
should have heard her. She had a royal fit when she heard it was going up
across the street from my high school. She gave in when they agreed to pay
extra. Mom's like that sometimes. Anyway, that's how we got in. I showed em
one of Mom's cards. She's got em scared you-know-what-less. Anyway, here we
are. Gethsemene."
They'd reached the top of the stairs and turned down a small, dark hallway.
Directly before them, a huge golden gate covered in blood stood before them.
Red ichor dripped off and puddled on the floor. Strange slimy faces pushed
up out of the walls and snarled at them.
"Eww...gross."
"It's just a holo. Come on." Anna pushed forward into the beam, which
readjusted itself to match the contours of her slender body. Blood and goo
dripped off her white blouse and kilt and ran onto the floor.
"Eww..." Anna turned and gave her a dirty look. "Sorry..."
Wordlessly, Anna slid the key into the lock and opened the gate. The
twilight sky peeked through - this was definitely the balcony where she'd
kicked the ball. They slipped through the gate and shut it behind them,
listened to it click, locking behind them. Ashley wandered to the edge of
the balcony to where it turned south, and spotted the ball in a patch of
thorns. Scarred, but intact.
"Here it is, in these bushes...ow!" She pulled back, sucking blood from her
thumb. "Damn thorns. Come help me...hey, where are you going?"
"In here," replied Anna, poking her head out of the doorway they'd been told
to avoid.
"He said not to wander."
"Whatever. I'll be right out. I wanna see something first."
"I don't think I want to go in there."
"I didn't ask you to. Wait here. I'll be right out." Stepping inside, she
shut the door behind her, leaving Ashley alone on the balcony.
What was that? A noise? By the gate? No...the wind. She shuddered, suddenly
cold. An errant breeze from a passing hovercraft lifted her kilt and tugged
at her blouse, making her even more cold and afraid. Shuddering, holding her
skirt to her legs, she kicked some of the thornier bushes aside, grabbed the
ball, and hugged it to her chest. This was not a good place to be by
herself, she knew. Maybe she could hang-drop down and...no. Too far. She'd
break her wrist or something.
Oh well. She'd just have to wait. Damn, it was cold up here. And this was
what...July? She hunkered down in the corner, pulled her knees to her chest,
and sighed. All she needed now was...
"Hello there little girl." She started, looking wildly around. There.
Dressed in black, standing against the black thorn bushes. It wasn't yet
dark enough for the domelights to kick on, so he was nearly invisible in the
twilight.
She did not reply.
"Oh, shy, are we?" An orange fleck spinning off into the air as he flicked
away a cigarette. Illegal in the dome, but not here in Euro territory.
"Nothing to be afraid of. Come on...what's your name?" He stepped closer,
and her legs pushed her up and back against the wall before she had time to
realize she'd stood. She felt a bit lightheaded, so she dropped her left arm
to hold onto the railing. It was cold...ice cold. She let go with a start,
realized it was her hand, not the railing, that was cold. Her breath came
faster. Too fast. She was trapped.
"Come now...I just want to know your name." He was even closer now...walking
slowly, steadily, one hand behind his back, the other in front of him,
gesturing towards her. His face was scarred, upper right to lower left,
though he still had both eyes, green, the left darker than the right. Ashley
looked around with a start. No...the light was the same. No, it wasn't. It
was darker, but she could see better? God, she was freaking. His arm
twitched in anticipation, and she could hear his raspy breathing and
quickened pulse, smell the sweat on his palms.
"Come here..." He brought his other arm around, lunged, trying to make it
across the last twenty feet, but made it only ten before the ball hit his
face at eighty miles an hour, snapping his head back, knocking him to the
ground. Ashley stared dully at her hand, disbelieving. Her shoulder ached
from the throw, but her hands felt numb, her fingers shards of ice. Her head
throbbed, horribly. She felt like she was burning up, but her arms and legs
felt icy cold. What was happening? Drugs? Was there something in the thorns
over there...
"Bitch," snarled the man on the ground, pushing himself up suddenly. He
grabbed the ball and flung it at her, but she saw it was going to miss and
didn't flinch as it flew past her head and sailed into the street, where she
heard it bounce three times and come to rest on a patch of grass. The guy
rose, spit a tooth at her, and produced a knife from his jacket. He lunged.
And then he was gone.
She brought her arm down from in front of her face, not remembering having
thrown it up to defend herself. She noticed that it hurt a bit, so she
looked down at it, saw a six inch gash near her wrist, a small trickle of
blood warm on her icy cool skin. Dizzy, head swimming, she heard his scream,
realized as her brain caught up with her reflexes that she'd just kicked him
in the head, sending him over the balcony, to land with a sickening crunch
on the pavement below.
Panic seemed to tickle the back of her neck, but somehow she remained cool,
despite the fact that her head felt ready to spontaneously combust, veins
throbbing against the back of her eyeballs. She quickly checked herself for
other injuries, saw none, and clutched her arm as she bolted for the gate.
Spinning around the corner, she pushed against it with her shoulder. It was
locked, of course.
And Anna had the key.
Realizing she had no choice, too frightened to think about it, she opened
the black door with her arm, winced as she turned her wrist, then shoved
inside and clutched the wound closed again. A kaleidoscope of colors and
smells and sounds hit her all at once, but she ignored it all and simply
walked straight ahead, looking for the purple shock of hair on Anna's head.
Sixteen different shades of black distinguished themselves for her. Twenty
heartbeats, two irregular. Four perfumes, three colognes, and the sweat from
hundreds of past patrons all hit her at once. She laughed, high on the
sounds and smells, suddenly feeling giddy and even more lightheaded as she
pushed through rows of cages, past leather-clad dominatrices, past a bar,
not stopping until she was through another door, collapsed on the floor at
Anna's feet, cackling.
"Anna. Look! There's no floor! I'm flying..."
"It's glass, silly. Hey...what's wrong?"
"Nothing...everything...I'm cold..."
"Cold? Are you nuts? You're sweating like crazy, and you're all pale. Are
you getting the flu or someth...oh no. No girl, not now. Not you."
"I'm..." she broke off, laughing insanely. "My wrist feels loose." She tried
to push herself up, but her blood slicked wrist slid on the clear glass
floor and dropped her chin down, splitting it open. For some reason, there
was an awful lot of blood all of a sudden. And a lot more pain.
She began to cry.
"Oh shit. We gotta get you outta here, girl. You're bleeding bad. Here..."
Anna grabbed for a towel dispenser, ripped it off the wall, tied a towel
tightly around her bleeding wrist. Ashley watched dully as it turned bright
red.
"I'm gonna die..." she mumbled through a wall of tears. No...there were no
tears. She was crying, sobbing, but the tears refused to come.
"No you're not. You're fine. Damn. I shouldn't have left you. Who was it?
Who did this?"
"I...I don't know. He had a knife. I think I killed him."
"I don't doubt that. Your legs are ice cold, but your head's on fire."
"What does that..."
"Stop talking. Conserve your energy. We're going for help."
"How..." She started, but broke off with a gasp as Anna reached under her
and scooped her up, tossing her over her left shoulder and pushing towards
the door. It occurred to her that she outweighed Anna by twenty pounds, but
she couldn't form the words. It hurt to talk, so she didn't. She just
watched as the dark closed back in around her, voices fading, sounds
dimming, little red drops of blood spilling down Anna's back and pooling on
the floor, following them out the gate and down the...
***
...stairs. She lost her balance, twisted, went down...
Ashley twitched violently, vertigo wrenching her body, and clawed for
support for a moment until gradually, consciousness seeping back, she
realized she wasn't falling. She was lying on a bed. She winced as she
peeled her eyes open and looked around. No, a couch. In someone's living
room. Freshly painted, too - the smell made her slightly nauseous. She was
covered with a white sheet, her bloody blouse in a heap on the coffee table
beside her. In another room, downstairs somewhere, she heard dishes being
washed, voices rising and falling above the cool rush from an aerated
faucet. She tried to sit up, but her head started throbbing and she wisely
dropped her head back down and closed her eyes, listening.
"...hardly makes up for stealing my business cards."
"Sorry."
"No you're not, but it's too late now anyway. Are you sure about her?"
"I'm telling you, she is. Her arms were like ice, but her head was on fire.
And the cut. When she came in, it was fine, like a paper cut, nothing. We
were fine. And then boom, she's gushing. Her wrist just about fell off. It
was flopping like this..."
"Gross Anna."
"Anyway, I grabbed her and we got out fast. She babbled the whole way here,
about how some guy slashed her and then she hit him."
"Did she?"
"I saw the body. Looked like he'd had his face run over."
"It could have been someone else."
"It was her. She said he had green eyes. He did."
Ashley remembered none of this. She remembered kickball, and leaving with
Anna, and going into the Secret Gardens, but from there it was all hazy,
dim. It wasn't as if she had no memory of it. Quite the opposite. It was
like there was so much there, all piled up, fighting for her attention.
Sensory overload. She couldn't focus on any one detail for long enough to
piece it together.
"Hmmm... we can't assume anything unless she has blood taken."
"I already did."
"Anna! She didn't give permission."
"Jeez mom, she was bleeding all over the carpet. Not to mention my blouse.
It wasn't like she needed it any more. Besides, it's all there.
Hyperventilation. Hypersensitive reactions. Hyped-up senses. Blood
redistribution. She's even got big feet."
"Anna, that means nothing and you know it. The test?"
"I sent it to that guy...Ken something. He said a half hour."
"Fine."
The water drowned out the next bit of conversation as someone started
rinsing dishes, so she plopped her head back down on the couch and stared at
the ceiling. There was a rustle, and suddenly someone was standing next to
her. She turned her head and looked. It was the older woman. Not Anna.
Ashley turned her head to look. The family resemblance was clear.
"Mrs. Michaels?"
"Ms., please. He left a long time ago and he isn't coming back."
"Sorry."
"It's OK. How are you feeling?"
"A little woozy. And my arm hurts. I was cut?"
"You don't remember?"
"No...nothing. Just Anna taking me in the club and then...I was here."
"I've already spoken with her about that club. And I'll deal with the club
owner in due time. Right now you're our primary concern. Does your mother
know where you are?"
"I'm a ward."
"Oh." Ms. Michaels obviously knew all about it, from the sound of her voice.
Not that parentless children were uncommon any more. Fertility drugs worked
too well, sometimes, and women's lib still hadn't changed the fact that
given a choice, people kept the boys and left the girls to rot. And so
Ashley'd been a ward of the Church for 19 years.
"What happened to me?"
"Well, I don't know. We'd have to ask Anna..."
"No. Not in the club. What happened to me?"
"Well, it's hard to say. Anna thinks you're one of us. I'm not sure."
"One of who? You? Your family?"
"No. Well, yes. Well...it's hard to explain. It's easier to disprove than it
is to prove. And let's just say that right now I can't disprove anything.
Although there is a lot of suggestive evidence."
"Evidence?"
"You were real cold last night. Do you remember that?" Ashley nodded. "The
dome was averaging 73 degrees Farenheit last night. But you were cold."
"But I felt hot too. My head hurt."
"Now it doesn't prove anything, but it could have been caused by blood
redistribution."
"What?"
"I'm not sure we should be discussing..."
"No...I'm OK. I want to know. All of it."
"OK, let's see... Think back. You didn't bleed much when you were first cut.
Do you remember that?"
"No...I...it's confusing."
"Focus on one detail. It's all there, but there's a lot of it, I know.
Focus. You were cut. He had a knife. You brought your arm up..."
"Yes. He slashed at my face, and my arm was in the way. Then I kicked him
and he fell and then I looked and my arm hurt but it wasn't deep."
"It almost took your wrist off." Ashley lowered an eyebrow. "Here, look."
Ms. Michaels leaned over and helped her raise her arm. She winced in pain,
watching as Anna's mom peeled back a 9 inch band of microweave bandaging,
watching in awe as the long pink line on her arm slowly revealed itself. It
went nearly all the way around. It was hard to tell, because the nanobiotics
were already patching her up, but she could tell it'd been bad. Her wrist
must have been flopping around.
"That...I..."
"After it was over, you found Anna. It started to hurt. It bled a lot."
"Yeah."
"The stress went down. Blood went back to where it normally is. Your
headache went away. You felt warmer."
"Yes. It got darker out."
"It didn't. You just started noticing less."
"What?"
"How can I explain."
"Blood redistribution," said Anna as she appeared at the top of the
staircase. "Blood moving out of your limbs, away from your skin, out of your
capillaries, redistributed to your major organs and muscle groups, and your
head and brain, moving through your lungs directly to where it's needed."
"How...why?" asked Ashley.
"The blood goes away from your limbs as a protective measure," said Anna.
"So if you get cut, even badly, you won't bleed to death until later. Your
blood goes to your lungs to get superoxygenated, which is why you
hyperventilate. Then it goes to the major muscles to keep them moving, and
to the brain, to keep you sharp."
"Anna, we don't..."
"Yes we do mom. Ken just called. Anyway, your brain's suddenly getting all
these abnormal doses of chemicals. Adrenaline. L-dopa. Other hormones. It
affects your sense of time and space. You start noticing things because your
body's suddenly attuned differently. You notice that someone's eyes are
different shades, even though the light is way too dark and supposedly your
eyes can't even distinguish colors any more. You can tell old cologne from
fresh cologne. You can smell sweat. You can hear breathing, and heartbeats.
You think you're going crazy because there's so much information, and
sometimes you're in a daze, blinded by all this stuff."
"Yes."
"And then it ends," added Ms. Michaels.
"Yeah," said Anna. "It ends, and it hurts. It's a crash. The fever breaks
and you're sweating, stinking, body getting rid of chemicals and hormones
and wastes. You get warm. Your head stops throbbing, but now you feel
lightheaded because the blood's rushing out. The chemical imbalance makes
you giddy sometimes. Your moods shift, hormones all mixed up. It's hard to
remember what just happened. If you're cut, it starts bleeding a lot.
Sometimes, if you're really hurt bad, you just keel over dead right there."
"But...then what am I?"
"Have you ever heard of spectres, Ashley?"
"We're spectres, Ashley. Anna and I are. And now it appears that you are,
too. Have you studied World War three in class yet?"
"Every year for the past ten years, yeah."
"You've read about ragers then. You know what they are?"
"Yeah." Ragers were like the guy at the Gardens. Big, strong, tough
genetically engineered warriors. Albeit imperfect ones. They tended to keel
over from nerve damage and heartattacks before they saw 50.
"Well, spectres were...are...an unexpected offshoot of the same project.
Ragers were built to be ground troops. Big, tough, strong. But they weren't
good for everything. So Spectres were genetically engineered to do things
ragers couldn't. Spying. Assassinations. Infiltration. Things that a big,
bulky guy couldn't do. So we were built smaller, faster, smarter, more
capable of surviving a mission until it was complete, then easily disposed
of when we were done."
"We're mostly female, too," added Anna, "because females were seen as less
threatening and sneakier. But there were, and are, males around as well.
Female also hide the differences better, cuz of our build. More weight down
at the bottom, and bigger, flatter feet, for better balance and lower leg
strength. Longer limbs and fingers, and so on."
"But the war was years ago. You're not that old, and Anna's not that young.
Was your mother a spectre too, Ms. Michaels?"
"I'm flattered, but actually I am that old. Our metabolisms work
differently, so we stay younger a lot longer. Anna's second generation, as
are you. It's a bit more unstable as it passes down, but you're still
spectres. The changes usually hit you after puberty, when your hormone
levels start to shift, but it doesn't really hit hard until things settle
down inside you, which is probably about now. Anna got hit a few years ago,
but I knew to expect it, so I was able to help her through it. It can be
tough. If there's anything I..."
"We," added Anna.
"...we can do for you, please, let us know. We have to stick together. Not a
lot of people know we're around, and those that do usually don't like us
very much. So, do you have any questions? I know, it's a lot to grasp."
"No...right now all I want to do is get back to school. I don't feel like
getting caned tonight."
"I already took care of that. You've got till tomorrow morning to get back.
Why don't you and Anna go out and..."
"I think Anna and I have had enough adventure for one weekend."
"Hey!" Anna pouted.
A half hour later, after Anna finished the dishes and they were dressed,
they headed out the door and took an elevator down to Welkin. Anna's mom was
nice and let Ashley keep the microweave, and told her she could stop back
whenever she wanted. Ashley promised to do so soon.
On a whim, Anna convinced Ashley to walk down the street to see if their
ball was still there. It was, lying in a patch of grass, three little red
circles marking where it had bounced before coming to rest. Luckily the
sprinklers had been on, and the ball was mostly clean of blood, albeit a bit
damp. They kicked the ball around for a while, but kickball wasn't a lot of
fun with only two people, so they headed back to school.
As Ms. Michaels had said, the Sisters were very nice about her being gone
all day. They didn't mind that she'd missed confession, and when she told
them she wasn't feeling up to evening prayer, they told her she could skip
it, this one time. She was still a bit nauseuous, so she and Anna spent the
better part of what remained of the weekend indoors, playing cards. On
Monday, they stayed up way too late, fell asleep on the floor, and walked
into third period late for class, and nobody said anything. There were a lot
of rumors, mostly involving her and Anna and some kinky stuff at Secret
Gardens, but nobody ever confronted her about it. They respected her now.
Not because of anything they thought, Ashley realized, but because of what
she thought about herself.
She wasn't just a small-breasted, big-footed gawky, pale, frail little thing
any more. There was a reason, now. Something to be proud of. And being able
to kick a little ass now and then didn't hurt.
Oh yeah, school was going to be a lot more fun from now on.
