3.4 billion years ago, a dispersal of bacteria constituted a severe contamination of an otherwise lifeless ocean.
THE END.
ST. ZENO’S SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED by Charlotte H. Lee
“But, I don’t understand.” Sometimes when he cleaned his fish tank, one of the stupid fish would flip out onto the counter, flop around for a bit, then lie still with its mouth gaping and closing. The first time it had happened, he’d pitied the creature, and studied its heaving gills for a moment trying to imagine what it was feeling before scooping it back into the water. He vowed he would move faster to get the fish back into a comfortable place next time. Helplessness and confusion, he realized now, was horrible - and he wasn’t even struggling to breathe.
“I understand how you feel, Kevan. This is a shock for you.” The woman he had thought was his mother – until just a moment ago – reached across the kitchen table to cover his clenched fists with her warm, soft hands. Her face was sad, and there was a tear glistening in the corner of her eye.
He’d always felt he didn’t quite fit in at home, though he knew they all loved him. Kevan had just always put it down to the difference between how parents treated boys and girls, and first- and second-borns. His parents hadn’t seemed to play favourite, but it had just always been different somehow. If Mel took a fall, they’d hug her, dust her off, and send her on her way. If he fell, they’d check every inch of his skull and pepper him with questions. Did he feel dizzy? Was there any blurriness? And a dozen other questions just like those. He kept his jaw clenched tight so he wouldn’t look like a helpless fish out of water, and waited for her to continue.
“Biologically you aren’t ours, but you will always – always – be our son. It’s no different than any other adoption that way.” She got up and poured herself a glass of water, waving the jug at him. Kevan nodded. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
“We’ve done our best to give you as many happy memories to fall back on as we could. You’ve grown so tall!” She was still his mother, Kevan decided. Even through the confusion, he hated to see his mother cry. He’d always thought of her as strong and fearless, charging her way through obstacles at her job, at home, his and his sister’s schools, or their sports teams. Even Dad got out of her way once she decided on a course of action. She was an unstoppable force, and he admired that.
“Who are ‘They’?” Kevan decided in that moment that if they weren’t decent, there’s no way he’d stick around. He had civil rights, just like anyone else. He had a right to choose where he lived. He took a gulp of water, it helped with the cotton-mouth but it landed in his belly like a heavy lead weight.
“I’m sorry, Kevan. I can’t tell you that. Your dad could tell you more but they aren’t even giving us enough time for him to get home from work. I called him right after they told me they were coming, but he’s not going to make it back in time.” His mother sniffed.
“What talent?” If she told him he was a wizard, he’d know this was all some elaborate bad joke. He shifted in his chair to check over his shoulder, wondering if his dad and sister were standing behind him laughing their fool heads off. No one there, just the cat sleeping on top of the hutch again. When that darned cat woke up, he’d start yowling to get down. He’d gotten too old to get down on his own, but he seemed to forget that every time he jumped up there.
“You aren’t off to Hogwarts, Kevan.” His mother’s mouth twisted into a watery smile. “We don’t know what form your talent will take, but we were instructed to watch and report anything you did that was unusual.”
Ouch. “And? Have I done anything weird that you’ve had to tell?”
“Not that I’ve seen, but perhaps the school’s seen something,” Mom said. The school spying on him, too? It shouldn’t surprise him to hear that, really. He’d always been in special schools, and he’d never made friends from any of his fun league teams so he didn’t really know what was different between his school and normal schools. Kevan didn’t socialize much; he found the things the boys on his teams talked about boring. Who cares about video games? Sure, they’re fun to play every once in a while but they aren’t interesting enough to talk about. The kids from school kept to themselves just as much as he did outside of class topic discussions, so he didn’t know what their lives was like.
“Are the other kids in my school like me?” He didn’t remember seeing anything unusual about any of the other kids, but since each student had an individualized curriculum he’d just assumed that when they stopped coming it was because they’d completed and had moved on to post-secondary somewhere.
“I suspect so. We weren’t given an option about which school you would go to, instructions came in the mail without a return address for your first day of school.” She sniffed again, this time disdainfully. “Precious little notice, too. I’d already registered you for kindergarten at the school Melanie went to later.”
“What if I don’t want to go? They can’t make me go, can they?” Kevan was big for his age, Dad was always complaining about how hard it was to find shoes to fit him. And he was strong. The change had come rapidly, so balance was sometimes still a problem but his parents kept reassuring him that his body would sort that out in short order.
“Yes dear, they can. If you don’t go quietly, they’ll take you by force.” The tears had started up again, and this time he could see she was afraid. The water sloshed around in his gut, and he swallowed against the thought of puking it up. It burned when it came out your nose.
Outside, a car pulled up to the curb, crunching across the frozen slush on the street. This winter had been unusually mild, with lots of chinooks and snow. He remembered a time when he was little he hadn’t understood why his parents had bundled him up tight with a scarf across his nose and mouth because ‘if it’s too cold to snow, it’s too cold to run and play without a scarf’. At first he’d been annoyed by the scarf. After fifteen minutes without it, he’d put it back on himself. The frigid air had hurt to breathe, sending icy knives into his lungs.
His mom choked on a sob, hugged him tightly, and went to the door just as the doorbell rang, jerking his mind back from the inane track it had gotten itself onto. He started after her, his steps slow and heavy. The man and woman waiting for him at the front door weren’t what he was expecting. He’d pictured them to be stiff and proper in matched business suits and hairstyles, in peak physical condition, and stern looking. The reality couldn’t have been more different.
The man was shorter than the woman, wore a loose knit grayish blue shirt under his open dark grey parka that covered a potbelly, and beat up bargain jeans. His shoes were ultra-cheap runners with long, dirty white laces. The shoes didn’t fit properly either because the bit below the tightly pulled laces sharply creased with folds. Melt pellets had stained the outer edges of his shoes white where he’d stepped in melted slush. His mid-brown hair had thinned on top, though he’d tried to hide it with a comb over. Kevan didn’t think it was accomplishing what the guy wanted it to, and wanted to suggest the guy get himself a toque if keeping heat was his goal. Nondescript light colored eyes peered at him through thick lensed glasses that had slide halfway down over a bulbous nose shot with tiny red veins.
The woman was scarier, and closer to the stereotype, especially by contrast. Whippet thin, wearing perfectly pressed cream pants under a moss green tailored jacket that had lace peeking out between the lapels. She wore closed toed, flat shoes that matched the cream of her pants. How she’d managed to get out of the car without wrecking her shoes was a mystery - his sister wrecked hers all the time, no matter how many times Mom and Dad yelled at her to wear proper boots when it got slushy. Dark hair was cut into a short bob, parted on the side and combed smooth to curl under slightly at her narrow jawline. Cold gray eyes pierced him above a knife-thin nose. She wasn’t wearing any make-up on a face with cheekbones so sharp they would probably cut glass.
The woman spoke first with a soft, feminine voice at complete odds wi
th her appearance. “Kevan Abbot?” She went on when I nodded, “You are to come with us to report for your secondary training at St. Zeno’s for the Gifted. Primary education will continue until you complete your minimum levels, though you will probably progress slower now with more time devoted to your secondary studies.”
“What are my secondary studies going to be?” Kevan asked. They shouldn’t be able to dictate what his life would be. He was an Earth citizen after all, and he should have the same basic rights as anyone else.
Dumpy spoke up, “We don’t get that information. Officer Cadroni here will escort you to the launch site, and I will stay with your parents to give them all the information they need to keep in contact with you and go over any last minute details that your school may not have given us.” He smiled genially, and Kevan could see the relief in Mom’s shoulders. The news also made him feel better. It would really suck to be taken from his family, never to see or hear from them again. He couldn’t say he was excited to be spending quality time with Officer Cadroni, though. She reminded him of a raptor bird, and the way she looked at him made him feel like he was a rodent she was hunting. Kevan shivered. A wish that the assignments were other way around was a waste of time and hope, but he couldn’t help wish it anyway. He had the feeling Dumpy would actually share what he knew once separated from the woman.
“Where’s this launch site?” If Kevan was going to have to travel all the way to Estevan Point, he was in for a lot of hours with Officer Cadroni – even if they flew from Calgary to Victoria. Like any other Canadian boy his age, the location of the one space port in the country – and how to get there from any of the surrounding support cities and towns - was memorized.
Officer Cadroni spoke up. “You’ll be flying from Calgary to Orlando on a direct flight with me, then waiting in special facilities until your full class has assembled. You should launch in no more than a week.” Kevan’s eyes widened with the knowledge that he was going to the world’s largest launch site. Dozens of launches happened every day bound for all the major colonies in this sector of space, both station and planetary.
Dumpy grinned at him and said, “You won’t need to pack more than a light jacket for the trip once you get on the plane, so I suggest ditching your winter coat once you’re checked through security.”
“If you will please come with me, I can provide as many answers as I can while we are en route,” Officer Cadroni said, beckoning Kevan with a sharp sweep of her hand. Kevan swallowed and glanced at his mother, doing his best not to let his tears break. He lost the fight, though, when he saw her eyes brimming. He swallowed again, the lump forming in his throat making it difficult and painful. He wanted to move his feet to go hug her, have her laugh and tell him it was all a joke and that these actors that she’d hired deserved awards. Judging by the way she was hunching in on herself that didn’t seem likely. He dashed a fist across his cheek, wiping away the tears and sniffled.
“Come on, buddy,” Dumpy said, crossing the foyer to take Kevan by the elbow. A gentle tug and Kevan was moving. The guy hadn’t taken his shoes off, and he’d left little zigzags of dirty snow tracked across the floor. If Kevan had done that, there’d have been yelling, but Mom just stood there, crying. Kevan yanked his arm away from Dumpy and half ran to his mother, throwing his arms around her.
“I don’t know what to do, Mom,” he whispered. Going into space would be nine hundred different kinds of a blast, but to be taken from his parents? His mother closed her arms around him.
“I know, Kevan,” she said, hiccupping with sobs. “We don’t have much choice, though.”
Kevan turned back to the mismatched duo, shaking his head. “I don’t want to go.”
“Sorry, buddy. You don’t get to stick around,” Dumpy said. The pudgy man stepped forward and stuck a needle into Kevan’s arm. He stared dumbly at the syringe, then felt his knees turn to jelly. The last thing he remembered was Officer Cadroni’s exasperated sigh as he slithered to the floor.
“Yeah, you’re not so tough now, are you?” Jacob shouted, standing over Kevan and shaking the pipe in his hand. Kevan had no idea where the boy had gotten the pipe from, but he was sure Jacob had just broken his shoulder blade with it. Through the haze of pain, he could see the wildness in Jacob’s eyes. If Kevan didn’t get up and away from him, Jacob was likely to start beating him in the head with the thing.
“No one thinks I’m tough, Jacob,” Kevan said, his voice breathy and thick. His shoulder was on fire, and no matter how he tried to move, electric arcs jolted along his nerves with every muscle twitch. He still didn’t understand why Jacob had it in for him. The boy had taken an instant dislike to him while they spent the week training for their launch. As far as he could tell, all Jacob had managed to do was scare everybody else into staying away from him except when he started in on Kevan. Then they’d get themselves between the two of them like some kind of Chinese wall. Trouble is, everyone stayed away from Kevan otherwise, too, and loneliness was eating away at him.
“Well, maybe not tough, but you sure think you’re better than me.” Jacob’s breathing was heavy and uneven with emotion. “You’ve got the others thinking you’re better than me, too. You set them all against me.”
“I really don’t know what I ever did to make you think that, Jacob,” Kevan said, his breath coming in short wheezes. The pain was unbelievable, and he was either going to pass out soon or puke everywhere. The room was doing that horrible spin-shake thing, and he was having difficulty focusing on Jacob.
“You don’t even know?” Jacob screeched. What came out of his mouth next was a weird blend of choke, screech, and grunt. He swung the pipe back behind his head to get some momentum going and Kevan’s mouth went dry. This was it. Jacob was going to kill him. The heavy pipe would crush his skull, tearing into his brain. Panic flooded Kevan, freezing his guts. He couldn’t look away from the pipe.
Jacob brought his arm forward and Kevan pushed with everything he had, whimpering and squeezing his eyes shut. Time stopped. Just stopped. All Kevan could hear was his own harsh breathing. Everything else had gone still. Jacob didn’t flicker an eyelid, his face still twisted in madness. Even stranger was his light brown hair frozen in place where before it had been ruffling in the light breeze coming from the air vent above and slightly behind him. The floor was still cold, though, and Kevan still hurt.
Crying out, Kevan got himself to his feet, his arm cradled to his side, doing his best to keep his breathing shallow. He didn’t know how long this freaky situation would last, but he’d best be gone whenever what was going on stopped. Trying to keep his steps as even and smooth as possible, Kevan made his way to the infirmary. This wasn’t the first time Jacob had sent him to the infirmary, but Kevan was determined it would be the last. Every inch of the school was set up with cameras. There was no way they could let Jacob go with a little slap on the wrist this time.
Kevan had to stop several times during the trip. He did his best not to suck in a breath, not wanting a repeat of that first deep breath after getting to his feet. He’d almost passed out then, and had swallowed back a mouthful of vomit. His throat was still burning from the bile. He rounded the final corner and came to a stop. Someone had been going through the door, and was now halfway through a stride. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about what he’d do when he got to the infirmary, but now what? He needed medical attention because he sure couldn’t treat himself. Something had happened back there; he had done something and he was going to have to figure out how to undo it.
He edged past the teacher in the doorway, and made his way to the unoccupied bed closest to the doctor on duty. The station’s infirmary was small, only twenty beds, but it was a small station. Approximately two hundred students, thirty teachers, and another forty in various support positions filled the school with only a couple of suites left for visiting dignitaries. Kevan still wanted to know who the dignitaries really were. They didn’t act like any parents he’d ever met.
Relieved t
o have made it, Kevan perched on the edge of the bed and pondered his options. He knew he’d done something, but he didn’t know if he could repeat it - or even if he should. He closed his eyes, thinking back to that moment, replaying it again and again, trying to identify what he may have done. There’d been a moment where he’d felt like he was flexing every muscle in his body at once and pushing without moving. He tried it, but the silence only continued. Flexing his muscles hurt, and he had to wait for a wave of nausea to pass. He let a sob escape. It’s not like anyone one could hear it, and he was scared. Almost as scared as when Jacob wound up for the swing to smash his head in. The thought of being stuck in this timelessness made his throat constrict, and the next sob stabbed pain through his shoulder. He’d never been in so much pain in his life, and unless he could get time moving again that pain would go on for the rest of his life while the universe held its breath.
Okay, so pushing hadn’t done anything. How about pulling? Kevan squeezed his eyes shut tight, tightened his grip on his forearm and pulled. The resumption of activity, and its accompanying cacophony, was startling but welcome. The doctor, who’d been hurrying past, came to an abrupt halt and stared at him. Her long white coat, buttoned up the front from her knees to her throat, swayed when she rocked back onto her heels.
“How long have you been here?” She frowned and took a step forward. “This bed was just empty, and the PA didn’t say anything about triaging anyone.” She cocked her head at Kevan, and lifted her eyebrows when Kevan didn’t answer right away. “Well? Why are you here?”
“I think my shoulder blade is broken,” Kevan said, trying to slide further back onto the bed but froze when an injudicious movement sent white hot pain raging down his arm and torso. He had to swallow against vomit again, and blinked back tears, hoping the doctor wouldn’t notice.
9 Tales From Elsewhere 11 Page 8
