Dangerous Data (The Meridian Crew Book 2)

by Blake B. Rivers

  I know now that I shouldn’t have responded, but it was a lesson learned too late. “Gifted. Not superior.” I corrected. “Extraordinary abilities do not make any citizen superior or more deserving of rights. Intellectual elitism helps no one.”

  She looked at me again, her beautiful, obsidian eyes unfeeling, empty, and depthless. Then, slowly, her brow furrowed, and she reached over to shove my pack with all my data-logs and supplies onto the floor.

  Although, logically, I knew dropping items was not a particularly egregious act, I felt as if all the eyes in the room were on me. It was then that I realized that there was only one other half-kin in the entire room, looking at me with pity in a sea of bemused gazes.

  Keeping my face blank, I bent down to pick up my things. It seemed that the very first lesson I was going to learn in these scholarly halls was one that I should have known long ago.

  I did not belong.

  And I never would.

  I arranged myself back into my seat, this time setting my things out of my classmate’s reach, when I felt a familiar rush of energy and shifting of reality.

  “Whoa! What is this place?”

  I looked to my right to see a human girl. She was what my mother called ‘quintessentially adorable,’ with pale skin and a round face with chubby cheeks that were dotted with freckles and framed by wild curls of red hair. She was wearing strange clothes that looked like they were spun of fibers rather than fabricated from plastic or other synthetic materials.

  “School,” I murmured quietly.

  “Huh?” the hei in front of me asked, turning in his chair. His skin was a pale yellow, with fading camouflage markings of ocher and umber.

  “Nothing,” I muttered.

  “Write it down,” Andi said. “Make it look like you’re taking notes or something.”

  I nodded and took out a different data-pad.

  ‘This is the new gifted school I was talking about,’ I said in my head to Andi.

  “Ooooh, shiny. I like it.”

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  “Why’s that?”

  ‘Later. How is he doing?’

  “Eh. Asleep now. Work’s been driving him pretty hard, so he hasn’t been around much.”

  ‘I see. Do you–‘

  Her head jerked to the side, and reality rippled around her, allowing me a peek into the room around her. The walls were an old, depressing grey, and I recognized what had to be a few toys at her feet.

  “Heck, he’s up now. It’s the weekend. I gotta go. Catcha later, kay?”

  I nodded again.

  “Sweet. Be safe now, Gee-Gee.”

  Another nod, and then she was gone.

  I wish I could tell you that things got better. That other classmates stepped in to stop any more harassment, or that my new acquaintance realized the error of their ways. But that would be lying, and I haven’t quite learned how to do that yet.

  Something tells me, though, that I might have to.

  This new world is very scary, diary. I want to go back.

  With great trepidation,

  Jyra

  Obden 2nd, 4702

  I am sorry it has taken me so long to talk to you again, but every day that I come home from school, I find myself too exhausted to deal with this world anymore. I either seek out Andi or find a good book to immerse myself in.

  I wish I could say that sleep brings me rest, but it is just as taxing.

  Dark nightmares have started to infiltrate my dreams. Gone are images of experimenting, discovery, and scientific pursuit. Instead, there’s fire, screaming, and the glinting of light off impossibly large claws. I do not know what these terrors mean, but I am scared. I spoke to my therapist, and he says that I should keep a log of them if they continue, so I will tell you. Hopefully these are just brought on by the stress of school and Xissa.

  Oh, right. Xissa is the name of the lavender sierr I interacted with on my first day. Needless to say, her disposition has yet to improve. It was very rarely outright cruelty; she never hit me, and she hadn’t touched my possessions since the first day. But that didn’t mean she still wasn’t awful to me. It was in her refusal to ever speak directly to me, in the furrow of her brow when she had to look in my direction. In the tsks of disgust she made when I was asked to present something to the class or called on for a question. And as she gained more influence over the class, more and more began to follow suit. It was isolating, and it weighed on me like an ever-increasing burden.

  It wasn’t even like I needed or craved companionship. But her adamant rejection forced itself into my reality. It was un-ignorable. And I hated it. I just wanted to learn.

  The only people I really have to talk to are the other half-kin, Laquilla, and a set of twin sierrs, who care less about socializing than I do. Not that they’re rude, or anything. They just prefer the company of facts and figures to sentients, and honestly, I couldn’t blame them.

  Andi does make the days go faster. We’ve almost developed a game. She talks to me outright, and I see if I can find answers to her that don’t stick out obtrusively in my reality. I’ve gotten fairly good, but I still have to rely on one of my data-pads half the time.

  I really wish you could meet Andi. She’s hilarious. And brave. She told me once of how she was chased by a furred, fanged beast with white foam pouring from its mouth. She managed to get away by climbing a tree, but then the beast focused on her younger friend who was too small to climb. So, Andi broke off a branch, jumped down from the tree, and swung it at the monster while screaming until it ran away. I don’t think I would be able to do that, but then again, adrenaline does amazing things.

  Who knows, maybe one day you can meet her. I am still determined to prove that she is real. As adept as my mind is at formulating simulations of hypothetical instances, I do not think it could create someone as wonderful and nuanced as Andi. No, I cannot touch her, nor can I touch any of the things I see faintly behind her as she moves, but that doesn’t mean she’s not an actual being. It would be foolish to think that life was restricted to only physical forms.

  Maybe that’s what I would prove one day. That there was a whole entire race of people we couldn’t see, but were just as alive and sentient as us. I wasn’t sure why I was able to see just Andi and no one else, nor did I have any idea why I couldn’t see any of the other people in her realm, but she could see mine. However, I had plenty of time to figure it out. After all, it was still two months until I turned ten. I should enjoy the naiveté of childhood while I still can.

  Your tired bastion of a friend,

  Jyra

  Obden 5th, 4702

  I feel terrible.

  My palms are sweating. My head hurts. I’m scared.

  I just had another dream, but it was worse than any preceding it. Much, much worse. It was so real, ripping through my sleep like a shadowy hand with claws of jet black. I will try to explain it to you. I feel like it is incredibly important, but I have no idea why. I do not like having no idea. It is not like me.

  It started like any normal dream. I’m grown, my dark hair pulled up into a bun while I work in a lab. It’s state of the art, of course, filled with technology that doesn’t have a name because it’s not invented yet.

  Facts and figures flit across my holo-display as I puzzled over some equation or other.

  But then, a sound rips through the room. It’s terrible. The rushing of wind, and the screams of hundreds, punctuated by a reverberation that made my teeth rattle. I dropped my pad, letting it clatter to the floor, but the floor suddenly isn’t there anymore. There was only inky, thick nothingness that I plummeted down into.

  Hurtling, falling, colliding – I was being buffeted through the absence of matter like a molecule being stretched by the gravitational pull of a black hole. It was a burning pain, but at the same time I felt like every cell in my body was freezing. I screamed, but no words came from my mouth.

  Then, just as abruptly as it happened, the darkness exploded away, a
nd I was treated to another visage. It was of a space station. But instead of a bustling commerce of space dwellers, it was a massacre. The air smelled of blood and burning, and bodies littered the floor as far as I could see. Every species I had ever heard of were all violently eviscerated. It was a cacophony of violence – a symphony of death, and I could not look away.

  Massive figures moved quickly at the edges of my vision, but tears were blurring my sight. I stood there, unable to move, drowning in the horror of what I saw.

  Then, strong hands gripped me, and I saw myself looking down into the face of a nesr-roona.

  “You have to stop them. You can’t let them on.”

  “Let who on?” Although I was utterly terrified, I found myself a bit bewildered by this alien’s lack of a clarified noun. Certainly, a situation like this was not the time for pronouns.

  “Don’t let your world follow our path! You can’t trust–”

  But then one of the figures in the darkness lunged forward, and I was ripped backward through the nothingness again. I landed in my bed with a fright, breathing hard and ready to call for my mother.

  “Yo, friend, are you alright?”

  I cannot tell you how immensely relieved I was to see Andi. She was in her pajamas as well, although they were much fuzzier than my own.

  “Yeah, I just had a bad dream.”

  “Really? I’ve been having them, too.” She took a step and sat on my bed. I knew that technically she wasn’t actually there, but it was still comforting to have her so close to me.

  “What are yours about?”

  “I dunno. I don’t really get most of them. There’s a lot of yelling most of the time, like a whole room full of people are trying to tell me how to do something all at once, so it just turns into gibberish. It… it feels like a warning, but I, uh, I just dunno, I guess.”

  I nodded, feeling a bit better, but still somewhat terrified. “Mine felt like a warning, too. But it was delivered rather dramatically.”

  “I gotcha.”

  “But hey, you never visit me at night. Is something up?”

  Andi grimaced and gave a little shrug. “He can’t sleep. So, I’m hiding.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” The apology sounded so silly and unfitting of the situation, but I didn’t know what to tell my best friend.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m a big, strong girl. I can deal.”

  “If anyone can, it’s you.”

  “Yeah, I…” Suddenly, a light flickered into being around the redheaded child, and she said a word that I was not allowed to repeat. “He’s in my room. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And Gee-Gee, you know I’ll always be here for you, right? Real or not.”

  I nodded once more. “I know that. And thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  And just like that, the familiar buzz of her presence faded, and I was alone. I pulled you out a moment later and well, here we are now. I’m worried. I feel like something terrible is floating just beyond my understanding, and I cannot do anything about it. When I imagined hitting double digits, this was certainly not how I envisioned it.

  Perpetually worried,

  Jyra

  Obden 18th, 4702

  Dear friend. It has been several days since we talked last. I wish I could say they were uneventful days, but they were not.

  School continued in its endless drudgery. I found myself growing angrier each day. How dare Xissa turn a place of learning and growth into a cold, barren wasteland of hard looks and angry stares? I could feel the weight of her and her growing crowd of minions’ judgement. Like I was somehow lesser.

  But I wasn’t lesser.

  Just different.

  That distinction didn’t seem to matter to them. They commented on everything from my difficulties with most social interactions or being able to improvise comedic comebacks to their snide one-liners. I could often sense that they were making jokes at my expense, but I couldn’t quite unwrap the tones and subtext that made them insulting, or formulate an appropriate reply. It was a waste of my intellect and energy, yet I still found myself struggling every day to be less of an outsider.

  Laquilla, for her credit, cared much less about what they had to say. But perhaps that was because she had hit her growth period early and was at least a head taller than everyone in the class. Or it could be that she had a habit of putting her hecklers into waste disposal containers. Either way, I was safe when I was with her. But she was a particularly talented musician. We shared basic classes and math, but half of our days were spent completely apart.

  Andi wasn’t happy about my treatment either and did her best to brighten my days. She would often stand right behind Xissa and make faces, sticking out her tongue or contorting her wonderfully chubby cheeks. Sometimes, she pantomimed grossly disproportionate responses to Xissa’s subtle harassment. Thank goodness for her humor. Sometimes, I felt as if it was the only thing allowing me to survive.

  I knew it was silly that, after having dreams of death, destruction, and chaos, I was concerned with being able to live through the semester, but the stress of it all was gnawing at me, like a vresak with a fresh bone.

  Perhaps that’s why it happened. Mother is going to be terribly dissap…Oh. I haven’t told you that part yet. Apologies. I suppose I do need more practice at this storytelling thing.

  Today started out as a relatively ordinary day. I ate my breakfast quietly, and prepped for my day. I made sure my data-logs and pads were in my bag, along with lunch and a snack. I double checked to see I had the proper proportions of protein to vegetation and fiber. And then I packed an extra sweet. Times were stressful, after all.

  I stood at the foot of the building where my family lived and waited for the shuttle.

  From there, the transport dropped me off at my school that was still so stark white, but undeniably dimmer in my mind. Into the wide, well-lit halls. Through the door. Sat down at my desk. I took a deep breath and prepared for the day.

  Xissa was busy reading what looked like a report on DNA splicing on her data-pad, giving me a reprieve. If there was one upside to the sierr, it’s that she cared for biology even more than she cared about my presence interrupting her day.

  The teacher’s holo-projection started up and greeted us, assigning us lists of new media to read that ascribed to each of our talents and any other pertinent alerts. But her next words made my blood run cold.

  “As you all know, it is important to be well-rounded individuals. You must be able to explain your discoveries just as much as you are able to make those discoveries at all. Today, I am assigning you in pairs, and you are required to make a discovery – fake, of course – and fully present it to your partner.”

  No. No, no, no. There were only three people in the class that even tolerated me, and I knew that the teacher would assign the twins together. It wasn’t exactly her fault on that front. They wouldn’t work with anyone but each other. I’m sure they were seeing a therapist about it, but I doubted they would ever listen.

  Like an approaching plasma beam, the teacher’s voice read through the list. I knew what happened with these things. Teachers liked to use them as ways to solve mini-feuds in their classroom. It was basic psychology, really – uniting two opposing forces toward a common goal for reward. But it wouldn’t work. She didn’t know. She didn’t see. And I couldn’t explain it to her, because I didn’t entirely understand it myself.

  “And Xissa, I would like you and Jyra to work together.”

  There it was. Her declaration washed over me, a freezing wave of dread.

  “Of course. Thank you.” Xissa said, smiling weakly.

  The teacher nodded, then continued, oblivious to the torment she had just tossed me into. It wasn’t fair. I understood rules, facts, figures, and theories. Xissa played in a realm that was more alien to me than any of the celestial bodies in the universe.

  Eventually, the list was finished, and the
teacher winked out in a ripple of light, no doubt planning her next brilliant lesson strategy. In that moment, I felt an illogical amount of hate for her. But that was unproductive, so I squashed it down.

  Instead, I stared straight ahead until Xissa turned to me.

  “So, I’m thinking of discovering that there’s a way to mutate DNA for certain desired, super-carbon traits. You’ve got a thing about textures, so give me your opinion on this: for my presentation, I was thinking of growing samples of different flesh types I would be able to genetically modify. Thoughts?”

  “That would certainly be impactful, as well as give tangible representation of a somewhat abstract branch of science.”

  “Perfect, thanks. What are you contemplating?”

  This was...odd. I had been expecting more subtle jabs I couldn’t deconstruct, or outright dismissal. Maybe even a complaint or two. I certainly hadn’t anticipated fruitful discussion. Perhaps Xissa had realized how counterproductive her conduct was? I felt my defenses drop slightly. I was never very good with people. Maybe I had misinterpreted her? My therapist and I had been working on sarcasm, after all. It was a very complex type of humor that I understood about half the time, but was so reliant on tone and previous knowledge of the joke teller that I found it exceptionally difficult.

  “I’m thinking of proving that something we can’t see or detect is real. I am not sure, though. It would be difficult to bring into this reality simply because of its nature.”

  “Ambitious. I’m going to start on writing my script for it. Do you want to work independently then meet back in an hour?”

  I nodded, and then that was that. Confused and more than a bit bewildered, I saw a new future opening up for me in my mind’s eye. One where I was accepted and left to learn in peace. Where I could have a fruitful, productive discussion when I did feel comfortable enough to speak, and enjoy enriching interaction with those around me.