by Lee, Cara
Wynne looked at her tablet and made a new annotation on her copy of the charter. Dodd vs. Smith? No, that wasn't right. Dobbs. Dobbs & S, she scribbled, and she'd have to be sure to research it before she forgot what the note meant.
She made the note and started looking up seizures and strength-boosters. She wasn't sure if her searches were usually monitored, but after she'd seen the governor-to-be have an inexplicable seizure and throw a tantrum? She'd be shocked if they weren't.
Wynne considered her options for how to research the court reference he'd given her and reluctantly decided to borrow Bridge's tablet that evening. Nobody who knew her cousin would believe that she'd been the one researching law, but that was the only relative Wynne could think of who would be leaving her tablet unattended and who was dumb enough that she wouldn't be able to figure it out, if there were an inquest.
Did she want to know?
Wynne stared at her tablet, remembering Instructor Smith's disdain for the colony where he chose to live, despite having an income and a way to pay for space travel — despite being from another world.
And as the governor's son, Hector would've had the best genegineering possible, which should've removed any predisposition to seizures from his genetic makeup.
"Yes," she whispered. She wanted to know.
She needed to know.
Because if she needed to save up resources to be able to flee offworld as soon as she had the savings, well…
She needed to know that, too.
****
One nerve-wracking week later, Wynne sat in Culture Studies beside Hector as everyone read over their lines. By then, everyone had studied their copies of the revised play, which could've been thought insulting of Arzon culture, except the governor-to-be had written most of it, and he'd not spared himself in the good-natured lambasting.
"Four-Eyes, I do believe there are four eyes betwixt us," Wynne read, trying to sound lighthearted, though she never had called him that on purpose. Was he trying to say that he liked being called 'Four-Eyes' — in which case, she still didn't want to, because they were rivals, not friends — or just that he didn't mind the joke?
"Six," Hector corrected, "since I wear two on my face. But if you pass me that cardboard box, I might have a place to set those two down, and you can examine them separately to determine which two you like best."
"Oh?" She glanced warily at the half-meter square box he'd somehow managed to find. When they'd written the script, she'd thought cardboard was something he'd coined, not an actual substance, though she'd since researched and found it to be related to paper, which had never been used in the Arzon colony, so far as Wynne knew.
But knowing that made the lines all the more ludicrous to Wynne as she continued, "Oh! This." She set the box on her desk, studying the box as if puzzled. "Board card! You wear those in the 'lanes, you know."
"Cardboard—"
"I've always wanted to travel the 'lanes." She stuck the box on her head. "Do you think it fits?"
A few classmates groaned at the silliness, but most snickered to see top-of-the-class Wynne and Hector bickering like idiots, which was rather the point of the entire play. The revisions had converted Romeo and Juliet from two lovers, star-crossed by family feud, into two would-be lovers, star-crossed by their mutual inability to understand one another's flirting.
She waited for Hector to say his line — which would be followed by Josiah Cleanuman pulling the box off her head and tossing it into the bin for waste processing, which would get the two of them mutually indignant — but silence followed.
Wynne waited. And waited. And counted off twenty seconds before she pulled the box off her head, herself. "What?"
Hector was staring at nothing, the muscle in his neck standing out, and his knuckles white on the hand that gripped the desk.
She looked to Instructor Smith for help, but he shook his head and sat heavily on his desk. His expression was as irritable as it usually was where Hector was concerned, but sympathy tempered it.
"Hector?" she pressed, uncomfortably reminded of his seizure the week before.
After a few more long seconds, he blinked a few times, his focus returning to normal. He adjusted his glasses, scowling. "Curse it all to a black hole," he muttered.
He got up, roughly grabbing his tablet. He'd replaced the broken one with the same model as the old one, and as far as Wynne knew, nobody else in the school knew it was a new one. "Sorry. Have a… an appointment. Lost track of the time. Have to go."
Hector paused and gave Wynne a long look she couldn't read, then busied himself logging out of the system and keeping an eye on their surroundings. "Stay off the tablet today, huh? Go see that new movie before you go home?"
She blinked. What movie?
"Insufficiency of Magic. You'll like it."
Wynne was fast becoming convinced that she didn't want to stay in the Arzon colony after she was of age, so she found it hard to justify the expense of a movie.
He met her gaze directly, his eyes pleading. "Please."
She swallowed, again remembering his seizure, and wondered what she'd ever done or said to make him interested in her well-being. They weren't friends. "Okay."
Hector let out a long breath — relief, she thought, which made her glad she'd agreed — then stood to go… and gave Instructor Smith a long glare.
"I'm sure you could kill me with that brain of yours," Instructor Smith said placidly. "But would you be able to sleep at night?"
Evidently his words made sense to Hector, because he gave a long sigh. "Eventually, yeah."
Their instructor let out a hiss. "Know that already, huh?" Instructor Smith shook his head, reaching for his tablet. "I don't envy you, kid. I really don't."
"Don't." Hector rolled his eyes, then promptly clarified, "Your tablet. Off. Just… Just a…"
He tensed up again, jaw clenching, and Wynne was horrified to see blood trickle out his nostril when he pried himself aright — and even then, he was still tense, just not as clenched up.
"Hector?" she asked automatically, knowing she shouldn't — but what was happening to him wasn't normal, couldn't be normal—
And he seemed frighteningly used to it.
He ignored her and left quickly.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Instructor Smith clapped his hands. "Back to studying your lines!"
Following Hector's advice to ‘stay off the tablet today,’ Wynne turned her tablet off altogether and scooted over to be beside Josiah Cleanuman. Josiah was third in the class, despite being from a tier five family in his paterline and materline. Wynne thought him likely to test into another family tier, when apprenticeship came, unless he really liked cleaning. Then he'd probably be apprenticed into a cleaning job that required more precision and accuracy than most — like of lab equipment, maybe.
Josiah gave her an odd look, stared at the door — evidently remembering Hector's dramatic exit — then tapped his screen to enlarge the font size so they could both read it more easily.
"Thanks."
He shrugged, cheeks reddening a little. "No problem."
Wynne ignored his blush and pretended to focus on the play while she tried to figure out how she'd get through the rest of her classes that day without her tablet. It was doable. If she claimed a tablet malfunction, she could probably even manage it without any deduction in her grades, but she wasn't sure she wanted to do that. A tablet malfunction would get her assigned another tablet, and…
Hector had said to stay off 'the' tablet, not 'your.'
She sighed and accepted that her grade would have to suffer. Lunch would be next, so she'd have to run home and 'forget' her tablet there. She wasn't in the habit of neglecting her tablet, so she wouldn't be docked too many points. Hopefully.
She needed those points in math, though.
To distract herself from fretting over her to-be-lowered grade, she mulled over the week's oddness. She wasn't sure if it would fizzle and things would return to normal, or
if things were about to change.
The 'Dobbs vs. Smith' case had been how Instructor Smith had ended up in the Arzon colony at all — How did Hector know I wanted to know that? — and she felt sorry for him. Instructor Smith’s father had died when he was seventeen, and the galaxal age of adulthood was eighteen, so Caseworker Dobbs had ordered him shipped back to Arzon. Instructor Smith had sued, claiming that Arzon age of adulthood was sixteen — not exactly, but close enough, Wynne supposed — and he was therefore of age.
The judge had ruled, 'Either way, you're a citizen of that colony and don't have travel authorization,' and had him deported before he could file an appeal.
Was galaxal law so hidebound that they'd ship someone off so quickly, almost as if they were afraid of—
Wynne stared at Instructor Smith, who was casually looking anywhere and everywhere but at her. She was missing something; she could feel it.
And she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to figure out what.
****
In general, her instructors frowned and reluctantly docked the requisite points when she claimed she forgot her tablet, and her math instructor — a Calcuman, of course — had given her a hard look and stated that day's homework was due before the next class, which meant she could ping it to him that evening or the next morning. That statement had gotten some grumbles, since he was obviously taking care of Wynne, but Instructor Calcuman had put his foot down: "That's always been my policy, folks. Primuman could tell you, but looks like he's out this afternoon."
"He said he forgot an appointment," Josiah Cleanuman offered.
Their instructor frowned, glanced at Wynne, then grimaced as if realizing what he'd done. He nodded — acceptance of the excuse, rather than belief in it, she thought — then delved into the day's lesson — on telemetry, thankfully, because she wasn't sure she could concentrate on one of the more difficult maths at the moment.
From how some of her classmates groaned, she thought that perhaps 'easier' was subjective.
****
After school, Wynne hesitated, then ultimately took Hector's advice about the movie. He was right. She did enjoy it, which unnerved her a little. He knew what she liked — explicable, considering the information he surely had at his fingertips — but even if she tried, she couldn't name a single thing he liked.
And she did try, when she realized Insufficiency of Magic was right up her alley: a wizard crime-solver in the 'lanes found that his magic got him into more scrapes than it helped him with.
"Blue!" she blurted, then winced and whispered an apology to those around her. He liked blue. She thought. She seemed to remember him wearing it a lot—
But then, that could also have been a matter of resources lending it that way, or him wearing what his father wanted him to wear.
Wynne rubbed her temples as the wizard on the screen accidentally set a waste processing unit on fire with a badly aimed fireball. For whatever reason, though she knew little about Hector and could barely keep up with him in class, he liked her enough to warn her, so she could avoid… whatever she was there at the movie to avoid.
Why? She stared unseeing at the movie, hearing the wizard make excuses about why the fire wasn't his fault. She and Hector were rivals, not friends.
Weren't they?
****
After the movie, Wynne went to a snack shop and ordered banana juice — she figured she might as well splurge on the imported fruit, since she had already gone to the movie — while she mulled over tablet alternatives. Paper was long outdated and would require wood, which wasn't something the colony really had; oxygen was produced by food plants and bamboo, and the bamboo was used for…
She frowned. What was the bamboo used for?
Wynne hoped she'd remember to look that up the following day — that and ping Instructor Calcuman her homework.
The Saluman running the register put the order for juice against the resource credits Wynne had on her account, and after it went through, he started making her order.
Tablets were ubiquitous for their convenience and their network connections, but there was value in not always being connected — when roughing out homework so you couldn't accidentally submit the wrong file, for example.
At least that was how Wynne thought she might be able to pitch the idea, because the lack of network connection on a communication medium was conceivably dangerous. Dissenters, for example, could share messages and meeting times on paper, and it might never hit the network.
She suddenly wondered if the colony's focus on food-producing plants was on purpose.
In any event, she'd have to think that through some more, to spin it in a way that would make it acceptable. Tying it to students was too weak. She'd need to tie the network-less drafting into something that would be beneficial for a tier three family, at least. A tier two would be better. Even supposing she could figure out a way for it to be of benefit to the Primumen, at tier one, Wynne felt that would be pushing things too far. Overeagerness would earn her a wary eye, but perfectly explicable eagerness to help one of her family lines?
That, she could get away with.
Her juice was served — a little on the thick side, as banana juice always was — and she took it to the nearest hydroponics habitat. She sipped her beverage as she wandered the public paths, which were separated from the private area by a thick wall of bamboo.
Wynne eyed that wall as she finished her juice. What was in the private area?
With her tablet conveniently forgotten back home, she couldn't be tracked — so far as she knew — and one of the rumors about the private sections found in each habitat was that they were private, lacking even the 'emergency' cameras that Hector had surreptitiously informed her were actually spy cams. Nobody would admit to knowing what was in them or who had access to those areas, but surely the Primumen would be among those with access.
Or maybe the only ones with access.
She measured off the section in her head. Layumen were the construction workers, and as a female, she was still counted as part of her materline until the testing at Dyad, which could give her an opportunity to switch. If she switched to Imagumen, her paterline, she'd be tier two instead of tier three, and she'd probably get to work with Hector fairly frequently.
Wynne frowned and tossed her cup into a waste receptacle, tapping the control panel so it tallied her responsibility with the resources she used. Since when had that last one even been something she thought of, much less considered a positive?
Her mother had mentioned it in passing a few nights ago, Wynne finally remembered.
She shook her head. She didn't dislike Hector, but he was too intelligent — frightening, even. Which seemed ridiculous, considering his utter lack of physical prowess.
But still. 'I'm sure you could kill me with that brain of yours.'
She shivered.
And he seemed to be warning her away.
'You would not like my job. I suspect you'd like bearing Primuman children even less.'
'It's just, if you had Primuman kids, you'd have to—'
Interrupted by a seizure — something that should not have been able to happen to him — and after which he had ranted about knowing what he couldn't say, smashed his tablet to pieces, stormed off, and warned her off her tablet tonight.
Hector had warned Instructor Smith, too, she reminded herself, and those two obviously hated each other.
No. Not hate. Wynne frowned, mulling on it. Dislike was more accurate, and even then… it seemed more for what they were, rather than anything against them, themselves.
Instructor Smith disliked Hector because he was an example of 'everything that's wrong with this colony.'
So why did Hector dislike Instructor Smith? Because his father had been foreign? Because he'd grown up galaxal? Because he knew some secret about Hector that he didn't want Wynne to know?
Now that it occurred to her, that last one seemed most likely.
And, for the sake of argument — she doub
ted a tier one would get assigned a tier three Partner, anyway — assuming she did end up Partnered with Hector and have his kids, what would she have to do?
And why did she suspect their mutual dislike and the secrets they couldn’t share were related?
****
Wynne got home late — too late, really, but she did it rarely enough that she just got an orange 'mind you don't make a habit of this' warning light when she tapped the entry pad to enter her family's home. Someone like Bridge, who broke curfew regularly, would get the red 'your resource allotment had been fined' light, and the ticket would appear on the personal tablet.
Her mother glanced at her as she entered. "Pregnant?"
"No," Wynne answered flatly. Her mother wasn't trying to be rude; that was just how she asked if she had a boyfriend yet. Wynne understood, but that didn't mean she liked the question. "Are you?"
Her mother snorted as if it were impossible, but galaxal women in their mid-thirties had children all the time. Though Wynne couldn't think of any examples that she knew in person.
Actually, now that she thought of it, the colony had a significant die-off in adults over thirty. Her own materline was solid, lots of women, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd met a female Cleanuman or Saluman who was past Tetrad. And her paterline was the only family line she could think of wherein most of the men were dead — her father, Bridge's father. Tier two families, both, though her father had been Imaguman and Bridge's father had been Advisuman. Both had died shortly after their thirtieth birthdays, if she remembered correctly, but she found herself oddly unable to remember. Her father hadn't died all that many years ago, and Uncle Ross had died only last year.
Wynne frowned. She wasn't sure what was more disturbing: all those details, or that they'd just now occurred to her.
"Problem?" her mother asked briskly, oddly awake for an hour when she was usually fully asleep.
Goose bumps tickled along the back of her neck. "You tell me. You aren't usually up this late."
"Sea and Bridge aren't back yet."
