Opheliac

by J. F. Jenkins

  “I feel like she is wanting to take the easy way out, but you’re right. There’s no point in arguing with her about it. If she desires to be freed from her gifts and memories, then so be it.” There was a great deal of disappointment in Jaes’s tone all the same.

  Alan didn’t particularly want to think about Cadence, Jaes, or the fact that they were spending time together—time alone at that. He quickly changed the subject. “Are you familiar with the term Gesubsavat?”

  “Vaguely. It’s an ancient, barbaric thing that is still practiced with the green tribe. Essentially, it is binding someone, and in some cases their entire family, to another person for the purposes of slave labor in order to pay off debts,” Jaes said. “The Gelandrosimbol have been known to force those they’ve conquered in war into such a bond, as well as those who lend out money and other such things. There is no other acceptable way to pay it back outside of performing the duties given by the master. Service is not complete until the master says it is. Most are never released.”

  For being vaguely informed, Jaes sure knew a whole lot. “I see.” He frowned, his mind wandering to Alona. “My ex said she was a Gesubsavat. Do you think that’s why she’s doing all of this?”

  “It’s a possibility. You’ll never know until you get the opportunity to ask her. If she is, that can be used in her favor when she is put on trial.”

  If she is put on trial. She still had to be caught. Jaes may have been overconfident in their upcoming mission. Did he not learn anything from Dale’s concerns? Alona was counting on them to ruin everything.

  “But what if we didn’t,” Alan whispered.

  Jaes’s eyes went wide. “Didn’t put her on trial?”

  “No.” Alan shook his head, waving his hands in front of him as he collected his thoughts. “What if we didn’t interfere with the trade. Observe it, but not stop it from taking place. How much of a wrench do you think that would throw into their plans?”

  “A big one,” Jaes said. “It’s something to consider. I will propose it to Sir Orioltogorthan in a few hours. Right now, I am going to take a rest. I was up late working on the drug formula. It took a lot of time, but we figured out how to make it. Now we can conduct tests on how it works. Things are going so well.”

  Alan didn’t agree. For the time being, he wasn’t going to pop his friend’s bubble of hope. Rest was much more satisfying when it was done in high spirits.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Pst, Orlando.” Gideon whispered. He tapped Orlando on the shoulder a few times.

  Sighing, Orlando pretended not to notice him. Couldn’t the guy see he was in the middle of doing homework? Wasn’t it hard to miss? He had a pencil in his hand and had been writing rather steadily for the past twenty minutes on an essay draft. And Gideon was a smart kid. The fact that he couldn’t pick up on the simplest of hints was disappointing. Orlando had been expecting so much more.

  “I know you can hear me,” Gideon added.

  Orlando closed his eyes, centering himself before facing the guy. “What do you want?” I will not snap at him. I will not snap at him. I will not snap at him. He continued to chant the mantra in his mind while he waited a painfully long few seconds for Gideon to respond.

  “We should go to the library.”

  Orlando narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “So we can work on that project we have for our club.” Gideon winked a couple of times.

  He’s worse than Alan when he pops in to chat with me during classes. We just had to have a study hall together, didn’t we? And he just had to bug me in the middle of it when I’m trying to actually study. Because I have this thing called homework, and care about my grades, unlike everyone else. And why am I holding this back and not just telling him off? Am I going soft? Orlando got up from his desk and went to the supervising teacher.

  “Can Giddy and I get a hall pass to the library? We have projects,” he said.

  Mrs. Kristopherson raised her gaze from the stack of papers in front of her and then looked between Orlando and Gideon. Without a word, she filled out a pass for them and handed it him.

  He grabbed his things from his desk. “Come on, this was your idea,” he whispered to Gideon.

  “Oh, right.” Gideon scrambled to gather his books into his bag. Together, they left the room.

  Orlando waited until they were out in the hall before speaking in a low voice. “Why do we have to do this now?”

  “Why are you complaining? We’re out of class.”

  “Yeah, but you seem to think I want to be out of it in the first place,” Orlando said darkly.

  The guy’s cheeks actually flushed a little, making him more like a kid than a teenager. “Bad assumption, but it seemed like a good idea to get acquainted with each other so I can learn your style.”

  “My…style?”

  “The other people I worked with were really intense,” Gideon said.

  “Of course they were.” Orlando rolled his eyes, making sure the gesture emphasized just how irritated he was. “That whole tribe is intense. We’re a lot more loose. Alan can get a little high-strung sometimes, but I think that’s just something people in his area are like.”

  As if on cue, Alan popped into the hallway then, causing Gideon to let out a small yelp.

  Orlando pointed at the alien. “He does that. A lot. You’ll get used to it.”

  “What are you doing out of your room?” Alan asked.

  “We’re going to the library,” Orlando muttered. He then stage-whispered, leaning in closer to Gideon, “He also likes to get up in your business a lot and freaks out if you do anything not normal. You’ll get used to that too.”

  Alan’s lips twitched into a small smile as he shook his head. “I like to make sure you all are okay. It also gives me something to do during the day. If I didn’t check up on you, I would miss when important things happen. Like when you were kidnapped.” He gave Orlando a pointed look. “I also believe in keeping you informed on business. Shall we go to our usual place?”

  “Usual place?” Gideon asked.

  “We usually go to the men’s bathroom by the auditorium. The one that’s locked during the day. People don’t go that way often,” Orlando explained.

  “Why don’t we just use the conference room in the library?”

  Orlando and Alan exchanged gazes, both shrugging.

  “Sure,” Orlando said. Talking in a bathroom was weird enough—going in there with another guy to do it was even weirder. Alan was invisible to everyone else; Gideon, on the other hand, didn’t have that handy ability. People could see if they entered a bathroom together. They had a pass to the library anyway, might as well make good use of it.

  The conference room was open. Orlando sat down in one of the plush rolling chairs around the round table and waited for the other two to join him.

  Alan inspected a chair before sitting as well. “This is much more convenient and comfortable for us to talk than our other meeting place.”

  “Yes,” Orlando said. “Giddy, you just got yourself a few bonus points for the suggestion.”

  The kid grinned from ear to ear. Once he was seated, Alan got straight to business.

  “I’ve heard from my superiors about what we are going to be doing,” Alan said. “We are dividing into groups. You two will have a separate task than the others.”

  Orlando leaned forward. “Oh?”

  “Yes, I need you and Gideon to join me on board my ship when we take Bean and Sprout for the final stages of their rehabilitation.”

  Go on board…his ship. That meant going to outer space. Orlando swallowed. “W-why do you need us there?”

  “I thought you would want to be there, seeing as how you are romantically involved with Sprout,” Alan said.

  “Was, am, I don’t know,” Orlando mumbled. He couldn’t keep up with his own love life anymore. Tait and he had a great time at the mall over the weekend. They’d held hands and even exchanged a couple of small kisses. Which, of course, proba
bly wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but something about the moment made it hard for him to resist her. For those couple of hours, they’d been so normal he’d forgotten all about all of the horrible things she’d done. Yet, while he was with her, he also felt an enormous amount of guilt in his heart. He shouldn’t have kissed her if it left him feeling as though he’d cheated on Angela. And we aren’t even together.

  Alan traced a circle with his finger on the table. “Regardless, you know her and her brother well. Your assistance will be needed with keeping them calm, understanding them, and making sure things are going smoothly. Your powers would also be effective in helping. No one has telekinesis on my ship. Most of them have more intellect-based abilities, actually.”

  “So you want my muscle power. Got it.” The thought of going into space was still unnerving, though.

  “And me?” Gideon asked, his voice shaking.

  “Ah, yes,” Alan said, looking his way next. “I want to see if you can use your ability to connect to the Ilotus.”

  “The what?”

  “Ilotus, it’s a computer of sorts that has massive amounts of memory dating back centuries. My team has only been able to harness a small part of it. Your ability could prove to be key in understanding it,” Alan explained. “I have this feeling that the Ilotus is more intuitive than the computers on your planet.”

  Orlando spun in his chair, trying to make sense of Alan’s words. “Like, artificial intelligence?”

  “For simplicity’s sake, yes. A very sophisticated and advanced artificial intelligence.”

  A quiet, nervous laugh escaped from Gideon. “I-I-I can try? I mean, no promises. It sounds complex, and complex means I might not be able to tap into it. I know nothing about alien technology. It could be way different, and if I break it, I’m sorry and—”

  “Chill,” Orlando said.

  “You don’t need to be afraid,” Alan added. “If this experiment fails, then at least we know. There is little you can do to break it. We’ve already gotten past the most aggressive parts of the security in the device.”

  Gideon still didn’t seem all too convinced because he sat in his chair hunched up and chewing on his lip. “I’ll do what I can. N-no promises.”

  “That’s all I ask,” Alan said. “Are there any questions?”

  “How are we going to get there?” Gideon asked.

  Orlando grimaced. “I’m assuming you’re going to use your teleportation ability and pop us up there”

  “Yes,” Alan said.

  Gideon’s lips almost twitched into a smile, like he was actually looking forward to being magically poofed into a new location. The process of teleporting wasn’t something Orlando enjoyed. No one did, except for maybe Alan. Then again, Giddy was geeky enough to get a kick out of that sort of thing. In some ways, he reminded Orlando of JD. The kid was into the adventure.

  Giving Alan a nod, Orlando spun his chair around again. “You can go if that’s all there is to talk about.”

  “I suppose that is it,” Alan said. “I need to inform your comrades of their tasks. It would be easiest if you two could be in the same place when it’s time to take you aboard my ship. Trips between Earth and space take more out of me than trips through town. More distance.”

  “Tell us when you want to pick us up and we’ll be in the same spot.”

  Alan tapped his finger against his lips. “Plan for what you refer to as nine in the evening, and be prepared for a long night.”

  When don’t we have a long night with these missions? It gave Orlando a good excuse to get away from his parents, so long as they didn’t know he was actually going on the mission. If they somehow caught wind, he wouldn’t put it past them to try to lock him into the house.

  After a moment passed and neither teenager acknowledged Alan, Orlando decided to step up. “We’ll be in the same place. Don’t worry. Go do what you need to do.”

  He wasn’t usually the optimistic, helpful one. Normally, he was quiet and nonchalant, just letting things go and following the flow. It seemed Alan needed reassurance, and giving it was so against Orlando’s personality he might as well have been rubbing sandpaper against his skin. Being helpful made a good impression for Gideon as well. But when did Orlando care about coming across as good?

  This is about Tait. I need to cooperate for her. She needs to be fixed and normal again. But what was normal? Who was he to judge? Guilt filled him as he realized he was no better than his sister, who had tried to fix him after he changed so drastically from Dallas’s death. What if Tait was indeed only being herself? Her true self? And the real question becomes, is this the girl I love?

  Chapter Eighteen

  This is bad. This is really bad. Angela was setting herself up for some major heartbreak by agreeing to go hang out with Orlando—every time he asked, at that. Stupid, so incredibly stupid of her. If she thought she came off as obvious and desperate, then he had to know as well. Even JD could pick up on it, and if he did, then anyone could. Yet, Orlando kept asking. He didn’t have to pick her. Surely Tait would have agreed to come out with him as well. Or Dallas, or JD, or anyone else. But he picked her. Might have something to do with being in the friend zone. I think I accidentally put myself there.

  Speaking of Tait, how do I approach that can of worms? I guess just come right out and say it. She took in a long sip from her soda to regain some nerve. “I saw Tait has a new boyfriend.”

  “News to me,” he said as he finished off slaying some zombies on an arcade game. The two had gone to the mall after school and had been spending most of their time there. She watched him play, more so than participate herself. Not like she was above video games, but if she played, he’d know she was good at them and turn it into some kind of competition. With the extra aggression he seemed to attack the monsters in the game with, he must have had a lot of emotion to release. Was he jealous? Angry? Something else?

  She leaned in a little so she could watch him play better. “Nothing has been passed around school?”

  “Because I’m such a gossip,” he deadpanned. There was slight hint of annoyance in his tone as well.

  I’m pulling his hair now. I should stop before I make him mad. She tried to shrug the whole conversation off. “Just thought I’d ask. Wasn’t sure what was going on or how you felt about it. I do worry about you sometimes.”

  “I’ve noticed.” He put in a few more quarters. “Tait and I talked on Saturday. Actually, she talked a lot. I listened. Most of it was the same old, same old I’d heard before. For whatever reason, she needed me to hear it again. We’re, I don’t know, three-fourths back together.”

  “Three-fourths?”

  He lifted the fake pistol up and started to kill the zombies again. “We’re still emotionally attached. Duh. That’s never changed. I get it—the decision should be obvious. She’s bad, borderline evil.”

  “So you ask why go out with that, but you can’t get over her.”

  “And with all this rehabilitation talk, it seems fair for me to give her another chance after the fact. The problem in our relationship is gone, in theory.”

  “But?” she provided.

  He blasted a zombie, the artificial gunshot sound resonating for a moment. “There are other factors.” He glanced at her. “Other…things…going on that I can’t control. Like no matter how hard I try to stop…” Shaking his head, he killed a few more monsters. “It all sucks. I refuse to commit to anything with her right now, but I’m dumb enough to let her kiss me and hold my hand.”

  “Such a soap opera,” she managed, internally cringing at the idea of him and Tait locking lips.

  Orlando laughed. “You have no idea.”

  Actually, I do. You’re not the only one cast in the drama. She took another long sip. “Let her go.”

  He stopped playing and looked at her with wide eyes. Truth was, she was surprised by herself. Angela wasn’t afraid of being blunt when the moment called for it, but she generally had a sense of tact when she said things.r />
  “It’s hard to watch you torture yourself and have this conversation over and over again,” she explained.

  His gaze returned to the game, his face as expressionless as ever. “I’ll stop talking about it then.”

  “Not what I want,” she mumbled.

  “Then what do you want?”

  “For you to stop hurting so much. I get it. She’s hard to move past because of all the emotional things.” Not to mention she’s gorgeous and funny and about as close to perfect as any girl can get. Angela took in a deep breath. “But think of all the ways she hurt you. Blame it on the war stuff as much as you want. To me, it’s a reflection of her heart. I don’t think she loves you like she claims.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t be a first. Does anyone actually love me?”

  I do. At least, I do a whole lot more than her. Angela pursed her lips, refusing to play into whatever pity party he seemed to be throwing for himself. Just because some people sucked didn’t mean everyone did. “So if you know this about her, why go through it all?”

  “I’m not a quitter,” he said. “And I haven’t decided if I’m going to go through anything.”

  “Your actions are sure proving otherwise. Haven’t you heard the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. You’ve been through this song and dance with her before.”

  Snorting, Orlando took out a few more zombies with great precision, his entire face tense and focused. “One, I’m not much of a dancer. Two, while I appreciate what you’re doing, shut up.”

  Angela faced away, stung to the point of tears. Yeah, definitely overstepped my boundaries and shot myself in the foot. She thought about apologizing, but she didn’t believe in doing so if she hadn’t done anything wrong. If he didn’t like the truth, that was his problem, not hers. Maybe I can get JD to come out and pick me up. Save myself from the upcoming awkward.

  Finally finishing with the game, Orlando put the pistol back into its holster. “Okay, you don’t have to stop talking. Not unless you want to.”