Black and White (15 page)

Not daring to speak, she shook her head.

“Oh really? So what happened in the hall, Jet?”

“I … I don’t really know, sir.”

“Wrong answer.” The venom in his voice terrified her; she tried to shrink away to nothing as he spat, “What you mean to say is, ‘I slipped and hit my head against the wall, sir.’ Let’s hear it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do.” Now his voice was quiet, a thing of pending doom, and Jet bit back a scream. In his very soft, very deadly voice, he said, “Because hitting your head explains the vacant stare you had when I found you in a heap outside of my office. Anything else would mean a full examination. And that would mean Therapy. And that would be very bad. Very, very bad.”

Her memory flashed to when she was five and the man in the white uniform was holding her, comforting her as he led her away from the closet and her mother’s body, away from where her father had tried to …

“Come on, Joannie,” he had said. “Let’s go, my girl. I’ve got you.”

“Where’s Papa?”

“He’s … he’s off to Therapy,” the man in white had said, his voice strained around his smile. “He won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Night’s quiet voice shattered the memory, blew it to dust. “Do you understand me, Jet?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“So, what happened in the hallway before?”

“I slipped. I think I hit my head.”

“Better.” He frowned at her, saying nothing as his hidden
hazel eyes regarded her. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned back to his computer. “What do you do to keep them at bay?”

“To keep …?”

“You’re an intelligent girl, so I’ve heard. Puzzle it out, little Shadow.”

He meant the voice. He understood. He
knew!

Did he have a voice too?

She bit her lip, then said, “Light. I keep the lights on. Or I use my goggles. The optiframes are good for sealing in the light, even after Lights Out.”

Night nodded. “A good distraction. White noise is better. Constant talk or background chatter also works.” He typed on the keypad. “And challenging your mind is the best technique of all. A busy brain doesn’t have the luxury of listening to things it shouldn’t be hearing. Effective immediately, you’re in the advanced units.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, her thoughts whirling. He’d said keep “them” at bay—did he hear more than one voice? If he did, what did they whisper? But Jet wasn’t stupid, so she bit back on her curiosity and held her tongue.

Night was a Shadow power. Night was a respected extrahuman hero.

Night wasn’t insane.

For the first time in years, she felt a glimmer of hope for her future.

He closed his laptop and turned to her, folding his hands across the desk. “As your mentor, I have a certain … perspective … that others lack. If you’re smart, you’ll treat our meetings, and what we discuss in them, as completely confidential. If you’re smart, you won’t tell anyone, not even a trusted roommate, the extent to which we discuss certain matters.” Night peered at her, his own face hidden, unreadable. “Are you smart, Jet?”

Translation:
Can you keep what we discuss to ourselves? Can you keep this even from Iridium?

Meeting his gaze, she said, “I’d like to think so, sir.”

“Excellent.” He steepled his fingers. “I think you’re meant for great things, little Shadow. You understand the power of the dark. You know why people are afraid of what goes bump in the night.”

She nodded.

“As you get older, you’ll learn to use that fear. Let it do your work for you. Let your reputation as a Shadow power knock the fight out of your opponents before you have to raise a hand.”

“But sir,” she said meekly, “I don’t want people to be afraid of me.”

He smiled, thinly, and without mirth. “That will change.”

I
ridium sat on the cold plast bench and listened to the drumbeat her feet made on the base.
Thud-thunk. Thud-thunk.

The door to the Superintendent’s office stayed closed, and Iridium blew out a puff of air, ruffling the few pieces of hair that always managed to escape from her school bun.

Down the long white hallway, the voices of happy students bounced off the arched ceiling, taunting Iridium with the fact that she’d be stuck in detention until Lights Out.

After a year of constant detention, extra work, and retaking tests so “We can assure ourselves you’re not manipulating the system,” Iridium came to one conclusion: The Academy had it in for her.

The students, with their whispers and idiot insults,
were bad enough, but most of the proctors gave her the exact same stony-eyed looks. They just saw a rabid waiting to happen.

It pissed Iridium off enough that, sometimes, she deserved her punishments. But only sometimes.

“At least I’ll miss Self-Defense and Tactics,” she muttered.

A tall, skinny form flopped down on the bench next to her. Iridium didn’t move … no need to seem too interested … but she caught a flash of a smile and a shock of blue hair. “Amen to that,” said the boy.

Iridium glared at him. He was tall, but his jumpsuit marked him as a Second Year, like her. “Did I say you could sit next to me?”

“I didn’t see a
NO PARKING
sign on this bench, sweetheart.” He grinned at her.

Iridium balled up her fist. “Get lost. Do you know who I am?”

“Callie Bradford,” said the boy.

She blinked. “We’re not supposed to use given names.”

The boy pointed to the closed white door. “The Superintendent is right there. Gonna report me?”

Iridium lowered her fist. The boy was still grinning, like he wasn’t afraid of her at all. “Why don’t I bother you?”

“Because you’re not scary,” said the boy. “You’re just angry.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m Derek Gregory. Frostbite, if you want to go by the book. I make ice.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that. I’m Iridium. You better call me by my designation if we don’t want our butts permanently welded to this bench.”

“What are you in for?” Frostbite asked.

Iridium knitted her hands together, then she realized she was doing the nervous thing that Jet always did when she thought they were going to get into trouble. “I punched Sunbeam during a biology lab.”

“Sunbeam … wait, don’t tell me.” Frostbite blew a gum
bubble, popped it, chewed. “Blonde, skinny. Has big teeth. Pals around with a bunch of other Lighters?”

“That’s her,” said Iridium. “She tried to copy off of my pop-quiz screen, so I decked her.”

Frostbite laughed, loudly. “That’s it? Usually they let you Light-power divas get away with a lot more than hair pulling.”

“I knocked her unconscious.”

“Oh.”

“What about you?”

“Underwear.”

Iridium blinked. “What did you say?”

“I froze a proctor’s shorts while he was showering in the locker room after my Phys Ed class. Man, when he slipped those things on … The screams are still echoing the hallowed halls.”

Iridium smiled, then started to laugh. “That’s pretty good. Hey, Frostbite?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not one of those ‘Light divas,’” Iridium snarled. “Don’t
ever
make the mistake of lumping me with those other girls. I am
nothing
like them.”

“Relax, girl,” said Frostbite. “I can see that. We’re cool here. No pun intended.”

The Superintendent’s door hissed open. “Iridium,” his voice rang. “In my office. Now!”

Iridium stood and straightened her jumpsuit. “They’re playing my song. See you around, Frostbite.”

She sauntered inside, acting as if she’d decided to just stroll into the Super’s office. Then she stood politely in front of his desk, smiling, as the Superintendent slammed the button to shut the door.

“Your behavior is completely unacceptable,” said the Superintendent, jabbing a finger down against his data-screen. The incident report their proctor had filled out glowed and slithered away from the impact.

“Did you bring me here just to tell me that, sir? Because I have to say, this is getting predictable.” Iridium delivered the speech with the sweetest smile she could muster.
Anger frightens people
, her father’s voice whispered,
but smiles confound them. Remember the power in that.

The Superintendent turned pink from the top of his shaved head all the way down to his Mandarin collar, like a giant strawberry. “You …” he sputtered. “You …”

“I know, I know, detention,” said Iridium. “I’ll go do my time with a spring in my step, like a good little hero.”

“Oh, no,” said the Superintendent, his fingers rubbing droplets of sweat away from his forehead like pudgy erasers. “No, young lady, you’ve stepped over the line. Hopefully, you’ll be outright expelled when I convene the board of proctors. You think that your IQ_ and your history make you special, but what they really make you is a menace. I want you out of my school!”

“That won’t be necessary,” hissed a voice behind Iridium. The air around her lowered ten degrees, like someone had opened a window and let in a winter wind.

The Superintendent paled. “Night. You finally got my message, I see.”

Night laid his hand on Iridium’s shoulder. She fought the urge to squirm. Night wasn’t as bad as some of the proctors—he was certainly no Lancer—but there was something about him, how he always seemed to be fading back into shadow just a bit, never wholly present, that bothered her if she really thought about it.

That, and she’d never actually seen the guy’s face. That was just plain creepy.

“What is the problem here?” said Night softly, and Iridium knew somehow he was using the exact same tone on the Superintendent that he used on street criminals when he was on active duty.

“This …
girl …
has repeatedly flouted authority in her time here,” the Superintendent sputtered, getting wound
up again. “And today she assaulted another student and rendered the girl unconscious. Her attitude is appalling, she has anger and aggression problems, and I am placing her in Therapy.”

“What?” Iridium shrieked. Therapy was for mental cases and rabids who went off the reservation and killed people. “I don’t deserve Therapy!”

“You deserve a prison cell next to your father!” the Superintendent snapped.

Night held up a hand. “Enough. Iridium, what class were you in when you knocked out the other student?”

“What does her
class
have to do with any of this?” the Superintendent squealed. “In a few more years, she’ll be a rabid just like the rest of her family …”

“If my father heard you say that …” Iridium started.

The Superintendent reached across the desk and grabbed Iridium by the front of her jumpsuit. “But
he’s not here
, is he, you silly little girl? You’re just a little dog, yapping at something you can’t possibly hope to sink your teeth into, and it’s time you were
silenced
!
”

“Expel me, then,” Iridium shouted back, “because I’m not shutting up!”

“QUIET.” Night’s voice rattled every piece of furniture in the office that wasn’t molded directly into the walls and floor. “Now,” he said. “Superintendent, I believe you are out of line.”

“Damn right,” Iridium said.

“Let go of the girl,” said Night, and to Iridium he added, “When he does, young lady, you will apologize for your appalling manners.”

“No,” said Iridium. “He doesn’t deserve my respect.”

Night leaned down and whispered in her ear, and his voice seemed to carry with it the whispers of a thousand nightmares lived alone, in the dark. “He doesn’t. But you will give it to him just the same, until such time as you are
strong enough to take it back. That time is not now, little firefly, so smile and apologize before I break your arm.”

Iridium listened to Night’s breath hiss in her ear for a split second before she looked back at the Superintendent. “I’m truly sorry, sir. What I said was unforgivable.”

“You’ve got that right,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Now,” said Night, “answer my question, Iridium. What class were you in when you hit the other girl?”

“Biology.”

“Just biology? Not molecular or applied, but plain middle-school biology?”

“Well, yeah,” said Iridium. “I’m
thirteen.”

“Superintendent, this girl has an IQ_of over 160, and she is the daughter of Lester Bradford—a fine hero, regardless of his later conduct. She is unique. Putting her in regular classes is asking for this sort of behavior. Transfer her to the gifted program and don’t bother me again.”

Night turned on his heel and exited the office in a swirl of Shadow-chased cape. Frostbite watched him go, then gave Iridium a thumbs-up through the open door.

THREE MONTHS LATER

The physics lab was quiet except for the
bleep-bleep-plip
of students taking a test on their datascreens, styluses scrolling across the crystal display in an almost coordinated movement.

Iridium answered question thirty-two, threw down her stylus with a clatter, and announced: “I’m done. Can I go?”

The proctor, a retired heroine named Labyrinth, said, “‘May I,’ Iridium, and you may be excused from class once you clean up your workspace.”

Iridium looked down at the litter of books and holo-papers in her workspace, along with her Corp schoolbag, which she’d decorated with patches and purple iridescent ink.

“That’s what this school has Runners for,” she said. “My test is finished. I’ll wait around while you grade it, if that will help.”

Labyrinth raised an eyebrow. “Runners are not your personal maid service, young lady.”

“Darn, because seeing them in those little aprons and hats would be hilarious.”

“Young lady, do you
want
to go to detention?” Labyrinth hissed.