Unfit (4 page)

  “So, we’re good?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Thank you, Kwan. You know I love you.”

  “What if I died and came back as an ant? Would you stomp me too?”

  “You’d be the ant with the prettiest, most flowingest hair known to ant-kind.”

  “That’s not going to score you any bonus points.”

  We reach the park shortly after. Lots of kids are playing there from school, since it’s the first day of the weekend. I spot three boys I know, boarding on the ramps. And there’s a group of girls from school too, gathered under the trees where I like to sit. In fact, Sanny’s there with Francesca. Sanny blows me a surreptitious kiss.

  “Great, actions happening,” says Greg, smiling. “I gotta go run a lap before the lines get big You want a candycone first?”

  “No thanks. It’s too hot and sticky for that.”

  Besides, if things go right, I have to be able to fit in a wedding dress.

  “You sure?”

  And my resolve melts faster than a candycone left in the sun for five minutes.

  “Fine.”

  Greg takes me over to the food stands, but loses patience in the line. He ends up leaving me a few silver to buy it myself, before taking off with his board. It’s hard to blame him. The boys there are doing spectacular three-turn flips in the air.

  That allows me to buy a more makeup-friendly softcone and join the others in the comfort of the shade from the trees.

  “Sooo, that’s Greg, huh,” says Sanny as I sit on the rocks beside them.

  I stand out from them a little because they’ve worn their full-length dresses, hats and white gloves today. I rarely wear a hat or gloves, the former making me look too old and the latter being too expensive to maintain. Sanny, whose parents can afford corsets for her, looks especially fetching. She’s done up her short brown hair in ribbons under her broad-rimmed bright hat.

  “Yes it’s him,” I say. “Complete with skateboard his folks don’t know about.”

  “He’s not that good with it,” says Sanny. I expected her to say that: nothing ever seems to meet her approval.

  “Sanny, don’t be silly,” says Francesca. “How did the meeting go at the Lanarrs, Kwan?”

  There’s so much to tell them, and so many questions to answer. It takes a long time to relate it all.

  “That’s amazing,” says Francesca.

  “Did his parents say yes to you and Greg going out?” asks Sanny.

  “Erm, I think so. They agreed to enroll me in private tutoring.”

  “But they never actually said yes?” asks Sanny, persisting.

  “I can’t really expect them to say yes on the spot. But giving me private tutoring is pretty good right?”

  “What they mean is you need finishing school.”

  “Sanny!” Francesca sounds exasperated.

  I laugh and glance across the park at Greg. I thought he said he was going to run one lap. That has to be at least three by now. I guess he’s forgotten me.

  “Oh! Did you hear about the little riot yesterday?” asks Francesca. “No? Would you like to see it?”

  She slips off her glove and extends her bare hand to me. She’s known me long enough to be able to blank her mind out in the right way to share her memories with me. And I think she gets a kick out of being able to do that.

  When I lay my hand on hers, I see the tax office from her eyes last night. Ten men have gathered around it, throwing bits of flagstone, bottles, and whatever else comes under hand. They scatter and flee when an angry Pertran bursts out of the front doors.

  Francesca’s view shows Pertran give the men a half-block’s chase before giving up. The men hurl back obscenities at him.

  “Apparently the auditors reaped some of their livestock illegally,” says Francesca, withdrawing her hand.

  “Illegally?” scoffs Sanny. “Lightnings do not break the law. They invent the law.”

  “She’s right,” I say. “Laws only apply to us.”

  “Ew, what’s that smell?” asks Francesca, frowning.

  I see the ‘Canoid first, since I’m facing that end of the park. I point it out for them.

  The three-storey tall building device has lumbered over from the construction site across the street. Who do I see guiding the pilot? None other than Robert.

  “What do they think they’re doing, bringing that mechanoid so close to the park?” asks Sanny. “Those fumes are dangerous.”

  If I recall correctly from school, the fluorine power-core gases that noxious pink exhaust through the vent near the “head” of the exoskeleton. It’s dangerous for the pilot in the rib-cage, should the wind catch the fumes and blow them back on him. For us, all the way down here, it’s just an eye-watering inconvenience.

  The ‘Canoid reaches our side of the street and, under Robert’s direction, bends down to lift a sewer grate. All us girls under the trees watch him lie on the ground to fish around in the sewer with his arm.

  “That’s disgusting!” A group to my left tithers at him.

  “Ya, I hope he washes that arm.”

  Robert fishes something out and inspects it.

  “All that trouble just to rescue some stupid kid’s toy,” says Sanny in disgust.

  “No,” says Francesca. “It’s a promise ring. That’s so cute.”

  Robert hands the newly recovered ring to a pair of kids from my school. They look to be around fifteen. He waves to them, as they run to the fountains to rinse it.

  “Aww,” says Francesca.

  I watch Robert and the ‘Canoid meander back to the building site. Such a nice thing for him to do, but I bet he wasted his coffee break on it.

  Francesca suddenly tugs our arms. “Oh, here comes Greg.”

  “Oops, now I have to meet his friends. How’s my hair?”

  “Like an octopus crawled on your head and died.”

  “Sanny!” says Francesca.

  I turn and smile, as Greg arrives. We link hands.

  “Greg, my friends, Sanny and Francesca.”

  “Hi Greg,” says Sanny coquettishly, offering her hand, which he kisses.

  “Would you ladies like to meet my buddies over there?” asks Greg gesturing to the boys end of the park.

  “We have to wait for our friends, sorry,” says Sanny.

  It’s a lie, I know. She just doesn’t want to have to walk over there and be out of her element.

  I step in. “Introduce me to these friends of yours already. You know I’ve only met one.”

  Arms linked, he leads me off.

  Under the terms of the deal with Greg’s parents, I’m to study three hours a day after school at their house. I’m to stay there for the weekdays in a guestroom, since it will be late. I’m to return to my parents home on weekends to help out with my “important sail-mending activities”.

  I discover that Greg has been sent to live at his uncle’s three doors up the road. I’m joining two other girls in the lessons. One is Panne, Greg’s niece, a girl about my age. The other is Alešan, who is careful to write her name in large print where I can see it, so I will know not to spell it “Alley-shan” like it’s pronounced.

  Panne is friendly enough, but a kind of warm-neutral to me. Her mind reads curiosity whenever she looks at me. Alešan appears to be a family friend, though no one offers to explain. She is overtly hostile, so I don’t even try to get a reading from her. As she takes pains to avoid even the slightest contact with me, this proves rather easy.

  As I expected, the first day’s calculus lesson is way over my head. The numbers form a jungle of insects crawling across the page, waging an inky blood-dripping battle. I play games by drawing walls to keep them apart.

  “Kwan, you mustn’t draw lines there,” says the tutor. “That’s not mathematically sound.”

  Shows how much she knows. My work now has nice little cages to keep my numbers safe from eating each other.

  Mrs. Lanarr shows up after the first hour and takes over to teach poetry. She calls on me first.

  “Kwan, lets start with a study of rhyme schemes, shall we? Here’s an anthology, it’s written in Standard. You do read Standard, do you not?”

  “Oh yes, but I’m not very fast at it.” It’s not much, but finally something I can do, after that last fruitless hour.

  “Very well, turn to page fifty-one and read aloud the first stanza.”

  I open the book to page one. It’s in funny squiggly text I’ve never seen before. Does Standard have a cursive handwriting version? Or are they trying to trick me? I flip to page fifty-one as she asked, and all the pages are in that funny text.

  I look up from the book. All three of them are staring at me. A quick peek at their public minds confirm this actually is Standard. Just a form I haven’t learned.

  “She can’t read Standard,” says Alešan, setting down her pen.

  “I can read the cover. It says ‘8
^th
Study of Poetry. Printed in Suff’ But not the inside.”

  “Tsk, what do they teach in those schools?” asks Mrs. Lanarr, although her thoughts show no sign of surprise.

  Alešan radiates smugness. Panne feels sorry for me. There’s a faint thought from her that she would want to teach me. I will take her up on that if she comes out and says it.

  “Very well, Alešan will read,” says Mrs. Lanarr.

  Alešan clears her throat and shakes her head in a way that causes her intricate curls to ripple, before setting to reading the verse. Just you wait, Miss Alešan. I will learn all these sciences, and writing systems well enough to impress you all.

  It’s such a pain trying to sleep in a strange bed. This bed is way softer than I’m used to. It feels like a puff of packed, silky cloud instead of a mattress or otherwise sleep-worthy surface. The Lanarrs have a giant clock downstairs on the main floor. It dings once every hour, waking me up. As if the city bells aren’t bad enough.

  Finally near Still-Hour, I tire of trying to sleep. I rise and change from my PJs into my navy blue dress, planning to sneak into the kitchen. A cup of warm milk should settle things nicely after that rich duck and berry-sauce dinner.

  There’s one light on down the hall, at the study. Probably someone getting in some late night reading. I creep down the stairs quietly to avoid disturbing them or waking any sleepers.

  I miss home a little. Mostly because at home I know where everything is. This place is a castle compared to home. A labyrinth of hallways and passages all hiding creepy secrets.

  The Lanarr kitchen is large and impersonal. There are no magnets on the icebox, nor personal articles, like pictures, on the granite countertops. I imagine it’s because they have their meals prepared by that catering guild. Even the dishes and cleaning are managed by a door-to-door housekeeping company. It’s like the kitchen is a public portion of their house.

  The cleaning staff has left a covered platter on the counter. Beneath it, I discover six unusual pastries: some sort of muffins coated in white icing sugar. I replace the cover quickly before I can get tempted.

  Let’s see. They have two litres of milk in the icebox. Here’s a saucepan. I must remember to clean it right after.

  A mental shout reaches my senses before the milk is boiled.

 
Please, if anyone is out there and can reach help.

  It’s Tiller, the Coalition telepath. The only one who spoke up for me during my appeal.

 
Tiller, I hear you. What’s wrong?

  He’s in the tax office and there’s an angry mob outside. Inside the office I see what Tiller sees: Pertran standing in the midst of a ring of twisted, burned bodies. The smell is disgusting. I almost retch, before blocking out the sight.

 
Sorry. Didn’t mean to show you that. This crowd’s out of control. I need Whitt here to help me calm it down. Can you help me reach him?

  I temporize on this. Reaching across town to the Coalition’s highest remaining telepath sounds like a very bad idea. The last thing I need is to remind them that I’m here. Next thing I’ll know, there’ll be a legion of troops here to fetch me.

 
Please, Kwan? We won’t come take you.
He shows me the windows, rattling from the pounding of rakes and brooms.
Pertran’s Lightnings are holding the place together, but they can’t last long.

 
Fine. Hold on.

  I keep him in my head and reach out across the city to downtown Hillvale. Using the image of Whitt in Tiller’s mind, I locate the Naiskarin of Hillvale and make contact.

 
Who is this and why do you resonate of Tiller?
asks Whitt, surprised.

  I slide back in what has become a small merge between me and Tiller. I act as a carrier wave and focus so he can speak.

 
I need backup
, says Tiller.
Maybe two telepaths and twelve Lightnings.

  He plays the scene for Whitt across the connection. It is as Francesca feared would happen: someone stood up to Pertran and died for it. Now the people are upset, and Pertran doesn’t have enough support to calm them.

 
We don’t have enough people on call and I can’t rouse them in time to get there
, says Whitt.
Abandon the office. Let them raid it and have their worthless junk back. We’ll recover it tomorrow when we crack down on them
.

 
Most of these Lightnings cannot
jump
to get clear of the mob
, says Tiller.

 
Since when is a Lightning more valuable than a telepath? Use your powers to confuse them and get out of there.

 
Ah, you know this is beyond my abilities.

 
Tiller, we sent you in there to prevent a riot. Since you’ve failed at that task, I suggest you develop some better powers in a hurry.

  Whitt closes off on his side of the mental exchange. Even his public mind is closed to me. It’s the silent treatment. I release the connection.

 
Kwan, we can’t make it out,
says Tiller
. I guess this is good-bye.

 
I’m coming.

 
No don’t. It’s too dangerous for a woman.

  I release the connection and his touch fades away. Since I’m the carrier, his powers cannot sustain it. Now he can’t talk me out of it. I will go there to calm the crowd and save him. After all, he stood up for me when I was about to lose my most precious possession. How now shall I compare his life to a dress?