Tuesday morning, TDE (Too Damn Early)
The loud banging on Gustav’s door finally forced him to open his eyes. He looked at the clock and calculated he had at best slept for about two hours. The banging continued unabated. He glanced again at the clock on his iPad; it read 6:35am. He hadn’t slept in, despite his exhaustion from the previous days’ time-travelling misadventure, so that wasn’t the reason for the racket. No, someone wanted him awake.
He crawled to the door but didn’t open it. “Who..?” was all he managed to say out loud before he heard Bubbles’ cheery reply from the other side of the door, “Come on you lazy boy, time to face the world as a newly-minted hero. I can’t wait to tell everyone what happened yesterday.”
Oh, Sh.., Bubbles was about to go full motor-mouth on them. When they’d arrived back yesterday they’d all been quickly taken to the school infirmary and then debriefed. Well, some of them had, he got the impression that some of them had less of a debriefing and more of a therapy session with either Dave Dean or Dr Lockheart. He’d been ‘interrogated’ by Lockheart, whose prominent birthmark on the right side of her face was difficult to avoid staring at, though he did try.
The sessions had lasted until after lockdown, so they’d not had a chance for any of them to talk to any of the other pupils the night before. Seems keeping the secret was causing Bubbles to literally burst with excitement.
Gustav wondered if this is normal for school life, for secrets and gossip to be so out in the open? Was there a newsletter? He was suddenly sure there WAS a student-run school newsletter; he remembered seeing an advert for ‘staff’ on the club notices, and wasn’t there a copy pinned on the noticeboard downstairs? He sincerely hoped that none of this little fiasco saw print. Maybe he’d better subscribe and download a copy of the next edition to his iPad just in case?
He tried to think what to say, then realised that even if she personally didn’t tell everyone, one of the others would surely out them. Angel or Nathaniel would for sure, Sham and Smiler probably not, or at least not until it was already public knowledge; wouldn’t be much sense to keep quiet after that anyway.
What was that poem from yesterday’s English class? “The mirror crack’d from side to side; the curse is come upon me, cried the Lady of Shalott.?” He suddenly felt thrice cursed.
Outside, he could hear their RA (residential assistant) Ms Kien, asking, “Ms Waraich what are you doing at this time of the morning in the boys’ side of the house banging on a boy’s bedroom door… In your nightie?”
Bubbles giggled, “Sorry Maylee, couldn’t wait!” She shouted, “Catch you two later.” Gustav groaned as he face-planted his door. He cared not if his lament was heard by anyone else.
He overheard Bubbles walking away, muttering to herself as he started tidying his bed. That’s when he heard another, much gentler knock on his door and a quiet male voice he immediately recognised spoke – It was the Ant-Man Andrews.
“Mr Jaeger? Gustav? I am pretty sure you will be awake after that racket. As soon as you and Mr Sett have showered and dressed, please come and see me in my ready room and don’t talk to anyone until then, understand?”
Twenty minutes later and with his stomach grumbling, Gustav was standing with a seemingly angry Chris outside Ant-Man’s door. Inside they could hear voices, then the door opened and Bubbles bounced out with a big smile on her face.
Gustav recoiled with a “Gah!” as she jumped into view, and Mr Andrews gestured them inside.
“Okay, so this is an update to last night. Regarding the fact that you outed yourself to the others that crossed through time with you.” A stern raised finger, a reminder to allow him to finish, stifled Ashen’s knee-jerk protests. “I’ve had a word with Alaina, ah… Ms Waraich, and she has agreed not to say or confirm anything to anyone regarding yesterday.”
Ashen enjoyed a sigh of relief, or to be more precise, of disbelief, but still comforting for the time being.
Andrews continued, “She will be joining you in future for some HCP classes you may be interested to know. No secret ID, she has no desire to move on to being a registered superhero but it seems prudent to train her to better use her powers, especially after her success yester.. Ah, years ago? Anyway, Mr Sett I’m hoping you and Ms Koyama might agree to help streamline her science experiment, the bubble stabiliser sprayer, so it’s a bit more concealable?
She will only be shown the Mansion library entrance to the HCP facility, only have access to the training floor, will not have an alternate ID of her own and will be primarily trained just in self-defence not the law or ethics though we may ask her to participate in the occasional class if the subject matter will be useful. Despite yesterday, you will be expected to maintain your anonymity and be costumed at all times around her when she’s training. Don’t comfirm anything please.
Regarding yesterday, Mr Templar, Ms Izaaksi and Mr O’Reilly all seem determined to say nothing about what happened. We have no idea how Ms Summerville and Mr Emmitt will react, and I’m afraid that the fact that you are metas may already be public knowledge around the school. What isn’t known is that you are Ashen and Firewall, and only Ms Waraich and Mr Templar apparently got a clear view of you using your powers, so beyond glowing fields and flight no one else knows what your powers are and we’d like it to remain that way. Do we understand each other?”
“Crystal clear, sir.” Ashen said, biting back all the angst-ridden comments that threatened to spill out. He wondered if all meta-heroics just broiled down at the end of the day to action, red tape and secrecy.
He didn’t have a problem with Bubbles, really. She was a very sweet girl, kind to them both on their entry to the school and he was pleased to call her a friend, But she’d already fills his Bubbles’ quota for the week as is, and now they’re due to train together?
Maybe it won’t be so bad, but truly, she was the equivalent of a sporting Vuvuzela and Air-horn combination to Gustav’s muted classical music style of life.
Andrews continued, “There is no identifiable information publicly available about your presence back in 2009 and we intend to ensure that continues to be the case. Now head to breakfast and over to the main hall as Mr Summers is holding a special assembly this morning. Go…”
Breakfast was eaten in haste and afterwards they joined the rest of the house heading over to assembly.
As they sat down, Mr Summers approached the lectern and began to talk about the incident that happened yesterday, how more stringent procedures would be enacted in future with all science experiments being properly vetted before being publicly exhibited.
He continued, “Now we’ve heard some weird stories about what happened yesterday, so I have decided to set the story straight. A scientific experiment by one of the pupils was maliciously sabotaged by someone, as yet unidentified. That person will be found and punished for their recklessness.
This resulted in some chemicals in one of the projects overheating, and the fumes caused several people to collapse and suffer quite severe hallucinations. I am happy to report there are no persistent side effects and no one has required long-term medical attention, but parents and guardians have been contacted and fully informed.
I am aware of all sorts of nonsense circulating about radiation leaks, time travel and meta power breakthroughs, I can assure you none of my staff saw anything unusual except eight children affected by the fumes collapsing. I apologise, as our service on Sunday seemed to have sparked off some hallucinations, making some of those people believe they were present during the invasion.
Please, no more of these silly rumours.
Now, I’m happy to announce that a couple of members of the superhero group The Balance have agreed to come to a school assembly in a couple of days’ time, so please submit any questions you’d like them to consider to either Mrs Jennings or Mr Dean.”
Gustav sat upright at that announcement – The Balance were the newest Wessex-based HCP team and were rumoured to have replaced the Protectors who’d disappeared in the Birmingham incident.
He didn’t know what he felt about their visit as they were officially declared terrorists in his homeland of Carpathia for their apparent assault on an orphanage, or so his hereditary monarch, the Baroness* said. They may even have been responsible for the assault on the warehouse where his father had died, he’d been injured and had caused his breakthrough..?
Meeting the Balance filled Gustav with conflicting, complicated emotions and thoughts. He was simultaneously excited, terrified and furious at the announcement and he found it difficult to properly concentrate on anything. He didn’t want to call them out directly on the Carpathia issues, as this was neither the time nor the place. He decided he would most likely submit a Q&A question such as “How do members of the Balance deal with loss and mourning?” for now. Perhaps they’d get the hint, perhaps not.
Mr Summers continued, “No, this is not a blow against free will Ms. Warner, rather an attempt to ensure that our guests aren’t embarrassed by stupid, mundane questions about which football teams they follow or who their girlfriends or boyfriends are, and give as many people as possible the opportunity to ask questions.
Now, please head QUIETLY to your morning classes.”
Chis, meanwhile, was looking directly at Dimitri, wondering whether he should rat him out. Gustav decided he personally wouldn’t do anything about him, besides being very cold to him and giving him a very large berth around school. Firewall had more beef with him than he did, what with his being a bit of a personal rival, and he decided that he would support Chris in whichever way he wanted to proceed and thought best, within reason; no need to drag anyone down more than they had already. It was all probably recorded on the staff surveillance cameras anyway.
As the Assembly ended, he saw Nathaniel walking towards them. Gustav nodded and waited, he suspected he was probably on his way to class, but in any case, the damage had already been done. He whispered to Chris and pointed over to Angel, marking her out to him.
Angel was over at the back wall talking with her friends and constantly glancing over towards them.
Nathaniel walked straight over until he was well within their comfort zone. His voice was low but threatening, “Listen you squibs, I really hate your type, understand? I will NEVER be your friend, but…” He went quiet for about a minute as if trying to find the words, “Look what you did in trying to keep Angel safe and get us back home. Well I guess I owe you one so no one is going to hear about you being gene-jokes from me, not this time anyway, and I’ll deny seeing you flare up but the cost is you keep your distance from Angel or me. Understand?”
They nodded. Nathaniel’s suggestions sounded fair, if impractical. Gustav understood that although Nathaniel was keeping up appearances and looking out for his own vested interests, he obviously wasn’t a total bad guy. Gustav found he had a grudging respect for him.
AS the others approached, Nathaniel slammed into them hard, knocking them both aside as he walked away with a look on his face as though he’d just stepped in something nasty. Behind them, they could hear Angel and her cohort of followers walking to class and Angel’s near hysterical voice, “No! It was real I tell you, they were all muties except me and they went back in time to fight the aliens kidnapping me. I don’t care what Old Man Summers says, it was real…” She glowered at Chris and Gustav, then spun to glower at one of her clique, who made the mistake of giggling aloud.
Another of her posse, Zoe Deren said, “Well Bubbles and Smiler are already outed jokers, it’s possible even that those two squibs might be, but Nathaniel? Really? And what about Templar – okay, the annoying little brat’s a genius but that doesn’t make him a mutie, does it?” Angel pushed passed without even seeing Chris’ and Gustav standing in front of her.
Angel had outed them all right, just no-one believed her. Most of her posse obviously believed that she’d hallucinated just as Old Man Summers had said and her only witness, a known mutie-hater wasn’t backing her claims. Seems they might, just might, have got away with it this time.
Chris went to high-five Gustav only to see Zoe staring at them both and that’s when he remembered what he’d read on the noticeboard, Zoe was one of the reporters or sub-editors on the school newspaper, The Claremont Clarion.
She smiled, and winked. Perhaps most of Angel’s entourage might not believe her, but the moment left them wondering if that included Zoe.
He decided there and then that he wouldn’t respond to Angel’s accusations – talk was cheap after-all, and what was a little ‘make-believe’ between friends? He did, however, smile and wink back at Zoe, after all dealing with the media was all part of their training, wasn’t it?
He immediately began to think up a cover-up scheme. Chris wouldn’t have any trouble finding out her school email address, maybe it would be opportune to offer her an exclusive scoop she couldn’t refuse? At least they might be able to find out how much she thought she knew.
Might be a good excuse for a visit to town and a rare steak, anyway. He (they?) would need to book out a passport± for the weekend. He knew finances were tight for Chris and he was too proud to ask for money from the school or him to cover a trip to Wessex so perhaps they should go explore St.Mary Mede this weekend?
* The hereditary ruler of Carpathia is the Baroness Natasha Sylvestri von Ruthenia
± School slang for a weekend pass off school grounds
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 