After what had happened in St. Mary Mede during their first weekend away from the school and then the incident with the aliens the following Monday, Gustav was relieved that things had taken a bit of a quiet turn in the weeks since.
Well, ‘quiet’ if you believe that helping Bethany on multiple occasions to rescue young Chris’ from bullies was the norm. In fairness, they had actually been rescuing Ces’ and his gang before young Chris’s anger issues meant he blew his secret identity, openly changed into Smash and well, smashed them!
Gustav tried to assure young Chris afterwards that it would somehow be “character building” some day, as he tried to spin the continuous bullying into some sort of positive overall experience. Inwardly, he suspected that the boy would probably end up using these moments as a trigger for his anger. He hoped that he was wrong. Did their symbiosis even need a trigger, he suddenly wondered? Of the two of them, Smash was the calmer, less dark personality and almost seemed to be a calming influence on the boy; perhaps being so powerful, he had nothing to prove?
Claremont seemed to inspire an injection of normality into an otherwise extraordinary life, yet it is becoming clear that this was, at best, an aspiration, one devoutly to be wished for, but one rarely obtained. Regardless, it was certainly not dull!
Despite the deficiency of Claremont ‘close encounters’ since, a lot had been going on; they’d both agreed to defer their exams for another year and to their surprise no-one in their class had called them on their decision though Nathaniel and Ces’ had openly taken to referring to them as a pair of “Dumb Belles”. Still making with the gay jokes, you had to give them ten out of ten for consistency (and zero out of ten for imagination).
Still, sticks and stones, as they say.
Chris was now doing well in classes even without being able to hack into the internet for the answers and was catching up fast, though not as fast as Gustav, who had a knack for book learning and studying. Chris attempts though to get his classmates to use his ‘browser’ nickname hadn’t really taken in this school, but at least they hadn’t picked on him or given him an insulting nickname instead. Gustav had become Gus or even G-Man to his face (and the Count, as in Count Dracula, behind his back…)
It didn’t help that Gus’ had been the subject of a ‘spotlight on…’ article by Zoe in the last edition of the Claremont Clarion. Impressive and intrusive, both at the same time, since she hadn’t spoken to him beforehand yet there was a lot of personal detail in there; about Carpathia, his father and the accident. She stopped short of saying outright that he was a mutie but sort of hinted that the ‘accident’ before he arrived at Claremont could have been a breakthrough event.
Angrily, he had originally accused Chris’ of feeding the information to her, but his protestations had sounded genuine. Chris’ had been just as surprised as he was at the newspaper article.
Gus’ had then tracked Zoe down in the ‘pressroom’ to complain at the invasion of his privacy. She’d smiled, it was a pretty smile too, and went into a long speech about the freedom of the press to violate everyone’s privacy and cast light on anything hidden. Exasperated, he’d stormed out and immediately gone to speak with Beaky Hawke. That had resulted in an even longer discourse on the subject, about what is and isn’t acceptable in reporting a story.
Halfway through the diatribe, Gustav resigned himself to the fact that some folk were now going to be in the know somewhat, and that these details were now more public than ever.
Mr Hawke went on to explain that everything Zoe had published about his life before Claremont was already available on the web if you just knew where to look and while Zoe had hinted in the article that he might be a Meta, that story was already out there after their science fair ‘incident’. She hadn’t made any actual statements, only hinted at what was already in the school rumour-mill, and added in that surviving being buried alive was something traumatic enough to have acted as a breakthrough event. As long as he never did anything to confirm it, that was all it would ever be, unsubstantiated gossip. After all, there were even school hearsay that Nathaniel was a meta, weren’t there?
With a heavy sigh and a facepalm, Gustav realised that there was nothing he could do but move forward. What was done was done.
Perhaps a better question would be – Why had Zoe chosen him as the Claremont Clarion Spotlight for this month’s edition? It left Gus’ with more questions than answers.
Meanwhile, Chris was convinced that the online nemesis that blocked his internet access during school hours was some form of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately he still didn’t know who, where or what but he’d been working on his proximity data skimmer project so that he could now use it to ‘read’ data from cards, computer chips and even memory sticks without them being operational. It was only a matter of time before he found something.
They’d even managed a couple more day trips to both St. Mary Mede and to Wessex in the meantime without anything untoward happening to them, though both had taken to wearing their uniforms underneath their street clothes whenever they left the grounds, just in case.
They had just finished lunch and were sitting in the shadow of the canopy by the main entrance to the school, so Gustav didn’t burn too badly despite being wrapped in his school hoodie with its cowl hanging over his face as he read his copy of Tom Sawyer. Gustav had considered chewing on a piece of long grass as he read, but thought it would be in poor literary taste.
Chris was talking about the latest story he’d heard rise from the sewer of school gossip; that a metallic figure had been seen in the early mornings sprinting across the school grounds towards the big house. Of course, it was not unknown for the P.E. teacher Silver to go for a run but this figure had apparently been naked and the silhouette had looked very different, lacking Silver’s ah, rather spectacular anatomy. Could it have been a humanoid robot, possibly? Chris speculated that perhaps it was a camouflaged robot that had been left behind by the Star Khan’s roaming Ambassador.
“I could do that, if I really wanted to.” Gustav softly added as he flicked to the next page. “… Assuming it was dark and nobody were watching,” he continued quietly.
As they spoke, Chris could hear whispers behind him and he stood up and turned just in case, even as Gustav whispered without his eyes leaving his page, “It’s okay, it’s just Bethany and her friend Tara.” Sure enough, a group of year two girls including Shini in her souped-up wheelchair were clustered round Tara and Bethany, whispering and giggling while glancing over at the two of them.
Suddenly one of them, Chris thought she was called Ingres, pushed Tara towards them both.
Despite being attracted to her, Chris still hadn’t spoken with Tara so he was taken back as she walked up and shyly, eyes looking down, held out two pieces of printed paper towards him. Chris wasn’t sure what was going on, but held out his hand and she gently placed them on the palm.
Gustav suddenly spoke without looking up, “Thank you and yes we’d love to come.” What the..? Had Gustav developed telepathy and not bothered to tell him? Gustav allowed a cool, crooked smirk to cross his face as he pretended to still be reading.
Chris looked at the two pieces of paper as Tara stuttered, “Ah yes so I, well I have six tickets and, I ah thought perhaps, you know, ah maybe you’d like to come with Bethany, Shini, Ingres and me? I mean, you and your friend..?”
Chris realised he was holding two tickets, backstage passes even, to the new show on at the Wessex Jubilee Concert Hall – a night with Taboo, an up and coming female stage magician. These had to be worth at least a hundred quid each! Chris was dumbstruck as he turned the tickets over and read the ‘complementary’ legend printed on the back. How had Tara managed to get six of these? A smile escaped as he turned and muttered something incoherent. Again, Gus’ came to his rescue. “Ah, that means thank you and yes he’d love to come. So would I, assuming I’m not intended to be a chaperone or a third wheel?” Still, his eyes never left the page. What did Gustav mean to chaperone? Third wheel? Did this mean Tara liked him? Oh God, what did that mean for him as he was now?
To his surprise, he managed to mutter an almost articulate, “thanks, we’d love to come.” Gustav raised an eyebrow, amused but otherwise impressed, as he thumbed open another page.
It was only after she and the others had left, her with a bit of a red face and a bashful finger wave in his direction and the others laughing and giggling as they gently poked Tara in the arm, that Gustav looked up for the first time.
“You really need to keep up with the school gossip, my friend. Taboo herself arrived at the school this morning on a big, powerful and very beautiful motorcycle; a combination that had most of the heterosexual males in the upper years panting. She visited with Tara for a couple of hours, so I assume Tara and she must be related, and then she left. She must have left the tickets to her show then.”
He paused and closed his book carefully, “Have you seen any of her shows on television? She performs some amazing tricks and her close up prestidigitation is second to none. Now the real magic is what you are going to do about Tara, as I believe she has a crush on you.” After a moment’s pause, he continued, “And don’t do an internet search on what to do either, Romeo!”
As he smirked the thought unbidden came to his mind, if Chris’ was going to begin dating, should he? And, if he was to consider it, who would he be interested in?
To his surprise, the first name that came unbidden to his mind was Zoe’s. No! She was older than him, opinionated, exasperating… and actually quite, quite intriguing. Ah Zoe, now that would truly be an unhealthy curiosity. Gustav had already had a bad experience with Twilight fans in the past and then of course there had been the time he’d jokingly dabbled with the Voice of Allure, at the Baroness’ request admittedly, on that pretty servant girl at the palace. It had only been a kiss but he’d felt absolutely terrible about it afterwards. That’s when he had first felt the Baroness couldn’t be trusted as she’d encouraged him to do it and with such a predatory smile.
He wouldn’t decline a genuine bond with someone if it happened naturally, but he was not actively searching for someone, at least at the moment. After all, he always had a lot on his plate.
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 