Bluebook Session 9b – The Game Continues

“It was the best of times it was the worst of times…”

Actually, it was the rest of that sentence that Gustav really liked because he felt it described his here and now, so much so he’d memorised it. “It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us.”

Yeah, and which was before him and his plan to return to Carpathia he wondered, hope or despair?

Damn, he really needed to finish his book report this weekend before classes restarted and of course, they would be starting to take their mock exams this term.

Gustav just needed to persuade Chris to start work on his own homework without downloading someone’s report from the internet. He always had a tendency to leave everything to the last minute, and it was hard for him to not then use his power to tap into all that information overload online.

Deep in thought, he was caught by surprise when Chris’ seemed to appear from nowhere so suddenly and slammed into him as he sat on the bench that he seriously thought he had to have ‘zapped’ himself into the memorial gardens, in front of the dorms.

“Have you heard yet?” Chris blurted out between gasps for air.

Gus was there to meet with Bethany, who claimed to have talked with the Amazons about his father over the holidays. She had elected to arrive home a couple of days before the school term started and had asked Gus to meet her when she returned. Gus’ had figured that meant as soon as she arrived back on school grounds hence his waiting outside, in the gardens so Chris’ unexpected arrival had caught him off-guard, “What? Is Bethany not coming?”

This time it was Chris’s turn to be surprised, “Wha..? No, guess who’s agreed to become a regular guest teacher Down Below?” Before Gus could think never mind reply, Chris blurted out, “It’s Young Sam, he’s apparently going to be doing a regular training session after school once a month for anyone who wants to sign up… Ah, I’ve already signed us both up. I mean what better chance to ask him about your Dad than in a face-to-face session, brilliant eh?”

Before he could reply, he found his ears assaulted by a screaming “Bubbles”, announcing her return. She waved to them as she crossed the playing fields and unleashed a stream of multi-coloured bubbles into the air, much to the apparent disgust of a couple of the other pupils that must have been dropped off at the school gates at the same time as her. Chris and Gus immediately recognised that one of those being extremely vocal was the overweight hanger-on of Ces’s, Lawrence Smalls, who was being extremely loud about his disgust at her public display of meta-abilities, ‘Meta-scum’ being the least offensive of the terms he employed.

He probably thought he was safe since the majority of the staff, like the inmate students, wouldn’t be on-site until tomorrow evening, but then Camille appeared behind him. The school’s French-Vietnamese security officer was a very petite 4’6″ but no one wanted to be on her bad side, she was as Chris’ would say a “real badass”. She immediately stopped Lawrence in his tracks and dragged him off to one side for a lecture. Chris smiled, he’d had more than his fair share of her lectures since he’d arrived and knew her tongue could be as sharp as her physical ability to put down even the largest bully.

Alaina was completely oblivious to what was happening behind her. She did not stop and assault their ears with an unending stream of babel and gossip, but rushed passed dragging her case and muttering something about having to drop off her things before rushing to the Big House for a fitting and about being excited about her new ‘k-suit’, whatever that was. They didn’t have time to think about it as Bethany appeared with some well-built man in a dark suit, though it was Bethany who was carrying her own backpack. Obviously, this had to be a bodyguard, but what had happened during the holidays that she now travelled with security?

As soon as she saw them both in the gardens, she turned and said something to the man with her, who seemed initially upset. He started to argue but then shrugged, angrily turned and walked away, back towards the school gates.

Bethany ignored him as she waved and walked towards them, dropping the obviously heavy backpack just in front of them, climbed up and sat on the back of the bench that Gustav was already sitting on. “Hi” she said, ignoring the usual pleasantries and in her usual abrupt fashion continued, “So as asked, I talked to the Amazons about your dad. Ah, you really sure you want to know this?” She paused and tilted her head slightly to look at Gus before glancing over to Chris. Gus nodded, unwilling to trust his voice.

“I’m sorry, but they do remember him. He did visit them whilst they were imprisoned in Carpathia. They don’t have any bad memories connected to him, though. He never tried to hurt or experiment on them though several others did, as directed by an old man in a tweed suit, but they do remember that he seemed to be supervising the experiments on… Ah, looking after a couple of the other captives – apparently the hybrids, meta-mystical’s such as Young Sam.”

Gus found himself in shock. He stared off into the distance and saw Ms Kitty, no she was up-top, he had to remember to call her either Amalia or by her new school nickname ‘Pinky’. She and her cat was busy playing with Cassie near the staff bungalows. He stared at them, his mind in turmoil watching them playing peacefully at the edge of the playing fields, he couldn’t help feeling that he needed to fast-track his plans for Carpathia before anyone else got hurt.

Lost in his anger, self-pity and thoughts about somehow righting the wrongs of his father, even if he was sure it had to have been carried out under duress, he failed to reply to Bethany’s comments.

She shrugged and turned her attention to Chris’ asking him if he’d read the news article in the local papers linking the Humanity First group and Ted Reichman in particular with recent vigilante attacks on Metas. Worse, the anonymous reporter had also linked them with interfering in schools including Claremont and claiming they were radicalising students there through the ‘Keep Claremont Human’ brigade.