The end again, p.1
The End Again, page 1
The Sara Chronicles: Book Three
The End Again
P.S. Power
Copyright 2022
Orange Cat Publishing
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three
Chapter four
Chapter five
Chapter six
Chapter seven
Chapter eight
Chapter nine
Chapter ten
Chapter eleven
Chapter twelve
Chapter thirteen
Chapter fourteen
A Small Meeting in Mulberry...
Chapter one
Sara blinked. She was used to seeing fights in her life, naturally. Such things were often deadly, skilled events with explosions and copious amounts of bright red blood pouring out of individuals. Being Infected and living on the IPB base meant that she’d seen two real, lethal, attacks in the last two months, in fact.
Just walking into the head office, the month before, two uninfected reporters had been wrestling on the carpeted floor, right in front of everybody. This, what was happening directly in front of her at that moment, actually forced her to freeze in place, however.
Not having even the first clue what she was supposed to do about it. If anything. Truly, after a long moment, Sara couldn’t make herself move, being too undecided about a course of action for anything that coherent.
Right there, in her home room class, desks having been forced to the side, David Nelis was suddenly struggling with Kevin, the cool kid. It wasn’t a fair fight, as it turned out, because average looking David, a head shorter than the other boy, was currently beating the heck out of the bigger guy. Kevin had about fifty to sixty pounds on him as well, and it was mainly muscle.
It wasn’t just amateurish flailing around, either. From what she could tell, Kev seemed like a regular school kid, and Dave was moving and positioning himself a bit like a professional fighter. His moves were fast and concise, compared to what the other kid had going on at the moment. Enough so that, if someone didn’t stop them, Kevin was about to end up in the hospital. She guessed they had thirty seconds, if not less, before that happened.
Not that she was going to be using a power for it or anything.
True, Kevin had mocked the other boy, who was clearly not having a good day, but she hadn’t figured on violence suddenly happening directly in front of the entire class like that. In the classroom. As they were discussing an alternate reality. The biggest problem was, she understood, not that Kevin had started dating the girl that David liked and wasn’t going to have a real shot with, not being good looking enough, even if that was what had started the battle in the first place. No, it was that everyone else in the room was looking at her and Bridget, as if they were supposed to do something about the battle that was taking place.
As if they were legally allowed to use Infected powers against school kids, for any real-world reason. The answer there, she knew, was that they weren’t supposed to do any such thing at all. That there would be no legal reason that would allow her to do anything using a power against either kid, even to save their lives, in that moment. Which, of course, wasn’t a thing that the boys probably knew. A few of their peers in the room would understand that it wasn’t going to be allowed and she figured that Mrs. Ward, the teacher would also have that down, but both Kevin and David barely studied most days, as far as she could tell.
So she cleared her throat, gently.
“Stop fighting now, or I’ll be forced to use Infected powers to stop you, against your will. That will be a very strong sense that you have to go to the bathroom, which has a very high probability of making you wet yourself. It won’t harm you, but the social disgrace of it will be pretty intense, and you both know that I can do it. You have ten seconds.” She could have changed shape to actually bring that power online, but didn’t bother. If the two boys refused to comply, then she didn’t have any clue what to do about it, at all. Bridget made a face, which was annoyed seeming. So much so that her eyes nearly rolled back into her head.
Interestingly, Mrs. Ward cleared her throat.
“I’ve heard of that. It will be a bit damp and embarrassing, but has to be done, I suppose. Everyone else stand away, so the field effect doesn’t hit you. Darren, can you grab some paper towels and get the janitor for us?” She gestured, as if it were a real thing.
Thankfully the boys didn’t bother calling her bluff.
David just pushed the other boy away, huffed like a little girl throwing a fit over not getting a pony, and stomped out of the room, slamming the heavy door on the way out. Everyone else was quiet, except Kevin, who was bleeding from the nose, and who was going to have two nicely black eyes the next day, if she recognized the signs correctly. There were red lines along his neck as well.
Lara Zimmerman, who was really very helpful, a lot of the time, grabbed some tissues from her blue and green bookbag and handed them to Kevin, who pressed them to his face. Then the boy, calmly, laughed. It was fake, but sounded relaxed.
Which was probably why he was considered cool, really. Sara felt like she was awkward and uncomfortable most of the time, herself. Especially when weird social situations came up, like what she’d just seen.
“Okay, so don’t make fun of David. Got it. I was just trying to lighten the mood, I promise.” He pressed his nose with the white paper and winced. “Um, ow. There’s blood all over the place. I don’t have any diseases, if that makes anyone feel better?”
Sara nodded. That was probably an important thing to know, for most of the people in the room.
“I’ve got that part. Here...”
She simply used telekinesis, one of the powers she had up already, to lift the blood from the floor, and collected it into a floating red ball about an inch wide. The simple action was watched by most of the room as it moved slowly to the trashcan and then carefully dropped inside. Then Bridget and Eric Condit worked together to set the various desks to right. Lara moved to help with that, as well as a few of the others, with everyone being quiet after a moment.
Mrs. Ward sighed.
“You’ll have to go down to the office, Kevin. You as well Sara. We have a zero-tolerance policy for violence here at Brackston. Threatening to use powers on people... Honestly, I’m not certain where that falls, inside the rules.”
Half the room suddenly seemed betrayed by the announcement, thinking that it was unfair, but Sara didn’t let it bother her. She might be punished for her words, but unlike a lot of people there, she knew that there was no permanent school record of note. That was a fiction meant to control the kids. Like tales of Santa Claus. A story that adults told to trick children into not thinking for themselves. As if kids in high school couldn’t handle being told the simple truth. That they were adults and needed to act like it.
So she simply nodded. It made her long, mostly straight, dark brown hair move in the back.
“Sorry about that. Next time, stopping the fight will be up to the rest of you, so practice for that? I’ll go do that now? I can walk with Kevin.”
That, apparently, was fine enough for the moment, and she was nodded at by the careworn, gray seeming woman in front of her, indicating she needed to do that. Kevin seemed a bit upset as they collected their things and left the room, but he didn’t growl or grumble about it. Instead, he simply walked, slowly, toward the school office. After getting most of the way there he looked at Sara.
“This is messed up. I get jumped and now both of us are in trouble for it? I didn’t even hit him back and I’ll probably end up being suspended. I swear, if Principal Rojas tries to do that, I’m punching her in the face and telling her that she’s suspended for two weeks over it.”
Reading his mind, using an actual power for it, which was a watered-down version of what Christian Pours had so that the noise from everyone else wasn’t beating her down constantly, she realized that the kid didn’t actually mean it. Not as a real threat. He was frustrated, after being attacked. A bit scared as well, since even if he was trying to pretend David had only won due to him refusing to fight back, the truth was that he hadn’t been able to protect himself at all, having frozen when things suddenly started.
Instead of scolding him for his threats, or teasing him over the loss, she nodded.
“Zero tolerance... Zero thought.” Her words weren’t loud at all, since they were at the office door. David, wisely, wasn’t there at all. He’d probably left, not caring to be scolded directly after he’d just been in a violent confrontation like he had been. Miss Lewis, the school secretary, looked up at them, swallowed and started to shake, ever so slightly.
“You two were fighting?” It was clear that she didn’t recognize Kevin, but did know exactly who Sara was.
Kevin shook his head.
“No, of course not. David Nelis jumped me, in home room. Mrs. Ward’s class. Sara is just walking me down here, in case he comes back for me. He ran off. Sara told him that if he didn’t stop being a jerk she was going to make him pee his pants. That worked. No one wants to walk around all wet like that.”
Those hadn’t been her exact words, but the office door to the room they stored the principal in opened then, with the short haired, rather mannish seeming woman herself popping her head out. Clearly having heard what was said. Kevin sighed, a bloody tissue still held to the middle of his face. It flashed through his mind that he needed to try and keep Sara out of trouble, if he could.
Not bec ause she was powerful, or even a girl, though the last one was there in his head, if gently. He needed to protect her, because she was innocent. Kevin, to his own mind, had been running his mouth at the right time, claiming that David glowering was a bit silly seeming. That didn’t mean he needed to be beaten for it, but it occurred to him that he’d been part of the cause.
Sara had said a few words, to keep him from being seriously harmed. So, now, it was his turn.
Probably not by hitting the bookish and rather boring looking woman in charge there. She wore gold rimmed glasses, which had a gold chain on the back, so she didn’t lose them. That day she was in a rust-colored pant suit that made her seem a bit more manly than was probably needed. Her very short black hair didn’t help with that either. Sara couldn’t actually tell Kevin not to bother acting aggrieved though, since it would seem out of place.
The other woman was, as it turned out, one of the other class tens in the world. A person who, if she made a wish, would find it coming true, instantly.
The truth was that Sara might take her in a fight, but she also might not. Kevin though wouldn’t have a chance at all. Worse, instead of simply being stopped or even beaten for it, the principal would probably have to have him arrested for it, if he tried. Not that the boy was going to really do that kind of thing, knowing it was hopeless to begin with.
Every kid in attendance there understood that if someone else hit you, you were going to be suspended as a punishment. Oddly, that mainly impacted the boys there. David wasn’t a bully though, so would be punished for it as well. A lot of the time the worst kids were given a pass, because they had mental issues. Unless they were Infected, then they were kicked out altogether, even if that was illegal to do. That one wasn’t fair, but still made sense. Infected people, unless they’d had special treatments, all had first modes. Crippling mental illness, that was outside of what could be easily controlled for.
Some managed, well enough to seem almost normal, but for a lot of them, it was a curse. The worst part of being Infected, by far. If it had just been a power, people would want to get in on the idea. With a mode attached, even those who were willing to risk a lot for such things simply wouldn’t. Meaning that kids with that kind of thing weren’t treated fairly, even if they managed themselves well, most of the time.
The principal gave the boy a clipped nod.
“Why don’t you two come in and we can go over this? Has the bleeding stopped?”
The principal noticed that there was a fresh spot of blood on the white tissue, when it was pulled away, but tilted her head and threw her hands down at the sight.
“That seems to be stopping rather nicely, so we can carry on, I think. We’ll watch it. Now... both of you come in and have a seat? Mr. Bechler, why don’t you cover this situation for us?”
The story wasn’t dressed up, and Kevin was simply honest, including his light mocking of David first. At the end, he shrugged.
“So, I get it, I’m suspended for fighting, even if it was an attack, under the law. I don’t want Dave to be locked up for having a bad day, so I won’t call the cops in on it and if I don’t, the assholes on the school board will make sure that being beaten up is the same as doing the beating. Again. If you were a dude, I’d punch you and claim it meant you needed to be suspended as well, even if it meant going to juvey for six months.”
The dry and boring seeming woman snorted at the words.
“Best to avoid things like that, if they aren’t needed. If you need to make a stand, make sure it’s one that pays enough for you to bother with. I do take your point on the matter, however. You said that Sara here was sent along... because?” That was leading, and Kevin really hadn’t.
The boy, who might not be a dedicated student all the time, shrugged. His mind was working fast, as well. On a level that he’d never bother showing in class, outside of a few brief shining moments.
“Honestly? Mrs. Ward probably didn't know what to do with the class ten, so sent her down here for nothing, so you could wave the matter away for us. Sara told us that she was going to make us pee our pants if we didn’t stop, using an Infected power. Then gave us ten seconds to stop fighting, which worked. It wasn’t a threat of violence or anything, so... That isn’t actionable under the school rules. I suppose you could try to call the cops in on it, for using an Infected power, but... Well, she didn’t. She used words and wasn’t even glowing at the time. Making a big deal about this would be a good way to make problems that don’t currently exist.” The boy sounded awfully certain of that, for a person who had probably never read the school rules at all.
Sara had, before her first day there, since the booklet had been provided to her. Knowing the rules was helpful, or could be. After thinking for a moment, she nodded a bit. Not assertively, however.
Her voice was soft.
“That’s true, actually. The policy on Infected people is meant to prevent teachers, staff and other students from persecuting them for having powers. So that harmless powers accidently used can’t have the police called in to execute someone for glowing due to math anxiety, or if they have to go to the restroom. I guess you could claim it was a terroristic threat? That is against the rules. Does wetting yourself count as one of those? The fear of being embarrassed that way, I mean?”
The woman looked at her, not seeming to find her words amusing or helpful, then shrugged.
“No. Of course it doesn’t. I’ll tell you what, both of you will get a write up, which, if there’s no other issues with violence or threats to use powers on people from you, will expire at the end of the school term. If you violate that, then...” She shrugged and leaned in, toward Kevin. “Well, don’t let this out, but if you violate it, then nothing will happen other than punishment for that future violation. I can’t actually put you on probation, we just claim that so the rubes will fall in line.”
Sara nodded then and smiled.
“I see, so the real punishment is making us look up the word rube, so we understand what you just said? I actually get that one. I live in a place with a lot of old people.” Specifically, Richard Drake, on that one. He used it all the time, in fact.
The woman gave her a wintery smile. It didn’t even seem practiced, just perfectly real.
“Be careful, Miss Chambers. I can’t force you to be respectful, but I can certainly narrow my eyes at you and suggest you do so. Don’t make me do that.” There was a glare over her shiny glasses, making her point.
It kind of worked, even, as a form of scolding, which Sara didn’t enjoy any more than anyone else. Maybe less. Even seeing it done as a joke, in that moment, left her feeling like her bad behavior was going to make the woman go away. Abandoning her. Even if they weren’t close and the lady had come to watch her, as a warden, not a friend.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
That got her nodded at, a bit tightly.
The principal glanced at Kevin.
“Can you heal that for us, Sara? I wouldn’t ask, normally, but if we’re doing a cover up on part of this, a lack of evidence will be useful or might be.”
She did that, by simply setting up a healing power from a list of about fifty such gifts she had to choose from and then touched the large, muscular, fellow next to her, on the arm. He didn’t even wince, the power she’d selected to use not feeling like much at all, until the pain was gone. The growing blue circles under his eyes also went away, inside twenty seconds or so and the bleeding stopped totally.
Kevin twitched a bit and shook his head.
“Thanks. It’s weird, when you do things like that. I keep forgetting that you can, really. So, I get a write up for being abused? Fair, I guess. Just, you know, if you can make a note that says I didn’t actually do anything? Just so I can tell my mom that, when I get home?”
The words from him actually had the woman smiling, for some reason.
“I... can actually do that. Now, why don’t you get back to class, Mr. Bechler? I need a word with Miss Chambers here, about using her powers at school.”
The boy, his thoughts turning dark, wondered if the cute girl from class was about to be given the riot act, for having bothered to protect him. He nearly spoke out right then, but Sara smiled at the words.
“You mean the part where I’m doing a great job that way, over all? Like today when I protected students from possible contact with blood, then healed someone when you asked me to? Or...” She stopped, the woman in front of her calm and blank. “Do you want me to do something? I can’t actually take anyone out for you, or use Infected powers to make anyone be good students, so... You want to get some people into the second group of students going over to Noram? Kevin here, maybe? I can... do that, if you want? That won’t even take using any powers. I have some connections...” She was making things up, and it was clear, to her, that it wouldn’t be any of that, but the principal grinned.
