Harsh Lessons (28 page)

'Now, since we have a new student in the class today, it's a welcome excuse to review the basics.’

Groans from some of the students quickly died under Ms Sorensen’s laser-sharp gaze.

'Your craft as an actor is to
feel
the emotions and motives that lie beneath; and then to let just enough shine through for the audience to see inside.

'Less is more.  Don't drench the audience in colors – sketch the outlines; let their own imaginations paint in the details.  You don't want your audience thinking “What a marvelous actress Sorensen is;” they must be thinking “Can't Eliza see she's being manipulated?”'

By the end of the day Leeth felt more exhausted than after a long session with Dojo.  Marcie, it turned out, lived in Oakland – and seemed impressed by the address of Jane's Aunt Elizabeth in New Francisco.  Tara and her friends were picked up by limousines with drivers and security – 'Beth's mother is some exec at Omnicomm,' Marcie explained, 'and both Tara's parents are bigwigs at SegaFox.  Ava's grandfather was a founder of Softgene.'

With Tara and friends gone, at least the taunts ended.

'What about
your
parents?'

Marcie looked sad.  'It's just me and my dad, and my little sister.  Amanda.  She's a real cutie, you'd like her.  Mum died when I was only little.  Dad's doing well: he runs an auto-trucking biz.  He's got like a fleet of fifty, now,' she said proudly.

At that moment, an attractive boy huffed up to offer Jane a lift home in his sports car – in tones that suggested she should know what a Konnigs-egg G12, or something like that, was.  But Leeth wanted to walk with Marcie to the MacArthur station instead.

A bunch of other students were headed in the same direction, and even through her tiredness Leeth heard some of the boys
still
talking about the “Green Ghost Girl” that had flown into the school in the morning and then disappeared.

Meeting Marcie had made up for all the rest of it, though.  But she was surprised and thrilled when the other girl later hugged her goodbye before stepping onto her train.  Leeth waved to her, too, then summoned her energies to sprint for her platform, on the green line.  She made it onto the carriage with seconds to spare.

But as she got on, looking around for a clear space to play "train surfing," a really weird feeling reached up her spine.  Her mind flooded with images, so disorienting that she wobbled and almost fell.  A Japanese girl, with James, in a restaurant. 
Trapped!
  For a moment, she felt panic, and spun around.

In the crowd waiting for the next train on the platform now disappearing from sight, she glimpsed a large man, staring at her.

Expressionless.  Patient. 
Waiting
.

She shuddered.

Chapter 34 

At Emma's insistence, Leeth had spent an hour that night talking to her uncle, getting advice about ways to handle Tara, Ava and Beth – that didn't involve exposing their internal organs.  Not that he'd been all that helpful: other than suggesting Leeth picture doing something gruesome to them, and then smiling boldly and ignoring them.  Which had actually been exactly what she'd already done, in the cafeteria.

Which just showed she wasn't as badly socialized as they all thought.

She also asked him about the “advanced” topic Emma hadn't wanted to discuss the previous morning – what to do when she just wanted sex from a boy, not to know him as a person.

He had
not
been pleased with the question.  Which she'd found
very
satisfying. 
He
does
care about me.

But he hadn't answered the question, either.  Instead, he'd warned her about all sorts of diseases she could catch.  How curing diseases magically wasn’t like healing injuries, and
blahing
on about immune systems.

Which told her he really didn't want her having sex with other people.  Talking to him by secure video was weird.  It felt… safer.  Yet kind of exciting, maybe because of that.

It'd left her feeling quite churned up, inside.  She wasn't sure how she felt about him, any more.

She'd tried to talk about it with Emma, somehow forgetting about his mental controls.  Which made her look like an idiot, of course, when her brain froze up.  So instead – after she’d recovered – they'd talked more about what she'd learned, and about the girls, and boys.  Actually, it was funny how the boys, who’d seemed like men to her in the morning, had by the end of the day somehow magically morphed into boys.

But that had led Emma to strongly encourage her to start making notes for the report she had to write at the end of it all.  Dutifully, Leeth created a file called “Normal girls and sheep dynamic groups,” then lay on her bed admiring the impressively scientific title.  Then, remembering Emma's words, she deleted the word "sheep," frowning as she did. 
Why hadn't Uncle ever told me people would hate me if I called them that
?  Was
Marcie
a sheep?
  Obviously not – but why not?

Oh, and it was actually supposed to be “group dynamics.”  She fixed that, too.  And then realized she didn’t know what it meant, and started reading the wikipedia entry.  Somehow, she got distracted by thoughts of Superman; especially his outside-underpants.  That led to hunting down a chill-sounding collection – from a few years ago, since that way, Marcie might have read them too.  Besides, some of the older ones cost less.  She tapped the credstick to the Buy button on her e-sheet, pleased at successfully executing her
first ever on-screen purchase.  Checking her balance, she saw she still had almost thirty creds to spend today.  She bit at her fingernails.  Why had Mother given her such a big budget?

Who knows?
  She settled down to Superman… and woke the next morning with her e-sheet on the floor by her bed, and nothing in her report except the title.

Anyway, she was kind of looking forward to this second day of lessons – despite the Power Princesses – and was messaging Marcie before she even headed down in the lift.

That strange feeling came over her again, though, while talking to her new friend as she walked to the Montgomery St station.  She stopped, looking around, feeling cold.  She found she'd let her eyes unfocus to look for Her, or Robo, here in the middle of all the people bustling about on their own busy missions.

A chill rippled through her.  She wondered: had her vivid recall, acting out the Hunting of Her and Robo in the class yesterday, somehow summoned one of them?

She shook her head, as people bumped past her, some muttering insults under their breath.  She ignored them.  It couldn't be Her: she and Godsson had killed Her, together.  Properly, and once and for all.

And it felt… more like Robo.

She gazed around, eyes still unfocused, but there was no sense of the straight line movements of that invisible thing.  Or
curving
ones.  She shuddered, remembering
Her.
  She didn't know what she'd do, if She returned.

'-Jane!  What's the matter?  Jane, are you there, I can hear-'

'Sorry, Marcie, I, uh, thought an old, um, friend called out to me, and I was just looking.'  She started walking again.  'So, you're getting the 8:42am from “Fruitvale.”  Is that even a real place?  It sounds like a cartoon suburb for happy munchkins….'

It was weird, yet at the same time perfectly natural, meeting up with Marcie on the crowded platform.  It was nice, walking together to the drama school.  The day was overcast, a bit cool.  Probably that was the reason Leeth kept feeling uncomfortable, like she could sense Mean Robo around.

But chatting with Marcie was strangely easy, especially since the first topic of conversation was Tara.

'I talked to my uncle last night, and he said they're mean because they see I'm different to them, maybe better, and that makes them feel smaller.  So by trying to make me feel small, they can feel big.'

'Yeah, that sounds about right,' Marcie agreed.

The walk to the school seemed to take no time at all.

That day at morning break, most of the class headed again to the cafeteria.  Marcie explained that people usually put in their orders in advance, arriving as their order neared the top of the queue.  She also explained how you could bid to pay more, to get your order “bumped up” in priority, and how a bunch of them always put their orders in before Tara, knowing the rich girl would always outbid them so she'd be first.

'So what's the point?' Leeth asked.

Marcie giggled.  'I just find it funny that the Power Princesses have to pay fifty creds for a coffee, and anywhere from two hundred to five hundred for lunch!  And the funniest part is, the higher the price we bid them up to, the more pleasure they seem to take from “winning!”  They have no idea.'

They were joined by two other girls, who Leeth thought maybe were the two Tara had called “peasants” the day before.  Delta, and Sam, they'd introduced themselves.

'Anyway, what'll you have?' asked Marcie.  'We have to be back in class in fifteen.  The mocha latte with hazelnut's good.'

'Uh, yeah, sure, that's a fav- ohh!  What's
hot
chocolate?' Leeth asked, the drinks menu projected on the shiny tabletop from her ’link.

When no one answered after a few seconds, she looked up to see them all blinking at her.  'I meant, uh, they have hot chocolate!'

'Amazing,' Marcie dead-panned.

One of the other girls – Sam – giggled.  'Are you about to go beddy-byes, Jane?'

Leeth pictured the big blue question mark. 'Um.  Beddybuys.  Uh… What?  No!  I just like chocolate.  I'm… I'll have two!'

Tara and her cohort chose that moment to pass their table.  'Good idea, Thunder-thighs,' Tara sniped as she passed by, eyeing their small group with disdain.  And went straight to the serving counter at the exact moment their orders arrived.  Leeth and Marcie exchanged a look, hiding their smiles.

But after about ten minutes, something weird started happening.  Jane and Marcie's little group seemed to be attracting looks from the other students, and people began snickering.  Leeth concentrated, and heard several people talking about “the Losers Club.”  And then noticed a small pink icon flashing over Marcie's head.

The fourth girl in their group, Delta, was looking abstractedly into space, then swore.  'That bitch!  You should see what she and her followers are saying about us on her feed!'

'Her feed?'  Leeth asked.  'What's that?'

This time, all three looked at her like she'd just grown a third eye.  Delta shook her head, tapping the wrist where Leeth wore her link.  'Project a keyboard for me,’ she ordered.

Leeth obliged, and the girl began rapidly typing.  A moment later Leeth was signed up for “SoBo” – a "social feed" – and creating her own “Profile” and subscribing to “feeds” from Tara and a bunch of other students.  She felt simultaneously dazed, and pleased by how much she was learning.

But she couldn't give it her full attention.  Delta had a small pink icon now, too – a chubby, cartoonish penis, Leeth realized – flashing above her head, positioned within easy reach to “touch.”

'Is that a fruit fly?' she asked, casually pointing so her fingertip seemed to her to touch the icon.  The moment she did, a maroon “L” appeared, tattooed on Delta's forehead.

What the-?
  Leeth took off her glasses, and of course it vanished.  But more people were giggling, now, and a few others pointing.  Leeth put her glasses back on, and the maroon “L” tattoo reappeared.

Sam burst out.  'Oh, that…' her lips pursed.  'Witch!'  They all turned to her, and she blushed.  Marcie frowned, then swore  and projected Tara's feed onto the tabletop.

At first, Leeth thought they'd all seen the penis icons, too, and their virtual tattoos.  But none of the other girls mentioned them, and as she read the upside-down text, her heart sank.  'What?  So she's calling us “Lezzlie's Loser Club.”  Just ignore her.  That's what my uncle said we should do.'

'No, it's not that.'  Marcie grimaced, projecting her own keyboard and typing madly.  'I don't know how she's doing it, but she's put up a vid stream of… four girls, um, having sex, and she's ’shopped our faces onto them.'  She swore.  'And I can't forward it, capture it, or project it!  How is she doing that?'

'Um, why do you want to forward it, or whatever?' Leeth asked.

'So we can report it, Jane!'

'
Report
it?'

'Yeah, report it.  To the School.  Maybe even to the police.'

'
We
should report it to the
police?'

Was this what it was like to be a sheep?  What would happen if
she
began thinking like that? 
She shuddered, then saw Marcie, Delta and Sam were looking at her.  Again.

'Yeah,' said Sam, 'shocking idea.  Why, you have some other idea how to stop them?'

Leeth glared across the room at Evil Tara and Co.  Then carefully, unclenched her fists.

Delta laughed.  'You
totally
looked like you wanted to stomp over there and slap her face!'

Marcie reached out her hand, placing it over Leeth's wrist.  'Jane.  Don't even think about it.  She'd slap
you
with a lawsuit that'd ruin you
and
your parents.  Hitting her isn't going to stop her.'

That depends on how hard I hit.
  With an effort, Leeth forced the thought aside, then met Marcie's eyes. 
What might a normal girl say?
  'Maybe, but it'd sure feel good, don't you think?'

Marcie grinned.  'Hell, yeah!'

At that moment, Leeth's Link chimed her order's readiness, and she excused herself.  But from the whispers following her as she crossed the room – “yeah, whip that tail, babe!” – she knew something more was going on.

On her way back, muttering 'Darn fruit flies' to cover her mid-air gestures, she clicked on each of her friends' pink icons.

And almost dropped her two chocolates, as penis-tipped tails unfurled from her friends’ rears, waving about behind them while they huddled together in conference.