Stray (9 page)

Anyway, Nenna doesn't hate me.  She apologised to me.  So now we're apologising to each other.  I told her what little I guess I can – her father's probably able to tell her more anyway – and promised to translate the lyrics to the songs when I can.

It was so good to get her email. 

Saturday, January 19

Blacksuits

Another test session today with Zee.  We did basic lifting.  Or, rather, I stood around feeling tired and extraneous while she lifted things.  Then there was another woman, Mara, who was talkative and had wonderfully sproingy curly hair.  She and Zee and Maze are all from 'First Squad': they're the oldest of the Setari, one of the three original combat squads created from children trained intensively to deal with monsters from the Ena.

After they decided the early results were promising, the Taren government vastly expanded the Setari program, and now there's a dozen six-person squads, most of them five to seven Earth-years younger than First Squad.  There's also a lot of people in training who haven't yet qualified for active duty on the squads.  The Setari program has been running for 60 years (twenty Earth years).

Mara explained all this to me while Zee was working out if being any distance from me
affected the temporary increase with her strength.  Mara is primarily a Speed talent, but she can also make a glowing light which curls about like a kind of cutting whip.  I made her even faster, which she was pleased about, but something about how the whip worked really shocked them.  It came out in a different colour and they spent ages studying it and being confused.  Then I was put back in my box.  I hate being a lab rat. 

More Labrattery

After a few hours I was recalled for more experiments with First Squad – all of them this time.  There's four girls – Zee, Mara, Alay, Ketzaren – and two guys – Maze and Lohn.  All in their mid-twenties, all wearing their black uniforms and looking very fit and smart and...worn.  I didn't like to ask if all the years fighting monsters ran together for them, or if they ever get to stop.

The uniform the Setari wear is very interesting.  It's flexible and stretchy: solid stuff but not so unwieldy as a wetsuit, and – it's hard to think what it reminds me of.  Expensive sport shoes, with their airholes for breathing and all the extra stitching and complexity.  It's very tight-fitting and all-covering – the neck part goes right up to the chin and the arms to fingerless gloves, and the soft boots seem to be built in too, and it looks like it must be a pain to take on and off.  It's far more layered and complex than the spandex suits of superheroes, but with a cape and a big logo I bet they could pass.

There's something unspeakably tedious about standing about while people act worried and excited, and you don't really understand why.  Especially when they started communicating on channels I didn't have access to instead of speaking, which really brought back the whole "you're an experimental subject"  feel again.

Maze, Zee and Mara – all of First Squad – are relaxed and friendly, though, which helps.  They talked me through some of the implications of the fact that I'm not just enhancing some of their powers, but changing them.  It really increases the danger.  The accident with Nenna was an example of that – it's possible that I didn't simply increase her strength, but changed the coordinates of her jump as well.  They were thinking of it only in terms of an overshoot before, but now they think it was a distortion, and that means that anyone trying to teleport me anywhere would be at huge risk.

I don't seem to distort everything though.  Or, at least, it's not noticeable if I am.  But Mara's 'Light whip' has a more melting effect when I enhance her, and Alay's Illusion casting goes totally weird.  Ketzaren felt dizzy when she tried to make me levitate and Lohn – who gives a good imitation of a
Star Wars
blaster shooting beams of Light – made a burning wall instead.  There was a big pause after that, where First Squad stood about looking disconcerted and listening to someone I couldn't hear, who I guess was having conniptions.

The one thing they did establish is that I consistently distort.  So Lohn's beams always became a wall, and Mara's Light whip was always the same.  They cheered up after that.  They're still going to have to go carefully working out just what effect I have, but consistently weird is a lot better than randomly weird.

And now I'm back in my box waiting for the next test.  I think it's the fact that the door won't open to me that bothers me most. 

Monday, January 21

Still alive still

I spent the beginning of the day translating song lyrics for Nenna.  I am improving.  My grammar is terrible, and I had to write a huge amount of explanatory notes to make half the concepts remotely understandable, but it showed me how far I'd come in being able to communicate.  Talking to First Squad between testing sessions has been helping.  I was feeling very proud of myself, even if I could tell it was a botched job, and had just mailed it off to her when I was brought down for another testing session.

This was more of the same, just working on the limits of me enhancing people.  So they had two, then three of the Setari touching me at the same time to see how many people I could enhance at once.

And down I went.  I never used to pass out on frequent occasions.  I'm not epileptic, and I never had a fit till I came to this planet.  Until now they weren't sure if I was being physically stressed by whatever I'm doing to enhance people.  And, well, now they know.

They're getting more anxious about killing me, I think.  The greysuits, that is, and whoever it is giving orders over the interface.  I don't see these at all, just First Squad and greysuits.

First Squad were very upset, and Zee and Maze came to the infirmary after I'd woken up again and we all apologised to each other for nothing which was our own fault.  They don't seem bothered by the tests, they just think they should have somehow predicted what was going to happen and prevented it. 

Change of pace

Sa Lents came to see me for the first time since Nenna's accident.  He didn't act like he blamed me or anything, but it was still uncomfortable.  No experiments 'today', just talking with Sa Lents, trying to describe Earth's history.

My sleep schedule is totally messed up.  The lack of proper day and night, and the way the people I've been working with all seem to be on different shifts, really messes with me.  Their breakfast is my dinner and so forth.

Tuesday, January 22

Zan

Today I was assigned to a girl called Zan.  She's from Twelfth Squad and is another telekinetic.  She's short and very serious and has blonde-brown hair which is very fine and cut into a soft and wispy bob.  Quite pretty golden-brown eyes.

They've decided to postpone further experiments with me because they think I'm too worn down.  Being half-starved on Muina and then that bad cold and then the broken collarbone and all these bad reactions I've had are adding up.  Even though I've had regular meals and not really done anything since I was rescued, I've not put on much weight and certainly aren't fit.  They want me to get healthy and they're going to confine the tests purely to Zan's Telekinesis for a while.  She only has the one psychic talent, with no secondary talents at all.

She's also going to train me.  In some kind of judo, which is not exactly something I'm keen on.  Hitting people is...just not me.  They want to study the effect of prolonged exposure to Zan, and at the same time make me a bit more capable of surviving, should they ever decide it's a good idea to use me in combat.  I really am a potential weapon to these people.

It's hard to tell what Zan thinks of all this.  She's what Mum would call 'scrrrrupulously correct' and even though she's trained all her life to be an incredibly deadly monster fighter, she didn't act as if there was anything odd about teaching some unco beginner how to stand and how to step back and forward over and over again.  Must be dull as hell for her.

She did do the wide-eyed thing when they tested how I enhanced her.  By herself she's a lot stronger than Maze.  With me, she can lift all the test blocks at once. 

Wednesday, January 23

Lab Rat One

I spent all of today having test after test in the medical labs.  Ista Tremmar is polite and all, but she's still inclined to leave me sitting on an examining table for an hour while they talk about me.  If I didn't have the interface kindergarten to keep me occupied I'd go mad.

Maybe that's what Zan does during our exercises – zones out and reads her email.  If I ask her questions, she answers in the briefest possible way, and she never asks me anything.  I miss Nenna's chatter so much.  I miss that she treated me as a person as well as an exciting curiosity.

When I was delivered back to my box today I drew a rat on all my clothes, and wrote 'Lab Rat One' underneath it, making a little logo for my official designation on this world.

Today I particularly miss Alyssa.  I've only known Alyssa a few years, but she's the only person I really tell things to.  I hadn't realised how important that was to me.

Thursday, January 24

Attitude adjustment

Strange how going around wearing my lab rat logo makes me feel so much better.  This morning's session with Zan went well because I felt less like I was helplessly doing what I was told, and was, well, doing what I was told while wearing an ironic comment about it.

We're still working on stances.  Step forward, step backward, over and over again, very controlled.  I concentrated more on it this time, deciding I at least may as well do the best I can, even if I know that I'm never going to be really good at this kind of stuff, and will only be laughable in comparison to athletic people who have been training since they were five.  I'm going to have a go at cracking Zan, too – at least get her to treat me a little less like an assignment.  I don't care if she takes a teacher/student attitude, even though she can't be more than a year older than me, but I want some kind of interaction, some kind of response.

I'm really curious about her now, about if she's so serious and unsmiling all the time, and why.  First Squad was a lot more open and friendly.  And I know I'm not going to get a chance to work out Zan if I'm all sullen and unwilling.  I mightn't have a whole lot of power and independence in this place, but I can control the way I act and that will make me feel better.

I've never thought of myself as a 'typical' Australian – that whole laconic and stoic thing – but I'm trying to use that attitude to cope with here.  To copy Nick, who is always so calm and unfussed by everything that the world throws at him.  Not super-optimistic or unbelievably Pollyanna, but he sets a great balance between dealing with the bad stuff and enjoying all the good bits.  Nick would never lose sight of the fact that I'm no longer starving on Muina.

Nick's an ex-step-cousin.  His dad was married to my Aunt Sue when we were younger, and we saw a lot of each other – all the family holidays and so forth.  His dad started being an ass, so my aunt divorced him, and Nick does a lot of making sure he doesn't go completely off the rails.  We still live in the same area, though, and Mum and Aunt Sue keep including Nick in holidays as if we're still related and I see him at inter-school events.  He's not quite one of those incredibly popular people like HM, but he has a relaxed focus on what he thinks is fun which makes him really great to be around.  Nick would be far better able to cope with being here. 

Friday, January 25

Baby steps

I've started looking forward to my sessions with Zan.  Not because I like the exercise particularly, but because I'm actually
doing
something.  Medical examinations are the worst – sitting around for ages, holding still for the benefit of the scanners, or getting blood samples taken. 

Since I'm waiting around
all
the time, either in my box or being examined, I'm damn lucky I have something to do, but kindergarten is keeping me sane and driving me nuts at the same time.  I want back the access I had before my accident.  I can't watch any of the entertainment channels, or even try to read books longer than twenty words.  I asked about getting access back, and they said I had to reach certain qualification levels.  In other words, no play until I'm out of school.  It's obviously an attempt to push me to improve my language skills, but, heck, I'm sure I'd learn lots of useful words watching that silly singing Setari show Nenna liked so much.

Training, even though it's repetitive and I tire quickly, is like being let out of a cage.  While Zan is correct and distant, she's also patient, and I think it makes training some idiot stray better for her if I try.  I do feel a complete gangling gawk beside her; she's so small and fine-boned.  But quite deadly.  I saw her practicing when I came in this morning, and was wholly dismayed at the thought of ever trying to move like that, but it seems she's aiming to train me to dodge, rather than try and hit things.  And to be fitter and wheeze less.

Saturday, January 26

Speed trial

I hit a round of tests in my interface kindergarten, and was on the back foot from the start since tests trigger a 'test environment', and it's almost like being in a darkened room inside your own head.  I could
just
see the real room.  I hadn't realised how thoroughly the interface could impact my senses, and while Ista Tremmar told me later that the interface is restricted from making people completely blind and deaf for safety reasons, that did
not
reassure me in the slightest.