Time Spent (6 page)

A horrifying wail erupted from her
throat, causing Mia, Tyler and Becca to clap their hands over their
ears. Mia sank to her knees. With the deafening wail came a bone
chilling wind, spreading frost over their skin in an
instant.

Suddenly, the wail stopped. Amber
froze in place, immobile.

"It's okay," Tyler said, keeping
his eyes focused on her. "I got her."

"The fuck was that?" Becca said,
shaking a finger in her ear.

"NO!" Mia stood, shaking ice
crystals from her spiky blue hair. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"

She slapped a hand at them and
yellow energy lashed out, knocking Tyler and Becca to the ground.
Amber stumbled forward, looked confused, then turned to the right
and began shambling in the direction of the base's main
gate.

"Amber!" Mia called, chasing after
her.

Tyler crawled painfully to his
feet, and extended a hand to help Becca stand up. "What the hell?"
he said. "Why did she attack us?"

"She doesn't need a reason,
haven't you noticed?" Becca said, watching Mia run after the pale
girl. "She's a crazy fucking bitch."

MIA

"The spark."

"My God," said General
Stearnes.

"Yeah," Mia said. "Tell me about
it."

Shiny black lines criss-crossed
the left side of her face, and a thin black latticework covered her
left eye. Her left hand, too, was covered in the metallic mesh of
circuitry.

"It's like Cable's technovirus,"
Brandon said, "by way of the Borg."

"Do you have a comic book
reference for
 
everything?
" Becca asked.

"No, sometimes they're movie
references!"

"You do know I can fly you into
the sun anytime I want, right? You get that?"

Brandon folded his arms. "You do
know when I fly back I can nuke you before you even know I'm
coming, RIGHT?"

"SHUT UP!" Mia shouted, smashing
her right hand into the wall. The yellow energy cratered a hole in
the plaster there. "This isn't getting us anywhere!"

"Maybe Zachary can help you too,"
Heather said.

Mia laughed. "Yeah, Zack seems
really helpful right now."

Zachary rocked back and forth in
the corner, arms wrapped around his knees, clutching them to his
chest.

"It's growing again," Tyler said.
He gazed intently at the maze of metal on Mia's face. "It grew when
you..."

"It feeds on it," Mia said. "It
grows every time I use my power. That's why I'm saying what are we
doing here? Why did you bring me here? You should have left me
there. You should have just left me."

______________________

Mia walked down the hallway, her
arms wrapped around herself, holding her books to her, looking
around wide-eyed at the chaos that surrounded her.

She had never before attended
public school.

It was like being a participant in
some kind of psychological experiment to see what kids did when
authority vanished. The halls were filled with insane, rushing, or
laughing students. No one seemed to know, or care to know, each
other. And the ones who did, well, she had already run afoul of a
few cliquish types who seemed to exist only to put down
others.

"Excuse me," she said, trying to
get to her locker. A mountain of a student, at least six and a half
feet tall and several hundred pounds, blocked it at the
moment.

The giant turned around, and
looked down at her with veiny eyes set in a pug nosed
face.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "Am I in
your way?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"I'm Brock," he said, extending
one enormous ham hand.

"...Mia," she put her tiny hand in
his, and endured his sweaty clasp for a moment before pulling it
back.

But Brock did not move.

"Ok, so could you move please?"
asked Mia.

"I'm thinking about it, skinny,"
he said. He reached out a hand to touch a lock of her black hair.
Mia yanked back her head.

"Don't touch me!" she
said.

"Aw, be friendly now," he said.
"Not much to touch anyway." He tried to peek down into her shirt.
"Not much at all." His friends, or whoever they were, giggled at
his antics.

Ugh.
 
Mia was not into boys, but she
had had male friends at St. Anthony's, and never really had a
problem with them. If this were to be what public school boys were
all like, she would not make it here. "Look, I just want to get to
my locker, okay?"

"Why don't you squeeze that skinny
body past me?" asked Brock. "You might feel somethin' you like."
His friends laughed louder.

"Forget it," Mia said,
exasperated. She turned and walked off to class without getting her
book.

A quiet girl in a baggy sweater,
watching the scene from nearby, followed after her.

______________________

The chain link fence frosted over
and fell apart. Amber staggered through, white footprints marking
her passage.

"Baby!" Mia called, following
behind her, but Amber did not acknowledge her presence.

Amber walked into the street
outside the base, cars swerving to avoid her. One car stopped in
front of her, and the driver plunged his hand into the horn,
blaring it over and over. Amber stopped, and cocked her head in his
direction.

"It's okay, Amber, I'll handle
this." Mia raised her right hand, the yellow energy balling around
it.

Before she could swat at the car,
however, Amber's mouth yawned open again. The wailing sound
emerged, and Mia clapped her hands over her ears. A cone of frost
swirled forth from her open mouth, and spread out to engulf car and
driver. The sound built and built, until finally the car windows
shattered, sending bits of glass raining down on the street. Frost
built up on the driver, and within seconds he was encased in solid
ice.

Amber turned, and continued
walking.

"Holy shit," Mia said, looking at
the frozen driver. The energy around her right hand died away.
"Amber!"

Amber shambled toward the
city.

"Baby, stop!" Mia said. "What
happened to you? How did you get like this?"

Words seeped from between Amber's
lips in a misty whisper. "The school bus."

"Wha-? No, baby, you weren't on
the bus!"

Amber cocked her head to the side.
"It hurts. Everything hurts."

"Stop! Amber, stop walking and let
me help you!"

"I can't stop," Amber said. "Can't
stop until I get there."

"Get where? Where are you
going?"

Her head waved from side to side.
"I just want it to end. She said it would end when I get
there."

"She who? Who's 'she'?"

"She said everything would finally
end."

A voice blasted from behind them
as if over a loudspeaker.

"OH YEAH WHAT WE GOT HERE? HOT
GIRL ON GIRL ACTION!"

Mia turned, and her eyes widened
at the horrifying sight behind her.

Who
 
it was was instantly
recognizable: Brock Kenney, gargantuan football player from her
high school.
 
What
 
it was, or what Brock had become, was a terrifying unknown.
Brock was naked, bigger than ever, at least eight feet tall, and
his body was lined with metal, which appeared to be embedded in his
skin. Spiked metal rings were set in his arms, legs, and torso.
Circuitry ran up his neck and around his face, and metal
protrusions jabbed from his shoulders.  A black metal dome
covered his skull, and what looked like glowing satellite dishes
sat where his eyes had once been. That was not the most
disturbing sight, however. The most disturbing thing was Brock's
penis, lined with jagged black metal, extended to nearly a foot and
a half, and whipping around like a live wire.

"Oh Jesus," Mia said, disgusted
and horrified at once.

Brock was holding a man with his
right hand, a soldier from the look of it. Circuitry covered the
soldier's face and hands. Brock pitched the soldier aside, and he
climbed to his feet and staggered away like a zombie.

Brock's mouth opened, and without
his lips or tongue moving, his voice issued from a speaker
apparently mounted somewhere in his throat:
 
"imageanalysisfacialrecognitionengaged. Hey HEY! If it AIN'T
the littlest LEZBO I know! Come here GIRL I got a SURPRISE for YOU!
targetacquiredtargetacquired."

"Oh, I got a surprise for you too,
Brock." Yellow energy crackled from her eyes. "A big
surprise..."

______________________

The rooftop door buckled and fell
aside, doorjamb shattering under the assault of the yellow energy.
Mia stepped out onto the rooftop and into a howling windstorm.
Amber was at the center of it, perhaps
 
was
 
the center of it, her open
mouth unleashing a howl of sound and biting cold that swirled
around her to engulf the building.

Mia tried to move closer, but the
pain near her left ear intensified, and she swayed, unsteady on her
feet.

A spark jumped from her to Amber,
and back again.

Soon, others arrived, and sparks
jumped from Amber to Mia, to the others, and around again. Finally,
an area near Amber darkened, and the world seemed to crack open and
peel away. When it came together again, Kevin stood on the
rooftop.

Lines of energy arced between them
now, and then arced into the air above the rooftop. And where they
came together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in
the air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice,
only a million times louder.

______________________

Mia walked through the cafeteria,
looking for a table. Finally, she sat, picking at her food with her
fork: some kind of meatloaf supposedly, and it was definitely a
loaf, but meat? She wasn't sure.

"Can I sit here?"

Mia looked up. It was a girl,
small like Mia herself, with straight, light brown hair that fell
between her shoulder blades. She was very thin, and wore a baggy
sweatshirt and loose-fitting jeans. She was pretty though, and Mia
was instantly taken by her eyes.

"Sure," Mia said. "Yeah, you
can."

The girl sat down across from
her.

"You don't have a tray," Mia
said.

"I'm not hungry," she
said.

"Oh." Mia looked at her tray. "I'm
not really that hungry either. You want to split these apple
slices?"

"Okay, thanks," the girl said,
taking one.

"I'm Mia."

"Amber."

She's so
pretty,
 
Mia
thought, but she didn't want to say anything, didn't want her to
know.

"I just started here," Mia
said.

"I know," Amber said. "I mean, I
knew I didn't recognize you. From before."

"Yeah, I went to a different
school before..." Mia thought about it, and decided to risk a
little. She leaned forward and whispered, "I was in juvie. For a
year and a half."

Amber's eyes widened. "What did
you do?"

That, Mia could not tell. Never.
"It was nothing, it was stupid. Nothing."

Amber quietly ate a slice of
apple.

"Anyway," Mia went on, "yeah, I
used to go to Catholic school. St. Anthony's."

"Did you like it there?" she
asked.

Mia considered. "It was okay, I
guess. The sisters could be mean."

"Sisters?"

"Yeah, the nuns."

"Oh," Amber said, "Duh! I'm
stupid."

"No you're not." Mia said. "You're
just not Catholic. Which is good for you, trust me."

They laughed.

"I am stupid though. Everyone's
always saying that."

"No!" Mia became very serious.
"You're not. Don't say that!"

Amber ate another slice of
apple.

"Well well, what do we have here?"
Brock had come up beside their table. "Aw, do we have a lezbo love
connection?"

"Go away," Mia said, annoyed.
"God, you're such a caveman."

"Is that it, Amber?" Brock asked.
"Are you in love?"

Amber looked down and stayed
quiet.

"Leave her alone," Mia
said.

"You might want to be careful with
this one," Brock said, and he reached down to yank Amber's baggy
sleeve up, revealing dark scars crossing her arm. "Homegirl has
issues!"

Amber recoiled, yanking the sleeve
down.

Mia stood up. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"
she screamed.