Kids have to deal with online school, because being government lab rats and super soldiers isn't hell enough - and they are still recovering from a battle! TW for Jonathan's internalized ableism, including use of the R-slur, because I've spent the last two years teaching and kids absolutely still use it, ESPECIALLY when they feel stupid.
Oh also you get no points for guessing that Stricken was the one who came up with the fake cover names for the kids whose deaths were faked.
Beta-read, as always, by @canyouhearthelight, who did a huge amount of work in Shiloh's section. Honestly, there was a whole argument that went into the second paragraph of this chapter about caffiene dosing, of all things...
Oh, also, yes, this chapter has an abundance of the "thing you read/learn about in school is relevant to your life in a bad way," trope because I'm a sucker for it.
Shiloh
Watching the video with these godawful auto-generated subtitles was always annoying - worse yet because Shiloh was already overstimulated, and was still trying to recover from the battle. Curtis had mentioned it was normal to fully crash a day or two after extended combat, especially for a rookie fighter, but it was making everything in their brain feel like a deep fog.
After the long debriefs with the full team, and higher ups looking over their combat performance, that same brain fog and their fall-off in healing capacity towards the end of the engagement had their loadout being adjusted. Not only were they now carrying conventional medic gear to augment what they could do, with spray on skin and antiseptics for mild burns, chest seals, and other gear to save their powers for when it was really needed, they were now going to be carrying a bunch of First Strike Ration bars which came with an insane caloric density and were fortified with 200mg of pure caffeine concentrate a pop. That, plus microdoses of adrenaline for if they started really fading…They could push much much harder. They wouldn’t be staggering around and falling down helpless.
They realized they’d zoned out of another important part of the video they were trying to watch - motherfucker WHY DID THIS NOT HAVE A TRANSCRIPT - and rewound again, then realized that the subtitles were so bad that it was almost pointless anyway. Gripping their thigh and squeezing, then drumming their fingers on the desk, Shiloh paused the video and took a breath.
Then they started googling the topic with places that weren’t FUCKING video based, figuring that they were going to have to figure it out themselves. They knew they weren’t stupid, and they could at least pull off and get the information well enough from other sources, even if it wasn’t as complete as it otherwise might have been. Still, it was annoying to struggle…
They had been staring at the screen where they’d pulled up the article for a while. Come on, focu…they drummed their hand on the desk to get something going, trying to focus on reading about expansion of changing states of matter. It was hard to believe this was relevant to their life given that they were….
Then it abruptly hit them that this was very much relevant to their life and they stood up and stepped away from the desk. No, they didn’t need to understand the physics behind that. They wanted to learn how bodies worked so they could fix it, in case it happened to one of the people they cared about. They tried to force themselves to focus again, but it was…the sudden spike of adrenaline from thinking about the bodies they’d had to try to fuse back together, the exhaustion that was finally hitting…
Leon was finally walking over, signing gently. “Shiloh? You okay?”
Shiloh shook their head. “Subtitles aren’t working right, and trying to read it from the textbook helped but it’s freaking me out.”
Leon looked at them, then Shiloh pointed out the passage they’d read. “How the aliens fight. Do I even have to do this?”
Leon took a breath. “Yeah, let’s…try to help you through this lesson, first, so you don’t have to come back to it. Then let’s give you a break. Pretty much everyone is struggling today.”
Mark
He was tired, and staring at a computer was not helping him focus. Still, he had ambitions of going places that probably required a college degree after the war, so he needed to get through it.
Still, he was focusing on things that would actually help him - he didn’t need to pass art to graduate, so he wasn’t bothering. Math was only up to a certain point, but Curtis mentioned it would help him with logistics, so he was willing to suffer through it. Physics was giving him good ideas about how to use his powers, or use his team’s powers, so he wasn’t going to complain - he didn’t know he wanted to bother with an elective science next year. History may be useful, especially civics, and he was thinking of taking the foreign policy course elective next year to have a better chance as the team traveled. English - eh, maybe, for public speaking, but for the most part it was a thing he could afford to bare minimum so he could graduate and leave public speaking to Xavier and Casey.
He took some breaths and continued working. Focus - he saw Shiloh stand up, and tried to focus down for himself.
The questions on this assignment were annoying - how long had he been staring at this one? He pulled some scratch paper and tried to work it out, finding himself more annoyed than before. Set up the problem, realistically if I can do that in real life I can run a calculator.
He listened to the teacher droning and tried to restrain his anger, his contempt, as the teacher on the zoom screen pointed out that he was obviously not paying attention. Idly, Mark pondered leaning into the ‘insane group home’ thing and telling the truth that he was busy trying to figure out how to graduate while juggling being a test subject for government experiments and fighting a war with aliens. He’d be written off, and but he’d have this condescending jackass eat himself whole when the whole mess was declassified. No, Mark thought. Complicates my path to graduation if he assumes I’m crazy rather than assuming I’m totally under my own control. And by the time he’d be dealing with the consequences I won’t get to laugh.
Instead, he refocused on the lesson to the best of his ability, gritting his teeth over the exhaustion. Come on, focus, just a little harder.
Mark sighed as the teacher kept talking, having called attention to him and now leaving him alone while he worked through the problems. He glanced around - Xavier was doing about as well as he was from the looks of things, he gave it about even odds that Echo had gotten fed up with being talked down to by someone with half her IQ and just built an AI to do her homework for her, Casey and Molly were trying as hard as they could…
“Mr. Rosenberg, do you have the answer?”
Mark snapped, the irritation of the stupid fake name he’d been given finally wearing thin his patience after the week, and the teacher of the one day a month he had to show up for actual guided classes having thoroughly run out of luck for getting Mark of all people the day after the battle. He flicked the mic on. “Yeah, this one, and the next, and the next. All the way down to the last five, which I’m still chewing on. I had to do something to entertain myself and listening to you run your mouth wasn’t going to do it.”
Leon looked over at the vicious tone in his voice - he was almost surprised to hear it. He’d never spoken like that in school before, though he probably would have if Imperator had put him or the others in school directly after abduction rather than keeping him for a few weeks to settle in.
“That’s disrespectful. A bit of -”
Mark muted himself before he could fire off the dozen insults that rapidly sprang to mind, and tuned out what else the idiot was saying. Leon approached and asked him what was going on.
“Just…short fuse. Been trying to focus on getting through school in the midst of the war and I don’t need the teacher’s shit. That’s all.”
Leon looked quietly concerned but nodded. “I understand why you feel that way, but I need you to try to slow down, take a breath. We’ll talk about that more in our next session.”
Casey
English - it had been her choice on what independent study to focus on this week, she supposed, and English was an easier thing to work on than math, but god, really, did she want to be reading Catcher in the Rye in the middle of…actually, yeah. Because it felt like the kind of thing she’d get to complain about if she was back home. So she focused on Holden Caulfield, and his miserable little life, and wondered if her younger brother would be reading it soon back in Cincinnati. How he’d do with it. How her sisters would do with it, without her to help them with the homework.
She started on the essay, and tried, just for a minute, to pretend this was her biggest problem. She remembered hating school, and it still wasn’t exactly fun, but now it was at least…it was at least something normal in the midst of everything else. A reminder that she was going to be normal again, want to go to college, want to get married, have kids, be normal again, even if her powers were never going to leave her.
Something tickled at her as she read it - she got why people didn’t like Holden, he was angsty, self-pitying, obnoxious, mean-spirited, and flat-out gross, but she also understood what he wanted. Looking after his sister and deciding, eventually, to do what he had to because it was the way to look after her, being her…god that was such a dumb expression…”Catcher in the Rye…”
She sighed, as she looked at her essay. If she asked anyone else to look at this, she was going to get psychoanalyzed. Everyone, EVERYONE, hated Holden Caulfield. Jonathan and Echo hated Holden and they were actual orphans like he was, so it probably wasn’t okay to write off his shitty attitude as being trauma related. She hated him for making his little sister worry about him as much as she did, since it shouldn’t have been her job, but him getting his act together at the end had felt good to watch, like someone should have recognized that he made progress in taking responsibility.
She knew Leon would tell her she only felt that way because she’d been parentified, whatever that meant, that she’d been her mother’s secret-keeper, all that. Had been a Catcher for her younger siblings, since she knew that her parents’ marriage hadn’t been going as cleanly as it could be before she disappeared - her dad working all those extra shifts, her mom struggling to keep up with everything she and her siblings did. She’d tried to have fewer extracurriculars to take some of the weight off, help out with the little ones, listen to her mom so the younger ones didn’t learn about it, but…
She looked at the essay she’d written and slowly deleted a lot of it, some of it was too personal. Then she started writing again.
Damnit. I’m still doing it. Still trying to end the war before it hits them. Not that I can. But…
Casey took a breath. At least school, and all the annoyances and embarrassments that came with it, that could be normal. She could be normal again, eventually. As normal as she’d ever been.
Jonathan
Why was it wrong!? He’d done everything right!
He took a breath and forced himself to focus, checked - and realized that some of the numbers further back up the question had gotten flipped around. He tried to remind himself that Leon said he had a learning disability, that it didn’t make him stupid, that if he’d had good parents and wasn’t stuck in Imperator he would have accommodations, he wouldn’t be struggling so hard, but it was hard when he failed over and over in math that everyone else seemed able to do - hell, that Mark was practically blowing out of the water while ignoring the teacher and Echo had mentioned making an AI to do for her so she could learn more interesting stuff.
Fuck, wasn’t ‘learning disability’ just a nice way of saying ‘retarded’? His dad had always told him he was, and pretty much everyone told him he was dumber than a rock. The chair creaked under his grip, and he was suddenly crouching, catlike, as the chair toppled, and he realized that he’d accidentally snapped one of the legs off while just squeezing it.
Stupid, stupid. He grabbed another chair and sat back down, Leon coming over as he tried to compose himself and talking to him softly. “Jonathan…”
“I’m so fucking done, Leon. I’m fucking retarded and there’s nothing about this that makes sense. I can’t do better with this and I don’t know what the point is because I’m not going to be anything but a Praetorian either way. Can I please, please just drop out so I don’t have to keep doing this? I’m not smart enough for college and…”
He took a breath and Leon asked, very softly, if he needed a hug, and Jonathan nodded, keeping his arms at his sides - he didn’t trust himself not to crush the closest thing he had to a mother by mistake right now, as she held him. “You are not stupid, Jonathan. And you have a future after the war. I’m gonna twist Stricken’s…no fuck that. I’m going to send an email to the school and say that I am concerned about your grades and want an IEP meeting of some kind. We can get you some kind of accommodations, I’m tired of watching you do this to yourself.”
Jonathan blinked. “Can…can you do that? Will you get in trouble? Don’t get in trouble and get yourself hurt for me. It’s not worth it, I’d rather just drop out…”
Leon shook her head. “I’m not going to get in trouble. Big picture, it’s something that would be expected if a kid is struggling this badly and if I suddenly disappear, it’ll bring up more questions - I’ve been the contact for all of you with the school the whole time. I can’t get away with doing stuff like this often, but while I’m at it I might as well come up with some story about how I finally have the paperwork from the state about Shiloh’s hearing issues and need better subtitles or transcripts.”
Jonathan took a breath. The thought that this could be better - “Are you sure? That I could actually do it if you get me what I need?”
Leon nodded. “I’m certain. You’re not stupid, Jonathan. You’ve spent your whole life being told you are, but you aren’t stupid, and you aren’t worthless. You have a future after this, after the war, and I want to help you plan for it.”
That was it. He started crying, and gently held Leon. “Thanks, mom.”
After the last chapter, I got a lot of questions around "why isn't this horror". No, not just you, those of you who messaged or tagged or commented. I got about ten total. You are not alone.
There is, actually, a few very real reasons why I specified that this isn't horror.
At least a dozen people who I know for a fact will or have read this live with permanent pain or permanent prosthetics on a daily basis. It's not horror, it's a very real thing that happens and people have to deal with, so I feel that tagging it as horror is ableist.
The protagonist is horrified by a lot of what happens in the story, but exactly none of it is due to their bio hacks. The pain is just a daily thing. Even fully abled ballet dancers have an 'acceptable' amount of pain that is part of the process. (may my toes forgive me, eventually)
Bio hacking and 'ownership' of the modifications is very much a cyberpunk trope, so once I tagged it with that, I felt adding anything else related was over the top. I am sorry, it's a thing, it's part of the genre. I even gave references to stories and living conditions this is drawn from.
All that aside, thanks to @baelpenrose for encouraging me to write this story and not just encouraging but demanding I finish. The fact that you needed to know the end so badly let me know I had a story.
And for @vulgarvulpine... This is dedicated to you.
My “day off” consisted of a silent maid allowing me to soak in a warm bath as long as I wanted before I was moved to the sun room to watch the snow outside fall but never touch the heated glass walls and ceiling. No rehearsals, no interactions, only warm, soft food and matching pajamas. I was allowed unlimited salt on my dinner, and a massage for my pain before my sleep period.
It was a decadence I had forgotten existed.
When I woke the following morning, I was pleased to discover I hadn’t overindulged and added a puffy face and aching head to my numerous daily discomforts. After my normal breakfast and being dressed in rehearsal clothes, I was whisked away to the studio. The familiar jostling and pangs throughout my body made it clear that the room I spent most of my life in hadn’t relocated. Something did seem different, though. Ripples of unease and hushed whispers moved through my security detail, leaving a tension so firm that I felt I could strum the threads of it each time a guard came close to me. Curiosity stirred within me, but I knew I couldn’t ask - no one would tell Master Arik’s prized possession anything security related.
As if summoned by my very thoughts, Arik’s voice broke from my reverie. My heart hammered so hard I could hear it, and I was certain he could see my hair twitch as I felt my pulse radiate across my scalp. “We were quite successful,” he oozed in what must pass for charm. Gently, he grabbed my jaw with his cold fingers. “Hmm. No wine.” I inhaled sharply in relief as he released me. “I have added additional security to the studio - it will be locked the entire time you are within, keyed to the genetic material I gave you.”
Pain flared in my spine as I started in shock, but my brain could not force out the objections echoing in my head. I am being imprisoned for doing what you asked?
He turned away from me, waving one hand nonchalantly. “I must protect my property, after all. And while owning a person is illegal, I do have a patent on the genetics you carry.” A sharp clap startled me, and he whirled back around. “But this is a boon for you!” he cooed. “After all, if you are locked within the studio, there is no reason not to allow you full nerve blocks during rehearsals.”
I blinked slowly as I digested his words. Full nerve blocks, I thought. Not the half-blocks that left me just functional enough to pay attention. “All rehearsals?”
“Even warm ups,” he nodded. “Starting as soon as you cross this threshold.”
Swallowing thickly, I asked the same question I always asked after a job well done. “And my family?”
“Ten percent of your stock has been paid out to them,” he nodded. “As promised.”
I knew I had performed flawlessly. My stock was surely on the rise… all the murmuring from the audience, the ball I had not been permitted to attend… My parents must have been paid well. Enough to buy a house, at least.
All it took was a nod, and I was wheeled through the entrance to the studio, a double thud locking it behind me. Banishing thoughts of Arik or my family from my mind, I set my jaw and my arms to force myself from the chair.
M. Russo, my instructor, scoffed his impatience and hauled me to my feet. Only through experience and willpower was I able to keep from screaming as every joint in my hips and legs sent fire through my body. “I am told I must give you these injections now, before we rehearse,” he huffed.
With one shaking hand, I managed to push my warm up pants down on my left hip, pointing to the port where the injection belonged. “Hard,” I gasped.
My advice was clearly unneeded, as he stabbed the probe into me as though it was a knife - Urus could only dream of being so harsh. Before he even pulled his hand back, I had pointed to the other port, which he dispassionately injected as well. I nodded as I felt the nerve block take effect, and immediately started testing my limbs before walking over to the barre to begin stretching. It was only after completing the first two positions that I realized M. Russo was not snapping his usual corrections.
Turning my neck slowly, I finally found him. He was still standing beside my chair, blinking slowly at me. “Monsieur,” I called quietly. “I will not know if I am correct if you are not close enough to see.”
The gentle correction seemed to be all it took to restore our familiar roles, because M. Russo proceeded to sweep up his switch and begin tapping my limbs. I was proud that we only needed four or so corrections before I ceased overcorrecting and only a handful of other corrections were needed throughout my warm up.
“Master Arik has decided you will be Esmeralda next,” I was informed. “You did not have enough leaps in the pas de deux, he says.”
There are no leaps in the pas de deux, I grumbled to myself. M. Russo had added them where lifts should be, of course there were not enough leaps. But the role of Esmeralda had several kicks and opportunities for leaps, with some performances leaving me in awe of the skill of the unmodified performers.
“You shall leap higher, and longer, and with more perfection,” M. Russo announced, unknowingly echoing my own thoughts. “Show me your footwork, and we will move on to the jetes.”
For two months, I leapt in my sleep, flying like a bird. Each kick was a flap of my wings, each jete I imagined taking flight. M. Russo grumbled about being cheated of my capabilities, and only became more stern with his corrections. More and more precision was expected, with the role already requiring each motion to be precisely on beat to very sparse music. By the time the performance arrived, he had snapped several rods in his hands out of sheer frustration at the limits Master Arik had placed on us. “Leap, but not too high,” he muttered constantly. “Kick, but only so fast.”
When the performance finally came, I went through the familiar routine of a light warm up without the block, five hundred grams of food, and then being wheeled through the corridors and backstage to be dressed like a doll. Urus looked far more on edge than usual, nearly dropping the block for my performance. His injections were half-hearted at best.
“Pray my costume fails,” I muttered to him. “Surely someone will be lashed to death if that happens.”
All he did was grunt in response. “The feast after this display is much larger than I would like.”
The comment mattered little to me, since I would not be permitted at the celebration. Slowly, I tested my limbs and took position before the curtains withdrew, music already swelling into my ears. I was soon focused on the precise footwork and the soaring, athletic leaps M. Russo transformed several kicks into, all other thoughts forced from my mind. Left hand, right foot, I told myself. Ballon, ballon. Float.
I was in the middle of launching one of the leaps that tapped my foot against my tambourine when a sharp crack jarred me, sending me tumbling to the stage upon landing. Fear gripped me as I imagined Master Arik’s displeasure - what punishment would this earn? I screamed in my mind as gasps and shouts filled the hall. Rather than try to regain my feet, I laid as limply as possible in hopes of claiming I had fainted.
Hard hands gripped my arms as the shouts were replaced by screams, and I was dragged to my feet and from the stage. Whatever I had done was so bad that the curtains were not even closing. Not that it mattered - everyone was too busy screaming and running from the theater to notice. I was too busy being stuffed into my chair to figure out what I had done, but I was starting to think something far worse had happened to send people away in such terror.
“Take them to the studio and seal it,” Urus shouted angrily before I could even be changed out of my costume.
The journey that took place was disorienting, dizzying as I was flown through the hallways. Twists and turns I did not recognize blurred my eyes and forced my stomach to coil in nausea. A sharp double thud behind me ended my journey, mercifully before I had the chance to be sick on myself. Instead, I jumped to my feet and whirled around looking for someone to question.
I was only greeted by the pale reflection of myself in an empty room, standing on my own feet. The world seemed to spin around me as I realized that my nerve block was still in place and I was, mercifully, in control of my own body. In sheer shock, I sat in the chair again to avoid falling to the floor for the second time in a single night.
It was only two breaths into collecting myself that I heard shouting from the hallway, followed by the door behind me unlocking. My brief chance at freedom had been wasted. “Ensure they haven’t been injured,” Arik’s voice commanded. “Urus, you and the doctor only, I trust no one else.”
Once again, I was yanked to my feet, this time followed by a soft swear. The doctor’s hands flew to Urus’s, and matching stings hit each of my hips. “Be more careful,” the doctor scolded without clarification before carefully examining each of my limbs as though I was for sale. Once he finished, he nodded sharply. “No heat exhaustion, no injuries. The bullet missed entirely.”
“That one did, at least,” Arik spat in frustration. “Urus, have the locks been installed on their quarters?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“I want their bedding brought down here and two guards posted at all times.”
“Staggered shifts, sir.” It wasn’t a question, more an assumption.
“Make it four. Two at the door and one at each turn. And for the sake of fish, let them be seated.”
I was dropped into my chair more than lowered, but I was too dumbfounded to care. All I could think about were the leaps and kicks M. Russo and I had choreographed, the feeling of flying. The brief moment I stood on my own feet with no pain flickered in and out, that same free and soaring sensation threaded through. I fell asleep then and there from exhaustion into dreams of flying.
Recent additions to the Astralverse species list. Including our first "partially joined" species, the Kazirus - who are essentially the Brutes from Halo, if they'd advanced a bit further on the tech tree.
With their species in the midst of an interstellar civil war as of 2422, several Grand Clans of the Kazirus people have chosen to join the Astral Confederation, under varied statuses of political asylum or war refugee status.
This has met with opposition from a portion of the Confederation's Joorian population, as the two species share a long history of enmity. However, the Confederation as a whole has determined to protect these refugees, and has begun limited military intervention in the conflict, as well as providing extensive sapientarian / compassionate aid.
