Once it was time to go to dinner after visiting a bit with the others, I headed up. Tabbris was with me, along with Miranda, Sands, Sco–Sarah, and Koren. Avalon had gone up earlier, and Shiori was stopping by the house to take a quick shower after an… incident with some mud. They and the rest would catch up. Meanwhile, the six of us were talking about an old show Randi and I used to like, explaining the details to Sands and Sarah while stepping up onto the spot of the hill where the elevator was. The forcefield walls and floor formed around us, and we began to rise.
“Wait,” Sands blurted on the way up (thankfully, the elevator had been set to move at a normal pace instead of the incredibly slow version they’d been using earlier to get us all down here), “So the dog is a genie? Like, the full on granting wishes kind? And he can talk.”
Miranda nodded. “He didn’t start off as a dog, and the dog didn’t start as a genie. But when the kid found him, he was lonely. His only friend was his dog. So when he found the genie and said, ‘I wish you were my best friend’, it literally turned the genie into his best friend. His dog.”
Sands and Sarah looked at one another before speaking a single word together. “Weird.” Sands looked to us then and followed that up by herself with a flat, “Bystanders are so weird.”
“Hey,” Koren objected with a raised hand. “That show was the bomb, don’t go dissing it. I begged my mom to get a Samoyed for months because of that show, until she caved.”
“She let you get a dog like the one on the show?” I asked. “How was he?”
A slightly sad smile touched her face. “I named him Whim, just like the show. He was the best dog ever. Kinda dumb, but… but he was my dog.” She swallowed hard. “Then he got hit by a car. Mom said I could get a new dog, but… but I didn’t want a new dog. I–wait.” She paused, head tilting a little as her eyes widened. “No… did he get hit by a car? I found him… I think I found him in my room. Why would he be in my room when he was… oh. Oh…” Suddenly, she turned away from us, arms folded tightly over her stomach as her face turned green.
“The Fomorian,” I murmured, feeling a cold chill go over me. “You think it was the Fomorian.” The one who had been stalking her for such a long time, hiding around her for years. The one who had eventually shown himself, killed her father, erased him from their memories, and replaced him for a bit. The one from Thanksgiving last year, who had thankfully been killed.
We reached the top of the dome then, passing through it while Koren nodded. “My memories are all fuzzy and messed up. When I focus on it, I can remember finding him in the street, but I can also remember finding them in my room. It gets all blurry. What else would it be?” She cringed, bowing her head. “He was around for a long time. Of course he’d fuck with me like that. He probably thought it was funny. Or he wanted to see what I’d do. Or Whim noticed him or… or something. I dunno. But he killed my father, it’s not exactly a stretch that he’d kill my dog.”
Wincing, I hesitated before stepping over to embrace the other girl, my niece. She returned the hug after a brief hesitation, and we stood there on the elevator for a few seconds like that. It had been so easy to forget about just how long the Fomorian monster had been hiding in her house. So easy to stop thinking about him stalking Koren as a little girl. Mostly because thinking about it made me want to throw up, or scream, or both. It was too horrific and terrifying to focus on.
After a moment of that, the two of us released each other and stepped off the elevator with the others. Only then did I look around. The station had sure been changed a lot since the last time I was here back in Seosten space. They’d done a lot of work over the summer, moving around parts of the interior and changing things up, probably remodeling as much with magic as with tech. I assumed the point was to make the place easier for all of us to navigate properly through the areas we were supposed to be around, and probably also to accommodate the larger number of students the place had now that it was (mostly) a dedicated school.
Specifically, the area at the top of the elevator was a large circular room. The various elevators all ended up in this general area, so the floor had wide circular ‘holes’ covered by forcefields for each of them. Labeled doors were spaced relatively equally around the room. The metal plates beside each door had words in several languages stenciled into them, letting people know where each doorway led. There were seven doors from here. One was labeled ‘School and Auditorium’, another ‘Cafeteria, Kitchen, and Snackbar’, a third ‘Theater and Main Rec’, the fourth ‘Gym, Training Center, and Workshop’, the fifth ‘Spell and Power Testing’, and the sixth was ‘Transport.’
There was also a seventh door that was mostly unlabeled between the gym and spell testing doors. The plate there simply said, ‘Faculty And Authorized Personnel Only.’ There were several magical runes displayed openly on the door that I was sure weren’t the only protections it had.
Tabbris went first, heading for the cafeteria door as she spoke hesitantly to Koren. “I’m pretty sure my… my Mama can probably help you get your memories about that… back, if you want? I mean, the real memories, so you’re not confused about what was real and what wasn’t. If you… if you want to know exactly what happened without the Fomorian’s tampering.” She sounded like she wasn’t sure she should say anything about it, eyes darting to me briefly through that.
Koren, however, managed a very slight smile. “Thanks, Tabbris. That sounds…” She paused, carefully choosing her words. “It sounds horrifying as far as actually remembering exactly what happened goes, but also… good. I want my own real memories, not this jumbled bullshit. Sorry.”
Sarah spoke up then, her voice a quiet murmur. “Real memories are better than fake ones.” Lifting her fake arm, the one with the solid-light hologram, she seemed to study it briefly before looking to the rest of us. “Even if they hurt.” Belatedly, she amended, “Especially if they hurt.”
“She’s right.” That was Vanessa, as she and Tristan arrived on another elevator with Jazz. “Bad memories hurt. But they make you grow too. Ignoring them, erasing them, that doesn’t help.”
“She says,” Tristan teased, “having never forgotten anything in her entire life.”
Together, we headed for the cafeteria. First, we passed through the doorway and began to walk through the connecting tube. Like before, the ‘glass’ of the tube showed scenes from other parts space, though these particular ones had been changed to show a view of our own solar system from what looked like the moon. It was like we were on a station hovering above that instead of one buried deep inside the sun itself. Those of us who had lived here before had fun explaining that to the rest.
Others joined us on the way as we continued on, a small crowd making our way through the tube to the cafeteria station. Eventually, we all emerged into another wide circular room. We were essentially at the six o’clock position. Straight ahead across the room at the twelve o’clock spot were two wide double doors big enough to let a full sized troll pass through. Above the doors was a metal plate announcing the room as ‘Main Cafeteria.’ The doors were open and we could see tables through them. At the nine o’clock position were another set of doors labeled ‘Kitchen – Staff Only’ and at the three o’clock spot were doors labeled ‘Snackbar and Lounge.’
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Avalon was waiting by the doors into the main cafeteria, and we met up with her while heading in. My hand found hers, squeezing briefly before I asked, “So, did the big gym meet your high standards?” She had gone up to check the place out, making sure the training center was up to the kind of workouts she wanted to put all of us through. Sure, there was one down in the living habitat, but when we really wanted to go through our paces, we’d need the main one up here.
Offering me a small smile and shrug, Valley replied, “It’s good enough for now. I’m sure we’ll find ways to improve it over the year. Plenty of time.” Her hand squeezed mine a little more firmly before she added, “There’s a lot of work to do in general, but it’s a pretty good start.”
“I’ll tell my mom you said that,” Koren informed her dryly, stepping aside to let others pass. “Hearing ‘pretty good start’ from Avalon Sinclaire is basically a five star review. She’ll take it.”
Snorting at that, I looked around. The cafeteria they had set up was… similar to the one at Crossroads, but still different. The room was essentially rectangular, and set into three descending levels. The area we came in on was the highest level. To the left and straight across was the L-shaped serving counter where food could be ordered and picked up. A mixture of long rectangular and smaller circular tables filled the rest of the space. At the edge of that area to the right were stairs leading down to the middle level, where more tables were arranged. There was another set of stairs to the right of that leading down to the third and final level. There were a few tables down there, but most of the space was taken up by lounge chairs and more casual seating. There was a stage just past that where people could stand and talk, along with a screen on the far right wall, taking up the entire thing. Currently, an old Roadrunner cartoon was playing on the screen, while a bunch of people watched and laughed along with it. Some were human, some not. Regardless of species, they were all thoroughly engrossed in the video. Which kind of said something about the universal appeal of Warner Brothers cartoons.
Heading with the others over to the counter, we found small, individual white boards attached to the counter itself, all down the line. There were markers attached to the boards, along with a metal plate below them with an explanation. You were supposed to write what you wanted, include any details if it was a special order like how you liked the steak or what dietary restrictions you had, or even detail what something was if it happened to be something unique or rare. You just wrote it down, then the writing would disappear. When it disappeared, that meant the order was received. A tray would then appear, which you took to your seat, and the food would eventually be sent to that tray. Easy enough.
We each spread out, wrote down what we wanted for dinner, took the trays that appeared, and then went for one of the long tables on the second level, near the wall opposite the entrance. I sat next to Avalon, with Tabbris across from me and an empty seat for Shiori on the other side.
Vanessa, who sat next to Tabbris, put her tray down with a quiet, “Being in school feels weird.”
“Whelp, that’s it,” Tristan announced, standing right back up from his seat he had just taken next to his twin and dusting himself off. “Nessa thinking that being in school is weird is basically the final sign of the apocalypse. Our entire universe should be wiped out aaaany second now.”
Rolling her eyes, Vanessa primly informed him, “I meant that it feels weird to be in school again after what happened at Crossroads. Not to mention all this fighting that’s going on. It feels… funny sitting here, getting ready to go to classes tomorrow. Not wrong or bad. School never feels bad. Just… funny.” She shrugged a bit helplessly. “You know what I mean.”
“Sure do,” Jazz agreed after looking up from her phone. “But you know what’s really weird?”
Jokai finished for her, the chameleon-man appearing in time to take the seat next to his girlfriend. “Having… telephone connection inside sun.” His English had gotten better over the months since we met him, even if he still had to take the time to think through what he was saying. He was understandable. Especially when he was around Jazz. Those two were ridiculous together. Which, to be fair, was probably what people thought about me with Avalon or Shiori.
Speaking of Shiori, she slipped into the seat beside me, with Columbus joining her. “Yeah,” the girl was already saying, “having phone service inside the sun is weird. But you know what’s weirder in that sentence? The ‘inside the sun’ part. Like, we’re literally living inside the sun. I mean, in a space station habitat thing within the sun, sure. But still! In the sun!”
“Portals for phone service,” Avalon pointed out simply. “And forcefields protect us from damage within the sun. Forcefields that are constantly supplied with power from the sun itself.”
Hisao arrived. The former Eden’s Garden Vigile (and Crossroads substitute teacher) stopped at the end of the table, his hand finding Miranda’s shoulder. “Hey there, you guys get settled in okay?”
We all agreed that we had, before Miranda looked up at her former mentor. “You’re definitely gonna be one of our teachers, right?”
“One of, yes,” he confirmed. “We’re sort of playing it by ear and taking turns with classes. You’ll have a main teacher, but also several back-ups who can teach specific subjects within that class, or take over if the main teacher is indisposed or just busy.”
“Busy fighting the war, you mean,” I clarified, looking at the man. “They don’t want to tie up all useful people with classes, so it’s just ‘whoever’s good with that subject and not busy can teach that day.’”
“A little more structured than that, hopefully,” he replied, “but essentially, yeah. We’re doing the best we can here. Just gotta go with it. Speaking of which, you guys know how this works, right?” He nodded to the big video screen. When we all just looked at him blankly, the man chuckled before explaining. “Right, see, you go up to that little glowing table over there and put your cell phone on it. Once you do, it’ll download a new app. You use the app to look at a list of what’s available to watch here on the screen and submit your suggestion. While a show or movie is on, there’s a list of currently submitted suggestions for the next thing. You can add your own, like I said, or add a vote to one that’s already there. Once the current thing ends, the next thing with the most votes will go on. You can only vote inside the room, and if you’re not in the room when the votes are tallied, yours won’t be counted. So you only get to use it if you’re here.” With a shrug, he added, “They’ve got the same kind of system in the rec room.”
“Entertainment by democracy,” Columbus noted. “I guess there are much worse systems.”
It wasn’t long after that before our food arrived, and we were basically finished eating when the video on the screen (it had been voted over to the old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from the seventies) paused. Abigail came over to the stage, along with a couple Eden’s Garden people and a man who was apparently an Alter from the way he made my Heretic sense shout at me. Yeah, I really hoped they found a way to do something about that, because it had been low-key going off every time I stopped looking at Alters for awhile, then did again.
Speaking up after magnifying her voice, Abigail began with, “Okay, first of all, welcome to the cafeteria. I see you all managed to find it.” She offered a slight smile then before adding, “I did hear a few people asking about the younger students. So I’ll go ahead and tell you that their cafeteria is on the opposite side of the school area. You go through your section of the school to reach their section, and on the far side of that you’ll reach their cafeteria, then their dorms. I’m sure you’ll be able to explore all of that soon. Or just take one of the maps that will be handed out at the door. Those same maps are available for your phones if you set it on any of the pedestals you see around this place with the map icon on them.
“Your phones will also receive a copy of your schedule for the week, and a paper copy will be delivered to your mailbox each Sunday. We’re going with a weekly schedule at least for now, while we sort things out. Your classes can and will change from week to week, depending on what and who is available. But you will receive a full and balanced education. Or, as much of one as we can reasonably provide.”
Gesturing to the Edens Garden people, as well as one of the Crossroads teachers who had been responsible for an older grade, Abigail continued. “My new friends here are going to help answer any questions you have. I’m sure there are a lot. But in the meantime, now that we’ve all moved our stuff in and had time for it to sink in, allow me to be the first to officially say…
“Welcome to the Joselyn Atherby Fusion School.”