MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World part 61

[George Phillies]

I have not posted in a bit, so you get an entire chapter, Chapter XXX 
because it is between Chapters 11 and 12.

“A ten-year-old with a Krell pistol?” Krystal’s question was purely 
rhetorical. “Why not a strategic transmutation bomb, too? Hopefully he 
realizes it is not a toy? And how did his shields not go down?”

“I don’t know who his parents are,” Morgana answered. “I don’t know 
where he lives.The geas ensured that.It wouldn’t have blocked me, but I 
never met Joe to ask. I don’t know what he did with the pistol, the 
matching force field bracer, or why he was so interested in playing 
Janie. Extremely strong shields covers a great deal of uninformative 
ground.Asking him your questions requires that he shows up again to play 
Janie, which he has not done in several weeks. In fact, not since 
Eclipse made off with the Namestone. Hmm.I wonder if Joe knows Eclipse. 
That would explain how she found out about the move. If you count, 
someone planted that geas.This kid has shields as good as yours, except 
he was perhaps ten at the time. Also, after Joe rescued Janie, something 
marched through the Castle Island Jail, exfoliated the kidnappers’ 
minds, and neutralized the Perversion Circle. That something that does 
not appear to have been Joe. There are some really first rate personas 
mmovingmoving near the Wells family, without leaving enough of a trace 
that I can identify them.”

“On the bright side,” Krystal said, “Joe has had that thing for the 
better part of two years now, and I haven’t heard about any large urban 
areas getting flattened. Wait a moment.The giant reptile in Washington 
last year.It was taken out by that teenager with a Krell disruptor, and 
a force field bracer. Except she for sure did not disguise herself as a 
ten year old boy.Not then, not a year earlier. Except she said she had a 
boyfriend.And they’d done memory deletion to forget each other.” Krystal 
took another bite out of her scone.

“Silk,” Morgana said. “Protégé of Kniaz Kang.She goes to school across 
the street from his restaurant. But she’s…just a moment.” Morgana held 
up her right hand and gestured with her fingers.Then she frowned.

“Something wrong?” Krystal asked.

“I have tracers on all five Wells family people,” Morgana 
said.“Something just happened to Jessamine Trishaset. She’s conscious, 
in school, not frightened, not using her gifts. Her mood just switched 
to catastrophic forboding.” Morgana gestured again. “She is walking down 
a corridor, between classes. There is no obvious threat. Her brother is 
walking the other way, away from her.”

“Teenagers,” Krystal said.

“True. Also a difficult family situation. Her sister is a Highly 
Esteemed. Her brother builds astounding models.She is way above grade 
level, does huge amounts of housework, is a fitness fanatic, sews her 
own clothing, and her parents simply do not notice. They didn’t even say 
anything to her after I told them how fast a flier she is.” Morgana 
shook her head. “It’s tearing the poor kid apart.”

“How charming,” Krystal said. “All this, and we may have a war on our 
hands. ‘May’ is too optimistic. The first question is whether the 
IncoAztecans will wait for an Eclipse sighting as an excuse to invade, 
will fake an Eclipse sighting as an excuse to invade, or will simply lie 
and claim there was an Eclipse sighting. Then there are the Brazilians 
and the Argentines. I have not heard anything about a Lemurian Rising to 
take advantage of the situation, but that’s certainly a possibility. At 
least last Fall their invasion of China was met with a unified world 
response and was defeated. I certainly couldn’t promise that would 
happen now. However, you’ve answered my key question, it is 2 P.M. 
sharp, and this afternoon I have another 24 hours of work to complete. 
At least.”

“Understood,” Morgana answered. “You must go.Please do keep the scones 
you haven’t finished yet.”


  ChapterXXX

Benjamin Franklin Technical Junior High School

Joseph Henry Boulevard

Corridor Nine

January 16, 2018

1:53 PM

Brian Wells stared down the corridor.He absolutely had to talk to Trisha 
to warn her, and this was the only time in the day that their paths 
crossed. Except half the time she took the other corridor and the second 
set of stairs.There she was.He hurried toward her.He had to tell her 
what he’d heard, and then not be late for his class.

Trisha saw Brian pointing at her, smiled, and stopped. “I’ve got a 
class,” she said.

“Me too.Urgent,” Brian said. “I went back to get my homework this 
morning.I heard mom and dad talking.Mom is still totally hacked off you 
went cloud diving with Joe.Totally and completely. She even raised her 
voice.” Trisha folded in on herself.“Dad was still just as angry. ‘She’s 
a disgrace to the family’ was his line. He said he’d put a stop to 
that.And if you didn’t he’d ground you, no flying or anything, for a 
year.” Trisha almost burst into tears. “Sorry, but forewarned is 
prepared.Got to run.” Trisha, ashen-faced, trudged off to her next class.

* * * * *

The Wells Residence

Arbalest Street

Medford, Massachusetts

3:45 PM

“Hello! I’m home,” Trisha called, hoping there would be no answer.

“Good afternoon, Trisha,” Abigail called from her first floor office. 
“Didn’t you have singing today? Did anything else happen?”

“Music is tomorrow, Mom. Tomorrow I’m here at quarter of five. Someone, 
I forget, thought I knew something about this Joe fellow. I don’t. He 
always was here to play City with Janie. I certainly wasn’t going to 
mention stacking all the firewood.”

“You didn’t tell people about cloud diving, did you?” Abigail asked.

“Mom! Give away I’m a persona. N. O. No. Besides, that was last Fall, a 
long time ago,” she answered. “I’d almost forgotten about it.” You would 
have been happy to do it more often, but he was too busy with some project.

“But whenever he was here, you would sit talking with him,” Abigail 
continued.

“Mother,” Trisha said, “he was a guest in the house, so I was polite. 
He’d always be here on time, Janie’s chess class always let out late, 
and you not me said he should come inside, not sit on the front porch, 
so I talked with him rather than leaving him alone until Janie got back, 
even though he was a boy and so he didn’t know much and was really dull 
even if I had to laugh at his jokes. And then Janie would show up and 
they’d break out her game board.” They were always funny jokes, she 
thought. He knew a lot about all sorts of things. And he was ahead of me 
in math. All that time I wasted singing to keep mom happy led to that. 
“Are there any chores that need doing? I’ll get the dishes and furniture 
polished soon as I change out of my school clothes but I have a lot of 
homework.”

“You never went cloud diving again?” Abigail asked/

“That was last Fall, mom.Twice,” Trisha said. “Morgana wanted me to 
practice, and I found someone to practice with, just like Brian and his 
base ball nines team and Janie and all her game opponents.”

“But you asked Janie if she’d seen him.Several times,” Abigail said.

“I was being polite,” Trisha said.Just like I’m being polite now, no 
matter I want to go to my room. Why is she quizzing me? “Janie really 
liked him as an opponent because he remembered everything from their 
back games and kept improving so that when she last saw him she really 
had to work hard to beat him, and he never complained, which boys like 
to do because they don’t like to lose. So are there any other chores 
that need doing?”

“Promise me you won’t go cloud diving with him again.” Abigail said.

“How can I, mom?He’s disappeared.” She spread her hands in confusion.

“Jessamine Trishaset, I asked you a question!” Abigail snapped.

No, Trisha thought, you didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. No, I will not 
ask why. You’ll only get angrier.Besides, it doesn’t matter, and I don’t 
care what the answer is. “Yes, mother, I promise I won’t go cloud diving 
with him again.” The wonderful advantage of super speed, she thought, is 
that you can wait until you calm down, enough you don’t say something 
stupid, and no one else can tell. Just concentrate on none of this 
mattering. “Are there any other chores that need doing?”

“Your father was going to put his tool chest in order.He’ll need a 
week,” Abigail said.

“On it,” Trisha answered. She trudged up the stairs. It was a wonderful 
house, she thought .Mom and dad had their second floor bedroom wing. 
Janie had the second floor rear, the new extension, built like a rock to 
support her books.Brian had second floor front and lots of space for 
model stuff, and she had third floor front for bedroom and the tower 
room for studying. Third floor back and sides were guest rooms. The 
tower room was a wonderful conceit of a former owner. It was high above 
the street, with glass on all four walls. Its ceiling was painted the 
palest of cocoas.Hanging form the ceiling’s apex was a black, 
wrought-iron chandelier; more light from the room came from the line of 
fluorescent lights hiding behind valances along the ceiling’s perimeter. 
The walls, where they were not glass, were walnut; the floor was 
bleached maple. Brian had helped Trisha build bookshelves on three of 
the sides.Two had rows of shelving and then a wide sill that held two 
dozen potted plants, violets and christmas cactus. At the outside of 
each sill was a grate letting the perimeter radiators heat the room. One 
side was a long, wide window seat on which she could lie down. Under the 
window seat was a secret compartment, and inside the secret compartment 
was a second secret compartment.A third secret compartment went into the 
wall.It was small, but good for money and jewelry.It would have been 
good for jewelry, she thought, if she’d ever had any. The last side was 
a desk with a big writing surface and a computer. If she went up to the 
tower, no one ever, ever bothered her, so she could study in complete 
peace and quiet.

She slipped out of her school clothing, into her chore clothing, 
summoned her gifts and flew down the stairs. Extreme care meant that she 
made not a sound while emptying the dishwasher, oiling all the living 
room furniture, and dry-mopping the floor. Then she dropped down to the 
basement. There were masses of tools, not in their right places in the 
tool chests. That was easy to fix, even taking the time to oil all the 
metal parts. All sorts of nuts and bolts and nails were in a big pile, 
with neat ranks of empty sorting trays behind them.She focused, calling 
deeply on her gifts.Sorting everything, cleaning the now-exposed 
workbench, floor, and everything else, seemed to go on forever. Almost 
an hour had gone by, real time. Her hands hurt from all the work she’d 
done. She realized she had cleaned up some of Brian’s modelling power 
tools. She’d have to apologize to him. He was sensitive about that. It 
was time to go upstairs and bury herself in her books. She almost made 
it as far as the kitchen.

“Trisha,” Abigail asked.“Where were you? I went up to your room, and you 
weren’t there.”

“I was in the basement,” she answered. What was the question? After all, 
she was coming up the stairs. “I cleaned up Dad’s workbench for him, 
sorted everything, and cleaned the place up.And now I need a bath.I 
smell of machine oil. And then I need to start studying.”

“You understand why I made you promise that, don’t you?” Abigail asked.

“Yes, mother,” Trisha answered.

“Why?”

“Because you said so, mother,” Trisha answered.

“No, the better reason,” she said.

“Mother, that’s the best possible reason,” Trisha answered.

“Go to your room! Go to your room, and don’t come down until I tell you 
to!” Abigail shouted.

“Yes, mother,” Trisha answered. She headed up the stairs, keeping the 
tears inside until she’d reached her room and started filling the 
bathtub. They noise would hide her crying.She’d been very patient for 
very long, but eventually she’d reached her limits. No matter what she 
did, her parents talked her down. She’d need a shower first, but then a 
soak would help.Her hands ached.

The Tower Room

The Wells Residence

Medford, Massachusetts

7:45 PM

Trisha looked up from her homework. She’d heard the door knob of her 
bedroom turn. She listened carefully.Those were Dad’s footsteps, coming 
across her carpet and up the stairs to her tower. He hardly ever came up 
here. She made herself concentrate on her homework. Proving the 
quadratic formula required a bit of work.Proving the cubic formula was a 
chore, but it was a homework problem in the book.

“Jessamine Trishaset!” Dad’s voice was from the top of the stairs.

“Oh, hi Dad.I didn’t hear you,” she said, looking over her shoulder. She 
stood. And I didn’t hear his voice before now, she thought.

“Jessamine Trishaset, you were not at dinner,” he said sternly.

“Mom told me to go to my room until she called me. She hasn’t, so I’m 
here,” she answered. “By the way, I cleaned up your work bench and got 
everything sorted.”

“Stop changing the topic!”

“Yes, dad.”I did all that work, she thought, and he doesn’t even care.

“You understand why your mother is upset?” Patrick Wells asked.

“No, I don’t. What is wrong?” Trisha decided after it was too late that 
that had not been the right answer.

“Of course you do!” He balled his fists. “You are to stay in your rooms 
until breakfast tomorrow, appear at breakfast, go to school, and until I 
say otherwise you will be in your room, at meals, at school, or in transit.”

“Yes, dad,” she answered. “Chores?”

“You will also do all of your chores, whatever your mother says,” 
Patrick said.

“Yes, dad,” she answered.

“And remember, I love you and we are doing this for your own good,” he said.

I will not say anything, she thought. I know he wants me to say that I 
love him, too, but I will not say that.

“Don’t you have something to say?” he finally asked.

“I have homework to do,” Trisha answered coldly.Patrick stamped down the 
stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind him. After a while she realized 
she had been staring at the stairway, waiting for her hands to stop 
shaking, for a good ten minutes.

Sunssword had been very clear about super speed. Trisha knew that she 
could turn down her gifts much of the way, lie down and sleep for nine 
hours, and only that number of minutes would have passed. But she 
wouldn’t get more than ten minutes older. So long as she was very quiet, 
that was an extra eight hours of reading or studying every night. She 
hadn’t done it before, but the online classes would let her do it.She 
could wing her way at lightspeed through all her courses, finish high 
school, and she’d be entitled to leave. The school handbook said so. 
Sunssword had also warned her not to try studying at superspeed, not 
until she’d had her gifts considerably longer, because it wouldn’t work 
right, which was a nuisance. After tonight, leaving couldn’t happen soon 
enough.

The Tower Room

The Wells Residence

Medford, Massachusetts

January 17, 2018

1:00 AM

Trisha stretched and yawned. She’d had her nine hours of sleep, 
compressed into as many minutes, but it was still strange to be reading 
at this hour.The blinds were all pulled. They were metalized honeycomb, 
light-opaque; no one could tell that she was here. And if dad or mom 
came to check on her, she would turn invisible, fly downstairs, and be 
in bed before they opened her bedroom- door. The screen on her computer 
was flat white, giving more than enough light for reading, at least with 
her vision. Being confined to her room created a problem for 
exercise.There was an after-school fitness club; she could switch out of 
music into that.

/<?>/The question was telepathy, but it didn’t sound like Janie. That 
was a bit alarming.Janie and Brian had really solid mindscreens. She had 
next to nothing.

“Yes?” she whispered. /<Does this work?>/

/<GR. Brian here.>/

/<What? How?>/she asked.

/<Dad and Mom announced we can’t talk to you, except over a meal with 
them there.And Janie was ordered not to use mentalics to talk to you. So 
we switched powers, just for a few moments. No one told us not to. We 
had to wait until Dad and Mom are both asleep.>/Brian explained.

/<What is going on? What did I do?> /Trisha said.

/<They won’t tell us. It’s something to do with Joe and cloud-diving,> 
/Brian said. /<And Dad is waiting for Joe to show up. He’s really mad at 
Joe. No.He said he’s going to kill Joe, and I’m not sure he was joking.>/

/<Wait.Please tell Janie I’m sure Joe and I never talked about City of 
Steel. I barely know the rules,>/Trisha said. She shifted in her seat.

</GR. She says, she never thought you told him anything. And if you did, 
you didn’t know it was important, so she forgives you,> /Brian answered.

</Good.>/

/<Are you still awake? You’re sitting.> /Brian said./<It’s real late.>/

/<I got nine hours of sleep. In ten minutes.Super speed does that.>/Her 
stomach growled. She had missed dinner. /<Absolutely positively don’t 
tell mom or dad! So I’m reading. It doesn’t matter.No matter what I do, 
I don’t even get thanked. I only get blamed. I even cleaned up Dad’s 
workbench for him, and all he said was ‘Don’t change the topic.’>/

/<We’d help you, but we don’t understand either. At dinner mom and dad 
were both angry, and spent the whole time lecturing us.And wouldn’t let 
us ask any questions. What they said, it made no sense,> /Brian said.

/<Tomorrow.She’s asleep now. Ask Professor Lafayette. She might have an 
answer.> /Trisha wished that was true, not that it mattered. Nothing 
really mattered any more, except getting out of here.

/<We’re here.But trading powers is a real strain,> /Brian said.

/<Then put them back.And go back to sleep.It was really great of you to 
try this. Wait! Tell Trisha she doesn’t know that Joe and I didn’t talk 
about her move. We can’t have Mom and Dad figure out we’re talking to 
each other.>/

/<She says: Thanks for reminding her,> /Brian said.

/<I love you both. Good night,> /Trisha said.

/<We love you, too,> /Brian answered.The mentalic link vanished.

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