CHAPTER 20
IRIDIUM
The idea that children can be molded into soldiers for a great and noble cause is both obscene and untrue. Children can no more be expected to know what “justice” is or how to meter it than a normal human can sprout wings and fly.
Editorial entitled “It Worked for the Nazis, Too,”
printed in the New Chicago Century,
an alternative daily published from 2099 to 2107
Iridium sat on the cold plast bench and listened to the drumbeat her feet made on the base. Thud-thunk. Thud-thunk.
The door to the Superintendent’s office stayed closed, and Iridium blew out a puff of air, ruffling the few pieces of hair that always managed to escape from her school bun.
Down the long white hallway, the voices of happy students bounced off the arched ceiling, taunting Iridium with the fact that she’d be stuck in detention until Lights Out.
After a year of constant detention, extra work, and retaking tests so “We can assure ourselves you’re not manipulating the system,” Iridium came to one conclusion: The Academy had it in for her.
The students, with their whispers and idiot insults, were bad enough, but most of the proctors gave her the exact same stony-eyed looks. They just saw a rabid waiting to happen.
It pissed Iridium off enough that, sometimes, she deserved her punishments. But only sometimes.
“At least I’ll miss Self-Defense and Tactics,” she muttered.
A tall, skinny form flopped down on the bench next to her. Iridium didn’t move … no need to seem too interested … but she caught a flash of a smile and a shock of blue hair. “Amen to that,” said the boy.
Iridium glared at him. He was tall, but his jumpsuit marked him as a Second Year, like her. “Did I say you could sit next to me?”
“I didn’t see a NO PARKING sign on this bench, sweetheart.” He grinned at her.
Iridium balled up her fist. “Get lost. Do you know who I am?”
“Callie Bradford,” said the boy.
She blinked. “We’re not supposed to use given names.”
The boy pointed to the closed white door. “The Superintendent is right there. Gonna report me?”
Iridium lowered her fist. The boy was still grinning, like he wasn’t afraid of her at all. “Why don’t I bother you?”
“Because you’re not scary,” said the boy. “You’re just angry.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m Derek Gregory. Frostbite, if you want to go by the book. I make ice.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that. I’m Iridium. You better call me by my designation if we don’t want our butts permanently welded to this bench.”
“What are you in for?” Frostbite asked.
Iridium knitted her hands together, then she realized she was doing the nervous thing that Jet always did when she thought they were going to get into trouble. “I punched Sunbeam during a biology lab.”
“Sunbeam … wait, don’t tell me.” Frostbite blew a gum bubble, popped it, chewed. “Blonde, skinny. Has big teeth. Pals around with a bunch of other Lighters?”
“That’s her,” said Iridium. “She tried to copy off of my pop-quiz screen, so I decked her.”
Frostbite laughed, loudly. “That’s it? Usually they let you Light-power divas get away with a lot more than hair pulling.”
“I knocked her unconscious.”
“Oh.”
“What about you?”
“Underwear.”
Iridium blinked. “What did you say?”
“I froze a proctor’s shorts while he was showering in the locker room after my Phys Ed class. Man, when he slipped those things on … The screams are still echoing the hallowed halls.”
Iridium smiled, then started to laugh. “That’s pretty good. Hey, Frostbite?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not one of those ‘Light divas,’” Iridium snarled. “Don’t ever make the mistake of lumping me with those other girls. I am nothing like them.”
“Relax, girl,” said Frostbite. “I can see that. We’re cool here. No pun intended.”
The Superintendent’s door hissed open. “Iridium,” his voice rang. “In my office. Now!”
Iridium stood and straightened her jumpsuit. “They’re playing my song. See you around, Frostbite.”
She sauntered inside, acting as if she’d decided to just stroll into the Super’s office. Then she stood politely in front of his desk, smiling, as the Superintendent slammed the button to shut the door.
“Your behavior is completely unacceptable,” said the Superintendent, jabbing a finger down against his data-screen. The incident report their proctor had filled out glowed and slithered away from the impact.
“Did you bring me here just to tell me that, sir? Because I have to say, this is getting predictable.” Iridium delivered the speech with the sweetest smile she could muster. Anger frightens people, her father’s voice whispered, but smiles confound them. Remember the power in that.
The Superintendent turned pink from the top of his shaved head all the way down to his Mandarin collar, like a giant strawberry. “You …” he sputtered. “You …”
“I know, I know, detention,” said Iridium. “I’ll go do my time with a spring in my step, like a good little hero.”
“Oh, no,” said the Superintendent, his fingers rubbing droplets of sweat away from his forehead like pudgy erasers. “No, young lady, you’ve stepped over the line. Hopefully, you’ll be outright expelled when I convene the board of proctors. You think that your IQ_ and your history make you special, but what they really make you is a menace. I want you out of my school!”
“That won’t be necessary,” hissed a voice behind Iridium. The air around her lowered ten degrees, like someone had opened a window and let in a winter wind.
The Superintendent paled. “Night. You finally got my message, I see.”
Night laid his hand on Iridium’s shoulder. She fought the urge to squirm. Night wasn’t as bad as some of the proctors—he was certainly no Lancer—but there was something about him, how he always seemed to be fading back into shadow just a bit, never wholly present, that bothered her if she really thought about it.
That, and she’d never actually seen the guy’s face. That was just plain creepy.
“What is the problem here?” said Night softly, and Iridium knew somehow he was using the exact same tone on the Superintendent that he used on street criminals when he was on active duty.
“This … girl … has repeatedly flouted authority in her time here,” the Superintendent sputtered, getting wound up again. “And today she assaulted another student and rendered the girl unconscious. Her attitude is appalling, she has anger and aggression problems, and I am placing her in Therapy.”
“What?” Iridium shrieked. Therapy was for mental cases and rabids who went off the reservation and killed people. “I don’t deserve Therapy!”
“You deserve a prison cell next to your father!” the Superintendent snapped.
Night held up a hand. “Enough. Iridium, what class were you in when you knocked out the other student?”
“What does her class have to do with any of this?” the Superintendent squealed. “In a few more years, she’ll be a rabid just like the rest of her family …”
“If my father heard you say that …” Iridium started.
The Superintendent reached across the desk and grabbed Iridium by the front of her jumpsuit. “But he’s not here, is he, you silly little girl? You’re just a little dog, yapping at something you can’t possibly hope to sink your teeth into, and it’s time you were silenced!”
“Expel me, then,” Iridium shouted back, “because I’m not shutting up!”
“QUIET.” Night’s voice rattled every piece of furniture in the office that wasn’t molded directly into the walls and floor. “Now,” he said. “Superintendent, I believe you are out of line.”
“Damn right,” Iridium said.
“Let go of the girl,” said Night, and to Iridium he added, “When he does, young lady, you will apologize for your appalling manners.”
“No,” said Iridium. “He doesn’t deserve my respect.”
Night leaned down and whispered in her ear, and his voice seemed to carry with it the whispers of a thousand nightmares lived alone, in the dark. “He doesn’t. But you will give it to him just the same, until such time as you are strong enough to take it back. That time is not now, little firefly, so smile and apologize before I break your arm.”
Iridium listened to Night’s breath hiss in her ear for a split second before she looked back at the Superintendent. “I’m truly sorry, sir. What I said was unforgivable.”
“You’ve got that right,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Now,” said Night, “answer my question, Iridium. What class were you in when you hit the other girl?”
“Biology.”
“Just biology? Not molecular or applied, but plain middle-school biology?”
“Well, yeah,” said Iridium. “I’m thirteen.”
“Superintendent, this girl has an IQ_of over 160, and she is the daughter of Lester Bradford—a fine hero, regardless of his later conduct. She is unique. Putting her in regular classes is asking for this sort of behavior. Transfer her to the gifted program and don’t bother me again.”
Night turned on his heel and exited the office in a swirl of Shadow-chased cape. Frostbite watched him go, then gave Iridium a thumbs-up through the open door.
THREE MONTHS LATER
The physics lab was quiet except for the bleep-bleep-plip of students taking a test on their datascreens, styluses scrolling across the crystal display in an almost coordinated movement.
Iridium answered question thirty-two, threw down her stylus with a clatter, and announced: “I’m done. Can I go?”
The proctor, a retired heroine named Labyrinth, said, “‘May I,’ Iridium, and you may be excused from class once you clean up your workspace.”
Iridium looked down at the litter of books and holo-papers in her workspace, along with her Corp schoolbag, which she’d decorated with patches and purple iridescent ink.
“That’s what this school has Runners for,” she said. “My test is finished. I’ll wait around while you grade it, if that will help.”
Labyrinth raised an eyebrow. “Runners are not your personal maid service, young lady.”
“Darn, because seeing them in those little aprons and hats would be hilarious.”
“Young lady, do you want to go to detention?” Labyrinth hissed.
Iridium winced as she felt the deadening pressure of Labyrinth’s telepathy roll outward. A few of the more sensitive students moaned unconsciously.
Mental power or not, Iridium would have kept up the argument if it weren’t for Jet. She was standing at her workspace with her shoulders hunched, her lips moving in the same phrase over and over again.
She was only on question fifteen.
“No, ma’am,” Iridium said. “Forgive me. I’ll clean up right away and report to the meditation room until fifth chimes.”
“You better believe you will,” Labyrinth huffed, then picked up her datareader, scrolling to the next page of her daily news.
Iridium took as much time as she could cleaning up her papers and books, then she repacked her bag. The big clock in the corner slowly ticked toward the red zone. Finally, it buzzed.
Labyrinth put down her pad. “One minute, students.”
Jet’s shoulders began to shake, and she lost her grip on her stylus. It skidded down the screen to the wrong answer and entered it into record. “Christo,” Jet hissed.
“I know that wasn’t foul language I heard, missy,” Labyrinth snapped. “Frostbite, what did Jet say?”
Frostbite whipped his spiky blue head up, the goggles he kept on his forehead for vidgaming between classes sliding over his eyes. “She said ‘Crisco,’ ma’am.”
Labyrinth’s lips pursed. “Crisco?”
“Yes, ma’am. Shortening? We’re all a little hungry here. This test overlaps lunch period.”
The chime sounded, and Jet stabbed the last answer into her datascreen as the rest of the gifted students grabbed their bags and piled out of the room.
Jet was gripping her console, her knuckles white. Iridium shouldered her bag and went over to her roommate, nudging her arm. “Hey. We’re safe until the end of term. That was our last exam.”
Frostbite waved a hand in front of Jet’s face. “She okay? She looks like she just got a bad hit of junk.”
“She’ll be fine,” said Iridium. “This happens sometimes. Come on, Jet, let’s get to the meditation hall and see if a Runner will bring us some leftovers from lunch.”
“I’m all about that,” said Frostbite.
Iridium cocked her eyebrow in a glare. “I say anything about you coming along, Popsicle Boy?”
“No,” said Frostbite. “But today’s taco day, and I’m not missing that for anything. Not even the oh-so-terrifying Callie Bradford.”
“Frostbite,” Labyrinth bleated, “we use only code designations in this classroom.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said with a sweet smile. “Iridium just got me a little carried away. She’s so very scary.”
“Class is over,” said Labyrinth. “Get out.”
“With pleasure,” Iridium muttered.
They made their way to the meditation room, Frostbite in front, Iri leading Jet, who shuffled her feet. Second Years weren’t allowed to use the meditation room, except for those in the gifted program. Iridium didn’t give a damn about meditating, but she liked having separate space from the other Second Years. The room itself was largely empty, its tatami mats and wooden tables embedded with data-screens set at discreet intervals. Iridium settled Jet on a cushion and buzzed for a Runner.
“I failed,” Jet moaned.
“You didn’t fail,” Iridium said with a sigh. “Those tests are a load of cowcrap anyway. I covered fluid dynamics before I even came to the Academy full-time.”
“Kiddie stuff,” Frostbite agreed.
Jet began to bang her forehead against the table.
“Stop it,” Iridium hissed. “Do you want to get dragged off to Therapy? Just relax for a damn minute!”
Jet hid her face with her hands. “I can’t do this. Night told me I could, but I can’t. I don’t know things the way you and Frostbite know them, Iri. It doesn’t work that way in my head.”
Iridium rubbed Jet between the shoulders, knowing her friend was hiding her face so no one would see her cry. “I’ll tutor you. You won’t get kicked out of the program.”
“I … You will?” Jet looked up, her eyes red but dry.
“Of course,” said Iridium. “Think I’d let you leave me alone with Derek the Dork?”
Frostbite wadded up a leftover menu from the cafeteria and threw it at Iridium, who ducked, giggling.
“Well, if it isn’t the mental patient and friends,” said a voice from Iridium’s back. “What does it mean when a Shadow, a rabid, and a blue fairy all get together? Six more weeks of winter?”
Iridium spun around. “Go bend over and bite your own ass, Dawnlighter What in Christo’s name are you even doing in here? You don’t have access.”
“Yeah, I thought they kept all you yappy poodles on a leash,” Frostbite said.
Jet ducked her head and looked like she wanted to melt into the shadows under the table.
“I’m authorized for the sponsorship track today.” Dawnlighter tossed her head. “My mother and father are here for my costume fitting.”
“We don’t get fitted for costumes until Third Year. It’s procedure,” Jet murmured.
“It’s procedure,” Dawnlighter mocked. “Maybe for freaks who don’t have parents and spend their time with their noses plastered to datapads instead of thinking about branding.” She did a pirouette, and the short unikilt she was wearing turned the shade of a sunrise, red at the bottom fading to the most delicate pink against Dawnlighter’s pale skin.
“Morphing fabric, biolinked to my vitals,” said Dawnlighter. “The best kind of fabric. Mommy pays only for the best.”
The unikilt faded back to white, with a large D in script on the chest.
“That’s the ugliest costume I’ve ever seen,” Frostbite stated unequivocally. “Good luck getting a sponsor with that eye-bleeding mess.”
“Why don’t you go drink some of your hair dye?” Dawnlighter hissed. “You and the Shadow both. Get out of the extrahuman gene pool and do us all a favor.”
“Screw you,” said Iridium. “Besides, I already got my costume.” She dug in the bottom of her bag and pulled out a plastic package.
Jet goggled at her. “How do you have that?”
“Night gave it to me early,” said Iridium. Night had shoved the package into her hands with a sonorous, “No one is to see this until the end of term.” Iridium didn’t question why she, out of all the students in Second Year, got lucky, but now she was glad of it.
She shook out the white unikilt with the black belt and collar, holding it up with a smug smile to Dawnlighter. “It doesn’t turn the color of puke when I see you, Dawnie, but I guess you can’t have everything you want, right?”
“You can’t be white!” Dawnlighter hissed. “I’m white!”
“You’re an idiot, too, but you don’t see me boarding the Freakout Express,” said Iridium. “Run back to Mommy and Daddy and leave the smart people alone, huh, Dawnie?”
Dawnlighter began to shake, and Iridium saw a thin trickle of blood start from one of her nostrils. “You think you’re so funny, Iridium. You think that you can make everyone forget that your father is a filthy rabid criminal. And she thinks that if she’s perfect enough, everyone will forget that her father went crazy because he was a Shadow.” She was glaring at Jet now, and she hissed, “Well, you’re not perfect. You’re nothing but a filthy Shadow. And I’m going to stop you from spreading your filth!”
Dawnlighter raised her hands to the skylights of the meditation room, and all the weak sunlight filtering through the pollution layer flowed into her, her costume fading from pink to yellow to a deep, bloody red as she screamed and pulled power into her.
Iridium blinked in shock. Dawnlighter had an expression she’d only seen on the faces of bodystim addicts in news broadcasts. She had eyes like an Everyman, or the religious fanatics who burned themselves in front of the Corp headquarters in New York Metropolis.
The eyes of someone who hated what they saw of the world and wanted to watch it burn.
Then Dawnlighter opened her mouth and started to laugh as the sunlight she’d absorbed grew around her fists. Still laughing, she focused on Jet.
“Oh, shit.” Iridium was dimly aware of other screaming—Dawnlighter’s mother and father, she guessed, and students—but she ignored them and threw herself across the table and onto Jet, taking them both to the mats.
Dawnlighter’s blast hissed overhead and burned a hole in the wall, smoke billowing out to cover everything. Fire-containment alarms started to howl and extinguisher mist came from the ceiling with a hiss.
“Unauthorized use of power detected,” blared the Power ward over the PA. “Stand by for Containment.”
Underneath Iridium, Jet was sobbing. “I’m not filthy. Make them shut up! I’m not filthy—I’m not!”
“Jet, for Christo’s sake, button it!” Iridium shouted as the other girl lined up for another blast. Dawnlighter wasn’t pretty anymore. Blood gushed from both nostrils now, and one of her eyes was red and filmy where the vessels had burst. And her costume, Iridium noticed with a blink, was beginning to melt.
Iridium craned her neck and saw Derek crouched on the other side of the table, the tops of his spikes singed away. “Frostbite!” she yelled, pointing her free hand at Dawnlighter.
“On it!” he said, and cast ice at Dawnlighter, encasing her hands first and sending a fine layer of icicles and frost over the rest of her body.
Dawnlighter staggered, going down on her knees, tears and blood streaming from her eyes. “Filthy … filthy … filthy …” she muttered, before Iridium stood up and kicked her once, hard, in the face.
Dawnlighter slumped on her side, still mumbling feebly through her split lip.
The lights in the room flickered, died, then burst into full illumination.
“Make them shut up,” Jet whispered, her hands covering her ears.
Before Iridium could comfort Jet, a Runner burst through the door, closely followed by a Containment crew in full tactical gear and a host of proctors drawn by the alarm.
Night came sweeping over, his cowl covering the floor in an inky wake. “What happened, Iridium?”
“Dawnlighter flipped out,” she said. Her teeth were chattering and her hands were shaking. “Jet … Jet is …”
Night clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe. You, too, Frostbite. Breathe until you can speak normally, and don’t move from that spot.”
He bent over Jet, his cape hiding her from view, and whispered something that Iridium didn’t catch. A moment later, Jet stopped sobbing with a long gasp and hiccup. Then she sat up, wrapping her arms around Night. He stiffened, then put one massive, gauntleted hand against her back, letting her cling to his body armor.
“Go with the Runners to your rooms,” he said to Iridium and Frostbite, his voice like death. “The Superintendent will want to see you later.”
“Jet …” Iridium started, moving to her friend.
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Night said in a tone that was colder than Frostbite’s ice. “Leave. Leave now. Jet will recover.”
Two Runners in white scrubs came in with a float and put Dawnlighter onto it, strapping her down and giving her a pulse injection. Whatever the drug was, it made her stop muttering and giggling and jittering.
“What happened to her?” asked Iridium, feeling more unsettled than she could recall since the day the Bradford front door had blown inward and a squad of heroes dragged her father away.
“She needs Therapy,” said Night brusquely. “If you don’t want to follow in her footsteps, both of you put today out of your mind.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Iridium muttered, watching Dawnlighter disappear through the doors of the meditation room and into the lift, going up. The only thing above this level was the Mental wing of the Academy. Iridium shivered.
“I’m serious,” Night said. “Go with a Runner before you become an annoyance. I’ll see to your roommate.”
“She’s not my roommate,” said Iridium. “She’s my friend.”
Night didn’t comment, but she felt his gaze sear her.
She picked up her bag and moved toward the Runners with Frostbite, but then she stopped and took the small flashlight off her strap. It was the one the Academy had issued in their survival kits the day they’d first joined. “Here,” she said, walking over to Night. “Give this to her. I don’t use it, anyway.”
Night took the small tube and nodded, tucking it somewhere behind his cape. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”
Only then did Iridium allow the Runners to walk her back to her room.
Even though she knew it was her imagination, she thought she could hear Dawnlighter’s screams long after the Runner had deposited her safe and sound in her room, locking the door behind him as he left.
She was still hearing echoes when it came time for Lights Out.