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 Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:28 am
But Talos didn't go see Greyhaven that evening, or even the next day. During the two hours it took him to complete the air conditioning overhaul, he talked himself out of the idea. It was too weird, he was being a total idiot to fall into this trap of optimism, it was a bad idea. She probably wouldn't be like his Jace, not really, and she wouldn't like him if she got to know him, especially if she found out all the stupid crap he had done in the past. He could hardly try to hide it from her, that would have been dishonest.
So he went back to Dr. M's workshop and tried to forget the encounter ever happened. Days passed, then a week, and he told himself that by now Jace would have concluded he was a loser because he hadn't held up his end of the deal in a timely fashion. He definitely couldn't go see Greyhaven now that he had taken so long. Totally out of the question. The opportunity had passed.
"You seem agitated," said Dr. M, startling Talos. The screwdriver Talos had been using slipped and scraped his hand. Dr. M pursed his lips and bounced on his heels. "Sorry."
Talos cradled his hand. Just a surface wound, but it hurt. Dr. M calling him agitated, that was a laugh. The little scientist rarely stayed still for more than two seconds. When he told Dr. M of the whole encounter with Jace, M only laughed.
"So? If I had a chance to go see Pasha, do you think he would care how late I was?"
That decided it. He went to Greyhaven and the next day, there he was, standing in front of the Liberty Center, still trying to convince himself this was not a huge mistake.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:32 am
"Hey. Squirt!"
The voice came from behind him; when Talos Perdison turned around, it was not the girl he'd met standing with her slung schoolbag over her shoulder -- it was teenaged Jace, so much more like Jace he'd known, with a shaved head and bits of red curling around her face -- and then again, different, too. No wheelchair. This new Jace had a sort of stuck-out look of confidence and a lack of defensiveness that had always characterised the girl he'd known before -- and there were two tiny horns up beyond each temple, small and dark, which was another change.
Also she had boobs. The older Jace would've been impressed. Or not.
"Where've you been?" the teenager demanded, ambling over to cuff his ear lightly. "The cafeteria still sucks. You abandoned it. What gives? I'm not going to get you a Coke any more, retard, it'll be one of those sticky orange sodas that makes your tongue go orange and bleh."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:39 am
Talos did a double-take. "Jace? How-- what?" He had seen a lot of strange things in his life, but somehow he could still be surprised when the universe pulled something new out of its hat.
It was definitely her, just bigger. Especially in the chest. His Jace hadn't had that kind of chest, except maybe when she was pregnant. Oh, s**t. surely not. He stood there, trying to work this out, staring at her in confusion.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:42 am
She did not look pregnant. Her stomach muscles (Jace had the beginnings of what looked to be an A+ chickpack) were tight and flat; and she didn't look certainly as though she wanted to meanderingly kill herself, which would have been an expression he recognised. "Hey, maybe if you hadn't ditched me like a total wuss," she said, "and glad you recognise me, this is like, my second day. Rad, right? -- You should be lucky I still want to hang around a squirt like you, I'm all cool and senior school."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:45 am
"You're bigger," Talos concluded at last. "I mean, taller." If Talos was hoping to impress her with his genius, he was falling just a bit short.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:47 am
It had the required effect. Jace looked at him witheringly, and let out a long, low: "Duhhhrrrrrr. Boy genius my a**."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:52 am
Figuring it was like a senshi transformation, Talos asked, "Is it permanent?" He clearly had no idea what he was dealing with, even in the slightest. "Did it hurt?"
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:55 am
Both of her eyebrows had shot up: obviously Talos wasn't a cabbage kid, or he would've known about that kind of thing. It was bizarre, having somebody ask about it -- she hadn't realised how much she just hung around other cabbage kids, there at the Liberty center, where it was all taken for granted if someone came in a teenager who had previously been a snot-nosed kid. "Uh, no," she said, "and yeah it's permanent, nobody goes back from growing up, dillweed."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:01 am
There had been one senshi who did just that, actually, turning into an older version of herself when she fought and turning back afterwards, but as foreign as the whole cabbages concept was to Talos, the weird world of magical deific transformations would be too much to explain to Jace right now. "Well, uh, congrats. You look nice. Really nice." Was there a rock on this campus big enough to crawl under?
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:08 am
This, thankfully, only netted him an odd expression and an elbow to the arm before she slung her backpack on over the other shoulder. At least she didn't walk away. Or start punching him more in earnest: Jace was good at punching more in earnest. "Whatev," she said, dismissing it. "Are you gonna go to school here, wonder boy, or are you going to engineer up the buildings? Seriously, do whichever, life is boring here."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:16 am
Answering that question was easy, but living up to the answer was going to be hard. It was completely unfamiliar territory for Talos. He gulped. "Attending. I just thought, literature and history and stuff, it'd make sense to learn that like regular people do. I'll still engineer up the building, too, I was thinking of adding a fountain to the front."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 1:17 am
"s**t, yeah, do that," said Jace, brightening up, "then I can put weird a** chemicals in it -- like shampoo, and that stuff that explodes if you put it in water -- pure sodium? Or is that just salt? Who cares, I don't even like chemistry."
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:04 am
"Wouldn't that--" Talos started, but then he realized this was Jace, and asking her not to put explosive chemicals into his planned work of art fountain was like asking a dog not to piss on a fire hydrant. The mere question was incomprehensible. Probably best to make the fountain as near-indestructible as possible and just call it a day. "I guess I have to go to the school office? If you're this much bigger now, how old are you? Will you be dead in a year or something?" A tiny note of fear crept into his voice.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:09 am
"Huh?" Another weird look, but at least she wasn't edging away from him. She was just kind of giving him a long-suffering expression now, a martyred I am from a cabbage and you don't know anything about me, non-cabbage boy. "No? I just grow quickly, that's all, I'm not gonna be a grandma by next year. That'd be pretty a**. I guess I should take your skinny butt over to the office -- c'mon, maybe it'll get me out of ten minutes of class, history always makes me want a swift goddamned death."
She crooked one finger at him and then started swaggering over to the doors of the Liberty school. Talos couldn't get out of it now.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:44 am
He took a breath and followed after her into a building with which he was intimately familiar but which seemed suddenly much more imposing. Talos adjust the knapsack on his shoulder in response. "Gods," he said under his breath as they headed for the office. At least he had remembered deodorant.
It did not take long to pick up the schedule. The secretary who checked his file smiled and offered up helpfully, "Don't worry, we have students from many different backgrounds, your teachers will make sure to ease you into it."
"Erm," Talos agreed, drifting back towards Jace with his schedule in hand.
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