Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Oran stayed at Carl's though the weekend. By Sunday he was feeling much more comfortable with the basics of his powers. The post-combat shakes he had not expected to suffer hit Thursday afternoon, after the interview with the FBI. The interrogation had been close enough to his Army post-mission debriefs that he suspected his subconscious had figured the mission was over and it was time to crash. Carl had proven surprisingly useful at helping him work though the episode. It turned out he had acted as an informal counselor for a number of new heroes over the years.

He also had a costume, though it was a quickie version. Carl's fashion consultant said it would take time to complete the final version. Carl also wanted to tinker with it a bit to add a little useful tech.

"And somewhere to carry your stuff," the experienced hero had insisted. "Kevlex is nice and all, but too many starter heroes forget to add in some place to carry their stuff in their fancy new tights. Eventually you're gonna need money, phone, first aid kit, whatever. Don't worry. I'll fix you right up."

Eric and Kirstin had returned home on Sunday. That made Monday and Tuesday a little stressful as all three teens tried to fit back into their normal routine and get ready for school after their various adventures. For Oran there was nothing normal about his situation. He had managed to spend most of his time alone in his room preparing for the dreaded first day of high school. Pope knew it was the middle of Oran's sophomore year, but the old soldier had not been in high school since 1968. He was not looking forward to it.

It was a seven block walk to school. Eric used a different route to meet with his friends along the way. Kirstin usually walked with Oran, though she seldom talked with him. This morning she proved to have something to say. "Are you really alright?"

"What?"

"I mean after the explosion then the kidnapping. I'd be ... I don't know what I'd be, but definitely not alright."

Walking silently, Oran considered what to say. He thought her concern was honest. She had never participated in the social dominance games Eric and many of the kids at school played. Her father basically ignored her. And she had never gotten close to Mariela. She might have been more alone at home than the original Oran had been. Since the accident she had been making small overtures towards him. He thought she might just be lonely. "I'm still rattled and not fully recovered. But I'm going stir crazy just sitting around the apartment. So ..."

"I ..." Kirstin trailed off when Hester and Alex joined them.

"Hey!" Alex waved. He realized he was standing next to Kirstin and got flustered.

"Oran! My god! Are you alright. I was so scared. I thought you were dead." Hester cried, tears starting down her cheeks as she swept him into a tight hug.

Oran patted her back consolingly while trying to separate himself from her. "It's ok. I got rescued before they could do anything to me. I'm ok."

Oran's mother had had a similar reaction when she arrived at her father's building Thursday afternoon. He was still in the midst of his stress release episode so he looked worse than he actually was. Carl had a hard time convincing her not to put Oran back in the hospital. Eventually she agreed to leave him on Brooklyn for the weekend.

"It was pretty scary, man," Alex added. "They grabbed you right in front of me. It could have been me, or any of us. I mean, I've still got a bruise where that guy shoved me." He rolled up his sleeve and pointed to a spot on his arm that looked no different from the rest.

"I called the police as soon as it happened," Hester said. The pressure form the other pedestrians had them walking again. Oran noticed her hand flutter towards his then fall to her side.

"My mom almost didn't let me come to school today. She wants me to get a bodyguard or something." Alex said. It sounded like the idea intrigued him.

The two friends discussed the event and their reactions to it until they arrived at the school's entrance. Uniformed kids milled around the doors, making an ungodly racket that reminded Pope of the raucous cries of seagulls at the beach. Once the flow had taken Oran and his group inside they started to split up to go to their lockers.

Kirstin leaned in and whispered urgently, "Be careful. I think Eric's got something planned for today. He's been griping about you almost ruining his football camp and seems really angry."

He nodded in response as she rushed off. Oran could see Noreen Mooar, Kirstin's best friend, and the social leader of the tenth grade, waiting for her just down the hall. This was the girl that had given Oran's circle of friends the nickname "the dross", a name both intellectually obscure and socially demeaning, which fit the Queen Bee's personality to a tee. It had stuck, though many of the school's less intellectual bullies mispronounced it "the droes", a mashup for "dumb hoes" Eric had once said. Noreen was watching him watch her.

"Come on," Alex said, tugging on Oran's arm. "We've got to get to our lockers before homeroom."

The first few periods of school were just as bad as Pope had feared. Even at a wealthy school like Westminster, there were too many teenagers shoved into classrooms with only a single nominal adult for supervision.

For homeroom there was Mr. J. He was young a young man with an Australasian accent and close cropped black hair. Oran knew his real name was Josh Wharehinga, a Maori from New Zealand. He preferred to be called Mr. J because he hated how New Yorkers mangled his last name. Oran thought the man did not even try to corral the over excited youths as they yammered on about what they had done over their vacations, all at the top of their voices in an attempt to be heard over the others. It was nothing like the disciplined seminars for senior officers and government employees at the National War College Pope had presided over for the last decade or more.

Several of his classmates approached Oran,

"Is it true you got kidnapped?"

"How'd you get away?"

"I heard you blew up the building they were holding you in."

"No, esé, it was a lab he exploded."

"I heard people died in the explosion."

"I heard you were in the hospital for a week."

Oran interrupted. "Great! Sounds like you have the pertinent facts. That saves me from the necessity of explaining further." With that he sat down and proceeded to ignore the others. A few, like Alex and Alona who were also in the class, looked sheepish. Most just kept throwing questions sat him. And Mr. J looked more interested in hearing his answers than in controlling the chaos.

Finally the bell rang and monitors came on to show the news and announcements. Mr. J addressed the class. "Personal Research Project status check are due by the end of the week. You should be nearing the final stages of your projects. There are only ten weeks left. See me if you're having any issues."

This seemed to agitate the students. Oran recalled that the Personal Research Project, or PRP, was a big yearlong project that all tenth graders at Westminster had to complete. He had been working on a study of extradimensional exploration and exploitation, hoping to build his own working model mini-portal. That was why he had wanted to see his father's extradimensional power generator.

He died because of a school project? Pope thought. That is if the real Oran is dead and not stuck in my old body. Or possibly stuck in some completely different body in yet another dimension. Who knows?

At the ring of a bell home room transformed into Individuals and Societies class, with Mr. J as the teacher. The text book and class notes made Pope think this was a combination of political science, history, and foreign affairs, with a fair bit of correct thinking thrown in. The topics were very familiar to Pope. When Mr. J threw out a question about the Bretton Woods system, he had to consciously hold back to allow any other student to answer. When none did he offered a brief explanation of the World Bank, the IMF, and how the leading industrialized nations had agreed to work together to manage the international financial system more effectively. He started talking about the impact of delinking the dollar from the gold standard on the international monetary markets when he noticed everyone in class was staring at him silently, including the teacher.

"Anyway ... Bretton Woods is basically the World Bank and the IMF," he concluded.

"Someone's been reading ahead ..." Penny Towns, an attractive African American girl, stage whispered. The silence in the class broke with the ensuing laughter.

Oran actually blushed. He had not been reading ahead, not on that topic. He did not need to. He presented the system to his seminar every year and led an in-depth multi-seminar discussion on the effectiveness of the system in a globalized economy. He often had Managing Director of the IMF and the World Bank Chief Economist as part of the panel.

For the rest of the class he deliberately held back, answering only if called upon, and making those answers very concise. Several times he had to bite his lip as a student would say something really stupid or just plain wrong and the teacher either failed to correct them, or even agreed. Occasionally, he called up current data from the IMF website to check the argument of one of the students, He did not share his findings, he just wanted to be to know if his information held true in this world. There were differences.

Occasionally, Oran noticed the teacher looking at him as he did his online research. Then he remembered that the teachers could peek at any student's screen while they were in the classrooms. Once Mr. J threw Oran's screen onto the room display and used it to illustrate a point to the class. He did not let on where he got the data. The teacher's eyes lingered on him as he left the room after the bell signaled the end of class.

"What was that?" Alex asked. "I didn't think you even paid attention in I&S."

"I came across it in some reading I did. For some reason it stuck, I guess," Oran replied evasively.

"Yeeaaah ..." Alex drawled. They split to go to their next classes.

Oran was in the junior level advanced physics class, along with Hester and Alona. At first Pope really had to pay attention. While he had access to the original Oran's memories, he did not have the missing genius' instinctive understanding of the field to know which prior knowledge to activate in order to master the information offered in the class. As the class progressed, the information was more effortlessly integrated and became easier to follow.

This was a prime example of the chaos that often went on in Oran's head. The original Oran's memories and physical/hormonal reactions were still there, but the psyche that had built the memories was missing. Pope' consciousness was filtering the intake of new information, but it was being managed through the original Oran's intellectual capabilities and instincts. This led to a mental amalgam of Pope and the original Oran. They were rapidly combining into a new personality, a new Oran that leveraged the cooperation to achieve a greater synergy. Pope could not even resist the integration because it was happening at a subconscious level. He preferred to think of it as his mind fitting into the new situation and gaining new advantages.

After Physics was lunch. The gathering of lightly supervised students across grades and cliques that represented the most socially dangerous time of a high school student's day, fraught with both opportunities and pitfalls. Oran could not even shelter at his friend's table as Pope was beginning to recognize that the dynamics of that quartet were much more volatile than old Oran had ever realized. Or possibly he had simply refused to acknowledge the romantic quagmire they represented.

"Oran," Hester inquired solicitously, leaning towards him, her hand gently grasping his arm as they entered the serving line. "Are you ok? You seemed ... distracted during physics." Pope recognized the affection, even attachment, in her body language. The problem was that he saw her as a kid. She was not any older than his seldom seen granddaughter Jenny.

"My brain is still a bit foggy from the last few weeks," he answered, moving away from her. "The docs say it is nothing to worry about and should clear up soon. It just means ..."

"It means he's braindead!" Brent Sutton, a tall, athletic classmate scoffed loudly from directly behind them in line. The new Oran lacked the finely tuned social radar that a long-bullied teen developed. He had not pictured the mockery that such an innocuous conversation might spark in this particular environment.

"What's this?" Jonas Thaler, JV football star and the undisputed leader of the sophomore class barked from up the line.

"Fishfood's docs say he's braindead?" Brent shouted loud enough for the whole dining area to hear. Pope quickly pulled out of the old memories that Fishfood as a derogatory nickname recalling time some years ago when Eric had made Oran eat fish food in front of a bunch of other kids.

"I don't think that word means what you think it means." Oran said clearly in a voice that carried without yelling. Everyone stopped to look at him.

"What?" Brent said. He appeared shocked that someone like Oran might interrupt him mid-mockery.

"I said I don't think braindead means what you seem to be implying." Oran stepped out of line so he could face both Brent and Jonas, but cheated a bit towards the audience. "If I had no cerebral activity, I could neither speak nor walk. As I am obviously doing both, your supposition is proven false."

"Fuck you, Fishfood." Brent offed in rebuttal.

"No thanks," Oran replied calmly. "You're not my preferred gender, and even if you were, you'd still not be my type. But I appreciate the kind offer."

Brent started to close on Oran when Ms. Navarro, the school's director of security stepped in between them. "Mr. Sutton, a word please. And Mr. Bry, you may want to be more discrete when discussing medical issues in public, hmm?"

"Yes, ma'am." Oran replied. Now that is a woman I would not mind getting to know. She was mid-thirties, Hispanic, with a tight, well-muscled body and long brown hair. Dress in a well-tailored pants suit, she was the picture of a dangerous professional. I wonder if she is packing. And if so where? Ms. Navarro gave him a nod then walked away with Brent.

When he turned back to Hester, Oran noticed the whole hall looking at him. Most were whispering. Hester was staring silently with her mouth open.

"What?"

"Why did you do that?" Hester sounded worried.

"Do what?"

"Why did you mouth off to Brent? You know he and Jonas are going to get you back."

Oran moved her back into the line, ignoring the looks of the other students. "I'm hungry. Let's talk about it after food."

After they had filled their trays, they made their way to a table where Alex and Alona were waiting for them. Seconds after Oran and Hester had taken their seat, two girls joined them. Neither Penny Towns nor Antje Rau were normally part of the dross. Penny was the girl who had commented on his Bretton Woods dissertation in class. She was the popular leader of the alternative crowd in the lower years. Atje was, according to Oran's memories, the only known super currently attending Westminster Academy. She was a tall, muscular woman of mixed Swedish and Indian decent. Her physically enhanced body was almost superhumanly ripped and she liked to show it as much as the school uniforms allowed. She worked as a fitness model. The old Oran had been crushing on her something fierce, but had barely said ten words to her since she started at the school the prior year.

"That was some show, Bry," Penny started in. "Between that and your class performance in I&S, some are wondering what exactly happened in that lab accident."

Oran winced. "Lab accident" was popular slang for an emergence event. The fact that the Hypertap explosion was a lab accident, in both senses of the phrase meant he had no desire to talk about it.

"Three near death experiences in three weeks. I guess it just changed something in me. I think my balls finally dropped." Oran offered, hoping the salacious response might take talk away from his emergence.

"Ohhh... that's new." Antje said smiling. "About time. Now maybe you won't be afraid to talk to a pretty girl."

"I talk to pretty girls all the time," Oran said. "We are both lucky to have pretty best friends, right Alex?"

"Uh..." his tongue-tied friend muttered. Hester and Alona blushed in silence.

"What do you mean three times?" Penny demanded. "I've heard about two different things, but wasn't sure there wasn't just one thing getting garbled in translation."

"You've probably heard about my hospital stay and my kidnapping. There was also a monster attack just a couple of blocks from my building and I got a little mussed in the evacuation."

"Damn, you were having a busy month."

"You got hurt in the Amok attack?" Hester interrupted.

"Not hurt. Just shook up."

"I saw that on the net." Antje shivered. "It was harsh. Youngblood got stuck in. No way I could do something like that, powers or no powers."

"You're not really strong enough for that kind of action, are you?" Hester's question sounded like intellectual curiosity. Everyone knew she was fascinated with supers. But Pope detected a trace of spite in her tone. It is possible Hester knew about Oran's crush on Antje and was trying to tear her down in front of him.

The lunch hour moved on. Hester was the least shy of the four friends, or at least she was before Oran's change. She was capable of managing a conversion with a couple of classmates without too much angst. Alex tried and failed to enter the mix with a joke. Alona just watched. Oran watched too, but was paying more attention to trying to figure out how he could either hide or explain his changed behavior. Everyone was noticing, so hiding it might not really be an option.

Afternoon classes were Mandarin and PE. Mandarin was interesting. Pope had never studied it formally but was familiar with China and had seen a lots of Chinese in other parts of Asia. PE was swimming. Oran's mother had ensured he had his Westminster approved trunks and a spare towel. Once changed, he entered the natatorium. That was the school's fancy word for indoor pool room. The pool was set up to allow either Olympic length races, high diving, or water polo, but only one at a time. Oran joined the others swimming laps. He discovered that he did not have to lift his face to breath. He felt no urgent need for oxygen as he swam. After a few more strokes he raised his head. He did not want anyone noticing.

The coach's whistle brought him to a halt near the diving boards at the deep end of the pool. Oran grabbed on to the ladder while he listed to Coach Flynn. Flynn was one of two high school level coaches at the Academy. He managed most of the boy's teams, though football was his specialty. He also taught half the high school PE classes.

"Alright people, today we are going to be ..." He was interrupted by the entrance of Eric and two other seniors into the natatorium.