High Noon on Jefferson: Chapter Twelve

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

I withdrew the drone and brought it back. I had it scoop up the relays automatically: the relays crawled up as high as they could and the drone grabbed them one by one like Hansel and Gretel scooping back up their bread crumbs on the way back out of the forest. I sure felt like I had seen a candy house and realized there was a witch inside.

Or perhaps not a witch. Perhaps someone with a wildly illegal repticulate factory. A mad scientist.

That my Dad and his girlfriend were outside without protection, leathers or smart cloth or something screams mad scientist. That upset me. Truthfully, even seeing Dad kiss someone upset me. I suppose if he had kissed Mom even it would have made me uncomfortable. There's a point when you realize your parents were not just parents, but people, too. Flawed and had their own desires. Even ones you really wished you didn't know about. That realization was upon me and it made me feel...weird. Grossed out. But not like if I saw someone I didn't like snogging, erm, kissing heavily, Earther.

I had to feel, as the drone buzzed back home, that his new girlfriend had to be the reason behind this. If Dad had gone full mad scientist, then she was the reason. I had to know for sure though. I had to see for myself, even as that made me queasy. And I was going to need my friends to do that though. I needed their support to face this.

The drone made it home and collected all the relays. I tried to sleep. It did not go well. I was so disturbed. Jefferson was really that dangerous. Yet Dad and Khiara were all but flaunting themselves outside seemingly immune or oblivious to taxitoes.

I got up in the morning, having barely slept and dragged my sorry carcass to school. My brother was faster and more chipper than I was and he is not a morning person. Then again, he wasn't contemplating his father being a criminal mad scientist under the spell of a younger woman who was clearly controlling his mind. Or so it seemed to my sleep deprived brain.

I was exhausted and disturbed and frustrated and clearly not thinking straight and not emoting straight. Not that straight was perfect or even right for some people, but for me, well, that was not good.

I stopped at the coffee shop and ordered a cup. Dad and Mom would have lost their minds, but considering Dad might have lost it already over a woman instead of a cup of coffee, I didn't worry so much right then. Coffee always smelled great. It didn't taste the best. I had to add milk - probably from Dad's farm - and sugar. Then, well, it tasted pretty good.

When I made it to school, I rounded up the Merry Pranksters. They sensed and felt my color and it was blue. An exhausted, watery and drowning blue. I didn't try to paint a picture as anything other than what I saw. I didn't try to shade it better. I didn't try to tint it lighter. I let its deep, darkness flow over and through them in its rawest form: I just shared everything I saw straight through from my booster.

Veena, Rosa, Tom and Jackie all got to see the entire flight of the drone. The hacking. Then my Dad and Khiara.

They were shocked, too. Veena and Rosa gave me a hug. Jackie looked grim. Tom actually kept his trap shut. That was almost unbelievable. Some small part of me kept expecting him to make a stupid comment like he always did. He didn't. That probably made just as upset as what I found out with spying on Dad. If Tom had made some sort of comment, then the world was ok. That he didn't...that meant how bad it appeared to me appeared to be as bad to Tom. Even jocular, obnoxious Tom.

None of them tinked me a condemnation for making a decision for the group without consulting. That was almost as bad. We were teens and everyone had an opinion and had to express it over a decision. This was dire enough they didn't.

I polled the Pranksters.

Their parents had approved of them going out to Dad's on Saturday.

Dad had agreed to them coming.

That was the small light of hope I had he was not the one doing illegal manufacture of evil robotic lizards.

He was still doing something funky.

And that's why I couldn't help but that light of hope I was feeling was really NOT the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light of an onrushing maglev train.

Normally, I was the leader of the Pranksters, but today, the blueness washed over and through me and obliterated me. I couldn't focus on school. I biffed and butchered my classes and Immies and lectures.

And my inner cerulean was made a purely purple indigo, was made worse by lunch time.

Maven was nowhere to be found.