Chapter 51: School Central.
The city was organized in a way the stray town wasn’t and the plain definitely wasn’t. Clean streets. Cars moving in deliberate directions. Buildings that had apparently never heard of the catastrophe and were not going to be inford about it now.
This wasn’t the capital. This was the city of the rich. The other kind of inside.
I was sitting with Sherry at the back of the bus when School Central appeared through the window.
The gates were beautiful in the specific way of things built by people who had decided that aesthetics were not optional. The bus stopped in a parking lot full of cars.
People here drive cars, I noted. To school. Nobody walks.
A man in a green reflector jacket was waiting for us with the clipboard energy of soone who had done this orientation before and had a system. We got out.
[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]
[259 female ability users detected. 55 male ability users.]
I read it twice. Two hundred and fifty nine.
I looked at the campus. The buildings. The students visible through the gates, moving between classes with the easy confidence of people who had always had sowhere to be.
Two hundred and fifty nine.
The system had handed
a number and implied a scale of work that was going to require considerably more planning than Hogsby had. I filed it and kept my face completely neutral.
"Welco to School Central," the man said. "My na is Rob."
He had the energy of soone who considered himself good at his job and had not been given strong evidence to the contrary.
"Who among you is Mable and Annabelle?" he asked.
They raised their hands. He knew our nas, which ant Miss Brown had briefed him, which ant we had arrived with files. Inside the walls, everyone had a file. I was still getting used to being the kind of person who had a file.
"I’ll show each of you your class and supervisor. From there you report independently."
Independently, I thought. So we’re being separated.
He led us through the gates and I got my first proper look at School Central and imdiately understood that Hogsby had been a warm-up.
The buildings were tall and clean and entirely intact, the architecture of a place that the catastrophe had not visited.
Students everywhere, not the institutional movent of a school day but actual life, people sitting on steps, walking in pairs, existing without hurry.
Then a boy walked past with fur on his forearms and a tail coming through his pants. I watched him walk away.
Okay, I thought.
Then a girl with blue skin and pink hair crossed the path ahead of us.
Okay, I thought again. So abilities here aren’t just what people can do. So of them are what people are. Nobody told
that.
I was beginning to learn the size of what I didn’t know yet.
"Annabelle, Mable, room 8, administrative block." Rob pointed. They went. The group reduced.
One by one the others were dispatched. Supervisors, rooms, buildings. The group shrinking with each assignnt until it was , Sherry, Isabelle, and Wells.
Please put
with Sherry, I thought. One familiar face. That’s all I’m asking.
"Sherry," Rob said, checking his clipboard. "And you." He pointed at Wells. "Room 17. Vale building."
Sherry looked at . The specific look of soone entering an unfamiliar environnt who had expected to have backup and was being inford that backup had different plans. Sothing in it that said: say sothing.
I didn’t have anything to say. The man with the clipboard had decided. She left with Wells toward the Vale building and I watched her go.
"You two," Rob said, to
and Isabelle. "I’m your supervisor. Room 5 if you need anything." He started walking. "Follow ."
and Isabelle. We had no real connection. We had shared a classroom at Hogsby, a bus seat on the way here, and the experience of being the last two standing when everyone else got distributed. The bond of people who ran out of other options.
"Students don’t wear uniforms here," Rob said, as we crossed the campus. "Each student dresses as they choose."
I looked at the students around us. He was right. Every conceivable combination of clothing, so of it familiar, so of it involving tails or skin colors that weren’t in the standard human range.
Two hundred and fifty nine, I thought again. In this one campus.
Our classroom was on the second floor of the Sophia building. Through the window of the Vale building directly across from ours I could see Sherry and Wells with their supervisor, already being briefed.
School Central is already separating us, I thought. Six days at Hogsby building sothing and now different buildings, different supervisors, different classrooms.
"Hostel rooms by evening," Rob said, outside our door. "I’ll handle it." And then he left, which ant that was all the orientation we were getting. The rest was apparently on us.
I pushed the door open. Forty students. Nobody looked up. Nobody acknowledged us. The room had the specific atmosphere of people who were each involved in their own thing and had no interest in adjusting that for two new arrivals from a school nobody here had probably heard of.
Every man for himself, I thought. Understood. Different rules from Hogsby.
I scanned the room the way I always scanned rooms. Exits. Faces. Empty seats.
At the front, a girl with red hair, mini skirt, straps, high heels. She was talking to her neighbor with an animation that reminded
of May. Sa frequency. Different hair.
Isabelle moved through the rows ahead of , unhurried, scanning the room with the quiet efficiency of soone who had spent her whole life operating as one half of a pair and was now, for the first ti, choosing a seat for herself alone.
She found one near the window. A girl with dark braided hair in the next seat glanced up, then back down. Isabelle sat without introduction, without waiting for acknowledgnt, with the composed self-sufficiency of soone who had decided that this was where she was and that was enough.
She’s going to be fine. I kept moving toward the back.
Three empty seats spread through the room. Then, at the back, one more. Next to the blue-skinned girl I had seen outside.
Blue skin. Pink hair. Pink eyes, I discovered, when I reached her row and she looked up from her book at the sound of my approach. She looked at
with the flat patience of soone who had been interrupted and was waiting to find out if it was going to be worth it.
Half the class looked back. The specific attention of students noticing sothing that didn’t happen often.
"Is this seat taken?" I asked.
She looked at . Then at the seat. Then back at . Then back at her book.
That’s a yes, I decided. I can sit.
I sat. The class returned to their business. I settled in and looked at the room from the back and took stock.
Communication watches on most wrists. The kind Del Slater had used when we were in the detention room with May.
Rich ability users, I thought. Or at least considerably more resourced than anyone I’ve t so far.
"Hey," I said, to the blue girl beside . "Abram Nadez."
She looked at
with the expression of soone who had not asked for this and was communicating that clearly through eye contact alone. Then she went back to her book.
Okay, I thought. We’re going to be great friends.
The door opened. Daphne walked in.
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