The Magnetic Stones, Chapter Two

Miss Jade’s bodice and camis and heels, vivid green against the white of her skin, were some days the only blaze of bold colour the Mini-Flashes saw in their limited-palette world. Older than them, but young, she wore her fawn tresses in one sumptuous fall. Sometimes too she was the sharpest pang of provocation the first gender felt in a day.

On this day however, no-one could forget there was more of both to come. A simmer of unrest prevailed in the classroom as afternoon lessons began.

“Next week,” said Miss Jade, “you’ll all be commencing 4-H-N studies.”

She plugged a pyramidal recording-device into the socket on her desk.

That did it. Mini-Flash Phytolith’s heart seemed to catch in his throat, and his breath came ragged. She was pink, not white like them. He’d been taught that people outside the compound were different in that way, but nothing could have prepared him for the richness of those round thighs which rolled through every shade from the petal-pale to the warm and inviting, nor the flush on those fulsome cheeks, nor the kaleidoscope of copper sheen and voluptuous depth which ranged through the mystery of her hair.

“I must say, I’ve never seen the boys so enthusiastic about a new topic,” Miss Jade remarked.

There was laughter, and not all of it as genial or good-humoured as it might have been. About the male registers in particular was a feel of something unchecked.

“What do you think, girls?” went on Miss Jade, as one flicking at a rising flame. “Do we have a class of budding little would-be specialists on our hands?”

More of the same species of mirth. To Mini-Flash Phytolith it was like a tide. Were these holograms a mere taste of what was in store tonight?

“All of them raring to get to grips with her,” Miss Jade sang above the hubbub.

“I can’t wait for that practical session!” shouted Mini-Flash Screeslopes, his quavering tones a tumult of restlessness and glee.

“That’s three lashes,” said Miss Jade.

Silence killed every giggle at a stroke. All at once the classroom held as deathly still as the cosmos surrounding it.

Terrible was the scrape of Mini-Flash Screeslopes’s chair-legs in that hush. His head was high as he walked, but each classmate saw how violently his tunic-sleeves and hemline twitched. Miss Jade reached into her desk-drawer and produced the object of dread, though to Earthling eyes it would have suggested nothing more than a short plastic ruler with a dial at one end.

The class registered every click as emerald-lacquered nails gave this a twist. Level number four was a cruel setting. Poor Mini-Flash Screeslopes.

He curtsied before Miss Jade in abasement, then turned and put the insteps and knees of his beige boots together. Once again his fingertips found out his skirts.

You couldn’t help wincing through it.

Sympathy was acutest of all however when Screeslopes resumed his seat. Most Mini-Flashes knew from comparably bitter experience that that was the most painful part.

Unto ears that were now nothing but attentive, Miss Jade inquired aloud:

“Why will you be commencing 4-H-N studies next term?”

Predictably, Mini-Flash Semiprecious’s hand was the first to shoot up.

“Because 4-H-N’s role is pivotal to our glorious destiny,” she intoned.

“Partial credit,” was Miss Jade’s response. “You and many other Mini-Flashes correctly answered question three in today’s test. Our stockpile of knowledge on future events, the Arch of Titus lode, is indeed the advantage which will ultimately bring us victory. Only if that were already a given, then surely we wouldn’t need studies in the first place. Anyone else?”

This time it was Mini-Flash Moon who raised her hand.

“We need studies so we’ll know how best to use the information,” said the voice sweetest to Mini-Flash Phytolith’s hearing.

Solemnly, Miss Jade nodded.

“Good,” said she. “Mini-Flash Moon has it.”

Mini-Flash Semiprecious glared at the latter.

“We’re not fighting a pack of fools,” Miss Jade informed her class. “Yes, they’re in the dark. You might even say they’re blind. Only don’t picture those disgusting defectives we cull as soon as they exit the genesis-chamber. Yes, the Arch of Titus lode is our most valuable asset. It would however be more valuable still had it not been for the enemy’s interference. A leader like ours doesn’t know the meaning of the word incomplete. He wouldn’t have let that doddering foursome wheeze their last until the future was mapped out and resting in our grasp.”

Miss Jade paused expectantly, waiting for a Mini-Flash to supply what came next in this schema they’d covered more than once.

“Limb Four,” ventured Mini-Flash Shale.

“Good again,” Miss Jade commended her. “Limb Four. A capture-operation necessitated by our enemy’s meddling at Titus. Certain gaps left in the lode might have been filled that way. We even knew which errant member of the Special Program held the information, which was more than the enemy did. Yet even so, they managed to thwart us. We should all be thankful the Mini-Flash kept her knowledge hidden from them, as she did from us. Limb Four was a setback to our campaign from which we’re still recovering.”

This next break was a cue. Duly the form recited in chorus:

“We can ill afford another Limb Four.”

Miss Jade looked satisfied.

“And that is why you’re going to learn everything we know of 4-H-N and her importance, ahead of the preordained time,” she declared. “That’s why you’re going to study her in detail.”

Here Miss Jade held again, daring her listeners to let her hear so much as a snigger. No-one however was so unwise. The male Mini-Flashes sat rigid, afraid to breathe.

All the same, and though Mini-Flash Phytolith tried his best to concentrate as Miss Jade’s preface wore on, he couldn’t seem to stop his attention straying ever back to the projections of her theme. 4-H-N was picking away at him. Something teased in those wide brown eyes, as if they saw straight through his desk and uniform to the shameful underwear beneath. The more he looked, the more he felt this was so, and the more he shrank. Or at any rate, Mini-Flash Phytolith thought to himself, an artificial 4-H-N made of light behaved thus. When he tried to envisage an encounter with the real one he suddenly turned hollow. Her beige Mini-Flash tunic and knee-boots, identical to his, seemed deliberate flourishes put in place to mock him. For this round pink vision with plunging fathoms in her hair would surely be light-years above acknowledging on any sense such a thing as he.

Afternoon school finally drew to its close. “And don’t forget tonight,” concluded Miss Jade. “An instructive and entertaining head-start for you in our new subject has been specially arranged. Those of you who are going, that is. Those of you who don’t mind the humble little holographic efforts we have to content ourselves with.”

She did this every time they had a film night. Oddly, because no Mini-Flash would ever want to skip one. Treats were rare enough around here. Nevertheless Miss Jade always did it, and what Miss Jade did, you were better going along with.

“Who’s heard wonderful things about Grindotron cinema?” Miss Jade threw out there. “Who’d rather leave the compound to see huge special effects and real film stars?”

Judging by the classroom’s vacuum of noise, no-one.

“Any secret subscribers to that Alliance woolly thinking which attaches technological and creative genius to pathetic little squashy faces who can’t even defend themselves?”

Again, from the sound of things, there were not.

“Drop a Grindo into one of our gladiatorial arena-pits,” Miss Jade suggested, smiling. “See if he directs a holiday blockbuster to get him out of it.”

You were expected to laugh at this, so everyone did. Miss Jade in turn beamed upon her young charges, radiant.

“Above all else though, it’s purely an extra-curricular activity,” she reminded them. “Which means Mini-Flashes who don’t think much of our movie-making can always just not go.”

With that she picked up her corrector again and cradled it, in loving anticipation of the day one of them took her at her word.

END OF CHAPTER TWO