The Special Program

At Flash Club Headquarters was an unfrequented wing where the dormitory and refectory doors had lately been magnetically sealed. From the practice-room, which was the only area still lit on a daily basis, one exit not barricaded likewise led to individual stasis-pods for out-of-hours use. Arching overhead, emergency blast-shields had been promoted to a permanent post. The Special Program was in lockdown.

Spaced at wide intervals on the practice-room’s deck were a number of girls doing their best to stand with regimental rigidity. All however were hot-cheeked and panting, and their silky heads were damp. Auntie Green, Mini-Flash matron broad and formidable in emerald uniform, surveyed them through her steel-rimmed eye-glasses. In both hands she clutched her carbon-shafted baton, strong fingers rhythmically tightening round its pointed tip.

What a slovenly sight her own gender was whenever they assembled thus. Not that Auntie Green truly believed that that was what they were. This opinion was not unaccompanied by a thrust of her mighty chin. There’d been no talk of genders in that long-ago time when she was their age. She could remember noticing she wasn’t quite the same as everyone else she knew, but in those days that had been as far as that sort of thing went.

“Tactical One, your guard was down,” Auntie Green rapped out. “Secondary Defence, pray spare me the improvisations. And Attack Priority, I would just as soon not comment.”

No answering back this time about how tired they were. Good. Pleasing to know there were still some Mini-Flash bad habits which benefited from Auntie Green’s disciplinary techniques. She was glad they’d thrashed the matter out, to use an apt expression.

Auntie Green hadn’t bothered learning their names. They could be Mini-Flash Whomever for all she cared. She’d invented a military coding system of her own and used it, because from her humble and no doubt irredeemably old-fashioned perspective that made sense when Mini-Flashes were being prepared for the frontlines of an impending war. Needless to say Storm-Sky had already been in touch, politely suggesting a more empathetic approach. In the name of Plomonoog, she missed Lightning.

“We shall fly the sequence again,” declared Auntie Green. “Each of you take note of my criticisms. I will not tolerate a repeat of that poor performance.”

“But Auntie Green, she’s going to disfigure the symbol,” Attack Priority suddenly piped up. She sounded acutely distressed.

“You may save the non-sequiturs until you are in your stasis-pod,” pronounced Auntie Green, and her tone was fearsome.

“She is though,” cried Tactical Three, as fretful as her friend. “She’s going to put ink on it.”

Auntie Green’s inner alarm-bell was by now clanging loud. They’d started talking gibberish like this immediately prior to several of their recent episodes. Until the Alliance discovered what was making the Special Program periodically run wild, there was always a danger the next one would be too severe to cover up. Confronted by this undesirable possibility, Auntie Green reverted at once to the modus of suppression that had worked for her before.

Her baton shot out at the nearest little curly-haired Mini-Flash, whipping the pushed-out rear of her tunic-skirt with a smack that was heard across the practice-room. Two swift and smooth elbow-jerks were all Auntie Green needed to follow through with a jab to the same girl’s bodice, the baton-point plunging deep enough to raise a breathy exhalation of shock and anguish.

“Posture,” barked Auntie Green. “We are not a Rings of Xandreth cabaret artiste, and nor shall any Mini-Flash I teach ever become one. Even in this day and age,” she blew in addition, before she could check herself.

Auntie Green proceeded to stalk, glaring round ranks which were wisely holding themselves as straight as statues. Many a true word though. There was a time when being a Mini-Flash had stood for something. Before they began defecting in their droves to a human long-haired layabout – Auntie Green lashed out again at a twitching beige curvature, and heard with satisfaction the cry – who of course had nothing to do with the Special Program’s outbreaks. Of course he didn’t. These Grindo investigators wanted to try working on the shopfloor like she’d done her whole life, that’d tell a different story. Well, if it wasn’t Joe, maybe it was The Foretold One. Auntie Green snorted mirthlessly at her own wit. At least they’d narrowed it down to one family. And how did her home sector ever come to this?

Attack Priority, being where she was, enjoyed an unobstructed field of fire. Auntie Green drew up directly behind her sleek shiny head, breathing hard.

“Arch of Titus mission, time-index three-forty-six, energy-projection,” she commanded her charge. “Proceed.”

Effort tensed the obedient Mini-Flash’s frame, but could not quite banish the delicate quivers which had already been convulsing her minutely. No energy-projection appeared.

The baton whapped against that which was quivering most, making Attack Priority’s lacquered lips drop open in a pained whimper. “I saw you do it with my own eyes, at the Arch of Titus!” Auntie Green raged. “There was none of your laziness then! Time-index three-forty-six, energy-projection!”

“I’m trying!” the Mini-Flash implored her. “Only the symbol – !”

Another application of the carbon shaft, same target and the sharpest yet, to remind the recipient of their previous discussion on the subject of answering back.

“Time-index three-forty six,” issued more from Auntie Green’s nostrils than her lips. “Energy-projection.”

Once more the girl struggled piteously, and once more she gasped in vain. Holstering her baton Auntie Green clutched a fistful of hemline which she flung up high, and unto the pretty lace trim and pink butterfly-print thus disclosed chopped the naked palm of her hand with such ferocity that if the butterflies had been real, she’d have crushed them to pulp.

That did it. Something shifted in the very ether of the practice-room, something that required neither thunderclap nor earthquake for herald, a far-more-than-physical proclamation that nobody was safe now.

A tide of supernal force coruscated from the nexus of Attack Priority’s body. Auntie Green, who had wanted an energy-projection, received one which scoffed at even her considerable centre of gravity. It bowled her from her feet and launched her like lead for the practice-room borders.

In swift succession Attack Priority’s classmates were catching the wave. Each Special Program member was lighting up, tiny toecaps lifting from the deck, and as this luminescent host ascended noiselessly the armoured roof’s massy bulkheads began to dissolve. These were the girls who’d sent Harbin packing. The blast-shields had only ever been a psychological barrier.

Half-eaten away dullivan plates and broken girders rained down on the practice-room as slim short-skirted legs of light vanished upward into the breach. Drywall miasmas bloomed in banks from the last of the lumpen avalanche. And the closing notes of this cacophonous concert plinked and plonked as small rubble-chunks rounded off the deluge of debris.

NEXT: 'PURSUIT'