Wildflower, Chapter Two

“Mini-Flash Robin. Would you rather I wrote it on that bit of wall beside you, instead of the blackboard?”

Neetra taught that class once or twice a week, as everyone had to do a little filling-in with several of Nottingham’s senior players away on Joe’s business-trip. It wasn’t as if Mini-Flash Robin was even that bad a student, but lately all Neetra had seen of him was the back of his head. As soon as she said his name he whirled round, looking flushed and flurried. Tearing his gaze from that garment on its peg seemed to take more out of him every time.

It might have been then Neetra started to ponder.

Or maybe it was that day when all the different age-groups were having Flashball practice. Neetra in her gym skirt had been helping some little girls, when suddenly a kind of infuriated sarcasm rang out over the courts:

“Oh, so that’s what I’m doing wrong, is it?”

Our heroine wasn’t used to hearing raised voices in any sports session of hers. She teleported there at once, and said so.

It probably went without saying physical education was one of Mini-Flash Juniper’s very best subjects, though statements such as “I’m reasonably good” were about all she would commit to. On this particular instance it had been “I’m the only one who can do it,” delivered in no more antagonistic a manner than was normal for her. Since even the boy who had shouted corroborated this, the savagery of his rejoinder boggled Neetra’s mind.

Yes, it was hot. Yes, PE was the lesson in which tempers frayed most. And yes, male Mini-Flashes were understandably touchy about girls getting the better of them. But even so.

Then again, perhaps it was the time soon after that when Neetra found Mini-Flash Robin crying. She couldn’t get much out of him as to what was the matter. Only that he was at his wits’ end, and guess who was to blame.

It wasn’t that all of these incidents mightn’t have just as easily happened at an Earth-school attended by ordinary human youngsters. Neetra did see that. If this galaxy was indeed coming of age, then it was due its share. The only thing was, Neetra also knew about psychotropic superhuman powers that caused irrational behaviour. These were typically transmitted by pheromones. Meaning someone who possessed such powers and wanted to use them would prefer for there to be nothing between their victims and their pores.

Or, failing that, would wear what looked suspiciously like a permeable membrane.

Of course, it was one thing to have a special ability and quite another to also have the meanness to turn it on those who were weaker. An accusation of the same wasn’t anything Neetra would have gone into lightly.

Only why pick an all-boys class in the first place?

Male Mini-Flashes versus Special Program Flashball?

Seriously?

Neetra, having started to ponder, pondered on.

One morning when Neetra had the class until noon, Mini-Flash Juniper astonished everyone by exiting the changing-room in full Mini-Flash uniform. It was a big difference, but Juniper herself made not the least acknowledgment of it as with all eyes on her she swished to the pegs like she always did and hung up her travelling-membrane.

Neetra wouldn’t have known whether Mini-Flash Robin had any preference for skirt or shorts when someone was poking their little butt in his face, but as far as our heroine was concerned the tunic was a great improvement. Nevertheless, she remained wary. Mini-Flash Juniper crossed to her desk and sat down, then put on her glasses and tucked one leg underneath the other.

OK, Sharon Stone, Neetra thought to herself. The boys aren’t the only ones watching you.

For she had a feeling the beige and boots, though presumably Mini-Flash Splitsville’s, were putting in an appearance today for reasons other than Flashshadow’s fashion-tip.

Five minutes before lunch, Mini Flash Juniper put her spectacles down on the desk. The sun was at its zenith. She stretched, thrusting both fists far above her head. So fluid was the motion that it carried her smoothly out of her chair and set her upright in the middle of the floor.

From there her hands commenced a graceful plunge, and the upper portion of Mini-Flash Juniper followed them down as she bent and touched her toes.

The way eyes were popping on the boys who sat behind didn’t exactly fill Neetra with confidence that Juniper had also borrowed Mini-Flash Splitsville’s knickers.

Rising up again she didn’t stop at the perpendicular, but arched her back until her palms pressed upon carpet-pile. As she kicked into a handstand her tunic-skirt fell inside-out, and Neetra’s reaction was, yikes. Those ones she was wearing had to be Splitsville’s, but that wasn’t all good news. The latter Mini-Flash was only little and there was quite a lot more of Juniper, especially there. White cotton was slipping out of sight so fast that if Neetra had been looking at a pair of her own, she’d have started to worry about ever getting them back.

Mini-Flash Juniper’s flip to her feet however was picture-perfect. In its wake prevailed a hush more absolute than any Neetra had known in lesson-time.

“Nice recital, Mini-Flash Juniper,” she declared. “You must have worked up an appetite after that. Go on, and the rest of you too.”

So the seminar room emptied, one in the lead conducting herself as if nothing had happened followed by a cloud of stunned speechless boys.

Neetra decided herself. She’d not been sure at what point pondering would have to give way to action, but it turned out impromptu pole-dances did the trick. Without hesitation our heroine accomplished what Mini-Flash Robin had longed for weeks to do, and snatched Mini-Flash Juniper’s unattended membrane straight off its hook.

“The garment is saturated with mood-altering pheromones,” Scientooth pronounced from his lofty pillar of light. “How wise you were to bring this to my attention, pretty. And how foolish for not having done so sooner.”

“Sorry about that, it’s just that I trust you nowhere near as far as I could throw you,” Neetra replied.

Croldon Thragg certainly picked his moments to go gallivanting off with Joe. More than anything else right now our heroine wished she could have asked him to run his Wonder-Tool over Mini-Flash Juniper’s membrane instead. That would have meant reliable results, not to mention a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Scientooth refocused his single optic sensor with a minute whirr.

“In the absence of your male, I fear it falls to you to reacquaint my memory-banks with his most frequent asseveration,” commenced the fatuous one. “Does he not tend to the view that the so-called Special Program is of pivotal importance to the confrontation against his offspring which must come? That somehow written on the second gender’s strange unsightly shape is either survival or downfall for your cause?”

As these laboured questions were wholly rhetorical, Neetra didn’t bother with answers. Nor did she much like the direction he was going.

“This Mini-Flash female arrives in Nottingham,” Scientooth went on. “At once you incorporate her into your rigmarole of ideology and indoctrination. Whereat she proceeds to reduce all to chaos. Enacting in microcosm, if you will, the very role it is feared her kind will take when the time is at hand. Consider, pretty, the interval which elapsed between the Special Program’s flight from Flash Club Headquarters and the girl’s mysterious appearance among us. It has occurred to you she may already be in league with The Foretold One?”

Unfortunately for Neetra that one was rhetorical too. No such thing had occurred to her, though suddenly she couldn’t keep her mind from it.

“She’s already fought and defeated him once,” our heroine managed, though under the circumstances that didn’t count for much, and Scientooth saw it too.

“You will forgive me if I turn from that dubious source of comfort to one I find a little more substantial,” said he.

Every viewscreen on the command centre’s one curving wall illumined, and all at once Neetra was returning the stare of a myriad round yellow eyes. She glimpsed steel talons and maws like rusty radiators, and heard the noise of unmuffled motors rising in a growl. Our heroine would have demanded of Scientooth how long he’d had his own kennel of attack-Fringers, if it hadn’t been obvious. Ever since the etherium actualizor. Against the possibility of just such an incident as this.

“Scientooth, I said nothing about ripping her limb from limb!” cried Neetra. “That’s not how we do things here. You’ve got to let me handle this my way!”

“But pretty, you forget you yourself are an organic, as prone to our foe’s olfactory predations as any who have thus far been her object,” Scientooth crooned. “Four Heroes powers in the hands of such a one should surely leave none of us safe. Fringers however, being mechanical, are as far above her influence as I. Pray be ruled by me in this matter, and spare me the duty of notifying dear Joe that some dreadful fate befell you. The merest sign of grief upon his brow ever wracks me with sorrow.”

After pretentiousness like that it was a mercy when Scientooth finally shut his titanium trap. Or at least it would have been, if he hadn’t punctuated by letting slip the dogs of war.

END OF CHAPTER TWO