To the readers
I appreciate any comments on the story.
Notes
[] are used to indicate stage directions
All dialogue follows a "Speaker: dialogue" format
{} are used for author comments.
CONTINUE
[Ethan and Jordan are in Caroline's office, looking a little dazed. Neither of them is looking at Caroline who's talking.]
Caroline: -and just blatantly announced what you were doing to the entire school, let alone Twitter. Jordan Hoffmann all of your "contraband" has been confiscated. Not only is using that substance illegal on school grounds, but you're also obviously distributing it. I can't believe [pauses in disbelief] It's like you didn't even care about getting caught. You just had to do this off campus and we would never know.
Ethan: Why?
Caroline: What?
Ethan: Why go anywhere? That's hard. What's the point?
[Jordan and Caroline look incredulous at Ethan. Jordan breaks the silence.]
Jordan: You were saying.
Caroline: And you're expelled for the possession of an illegal substance.
Jordan: I was just-
Caroline: NO EXCUSES. [calms herself]
Caroline: Townley, your room was searched, and we found similar contraband. You're getting expelled as well.
[Cut to the plasma throne on the Annex. In the void around the orbiting platforms, something changes. A shape forms out of the black.
The camera pans across its surface. It's a large black boxy vehicle with bulky engines on each of the corners spitting out spouts of flame.
The camera follows as it descends toward a cathedral hall sitting on the surface of the planet. One of the walls was missing allowing the ship to settle down next to it, docking with flowing energy to a tower right at the edge of the room.]
Mabel: Maybe this will just be easier if you tell me what you think school is about.
Inès: Well, there's the jock group [cut to them standing in the gym], loner group [cut to third floor of the lunchroom seating], the band or drama group [cut to them in the stage in the auditorium], I'm not sure on the difference.
Mabel: [breaks the split screen effect with her own portrait] Same people. It's fine to lump them together.
Inès: Goth group [cut to underground corridor beneath the courtyards], the nerd group [cut to the computer lab], and the quiet kid who no one notices until something bad happens. [cut to Mabel and Inès walking in front of the table in front of the second floor of the cafeteria where Axel usually sits]
Mabel: Okay. Nearly everything about that was wrong. Hang on, let me channel my inner coach Zama. [clears throat] [gravelly voice] You will forget everything that Hollywood has taught you. So, I can drill what you actually need into your soft skull. [clears throat] First, there is no such thing as a loner group. If they're loners [cut to individual students sitting at other of the 2 person tables] they aren't in a group.
Mabel: Sometimes, people form groups based on a based on a single person or if they only have a few members, a club. Like volleyball. You see those girls hanging out with each other. [focuses on a group of girls on the first floor at a table near the pizza buffet station?] Not all of them are in volleyball, it's just enough to give them a label.
Mabel: And all the robot guys [nods to the group of people on the third floor of the lunchroom at the top of the staircase in the back who Inès pointed out before as the "loners"] are in at least two groups. It's just in the moment while they're together, they're the robotics group.
Inès: And just because you're in a club doesn't mean you're forced into that circle.
Mabel: Right. Landry and Tanya are in the drama club, but you don't see them down there with Rook and the Triple Tylers. [cut to the big table near the kitchen counter where Ethan was trying to sit earlier] Big point. there's no such thing as jock group and nerd groups. It's just the pop kids, but only because they're the biggest and half of them are in other groups to begin with. Oh and Zoe is in the art club. [cut to the art studio with Mabel and Inès surrounded by half-finished canvases with windows looking out to the library courtyard.]
Inès: Oh, right she is. That's why her clothes always have paint stains.
Mabel: Yep, completely separate. And I'm in the conspiracy club and you don't see me having my own group.
Inès: [narrows eyes] That's because you're the only one in the conspiracy club. [background warps back to them sitting on the bench in the library courtyard]
Mabel: [points at her with a fork with kale leaves on it] Or am I?
[Axel is sparring with Ai. They throw out some practice jabs. Axel kicks. Ai deflects it down. Axel feints and hooks under her guard in the side. She twists with him, so it doesn't connect and counters. He grabs her arm before her punch can connect and pulls her in for a knee jab. She blocks with her shin, twists and nails him from the side with her free elbow.
They disconnect.]
Axel: Nice.
Ai: Really?
Axel: Yeah [smiles] it's been a while since I had so much fun. You've made great progress. Take a break. It helps you process what you've learned.
Ai: I'm gonna check in on In – I mean Ombret.
Axel: Who?
Ai: I'll show you. [shuts off the stream] Bye everyone! See you later.
[Back in the courtyard. Mabel and Inès are talking. Ai's and Axel's avatars are superimposed over the 2D environment.]
Axel: Oh, you meant Inet, Ines.
[Inès notices them, surprised at Axel.]
Inès: So, you're here now.
Mabel: Hmm?
Inès: Not you.
[Back in the virtual world, the gates on the sides of the ships slide up to reveal slightly differently shaded black on the sides of the box vehicles. Ramps materialize and CLANK to the metal floor below. Then the avatars march out of the ship the WHRRM of something exiting a semipermeable membrane echoing with each one.
They carried an assortment of weapons from dual swords, to a giant zweihander with a 3-foot-long shining metal blade, a staff made of a mix of white and black colors, and lastly some had what seemed to be glowing gloves around their hands. They were all jet black, and their faces had no mouth, flickering shadows for hair, and their white eyes had no pupil. They just had a slightly dimmer white where it seemed like they were looking.
They go down an elevator platform. To the middle zone, then the inner zone. Then they split into two groups. One goes toward a blue tower inside a familiar structure with a bridge leading to it. The other takes a trail to a bridge with a glowing column of light up to the sphere in the sky in the center of the sector.]
[Ethan glances toward the picture windows where the courtyard can be seen below.}
Ethan: [Takes out his phone to start typing something] So how much largesse this time.
Caroline: [frowns] You're expelled. Nothing is changing that.
Ethan: What?!
Jordan: What the hell? You said you bail us out.
Ethan: So, when did Sherlock blackmail you?
[Caroline nods. Andrew has Jordan is taken out, but the door is closed leaving just Ethan and Caroline.]
Caroline: What makes you think he has something to do with this?
Ethan: I hid my stache on Sherlock's side of the room.
Caroline: [blinks] Wouldn't he find it?
Ethan: I hid it in his end of year bin. Everything he owns has a specific place. He would never look for or find it as long as I moved it before May. So, if you found it with Axel's things, why isn't he being looked into?
Caroline: Because I know he didn't know about the contraband. You just admitted it. If he had known about it, that would be some insane hypocrisy.
Ethan: [narrows eyes] Axel gave you one of his little speeches. And you got it into your head that you need to start a clean act.
Caroline: [furious] I do not need to explain my decisions to you. You just need to know what they are and the consequences of them. You can accept that this is happening, or I can use you as an example.
Ethan: [thinks] It's seriously happening again?
Caroline: What do you choose?
[beat]
Ethan: I choose to be immune to consequences.
[Ethan ignites his sword.]
Caroline: WHA-
[Ethan slashes the window into pieces, grabs the window frame and swivels out onto a ledge. He uses the energy sword to anchor himself to the wall. He grabs the rain gutter. Technomancy circuits spread along it where his foot and hand are attached. Then like two zipper zippers on a track, the part of it he's resting his foot on vanishes as he slides down and reappears on the other side of his hand above. He hits the ground, detaches, and starts running.
Caroline is just staring out the window gapping.]
Mabel: So that's all the groups.
Axel: Oh, that's interesting. She groups people. Wrong though. If you pay attention, it's actually in tiers.
Inès: Tiers? Like the desert Misu?
Mabel: I wish they served tiramisu.
Ai: Same. I mean I need a body first.
Axel: It's a common misbelief that if you earn your place in a group, that makes you popular. [Inès freezes up.] People draw others who are compatible with them. The way they talk, the things you can do with them. The jokes they tell, their banter. The more compatible they are and the better they are at creating a social presence, the bigger their group.
Rook and the other pop kids draw people to them. That's why they're high tier. Rook always gives attention to everyone in the group equality even if it's obvious that they are just there as a floater. He makes people feel important. Always with a smile even if it's a fake one. And he acts like he genuinely cares for them.
Ai: Where are you getting that data from?
Axel: I'm an expert from hanging out with him and Tyler and Zoe a while back.
Inès: You were friends with Zoe and Rook?
Axel: A while back. [continues where he left off without hesitation] Also watching how people talk with each other. You would be surprised at what you can learn when you don't try to influence the social dynamic and just observe by people talking. How they react to news. The patterns they have across conversations.
Stuck up Zoe group is mid-tier. Good at drawing small followings. Though she does it through passive aggression.
Ines: She isn't that stuck up. She did more against Frosch than you.
Axel: Ooh you're defending her. She's got her hooks on you. She acted quicker, not better. You wouldn't be saying that if you saw what I did after you ran.
[Mabel follows her gaze to empty air.]
Inès: Oh, you're probably wondering.
Mabel: Nope. No need to explain. Just do what you need to do.
Axel: After mid-tier you just get floaters. They gel well with any group, but don't actually have any presence to create their own. After that is tier 0 where you just create misunderstanding after misunderstanding until you just learn to be by yourself.
Ai: And that's your and Ethan's tier?
Axel: Ethan and I don't get a tier. We don't get to be a part of anything because everyone decided we don't get to be a part of it. Because of something that wasn't even our FAULT.
Ines: What about Axel and Ethan?
Mabel: Oh, the choir boys? Paramount to social suicide to be associated with them.
Ines: Why?
Mabel: 'Cause they've been burned, blacklisted, marked as contaminated. That's what could happen to you. No second chances.
Ines: What did they do?
Mabel: I don't know. I got here after it all went down, and the school is crazy about keeping it under wraps. [mutters] it's like they're begging people to ask about it. [normal volume] All I know is that there was that tournament they throw every year, and "they" are the reason the school stopped doing it.
Ai: Did something happen to you?
Axel: Ethan and I did nothing wrong. We just got put in the worst situation and no one believes us.
Ai: Only Inès and I can hear you right now.
Axel: I know, it's [looks at Ai and his expression changes] it's just hard for me to talk about.
[Ethan rockets a boat into the interior dock at the Annex complex. He fails to completely slow it and he crashes into the dock launching him onto the concrete. He's covered in scraps from the fall.]
Ethan: Ow.
[Ethan runs inside the building touching the metal walls as he runs absorbing the material to pull himself forward even faster. He stops at the entrance to the lab.
Puts his hand on the metal wall. Red circuits spread through the entire room through the wires in the walls. The path of the circuits snakes out, connect with a camera looking at the door and then retract. He repositions his hand and repeats the process as the cameras around the room shut down.
He jumps onto the rotating staircase and runs up to the computer. He touches the monitor and runs his technomancy through it.
The monitor turns on, but nothing appears.]
Ethan: YOU USELESS ANUS. Come on. Return to the Past now. [Hits the button but nothing happens.] Think. Ai set up the code the first time, Axel set it up last time from here. He would have a copy of the notes for us to use in case he got deep 6ed by XANA.
[He finds a hard drive on the workstation on the 1st level. It has a sticky note.
"Obelisk and Dark Magician Girl. In case of Sherlock: "
-unconscious
-coma
-dead
He plugs it in. A file explorer window appears. He navigates to a folder labeled "Return to the Past."]
Ethan: Okay, copy this, press that. Press that. Paste. Enter this. Press that. ANNNNND enter.
[The RTTP white light shoots over everything in the room. Spreads out to the inlet, then reaches Malhur.
Ines, Axel, and Ai notice the light.]
Ai: What's that?
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