Chapter 15

What seemed like half the school was crammed in the anteroom before Principal Li's office, dripping wet and waiting their moment before the tribunal. None of the jocks were there. As Kelly had predicted, they couldn't really get into trouble. The assembled punks, on the other hand, swapped stories about their deeds in the Cafeteria Riot of '01. The rest was a grab-bag of various students, either plucked from one of the smaller squabbles that had erupted or who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I never imagined Priscilla would be the one to awaken us all!" Rebecca gushed. "She's like… John the Baptist, or something. With her, we were like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing tall in the furnace. I've been so blind all this time! And she even inspired you!"

She pointed at Victor.

"I know you aren't a believer, but her words must have stirred the Holy Spirit within you, Victor."

This was the third time she'd made a comment to that effect in the last five minutes, and Victor was starting to get annoyed. As for Priscilla, she was the current target of Li's interrogation, and he wondered how she was holding up.

"Like I said, I did this to help Priscilla. She's a friend of mine. That's the extent of it," he said.

"Maybe you think so, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. Have you ever been to a church?"

Victor nodded, though he wasn't sure he should admit this to her. "When I was a little kid, we'd sometimes go to a Greek Orthodox church with my grandparents. That was a long time ago, though."

"Oh, orthodox! So, you're Jewish?"

Victor just sighed.

Li's angry exhortations didn't do much more than buzz in Priscilla's ears as she sat in the principal's office, not especially caring about her punishment.

She'd expected to be pelted with food or jeers from the school's Christians. Not defended by them. Well, defended by four of them—the rest had scrammed off somewhere else.

Rebecca, of course, was one of the four who'd stayed.

Worse, this fact sparked no joy within Priscilla. It wasn't just that she'd expected Rebecca to be a hypocrite—she'd wanted Rebecca to be a hypocrite. Because that'd prove Priscilla was oh-so-holy compared to the people around her.

What did that say about Priscilla? Nothing good.

In fact, shouldn't she be on her knees speaking to God instead of ruminating about this on her own? Granted, it was hard to do that, what with the high school answer to King Herod lecturing her at that very moment.

"Now, these religious issues can be… thorny and difficult, especially in a public school," Li said. "Punishing you too harshly might give me more headaches in the future. But I can't just let it go, either."

"Do whatever you want," Priscilla muttered. "I don't care."

"Very well! I hereby condemn you to two weeks of detention and Saturday school. Tell the rest of your faithful, or whatever, to come into my office after you leave."

"Fine."

One thing was clear to Priscilla as she left Li's office. She owed Rebecca the truth.

Victor had never gotten detention before. Getting a week's worth of it came as a bit of a surprise—but ultimately, he found he didn't really mind. Maybe he was too exhausted to care. He'd done more in the past seven days than he'd done in the entire year before.

Kelly walked up to him as he left sixth period math, clapping her hands and grinning.

"That was even better than I could have hoped!" she exclaimed, slapping him (surprisingly hard) on the back. "And I got the scoop on it, too! Front page story for me, plus photos."

"Uh, great," he said. "The plan didn't exactly work, but I suppose we accomplished our goal. Are the others okay?"

"Others?"

"The people who helped."

"Oh, yeah. Kevin and Brittany are fine. I think the jocks have to do double practice as punishment. You know how it goes. Spike's the only one in serious trouble—he's been suspended. He's proud of it, though."

"And Bob?"

Kelly laughed. "Bob didn't fight. In fact, he tried to deescalate. O'Neill's trying to nominate him for a good citizenship award. Poor guy will never live it down."

"Did anyone else get hurt or punched out? Other than the jocks and punks?"

He wanted to be sure Jane was okay.

"Nah, all the other fighting was done with food."

"Good."

"You did good, kid," Kelly said. "You and Pris, both."

Chuckling with glee, Kelly waved and walked off.

Victor wondered how Jane would react if she knew—that maybe this would make him more interesting. But she'd been pretty clear on not wanting a second date. He couldn't really imagine trying to explain this to her.

"Victor! A word?"

It was Paul, from the nerd table.

"Yes?"

"I know a few people in the AV Club, and I heard you had some part in arranging today's events. I could certainly see the riot as a more hands-on follow-up to the petition effort."

Victor wondered how much he could really trust Paul. The sudden friendliness seemed odd.

"Maybe."

"At any rate, most of us are relieved the cafeteria rule is gone." Paul pressed his hands together, his face solemn. "Also, I wanted to offer you an invitation to join us at our table whenever you're so inclined."

That was surprising. "I don't think Nate wants me around."

"Nate is… difficult," Paul said. "But he does not rule the roost, and the rest of us aren't impressed with his antics any longer. Now, none of us are 40K players—we've devoted more of our energies to Dungeons & Dragons—but I'll concede 40K has interesting lore. I certainly won't mock your interests, at least."

"Oh! Maybe I'll come by for a visit sometime," Victor said.

"Great! Also, I'd like to apologize for how unfriendly the three of us were back in sophomore year."

"It's fine. We've all grown a lot since then."

Paul chuckled. "That's still to be determined on Nate's part, but otherwise, yes."

As Paul departed, Victor mulled over his offer. It was hard to imagine spending lunch anywhere other than the library. The quiet of the book-lined walls still appealed—but he had to admit he no longer wanted to spend all his time there.

It wouldn't hurt to at least try Paul's offer.

Victor walked out of detention none the worse for the wear. Not such a scary punishment after all, at least not any longer.

He ran into a defeated-looking Priscilla while on the way to his locker.

"I've been looking for you," he said. "How did things go with Li?"

Priscilla shrugged. "Two weeks of detention and Saturday school."

"One week of detention for me. I guess I wasn't as high-profile."

"Thanks for helping," she said.

"Sure. What exactly was your plan with Rebecca? To be honest, I could only understand about half of what you said—your voice wasn't carrying very far."

Priscilla's jaw dropped. "Wait, you mean most of the room couldn't understand me?"

"I think we got the gist of it." Actually, he wasn't even sure about that.

Priscilla sighed. "I wanted to cause another disruption—but what I really wanted to do was show up the Christian Students Club. I never approved of them."

"Show them up in what way?"

"In the Bible, there's this rich man who asks Jesus how best to follow him. Jesus tells him to sell all his worldly goods and give the money to the poor—and of course, the rich guy chickens out. I figured the Christians in the school were like the rich guy. They talked about Jesus a lot but were too greedy and materialistic to do the hard work of following him.

"So," Priscilla continued, "this weekend I sold almost everything I had and gave the proceeds to the poor. But I didn't do this for Christ—I did it to shame Rebecca. And instead of shaming her, I inspired her to do the same."

His eyes widened. "Wait, you sold almost everything?"

"Yeah. And my parents got super-mad at me once they found out."

Victor tried to think of what to say. "That is… an impressive commitment."

"Not really. I told Rebecca the truth of why I did what I did. She wasn't happy."

"Is she still planning to sell everything?"

Priscilla nodded after a brief pause. "Maybe not everything. But some. She really believed in me for a little while and… Rebecca forgave me, but she's disappointed. Lucky for me, the library's back open. I'll need to spend a lot more time there, anyway."

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Because I sold my laptop, which means I have to use the library's computers to type anything up."

Victor blinked. He couldn't imagine giving up his computer. Odd though she was, Priscilla stuck to her word. "You really gave a lot."

She made a dismissive gesture. "It's what Christians are expected to do. What gets me is that my motivations were not even close to Godly. All this time I've been calling Rebecca a Pharisee, but the only Pharisee here was me. God used Rebecca to humble me. Which is good—it just hurts, a little."

"Pharisee or not, Priscilla," Victor said, "I consider you a friend."

Priscilla looked him directly in the eyes and smiled.

"Thanks," she said. "I see you as a friend, too."

"I might not always be in the library at lunch all the time," he said.

"Oh." Her smile vanished.

"I'll still be there some days! Even with fewer people, the cafeteria's noisier than I like, and the library makes for a nice sanctuary. This school is a more interesting place than I thought, and I'd like to see more of it while I still can. But hey, if I go exploring, I'll need someone reliable by my side."

The smile returned. "Okay, I can do that. See you around?"

"See you around," he said.

Corporal Viktor Adamos watched as the Arvus shuttles soared skyward on plumes of flame. They carried the survivors of the city's liberated quarters—at least, those important enough to justify evacuating.

Jane Lane was onboard one of those shuttles, headed off-world so that her art might inspire the multitudes. And inspire it would, he was sure. They'd probably never see each other again. Painful though that might be, he took grim consolation in the job ahead and in the promotion he'd received.

He marched to where Commissar Priscilla Pruitt stood, her binoculars to her eyes as she studied the ruinous lands before them. Her chainsword hung from her belt, stained with the blood of cultists.

"Sir?" he said. "Squad's ready."

"Good," she replied, lowering the binoculars.

Commissar Pruitt was that rare breed of commissar who led by example. Stern, unflinching, unforgiving even of herself—but always fair. She'd only ever executed one guardsman, and frankly, the rest of the squad had all thought he'd had it coming.

Engines rumbled around them as the Chimera transports rolled up. Between them the Sentinels, walking tall on their metal legs as their drivers prepped for the next push forward. Priests chanted and soldiers muttered prayers. It'd be a hard fight ahead, that they knew—but all were ready. The Cadian 15th never backed down.

Another Chimera trundled across the broken earth next to Viktor.

"Squad!" Commissar Pruit shouted, "into the transport! God Emperor willing, this will be the last push, but last one or not we'll keep fighting! Onward!"

"Yes, sir!" Viktor shouted, saluting and then falling in behind her.

There was a war to win!

The End