Problematic Providence

A/N: An excerpt from Dragonfly, but you may recognize these two from an earlier post about a scrappy 12-year-old with mention of her sullen, adopted brother. Flash forward seven years, they’re nowhere near model citizenship: key players in a guerrilla-style resistance movement, up against human weapons and an impending dictatorship, suddenly faced with a possibility that could just as easily spell their victory as their demise.

+++

“Derek, you’ve been brooding for two days,” Andrew sat down across from her brother, who silently picked at a bowl of cereal Tuesday morning. “What’s eating you?”

Derek didn’t move for several long moments. Finally, he tentatively lifted his gaze. “You know that screening we did the other day?”

“Yeah. I thought nothing came of it.”

Derek hesitated. “I’m Compatible.”

Andrew just stared at him. Her eyebrows lowered as the full meaning of Derek’s words sank in. “Compatible.”

Derek nodded. “And Livingston wants me to activate it as soon as possible.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me you told him to get over himself.”

“I told him I’d think about it.”

“You’re actually considering it.”

Derek shrugged.

“Derek.”

“Well I don’t really have a choice, do I?” He raked a hand through his black hair. “Having a Compatibility on our side could turn this battle in our favor.” He looked up. “There’s a chance I could rescue Mom.”

“And you’re willing to turn yourself into a monster like the ICoNs to do that,” Andrew said quietly, indecisively. “Assuming Mom is even still alive…”

“They’re not monsters—” Derek insisted, perhaps a little too quickly. His mind turned to what Orly had said about her son, Patrick.

“You realize you’ll be a weapon, right? No matter what Livingston says, he’s going to head that direction the moment you finish transforming. Especially if it’s something intense.” Andrew crossed her arms and leaned back. “And once you bring it out, you can’t go back. If you don’t like your Compatibility, or if something goes horribly wrong, no one will be able to help you.”

“I know.” Derek rested his elbows on the table.

“And you’re a wanted man. If you go to the hospital, it’ll all be over. Another one of our upper circle captured.”

“I know…”

“Don’t do it, Derek,” Andrew said softly, but Derek detected the threatening edge to her tone. “We can get everyone back on our own. No mad science involved.”

“But that’s what we’re up against,” Derek said, anxiety and desperation pulling at his throat. “And would it be so bad? To be a Compatible? I’d still be me, wouldn’t I?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”
She shrugged. “On your Compatibility. And it’s not just whether you’re yourself or not. How will your decision to go through with it align with the rest of the Conscience? Would loyalty falter if you and Livingston dabble in the government’s insanity?”

Derek stared dismally at the table. “I don’t know. It’s just…I have a responsibility. To you, to Mom, to this huge network we’ve created—to do whatever I can to set things right.” His eyes narrowed. “And I helped plan those failed missions—and I hate sitting here unable to do anything. If there’s even a shred of possibility that I could repair some of those mistakes…”

Andrew frowned. “We’re all doing the best we can…”

“But what if it isn’t enough?” Derek met her gaze. “What if it will never be enough? Too much is at stake, Andrew. If we fall, who will take our place before the government wreaks utter destruction on peace and order?” He turned his face aside and narrowed his eyes at the floor. “We’re on borrowed time as it is. The more I think about it, the more I think it would be better to take the precaution…” His expression softened. “…It would be a small price to pay. You have all given so much, and that means a lot. An awful lot. What kind of leader would I be if I weren’t willing to make a few sacrifices myself?”

Andrew stared at him, her jaw tense. Her eyes burned, but she didn’t say anything more.

Lines Crossed

Andrew sat rooted to the bench outside the principal’s office. Dead silent. Shoulders hunched forward. A scowl intense enough to melt steel trained on the wall across from her as she held a tissue to her bloody nose.

The setting sun threw yellow shapes on the hallway floor from the end window. Andrew kept an eye on that window. If any of John’s stupid posse of wannabes showed up to taunt her through the glass, it wouldn’t matter how emphatically she’d been ordered to stay put. They’d wish they were roadkill when she’d finished with them.

But Andrew would go from probably-grounded to dead-and-cursed-forever when her mom showed up if that happened.

Knowing Andrew’s luck, her mom would arrive the moment she took to beating the crap out of them. And Mom would bring Derek too. Sullen, noncommittal Derek, whose black hair always draped over one side of his face like a funeral curtain. Her adopted brother would have a heart attack coming upon the moment justice was served, and that possibility was the only thing obstructing Andrew’s full conviction of annihilating her idiotic, self-righteous peers.

Why did she wear “boy clothes?” Why was her light brown hair so short? Why didn’t she chase boys and talk about makeup and have really any friends? They asked too many questions. Never in an effort to understand, but to constantly peg her as a freak and a disappointment. Andrew already knew she was some kind of misfit without them rubbing it in her face.

Did it matter she didn’t care about what a lot of 12-year-old girls were “supposed to” care about? Did it matter that she didn’t have a crush on anyone? That her hands bore impressive calluses and she could outrun eighth-graders?

Andrew had tried to be civil. She’d tried freaking hard to be civil. But John and his friends became more and more unbearable by the day. They belittled her, scorned her. Especially when she fought back.

And finally, that day, all the way through the punch to John’s face, all she could think of were her mother’s words. Violence doesn’t solve problems, dear one.

But it was a beautiful sucker punch. And the sheer horror on every one of their faces—especially John’s—was worth the fight that ensued.

The principal just happened to be looking out his office window at the time.

Now Andrew was probably facing suspension. She guessed she was a perfect anti-example of her mom’s pacifistic advice. Mom would be frustrated, maybe even disappointed.

But maybe now they’d finally understand that she would not be pushed around.

Even if she had to break each of their noses twice, they would learn to respect her.

________________________

A/N: A small scene from one of my characters’ childhood. Her tolerance for jerks has substantially plummeted since then, but she puts her angst to good use these days.

Compatible

            I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing this last week, but not nonfiction. I had meant to share occasional excerpts of my other work, and it just occurred to me that I have yet to really do it.

            So for today’s post, I thought I’d provide a bit from the beginning of the book I’m currently writing:

~

The line was moving along fairly quickly, but Patrick wasn’t in any hurry to get back to English class, where reviewing grammar rules for the umpteenth time made him want to tear his face off.

But standing in line for a mysterious medical exam, with no one to talk to and nothing to do was pretty boring as well—and it made him nervous.

Still better than grammar, though.

“I think I heard somewhere they’re looking for some kind of virus,” a classmate said to his friend in front of Patrick. “I wonder if it’s really contagious.”

Another student exited the locker room ahead, where the line of highschoolers waited to be screened. The girls were lined up at the other locker room across the gym.

“Hey,” the student behind Patrick caught the newly liberated teenager’s attention. “Did it hurt?”

“Nah,” the latter responded. “They just took some blood.”

“Did you have it?”

“Nope. All clear.”

“Mr. Nielson, get back to class please,” the teacher overseeing the line ordered.

The student complied, leaving Patrick to continue listening to the general murmur, his dark, curly-haired head just one of the many in the thread of teenagers waiting to be examined. The school administration had been pulling students out in sections all morning.

What did they do if someone tested positive? Was it something to be worried about? None of the faculty seemed particularly knowledgeable about what was going on either.

“Negative or positive?” Patrick’s classmate asked as yet another student emerged from the locker room.

“Negative,” he responded, relieved.

Maybe they wouldn’t find what they were looking for.

After a minute, the student preceding Patrick returned.

“Negative,” he sighed.

Patrick would probably be negative too. But he was still somewhat ill at ease as he responded to the attendant’s disinterested, “Next!”

The locker room was partitioned into three sections with portable white curtains, and Patrick found the station to the far left empty.

“Go ahead and sit down,” the man instructed, reloading a clear cartridge into a small white device with a 90 degree bend at the top. Patrick complied quickly.

“Give me your finger,” the man continued briskly. “It’s just a finger prick. Shouldn’t hurt too much.”

“What are you looking for?” the words had escaped Patrick’s mouth before he could think better of it. He extended his hand, his face burning.

“Don’t ask questions, kid,” the man replied, steadying Patrick’s hand and fitting the device onto his index finger. With a modest release of air, the device detonated and bit into Patrick’s skin.

Then the attendant lost attention for him as he waited for the device to give the verdict.

It began to beep repeatedly, like the fretful chirping of a bird. The man’s eyebrows furrowed as he examined the device in what Patrick guessed was incredulity.

“What does that mean?” Patrick asked anxiously.

“Hold on a second,” the attendant said, pulling out the cartridge and clicking in a new one. “It could have just malfunctioned. Give me your hand again.”

Patrick obeyed, too uneasy to really worry about the discomfort of an extra finger prick. The device discharged, and the man waited. The same chirping bubbled up from the device. The attendant loaded another cartridge.

“Next!” he called.

Patrick stood up slowly.

“Stay in here for a minute,” the man instructed. “I just want to see something to make absolutely sure. I hope you don’t mind me pricking your finger one last time.”

“No, that’s fine,” Patrick murmured.

The next student entered, and the man ran through the same process with him, except on the first test, the device beeped flatly and flashed a simple red light.

“Negative…thank you. You can go,” the man said. He reloaded the tester and turned to Patrick. “Ok, lend me your hand again.”

The device chirped as urgently as before, and Patrick watched the green light, burning loudly and confidently just to the side of where the red light had appeared.

“Wow…fancy that,” the attendant said, staring at the device. He turned his attention on Patrick. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Patrick Everhart, sir,” Patrick stammered, worried. He had tested positive. Out of everyone, he was the one infected. Of course.

“Well, Mr. Everhart,” the man said, cracking a one-sided smile. “You’re Compatible.”

“Is that bad?” The last thing Patrick’s parents could handle on top of Erin and Lisa’s college loans was medical bills.

“No, it’s not,” the man replied, discharging the cartridge into a separate plastic bag. “Go ahead and return to class. Come back as soon as school lets out for the day and I’ll explain a bit more. For now, we have to get through the rest of the student body to see if there are any more like you.”

As soon as Patrick left the locker room, he could feel the students’ eyes on him.

He returned to English class and quietly found his seat. Testing positive wasn’t bad, apparently—but that didn’t make it good either. Had they even wanted to find someone “Compatible?” As the teacher droned about punctuation, Patrick considered the three bandaged fingers of his left hand. They throbbed softly.

The attendant had taken great pains to make sure it was true.