THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One
Chapter 14

It was no use, she thought. There was no way she could get through this assignment today. Every time her mind wandered, it went back to Kyle’s fight and she got worried again. For the first time she wondered if she had led him on yesterday somehow. Could this have been her fault? She didn’t know anything about his home life, or really, himself, but she did know that boys had done stupid, stupid things for girls, and getting into a fight to try and impress her, and ending up getting kicked out for it would just be horrible, even if it was a little bit impressive to her.

The relief that flooded over her when she saw Kyle enter the room couldn’t be quantified. It was like a weight was lifted from her when he strode in, and his walk seemed more confident. He walked straight to the teacher, handing her a slip of paper. Once she nodded, he returned to his desk, and smiled at Shanna. She smiled back, trying to rein in her happiness slightly, unwilling to share her relief that he was still there.

As much as Shanna was inwardly happy, it seemed Jim was just as much outwardly, and he wanted to share his excitement with the whole class. “Kyle! Dude! Where the hell have you been!” The teacher gave him a stern look, and there was a shooshing chorus, but Shanna just laughed, as there were few things funnier than Jim when he got excited. Or agitated. Or anything, really. Kyle just smiled as he settled into his seat. Her curiosity immediately got the better of her as she leaned over, a little closer than she intended to, and whispered in his ear. “I’m with him. What the hell happened to you?”

Kyles mind was in overdrive, and Critock had to struggle to contain it. He mentally tried to tell him to settle down, but it was no use, the old hormones were activated and there was no stopping them, he would just have to deal with a overexcited teenager bouncing around. Hopefully the girl didn’t do anything else, otherwise he wasn’t sure if he could maintain his control on the consciousness. Speaking out loud to both of them, though quiet enough to not disturb anyone else, he answered, coolly aware that there were other eyes on him throughout the classroom. “Had to take care of some things, Phelps wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to get kicked out.”

Jim’s smile disappeared. “Are you? Going to get kicked out?”

Critock rolled his eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I? What’s the assignment?”

Shanna slid her paper over so that Critock could read it, albeit where both of their heads would have to come close together to do so. It was a fact that wasn’t lost on him, but he mentally shrugged. He was sure Kyle wouldn’t mind at least. Jim, for his part, knew when to get out of the way, noticing how Shanna was looking at Kyle. He lost himself in his own assignment as Critock glanced over at the paper, and looked at the screen in front of him. It was completely black. He realized that he was in big trouble.

Tom flew over from where he was investigating the room, and whispered. “What is this? I knew they were behind the times, but…”

Critock shrugged. With such tight quarters and Shanna keeping an eye on him ever since he entered the room, he couldn’t risk any verbal communication with his partner. Unfortunately he was being no help with the computer, and Shanna was starting to stare at him.

“Here, let me help. The on button is right here…” She meant it as a joke, but he thanked her for the pointer, as he hit the button and waited for the login information. He tried in vain to access any information about the program in Kyle’s mind, but either Kyle was deliberately blocking any help because of what was happening with Shanna, or Kyle himself was as bad with computers as Critock was. Somehow he knew it was the former though, and was thinking as hard as he could to try and convince him of the urgency. While he was able to get the login and password, that was the entirety of the result before Kyle simply shut down completely and refused to answer in any way. Peering at the keyboard to try and decipher the language, and with the help of Tom nudging towards the proper keys, he was able to log in, but at that point he was stuck.

Shanna peered over again. “Are you okay? Is there something wrong with your computer?” Usually by now they’d have been racing to complete the assignment first, and right now it looked like Kyle had never seen a computer before.

Critock thought quickly. “Yeah! Yes. Very strange. Doesn’t seem to do anything I want it to do.” He wasn’t lying, not entirely. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure what he wanted the screen to do. Tell him exactly who Pt’ron is would be ideal and save a lot of time, but after scanning the keyboard he couldn’t replace the “Save the universe” button.

“Mr. Lyon?” Shanna turned to the teacher.

“Yes?” The teacher answered, slightly annoyed at being interrupted.

“Kyle’s computer is having problems. Can he work with me?” Critock looked at her surprised, and a little hesitant, but she didn’t notice. The teacher waved it off, and he wondered exactly what qualified her to teach a class. At the same time, Shanna was thinking of nominating her for a teacher of the year award. She began moving her things to create some space for him. While she did that, he took out the yearbook, opened it, and as close as he dared without it looking strange, he looked at the eyes of a random student. He strained a bit, and then sighed. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He resigned himself to his original plan, and slid over next to the girl who looked slightly eager to have him huddled next to her at the keyboard.

“Do you have enough room?” Shanna asked, concerned. While it was true she was enjoying having him a bit closer, at least for ease of communication (Though Mr. Lyon would barely care if they were screaming at each other), she wanted him to be comfortable. She had a feeling that he was purposefully acting weird about his computer in order to get closer to her, and she was more than willing to play along.

“Uh, yeah, yeah everything’s fine.” Critock answered, and realized he was sweating. Why was he sweating? Oh yeah. He was human. Humans sweat. He supposed this was one more disgusting thing he was going to have to get used to while he was here. “How are you?” He attempted to start conversation.

“Preeeetty good. That was a hell of a thing you did today.”

“What. You mean Brian? I didn’t do anything. He’s big, but he moves like…” He searched for a word. “A big…slow. Truck. That’s it, a truck.” He hoped his inability to access anything useful from Kyle would come across as endearing. Anything for the plan. He thought.

Shanna smiled. “Yeah, but you made him look like he was standing still…Up until he ran into that wall, anyway.”

Critock was feeling a little embarrassed at all the attention. Years of campaigns won and enemies defeated seemed to not have resulted in the kind of adoration that he was receiving just for doing the least amount possible to avoid getting beat by a problem child. It was lunacy. “Look, guy has problems, it’s a shame that someone had to shame him like that but it was a long time coming. Honestly if someone would have sat him down and let him know that he wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with bullying people anymore, we could have avoided all this.” The two of them were being as quiet as they could, whispering.

Normally Shanna would have been making good headway in her assignment, but with the distraction she had barely started. She idly typed, not really paying attention, as she replied to Kyle. “So you weren’t looking for a fight?”

“No!” He exclaimed a little loudly, catching the attention of a few others around the room. He shook his head as they went back to their work. “I’m not here to fight. I was actually hoping to avoid him, but he came after me.” Having taken in enough about how computers worked here already, he knew that only one person could input information at a time, and Shanna showed no sign of being interested in giving him a turn, which was fine with him. He idly flipped through the yearbook, hoping he could explain what he wanted without revealing exactly why he wanted it . “Honestly, I’m more interested in this book.”

“Last year’s yearbook?” Shanna stopped talking, and looked at him. Unafraid of the awkward close encounter, he stared back at her, and took the opportunity to look at her eyes. A beautiful shade of green, he thought, and felt a rush of relief when he did not see the telltale ring around the iris. She wasn’t Pt’ron, she was just a normal teenage girl. He also felt Kyle’s relief as well, and while it would have been easier if she had turned out to be his enemy, he knew he would’ve had a fight on his hands not just from Pt’ron, but also from Kyle to keep him from killing her.

It almost seemed to be a staring contest between the two of them, although there was something deeper than that to her, at least. She could see the ring of black in his eyes, and she couldn’t believe she had never noticed it before. It was so unique, and made him special to her.

Critock wasn’t particularly interested in looking into her eyes. While it wasn’t entirely unpleasant he had other goals right now, but he decided to throw Kyle a bone and relinquished part of himself so that he could get the full experience. He felt a request from him, and he tentatively allowed it.

“You have very pretty eyes.” The voice was entirely Kyle’s, and Critock was relieved he didn’t have to cut him off from trying to explain what was going on. His consciousness satisfied, it willingly retreated, allowing Critock to fully reassert himself again. He took that opportunity to look back at the yearbook, breaking the connection under the charade of awkward embarrassment.

Shanna was struck dumb for a moment. Sure, she had been complimented, but this was so…sincere! She was lost for words, and could only stumble out a “…Thanks.” Before turning back to her computer. A quiet moment passed before Critock got the subject back on track.

“Yes, um, last year’s yearbook. I’m doing a project that kind of energized me, but I’m having a couple problems with it.”

“Oh? What’s going on?” Shanna purposefully stared at her computer screen, though she couldn’t concentrate enough to try and do any work, as her mind was still doing flip flops over the meaningful look and the compliment.

“Well, it’s these pictures. I’m doing a project on the eyes of the students at the school. I was hoping to be able to use the pictures in here…” He flipped through the yearbook and the black and white images. “But everything is either too small or too blurry. It’s a shame, it would have been a lot easier…”

“Tell me about it.” Tom, who fortunately had missed the stare between the two due to exploring the room and trying to learn as much as he could about the technology of this world, as well as seeing exactly what game the teacher was playing instead of keeping an eye on the class, had returned to see how Critock was progressing with his ill-conceived plan.

“Well, these pictures are small and in a bad resolution. If you want to get a better look at the eyes, you need access to either the original prints, or the files in the school system. Have you contacted the photo studio? They could probably work with you.”

Critock smirked. This might actually be easier than he thought, though he shut down that line of thought in fear of once again jinxing himself. “No, I should’ve thought of that. But that’d take time, wouldn’t it?”

Shanna nodded, replaceing talking about projects and art with this suddenly interesting boy much more interesting than her boring assignment. “Yeah, couple of weeks at least. They’d have to clear it with the school.”

Critock sighed loudly, probably overselling it a bit but he never considered himself an actor. “Well, that won’t work then. I need it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Shanna exclaimed. “How long have you been working on this project?”

“Um, not long.” He answered, truthfully.

Shanna closed her eyes, thinking. “Well, that kills that idea. So that leaves the school system. Have you talked to anyone about getting access to school files?”

“Well, I had hoped to get info out of Phelps, but…”

She finished his technically correct sentence. “But school systems aren’t allowed to be accessed by students for security reasons. Makes sense.”

In truth, Critock hadn’t really wanted to broach any subject with the teacher, preferring to go under the radar as much as possible. He figured there would be some kind of security issue. He could just imagine the problem if he had asked for access to private records when he was still coming up through the education system on Marconia. If he had more time, he probably would have tried to work something out more directly with the school, but as it was, subterfuge was going to be his best option. He agreed with Shanna. “So I’m a bit stuck here. Was hoping you had an idea?”

Shanna didn’t stop to think why he had never brought this up before, or even yesterday when they were talking. She did like projects, and the sense of adventure that was growing from the ideas she had excited her. Not to mention, she had secret plans of her own that were forming. “Well, I can try to get into the system without them knowing, but I’d have to do it away from school.”

“Don’t you have access in the office?”

“Yeah, but everything there is tracked and I’ve got Secretaries and Principal Tompkins breathing down my neck all the time in there. There’s no way someone wouldn’t notice I’m looking at or downloading pictures.”

“Hm.” Okay, that wasn’t an option then, at least not option A. If he came to it, he thought, he could probably rig something that they could get in the office without anyone else being there, but he wasn’t yet willing to put Shanna in any danger. When did I get so soft? He wondered. Trillions of people all over the universe at stake, and I’m worried about one child.

“I could try to access a system when nobody’s looking, maybe when the school’s closed tonight?” Tom whispered helpfully. Critock nodded to the idea, and filed it in the back of his mind. Risky proposition, but probably safer than asking the girl to do it.

“So like I said, we do it away from school. I know some passwords and logins we can try and use, they’re older but they tend not to delete anything here. What are you doing after school?”

Critock was taken aback, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He hadn’t really looked at Kyle’s home life, or his typical routine. For a change, Kyle was being very helpful, and there were suddenly images of an empty house, a father who wasn’t going to arrive until later if he showed up at all, and a night that was filled with wasting time on the computer before crawling into bed. Critock may not have been on this planet long but he wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly where Kyle was going with this, and he didn’t want to pursue anything of that nature. Still, this was currently the best option. If she could get them access to the pictures at home, they’d have as much time as they needed to locate Pt’ron, and then have the night to plan their attack. Cutting it closer than he would like, but unless something else presented itself, this was their best option.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Critock answered confidently, smiling as he did so, which caused Shanna to smile right back at him. A surprised Tom rushed over to float in front of Critock’s face, blocking his view of Shanna, though of course Shanna’s view was unencumbered.

“What are you doing?” The wisp hissed as low as he could. “You can’t invite her over to your house! Or Kyle’s house! Or anyone’s house! We don’t have time for this!”

Critock just kept smiling, ignoring the excitable wisp. Shanna, for her part, was completely oblivious to the events right in front of her face, other than hearing a slight ‘sss’ sound that could have been coming from anywhere. As far as she was concerned, Kyle was smiling at her, and for some reason that was feeding her smile, which fed right back to him. Also feeding her happiness was that her plan was unfolding perfectly. “My parents are always around and my dad is a real bear about having boys over, so your place? Around six? I think Mrs. Smith might be giving us homework tonight and I have to get that done, if I miss one more paper she’s going to throw me out the window.”

Having no concept of Earth time nor did he really want to ask for specifics or prod Kyle, Critock just nodded. He’d work out the minutiae later. “Sounds like a plan.” He continued to ignore Tom as he groaned and sank to the desk.

They spoke a bit longer about the evening, and Critock was able to get Kyle’s address for her, and the plan was set in stone that evening. Both of them were happy with the outcome, as both of their secret goals were in play. For Shanna, just being able to get to know him a little better was going to be enough, and who knows what could happen? For Critock, he felt that much closer to replaceing out who Pt’ron is and getting off this rock before time ran out for all of them. He knew Tom thought it was a horrific waste of time and involving a civilian child was a very bad idea, but there was something about Shanna that told him that she could help them, and at the very least it would get Kyle more on his side, and that could be useful if he needed to access any more information. The two of them continued to chat about nothing at all, Critock doing little more than interjecting here and there but mostly listening to Shanna talk about school and teachers she didn’t like, with Tom giving up and going back to floating around the room, until the bell called an end to the class.