The testing completed in two months without any major issues, and I think I managed to keep better control over myself. A few days into the analysis of the test data, I was told to report to the lead researcher’s office.

“Grintel,“ she began, and my stomach dropped to the floor. Nobody with good news ever called me Grintel, even my parents mostly called me Grint unless I was in trouble.

“We’ve been hit with budget cuts after some of the recent testing issues, and you’re the last hired, so I’m letting you know that you are surplus to requirements.”

Surplus to requirements.

Such a mealy-mouthed way of saying we don’t need you here, there’s the door. You are the weakest link, goodbye. She wasn’t finished speaking, but it took a great deal of effort to stay in my seat.

“If you leave today, I can offer you one tenday’s pay for your severance, plus a bit of a bonus for travel money to get you home, but I need you to pack up and move out of the worker housing quickly. I can give you until the end of the day. I’m sorry to lose you, but you’re young, you’ll be able to find something else.” The words were somewhat rushed, as if she was just getting through this as fast as she can.

Great. Well, it’s not the first job I’ve lost, but it’s the first time I’ve been this blind-sided. Just under a year to my 18th birthday, and I’ve been sacked. My first job in this life, and I’ve been booted from it. At least I didn’t get fired, so perhaps that’s something.

“Ma'am, would you be able to offer me a letter of reference?”

“Oh. Yes, I can do that. I will send you one regarding your mathematical and analysis skills, and that we were sorry to lose you,” she said with a wry half-grin. “Will you be returning to your family home?”

“Yes, thank you.” My words were polite, but clearly pro forma. It was still a bitter pill, a grain of sugar wouldn't make it tasty.

I stood and left, before my mouth could ruin what little I had managed to salvage from this wreckage.

Now what to do. I don’t have the funds to live on my own here in Holmberg, room and board were a big part of why pay was very low for my now ex-position. So, she was right, I had to pack up and head home.

I guess my issues with Lunette are solved Gordian-knot style.

I plodded back to my desk, and began packing up my few personal items.

“Grint? What’s going on?” I turned and saw Lunette looking over at my station.

“Budget cuts.” My words were clipped and a bit ragged. I’m trying to keep my cool, but I’m fresh from the chopping block, so everything still stings. I doubt I’m doing a great job.

“Oh… I’m… ummm.. Sorry to hear that.” She paused for a couple of breaths, then continued, “Thanks for all your work with this test.”

That’s possibly the closest to speechless I’ve seen her, and our longest non-work conversation, but I’m almost drowning in my personal sense of tragedy. I nod as I finished packing. Then, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and looked at her.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry to leave you stuck with all the analysis, but I suspect with the cuts you’re not getting a replacement. It was a pleasure to work with you. I think we made a great team.” Not my best moment. Not my worst. Now my longest conversation outside of school with anyone about anything not magic related, not counting my parents.

“Not your fault. We did make a good team. Take care, Grint.” She gave me a sympathetic smile and a pat on my shoulder. With that, I felt better for a moment, but as I turned to walk away, loss and guilt welled up inside me.

Those feelings circulated as I trudged back to my little room, packed up my clothes and things into a trunk and several duffles. After I finished packing my belongings, I sat on the bed and stewed for a bit, wallowing in my situation. Several minutes later, I wrestled all that emotion together and I stuffed all my guilt, anger, desire, shame, and sense of failure into a messy ball of emotions and tamped them deep down inside. I looked at the pile, feeling like a trunk, a box of books and notes, and two duffles was the measure of my life. Moving here, it had been light, it hadn’t seemed like all that much, but I was heading to my bright future, not away from it. Now, my worldly goods felt like it might as well be an anchor tied to a ball-and-chain and buried in the floor. Yeah, I won’t be able to carry that all by hand. I decided to see if I could borrow a hand truck or have an old dolly from maintenance. And maybe they have some cords to tie the bags to the top of the trunk.

When I got down to the maintenance area, it’s locked and there’s nobody around. Even though this should be just a minor setback, it’s my last straw. The ball of emotions came unglued and my temper flared, full of anger, sorrow, and no small amount of self-pity, my stomach churned and rebelled. I hurried to a nearby trash can, not wanting to have a huge mess to clean up. Just as I reached the can, I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and I spewed a substantial tongue of flames from my mouth for several moments, and then everything faded to black.

I awoke to the sulfurous stink of something scorched, the taste of blood, and a pounding headache. My hands were shaky and I was both nauseated and hungry, which is an awful combination. I have massively depleted my energy. Fortunately, the source of the scorched smell is not me. It is emanating from the smoldering pile of trash that was at the bottom of that trash can. The blood is mine. I gingerly touched my face, doing a quick survey of the damage to my head, confirming that my nose was bleeding and so was my lower lip. My hands have some red raised welts in the shape of the can’s rim, but no blisters on the minor burns. I checked my status.

{Status: Concussed, Depleted

Name: Grintel Coddlestahl

Age: 17

Mental:

Acuity:

Perception:

Memory:

6 (-4)

7

9

Psyche:

Wisdom:

Insight:

Willpower:

6

6

13

Physical:

Strength:

Coordination:

Endurance:

5

5

6 (-4)

Skills:

Energy Conversion

2.442

Energy Emission

2.527

Energy Control

2.069

Channeling

0.024

Meditation

2.348

Walking

4.987

}

I’m pretty sure I had some sort of breakthrough here, my stats are up and I jumped quite a bit in Energy Emission, but my brain is fuzzy. My head and face are throbbing. I’m not certain how long I was unconscious, but I don’t think that I’d been out for long, since the pile was still smoking, and there was a fading glow on the outside rim of the can. My sole fortune is that nobody saw this. I can only imagine how bad that would have been. Personal control is the watchword of this world. I think the stench acted something like smelling salts, the strong odor rousing me from unconsciousness. I grabbed the nearby lid and placed it on the can, hiding the evidence of my shame. Then the world spun, and I slid down the wall, barely keeping myself up in a sitting position. I think I’ll stay here for a while. At least until my head stops spinning and throbbing at the same time. I don’t want to add vomit to the wonderful scent. Plus, it might not be vomit, and that’d be bad. It’d be acceptable if I controlled it, but not if I just had some random spew of fire again.

A couple of minutes passed as I staunch the bleeding from my nose. My lip slowed to an ooze on its own. The spinning sensation slowly subsided and my hearing lost that echoing, ringing quality, no longer sounding like I was at the bottom of a quarry. With the spinning gone, the nausea faded from constant battle against vomiting to merely a roiling sensation in my gut, and the throbbing headache became more manageable. I checked my status again. Yup, my statistics and skills had received a decent bump. I may be excited about that later, but right now I’m pretty much spent. I managed to get up, but my noodley legs made it seem risky to walk still, so I leaned against the wall and waited a bit longer to gather my strength.

What had just happened? How did I do that? While my world had stopped spinning and turning, I was stuck waiting for physical recovery. I tried to remember every detail about what had been happening.

It couldn’t have just been a pure emotional outburst, or teenagers would have burnt down and destroyed this civilization long ago. They’d have been the most dangerous people on the planet. A gout of flame that could heat metal like that is way outside what I've ever seen or heard about actually happening. It was nothing compared to the legends of wizards and titanic elemental battles, but it was very different. Based on my condition, nearly worthless except as a final desperate measure.

So. What was different about this? Was it age? Was I that different from before? How was this event different from any of my prior emotional outbursts? What set this apart? Was it because I hadn't really cared about the costs?

My legs finally decided to work again, and all my brain had were unanswerable questions, so I slowly headed back to the main campus to find a staff member. I still needed a means to transport all my worldly goods to the train station.