2.27.2

Area of Effect

The kidnapped scattered to the sound of wails and screams.

But the Statics didn’t stop. Astrid herself stumbled back at the searing sting that set her nerves on fire. She felt her body convulse, and she nearly smacked her head on the nearby table when her knees collapsed under a sheen of sweat.

And the S.O. didn’t let up until the whole room capitulated. Only when sure no one could summon the will to fight, did they let up.

The entire room went to shudders in the aftermath. Too weak, frightened, and destabilized to react.

Then the Opposition agents grabbed Indy by the shoulders and dragged her out.

“No… No!” Astrid crawled meagerly for the doors. Leia cried out for her friend with her arm outstretched. But fear kept her from chasing after them.

Astrid tried. She dragged her sagging body across the floor. But neither she, nor Indy, could do anything in the wake of the assault wreaked over them.

The exit closed on an image of one of Indy’s slippers dislodged onto the tile, abandoned.

Those in the cafeteria sputtered and coughed.

The teens recovered first, and made their way to their respective groups, to comfort the others. But Astrid sat on the floor, furious and scared simultaneously. The sound of dozens of children screaming echoed in her ears.

The S.O. Statics saw her as just another Channeler prisoner. And she couldn’t show them otherwise for the plan to work. And yet, at the business end of a pulsar stick, Astrid revisited feelings of helplessness and vulnerability thought eradicated long ago.

She endured more of the torturous sound in the last weeks than she did in months on Endra. Maybe a year. Yet, she found herself having come full circle. And returned to a quaking Channeler at the mercy of Static masters.

Maya came to her first and helped the specialist to her feet. The brunette brushed sweaty strands of hair away from Astrid’s face so the Channeler could breathe easier.

But a headache replaced the splitting sound that raked through her skull. She hissed with a palm pressed tight to her forehead.

“Those are worse, right?” She verified through tightly clenched teeth. “Definitely worse.”

“Yeah,” Maya soberly replied. The Endran teen moved to another, one of the Lorelei children, to help sit them up. They didn’t seem ready to stand yet, however. After another, she returned to Astrid’s side to mutter, “Seemed to hit you especially hard, though.”

Astrid landed a narrowly aimed crumple onto a nearby bench where she could hold her head between her knees and fight her nausea.

She groaned and forced herself to the surface of the pain, just to hold a conversation.

“How are the others?”

“The kids will be quiet and scared most the day,” Maya predicted. “But they rebound easier than the rest of us. By our exercise tonight, they’ll start recovering. They’ll be back to their usual selves tomorrow.”

Astrid envied the children their resilience. But she also resented such a pattern became normalized.

“What happens when they take someone?”

“They don’t tell us.” Downtrodden, Maya came to sit next to her energy-kin. “We haven’t seen any killed. They just get taken somewhere else, I think.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, forlorn. “We never see them again.”

The young woman’s voice grew distant with thought. And to distract them both, Astrid ventured an observation.

“You’re stronger. Than when I last saw you,” Astrid complimented. “Steadier.”

“I had a lot of time to practice after you left,” Maya demurred with a weak smile. “I think the Keeper hoped to train me up in your stead. Eventually. It made me realize what I could do. And that you, too, must have once struggled like I did.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but that made me feel better when I wasn’t sure I could take it.”

“Remember that feeling,” Astrid said for them both. She finally opened her eyes to the lights of the chamber. All around, kids moved to their friends and spoke in gentle whispers. To comfort, mend, and move on. “Because someday, this moment is going to feel like that, too. Like the far-off memory of someone who had no idea what they could do.”

“This is all temporary,” Maya recited.

“This is all temporary.”

~~~

Astrid found it disturbing how easily she fell into the conditioned habits of routine.

Life under S.O. occupation played in uncomfortable similarity to life at the Sanctuaries.

With the older Channelers able to help regulate the younger, they almost turned into a Sanctuary all their own. Menloh even lead meditations for the restless.

But with each passing night in the auditorium, the energy channeled by the whole widened.

Astrid held hands with her kin on either side, and followed the routine as faithfully as expected, at least, on the outside. But on the inside, masked behind her obedience, the evolution of power terrified her.

On the fourth night, a few of the lights in the instrument burst at once. On the fifth night, the Statics added three more plants in the room, and the Channelers drained them all effortlessly.

The keyboard sparked under a billow of smoke, overloaded.

The children feared consequence for breaking their toy. But the Statics, rather than punish them, rewarded them with extra time before lights out. The next day, before their subsequent session, they were given sweet snacks under the guise of a bonus for doing so well.

But Astrid suspected their captors instead cleverly supplied sugar as a means to boost their energy.

For the very next practice, yet another player piano stood in place of the first. Larger, more elaborate. As though the Opposition welcomed the challenge.

More and more the song the children sang became an anthem. Emboldened by repetition and rewarded with compensation when they performed particularly well.

The only time Astrid ever found peace came when she imagined herself back aboard the Aldebaran, with the others. She wondered how they fared. If they managed to secure aid as they intended.

Did Celeste reveal anything more helpful to them? Could they piece together the S.O.’s plan from her vague testimony? And would they find Astrid and the others in time to stop the progressively ominous scheme she uncovered?

So caught up was she in her thoughts of reunion and relief, that when a great ruckus clamored from outside the cafeteria hall on the seventh day, she raced to the nearest window with a hopeful heart in her throat.

The source, however, brought her no such comfort.

In the hall, more Channeler children, nine newcomers, staggered through the corridor. Six more Opposition agents followed them in from a contingent outside.

Astrid couldn’t ignore what she knew it to mean. That if more were taken, from yet another Sanctuary, others were likely killed in the assault as well. More Guardians. More instructors, more kids. A higher cost, all around.

Especially if security increased at all since the first attacks.

Whatever battle the new prisoners endured must have been terrible. Because this group of children fought their capture still.

Astrid watched the first few Channelers at the head of the forced line twitch defiantly with each shout and order.

Her eyes met those outside. When the fresh arrivals saw they joined many others, they shared in dread. But instead of resigning, these teens revolted.

A scrappy, wiry-bodied young man that reminded Astrid of Romo, turned to his fellows. His face set in anger and determination.

He yelled to the others. “No! If we go in there we’re never coming out! They know they can’t take all of us! Come on, we can fight this!”

“Kelvin, no!” A young girl beseeched from the line.

But others in the cafeteria now swarmed the windows with Astrid, to witness the commotion.

The boy, Kelvin, called to any who would listen. To resist. The Aldebaran’s specialist cursed, to the disruption of those beside her.

She wanted them freed as badly as any. But not at the price of a bloodbath.

The halls outside still bore the stains of revolt. In a flash she saw how easily, by the smallest of measures, Maxwell could be pushed into a re-creation.

With challenge, Kelvin fell into the Channelers’ martial stance. And three of his energy-kin followed on instinct.