NaNo2013: Speedster's Secret: Part 10

“I’ll print it out.” Zara sounded apologetic as her printer whirred to life, “How do you manage with your phone?”

“I barely ever use it, that’s how.” Speedster grumbled as she scooped up the sheets and considered them carefully, “Huh, you seriously think I can hit these sorts of times?”

“You’re the one who said that you wanted to keep improving.” Zara pointed out, “I’m just trying to help.”

“Hey I never said I wouldn’t try this out.” Juliet grinned at her, “I was just surprised. You were the one who never thought I’d reach mach speeds after all.”

“I’m still mostly convinced you won’t break the sound barrier.” Bookworm admitted, “But then I was also convinced you would never be as fast as you are now and I was wrong so...”

Juliet smirked, “Just because I don’t have another Speedster to race against, doesn’t mean I’m not going to try my damnedest to reach my full potential.”

“Another Speedster, isn’t that a terrifying thought?” Zara deadpanned, causing Juliet to grin.

“Awww, what’s the matter, Bookworm?” Speedster chuckled at her, “Too much awesome for you to handle?”

“Ego check.” Zara responded automatically, watching, amused as Juliet paused, sighed and then laughed, hanging her head sheepishly.

“Sorry.” Juliet chuckled.

“I’d quite like another runner like you to compare results against.” Zara waved it off, “Just not two of you. I’m not sure I could fit your egos in the room. I’d have to host our meetings on campus.”

“It’s not that bad.” Speedster protested.

“Juliet, I hate to tell you this, but I’m surprised that your ego fits through a door, yet alone in my room.” Zara sniggered at her causing her to let out a huff but just let the insult slide. “Now, take those tests and I’ll give you a call when I need you for my project.”

“Sure.” Speedster nodded, still examining the sheets. She knew the course that was on the paperwork, it was one of the first that they had worked out between them, back when she had been more willing to stare at a computer and take the headache that came with it. Nowadays she just pretended to be computer illiterate. It confused people at work, who couldn’t understand how someone from her generation could possibly not know how to use a computer, but it worked ninety-seven percent of the time.

“I know it’s a slightly longer course than the one you’ve been training on recently,” Zara frowned slightly, “But if I’m going to  start regulating the results for my thesis I need to start using a more regulated course and the one you’re running at the moment has too many obstacles for you to get through.”

“It was good practise at dodging at high speed, but I see your point.” Speedster allowed, “I don’t mind anyway, I know you normally go over a route thoroughly before you suggest it to me.”

“As well as I can considering that I’m normally stuck using Google maps.” Bookworm frowned slightly, “If it deviates too much, tell me and I’ll rework it.” Speedster nodded, “Now shoo.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Speedster chuckled, letting herself out of the building and heading back towards her place. She made one brief detour to pick up dinner things since she wasn’t sure what she had in the house. She got back to find Luna on her sofa watching the film she had promised she could watch weeks ago and after offering her some grub she opened the fridge door, only to shut it again swiftly with a grimace at the smell that emanated from it.

“Hey Luna?” She asked as she started preparing the food she had bought and made a mental note to clean out the fridge after dinner, “I’m instating a new rule. If I forget, remind me?”

“If you tell me what it is, I will.” Luna chuckled, leaning back on the arm of the sofa in order to see into the kitchen.

“If I’m going to be away for more than two days, I have to leave you the keys so you can raid my fridge.” Speedster replied, prepping veg and meat for fajitas as she did so.

“Does it have its own ecosystem?” Luna asked, giggling as she turned back towards her film, still half paying attention to her friend’s antics in the kitchen.

“Ecosystem, economy and parliament.” Juliet’s reply caused a bark of laughter to emanate from the living room. The film was just ending by the time the food was cooked and as Juliet passed Luna a plate of food and slumped back onto the second sofa, her own food stacked high on her plate, Luna flicked over to the news.

“In groundbreaking news, scientists have recently discovered there might be a way for those crippled by age or disabilities to regain full use of their limbs.” The newscaster was saying as Luna alternated between munching and trying to pick the next dvd, “The robosuit system, invented by Dr. J. Styler, allows those whose skeletal systems have degraded to walk, run and take part in activities that they haven’t been able to do in years.”

“Luna.” Speedster’s tone was flat as she called her friend. Startled, Luna turned to look at Juliet, who was, for the first time since her Fusion completely still, staring at the screen with a look that was equal parts disgust and anger, “Tell me you’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”

Luna turned towards the screen and let out a startled gasp at the sight she beheld. “There’s no way...”

“Looks like there is.” Speedster let out a low growl, ignoring the headache beginning to form behind her eyes as she beheld the ‘robosuit’ which was little more than a full body metal suit, attached to a human form and controlled by computers via directions from the person inside. “I think I’ve found Buttnik.”

“What was his name again?” Luna asked, scrabbling to remember as the news report ended.

“Dr. J. Styler.” Speedster answered easily, getting to her feet. “And I think I had better pay him a visit.”

“Speeds, you can’t just walk into his office and demand to speak to him, not after an announcement like this.” Luna pointed out, “You’re going to need to contact his office and try and arrange a date, say it’s for part of your journalism course or something.”

“But I’m not on a...”

“I know you’re not,” Luna interrupted, “But you might be able to blag it. Hell, talk to Zara, she’s doing a physiology doctorate. This is totally related to her studies. She might be able to get you in.”

“Zara’s already chosen her thesis subject but it’s worth a shot.” Speedster allowed, thinking as she paced up and down the living room. “I need to speak to him, make sure he knows he’s not getting away with it again...”

“Oh...oh!” Luna’s eyes widened as she beheld her friend, “Juliet! Stop.” Furious emerald green eyes flashed in her direction as Juliet stopped mid step to wheel around and stare at her.

“Yes?” Speedster demanded.

“Jules, you’re not thinking like you right now.” Luna pointed out carefully, watching the girl whose body language was all wrong. She recognised the posture and posing now as the same as when Juliet had first Fused, back before the personality contamination from her Fusion had settled down properly. It probably didn’t help that when they had Fused, they had gotten a small dose of the memories of the person they were Fused with and this would have triggered those memories. However she had to pull her friend back. “Stop for a moment and think about this carefully. You’re not the hero of a world right now, you’re a postwoman who might be about to interfere in something that doesn’t concern you.”

“But...”

“I know what those looked like.” Luna held up her hands, her tone placating, “But what if this Doctor isn’t evil? What if he’s actually trying to use the memories and knowledge he gained to help people? Do you really want to put a stop to that.”

“No, but...” Speedster huffed, “You don’t get it, Luna.”

“Then explain it to me, because dashing off to confront someone you don’t know, in some unknown location seems like a pretty bad plan to me. You should at least get some intel first, maybe ask Bookworm or one of the others for...” Luna trailed off as her phone rang, “help, one sec.”

Speedster resumed pacing as Luna answered the phone, which was ringing to the tune of some Egyptian piece of music. “Luna speaking. Hi Mako, yeah I saw, so did Speeds.” When Juliet waved at her, Luna grinned slightly, “She says hi. Sure, sure. Okay. Wait now? But... Speeds isn’t going to want to...okay, we’ll be there shortly. Bye.”

“Now what?” Speedster asked as Luna put the phone down.

“Snap needs footage, tonight, for her project hand in on Friday. Apparently she needed it a week and a half ago, but someone,” Luna gave her a sharp look, “Wasn’t around and wasn’t contactable. Anyway Mako says she’ll talk with us about what was on the news while we’re there, so maybe we can come up with a saner plan than yours.”

“My plan is fine.” Juliet grouched.

“No, no it wasn’t. Give us a chance to come up with a better one. If we haven’t thought of one by the end of recording, you can go be crazy.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy to want to nip this in the bud now.” Speedster grouched as she grabbed a few things and shoved them in her backpack, before following Luna out the door.

“No, it’s completely reasonable.” Luna allowed as she guided her friend to where Mako had said for them to meet, “But you have to have a plan. You actually need to know where he is, where he works and have an appointment. If you go storming in, talking about something someone did in another world, you’ll get kicked out. And possibly thrown in the loony bin.”

NaNo2013: Speedster's Secrets: Part 1

“Right then,” Juliet commented to herself as she looked up and down the last road of her delivery route, “It took twenty minutes yesterday, I bet I can do it in nineteen today.”

As she reset her stopwatch, she tried to ignore the fact that it was probably a bad idea to be even trying to break her record today with all of the ice and snow that had started to become a regular feature on her route the closer she got to Christmas. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if there had not been a fresh snow fall overnight, hiding the most treacherous patches of ice underneath a layer of freshly fallen, still quite powdery snow.

But then she relished a challenge. She would not be pushing herself to improve if she did not. Not with the skills she had acquired.

“Right.” She spoke to herself as she pulled the last pile of letters out of her bag and moved to press the button, “Three, two, one...”

She pressed the button and suddenly there was not a postwoman any more, but a blur of red and black that shot up the road, a figure appearing briefly at each door in order to post the letters through before vanishing back into the blur.

The blur was just reaching the final door when she slipped on one of the hidden patches of ice, went tumbling and crashed into one of the parked cars, sending the last few letters everywhere.

“Ow.” Juliet complained as she picked herself up, wincing slightly as she rotated the shoulder that had hit the car first and started picking the mail up. It was not the first time she had hit something at that speed, when she had first been adjusting to the powers the World Sphere had granted her, she had not been very good at breaking at all. She had improved in the last year but the rapid healing that she had gained had been incredibly useful this time last year.

She posted the last mail and then hit the button on the stopwatch, glowering at the clock for its time of fourteen minutes and seven seconds. She knew she had only dropped those two minutes because of the crash, but it still ticked her off.

At least, she thought as she dropped off her equipment home and got changed, she was done for the day. Super speed was cheating, but it meant that she finished her rounds much earlier than any other postman or woman and when she was done with her route, she was done for the day. This meant that today, as on most days, she had the entire afternoon all to herself.

Or she would have if she had not been called by one of her friends from the Club last night to double check that she was okay for filming today. She did not mind too much. Nicola, aka Snap, was in her final year and Juliet remembered what hers had been like. She was quite happy to do almost anything to make the stress of that year easier on her friend.

And since Snap was a film student, with a project to do that involved creating a short film, if this meant going in and acting for a while, she was good with that. Especially considering the genre involved played to the strengths of the Club.

She darted across town, weaving through the traffic and darting onto the university grounds. She had to slow down as she hit the padestrianized zone in order to walk at what should be a normal pace but was slow enough to Juliet’s mind that she was practically at a snail’s pace. It did not take long, however, for her to reach the building she needed and find the studios where her friend was waiting.

As she walked through the door she found that Nicola had her back to the door and had not even noticed her enter, causing her to grin as she said, “I hate ice.”

The offhand comment from nowhere made Nicola jump and wheel around. When she saw who had spoken she let out a heavy sigh and glowered at the speaker. “Juliet, seriously, a little warning when you arrive. Please?”

Juliet just continued to grin as she shucked her work boots, a pair of boots with heavy treads for her favoured trainers. Emerald green eyes dancing in their amusement, as she took a moment to let her chocolate brown hair down and brush it tidy before putting it back up.

“How was work?” Nicola grumbled as she turned back to her cameras, the small, black haired, brown eyed girl trying not to get ticked off at her friend.

“Eh, busier then yesterday, not as busy as tomorrow.” Juliet shrugged, moving over to see if she could help, “With Christmas coming up fast the post is just in heaps when I get there in the mornings. Deliveries are a breeze though.”

“With your skills, yeah.” Nicola couldn’t help but be amused at that as she finished setting up, “You’re early.”

“I’m always early.” Juliet boasted, “It’s hard not to be.”

“Speedster, your ego is showing again.” Nicola poked her in the chest, a wry smile on her face as Juliet paused for a moment before looking sheepish. “Honestly, I thought you had that under control.”

“I’m allowed to boast occasionally. You should hear some of the others after a couple of rounds.” Speedster responded, settling at her side for just long enough to pick out the props belonging to her before pacing the room, unable to stay still for more than a few moments at a time without something big to focus on.

“You lot have been drinking?! In public?” Nicola’s yelp caused Juliet to pause and chuckle.

“No, no. Don’t worry.” Juliet waved her concern off. “If we’re going to get so drunk we’re boasting, it’s done in the halls, well away from anyone else. After all, I’m the only graduate in our group.”

“And as such you’re supposed to be the responsible one.” Her friend grouched at her, “You know, trimming the excesses and stopping bad ideas like that?”

“Hey, in my defence I’m not anyone’s boss.” Speedster complained, “And if you remember, Snap, I never agreed to referee our little group. I’m not a teacher or their parents, so I don’t actually have the right to tell anyone what to do.”

“But you’re...” Snap trailed off at the sharp look Juliet was giving her. Nicola knew what was wrong. Speedster didn’t want to sit on anyone, because she remembered all too well what had happened when everything had first changed for the club and one of them had tried to suppress the changes and hadn’t been able to take the fact they were no longer ‘normal.’ Just trying to behave to another’s rules of normality had sent one member of their club crazy and another had ended it all after getting chased by police. “Oh...right.” Snap breathed, looking apologetic, “I’m sorry, Speeds.”

“It’s fine.” Emerald eyes shifted away from Nicola, towards the window where she could see snow beginning to fall, “I just wish...”

“You didn’t know they would do that, you couldn’t have.” Snap reminded her. Thinking of last December, almost a year to the day now, when everything had changed so drastically for about thirty or so lives. “Besides, it wasn’t you who found the first set.”

Juliet’s response was to pull something out of her bag, a smallish box, probably about five inches long by five wide and just as tall. She opened it and pulled out a small sphere that from Nicola’s perspective seemed to emit a bright glow. She knew what it was though.

“You brought your World Sphere?” Snap asked, moving over to get a proper look at it and see what images it was providing today.

“I don’t leave it anywhere unattended.” Speedster replied with a soft tone and slight scowl. “It’s not safe, not after...” She trailed off as the images inside the glass ball shifted from roaming green hills to a city not unlike venice, which had a great, decorated torch which they knew was lit only once a year, during an important festival.

“No, and with your house full of builders at the moment, I suppose it’s probably better than it doing to them what it did to you.” Snap agreed, reminded as the images passed some houses, that Speedster didn’t really have much peace and quiet. Between club gatherings and problems arising and work and builders, the oldest of their number often found herself with no way to unwind without going for a run. And nowadays that was getting harder and harder with the roads steadily being covered over in ice and snow.

The closer it was getting to Christmas the more enclosed they were all feeling though. For some of them it wasn’t too bad. The club members like Snap, who had not ‘Fused’ to super powered individuals, didn’t mind the cold weather curtailing expeditions outside to parks and long runs through the woods. For those like Speedster whose Fusions had resulted in gifts of power, the fact that they couldn’t let off steam once every so often was becoming a nightmare and it was even worse for the girl in front of her.

Speedster had been a runner before she had Fused with the fastest being amongst all the individuals from the world. A being who, in his own world, was never still for more than a few moments or when he was sleeping. She wanted to be able to run and it was often only her job which allowed her to blaze round town at full speed.

“Have you tried wellies?” Snap couldn’t help but offer, wondering if they would help against the cold, wet, frozen ground and allow her friend to speed along without worrying about breaking a leg or worse.

“Wellies?” Speedster blinked at her for a moment, conFusion obvious at the sudden subject change, “For what?”

“For running in the snow,” Snap chuckled, amused by the other girl’s conFusion. “Unless you want to crash again.”

“How did you know I crashed?” Juliet yelped, wondering if Snap had precognition and had not told them yet.

“I didn’t.” Nicola smirked at her, “I just guessed. You’re the one who confirmed it.”