4-H-N Fireworks, Chapter Three

All of a sudden Mini-Flash Juniper was back from out of nowhere. Flashbee at his control panel nearly jumped out of his skin, well ahead of his usual day for doing so.

“I saw him,” whispered Juniper.

So saying she swooned, the fluttering pleats of her blue school skirt following her down to the floor. In an instant Flashbee was by her side.

“Who?” he breathed.

“The boy next door,” said a different voice. Flashbee jumped again and whipped round, his own skirt kicking to the horizontal. Flashsatsumas was conscious, though he was panting hard and letting the harness take his whole weight.

“Not the real one,” he went on. “The – ”

“The first,” Mini-Flash Juniper concurred faintly, finishing his sentence for him.

Flashbee by now was lost, but still equal to helping Juniper up, which he did. While he was about it she began to explain.

“In my first Intelligentsor vision, the very first thing I registered was that the boy who lived next door to me reminded me of other people I know. My memories were gone, and I thought I was an Earthling, but now I see my perception hadn’t become like theirs. It had nothing to do with facial resemblance, in other words. It was closer to our way, the proper way, only it had become much more. I was able to detect connections we wouldn’t be aware of here in reality. Flashbee, the boy next door was Mini-Flash Phytolith!”

“She’s never met him,” Flashsatsumas continued, before Flashbee could point this out. “But Intelligentsor was showing her what binds Phytolith to Joe and The Foretold One, and…”

This time, Juniper didn’t need to supply the ending. Her look alone was sufficient for Flashbee to have to take a step back. It was daunting indeed to see one of the Special Program looking so helpless, and Flashbee couldn’t help considering the ways in which any given one of the trio named might exploit such fear. Even so, parts of this were finally starting to make sense to his manner of thinking.

“The humans call that generations,” he ventured. “It’s to do with the way they reproduce. We know that that’s how Joe created The Foretold One, and I guess The Foretold One did something similar to create Mini-Flash Phytolith. But what does it all mean?”

“It means Lasser was telling the truth,” replied Mini-Flash Juniper, in the tiniest of voices. “Exactly what he warned me about. It’s all Joe.”

Next second she was on the move, though Flashbee thought even he might have intercepted so stumbling a run on the sports field, and that was testament enough to how much this experience must have taken out of his friends. He scurried after Juniper to where Flashsatsumas hung.

“Go grab my suit, Bee,” that one said. “There isn’t much time.”

“Just a minute!” Flashbee exclaimed. “It’s obvious the pair of you can barely walk! I’m not about to let you go and face The Foretold One, or whatever this is!”

“We saw what Mini-Flash Phytolith’s plans are for 4-H-N,” Flashsatsumas replied. “Plans he began making the day her image was first before him. Within this hour it’s all going to be decided.”

He didn’t shout. Perhaps the authority of Intelligentsor had not yet vacated Flashsatsumas, or perhaps it was merely that no Mini-Flash would have argued with his tone.

Either way, Flashbee scuttled to do as he asked, while Juniper made a start on the manacles.

The deluge was subsiding. 4-H-N dragged a forearm over her face and peered out through the bespattered windows. Not far now. She’d been on no frantic flight when the rain began, but rather bound for a specific destination, one which had been hers before.

Because it looked like she had to go see a girl.

In fact, she’d just this minute been talking about her.

Since 4-H-N’s only other option was a rendezvous with the movement, it wasn’t the kind of choice you deliberated over. Not even when a fearful boding within warned that the Drenthis feeling wasn’t done yet.

That the phone call, indeed, might have been mere warming-up.

4-H-N couldn’t let that matter. She knew well enough there was nobody else in the galaxy who could help her.

Time to go.

Time to complete her journey.

TO BE CONCLUDED