Blood is thicker than water. It’s cliche, but it’s true - family means more nowadays than it used to. It’s a function of population density. There are so many people in Haven, stacked on top of each other in megatowers and crammed into tiny apartments, that it’s almost certain new adults will live with their parents until they’re around 40 to 45. There’s just no room to expand into the mountains to the north, and 16 million people live on Vancouver Island. Before the First Emergence, all of British Columbia had less than 6 million.
If you’re stuck with them, it makes sense that you’ll pick up your family’s idiosyncrasies. A son suppresses his feelings because his father taught him to. A daughter learns to lie to her parents from them. A board game everyone hates gets played every night because no one’s willing to hurt their family by stopping the tradition. And before long, a family’s not just people living together. It’s an organism all its own. Each one is different, but they’re all the same. Your job as counselors and therapists is going to be to cut through that and figure out what’s really going on inside of a family.
* Doctor Frank Hartwell, presentation to the Haven Association of Mental Health Professionals, 2044
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Chapter Fourteen
“Okay, two in Soul, two in Will, and one each in Agility and Vitality. Accept! Status block!”
Basics
Name: Pendleton, Alice (Luciole)
Level: 5
Class: _____
Color: Red
Mana: 8/70
HP: 16/45
Statistics
Str: 3
Agi: 6
Vit: 7
Will: 14
Soul: 13
Points:
Sigils: _
Rank: _
Skills
Perk: Fogform
Mana Surge: Feu-Follet
Spells: [One Unselected Spell]
Operator: James (Firefox)
Rebecca headed up the line of survivors - sixteen in all; seven students, six parents, and three teachers - that I’d gotten out of the locker room. Dad was in the back, hockey stick in hand. And I was halfway up the art wing, scouting ahead for Macks. “Tell me about spells.”
“Okay, spells are a lot like the items you can get with magic in that they cost mana to use. However, you don’t pay the mana up front. You can purchase casts of one spell every five levels. Once you have access to a spell, it usually costs some mana to cast, but not as much as most Mana Surges. They can also only be cast a certain number of times between full refills of your mana. Your ‘spell list’ is determined by your level, the sigils you’ve collected, and your class; since you have no class until Level 10, the first set of spells is fairly universal rather than specialized.”
I peeked into the main hall. The only Mack I could see was the one I’d speared earlier. It glimmered in the colored light pouring in from the skylights. Giving the all-clear to Rebecca, I started into the hall. “Okay, what are the top four or five spells on my list?”
James typed for a bit. “There are a few options I could see for you. Recharge would be good if you’re going to focus on your Mana Surge - it adds mana to your pool, but has a major drawback. You could really use something as a follow-up to Feu-Follet, though. Magic Weapon could be an option. It’s a buff spell that lets your weapon hit harder for a while. Moonray is one that might be good if you want to leave the weapon behind in the future. It’s a direct damage light spell that scales with your level; at level 10, you get a second ray. And defensively, Mistwalker could be strong. Mistwalker is an aura that obscures your location if you stay relatively still, making you harder to hit.”
I thought back to my fight with the Type Four. In a longer fight like that, having better defenses could have helped me out, but without Feu-Follet, I just didn’t have the power to end fights. Moonray seemed really cool, though, and it would fill that role. “Moonray it is. Tell me about Recharge’s drawback, though.”
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“Don’t pick yet. I think you get a sigil for one of your missions if we get these people to safety,” James said. He coughed. “Recharge burns calories.”
“I don’t see how that’s a drawback.”
“Actually, all mana production burns calories. You’re probably noticing that as an empty feeling when you use mana.” James said. “That empty feeling is fat getting burned extremely quickly. Very few Magical Girls are at all overweight.”
“Overclock’s a little husky,” I mused as the survivors filed down the stairs. One of the high-schoolers looked at me, a confused expression on her face.
“She’s not!” James squeaked. “She’s a healthy 16-year-old girl with a 4000+ calorie a day diet to power her ridiculously expensive Mana Surge! And you’re being a little rude!”
“Okay, okay, sorry I was rude about your girlfriend!” I held up my hands and followed Dad down the stairs. He still had his hockey stick, and a bulge in his pocket showed me that he still had his constant friend, the bottle.
James’s voice had absolutely no tone to it when he finally started talking again. Had I struck a nerve? “Recharge burns 2,000 or more calories. It’s like running a marathon, but all in 15 seconds. It’s incredibly hard on Magical Girls’ bodies, especially because then they have to eat to make up for it.”
“I’m sorry. I-”
“It’s fine.” He didn’t sound fine, but I decided to ignore that for now. I had too much to learn.
“Recharge burns too many calories, too fast, then? But if I cast any spells, I burn more mana, so I have to make more mana, which means I use more calories?” I asked. “So then I’d get to eat more, right?”
“Every Girl asks that question,” James said, sighing. “It’s even in the handbook that every Girl will ask that question. Yes, you get to eat more.”
We filed into the airlock, the intercom blared out its message about being scanned and airlock purification, and we stood around awkwardly for a few minutes as the room buzzed. Suddenly, I realized…Dad was going to be looking for me in the shelter. He’d panic when he couldn’t find me, and that would be bad for everyone! “Mr. Pendleton, I didn’t want to worry you before, but Alice is in the medical wing. She needed to be, uh, put under, so you won’t be able to see her. She got beat up by a Type Four pretty badly, but she wouldn’t let herself be sedated until I promised to deliver the message.”
Even as I said it, I knew I’d regret that lie. Dad always caught my lies. And I always regretted them. Always.
“That’s bullshit,” Dad started, and I almost flinched. He was on to me! “A man has the right to see that his daughter’s okay!”
I held my hands up. “I may be able to talk with Overclock and Lieutenant Sharp. They’d know more about her situation than I do, they’ll know if you can see her. Just wait with the others for now, please.”
The intercom crackled, sparing me from my already-failing web of lies. “Attention survivors! The door will now open! Guards will escort you inside. Do not make any aggressive moves.”
Firearms did a much better job of calming down my dad than I had, and he settled for grumbling under his breath and following the others. I ducked away from the thanks and praise - I had a job to do, and I wasn’t done yet - and strode to the control room.
“I’ve noticed, Luciole, that your ‘fake it’ is starting to ‘make it’. Well done,” James’s sarcastic praise shouldn’t have made me blush, but it did. I looked at my shoes, still feeling terrible about what I’d said to him earlier. “You have a couple of quest rewards and a spell to -”
“Later, James, please. I have to take care of this Dad situation.”
“Okay. By the way, your heart rate is elevated!” My face burned as I hurried through the control room doors.
Overclock looked much better. Her shoulder had been bandaged by someone who knew what they were doing, her color had come back, and she had a bowl of cereal she was eating. “Hey, kid” she said, swallowing and coughing twice before recovering. “You must’ve gotten the locker room people, then? Any luck with your friend? Or your dad?”
“Sora’s still out there. I’m going back out in five minutes.” I looked at the cereal and my stomach rumbled. “Er, maybe ten. Can I get some of that?”
Between bites of Shredded Wheat ‘n Granola, I filled Overclock in about my missions. About my Mana Surge. About the Scimitar-fueled lights in the locker room. And about the fight against the Type Four. But mostly, I filled her in on my dad, and the horrible lies I’d told him. “I need a way out.”
“Tell him the truth. What the hell, why not?”
My jaw dropped. “Tell him the truth? That’s not a solution!”
“Why not? It’s easy enough to prove you’re not lying about being a Magical Girl, and, kid, he’s going to find out anyway. Parents always do.” Overclock shoveled another bite of soggy Shredded Wheat into her mouth. She was right about that, but that didn’t mean it had to be easy for them.
“Look, kid, you want to lie to him, be my guest. You can even ask Sharp and Chen to keep the lie going. But I’m not going to help you.”
I sighed and pushed the cereal away. “Fine. I’ll tell him. But you need to be there for me.”
“I’ll be right here. You can rip off the band-aid in private here, without everyone learning who you are.”
“I’ll also be here for you, Luciole. I have to be unless you pull my chip.”
I laughed nervously. “Thanks, James.”
Wandering through the shelter’s halls, I eventually found Dad in a big, steel-walled room with fold-out cots everywhere. He was sitting in a plastic chair and taking sips from his bottle. I gulped, took a deep breath, and walked over to him. “Mr. Pendleton, please come with me. I’ll take you to see Alice.” Overclock’s argument aside, I was going to keep the lie as long as I could!
“Is she awake? Is she okay?” Dad followed me back toward the control room, away from the medical bay. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.
“Please, no questions. You’ll see her soon.”
We walked in silence to the control room, and I gestured for him to go inside. “Officers, you can leave for a few minutes. Luciole and I need to have a private talk with Mr. Pendleton.” The two officers at the computers stood, saluted Overclock, and traded places with Dad, who stood behind one of the spinning chairs.
“Mr. Pendleton. I, uh, haven’t been…” I stopped and recentered myself. “Alice is fine. I haven’t been, um, honest with you about some other things. I…I lied. Don’t be mad, okay?”
“Look, Luciole, you saved my life, and my daughter’s too. Why the hell would I be mad at you?” Dad tapped his fingers on the back of the chair. “And what’s that got to do with Alice?”
“I, um, I was just getting there.” I turned to Overclock. “How do I, um…?”
“Change back? Same way you put on the skirt and blazer.”
I turned so I wasn’t facing Dad, then I spun around twice, wiggling my shoulders back and forth and swinging my arms like I was holding a ball gown. Then I held them up as high as I could and spun back the other way.
When I was done, I was just regular me. In the kitten pajamas I’d worn that night. “Hi, Dad.”
Dad gaped at me, his jaw practically on the floor. His face shifted from anger to disbelief to relief over and over. Then he took three quick strides, wrapped me in a hug so tight all I could smell was the whiskey he’d spilled on his beard, and said, “Alice, you lying bitch. You’re grounded,” as tears trickled down his face.