Julie Freeman

Sometimes to understand the child one must understand the parent. In Julie Freeman's case, this would be her father, Charles Freeman. To understand her father one must understand two things. One, he loves his family. Two, he hates meta-humans. An immovable object and an unstoppable force, both found in the same man.

Charles Freeman – Monday, February 7th, 2039 - The Night of Rage - Seattle Metroplex, Tacoma

"Fuck you, knife ear!" jeered a man.

People generally don't know when they're living through history. Some might have a sense of it, but no one really knows for sure. No one in the crowd knew that this would later be called "The Night of Rage" by scholars in their ivory towers or by bitter, suspicious meta-humans for years to come or by human supremacists when they talked about “the good old days”.

In response to previous outbreaks of violence, the young meta-humans, the orks, trolls, elves and dwarves were rounded up by the thousands and stuffed into warehouses “for their own protection”. Once thought to be simply fantasy creatures that existed only in storybooks, they were here, now. The elves and dwarves had been born into the world in the early 2010's from human parents. But the orks and trolls "goblinized" all on the same day a decade later. Roughly ten percent of the world's population changed in a few, short, painful days into orks, who were larger, more muscular than humans with thicker, rougher skin. Not everyone who goblinized became an ork though. Very rarely, they became trolls, who were even larger than orks and sported horns upon their heads in multiple different styles, though most often they resembled the horns of a bovine or a goat, though not always. It was goblinization, more than anything, that rapidly drove many of the remaining humans towards paranoia and violence. After all, who knew what what happen next?

The height of the violence in the Seattle metroplex came in the wake of recognizing them as people, but not human. They’d been given citizenship and they’d been given the vote. For that, these warehouses were firebombed by new coalition of human supremacists. Hundreds of meta-humans would burn to death or be trampled in the escape. The Seattle Metroplex Guard who’d been tasked to protect the warehouses had largely just stood there and let the massacres happen. Many of the metahumans who escaped would not find safety and instead ran into roving bands of human lynch mobs.

"Get the rope!" roared another man.

Men and a few women laughed while the elf cried for mercy and for help. Rope was thrown around his neck. Old hatred for new races came out to play and it came with old costumes. There were white cloaks with white hoods and pointed hats. They came with the old tools: Burning crosses, rope, firearms and strength in numbers. These were the tools of the trade of the Humanis Policlub. Their tools were simple and brutal, but effective. Tried and true by many of their ancestors, though for some among them, those tools had been used on their ancestors.

The humans who didn't want a part in the violence stayed indoors tonight. Most of them looked the other way and did their best to pretend nothing was happening, though some few helped. Those who were caught would often share the same fate as those who were targeted.

Atrocities aren't just committed after all. They're tolerated or even permitted. The Night of Rage never would've happened if people stood up in enough numbers and with enough ferocity to beat back people like sixteen-year-old Charles Freeman and those who stoked his fear and anger. Those who enabled his violence.

Blood poured out of the mouth of the crying man. Someone had kicked out most of his teeth a few minutes ago and much of what remained was broken. They hadn't exactly been precise and so his face was a ruin, though his body fared no better. Beer was poured over his head and the crowd laughed as the noose was tightened.

The knife ears and the stunties were uppity, but they weren't too bad. Or at least that was what Charles thought. Then came the trogs just a few years later. All those "people" goblinizing at once, their bodies warped by magic.

“Fucking animals!" he roared.

And the crowd roared with him. He fed on its hate and he fed it in return.

To him, the orks and trolls, these trogs, were animals wearing the skin of humans. Skin that they'd shed over a few scant days through magic. Many said that they’d never been humans at all and he agreed with them. Many called them monsters and he agreed with them too. Some called them sons of Ham or demons, which he didn't agree with, but the more the merrier. These were the thoughts of Charles Freeman and those like him.

In the end though, Charles only wanted to call them dead. No one knew what was next. Magic had come back to the world a quarter century ago and the world changed far too fast and made too little sense for his taste. It was just too much for Charles Freeman, but at least these freaks didn't have the vote. That is until they did. In sweeping proclamations around the world these monsters were declared people. Nationally that meant they’d been given rights under the fourteenth amendment of the UCAS, what was left of the old United States after the country slowly broke apart, beginning after the humiliating defeat of the Ghost Dance War some twenty years earlier.

He and others like him had seen a wave of similar rights being granted worldwide. Only a few countries wouldn't give these freaks the vote. Japan was a holdout, but few other countries had the bravery to stand up for humanity. Many of the humans decided that a stand had to be taken. A message had to be sent. The Night of Rage wasn't planned. It was a spontaneous explosion of violent rage. It was a bloody catharsis.

No one came to save the elf. The young man was hoisted up by the rope. His neck wasn't allowed to break as that requires planning and some modicum of mercy. Instead he was strangled to death and died hard over the course of minutes as he struggled and swung. His feet kicked while people pelted him with trash and yelled obscenities at him.

People in white hoods took selfies. "Had a lot of fun, wish you were here," one of the tags would read. No one stopped them. Some of the Metroplex Guard who’d been tasked with protecting the warehouses had even joined in on the violence and many of the police were among their number as well.

Charles lifted his own mask just high enough to spit on the man. It was somewhat ineffectual. He was too high up and Charles wasn't particularly tall so it just hit the elf's ragged, bloody jeans instead of his face as he'd planned. Charles smiled though. In his heart he knew that he’d done his duty to humanity today.

If one were to peek under the hood one wouldn't find a crowd of lily-white faces. Not entirely anyway. The old hatreds simmered down as entirely new ones stirred up. In most places, race stopped being about skin color and started being about metatype. Whether you were one of the new elves or dwarves born into the world, whether you were one of the orks or trolls whose body changed over the course of a few agonizing days, or whether you remained human.

In the minds of those there that night, humanity needed to stick together or be exterminated. It made for strange bedfellows among the remaining humans. So when Charles dropped his hood it had covered not only a cheerful smile, but a brown, Hispanic face. His skin color never would have passed the paper bag test. He wasn't the only one hiding a darker skin tone under those hoods. In an ironic twist, Humanis was a sort of rainbow coalition of humans, any human, so long as they were willing to hate.

They were accepting like that.

Charles, Patty and Julie Freeman - March 1st, 2059 - Seattle Metroplex

Charles was doing well for himself. The Lord said to be fruitful and multiply and so he did. He was thirty-seven years old and had seven, count them, seven beautiful human children with an eighth on the way. His wife, Patty, swore up and down that little Julie would be their last. He could deal with that. Neither of them were getting any younger after all. If he were lucky he'd be fifty-seven by the time she was twenty. It was time to stop making children and focus more on raising them.

He'd done well with his life. He worked with his hands like a man should. He brought home his pay like a man should. He worked hard for his family like a man should. Life was good. Not great, but good.

He'd fallen out of politics though after Humanis went "legit". They'd lost their momentum three days after the Night of Rage when a terrorist group took down the Sears Tower in Chicago. The media claimed it was some splinter group of Humanis, but they never made it stick. False flag terrorism, that's what every right minded human knew it to be. But the damage to the movement had been done. All that momentum, all of that change he’d hoped for to kill all of the metatrash had evaporated overnight. Now they had to live alongside the knife ears, stunties and trogs. Humanis wasn't anti-freak anymore, they were pro-human.

You can't even say trog anymore without some ork or troll getting uppity. He feared for the world his daughter was growing up in. When he was younger one of those trogs made eyes at his oldest and a burning cross in their yard put that to rest. To him and those like him, those were the good old days. He decided to get out when he heard his fellow Humanis members speaking out against the old tactics, even though they worked.

No, these days they were trying to get into "soft power". Trying to "change things" at the political level. Fuck that, he’d say. You can change things the old-fashioned way: Boot knives, fire, rope and shotguns. It seemed that they’d gone out of style. Maybe he was just old fashioned. There were other groups that had kept the old ways but he was getting on in years. So he focused on his family and left the good work to a younger generation.

"Love you, little Julie," he cooed.

All of that hate vanished and was replaced with love as he tickled his daughter's feet. That love dissolved again and became fear once more. Fear for his new daughter. Fear for his children. For his wife. For his livelihood and home. That fear congealed right back into hate. He always had that feeling when Patty and he had another child. He wasn't sure what he'd do, but he knew he'd do his best for his family. That's all he could do.

Julie and Paul - July 30th, 2072 - Seattle Metroplex, Tacoma

Julie Freeman could read minds and that terrified her. Well, not exactly read minds. She wasn't sure how it happened and she didn't want to know.

It first happened in school one day. People fall asleep at their desks all the time after all. Her friend, Paul, who worked late at the Stuffer Shack, was asleep at his desk again.

"Hey Paul," said Julie, "Class is over. Time to get up."

Julie was a gawky teen, but her mom had been too when she'd been younger. Though Julie had sprouted up like a weed and had grown taller than not only her mother, but her father as well. Even in the 2070's acne was still a thing. At least if you were poor. And while she'd been able to avoid the worst of it, Paul hadn't. It must've been from all of that greasy soy food. She couldn't blame him though. He’d told her once that what food he got from school and the Shack were the only two solid meals he got a day. So while he never skipped school, because that meant a skipped meal, he always slept through at least a few of his morning classes.

"C'mon. We'll be late for lunch," she continued.

Talking to him usually got him up. Paul wasn't the best. His brown skin was riddled with acne and he didn't do well in school since he slept so much. If she were mean she would have said that he was on the uglier side of plain, but she didn’t. However he worked hard and he was human. That put him in her good books. Dad complained about public schools and mixing with...Well...She wouldn't say those words. They were people, just not human people. People people. Not like her or Paul, but close. She didn't talk to them much if she could avoid it.

“Come on, Paul, get up. I know you’re hungry,” she said, louder than before, “Let’s hit the vending machines. I'll split a candy bar with you.”

Normally this worked too, though it didn’t this time. Julie groaned in frustration, rolled her eyes and finally shook Paul’s shoulder. However, something unexpected happened. She found herself transported elsewhere. Paul was working behind the counter at her local Stuffer Shack, which was a low end chain convenience store.

He was getting yelled at by someone too. It was one of those gangers. This one was human. He wore black and orange colored clothing with a jack-o-lantern on the back of his armor jacket. Everything about the ganger looked filthy and his white and black face paint looked caked on his pale skin. His hair was spiked orange as well.

Julie saw that Paul's hands were in the air. The ganger had something in his hand and she froze as she saw a gun. She wondered if the ganger had seen her. Paul looked terrified and the ganger looked delighted.

"Gimmie your fuckin' creds, Pimples," jeered the man.

He waved the gun in Paul's face and laughed. Then he turned the gun upwards. A gunshot barked and stucco fell to the floor.

"All your nuyen and a soykaf too. Pumpkin spice. My favy,” cooed the man as he laughed, “Now give me your money or I'll just kill you and take it. Makes no difference to me.”

Paul was in trouble and Julie's dad had taught her never to look away. To do the right thing now. Now, not later, now. She could've hid or fled, but that wasn't in her. She was tall, but that didn’t mean she was big and he had a gun. She tried to call the cops but strangely she didn’t have her purse which meant no commlink to call them on. So she cast about for someone to get help, but there was no one else.

In desperation, she found a glass carafe for soy-kaf. The classics never go out of style and the Stuffer Shack wasn't big on safety. They were big on piping hot soykaf that would keep people up for ours. She picked it up by the cheap, plastic handle. It was so full that it threatened to spill over and she could feel its heat. When the ganger began to level the gun at Paul to open fire she dumped it over his head.

If this were some trideo flick she would've quipped something heroic like, "Get away from my friend!" or "Here's your pumpkin spice!" Instead he screamed as the near boiling hot liquid drenched him. His gun dropped and clattered to the floor. He turned around and his black and white grease paint ran off his face in rivers as his skin burned and blistered. He screamed. She screamed. Paul screamed.

She woke up, still screaming and so did Paul. She was in school. She was too terrified and confused, but she also reeled from a splitting headache. It felt like someone was driving her dad’s power tools into her temples.

"What did you..." started Paul.

"Lunch! We're late for lunch," she cried.

Her voice was reedy and shrill from the terror. Paul held both of his hands over his heart and caught his breath. He looked pale. He looked horrible in fact. She looked at those dark circles under his eyes which hadn't been there before. Why hadn't she noticed, she asked herself? She was supposed to be his friend. When he finally calmed down he began to speak.

"Sorry about the…Noise," said Paul, haltingly, "Guess I scared you. Had a...Had a bad day at work last week."

Julie couldn't stop herself.

"How bad?" she asked, quietly.

Paul rubbed at his tired eyes.

"Real bad," whispered Paul, "I got robbed. I almost got shot."

This happened without fail, every time she touched a sleeping person for over a year and she'd only understood what happened after she'd tried to wake up Paul a second time. Without fail she would jump into whatever that person was dreaming and emerge with a massive headache. She told no one. Dad didn't talk about it much, but his hate wasn't just reserved for meta-humans, but freaks in general.

Freaks like her.

Julie Freeman and Philly - June 2nd, 2073 - Seattle Metroplex, Tacoma

After Julie figured out that she was a freak, she'd been careful to never touch a sleeping person. In fact it'd made her averse to touching anyone at all. She isolated herself, spent most of her time studying as a way to avoid people and ended up skipping a grade as a result, which pleased her parents. This meant that she was tested for magic at school at age fourteen instead of age fifteen, which made her a nervous wreck for weeks as she imagined being found out.

Despite the anxiety it caused her, the day she got tested for her magic status at school was anti-climactic. "Pro-human" groups had fought long and hard for the right to decline the test, which Julie and a few other human students took advantage of. Her dad was so proud of her that he hugged her, which petrified her, and he took her out for ice cream afterwards despite the fact that money had become increasingly tight over the last few years.

The combination of her increasing isolation and focus on her studies to avoid her feelings meant she she was on track for a potential scholarship. Only half a dozen in here school of ten-thousand were offered each year so competition was fierce. So if you aimed for a scholarship, the earlier you did so, the better. Gone were the days of plentiful scholarships. Only the best of the best got any aid at all. Higher education was primarily the playground of the wealthy these days and technical colleges had been gutted by advances in cybernetics. Most people just got cybernetics, called skillwires, which allowed a person to automatically perform tasks with no training at all.

The problem was that they were expensive and most people could only afford them on credit. People took years of hard work to even begin to pay them off. Most people couldn't and if they were fired, that meant pay the debt off in full or suffer invasive surgery to have it removed. As a girl from an increasingly poor family, Julie's only hope of a life for herself after leaving home was that scholarship. She even had a profession in mind. A little dream of hers. She wanted to be a nurse. She loved helping people and they wore gloves at work, so she wouldn't have to touch anyone at all. So all she had to do for the next four years was to get perfect grades and not touch anyone.

This didn’t last.

It happened on the softball field. It was summertime, so Julie couldn't beg off by saying she was doing homework. Her parents insisted that she go and make some more friends her own age, so that was that.

Baseball wasn't Seattle's favorite pasttime anymore since the rise of blood sports like urban brawl and combat biking. In fact, it was seen as old fashioned, but you showed civic pride by going to a Seadogs game and participating in little league while growing up. After all, the teams of old had been all human as her dad so often said, though she wasn’t on an all-human team. The better leagues cost more money and there weren't enough "all human" teams for softball. She was on a mixed team with humans and meta-humans. Many a girl teed up at the mound, chattered and jeered at the opposing team and caught fly balls during softball season.

She was in the dugout talking to a friend when something began to happen. Her skin started to itch. Not a regular itch, but everywhere. It wasn’t bad, but it felt weird and she just ignored it for a few innings.

As the feeling continued and intensified past her ability to ignore it she scratched at her skin. She didn't scratch just a little, but a lot. She got some weird looks because she tried her best to scratch as much of her body as she could at once as fast as she could but that darn itching wouldn't stop.

In fact it got worse. The itching became pain. She doubled over from her seat on the bench. The pain felt like fire. She screamed. Her friends and teammates looked at her in horror as she hit the ground. They didn't know what this was. The catcher, Philly, she knew though. Julie didn't talk to her much. She was people, but not people people, like her mom and dad said. She was all right for an ork but Julie barely talked to her. So while the game stopped and people called 911, Philly crouched over her, her eyes lit with understanding.

"Your skin is changing," said Philly.

Julie didn't hear it. She hurt too much to focus on anything but the pain.

"Don't worry. I know what you're going through," she said. "Here. Bite down on this."

It was her glove. Julie couldn't hear but she did feel the synthleather of the glove press up against her lips. So Julie shook her head.

"Bite down. It'll get bad if you don't," she said, firmly but calmly past her small tusks. "You're goblinizing. Most people don’t do that anymore but my cousin did. I know it when I see it. Bite down on this or you'll break your teeth when you clench."

Julie cried. Julie hurt. The feeling of burning pierced her skin. Her insides and bones started to itch. And in a few minutes, they’d feel like they were on fire too.

“You’re going to be okay,” said Philly.

Julie never heard any of it. All she could do was bite down on the glove. She'd done all the right things for so long. What had she done wrong?

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Julie and Charles Freeman - June 2nd, 2073 - Seattle Metroplex, Downtown

Goblinizing is the constant fear of teens and parents. Elves and dwarves were originally born into the world and it is beyond rare that one of them goblinizes. Normally it's only humans that goblinize, though that was rare too nowadays. Though it being rare had little to do with fear. Orks and trolls have ork and troll children, and in some rare cases they may have human, elf or dwarf children. Orks are what you get if you make a human bigger and tougher with tusks, about an inch or two jutting out of their lower lips.

The process of goblinizing is awful. Magic rips through the body. It changes and rearranges the body with no thought towards gentleness. Bones crack and reform. Skin splits, twists, thickens and becomes rougher. Tusks in the case of orks or tusks and horns in the cases of trolls sprout where there were none. It's like being on fire for days. And at its worse, it was like Julie’s body was flayed for days with a searing, jagged knife while a madman smashed and cracked her bones.

Not everyone survives the process which is why Julie was in the hospital. This was day two of three. Julie had yelled herself hoarse on day one, though her voice was an octave lower than she remembered while she still could scream. Then she'd become too tired to scream. Drugs normally help cut the pain, even if just a little, but she hadn't been given any. She didn’t know why.

The place she'd been taken to, she later learned, was the University of Washington Medical Center. The biggest hospital in the 'plex and she couldn't get something to kill the pain no matter how she begged. It was her father of course who'd refused to allow her any pain medication, though she didn't know that at the time either. No one had come to see her save for nurses and doctors. Then out of nowhere, the person she'd both hoped and dreaded to see walked through the door.

"Daddy..." she croaked, weakly.

Her voice was deeper than she remembered on the first day. She hated that voice- Her voice. If she hated her voice, than her father…She'd hoped that he'd put aside that hate. She prayed that he love her like a daughter and accept her and so she dared to hope.

"I'm not your daddy," he spat.

Her hope died. A new pain hurt her. It didn't cut her heart. That would've been too neat. This rejection slashed at her heart. The wound it left was ragged and as he continued to speak he left so many more. All she could see was her father’s hateful face, as if that hate was carved upon him. She’d seen that before and it scared her, but he’d never turned it on her.

"Well will you look at that," he seethed, "It’s a filthy little trog pretending to be mine. I spoke to your mother. She says you're mine, but there's no way that's true. I'll have the truth out of her one day or another. But as for you…”

Those ragged, emotional slashes came at her fast. She thought she'd cried herself out days before, but more tears came. Fat tears welled up in her eyes. She shut her eyes and turned away from that mask of hatred that her father wore. She knew she was a freak ever since she'd touched Paul that day in school. She thought she could hide that from her family. In fact she figured she could have gotten away with it if she hadn’t touched anyone. Not this though. There was no hiding this.

"Don't you turn away from me," he roared.

She opened her eyes and turned towards him. When her father spoke, Julie listened. That's the kind of family she was raised in.

There was a blur of motion. Her reward for her ingrained respect was a slap across the face. Not a gentle one, but a hard one. A full force slap delivered by a man who worked with his hands every day of his life. When he slapped her she saw static for a few seconds. Even from her bed the world spun. Her dad had never hit her. She had spankings when she was little but that had stopped when she grew up. She’d never even been hit before. Reeling emotionally, physically and mentally, she was struck again and again and again. Slaps soon became punches to the body. Body blows became hands curled around her throat and the transition from slaps to punches to choking had happened fast, though it'd felt like forever. She gagged as he wrapped his thick, working man hands around her throat and squeezed. Julie Freeman heard her own heartbeat hard in her ears.

Her father smiled. He wasn't some old man in his fifties anymore. He was sixteen again and getting the rope to hang that knife ear by his neck. He was taking charge again, something those new wave pussies at Humanis didn't know to do. This was real. In fact, nothing in his life had felt more real than murdering metatrash. All he wanted to do was to strike out against them and take back his power. He fantasized about a new Night of Rage. It could start right here as he put the lie that called itself his daughter to death.

His smile was evil and Julie saw that smile as her vision began to darken at the edges. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to black out, but as she grasped at his hands she felt that power again. Dreams weren't going to help her, but this wasn't a dream. Something happened. Something exited her body through the hand she’d weakly tried to shove him away with. A flash of pale, sickly blue. It struck her father. He shrieked and the fiery pain fled for a moment, though she could still feel the blows he’d rained down upon her, the feeling of him choking her, somehow fresher now that he'd released her throat.

She stared at him in horror as the man she'd loved all her life, her father, the man who'd just tried to murder her, went down screaming. Eyes open, mouth agape, his shriek tore at his throat until it didn't. She watched him die on the floor from her hospital bed, bits of his flesh now gone as if rotted away in seconds. The fiery pain came back. A nurse ran into the room at the commotion and screamed as she witnessed the scene, but Julie barely noticed. Julie hadn't been able to sleep, much less pass out in the two days since beginning to goblinize, but this had done it. She fainted from pain and exhaustion. Though she had a single though before losing consciousness. It was detached from emotion. Oddly calm.

"Why couldn't I have just passed out before he got here?"

There was no unstoppable force. No immovable object. Just an old man, the hate that was more important than his love, his daughter, her guilt, her new body and her magic.

Julie and Julian - July 14th, 2074 - Seattle Metroplex, Everett, Darrington Correctional Facilities

"Prisoner 417539-D, you have a visitor," said the guard.

She was tried as an adult for second degree manslaughter. She had no visible wounds to speak of, or at least none that looked out of the ordinary among all the rest of her body’s changes. After all, bruises on the neck are the least of what one goes through when goblinizing.

Julie had killed her father and she’d been found guilty on all charges. She didn't fight a one of them though her public defender told her that she had a serious case for getting off the hook due to self-defense. But what was out there for her?

Nothing. Her family had abandoned her. Not that she could even stand seeing her mother, brothers or sisters ever again. Her path to a scholarship was over as well. She'd done all of the right things until she couldn't. There was no more path to a better life. No family to support her. Julie Freeman had given up and so she'd been fed into the judicial system which went about the task of slowly grinding her up with the surety that only an institution can muster.

Going to prison was something that, in the end, she'd been a willing participant in by simply admitting the guilt that she felt. She just wanted to go to prison to be punished and to be forgotten.

"Yes ma'am," she called back to the guard.

She stood up from her bunk bed. She was clad in her orange jumpsuit complete with her last name and number. It was baggy on her. She was a full six feet tall now. That was tall even for an ork woman. At fifteen she’d grown to her full height, though she was still willowy, at least by ork standards. Her skin tone was the same mocha color as it was when she was human though her skin had roughened. She wasn’t sure if that was from being an ork or because of the cheap soap in the prison showers. She suspected both. Her hair was the same as always. It was black, straight and hung down to her shoulders. Her eyes were dark brown, her mouth was too wide for her tastes even when she was human, and wider still now. Her facial features on her round face were pretty more than beautiful, though Julie believed she was neither. Quite the opposite, she hated absolutely everything about herself.

The guard patted her down but today's pat down was a normal one done by a disinterested female guard. She was used to invasive searches via fingers, magic and tech. She'd become well acquainted with the humiliation of squatting and coughing on day one and this was almost a year later even though it wasn't necessary anymore, if it ever had been.

"Right. Hands in front where I can see them,” said the guard, obviously bored.

It was all routine by now. Cuffs go on when they need to, go where you're told, wash once a day, eat terrible food, watch the same shows on the old, cracked trideo tank, keep your head down and stick with your kind. However, Julie felt like she didn’t have a kind.

“Or is there some club for magical trogs who killed their dad?” she whispered, bitterly.

“No talking,” said the guard.

Julie nodded silently as she accepted the guard’s authority. Accept it or get tuned up. New prisoners and "problem prisoners" who didn't obey authority or caused any problems would get shocked by the collars on their necks. Not all prisoners had them, just the awakened. But if that didn't work or if the guards got bored and felt like it, they'd "tune you up", which sometimes meant getting gassed, sometimes meant getting shocked over and over again and almost always meant getting a beating. So to her there was no choice. Out of habit she did all the right things.

Julie was led past checkpoints and cells. Then even more checkpoints and more cells as she came to a part of the prison she was unfamiliar with. Cell block after cell block, row after row, every single prisoner in this wing was awakened. She'd heard that the day before she came some woman lit her mattress on fire and got ripped apart by an air spirit that had been bound to the prison. People talked about it for a solid month. Not that she Julie how to use her magic nor would she if she could. Prisoners who used their magic were shocked by their collars on the spot and it only escalated from there with no exceptions.

She was led into a room that she vaguely understood as a place where people received visitors, not that she’d ever been here. These were not the circular tables where people can touch. That was for lower security prisons. No, this was a simple pane of bulletproof glass and an honest to goodness phone. Julie had only seen phones like those in those old two-dimensional cop dramas her dad used to love because back then, there'd only been human actors.

She wasn't familiar with who was on the other side of the glass. She thought that he was kind of cute in a way, though older, as she’d been starved for men to look at. Part of her isolation back at school had meant that she'd never touch a boy out of fear, but she had looked. Then she scowled as she noticed the man's pointed ears. This guy could pass for human if he tried, though it looked like he wasn’t trying. Of course the first man she’d seen in months at an all women's prison would be an elf.

Sticking with her own kind meant sticking with orks and trolls. And the crew she ate with at lunch table she was permitted to sit at, and that crew was called a "car", though she didn't know why. The universally older members of the car nursed her latent hatred and racism. She'd said what they'd said and did what they did because there was safety in agreement. Plus there was nowhere else to sit. This was prison. Orks and trolls didn't sit with humans, elves or dwarves. They only sat with other orks and trolls. And many of those groups had certain feelings about the other metatypes. Not all of them, but that often didn't matter in prison. You stayed with your own.

So the feelings that came to mind when she saw this elf was self-loathing and disgust. She despised herself for feeling that way about some dandelion eater. Unaware or uncaring of her hate, the elf tucked a lock of his blond hair behind his ear as he put the phone up next to it. Reluctantly, she picked up the phone as well.

"Hello miss Freeman," he began, "My name is Julian Smith."

"What do you want?" she snapped.

She felt another snarl building up inside of her but suppressed it. That's what the car expected of her, but if she was defiant the guards would remember and they might tune her up. Instead, she felt apathy take over and her look of anger faded until her gaze became dead and uncaring. She was so tired. Anger and apathy warred inside of her but if she didn't have to put on a show for her car, apathy usually won out.

"I have an opportunity for you," he replied.

Julie just looked at him. She almost didn't say anything but she knew that once she left here, every day would basically be the same again. So she decided to play along since it broke the tedium.

“What sort of opportunity?” she asked, warily.

If her cellmate, Big Rita, had seen her speaking to an elf in any way that was considered polite, she would’ve gotten a glare and another lecture about sticking with her own kind. So the dead stare felt right.

“I'm a teacher. I’d like to teach you,” he said, with a warm smile.

She squinted at him but couldn't help but smirk as humor briefly won over the apathy.

"You're kidding me," she said, and turned around to look at the guard, "Is he kidding me?"

"Eyes front, prisoner," said the guard.

She turned around immediately. Eyes front it was.

"I'm not kidding you," he said. "You were brought to my attention and the attention of my school. We looked over your files. I'm here to interview you."

Julie ruthlessly suppressed that curious side of her. That was the old Julie. The hardened rind of apathy warred inside of her with her anger. So she lashed out in a way that would probably get overlooked by the guards- Simple sarcasm. As one of the youngest people in prison, she didn't get to talk down to people very often.

"Wow. I must be interesting," she said, sarcastically, “Please go on. Don’t pull any punches if this ends the talk any faster. Tell me all about how I killed my own dad. The orks in trolls in my cellblock love hearing about how I killed a racist.”

Julian’s gentle smile turned pained. If Julian hadn't been pulling his punches he'd have wondered how she'd cast a manabolt on her father and killed him without any training and without shredding her body from the magical drain while under extreme physical pain. Safe to say he looked like the type to pull his punches, but Julie wasn’t. Though it only seemed like she was more interested in beating up herself than hurting him.

"Punches? I thought I was being rather restrained, actually," he admitted.

"Seriously?" she asked. “Whatever.”

"I don't make it a habit to lie to my students," he said.

"I'm not your student," she snapped.

He quirked a smile and there was a short pause. It was almost theatrical.

"Not yet,” he said, with a hint of smugness.

Julie ground her teeth. They were large teeth with tusks on either end that pushed past her lips jutting upwards. Dainty by ork standards, her tusks were slender and only an inch long.

"Julie, what are you getting out of being here?" asked Julian.

She furrowed her brow.

"What?" she asked, her tone confused.

"What are you getting out of being here?" he repeated.

"I don't understand,” she said, still confused.

"Therein lies the problem. You don't understand. You're just..." he made an expansive motion at her with his free hand, "Here. You'll be out in five years, though it could be three with good behavior, which I have on good authority that you are extremely well behaved. Not a single incident. You even help out other prisoners with their case files."

"I can read," she said, "So what?"

"It's more than reading," said Julian, "You picked up some paralegal skills with no teacher and just a few old tutorsofts from the prison library. I hear that you're quite good at it given your age and experience."

Julie hesitated. She knew that the prison kept files on her but she didn't figure that anyone would actually read them outside of some probation hearing.

"It's just a hustle," she said, "Gets me snacks from the commissary."

"I have it on authority that you'll do it for anyone," said Julian, "Even if they don't have money."

Julie could've told him she just did it for favors, but she didn't. She had taught herself a bit about how the law worked and sometimes did do a little legal work for free. Even for non-orks and trolls, though she didn't tell anyone about that. Especially not Big Rita or the rest of the car.

"Then what?" asked Julian, "You're an untrained awakened with a criminal SIN. What's next?"

Julie shrugged. Julian leaned forward towards the glass.

"Speaking as a person who was once sitting almost exactly where you were once upon a time," he whispered, conspiratorially, "I've got to say that you should listen to the deal I'm about to give to you."

"And why's that?" asked Julie, testily.

"The food here sucks."

She stared at him incredulously and Julian smiled. The look on his face, as if he knew a secret that they were both in on was so disarming that despite herself, she giggled. Even though what he said hadn't been funny, she still had. She didn't know why either. Her giggle was lower than her human giggle and she hated it, which made her stop. But that smile had been her first smile in a while and that brief moment of levity came with clarity. She realized why she shouldn't take any deal at all and that reason was simple.

"I deserve to be here," she sighed.

Julian shook his head.

"Again, me out here, you in there, I've got to say that if this were a contest about who deserved it more, I'd be in there, not you.”

Emotions stirred, her self-loathing became anger. Again came the sarcasm because it was what she could get away with.

"You’re just a teacher. You don't know anything," she snarled.

"Yes, I am a teacher, Julie. That means that I know a lot,” he countered.

She glared at him and he took it as permission to continue.

"Like how sometimes teens die during goblinization and sometimes that's just “convenient” for some people. Wounds don’t show up on an autopsy mid-change.”

He made air quotes with both hands as he held the phone to one pointed ear with his shoulder.

"I know that a girl going through goblinization with a father linked to the Night of Rage probably wouldn't have survived if it'd happened at home,” he said, quietly, “Instead it happened at..."

"What?" she interrupted.

Julian paused and pursed his lips in thought.

"The Night of Rage. It's in your history books," he said, bluntly, “You would have learned about it in school.”

"I know what the Night of Rage is,” she said, irritably.

“And I saw your grades at your old school,” he said, “So you should be able to tell me what that was.”

Julie ground her teeth. He waited expectantly, just like a teacher from her old school- Her old life. He had a kind of "teacherness" to him, a quality that Julie couldn't define, but that she understood after trying to please them.

“It was a worldwide race riot that happened a million years ago," she answered, "What does my dad have to do with that?”

Fear welled up in her. Fear and pain. She didn't want to think about her father. That wound was too fresh. It hurt too much.

"I did the legwork," began Julian, "He was..."

"Don't want to hear it," she interrupted.

"Okay,” he said, simply.

They didn't talk for a time. Despite herself, she was the first to break the silence. A morbid fascination was overtaking her. It was her curiosity that got the better of her. What did he want with her? What was this about her dad?

"Fine. Tell me," she said.

"Tell you what, Julie?" asked Julian, innocently.

She growled in frustration.

"You said you did the legwork. That means you know something.”

"Perceptive. I like that in a student,” he complimented.

"I'm not your student," she snapped.

Her apathy was gone now and she was growing angrier. Angrier than mere sarcasm could help manage. The kind of anger that would not only get your shocked, but could get you tuned up.. So she struggled to get her anger under control.

Julian looked at her for a long time. That "teacher" quality of him was gone. The slight playfulness too. He was somber now.

"Are you sure?” he asked, his voice full of concern, “This was what I was going to pull out at the end to convince you, not the beginning. You can't unsee some things, Julie.”

"I thought you didn't lie to your students," she said.

"I don't need to lie to you," he said.

Julie thought about it for a while. Thinking about her dad hurt. It hurt a lot, but she was also curious which she couldn't suppress. A curiosity that outshone even her anger. A little piece of her old self that loved learning and books and had been curious about everything. It overrode her anger, warred with her trauma and eventually it won. Despite her own efforts and the efforts of the prison system, curiosity had never been stamped out of her.

"Yeah. I want to know," said Julie.

After some hesitation, Julian pulled out his commlink, tapped it and made a few gestures with his hands. Not magical ones. The haptic gloves on his hands just interpreted his motions as inputs via his commlink. He made flicking motions and the bulletproof glass became a screen, which became an old style two-dimensional picture. The kind from before trideo.

There were men in white hoods and a hanged elf. Scrawled underneath, edited to look like an old-timey postcard were the words, "Wish you were here." It was a selfie. Self-aggrandizement and malignant narcissism never went out of style, nor did posting criminal acts to the matrix.

"You know they're still prosecuting people from that night?” asked Julian, “I had a friend poke through their archives. The project to put together all of that data that was lost in the last Crash is still ongoing.”

Julie stared at the screen in sick, numb horror. He was much, much younger. Almost her age. But she recognized that smile. It was her dad's smile.

“This was taken February seventh, 2039, The Night of Rage," he said, "The one holding that old cell phone is your dad. You know, back when they had cell phones, not commlinks. We don't know if he killed that man, but he's reveling in it. Not just that. Social media accounts. Political affiliation with Humanis. Not the "family friendly" Humanis, but the stringing people up kind. Burning crosses in peoples' yard kind. White hood kind."

She looked away and that was the moment he’d been waiting for. He turned off the screen with a gesture and spoke.

"What happened to you," he said, "It's not your fault."

Pain and rage bubbled up to the surface and she vented it on him.

"Fuck you, knife ear," she spat, "You don't know a thing about me or my...My..."

She was about to say dad, but she couldn't. It hurt that much. Julian looked a little sad, but not hurt by the words. Instead he shook his head from side to side, made a firm line of disapproval, his "teacherness" back and he gave her the feeling that she'd acted out in class. This feeling, more than anything, scared her. Being anything less than perfect in her previous life meant a slide down into poverty. Even though she was already in a terrible situation, echoes of fear and anxiety from her previous life were still there.

"Going to have to work on that," he said, blithely.

The guard cleared her throat. That was all it took. The conditioning from violence and humiliation that is prison beat down her temper. She went numb again.

"I'm a freak," she whispered.

"You're not a freak," he said, soothingly, "You're special. And none of this is your fault."

Pain warred with numbness. A bone deep, soul crushing pain. But those were words she'd needed to hear. Not even Big Rita, who'd looked after her in prison had told her anything like that. And this elf, whose name she didn't even remember, was the first person to visit her and the first non-prisoner to treat her like a person. All of that coupled with this new knowledge of her dad was too much. Julie Freeman began to cry. A cry like this had been coming on for months because one didn’t admit weakness in prison. But here she was doing it anyway. For his part, Julian looked away, but he didn’t put down the phone. Neither did she.

Minutes later when she was done she came back to the conversation. After all, the guard would wait as long as was necessary. Her boss had been paid handsomely and their boss and their bosses’ boss, all the way up the chain. In the Seattle Metroplex, prison time was fairly optional if you had the nuyen and the influence. This conversation wasn't done until Julie decided to come with him and if she said no, he'd just be back tomorrow.

"What do you want?" asked Julie, feeling defeated.

"To teach you," he said, "I work at a place called Blake Island School of Magic."

"Where you teach freaks how to be better freaks.”

She tried inject some venom in her tone but she didn’t have it in her.

“I teach awakened,” he said, “People with magic. Specifically young people. And this year I’m also a talent scout for people like you."

"Like me?" she said, her voice tired, “What do you want with me?”

"You’re a troubled young person with talent," he said, “Heavy emphasis on talent. Magical talent to be sure and lots of it, but that only gets you considered. What you have is drive."

She gestured with her free hand to what was around her. It didn’t take Julian long to realize that she didn’t mean the glass or the phone or the cheap chairs or the cameras, but the prison itself. He grinned ruefully.

"I might have some history with the hard cases, like I said. Years ago I was hired for my unique perspective. Here's my promise to you," he said, as he gave his pitch, "I become your guardian. We seal your criminal SIN and clear it completely when you graduate. You learn to control your powers, earn back your freedom and improve the quality of your food."

He waited for a beat before flashing a winning smile.

"What do you say, Julie? How do you feel about getting out of here? Not in three to five years with good behavior, but right now."

Julie furrowed her brow in confusion.

"What, now?" she asked, "You can't do that, can you?"

"All you have to do is say yes."

There were a few beats as Julian waited expectantly for her answer. So reluctantly, Julie supplied one.

"Uhh...Yes?"

The lock on her shock collar suddenly clicked as it unlocked and powered down. In a panic, Julie turned to the guard, but she wasn't there. The only people in the visiting room was a teacher and his soon to be student.

"Did you do that with magic?" she whispered, both frantically and in awe.

Julian shook his head, paused, then with a boyish grin he pulled out his credstick from his pocket. The credstick wasn't black like she was used to seeing, but gold, which meant he had far more access to nuyen than anyone she'd known. She'd never seen a gold credstick before, though she knew that there were more colors for people with even more money. She'd only seen silver, the color below gold a couple of times, but since most of the people she'd known were poor, most people only had basic black credsticks.

"Behold," said Julian, "My magic wand. And with it, I free you from captivity using the most powerful of magics known to man or beast."

He waved the very mundane, not magical at all credstick in the air with a few grand flourishes.

"And what's that?" asked Julie, incredulously.

"A slush fund," said Julian, officially, "Now take that horrible collar off your neck and let's get out of here. I've got to get you ready for school."

---

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