Novels2Search
The World beyond the Veil
Chapter 21: Security and feigned insecurity

Chapter 21: Security and feigned insecurity

Tina woke up early as usual for her new body. Of all the parts she missed about being Martin, being able to sleep in was one of the weirder things she hadn’t expected to miss. Not exactly the first item on the list of things she’d reverse if she could, though.

The meager hours of sleep would come back to bite her later, but right now, she felt reasonably awake. It was already late when the Bear and the Grim Reaper brought her to the school, and even later when she could finally go to bed.

She had to take a shower first: her little ‘accident’ had left her with no choice. Weirdly enough, she felt no shame about it. It wasn’t like she couldn’t hold it in or anything like that, the grim reaper had literally scared the piss out of her. If that was what ‘weak magic’ was capable of on Earth, she couldn’t even imagine how horribly magic could mess you up on other planets. Even if complete brainwashing should turn out to be impossible, breaking someone’s mind with horror seemed absolutely doable. Even if this magic didn’t break their mind it would at least traumatize them to the brink of insanity.

While rising from the bed, it struck her how oddly comfortable she was with having a female body. Sure, there were a lot of downsides of changing gender, particularly all the social aspects, but being female in itself was … fine. Not spectacular, not terrible, but somewhere in the middle. There were definitely parts of being Tina she disliked, though a lot of them were not strictly related to being female. For example, she missed being taller, but that was not a defining feature of being a girl. Yes, a lot of women were shorter than men, but she was short even by female standards.

Fixing her hair every morning was a pain. It was another feature not exclusive to being female: she wanted to cut her hair shorter. Unfortunately, up until now, she had not had the opportunity to book a time at a hairdresser. Maybe soon, if or when she escaped her immediate confinement.

She was not technically imprisoned, but it was pretty close. Bars covered the windows of her fairly small sleeping room, and apart from the bathroom, the only other door was locked from outside. The bear had obviously feared she would run away during the night and asked the security team at the school to make sure she stayed put until the principal could see her.

While brushing her teeth, there was a knock on the door. She could hear the door unlocking a few moments later.

“I’ve brought you breakfast,” a man called out as he entered the room. She walked out of the bathroom, still in her sleeping wear. A guard placed a tray containing a solid breakfast on the table.

“Thanks,” she nodded. A thought struck her. “How did you know I was awake?” she wondered out loud. As far as she knew, most youths rose significantly later than she did.

“We heard you were up,” the guard flat out lied. Even without her ability to pick out lies, that was a pretty obvious one. The door and walls were thick, and she hadn’t showered or otherwise done anything that would create a lot of sound in the pipes.

That meant they were keeping an eye on her. That was understandable enough, the question was how? Hidden cameras? Spells working despite her dampening field? Did one of the guards have x-ray vision?

The guard walked towards the door, not intending to hang around to make polite conversation. “We’ve scheduled a meeting with the principal at 9 o’clock,” he informed her, “If you require anything before then, knock on the door.” She simply nodded, and he left the room.

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So, they were watching her. Fine enough, she guessed, except when she was naked. What was the likelihood that there was a camera in her bathroom?

Regardless of gender, she was not an exhibitionist. She walked into the bathroom again, looking for hidden cameras. Either there were none, or she couldn't find them. But for good measure, she turned on the shower before changing, causing the mirror to turn foggy.

A little over an hour later, she walked out of the bathroom with frustration written all over her face. She had only planned on taking a shower, and then out of nowhere found a bit of inspiration to do something more. A part of her brain shouted that someone may be watching, so she tried to be subtle about it while washing down there.

Up to a point, at least. Much to her frustration, the water pressure was too low to really get her to infinity and beyond. She had persisted in her attempt, trying to reach the desired orgasm, but finally had to give in when her legs complained too much about the uncomfortable position.

Now she was both horny and disappointed. She dug into the now cold breakfast with a vengeance, eating as if the food was at fault for everything. By the time the guard came to fetch her, she had at least calmed both her mood and horniness enough that she resisted the desire to snap at him. Since the cell, or ‘security guest room’, was a part of the security building, it allowed her a peek at their workplace while passing through.

The guard lead her past a magnificent garden to an old but well-kept building. It had been a private manor some hundred plus years ago, but was now the administration building of the school, according to the guard. He was polite enough, answering anything she asked that was within his knowledge. She decided not to ask any unpleasant questions about her confinement or surveillance, which probably kept the mood from turning sour. No reason to make more enemies than strictly necessary.

The guided trip ended up with a set of stairs leading to a secretary’s office with chairs for waiting. The guard waited with her until the principal was ready.

There was another girl waiting in the same room, and her appearance puzzled Tina. She was wearing what could be best described as a very edgy version of a Catholic school uniform: A checkered skirt that was much too short for your average school outfit, and a shirt that displayed a bit more cleavage than any real school girl uniform would realistically allow. The really weird part was that this was the first person she had seen to wear something even remotely like a school uniform; everyone else they had passed had worn more casual clothes.

Another peculiar feature was her two blond ponytails, which by design gave her a cute look. There were probably other subtleties Tina failed to spot: she knew next to nothing about makeup.

The combined effect gave the girl an impression of being weak and vulnerable, yet alluring and playful. It looked like something a porn star would use to make her appear much younger, perhaps to remind someone of jailbait. Except that this girl was already very young: She barely looked above legal age.

The girl noticed Tina staring, and gave her a wink. Not knowing what to do, Tina flashed an awkward smile and turned away. Someone dressed like … well, jailbait, sitting outside the principal's office? She could hazard a guess why.

She risked another glance at the girl, catching her still staring at Tina. When their eyes met, the stranger just smiled as if she had done nothing wrong, and continued staring. When had Tina boarded the train to Awkward City? She was certainly not comfortable with the staring and turned away for the second time.

As she did so, she caught a signal. ‘that's probably her. Not exactly my type, but…’ Tina knew this was a glimpse of the girl's thoughts, and that the girl was referring to Tina in her assessment. Someone had been sharing information about Tina with others. Who? Possibly a guard; the girl looked like she knew her way around men’s desires and secrets.

Before Tina could delve further into this thoughts, the secretary asked her to enter the principal's office. She deliberately avoided meeting the strange girl’s eyes on her way in.