Days of Future Juniper, Chapter One

The airlock doors opened and Mini-Flash Juniper stepped out onto Flashlab Central.

“Something strange about this, Jenny,” 4-H-N greeted her. “Mini-Flash Bumblehub’s never so much as talked to me before. Then just this morning she came out with it.”

Stranger still for 4-H-N was that Mini-Flash Juniper was standing here at all. True, it hadn’t only been Mini-Flash Bumblehub who’d partied and danced and hot-tubbed through the incident at Limb Four. That however wasn’t much of a defence for any of the former classmates who had, especially when you considered what had happened to Jenny then.

4-H-N had come to have faith in Sue. Faith of a sort anyway, inasmuch as she was sure Sue would have helped if she hadn’t been off her knickers on tappy smell-bombs at the time. But as for the rest…

There could be no denying any longer 4-H-N had grave doubts about the rest.

Were another Limb Four to happen tomorrow, she couldn’t envisage them behaving any differently. And that was troubling.

That tended to support the arguments of those who feared the Special Program.

Yet Mini-Flash Juniper had come, apparently willing for the sake of her Intelligentsor visions to put herself at the beck and call of these fairweather friends. So 4-H-N, determined she should also have at least one real one on this space station, lent her a hand setting up the equipment as they’d done before.

“There was nothing about this in any of the books Flashsatsumas showed me,” said Mini-Flash Juniper, once all was assembled below decks. “I agree there’s much here that doesn’t feel right. Are you doing it, Bumblehub?”

That one, nondescript even for the Special Program, had wandered over to the power-harness and was now loitering beneath.

“Yes, Juniper, I’m doing it,” came back her reply.

Sure enough, a low hum was starting to emit from the portal-mouth. “Smoother ride when it’s one of you girls charging it up,” commented 4-H-N.

“Yes,” agreed Mini-Flash Juniper, in the tones of one who’d already tried it.

“Be careful, Jen,” 4-H-N urged her. “We keep saying this doesn’t feel the same as the others, but – ”

Next second Juniper was in a spaceship’s passenger-cabin, blinking at the porthole.

The view awed her. She’d never been this far from anywhere else. What few stars Juniper could see were dots against the dark.

Moreover, it wasn’t Nottingham on Planet Earth, which was where she was supposed to be.

4-H-N had been right. This was all exceedingly strange.

Mini-Flash Juniper started as the cabin door swished open behind her. She whirled, her skirt-pleats kicking in their familiar way, although something felt funny about even that.

There in the doorway stood a curly-haired girl she remembered from the Special Program. Only she wasn’t wearing beige. Juniper goggled on the turquoise of an individual costume.

“Come on, Mini-Flash Bumblehub!” sang the girl. “We’re nearly there.”

She struck off along the passage and the door slid shut again.

Spinning skirts were the least of it. Mini-Flash Juniper wished her head was as easy to straighten.

Why did a girl she barely knew think she was Mini-Flash Bumblehub?

Wait, Juniper then thought to herself. Maybe she’d answered that question already when she gave her cabin a little twirl. Experimentally she took a step or two along the deck.

Yes. As she suspected. In terms of friction, well, it was the last time she complained about other people’s conduct making her uncomfortable, Mini-Flash Juniper would just say that. Why Pseudangelos seemed to prefer going around like this all the time was beyond her. Nevertheless, there could no longer be any doubt, especially when Juniper glanced down at herself and noticed all her familiar clothes were now yellow. Even down to the yellow stockings rubbing her in ways she’d never suffered her blue ones to do.

She was in disguise.

And an unbelievably good one too, from the looks of things.

It had worked on another member of the Special Program. That left Juniper no illusions about having come up with it herself. She wondered whether even 4-H-N was clever enough.

And this masterstroke had occurred in a vision powered by Mini-Flash Bumblehub?

Seriously?

By Special Program standards that girl had never been more than middle of the road.

There were altogether too many unanswered questions about this.

Meanwhile, Juniper had been told to come along. So she strode for the door, stopping only once to point the toes of one foot and tug at her waistbands and wriggle.

TO BE CONTINUED