Days of Future Juniper, Chapter Two

This time around Mini-Flash Juniper wasn’t having any trouble remembering she was Mini-Flash Juniper, but she was going to have to keep reminding herself everybody else thought she was Mini-Flash Bumblehub. There were three other Special Program girls onboard, besides the curly-haired one, and Juniper’s disguise took them in too. She couldn’t see it having the same effect on Pseudangelos or Splitsville or Flashshadow, but these younger recruits with whom Juniper hadn’t had much to do were fooled just fine.

Not that any of them were younger recruits anymore. Offsetting curly-haired’s turquoise was a powder-pink, a sandstone ochre and a deep emerald green.

They’d all graduated, and Juniper guessed Mini-Flash Bumblehub must have done too.

This could only be the future.

Many were the turbid thoughts on these and other themes which occupied Mini-Flash Juniper as she and her companions exited their ship, which had set down on a planet of everlasting night. All the worlds will have been thus in this near-sunless nowhere, but gibbous gas-clouds looming overhead cast enough of a dim glow to see by. From somewhere in the distance drifted a steady noise, as of industrial manufacture, and Juniper followed the other girls who began to troop in this direction.

Topping a ridge they presently saw outspread below them the artificial lights of some vast open-air assembly plant. The absence of weather-patterns here would have made such a project feasible out of doors. Down the rise towards this concourse of conveyor-belts and factory chimneys the small party proceeded, for there a duo of male Mini-Flashes made up the welcoming committee.

Juniper didn’t know them. She didn’t much like the look of them either.

They were seniors, but the problem wasn’t that, because she guessed in the present day they’d still be neophytes she hadn’t yet encountered. Nor was it their good looks exactly, although Juniper couldn’t help being suspicious of any power or body which deliberately chose such ambassadors for a young and all-female delegation. There wasn’t any danger of that sort of sales pitch swaying her, but sadly she couldn’t say the same of her flightier companions.

The boys introduced themselves as Flashagate and Flashchasm, and with significant smiles told their guests this was a long-awaited day.

Juniper wouldn’t have minded knowing what this place was, before they moved on to the reason she and others of the Special Program were here. She looked about her as best she could without appearing overly curious. If the installation was for making mannequins, as it seemed, that wouldn’t account for why the glimpses frightened her. There were racks of body-parts, life-size in proportion to a Mini-Flash, including arms and legs and torsos for both sexes. Their white marble sheen might have spoken of statues, but that Juniper couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling it belonged to no lifeless mineral.

Flashchasm said something about refreshment, and his guests set off in the direction he indicated. Mini-Flash Juniper, bringing up the rear, was only too glad to turn her back on the boys. Right after the resultant pleats-flare, however, she suddenly remembered.

“Not bad,” a voice chuckled softly from behind.

“Not bad at all,” responded its fellow. “Find me a verb you can’t spell Flashagate without.”

Mini-Flash Juniper rounded on them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that?” she defied the pair.

“Then go over to the enemy instead,” was Flashchasm’s smirking response. “You won’t catch any of it from Nottingham. It’s light-years off.”

His arms were folded, and there was nothing courteous about his manner now.

“I’ll go with her,” Flashagate put in. “Could quite fancy meeting Neetra.”

More smirks.

“Yeah, had the same thing in mind,” concurred Flashchasm. “And I’d rather not wait until after the Coming Conflict’s won.”

That was what did it. Mini-Flash Juniper might have kept her temper, if the boys had only left her friends out of it.

“Am I right to assume this work-yard of yours has no proper sports facilities?” she demanded, in clarion tones which made the other girls whip back around.

Let them, thought Juniper. She was at boiling-point.

“That’s the only explanation I can think of for why there’s been no traditional welcome yet,” were her next words. “Unless it’s because the big brave boys can’t pluck their pants up.”

Mini-Flash Juniper wove her way through the Special Program seniors, and set down her plate of refreshments as she reached the two males. From the looks of their glowering expressions, conversation had run on few topics besides the last statement she’d made them.

That was about to change. Because here it was.

Juniper resisted the urge to raise a weary sigh, and lifted instead yellow pleats to dip into her prettiest and very lowest révérence.

Straightening up, she beheld a pair of bewildered boys.

“Oh, these social functions,” Juniper commenced, heaping cheese on whatever it was they were eating. “Funny how it’s always hormones when the first and second genders are together.”

“Huh?” responded Flashagate bluntly.

Juniper hoped she wouldn’t have to grin much longer. It was making her cheeks ache, and her teeth were clenched. The curtsey however had hurt more.

“Well,” she continued breezily. “Us, having a Flashball friendly,” and she snorted a laugh. “Old-fashioned thing for me to propose, in this day and age.”

Which was a bit of a gamble, but Juniper reasoned it was the future. What was more, from the looks of their smiles, the boys were finally cottoning on.

“Oh,” pronounced Flashchasm elaborately. “So you’re asking if you can back out?”

Mini-Flash Juniper held steady.

“You’ve done so much,” she began again, still as sweetly as she could. “This nice reception and everything. Then for me to spoil it with talk of our getting all sweaty and competitive – ”

“That’s the second gender,” Flashagate interrupted.

Juniper blinked.

“Yeah,” corroborated Flashchasm, using what seemed to be his favourite word. “They say what they like then they bat their eyelashes and we’re expected to forgive them.”

“We’ve told you already to defect the other way if you want boys who’ll fawn and fall over you,” Flashagate told her, in hard unyielding mirth. “You’re not going to get any of that treatment here. You might even find we won’t feel like letting you off the hook so easily, when you decide girls aren’t up to a proper game after all.”

Juniper’s temper had helped her enough today, but she still had to fight it down at this.

“But since you’re not,” continued Flashchasm with a snicker, “here’s something easy and fun for you instead.”

TO BE CONTINUED