The Ritual of Demand, Chapter Two

The subsequent phases of the solar cycle saw a tremendous change in Flashpower.

He was a happier and more confident Mini-Flash all round. He lost his wan distracted look and his cheeks flushed with colour, the freckles on his snub nose standing out boldly. In class he could concentrate again, and his grades began to improve. Even his Flashball picked up a little, and when someone got the better of him he started taking it as any boy would, instead of getting his knickers in a twist. The adult Flashes all agreed Flashpower was finally getting the hang of being the age he was.

With that, and Flashfair being let alone so that he was more at his ease than he had been, things were going well at the Flash Club border outpost.

Only Flashpower knew why.

His furtive hook-ups with Space-Screamer were growing ever more frequent.

Once again 4-H-N had reason to praise the directorial work. Girl though she was, she felt it. How the prospect of an upcoming rendezvous tugged at Flashpower’s flesh until he ached in his pants. How on nights when there was to be no encounter, the tint and hue of fading day upon the mountainside, together with the smell of desert dusk, made his poor body respond in vain.

Space-Screamer hadn’t insulted Flashpower’s intelligence. He’d told him after the first time there was going to be a catch. The issue, however, was what concern that was of Flashpower’s?

The quarrel was between Space-Screamer and The Flash Club’s muscle-bound leadership. Mini-Flashes didn’t enter into it. Which meant a wise Mini-Flash – the kind who’d make his mark on the galaxy one day – could assess every circumstance he was handed and calculate how it might bring him advantage. Space-Screamer confided in his pupil that he himself had started out much the same way, although that was longer ago than he cared to remember.

And the beauty of it for Flashpower, as Space-Screamer often pointed out, was that all he had to do was slip under and enjoy.

Space-Screamer assured him he’d take care of the rest.

So 4-H-N watched, and in the parlance of her homeworld, waited for the axe to fall.

Fall it did.

It had all been down to secrets, or so it seemed to 4-H-N. That at any rate was Fifth Film Director Grindo’s interpretation, and 4-H-N was convinced by his subtext.

First, Flashfair had chosen to keep certain secrets. 4-H-N didn’t blame him for that, and as far as she was concerned, no-one could. The galaxy today knew better than to go around asking the second gender if it was alright to have a quick look, and 4-H-N didn’t see why the same shouldn’t apply to boys. Fair was fair, although it turned out to be no time for puns.

That wasn’t enough for some boys however, and 4-H-N had met them too. That was where Space-Screamer came in. To 4-H-N he had proved himself akin to Harbin in more ways than one. He felt nothing, and used everything. Even what other people felt, their humanity as it was called back home, was just something else for him to use.

After consigning Flashpower’s consciousness to each successive rapture, Space-Screamer had gone to work unnoticed on other facets of his mind.

Harvesting different secrets.

Passwords. Security-codes. Fleet-deployments.

He launched a devastating attack.

What followed transported 4-H-N to a time and place she had not known, the old galaxy, where war was life and power the only object. Grindotron excelled at big-screen spectaculars, and you could count on at least one even in a relatively introspective piece. Multitudes of Space-Screamer robots, cumbersome tin-can things, trooped in file over sweeping vistas. The Flash Club rallied valiantly, but the outcome was never in doubt. Dominions wrested that day remained in enemy hands until the Solidity era.

There were catastrophic Flash Club losses. Among them, countless Mini-Flashes. Space-Screamer’s lies had exacted their price.

Flashfair was one of the fallen.

Not so Flashpower, who wept until he could weep no more, then when the slaughter was over discovered a quiet sort of resolve amid defeat and ruination.

He came forward, seeing it as all that was left for him to do.

So it was that for the final time thus far in its eons-long history, The Flash Club observed the Ritual of Demand.

Named for the privilege its co-founder and leader had granted himself in the early days, of demanding his subordinates delight him with their presence no more.

4-H-N stared on a part of Headquarters she’d never seen. It looked like some dungeon, lit by flickering torchlight, where once again a lone and trembling Flashpower stood surrounded. This time it was by a ring of Flash Club masses, of whom 4-H-N saw mostly shadows and silhouettes amid the semi-dark, though she could tell it was Mini-Flashes in front with the tall adults behind them. He who held court was another bygone dignitary 4-H-N didn’t meet during the events of the Solidity War. This would have allowed her to group him alongside Space-Screamer, had not history already done so.

Lightning, broad and blond and fearsome, issued his demand.

Before the widening eyes of 4-H-N, Flashpower began to undress, divesting himself of tunic and boots that the gloaming flambeaux touched on bare pale skin. While he was about it the assembled Flash Club did nothing but look, their faces solemn, unsympathetic. Dire had been the consequences of Flashpower’s collusion with Space-Screamer, but as 4-H-N gazed on the forrner’s punishment, all she could think was that first impressions had been correct. Here indeed was a side of her venerable home-away-from-home she’d never witnessed.

Flashpower on timid bare toes stepped to Lightning, bearing before him the small cloth bundle which was the uniform he’d worn with pride.

“If you only knew,” the tear-choked boy faltered. “I never wanted this…!”

Making no reply, Lightning held out his hand.

When the tunic and boots were gripped therein, the circle parted. Heavy dullivian doors banged open, flooding Fifth Film Director Grindo’s climactic frame.

For this chamber of summary justice let directly on the waiting world, and day was at an end, and Flashpower and his pants were expected under the galaxy’s glare.

4-H-N’s own hand, far smaller than Lightning’s, shot out and snapped off the pyramidal device before the first end-credit had had a chance to roll.

“That’s not something they could do to one of the second gender,” she stated, although it came out sounding more like a question than a pronouncement.

Flashbee was looking back at her.

“I agree there’s no precedent on that point specifically,” he began. “There weren’t any female Mini-Flashes then. But…”

If ever was a time 4-H-N needed a straight answer from her insectile Flash Club oracle, it was now. “No, Flashbee, this is one of the things about us which your galaxy must still be learning,” she cried. “You don’t make a girl walk round in public like that. There are different dangers. It’s not acceptable, Flashbee. She wouldn’t be safe.”

4-H-N gaped at her listener, frantic to make him see.

Why couldn’t he?

Drawing a deep breath, Flashbee started again.

“They’d do it, 4-H-N,” he told her very slowly. “There’s precedent for everything else. If another Mini-Flash kept another secret which threatened to put the sector at risk, The Flash Club would do it. They’d have to. Especially at a time like now, when the galactic public would need assurances we were taking steps. They’d bring back the Ritual of Demand, and they’d do it irrespective of gender.”

Oh, by the two moons.

The garden-planet.

He’d not forgotten after all.

Flashbee wouldn’t have lied, because he didn’t do that, but he’d been evasive. That alone should have set 4-H-N’s alarm-bell clanging away there and then.

“Flashpower must have kept telling himself it was all going to be fine,” added Flashbee. “But he knew deep down alright. And we’ve just seen how it worked out for him.”

“Um,” ensued from 4-H-N. “So there’s just one other thing my assignment asks. What advice would you give a Mini-Flash who was in the same situation?”

“To own up,” came back the firm reply. “Before it was too late.”

The way he was looking at her. Not as one who was angry, but as one who cared. 4-H-N couldn’t bear it. That much, however, it seemed Flashbee also knew.

For neither on Earth nor among these distant stars could 4-H-N have classed him as the sort of boy for whom taking a girl in his arms came easily. That he did so now might in one respect have been an unlooked-for testament to just how much trouble she was in. None of which was to say 4-H-N hesitated an instant to wrap her own arms around him in turn, or rest her cheek gratefully on his tiny breast, or hold him as tightly to her as she knew how.

“I really want to help you some more with your assignment,” Flashbee begged.

4-H-N was going to cry if he kept this up.

“Thanks, Flashbee,” was what she finally managed. “But this is one assignment I’ve got to finish on my own.”

THE END