Vertiginous, Chapter One

4-H-N in her leotard and leg-warmers had been doing some stretches at the gym. She knew that when things weren’t going well in this galaxy she had a tendency to look back to Houkase High, but didn’t think anyone could blame her just now for ditching the tunic and boots. After the latest she’d learned from Psiona, 4-H-N was needing ever more such snatched little hours to transport her to simpler and happier days.

She was dabbing herself with a sports towel afterwards when the galaxy intruded. Something had told her it wouldn’t take long. 4-H-N sighed.

Why so much noise from that couple playing Flashball?

She craned her neck, but saw only that she’d have to go over. So rising from the bench she hiked down her spandex, since everything behaved according to its nature and there was nothing that was truer of than leotards worn without knickers underneath, and padded to the touchline in her ballet slippers.

It was the usual. Senior boy nearing the point of distraction, neophyte girl having fun seeing how much worse she could make it. How many times, thought 4-H-N?

And just today, it was once too many.

The truth about Joe, her friend Jenny in danger, and the impossibility of doing anything about it so bubbled over in 4-H-N that her feet were preceding each other onto the court almost before she knew it. It wasn’t out of any especial sympathy for the boy. It was just that 4-H-N suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of this galaxy being this galaxy a minute longer.

“Er, why are you interrupting our game?” inquired the pert entry-level girl, holding the ball.

“Just because you’re so fond of hanging round his score-zone that I’m guessing you smell at the long shot,” 4-H-N dared her. “Love to see you get it in from here.”

The girl smirked and whipped around to face the far end of the playing-field, her beige tunic-skirts flaring level with the floor.

One thing 4-H-N could say about this place. You quickly learned to predict.

In both hands she seized the girl’s elastic leg-holes and gave her the hitching of her little life.

“Ooh!” was the first rejoinder, followed by “Ooh ooh ooh!” and a great deal of indignant finger-waggling at 4-H-N. Then finally it was: “You’ll regret this, whoever you are!” and the girl exited, walking funny.

The senior boy was grinning all over his round face. “And at the risk of repeating our friend,” he added, “thanks, whoever you are!”

4-H-N was only bemused for a moment. Did neither of them watch public service announcements or the Interplanetary Broadcasting Service?

Next second though, she had it.

Mini-Flash perception.

The same reason Sue’s disguise fooled everyone around here.

It had something to do with facial cues not registering in quite the way they did for human beings. 4-H-N would have been the first to admit she didn’t fully understand it, but she’d demonstrated before that even when a Mini-Flash had seen someone a hundred times on a holo-screen, that person face-to-face might still be rendered unrecognizable if they wore Earth-clothes with no underwear beneath. The two moons alone knew how that last part worked, but 4-H-N saw now she’d replicated the conditions of her first successful field-test without having meant to.

She grinned back. “If she tires it again I’ll get her pants even further up her bum, and she won’t like that.”

“Sure won’t,” the senior boy agreed. “You certainly stuck it to that little 4-H-N.”

She’d heard correctly. She was sure of it

“That little what?” 4-H-N repeated, looking at him.

The boy laughed. “Oh, it’s just a thing we call girls like that,” he explained easily. “You know the ones I mean. Delinquent females who’ve done nothing but tease and get the better of us ever since they decided to proliferate. And 4-H-N’s the worst of them. You can’t go to the cinema these days without having to hear her silly giggles, see her flaunting it off in front of us. So we use her name for any girl who’s almost as bad.”

4-H-N needed a minute with this. Because it wasn’t nice. It was like searching for yourself online and turning up results you’d have preferred not to read. But she was attentive too.

“Who do you mean,” she inquired at length, “when you say ‘we?’”

Because someone must have talked to Flashslip. Something had been said to turn him against her. 4-H-N didn’t even know why he’d been acting as if they were enemies now.

Could it be there was some sort of movement?

The prospect made her head spin, but even back home on Earth, where there were fans there were usually ghouls and trolls too. Was that what she’d stumbled on here?

“There are a few of us,” the senior boy replied succinctly. “And we’re growing in number. A girl like you, who knows what’s what, doesn’t have anything to worry about. It’s one or two other girls who are going to have to watch out. Some of we Mini-Flashes who were here before they were have had just about enough of their tricks, and we’re not planning to take it anymore.”

As answers to her question went, that one would do.

4-H-N forced a sunny smile.

“Then speaking of tricks,” she proposed. “If you’re free now, how about I take you through some of the ones she was using? Then you’ll be ready for any future 4-H-Ns.”

“We can do that,” concurred the boy. “So, you haven’t even told me your name?”

“Kim,” said 4-H-N at once. “Kim Novak.”

TO BE CONTINUED