Avion Symphony, Chapter One

It wasn’t the first time 4-H-N had paid a call on Kitty. In fact, it was getting to be a habit.

For this, 4-H-N earnestly believed her nightie was responsible. The short pink one with the shoulder-straps, in which no girl could reasonably expect her knickers or armpits to stay secret long, and which for all these reasons closely resembled 4-H-N’s old Avion Girls Task Force costume. That was clearly triggering all the right psychological cues, because when 4-H-N wore it her weary head barely touched the pillow before she was there. Back in Kitty’s small college bedroom with its book-lined shelves and a bunk to save on floorspace, plus a wash-basin and mirror tucked away in one corner, the window open on a night-time campus of Spanish colonial architecture and a darkened strip of Californian beach.

Kitty was an honour-student these days. In trimly-tailored plaid skirts combined with knee-socks and a designer cardigan she couldn’t have looked more scholastic, or in other words still had a knockout fashion-sense. Sometimes when 4-H-N dropped in she’d find her studying late, or perhaps snoozing with her golden head on the coursework-strewn desk. Always happy to see her old friend, Kitty would put the kettle on at once and they’d drink hot chocolate together, chatting and giggling like the pair of schoolgirls they’d been long ago.

How different to tappy smell-bombs with the raucous Mini-Flash gang, all the while having to pretend she was every bit as bad as them.

Never even mind Petunia. She made 4-H-N so mad that the act had a tendency to turn real whenever she was around, which was more disturbing still.

No wonder 4-H-N had started to need this.

Nor was it any wonder her subconsciousness chose Kitty to meet that need. In her waking hours 4-H-N saw why this made sense. She had loved all four of the first friends she ever made, but Kitty was the only one who must certainly have left the Avion Girls Task Force as she herself had. She’d been at Houkase High on an international exchange program which by now would be long expired. With Kitty 4-H-N could talk about the old days they both remembered, and all her brain had to do was come up with a convincing backdrop. To be honest, 4-H-N thought it was doing a great job with that alone – the sheer detail of Kitty’s room impressed her on every visit, and she wondered why she couldn’t display that kind of creativity while she was awake. 4-H-N wouldn’t have liked to tax such a hardworking id any further. Indeed, she was glad it had hit on the best way to bypass what would otherwise have been inevitable questions as to what the other Avion were all up to now.

Or so 4-H-N thought.

Then one night, not long after that awful business with Petunia and the ink-bottle, Kitty out of the blue announced to 4-H-N there was something she wanted to tell her. Something that had happened after the Avion returned to Tokyo without 4-H-N, but before Kitty’s own resignation when she went home to America.

Even from inside the dream, 4-H-N wondered how that was going to work. Surely a Kitty created by her mind could only know things she herself knew? Nevertheless, she told her right away she’d love to hear all about it, and asked her what it was.

Kitty beamed back and declared:

“It’s, like, only the story of how Chester, you know, found out about Villanelle!”

4-H-N didn’t follow. “Found out what about her?” she asked.

“Oh gee,” said Kitty.

She began to tell the tale, and her words behaved like droplets of cream falling on the hot chocolate’s surface. Just as these fanned out in great starbursts and rosettes, circumferences mingling with each other until the smooth universality they overlaid was obscured by a tapestry spanning pristine white to buttermilk to toffee, so Kitty’s narrative soon blotted out her bedroom behind Tokyo woodlands on a blazing day. That was the sort of dream it was. It had a song to it too, one from back home which 4-H-N liked.

“We were both young, when I first saw you…”

4-H-N kept her eyes open as the flashback started. High times were once again afoot for the Avion Girls Task Force – Kitty was still filling her in on the source of this particular crisis – but apparently poor old Chester had had to flee for his life. Desperate, and with a bulging document-pouch stuffed up his uniform tunic, he crashed through bracken and scrambled over fallen boughs. Although her feelings for Chester had never been as deep as those of certain other girls around here, 4-H-N was shocked and concerned notwithstanding to witness the plight of that kind friendly boy from her form. The urge to help him was upon her long before she remembered that in this dream-within-a-dream she could not.

Flight was futile. The thing pursuing Chester had him cold. Seeing this, he bravely turned and stood his ground.

Through the forest it came, all purpose. Gleaming ceramic and shocking-pink steel moved on swift supple articulation, cogs and components meshing to make a war machine that walked like a woman. For its curvature was cast in Brunhilde shape, and the mechanical mask that served it for a face was fearsome.

“Fuselage,” Kitty intoned portentously to 4-H-N. “We took her down once, and we thought we’d taken her out, but you know what? We so hadn’t.”

Never had 4-H-N laid eyes on such a robotic monstrosity. Nor she was ever going to eat cheese before bedtime again. The funny thing was though, she hadn’t tonight.

“You’re not getting those claws into Dad’s top secret research,” Chester defied Fuselage.

“Freckridge Corporate no longer enjoys exclusive ownership rights, brat,” that one returned. “My problem-solving subroutine is pleasantly succinct on what to do to you should you resist.”

Then out of nowhere, there was Villanelle.

4-H-N thought it inconsistent that her brain, after going to the trouble of ensuring Chester looked a little older than she remembered, had then presented Villanelle with no such alterations. The girl in the sailor-collar dress with her long hair styled in twin spikes hadn’t changed one iota since her memorable debut as one of Miss Fitzgerald’s first-years. Facing down Fuselage she positioned her small self protectively in front of Chester, to whom she glanced back.

“When I give you the signal, take a good look,” she commanded him. “Then run, and don’t stop until the Avion find you.”

Villanelle had grown up, if not physically. These were purer intentions than 4-H-N would have ever expected from the spoiled bully of her recollection. Even so, what could she possibly do here to help?

That question was answered by an explosion.

END OF CHAPTER ONE