Avion Symphony, Chapter Three

Softly through the wall of glass Planet Grindotron’s technological towers were throwing their glow on 4-H-N’s own familiar bedroom at Prof’s laboratory.

She had to say, those dreams about Kitty were a tiny little bit more restful without the extended location-footage tonight’s had come with.

It had been Villanelle’s first day when that particular one of The Baron’s robots happened to attack the school. 4-H-N remembered now. That coincidence would be why she’d composited the pair of them. But what dark and dubious depths of herself had her unconscious dredged to concoct a horror like Fuselage? Just thinking back on her called for a drink of milk.

4-H-N padded barefoot to the nearest kitchen. If she’d worn her trusty Avion nightdress to Japan and the United States already this evening it could stand a trip down the hall. Especially when nothing would satisfy but a great big glass of gold-top. Thank the two moons for this galaxy’s thriving black market in terrestrial comestibles.

The kitchen was deserted. No surprises there at such a time of night. Even so, when 4-H-N opened the refrigerator door and light bathed the scene, there was no need for her to so much as turn her head.

“Hi, Villanelle,” said she.

Only then did 4-H-N look. Sure enough, there she was, sitting at the kitchen table.

“There’s something I have to show you now,” said Villanelle. “Something Kitty didn’t see.”

“The principle of universal power transference. Daddy’s crowning scientific achievement.”

Villanelle delivered this last without humour.

“The part of the story you know is that Daddy used this process to equip five robotic drones, turning them into super-robots,” she continued to 4-H-N. “When they overloaded, you and four other schoolgirls absorbed the resultant discharge of power and became the Avion Girls Task Force. Later, when you’d left the team, Daddy revealed that the principle didn’t apply only to energy but also innate aspects of the self. Under his guidance, each Avion transferred the strongest, purest part of her into Freckles, enabling her to defeat Kirsty and probably save all human civilization in our universe.”

Villanelle paused for a sip of milk.

“Thanks for this,” she added. “I do drink it.”

4-H-N drew deeply from her own glass. They were sitting at the kitchen table, she in her nightie and Villanelle a curious hybrid of the girl 4-H-N had known and the robot she’d learned within the last hour had always been hiding beneath. Gone was the old endoskeleton, replaced by a much more anthropomorphic chassis and a head that boasted eyes and a mouth. According to Villanelle these changes owed to her having come from hundreds of years in the future, by which time it had long become pointless for her to keep up the pretence of being human.

It wasn’t that 4-H-N didn’t believe her. Earlier on she’d been shown the very moment Villanelle decided to abandon that illusion. Moreover, 4-H-N was fast approaching the stage where she’d have been ready to believe just about anything, tonight at least.

“That’s really interesting, Nellie,” she declared. “But something tells me you’ve not come all this way just to give me a physics lesson.”

Villanelle topped up 4-H-N’s glass and hers from the milk-jug on the table.

“Watch,” said she. “We’re about to see the principle in operation.”

Images were swimming into view in the darkness above their heads. The first was of a sports hall, but not one 4-H-N knew. “Where’s that?” she asked.

“Houkase High had to relocate when Kirsty sent Taito the way Tamashi had already gone,” explained Villanelle. “People were starting to say Tokyo was disappearing district by district.”

It was gym class, and there was Niki. Oh, 4-H-N missed her! Still little and still the same pink hair, even though she was slightly older as Chester had been.

Just for a minute, 4-H-N thought that was the only reason she looked different.

Niki collided hard with Hiroshi, hitting the court with a bump. She was better at games than that though, and 4-H-N knew a fake fall when she saw one. Something wasn’t right.

“Sorry, Niki!” cried Hiroshi at once, stopping and holding out his hand to her.

“My fault,” Niki smiled, taking the hand. “Wasn’t looking where I was going.”

Although Niki was one of her oldest friends, 4-H-N didn’t like that smile. In fact, she didn’t like any of this.

More pictures followed as 4-H-N watched wide-mouthed. Niki doing some group-work, one hand resting on that of the girl everyone had called Pigtails. Then a crowd of classmates jubilant for Akiko who’d notched up her second netball win at the nationals, all clapping her on the back while Niki slipped in a touch on her bare forearm. And then Niki and Hiroyuki leaving the cinema one night, she telling him sadly she didn’t think this date had been a good idea after all. It was just too soon. But he’d really helped, and she hoped he knew that.

Niki placed her palm on Hiroyuki’s cheek.

In fact, he’d helped more than he could possibly guess.

What was worst for 4-H-N wasn’t seeing her friend so creepily tactile when she’d never used to be. Villanelle had already kind-of explained what that was about. Nor was it even the smile.

It was that Niki looked less and less like Niki each time.

4-H-N had had it. Her last dream hadn’t exactly been the cast of Cute Superhero Boy Romance queuing up to suck her toes, but she’d gladly have taken it over this one. Rounding on Villanelle, she demanded: “Why’s she doing it? I mean, what is it she’s transferring to them?”

When Villanelle spoke, it was in a softer voice than 4-H-N had ever heard from her.

“Niki hates Takotchi now,” said she. “He and Mariko found each other while you were all away.”

So much for nostalgia, thought 4-H-N. All very well just as long as you remembered it was only an exercise in pretending everything stayed the way it was. It couldn’t sustain itself against the considerably harsher realities of growing up. A school destroyed, love ending in tears, and a friendship sundered forever.

“Poor Niki,” 4-H-N said quietly. “And poor Mariko, that’s sad. But, Villanelle…”

She had to start again.

“OK, it’s wrong of Niki,” affirmed 4-H-N. “She shouldn’t be offloading it onto others, no matter how much she hurts. It must have just got too much. But surely, once she’d done it a bit, it eased the pain? Not that that makes it right. But after enough times she should have felt better, so she didn’t need to do it anymore? I mean, this didn’t get any worse?”

For a synthetic face, Villanelle’s new one was anything but inscrutable.

“Love and hate are complex equations,” she told 4-H-N. “Even these electronic brainwaves of mine, though they’re artificial, took some getting used to. My feelings for Chester were often painful. Unlike one of you, I was in a position to delete all that any time I liked. Maybe you think I was lucky. But I never did. To do so would have left me less alive. Don’t you see that’s what Niki’s doing? And a person who deleted great tracts of their humanity wouldn’t be the better for it.”

“I see that, Villanelle, or at any rate I’m getting there,” 4-H-N attempted. “But this is Niki we’re talking about! I know she’s going through it. But she was also one of the first Avion – ”

“Any one of whom would have been able to detect such a misuse of their abilities were it applied to them,” Villanelle reminded her very gently. “That’s why Niki is shifting her hate only to the powerless and unwitting. She’s already turned against the team.”

How easy it would have been for 4-H-N to jump to her bare feet on the kitchen tile and advise Villanelle in no light language to not bother dropping in to see her at all if she was only going to say things like that about her friends. Or that she didn’t know the first thing about Niki, except maybe the best ways to pick on her. What would have been the point however of hearkening back to regrets which this older and wiser Villanelle had already had centuries to reflect on? A rather more recent regret for 4-H-N involved an ink-bottle, and the memory of it was enough to keep her from losing her temper as she’d done then.

4-H-N looked on her reformed school bully. Reformed in more than one sense of the word.

“Alright, Nell,” said she. “Show me how it got worse.”

END OF CHAPTER THREE