The Magnetic Stones, Chapter Five

Next morning, Mini-Flash Phytolith caught up with Mini-Flash Moon by the statue.

“I thought I’d see you last night,” he said to her.

It was in part an accusation. Mini-Flash Phytolith hadn’t wanted it to come out that way, but yesterday had been too much of what could never be, and obscurely he was aware Mini-Flash Moon’s presence might have soothed a little of what the film had left him with.

“Did you?” was her mild reply. “And did you think I’d sit beside you too?”

All at once Mini-Flash Phytolith was staring again at what could never be.

“You?” Mini-Flash Moon repeated, and cast a brief glance over him. Her pomegranate eyes and pearly face were the same ones as yesterday, only everything about them had changed.

“The boy and girl who seemed so different, but shared a special friendship,” she scoffed. “If that’s your idea of a movie, you went to the wrong one last night. Maybe you should have tried Grindotron. Sounds like something they’d turn out. For all I know, the Grindoes might even believe things like that really happen.”

Mini-Flash Phytolith could seldom find words even for the kindly Mini-Flash Moon he knew. It was light-years beyond him to ask her why she was suddenly being like this.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t waste time thinking up little stories,” she finished. “I’d try studying a bit harder instead. You’re behind enough as it is!”

Horrible to behold was her smile. Of all that Mini-Flash Phytolith had loved to see there, nothing remained.

Still smiling thus Mini-Flash Moon turned, and strode for registration without him.

“All stand,” commanded Miss Jade, entering the classroom. Next instant every Mini-Flash was at attention behind his or her desk.

“Many of you are doing well,” Miss Jade began. “Many of you, I’m quite pleased with.”

Somehow, hearing such praise didn’t make Mini-Flash Moon feel any better.

“Of certain others, however, I fear the same cannot be said,” continued Miss Jade. “And so we’ve arrived at a day we all knew would come.”

That was when Mini-Flash Moon started to panic.

Probably she wasn’t the only one, but she alone was suddenly yelling out inside that this was wrong, this shouldn’t be.

She hadn’t enjoyed hurting Mini-Flash Phytolith, even if it was an order. She’d also guessed he might be in for some lashes. But this?

Was she never going to see him again?

And did that mean their goodbye would be the one she’d just given him?

No. No, she mustn’t let that happen, she had to make things right. Never before had the threat of the corrector meant so little to Mini-Flash Moon. She was urging to move, to disrupt the ceremonials, even to shout down Miss Jade’s pronouncement that in war you were either for your side or against it, all to halt these terrible ticking seconds before too late and forevermore.

But it was already too late. Mini-Flash Moon could smell heated limestone, and the room was filling up with steam.

These seemed very near.

Too near to be coming from Mini-Flash Phytolith’s table.

Even then, even after registering his eyes and those of everybody else upon her, Mini-Flash Moon knew only confusion. She saw white faces all around and wondered, as the hissing vapour steadily rose. Strange that final moments which each seemed to last an age should have admitted no time to make sense of it all. For it was not until jagged black cracks began to pattern her outspread palms that Mini-Flash Moon understood.

Brimstone tears fuming down splintering cheeks, she looked her last on the front of the form-room and wordlessly beseeched Miss Jade as to why.

Then a single ear-splitting thunderclap shattered Mini-Flash Moon.

That was all. Her subsequent clattering collapse was nothing by comparison. Dumbstruck, Mini-Flash Moon’s former classmates gazed at the small heap of crumbled white chippings which smoked by what had been her chair, a tunic and boots and some pink gingham knickers scattered about this rubble.

For Mini-Flash Phytolith, thence the enigma of the universe unfolded before him.

He knew how things worked now.

Reality was what was here, in the classroom, in the compound. Reality was Miss Jade and Mini-Flash Semiprecious and the war. Reality was so real it was choking him.

Anything else Mini-Flash Phytolith might have believed in or hoped for wasn’t real after all. Mini-Flash Moon had shown him that, first with words, and now more emphatically still she demonstrated what there was. Nothing but disparate handfuls of gravel.

Still, words had power alright. It had taken Mini-Flash Phytolith this long to see. With under a hundred, Mini-Flash Moon had laid his world to waste. He would get the hang of words. So much so as to outdo Mini-Flash Semiprecious at last. If it took him the rest of his life, Mini-Flash Phytolith would see tears streaming down that detested pretty face.

He looked on Mini-Flash Moon’s material remains and felt no tenderness. Never again would he make the mistake of caring for a rockpile.

He’d learned how much good that did. He’d learned how much you got out of it in return.

Mini-Flash Phytolith hated the second gender.

Harbin, The Foretold One, telepathically saw all from the seclusion of his throne room.

Most satisfactory.

He didn’t look for the girl’s brand of unquestioning obedience. What Harbin wanted he might shape or direct, but no force in the universe could ever truly control.

That was what twisted even now the features of Mini-Flash Phytolith.

He was the most promising pupil so far.

It never failed to amuse The Foretold One when he considered what his enemies might picture as the process by which he meant to eradicate their cause. Robots invading Nottingham, no doubt. Or perhaps a doomsday weapon of some kind. Such a crisis as to require hand-to-hand fighting as well as confrontations between armies.

Harbin’s contempt was that of a successive generation for its forbears.

The contempt of Mordred.

In the laboratory beyond, a final-stage genesis chamber waited. Its power was to make protomatter Mini-Flashes physiologically indistinguishable from the genuine article.

Just a few more trials were needed now. One or two operations such as today’s. A little last-minute fine-tuning to ensure Harbin’s best were the absolute best they could be.

After which, his father wouldn’t be the only one sending Mini-Flashes out into the galaxy.

There was nowhere they wouldn’t be. Flash Club Headquarters. Grindotron. The populous quadrant. Grindopolis and Nottingham.

With especial attention paid to the last named, and to the clone known as 4-H-N.

Harbin would see to it that their respective Special Program runaways became his.

Infiltration, coercion, subversion. Call it what you will, but the work of consequence would already have been done, here within the magnetic stones.

Distilling for those on whom all depended an infusion from which every last vestige of Four Heroes thought had been purged.

Let them spread their bane.

And that was how you eradicated a cause.

THE END!