Chapter 16

On her way to History, Angel noticed a hand lettered sign on the door to the girls restroom, declaring it out of order. She didn't think anything of it until she started walking by and found herself being pushed through that door, and grabbed.

She fought down an urge to unleash a biological attack on the two girls holding her, and to overcome her momentary surge of panic. After a moment, she stopped her physical struggle to get out of their grasp, and formed a quick plan.

"You don't want to do that." She said, in her closest approximation to the deadly serious tone she had learned to use when she was a boy. "Let go of me now, if want to keep the use of your hands."

"Shut up!" snapped one of her captors, a girl Angel recognized as one of the other girls from the mall incident. As she saw the bathroom door start to open, she used the trick Lena had helped her learn. She made the nerves in the two girls' hands lock into a state of maximum pain and sensations of heat.

They screamed and let go. She bolted through the exit door, past the startled Barb. The hallway was too crowded for a clean getaway. Although she was reasonably sure they wouldn't try anything that public, she went for some insurance - right out of playground 101.

"Fight! Fight!" She called out, pointing toward the restroom door. Combined with the sounds of pain from inside, it drew attention to that door like a magnet. A crowd surged into the room, to find the three girls seemingly struggling.

The problem with that tactic is that it's hard to get away with it. Angel made it all the way through History, but partway through English, a runner came to the room and handed Mrs. Veng a note. She looked at it, then handed it to Angel without comment. There was a quiet "ooh" from the class, the universal acknowledgement that somebody was in trouble.

The note itself was short and to the point. At the end of class, she was to report to the Dean's office. As Angel had learned in the orientation, that could only mean trouble. At the schools in the area, there were three top layers of administration. The Principal and Vice Principals handled administrative details, finance, and the other details of running a large school. The Deans handled student discipline and student complaints. She hadn't filed any complaints, so it had to be a matter of discipline.

With more than a little dread, she made her way to his office. After a brief wait, she was ushered inside.

He gestured her to a chair in front of his desk, but she just stood there with a deer in the headlights expression. He wasn't impressed.

"Sit." he commanded. Her resentment at the tone of that command broke her paralysis, and she sat.

He stood behind his desk and continued. "You know why you're here." It wasn't a question.

Angel recognized his dominance ploys. She had seen them plenty of times before. While they didn't really have the desired effects on her, she continued her not quite conscious imitation of a frightened animal. She shook her head to indicate she didn't know. And it was true. She wasn't sure what he knew or thought he knew.

"Come now, Miss O'Connor. We have four witnesses who saw you using your elemental powers to try and start a fire in the restroom. Two of them ended up with seriously burned hands when they tried to stop you. These are serious charges."

In spite of herself, Angel laughed.

He looked very serious, and was starting to look angry. "I can assure you, this is no laughing matter."

She gasped for breath. "It's impossible." she chortled.

"Do you deny that you are a powerful elemental?" he demanded.

"Yes. I'm an elemental. A BIO elemental. And a weak one, from what they tell me. I couldn't light a match with my powers. They made up a story and you fell for it!" Angel realized that she had gone a little too far with that, and her laughter died down.

The Dean sat behind his desk and started pounding his keyboard. Literally. Angel wondered whether he was going to break it. He looked at the screen, and seemed puzzled. But he was far from satisfied.

"All right. Suppose you tell me exactly what happened."

"When?"

"Don't get smart with me, young lady."

"I wasn't. I really need to know the time frame."

"How about we take it from when you walked into the restroom."

"I didn't."

"What do you mean, you didn't?"

"I didn't walk in. The door had an Out of Order sign on it, and as I was walking by, someone pushed me in."

"Who?"

"I didn't see. I don't even know if it was a boy or a girl. I just felt a shove, and I was through the door. Then the girls grabbed me."

"Which girls?"

"I don't know their names. They hang around with Barb Harriman and the other morf haters."

He looked like he had swallowed something sour, but motioned for her to continue.

"I warned them to let go of me. They were hurting my arms. When they refused, I made their hands hurt."

"What do you mean, made their hands hurt?"

"I stimulated their nerves anywhere they had contact with my body. It made them feel pain and heat, but that was just a neural illusion. They screamed and let go, and I ran out of the restroom. Right past Barb, who was on her way into the restroom. That was it."

"And the rest?"

"What rest?"

"The disturbance in the hallway."

"Oh. That. I was afraid they'd chase me or something. They were angry with me because Barb got arrested for assaulting two little girls in the mall, and I think they were out for revenge of some sort."

You're right. came a familiar mental touch. Watch out. He's a member of their congregation.

He continued talking, not noticing her momentary distraction. "And the burn marks?"

"What burn marks?"

"On the paper trash and the girls' hands."

"There weren't any when I left. If I had to guess, I would say they were a crude attempt to frame me. Are there really burn marks on their hands?"

"They were red and swollen. They said they were burns."

"I'm sure any competent doctors will say otherwise. Unless the same people who burned the trash also burned their hands."

"Why should I believe you, over the word of four other girls?"

"Because it's the truth. And because what they claimed was impossible."

The phone rang, and he looked at the display. With a scowl, he answered it.

They found the sign. It was one of the things in the trash that started to burn. And they found witnesses who saw you getting shoved into the restroom. He doesn't want to believe them.

He got off the phone, then addressed her again. "I will investigate further, and notify you about my decision. I will also be contacting your parents about your involvement in this altercation. You may go now."

Angel was furious. He knew she was innocent. He knew it! And he was going to do what he could to punish her anyhow.

You have two strikes against you, in his eyes. You're a morf. And you made a fool of him. He counts both as personal affronts.

But I...

I know. But that is how he sees it. Come to the Admin office, and we'll do something about it.

He was as bad as the rest of those Pures hypocrites. Worse! He should find himself on the other side, and not able to pass his shit on to kids. Angel was so involved with her internal rant that she didn't notice what was happening in her body or in the room.

The Dean came around the desk and stood over Angel. "Miss O'Connor, I said you may go. Please leave my office." When Angel didn't budge, he took hold of her arm and lifted her to her feet. Angel was tempted to demonstrate what she did to the girls, but she didn't.

She was too disturbed by the feeling in her arm where he held her. An altogether too familiar feeling of release. She let him guide her out of his office, almost in a state of shock.

Angel! Lena's thoughts broke through her mental fog. What have you done?!

Angel got her thoughts together. I ... I think I gave him something. He grabbed me, and I released something. Like the virus packets or something.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer man. Lena's sarcasm came through clearly. Don't sweat it. You didn't kill him or leave him writhing on the floor. Your power responds to your values. You probably just gave him AMORFS or something. Whatever it is will take a while to manifest. So let's deal with the immediate problem - keeping him from railroading you.

Realizing that was a good idea, Angel made her way to the office. They met with a woman Lena introduced as a Vice Principal - and the Dean's boss. She listened to their story, including the reactions of the Dean. When they were done, she had some questions. Including one she considered very important.

"This thing that you did to their hands. How badly does it damage them?"

"Not really at all." Angel answered. "It hurts like he ... anything, but doesn't damage any tissues."

"And how long will it last?"

"As far as I can tell, until someone stops it."

"Someone?"

"A bio elemental, like me. Or a healer. Or anyone else who can manipulate nerves directly."

"Why did you limit the effect to those parts of their hands?"

"My field of effect is only about a quarter inch from my skin. I pretty much have to touch someone to do anything, and the effects are literally only skin deep."

"So to all intents and purposes, it's purely defensive when you do it that way."

"Yes. Not too good for attacking anyone."

The Vice Principal was already aware of the other witnesses, the ones who saw Angel being pushed into the supposedly out of order restroom. She was also aware of the disciplinary records of the girls - and the Dean.

In the end, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt until he acted. Then she would evaluate his actions and take the appropriate steps. Knowing that Lena was aware of it as soon as she thought it, she confided that the Dean had been protected by the political situation. And that the situation had changed when the preacher changed.

But he was aware of those facts as well. And he was not a stupid man. So she would wait and see what he did. If he did the smart thing, and handled things appropriately, that would be the end of it. But if he tried to turn it unjustly against Angel, there would be consequences.

On the subject of consequences, there would likely be further consequences for her attackers, although their pain would be taken into account. Their actions were premeditated, and serious.

On the other hand, self defense or not, Angel had permanently injured two students. There could also be consequences for that. If she reversed the damage, that would be taken into account. And if they were to recant their earlier stories, and admit to the conspiracy and assault, while they were there for such treatment ... well, that would be taken into account as well.

By this time, Angel and Lena were late for class. The Vice Principal wrote them passes, and sent them on their way.

Since she had missed lunch, and been through a lot that day, Angel stopped at a vending machine and got an energy bar to wolf down on her way to class.

Angel's Calculus teacher glared at her late entrance, but waved her to her seat and continued the lecture. At the end of class, she handed in the slip and the previous day's homework.

After school, Angel was not particularly surprised to find a lot of morfs at the Spectrum Club meeting. Over the last half century, MORFS had done a lot to redefine sexuality. Was a boy, who became a girl and was then attracted mostly to boys, gay? Was someone who became fully functionally both male and female bisexual by definition? What does it mean when someone is primarily attracted to such hermaphrodites? It was confusing.

Angel was reluctantly settling into the role of a heterosexual girl, with the advantage of having very few people know she was ever a boy. It was still uncomfortable.

Most of the meeting was organizational, signing people up, answering questions, laying out the scheduled events, and naming committees. They gave out some informational bleeps, and generally got things started. Before anything of substance could be discussed, meeting time was over.

Angel went over to the music room, where Lena and David were rehearsing for the show with the Changelings. The sound was a little muffled as she approached, but the song they were practicing had a gospel sound to it. It ended with a solo by someone with a surprisingly deep, rich voice, then a final chord by the group.

Somebody said something Angel couldn't make out, and the room was filled with a rumble of voices and footsteps. The doors opened, and a small river of people gushed out. Some were obvious morfs, but others weren't so obvious. On the other hand, the average stranger wouldn't have known she was a morf, either.

Angel spotted Lena and David, and moved to join them. As they moved through the door and headed toward the shortcut, Robin appeared behind them. Angel wasn't sure whether she simply hadn't noticed her approach, or had been fooled by Robin's powers. She couldn't resist asking.

"When are you from?" Angel got a couple of odd looks from people walking by for that one.

"Just the here and now, I'm afraid." Robin replied, shaking her head.

Angel had questions, but waited until they were on the shortcut to ask them. "How does that work? I mean, do you have some sense of a "normal" time that you go back and forth from?"

"Kinda. There's a moving time that it is easiest for me to jump to and from. I can go back about a week from there ... then ... whatever. I'm still working on how to say it. I can sometimes jump a couple of days ahead from there, but it's a lot harder. They tell me there's more to it than that, but I sorta got lost in the transdimensional physics."

Robin was not an airhead by any stretch of the imagination. So if it was too much for her, Angel was content to leave it at that.

"If you change the past, do you go back to a changed present?" David asked.

"Yes. I tried some harmless stuff, like moving some things in my room. When I got back, they were in the new places." Robin shrugged. "I didn't try anything major."

Lena got into the spirit of the conversation. "What about space? Do you have a place it's easier to go to and from?"

"Again, yes and no. It's easiest for me to go to and from places I really know. And when I shift in time, it's easiest for me to come back to the same place I went back in time from. I can go other places, but it's just not as easy."

Angel grinned, thinking about the times she had noticed Robin's love of hearing herself talk. And here they were, feeding it.

Angel found herself agreeing with Sherry and Robin, in their earlier comments about the pool. It was a perfect day to spend some time there, but it was closed for the season.

When her mother got home, she had a serious look on her face. She told Angel that once her father got home, they would have to have a talk. She wouldn't say anything more until then. She just went upstairs to change.

Angel had a pretty good idea what was happening, and learned that she was right. When her father got home, she was confronted with the story the Dean had told her mother. At work. And it bore little resemblance to what had happened.

In his version, she had gotten into a fight with one of the girls and, when the other tried to separate them, Angel used her powers to cause massive, apparently permanent, nerve damage to the two of them. Then, when confronted with her actions, she had tried to lie her way out of it. She was facing anything from an extended suspension to outright expulsion.

In his version.

Angel told her grim audience what really happened, including her interviews with the Dean and the Vice Principal. She forgot to mention the part where she might have infected the Dean, but the rest was detailed.

"That does sound more in character for you," her father conceded. "But the fact remains that you used your powers to hurt those girls."

"Only in self defense! And there is no real damage. Just some overactive nerves. I could fix it in seconds."

"And you will." her mother added emphatically. "But you should have found some other way. Those two are in terrible pain, by your own admission."

"And if they had their way, I would have been. I can heal myself, but they didn't know that. Lena confirmed that they were out for blood. And even after that, they tried to frame me for elemental arson."

Her parents seemed satisfied for the moment. Not happy, but satisfied. They would be talking with the Vice Principal, and would put off any response until then.

After dinner that night, she was watching the tube with her folks. On the news, there was a report about an upcoming Royal Wedding that almost wasn't. The talking head was dancing around it, but the upshot was that a political faction claimed the princess was not a virgin, but a thorough medical examination had shown them to be wrong. As a side note, the report mentioned that one of the Royal Physicians involved did not make it to the press conference. Apparently, he was severely injured in a traffic accident, and later died of his injuries.

For Angel, that settled it - it must have been her client. And despite what he had tried to do, she felt a guilty responsibility for his death. She couldn't help wondering whether the "accident" was arranged by his co conspirators or was a suicidal attempt to stay out of their hands. Either way, his death seemed a direct consequence of what she did for her client.

After the news, Angel went to her room. She went through the exercises Lena had taught her, isolating the news report from any thoughts of the spa, or her client. And isolating thoughts of the spa from any thoughts of her client or the special arrangements. After the Doctor's demise, and Mrs. Tabor's warnings, it seemed important to do so.

Since a distraction was a necessary part of Lena's exercises, Angel dove into her remaining homework. She caught herself mentally whining that it was not fair to have that much homework that early in the school year. It was almost like each teacher thought he or she was the only one assigning homework.

Then she laughed at the childishness of the thought.

The next morning, she realized she had one less thing to worry about for a while. Still, she took the usual precautions as she got ready for school.

As they walked to school together, Robin got annoyed with herself.

"Damn! I must have left it in my room!"

"What?" Angel asked.

"My French homework. Merde! I'll have to go back for it." She looked around, and then got a little gleam in her eye. "I'll catch up." She said.

And vanished.

A moment later, she reappeared beside them, a noticeably heavier bag over her shoulder.