[Pre-Fall] Chapter 0: Re-Orientation

Looking at all the other teens around himself Kyle wishes he was better at approaching people. Groups are so tough. He can almost manage one or two, if there is an easy in but in this situation . . . He shakes his head and stretches just as Mrs Blaskwook starts talking.A moment after he notices the time it hit hm and he glancing at the clock, then his phone, then wrist watch. Kyle wonders if the school clock is out of sync and chuckles to himself. How many "synced" devices supposedly pulling from the same 'atomic clock' source all ended up showing a 5 minute spread. This might come in handy if he can just figure out the offset and if it can be tweaked. Barely listening to the talk he checks his network scan logs for recent activity and time stamp to see what if anything happened since he started scanning the networks.

Hearing some whispers about twins he finally notices the two students(?) at the front with the adults and rewinds to review last year. Nope they were definitely not there so should not be on the student council, so why are they up front.

Torrance is used to being watched, in a you're-special we-expect-great-great-things sort of way. So, the feeling was not unexpected st school, but he did look around for the source of the focused attention.

Minsoo casts an eye over the newcomers. It wasn’t unusual for new students and staff to show up at the start of the year.

"Beats me! Maybe they’ll get a special introduction!" she says, knowing that neither student nor staff member relished the chance to have so many judging, teenage eyes on them!

"... this year you will have our lead professors themselves guide you through your final projects ..." Blackwood had moved on to introducing the senior year teachers in turn; there was a new Art head teacher, Denise Lance, whose dress sense put the more drab staff members to shame. And as Jonathan and Minsoo predicted, the headmaster did finally get round to introducing the suited pair. "This year, our school is pleased to have Mr Necht and Ms Nixon from the Masschusetts State Board on staff as your career and education guidance counselors. I know how critical, and how difficult it can be, to make good decisions about your college of choice and course of study. They will be the ones exploring the options together with you and talk through how you should put together your portfolio, and recommend additional co-curricular programmes that will enhance your future path. As a Harvard alumnus myself, I cannot emphasise how much ..." The headmaster went off on one of his tangents, though generally his audience bore it patiently as he wasn't typically too long-winded about such anecdotes.

Jonathan was near prescient in his anticipation, they were counselors! Of a sort. Daniela, who was among those seated between Myra and him, nearly snorted in agreement with Myra's observation, "Brr, they'll probably headhunt us to join the civil service. You really think they're twins?" Ever the photographer, she took out her phone to see if she could get a shot of the state board pair, only to find the piercing eyes of Mr Hammett, Math teacher and sometime de facto school disciplinarian, staring at her in admonishment even from the distance. She tucked the handphone back into her pocket, and followed his gaze to see that -

- Hammett had already been glaring at Kyle for the longest while, for Kyle had been busy fiddling with his own phone, too engrossed to have noticed that he had been spotted playing with his phone than paying attention. "Kyle!" Daniela hissed at him to signal that Kyle had been spotted. For Kyle was undoubtedly absorbed in his sleuthing. An inaccurate auditorium clock was easily explained, and it did read differently than his analog wristwatch, which also had a different time from his handphone. Kyle understood differentials to attribute his handphone time as being synced to network time protocols (NTP), for that was how handphone clocks. He would need his computer if he really wanted to have a crack at Verizon's server, but his attention kept being drawn to the discrepancy between the various wifi SSIDs he could scroll through, two of which stood out for their strong network signal strength, ASHS_ECG, and PStL_0205. Could networks affect other networks? But now he realised he had been too obvious in his inattention!

Wren was not distracted by Blackwood's musings; she was thinking so hard at Necht and Nixon, the same way she would whenever she encountered people she would rather intuit than trust her already perceptive senses. Her inner imagination took off: she visualised them going about their duties in their sleek suits and slicked back hair and dark shades (but perhaps she was stereotyping them too quickly into the doppelganger villains of pop culture movies); she saw the man lift his shades to reveal pupil-less eyes boring into her own, she heard the woman open her mouth, but instead of hearing words spoken she heard silence instead, a silence that seemed to negate all surrounding sound. It was way too early to be daydreaming, if that's what this was, and she tried to damp down the vividness in her head before she realised that Joe, who was sitting just one seat in front, let out a troubled groan and yelp, and began to tilt to one side as he began to slide off his seat.

"Joe, are you okay?" Kirk, next to him, reached out with his burly arm to grab Joe's wrist as he slid, but missed, causing his own chair to screech backwards a couple of inches towards where Torrance and Minsoo were as he tried to help his friend. For Joe's last thought was his using that bit of his science brain to rationalise whether Blackwood's speech was on loop, or whether time was on loop. What he did not expect was an overwhelmingly palpable sense of déjà vu that made the room spin as he fell sideways ...

Kyle always keeps the phone out of any teachers line of sight, all kids know to do that. The trick was to act as if there never had been a phone. Rather than attempting to pocket the phone he lets it slip down onto his pack, further out of sight, and adjust his posture from slumping forward to lounging back. Never looking at the teachers but just zoning out as he let his eyes wander over the podium.

I'll need to keep track of the local networks. he thinks to himself, noting the current scan will keep running for now as he left it active.

Myra jumps on to her chair. From the secure vantage point of her chair, she looks around the floor for the snake she is expecting to have bitten Joe. This was a problem ine Greece that she had to be aware of snakes.
Is there a snake??

"Idk about civil service..." Jon responded to Daniela under his breath. "...they smell more Corporate to me. But yeah, headhunters for sure." the Ashford to Ivy League pipeline was pretty well established but this kind of blatancy was a bit too 'on the nose' for his comfort. They looked like the kind of people who thought mayonnaise was spicy and any color deeper than beige might be outré and they were now poised to have access to every student at Ashford. Especially the senior class.

The sudden motion of Kirk Kallum to catch Joe as he spasmed and slumped to the side cut off his musing about the two new career guidance counselors. Jon was in motion moments after Kirk and moved to help in any way he could. Not that he had any kind of medical training but just sitting there watching wasn't exactly in his nature. "Lay him on the floor and put his legs up on the chair..." he told Kirk as Jon hopped over the rows of students to help. "Maybe he's having a seizure or epileptic episode ..." The drama was maybe not cause a commotion but Myra's comment about snakes was sure to get attention.

ooc: maybe Jon could block Hammet's line of sight to Kyle on his way to help Joe and run cover for him to hide his phone.

Joe’s been trying to focus on the headmaster’s speech while also having one eye on his watch, but his attention wanders… onto the two counsellors. They weren’t what he’d expected, and… those composed, impenetrable eyes seemed to draw his focus… as if they were wearing mirror shades, but they’re not… are they?
A thought strikes, something half-recalled… subknowledge, like knowledge you didn’t know you had?… he’s struggling to find it, he can almost feel it calling out to him, but he’s feeling increasingly groggy -

Career counselors. From the state board.

Wren's jaw tightened. The twins - Necht and Nixon - stood there in their grey suits, and everything in her wanted to look away. But she'd already committed, already sunk into that listening space, trying to understand what they were.

The visualization hit without warning.

Not quite a daydream, too vivid for that. She saw Necht lift his shades - pupil-less eyes boring into her. Nixon's mouth opening, and instead of words, silence. Not absence of sound but anti-sound, a void that swallowed everything around it, negating music and noise and life itself.
Wren's breath caught. Her hands gripped her skateboard hard enough that her knuckles went white.

Stop. They're just counselors. You're being paranoid.

But she'd been telling herself "just" all summer. Just the hum. Just places that felt too loud or too quiet. Just her imagination. What if she'd been wrong? What if when she looked at them - really looked - she'd actually seen something real? The vision hadn't felt like daydreaming. It felt like truth.

A groan cut through her thoughts. Joe - the new kid with glasses, one row ahead - made a sound between distress and confusion. He tilted sideways, sliding off his seat. Kirk lunged to catch him, missed, his chair screeching backward.

Wren half-stood, frozen between sitting and standing. His presence had just severed - like a note cut mid-sustain. And the twins, still perfectly still on stage, radiating that same negating quality.

They did something to him.
The thought sounded insane even in her own head. Yet it sounded no less real.

Wren closed her eyes for a heartbeat and listened - really listened, the way she did when trying to find a melody buried in noise. Trying to hear what had just happened, what was still happening, the underlying frequencies that made Joe's resonance drop out like that.

Torrance is going to look over and see if he can figure out what is wrong.

With mention of civil service and corporate, Minsoo tugs at her yellow, tartan shirt and is aware of the streaks of color in her hair. These two would not gel well with the music-loving athlete, she feared.

But then Joe, was that his name, was toppling over. And the people around her started scrambling. Minsoo had seen people collapse after exerting themselves on the track, but surely the boy hadn’t run a marathon this morning.

Joe's dizziness barely lasted an instant. One moment he felt present, as a student listening to the droning of a headmaster's speech. But simultaneously he felt a different version of himself, also present, trying to process what was going on. The effect of both singularities was not something he was familiar with; he had a lot more to learn from those who were privately trying to teach him how to deal with his newfound abilities.

He wondered if the disconcerting presence of Necht and Nixon, the new guidance counsellors, were the cause of his momentary instability. He couldn't be too sure, just like he wasn't sure whether it was because he was conscious of his own hyper-perception that led to him second-guessing whether he was being affected by Necht and Nixon, or whether it was because they were indeed behind his grogginess.

Wren though was less doubtful; drawn into herself again, she couldn't help but feel as if the counsellors did this, and once again tried to get a sense of what she thought of as the 'vibe' or energy, or essence present in all places. She was so sure in had to be the twins that she felt their energy, but then she felt much more strongly, Joe's overwhelming essence instead. Wasn't the cause of the fainting Joe hyper-extending himself? Did she just find out something about him that confirmed the earlier 'shouting' she picked from Joe? Should she ask him about it if she were to have a chance?

The another person who delved into her own understanding of what might have happened was Myra. Somehow, she felt that she could sense the connections between things and people. In her mundane understanding of the world, she saw a snake, and imagined a literal one that might've found its way into the auditorium. But perhaps that was her subconscious expressing the notion of connection, a tail at one end, a head at other end, connecting Joe with something, someone, on stage? Myra now also felt a connection to Joe, as if she were sitting right next them even though they were a few seats away, also a little unsteady and about to fall down. Was the 'snake' biting her as well? What was the cause, and what was the effect?

Some others were more actively pragmatically minded. Jonathan's first instinct was to run cover. Joe wasn't even in his radar, for Jonathan had spotted Hammet giving Kyle an admonishing look, and gracefully pivoted to block whatever Kyle was doing with his phone because Kyle couldn't scramble in time to hide his phone from plain sight. Between muscle jock Kirk and himself, Kirk might be the stronger, but Jonathan was definitely the swifter, agile enough to run interference for Kyle, and also to take charge of the situation by reaching Joe before any one else.

Torrance was one step behind Jonathan. He made no extra moves, it was sufficient for him to observe Joe to draw his own conclusions. And while he was astute enough to take in all the signs of what was happening, Torrance felt no inclination to draw any conclusions at all. This was in marked contrast to Minsoo who was also staring at the commotion, but she inferred the more obvious health diagnoses; surely it must be diabetes or epilepsy or some such, similiar to what Jonathan thought s well, for little did Minsoo know that Joe had spent the better part of the morning jogging to school in order not to be late. Wasn't that the most logical conclusion to draw for either Minsoo or Jonathan, or for Torrance who probably had the best understanding of the medical situation even though he withheld judgement?

The commotion of course drew the concerned attention of the teachers in the hall. Blackwood paused his speech, about to say something over the microphone, but coach Corbin had already leapt out of his chair to make his way off the stage and up the aisle towards where Joe had slipped, and Ms Alwood had whipped out her phone, presumably to call the school nurse. Cassandra, the council president seated nearby, jumped to give Jonathan a hand to try to get Joe into a more comfortable position. Joe himself could feel the dizziness pass, but he had to decide for himself whether to take it easy and catch a breather, or brush off the crowd so as not to draw attention to the strange sensations he was feeling.

"... you will be receiving your new timetables from your assigned form teachers, effective tomorrow. School will begin as usual at 8am." Vice-principal Marston wrapped up, to stifled groans from the 12th graders. "Today, as planned, you will fulfil the roles of seniors leading the orientation programme for the freshmen. The student councillors assigned to your class will brief you again on what's next. I expect you to showcase to our first years the best of Ashford High! Parare in posterum!

With that, the morning's address was over. The preparations for freshie orientation were planned even before term closed before summer break, and some more assidous student committees even returned to school at the tail end of summer to do the final touches and set up the various school facilities for orientation. The work was divided into those who would run the class bonding activities and orientation get-to-know-you games in the morning, and those who had to man the booths for the co-curricular showcase in the early afternoon, where the freshies interested in, say, track, would head to the field for an introduction and possibly tryouts, whereas those interested in robotics would make a beeline for the engineering lab to see the preview of student projects on automation. Potential art students would check out the cosy exhibition of artworks created and curated by their seniors; there were many different things going on today!

Wren closed her eyes and listened - the way she did when trying to hear a melody buried beneath noise, trying to understand what had just happened.

But what hit her wasn't the twins' negating silence.

It was Joe. His presence didn't fade - it blazed, overwhelming, like standing too close to amplifiers cranked to eleven. Whatever she'd expected to sense, this wasn't it. Not suppression or severing, but something burning so bright it hurt to perceive.

What the hell...

Coach Corbin was already moving off the stage. Ms Alwood had her phone out. Jonathan reached Joe first, and Cassandra was there too, trying to help get him into a better position. The moment had passed, and Wren was just standing there, halfway out of her seat, skateboard clutched against her legs.

She sat back down slowly, heart still racing.

The twins were still on stage. Joe was surrounded by people trying to help. And Wren had no idea what she'd just felt, except that it was real. Magically, impossibly real.

If she got the chance, she needed to talk to him.

Myra slowly untangled herself from her chair. People were starting to mill about, and she had to get to her stand. She was still a little shaken over the sensation of connectedness with Joe. Was it snakes or pathways she saw?

The headmaster uttered the school's motto. Parare in posterum! - Prepare for the future! That is just a fancy catchphrase, said by someone who doesn't know any better. Being annoyed with the headmaster grounded her to the present, and she shook off the sensation.

She was doe at the Student Library Committee and the math team -stand. She had arranged that the two booths were located next to each other. Unfortunatly Cass Devereaux, being Daddy's little girl, had secured the best pavilion for the student council. Myra had a hard time listening to Cass talk. How someone could be both a perfectionist and an airhead was something she would never understand - and Myra would be just across from Cass.

When she sees one of her classmates walk by, she asks. Is Joe okey? She can't leave the booths as she is setting up flyers and posters for the library and math teams' activities.

Given what most adults believed about this generation of kids, they might be astounded by the immediate reaction of Joe's classmates to his sudden distress. Jon couldn't really say he had any dealings with Joe that left any sizeable impression on him but that didn't make Jon hesitate in the slightest. Blocking Hemmet from mean-mugging Kyle messing around on TikTok, or whatever he was doing, was just a convenient bonus. Getting on Hemmet's radar early in the school year wasn't the best way to start senior year. No sense in carrying that curse... Jon stayed on Hemmet's list of 'usual suspects' and didn't wish that on anyone else.

Whether it was an over response or appropriate reaction, Joe seemed to recover just as quickly as the fainting spell had come on. Inwardly, Jon was glad it didn't spiral into an actual medical emergency. Despite jumping immediately into the fray, he really had no idea what to next if it had been an emergency...he just felt like he had to act. It was as if something inside him had pushed him to aid Joe, protect him from something Jon couldn't quite put his finger on.

Seeing the light of intelligence flaring in Joe's bewildered eyes, Jon breathed a sigh of relief and clapped his classmate on the shoulder and helped right the kid back in his seat. "Thanks for the help, man." he nodded to Kallum. "Good catch." He knew he was at the center of the commotion and that drew attention...the kind he didn't care for. Behind that, however, he felt scrutiny unlike the normal teenage 'attention economy'. It had the feeling of being stalked by a hidden predator, like unseen eyes hungrily observing prey behind obscuring savannah grass.
Oddly, Jon could almost smell the heated, earthy aroma of the Serengeti, hear the rustling of reeds in the hot wind and the cadence of insects. It was like he was in two places simultaneously. He ran his hand through his hair and shut the sub-Saharan image out of his mind and focused on where he was. Where he was supposed to be. "You gonna be okay?" he asked Joe, more to anchor himself in the Ashford High assembly than expecting an answer.

---

Post-Assembly, Jon found himself distractedly wandering over to the Arts Club set up. Helping to assemble the awning over the group table and putting up the black wire displays that were to hold senior portfolio pieces, he felt more centered than he had during the student assembly.

Art was one of those curricular tracks that tended to attract a variety of underclassmen, usually for all the wrong reasons. Some viewed it as a 'do nothing', easy-A class and used it as a dodge for signing up for the more academically challenging classes. Others because they felt like they had something to say but lacked the skills to adequately express themselves. The former at least moved on and eventually took a different curricular track; the latter usually stayed but still struggled with expression. Jon had gone in as one of the former but had become one of the latter. He definitely had something to say and found the skills to say it...and it often made people uncomfortable or angry. With that in mind, the two pieces of Jon's to display were selected for him by the Arts Chair to avoid any unpleasantness. Under the awning at the Arts Club table, being generally moody and unhelpful, sat Julian Markov and Zarah Steinbach.