The Final Fight

Alena turned over so she could stare at the ceiling. How could it have been only a few weeks since her capture? How could it have been only a few weeks since she had felt- been- on top of the world? How could she have been waiting and wishing for her release to happen for only a few weeks? She was still waiting for it to happen. It didn’t happen. After Carmen had half-defeated Sabrina, and Alena finished her off and trapping her, she had figured that her troubles were pretty much over. Right. Sabrina had pretended to be trapped for about three, four months in order to train ‘Savvy’ while Alena was being Alena. It had all come crashing down with a capitol C when Sabrina had left. Just like that. She just bashed open the door of the chamber and walked outside and down the street. Alena sighed, remembering it. Probably the worst day of her long life. She had pressed the button allowing her to see into Sabrina's chamber. Sabrina gave a sarcastic wave, threw her head back and destroyed the door, and walked outside. Then she'd called back, "Thanks for the extra Telkin! I love being a goddess!" and vanished. Alena wanted to throw something just thinking about it. Hence the reason the area she currently lived in looked the way it did. Clothes hung out of the dresser, books were scattered haphazardly on the ground, the paint on the wall was chipped and scratched, the furniture dented and splintered. Only the mattresses were in useable condition. Alena continued to think. Sabrina had come back, but it wasn’t to imprisonment. Instead, she trapped Alena and brought her to Sabrina’s house. Alena spent a month in Sabrina’s catacombs. Locked into place. It had been so dark there. Alena couldn’t see anything. Her hair didn’t glow and her eyes couldn’t see with the paltry light that seeped through 100 feet of water and 50 feet of crystal. Trust me, there wasn’t much. Unlike Sabrina, who had been designed to live like this. And all day long, "Sabrina’s electronica" had played. So loud, all day. All night. After a while, Alena couldn’t really distinguish the lyrics. It just sounded like pound-pound. pound-pound. over and over again. All day. All night. No escape. For a month. It was no wonder, really, that Alena had gone a little crazy with a capitol C. Then Sabrina had put her here. It was an all-girls summer camp, the groups anywhere from a week to three months. It was the Saushale training grounds, but her cabin was half-empty. She spent plenty of time yelling and lots of time threatening to throw someone out a window. And every night she lay down, waiting for the light to come and wishing she could leave. Unfortunately, the "Sabrina’s electronica" song still played, over and over, but in her mind. The song made it impossible to use the Telkin for large activities. Which made it really hard to battle the one hundred Saushale waiting outside. Normally, Alena would have been able to take care of that in 35 seconds. But she was still weak, angry, tired, and all around not up to it. Her hair had lost it’s shine, and looked brown and dirty, without it’s usual caramel. Her eyes had dimmed, no longer silver, more dark grayish and dull. Normal, human, crappy eyes and irises. Her skin was no longer tan, now an ugly, waxy pale. And she just no longer looked like an amazing goddess who stunned everyone she passed. She looked skinny. She looked ragged. She looked like someone whom had been utterly and entirely beaten in life. Was she? Maybe. She still had a reason to keep going. She still had a reason to destroy Sabrina. She could do it, maybe, possibly, if she brought the team together. But she was so tired. Sapped. Not tonight… "Okay guys, it’s your turn to sleep outside." Cathy. She enjoyed each syllable, enjoyed forcing them to do it. The effect to this statement was widely felt across the room. On the bunk closest to the door, Sav groaned and rolled over. Above her, Lynn pulled the covers over her head. Near the window, Hailey mumbled. On the two beds, Adriana and Zara lay motionless. But on the bottom bunk, Heidi sat upright. Clearly, she was excited for the event. "Come on. Get up! You have to go!" This was Alena. She said it in a crabby, angry voice. Most of what she said lately was crabby and angry. She really wasn’t in the mood to play games with twelve and thirteen year olds. Sooo not her idea of fun. And she could still throw books around, and small items like that. And it happened. Often. Whenever the kids were annoying her, which usually happened when they had to sleep outside. No one had gotten up, or moved really, except Heidi. She stood, ready. "They’re not really asleep. They were talking two seconds before you came in here" Heidi said helpfully. She bounced around, being her usually cheerily annoying self. "Heidi!!!!" No one was really happy about having to go outside, and Heidi was not helping them get out of it. Even Hailey, her best friend, was annoyed. "Well, I don’t want to miss this! It’s a real opportunity!" "Sorry, but I think I could miss an opportunity to get bugs and other crawly things sleeping with me! Thanks, but I'll just have to miss this wonderful opportunity!!" Lynn. "I did not come here to sleep with all the woodland creatures! Not my idea of fun, thanks! In fact, it so isn't what I want to be doing right now, it's unbelievable!" Sav, agreeing with Lynn. Typical. Adriana and Zara still hadn’t moved, calmly ignoring everything. "Why did you have to wake us up? We need to sleep! Hello, 5 mile hike tomorrow!" Hailey, complaining. Nothing new there. "Yeah, and we’ll get less outside, with dirt and insects in our sleeping bags." Lynn, trying to creep everyone else out. "Who knows what we might find out there?" Sav, supporting Lynn’s case. Slowly, the door inched open, and her sleeping bag rose off her bed as she swung out her legs. The other girls weren’t alarmed by her mind powers. Sav had told them all about her old school and comrades, and what rigid, selfish jerks they were. Not wanting to be like them, the other girls more or less accepted it. Alena watched them, wondering distractedly how they had accepted her so easily "Help me take conform on this uni scerse of hour..." Alena heard the humming and charged toward Sav. "Ahhh! What! What’d I do?" "You should know," Alena hissed, her mind spinning back to months past. This girl, THIS GIRL, she was the crux of the matter… She had to know something… Alena's frustrations skyrocketed and Sav's bed flung itself across the room, almost decimating Adriana and Zara. Lynn, Adriana, and Zara jumped and sat in the middle of the room, half-panting and staring at Sav suspiciously. "That was not me, I swear to god! I would never hurt-" Lynn snorted, obviously remembering the events from a few months before. "Oh, shut it, Lynn. Those were all accidents. I've-" "You remember October?" Alena asked suddenly. "Like, yeah. What do you peg me for? Some kind of mental patient?" "Why not?" Lynn questioned chirpily. A few of the girls gave a low giggle. "Yeah, well, my memory is in perfecto condition, thank you very much." "It's not just perfect," Lynn clarified. "It's perfecto." The giggles got louder. "Yes, Lynn. We all find you very hilarious." Sav rolled her eyes and started putting the bed back together. It hadn't been badly damaged. "Back on track, Sav. Do you remember someone named Kylie? Tara? Lana?" "Dimly." "Sab?" Lynn's eyes narrowed and she warningly shook her head back and forth slightly. Alena did not notice. Sav started to answer, but Lynn grabbed her arm first. "Come on, people. Are we sleeping outside or what?" "I sincerely hope not," Hailey muttered from the corner. "And who are you talking about?" "Nobody," Alena, Lynn, and Sav answered in unison. The other girls snorted. "Anyway, I do not remember someone named Sah-awb, I believe. What kind of cruel person gives someone a name that hard to pronounce?" "That's the nickname," Alena explained. "What's so special about her?" "Sabrina-" "Who’s Sabrina? Do I hear some kind of weird dance music? How did the bed get dismantled? Who’s singing 'Cruel Summer'? And why isn’t everyone outside?" Cathy, trying to stir up trouble, standing tall, arms crossed, tapping her foot. She was quite beautiful, light blonde hair, nice figure, green eyes. She had ultra-high cheekbones that protruded far, and a wide mouth with full, pale pink lips. However, she always had a mean or angry look on her face that cancelled out most of her prettiness. She never, ever smiled. Sav hadn’t realized she was humming two verses from her favorite song repeatedly. She did it often. Adriana and Zara were pretending to be asleep, clearly believing it to be the best mode of operation. Hailey was observing the ceiling with irritation, laying completely stiff and rigid. Lynn and Sav could not assume such prestigious positions well and instead sat on the beds, watching with interest. Alena shoed Cathy out of the room. Cathy was not amused. "I think we're just going to have to let them stay." she said loudly. Sav and Lynn laid down and were as quiet (for that time) as they could be while Alena continued. "They are asleep, and none of the other cabins have gotten their kids to sleep outside yet. They also have five mile hikes tomorrow." Cathy turned away. "And who made you in charge of the cabin?" She crossed her arms in defiance and narrowed her eyes in anger. "The president of this camp." Alena raised her eyebrows and let ample duh! into her voice. "But-" "Go to bed, Cathy!" "Go to bed, Cathy!" Cathy mimicked "Your always bossing everyone around, and throwing things. It's an odd day out when I don't get my life threatened by you, and your sad story! It was so dark! And cold! And like Dropping Your Dance or whatever played, 24/7! What kind of place is like that? I've barely even heard of that song before, and here you come along, singing that song in your sleep, and turning into a psycho head case when you hear a student humming it!" "I do not talk about-" "Oh, sure you don't. Because you're just too awesome for this, right? You are the model camp person, throwing books in their faces and blaming me for-" "I hate to break it to you-" Lynn started, probably ready to unleash a sarcastic nightmare, but both counselors whirled around with sudden, united fury and screamed "WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT, LYNN!!!!!" Sav smirked. "That's a nice way to wake up, like, the entire cabin," Lynn pointed out. Sav could practically hear the murderous urges careening around Alena and Cathy right about then. "I believe they were supposed to be asleep," Cathy began to Alena. "Cathy, shut up." "You and what army?" "I'd be happy to help, Alena!" Lynn called out from the next room. Hailey and Sav dissolved into giggles. Alena knew that, without her agreement, the issue was over and decided to let the argument rest. She walked back into the Counselors Room of Fun, pretending not to heal the half-sarcastic death threats Cathy as muttering behind her. Sav usually remembered her dreams, and this night it was especially clear. She was walking through a forest, chasing someone whom looked suspiciously like Alena. A girl from last October, Lana, kept appearing and warning her about going farther, but Sav brushed her off repeatedly. Finally, though, she was forced to confront the girl. "Sav! Don't save Alena! You're making a mistake!" "You traitor, Lana! You tried to destroy…" She couldn't remember what Lana had destroyed. "I destroyed your memory, Sav," she hissed and gave a loud, wicked cackle. "You can't remember anything from October!" "Yes I do! I remember…I was psychotic…I transferred…" The memory got hazier and hazier the more she concentrated on it. "Does the word Saushale ring any bells?" "Tara was Saushale. She changed Kylie. To help Sabrina. Sabrina wanted me. My power. To take over the universe. Lynn tried to stop her. You…you…" The words at first came pouring from her. But when she tried to remember Lana, everything stopped. Clogged. "Will you remember this in the morning?" "Most decidedly." "Then let you know this: I was the key. When Sabrina had me you almost got destroyed. When she lost me, I made you win. Hypnosis is the key, Sav. Telkin can only get you so far…Unless you know how to use it…" Sav woke up with a start, the words echoing in her head. The next day was 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Everyone walked to the lake and were allowed to swim. All of the counselors left, except Alena. Sav asked her why. "The water scares me." "What was that place Cathy was referring to, the one with the song?" "Um. A scary place." "What on earth is "Dropping Your Dance"?" Alena gave a frustrated sigh. 'Dance Until You Drop-" "Oh! I know that song!" Every once in a while she turned on the radio for a change, and the station she listened to really, really liked Savvy People. "Yes, Sav. I believe half the world knows that song." "So, what…?" "Do you remember last October at all?" "Yes! I had this weird dream…I think it's right..." "What happened?" "I was chasing someone when this girl named Lana-" "I know every character perfectly well in this story. You do not need to make explanations." "She said she destroyed my memory. Then she asked me if 'Sah-aw-sh-"" Sav's tongue tripped over the word. "Yes, Sav. I know the word." "Well, suddenly I remembered the whole thing! Some of it, anyway. I knew that…You know, never mind. It was dumb." "Tell me, Sav." The words were rather casual, but there was a strong undercurrent of urgency. "Never mind. Sorry, I get overexcited about my-" "Tell. Me. Now." "Well…I suddenly believed there was a plot…for my power. And that there was some kind of Saushale thing. Tara was trying to make Kylie Saushale and ditch me. I don't know why. Lynn was trying to stop them. And Lana…she said something about Telkin. Whatever that is. Like, hypnosis was the key, and Telkin couldn't do it, unless you used it right…does this make sense? And the Sah-awb person, she was the one that wanted my power." "Interesting," Alena breathed. "I never thought about it that way. I suppose I was so focused that Sab never got you that I never thought about the lesson. Lana was always on the winning side…But what's this about using this right? And-" "Um, hello? Do I get an explanation here?" "Sab is a goddess. In October she was a Sorceress and wanted more than anything to become a goddess. She wants to take over the universe. She launched an extremely complicated plot to acquire your power, basically. Lynn was trying to stop it. I think at the end she asked Lana to wipe your memory. Unfortunately, those are not Lana's specialties. She may have messed it up. The whole month is probably blurred." "But then why would she have 'destroyed' my memory?" "Well, I suppose may have been on Sabrina's side when she did that. But I just don't know." "Do you know how I got my powers?" "No. If I had to guess, probably a dream. You see, Sabrina is of reflective property, and I believe that encompasses dreams. They reflect your daily life, see." "What's reflective property?" "Oh, don't worry about that. Anyway, did you ever keep a record of your dreams or anything? I bet we could find something-" "Yeah, I wrote a short story about how I got my powers, now that I remember. I backed it up on the web. I think, you know…" she looked up at Alena hopefully. Alena smirked. "Nice try." "Oh, come on-" "Shut up!" Alena snapped. "Now, do you remember any of the events in first-person view? Like, how you viewed them at the time?" Sav thought about it. Slowly, the hypnosis from the ages fell away, and she remembered all of them. Her fight for friendship. The chats from Lynn. Her story. And the email. "Yep. I remember everything." The group she was supposed to be with was already almost out of sight when Sav finally left the cabin. Obviously they had waited for her for some time already. She made a quick decision- either she could Telkinize the heck out of the place. Or lose track of them, forget wherever the freak she was, and eventually seriously regret making the other decision at all. Oh, what a difficult decision. She chose option c, to scream at the top of her lungs and use subtle Telkin. She was getting much better at it. The group stopped and turned around, giving Sav a plethora of time to race up the path and desperately try not to trip. She managed it for the most part. "Hey, Lynnie!" Sav called just as Lynn busted out with "Hey, Savvy!" "Do not cuh-all me that," they scolded each other at the exact same time, Lynn's more sarcastic, Sav's vicious. Adriana and Zara snorted. "Like, what took you so long?" Lynn grinned. "Talking to Alena," Sav answered in an offhand sort of way. "Like, why?" Even the Valley Girl word choice couldn't disguise her accusatory and slightly nervous tone. "You know, Lynn, sometimes I dream about the day that I can stop hearing you go 'Like' before every sentence." "More annoying than Megan, like, eh?" ` "Who's Megan?" Sav's eyebrows pulled down as she asked the really obvious question. "She was friends with your friends at your old school." Lynn made it really obvious that Sav should know this and she was exuberantly daft not to. "Lynn, I only, like, knew them for, like, a week. So, like, shut up about, like, things you-" "Like," Adriana, Zara, and Lynn all added for her. "Shut your maxillary mandible," Sav muttered. "What on earth is that?" Zara asked. "Your mouth. Or were you not paying A-T-T-N in science last year? It's part of the curriculum." "Why don't you shut your max-i-a-air-ee-" Adriana half-defended. "Maxillary," Sav corrected. "We don't care," Zara responded to her correction, rolling her eyes. Heidi and Hailey spotted the group from behind and came scampering up. "Hey everybody. Whatcha talking about?" "Say 'maxillary mandible'," Lynn commanded immediately. "Uh…" Hailey practiced, looking at Lynn like she was insane or something. "Maxillary Mandible?" Heidi pronounced, also looking at Lynn like something was wrong with her. "See?" Lynn proved, turning to Adriana and Zara. "If Heidi can do something intellectual, then you can, too." "Hey!" "So, therefore you clearly must have been making fun of-" Lynn was cut off from her logical reasoning as the lake came into view. The counselors thanked their stars that the conversation occurring behind them was finally over, Adriana and Zara went skidding along the sand seeing whom could reach the water first, and Hailey and Heidi went pounding after them. Sav and Lynn remained on the crest of a hill as the remaining dozen or so thirteen-year-olds joined the other few groups already there. Mostly it was the older girls in residence, fourteen and fifteen year old girls. "Are you going to go swimming?" Sav asked. "Maybe. Swimming isn't really my thing, though." "It looks really cold," Sav commented, which made Lynn look at her funny. "What?" She protested. "Um, Savalicious-" "S-A-V. Sav. It's not that hard." "Okay. Whatever. Sav. Still, the fact remains that it's, like, one hundred degrees out here. More. And it's a pretty shallow lake. Cold is the last thing that lake is going to be." "Okay, then. Go!" Sav pushed Lynn lightly, meant to make her trip, but Lynn instead went tumbling over the hill and almost into the water. "Lynn!" Sav shrieked, mentally scrolling through excuses. "Wow. That was fun. The sand is really warm. You should try it!" Lynn exclaimed, the lower part of her legs stuck into the water but the rest just dry. And really, really sandy. "You idiot," Sav muttered, too quiet for Lynn to hear, then slid down the sides of the hill. The beach-like layer was bowl-shaped and contained clearly defined layering from how the lake had risen and fallen throughout the years. She did it expertly and easily. "Way cool," Zara observed. "I could never do that." "Me neither. I'd trip over something," Lynn joined in. "You and Car," Adriana sighed. "It's like you have some kind of curse on you that makes it impossible to take a few steps without injuring someone. Or something." Hailey laughed. "Remember that one time she fell off the bench?" "And that day she showed up to school covered in bandages and blood? She looked murderous!" Adriana exclaimed. "Oh, my god. Once we were walking to history, and there was this tiny little crack in the sidewalk, and she tripped over it, and it was like some kind of chain reaction. She slammed into, like ten different things in two minutes!" Heidi added. Assuming that you have read my first book, you should understand exactly how the three of them found this incredibly amusing. Lynn smiled weakly, and Sav just stood there, watching them. She did not yet know Carmen. "Don't act so innocent, Adriana. Remember the last time we were here, and you tripped over Jenny's hairbrush? And then, before long, you had managed to decimate half our room as a result?" Lynn grinned, recounting the funny incident. Actually, it hadn't been very amusing the first time ('Lynn! Make her stop!" 'Lynn! Don't just stand there!" 'Luh-inn, you must get my side'), but now she found it considerably more funny. "That was so Jenny's fault, though," Adriana protested. "She was mad I broke her brush. She kept pushing me." Zara nodded. "Yeah, that was before you guys started to become friends, I remember." "Whatever happened to her?" Adriana asked, trying to remember. She couldn't. Oh well, she must have just moved away or something. "I don't remember either," Zara answered quietly. "Let us talk about something of a slight more interest," Sav cut in, having nothing to add to either conversation. "Like what? The bones in my left ankle?" Hailey asked with almost complete sincerity. Heidi laughed hysterically. "Or how your locker just can not be trusted?" Zara laughed. "Oh, shut up," Sav muttered. "I can't understand how you guys could have believed it." When Sav first came to Lynn's school she was assigned a very testy locker. They gave her the combination, but she kept spinning marginally past the numbers, and the thing wouldn't open. Afraid she was going to be late for one of her classes, she accidentally yanking the thing off the door and almost hitting this girl named Marienne in the eye. Marienne still hated Sav. Anyway, Sav told them that she had just gotten a very old lock and had pulled it too hard. The belief of this feat was diminished when they went to PE, however, and Sav managed a grand total of about two push-ups. "Ha ha," Lynn added intellectually to the conversation. "Oh, Sav. Remember that time when you were trying to get the split time of, like, three minutes or something and you ended up hitting that teacher with the tree?" Lynn started laughing hard. "And that one PE teacher no one liked started screaming hysterically and all of you were like 'Uh…it just hit her!" and then you were like 'Um…an earthquake?" Or how about that time when you threw the bike rack at me?" "Yes, Lynn. I'm sure this is really fascinating to the people who were not present." "However, we would like to hear about who else got injured here," Hailey cut in energetically. "Whom," Sav corrected automatically. "You're referring to an object, so you have to use 'whom'." "When did this turn into Grammar 101?" Hailey contested grumpily. "Come on, Sav," Adriana commanded out of the blue. "Get in the water." "Um…" "She says it-" Lynn started. Sav decided that she would pass on having that one revealed, so she instead jumped into the lake. Back in the camp, Alena was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about how trapped she was. I hate this place. I hate everything about it- the Saushale, Sabrina, even the kids. Especially the kids she revised. They were so annoying, irritating her day and night, especially the Hailey one. They were always complaining about the food, the activities, the heat, the sleeping arrangements, their petty friendships. At least the Saushale and Sabrina never talked to her, thereby not annoying her. Why would anyone ever do this voluntarily? She asked herself, finding no answer. Well, it’s better than Sabrina’s place, her mind informed her. Like she didn’t already know that. If you had stayed any longer, you would have become a serious basket case. I am a serious basket case she snapped. Why was she doing this? She was talking to herself now. She was sitting in an empty room talking to herself. That wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right. She was going to have to sit here for the next three and a half hours, and all she could think of to do was stare at the ceiling and talk to herself. Sabrina, when trapped, was thinking of how to get out. But Alena couldn’t really think of anything, except pray for her Telkin to come back. Which was so not working. I hate my life I hate my life I hate my life she thought miserably. Come on, the more determined part of her mind instructed. You can do something. You choose not to. It might take work, but you can do it. It might take cleverness, and you have that. Do it. But all she had was despair. The water had been a mistake. As soon as she jumped in, it felt as if it were 30 degrees or less, and turned to ice on her skin. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. All she could focus on was how cold she was. "It's c-c-cold," Sav chattered, clamoring to escape the lake. "No, it isn't," Adriana protested. "How can it be cold? It's ridiculously hot outside, you freak!" Sav focused hard and threw super-cold water on Hailey in revenge, whom promptly shrieked and moved away. "Yeah," Zara continued on with the conversation. "Isn't it usually cooler out? Seventies? Eighties, maybe?" "This is unnatural," Heidi declared. "There you go," Sav pronounced. "That's your Word For The Day." She was referring to Heidi's obvious lack of knowledge of many English words. "What's your word for the day, huh Sav?" Hailey defended. "I looked it up this morning," Sav answered, smiling. She was sitting back on the side. "It's venerate, which means to admire or like." Lynn burst out laughing for an unknown reason. "What's so funny?" "Car…We had this debate about who had the best vocab…she wanted to know why I said abyss…" Lynn couldn't finish, she was laughing to hard to talk normally. "How on earth is that funny?" Sav asked, confused. "Carmen, I am afraid, can take someone ordering chocolate syrup on some ice cream and turn it into a cramp-inducing joke. It is both a gift and a curse," Adriana explained. "How?" "It is a curse when it is happening to you. It is a gift when it is happening next to you. I have experience in both. I know what I am talking about." "Ha. She sounds like Lynn." "She's like a crueler, more dramatic version of Lynn, yes. Unless they are talking to each other, in which case cover your ears and run." "Yeah. I'm going to go look for crystals." Lynn stood up from the water. "Je viendrai avec toi," she offered. "What?" "Nothing." Lynn started walking, as well as Sav. "C'mon. One kid found one the size of his thumbnail up there." Sav made a thumbs up with her right hand and analyzed it. "That's not very big," she commented. "Most around there are barely visible. Anyway, how on earth was that water cold?" Sav shrugged. "I don't know. But it was really, really cold. That I know." "Sav, I brought a water thermometer with me. In the shallow area, the water is almost as warm as the high temp last summer." "Well, I just don't know, is that okay with vous, Fuh-rench Girl?" "Firstly, it's pronounced voo, not-" "Just shut up, already!" Sav sat down and started sloppily sifting in the sand. Lynn was silent and sifted, more carefully and analytically. Sav thought, remembering all of October. If it was true, then Lynn was different. Not human. Her best friend was entirely different from her. Her best friend was programmed to trap her. But mostly her thoughts focused on Sabrina. Her face was perfectly clear, though she had never seen the girl. Pale as death, paler even than Sav (and that was a feat not often matched). Bright violet eyes, silvery hair. Wide mouth and high cheekbones, an aura of regality around her. Kind of like Cathy, actually. Cathy. Hadn't Cathy done some strange things earlier this summer? Once her eyes had contained a violet tinge, but that could have been makeup. And also wasn't there that one time when things were shifting around in a nonexistent wind when those girls disobeyed her a week or so ago? Sabrina was a goddess. Maybe goddesses could look like normal-ish people. Though Cathy was most definitely on the 'Less' side of normal. Sav sifted a bit further, unearthing a rather difficult to ignore crystal. It was the size of her thumb. Lynn saw it, mouth open. "Good God! Where did you find that? It's huge!" Sav held the crystal up to her eye. "Wow, it look weird when you look through it." "Let me try," Lynn demanded. She looked, but the world looked the same. That's weird, she thought to herself. Right. She was Saushale. The crystal had no effect on her. She partly was crystal. "Cool," she told Sav. "Must be a real crystal." They walked back to camp soon after. As was per usual, the camp people walking with them looked ready for suicide after Lynn played this game with Sav called "What Do You Think Of When I Say ______". 'Camp Counselor' was an oft-mentioned topic. The others were also very enthused about this game. But when they got back to camp the fun slowly melted away. Cathy started tagging along to pretty much everything the six girls embarked upon. Dinner. Telling sarcastic stories. Yelling at the other girls. Maybe it was because they got in the most trouble (actually, they were planning to capture the stereo and slip in a CD Lynn had brought, then play it at midnight), but Sav also felt that maybe, just maybe it was because Cathy, well, was Sabrina. Alena informed Sav of the lyrics to her song at the dinner, handed her a small paper. Sav remembered that there was some kind of electronica nonsense snaked in throughout the matter. I have recorded Sav's internal commentary for your convenience. The world is a wish And I'm here to screw it. (There's a model goddess for you) Lots like to complain (I bet) But why should care? (Honest but true) I'll say to you what I say to them. (Big speech coming on) I'm a goddess, Alena (That would be a nice title) And if your world has been turned upside down (I'll pass walking on my ceiling, thanks) What you thought you wanted now seems horrible (And this is a small problem?) Ha! Trust me, you’ll live (Why am I getting Lynn flashbacks?) "It’s not my problem. Don’t include me. (I sense hostility) I didn’t sign up. (Is this some kind of volunteer event now?) I do what I want. (I never would have guessed) Not yours to dictate. Please accept it. (Thank you, from the Management) How I roll. (Dinner or egg?) Cause I'm in control Sorry, not you. (We learn to apologize at an early age) I have just one enemy (Does she have hundreds of minions, though? That's a question for the ages) not much of a fight (Sure it isn't) all she does is run. (I get the sense of some outdated-ness) But she can't win (Whatever you say) She'll destroy us all I know, I know (That you're in a death match?) I must win (You're doing great at that) I must fight Forever, Forever You must see I can't let her win (Nice try) She wins, I lose (That's the general consensus, I must say) The universe is lost as well… Sav walked out of the cafeteria alone; all the other girls were having seconds of the dinner. Alena found her before Cathy did. "So, fun at the lake?" "It was ridiculously cold. But when I voiced my opinion, I was ridiculed. Therefore, I shot some nice freezing cold water at them." "But wasn't the water eighty degrees today?" "I chilled it." Alena kind of stared at her openmouthed, like they do in movies when the person doesn't move for several seconds. "Um, Alena? Are you okay?" "Yes. Fine. But how exactly did you chill this water?" "It's kind of cool. It's not cold in reality, like if you stuck a thermometer in it, but it feels cold. I can make stuff feel really hot, too. I don't know how. It's, like, I focus on it being really cold, and I picture myself sticking my hand in cold water and-" "This is what Lana meant." "What?" "About using the Telkin. In your dream. This is what she meant." "Huh?" "Okay. Now what I really wanted to ask you…" "Yeah?" "Do you get the electronica thing?" "Yeah. People with lots of power have electronic songs, right? And you use it as a weapon. Then Savvy People copied it or something? And I have a CD of the songs?" "Yeah. That CD. Do you have a copy of it here?" "I have an mp3player which-" "Dear Sav, what are you doing?" Cathy's high voice rang over the now-deserted path to the cabins. The sun was setting, and the dark pines surrounding them made the area almost eerie. "Dear Cathy, just talking to Alena," Sav answered. "Get back to your cabin, genius, and stop mouthing off." "Do I sense some hostility?" "Great. That's all we need," Cathy hissed. "Another Lynn." "I am nuh-awt Lynn!" Sav protested, throwing her arms in the air. "Duh-own to the accent on words." Cathy mocked. "Oh, shut up, Cathy. Your opinion means nothing. You're just some washed-out, bitter girl." Cathy's eyes flashed. "And whom are you to test me?" Sav's Grammar Queen reflex kicked in immediately. "Who, actually. It's a-" "SAV!!!" the two yelled at once. Very few people had patience for Sav's grammar lessons. "Cathy, be quiet. Sav, go back to the cabin." "Stop bossing us around. And why are you calling me washed-out? That's hypocrisy at it's finest." "I am not-" "Neither of your opinions are going to be changed in this debate. Plus, you don't even want to know what Lynn will do if you don't go back to the cabin soon." "What'll she do?" Cathy asked, curious. "What does the expression 'you don't even want to know' mean to you?" "Tell me." "Get back to the cabin and chances are that you will find out." Cathy and Alena shot looks at each other but started walking back. Sav followed. Alena sat at her window, watching the sun set. She was remarkably contemplative. However, she couldn't help thinking about the dream Sav had. Was Lana here? Was she really the key to winning? Could she win if she had hypnosis on her side? Could she in if she had Sav on her side? Was Sav really that devoted to her, though? She recalled the events from a few months before, Carmen complaining about how 'Dance Until You Drop didn't make it shut up. Sav's song did. Savvy People's version of Sav's Song make it shut up. Sav was against Carmen. She was destined to be. She wasn’t Saushale, Alena knew that. But she could be, someday. And that would mean that someday she would destroy Carmen. Because if it came to a fight, that was what would happen. Sav had an incredible, almost ridiculous amount of power. Carmen was powerful, but not as much as Sav. Sav, she might be able to destroy Sabrina. Alone. Well, she couldn’t think about that now. She had to escape before she totally and completely lost her mind. The endless electronica, the ludicrous taunts and antics of the girls in the cabin, Cathy- Cathy she hated not because of any extenuating circumstances. Cathy she just hated. It was an insane kind of hate, added to by the fact that she was forced into the company of her way too much. Though it seemed too late, all that had already driven her over the cliff. Stop it she told herself. People who’ve completely lost their minds don’t have the Telkin. And you do? YES!!!! Alena focused on the bed, trying to lift it. Which was really hard, because of the stupid electronica playing in her head. Note: If you wish to not lose your mind, then it is highly recommended that you not listen to the same really annoying electronica song over and over again. I mean, hello, there's a reason why Lynn, Sav, and especially Car are more than a mental. All that electronica can not be good for you. But they actually liked the electronica they listened to. Alena so did not. This made it unreasonably difficult to fight her adversaries. She brought her mind back to the situation at hand, her mind charging the bed with all her power. She focused on the power, bringing it our of her head into the real world. Her efforts were rewarded by the bed lifting about an inch. A tiny, paltry, insignificant, trivial inch. I so hate my life. She focused on the anger, bringing it to power. It lifted another half-inch before collapsing. The most powerful person in the universe- three months ago- now couldn’t even lift her bed two inches. This was so, so wrong. Lynn sat bolt upright. The Dream was back. "Calm," she whispered to herself. "Not real. Never real. Calm." That was a lie. It had been real. But that was past. Past, past, past. She hunted around for the small compartment in the bed. It was the same as last year; she had stored a mirror and other odds and ends to hide them from others. It was the mirror and the flashlight she was after, however. She examined her face in the mirror. Good. Nothing. She had her same dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin, et upon the cetera. "See?" she whispered. "Not real." She wondered mutedly if Sav or Car were having similar dreams. Lana. The girl of nightmares and hope, the girl of both wins and losses, whom got everything she wanted and lost it, whom had controlled all the power. All of it. In her dream, almost the same each night, she was chasing someone, but Lana intercepted. She told her everything, explained everything, and laughed. Just laughed. But then she brought Lynn under power again, brought her to Sab… 'Twas usually about then Lynn deigned to wake up. Sav woke up slowly. "I spend my time on the floor." The voice came out of nowhere, seeming to have no body. Sav still, however, answered it. "This relates to me how?" "Cuz I'm always wanting more." "More what?" "You know what I mean." "Judging by my question, you should tell that I do nuh-awt." "Not so alien." "The general pronunciation, I might inform you, is a-lee-ehn, not a-leen." "But I don't stop." "You're still pronouncing it wrong!" "Oh nuh-o, not t-til I duh-rop." "So in your book, dropping is beneficial?" "Dance until you drop, d-drop, d-d-d-drop, drop." "What do you have, a stutter or something?" "(til you're exhausted, like over stimulated)" "Gotta have those explanations" "Dance until you drop, d-drop, d-d-d-drop, drop" "Do you have a reason for repeating that?" "Listening to the mp3 player at six-thirty in the morning?" Cathy asked in such a way that clearly illustrated her general confusion and disdain for Sav's actions. "There’s someone in here." Sav was still confused. "Your listening to 'Dance Until You Drop'. I can hear it down the hall." Alena wrinkled her nose. "And responding to it, apparently." She, too, expressed her general confusion as to why Sav was talking to her mp3 player. "That must be why it sounds like Savvy People!" "You didn't notice it was a song?" "It sounded to me like someone was talking." "You must be really tired," Cathy cut in. "But mp3 players are banned. Give it to me." " I'll take it," Alena overrode. "Why?" Cathy crossed her arms, her irritation of Alena being head of the cabin palpable. "Umm..." Alena tried to think fast. "The leader of the cabin is supposed to take all confisticated items. I'll put it away." "I never-" Cathy's eyes narrowed. Sav started to slide the music player underneath her blankets. "I SAID I'LL TAKE IT!" Alena's voice smashed through the whispers of the conversation, her anger vibrating the floor slightly. Sav slowly handed the mp3 player to Alena, staring at Cathy. Her fingers created a small electric current automatically. "OUCH!" Sav could almost hear the tongue-twisting swears Alena muttered. They did not sound like English. The floor vibrated harder. "What?" One of Sav's eyebrows levitated. "You shocked me." Her irritation was also palpable. "Sorry. It does that sometimes." Cathy stared at Sav so intently it was scary. She also backed up. The bed creeped up behind her. Cathy tripped and ended up splayed over the bed. "Oww! I can't breathe! ZARA! GET OFF ME!" "Cathy." Lynn said it quietly. "You're sitting on Adriana." Cathy still stared at Sav. "You." She said finally. "You...the venom...my head..." It was Alena who broke the spell. "Cathy. Stop staring at Sav. She's been here all week. Get off Adriana. Hailey, Zara, Heidi. Get up. Lynn, Sav- Get dressed. You have to go on an uhhh...early walk this morning." Alena walked off, hoping her orders would hold. Luckily, everyone was too dazed, tired, and in Cathy's case, shocked to question her orders. She walked off free. Sav was shocked. Why had Cathy been staring at her? Was it because Sav had used her mind powers? No-she had been using them all week! Why would it shock her now? What had happened with the bed? She hadn't been moving it. Cathy hadn't been moving it. Alena hadn't been moving it- Sav had asked! There were just too many people with mind powers. And she kept getting blamed. But this morning, she had seen Lynn, moving the syrup bottle at breakfast. Or at least, she was pretty sure it was Lynn. She had been in deep concentration and no one else would be stupid enough to do it. Was this another enemy, someone who would destroy her at the last minute? So many! Too many! Lynn was also in deep thought. Her second dream the night before had been rather shocking. In it, she was on a rather small island. Seeing Sav, she skipped up to her. "Hey Sav!" Lynn greeted. "Hey Lynn," Sav replied unfriendly. "What's wrong?" Lynn asked immediately, taking a step forward. "Tell me the truth, Lynn," Sav demanded rather calmly but forcefully at the same time. "About your assignments." "What about them?" "You never were my friend, Lynn," Sav whispered. "I remember now, don't lie." "I was suh-o your friend!" "You were on an assignment," Sav replied scathingly. "Not looking for friends." "Look, Sav. While, yes, maybe the reason I didn't freak out that first day was because of an assignment. But after that, well, I liked you. You're cool. You're my friend." "And you need my power to stay away from Sab, correct?" Sav enunciated each word perfectly. "Look, Sav, I don't-" "Why didn't you ever tell me?" "You never asked!" Lynn burst out. "I wasn't hiding anything from you." "Don't you think that's something I might have wanted to know?" "Yeah, but, like, maybe I was just a tad bit busy with, oh what was it again, having your or Ki turn Saushale? I mean, don't you think that might take just a little bit of time? And besides, I wasn't even supposed to tell you anything for, like, a really long time. I had ten minutes to tell you, and about an hours worth of crap to say." "You try and cover it up with sarcasm, Lynn, but the truth is difficult to hide. Lynn, I can see through you. Sarcasm may be a thick cloth, but cloths can be delicate as well…." She woke up, the words echoing in her head. What a charming way to awake. Sabrina stomped around her small office, whipping her hands at random intervals. Why had she done this? It was so stupid! Why hadn’t she sent Mirabella? She could have sent Bella, so dedicated to the mission it was unbelievable. She never would have decided to be real friends with the person she was watching. She never would have been upset by a simple dream. And she definitely wouldn’t have let Alena listen to electronica with the person SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING. It was Carmen, a sarcastic preteen with the special capability, that had unraveled Lynn in the first place. And now Sabrina had assigned Lynn to another sarcastic preteen with the special capability. What kind of idiot was she? Okay, so maybe Sav wasn’t exactly like Carmen. Yeah. She’s a lot worse the pessimistic voice in her mind interrupted her. Well, it was too late to do anything now. She would have to put Lynn back on track with a dream. Too bad she could bring her in to Telkinizingly put her back on track. Who did Alena think she was, anyway, screwing with Lynn’s dreams like that? A dream goddess? Alena was shocked by the scene she had just witnessed. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Who had messed up? Who was going to pay? She was so worried about Sav getting hurt. There were Saushale everywhere. Any one of them could overpower her in ten seconds. Everywhere she looked, Alena could see Saushale just hanging out. Waiting.... Waiting for a fight. They had to be so bored now. They had been waiting for months. Nothing done. They were probably as frustrated as she was! And a frustrated Saushale is something you never want to see. Adriana kicked a rock with her foot, out on a morning hike. Everything was so confusing! She didn't even know what was happening anymore. What was with Cathy and Sav? When had Sav ever seen Cathy before coming to camp? It didn’t make any sense. And last night, she could hear Lynn talking, carrying on this whole conversation, talking about Sav, and an island. It sounded like someone was having friend difficulties. Plus she had been whispering some words about Sauce and "Sab", whatever that was. No one besides Adriana had been alarmed, or even heard. And outside, she could see people in the bushes. Whenever Alena walked near the window, all these freaky-looking people would show up. And this morning, the syrup bottle had been doing flips and spins. But Sav had been talking to Zara. She had aready explained she couldn’t talk with her mind powers. And the syrup bottle would have taken a lot of concentration. Was there someone else with freaky powers? Or was Sav getting stronger? Or was Adriana just going insane? Her cut-and-paste world was so far away now... Cathy couldn't believe how idiotic she was being. Everyone was alarmed. Everyone was shocked. But Sav- was scary. She could threaten everything Cathy had built. Her force rating was like three hundred. And she was a student! How much more powerful could she be? What could she amount to? Who had trained her? And who had been moving the bed? She had totally tripped on it! So annoying! Sav hadn't been doing it. Cathy hadn't been doing it. Alena hadn't been doing it. Why on earth was Lynn hurting Cathy? She was on her side! The world is full of confusion and irony, Cathy told herself. And I refuse to care. The mantra wasn't working. Things still reached beyond her control, reaching and tangling and threading into impossible patterns, a web of mischief, confusion, and intention, too many people not knowing, the wrong people knowing, the situation reaching out toward her, though it had no real reason to… Sav stared straight ahead on the stupid walk she was forced to do. Lynn stared at the ground. "You talked in your sleep last night," Sav commented after going three quarters of the way in silence. Lynn suddenly stopped to tie her already tied laces. "Um, Lynn? Why are you tying your shoelaces?" " I'm special like that." "Do you have the Telkin?" "Well there’s a rather abrupt subject change. We went from shoes to Telkin." Sav grit her teeth. This is something you can find yourself doing often when in Lynn's company. "Just answer the damn question already. "Fine. I do have the Telkin." "Saushale?" "Yes." No point in lying, Lynn thought. She'll just dig around in my luggage. Find the laptop. "You were on an assignment for Sabrina." "Everything was true. Except for, like, the island part." "No duh." "You will forego being mad at me just to be sarcastic. Congratulations, Sav. Carmen would be proud." "Who on earth is Carmen?" "Oh, she’s just this girl Adriana used to know. We instant messaged a lot. She claims to be the Queen of Sarcasm." Sav rolled her eyes at that. "We're all Queens of Sarcasm. That's a fact." "Whatever. Look. I know you probably hate me because I'm Saushale-" "No Lynn, I'm perfectly willing to be best friends with my sworn enemies who are all out to get me." "Shut up. But you don't understand. Sabrina, like destroys your resistance to Saushale. And if you manage to build it up again, and she finds out, then she destroys it again." "Whatever." Sav flew straight back to the cabin. Lynn, stuck with acting like a normal person, was left behind. I hate my life. Lynn thought. I so, so hate my life. I used to have everything. I was pretty and popular and smart and sarcastic. And then she came. I couldn't be who I wanted. And now my life just sucks. Everyone who knows who I am hates me for it. Sav could easily turn my friends against me. All she'd need was a file from Lynn's computer and a mirror. When no one was watching, Lynn launched a rock into a tree, splitting it down the middle like the flexible twigs she'd played with as a kid. Later that day, Lynn finally talked to Sav. She knew something had to be really wrong. Earlier that morning, Cathy had caught them sneaking out of the cabin. Rather than laughing it off, like they would have done normally, it was a sullen and angry affair. "Okay, look. I'm not your enemy." Sav, naturally, ignored her. Lynn didn't completely blame her- she wondered how many visits Sav had gotten from Sabrina, Bella, or Laura. "Let me tell you a story." It was how Lynn always explained something- with a "hypothetical" situation or a "story". "What am I, three?" Sav was laying on her bed, listening to electronica really, really loudly. Lynn didn't know the song, but she did know she wanted to smash it into a billion pieces. "Once upon a time-" "There lived a beautiful princess named Sleeping Beauty," Sav said sarcastically. Lynn had no idea how Sav could hear Lynn or anything else over the mp3 player. She wasn't lip reading either- her eyes were blocked by a large book. By the cover, something science fiction. "SHUT UP!" Lynn roared, whipping Savannahs book into the wall for emphasis. "Hey! Be careful! That's a library book!" "How are you going to return it?" They were had been staying for at least two weeks, for another month or so and there was no way Sav could have renewed it. There was no cell phone service, internet, or even a laptop up here. Except for Lynn's, of course. "It's called a book drop." "In broad daylight?" "No, midnight, you idiot." 'Whatever. Okay, look. Has Alena told you about Carmen?" "Um. No. Just that she was almost defeated by Sabrina. But she got help." "The help was me." "Um, genius? This might surprise you, but I believe you are Saushale." "You don't say," Lynn answered sarcastically. This conversation sounded similar to others for some reason. "But anyway, Carmen had emailed me before. Sabrina hadn't done too much hypnosis or whatever on me, thinking that someone like me would love to be super-powerful. That I was just another Laura. "But I wasn't. I had been trying to break the barrier, break everything that was making me do what Sabrina told me. It was like banging my head against a wall. I was stuck in a boarding school, and I didn't sleep. Most young Saushale don't. I was reporting on chosens. Just for practice, I would lie. It was hard. So hard. Sometimes, I even did bang my head against the wall- or more often, the furniture. But I did it anyway. I helped them escape. "I was so bored, and they were mean. But when I finally threw one of them into a wall and showed them my computer, well, they got the picture." "You threw someone into a wall?" Sav mouth dropped open. "Yeah, and you threw people out windows." "Shut up. Those were accidents." "Sure they were, Sav. Whatever you say." "They were!" "Can I continue now?" "Sure." "So anyway, they left. I continued the charade with Sabrina, but Carmen had emailed me. She knew I was Saushale. But, eventually, she trusted me. Somewhat." "A chosen trusted you?" "Yes." "You are so lying." "Ask Adriana." "What would Adriana know?" "She was friends with Carmen. She gave Carmen the email." "Whatever. Go on. This is a pretty entertaining story." "So anyway, Carmen helped me. I destroyed the barrier." "Through google chat? I am so sure." "Do you want to hear the entertaining story or what?" "Okay, fine." "A first. So anyway, I checked up on all the news. I conversed with Bella- she knows everything. And I warned Carmen. I'm pretty sure she listened. "One day, the call came through. Bella was away and Laura was going to take a while to show up. Sabrina wanted backup- and no ordinary backup. She wanted there to be no chance of losing. I was called in. "At first I was just flattered. I had practiced the Telkin obsessively, because it changes your brain-" "It what?" Sav shrieked, dropping her book. "Yeah. You know how you, Carmen, and I are all really smart? Well, our brains are different." "You mean…I'm, like, not normal?" Sav sounded genuinely worried. Lynn snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure you've been thinking yourself real normal, being able to throw people out windows and such. I'm sure that could never make you think you were abnormal." "Okay. Yeah. So, like, go on." "Anyway, Telkin makes one less susceptible to hypnosis and mind control. So now I'm, like, really awesome." "It's pitiful that you think so high of yourself," Sav commented with a slow head shake, sounding way too much like Lynn for comfort. "Shut up, Sav." "Well, at least you're calling me Sav for once." Lynn ignored her and continued, just as I would have. "But, eventually, I realized what I had to do. I had to help Carmen, not Sabrina. I might destroy my mind, but it would be worth it eventually. Maybe I could destroy Sabrina. For good." "Alena says she's indestructible," Sav added very encouragingly. "Not completely. But anyway, I knew Laura could over take me. I had to stop her. I could just delete the message, but I was sure that if Sabrina could call her once, she could do it again. I had to get rid of her." "You killed her!?" "No, I just copied Sabrina's user and gave her a new mission. And I stopped hers from getting any calls for a while. I figured that if Sabrina couldn't call us Telkinizingly with just Carmen, it would be impossible if I helped." "Wow. And I thought I was good with computers." "Long story made short: Sabrina vanished, remade my mind just like Bella's had been, and sent me to see what happened to Laura. I was on the computer beforehand, emailed Carmen a bit. She told me exactly what was wrong. But it seemed natural. Very natural." "Right. Like going from being devoted to one side to and switching to being devoted to another in an hour is natural." "You argue when you are Saushale. Anyway, I saw her at Laura's old rent. She tried to convince me again. Threw me into a wall." "What is it with Saushale and throwing people into walls and trees?" "And getting thrown into them? Alena sent her some note with that advice." "How did you know?" "I hacked into her computer, duh." "Why?" "You try spending ten hours every night with nothing to do!" "No way. But seriously, did Alena really give her a note telling her to throw Saushale into trees?" "Yeah." "Funny. It took me a month and a half to stop throwing people into trees, and her three days to start. But why would Alena give her such bad advice? He might have made it up herself." "Sav, I don't think you want to know this, but those were my exact words to Carmen." "Yeah. Something I didn't want to hear. But continue." "Anyway, I promised her I'd try. And fail." "You promised you'd fail?" "No, but we both knew that was all that would happen. And then that assignment came up. I volunteered, because I knew that I was one of the few that wasn't really working for Sabrina. Somehow you managed to be both way more psychotic and way less than I expected. Someone I knew wouldn't be so easily led in, just perfect." "So that's what it comes down too," Sav sniffed haughtily, Telkining her book back to her eyes "I was being sarcastic." "I take back what I said earlier. You aren't very good at sarcasm." "Funny, I had instruction from the Queen of Sarcasm herself." "Who is the 'Queen of Sarcasm'? I thought you said that you were the Queen of Sarcasm." "Yeah, well, if I did then I was either lying or being sarcastic. Carmen is the true Queen. I would never take the title, I don't believe I deserve it." "Yeah. She sounds like someone I do not want to meet. Anyway, so, if you were on an assignment, are you still on an assignment?" "Kind of. Tara took over for me, Lana gave us a couple months, but when we signed up for the summer camp Sab found us again. So, yeah, I'm still on an assignment." "So, she found you and me, but nothing happened?" "Not really. She doped me up on mind control. Remember that week right after we signed up when I was being all mean and psycho? Yeah, that was because of all the mind control. She's given you like four doses, maybe even five, but it's not working. It's not sticking because your brain is so different, like I said. Plus, we're really good friends, and when you have a really good friend then it makes it really hard to get mind control, especially if your friend has hypnosis. So you and I, as long as we're friends probably won't be very affected by mind control, which means Sab will have a real job of taking us over." "So…there's a nice reason for friendship." "I'm not faking this friendship, Sav." Sav was silent. "Whatever. Anyway, if you doubt my story," Lynn said dramatically, pulling out her long, expensive-looking black laptop. "Here is my proof." "Really. And how do you know I won't look at all the Saushale stuff?" "There's two accounts, genius. With very difficult passwords. But the 'Guest' one is four, dash, dollar sign, eight, J, star." "You mean asterisk?" "Yeah. Did you write that down?" "No, I memorize easily. Four, dash, dollar sign, eight, J, asterisk." "Whatever. Give me the mp3 player." Sav threw it across the room. Lynn retrieved it. "So what's the plan when everyone comes back?" Sav asked innocently. "Hide." "There’s something odd about Lynn" Sav was telling Alena later. "I know she’s a Saushale, but how could she have kept the mind control off for so long? And wouldn't she have done something if she really I mean, you’re in no shape to compete right now- she could totally win." "I would be surprised if it were me she was after." "Who then?" "You?" "Why? I haven't done anything." "You've found me. You grew the Telkin. You're not on her side. They all count." "Well, that still doesn't account for the lack of action." " I'm not psychic, okay? I don't know the inner workings of Sabrina’s Saushale!" "Well, she also told me she doesn't like being Saushale. That Sabrina, like, hypnotized her or something." "I figured she would do something like that. Ever since Tanya..." She stared at the wall for a second. "And she, like, destroyed it. Is it possible? I mean she is, like, the most powerful person the world right now." Alena rolled her eyes. "Carmen didn't believe me either. 'She's the most powerful Sorceress in the world' " Alena mimicked. "Sorceress?" "She's the only Sorceress to ever become a goddess. I still don’t really know how." "Somehow I doubt someone totally human-like me- would ever be able to successfully destroy the most powerful goddess in the history of the world." "If you want to complain, leave." "Well, okay-" "On a more important note, Cathy somehow wrangled it so that you two have to stay behind after breakfast today." "What? That is, like, suh-o unfuh-air!" Alena rolled her eyes. "Remind me to kill Lynn for getting another person to do that." It was well known how much Alena despised the enunciations Lynn used when she was annoyed. "Seriously, though, why are we supposed to stay in the cabin today?" "I don't know," Alena explained, like that was the dumbest question ever and there was no way she could ever have known the answer. "I guess Cathy just hates you, and a lot of times people just give her what she wants, because she's pretty and mean and that makes people think she's the best." "That's retarded," Sav criticized. "And so is that rule," she muttered. Alena looked taken aback. "What rule?" she asked cluelessly. "You know, that is counselors feel that if one or a few of the kids are 'not cooperating' or 'distracting-slash-bothering other kids or counselors then they can ditch them in the cabins." Alena just stared at her. "Did you memorize the rule packet?" And trust me, it was a large packet. Sav sounded offended. "No," she answered. "I just read it a few times." "Yeah. So did I, and I just remember the three big rules, and not their exact wording." "I memorize easily. It's not my fault. And it's still a stupid rule." "Yeah, well, I'm sure you and Lynn can think of something to destroy. Just nothing permanent, okay?" "Ha, ha, ha." Sabrina cursed. She screamed, she howled, she shouted, she yelled. Things flew. Things broke. Everything was in a whirlwind until Sabrina’s anger slowly ran out. Not for the first time, Sabrina was mostly only mad at herself. " I'm an idiot, idiot, and IDIOT!" Why had she put in Lynn? This was an important job! And here Lynn was, messing it up. She should have known the girl would discard the mind control easily. Quickly. She slowly typed in an offer for someone to take over Lynn's job on the website. This job, unfortunately, rather required volunteers. It was a bit too delicate for reluctance. Maybe someone would volunteer, and maybe not. "I simply can nuh-awt believe she is duh-oing this to me!" Lynn stomped to the other side of the room, sitting down dramatically like she was four. Sav was sitting in a chair pretending to read, but really watching Lynn. "It’s so like her! It’s so cruel and evil and unnecessary!" Possibly unintentionally, things flew up from the floor and spun around, creating a tornado of sorts. Sav pointed at it and a small green camera flew out of the mess and landed beside her. Lynn didn't know why Sav had an electronic camera, or where she was hiding it, but sure enough it was there. "I don't want my camera to get ruined," she explained, smiling faintly Lynn was mad, but not mad enough to question Sav being nice. "So, who caused the hissy fit?" "Sabrina." "If she's so hissy-fit-worthy, what's the attraction?" Sav decided to test her. Just for fun. And to have an excuse to hate her later. "She made me special." "Great. Mean-o Lynn is back?" "What do you mean?" "Yesterday, you said that you hated being Saushale." "How do you know I'm Saushale?" "Do you have amnesia or something?" "What?" "Whatever. Why are you so mad at Sabrina today?" "She's going to send someone else to do my job, I think." "What job?" " I'm not supposed to tell." Sav returned to her magazine, but her eyes returned to Lynn often. Her amused expression and the reason behind it was obvious. "Stop looking at me like that!" "If you're, like, all Saushale, shouldn't you, like, want the job to like, get done?" "I don't know why exactly, but I'm not exactly happy with the job being done." "Carmen. IM. Banging your head on the wall. Boarding school." "Ohhhhh. I should probably IM her." "Google chat." "Ugh. Whatever! Want to listen to 'Cruel Summer'?" "A), You're Saushale, and two, we aren't allowed." Lynn smirked. "Want some help learning the alphabet?" she offered. Sav looked clueless for a second, then rolled her eyes and blushed. "Shut up," she commanded. "And continue on with your explanation." "Unlike banging my head against the wall, Alena's electronica, or similar songs actually help. That’s why the other Saushale hate it. It grates against the barrier. Since mine is so thin, it doesn't hurt. Just kills it." "You are insane." "Whatever." Lynn typed. Sav returned to her book. This time, there were no side glances at Lynn. She read her book, totally absorbed. As promised, pounding dance music shook the empty cabin. "Um, Lynn? You never actually answered my second question." Lynn shrugged. "Cathy's out. Alena's out. All the other girls are out. Who else is going to bust us?" "Considering the volume, anyone within a ten-mile radius." "You're hilarious. Amazing how you can be sarcastic and read your book at the same time." "It's an acquired talent. Hey, can I borrow the computer?" Lynn slid it across the room. Sav typed in 'Sav: Alena (g429-j5%*)'. As she had expected, a site popped up Sav: Alena- Lynns S. Alena: Lynn is Sabrina? Sav: Su, I mean. Sorry, the last didn't hit. Alena: Wow. Amazing news. Sav: What's the plan? Alena: I think if she's playing "Cruel Summer" we'll be fine. Sav: How did you know? Alena: I can hear it. Sav: Get real. Alena: I'm not kidding, rather regrettably Sav: I think that Cathy is Sabrina. Things about her… Alena: yeah, I've kind of thought that too. Alena: but seriously, turn OFF the music Sav: Is it really that loud? Alena: Cathy coming to bust you in 5 Alena: 4 Alena: 3 Alena: Are you going to turn this off or what? "Cathy's coming," Sav said, deleting the site and conversation from Lynn's web history. She shut down the computer, Telkined it under her bed. She and Lynn started talking about nonsense quickly, so when Cathy came in it looked like nothing had happened. "Sav. Lynn. I know I was hearing music out here." Cathy. "From what? There's no stereos, computers, or CD's here. Somehow I doubt we would be able to just magically make something play," Lynn answered logically. "You might not believe me, but you actually have to have material to play music," Sav backed up. "Like, duh," Cathy mimicked. "Come on. I know I was hearing some electronica. You must have brought a CD and played it on the stereo outside. I'm not an idiot or insane. I'm not schizophrenic, and I know what I heard." "Um, Cathy? Didn't you, like, put a lock on the door?" Lynn. "You picked it." "An outside lock?" Sav. "Your mind powers." "With a key?" Lynn snorted. "Ummm, you pulled the key off, and, errr, replaced it somehow...." "Cathy, you know, you might have just thought you've heard the song. I do that sometimes. How many times have you listened it?" "Like three hundred." "Cruel Summer", despite being written in the eighties, had done surprisingly well as a single. Savvy People had remixed it a bit, shortened the fade-out in the end, and added in a new verse to make it sound more Savvy People-y. "Yeah. Don't do that. Do not ever, ever listen to a song more than two hundred times." Lynn. "There are dire consequences." Sav. "I speak from experience." It was from a sign on the wall, 'Important Things To Know". A hilarious assortment of strange rules, like 'Don't use sarcasm excessively or everyone will hate you', 'If you've lost the will to live, listen to annoying electronica. "Don't Wait For It" by Savvy People is a good choice. You will run away screaming', and others. No one knew who had put it up. Plus there was the fact that Carmen has listened to "Cruel Summer" almost seven hundred times, "Dance Until You Drop" around five hundred, and "No Explanation" almost three hundred, and by now you should understand that she isn't even close to normal in any way, shape or form. "Ha ha. So, your very plausible, logical reason is that I was being schizophrenic and imagined the 'Cruel Summer'. Yeah. Next time you try and lie your way out of punishment, come up with a better explanation." "Yeah, but, like, do you have anything better, huh?" "Yes, I do actually. Punishing you unconditionally, since I know you did something, and there isn't any proof, so I'll just have to rely on the fact that I heard music from here and only you two were here. Therefore logically it must have been you." "Unfortunately, you have to have a reason to punish us. Camp rules. The electronic rule is big enough so that you could probably give us a punishment since there's reasonable suspicion, but the president of the camp has to administer the punishment, and Alena actually likes us, and she doesn't hold for crap like that. So nice try," Sav informed her authoritatively. Lynn snorted and high-fived Sav. Cathy knew that she'd been trapped and scowled. She changed tactics, spinning around quite fast. "Whatever. I'm leaving. And thinking about throwing this key down the lake." "Don't worry. If we get too desperate, Sav will shred the door for us. Right, Sav?" "Totally." Cathy left, re-locking the door. Within half an hour, Zara had come in. "Hi guys! We went to the lake today! It was hilarious. Adriana and Heidi got absolutely infuriated with Hailey. She's pretty easy to get irritated at, isn't she?" "It wasn't that big, though, I'm sure. Carmen usually makes those things into school-wide legends." Adriana walked in about then, rolling her eyes. "Ha. She should have come." "No, she shouldn't," Lynn and Adriana. "Anyway, we had to stay in camp." Lynn made a face. "Yeah, Cathy was being really annoying about it. We were all trying to sneak out of the cabin, but we left the door open!" Sav recounted an early morning escapade. "You left the door open?" Zara asked, starting to laugh. "And it was, like, so obvious where we'd gone." "Yeah, the loud sarcasm probably didn't help our case much." Lynn. "Only you were being sarcastic, Lynn. I was the one trying to tell you to shut up so that Cathy wouldn't find us." Zara laughed. "What did Cathy make you do? I heard she can think of some pretty creative punishments this year." "She made us write: we are the biggest idiots on the planet one hundred times! By hand!" "And posted it!" "Yeah, I tried to use my, er, mind powers, but she could so tell and was like 'Nice try, Sav, do it the regular way'. The meanie." "Did she really post it?" Zara was skeptical. "Yeah, it's over the drinking fountain." "Cool. I have a camera somewhere here, that would be an excellent photo opportunity." "You wouldn't dare!" The words were playful, but the tension was obvious. Sav and Lynn hadn't been on good terms lately, and they had been ignoring their other friends in the drama of being friends and changing the status. Zara hadn't talked to Lynn since that day at the lake, and Sav since before then. They were acting fun now, but it was still evident that one friendship was not going to remain. Humility was there now, but ego was still in the way. However, a crashing sound broke up the tense thoughts. Cathy hadn't wanted anyone to see this. She had sent everyone out of the camp, except the Saushale and Sav. Alena had requested Sav stay, and Cathy hadn't tested it, not wanting to arouse suspicion. Sav and Lynn hadn't wanted to stay, they'd tried to escape once (and not very brilliantly, either), and Cathy had made sure they wouldn't try again. Both girls were sitting in their rooms now, hopefully smarter. No one was going to trifle with Cathy. She hadn't been able to lock them in this time, but it didn't make much of a difference. Cathy hated Alena. She was intruding upon Cathy's sense of bossiness and intelligence. She made fun of her, and looked at her suspiciously. Suddenly, Cathy wondered why she was doing this. What had Alena done that deserved such strong punishment? And what about the voices? Was Cathy insane? Had she gone crazy? Was the electronica she had heard earlier really her being schizophrenic? It was so likely, she was schizophrenic. Crazy. Someone was telling Cathy to do this. It wasn't Cathy. Why was she even calling herself Cathy? And saying she was twenty-two? That wasn't her name or age. She was...she was... She couldn't remember. Was she schizophrenic? Should she drop everything and run? Was she more powerful than anyone else... Or just being fooled, fooled and tested more than anyone else? There was no way to know. Alena was nervous. Cathy had requested a formal meeting, then arranged for everyone to leave. Alena had told her that Sav was supposed to stay in camp no matter what, and that she could ask one friend to stay with her. Alena had made it up, obviously, but Cathy hadn't doubted it. Alena wondered why. After all, wasn't it in Cathy's nature to resist all authority? To make her own way made, and resist all rules to get it? Was Alena really the amazing character analysis person she had thought? Was Cathy up to something sinister and otherworldly? Was Cathy really Sabrina, determined to destroy her and raid her for power? Or was Alena just insane? A little from column A, a little from Column B, she thought angrily and darkly as she stomped up the trail, kicking rocks across the trail. Cathy stood in the open courtyard. She wondered why she was here, convincing herself she was insane, but that she wasn't, but that she was. It was so confusing. And extremely annoying with a capitol A. It bothered her, and she wished she could tell someone. But, regardless, she would seem insane. Why was she here? What was she doing? Her carefully laid plans vanished somehow, wiped clean like whiteboard. Confusion and desperation created a overpowering combination, threatening to bring her down, away, When Alena finally appeared on the horizon, Cathy turned and ran. Partly because she was special and Alena was not, partly because she was desperate, and Alena was not, and partly because she could use the Telkin and Alena could not, Cathy won the race. When Alena saw Cathy running, she was confused, but it was more of a light, curious confusion than the deadly, deep emotion threatening Cathy earlier. She started walking, then running after her. You know, she thought Maybe Sabrina's hold is loosening on her. That's got to be driving the girl crazy. One minute knowing whom she is, the next not. One minute sure that she knows everything, she'll be ruler of the world, the next wondering where the thought ever occurred to her. That could be the reason for all this- she's trying to ask me about it, or trap me, she's not sure which, or if that's even her goal…no wonder she's been acting odd Cathy was moving too fast for Alena to come even close to catching up, but she ran faster anyhow. It felt good to run, somehow, to let her body take control instead of her mind. She'd been pressuring and cursing her mind for the past few months (were they really months?), and now it felt relaxing somehow to have that take a backseat to just…running. Not running from anything, not running to anything, really, not running because of anything. Purposeless. The crashing sound was just Cathy coming back to the cabin, but she was so different. She looked like living death (though normally about this time she, like Sav, almost had kind of a tan), her green eyes, normally full of conceit and petty cruelty now haunted and hollow. Her silvery hair was just blonde, dirty, kind of grayish now, and she looked awful. Rather than making a snide remark about how Sav was laying on the floor, Lynn hanging upside down from the bed, and Zara standing in the row of closets set up for them, she just looked at them blankly and stayed in the counselors room. Alena came back later, and she entered the counselors room for about three seconds before coming out. Cathy came out later that night, and she no longer looked tired or ragged. She looked normal. But there was still something about her. Something lost. Confused. Utterly and completely hollow. Lynn lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Like I said before, Saushale don't really need to sleep. Some nights she managed pretty much a full night of sleep, but sometimes her body was so full of sleep it refused. Actually, the only times she fell asleep without careful and skilled focusing on the idea was when she used a lot of Telkin. Sav stirred, then started sleep talking. With precision and skill that had taken months to master, Lynn quietly walked over to listen. "Hey, Lynn." The words were muttered, none of the unfriendly tone or mocking edge. There was a pause. "You were never my friend," she muttered, pretty unintelligible but Lynn had figured by then that it was the same dream so she knew it anyway. There was another long pause, broken up a bit by 'assignment', 'friends', 'first day', and 'Sab', but after that most of the conversation came out, muttered, some of the words missing but Lynn could piece it together. She sat down heavily. Great. One thing about Sav was that when she had a clear dream like this, she always believed it. Always. She had told Lynn once that dreams like that were often prophetic, especially with friends. They had predicted all of her friends ditching her. Great. She would so not be a pleasant, if a bit sarcastic Sav tomorrow. She would be distant and it would take forever for her to start liking Lynn again. If she ever did. Unfortunately for her, the night wasn't over. "Lynn? Where are you?" Lynn could hear the voices. These voices were to Lynn as clear dreams were to Sav. Prophets of freakin' doom. She starting to walk outside, knowing she had to. This was probably her least favorite surface part of the job (that is, the actual job, difficulty and benefits). Cackling occurred outside. Lynn didn't have to think to know it was Bella. Outside her window. Laughing. "Hello," Lynn half-growled from between her teeth, glaring at the two tall, pale, and rather scary girls before her. "I didn't expect you to be joyful, Lynn." Laura. As usual, the statement didn't carry much of a bite itself, just setting up for the real terror of the two. "But we expected some enthusiasm. Like, say, you could sound like you were talking to associates, rather than an obnoxious four-year-old. You are not a rock, Lynn. Just remember that." Lynn muttered something they couldn't really hear, probably along the lines of "I don't even want to imagine you at four, considering how obnoxious you are now". "We expected you to be happy! To skip and dance at our presence. But what respect do we see? 'Hi' " Bella said, mocking her. Laura screeched in laughter. "Would you like a parade?" "That would be nice." Bella grinned widely. Probably the worst part was that Lynn knew that they probably would have been really good friends, should she be on Bella's side. "Fine. Sav's sleeping. Alena doesn't have any power. The other girls haven't noticed anything. Done." "Not end of story. Check out this device we found!" Laura speaking. "Don't excite her too much. She can't hold that much capacity." Bella, identifiable by her naturally mean nature. Laura just rolled her eyes. "Sav has Alena’s electronica on her mp3 player. That's why Alena let her keep it." "She listens to it? What? It doesn't exist! How can she have it!?" "Because she listens to weird music and has the Telkin is excess." "Off topic. The fact is, she has it. Wait- what has Cathy done?" "Cathy is not head of cabin. Alena's judgment rules. I don't know why, so don't even ask me." Lynn turned to the side to leave but Bella used the Telkin on her or something. Lynn didn't really feel like turning it into a full-on battle, especially since she probably would have lost with Laura there. Bella smiled a rather sarcastic smile and jerked her head quickly from side to another, in typical Bella-ness. "Not so fast, genius." Bella. Do I have to identify? "What else do you want to know? Actually, why are you even here? Don't other things to do, more people to torture?" "We're here because you're, like, inadequate. Sabrina says she isn't even sure which side you're on anymore. Tuh-raitor." Yeah. See what I mean about how they probably would have been friends? Carbon copies, those girls are. Except that one kind of has hypnosis, and the other does not. "Bella's right, but more importantly because we know you aren't powerful enough. Remember last October? The girl has so much power, Sabrina's tried the transformation like seven times, and it's still not working. She has more power than I do, and I held the record for fifteen years. Even Bella and I together couldn't beat her, and Sabrina says we're more powerful than all the goddesses except Alena combined. Together, I think we could at least restrain her, if not totally defeat her in a fight." "A fight- Sav thinks I'm her best friend!" "When your Saushale?" Laura raised one eyebrow, a smile on her face, arms crossed. The gesture was so Laura, it was unbelievable. "Sav knows I'm Saushale- and hasn't said a word in offense I think I'm doing an awesome job!" "Hardy-har-har." Bella took over, totally prepared to be cruel, mean, and sarcastic, ready to shove aside serious and honest Laura. Sigh. "Yeah, well, you can argue all you want, but we're still here. And quite honestly? I think that if you really were on our side, you would be glad. You wouldn't be fighting with us- unless you knew that we will take down Sav, and she's Alena's only hope." "I am not on Alena's side." The statement didn't have a hint of sarcasm, desperation, or lying-ness at all, just completely firm and determined. "So, are you glad, if only in the preservation sense that we're here to protect you from dear five fifty, and still growing?" There was a Saushale way of measuring Telkin. I don't mention it myself (though I will now, unfortunately) much, mostly since it's easier and clearer just to kind of order my characters from most Telkin to least. Anyway, most Saushale are around one fifty. Bella is around three thirty now, Laura edging four hundred. Lynn's probably about two ninety. Sabrina's around nine hundred, before probably about three hundred. Carmen about two seventy five, I'd guess, but since electronica carries a charge, too, that's how she got to Sabrina. Hers is one of the few cases where it carries more power than she does, it's probably about three hundred, three fifteen. Sabrina's electronica was probably two ninety. But that's another reason why I don't use the numbers, they're very approximate. "Five. Fifty." "Yeah." Lynn's mouth just kind of hung open. How could someone even carry that much power? They'd explode! But wow, it was no wonder Sav was capable of throwing around heavy bike racks, with the bikes attached without any power drain, or even meaning to. That was some serious power there. "So, just go inside. We'll plot against you." Bella's voice pretty much destroyed the semi-trance she'd been in." Lynn shivered involuntarily and went back to Sav. She stepped carefully, afraid of Bella collapsing a stair, landing Lynn under the building. However, nothing happened. Lynn crept into the bedroom she shared, and was only half-startled when Sav's voice appeared out of nowhere behind her. It was something Lynn was dreading. Something Lynn knew was inevitable. "Hey, Lynn. You do know it's about two in the morning and you shouldn't be up right now, correct?" "Um…yeah, I guess. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went outside. Other people were out there, too, so I talked to them briefly." "Whatever," Sav replied coldly, spinning around to go back to sleep. "Wait, Sav, look, the dream thing-" Sav whirled. "And you know about that how?" "Because I wasn't born yesterday, Sav. I know that you had some kind of weird dream about me. Remember when you told me that story about that one dream you had in sixth grade, that one girl who-" "Whom," Sav corrected automatically. Lynn looked like she was going to throw something. Actually, the floor did kind of start vibrating, not like Sav knew what that meant, so yes, she kinda did. "Oh, my god, Sav. Besides, that sentence doesn't even have an object." "Yeah, it does. It's story. You're referring to the story the girl was in, so that-" "Okay, now I just want you to shut up. On some days I will listen to your grammar tirades, when I'm in the mood to learn something, but that is not at two o clock in the morning when I'm trying to make a point and I know you aren't listening to me-" "Yeah I am." " How on earth can you be paying attention and correcting grammar if I, horror of horrors, say who, instead of whom?" "Well, I see your point. But seriously, I am paying attention. And you know why I always believe my dreams when they happen like that?" "Self-fulfilling prophesy," Lynn answered immediately. The word just kind of came to her, right out of the blue. "It is not." "Yeah, it is, Sav. I betcha that one day, you were acting kind of weird and distant, which led to that girl ditching you. Maybe she was already thinking about it, back of her mind kind of thing, but, well, I still think it was partly just self-fulfilling prophesy." Sav didn't do anything, except for kind of stare with her mouth open. She retained that ability. "Yeah, okay. So you're going to say that you weren't on an assignment? You weren't pretending?" "Did we not go over this earlier? Besides, well…" "What?" "I'll tell you in the morning, I swear. But for now, we should probably shut up before Cathy comes back and makes us right we are idiots again. Go to sleep." "What about you?" "Saushale don't sleep much." "Shut-" "How loud must we be?" Cathy walked into their room at that. Sav wasn't entirely sure what she was doing awake at two in the morning, but the fact remained that she was here and being just as annoying and cruel as ever. "Do you ever sleep?" "Of course not," Sav cut in rather quickly, before Cathy had time to answer. "Vampires don't sleep." Both of them laughed at that one. "That would be a nice question, if I wasn't hearing the two of you down the hall, awake and arguing at two in the morning." Sav, of course, decided to fixate on the most technical of flaws. "Cathy, the counselors room isn't down the hall. It's right outside our door. We could have been breathing and you would still be hearing us." "Sav, when am I going to teach you how to give the proper insult, Princess of Sarcasm style? Learn fast enough, and I'll make you a Duchess." "A Duchess of Sarcasm," Sav answered sarcastically. "What a lofty position." "There we go, girl. We'll make a Duchess of you yet." "Excuse me, girls," Cathy cut in. "I hate break up this tea party-" "How can you have a tea party without any tea? It's, like, an air party. But don't worry. We'll give you an invitation." I'd imagine that the sting and irritation of this statement was not lessened by Lynn giggling like a crazy person. "Do you not understand the phrase 'tea party'? Because, trust me, maybe what you need to fully remember the definition is to write it fifty times, hm?" "Sorry, Cathy. It's just that I'm really tired, and I'm having a stupid Lynn overdose-" "Isn't she your best friend? Shouldn't you be immune to those?" "I must say that I haven't been in her sole company for seven straight hours, however." "What about that bus ride?" Lynn referred to the trip they had taken in seventh grade, a rather long trip with a six and a half hour long bus ride. " That is an experience I am trying to forget." "Remember when we told the bus driver that there were a bunch of kids hanging out in the lunch place, so then Adriana stole his sun glasses, and me the video, so he complained the entire time about how the sun hurt his eyes, and you wouldn't shut up about your volleyball games and how the sun hurt your eyes, and you were all sympathetic and everything, and-" "If you two don't shut up and go to-" Her threat was cut off as Alena entered. "Lynn, Sav. Why are you awake at this hour?" She frowned at Cathy. Alena's hands were in the air, waving around like she was directing a symphony. She was still fully dressed in jeans and a three-quarter-sleeve shirt in metallic gold. It was obvious she had never slept. "Cathy, I'm taking over. Go back to-" "I don't think she's done torturing us," Lynn explained. " I'm torturing you? Ha! I'll educate you two tomorrow." Cathy walked out rather calmly. "Lynn, Sav-" Alena said it quietly. "Wait. Cathy can still hear. We should go outside." Lynn didn't offer any explanation on how she knew this or why it was important and simply walked outside. Sav was still slightly cautious. She could joke around all she wanted in front of Cathy, discuss plans to become the Duchess of Sarcasm, but she was still cautious. Her dream…they always came true. Her dream was right, and Lynn didn't have to be telling the truth. But Lynn could also be right about what she was talking about with a self-fulfilling prophesy. Sav was really bad at pretending to like people, and the friend could have just picked up on that. It doesn't really matter at this point, anyway, she reminded herself, Because Lynn has information you need, so you still have to be friends with her, so you might as well just give her the benefit of the doubt. "Okay Lynn and Sav. Both of you are involved with this, right?" They both nodded. "Do you know of anyone else on my side involved?" They shook their heads. "Well, Cathy is Sabrina. I know it. I saw her change." Sav's eyes got wider and her mouth turned down a bit at the corners, but other than that she kept the same look of rather haughty calmness. Lynn tried to feign surprise, but it was acted so badly even Sav gave a small snort. "So…that's why she's here. It took her forever to figure out that tracking board, and that's why she's taking it slow this time around. Last time you guys messed up all her plans, so this time she's going for a touch more secrecy. And don't trust your computer, Lynn- she messed up your account. Does she know you're almost better than the CIA at computer hacking?" "No." "Oh. Because I was going to say that, if so that she'll probably steal your laptop. But if she doesn't know that then she won't bother." "Why not? I mean, it will get me into Mount Misery, right?" Alena snorted. "Ask Sav here. I'm not the one that memorized the camp handbook." "Firstly, I didn't actually memorize it, I just read it several times so I would know the rules. Secondly, I don't understand why you, the freakin' counselor doesn't know the rules. But yeah, the cabin president would have to administer the punishment unless they found proof, and isn't the thing magical so you can shrink it up and find it in your pocket?" "Yeah." "So, you see. Anyway, I think you should hack into Laura or Bella's account to actually figure out what's going on, okay?" "I can't- not without the password. I don't have the password anymore. They changed it." "They have it on the site, though, right?" "Only if you look it up with a password." "Well, that's ridi-! Oh! I know! Ask Carmen! You gave her the old password, right? So she viewed it with a password?" Alena suggested. "Good idea." "So, Cathy is Sabrina? Should I do something?" Lynn snorted. "Without getting in trouble? Yeah right." Alena smiled. "Actually…You two do know the lyrics and melody of my song, right?" "Yeah…" the two of them confirmed assuredly. "Sing it. It will both annoy the hell out of her and be entertaining. And further proof she's Sab. Actually, probably just about any Savvy People song will annoy her, besides the obvious- I think Carmen's is H. E. L. P. and yours is No Explanation, so those two are good." "Language, please," Lynn requested. Alena and Sav rolled their eyes simultaneously. "Alena, what do you think we should do, though? For real?" Alena frowned for a minute. "Get as good as you can at the Telkin, especially you, Sav. Lynn's pretty well protected by hypnosis-" "Yeah, about that. Can she actually hypnotize people?" Lynn answered, as opposed to Alena as the question was directed. "Yeah, it's easy. But I can only do humans, and they can't be very smart." "Cool. So, I should try and get my Telkin as high as possible? To avoid mind control, right? Do you think it'll come to a fight?" Alena shrugged. "It depends on whether or not Sabrina ever actually starts to consider me an enemy." "How come you don't have any power but Sabrina's still after you?" "Because I have to give it up." "You have to give her your power? But…how is she ever going to get it then?" "Not like that. More like…I have to lose capacity. Lose determination. Lose my ability to care. I almost did it back there in the catacombs, almost lost it when the three of you- that is, you two and Cathy- were about to drive me out of my mind here in camp, but the Telkin never went low enough to really allow that." "Funny. The textbooks always just said that there was a fight, and then-" "It works like that when you stay within your species: god versus gods, Sorceresses versus Sorcerers, etcetera. When you go outside that confine then you have to drain it completely away." "I think there's someone in the bushes," Sav mentioned suddenly. "It's probably the return of the Wit Twits. Yay." Lynn rolled her eyes in accordance with her statement. "Who are the Wit Twits?" "Bella and Laura, remember?" "Oh. Yeah. I thought they were called Bellauren." "I call them lots of different things. The point is that they're coming over here to chat in, like, three seconds." "Good thing or bad thing?" Lynn snorted at Sav's idiocy. "They make Cathy seem fun and charming." "Lynn, no one can make Cathy seem fun and charming. I don't think Godzilla could make Cathy seem fun and charming." Both of the girls laughed a bit, even Alena granted half a smile. Sav and Lynn took a step forward as two silhouettes appeared before them, walking slowly. After a few more seconds, they became visible as two cruel-looking girls, dramatic coloring and angular features, appeared before them. Sav and Lynn took a step forward together, but Alena faded away. "Lynn- I'm shocked! standing out here with your friend five twenty five?" "What did you call me?" "Your force is five twenty-five." "Five fifty, actually." Laura, not hiding anything. "Nice. Thank you for totally confusing her. Do you have a purpose or are you just making laps? Is this a Weight Watchers plan?" "We were curious. How do you think Sabrina will react when she finds out that dear little Lynn is working for the wrong side?" "What are you talking about?" Bella rolled her eyes. "How can you have a higher Telkin than I do and still be so slow? Look. You are helping Alena. Alena is Sabrina's enemy. That means you are the enemy. Is that clear enough for you or do we need a third run-through?" Lynn pulled her head up and ran her fingers through her hair. This is probably just boring description to you, but it was a Saushale gesture that basically meant "Shut up, I'm a double agent." "Have a nice night, Lynn." Laura responded quietly, authoritatively, jerking on Bella's arm. They started to walk away. Lynn scoffed, remembering a similar end greeting. "Yeah, next thing I know it's three o clock in the morning and it's back to conversation with the Wit Twits!" Sav laughed a bit. "Lynn, it is three o clock in the morning." Bella started to say something, but Laura dug her nails into Bella's arm and she shut up. They faded into the night. Alena reappeared, floating an inch above the grass to avoid the trailing dew. The cuffs of Sav and Lynn's jeans were muddy and wet, but Alena's were completely dry and clean. "Well, Lynn, I can't say that this new meeting of Bellauren has improved my opinion of them much." "Hello- quietness, Alena? But yeah, they were unnecessarily rude, which I find odd, disturbing, and dishonest." "Bella is just like that. Actually, I think she was trying to be nice. She was like that as a non-Saushale, she was like that during her transformation, and she is like that now. However, I don't really see much reason for you to find solace in them." "Niceness? Yeah. Right. That's the kind of niceness you find in piranhas." Lynn laughed. "Something tells me you will be a Duchess of Sarcasm by week's end." "Yay. But back to Bella?" "She's never nice, she tries to be as rude and mean and sarcastic as she can. However, she couldn't really unleash that particular talent on us. In particular with Laura hovering over her " "How would you have known her before she was Saushale, by the way?" "It's called a video camera, Sav. Maybe I should show you the clips. It's of her graduation, and they're very, very funny." "Well, I still don't see…" Alena started walking back to the cabin, listening to the two girls bickering. They're just twelve, she thought to herself. How can they do this? How can they survive with Sabrina and everyone else attacking them. How? HOW? They're conversation had really illuminated that, talking about school and friends. They were just pre-teens, they hadn't been around as long as Alena had. And it seemed that no matter how long she was around, she could never understand Sabrina completely. What made her do the things she did? Why did she want to win so badly? Why did she want to take over? Couldn't she just be happy with the planet she had, rather than going after everything in time? Couldn't she just take being prevailer and move on? Why did she have to take over like this? And why did she have to be winning? Alena hadn't won in so long… Adriana was exhausted when she woke up in the morning, fifteen minutes late, and she had no idea why. Her dream had been disturbing. Sav, Lynn, and Tanya had been standing at the top of a hill. Adriana started to walk up toward them, stopping suddenly when she saw their faces change. Lynn and Tanya's skin went deathly pale with completely black eyes- no white or distinguishable pupil to be seen. Their face changed, a bit more subtly but terrifying. Sav didn't change much, but was like someone had hit 'Contrast' to her features. Her skin was whiter (Adriana wasn't completely sure such a thing was possible), her hair silvery-er, her eyes greener. They walked toward her. Adriana stared at them blankly for a second, before turning to run. "Adriana." Lynn's voice was sharp and demanding. "Stop." She spun around. They were at her back already. There wasn't much of a point in running. "Why? What is with you? Why do you look like that?" "I guess you see…" Lynn hummed. "I'm not who my face says," Sav finished. "What is that supposed to mean?" "We are a part of this. Butt out, Adriana." "Why? I'm your friend!" "Wave in," Tanya started. "Wave out," Lynn sang next. "Come in," Sav continued. "SHOVE OUT!" They all shouted at the same moment, hitting the notes perfectly. It was a song, of course, Savvy People. One of those songs where it should be all nice and slow, but it has a raucous beat going at the same time. As soon as they finished the song, Adriana woke up to the usual morning hussle. Everyone was running about, changing into shorts and filling up water bottles and yelling at each other for using their hair brush. Adriana felt completely energy-less, but she slowly stood up and got changed. She wished that she could know what Lynn and Sav were up to. Who they were. What the hell they were doing. Because she knew they were doing something. She wished that they would tell her. Or else talk to Carmen. She was entering her mind more and more as time went on. With a sickening plunge in her stomach, she realized just how similar Lynn and Sav had been acting to Carmen. The secrecy, never sharing everything. The dBryanppearances. Getting in trouble more often. The randomly moving objects. And she knew she had been hearing some kind of electronica when there was none in sight. But would she tell me anything? She wondered, rather pessimistically, if you ask me. Or would she just deny any answers and make up lies? Rather regrettably, there was no way to tell. Sav was completely exhausted when she woke up. Her dreams were filled with images of Bellauren, and the fact that she'd missed an hour and a half of sleep was not helping. She had a raging headache with a raging temper to match. "Wake up, agelast," she was greeted with as soon as she opened her eyes. "Time to, like, get up and rock the house!" "Okay, two things-" "Oh, my. I don't think I can listen to that long of a monologue." Lynn was bouncing around. She was already dressed in dark shorts and a plain white tank top, her hair perfectly brushed. "Okay, look. What is an agelast and how can you possibly be so perky?" Sav whined, pulling the pillow over her head. "Agelast is your word for the day. And I'm perky because my specialness exceeds the confines of normal behavior." "Shut up, Lynn," Hailey requested. "You're reminding me of Carmen." "I'm Carmen-licious, Carmen-licious, 'cause I'm so obnoxious-" "I'm sarcastic through the day, and everything is say is Carmen-licious. Did she really sing you that?" "Yes. It was pretty good, considering she's never had voice lessons." "And I can tell you haven't either," Hailey commented, starting to laugh. Sav stood up and wearily sifted through clothes to wear. "How hot is it today?" she moaned. "Pretty damn hot. Yesterday broke the record for the area and almost the state. Today it's about one hundred, so about fifteen degrees higher than the average." "It's not fair that it's this hot," Sav muttered, choosing a pair of shorts and a tank top, just as most of the other girls. Heidi and Hailey started brainstorming ways to 'freak out Cathy', walking out of the room. Sav walked toward Lynn. "So, was last night real?" Sav asked quietly. "Yeah." "So when do you think Sabrina will attack?" "It's impossible to tell, because Alena was right in that it'll only occur when Sabrina feels like it. However, it'll only be effective if both sides bring some serious Telkin to the party." "What do you mean?" "You know what Al-" "Al." "It's hard to say Alena. You've been saying to completely wrong, by the way. It's not Ah-LEE-na, it's Ah-aw-lee-leh-n(uh)-Ah." "I can't say that." "That's why we call Sah-aw-brih-eye-nah Sah-awb, and Ah-aw-lee-leh-n(uh)-ah Alena." "Okay. Whatever. Back to your point." "Well, if it's just a few Saushale and Sabrina against you, me, Alena, and maybe Carmen, it's not much of a contest. Alena loses the battle but holds onto her power. Sabrina's not going to waste her time. There has to be a total of, like, fifty thousand Telk present-" "Telk?" "It's a measure of Telkin. Average Saushale is one fifty. Car is two ninety. I'm two sixty. You're five fifty, by last measurement." "By last measurement?" "You're Telkin is inherited naturally, without being a chosen or something, so it'll continue growing until you become Saushale or it starts to get ridiculous. You can get up to a thousand. That's higher than Sab, but you'll have to seriously work it." "Cool. Define 'work it'." "Practice makes perfecto." "When am I going to practice throwing things in the middle of summer camp without anyone noticing?" Lynn took a deep breath. "You can chill water." "Yeah. And…?" "You can create illusions. Practice that. Starting now." "Where?" Lynn picked up a book. "Make it hot." Within a few seconds she dropped the book, but seemed instinctively surprised when no pain continued, like it would've with a burn. "Okay…now make it invisible." Sav stared at the book, doing the same thing she always tried with the Telkin, seeing and feeling and hearing the object do as she wished. But, for perhaps the first time, what she needed did not come easily. She focused on anger then, and hatred, feeling the emotions suddenly appear and take it over. The book flickered, but did not go invisible. "That's, like, the first time…" "It's been hard?" Lynn guessed. "Yeah. That's probably why Sabrina doesn't do it or even talk about it. It's really hard. Actually, she might not even know about it. Ciel figured it out, not her. That's just another Sorceress, but anyway, it takes work. But you can probably do it." Sav closed her eyes, trying again. She focused entirely on the book, seeing it flicker again and go invisible, feeling the determination to make it do so. Determination turned to fuel and the fire roared hotter. The book slowly faded out of sight. Sav gritted her teeth, trying to keep it there. It was much easier than making it go invisible at first. "What time is it?" the voice moaned from the corner of the room. Adriana's voice. "Adriana?" Lynn asked tentatively. Both she and Sav had the same alarmed looks. The book went back into sight and Sav knocked it off the table. "Be quiet. I have a really bad headache." "Me too. It's not so bad, though. It goes away after a couple minutes." "Hey, guys?" "Yeah?" "I think it's time to go to breakfast in, like, three minutes." Adriana's eyes flew open and she fell off the bed, hurriedly grabbing a random pair of shorts and a shirt, yanking on her sandals and shoving a brush through her tangled black hair. "Hey, Sav, is it wrong to find this amusing?" "The fact that you have to reminded of that fact is wrong in and of itself." "Good to know, good to know." "Is breakfast really in three minutes?" "Breakfast…fun…ugh, I have a headache now, do you?" "Kind of, yeah. I think they're lining up." Sav, Lynn, and Adriana located Heidi, Hailey, and Zara at the front of the cabin before lining up for breakfast. "Lynn, Sav…I think you'll need to stay inside today," Cathy called while they waited to exit. "Shut up." Alena changed the verdict easily. "Now come on. I don't know what was with you girls this morning. We're going to be real late at this rate." "Really," Sav called. "Real is an adjective, but you're describing an adjective so you have to use an adverb." "How do you know this stuff?" Lynn demanded "And why do you care?" Hailey cupped her hand to her ear in mocking fascination. "I pay attention in class, okay? Sheesh." "I have an idea," Lynn announced. "Let's sing." "Why?" Zara asked. "To annoy Cathy, obviously." "What should we sing?" "You guys know 'No Explanation', right?" "No Explanation" was currently topping the charts both in sales and radio play. And so, without further ado, most of the cabin sang "No Explanation" on the way to the lunchroom, while getting food, and through some of the dining time itself. Cathy looked as if she were about to explode. Sav stared at her pancakes at breakfast. The syrup Heidi had jokingly poured over it nauseated her, the sticky sweetness wafting up toward her nose, smelling awful. She pushed it away, and seriously considered pouring syrup over Heidi's hair for ruining a perfectly good breakfast. She got a cup of milk, but it smelled almost worse. Water tasted okay, and the cafeteria gave her an orange, which wasn't exactly delightful, but it was survivable. She ate about three slices, before the orange seemed a lot less survivable. She looked over and realized that Lynn and Adriana had been eating similarly, Lynn a cup of cocoa, and Adriana about two bites of plain pancakes. Lynn looked about as mad at Zara for ruining her pancakes. Adriana probably wouldn't have appreciated it much more. Sav wondered whyever on earth Hailey was even friends with her. Sav, Lynn, and Adriana had a pounding headache all day. The camp finally got to go on a hike, and they stepped down through the baking forest with precision, it was too hot to wear anything but a short skirt or shorts, and everyone in the all-girls camp was careful of the poison oak and stinging nettles that dotted the hikes. Sav, Lynn, and Adriana stayed in the back, and the three of them were exhausted after only a mile of the hike. With four more to go. "I don’t know about you, but I am so hating this camp right now," Lynn panted. "Current status: hating life and camp" Sav agreed. "I don’t know how Zara can be running up there," Adriana added enviously "She's annoying, that's how." Lynn. "Did you really used to know Carmen?" Sav asked Adriana. "We were friends," Adriana answered. "She made up a bunch of cool expressions." Lynn. "Trust me Lynn, only you think they are really cool. She made up the unbelievable one, right?" Sav. "Yes, and for weeks she would say nothing else. I swear, I think if you did a search of our email over the summer you would find like two hundred entries for it." "I told you about Carmen, didn't I?" "I just wanted to know if she had been acting weird." "Yes, she had actually. She would dBryanppear. Not tell me things. And sometimes I knew she was on the comp, but she wouldn't respond. She would get mad about sarcastic comments. And, well…" "What?" Lynn and Sav chorused. "Things…flew around her. Like you, Sav. And electronica played. Like you, Lynn." "Like around the first week of school?" "Ugh. Don't even bring that up." Sav massaged her temples, as if thinking about the time was so stressful it gave her added headache. "Why not?" "I had some…uh…problems around the first week of school." "What problems?" "You know my mind powers?" "Yeah…well, I had some problems controlling them." "What do you mean?" "It was like I'd get mad and the whole situation went out of control. I must have threatened my own life dozens of times, and others, too, completely accidentally." "It's better now, though," Lynn defended. "Wouldn't doubt it." "I…can't…go…further," Sav panted, hissing out the last word. Cathy, naturally, chose that time to come on back. "Good morning Sav, Lynn, and Adriana. Why are you stopped?" "We're too tired," Lynn informed her. "I wonder if this has anything to do with being up at two o clock in the morning?" "Why were you up at two o clock in the morning?" Adriana asked, having not heard the story before. "We're special like that." "Let's sing again," Lynn suggested. " "How is that going to help us hike?" Sav asked, demandingly skeptical. "It has other benefits," Lynn replied, eyeing Cathy. "Okay. Let's go with 'Cruel Summer'." "Don't know that song." Adriana. "'H. E. L. P.", how about?" "Yeah…I know that song." It was kind of hard not to. "They call it Advanced/But they're so wrong/We're going backwards/Backwards in time/Gotta rely on those songs," all three sang, Sav's voice pretty nice, Lynn's not nearly as good and Adriana's in the middle. "Ugh," Cathy groaned, speeding up to get away from them. Strangely enough, the three girls found a lot of energy from the song and sped up, catching up with the group and finishing the rest of the hike with ease. Zara was ultimately confused. Someone else had mind powers. Sav had been blamed for many things now, that were so not her fault. Like the syrup bottle a few days ago, and the milk machine that had been on a weird schedule (ie, dripping, spurting, exploding, not working). Sav had been talking both those times, and the bed with Cathy that time? Yeah, Sav had been way too mesmerized to be doing that. And what about Alena? They came here like two weeks ago, and in those two weeks, she goes from being this eternally tired, crabby, and angry person with dull gray eyes and ratted brown hair to someone who's contradicting Cathy, controlling the cabin, and heading off punishments, not to mention having tanned skin (this is in about three days), silvery eyes, and caramel hair! How did this happen? How could a person get a huge personality and physical makeover- in a week and a half? And Cathy had been so weird lately. When they got here, she had been totally angry, handing punishments that were weird but perfectly struck- like making Sav and Lynn write they were idiots one hundred times- and she was like that now, but what about that afternoon? What had happened then? Zara knew there was some huge magical mystery surrounding this camp, and Sav was right in the freaking middle of it. She didn't even like the camp, Flowers, anymore. Already she was really hating flowers and really dreading Savvy People's "Flowers" album, not like she'd been really liking it before, but still. And something weird was going on with her, too. This morning, she had heard Hailey talking about the cafeteria- sarcasm, commenting on the food and everything. But when she mentioned it to her later, Hailey denied saying anything negative. Out loud, she had muttered. But, when Zara mentioned that, she looked at her strangely. Lynn, too. She had been hearing some kind of strange electronica song coming from her and Sav. She asked if they were listening to it. They had never heard the song before, they claimed at first. But then Lynn started saying, yelling practically, "Don't let her tell I'm lying, don't let her tell I'm lying". What the-? Why? And Cathy came up administering punishments for the two, but Sav and Lynn didn't hear. Weird. Maybe it wasn’t just Alena, Lynn, Sav, and Cathy that were acting a little wacky. Lynn felt sick. Sav looked sick. Adriana was sick. But how could they all have the exact same sickness when they were all totally different- Adriana human, Sav in the transformation stage, and Lynn totally Saushale? Because Sav was. In a moment of Saushale idiotic-ness, she had ordered the transformation process on Sav. Why did I destroy my friend that way? Because I'm an idiot! Of course, then again, that still didn't account for Lynn getting sick. Hello- Saushale did not get sick. Let me say that again. SAUSHALE DO NOT GET SICK! But she was sick. And so was Sav. The syrup idiotic Heidi had poured on her pancakes had smelled absolutely...sickening. Lynn had looked to one side, and see Sav eat three slices of orange and eat nothing more. Yeah, okay, Sav wasn't much of an eater to begin with but she usually had more than that. Adriana had also eaten almost nothing, and so had Lynn. Same with lunch. Headaches, incapability to eat, extreme fatigue, no fever…what the hell? She stepped closer to the center of the cabin. The counselors were out and the girls were playing "Poker Face", Lady GaGa, while Sav danced. She made them all laugh hysterically, acting out some of the most ridiculous dance moves. The pounding beat of the song seemed to go along with her headache. Double the pounding, double the fun, eh? Lynn went back into the cabin room and shut the door. The sickness. It had to be. Triple the sickness, triple the fun. Darkness scared Alena now. Of course, then again,. what doesn't now? she thought dryly. The heavy blanket of pure black settled over the camp too quickly. The heavy, old sign saying "Welcome to Flowers" in faded letters, metallic, was a scary thing. The moon glowed vivid silver, shocking her. The dull black and bright silver toyed with her mind and sanity, and the two colors merged with the Sabrina’s electronica song. Sabrina's colors, Sabrina's camp, Sabrina's electronica.... It could drive the Goddess of Gold crazy. The bright cat eyes of the Saushale outside were scary. They're pale white skin could be seen occasionally, if a stray lantern glowed in their direction. It was only there for a fraction of a second before darting back and dBryanppearing for a while. The number scared her. How many Saushale were needed here? Honestly. There had to be two hundred, at least. She wondered what they were all here for. Sav and Lynn, probably. Sav was rumored to have an incredible Telkin. It was probably true, if she was chilling water and making books go invisible. Yes, Alena has ears. Good ones. But even with Lynn and Sav, amazing Telkin and mind control imperviousness and all, well, they still weren't going to accomplish anything. If it was just Sabrina, yeah. Easy. But against Sabrina, and the Saushale, And Lana. Oh, don't forget Lana. Remember when she switched Sav and Lynn to other sides? It worked temporarily. And, unfortunately, if a fight ever came, it would be very temporary. The darkness was freaking her out and staring at it was not helping matters at all. She sat cross-legged on the bed, watching the wall rather dully, listening to the breathing in the cabin. The one next to her, the one with the innumerable problems, was about to add it's umpteenth. Three of the girls were missing. Lynn, Adriana, and Sav had arranged it beforehand. None of them had changed into pajamas, they were all in cold gear for the sixty degree camp. They had way more cold-weather gear to choose from than warm- the high up here was, like, seventy five normally. The jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts were much more natural to them than the short shorts and tanks they'd been wearing for the past two weeks. That was the only time it was below ninety degrees. They walked towards the end of the camp in the new gear. Eyes glittered bright, vanishing as they walked up, reappearing behind them. Lynn had already shared her revelation about the sickness with them. And, of course, they just looked at her like she was insane. "A sickness? Like a disease or something?" "Not a sickness. The sickness." "You're saying that a psycho goddess is making you two act insane and play electronica. And that she's making us hear some crappy electronica. I am so sure." "She's right about the psycho goddess part." If nothing else. "Come. On. Things like that don't happen." "Um, yeah they do." "What proof do you have?" "How about the fact that Sav can throw things without touching them? Does that satisfy you?" "People have done that before." "Okay." She turned to Sav. "Make this invisible." She handed Sav a small playing card. Sav closed her eyes and the playing card went invisible. "Hold it up for her to touch it." Adriana reached out with her finger to touch the card. Her mouth dropped open when she met the surface. She pulled away her finger and stared down at it. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered. "Gonna use my fingers," Lynn sang. "Gonna use my, my, my, my imagination!" Sav added. "There's nobody else here." "No one like me." "I'm special, special." "So special, special." "You two simply cannot sing. And that failed to help me realize how and why this sickness came about, as well as why and how asking the person that gave it to us in the first place is going to take it off." "I'm sure that, somehow you'll manage to survive." "Okay, in what world is a psycho, evil goddess going to help us?" "This one." "Um, I would have to dBryangree with that statement. Assuming there even is a psycho goddess-" "YES THERE IS," Sav and Lynn screeched together. "Okay, okay! But still, since she’s obviously psycho, why is she going to take it off?" "You don’t know Sabrina like I do. She loves to do stuff like that, just to see if we’ll ever figure it out." "If you say so," Adriana muttered. "I say so. I am sure. I am so sure it is unbelievable." "You know, that expression gets old really fast," Adriana informed her. "I know that so well-" "Yes, we know. It's unbelievable." "Actually, I was going to say insurmountable. That was Sav's word of the day back on my birthday, remember?" Both Sav and Adriana laughed out loud at the rather amusing memory. "Oh yeah, and why should we trust you, Lynn? You are Saushale, after all." "Well, at least you have the satisfaction that if your trust was wrongly put, you can totally throttle me. In like a second." "Oh, that makes me trust you so much more." "Good. You should." "Sarcasm, Lynn." "And I suck at sarcasm!" "Shut up." Lynn could tell they still didn't really believe her, but Lynn didn't care. They were going. That was the point. Lynn had already figured out where Sabrina was camping. It was almost as hard as convincing Sav and Adriana had been. She remembered the conversation with Bella easily. But not with enjoyment. Lynn: Hey, Bell. Bella: My name is Bella. Not bell. Lynn: Sorry. Anyway, do you know where Sabrina is camping out? Bella: And why should you be privy to this info if Sabrina hasn't already told you? Lynn: I'm dragging Sav and Adriana out there. And you know how Sabrina is. Bella: No, I don't know how Sabrina is. And I am quite curious as to the nature of your visit- especially AFTER YOU TOLD SAV YOU WERE SAUSHALE! Lynn: Just tell me where they're camping out. You know that if you don't tell me, I'll just hack into the system anyway. Bella: Then why don't you? Lynn: I'm trying not to completely destroy it, genius. Bella: You managed to pull Laura away from the battle few months ago without causing much damage to the system, I remember Lynn: Yes, but this time I don't have the password so I have to pull apart the system and put it back together. That takes forever and if she changed it too much then I'll probably end up permanently damaging something. Bella: How do you 'pull apart a system'? That sounds rather made up to me. Lynn: I dBryanble the security, switch off Sabrina's account, which throws the whole thing off-kilter enough for me to retrieve the information, then I have to get everything back in order. So, am I going to have to do that or are you going to tell me sometime this decade? Bella: Fine. Go to the back of your cabin and walk in a straight line until you see us. Lynn: That's all you can tell me? Bella: What do you want, longitude and latitude? That's all the directions you need. Lynn has entered text. Bella: Lynn? Lynn has entered text. Bella: What's wrong with this computer? The entire Saushale Web has been dBryanbled. Bella: I so hate you, Lynn. Well, at least the entire thing wasn't wasted. Isolating Bella from the entire Saushale web had been pretty satisfying. It was pretty scary how fast Lynn could hack into- and destroy- the system. But, as you will see in volumes to come, pretty darn useful, too. Sav was pretty clueless as to the basic point of the entire mission. Lynn had pulled Sav and Adriana aside and told them all about this sickness thing. And that the solution was Sabrina. What Sav wanted to know was whyever on earth her worst enemy- and supposedly Lynn's- would help her. Lynn told her it was just a trick. Sav was of the opinion that Lynn's solution was the trick- hello? Saushale?- but Lynn just denied it. Naturally. Sav had no idea if it was safe to trust her best friend not to, like, kill her. Which is so not a beneficial feeling to have. So now she was walking down, away from the cabin and camp. Which was so not fun. Because behind the camp was a wild mass of pure woods and wilderness. And Sav, Lynn, and Adriana were bulldozing right through the middle of it. "The middle of nowhere" would be a pretty appropriate term. Especially since they weren't even following one of the bazillion trails littered over the place. Instead, they were going on pure forest. Even in jeans, Sav could feel the tiny pricks and stings of the undergrowth. Even with thick, heavy sneakers, she could feel the dirt and uneven terrain. Which was so not fun. Of course, then again, what had been lately? Adriana was having similar thoughts. She couldn't believe everything Lynn was saying and Sav backing up. It didn't help that every time Lynn or Sav said anything, she had some sort of flashback to Carmen. The electronica. The IM's. The paranoia. Even the one time she had mysteriously dBryanppeared at lunch. Was that really her looking at a friend from the summer- or her looking for the psycho goddess? Well, Sorceress then, but still. And the sickness. What the freak was that? Was it related to the weird IM she had gotten, where Carmen seemed to be offended and just generally not acting like herself? Weird. Adriana like so did not want this. The whole insanity just made her want to scream. And possibly throw Lynn into a tree. Or Sav. Wait. What was she thinking? Sabrina saw them on the horizon. She smiled a Sabrina smile, indistinguishable from a genuine one to the casual (human) observer. She walked out of her hiding place smoothly and supply, gliding toward the girls walking steadily toward her. She laughed to herself. This would be easy. This would be fun. She took a few more steps, and stopped a foot away from the three sick girls. She snickered inside at the girls clumsiness in jeans and jackets. Sabrina was wearing her usual attire of a short purple dress and long black cape. Though it was long enough to reach the wet ground, the hem of the cape wasn't muddy or wet in the slightest. She would be having no troubles tonight. Bella had said that Lynn was going to bring Sav. Good. She wasn't fooling around, trying to deny that Sabrina totally and completely controlled her. What an idiot. I really should start looking for some hypnosis capability she thought to herself. Killing Lana was really quite rash. Sure, it would have been difficult to keep her on mind control, but look at Laura. They’ve got about the same resistance. I'm sure that, one way or another I could have brought her around. It certainly would have made my life much easier. The little bitch. Adriana trembled at the sight of Sabrina. Of course, she had never seen her beauty, her gracefulness, her splendor. Her power. Her oddness- what kind of person had silver hair and purple eyes? That was just weird. And her skin was the color of milk, paler than Sav and Lynn- and they were pretty darn pale. Oh sure, they said they looked like a piece of paper, but in reality, they had some blood there. But Sabrina? Whoa. She was so pale she probably had approximately zero blood vessels in her. And she kept smiling. The sight chilled her. It wasn't a genuine, warm, smile. It wasn't even a happy smile, but it wasn't the plastered on smile she was used to. It was genuine, but cruel, but fake, but happy. How could it possibly be that way? No freaking way, that's how. It was just wrong. She's a freaking goddess, she reminded herself. And she's probably going to kill you.. Well, it might even be worth it is she could make this stupid electronica shut up. Sav was pretty shocked when she saw Sabrina, too. Aside from her appearance, of course, because she had already gotten a pretty good idea of that. She looked like she was flying, slipping gracefully through the night. She seemed to not be touching the earth, not affected by the laws of gravity, but still- hello, she was on the ground. You're the idiot, she told herself. Sabrina's a goddess. She's supposed to be beautiful, and odd, and graceful, and have weird smiles. What were you expecting, anyway, Tina Fey? Get a grip. "The sickness was a nice touch, wasn't it?" Sabrina's voice was musical, but not completely. It was high and grating, with a razor sharp edge. She laughed afterward, her voice and laugh making Sav, Adriana, even Lynn shudder slightly at the startling, unnatural sound. "What the hell are you even talking about?" I know, I know, I wasn't expecting the swear either. "A touch? What is this, a game? This resembles a game not in the freaking slightest! Games are fun! You lose in a game, you pack it away. You lose in this, and everything is lost. Forever." "Really, eh? I know you've made me out to be the brainwasher, but have you ever thought that maybe what Alena's been feeding you isn't entirely true?" "Wrong. Alena didn't figure it out. I did. I did the math, Sab. I looked up the laws," Lynn contradicted. "Sab? Can't pronounce Sabrina anymore?" Sabrina taunted. "Sab is something easier understood and said." "Regardless, what evidence do you have that it's so impossible for me to prevail over this world?" "This world, yeah. You're really special, we all know. Other worlds, no. You can't. You'll explode." "Yes, but you also thought that Sav couldn't possibly hold a five seventy five Telk-" "Five seventy five? It went up? Again? That's a huge jump!" "I don't know how she did that, but she did. Anyway, the point is that in your mind, a lowly human could never assume such Telkin, and yet, here she is!" "Yeah, and perfectly normal, too." "Normal Sorceresses don't win, Lynn. Normal Sorceresses get run over by those that stand out. Normal humans don't win, either, it's always those that stand out." "Thank you for the Philosophical Thought of the Day. Now-" "Yes, I know. You wish to have your sickness off. In return for some information." "Yeah, I'm sure you'll be really psyched to take off the sickness after you've got all your info there." "By contrast, I'm sure you'll be really psyched to give me your information after the sickness is off. My request is merely curiosity." "Yeah? What is it?" "Last October, how did you manage to mess with my software?" "Lana did it." "How did she manage that one while also failing her technology classes? Or did you do it, Lynn? Two places at once? More technology I do not know about?" "I don't think that's actually possible, genius. But to answer your question, she just 'hypnotized the hell out of headquarters'." "Dear Lynn, I've never known you to be one to swear so offhandedly." "It's called a quote." "I see. So, how did you get the mind control off?" Lynn glared, not really wanting to give the information up. "Telkin, Alena's electronica, and hypnosis ability. Should one of those things have not been present, it would have been impossible." "How did Lana get it off?" "Why don't you ask her?" Sab crossed her arms and gave a half smile. Lynn's eyes got really wide. "You killed her?" "Yes. I did." Sabrina remained perfectly calm and straightforward. "Why?" "Why do you think, Lynn? Because a chicken looked at me wrong?" "Monster." "Really, Lynn? Are you one to talk? If I said I would return all of Alena's power if Heidi, Hailey, and Zara were killed, what would you say then?" "That's- that's different." "All for the war is what both actions would result in, you know." "But-" "Well, back to the question. How did she get it off?" "At first just because of her hypnosis, of course. Not the friend thing you were hypothesizing about. The second time I don't know what it was. Probably hypnosis combined with, I don't know, anger maybe? Or maybe Tara slipped her something that aided it, she was pretty good with chemicals." "Not enough to take off mind control. You don't know how powerful mind control is because you've never fully experienced it-" "Like ogdesca I haven't!" "What was your role in Carmen winning?" "I came and helped. You saw me." The lie was perfect- absolutely convincing. "Really? That's all? That was the extent of what you did?" "Yeah. I was under for most of that week. It was a last minute decision. There wasn't much I could have done in such a short space of time." "What else could you have done?" "I don't know. It takes me a while to think of something." "Really. I find it very strange, then, that Alena suggested you ask Carmen for that password, because you gave her the password to the SSW." "Oh yeah, I did give her the password. But seriously, that really did slip my mind. We had the most interesting conversation before I told her that…" Lynn started to laugh, remembering the chat. "How so?" Sabrina's arms crossed, her voice totally and complete ice. "Oh, we were making jokes about sarcasm. She gave me a lesson in it." "You mean to tell me that you completely forgot about handing Carmen the key to winning this fight simply because of-" "What is the point of this?" "Just clearing up some stuff." "Look, I was really psycho a few months ago. But you can stop worrying about that one. These questions are no longer applicable." "Are you quite sure, Lynnette?" Lynn's eyes flicked to Sav and Adriana. I can only assume Sabrina got the message pretty clearly. "My name is not Lynnette." "There are those who say that should you truly be Saushale you would insist your name to be Lynnette." "Yeah, and there are those who say that the world is populated by strange aliens and I don't find them much based in fact and reason either." "You cannot honestly be saying-" She broke off as she saw Lynn pulling her fingers through her hair. "Hey, I believe we were supposed to get the sickness off before we answered your questions." "Oh yes, I did say that, did I not?" Sabrina gave a rather overly large smile. It was not pleasant. Adriana scoffed. "You forgot something your promised us five minutes ago, and here you are, harping on Lynn for forgetting something that happened almost a year ago." "The trivialities of the matter aren't important-" Sav intervened. "The what?" "You know, Sav-" "Again, we can voice our qualms later! The point is, Sab, that you swore that you would take away the sickness. Well, take it off." Sabrina smiled again. "I, regrettably enough, decided that it was a bit of an unfair trade." "Then why the hell did you propose it?" Sav yelled, infuriated. The ground started to shake. "Calm, Sav," Lynn cautioned. "Nice and calm." Sav rolled her eyes and pushed a bit of her hair away from her face. The ground stopped shaking. "I figured that you would answer with something just a bit more useful." "Then why did you ask us a bunch of-" "Fine then, answer a question of our own. How can a mind sickness affect us? I have hypnosis and Sav's brain is, like, almost completely alien. Stuff like that doesn't affect us." "That's because it isn't a mind sickness." "There's no fever. It's probably not physical." "It affects your dreams." "That would be a very plausible reason should we not be feeling the affects right now, when we are not sleeping." "You're misunderstanding. It's based in the dream part, which is not affected by hypnosis or Telkin. It moves from there but it's still rooted by dreams." "What? We never learned anything about that." "There is never a need. I, the dream goddess, always take care of stuff like that." "Is it chemicals or… goddess…ness?" "Goddessness. How eloquent." Adriana scowled. "I'm sure Carmen would be proud with that remark. I've heard her say it, like, thousands of times." "Ahscga esche jelakn." "What the heck?" Lynn tossed her head and rolled her eyes. "It's power language, roughly translated I think it means shut up and mind your own business." "You could have just used English," Sav informed Sab. "Girls, what do you think would happen if I accidentally let it slip that you were out here wandering around in the middle of the night?" "The president of the camp would administer a punishment. They really set this place up for favoritism, I noticed. Almost all the punishments are decided by someone, not standardized. Anyway, standard punishment is about five days in Mount Misery. Judging by the fact the president of the camp does not know us-" "Thankfully," Lynn muttered. Sav continued on. "That's probably what you could expect." "Yes. So, how much would you like me to make it really obvious that you three are wandering out in the middle of the night?" "That's the-" Lynn started to answer, but Sav wisely took over. "I am guessing this is the long way of saying go away, am I correct?" "You know, Sav, it wouldn't kill you to use a contraction once every, oh, you know, decade or so." Sav scoffed and rolled her eyes, as opposed to answering, clearly thinking this to be enough of an answer. Sabrina simply raised her eyebrows in response to Sav's question, before smiling and vanishing. The light of her hair went out and the darkness was absolute, swallowing the serene landscape into the great mouth of the dark "Whoa! Where'd she go?" Adriana exclaimed. "Oh, you know, to go take care of the orphans in Africa," Lynn answered sarcastically. Sav started to laugh. "Let's…get out of here," Sav instructed. "It's, like, really dark. And cold. And I'm tired." She started to walk back to the cabin, but suddenly tripped and fell. She did not rise. It was so dark outside. Sav had always lived in the city, where someone kept their lights on. Now the darkness was whole and complete, encasing the regular landscape and revising it into something sinister and unnatural. It was scary. For one of the few times in her life, Sav was really and directly scared. The feeling, like the darkness, was almost completely alien. She realized, in a few minutes, that she was lying on the ground in the middle of the night. What the hell…? She tried to get up but found the task excruciatingly difficult. She tried to open her eyes and found it just as impossible. She tried to move her fingers even in the slightest. There was no response. Do not panic. It can not have been that long…since…um… Sav started to hit a blank. Right. Sabrina. Yeah. It's been, like, three minutes. So stop being melodramatic and wake up already. I'm awake…and I'm not moving… Then move, idiot. I can't! It's not working! How old are you, three? You are just tired. Wake. The hell. Up! No matter how long the conversation went on, though, she wasn't hearing anything except the shouts in her head, getting more and more frantic. She wasn't moving. Then she noticed, rather abruptly if you ask me, that she had a pulsating headache. Yes, I know you're jealous, but we can't all awake to the delirious fun of such things. Anyway, she put one and one together and realized that the sickness was probably back, and towing in reinforcements, judging by the extremity of both the headache and the exhaustion. Yay. You know, she thought to herself. Since I'm thinking okay, maybe I could try and use the Telkin or something and see if it helps at all. She pulled the feelings toward herself and willed something, anything, to move. Lynn raced over to see what was up. "Sav? Sav, are you okay?" Sav gave no sign that she heard anything. "Sav! Hello, wake up!" Adriana snapped her fingers in front of Sav's face. "What's wrong with her?" Adriana asked Lynn worriedly. "How the hell am I supposed to know? I didn't do anything!" Adriana bit her lip in apprehension. Lynn mentally scrolled through possibilities. Was she turning into a Saushale? No way, she'd have been exhibiting symptoms for a while with that. That automatically crossed out a rather large amount of possibilities. A sickness? No, she'd be able to move, or, at the least, open her eyes. Some kind of hypnosis? No, With Lana gone Sabrina didn't have any hypnosis power available. Which left one well-developed answer. The sickness. "What delirious fun," Lynn muttered. "She's so got the sickness. Except this time it's way worse. I don't know how, let alone why, it got so bad." "I think Sab got mad for the why." "What makes you think so?" "The 'eloquent' comment, partly. Maybe also because you seemed to answer her questions without freaking out at all, which made it less 'fun' for her. So she decided to show her dominance or something? I don't know, I always sucked at character motivation in seventh grade." "Sometimes it's easier in real life than in books." "But, seriously, why is it affecting her so badly?" Lynn chewed on her lip, thinking. "My theory is that she pulled the sickness off us and added it to Sav. Notice how we don't have anything. But it's still kind of weird how she did it to Sav when Sav only said, like, four things. I agree with you're theory, but if it was true wouldn't it make more sense to give me the extra sickness?" "She talked about Sav having lots of Telkin or whatever. Maybe that's it." "Or else she's just trying to freak us out." "How are we going to get it off her?" "It's not that hard to get off, though we may have to break a few rules. I'm sure Alena'll let us. The problem on our hands is waking her-" Branches flew out of the wilderness-like area and started dancing. "What the…?" Adriana commented in confusion. "Sav, I bet. Hey, Sav, can you tap them together?" The branches tapped. "Okay, can you hear us? One tap for yes, two for no." One tap. "Can you move?" Two taps. "Do you have a headache?" One tap. "Is the Telkin really hard right now?" Three taps. "Is that supposed to mean kind of?" One tap. "Okay, well then…the cabin's a way off. Help me get you there." Both girls focused and lifted Sav, making it look as if she were walking. Lynn noticed, with a sinking feeling of apprehension that Sav was not pulling much of her own weight. Well, that's okay she tried to reassure herself. She does have the freakin sickness on. But this is really, really alarming. Before she could pull more than this without thinking about it, now it's difficult. In other words, life just got seventy times more complicated. Dammit. Who knows where those idiots are going? Alena thought unenthusiastically, standing up and walking to the window, trying to see them out through it. Nothing. Okay, be logical. What were they acting like today? Um…they didn't eat at breakfast. Sav and Lynn that's not entirely notable, but that's a first for Adriana. And they lagged behind on the hike. Yeah, that's another first. Anything else? Um…I remember Lynn kept making people sing. But she may have been doing that just to annoy Cathy. And Sav was dancing to "Poker Face". P-p-p-poker face p-p-poker face. Great, that's going to be in my head for the rest of eternity. So, they didn't eat, they lagged on hikes, and they seemed to be way more into electronica. I make no sense of that. I think I heard Lynn complain about being sick, too. To who? Sav? Which means Sav may be sick as well. Yeah, but why on earth would they be out hiking if they think they're sick? Oh, yeah, I think they all got up late, too. So they're probably tired. Again, why on earth would they be out hiking now? They're getting in huge trouble for no reason. Probably not no reason. They aren't that dumb. So…what would make all three of them get up and go hiking when it's really dark and cold outside? They were prepared, too, it wasn't anything random. Otherwise they would have made a huge racket. The fact that it's Lynn and Sav throws in some good possibilities. Like they're going to dump oil on someone's head again like last year. But why would Adriana be with them? ` She did get sick, too. Which means that they're probably going because they're sick somehow, if she's with them. They are friends, so maybe not. Then why isn't Zara there? If Adriana's there, Zara will be too. Yeah, last year Zara didn't go with Jenny. So they may be doing something like that and Zara remained with a conscience. Yeah, but Jenny was kind of weird. Zara and Adriana are closer friends, I can tell. So chances are that they are doing something related to whatever sickness they have right now. What sickness could they have? Sickness…the sickness… duh! Of course! Sabrina's been messing with that forever! That covers the eating, the lagging, and the electronica. But why on earth would Adriana have the sickness? And why do they think that the solution to their problems is to go take a hike at eleven o clock at night? I don't think that's ever the solution to anything. Sabrina! Lynn's still Saushale, maybe they're trying to get her to take it off. Why the freaking hell would Sabrina ever take off the sickness? She doesn't undo her Master Plans, as she calls them. Maybe she wants something. Maybe you should go get your butt in their room so when they walk in you can question them. Alena decided to take this rather brilliant advice. She figured that the session was useful even if it wasn't necessarily critical, because it could help her spot a lie easier. She sat down, and only had to wait a few minutes before the three girls came traipsing in. They froze when they entered the room. "Hello, girls. Do you have a good reason for trekking around at eleven o clock at night?" "Um…" Adriana explained, looking frantically at Lynn and Sav. "I guess that would depend on your definition of a good reason." Alena stood up. "Let's not stall. We are not horses. Why were you out at eleven o clock at night?" "We had-" Adriana started, not sure how much or how little to tell. "Sab-" Lynn tried to explain, not sure where to start. "Yes, Adriana?" Lynn had a tendency to editorialize even the simplest and most straightforward explanation. "We… we got the sickness. Sab, you know. Then Lynn had the brilliant idea to go ask her to take it away, employing logic the rest of us grew out of in second grade, you know, 'ask politely' and that kind of idiocy." Adriana took a deep breath and waited for Lynn to continue. "It didn't work out," Lynn continued. "She asked us a bunch of questions about last October. Then she pulled the sickness of us and transferred it all to Sav. She can't move, which is just stellar." "I just heard her walking three seconds ago." "Telkin. That's another thing. Her Telkin is really weak right now." "That's probably more natural than anything. I'd feel drained if I'd gotten about five hours of sleep in the last forty-eight hours and eaten nothing all day. And were human, I mean. " "Can you fix her?" Alena took a deep breath. "I-I don't know. I'm not even close to being as scientifically talented as Sabrina. You're probably better at that stuff than I am." "Well, Sab said it's rooted in the dream section of her brain. Does that make sense to you?" "A bit. I'm going to trust that Sab's further along in neuroscience than human scientists?" "I guess…" "Well, it sounds like when the sickness chemicals get into you, they only go to the dream part of your brain- subconscious or something? Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, the difference is that mind control takes residence in the regular part of your brain, or something, the part that's affected by Telkin and hypnosis, and from there affects you, so it's much more direct. This one takes residence in the dream part, or whatever, and can affect you from there. So you can beat back the symptoms with Telkin and hypnosis, but you can't actually make it go away. That's what logic is telling me, not science, though." "Is this helping us fix something, though?" "I think we can deal with her having it in her for a while. Or, at least, it's not life-threatening, so I think that for now we should just get rid of her symptoms. We can deal with the rest in the morning. You guys can go threaten Bellauren or something." "Yeah, that would be really effective with the entire Saushale force at their backs and most of the camp in full view. You just keep churning out these brilliant plans, Alena!" "Hardy-har-har. So, like, I think you need to hypnotize her while she also uses the Telkin. Can you do that?" "Easy peesy, japanesey." Adriana snorted. "I can almost hear Heidi and Hailey jumping wide awake saying 'Japan! Where?", that's happened so many times before." "That's very beneficial to this conversation, Adriana. So. Lynn. Can she actually hear me?" "Yeah." "Okay. Sav, turn something invisible while Lynn hypnotizes and I make sure Cathy doesn't wake up, okay?" "Kay-a-licious!" Alena rolled her eyes and walked out. Sav could hear the conversation, but she wasn't really paying attention. She tuned in when she heard her name, but other than that she mostly just tried to move. She opened her eyes for a few seconds and twitched her fingers a few times, but nothing real. Then she heard a direct instruction to turn something invisible. They were going to try and hypnotize her while she used the Telkin. Hey, geniuses, this may have slipped your mind, but hypnosis doesn't really work on me, and especially not Lynn's hypnosis. You're going to have to get someone with Lana's power to accomplish anything. But she could not talk. She consented to use the Telkin as directed, though it was kind of difficult to make something invisible when she couldn't see it. No, more confusing than difficult. She found that she could kind of get a picture of something, dim, uncolored pictures, like echolocation or something. Anyway, she picked out a book and focused, focused hard, focused on anger and hatred and determination, focused on the book vanishing from sight, focused on the will to do so. It mostly made her feel drained, for a while. Strangely enough, however, it worked best when Lynn started humming under her breath. She opened her eyes and focused harder on the book. It flickered, faded, and went invisible. Her headache dBryanppeared. Then, completely and utterly exhausted, Sav fell asleep. The next morning was, in fact, considerably better than the night before. Not perfect, obviously, but better (though most of the suckiness was from regular stuff as opposed to the sickness). She woke up ten minutes late and had to run, alone, to breakfast to make it on time and dropped her tray getting food. She threw her remains in the wrong bin (they composted remains and every meal had new bins out, though they never labeled them), then got yelled at by one of the teachers. Then, while she was bringing her tray to be washed someone accidentally spilled a bunch of soapy water onto her. It was delirious fun, of course. It was ridiculously hot again and they walked to the lake. The conversation was not interesting enough to include, it was mostly compromised of Hailey complaining of the heat and Zara, Adriana, and Lynn finding new and creative ways to tell her to shut up. When they reached the water Sav held increased reluctance to go, like, swim. It had been so collectively hot that even the really annoying fourteen year olds (you know, the ones that get in skimpy bikinis and refuse to actually swim?) actually went and swam. Sav did not wish to join their ranks. However, she did so anyway, because it's really boring, lonely, and strange to sit at the top of a beach when it's, like, record-breaking temperatures and the entire collective body of whomever you are with is swimming. She did the same thing she had tried before to get down, sliding down the sandy sides of the cove-beach-thingy, then stripped down to her bathing suit and jumped in. "It's real icy, ain't it?" Hailey asked Sav, making fun of the day before when Sav complained of the cold. "Ain't is not a word," Sav informed Hailey, not having a proper comeback, so instead reverting to Grammar Queen. "It has to be a contraction of something, but it isn't, like, contracting anything." "Thanks, Sav. I've only known that since, like, second grade." "Well then, why are you using it?" "Because I don't talk like a grammar textbook?" Lynn came swimming over. Several people were laughing at her exaggerating breast stroke. "What are you two arguing about now?" "Sav decided to be the reincarnate of my second grade teacher." "Ugh. I hated my second grade teacher." Sav put a hand to her forehead. "I have a headache and the water is not helping. I'm going ashore." "I know, cold water always gives me a headache. Especially when it's eighty degrees like this." "Will you get over that already?" "I don't think you should go ashore, Sav," Lynn cautioned. "Why not?" "Cathy's up there looking for you, but if we swim out far enough we have an excuse not to talk to her." "Grea-ea-ea-eat. Let's go." Sav did not feel like a bottomless store of energy for obvious reasons, but she did manage to keep a reasonable pace to the edge of the range they were allowed to swim in. "I hate Cathy," Hailey mentioned as a conversation opener. "I know. She's so mean this year." "This year? She wasn't like this last year?" "No, she was really nice most of the time. I mean, she got cranky if you woke her up at night, but other than that she was way nicer than everyone else." "I wonder why she's like this now, then." "I know. Has she made you do anything yet?" "What do you mean?" "Have you gotten punished at all yet?" "I had to run a lap when we first came here because I doubled back to grab something and was late to lunch. And it was a really long lap, mind you." "That sounds like delirious fun." "It sure was. Hey! Heidi! I'm coming, okay! Stop yelling!" Hailey swam away just as Adriana showed up. "Cathy's giving me the evil eye." "Yeah, us too. That's why we came out here." "Hey, Lynn, is it a side effect of the sickness to be dropping things? I dropped a bunch of crap this morning." "Yeah, I dropped stuff, too." "I know. That was kind of funny when you dropped your tray seven times in breakfast- getting food and throwing stuff away and when that lady sprayed you in the eye and stuff." "I don't think it's a side effect. It's probably just some of the Saushale screwing with you. They did that to Carmen too." "They did?" "Yeah. You know, that one day when she tripped seventy thousand times and had blood and stuff everywhere?" "And she was yelling at that one girl? Yeah, I remember that. Was she Saushale?" "Probably." "Hey, Sav, can you still use the Telkin effectively?" Adriana asked, curious. "Don't know. I haven't tried it this morning. Things often go…um…astray when I try and I've been having some problems this morning." "Try it now. You're in water, it's not like you have anything around you or in your hands." Adriana shrugged, which is way less casual than you would think, since it's kind of hard to do it while treading water. Sav started to float in the water, drawn up slightly, and tried the Telkin. It didn't work as well as it should have. Normally, as soon as she thought about a big wave and really willed a big wave to show up, it showed easily and without pretty much any effort. But this one took some time. She willed the wave to occur, anger and hatred flowing over her violently. She focused harder, pulling the emotions and will into a sharp point, pushed it into the water. Then , just before she really let go of the power, she had a mental picture of waterskiing, having automatically observed how nice the water was. And it was that that flung her up and sliding across the water, at a crazy fast speed, in perfect position. It was like she had the boat in front of her, towing her, she could feel the pressure on her arms as she spun crazily across the water. It was fun. It was insane. It was strange enough to generate the entire group of girls attention as they stared, openmouth, as her sliding across the water, standing up, with her arms up. Oh, what a great thing. "Dammit," she muttered, not entirely sure how to stop. She hadn't been this out of control since the first day of the stupid powers. She hadn't ever used this much power before. "Come on, come on, stop already!" She pulled at her arms and tried to sit down but continued "waterskiing". "Whoo! Go Sav! How on earth did you manage that one?" "I think a better question is how on earth I'm going to stop." "You don't know?" "No…I….don't…" Sav answered, trying to sit down or jump and not managing anything. Adriana, Hailey, and Heidi, who had joined Lynn, were laughing hysterically as Sav wrestled with an unknown persona and attempted to sit down. Finally, however, the immense energy wound down and Sav collapsed, exhausted, about where she had started off. "How did you do that?" Lynn asked. "Seriously, what did you do?" "I…I was trying…I was trying just to make a wave, and it wasn't working very well at first so I just, like, tried to build up a lot of power. Then, just when I was about to release it, I started thinking about waterskiing so when I did I ended up, like, waterskiing." "Illu-" Lynn started to say, then remembered that Heidi and Hailey were still there. She shut her mouth. "What?" "Oh, it just reminded me of a song I know, but you guys seem to enjoy my singing less than I do, so I decided against singing the chorus to the song." Lynn, you may notice, is a much more adept liar than Carmen, who may think of the same lie but in five times the amount of time, thereby severely decreasing the amount of believability the lie contains. "How does insane waterskiing remind you of a song?" Hailey asked, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed. "The demo for 'No Explanation' started with 'illusions, illusions, can you see them, take the guess f-f-from them, cause things you think you see may just be a guess'. But they actually sang it." "You downloaded the demo for 'No Explanation'? I didn't know you liked Savvy people that much." Adriana had her eyebrows raised. "No, actually I was looking for the lyrics and they had the demo on the site so I looked at it. I'm not Carmen." "What does Carmen have to do with anything?" Heidi broke in. "You do know she has three different versions of 'No Explanation', right?" "Obviously." "Oh, by the way, which one of you had the ingenious idea for me to try my mind powers, since they couldn't possibly lead to any trouble out here, in the water?" See, Sav really does deserve a position as a Duchess of Sarcasm. "I think that's genius Adriana," Lynn informed her. "Yeah, Adriana, I'm really appreciating you right now." "What am I supposed to be, psychic or something? How was I supposed to know you were going to go waterskiing in the middle of the lake?" "I know, but sometimes it's fun to blame people unconditionally." "Is that your word for the day?" "No, my word today is 'shut up, Lynn, because you're really annoying me'." "Really?" Sav rolled her eyes. "No. Obviously not. That's not even a word, it's a phrase." "I know what a phrase is, Sav. So, what is your word for the day?" "I don't have a word every day. Just whenever I'm reading and happen to come across a word I don't know. But I haven't had any time to read upon late." "What kind of book includes the word venerate?" "The kinds of books I read." They squabbled for a while longer, until it was time to go back to the camp for lunch. "Good afternoon, girls," Cathy greeted unkindly as soon as they were in dry clothes. "Technically, it's still morning, since it's only like eleven forty five," Sav corrected. "Technically, I don't actually care. Technically-" "That's not the correct use of the word technically," Sav corrected again. "Lynn!" "What? I haven't even said anything!" "Why, oh why, did you have to make her like this?" "No, she was like that before I came along. I just encouraged her to use it on you, since you're so obnoxious." "Oh, I'm obnoxious, huh?" "Do you ever listen to what I'm saying? Because you ask a lot of stupid questions." "Did you have a point in coming here, or did you just want to exchange some obnoxious banter?" Hailey asked crossly. "Technically, banter means-" "Yes, I did have a point. Alena was very curious as to why you three were out wandering around at eleven o clock at night." "We were training a dancing elephant, of course," Lynn answered matter-of-factly. "Sometimes I wonder if it's really you that's obnoxious or if you're just copying Carmen. She used that exact same line, like, ten times," Adriana sighed. "You were…training an elephant. Right. How dumb do you think I am?" "I'm not entirely sure, but probably not as smart as Sav, and she believed the line." "I did not!" "Yeah, you did. It was scare-larious." "It was what?" Hailey asked. "Both scary and hilarious. And if you didn't believe us, then why didn't you ask us further?" "Because it was such a dumb-" "What were you really doing out at night? If you tell me the truth I won't get you in trouble." "You couldn't anyway, not unless you have proof." Cathy covered her face in frustration and gave a small scream. "I. Need. To. Know." "Why?" "Because…because I'm special like that." "Great reasoning. We're going to be late." Lynn and the other girls started walking back to the cabin. Cathy followed. "So, how late exactly were you out…training dancing elephants?" Lynn started to answer, but Sav jabbed her first. "We weren't out. That was sarcasm," Sav answered. "What's wrong with affirming it?" Lynn whispered. "She's looking for a confession. Even a half-sarcastic one will land us in Mount Misery." "Ah." Lynn nodded and turned to Cathy. "Hey, Cathy, what's the basis of your accusation?" "Alena." "Alena told you? Right. She hates you." "She was talking about it last night. She thought I was asleep. She kept talking about, like, a sickness, and…" With that Cathy's interrogative determination drained away. Her eyes dimmed a bit. "It's okay, girls," she said in almost a completely different voice, her eyes wide and almost insane. "Go on without me." She walked away, again seeming rather insane. "Um…" Adriana commented intellectually. "That was a bit strange…" "That was to 'a bit strange' as Carmen is to 'a bit sarcastic'," Lynn scoffed. "Analogies, Lynn?" Sav asked, one eyebrow raised. The remainder of their conversation went as to be expected with Lynn around. When they got back to cabin, Sav noticed, a bit late if you ask me, that the majority of her symptoms were gone. Using so much Telkin had apparently driven it out. Cool, she thought to herself. If I ever need to get the sickness away, now I know that all I have to do is go waterskiing without a boat, using only the Telkin. But, still, it struck her as the reason Sabrina had picked her to get extra sickness as opposed to Lynn. She had the power. She had the Telkin. She was near invincible. And Lynn had been picked originally for obvious reasons. But why Adriana? Adriana was human- a remarkably observant human, sure, but Adriana was going to get sick, and why? At lunch she ate the normal amount of food she usually did (which wasn't very much, but it was still something). Lynn wasn't there when she first got in, she had to run back for something, but she had ample time to know Adriana ate basically nothing. "Adriana, you're tied in with this somehow, and I want to know how." "I'm afraid I can tell you nothing," she replied crisply, not unkindly, but as if she had already gone over the question repeatedly. "Lynn already ran a bunch of tests on me. I have no powers." "What about dreams? Have you had any dreams about, like, a circular room with a pillar in it…something like that?" "No. My dreams just involve Sab and Alena- a lot. And they're usually wrong." "Has Sabrina ever started talking about a 'corner of the dreamworld'?" "Yeah, actually. I went inside this building, I think it was supposed to be a movie theatre playing a free showing of Eclipse, but there wasn't a theatre. There was a room, and Sabrina was in it. She was like, 'no, no, no, not you. I passed you over. You are not meant for this corner, this power. Family makes some things but it cannot take the place of true capacity. You may think you have known, seen the power but you have not seen what it does, what it makes inside. You cannot take it.' " "What was the room like?" Adriana frowned, clearly trying to remember. "I don't really remember. I think it was pretty bare. But there could have been something like a pillar, if you think so. A chair." "Sounds like…it sounds like she thought about making you powerful, but then decided you couldn't take it. I haven't the slightest clue what the family and seeing things part is-" "I bet the second part is Carmen. I saw her do so many impossibilities." "Okay, yeah. Maybe she's having second thoughts now, like maybe now she thinks you could get the power by yourself, which is possible." "'Sup, guys," Lynn greeted mockingly, setting her tray down. "What took you so long?" "They had some thirteen year old in there working. Cathy made her do it. She dropped my tray, so I had to wait for some other people to find some more, then they couldn't find any, so they had to wait for someone to finish and drop off their tray so they could wash it. Lame. So, whatcha talkin' 'bout, huh?" She half-sang the last few words. Adriana and Sav stared at her blankly. Lynn rolled her eyes. "It's a Savvy People single. You have to have heard it somewhere, they're playing, like, nothing else on the radio." "How does it go?" Sav asked. "I may have heard it." "It's like 'whatcha talking bout, huh, whatcha talking bout, huh, get a mind, get a life, see the meaning for yourself, huh'." "Oh, yeah. It's one of those songs that's really, really annoying but you can't stop listening to it anyway." "So, anyway. I can tell you were talking about something you don't really want to tell me." "I think I figured out why Adriana, you know…" "Oh. Cool. Tell me when we get back to the cabin." Lynn was nothing short of amazed throughout most of the day. Firstly there was the fact that Sav seemed alive that morning. Last night she couldn't even walk. Then, this morning she's off and bouncing. Oh, sure, ten minutes late, but still. Then there was the waterskiing thing. What the hell was that? Sav was all like 'oh, it was just a lot of power', but, hello, power needs a direction. You can't start waterskiing just by absently thinking about it. You have to, like, focus. And on that thread, how on earth did Telkin translate to waterskiing, especially unintentional waterskiing? Yeah, if you focused on pulling yourself in the water, and keeping yourself up, then, yeah, it would look like waterskiing. But only look. You couldn't actually water ski with the Telkin, it wouldn't feel like a boat was pulling you and you would sure as hell be able to stop. The only possible explanation she could think of was that it was somehow linked to the illusions. But even that only made half-sense. The illusions had to do with pulling things apart from the seams, about fooling what was seen by messing up the light that hit your eyes or stilling the vibrations of sound. The waterskiing sounded like it was kind of doing that simulating the things that Sav knew waterskiing did. Ugh, it felt like someone was pulling her head apart by it's seams. "Okay, Lynn. You have just a touch of explanation to do. Like what the freak the waterskiing was about." They were in the cabin, Sav sitting in a chair pulled over near the closets, Adriana sitting on her bed, Lynn sitting on the ladder for the bunk bed, her feet on top oif a small, random table. "Okay…first I need to explain the illusions- you know, the invisible thing." "Okay…" "It has to do with, like, moving stuff around. Like messing with how the light hits your eyes when you're making stuff invisible, or the vibrations in sound. Anyway, I think the waterskiing was similar." "Similar how? I mean, that was no illusion. That was annoyingly real." "Yeah, I figured. I think that you, like, released the illusion that pulled the waterskiing-ness. The illusion had to be carried out, it was preordained, you couldn't undo it." "Weird." "Yeah. So, what about Adriana?" "Um, Sav asked me about my dreams. Something about a corner of a dreamworld?" "Yeah. When I, erm, acquired the Telkin, Sab was talking about the place I was in being an unwanted corner of the dreamworld, and how it was a place of power. Does she show it to Saushale?" "Saushale don't really dream. True Saushale, I mean. They get a few flickers every once in a while, but mostly it's just dark." "Anyway, Adriana went to the place, but Sabrina, rather than teaching her the Telkin, told her that she wasn't meant to be there." "Yeah. She said something how I didn't have the capacity, how family couldn't make me special? I think she also talked about Carmen, how just because I'd seen her power didn't mean I could do it myself." "Then why did she give you the sickness?" "Maybe…well, maybe she thinks that one of us could teach it to her." Lynn shook her head. "No. It doesn't work that way. Either you have it or you don't. If you have it then it will show up. If you don't, then only the Saushale transformation can give it to you." "Then why…?" "Family. Hm. Maybe you're a descendent of one of the powers? But no, that wouldn't make you very much. Only Ciel, Sabrina, and Alena got any notable power, and you can't be descended from one of them…" "Ciel?" "Oh, don't worry about that. Sigh. It is possible that you have capacity, I guess. Sab did say that I probably had it before, but nothing was strong enough to pull it out. Well, I don't think anything we could do will fix that." Heidi and Hailey came walking in. "Cathy…" Heidi panted. "Is…" Hailey tried. "Freakin cruel," they finished together, sprawling on the floor. "What she do this time?" Lynn asked, half-sympathetic, half cruel and curious. "She started talking about this hike, and I said that I didn't want to do it," Hailey started, sitting down. "She said that either we could stop complaining or take a shift. We didn't know what she meant. Hailey asked her." "She made us take a shift." Hailey closed her eyes in frustration. "A shift of what?" Sav asked, curious. "We had to…" Hailey buried her face in her hands. "What?" Lynn asked, really curious now. "We had to take some of the eight-year-olds on a 'hike'." Heidi ground her teeth together. "And someone told the brats that, on this hike, the goal is to try and run as fast as you can, in the complete opposite direction of what the instructor wants." "Pshaw. They're eight. They’re just like that." "No, actually, Cathy told them that," Hailey responded matter-of-factly. "I asked one of the girls. She told me that." "And then guess what happened?" "What?" "One of the girls got lost! So then we had to go hunt her down." "Where's Zara?" Adriana asked suddenly. "She should have been back by now." "Didn't you see her? She's working in the kitchen," Heidi explained. "Really? Is that allowed?" Hailey asked. "I guess. I think the other counselors hate Cathy as much as we do, and not up to fighting with her about it. She dropped my tray, though. I only saw her from the back, so I didn't recognize her." "Ugh. I am getting so sick of Cathy. She better not try any of that crap on me." "Or what, Sav? You wouldn't actually-" "Not like that. I'd just make some stuff invisible or something. I'm getting better at it…" "Oh, that would be hilarious," Lynn affirmed. "Do it. Show me." "Show you what?" "Make something-" "I see some people are busy talking. You do know that you are supposed to be outside, lining up for the hike?" "Oh, come on," Hailey whined. "It's too hot outside." "Seriously. I looked it up on the thermometer outside. It's, like, ten degrees higher than the summer average." "Too bad. Go complain to the camp president. I don't arrange your schedule." "Really?" "Yes, really. However, I do have to get you outside on time, and you are pushing your time constraint. You have seven minutes to get ready." "Witch," Sav muttered under her breath. "Oh, come now. It's just a hike. It's not as hot in the wood-like area," Heidi said gently. "I wonder what she'd do if I just sat in here," Sav mused to herself. "Probably make you take a shift. Or send you up to Mount Misery," Hailey volunteered. They changed out of swimsuits, filled up water bottles, and lined up for the hike. Lynn walked along the trail ridiculously slowly. Adriana and Sav were not faring much better. Why did I think that the sickness was gone again? Because you're an idiot. Okay, seriously, though. Why wasn't it here before but it is now? It probably has something to do with the Telkin. Great. The group was getting way ahead. It was getting more and more difficult to hear Hailey complain and Cathy snap back. She used the Telkin to go faster, and momentarily the sickness cleared. Back to her earlier puzzlements, though, she realized that she had probably re-gotten the sickness somewhere in the night. Though that didn't really make sense- the sickness was chemicals. Lynn was pretty sure Sabrina hadn't figured a way to make it go airborne. Didn't Alena say she'd been messing with it? That's probably what she'd been messing with. So, she'd gotten the sickness sometime in the middle of the night. It might have been one of the Saushale, but Lynn doubted it. Saushale weren't exactly the quietest beings- only Bellauren even could enter without a sound, and usually Bella decided to mess up this ability by talking too much. More likely it was Cathy. Unless everyone had just been sleeping so soundly that the Saushale weren't heard? Ugh. Cathy. What was the deal with her lately? Sure, she did give out annoying and creative punishments, but she usually wasn't that easy to set off. Lynn herself had complained of hikes seven thousand times but she didn't have to go take eight-year-olds on a hike- and had Cathy tell the kids to run away as fast as they could. And Zara? All Zara had done was take a while to get out of the lake. How could Cathy have even noticed that? She'd talked to Lynn and Sav until they themselves were late! And it was also weird that she was only getting those three in trouble. She'd seen Sav and Lynn out at eleven o clock! Sav had been ten minutes late to breakfast! Lynn had tossed part of her breakfast on Hailey's tray, and a bunch had spilled! And yet, what did they have to do? Nothing. That made it extra weird, too. Cathy didn't have much of a problem with Heidi, Hailey, and Zara. It was mostly Sav and Lynn. So if she was getting a kick out of assigning unfair punishments, why was she bothering those three? Sigh. It wasn't enough that Sab had to completely dominate in Telkin and talent, apparently. She also had to drive them crazy with the most annoying mind games. Sav realized about halfway through what a severe mistake the hike had been. It wasn't that long of a hike- a mile and a half, tops. But it seemed to never end! Each step increased Sabrina's song inside her mind, and she was tired enough as it was. Maybe I should use the Telkin, she thought to herself. Oh, yeah. That's really brilliant. Maybe this time we can do some backflips while we're out of control. I'll stay really, really focused this time. I won't think about anything except for walking. Something will happen, I guarantee. Yeah, and that something's going to be me collapsing with exhaustion if I don't do something soon. Come on, it's just a mile hike…it's not that hard. Sav tried to see if she could simply will her power to work, rather than having to really build up something. Unfortunately, this was not going to happen. She stopped and closed her eyes, focusing on the Telkin, on anger and determination, desperation and need, on moving fast enough and without effort, keeping up with everyone easily. Just before she released her power, an image of the day she had flown her way to school flashed through her mind. Unexpectedly, she took off. She spun ahead of the group, so out of control she couldn't even see the stupid trees. "Whoo! Go Suh-awv!" Lynn called, amazed. This time was different from the waterskiing, though. Once the shock wore off she found that she could, in fact, control the power. Unfortunately, that did not change the fact that she was kind of lost. The woods-like area looked the same from every angle- trees, dirt, and poison ivy. Great. This was just absolutely stellar. She "walked" around for a while, just about to give up and really panic when finally, thankfully, she found a sign. It marked the cross between Bridge Trail and Sun Trail. She was on the completely wrong side of the camp. She was going to be so late. She sped through, keeping on Sun Trail. It led right to the cafeteria. No groups were out, which was a relief. She managed to speed through fast enough to not be ridiculously late. The dinner was simple, and Sav finished about her usual amount of food. Lynn ate a bit, but Adriana almost nothing. Before bed, Alena asked her if she was okay. "I feel 'better'. Better being a relative term. Not to mention that, according to Lynn, I look like some kind of Saushale." "Eh. Not really. Your hair is darker than before, and you have a few stripes of gray and black around your eyes, but the rest is pretty much just you. I mean, you've always looked really, really skinny and you almost have a light tan." "My skin doesn't tan or burn. Ever. I mean, I could probably go to the freaking Sahara for four months and I'd still look like the living dead." "You know…that may not be entirely you. I mean, before you got the Telkin, was your skin like that?" "A bit. I didn't tan very easily, but it still did. Way more than now." "And your hair….that only started getting freaky after the whole thing last October, right?" "What on earth does Kylie have to do with my hair looking metallic?" "I don't know. There was some kind of legend a while ago…But nah, Sabrina disproved that." "What was it?" "That there was something called an EncHanTress or an EncHanTer. They had a lot of power and determination, and they always looked extremely unique, because whenever something happened in their life they would change the way they looked. Sabrina was pretty sure she was one, because when she battled Ciel her eyes turned purple, and when she made the Saushale her hair went metallic, but when she worked it out she realized it was impossible." "How so?" "I have no idea. I just know that it was. She's smarter than I am and I don't really understand her math or chemistry." "Why not?" "Reasons." "I see. Can I ask you a question?" "Generally I note if permission is needed permission is not well to grant. But whatever." "What's with the electronica thing? Why is it there?" "Well…I don't really get the complex version, but the simpler version is this. You know what brain waves are, right?" "Yeah…" "Yeah. That's what the Telkin is, pretty much. Some people can magnify and control the electricity or whatever. Most people can't use the Telkin, because they don't generate very much electricity from their brain waves. But some people, like chosens, Saushale, and you, have something in your brain that makes it more powerful. I don't know what it is or how it works, so don't ask me. Anyway, each person has a specific code on the waves. That's why Lynn has more Telkin than her measurement, because her code is stronger than, say, Bella's. I don't even know what's up with Carmen's code. The thing is insane. She registers as two eighty five, but her code is so freakin insane that it's more like three thirty." "So, the code is the song?" "Yeah. But everyone has a code. So only people with really strong Telkin can actually make their code heard." "How do you get from a code on a brainwave to a song?" "We call it electronica, by the way. Anyway, the code can turn into a picture or sensation or whatever- on some, like, normal people it does. Like with Carmen, you could tell she was sarcastic and obnoxious even if you never actually saw or heard her. But with us it almost always turns into sound because that's the strongest." "How come?" "It has something to do with language. I'm not sure, really." "Why does it play on, like, speakers then?" "It plays wherever you expect it. Like in a dream- if you expect that your hair is red with sprinkles on top, then when you look in a mirror you will see red hair with sprinkles on top. Since we don't really naturally expect music to play just anywhere, then yeah. Plus, you know how sometimes if you have listened to a song seven thousand times, then listen to a similar song you expect to hear the song you've listened to seven thousand times?" "Yes." "That's why if you play, like, Cruel Summer around me then my song will start to play. Plus some codes are opposite each other, which makes it hard to expect and therefore play your own song." "Oh. Why do you call it electronica?" "Well, usually we call it the code, but since it's generally not a good idea to tell Saushale absolutely everything, we called it electronica, because Savvy People calls it electronica, and most of the world knows what Savvy People is right now." "I thought it was technically electronic dance." "Hana Rose is not the most normal person you could meet. Ah. Now there's someone with a ridiculous code. She had a Telkin of, like, one ninety, but her code was like two twenty." Lynn walked in. "Whatcha talkin' bout', huh?" "I thought I requested you not sing." "She doesn't really sing that line in the chorus. She-" "You know, I don't really know what she does in the chorus and I don't really care to find out. Savvy People is not my idea of an excellent band." "I think most of America would beg to differ." "Do I look like most of America to you?" Lynn cocked her head to the side and gave a small 'Hm', as if looking to see whether Sav was most of America. "Very funny, Lynn." "So, really, what were you talking about?" "Nothing," Alena and Sav answered together, completely in sync. "That's probably the best way to tell me that you were talking about something that you do not want me to know about." "Just stuff you already know, Lynn. About the electronica." Lynn scoffed. "Are you kidding me? They told us absolutely nothing about the electronica, besides the basics. And by basics I mean they said that some people have a song that helps them in a fight. That was it. And that Savvy People copied it and turned them into world-wide hit singles. They didn't even tell us how SP know about the songs." "They get CD's of the songs that we have." "Really? Why? How?" "Hana Rose was a chosen. One of her requests was that as soon as someone got a song she get a copy of it. I asked her why she can't write her own damn music and she claimed to be doing me a favor. Right. Like making Sabrina's songs number one in America is really helping me." "Yeah, but Lynn and Car's broke records. So that helps." "Yeah. Whatever." "Hey, where are the other girls?" Sav asked Lynn. Alena answered. "Cathy's putting together some kind of program. She made Heidi, Hailey, Zara, Jamie, and two other girls go help. A lot of the camp is there because they play music while they set it up." "What music?" "Probably just whatever's popular, as usual. I mean, she isn't exactly going to go play Bach." "You pronounced it wrong." "I'll survive." "God," Lynn sighed. "What is Cathy with?" "You know, Lynn, you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition-" "Now is not the time I want a grammar tirade, Sav." Alena frowned. "She's been acting off ever since you guys went and talked to Sabrina." "That couldn't have much of a significance, though. I mean-" "Yeah, it could. I think she was struggling before. And when Sabrina leaves someone, it makes it considerably more difficult for her to go back." "What would her not being possessed by anyone have to do with getting people in trouble? She wasn't like this last year. If the psycho-ness is because she was Sabrina, then why is she still like that?" "Sabrina doesn't seem that type, either. Not by what I saw." Lynn shrugged. "She has violent mood swings. One second she's smirking and giving an assignment, the next she's throwing things and threatening awful punishments." Sav cocked her head. "Yeah. That does sound like Cathy. But less violent." "I'd imagine Cathy herself diluted it. But still. Why is she being so not-Cathy, Alena?" "How the ogdesca would I know? Go ask Cathy!" "Oh, yeah," Lynn responded. "That would be a nice conversation. 'Hey, Cathy, why are you still acting like a psychotic monster even though you aren't being possessed by an psychopathic goddess anymore?" Yeah. We'd really get somewhere with that one." "You know, if Cathy isn't Sab anymore, she might actually answer you. And Sab isn't a psychopath. That's an actual clinical condition characterized by-" Sav contradicted thoughtfully. Well, the first part was thoughtful. Then it evolved more into an attempted factual tirade. "Thank you, Sav. I don't really need to know what a psychopath is." "How do you know what a psychopath is?" Alena asked Sav suspiciously. Sav shrugged. "I read this freakin' awesome book and one of the characters was a psychopath and they gave a clinical description of it. I looked it up and found a couple articles on this one magazine I have a subscription to." "Ha-ha!" Lynn exclaimed. "What?" "You ended a sentence with a preposition! You ended a sentence with a preposition!" Lynn sang gleefully. Alena shook her head. 'You are the most childish Saushale I have ever cared to know." "That's because I'm the only Saushale you've ever cared to know." "You're still childish," Sav informed her. "I got that one." "What are you four talking about?" Cathy asked, walking in. "We're talking about psychopaths," Sav informed her. "And prepositions," Lynn chimed in. "And how moronic Lynn can be," Alena added. "Hey, Cathy?" "What, Lynn?" Cathy asked, irritated suddenly. "Why are you-" Lynn started, but Sav covered her mouth and announced "Don't say it!" "You said she'd answer me!" "I didn't mean you should just go ask her!" "Then what did you mean?" "I was rebuking your frickin-" "Hold on, hold on." Cathy waved her arms around. "What are you talking about? What are you trying to ask me?" "Nothing," they answered simultaneously. "Maybe I can do this less obnoxiously," Alena sighed. "Were you ever possessed by Sab?" Cathy narrowed her eyes and walked out. Bella sat in the shadows of the cabin, waiting for night. She couldn't walk around in the day. Her normal face was gone, and she would scare anyone she came across. Besides, her face was way too weird to be natural. All the other Saushale were bored. They couldn't talk to each other, except at night. They couldn't walk around, except at night. They couldn't do anything, really, except at night. Which was absolutely infuriating. Bella joined their ranks, quickly copying their annoyance and anger in a day which they had built up in weeks. Laura was content to wait, but Bella's Telkin fuel was increasing rapidly. When night finally came, she crept out quietly, so quietly not even they other Saushale could hear her. She slipped gracefully, following the shadows to the cabin door. She unlocked it easily- it was a simple twist lock. She had had to break or crush locks before and it was really annoying. However, the door opened, creak-free, and she slipped down the short hallway and into the room of Lynn. And Sav. And Adriana. Which is so not a stellar combination. Bella's head was covered by a hood, and with black hair, black clothes, and a faceless hood, she looked like a faceless horror. Bella leaned over Lynn, who was still awake. You can't really blame Lynn for screaming. Bella snapped her hand over Lynn's mouth so quickly only the first quarter of a second reverberated thorough the air. It felt almost like it slammed back into her. She wasn't entirely sure whether that was her imagination, Bella doing some on-the-side studying, or Sav practicing. "Since you've woken Adriana and Sav, they might as well come." Lynn didn't really think it was her scream that had woken them. Especially since she had to do her faceless horror imitation on Sav to get her to wake up Adriana. With that scream, too, it didn't seem to go where it should have. It seem to go only to Bella. Then Bella left. Lynn and Adriana had on their clothes still, and Sav quickly pulled on a pair of jeans over her nightshirt and grabbed a jacket. The three of them followed Bella, close together behind Ms. Faceless Horror. They walked outside and out of the cabin area to find -surprise surprise!- Laura waiting. Bella walked over to her, and they stood together. "Just to make it clear, there are one hundred Saushale waiting to make an attack, and if you manage to draw it out, we can call more. Can you process that info without your guardian spirit?" Bella was referring to Alena. "So what's the goal of this exchange? Because I'm tired and I'm not interested in fighting." Sav responded exhaustedly. "Yeah- I've had a long day with lots of hiking, and I don't have freaky superhuman strength to miss half a night's sleep." "Think about waking me up on a day devoid of the sickness," Lynn yawned. "Interesting, then, that it wasn't a problem last night." Bella. "We're special like that." Bella rolled her eyes at Lynn's remark. "Well, we won't keep you, long then. The point is that there is an overpowering force waiting for you if you try to fight us. Combined Telkin two thousand. That's not even counting Sabrina." "Warning taken. Can we leave now?" "No. I have a question for you." "I like how, rather than asking the question, you simply announce the question," Lynn said recalcitrantly. "And I like how, rather than giving me a chance to ask you, you go and be sarcastic," Bella snapped. "And I like how, rather than just ignore her like the remainder of the population, you have to go and encourage her," Sav rebuked. Lynn broke the cycle. "God, Sav. You don't have to act like I'm four or something." "How is that treating you like you're four?" "My parents used to tell my kindergarten teacher not to encourage me to brag about how I was better at the math than other kids." "Yeah. My parents said that too. Except I was so out of their league they had to move me up a grade. Then they had to change schools because I was still out of the league." "Is that why your old school was so insane? Because it was a school for geniuses?" "It was so insane it's unbelieve-" "Sav and Lynn! Look. What do you know about Cathy?" Laura asked in frustration. That stopped them all right. Badmouthing Cathy was one of their favorite pastimes. "She's a psychopath-" Lynn tried. "She's not a psychopath!. Look. All we really know is that she's always acted really, really crabby. Then a few days ago she came crashing into the cabin for some unknown reason-" "Oh, I remember that." "Yeah. Anyway, she's got a lot of the cabin loaded up with chores all the time." "And she's starting a new program." Adriana finally started to look alive. Alive-er, I guess is more accurate, though, judging by the fact she had this look of shock and terror stuck on her face. "And that's it?" Bella asked, one eyebrow raised. "Pretty much, yeah." "Pretty much is not the same as yes, that's everything." "Yeah, well, that's the important things. And I'd really like to go back in the cabin sometime this decade." "Do you know if Cathy is Sab?" Laura asked urgently. "Not really." "Not really? Not really? How the ogdesca is that a 'not really' question!?! Do you know or not? Answer me!" Bella exploded. "We aren't sure, that's how. There's evidence that Sabrina could be there and evidence that she isn't. All we know for sure is that we really hate Cathy," Sav answered rather calmly, considering the situation. "What does Alena think?" Bella asked distrustfully. "She's pretty sure Cathy isn't Sab anymore, but not in entirety," Lynn answered. "It would make more sense to say 'entirely', because you're describing a verb so you should use-" "What the hell are you talking about?" Laura asked, flat-out. "Lynn always says that one day she'll listen to my grammar tirades, but I can't be sure-" "You can't be sure whether or not I want to listen to you go off on verbs and adverbs at twelve o clock at night while Bellauren sits here, giving us the inquisition? Is it really that hard to decide?" "It's not actually twelve o clock. It's one thirty two." Lynn ground her teeth together in frustration. "I thought you only did this to Cathy." "It's amusing." "Back on track," Laura interrupted. "Yeah. Why are you asking all these questions?" Sav. "Because we need to know the answers, Lynn. You can computer hack, right?" Laura. "No better than you two, really." Lynn. "Can we go back now? We answered your stupid questions." Sav. "Fine. Bella and her 'assistant' will escort you." Laura. "Do we really need escorting?" Lynn asked. "It's like a seven-step walk," Sav backed-up. The Wit Twits ignored their rather rude pleas. Bella made a motion for her assistant to come out of hiding. Massie. The assistant was Massie. They woke up a tad early the next morning. "I cannot believe your preppy, rigid, evil, popularity-obsessed friend is here Saushale. It is so unbelievable. Are you sure it's not someone else who got the transformation and now looks like Massie?" Lynn. " I'm so sure it's unbelievable." "Okay. Great. Do you know why she might have become Saushale? Usually people choose whether or not they become Saushale." "Really? People choose the operation?" Lynn nodded. "The regular Saushale, I mean." "How come you became Saushale?" "Remember the oil-on-Alanna's head thing I told you about?" "Are you seriously suggesting that I would forget something like that?" "Well, I wandered off the trail then and got caught by a group of Saushale. They decided I had potential, so they changed me." "What about mind control?" "They knew I had hypnosis. They thought I would like being Saushale." "That's too bad. Back on track, Massie did like power. That may have been why." "Yeah." "What's the assistant thing?" "Sometimes with people who might be able to get a two hundred or above Telkin are apprenticed to the Seeker Leakers-" "The what? How many names for Bella and Laura do you need?" "That's Bellauren, this idiot named Bryan, me, some Asian boy I don't know, and this one girl Bryan. The people with a lot of power, basically." "And they're called the Seeker Leakers." "No, I call them the Seeker Leakers. Anyway, the Seeker Leaker is supposed to teach the person about the Telkin." "Strange." "Why are you guys up so early?" Adriana asked. "Why is the kettle calling the pot black?" Lynn asked, her eyes raised to the ceiling and her arms in a shrug, as if it was a cosmic question. "Actually, it's the pot calling the-" "Shut it, Sav." "What did you guys think of last night?" Adriana asked. "I'm pretty sure that they didn't lie about anything," Lynn said carefully, really thinking about the encounter. "Yeah, because they didn't tell us anything. Why didn't you guys lie about anything?" "Because they think I'm working for them. And because I thought they already knew everything." "But they don't?" Lynn shook her head. "There's a lot of stuff Sab doesn't tell Saushale, though usually she tells the Seeker Leakers-" "The what? Why can't you just call Bella and Laura one name?" Sav snorted. "That's, like, exactly what I said." "It's not just the Wit Twits. It's all the powerful Saushale. Anyway, as I was saying, which you would know already, if you would ever let me finish-" "Can we skip the editorializing, please?" "Anyway, I don't think she told them who she is. She knows Bella's getting closer to cracking." "Cracking? What are you talking about?" Sav. "Bella doesn't want to be Saushale. She, like, really, really hates it. She's got so much mind control it's literally unbelievable. Pretty much every time she breathes she's getting a load of it. But she's getting better." "What do you mean?" Adriana. "Lana says last October she got it off for a few minutes. She may have done that and looked up the illusions." "I thought Sab didn't know about the illusions." Sav. "She knows, but she doesn't care. It's on the SSW. How do you think I figured it out? Anyway, Bella doesn't have to hack. She has access to everything, except this, apparently." "Do you think she'll ever help us in the future, though?" Sav. "No. She's still got an unbelievable amount of mind control, remember, and Telkin does have a limit as to how high it'll go. You need at least a three fifty, four hundred Telkin for mind control to really get impossible. You need at least two ninety just for it to get difficult. I don't think Bella can get that high, especially when Saushale. I had to work like hell just to get it to raise twenty measures, and I had hypnosis already so the transformation never really completed." "Laura's like three hundred?" Adriana. "Three fifteen now. She works on it a lot. That's why she's not as easy to excite as Bella, she's pretty exhausted most of the time." "What do you think her limit is?" Sav. "Probably three fifty. Sab'll be pushing her a lot harder now, trying to get her as high as possible before she goes against Alena. But I don't think Laura even has mind control anymore. She doesn't need it. She likes being powerful, she likes being in control, she likes being feared. And she loves Sab for making her like that." She spoke the last words with disgust, then gave a pause. Slowly, she added, "That's really what October was about, you know. Sab was hoping to push you as hard as she could, get you as down as possible, then offer Saushale-ness. You would have rivaled her in Telkin, but like Laura she knows that if she got you low enough you wouldn't really need any mind control." "Is that what happened to Laura?" Sav. "Maybe, maybe not. I don't access to those files anymore, and I don't care enough to hack them." "Lynn, do you think we'll win if there is a fight?" Lynn opened her mouth but didn't say anything. She closed it and bit her lip. "No. I don't think so. You're powerful, Alena'll powerful, I'm powerful…but there's too many Saushale. We'd need hypnosis if we wanted to get anywhere, and I think Lana was pretty much the last of that. In addition, I think you have some kind of mind control on you, and that could be activated before we began. We flounder, we try, but the way we stand now, we are going nowhere." "Even with me? Even with you? Alena? It's just…nothing?" "Any of Ciel's powers could get us somewhere fast, and I've been hoping for that…But they're rare. Alena might be able to get to Sab…but the Saushale will get her before she really does anything. That's a fact." "What if you hacked up-" "Adriana! Why are you in the shower area?" Zara came bounding in. "I- I, um…" "She's special like that," Lynn informed her. "What are you talking about, anyway? Why are you hacking computers?" "At my old school they tried to teach us how to hack computers. I sucked at it, but Lynn likes to play with it," Sav supplied. "We're in the shower area to hide from Cathy. Keep your voice down." Simple enough lies. Cathy was a universal lie. You could use her to explain away virtually any strange behavior. Actually, should you be interested, they were in the showers because it was really hard to hear the conversations in there by the rest of the cabin. You could usually tell if they were talking, but not the actual words. Generally when discussing Saushale and mind control, it's better that no one else can hear you. Theoretically you were allowed to take showers in the morning, but there wasn't enough time. "Hey guys," Hailey voiced. Heidi followed. "Why are we in the showers?" "Cathy," Zara explained. "We're almost in the other cabin," Heidi warned. See, two cabins were connected- one way you entered one cabin, if you walked around you found another. They were connected by a long hallway. Each segment had back-to-back showers right next to the hallway. "Cathy doesn't seem to hate you guys anymore," Hailey pointed out. "You guys haven't gotten in any trouble." Lynn scoffed. "It's only a matter of time," she assured. "At least you guys will probably get in trouble for something reasonable," Zara complained. "All I did was laugh at the food fight you two started!" "I didn't really start it," Hailey defended. "But when Lynn threatened to throw something at Sav, I told her that she would never actually throw something. That was my entire contribution." "The food was an accident, Tar. It slipped out of my hand!" "Tar?" Zara asked. "Old friend. She went to boarding school." "Lynn, how can you call saying 'oh, yeah?" and holding up a piece of eggs on a fork and then tossing it at tray an accident?" "I didn't mean to throw it!" "I didn't think you would eat it, either," Sav laughed. "Yeah, well, I didn't think you knew 'Poker Face' but hey, we learn something new every day!" "I don't really know it. It was playing on the radio once." "I thought you haven't ridden in, like, a year." "You haven't ridden in a car?" Lynn asked incredulously. "My aunt doesn't drive me places, okay. No, actually it was playing once when I went in a store." "Why did you even have to mention that one?" Zara complained. "Now it's going to be in my head until the freakin sun turns green." "I don't think the sun can turn green, Zara." "Technically, the sun-" "We don't care, Sav!" Hailey protested. "I care. How on earth can the sun be green?" Adriana asked. Such conversation ensued for a few minutes. Then Heidi laughed too loudly and a few girls came in. "Why are you guys in the showers?" they asked. ` "Because we're directing the New York Symphony," Lynn explained with mock seriousness. "Yeah, well, you might want to direct the Symphony at breakfast. It's time to leave in, like, seven minutes." Lynn shrugged. "Not my-" "Why are there eight people in the shower area, fully clothed without shower items?" Cathy, undeniably. She had wandered in from an unknown location and was now, as usual, making everyone really hate her and wish they had gotten assigned to another cabin. "Come on, Cathy," Sav protested. "Lynn and I just wanted to see if anyone was dumb enough to actually take a shower in the morning when the rest came in, looking for us. We were going to leave in a few minutes anyway." "Is looking to see if people are in the shower a required morning activity?" "It's not technically dBryanllowed, so I mean-" "Are you allowed to frolic around wherever you please?" "Okay, firstly, we aren't horses. We don't frolic," Lynn broke in. "And, yes, we are allowed to go wherever we want in the cabin so long as we don't spend extended periods of time. And we didn't," Sav added. "I know about that, actually. I timed you." "Senca," Lynn muttered under her breath. "You timed us," Hailey said, as if that was the dumbest thing ever and she couldn't believe it. "Yes. Sav and Lyn have been in here for fifteen minutes. Adriana has been in here for twelve. Zara has been in here for eight. Heidi and Hailey for about seven and a half." "You can't call this-" Lynn tried. "So, Sav, can this be considered proof?" Cathy twisted her mouth into a mocking smile. Sav rolled her eyes upward, as if trying to remember. "Yes. It can. But only if you are considered an unbiased counselor. If you are not, then the camp president has to agree the proof is legitimate. If the camp president is considered biased, then there has to be some kind of proof that you didn't set the timer at some random time- like an unbiased witness, or some kind of timestamp on the computer." "How did you memorize that?" Zara asked. "And why?" "I didn't technically memorize it, because it isn't word-for-word. I just read the handbook a few times." "She's our legal adviser," Lynn added to Zara. Cathy looked absolutely murderous. "So, what is the process for deciding if I am an unbiased counselor or not?" "Well, if you really want to draw it out you can take a vote of the camp. But trust me, there will not be many that say you are unbiased." "Really. Well then, I suppose I will just get you in trouble based on the fact that you were in the shower area when you should not have been. It's a small misstep, so I can issue it anyway-" "So you're saying we aren't allowed in the shower area?" "I'm saying that you can't sit in the shower area and waste our entire morning, that's what I'm saying." "But you have no proof we actually sat in the shower area all morning. You only have proof we were in the shower area for a few seconds." "I could hear voices, okay. I'm not deaf. And I don't need proof that you were in the shower area all morning because the fact remains that no one with half a brain goes in the shower area in the first place in the morning, so the only reason that you would be in the shower area would be to screw around, which is a waste of time, and not allowed anyway!" "Cathy, there's nothing in the-" "You know what, Savannah, why don't you just shut up for three seconds!" Sav seemed mildly shocked at this rather rude request. "Now, since Zara, Heidi, Adriana, and Hailey seem to really like showers, they must clean them this week. There are eight showers, divide it up that way. Since Lynn and Savannah seem to really appreciate this cabin, they must stay. Now move on to breakfast, we're leaving in a few minutes." "What about those two?" Hailey whined, pointing at the two newcomers. "Jamie and Emily? Yeah. You're right. They were in the shower, too." "For thirty seconds!" Jamie protested. "None of you were supposed to be here. How about this, why don't you two perform for us tonight." "What? No. No. No-" "Yes, yes, yes. I'm sure Sav can give you a dance routine for 'Poker Face' if you need one." Sav ignored the rather idiotic insult. "Jamie...Tunney?" "That would be my name...Sav?" "Jamie! You know me! Do you what happened to Massie?" "Not really…she got suspended a while back. She was really mad about it, and she said it was your fault and she'd make you regret it. She got pulled out of school and went to boarding school." "What did she get suspended for?" "It was a while back, in December or something." "Well, if I had known it was that far back I wouldn't have asked. I know your memory doesn't work that well." "Sav…you were the one that went all psycho, right?" "It wasn't her fault!" Lynn rushed to Sav's defense. "They were accidents!" "You think it was an accident she threw someone out a window?" "Why would I intentionally throw someone out a window?" "Because…because you're freakin' psychotic, that's how!" "I am not psychotic!" Sav yelled. "Yeah? Really? Then why- Ay-wee-ah!" Suddenly a rather hefty object swung itself at Jamie, cutting off her sentence and leading to a strangely unique scream. "Great way to prove you aren't psychotic," Lynn sarcastisijoked (LynnLang word, of course, it means a sarcastic joke). "Absolutely brilliant. She accuses you of throwing things. Therefore, to counter-prove the point, you-" Sav came out of what must have been either shock or her automatically tuning Lynn out. "Um, Lynn? That wasn't me." Lynn's eyes went wide. "It…wasn't?" "Would I have said it should it not be true?" "Okay…so if it wasn't you, then who was it?" "Adriana." Sav smiled. "It finally showed up." Carmen was so bored, she felt like her eyes were going to fall out of her face or something. Her friends were all away, the library was closed for a month and a half; there were others but they were so not in biking distance. Her activities were pretty much limited to screaming at her brother, listening to Savvy People for the eight billionth time, and reading her books for the ten billionth time. Exciting. "Can eighth grade just start already?" she asked the universe out loud. She was sitting/laying on her bad upside down, her calves on the top of the bad and her back on the floor, listening to a bunch of Savvy People's demos she'd downloaded a week or so ago. She'd searched the web for hours but there weren't any more. Like, at all. A sound from her computer alerted her to, like, sit up. She ended up doing a backwards somersault, banging her legs into her nightstand table, and getting a really long scratch on her leg. Books fell on the stairs. She'd rearranged her room, and now whenever her night table got banged into by anything (pretty much every morning) it rained down books on the landing of the second floor. They hit one of her brother's friends (she could tell by the loud cry of pain and energetic insult yelled up the stairs). Awesome. She walked over to her computer. Her Gmail inbox was open (every morning she logged on to her email account, stared at her computer screen to see if any story ideas came into her head, then walked around being Really, Really Bored Carmen) and someone was trying to chat her, hence the sound. She looked at the box. Hana Rose. No. Way. Im. Poss. Ible. Hana Rose was the lead singer/lead composer/lead keyboard player for the Savvy People. She was the band, the other two just kind of backup sung and filled in with the keyboard. She was also a chosen, Carmen was sure. In the photo on her first album, which they named after the lead single No Explanation, you could actually see the exact same birthmark Carmen had. Her real name was Hannah Rosalind Greg, but she'd edited it to match with the other two, Svetlana and Ariana. Hana Rose: Hello. Carmen: Um, hi? Hana Rose: I love your strong voice, designed to intimidate. She was also really sarcastic. She'd seen some of the concerts, and she basically insulted all of her own lyrics. 'I'm special like that' was actually a line in one of her songs. Carmen: What do you want? Hana Rose: You're a chosen, right? Carmen: How do you know that?????? Hana Rose: Like, your Google Picture, genius. On the link to your Photobucket account. Not really your picture. You have the mark. Her Google picture was the really dopey one she'd taken last summer in the tank top while soundproofing her mom's office. She hadn't changed it in a while. Carmen: Why were you looking on my photobucket account? Hana Rose: I found your blog. It's really annoying, but I can't save any blogs to favorites or whatever so I have to type in Saushale in order to find Alena's blog. Yours also showed up. You really should protect it with the whole search engine thing. Carmen: Yeah, because so many people go searching for Saushale. It's like one of the top search queries. Of course, there was still the question as to why Hana Rose was even looking up Alena's blog, when supposedly Sab wasn't actually after her anymore Carmen: Why are you looking up Alena's blog? Hana Rose: Because I'm special like that. Told you about the 'special like that' line. Hana Rose: Look, do you know what's up with Sabrina? I really don't have a lot of time for chat. Carmen: She's a goddess. She's not after you anymore. Hana Rose: Where is she? Carmen: Does it matter? Hana Rose: Yes. Where the hell is she? Carmen: In a magical place… If Carmen can annoy someone, she'll annoy them. Even her idol. Hana Rose: Did you know there's a law that if people annoy you enough you can hit them? Carmen: If there was I would have a lot of bruises that I didn't inflict on myself. My skin has enough bruises already. I don't want any more. Hana Rose: That sounds like fun. Carmen: Okay, um, I'm not completely sure where Sabrina is. But. Hana Rose: But what? Carmen: I know someone who does. But I want to know when the next album comes out. Hana Rose: September 5. Carmen: And why you need it. Hana Rose: Cheater. And I just want to know. So I can, like, not schedule shows there. Carmen: I'm telling you, she's not after you anymore. It's okay. She got Alena. Hana Rose: You have a sincerely warped idea of 'okay'. You have no idea how often Carmen gets told that. It's quite often directed at me too, now that I think about it. But this book isn't about me, obviously. Carmen: Thank you. I'm special like that. Hana Rose: Ha ha. Sorry, but that's more funny when you're addressing a concert as opposed to admitting to being seriously warped. Carmen: Or when you're giving a serious interview? On Hana's first interview, she'd been so nervy that the first questions, five or so, she'd given some of the most sarcastic, obnoxious answers that the world has ever seen. It's currently Carmen's most watched video on her computer (she downloaded it). A sample below: Interviewer: Hello, Hana Rose. May I call you Hana? Hana Rose: Nah, I prefer the Almighty Goddess. Interviewer: I suppose I could call you Hana Rose. So, are you going to start on your next album immediately or just focus on this one? Hana Rose: No, I think I'm going to take a nice long vaca in the Bahamas and screw this whole thing. Especially you. Interviewer: Okay. Right. So what was your inspiration for 'No Explanation'? Hana Rose: I was trying to get Ana off my back, Mr. Genius. What did you think? It was based on real people? Grow a brain. Interviewer: I see, Hana Rose. So, are you planning to use any new instruments in the future, such as guitars or drums? Hana Rose: Yes, because the magical tooth fairy is flying in tomorrow to give me lessons, so that I can make most of my music sound completely warped and irrelevant. Interviewer: Right. Why are you being so sarcastic? This is a real interview, I hope you acknowledge. Hana Rose: I'm special like that. (pause). Plus I drank way too much coffee this morning. Hana Rose can sing and comment on her own songs in front of over a thousand people no problem. She can act normal first try on music videos viewed over a million times. Ask her questions on an interview, where her face isn't even recorded, on a local radio station, she freaks to high heaven. Back to the story. Hana Rose: Exactly. Hana Rose: How did she get Alena? Carmen: Alena tried to subdue her after I fought her and then she trained this girl named Sav and tried to get her then when she was done doing that and turning into a goddess she closed off Alena's calling capabilities and summoned Bellauren then busted out, came back, tried to leach away Alena's Telkin in her catacombs, but it didn't work so she sent her to some summer camp and she and Sav and Lynn are going to try and fight Sabrina, however unsuccessful it is likely to be. Hana Rose: And I thought my life was hard. Hana Rose: Who's Bellauren? Carmen: Bella and Laura. Lynn coined the term Bellauren, since they are always together. Head Saushale. Hana Rose: Who are Sav and Lynn and how in the hell did you trap Sabrina? I worked on it and I could only get her off my back. She tried to trap me right before you. Carmen: I half-subdued her and Alena just kind of trapped her. It took a lot of "Cruel Summer", let's leave it at that. Hana Rose: I hate that song. Carmen: Then why did you cover it? Hana Rose: I was playing it, you know, Alena's electronica, but different? Then Ana said that we were going to get a copyright violation, somehow she remembered a song she hasn't listened to in seven years, don't ask me how, and since I could only think of the one verse then we just remixed it a few times and called it Cruel Summer. Hana Rose: But I knew that UltraDance mix would come in handy. You totally have it, don't you? Carmen: It's my most-listened to song on my computer. Hana Rose: The longer I talk to you, the more I realize how mental you are. You can't actually like that mix. It's impossible. Plus you're still not telling me where Sabrina is. Carmen: You still haven't told me why you need it. And I already know I'm kind of mental. Alena told me. Hana Rose: I have higher quality demos of DUYO, CrSu, NoEx, and some of the new album's tracks. Carmen: Nice try. Hana Rose: Fine. I don't really need it. I just want to know. Carmen: Nice try again. Hana Rose: How do you know that's not the truth? Carmen: Lynn taught me some stuff from Saushale boarding school. Keep trying. Hana Rose: Ana threatened to leave again. She demands to know where Sabrina is. Carmen: She's half Saushale. So is Lana. That's not a great motivator. Hana Rose: I might be a pop star, but I'm not an idiot. I can see, you know. Carmen: Never could have figured that one out myself. Hana Rose: Glad to be of assistance. Seriously, though, I do need Ana to stay. Carmen: Sab's in circulation. Hana Rose: What the hell is wrong with you? Why won't you give me a straight answer??? Carmen: I'm special like that. Hana Rose: Can you give me an answer? Carmen: I really want those demos. Hana Rose: Okay. Fine. I'll upload them. Carmen watched as Hana Rose's status changed to "Dealing with the most obnoxious, sarcastic girl in the history of the universe". Carmen: I like your status. Hana Rose: It's what my friends' use, except they use "pop singer" instead of "girl". An email appeared from TheSavvyPerson@gmail.com. Sure enough, it contained twelve demo tracks, eight that she didn’t have, four in way better quality. Carmen: She's in circulation. It means that she's going across the country randomly, like from the hot spots. Hana Rose: Hot spots? Carmen: boarding school, summer camp, head quarters. Hana Rose: There's a head quarters? I though just the summer camp and boarding school. Carmen: That's where they train Saushale. Head quarters is mostly labs. Then there's like two miles underground of catacombs and Saushale housing. Hana Rose: But no permanent spot? Carmen: According to my sources, she inhabited this girl named Cathy, but left. She'll probably be looking for new people, but I seriously doubt you need to worry about anything. Carmen: By the way, where you always this obnoxious or is this a pop singer thing? Hana rose: No, I'm just sarcastic. Like you, actually. Carmen: I was thinking about being a music reviewer. How well do you suggest that would work? Hana Rose: You would end up scaring everyone away from my music. I have to go. Carmen watched the dot fade back to gray, thinking about Lynn's summer camp. Life was so unfair. She'd really wanted to go to the summer camp with all her friends, as well as actually meet Lynn, who sounded really interesting. But no. Instead they were supposed to go to Los Angeles. But rather than actually going to Los Angeles, her parents deemed it 'too expensive', and proceeded to work all summer, as usual. And Carmen was absolutely loving it, of course. She opened a new document on her computer. There are days when I simply do not know what to do with my life. She stared at it for a few minutes, willing something to happen, something to do. My friends can be incredibly cruel people on occasion. Summer can be exciting and fun. Summer can also be boring and way too long. She stared as long as she could, then tried again with an old memory, pretty much when "Carmen The Chosen" left off. One thing I've always wished I could do was take a large and heavy object and throw it at this sign down the street in this broken-down baseball stadium no one goes to. It's got an exceedingly obvious grammar mistake on it, and every day I have to ride past it to get to school. It infuriates me to no end. Well, last year almost, I flung a pebble at it, and when the pebble hit the board it vanish for just a second, then reverted. This summer, I had absolutely nothing to do. So I repeated my experiment, with the following results. Carmen glanced around her room, grabbed an old soccer trophy (in her league you got a trophy regardless of what you did) and shuffled downstairs to locate her bike. "Carmen!" her brother yelled on the way down. "What, Matthew?" Carmen complained, about to grab her bike and leave. "Why do you keep throwing books down at me?" "Technically, I'm not throwing them, I put books on my table thingy and when I bang into it everything falls out. Now get out of my way." He consented, glaring, and Carmen biked back to the stadium. She picked up her trophy and flung it as hard as she could at the sign. It smashed, but the sign remained intact. She picked up pebbles, rocks, pretty much anything and flung them as hard as she could at the sign. Carmen's aim was as spectacular as always (that is, really not spectacular) and most of the objects went nowhere near the sign (one almost snapped a bench in half…a bench ten feet away from the sign). Actually, earlier she remembered hitting the mistake (the sign said "We Loves Baseball!"), that is she hit the extra 's'. She picked up a pebble, walked toward the sign until she was about a yard away from it, and threw. It took her three tries and walking another step closer before she finally hit the 's' (now that is incredible aim for you). The sign vanished for a second, then returned. She poked the 's' and it vanished again. "Okay," she said out loud. "Is there a reason why this sign is dBryanppearing?" She poked the 's' again, but this time didn't take her finger off. It stayed vanished, but she could still feel the 's' and the rest of the sign. "Dance until you drop," she sang, half out of randomness, half to see if maybe it was electronica activated. Then she remembered that that was probably really dumb, because it would make more sense to have Sabrina's version activate it. "Um…I have my dreams…" She couldn't feel the sign anymore, but she kept pushing. Her arm went through, so now she had the top part of her arm visible, a large chunk of her elbow invisible and the rest of her arm visible. Then the invisible part moved up her arm slowly to her finger, where it shined a bright light onto her fingertips. Carmen had spent an hour than morning meticulously painting (and repainting, and repainting, because of mistakes, as Carmen's coordination skills demanded) her fingernails a shiny, reflective silver and the light flashed everywhere. Then the sign became real again and Carmen was thrown back onto the ground with a lot of force. "Um, ow," she commented after a few seconds. "What the hell was that?" Let's see if you can figure it out. "I…I…but I didn't mean to!" Adriana protested. "Yeah. I assumed. You think it was really my intention to throw a computer at my wall? Sometimes things happen without intention." Lynn shook her head. "Yeah…but…you don't feel tired at all?" Lynn asked. "No…" I believe it was about this point when Emily and Jamie started backing out. "Yeah. Okay. Sav, it takes an incredibly high Telkin to not feel the effect of Telkin, even when anger. It was probably you." "No, seriously. It wasn't me." "Okay. Great. Well-" "Lynn. How many people are going to be throwing ceilings at each other?" Lynn frowned. "Um, I don't think that many people are going to find a legitimate reason-" "I didn't mean people actually throwing things at each other! How many people have mind powers in this camp? How many people are going to be turning psychotic?" "You want the real number? Like two hundred. But most you can't- or maybe the correct word is won't- see most of them. And those you know is just five. When you add the hidden the total is about twelve." "Twelve? How'd there get to be seven more?" Adriana. "The other cabins are as well 'guarded' as ours. Seven cabins. Seven plus five equals twelve." "Guarded from who- I mean, whom?" Hailey asked. It's nice to know she's finally taking Sav's grammar advice. "None of your concern at this time," Lynn explained to Hailey in great detail. "Are you one of the ones guarding?" Sav asked, kind of confused. Lynn shook her head. "No, I'm on a separate assignment. Actually, if I had to guess I'd say it's probably little Jamie over there." "Jamie... why?" "You think Massie would become Saushale without her?" Lynn crossed her arms and Jamie narrowed her eyes in response. "Don't make assumptions, Lynn. It was Massie's idea. She's the one that found Sav's story thing. I didn't believe it was real, but she didn't think Sav would lie. She spent, like, three hours using my internet one afternoon trying to track Sab down. I still thought it was just Sav screwing with Stalworth, but Massie was so determined she wouldn't pay attention. Eventually she found this one girl's email, really obnoxious-" "Carmen?" Lynn guessed. "Yeah. Carmen told her about this summer camp, so Massie somehow solicited this one friend of hers to drive up here. She asked for Sab, and she got what she wanted. Didn't sound so bad to me, and by March we were special." "Massie…Massie was really…really determined to…to be like that? Really? My friend Massie?" "Yeah. She was. She wanted to be Saushale." "Yes, Jamie, we figured that. We may be psychotically violent, but we aren't morons," Sav answered in a half-sarcastic, half shut-up. "I hope you were being sarcastic about the violence thing. I'm not violent." "Yes, Lynn, I know that." "Well, it's too bad no one can match up with your intellect, Savvy," Jamie half-growled. "My name isn't Savvy," Savvy responded out of pure habit. "Well, let's see if you know this one. Who's Sabrina?" "Um, a goddess that's been terrorizing my life for the past nine months?" "No, I meant who's she possessing here at camp?" Sav's eyes flashed to Lynn, who shrugged. "Adriana, Heidi, Hailey, Zara, Emily, Jamie…come on, we need to move on, unless you really want to take some shifts. Sav and Lynn, whatever. I've moved beyond trying to get you two to obey the rules." Cathy swished out, and the other girls followed, really not wanting to take some shifts. "Who is Sab now?" Sav asked Lynn as soon as they were out." "I-" "Don't know, eh?" Bella's voice appeared from the doorway. "Why don't you listen to Carmen's oft-dispensed advice and take a really wild guess." "If I wanted to take a really wild guess, I'd say Megan." Sav said dryly "Let's stay within possibility." Bella rolled her eyes. "Megan's at the camp, for whatever reason." "Not in this cabin." "Why does it have to be in this cabin?" "Because life can be confusing like that." "Are you subtly trying to say this is Lynn's job? Adriana? Jamie?" "You're so off it's unbelievable." Bella, mocking them. "How can you dare accuse your friends of such evil?" Lynn said, mockingly offended. "So it's someone I don't know, right? I don't know the whole Carmen story, mostly that Sabrina, like, controlled her or something..." Bella was staring at Sav very obviously, as if she were missing something important. "Why are you staring at me like that?" "For such a smart girl, I find it amusing it's taking this long to figure this out." "You mean…is it…me?" "Give the girl a prize!" Bella announced. "But…but doesn't the person usually, like, look different?" "Not…not when they are…" "Not when they're what?" Sav asked, rather calmly, considering the situation. "You're…you're something else. We can't place you, no matter what we do. Even Sabrina can't figure out the deal is with you. At first we thought it was just the pattern of power in humans…but you have so much power that's not the only explanation. There's something, like, seriously wrong with you." "I like how you managed to turn a compliment into an insult," Lynn commented dryly. "Besides, Sab's probably figured out what's wrong with her by now and hasn't told you. Sab knows pretty much everything." "Except the future." "Well, duh. I meant Sab knows most scientific stuff like that." "Sab…Sab can't be me. Wouldn't I, like, know?" "Depends on-" Lynn started to say, but then she stopped. Because there was really no need to finish that sentence right there. Alena wasn't entirely sure what was going on. At first she could tell Cathy was yelling. Cathy had one of those yells that, though it's not very loud, everyone is just so tuned to it or something that whenever she's yelling you can hear everything she's saying. Even when she's in the showers. It wasn't anything extremely interesting, so Alena tuned it out for a while, just sitting at the desk in the counselors room letting her mind drift off. Every once in a while she listened in to the conversation, but it was just the girls screwing around and Cathy and Sav battling the rules of the camp. After a few more minutes of that, probably right before Bella showed up, Alena decided to get outside and wait for the breakfast line. It was actually really nice out here, and sometimes in the mornings, when she almost felt like herself, she liked to go outside and look around. She saw the stereo a while off, and for some reason she walked over to it. She hadn't gone to the program last night, only heard it was some kind of talent show thing. Distantly, as if she were watching a character in a movie, she examined the mechanism, figured out where the CD tray was and hit play. It wasn't anything that represented what should have been coming out of the stereo- regular pop music if it was from last night, and Saushale remixed stuff if the Saushale had been playing with it (which they probably had been). "Alena's electronica". Alena's electronica didn't exist. It just didn't. You go to the library, recording studio, CD store, online, everywhere, the song didn't exist. Sabrina’s electronica didn't exist. The only way this song existed was when Alena turned it on, as I believe I have explained earlier. But Alena's song had dBryanppeared a long time ago. Sabrina had taken everything from her- her song, her personality, her Telkin- everything but the determination to keep her down, however small it shrank, and the help of Sav, Lynn, and Car. But those two things couldn't cancel out the fact that her song was pretty much gone. The stereo should have played Sabrina’s electronica. Alena thought back. She could kind of remember the songs they had been playing at that program. Was "Cruel Summer" one of them? Not by her memory. And she could remember, actually, a faint sound of music coming out at three in the morning. Actually, she could even remember the song, some Lady GaGa single. Sometimes the Saushale would dance, or sing, or make fun of popular music. But now you're just getting off-topic she thought to herself. It doesn't really matter whether they were playing "Bad Romance" or "Chop Suey" at three o clock in the morning. The fact remains that somehow you got your song back. Unless you're insane. Which is really bad, because if you're insane then you automatically give up your power and the universe ends. But you're probably not insane. You got your song back! You got your song back! But…why is it so loud? There's no reason Saushale would turn it up this high- someone wakes up, and people are wondering why they are hearing songs that do not exist outside their bedroom window. There's something wrong with this stereo. Alena paid really close attention. Faintly, just faintly, she could hear a remix of "No Explanation" playing. It was Alena. Alena was finally, finally back. Lynn started to scream. She knew the signs. She knew the truth. Yes, we both know that this was not the smartest thing Lynn could have attempted, mostly because it would point out to Sab that Lynn needed some nice mind control, preferably a lot, and pronto. Or, at least, if Sab was paying attention to her. She jerked her head up, rolled her eyes and her eyes lost their focus as she sunk back into thought- whether it was to puzzle out Sav's new issues or to analyze a complex law of the universe, it was hard to tell, but either way it was a good thing, short-term. Suddenly, and rather randomly, Lynn noticed a powerful Telkin exploding behind her. Normally she did not notice such things (the Telkin doesn't really encompass that), but with huge jumps and falls like this she could feel. But who was it? And why was it occurring, anyway? She looked out of the corner of her eye, and she could kind of see Alena screwing around in front of the cabin. It looked like she was examining the stereo. Lynn had no idea why Alena would ever attempt to screw around with that stereo, mostly because Alena really didn't like music but also because the stereo was one of those stereos where you put a CD in and press play, and it plays a whole different CD, or it doesn't play at all, or it starts rewinding, or mixes tracks, or plays way too loud, or something like that. Only a few people Lynn knew of could fully control that stereo player. She did not consider herself one of them. Then she heard the explosion of music. It wasn't what she had expected, not in the least. She'd gone outside later that night and heard the Saushale screwing around, so she'd figured that it Alena was messing with the stereo it would play one of the songs she'd heard last night. She was pretty sure she had not heard Alena's electronica last night. She glanced back just in time to watch, watching how Sav's eyes were still flashing pure green (no grayish stuff as had been plaguing her eyes lately), purple and black. They stopped after a few seconds, but Sav somehow hadn't noticed. Maybe that was because Sab was standing behind her. The first thing Sav observed was Lynn screaming. She wasn't entirely sure why Lynn was screaming, but sure enough she was screaming. As her scream had the night before with Bella, it cut off after a bit of a second and seemed to slap her in the face. The second thing she noticed was Alena's electronica. It was kind of hard not to. It was so loud she could feel the ground vibrating underneath her. It was so loud it was starting to tinge her vision green, black and purple. Sometimes it did that when she listened to SavSon-EV and DUYD-SV too loud and in row. She'd have to ask Lynn about that sometime. Or Alena. They'd probably know what it was. Then she noticed Lynn's eyes getting really wide. Lynn was clearly seeing something that Sav was not, and she would probably want to turn around and see what it was. So Sav turned around. She probably could have made a pretty high-pitched scream herself at the sight she saw. It was Sabrina. Maybe it always seemed this way. Maybe Sabrina always did this. But it seemed like Sabrina had changed herself- her look anyway- to be scarier, creepier, and more goddess-like. Her purple eyes were no longer just purple, but a thousand different hues, swirling and mixing constantly- blues, greens, reds, blacks, whites, silvers all mixing, and splitting, and merging and spinning. Her hair wasn't just platinum blond, it was silvery, shimmering, sparkling, creating it's own light. It's light wasn't even silver- it was totally devoid of any color- even more than white. Sav had to run, to jump, anything. Sabrina was about two inches away, and it's really hard to use the Telkin on somebody when they're two inches away. It's like a rocket gun- optimal at long distances, not so much as short, mostly because Sav had some aim difficulties, and aim difficulties are just about the last thing you want when dealing with large and unmanageable objects, and the aim is about two inches away from oneself. I got to move, away, away- Stop being retarded, Sav. Just walk away. Sab's not going to do anything major. Probably. What do you want, a written contract? She started building up power accidentally, and then, just as accidentally, released it. She was pretty sure. Well, all she was sure of was that she was sliding through the air. And let me tell you this: when one has achieved the physical fitness Sav possesses, one is not going to be jumping very far or high. Lynn's eyes got wider. Sav was pretty sure that you couldn't open one's eyes open that far without causing some serious pain, but notwithstanding, Lynn had some very wide eyes. The song was starting to get on her nerves. Normally she could probably listen to any of the songs on that CD twenty times in a row (theoretically, mind you- this is not Carmen we are dealing with) and not get tired of them (well…she might get tired of FaPa-CV. FaPa-CV, in case you were wondering, is called that because it was the first two letters of one of Hana Rose's friend's names- the one that helped write the Savvy People song), but now she was starting to get kind of sick of CS-AV. "Oh, senca," Lynn hissed under her breath. Sav started walking slowly back. "What?" she hissed. Lynn's eyes started to lose their insane wideness. Then she closed them, and opened them again. Unfortunately, nothing changed. Sav was still half-Saushale, half…half… Half "Something-is-clearly-amiss". Sabrina silently wished that she had thought slightly more clearly. Okay, so when she had been trying to overtake Carmen, it made sense. Carmen had no idea what was going on, and she seriously believed she was going insane when her camera and mp3 player had been replaced with a note about Sabrina and Alena. Sabrina thought it was hilarious- sitting there watching her as Carmen questioned her own sanity about something like the existence of Sabrina and Alena. How could anyone not think they existed? She even asked her brother if he could she what she was holding. That was simply hysterical. But Sav? No freaking way. Sav knew about Sabrina and Alena, probably just as much as either of them. She knew how to use her Telkin. She had fought off the sickness-twice- in, like, a day. She didn't even have it anymore. And while she might have difficulty finding electronica- It's funny how it was just as she was thinking that when the stupid song came on. The humming, the lopsided beat, the annoying words.... Except…the annoying words were different. Stupid Hana Rose had made her single almost the exact same as Alena's electronica, then made it ridiculously popular so that she always thought she was hearing the song. But this wasn't just "Cruel Summer", wasn't just some moron messing with the stereo (actually, the way that stereo was, someone could set it off just by knocking into it), this was the real thing. This was, actually, Alena's electronica. Senca. Wait, she thought to herself. Be reasonable. Do not overreact. Sav probably just brought the 'lectronica CD- I wish Alena would stop making and sending those- and Alena found it and is just screwing with you now. There's no way- Her thinking was cut off as Lynn screamed. It wasn't a long scream, but it was a demanding scream, and it immediately cut off her thinking. She looked up, momentarily curious why Lynn was screaming, then Sab remembered. Oh. Yeah. The physical Saushale transformation. The final stages were set for today. Clearly, Lynn had forgotten or something and was now shocked when Sav's eyes were changing color. Eyes (in this world) only changed color dramatically like that when the soul changed dramatically, like, say, when turning Saushale. That may have shocked her, but it shouldn't have scared her… She had barely returned to her previous thoughts when Sav jumped across the room. Ugh. This was getting worse and worse. Sav should have had some rebellion towards Sab, but not that much. Certainly enough to catapult her across a room without Telkin (Sab can tell these things) when a week or so before she could barely make a nine and a half minute mile. Senca. The song continued to play, and continued to annoy her, drumming into her skull. She thought about just smashing the stereo to bits, before something else more important got smashed (hint: it's got a pulse) but decided against it. She's just have to try to keep her anger under control. It was also making it harder to calculate a way to flee. Because she did want to flee. This situation was getting worse and worse and she didn't think she could control it. She only wanted to scare Lynn and Sav, not fight them. The last thing she needed was to have the entire cabin watch them throw objects at each other. "What's wrong with me?" Sav, so low neither Lynn, Adriana, probably not even Sav could hear it. The transformation was complete. But it was really, really messed up. Her eyes should have changed black, but instead were full of rings and splotches of green, gray and black. Her hair had turned actual dark blonde, and her skin was, like, corpse like. Rivaling Sab. Only one person had ever had a similar issue. She had been a real piece of work, too. Sabrina had tried, like, fifty times to convince her she was special, and Sabrina could make her amazing. The girl had thought Sabrina was some kind of stalker- which was so off. Sure, Sabrina had appeared mysteriously several times, sure, her laptop had suddenly played some song she had never heard before, sure she was weird looking and acting, sure things always seemed to move when she was around. But she wouldn't even listen. Sab needed her power. She knew, instinctively that she had an essential and powerful talent. Sab wasn't sure what it was, but she wanted it. Not knowing anything about the power, she tried and pull her as low as possibly- turned her best friend Saushale, had her other friends fight and leave her, her grades poor, teachers snubbing her, parents splitting. Sab split her entire life into pieces, and she still refused. So Sab made her sick. The sickness was still in experimental stages then, and ended up getting really, really messed up. Rather than just pulling her lower physically, it completely destroyed her. When she turned Saushale (she finally cracked) Sab either couldn't figure out what her power was or else had destroyed it with the sickness and depression, and basically completely forgot her. But still, the image of her haunted. It was a different guilt from killing Lana or countless others. Whether that was because it was a different kind of crime or a different kind of power Sabrina didn't know. But still, Sab hadn't forgotten the destructive power of the sickness. Sa was startled by a sudden onslaught of images from the time. The girl's eyes used to have the same clarity of Sav's, but had turned gray and black, her black hair a dirty brown, her features changed subtly to look less regal and stunning. Like the blue in her eyes, the girl's soul completely seeped away. Why was she thinking about this? It was just a stupid experiment, the first time she had tried the sickness to induce the transformation. So it had failed. Probably she didn't even have any power anyway, just some kind of ridiculous instinct Sab should have ignored. Probably she was just an indirect descendent of one of the inferior powers. Focus The word appeared from the back of her mind, a message to stop foundering. If Alena's electronica is back, then Alena's probably back, too. Especially when it's this loud. I don't the stereo can get this loud naturally. I need to leave. Now. Whatever implications I could learn here could be just as well learned by Jamie or technology. I. Need. Out. Now. If Alena's code is back in full force, then that means her Telkin probably is, too. Senca. Seincaa [a worse form of the word]. If she's got her Telkin back, she's got her ability to influence codes, too. Se. I. Ca. Ah. It meant any songs used were so not going to work out in her favor. If she could talk, she would have screamed. If she could work through the song, she would have thrown a tantrum. Rather than either of those options, she shimmered and tried transport herself far, far away. Which, like, so didn't work out as planned. rather than transporting to, like, China, as planned, she ended up in the next room. Lynn, being the Saushale she was, instantly tried to scream. Bella stopped her. Girls started trooping in, back from breakfast for a few minutes, before off to do some other lame activity. I'd imagine they were a tad shocked by the loud music and the girl with the purple eyes that shimmered and vanished. I probably would be. Zara dropped the book she was holding and immediately announced "She's in the next room!" She clearly had no idea why she said that. Damn that girl. Now what am I supposed to do? Her frustration level was rising extremely high. And trust me, just about the last thing you want to see is a frustrated Sab. Get- That- Stereo- In an explosion of power, she attempted to destroy the stereo outside. But it didn't work. Something was blocking her. Right. Alena. Probably if she went outside that issue would be ameliorated. But Alena was outside. And Sabrina was so not in the mood. Bella! Bella had her own song, right? Remembering what Lynn and Carmen had done by combining the songs, she made Bella and Laura do the same. She just really, really hoped they wouldn't, like, die. It really sucked how Lynn was being so disloyal. Even Bella had never gotten so far. Though Bella was a few years older- not Saushale older, human older. She had been somewhere around twenty. Sarcastic pre-teens would have less of an effect on her. Focus. Alena's electronica is not there. Alena's electronica is not there. Alena's electronica is not there. That FINALLY worked. "I simply cannot believe you let her leave!" Alena was screaming at Lynn. Normally, Sav would have been equally suspicious of Lynn's motives. But now, well... What was wrong? Why couldn't she be upset Sabrina had gotten away? Why had she been infuriated when Alena’s electronica had played? Why wasn't she backing up Alena? And why did Lynn stare at her face when she thought Sav wasn't looking? Now that Sabrina was safe- no, away, like as in completely gone- Sav headed into the bathroom, and the mirrors in there. When she got into there, and looked, she was quiet, immobile, still, not breathing, her heart not beating, not being able to comprehend anything. No freaking way. No freaking way. NO FREAKING WAY. THERE WAS SIMPLY NO FREAKING WAY. She screamed. Loudly. She couldn't stop screaming, she couldn't stop the high-pitched, unwavering... Oh god. Not even her scream was normal. It was metallic, and sounded more like an unwavering siren than Sav. "What on EARTH IS GOING ON IN HERE!!" Cathy swept into the room with a great flourish, kicking open the door and kicking down the doorstop in one perfectly synchronized motion. She yelled, not as inhuman or metallic or sirenistic-was that even a word? it was all she could use to describe it- as Sav or.... Lynn. Lynn sounded like that. She was like Lynn. She was Saushale. I so hate my life, she thought to herself. "You think you hate your life now? Just wait till I'm through with you." "What?" "Well, screaming, obviously. And the electronica you are playing down the hall. 'Synchronized'." "What 'In Sync' are you talking about?" "The one playing on the stereo right outside." "That's not me. Alena put a CD in there." It was true. The stereo wasn't playing the freakishly loud Alena's electronica anymore and had moved onto it's third track, which had been "In Sync". It was an old song that had been popular a really long time ago, that Sav heard on the radio once and liked. "Oh, sure. I am so sure that the entire world really likes random songs from seventeen years ago. And that Alena, the freaking cabin leader is going to play your CD at top volume. Is that what you are saying?" Cathy was getting really worked up then, I must say. "Yeah, it's you over exaggerating everything about the picture!" Sav was equally worked up, shouting as well. "How dare you speak to me like that!" Cathy frowned, puzzled. Cathy was remarkably unobservant, and she had probably paid more attention to what she was going to say that Sav's face. "What on earth happened to you?" "How did you even know I was Sav, anyway?" Cathy rolled her eyes at that remark. "I saw the other girls when I walked in." "Oh, so you add psychic to your long list of remarkable talents?" "Seriously, why do you look differently? In a span of like, twenty minutes?" Sav was suddenly struck by a very odd, not to mention random, question that could probably be rude. "Cathy, how old are you?" "What brought on that question?" "You talk like you're, like, two years older than me." "Look, stop evading the question. WHAT FREAKING HAPPENED TO YOUR FREAKING FACE???" "Magicaaal happenings." Sav said it in a sarcastic, avoiding-the-question sort of way. "Okay, fine. I'll tell you how old I am if you tell me what actually happened to your face. Since I'm the cabin counselor and you're just thirteen-" "Twelve." "I thought you said you were going into eighth grade next year?" "I'm smart that way." "It's really no wonder all your friends ditched you at your old school. Okay, fine, just tell me what happened to your stupid face." "An ancient goddess of evil and hatred changed me to be one of her servants, and all her servants look a certain way." "What?" "Come on, Cathy. Sabrina possessed you. She didn't tell you anything- who she was, who Alena was, who the Saushale are?" "Yeah…but…Saushale don't look that way." "I don't know. It must have gotten messed up somehow. Go ask Lynn." "Yeah. But she really, really, really hates me." "Cathy, I hate to break it to you, but the majority of this camp really hates you right now. Anyway, are you going to answer my question? How old are you?" "Just ten magical years older than you. I'm actually your cousin." "Wait- oh yeah! The one that dBryanppeared when you were fifteen! Katherine!" "Yes. Well, my friend had been trying to tell me things about," Cathy swallowed noisily, "Sabrina and such. That Sabrina was, like, hunting her. I didn't believe her. Until I saw Sabrina, obviously. Kinda hard to doubt the existence of goddesses once you see her." "Your friend would have been an Alena's chosen." "Whatever." "You're not going to ask what an Alena's chosen is?" "I, amazingly enough, really don't care. And I think this conversation has gotten weird enough without adding Alena's whatever to the mix." "Fine." Sav swished past Cathy easily and collapsed n top of her bed. Adriana recognized the overly dramatic gesture and said, "What?" "Cathy is my cousin!" "You have simply got to be kidding me." Lynn. "Cathy? Really? This camp is so weird." Hailey, complaining as usual. "Especially with you in it," Lynn added. "Hardy har har. I'm serious. I mean, who knows what I'll be, or revealed to be in the morning?" "My psychic powers say your name will be Hailey, you will be complaining..." Sav. "Oh, now you're psychic too?" "Hey, that must be why you and Cathy look so similar," Zara commented, hanging upside down from her bed. "She's only ten years older than me." "So she's only twenty three? wow, I didn't know they were so desperate for counselors they'd take people that young." "She's twenty two." Sav said automatically, despite the fact that everyone thought she was perfectly normal, thirteen like the rest of them. "So your twelve? How'd you arrange that?" "Long story. I'll be thirteen soon." If by soon you mean nine months, she thought to herself "Summer birthday?" "Um, yeah." Sav hated lying. Once, she had gone two entire years without telling an outright lie. She had lied before this, but she still hated it, and every time she did something in her looked for a way it could be somewhat true. "Hi girls. Come with me. Now." Alena looked worried. Most of the girls looked like they seriously didn't recognize her, now that she was a goddess. Lynn saw something different, over Alena's shoulder. She saw a girl-preteen, naturally- wandering outside the cabin. She had dark hair, blue eyes, perfect nose, amazingly tanned skin, and almost freakishly tall. Tanya was here! Tanya wasn't supposed to be anywhere! "Tanya!" Lynn called, loud as she could, and did a few overtly large jumps, basically, over to Tanya. She hadn't seen her friend in so long. She'd missed her a lot. Tanya frowned. Then Lynn realized her mistake. She looked like a Saushale! "Look, Tanya, I'm on your side." "You're Saushale." "Sabrina would be ashamed of my behavior." Lynn hung her head and danced around in an overly dramatic way, making Tanya laugh. "What did you do?" "Can you not hear 'the remix' over there? Sav and Alena are planning this huge thing, and I am like so freaking with them." Lynn and Tanya had referred to Alena's electronica as 'the remix' and Sabrina's as 'the electronica'. "I have to tell you something." "What?" "The sickness- well first, your next. Second, if you become Saushale after it, then you get kind of screwed, your brain especially. It's likely that Sav might not be in the raid- or if she is, then she'll be fighting with herself the whole time." "Are you serious?" "I'm so serious it's unbelievable." They both laughed at the phrase. After Adriana had taught it to Lynn, Lynn had enlightened all her friends to it. The expressions, general sarcasm and mocking, and certain code words, it all made the 'LynnLang'. "I'm scared with a capitol S." They laughed again. "I think it's unbelievable you're in one piece." Lynn. "It's an illusion. With a capitol I." Lynn went back to the cabin, leaving Tanya. She didn't even think about the illusion. Which is probably a beneficial thing. But maybe I have no right to comment. I'm not the goddess of fate, after all. And the goddesses of fate all hate me, anyway, so it's not like I had any say in the matter. As Sabrina sat in her house, what she thought of mostly was that she was in some pretty serious trouble. There was no way she could organize a hundred Saushale and fight. Especially with the song- I mean, hello! Obviously Sabrina electronica had dimmed its affect against Alena, but Alena's electronica would affect Sabrina. Alena had the most powerful Saushale in all of existence. Sure, she wasn't more powerful than Sabrina, but Alena was, and Sav and Lynn would probably be able to take care of the disorganized Saushale. Quickly. "I really wish I hadn't killed Lana," she stated aloud. Sometimes she talked to herself when alone in the study. She drummed up and told a few of the Saushale in the labs to redouble their efforts with hypnosis and mind reading. They groaned in frustration- this was the fourth request in three days, and it wasn't helping much. "Sab, we just can't-" "You got it to jump to the humans already there, didn't you, huh?" "Yeah, but-" "Yeah? Okay? Go!" "Sabrina, it's not working. We've tried and tried to get the ability into Saushale, but it's not doing anything. We need Ciel descendents if we're going to make that research work. If you can't find any, you're just going to have to let us use the draggals." "No! No draggals!" Sabrina shrieked. "Sabrina, we can control the population, okay? Draggals aren't very dangerous when there's only one of them around and they're really well-fed. We'll remove them-" "No. Those draggals are for researching purposes only. I don't want any more combinations with higher than one hundredth draggal in existence." "Sabrina, we can get them there in a day. We'll control it. It's like the human's nuclear power- one or two experiments likely aren't going to create a meltdown with proper procedures. And this isn't half as dangerous as nuclear power." "Or as necessary," she muttered. "Okay. Fine. One draggal. Prove to me that you can get them to under one hundredth in a few hours and then we'll start working with powers." Oh, Saushale with synthesized hypnosis. Synthesized hypnosis is just as strong as regular hypnosis, but it works with mind control, not against it. That's never very fun, I must say. "Alena- you look like you just saw a ghost!" Zara was breathing hard. They'd just run a mile at top speed. Zara was strong, but she wasn't a Saushale or a goddess. "A ghost wouldn't scare me." "Remind me again why Zara, Hailey, and Heidi are here." Lynn crossed her arms, her nails mysteriously long. Her scary Saushale face was on full view. "You're all part of the story." "Story?" "I am a goddess. There's a girl named Sab after me. She has minions called Saushale. We all have a power of the Telkin- you know, what Sav can do. We have electronica that we control. Sab wants to get rid of me forever sometimes in the future." "Oh my god, please, please no." Hailey looked stricken. "Well, why don't we see if we can drag Emily, and Jamie, and all the rest of them out here." "Adriana, Lynn, how do you feel?" "Hungry and tired, but I think that's more because you just dragged us out here at top speed. Maybe my senses are dimmed a bit. But Lynn says that it's more reliable to look at the eyes to tell." Adriana said. She sat on the ground suddenly, her hands supporting her behind and her legs stretched out in front. She looked even deader than Alena or Sav ever had. Probably because she was barely more than human, mind-wise. Sav was getting closer to Sabrina's capacity each day, and she had been able to cope a lot easier. "I can hear Sabrina's electronica. Extremely, extremely loud." Lynn was still standing, but it was clear that was not her wish. She sat down hurriedly. "Um, is there any way either of you can use the Telkin?" Sav said it, then stepped away, and everyone else copied her. Sav wasn't really sure why (past experience, maybe), but it seemed like a really, really good idea. Adriana didn't see a need for the caution. She could barely use the Telkin as it was, she doubted she would get far in her current state. She decided to try anyway. A rock rose about an inch. Then fell. Rose two inches, fell. It did that a few times After that, Adriana started to collapse. The up-and-down motion reminded Heidi of Carmen. She struggled not to laugh. Lynn focused hard. She thought of everything that made her angry. Most of it was Sabrina-related- screwing her friend, screwing Alena, screwing everything, and of course making Sabrina's electronica play so loud she couldn't think straight. None of them made her angry enough. It was all the fake anger, the one created by the brain implants Sabrina had put in. The sickness rerouted them, making the stupid, annoying electronica play louder. Sometimes being Saushale was annoying and sometimes it was really annoying. Focusing harder, she remembered one thing. It was from when she was human, seemingly ages ago, though barely more than a few months ago. It had to do with a friend. Naturally. Doesn't it all? Lynn had few anger-inducing human thoughts, her life had always been perfect before- perfect friends, perfect grades, perfect appearance, perfect everything. Few of her friends had ever wanted to ditch her. Lynn had been so mad after it happened. Thinking back now, she realized that likely she would have even become Saushale had the option. It was just so infuriating. It had been her friend, her name was Anna. Anna Katie Alfonso. The first part was at a tournament, a one on one debate. Anna had made it to finals, Lynn didn't. She was supposed to stay for the final round to see the ceremony, but she went home instead, dBryanppointed and rather jealous. The next day Anna started talking about it to her other friends, about people who break the rules. Anna mentioned Lynn several times. Lynn didn't say anything. A few weeks later, Anna started telling accusatory lies. She started telling administrators about some kind of hate mail Lynn was sending her. Needless to say, Lynn was not very pleased. Lynn thought of the story, of the smirk on Anna's face when Lynn walked in while Anna was talking about Lynn's debacles at tournaments. The fury came back and Lynn flew, slamming intro a tree. Sabrina's electronica cleared. Of course, that might have been partly because Lynn was basically knocked out, as far as she could get when she was Saushale. Which wasn't very far, even when she was half-human. But she could still pretty much hear, and, most importantly, the song was gone. She wished she could say as well for Adriana. Her dark was already turning a dark, grayish brown, dark eyes grayish as well. Her skin was extremely pale, but rather than the smooth, unblemished white that Saushale's, Sabrina, and even Sav had, Adriana had a very ugly color. She was sitting on the ground, looking way more tired than a run should have resulted in. "Oh, that is just advantageous." See, smart people like Alena don't use short words, they like longer and more complicated ones. "Wonderful. Our long-term Saushale can't think, or use the Telkin without ramming herself into a tree, and Adriana, who has some great potential is lying on the ground, and probably can't think either. Couldn't have asked for it better. God. I think the fates have something, like, personally against me." Alena then glanced at Sav. Sav, actually, looked slightly different than from the afternoon. Her hair was lighter, her eyes had more color in them, and her skin seemed a little less pale. Sav was looking at the ground, where Lynn had fallen after slamming into the tree. Her black hair looked ratted and tangled, and her eyes were getting gray rings and it didn't seem like she was seeing anything, though that may have been the whole ramming-into-a-tree-thing (don't do it. Really. It's not fun) than the sickness thing. `She looked like she had either been knocked out or was hearing Sabrina's electronica really, really loudly. Maybe a combination of both "Sav, how do you feel?" Alena said anxiously. She wasn't sure if having the disease made you immune or something. Of course, that didn't make much sense, considering that it was just chemicals Sabrina made. But sometimes Sabrina's stuff had side effects. "Um, I hear electronica, but that's just because it's playing back at camp." "Freakishly loud?" "No." "Who is Sabrina, anyway? Who are you? And why on earth do you look like that?" The other had followed them from camp. "Specialness." "You are so weird it's unbelievable." "Thank you for the compliment. I've had many friends ditch me for it." "How many friends have ditched you?" "Seven, approximately. There's probably more if I really think." "Whoa." "Yeah, that's why I have a Telkin of, what now? Five fifty? Anyway, you can't get that if people you really care about as friends don't suddenly decide you're weird and look for someone cool!" Sav said it scathingly, sarcastically, but it didn't take a psychologist to figure out she was really hurting. "But I have a plaque in the Hall of Ditchers," a voice suddenly said. "Massie," Sav breathed. And it was. Massie didn't look like Massie. Her long, frizzy brown hair was gone, replaced by black, smoother hair. Her brown eyes were gone, now black and inhuman. Some Saushale naturally retained rings of white or even original color, but Massie was pure Saushale. Her skin was pretty much white. She might look to have some tan or pink if you held it up against a piece of paper or plaster, but other than that probably not. . Her old figure was gone, now superhuman and super thin. You know how everyone has something special about them, like Sav's pale skin and Tanya's nose? The Saushale transformation takes it all away. And only when it's wrong do you realize how much you looked at it, how well you could recognize it. Without Massie's frizzy, unique hair she looked so different, Sav almost couldn't recognize her. Sav wanted to throw something just by looking at her. Memories of the escapade came rushing back. Her tantrums, her anger. Hatred. Telkin. An amazing capacity with a whole school to take down. It was kind of embarrassing thinking of the stupid things she had done, but they seemed pretty justified, both because of the jerking around Massie had done to Sav, and the fact that Sav didn't mean even a tenth of what she did. "Wow, five fifty. So you got the sickness off? Well, seems like everything ditches you, even fatal sicknesses." "As you can see it's not such a curse." Sav raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms. "So was I the worst one that ditched you?" A cold and cruel voice, not very curious, more mocking. "No. Not even close." "Did you fall in love?" Massie laughed. She said the words sarcastically, knowing the answer. "Obviously not. Just friends I liked considerably better than you." "Whatever." Lynn stood up. She didn't look human, her special feature gone as well. Sav had never known what it was, but as soon as Lynn had heard it in Saushale training, she knew what it was. Her eyes. They had always changed colors- most days they'd be brown, but they'd turn amber or hazel at random intervals. Adriana stood up. I'll explain later why she doesn't really have much of a special feature. "Well, it's probably a good thing that I'm not alone. The Saushale are everywhere. We have grown in number." Massie paused, then rolled her eyes. "Shockingly," she added in, just for fun. "Massie, how did you end up Sayshal?" The word tripped Zara's tongue. Staring at Massie, it wasn't hard to understand why Sav had so callously referred to her as 'Little Miss Popularity Contest." It wasn't hard to believe she was a rigid, selfish jerk. It wasn't hard to believe she could ditch her best friend and not even care. It wasn't hard to believe she could want to be a Sayshal- be more powerful. "Sayshal? Ha. I ended up Saushale," Massie put particular emphasis on the word "Well, how'd you do it?" Massie shrugged. "I looked up Sav's little story. Finally found this one really annoying girl, she told me about the summer camp and Saushale. Came up here, asked them if they would make me Saushale, and they did." "You wanted to be Saushale?" Zara, in case you were wondering, had been hearing a lot of stuff like this lately, mostly from Lynn. And from Lynn's point of view, there was nothing worse than being Saushale. Also, Lynn tends to call 'Saushale' 'Sayshal' in her head. "Look, where's Alena?" Bella butted in impatiently. "She's in a magical place," Sav calmly replied, copying Lynn's favorite expression, straight-faced, before doing a huge flip, slamming into Bella, and throwing her into a tree (yeah, okay, that was mostly Telkin). The Saushale she called met similar fates, but without the flip and using the Telkin. "Thanks for the practice," Lynn snickered. She had helped Sav slightly (and they showed) and Sabrina's electronica was almost gone. Adriana looked worse. "Adriana, use the Telkin! It will go away!" Lynn remembered her advice to Tanya. "I don't actually know how," Adriana reminded them. Duh. Lynn had had Saushale training, Sav some kind of weird dreams, and even Carmen, in the first book, had been special, but Adriana had one freak occurrence. "It's simple- just will the…" Sav realized that to someone who had never heard to it, it couldn't make any sense. Even Lynn was staring at her. She must have been explaining this really crappily if Lynn couldn't even understand her. "What are you talking about? Don't you just focus on how mad you are and how much you want to move something?" Saushale training is a tad different than Sav's. "For humans? Beginners?" "Oh. Yeah." Not like Lynn had ever tried it human. Or been much of a beginner. "I can't believe you fought off thirty Saushale at once." Zara. "Yeah, that was…a moral victory." "Still unbelievable that you could throw that many people in the air that fast," Hailey muttered, like she really had any idea what they were talking about. "How about that they're coming back?" Adriana sat up after saying it, eyes on the people ahead. She was right- the Saushale had gotten over the stun and were walking toward them in a line. "Run!" Lynn ran ahead, faster than Sav thought possible. She didn't think even Alena or Sabrina could go that fast. Sav threw Adriana in the air via Telkin, and shot off herself. The Saushale closed in on air. "Um, okay Alena, next time you want to drag us out of camp, tell us nothing, and almost get us killed by evil Saushale and have a big standoff between Sav and Massie, I think I will pass!" Zara yelled. "Totally! Next time you want to make us run a mile in the middle of a trail at top speed, almost get smashed into a tree, and witness Sav and Massie finally meeting each other again, let me stay in the cabin." Hailey, complaining. "I'd do it again," Heidi said quietly. Hailey and Zara looked at her. "Why? That was, like, the opposite of everything I wanted to do today." "Let's not start fighting. It's just about the last thing that's going to help anything." Lynn was filing her nails, not really paying attention to the conversation. She'd learned plenty. "Quite frankly, I didn't see much wrong with the camp with Sabrina running it." "It wasn't just the camp she ran. It was basically everything." True. With basically no competition, Sabrina had been able to not only control vast armies of Saushale (that she could contact virtually instantaneously), but had also been like the controller of fate. Note the like. "What does she control, anyway? She's not just the goddess of evil and hate." Hailey crossed her arms for extra emphasis. "Oh, there are a lot of things she controls besides evil and hate. The evil and hate thing is mostly how she is, she doesn't create feelings. She's the goddess of dark, dreams, water, cold, and, well, evil and hate. I'm the goddess of wishing, day, light, fire, and revenge. Her evil-and-hate thing is mostly just because she likes to screw with the wishes. She's more selfish, really." Alena shook her head slightly, so some of her caramel hair went over her shoulder. She was sitting on Adriana's bed. "Do you realize how much you contradicted yourself?" Zara threw in. It seemed like Alena couldn't really figure out why Sabrina was called the goddess of evil and hate, so she was just making up stuff that didn't actually fit together. "Do you realize what my mind has gone through in the past two weeks?" Alena shot back. "Alena, who is Cathy now?" Sav asked. Sabrina obviously wasn't possessing Cathy anymore. Was she a threat- or a liability? Or just some random, totally cruel persona? "Cathy is your cousin. She works at the camp. End of story. And no, the Telkin is not hereditary. Its a rare occurrence- a mutant. A freak." "I think its odd there are so many mutants in this camp," Zara mused. "Especially a really small, remote camp." She had a point. There were barely a hundred people in the camp. This was the only full cabin (they held fifteen), most of them had about ten people in them. "There's two. I've already told you, Lynn and Jamie are Saushale," Alena said it with a sigh. "Four. Emily and Anna have mind powers too." A random girl-Megan or something- was participating in the conversation. Alena, Sav, and Lynn didn't really care anymore if the whole camp knew about Sabrina. Maybe they'd find more mutants. Or maybe people would stop banging in and joining with conversations they knew nothing about. "Telkin. It's called the Telkin." Sav corrected. "Whatever." "Wait- Anna? Anna who?" Lynn suddenly grew interest in the conversation. Like Sav, she had old friends to deal with. "There's an Emily here?" Adriana remembered her own old friend. "Yeah- Anna Alfonso and Emily Haert." Despite the fact that her old friend was here, Lynn probably realized that going and saying hi would be pointless because a) Anna really, really hated her and b) Anna, if she knew who she was, would also probably figure out she was Saushale. Which would be bad. "What does she look like?" Hailey asked the question for her. "Emily? She has really black hair and silvery green eyes. She's not really pale, and she's super tall. Anna has straight red hair and brown eyes. She's almost paler than you guys are." Silver green eyes? What did that remind Lynn of? And an Emily? Hadn't there been some Emily who had a really stellar way to control her face? "Emily's Saushale. She just has a disguised face." "Okay, three then. wait- so does that mean Jamie isn't Saushale?" "Do you have any idea how much security they need? They've got a super-powerful, unwilling mutant Saushale, a rebelling Saushale, a super-powerful human, another possibly super powerful human, even possibly more super-powerful human mutants, and Sabrina's archenemy." Figured all that out? No? Here's a key: Tanya Lynn Sav Adriana Unknown Alena "What about Anna? Is she Saushale? She is Emily's partner." "It's possible. But it's also possible that Emily is making sure," or trying to, Lynn's brain told her, remembering her massive failure. She was Saushale enough to feel guilty, "that Anna doesn't get out of hand." "If she is, she's failing. She's been trying to find you for like all afternoon." "What, she wants mind powers or something?" Sav continued randomly, not really paying attention (she'd pulled out a new book) "Naw, she says she wants to talk to Lynn specifically for a while," Megan said casually, but lie-like. But honestly- what would Megan be lying about? "You try to get Lynn to respond. Burn her or something." Sav left the room, with Lynn on the floor, staring into space, Alena lying on a bed staring intently at the ceiling, and Adriana glaring at a pencil, trying-and failing- to make it rise. Adriana wasn't doing better, and she said she could barely think past the Sabrina's electronica playing in her head. Which could put them seriously back as far as defense went. Unless Adriana could find some magical way (Sav realized only after thinking it that only with magic would Adriana recover. Funny how she had never thought of it as magic before) to use the Telkin, she was screwed. Extremely screwed. And what about Sav? She tried to act normal, but everyone knew that she was withdrawing. And whenever she heard "Cruel Summer" by Savvy People-it didn't even have to be Alena's electronica- she wanted to scream, but Sabrina's electronica helped her focus. Standing near the front of the cabin, Sav tried something. She had done it before, but that was before she was Saushale. It was a very advanced trick, and the sickness had put her back considerably. There was only a small chance she could do it. She was going to make a song play- no where near any stereo, laptop, or other music-playing device, like normal. She was going to play it out of her head. It was a real test- she was going to try and play "Cruel Summer" even though the stupid song was driving her nuts. Sav focused on the song. She played it in her head. Slowly, faintly, but louder and louder, Sav could hear a song. She couldn't tell what song it was, only that something was playing without any music devices within a pretty large radius. The song became louder and louder, until Sav could finally recognize it. Oh, this was just the pinnacle of perfection. It wasn't anything even resembling Alena, or even Sabrina's electronica. It was some old song, at least fifteen years old. Wait- the lyrics were changed. What was that? She couldn't figure out the lyrics. After listening for a few seconds, she got the general idea- it was talking about Sabrina. But rather than the first-person style of Sabrina's electronica, it sounded more like advice. Oh yeah, the mention of a dream goddess and the ‘Run from her, oh you’ll want to’ and 'Shows you her eyes' helped a lot. It was messed up in the exact same way as the other electronica songs, but something was different about this one. Whether it was the song, a coincidence, or Sav was just insane, she heard someone behind her say "Follow me," and she could kind of see someone. The imaginary person looked like she had a pretty bad case of the sickness, but she was kind of Saushale. Her eyes were a dark gray, with no whites or pupil that Sav could detect. She had blackish hair, tangled, and severely pale skin. She had a broken nose, and was extremely tall and skinny. It was pretty freakish, and it shocked Sav to the core. "You look seriously wrong," Sav said, too shocked to think properly. She reddened after saying it- it was really rude "I am seriously wrong. But come on anyway." Tanya grabbed Sav's arm and pulled her outside in one perfect, practiced motion. Sav, despite being Saushale, came along with the ride. She could see how Tanya really looked, not the illusion Lynn had seen. Sav was too shocked to resist. Once they were outside, Tanya explained her quick intervention. They were seated under a large, shady tree. It was one hundred degrees outside, despite the fact that the sun was going down. It was kind of odd, actually. The camp was in the center of a forty-mile radius of extreme heat. It was so sharp you could be inside the circle, have it be one hundred degrees at five, take two steps and have it be seventy. "Sabrina's planning an attack." "Oh, I couldn't have figured that out myself." Sav rolled her eyes. Her arm still hurt and that song was pounding in her ears. She could hear it properly now, and she had heard it before. It was on the 'lectronica CD she had gotten in the mail. It was in the back, and consequently Sav couldn't remember the title to save her life. "Don’t worry, it wasn’t like I doubted your intelligence. I was more warning you that she's taking out every Saushale in the world to fight you." "So? Alena's a goddess. She'll be fine." "She'll be fine! There's like a thousand Saushale, and she barely got her strength back! And what about you?" "I'll survive. And so will Alena." "I'll believe it when I see it." "Don't be absent the day the attack is planned then!" "Don't be sarcastic." "What’s with that song?" "What song?" "Look, I know I’m not schizophrenic, okay? I’m hearing a song, and it’s not Sabrina, Alena, or the stereo." "Oh, that song! yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that. But the stereo is playing it." "Oh." "Oh yeah, and there's one more thing I need to tell you." "What?" "Zara can read minds. Heidi can hypnotize. Hailey has E Telkin." "They? WHAT?" Tanya vanished. She was right about the stereo- it had been playing the song- but she couldn't be right about Zara, Heidi, or Hailey, right? Right? If Heidi had hypnosis, wouldn't she have known by now? And Zara…wouldn't Zara have mentioned something? And what the ogdesca was E-Telkin? Adriana and Zara sat alone in the room. Lynn had gone to talk to Lizzie and Anna, Alena had said she had work to do, and Sav had just left with no explanation. Adriana felt angry and dBryanppointed at herself. She still couldn't use the Telkin for some reason, which was really annoying her. Sabrina's electronica was basically gone, but she still couldn't use the Telkin! She had barely been able to do anything before, and now she was just a liability. She couldn't do anything. With a capital A. About the size of the continent of South America. Zara felt just as frustrated. She was still picking up on these weird things people were saying. Like when Sav had said that her birthday was soon a while ago, she had heard her also say- if by soon you mean nine months. But she never had said it. And after that, she had heard her say some really weird things- like "Now we wait for Sav's guard to go down" "The Saushale will be here soon. I'll wait until then" and "What the freak is with Adriana? She has the sickness! This could ruin everything!" when Adriana had destroyed the ceiling. What was up? She was even starting to understand some of it, too- she had figured out what Saushale were, what they were doing, etcetera, but a lot still confused her. Same with Lynn. Most of the time she was perfectly normal, but sometimes she would say things like "There's Sav practicing. Incapacitate her!" or "Why did you tell Sav that? This isn't what you were taught!" or "Stick to the assignment!. As if she was talking to herself. Zara was afraid to say something, but she was really creeped out all the same. Heidi was acting strange, too. When she had been punished by Cathy because of being in the showers, she had just told her something, like "I shouldn't be punished for this," and then Cathy had said "That sounds reasonable" and let Heidi off. When Zara tried the same trick, Cathy had been like, "No way! You broke the rules, you get punished. End of story." Heidi had the same punishment Zara did- how come she got off, but Zara didn't? It was really weird. Hailey was acting weird, too. She had "borrowed" Sav's mp3 player and was listening to an electronica playlist. On each beat of the song, her whole bed had pulsed. Heidi, on top, was talking about how annoying it was, and so Zara had decided to help. "Hailey, since Heidi is so annoyed, you should probably turn that off." "How did you know I was annoyed?" "Like, you've been ranting about it for the past five minutes?" "Um, no she hasn't." "But- I heard-" "Well you heard wrong. And besides, what do you want me turn off?" "The thingy that's like making the bed pulse." "The mp3 player is the only thing I have on. And I doubt "Psychic" or whatever the freak this is could make the bed move." "Obviously it is, and I can hear it from here!" "How come I can't?" "Ummmmm..." So not Zara's favorite time, that was for sure. After a while, Lynn came back in. "What happened?" Adriana asked. Great. Zara had been hearing Lynn talk about it before Adriana even asked. And now she was talking about it- again? What was up????? "Oh, nothing, really. Anna just said hi. Oh yeah, and that I was some kind of shy ann move." Lynn rolled her eyes, clearly knowing what the word meant while keeping the rest of them in the dark. "What?" "Cheinne Mauvaise. It means evil something is French." "You know French?" "Errr-yeah. Some." Actually she had heard Lynn say it. Apparently no one else had. Sav burst in next. She was talking about Tanya! But Zara wasn't going to say anything this time. "Guess who I just talked to? Tanya!" "Tanya? Really?" Oh. Apparently she really was saying it. "Yeah. She said that Sabrina is pulling out every Saushale for the fight and-" Lynn was suddenly on the floor, yanking out something from under her bed. "What are you doing?" Sav asked. "Testing it. I'm going to hack into the system. Maybe I can cancel the invite, depending on what it says." "Oh. Anyway, guess what else she said?" "Just tell us already," Hailey cut in boredly. "I suck at guessing." "Oh. Anyway, she said that Zara can read minds, Heidi can hypnotize, and you have some kind of E-Telkin. Maybe you're like really good with computers?" "Are you serious?" Lynn asked incredously. "Those talents have been gone, for, like, ever. That was the Sorceress that killed herself. How could they have it?" "Sorceress? Killed herself/' "Well, basically, when Alena and Sabrina went through that huge power struggle against all the other Sorceresses, Sorcerers, gods and goddesses, there was one Sorceress that killed herself. There was also a goddess of evil and chaos that became a Sorceress to evade Alena, and also throw the universe into total chaos because neither Sabrina nor Alena were totally complete, so they'd totally fight each other for, like, ever. Anyway, the Sorceress that killed herself was of the whole mind-thing. She was neutral, but she didn't want to give Sabrina any extra power. That was how the goddess changed herself, too, because she, like, stole all the power hanging around and used it to change herself. But she also had the E-Telkin capacity, somehow, and she had to use a bunch of that, too, so it's gone." "How do you know these things?" Heidi asked "Are you kidding? It's like the first thing you learn as a Saushale. Anyway..." Lynn had booted up the computer and signed in. She typed in 'Goddess Ciel's' powers in the search. One result. "The E-Telkin is the ability to control codes and thier effects, especially to make things pulse. One side effect is that the things pulsing cannot be affected by the Telkin. Mind reading is interesting. The person with the capacity will hear the minds as if they are saying things. They see no pictures, only words, so it is possible there are a lot of humans who think they are schizophrenic but actually have mind reading. Same as with hypnosis. It is possible that people who think they are just really charismatic, persuasive or are fair tricksters are hypnosis people. The only people with these capabilities are the partial descendents of the modified draggals. The E-Telkin, however, is definitely dead, except for those who are direct descendents of the goddess. However, the ability requires Sabrina or Alena's electronica to awaken. Since we killed off the line a long time ago, no one has it anymore," Lynn read aloud. "Hmm. I've always wondered how you get descendents of a power. Anyway,. the invite is definitely un-cancel-able. But I think Hailey can create like a ring of protection around us." "Can I decline?" "Yeah, sure, if you want all of us, and Alena, and basically the universe as we know it, to die." "I so hate you." "I'm going to pretend like you're being sarcastic, though I'm actually not sure." "Whatever." Sabrina sat and watched the network. Lynn thought she was computer genius, but hello- Sabrina had made the network. And ever since someone had told Laura not to come when Sabrina had been fighting Carmen, she had made sure it was totally stable. Lynn was on, Lynn was searching for... Ciel powers? Why would she need to know that? Unless... Unless Adriana, Lynn, and Sav weren’t the only ones talented. Typing quickly, she logged into the small camera that she had Lynn carry around. Just in time to watch her tell everyone about E-Telkin, mind-reading, and hypnosis. Senca. She couldn't even put the sickness on them, or if she did, all they had to do was use their powers. Which Zara would do automatically. And Hailey just had to listen to electronica, which played all night at the camp because of Sabrina. Heidi was a lot more selfish than she let on- Sabrina could tell she would use her power numerously. And when the fight came on, They would have nothing against them. Hailey could turn electronica against them and dBryanble their Telkin. There had to be something she could do. Something. Wait. Maybe the sickness wouldn't work, but a sickness would. Hailey would hate electronica. She'd run from the thought of listening it. Therefore, no Hailey! And she needed to speed up the whole draggal research thing. "How are you coming?" "Pretty good. We're on ninety eighth part. Wait a second." The screen blurred for a few minutes. Sabrina checked the network again. "It's only been, like, an hour and a half and we've gotten to one hundredth part. But there's one problem." "Yes?" "Rapid breeding like this means we need a higher concentration of draggal for it to actually work. Eighty five to ninety." The person held their breath while Sabrina tapped her nails against the crystal of her table. "I'm willing to use it," she allowed finally. "Turns out there's a much higher need for hypnosis than I previously intended. This whole test is on high alert." Zara felt awful when she woke up. Across the room, Sav was listening to "Cruel Summer" on repeat on her mp3 player. It was turned way up, and because Zara could read her mind, it was blasting even louder in hers. The song was like a sledgehammer, pounding at her forehead. She ran to the bathroom and vomited. Which is exactly how you want to wake up. You know, by hearing vile electronica pounding, having a horrible headache, and then vomiting. Not. "Um, Zara? Are you, like okay?" Lynn asked guardedly when she returned, not feeling much better. "No," she moaned "Sav turn off the electronica." The headache stopped. "What about now?" "Yes," she answered, drawing out the syllable in puzzlement. "It's a sickness." "What?" "What the freak was with the music?" Heidi and Hailey groaned in unison. "Oh my god! It was just my mp3 player!" "Yeah, we could still hear it!" Hailey snapped, pulling a pillow over her head. The song had been totally normal, one of the few of Sav's songs she liked. Why did she have a splitting headache listening to it now? "You have "a" sickness," Zara called across the room, answering Hailey's question. ` "I'm tired," Adriana pointed out. "Why are you talking so loud?" she moaned. "Having a mind reader around is going to get really old really fast. I can already tell." "Good for you. Look, I hacked into the system-" "Why do you keep doing that? Sabrina is so going to catch you eventually!" Sav snapped. She didn't feel too good either. "Well, eventually is not now, and that's what counts. Anyway, Sabrina's coming-" "Like, duh. We've been pretty sure of this for a pretty long time now, you know!" "Will you stop interrupting, Sav? It is really getting annoying!" "Go on," Zara put in when Lynn didn't continue. "ANYWAY, she's coming today. Like, this afternoon." "This afternoon! We'll never make it!" "Especially if Hailey's out. Sabrina has this whole trap set up for the electronica. And hypnosis on Saushale that works with their mind control." "Well, how do you get the sickness off?" "A sickness. And you don't. It was designed to kill Saushale." "How?" "Turns you into a draggal. So-" "A what?" The whole room asked. "Draggal. It's a super-human killing machine, basically, and can be killed really easily. That's how you ill a Saushale, you turn it into a draggal. There used to be a billion of them when Sab was a Sorceress and couldn't have a lot of Saushale, but they've got a lot of problems so she doesn't really use them anymore." "Will she have any draggals out?" "Nah, it's too easy for a Saushale to kill them. Our problem is the giant heaps of Saushale. Not all of them are coming- not enough would fit- but there are a lot." "Well, Alena is a goddess-" "Alena will have enough problems dealing with Sabrina. Now that Sabrina is a goddess, she basically is more powerful than Alena. Period. I don't know if we could win even with Hailey and Heidi, and Zara, but without them we are like so going down." There was a long pause, as everyone pondered either a) their impending doom, b) possible solutions, or c) they were really hungry. Finally, Adriana spoke up. "What about Carmen?" Alena stood at her window listening to them bicker. Only snatches of their conversation came through to her- parts about Hailey, "a" sickness, and her. She'd have to deal with Sabrina. She was not really sure how else she planned for an attack against Sabrina to go, but she had never expected that she would be forced to go one on one with her. Shed never really thought about it, but she still knew with sickening certainty how it would go- Sab smirking as Alena slowly ran out of power and capability, the hordes of Saushale destroying Sav and Lynn, the outcome coming to nothing as Sabrina spoke the words, the words that would destroy her. Certainly they couldn't win. Sab would be so difficult to kill, it would require a contract. And there was no way in hell Sab was giving a contract with Alena. No, the best they could do was simply to get her out of here, maybe trap her for a while. She listened to them bicker some more, then grow silent. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but it was definitely something. She walked over to her bed in the small confinement and flopped down, scattering Cathy's papers everywhere. Alena shut her eyes, perfectly rigid. If her eyes had been opened, she would have been staring straight at the ceiling, barely more than a foot or so away. She listened to Cathy sweep in, scattering some more of the papers. Cathy stomped around some more, probably frustrated by the action. Then she stood still. Alena opened her eyes and look down sneakily, seeing Cathy standing in intense concentration. Slowly, the papers rose, then dropped. After another few seconds, they turned over a bit. Cathy! Cathy had the Telkin! She- The window. Alena had accidentally opened it. She reached over and closed it with a loud crack-like sound. Cathy's eyes flew open. Just the wind. Sabrina watched the network carefully. She had analyzed human behavior for years now. She could figure out exactly what was up just by Lynn's search queries. Lynn first searched for how to combat "a" sickness. She found a bunch of articles about Carmen, the only, well, being is the only good word there, ever to get a sickness off. But Lynn had skipped them. As if she already knew what had happened. Either Lynn had given the advice- which was more possible than Sabrina cared to think about- or she was still in contact with Carmen. Which was also really, really possible. For the billionth, trillionth time she wondered what the deal was with Carmen. How come she was like that- impervious to everything Sabrina did? Sabrina severed the connection, Carmen won. Sabrina brings in Saushale, Carmen's already made friends. Sabrina dominated electronica, Carmen had her own song and was way, way closer. And she had a remote control. With "Cruel Summer" on it. Sabrina gave her "a" sickness, which was totally and completely impossible to get rid of and Carmen has it off the next day! It made Sabrina want to scream just thinking about it. Focus, she told herself. Focus on the present. Never the past. Past=irrelevant. She watched as Lynn then clicked on her email account. Sabrina quickly logged on and watched. Oh, this was just perfect. Sabrina's dread grew as she watched the conversation. Wonderful. She so hated Alena. The room dissolved into pure chaos after Adriana's suggestion. Everyone, it seemed, knew Carmen somehow. And not everyone liked her. Hailey whined "Carmen? But she's such a freak. And she, like, totally ditched us!" "I don't like to whine, but I don't think that Carmen is the best idea now." "Yeah. I think the last thing we need is some sarcastic, obnoxious girl to come here and make us all hate each other!" "Carmen? I thought she was, like, the one person that would, like, destroy me!" "Actually, Sav, she's not-" "Sav might be righter than you know." Alena walked in. "What? But Carmen's on our side!" "Hello! Maybe Sav, like, isn't? Have you searched the database lately? She's Saushale! Sabrina even created her! And it doesn't hurt that, well..." Alena's voice faded off. "WHAT?" "I finally figured out what the electronica you were hearing was." "What?" "Track 5. The only song that would ever, ever cancel out Carmen's song." Sav and Lynn both paled visibly. Which, because they were already hecka pale, made them have the complexion of about Sabrina's. "Yeah? So?" Adriana asked. "Yeah? So? I actually stopped hearing it! And, I mean, everyone hates Carmen's song. Everyone." "And what the heck is track five, anyway?" "It was just some random song from someone's mp3 player that she hated-" "Hey! That was my mp3 player! And that song was good!" "Whatever. That's not the point. The point is that Carmen and Sav are enemies." "Not necessarily. There were other people who's songs were opposites, but Ciel brought them together with the E-Telkin against Sabrina." "Do we have E-Telkin?" "Yes! What do I look like to you?" "Um, a twelve year old nuBryannce?" "We're all twelve, Alena. It's the twelve year olds that are saving you. Get over it. Well, okay, maybe some thirteen year olds, but that's not the point." "Okay, fine. Whatever. You're still not getting it. You're not focusing. Besides, Hailey has a sickness. She's basically useless now." "Nope." "Nope??? " "That's what I said. According to the text, Hailey just has to-errr- listen to some kind of electronica-" "No. No. Way. There is no way that I am-" "Hailey. I know, okay? I had a sickness. I survived." "You had a sickness?" Sav. "Mildly. Yes. Anyway, the electronica is Carmen's electronica." "Oh. Perfect. Like we have that on file." Zara. "Actually, we do." "How did you get Carmen's electronica on file?" Adriana, recounting it. "Because I'm special like that!" Lynn logged onto her account. There was a green dot beside Carmen's name. Lynn: Hey Carmen. Carmen: Hello, Lynn. Look, I've been trying to contact you for, like, ever. Do you not see the three billion messages I've sent you? Carmen: And how exactly are you emailing me in the day, anyway? Lynn: yes, I see them. Look, we need to hear your electronica. Carmen: Are you torturing someone? Because that's the only feasible explanation for you wanting to hear that. Lynn: Hailey has a sickness, needs to hear your electronica. remember, because she has etelkin? Carmen: Oh, right! Okay, yeah, sure. Carmen: How am I going to get my electronica over there? Lynn: First, make it play. Then click accept on the video chat invite im sending you. Carmen: Gotcha. In a few seconds, the picture of a pretty girl, about twelve of course, with long, streaked blond hair and blue eyes. She gave a sarcastic wave, obviously seeing everyone. "Hey Adriana! Do you still hate me?" "No. It…it makes more sense." "Why am I not hearing electronica?" Lynn asked, fake-haughtily. "God, just wanted to spare your lives. But if you want a suicide, don't let me stop you." "I saw the sign..." Zara hummed. It was another one of the mysterious papers, this time recounting lyrics from random songs and funny/depressed answers to them. "I really doubt we're going to commit suicide over a song," Adriana muttered. "It's a nice joke Sab told me," Car explained in response to Adriana. "Can't help it." "Electronica?" "It's your funeral," Carmen sighed, then made a look of intense concentration. Fake of course, all she had to do was will it to play and it played, loudly and clearly, rather than what sounded like "Deep breath" that she was playing now. Within seconds, the most annoying song in the history of the world erupted over the computer. "Sav, Adriana, Zara, Heidi- just leave. This is not fun to hear." "Aye-aye, captain," Sav said sarcastically. "Shut up." Hailey was totally immobilized. "Um, are you sure she's okay?" Carmen asked. She was using sign language so that she could communicate over the electronica. "Yes, she's fine." Lynn signed back. "Then why is she not moving?" Lynn could tell it was meant to be sarcastic, but it's hard to put sarcasm in sign language. However, Carmen being Carmen, she managed to pull it off. "You missed it, but normally it's excessively painful to get a sickness off. Saushale won't go in the way of pain. That's why it's not painful normally." It took Lynn forever to sign now, because she almost never used it. Particularly spelling out Saushale. "Your people have weird rules." "Sabrina made us easy to control." "Technically, it's not really an us, is it? I mean, except for your face and laptop, you aren't Saushale at all. Unless you're a complete and utter liar…" Carmen let the words dangle in the air. Again, it was meant to be sarcastic. "I'm in a lot more pain...and conflict than I let on. And just stop being sarcastic. Sign language is not sarcastic." "Joy. Have you told Sav this?" "No." "Okay, look at Hailey. She's like dead. And you aren't totally un-Saushale?" "Shut up. It's not like that." "Can you be so sure?" "Yes, I can be so sure. And this is why I haven't told Sav." "Oh. Well, anyway I think that the evil counselor is coming in so you'll probably want to-" "Get me an mp3 dock now!" Lynn shouted right into the microphone. Carmen looked bewildered, but an iHome appeared right next to Lynn. Carmen had everything. Lynn flipped the top down, putting it on stand-by. She shoved it under her bed, and whirled around just as Cathy was coming in. The iHome still had Carmen's mp3 player and was blasting something by Fergie. Some kind of bragging rap song Lynn instantly hated. "Lynnette! Why am I hearing music?!" "Okay, first, it's Lynn. Never call me Lynnette. That is not my name-" "Last I checked, it was." "Well, you checked wrong." "What is playing the music?" "A magical object coming from where the fairies roam and the unicorns-" "You've already tried that one on me, Lynnette. What. Is. It." "Something-" "Give it. Now." Suddenly, Lynn took notice of Cathy's eyes. They were flashing purple. Oh snap. With a capitol S. Like the size of Asia. Where the freak was Sav when she needed her? Or a cell phone? Or something? Zara! Lynn tried. Hello, Last Resort. It's been a while since I've enjoyed your beaches and forests. Too bad that I'm too busy TRYING TO CONTACT MY FRIENDS VIA MIND-READER (WHO HAS A SICKNESS) BECAUSE SABRINA IS RIGHT HERE to enjoy it! Zara! Hello? Sabrina? Get Sav over here! Like now! Wait! The iHome! Maybe she could, like, play "Cruel Summer" on it or something? Lynn found it Telkin-wise, and scrolled through Carmen's songs. The whole thing had like eight gigabytes, so it looked like Carmen had never deleted anything, including music from what seemed to be fifteen years ago. For some reason, Carmen had about eighteen versions of "Cruel Summer" which took Lynn an extra five seconds to locate. Within seconds, "Cruel Summer" had filled the room and Cathy looked like she was about to explode. Snap. What had Carmen done before to get Sabrina out? Hello, inspiration. Sorry to be bothering you at this hour, but I just think you've been passing me by. Oh. You're doing it on purpose? Why? Oh, because Sabrina asked you? Oh. WELL THAT'S JUST BENEFICIAL! "Lynn? Is there any particular reason you feel the need to blast electronica?" "Sure, Sabrina. I'm sure if you think really hard you can figure it out." "What did you just call me?" "Sabrina." "Isn't that the psycho that changed Sav's face?" "A-yup." "And stole my friend?" "A-yup." "And forced me to run away?" "A-yup." "And why do you think that's me again?" "Because your eyes are, like, purple. And you, like, hate 'Cruel Summer'?" "Everyone hates "Cruel Summer", Lynnette. Except for you. And your friends. And the psychotic weirdos that buy Hana Rose's music. And I'm not Sabrina. I just really hate electronica." "Stop calling me Lynnette! And besides, I think there's a reason 'Cruel summer' hit the top ten on the charts." "You're going to make me stop calling you Lynnette? You and what army?" Lynn was really tempted to say "This army" and launch something at Cathy's face. But she didn't. Instead she just said, "Oh, you'll find out what army if you try that one more time." "What are you going to do? Complain?" "Hey," came a separate voice. "What happened? Why is there electronica playing?" Hailey. "It's "Cruel Summer" and it's playing because I'm an idiot." "I think we can all agree with that," Cathy muttered. "Why do you work here, Cathy, if you hate it so much?" "Because I like bossing people around and I need a job." "Hailey, try to direct the song. We need to see if a sickness is off." "What?" "Okay, look. You know Sabrina, right?" "Duh." "We're trying to get rid of her." "How?" "E-Telkin, mostly. It can prevent Sabrina from hurting us, but not from us hurting her." "I think it's impossible." "If Carmen alone can do it against the Sorceress, then all seven of us with the E-Telkin can do it against the goddess." "You're not allowed to have any of that... stuff you call music." "It's called electronica. And do you want us to die or not?" "Quite honestly, I can see the perks in not having you around much longer." Lynn glared. "Ok, fine." Lynn smiled. Cathy left the room. "I'm going to get the other girls," Lynn announced before getting up and walking out. It was nearly impossible to start to figure out where they had gone. Lynn figured they'd be screwing around in front, maybe a bit on one of the trails. But they weren't. Finally, though, she found a tube of Heidi's lip balm stuff at the beginning of Bridge Trail. Figuring they were still on the trail, Lynn kept walking. The trail lead pretty deep into the woods. Even in the 95 degree heat, the woods area was still cool. Lynn, for the first time since coming there, really thought about the heat circle. It had been a big news thing for a couple days- then dropped. It must be Alena. So if the woods were still cool- that is, not affected by Alena, then, then- Then Sabrina was in charge here. Oh, joy, Lynn thought sourly. The further along the trail she got the clearer it got- holes in bushes, marks on trees, the occasional root ripped in half. Sav did not have a very high tolerance for things that got in her way, especially when she was trying to move pretty fast like this. Clearly, the whole group was moving faster and faster as they went through the trail. Despite her Saushale superiority to the woods, the trail started to get really, really impossible. Branches smacked her in the face. Cob-webby leaves fell off the trees right onto her head. She tripped over roots, branches, holes, and dozens of other annoyances in the trails. The trail started to show signs of her own walk, especially as she started speed walking. After at least two miles, the trail ended. Lynn stared. This could NOT be happening. NOT. BE. HAPPENING. Hailey sat on the floor, trying to pretend like there was no electronica playing. She failed. Carmen, on the screen of the laptop (Hailey had just pulled it out and turned it on, and there was Carmen, looking kind of mad), made some weird motions with her hands. Hailey looked at her curiously, then ignored her. After a few more minutes, though, Carmen shut off the electronica and spoke to Hailey directly. "Hey! Hailey!" Hailey turned to look at her, bemused. "Where the freak did Lynn go?" "To get the other girls. You know, Adriana, Heidi, Sav-" "Savvy? Oh yeah!" "Savvy?" "Um, yeah. That's what Lynn used to call her." "Tell me, really. How do you know Lynn?" "We've been emailing for, like, ever." "And you never told me." A flat statement, not a question. Why? Had Carmen told Heidi? Adriana? Hailey was more Heidi's friend than Carmen's, Heidi more Adriana's than Carmen's, and Carmen held the same kind of blocking that Sav did. She rarely let herself care about a person. There were a lot of things that Hailey, Heidi, probably even Adriana didn't know about her. "I didn't think you would care." Carmen half shrugged "And you never had the time to find out?" Carmen ran her fingers through her hair. It was longer and blonder than before; her parents had taken her on a few vacations to places like LA and the beach. Then she shrugged. "I don't like to bore people. And besides, it's not like my opinion was ever really appreciated. I seem to recall-" "Yeah, Carmen! Maybe if you'd stop being so annoying people would like you more!" Carmen laughed. "And maybe I should try and do ballet without falling over or banging into something! It would be just as out of character!" Hailey laughed. "I never knew you could destroy so many things by doing a plie." "Well, I only knocked over one thing…then that fell on the backpack, and spilled the papers everywhere, and the pencil box was what caused me-" "So, has Lynn told you about Zara, Heidi, and me?" "Yes. I think it's considerably ridiculous that she is entertaining the idea that she could ever win. That is so not going to happen." "Why not? You did it! Are you suddenly better than us?" The fact that Carmen and Hailey were friends had been totally erased from her mind. Carmen snorted and rolled her eyes. "I wish it were that simple. Then I could just fly out there. Which Lynn asked me to do anyway, but that's not the point-" "Why? Why are you coming?" "Because a psychic tiger commanded me to! Duh!" "Carmen," Hailey growled in frustration. "Lynn asked me to, duh!" "Why did she ask you?" "I'm getting to that! Anyway, not only did I not defeat her permanently, I was also defeating a Sorceress, and she didn't have any Saushale on her back! All she had was Lynn, who was on my side anyway!" "So? Sabrina will barely be able to use the Telkin on us-" "Okay, let me reiterate this for you. You have a sickness. Until you get it off, you are useless. And even if you do have it off, you will still have lost a lot of ground to a sickness. Which you barely had in the first place!" "What can I do then, since you are the know-all?" Carmen rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Okay, look. Firstly, stop insulting me, because all I'm telling you is everything Lynn told me, so technically, Lynn is the know-all. Secondly, neither me nor Lynn know everything we need to. And thirdly what you should be doing is practicing! And that should be excessively obvious!" "Practicing what? Lynn hasn't told me anything! Zero! I know nothing about how or why I can do it! I barely even know what E-Telkin is! I don't even know what it stands for!" "It stands for electronica Telkin. And you already have been doing it." "Yeah? Like as in when?" "Remember the part where I'm just telling you everything Lynn told me? I don't know!" "You really should have come up here with us," Hailey huffed. "Too late now. Anyway, according to what Lynn told me-" "When has Lynn been telling you all of this? I mean, hello, Cathy is around all freaking day. Lynn can't sneak a laptop past her." "Midnight. She sneaks behind the cabin and uses her laptop there." "How do you know where?" "Is knowing how I know that Lynn uses her laptop relevant? No! Why are you asking me these questions repeatedly? Do you think I'm a spy or something? Why are you fact-checking me?" "I just find it very strange that you know all this stuff! God! Do you know anything about how to work the E-Telkin or are you just going to yell at me?" "I'm pretty sure you use the E-Telkin the same as the regular Telkin." "Meaning what?" "Agghh! Why is Lynn not telling you this?" "Oh, am I psychic now, or something? Go ask Zara!" "Sheesh. Temperamental-" "Hypocrite," Hailey muttered. "Anyway, you just, you know, focus." "On what?" "How about we try practicing first. It should just be kind of natural." "Wow, that's explanatory." "Okay, look, do you want me to tell you this or not? Because you are really making this the opposite of fun." "Do you remember me volunteering for this?" "Um, no, I wasn't here, remember? It's not like Lynn gives me a copy of every minute happening. Anyway, I am going to turn on some electronica-" "Nah, Lynn has your iHome here. Just tell me what song." "Let's start with something easy. 'Cruel Summer' or 'Dance Until You Drop'. Your pick." "Okay." Hailey turned on the device, scrolled through the songs, and found the section. And stared. How many remixes did Carmen have on here? There were at least seven songs starting with "Cruel Summer", and then some weird remix name. Where was she finding all of these? Pretty soon, though, she had the song blasting. She stood there for a moment, waiting for Providence of some kind then gave up and turned to Carmen. "What am I supposed to do now?" Carmen rolled her eyes, gave an overdramatic sigh, and sat down in a rolling chair and spun across the room. "Oh, I don't know. That's a really hard question! What should I do now?" "You don’t need to be sarcastic about it!" "Hypocrite. Anyway, just modify the song. Duh." "HOW?" "Focus on the version of the song you want. Try and exclude all other thoughts. I think you're supposed to be pretty calm for this one, so more focus on your ability to do it rather than anger." Hailey tried. She focused. And, as Carmen had said, it was natural. Gradually, gradually, the song coming out of the device changed. It was on repeat, so she had plenty of time. The beat became louder and more overpowering, the keyboards higher and fainter, the voice of the lyrics rougher and louder. Finally, lastly, the lyrics changed. Eventually, the song nowhere near resembled "Cruel Summer". "See? I told you that you didn't need extended instructions." "That's it?" "For now. You should be really tired." "Except I'm not." "Okay, look. Where did Lynn really go? It's been like half an hour." "She said she was going to get the other girls. That was it." "Oh that's just beneficial!" There was Sav. There was Adriana. There was Heidi. There was Zara. And there was Bella and Laura. Bella had seen Lynn crouching in the bushes, and had decided to be really obnoxious, sarcastic, and rude about it, as all the Bellas of the world are inclined to do. "Hey, Lynnette! Come join us!" "Stop calling me Lynnette. Bellauren." Bellauren was Lynn's nickname for Bella and Laura, because they were virtually always grouped together. Bella especially hated it. Laura was too calm and cool for Lynn to know if she cared. Lauren was, yes, Laura's real name, but pretty much all Saushale like to modify their names somehow. "What are you doing?" Why wasn't Sav doing anything? Or Adriana? Or even Heidi? Hello, this was Saushale! How could they not know that? Was Bella, like, threatening them? And what with? "It's Sav," Zara whispered, just loudly for Lynn's Saushale senses to pick up. Lynn was closer than Bella and Lauren, so they couldn't hear, either. What is Sav doing? "She's Saushale. She's threatening us." Why isn't Heidi doing anything? "Heidi vs. Sabrina. Who's winning there?" Lynn felt in her pocket. She had an mp3 player in there. Quickly, she turned it on, pulled out the headphones (it had built-in speakers), and removed the blockage from her mind that prevented her song. The speakers weren't very loud, but because of the effect of electronica in this wonderful story I am very generously telling you it was really loud. The song blasted. Lynn didn't have E-Telkin, but because of the basic modifications Sabrina added to all Saushale of pretty much all the goddesses (some of which were built on, which was why some Saushale could read minds, hypnotize, disguise their faces really well, and a bunch of other things) Lynn could make it even louder. Sav's face screwed up, and she put her hands over her ears. So did Adriana, Heidi, and Zara. Lynn struggled not to laugh. Tell Heidi to try now! Lynn sent to Zara. Heidi looked at Sav, her pupils dilated. She had a look of intense concentration as she dissolved all of the webs, ropes, barricades, deletions, hidden files, and everything else that Sabrina had put on there. Which was really, really complicated and difficult. Sabrina had been learning about mind control (which was actually really different from hypnotism) for decades. Heidi had been learning consciously for about three days. But Lynn's electronica and Sav herself had been taking care of a lot of it already. Heidi succeeded. Lynn, Sav, Adriana, Heidi, and Zara all faced Laura and Bella. "What exactly were you trying to accomplish here?" "How did you do it, anyway?" Laura and Bella just smiled. Hailey watched as Carmen stalked around her room, stomping and throwing things via Telkin. Carmen was back from her last vacation, and her parents were back to working full-time, so Carmen was left alone 16-7 as usual. Hailey had only been to Carmen's house once, and most of it she'd forgotten. Mostly what she remembered was that it was huge, and Carmen had a little brother who was always playing video games with them up way too loud. Carmen's room had also been huge and immaculate, and also hi-tech, full of computer parts, flash drives, extra speakers, and other things Hailey couldn't even begin to guess at. "What are you so worried about, Carmen? It's Lynn. She'll be fine." "I'm actually more worried about Sav. Remember, she's like half-Saushale?" "She's WHAT?" "Oh, Lynn hasn't told you yet. Well, don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise." "Stop being, obnoxious, Carmen." "Too late. Anyway, if you're not tired, let's move onto the next most complicated thing." "Oh, joy." "Shut up. Anyway, what you're going to do is make the entire room pulse. That's how you can protect everyone from the Telkin." "Like what Zara was talking about?" "What?" "Zara was saying something about the bed pulsing-" "Yes! That's exactly what we're looking for." Hailey focused. Carmen had put on another non-offending electronica song. Hailey had no idea what the artist was, but knowing Carmen it was probably some obscure Savvy People no one else liked. Including Hailey. As was to be expected, it was a seriously dance-y song, with a strong beat, almost as prominent as Sabrina's. The pulsing filled her mind (which was in no way hard, considering the volume) and the room pulsed. Things fell and broke. Hailey felt the floor jerk this way and that. She reached further. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. The door vibrated. The hallway vibrated. The next room over. The shower. The next cabin. Vibrations spread, and as they did, so did the music. Pretty soon people started walking out of their cabins, wondering why the freak there was a dance song playing in the middle of an electronic-free zone. Oh yeah, and why there was an earthquake going on. Carmen laughed hysterically. The vibrations had turned the screen so she could see out the window, and she watched as some people danced, some huddled for cover, and most just looked exuberantly confused. She was doubled over, laughing harder than Hailey even knew was even remotely possible. The song changed, to something Hailey actually recognized. It was one of one of Sav's favorite songs, and it was by Savvy People, as most songs are here, you may notice. But beyond that, Hailey was lost. She adapted her E-Telkin easily, however, easily and adeptly. Then Cathy burst in. "Hey! You promised to leave us alone!" Hailey protested. "No way. Not this song. I hate this song! You can't turn on the radio without listening to it! I am so not going to be listening to this." Carmen was still laughing hysterically. "Carmen?" Cathy asked. It jolted her memory, made her lose her grip on reality. Suddenly, she remembered something. It was from so long ago. Wait- there it was. Her real name and age. It was... umm... She lost it again. "The world is full of confusion and irony." she tried to console herself. "And I will always refuse to care." "Claire?" Carmen had stopped laughing. That was Claire's favorite line, she remembered. She always said it when teachers or students did something weird, or something went wrong. Everyone always laughed. No one else ever used it, knowing it was too strong a sign of copying. No one. How could she possibly know that? No. This was not Claire. Claire was thirteen. Cathy was like twenty. At least. Maybe she had just made it up herself or something. Cathy was jolted back again. Claire was her name. She was thirteen. And Carmen had been her friend. "I am Claire," she whispered softly. "Claire's thirteen," Hailey said, like it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. Carmen and Cathy-Claire looked at her with disdain. "No," Carmen said, ultra-sarcastic as was the norm. "How though?" Cathy-Claire asked. "Well, think of it this way. Bella looks the same way she did when she graduated from high school- which was in 1990. And all the Saushale look the same. Sabrina could probably make you look twenty two and have a different facial structure." "That's why you talk like you're thirteen!" Hailey. "I know. But I can't believe how many times I said like." She made a face. "I took an oath with my sixth grade teacher never to use it." Carmen started laughing again. "Anyway, Hailey, you are doing awesome. Just keep practicing that. I have to go now, though. My mom wants to talk to me about school." Lynn, Sav, Adriana and Zara faced Heidi. "Good job. Seriously. That's, like, better than Sabrina," Lynn said, amazed, to Heidi. "How is it better than Sabrina?" "Took her years to design that system of mind control. Took you three minutes to decode it." "It's like with computers. It'll take someone months to create a program, but it can be hacked into in minutes. Hours. Somewhere around there." "Takes me seconds," Lynn bragged. "I'm not exactly sure that's something to be excited about, Lynn." "It is when it prevents Laura from killing Carmen." "Oh. Yeah. I stand corrected." "Guys. What happened? I'm kinda, like, clueless right now." "Okay. Laura is really good at hypnotism, almost as good as Heidi. She hypnotized you, making you try to kill us. Then she realized you were, like, impervious or something and tried to get rid of you, which was when Lynn showed up. All of the Saushale are really worried, especially because of Alena. They have no idea if her revival is a rumor, or exaggerated, or what." Zara, actually. She had been listening in to everyone's thoughts, and could give an almost flawless account of what had happened. "I'm lost," Adriana declared, after a pause. "Join." Sav. "Double-join." Heidi. "Join?" Lynn asked, semi-sarcastic. "Yeah. Cooler than 'Me Too', don't you think? I made it up," Adriana informed her proudly. "Great. Pretty cool, actually." "Thanks," Adriana beamed. "Um, Hailey's found Carmen," Zara warned them slowly and cautiously. "And both of them are kinda...freaking out." "What do you mean, Hailey found Carmen? Carmen is in Ashland. She's not coming until later today." "No, your computer. You didn't shut it off." "Oh. Yeah. The video chat. And what do you mean, they're 'kinda freaking out'?" "You told Carmen Sav was Saushale, remember? And now Carmen thinks-" "I'm what?" Sav half-shrieked, staring at Zara. "Saushale." "What? How?" "The transformation can be carried out from afar," Lynn recalled. It was again part of her training courses. She had undergone several, for months. They had all been at "boarding school". It was an actual school, registered and everything, because Sabrina knew that it would be such a pain to use mind control on every human who happens to see it. It was just "really exclusive". It was well known for churning out great leaders and workers, because they were Saushale, and Sabrina got a lot of applicants. Just none of them got in. There had been courses in everything- stuff like stories about goddesses, gods, Sorcerers, and Sorceresses, courses in setting up, using, and understanding the Saushale web (Sabrina's own web and phone system), hypnosis, mind control, and E-Telkin, regular Telkin (obviously), acting normally (though most disregarded it), stuff about the transformation, Saushale, Sabrina, Alena, chosens, electronica, biology, everything. Everything. Everything was monitored, phone conversations, email, texts, regular speech, even the way you moved your eyebrows when you talked. Hence the reason that Lynn had taken to carting a laptop (a regular one, not a Saushale one, with regular internet she paid for, not Sabrina connectivity and Saushale web, Sabrina made and Sabrina paid) down into the basement and getting a gmail account, and communicating with Adriana, Zara, Tanya, and especially Carmen that way. "What do you mean, 'from afar'?" Sav demanded sharply, and Lynn was jolted back into the present. "The transformation isn't a magical thing, Adriana. It's not an operation. It's just a collection of chemicals that, like, kill regular, human hormones and such and implant fake chemical messages that override your own DNA. If you have blonde hair, it'll make your body think you have black. If you have tanned skin, it'll destroy all the melanin and make it pale. Same with everything else." "Seriously?" "Yeah, at least that's what they told us in training." "Oh. Well, how would these 'chemicals' get to me?" "What you drink, probably. Pretty much all the workers here are Saushale. Any of them could have slipped in the morning cocoa or juice, or the pineapple juice they give out at lunch." "I am never coming here again." Lynn shrugged nonchalantly. "The Saushale are everywhere. I know there are a bunch of teachers that are Saushale. Usually the mean ones." "Whatever. Can we focus now?" Zara asked. "Carmen is teaching Hailey, and she has no idea what she is doing." "Fine. Everyone, run!" So they ran. Adriana, Lynn, and Sav were in front, of course, using their mind powers to move quicker. Zara wasn't too far behind them (that being a relative term, of course), being strong and fast. And Heidi, well... Heidi was pretty much in the back. "Wait...up" she panted. "I...don't have...super...natural...powers like...you guys do..." Suddenly, she was thrown into a large tree a few feet in front of Adriana. Everyone stopped. "Sorry! I'm not very good yet," Adriana apologized. "This is going to be great for the final fight," Lynn commented sarcastically. "Rather than throwing Saushale into trees, we'll be throwing Heidi." "Oh, shut up," Heidi complained. "I'm fine." "We're almost there. Carmen's hysterical now. I don't know why." "How do you know what Carmen is thinking?" Adriana asked sharply. Zara rolled her eyes. "I just look at what Hailey is taking in and guess at Carmen." "Great. That's it." Lynn smiled. "Um, Lynn?" "Yeah?" "Where are we, again?" There was a long, long pause. "Lost." "What did your mom say?" Hailey asked conversationally. She was sitting crosslegged, making random songs sound like others. As Carmen listened, she heard her try to turn "No Explanation" (almost half of Carmen's mp3 player, and 99% of what she listened to, was by Savvy People) into some rock song. But it kept turning into a different remix. "Oh, she was just telling me that she wants me to 'branch out' and spend some time with kids other than you, Heidi, and Adriana. Oh, and she told me that the transfer was complete." "What transfer?" "Oh, I'm transferring to Lynn and Adriana's school. To be quite honest, ours was quite thankful. Just like Sav's." "Oh. Yeah. My mom and Heidi are making us too." "Really? Why?" "You know how Lynn's school is some kind of unconventional school?" "Yeah." "Well, that's why." "Oh. Cool. Anyway, what are you doing to my play list?" "I don't think a play list involves the same four songs repeated over and over again." "In my world it does." "You live in a strange world. Anyway, I keep trying to change this song, but it's not working." "Oh. Yeah. Look it up." "On what? Where am I going to find a trouble-shooting guide on something most people don't even know exists?" "Um, the Saushale web on the computer you're using right now?" "Oh yeah!" "Oh yeah," Carmen muttered. "Duh. Where's your mind, genius?" Hailey pretended not to hear her. Hailey quickly opened up the internet. It showed a split screen. One said Sabrina-Saushale web (SSW.), the other World Wide web (www.). Hailey clicked on the first, and a search engine appeared, standard, like you would see on google. Probably Sabrina imitated the regular web with her own. She typed in "E-Telkin troubleshoot" and a bunch of options appeared, the first called exactly "Troubleshoot E-Telkin". She clicked on it. A whole chart appeared, huge. At least eight or nine pages. On the top was a search bar and she typed in "songs playing differently". "This song is not working because of malfunctioning defects in the claim process of 'lectronica," Hailey read out loud. There was a long pause. "I'm lost," Carmen declared, only to break the silence. "Join." "Huh?" "Adriana made it up. She was annoyed with the whole me too thing, you know, because people are all like 'me three', 'me four', etcetera. But it also means I agree." "Oh. Okay." "What's taking Lynn so long?" Hailey asked casually. "Oh, am I psychic now?" "Why do you always say that? It's really annoying." "Duh. That's kind of the point." "That's a really weird point." "Good for you." "Whatever. What do I do now?" "Simple. You want your side to be able to use the Telkin, right? I mean, it would be kind of boring to have these two groups just kind of staring at each other." "No! Really? Never would have thought that." "Oh, shut up. Anyway, I think there is some way to make it so your side can use the Telkin but their's cant." "Great. How do you do that?" Carmen started coughing and looking down and up. "What?" "Co-" cough. hack. "mpu" more coughing. "ter". "Can you just say it?" "Lynn's computer, genius. Glad you figured it out pretty quick. I mean, I never would have thought you could figure that out fast enough." "Oh, shut up." Hailey accidentally matched Carmen’s tone before. The computer was easy to use. Quickly she found her answer. “Focus,” Hailey said sarcastically and bitterly. It startled Carmen, who had put it on minibar and started typing. “What?” "That's all it says. Focus. Wow," she added, getting sarcastic. "That's really helpful! I'm so glad I wasted my time!" "Hmm. Anything about what to focus on?" "No. Of course not. Why would it give me any information at all?" "It is kind of a Saushale computer. It probably refers to some kind of training class." "Yeah. Guess I should ask Lynn when she gets back." "if she comes back," Carmen muttered. "Why wouldn't she?" Hailey asked, almost completely clueless. Carmen gave a big sigh. "Sav is hecka stronger than Lynn. If the whole transformation-hypnosis-mind control thingy changes her, Lynn is going down. Probably along with Adriana, Zara, and the others." "And Heidi. Who knows hypnosis." "Yeah, I know. She's been training for, like, what- three days? Wow. Helpful." Silence. "Too bad you're in LA." "Not LA, stupid. I'm in my house. Just flew back yesterday. My cousin is taking me over later, since my parents cant get off work. It's only a little out of his way to some town on the coast." "Why is he going to the coast?" Hailey asked, just to make conversation. "Beach thing. He and all his moronic friends are going there till, like, the day before school starts and are going to have a bunch of parties and freeze themselves to death." "It's like 95 today, Carmen. And we're only like 60 miles south of them. Somehow, I doubt they'll be that cold." "They checked. Going to be sixty five throughout most of their trip." "What? How is that possible?" "I've been checking weather underground lately-" "God, we're about to risk our freaking lives and you're calmly checking the weather?" Carmen's eyes narrowed. her voice was tight and angry as she slowly said "Lynn asked me to. Her computer is monitored. If she checks the weather, Sabrina will be suspicious." "Oh. I guess...I guess that makes sense," Hailey replied meekly. Carmen flipped her hair over her shoulder, suddenly becoming eager, enthusiastic, and sarcastic like before. "Awesomnisity. Anyway, there's this one weather station like right next to your camp, and it's the only one recording the 95's and 110's. All summer and about a month before, it's been like that. The rest are all seventy, eighty degrees." "That was when Alena came to the camp," Hailey recalled, remembering the boring orientation and each counselor-chaperone-guidance person standing up, saying where they were from and how long they had been there and sitting down. "Then why would it be declining now? It was actually hotter before her whole super-charge powerburst." "Don't know. When is Lynn going to be back, anyway?” “Where did Lynn go?” Cathy asked suddenly. Carmen and Hailey both looked at her, startled. She had left when Carmen had left the computer and had just come back. "And Adriana? And Zara? And Sav? And that other girl…" "Heidi?" Hailey finished for her. "Oh. Yes. Heidi. Where are they?" "In a magical place where the fairies roam and the unicorns graze." Carmen rolled her eyes. she usually didn't use the Saushale phrases and words, but this time she did anyway. "That's not an answer." "Really? I NEVER would have guessed. That's simply amazing," Carmen replied, of course, sarcastically. "Where. Did. They. Go." "It seems to have slipped my mind, maybe Spain, or Portugal…." Carmen trailed off, on her face a mock expression of concentration. Hailey laughed. "I should probably be pretty glad you didn't come. Lynn and Adriana and Sav are bad enough." "I think I'm coming next year." "Remind me to quit next year." "I'll text you." "Over my dead body!" "From what Lynn's been telling me, that's probably not such a bad idea." Carmen was still being sarcastic and Hailey shook with silent laughter. "Is this your way of avoiding the question?" "Of course not! What could possibly make you think that? I never avoid questions!" "Where did Lynn and the others go?" "We don't know," Hailey interceded, before Carmen could get her in more trouble. "Why would she not tell you?" "Be-" Carmen tried to answer, undoubtedly sarcastic, but Hailey answered first and cut her off. "She was going after Sav, who didn't tell us anything. They should have been back a really long time ago, actually." Hailey started to really worry. What if Lynn didn't come back? Or Adriana? Or Sav? Or Zara? Or… who else had gone… Heidi? What if none of them came back? Cathy narrowed her eyes and strode away. Carmen pulled something small out of her backpack and flipped open. Hailey then could tell it was a cell phone. "I hate cell phones," Carmen muttered before dialing someone (probably Lynn, who carried around her BlackBerry everywhere. Hailey made a mental note to ask her why she had a normal-make that non-Saushale- phone paid for by Sabrina) "Hello?" It was on speaker. "Like, yeah?" "Where the freak are you?" "Didn't see that one coming," someone muttered. "Zara" another person hissed. Maybe Sav? "Like yeah Zara, how dareth you?" Sounded like Adriana. "You guys are so immature," Someone criticized. "Shut it, all of you," Lynn reprimanded. "Oh my god, Lynn! I'm so sorry!" someone shrieked sarcastically. Sounded like Adriana. Carmen could tell Lynn was glaring at whoever it was, because they squeaked out "Sorr-y" and shut up. "We're kinda lost." "How could you possibly be lost? You're in the middle of summer camp, for Gods sake! Civilization! In what universe could you even think about getting lost in the middle of Oregon? And civilization?" "Okay, Carmen. The lecture is so not needed-" "Like ehmagawd Carmen, how could you even think-" "Adriana! Shut up!" Sav. "Sav, what is with you today? You're acting so un-Sav-ish!" "My name is Sav, genius, not-" "Shut up, or Lynn's gonna blow," Zara warned. "Heidi, little help here?" "What am I supposed to do?" "Take a really wild guess-" "People! Focus-" "How come you're calling us, anyway?" "Because I'm special like that!" "Now is so not the time for sarcasm, Carmen." "Hypocrite." "Yeah, Lynn!" "If you don't shut up I can swear there will be-" "Okay, how the freak did you get lost in the first place?" "Savvy here-" "Sav!" "Yeah, until you act a little smarter I am so not calling you-" "Lynn. Focus. And the rest of you, shut up." "Yea. I wanna hear this, too," Hailey screamed, just to see if they could hear her. "Is that Hailey?" "Yep." "How did Hailey get in LA?" Zara asked in an almost sarcastic way. "Video chat. And I'm not in LA." "This is beginning to get kind of insane." "Oh. My. God. How. The Freak. Did. You. Get. Lost." "Savvy wandered off with most of them, and they got lost in the middle of the woods, and I found them, and then Bellauren did some kind of scrambling thingy so we have no idea where we are." "Oh. Wonderful." "I know. We're all so happy and excited." "Totally. We're just jumping with joy!" "Oh, shut your piehole-" Adriana burst into laughter. "Okay. Why don't either you, Savvy-" "Sav!" "I'm joining Lynn's boycott of your real name. Honestly, what were you thinking, wandering off into the middle of the woods when you know Saushale are about? What kind of idiot are you?" "Yes! Sav has been proven idiotic!" "Shut up, Hailey." "You and what army?" "Probably Sav," Zara answered her, right into the phone. "Go Zara!" Sav and Zara high-fived. "Okay, seriously. Lynn, just use the Telkin and go really high and look around. Find the camp." "Oh, yeah! Why didn’t I think of that earlier?" "Because only pure geniuses like me would ever think of something that-" There was a click as Lynn hung up. "Okay, Lynn. Why did you answer?" Sav asked angrily. They five were sitting on the ground, pulling at grass. Lynn had just closed her phone and turned it off. "I don't know, Sav, maybe it's because Carmen is one of my best friends." "Do you have any Saushale friends?" Adriana asked casually. "I used to. Tara-" Sav shot up, faster than Lynn had ever thought possible. "Sav? What's the deal?" Heidi asked, cautiously and carefully. There was a long pause as they waited for her to answer. "Tara used to be her friend. And Kylie. Then she ditched her. She was trying to fight the Sabrina influence. And failed," Zara answered for her. Sav had sat back down and was staring ahead. "Okay. Tara did always try to fight Sabrina, but she did it wrong. She wasn't quiet and subtle, she was loud and showed it off. Sabrina put a bunch of mind control on her and every time Tara tried to fight it- she was special, and could get rid of it really fast- Sabrina would redo it. Eventually Sabrina got tired of that and killed her." "She kills Saushale?" Heidi asked quietly. "Yeah. But only when they are a lot of trouble and not very good at the Telkin. She'd never kill me or Sav. Or Carmen-" "Carmen's Saushale?" Adriana asked frantically. "No. But if Sabrina wins, she definitely will be. Actually, all of you probably will be. Especially you, Hailey and Heidi. She's been trying to get her hands on E-Telkin and, to a lesser extent, hypnosis for, like, ever." "Great." Heidi drew out the vowel so it sounded extra-complainy and sarcastic. By the day, Heidi was becoming more and more like Hailey. A change everyone was so not relishing. One Hailey was already more than enough. "Okay, well, are you going to, like, do what Carmen told you?" Lynn groaned. "The first thing a person learns when they meet Carmen is to never, ever take her advice unless you are absolutely sure she is serious. Which basically never happens." "So, call her back and ask if she was serious!" Sav said it like it was the most obvious thing ever. "Just don't put it on speaker this time." Heidi sounded half-desperate. Which puzzled Lynn. Weren't they like best friends? Lynn sighed. She hated calling people. And phones. That was why she'd gotten a BlackBerry, rather than a regular phone. So she didn't have to call people. Luckily, Sav, Carmen, and most of the Saushale shared her irrational annoyance of phones. "Hello?" Carmen had picked up immediately. Which was actually pretty unusual. "Like, yeah." "Is it on speaker?" "No," Heidi answered quickly. "Yes," Lynn told Carmen. "Okay. What do you want?" "Nothing. We just all love your company-" "Shut up, Adriana." "No deal." "ANYWAY, were you serious when you made your suggestion about the lost thing?" "Yeah?" "Were you serious?" "Duh." "You honestly think we can just go fly up into the sky and no one's going to notice?" "Come on. I checked it out. No one but Saushale for freaking miles." "That's encouraging," Lynn told her. "Not," the entire area added. "Well, I mean it's kind of obvious when you think about it. You think Sabrina is going to choose someplace in the middle of some giant city for her whole brainwashing-training thing? Because I don't!" "Duh," Hailey called, from the video chat. "Besides, you guys can't have gone far. There's only, like, ten miles of woods. And you haven't been lost that long." "Ten miles? Yeah. That's no distance at all," Lynn said sarcastically. "Shut up. Are you going to take my advice or not?" "Yes," Sav decided. "Yes we are." Then she reached over and hit 'End Call'. "We are not," Lynn complained. "There's only so much Carmen I can take," Sav explained with an eye-roll. "What are you talking about? Carmen's just like me. Only not Saushale." "Yeah. Exactly. I really don't need to handle two Lynns. On top of an Adriana." "Hey!" "How many people are you planning to insult today?" Lynn asked, mock-innocent. "A large multiple of however many she has," Zara answered for her. "Come on. We don't have time for this." Heidi pulled her thin fingers through her light brown hair. "We have to get back. We're barely equipped to handle Sabrina and Saushale as it with Carmen and hailey, we're so going down without them." "She is right," Sav said thoughtfully. "We have to get back. Even if it means flying. Even if irt means-" she made a face "taking Carmen's advice." So up she went. Carmen and Hailey muffled their laughter as Lynn shut off the phone. Soon as they were sure it was off, they really laughed. Hard. "I've never called Sav 'Savvy' before. Wonder why she's so mad about it." Hailey was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the small cab division, right in front of the laptop (obviously). "Maybe it's the same as Lynn's thing- she doesn't like to be called Savvy because someone died or something." "Maybe." Hailey started laughing again. "That was freaking insane. Is it like that all the time when you are at the cabin?" Carmen asked. "No. But you really annoy Sav, I think, and Lynn loves having someone to be sarcastic to, which makes Adriana sarcastic, which annoys Sav even more, which makes Zara love to show off by joining in...you get the picture." "Yeah. It also annoys me." "Yeah. Me too." "Ha. Hope they'll take my advice." "Yeah, right." "What?" "Adriana and Lynn know you. They're so not going to take your advice. They'll think you're being sarcastic. Which you probably are." "I was not." Hailey snorted. Suddenly, randomly, "All That She Wants", by Ace of Base played. Carmen and Hailey jumped, then looked at each other. "Oh! It's my phone!" "That's your ringtone?" Carmen nodded, picking up the phone. "Who is it by?" "Ace of Base." "Who's that?" "One of the bands that did 'Cruel Summer'. They're okay. I like this one song a lot." Carmen flipped open the phone. "Hello?" "Like, yaw." "Is it on speaker?" From there, the same phone conversation came as before. After Sav turned off Lynn's phone, Hailey started to laugh again, but not nearly as hard as before, and after a couple minutes or so, she stopped. "Do you think they'll take my advice?" Carmen asked. Seriously, which was very, very rare. "Yeah. Now that they know you're serious. Though they may still not believe you." Carmen sat down dejectedly. "Why is it so freaking hard for everyone to realize I'm not always sarcastic?" "Because you are sarcastic like, 99% of the time. We don't really have time to go and decipher the remaining 1%." "Ha ha. Hilarious. Hypocrite." "I may be annoying, but I'm not even close to being as sarcastic as you are." "You're close." "Liar." "Hypocrite." "Sadistic." "Moronic." "Ummm....Sarcastic?" "Okay, look, we don't really have time for this. Let's focus." Hailey groaned. "After this, I am never going to be able to listen to someone say 'Let's focus'." "Ha ha. Come on." "What am I supposed to do?" "Take a really wild guess." "I'm done with guessing! In fact, I am so done-" "It's unbelievable," Carmen and Hailey recited together. Carmen gave one of her annoying, big fake smiles. "Told you that expression was pure genius." "Whatever. What am I supposed to do?" "Find them? Like, as in duh?" "What? How on earth am I supposed to do that?" "You probably know what I'm going to say, so I'm not going to bother." "I'm asking mechanics, Carmen, not Lynn Lang." "Lynn-" "Or Carmen annoyance, whatever!" Hailey huffed, stood up, crossed her arms, and rolled her eyes. Carmen sarcastically mimicked her, being the annoying person she is. "What I'm asking is for you to tell me what to do!" "How about you make the computer tell you what to do?" Carmen rolled her eyes. "I know very, very little about the E-Telkin. I never HAD to. I just throw things into walls." "Great." Hailey did her annoying speech pattern, where she stretched out the great to make it sound extra sarcastic and annoying. "Sarcastic, annoying Carmen throwing things into walls. What a lovely picture." "I was being sarcastic." "When are you not?" "Let's not keep going like this." Carmen gave an annoyed sigh of frustration. "Just use the stupid computer already." "Fine then I will, Ms. Psycho-Sarcastic-Throwing-Things-Into-Walls-and-Being-obsessed-with-the-Worst-Band-Since-" "Sure you want to continue on with that sentence?" Carmen raised her eyebrows in a sarcastic 'I wouldn't do it if I were you' expression. Hailey, in response, put the chat on minibar and searched for 'E-Telkin location'. Once again, her answer was found quickly and precisely. Again, she read aloud. Lynn and Adriana were being sarcastic to each other as Heidi stood in a corner, with a typical 'Hailey' expression on her face. Zara said aloud most of what was happening. "She's basically just flying upward now, and going through some chemical concoction Sabrina sent her. And complaining about the stupid trees." "Well, duh." Zara waited a couple more minutes, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "What? Where are we? What happened?" Adriana and Lynn asked, in almost perfect unison. Zara gave another exaggerated sigh and another exaggerated eye-rolling. "I'll let her tell you. She's better." Luckily, Sav touched down right after that. "What's the deal? Are we in Arizona?" Lynn asked sarcastically. "No, stupid." Sav rolled her eyes. "We're right next to the cabins. We wandered in the right direction the whole time." "Oh. Lovely," Adriana said, rolling her eyes for that extra effect. "I know." "I so know," Lynn announced sarcastically. "It's unbelievable." "Yeah," Zara answered her. "And trust me. It's not new info." Lynn stuck out her tongue. Sarcastically. Funny how Lynn and Carmen could put sarcasm and mockery into, like, everything they did. So they trudged towards the cabins, which were clearly in view right behind a couple trees. "Raise your hand if you feel stupid," Adriana ordered sarcastically. She and Sav weren't nearly and sarcastic as Lynn, Carmen, and Hailey but had started to, from the idiocy of their situation and the need to be annoying to Lynn. Sav rolled her eyes and jabbed her hand into the air with a small, sarcastic smile and a sarcastic toss of her head. Lynn did the same. Zara and Heidi rolled their eyes, looked at each other, nodded, and took off running towards the cabin. "Hey! Where are you going?" Lynn looked at Sav in confusion. Adriana sighed and followed Zara and Heidi. Sav and Lynn ran, too. All five of them skidded to a stop right in front of the cabin at about the same time. They briefly looked at each other and opened the door. "Focus on the person you are trying to find, their song. Obviously, this only works with people who have songs. However, it is very effective when the person is actually playing them." Hailey rolled her eyes at it. "Again with the focus thing," Hailey complained. "Why are all the Saushale so obsessed with that?" Carmen shrugged. "Their just special like that," she said distractedly. She was brushing her light blonde hair, still streaked from the summer before. Unless she had gotten them re-done. Actually, now that Hailey looked, she realized that they were much brighter than before. She must have really liked the purple and silver patterns. "There's no Telkin thing associated with it?" Carmen rolled her eyes. "No, they just opened the dictionary and picked the first word they saw." "Seriously?" Hailey put on a mock-excited face that clearly made it known that she did not actually believe it." "No duh. Not." "Whatever. Can we turn off this dumb playlist and play something good?" "I like this playlist!" "How can you possibly listen to the same two songs, especially Savvy People, over and over again?" "Because 'Obsessed' rocks!" Hailey rolled her eyes. "Fine. I think there's some of your music on there." Carmen sighed and pulled the brush through her hair faster. "Why?" Hailey was stunned. "I downloaded Heidi's mp3 player that one time, remember?" "Oh. Yeah. You downloaded mine, too, remember?" "I remember. I downloaded all of your mp3 players. I just didn't put any of yours on there. You listen to weird music." Hailey rolled her eyes, again. "This from the girl that listens to the worst band of 2009." "Savvy People released-" "Whatever." "How about rather than criticizing the best band in the universe-" Hailey started coughing and choking hysterically. Carmen mock-glared. "Why don't you actually find Sav and Lynn?" Hailey sarcastic smiled. "Don't need to. They're right outside." Sav and Lynn went first, followed by Adriana, then Zara and Heidi. As was to be expected, they heard Hailey and Carmen in the next room over. "They're outside?" "No. I just decided to randomly say that. Just for fun." Hailey rolled her eyes. Carmen exa-sighed (it was a new LynnLang word, meaning an exaggerated sigh). "Okay. I so don't see anything good on here. I just see Savvy People. And Ace of Base. And Bananarama, whatever that is." "I have other stuff on there. Bananarama actually wrote 'Cruel Summer', that's why they're there." "Whatever." "Go to albums, then find the Heidi's music one. There's two- good and bad." Hailey did, and soon some random song, in Japanese, replaced the Savvy People "Hello, y'all," Lynn announced, jumping in. Hailey was startled, and almost dropped the iHome. Carmen laughed. "If that had been me, I know I would have dropped it, jumped up, tripped, and a whole chain of events." "You are coming tomorrow, right?" Lynn asked. "Duh. Nothing else to do around here." "You parents won't notice at all that you're gone?" Zara asked, confused. "Not at all. If they even come home tonight, which they probably won't, they'll go straight to their room. I don't think my parents have come up to the third floor in, like, a year." "Wow. They don't care about you at all?" Carmen shrugged. "Yeah. It used to be kind of sad, but lately it's seemed more of a convenience than anything. I mean, with the Telkin and all. A lot of times I'll send stuff hurtling down the stairs and stuff." "Anyway, how caught up are you?" Sav asked Carmen. "I don't really know about the hypnosis and mind reading thing…" "Well, the most important thing is that Heidi can undo mind control in, like, three seconds." "Really? But you told me that Sab said it was really hard to get off!" "Look, I saw Lana do things that were…unbelievable. She could twist around anything in your mind. And hypnosis is much more complicated than mind control. If you acknowledge that you have mind control it's pretty easy to get off, because mind control works by giving you a thousand reasons to do something, and if you pull back then usually you can stop from doing something, though the thinking is usually still pretty messed up. But with hypnosis you'll be doing things without actually knowing what you're doing, or thinking as hard as you can to stop but nothing happens." "Great." "Yeah. Hey, Heidi, try it." "Try what?" "Do you know how to hypnotize already?" "Um-" "Yeah, she does," Zara replied easily. "She got out of cleaning the showers. And other things." "Lucky. Get me out of it, too, will you?" Hailey asked. "Okay, Heidi. Great. Try and get us all at the same time. You need to be able to hypnotize lots of people at once." Lynn was talking about hypnosis. How powerful it was. Power. Who was this Lana? She had hypnosis, obviously. And a lot of it. Heidi pulled a hand over her hair. It was curling on one side, as always, and tried unsuccessfully to smooth it out. "Try it," Carmen suddenly broke in. "Try what?" Heidi asked, bewildered. She hadn't heard the last part of the conversation. When Carmen started talking oftentimes it was a good thing to stop listening. "Do you know how to hypnotize already?" Lynn asked. Images flashed through her mind, thinking of the past few days. She'd discovered that, really weirdly when she cleared her kind and focused on a command, people did what she wanted. She'd only used it on Cathy, whom she really hated, but it didn't always work for some reason. "Um-" Heidi said, wondering if that was something she really wanted to admit. But Zara did the work for her, something she kind of appreciated and kind of didn't "Yeah, she does. She got out of cleaning the showers." And other things, Heidi thought to herself. Almost immediately, Zara voiced it aloud. "Try and hypnotize us all at once," Lynn requested. What? No thanks! Hypnotizing Cathy to get out of her ridiculous punishments was one things, but her friends… Oh, come on. Nothing real. Just make them touch their head or something. But…I don't really know how to hypnotize. It doesn't always work. "I don't really know how…" Heidi trailed off. "It's easy. Stay calm and focus on a command. Do something like twirl in a circle, just so we know that you can actually do anything." "Okay." Heidi focused her power. She could feel the power of her mind, a wide, unrelated mess of emotions and power and thoughts. She brought it to a focus, just as she had with Cathy. It happened simply, almost automatically. But it was different with six people rather than one. She kept only hypnotizing one person, or else the power got wide and unfocused. Finally, she directed it into six separate streams, and that worked. Her friends' eyes went blank. "Jump up and down three times, then twirl in a circle, then, um, do a backbend. Be in sync." Heidi then sat back and watched as her friends jumped up and down, twirl, and did a backbend (well…for some it was more like half a backbend), more perfectly than they could have done otherwise. Then their eyes went normal. "Nice, Heidi. Let's try the whole cabin now. I think everyone's back." "The whole cabin? No. I barely managed six." Lynn bit her lip, clearly not wanting to believe that. "You think you could do ten? We need to you to be able to got fifteen in one dose, at least, if this is going to be at all effective." "Okay…" Her uncertainty was clearly voiced. "It won't be-" Cathy then decided this would be a great time to come barreling in and screaming about how late the cabin was. "Adriana! Heidi! Zara! Hailey! Where were you four? You've been gone all morning!" "Alena-" Zara tried to explain, but Cathy ignored her. "Come on! Lunch? Hike? Lake? Places to-" Heidi hypnotized her almost instantly. "Lynn? What should I do?" "How about we all stay here during lunch and practice? You all need work. Not as an insulting thing, but-" "We know. Should I try hypnotizing people now?" "Yeah. Finish Cathy, then drag some people in here." " 'Kay. Cathy, you are going to let the six of us stay here all day without any objection. If we break any rules, you will not object." Cathy walked into the next room normally. "Heidi, go to the third room. There's only five people, so you could hypnotize all of them." "Okay-" Everyone paused to listen to Cathy in the next room. It sounded a tad violent. "Lake, people! Come on! Don't get lazy on me!" "I don't wanna hike," some girl whined. There was the sound as a book crashed into a wall, then a high-pitched scream, then a loud thump. "Laurie fell off the bed! Ha! Is a paperback-" "GET OUT OF HERE-" A second book crashed, but this time it shook the walls of the main characters' cabin, meaning it had been thrown at Cathy. "Michele! How dare-" this time four books smashed into the wall, one after the other. "Mount misery," Cathy declared, a smile in her voice. "Is waiting." She laughed. Heidi got up and walked in. She hypnotized Cathy easily. It was so much easier to hypnotize Cathy than anyone else, for some reason. "Continue on like the books had never happened." She turned to the other girls. Within a few seconds she had gathered her hypnosis power to a focus, then focused it onto the eight girls within. It was a struggle. Heidi wasn't even close to being as gifted as Lana, and she kept losing power, then gaining it. However, she did manage it within a few seconds. "Girls, you will not remember any of the book throwing. You will not remember me walking in or walking out. You will get ready and leave just like you are supposed to." Heidi walked back into her own cabin room. "Hey Heidi. You hypnotize them?" "Yeah, but I couldn't get it all at once. It's hard!" "Practice, practice, practice." Heidi walked into another room of the cabin and hypnotized them all, much more directly this time. There were only five girls, but she was definitely improving. "Um…go into room number 1." This was the room that my main characters reside in. "Then you will not be hypnotized anymore. Once you're in there, stand quietly with the girls already in attendance. Don't talk, leave, or move." Heidi followed the other girls as they walked into the main room. Lynn, Sav, etc stood up as soon as they saw the congregation. "Okay, Heidi." Lynn smiled. "Rock it, girl." "Moronic," Sav coughed. Lynn elbowed her. Heidi closed her eyes and focused. She gathered her hypnosis power and tried to direct it. But it didn't work. It separated and became too diluted. Okay, Heidi, think. Hypnosis power. What would increase hypnosis power? Their power. I need their power, as well as mine. Heidi reached out and felt their power as well, integrating it with her own. The streams of power she sent out were strong and the girls were caught instantly. "Jump and down. Then the hypnosis will be off and you will stand quietly again." The ten girls jumped up and down, then stood quietly. She tried the same thing, pulling their power, and it worked instantly and well, almost no effort required. She tried it again, but when she hypnotized the girls Lynn suddenly started screaming. "Ah!" she screeched, falling to the ground. "Hypnosis rescinded," Heidi muttered, and the girls stopped standing quietly and knelt down to see what the hell was wrong with Lynn. "Lynn? Lynn?" Sav. "Hypnosis-" " Hypnosis?" one of the other girls questioned. Heidi turned to them and hypnotized them. "Go back to your cabin. You will not remember anything, and it will not seem strange to you." "Hypnosis and mind control battle each other. I kinda forgot that. Ack, I've got a killer headache." "What are you talking about, Lynn? You told me that you didn't have any mind control." "No, I didn't. I just said that I pretty much overcame it. And I did. But it's still there, and the hypnosis and mind control kind of go against each other." "Okay. What do I do?" "Just delete it. It shouldn't be too complicated, just focus on deleting the mind control rather than making me do…whatever." Heidi focused and the hypnosis occurred in a fraction of a second, just as fast as with Cathy. "Hey, Lynn, does it get easier to hypnotize someone after you do it a few times?" "Yeah. I don't know why, or how, but it does happen." "How were you doing it so fast?" Sav demanded. "It took forever when it was just the six of us, but with ten it was much less." "It was like…like I combined energies or something. Something like that." "Okay. Well, I think you're pretty much covered. Hey, Adriana, why don't you try the Telkin now?" "Sure…How am I going to manage it without destroying something?" "Simple. You try and move something. Sav will make sure you don't actually move it." Adriana, feeling kind of silly, sat down on her bed and focused on Zara's bed, moving it. The anger focused to a point and the bed jerked, almost taking out the window. "Sav!" Lynn complained. "She can't be that strong. Not this fast!" "Sorry. I wasn't ready…" "This just keeps getting more and more stellar. You almost broke a wall, and now complain that you aren't ready. Boy, does this sound promising." "Lynn. Chill." Sav. "Ugh. I'm going to talk to Carmen." Lynn pulled out her laptop, signed into chat, and clicked on Carmen's email. Lynn: ACCEPT THE VIDEO! Carmen: Or what? Mu ha ha ha Lynn: or… I will cry. Carmen: You're terrifying me. Help! Help! Lynn: So just capitol H, e, l, p. Carmen: hell! Lynn: Ooh, Carmen… I can't forgive that…neither will our Lord. Carmen: I remember when I was a kid my parents would try and force me into church. Didn't work out well. Lynn: I'm assuming you were even more obnoxious back then? Carmen: Yep. I would make sarcastic comments and throw stuff at people, like pins and beads and stuff. I always thought it was hilarious, they'd turn around, all confused. Sometimes. Usually I missed. Lynn: This is just trademark Carmen. Carmen: Yep. So, what are you guys doing out there? Lynn: Heidi's pretty good at hypnosis. Not as much as Lana, though unfortunately. Carmen: How talented was Lana? Lynn: Well, if 100 is Ciel and 0 your average Joe, Lana was about fifty. Carmen: That's not exactly spectacular… Lynn: Heidi has thirty. I have twelve. Tara's like five. You have two. Carmen: Really? I can hypnotize people? Cool. I'm going to go take out my brother. Lynn: you can't actually do anything with that, just 'influence' him. Carmen: Damn. I was going to make him fall down the stairs. Oh well, I'll just throw something at him. Lynn: Why are you so mad at your brother? Carmen: He tried to break my computer. Lynn: Yeah. Knowing what you've told me about your brother, that's not exactly monumental. Carmen: Whatever. So, how special is Adriana? Lynn: I don't know. Probably around three hundred. I'll get her turning the temperature of stuff soon, just for practice that doesn't involve banging stuff into walls. Carmen: Do you think I could do that? Lynn: Maybe. You do have a lot of power. Carmen: How do you do it? Lynn: I'm not sure. Let me ask Sav. Carmen: Okay, I'll sing. WHEN PEOPLE SEE ME DO THE THINGS I CAN Lynn: You know, if you had accepted my video chat, you could be actually singing rather than just copying the lyrics of No Explanation into the chat box. Carmen: I'll be sure to do that, then. "Hey Lynn," Carmen greeted. "How do you get your room so clean?" Lynn asked. "I spend a week here with these slobs and mine's a mess." "I have way more time than you do." "Fun." Lynn then turned around. "Hey, Sav! How exactly do you change the temperature of things?" "I just focus on the object, pretending like it's really hot or cold." "See? There you go." "Yeah. Hey, can I see Heidi hypnotize someone? Supposedly her eyes turn red." "I don't know what she and the other two people are doing." "Probably don't want to get smashed in the head," Carmen explained matter-of-factly. "Telkin gets screwed up really, really easily. I remember earlier I was trying to get these books to float around in a pattern, because I was really bored, and I got frustrated, and they all tried to kill me." "The books tried to kill you? Are you sure that this extreme boredom of yours hasn't unbalanced you?" Carmen scoffed. "Oh yeah, because I was just the pinnacle of normalness-" "Normalcy," Sav cut in. "Shut your maxillary mandible." "Did Lynn tell you about that?" "If Heidi can do something intellectual," She started. "Then Adriana can too," Lynn finished. The two girls laughed. Hailey came tramping into the room, along with Heidi and Zara. "Hey Hailey. Hi Heidi. Hello Zara," Carmen greeted from the laptop. "Why is that thing jacked up so high?" Zara asked. "You're giving me a headache." "What thing?" Adriana asked, rightfully confused. "The ridiculous music that's playing. It's in another language and it is annoying the hell out of me." "It's not in another language. The singer's just speaking really fast. It's NoEx-LV and it's not going to go away and you're hearing it because you can read my mind." "Oh, that just made my day there." "Hailey. I'm going to play 'Cruel Summer'. You are going to change it, and somehow work it so that I can use the Telkin, but not Sav. We'll both be working on something. Okay?" "You don't need to map it out for me," Hailey said resentfully. "Whatever." Lynn hit a button on her computer and "Cruel Summer" started playing. Hailey changed it easily and got the room to pulse. "Earthquake!" Heidi shrieked. Sav, Lynn and Carmen started laughing. "Why are you guys laughing?" Heidi shrieked. "There's no earthquake," Carmen choked out, and mental 'Moron' clearly added. "It's just Hailey." "Oh." "Lynn? How am I supposed to make it so that you can use the Telkin, but not Sav?" "I don't really know." "Lynn can be really helpful, can't she?" Carmen. "Oh, boy," Adriana added on. "Totally." "Maxillary mandible," Sav warned. "We really don't need another Carmen." "I assume that was meant to be an insult?" "This must be the slow class," Lynn sarcasmed sorrowfully. "Hello? Lynn? SSW?" "Checked already. They don't know very much about E-Telkin, no one's had it for, like, centuries. I think the last case was some draggal a really long time ago." "Notice how exact Lynn can be," Carmen sarcasmed. "It's not, you know, one thousand BC, it's 'a really long time ago'." "Shut up, Carmen," Lynn and Sav demanded simultaneously. Hailey ignored them and focused on the electronica. It wasn't working. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing and no clue how to do it. "Lynn? What exactly is the electronica?" "Well, basically everyone has a code, right? Of their brain or something? Now, when you have a lot of Telkin, your code is magnified a lot or something, which means that everyone around you experiences it. It's almost always a song, because that's the most powerful form." Hailey closed her eyes and, this time, focused on Lynn's code. The song changed abruptly and Hailey knew she had it. "Try now," Zara instructed. "Hailey's pretty sure she got it." Lynn snapped her fingers and watched as water bottle she'd focused on floated into her palm. She smiled. Excellent. Sav shrugged her shoulders and tried to move a book. A simple enough maneuver, it would require pretty much no effort at all. It didn't work. She pushed harder, and still it didn't work. Automatically, she focused harder, more and more power, completely focused on the book. She released it. The book went flying, hit the wall, and almost broke it. "What the hell?" Lynn blurted. "You weren't supposed to be able to do that!" "Sav's got a lot of power. She broke Hailey's focus on your code." Zara. "Great. Assuming Sab's even more powerful than Sav, this spells just wonderful things for us. Whoo! I can't wait! This is going to go great!" "Wild horses couldn't stop us!" Carmen laughed. "This is not a laughing matter. Actually, it's just about the opposite of a laughing matter!" Lynn was clearly starting to lose it. "Lynn! Calm down! Hailey just needs more practice. She's got a lot of talent, okay? If she pushes all afternoon I think we can get pretty far." Zara. Lynn took a much needed deep-breath. "Okay. Okay, I'll try to calm down." "Hailey, you're going to work on E-Telkin, and I'm going to try and break it. Lynn, you, Carmen, and Adriana work on the temperature thing. Hey, Lynn, are you sure that helps moving stuff around?" Lynn nodded. "It's like doing push-ups to help you, I don't know, waterski or something." Hailey started laughing. "Unless you're Sav, of course, and can just Telkin your way through it." Sav rolled her eyes and put her hand up in a 'talk to the hand' gesture. "Good plan, Sav. Heidi, why don't you go out to activity and just try to hypnotize as many people as possible?" "Um…" "I'll come," Zara offered. "I'm not really good for anything except being annoying, anyway." "No, you're useful. You can tell us what they're doing. Actually, yeah, you can practice picking up information from the other people. Like where you might want to go." "They're at the lake, Lynn. Remember, how Cathy was yelling at everyone?" "Do you know how to get to the lake? Because I don't, and I've been going here for the past, like, three or four years." "Are you serious?" Sav asked incredulously. "I figured it out the first week!" "Then how did you get lost, genius girl?" "Um…I only figured out the one trail…" "C'mon, Zara. They're just going to argue for the next thirty minutes, anyway." That actually managed to make them shut up. For the next half hour the cabin was free of them talking, the only sound Lynn's electronica (much quieter than before) and the occasional sound of a book hitting the wall. Heidi and Zara had a much more interesting time, so let's follow them next. "Hey, Zar, do you know which trail to take?" "Kinda." She closed her eyes and focused on the trail, looking for hikers on their way to the lake. She found a group that had left late almost instantly. "This is hella easy. That way." She pointed towards Bridge Trail. "We follow that trail until we get to the Bridge, then there's a Living Danger Trail that follow for a while, then it's onto Lake Trail till we find the lake." "How'd you get all that?" "The instructor keeps going over the instructions in her head. C'mon." They followed the trail, but not in silence. "Hey, Heidi, you think that you could hypnotize them from back here?" Heidi shook her head. "No, I think I have to be able to see them. Let's hurry and we can practice then." They started jogging, staring at the ground so they wouldn't trip over anything. Consequently, they didn't see the Bridge until they were past it. "Zar, I think we have to go the other way." "Right. I feel real smart now." "Yeah, but you'd feel even smarter if you fell seventeen thousand times." "No. Then I'd just feel like Carmen." "Car has a whole mentality that would be impossible for some one like you to copy. Trust me." "Someone like me?" "Well…Carmen isn't just, you know, rude. She's always so…whacked out, like she's trying to cover something up. You can be kind of crazy, but in a different way." There was a pause, when Zara rather unsubtly changed the subject. "So, you ever been to California?" "A few times. They have warmer beaches, an d San Francisco is pretty cool too." "My dad lives in Sacramento, so I go there sometimes." "Is Sac better than Oregon?" "In some ways. But I really like this summer camp. Well, before I found out that it's actually a playground for random supernatural stuff I've never heard of." "Why do you like it so much?" "I don't know. It's beautiful and the counselors are usually very nice. Except Cathy. Something is seriously wrong with her. She wasn't even like this last year!" "Did she really throw a book at that girl?"' "I think so." "Wow. That's just…wow." "I know. Hey, I think this is where we need to turn onto the Lake Trail. The next group is only a few turns ahead. Speedwalk." "Yeah. How many girls are there?" "About fourteen, fifteen." "I can't do fourteen…" "Yeah, you can. Just do that combining power thing you were talking about." "They don't have any power! They're just human!" "Yeah…if it's really impossible maybe I can lend you some power…" "Maybe." At that point they caught up with the group. Zara nudged Heidi, signaling her to hypnotize them already before they got really curious. Heidi focused. The humans did have power, and enough to make hypnotizing them a snap. She had them all under in a few seconds. "Nice," Zara complimented. "You will think nothing of us walking with you," Heidi instructed. "You will also hear none of the conversations we have with each other." "Why is that?" "Because I think we should try and talk about our powers." "Right. Really, though, what do I have to practice?" "Well, see if you can get any thoughts past the ones they are thinking now." "Good idea." Zara focused in on one of the girls, trying to see what she did for graduation. The sensation was startling. It was like searching a computer, easy as that. She found the memory instantly. It was clearly and easily viewed. Zara reached further, trying to see if she could get anyone at the lake. That, too, required almost no effort. She could search through their memories easily. "So?" Heidi prodded. "Sorry. I drifted off a bit. I can find any memory, like, instantly. No effort. Even the people at the lake." "What about those in the cabin? I think we're almost at the lake." That required just a touch more effort, but soon she had locked onto Sav's thoughts. It was mostly Telkin-related. "Wow." "What?" "Sav gets angry when she uses the Telkin. It's like a furnace." "How's she doing against Hailey?" There was a pause as Zara evaluated the situation. "Lynn says Sav's Telkin shot up to, like, six fifty with all the practice, but she's still shattering Hailey's focus. Hailey's going to need, I don't know, a-" "Like me," Heidi said suddenly. "Huh?" Zara was completely lost by this abrupt change in conversation. "I can't hypnotize fifteen people by myself. It's too diluted. I have to borrow power. Make Hailey do that, too! Then she can easily hold up against Sav!" "Yeah…but it's different. With yours, you need power, not focus. But Lynn says that Hailey needs focus. Basically, the electronica contains so much power that Hailey can't completely control it. That's natural, you can't completely control the electronica. But it's too out of control, and Sav's Telkin throws it out of balance, until Hailey isn't controlling the electronica. Sav does." "How can Sav control it? She doesn't have E-Telkin!" "Yeah. We know. Once Sav has control of the electronica, she, of course, can't make it do what she wants, so it just reverts." "How can you improve Hailey's focus?" "I don't know. Lynn, unfortunately, can't either. It's really frustrating her. She likes control." "Okay. Well, they'll work it out. Meanwhile, why don't you try to hypnotize another large group of people?" "'Kay." Heidi walked towards a large group of girls that were trying to organize a few volleyball games. There were about twenty people looking in, thirty in all. Heidi focused, seeing if she could hypnotize them without them looking at her. She could feel their power, and pulled it towards herself. There was so much power sitting there, completely unnoticed! She pulled it to herself, then focused it into dozen s of streams, hitting each person. They slowly rotated to face her, their eyes wide and blank. "Okay, that's kind of creepy." "I know. What should I make them do?" "Umm…Have them each go find someone else and bring them here. Then see if you can hypnotize all of the girls!" "Yeah. Not happening." "Okay…how about ten of the girls drag someone over here and the other twenty do jumping jacks?" "Okay. All of you with blonde hair will find one random person and drag her over here. The rest of you will sit down and pretend like-" "Heidi? Car to explain why you are here?" Cathy came walking up, yelling. "Hello, Cathy." Heidi hypnotized her. "Go down to that end of the beach and come back in an hour, okay?" Cathy started walking the mile long walk down to the end of the beach. "Okay, blondies, go find one friend. The rest of you pretend like you aren't hypnotized." The girls with blonde hair, about twelve in all, went off and dragged someone over within a few minutes. Heidi hypnotized them easily. "This isn't hard at all," Heidi commented "Lynn's decided that Hailey's power is really not working. She's realized that you're pretty much our only hope." "Great. How high is Sav now?" "Hovering around six fifty. Lynn's almost at three hundred." "Good, good. What exactly am I supposed to do?" "Hypnotize as many Saushale as fast as possible so they won't fight. Hailey's supposed to make sure that they can't take us down before you hypnotize a lot of them. Adriana, Lynn, and especially Sav are going to just throw the Saushale into trees. The ones you don't hypnotize fast enough." "What if they charge?" "Yeah, because Sav'll have a real problem deflecting that." "Hm. It doesn't really seem impossible. I mean, I can hypnotize forty people in, like, two seconds. And they won't be able to do anything for at least a few minutes, right? Then it'll just be-" She sat down suddenly. "Heidi?" Zara asked cautiously, walking toward her. "Lynn, this isn't working," Hailey finally admitted after a half hour of completely futile practice. "Your times-" "Oh, wow. Five second improvement! I mean, that's just amazing! Couldn't have asked for it better!" "Sav is at six sixty. Before it was five fifty. So, I mean-" "What's Sab's?" "Huh?" "How much Telkin does Sab have?" "Um…nine thirty?" "Yeah. So, she'll be able to dismantle it in, what, three seconds?" "More like a minute. Which does give Heidi enough time to dBryanrm pretty much all of the Saushale, remember?" "Yeah. I guess. And I can probably at least screw up Sab's electronica domination." "Exactly. And we do have a lot of Telkin. Alena's almost eight sixty." "Where is she?" "Probably in the counselor's room, staring at the window, like always. When is she not?"' Adriana slid off the bed and walked into the counselor's room. Alena was sitting in her chair, watching the window. It wasn't very interesting, just the occasional tree, swishing around in the light breeze. "Alena." The word broke the almost complete silence. "Yes?" Alena broke the word into two syllables, going up on the last one, impatient as if she had been doing the most interesting and important things ever. "Are you going to practice at all?" "What's the point? You don't know those Saushale like I do. Sab picks the best of the best. Lana was probably just one of the Saushale that had hypnosis. They'll knock out Heidi, they'll knock out Hailey, maybe even Sav, at least for the time of the fight. She's got powerful Saushale, not just Bellauren. She's got Sav and Lynn almost under her control, a wrong bite of a sandwich and they're completely-" "Sav, too?" "Yep. Not entirely sure how, but, well, it did happen ." "Any way to…like…get it off?"' "Any suggestions? You know about as much as I do about mind-" Alena stopped and smiled. "What?" "Oh, I forgot. Heidi takes off mind control." "Heidi is pretty much our only plan, isn't she?"' Alena put a hand to her forehead, looking as if she was about to cry. "I don't know what else to do. She and Sav are powerful and talented, sure, but even they can't hold up against hundreds. Sab is bringing hundreds. We compromise about seven." "Eight." "Who else?"' "Carmen?"' "Oh. Right. I forgot her. Haven't talked to her in nine months, thank god." "Carmen isn't that bad." "Depends on your definition of 'that bad'. Most chosens are sweet, if a bit weak, and Saushale are rather quiet, if proud. Carmen is neither sweet nor quiet." "You are telling someone who knows, Alena." "Did Lynn tell you how to pronounce my name right?" "No. It said on the sheet I was in a cabin with someone named Katherine and Alena. I assumed on how to pronounce both." "Yeah, well, I suppose it would be kind of strange for a camp counselor to have such a strange and difficult to pronounce name." Adriana was quiet for a minute. "You should practice anyway. Lynn says Sab has a Telkin of nine thirty, and you're only at eight sixty." "I suppose." Alena did not get up, or even move, really. "Alena?" Alena tried to answer, but was drowned out by a loud scream of "SENCA!!!!" from the next room. Sab tapped her fingers on her glass-and-crystal desk, sitting calmly in headquarters. She had just ordered most of the Saushale force to practice as hard as they could, trying to get as many of them at one seventy five. Ever since she'd figured out Heidi had hypnosis, her focus had switched from Lynn and Sav to her. Once a side had hypnosis, it didn't take a psychic to figure out who was going to be winning that one. Hypnosis is the key, you see. She watched Heidi practice, she watched her walk down and hypnotize fifteen, twenty, forty people in a few seconds. Heidi was just too, too good. "Well, I'll fix that," she muttered. "Hey! Saushale!" "Yes?" "How far is synthesized hypnosis?" "We've got two with about Lana's power, no real evidence of a draggal, and completely mind-controlled. How many you want?" "Let's have about five. That way they can overpower Heidi with no trouble at all." Sab smiled. It was finally here. Lynn had a good key, you see, but Sab had a better one. "Dance into my trap of hope," she hummed under her breath. Heidi didn't move. "Heidi," Zara intoned, waving a hand over her face. Heidi remained motionless. "Come on! Wake up?" Zara snapped her fingers in front of Heidi's face, and her eyes snapped open. "Thank you Zar, for that nice snap on my nose. Like, ow." "What's wrong?" Heidi rolled her eyes, as if this should have been really, really obvious, and walked into the crowd. She walked differently, rather than her usual calm, simple manner of walking, she had her head held unnaturally high and her shoulders back, each step careful and long. Zara followed, unnerved by these small but startling changes. "What's Sav doing now?" the voice was crisp and businesslike, not Heidi-like at all. "Um- Lynn wants us to go back now," Zara came up with. She had a really bad feeling about this new Heidi, but she was confident in Sav and especially Lynn's abilities to identify and fix whatever it was. "Excellent," Heidi voiced with a wide smile. The tone was malicious. "Why aren't you acting like you usually do?" Heidi continued to stride through the forest, calculating maneuvers. "People change, Zara." The tone was, again, rather malicious, accompanied by a confident and cruel half-laugh. Zara couldn't take it anymore. She turned to face Heidi and shoved through her mind. Heidi tried to hypnotize her, but it was pointless. I think I'll interrupt here with a bit of a theory lesson. When the Sorceresses and Sorcerers started fighting, oftentimes groups would band together with one leader. Because of some law that Sab, and consequently I, have not figured out yet, if a leader was completely uncontested (but because people wanted the person as a leader, not because people were afraid) then the person could manipulate these powers. Ciel joined one of these groups, led by the Sorcerer Ladon (you'll learn more about him later). For the short time she stayed (powerful powers had a difficult time staying in one of these groups, even as a leader, which is why the gods and goddesses mostly stayed out of it), Ladon manipulated most of the powers to a simple rule: if a person or descendent had a power they couldn't use it on a person with more pure or more practiced power. Ciel eventually left this group, fought Sab, and lost, but this law couldn't change. They couldn't use it at all, even if they were different talents. Remember Lynn's little example about Ciel's powers, how Lana had fifty, Heidi thirty, and Lynn twelve? Well, if we're using the same graph, Zara had a power of at least seventy or eighty. Back to the story. "Why can't I hypnotize you?" Heidi's voice was shaking with fury. Zara took a step back. "Deep breath, Heidi. Nice and calm." It was automatic; she'd heard Lynn tell it to Sav dozens of times. She continued on with the quest of Figuring Out Why The Ogdesca Heidi Was Acting Strangely. Reading her mind was simple, and the answer was really obvious. Mind control. "Oh, senca," Zara muttered. "Um, Lynn? What?" Adriana could hear Sav's voice ask Lynn. She slid into the next room. Lynn, for some reason, just kept saying "senca" over and over again. "Lynn?" Carmen broke the word into two syllables. "What's wrong?" Carmen's voice, of all voices, seemed to have the effect of waking Lynn up. "Well, I hacked into Sab's account, and found two really bad pieces of news." "And they are…?" Sav prompted when Lynn didn't continue. Carmen, for once, was actually quiet. "Heidi's got mind control. Sab's got hypnosis." "Shih-uh!" Adriana gasped. "Yeah," Lynn affirmed. "How? How did she get hypnosis?" "Synth hypnosis. Did I tell you what a draggal was?" "Yeah. Super human killing machine, right?" "Yeah. Well, because of their brain…structure…chemical…thing, when they breed with Saushale, then the residual Ciel power they have gets ingrained, and they have a lot of hypnosis or mind reading. Sab had her research team develop a chemical a while back that preserves their excessive mind control but still allows them to have hypnosis. It had a few glitches, and I don't know if they're still applicable." "What were the glitches?" "I don't know. They didn't talk about it, and I didn't care when I was researching, because she didn't have any draggals." "Okay…research it now, then!" "Are you kidding me? They blocked off my computer to the special access files a million years ago!" "How do they know it's your computer? I always wondered that." "The Saushale locater thingy. It's pretty much an IP address, but it works on the SSW instead of the regular internet." "How do they do it on non-Saushale computers?" "It's the same as your regular IP. If it's the same as someone else's, then they have you change it." "Can you change it if there isn't a problem?" "Yeah, if you know where the…" Lynn, being the intensely intelligent person she is, figured out what Sav was hinting at right after she said it. "Right." She put Carmen on toolbar and switched over to the SSW. She logged into her locater and changed it to Bella's number. She'd fixed her computer- a little thing, not too much out of the ordinary, but Bella knew nothing about computers- right after she turned Saushale, and she couldn't be sure of its exactness. But it was better than Lynn. Password? It asked. Senca. What the hell would the password be? She opened up Carmen's chat again. "Car! Car, what's the password?"' Carmen, not having seen the SSW site, had absolutely no idea what Lynn was talking about. "Uh, to what?" "The flying dragons of Eragon, of course! Obviously-" "Actually, in the-" Sav couldn't help it. "Shut it, Sav. Car, what's the password to the site? The Saushale site?" "Stop calling me 'Car'. I'm not a vehicle-" She caught sight of Sav over-dramatically shaking her head, pantomiming taking off a hat and holding it to her heart. "Sav? What are you doing?" "Trust me, Carmen. She will never, ever call you Carmen once she finds a one-syllable nickname. She still calls Kylie Ki." "Who's Kylie?" "Stop talking, both of you. Car, what's the password?" "S-A-T-J-seven-H-A-capitol N- space- K-K-five-V" "Where on earth did they get that?" Sav asked. "It's a line from this one book, not a bad one, actually. Then there's this code, like 'A' is 'space' or something like that. They didn't even give the outright password, the code and the book, with the page number and column line." "Fun," Lynn commented rather absently, going back to the SSW. "Oh, yeah, Lynn. It was the most delirious thing I have ever done in my entire life." "What is the most delirious thing you've ever done?" Sav asked. "That one day when I just lifted my arms and flew. It was amazing." "When did you do it? I did it one morning, trying-" "Sarcasm, Sav, can be a fluid language." Lynn ignored the conversation from that point on and gave the site the password. It took a few minutes, but finally let her in. She was about to search for draggals, but suddenly typed in 'Lynnette Ultimatihah', and not just for fun. She wanted to see what security was on her. Just by scanning the articles, she could clearly and easily see that Sab had originally just had a bit of security on Sav, but it increased steadily, then jumped to her. There was a camera in their room, a camera on her laptop, a camera on Sav, and a camera on her. "Senca," she hissed. "Hey, Lynn, is that your new word or something? You haven't stopped saying it all day." "Oh, Sav, it's just because of all the absolutely amazing fun I've had today, of course. Anyway, there's cameras everywhere. There's one on the outside corner of your left eye, Sav. You can probably destroy it if you grind it hard enough. There's one on the ceiling just above our bunk bed, angled so it can watch us. Adriana, get that one for me, please? I'll get the ones on the lappy and me." "Mm. Lynn, I gotta go. My cousin's here to drive me up there." "Tell her to speed. We have about an hour and half." There was a few minutes of silence as they destroyed the cameras. As they did this, Lynn watched a new article pop up, as Sab relayed the damage. Awesome. She typed in 'draggal', but there wasn't anything past a year ago, except for an article saying that those files had been moved to super special access, which basically meant Sab had to open it for you. Sure, Lynn probably could have hacked into it by taking apart the system, but it took time, would probably destroy the web, and could create a permanent tracker on her laptop. "So, Lynn?" "Stupid Sab moved the files. See, the SSW has four levels of security- there's the very basic page, which everyone, even non-Saushale with the password can see. Then there's the Saushale level, which is accessible to all with a Saushale laptop. That's where they put the assignments for Saushale and files on everyone. Then there's the level Seeker Leakers can-" "Lynn, what prompted this?" Hailey asked, irritated. "Nothing, I guessed. I wonder where Zara and Heidi are." Not in a fun situation, I'll tell you that. Or maybe I could just cut to the scene? No, I'm too evil. Sabrina watched the report feed into her computer, and she smiled widely, thinking about it. Since last September, her life had just been one huge loss after another. Carmen beat her twice and unraveled one of her best Saushale! Sav escaped with Lynn, and she had no idea what the heck that girl had been doing. Alena had her trapped! Then Lana had been killed, Bella went out of mind control for almost a month, and those stupid draggals got out, god only knows how, and almost destroyed headquarters. But that was all over now. She laughed, watching as the report showed up, sentence by sentence. Hypnosis better than Lana's, flawless mind control, and they even looked normal- the team had mixed them with a few humans. Perfect. She started to laugh. But only started. "Glitches remain," she whispered furiously, reading out loud. Her perfect plan crumbled as she read further. They hadn't fixed gofska. "NO!" Sab screeched, violence coursing through her. The perfect crystal ornaments littering dozens of shelves and the ceiling crashed around. The computer she'd been reviewing smashed into the wall and almost took out a desk. Sab threw her arms up in anger, and the destruction increased in potency. Crystal ground into crystal, her desk cracked, the walls dented, cupboard doors flew off and broke against the flying debris. Her office, usually completely white, started to blacken. After a few seconds, Sab remembered that it probably wasn't going to be her greatest move ever to annihilate her office. But it wouldn't stop in on it's own. Starting to panic slightly, she jumped across the room and found the small bottle in the corner of the room. She swallowed one of the pills and the pestilent Telkin ransacking the place stopped immediately. Sab smiled. She remembered the curious little pills her chemicals team had shown her a few years ago. She'd scoffed at first; they only worked for about thirty seconds, and most of her enemies then barely had any Telkin. But she kept them anyway, and the thirty seconds or so of calm they provoked helped a lot with truly violent outbursts like this; usually they would last an hour or more and lead to destruction of the entire floor. She took a deep breath, routed a quick memo onto the file and tagged it, stored it away in the super secret files. She looked at her other plan, putting mind control on Heidi. It was timed, of course, so no signs would show yet, but the Saushale in her cabin assured Sab that Heidi had eaten the small, strawberry-icing-coated biscuit sticks left in her bag that morning. Heidi was practically addicted to the things (Pocki? Pochee? Something strange like that), and though she shared a few of them with Hailey, she got enough of a dose to incapacitate her throughout the afternoon. Sab drummed her fingers on the table, staring at the wall, letting her mind wander. Sometimes doing that helped her think of stuff. And slowly, ever so slowly, an idea to fix some of the most crippling glitches in the Saushale emerged. I'd tell you what they were (swear) but it's some kind of chemical formula that makes almost no sense to me, and would make even less to you. But, seriously, Sab was onto something big. "Yes?" Heidi's face was cold, her arms crossed angrily. "Mind control," Zara whispered in defeat. She had picked up plenty from Lynn about mind control. Sure, it came off with hypnosis, but it took time. Even Lana, who had controlled more hypnosis than almost anyone else ever needed a few days to get it off completely. "Yes," Heidi confirmed arrogantly, and chuckled that malicious, over confident chuckle of hers. "But at least it's for the right side now." "Are you kidding me? Sab is out to destroy the universe!" Heidi laughed again. "Really, Zara. You honestly think someone as smart as Sab can't figure out whether or not she can control that amount of power?" "People blur conclusions to fit a pre-determined paradigm," Zara blurted. "Do you even know what a paradigm is, Zara? Or are you just copying words out of dear, sweet little Sav's head?" "Sav can destroy you," Zara hissed, her voice laced with bitterness. "Don't mock her." "No, she can't,"' Heidi contradicted, and she laughed in that infuriating way again. "Hypnosis-" "Can be undone by powerful Telkin," Zara rattled off. "So? You heard Lynn's plans. I was your one plan." Heidi paused to laugh again. "But it's over now. Lynn knows it. Alena knows it. Even Sav knows." Heidi laughed. "Hypnosis is the key. You can't win without a key." Zara sank to the ground. Heidi was right. Every time Lynn reconfigured the situation, Heidi was right at the heart of it. "Lynn is smart. She'll-" Zara's assertive voice was cut off by a snarl from Heidi. "Have you listened to yourself the past thirty minutes or so? 'Lynn'll figure something out.' 'Sav will know what to do.'" Heidi's voice went high to mock Zara, and she even threw in a mocking laugh. "It's pathetic the way you rely on them for everything." Heidi's voice was sharp, and tears started to blur the edge of Zara's vision. Stop it, Zara. Pull yourself together. It's just- The truth. "You're-" "And it's ridiculous-" "Stop cutting me off!" Zara yelled. The yell seemed to echo around the clearing and Heidi's face bounced from insulting to amused. "Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized in a fake, high voice. "Did you have something to say?" Her tone was completely patronizing, the way a kindergarten teacher treats the one, shy little kid in the corner "Why are you even doing this? Okay, fine, you made your point. But why-" "Oh, the classic defense. You come across it all the time. If you can't find a decent comeback, there's always the basic 'why are you doing this to me?" " "You don't even read. How would you know?" "I do so read." "Come on," Zara muttered. Let's keep moving." "Why? You gotta see what Lynn will think? Or Sav?" "Yeah, okay? Lynn is frickin Saushale! She's been like that for a year! She knows about all this crap! And I frickin don't!" Zara screeched. Heidi just laughed. "Wouldn't want to dBryanppoint your elders." They continued in silence, Heidi occasionally laughing that mocking laugh of hers. Zara was sorely tempted to yell at her about it, but even she had figured out by this point that Heidi was not going to be reasoned with. "Is there any way to find out?" "No, not really. What I would need to do that would be another person with mind reading to stand right here and tell Zara to-" "Yes, Lynn. You know, in twentieth century, they invented this mystical device called a cell phone-" Sav. "My telephone! My, my, my, my telephone!" Hailey burst out randomly. She shrugged sheepishly and explained "It's this really annoying song that's always playing on the radio." " Anyway, Lynn, why don't you-" "Yeah, right. Like Zara would ever bring her cell to this camp. She wouldn't even go and help Tanya and Jenny and I go dump oil on Alanna's head!" "Um, Lynn? Is there any particular reason why that is really meaningful? Because I probably wouldn't either." Adriana. Hailey was still humming whatever that song was under her breath. Lynn took a deep breath and woke up her laptop screen to see what time Sab was planning to assemble all of her fun Saushale buddies. An hour. They had an hour. Adriana, Hailey, and Sav were still arguing about god-knows-what when the door to the cabin opened. Lynn got up and walked over. She was about to open the door, but reconsidered at the last second. Remembering Heidi now had some pretty brutal mind control on, she ran back, found one of her little vials of mind control and took a drop, thereby making it really, really hard for Heidi to hypnotize her. She opened the door and watched as Heidi's eyes flashed red. It messed with Lynn's vision and started a very un-fun headache, but no hypnosis surfaced. She watched Heidi's face turn really, really irritated. "Come in, dears," Lynn greeted with one heck of a lot of sarcasm.. Heidi rolled her eyes. They walked the length of the hallway, and Lynn could tell Heidi was still trying to hypnotize Lynn. "Nice try, Heidi. I took a bunch of mind control." "What?" Zara asked, eyes wide. "No, Zara. My own mind control. Not Sab's." "You have mind-" Lynn jumped around with the small glass vial and with a nice Saushale maneuver she got Heidi to swallow at least six or seven drops, twice Sab's dose. Heidi, just being pretty much of average fitness, was no match. See, basic mind control is just a whole stew of chemicals that align your mind. But you have to have the DNA or whatever in order to actually control the person. Lynn, you see, copied the formula for mind control back when she was in boarding school, copied a bunch of it, and made it so that it would listen to her. When two doses from different people enter one person, the stronger one wins, always. Though usually it eradicates itself, too. Heidi's eyes started flashing blue and red. Zara looked really unnerved and started backing into the cabin room. "Lynn?" Heidi asked, confused. "Excuse my language, but what the hell just happened?" "I un-mind-controlled you. Remember that?" "Oh. I was so mean to Zara…" "Figures. Saushale are never the sweetest of people." "I was Saushale?" "No, but you were thinking like one." The two of them walked back into the room. Sab laughed as she watched the second report feed in. The chemicals she'd ordered did absolutely everything they needed to. They had finished testing. They were perfect. She watched her other reports. Ugh. Looked like Lynn had un-mind-controlled Heidi. Sab was getting really tired of Lynn. If Sab could find her after this fight, this fight she was so going to win, Lynn would not be living much longer. It didn't even matter that Heidi didn't have mind control anymore. One of her new draggal-Saushale mixes would hypnotize her. They'd hypnotize all of them! They had so much power, they might even be able to get to Car, Sav, and Lynn. "Perfect," she said aloud, and laughed again. Her laugh was malicious and confident, a high, amused sound. "Perfect," she said again, for no real reason. She typed in a name for the new mixes, ausiga. Mind. Power. But more importantly, slave. Lynn searched around, found her cell, and called Carmen, putting her on speaker. "Hey, Car. How far are you?" "Lemme check." There was a brief pause as them heard some dim whining, groaning, yelling, and laughing. "Like fifteen minutes. My cousin's been pushing eighty this whole way." "Trying to get away from you?" Hailey laughed. Carmen shrugged, not embarrassed at all. It takes a lot to really get to Carmen. "Probably. So, Lynn, you are calling me why?" "Here's my best plan. Hailey is going to crank up the E-Telkin and give us a few minutes. Heidi will hypnotize as many people as she can, while Sav tries to knock out the ausiga, that is, the Saushale-draggal thingies. Sab designed them with as much hypnosis as possible, but she only thinks you have a Telkin of six hundred, so I think you won't be affected much. Then Alena will probably try to get to Sab, and if the Saushale force is pretty much irrelevant, then we'll help. Zara, your job is just to try and make sure Sab doesn't have some strange back-up plan I don't know about, okay?"' "Sounds good to me," Carmen agreed. "But what if the ausiga thingies hypnotize Heidi? What then?' "Sav throws them into a tree." "How is that a solution?" "Um…" "What if you give her some of the mind control?" Zara suggested. "Good idea." "Hey!" Heidi broke in. "I don't want any mind control!" "It won't actually control you, Heidi." Lynn said this like it should have been really obvious. "I made it. It'll just make it harder for the ausiga to hypnotize you." "How much time do we have?" Sav asked. "About thirty minutes. Car, tell your cousin to drive faster." "I heard your plan." The voice was quiet and singsong. "It's, uh, just a game-" "Carmen didn't tell you her cousin was Saushale?" the cousin laughed. "Car, knock him-" The line went dead. Zara heard the line and threw her mind, trying to find Carmen. Her power was increasing, and though it did take some work, detecting her was easy. Both she and the cousin had a lot of power. "The cousin is Bryan." "Senca," she heard Lynn and Sav hiss in total unison. "Carmen smashed him into the windshield. Now she's trying to figure out how she's going to get here. She doesn't know how to drive." "Oh, god," Adriana voiced. "I've seen her bike. I don't want her driving." "She turned the car off and is now using the Telkin to drive it. She says it's pretty easy. She'll be here in ten minutes if she doesn't get a ticket or something." "She knocked out Bryan? Bryan has a Telkin of, like, three thirty!" Lynn was aghast. "Yeah. Apparently." "Hey, Zara? If mind reading usually comes at you as bodiless voices-" "Not bodiless. I know who they are." "Okay. Well, does it come at you like that when you focus?' "Yeah. It's like I just kind of focus on the person, and if they're close enough I can hear what they're thinking, and if I focus on a particular day I can hear memories, too." "Do you see memories?" "Depends on the memory. Some memories are remembered as mostly voices. Some are mostly pictures. I see whatever they remember." They chatted a bit, nonsensical stuff. "Sav, go get Alena." Sav complied, walking into Alena's room. "Whoa." Everything in the room had turned gold and white. The bed was made out of solid gold with a white bedspread and gold embroidery. The dresser turned gold with white handles, the desk, small table, chairs, and night table gold with white symbols painted on it. The window had gold panes, the floor, ceiling, and walls looked like someone had taken gold and white paint and flung it at the walls until the two colors covered the surface completely in artistic and interesting splotches. "I've been practicing," Alena explained. Her outfit switched every few seconds, encompassing dozens of styles and colors. "Don't get too worn out," Sav cautioned, still rather awestruck. Alena shrugged. "I guess you're right." The room flashed and the illusions vanished. It looked pretty messed up- clothes hung everywhere, books were ripped and scattered, the furniture scratched, dented, and missing pieces. The walls were a dingy dark-blue. "Sav? What will we do if we win the fight?" "I don't know." "I have a suggestion, but it will take lots and lots of Telkin. And probably some hypnosis for good measure." "Well, we got that. Lynn says she and Adriana are at almost three hundred, and Carmen just knocked out a girl with three thirty. I'm almost seven hundred. Heidi doesn't have mind control anymore.' "Good, good." "What is it?" "Well, basically I lock Sab into an element of her power." "Huh?" ''Well, you know that Sab has the power of water, mirrors, and the dark, right?" "I do now…" "Well, using some complex law, if we defeat her and have a lot of Telkin, then we can restrain her within water or a mirror." ''I got a mirror. It's tiny, so I can carry it with us to…wherever we are going." "Good idea." The two of them walked back into the main room. "Right," Lynn said when Alena told her. "That's a good idea." Someone knocked on the door. Sav got up to answer it as the knocks got more and more demanding. "Hey Carmen," Sav greeted. "Hi Savvy." "Don't call me Savvy." "Why not? It's a compliment!" "Just don't." They walked into the room about then. "Hey, Lynn, Adriana, Hailey, Zara, and Heidi. Whatcha talking bout, huh?" "No!" Hailey shrieked. Carmen looked taken aback. "It's just a song." It was remarkably un-sarcastic, actually. "Oh, my god. I hate that song. They don't ever stop playing it, and it's really annoying." "How can you hate such an awesome-" Yeah, that was sarcastic. "Shut it, Carmen." Sav. Carmen shut it. They sat in silence. Sabrina smiled at her screen one last time, then shut it down. It was time to go. She had thought about sending in one of the Sekauji (that would be what Lynn calls the Seeker Leakers, it means the workers of powerful mind or something like that) to surprise Sav and Lynn, but eventually decided against it. They'd probably just knock whoever it was out. They were getting really, really powerful. And it was getting to be something Sab really did not like. She sent out the message and walked over to the transporter. There was a line, as a result of fifty or sixty Saushale trying to use a system designed to accommodate five or ten. Sabrina walked to the front of the line and walked inside the transporter. The ride lasted five or so seconds, but before long they were standing in the small clearing ten or so feet off Bridge Trail. It was about nine feet across , with trees arching overhead to form a roof of sorts and a perimeter of almost four foot high stinging nettles completely surrounding the area. "I hate these stupid nettles," she could hear a few Saushale grumbling. Others were hacking angrily at them. "Just be glad kids can't come in here," Sab said, levitating over the nettles like the smarter Saushale did. This place was too small to fit the many Saushale; instead they were going to a larger clearing near the lake. The president of the camp was Saushale and had scheduled all the kids to spend time away from the lake today. Originally her plan had been to surprise them in the cabin, dominate electronica from the hidden speakers in the walls. But remembering Lynn's skill with hacking computers, she quickly gave up any hope of a surprise attack. Originally she created a new web, forgetting that, in order to announce it to all the Saushale she'd have to announce it on the SSW. So it was the up-front attack, instead that reined. But whatever. She was still going to win. "It's almost time," Sab whispered to herself as she walked through Bridge Trail with the Saushale. "Almost time to win." "Time to go," Lynn whispered. She stood up, found a bottle of mind control and handed it to Sav and Heidi. Heidi took it fine, but it was clear someone had given Sav something earlier, as she winced and muttered something about a headache. "Sab's here," Zara updated. "They're going for a large clearing near the lake. If you want to take down some Saushale early, there's a smaller clearing near where Bridge Trail and Pine Trail intersect. Isn't that where you set up your oil thing, Lynn?" "None other," Lynn proclaimed. "Let's skip it, though. Bellauren are camping out, and the less Bellauren I see, the happier Lynn will be." "Hey, that rhymes!" Carmen. "Yes, Carmen, we know." Sav. Zara led the girls onto Bridge Trail, which they followed in silence. They could see the Saushale forming a similar procession ahead. "Skip that," Lynn hissed, taking a sharp turn onto a completely different trail. "Um, Lynn? Do you have any idea where you're going?" "Of course. Sab's expecting us to follow the Saushale, right? We're going to sneak up behind her." Lynn led them through a dizzying array of trails, crossing onto a new one every few seconds. At first Sav tried to keep track of where they were going, but they entered so many trails so fast that after the first few switches she gave up and focused on trying to follow Lynn. Finally, after an interminable time, they caught view of the lake. They could two distinct groups of Saushale appearing. One, about half of them, were completely unfamiliar. The other half were faces they had seen for the past month or so. "Whoa," Hailey interjected. "That's a lot of Saushale," Heidi agreed, her eyes wide and unblinking. "There'll be about three fifty when they all arrive," Lynn said. "I don't know what she'll do when she finds out Bryan is…wherever Bryan is right now. Carmen, what did you do with Bryan?" "Left him in the seat. He was knocked out pretty badly." "Did you kill him?" Heidi asked, shocked. "You can't kill Saushale, genius. But you can knock them out. So that's what I did." "I can't believe you knocked out Bryan," Lynn muttered. "He's got the third highest Saushale Telkin ever." "I'm just too awesome," Carmen laughed. "Oh, of course." Sav rolled her eyes. They watched a bit longer as Saushale filed into the clearing. Sab appeared after a time but she simply sat down on top of the speaker system left there the night before, from Cathy's little program. She chatted with the Saushale for a bit. After a time, five people showed up, three girls and two boys. They didn't look even remotely Saushale. "Who are they?" Carmen asked, confused. "The girl on the right kind of looks like Tanya." Zara, leaning over to see. "Yeah, she does," Adriana agreed, looking as well. "They mixed the DNA of the draggals with regular humans, so they look the same.," Lynn explained calmly. "Zara, what do they think like?" Zara concentrated for a few seconds. "It's pretty basic. It's like, when Sab tells them to do something, they focus completely on it and how to achieve it. They don't really have any emotion or, really, any thought. You aren't going to be winning them over." "Didn't expect to," Lynn answered calmly. "You think Sab'll use them instead of Saushale in the future?" Zara shook her head. "No. She thought about it, but most Saushale exist to blend in and record, and the ausiga or whatever can't do that. She thinks to have about ten, and she'll use them for fighting." "Great. Will they be able to hypnotize Sab?" "If they get her fast enough, yes." "Fast enough?" "It takes them a while to hypnotize, five or so seconds. If Sav can knock them out almost immediately, then they won't get her." "But they can hypnotize someone with a seven hundred Telkin?' "That's their limit," Zara acknowledged grimly. Alena came walking up about then. "Thank you for making it absolutely impossible to figure out where the ogdesca you went. It is much appreciated." "My pleasure," Lynn sarcasmed, even taking a bow to further the dramatic effect. "I've decided that you, Savvy-" "Don't call me Savvy." "And I shall go and see if Sab has anything to say. Sav will do her best to knock out the ausiga and I'll tell Zara when to drag Car-" "Don't call me Car." "Adriana, Heidi, and Hailey up with us." "When?" Sav asked, examining her once meticulously painted green nails, now chipped and scratched. "Now." "Hello Sav, Alena, Lynn. So kind of you to join us." Sabrina laughed. "Yes, Sab. We've spent the last year plotting against you, fought off all of your attempts to incarcerate us, and trekked all the way out here out here out of kindness." "Fought them off?" Sab laughed again. "Where are Adriana, Heidi, and Hailey?' "You'll see." Lynn laughed like Sab had, but it lacked her condescension and authority. "Oh, I will? Well then-" While Lynn and Sab were talking about random nonsense, Sav had decided it as good a time as any to knock out the ausiga, slamming them into trees. She was about to let them fall back to earth when something yanked them out of her grasp. Sav yanked back, shoving them toward the ground, but more Saushale piled on, making it more and more difficult to pull on them, but Sav was still holding strong (Bellauren had not yet shown and eradicated everything). The ausiga, having an abundance of Saushale genes, were not fully knocked out yet and started hypnotizing her. It was about to get really ugly, but two important things happened. Firstly, Alena distracted Sab by throwing a tree branch at her. Secondly, Lynn added her power onto Sav's and yanked the ausiga down to the ground, fully knocking them out. Sab surveyed the damage, literally speechless. "Seincaa,'' she stated simply. "You knocked out my ausiga!" Lynn smiled and laughed. This time the laugh was correct, high and authoritative. Heidi, Hailey, Adriana, Zara and Carmen came running up. "You're supposed to have mind control on!" Sab fumed, pointing a finger at Heidi. She shrank back, not used to angry insults. Lynn smirked. "Don't leave the recipe for mind control on the SSW, then." She laughed again. "Lynn, you might not want to-" Zara was cut off as Bellauren showed up and promptly tried to knock out Sav. But Hailey got to them first, spreading E-Telkin over the field. Heidi hypnotized several batches of Saushale, reducing the force to a mere one hundred. That was few, but still pretty dangerous. Sab broke the E-Telkin quickly. "Stop it," she ordered. "I have something to show you that you may care about." "Like what?" Sav challenged. She, too, had the high, condescending laugh of someone whom knows they are going to win. "Kylie and Tara, perhaps?" Sab smiled widely. "What do you mean? They're alive?" "Of course," Sab answered, like this should have been really obvious. "They're right here." Sav took a step forward. Lynn could smell a trap and Zara knew there was a trap. "Sav…Sav, you might not want to get your hopes up…this is Sab we're talking about," Zara said nervously and coaxingly. Kylie and Tara walked to the front where Sab was standing. "Kylie? Tara? You're-" "Step out and nothing happens. Stay in…and they die." Sav closed her eyes, bit her lip. She really, really wanted to cry right about then. On one hand, there was the fact that she really, really didn't want anyone to die. And these were her friends. And Kylie…Kylie was just a human. She'd expressed that clearly a few months ago, that she had just wanted to expel the strangeness. If she'd made an effort to befriend any one of the dozens of girls in her classes, she would have had someone top talk to, someone to sit with, someone on her side. Pick Sav, and you get hypnotized, turned Saushale, thrown into a wall, manipulated left and right, and die. Die at thirteen. But…she couldn't step out. She knew, Lynn knew, Sab knew, Alena knew…she stepped out and Sab won. Easily. Clearly. And she couldn't let that happen. For the universe, for power, for the friends she had now, she couldn't let Sab win. "It's your choice, Sav," Sab whispered. "They die, and it's your fault, Sav. They die, and you know that you could have stopped it-" "Oh, shut up," Carmen yelled. "It's her fault now? Give. Me. A break. You want to stop them from dying, let them go. Don’t start manipulating people, forcing them to mandate someone die, and proclaim it their fault." Nothing like Carmen to get people to take a step back and rethink their motives. Really isn't. Sav bit her lip. Carmen was right in some ways. Ultimately, it wasn't really her that had killed someone, but Sav. But…but it still was Sav's fault, somehow. And she knew that, if she let them die, it would be her fault. Guilty as charged… But no. She couldn't just step out and watch the friends she had die, or at the very least be defeated. "Do what you want," Sav spoke, clearly, boldly, not resigned or weak at all. "I will not mandate your actions. But I am not going to step out." Said in true Sav style, not a grammatical error or contraction to be seen. "Really, Sav? You'll let them-" "It's not really me doing anything. I let you win, and you destroy everything." "Fine, then." Bellauren took a step forward, but before they accomplished much Hailey stepped forward and blasted some nice E-Telkin. The ground was shaking within seconds. Sab sat concentrating and broke it. She altered the stereo to play her own song and threw Alena into the tree behind her. Or so she thought. "Nice try," Alena proclaimed as she hit…nothing. "Illusions for your mind! They are just illusions for your-" "Shut it, Carmen." Sav's three favorite words in the English language. "Illusions, eh?" Sab lifted an eyebrow. "Funny. I never looked into them. They take ludicrous amounts of energy and for not very much payback." "Well, like, ha!" Carmen proclaimed. Sab took a menacing step toward her, but before she went far she had hopped six feet in the air, screeching in pain and surprise. Lynn and Sav looked first at each other then at Carmen. "Hot shoes?" Carmen explained sheepishly, bringing her voice up at the end like it was a question, along with shrugging her shoulders and crooking her elbows. Lynn and Sav just laughed. Sab narrowed her eyes once she had recovered, then snapped her fingers once. The dozens of Saushale still standing aimed for attack. "Shit," Zara stated, like it was an absolute fact. Sav started moving backward, but the intense attack was slowed by her power. The attack was like an evenly matched game of tug-a-war, Sav would try to throw them into trees, they would attempt against her, but the overall effect was null. Watching it somehow sparked a sense of déjà vu, something similar. What was it? Ding! her mind went. It was that first dream with Sab- each attack they made against each other was undone. She remembered winning by simply distracting Sab…. "Distract them," she ordered Sav. Sav, mystified, focused upon the first thing she could think of. She created a huge army of pink elephants that went stomping away at the Saushale, whom cowered in fear. Lynn, Carmen, and Adriana took the opportunity to focus and knock out the Saushale. Within a few seconds, all that was left was the Sekauji. "Hey," Sav greeted, really tired, with an ultra-fun headache creeping on. Bellauren, Bryan, Isa, and a small Asian woman stood, glaring. "Hello," the small Asian woman greeted back tersely, crossing her arms. The four girls smiled at each other. "Hot shoes," Sav laughed. The Seeker Leakers looked confused, but Carmen, Adriana, and Lynn soon enlightened them. They had the same reaction as Sav- they jumped into the air, grappling with their shoes. Heidi hypnotized them quickly, and they sat down. The four looked at Sab and Alena, whom were staring at each other, calmly but rather angrily as well. "Sabrina," Alena said. "Alena," Sab said. "Stay out of the way," Alena muttered. And the battle began. It was a pretty strange battle. There was no real action, no slamming into trees, no throwing into the ground, not even illusions. The only palpable result was a slight whine, the kind you hear on a quiet summer night when you are sitting in your room and there is a mosquito driving you out of your mind on the other side of the room. "It's just a build-up of energy," Lynn whispered to Sav, completely out of the blue. "Huh?" Sav asked, confused. "That's the battle they're fighting, pushing energy at each other." "Can you tell who's winning?" "Alena, barely. Sab has a lot of Telkin, but she hasn't used it in, like, five months. Alena practices regularly." A few feet away, Laura sat up. She'd only been pretending to be hypnotized. She'd heard the story of what happened to Sab a year ago, that Alena used an element lock on her, and Laura was smart enough to know what it was likely she'd use it again. There was no way Laura was going to let that happen. She closed her eyes, seeing Sav deep in some conversation. Within seconds, Sav was flying. Alena couldn't describe the experience. It was like being crushed by a hugely heavy board, kind of, and pushing back. Pushing back hard enough to get gthe board off you, but it was still tiring. Oh, oh so tiring. Alena knew that, a few weeks, hell, a few days back she simply would have let the board crush her, feeling that the pain against her chest could be never be as much as the pain it took to hold it up. She would have known that she could never hold it up. Now Alena could hold it up. Inch by inch, bit by bit, she lifted the board. Inch by inch, bit by bit, she go closer to eradicating the board altogether. She could tell Sab was furious, too, the way her eyes went from their smooth purple they held when she felt confident, then it had a reddish tinge that got stronger and stronger, but before it turned completely red the color shattered, fragmenting into dozens of smaller colors, the way it looked \when Sab got desperate. Desperate. She, Alena, trapped for the past three months had forced Sabrina into desperation. It was, as her friend Carmen would say, literally unbelievable. "What the-" Carmen expressed, watching Sav soar. The goddesses paid no attention, too locked into their own struggle against each other. "I don't think that's natural," Hailey said slowly. "Yeah, like everything you've been hearing about for the past few days is just so completely natural," Carmen snorted. Sav was traveling in a quick, wide arc, looking at first like she was about to smash into some trees,, but she arced past them, before landing. "Your efforts are deviating into amusement, Laura." Laura, in a remarkable burst of maturity, stuck out her tongue. They both stood and faced each other, a battle much like Alena and Sabrina's. But this one was clearly won. Laura, within a minute, lost and fell to the ground. "Bye bye, dear," Carmen sarcasmed in dramatic sorrow, even faking a sob. They turned to watch Alena and Sabrina. The whine increased in volume and pitch, and before long everyone covered their ears. "I'd kill for some electronica right now," Carmen muttered. "Me too," Lynn agreed. "The battle was quiet," Carmen mentioned suddenly. When it was me against Sab, it was really loud- electronica, books, walls, etc. But here there was barely any electronica." "Yeah, that is kind of strange." Lynn. "But not exactly something to mourn for. The less of Sab's electronica I hear." They were diverted from their fascinating and intellectually stimulating conversation by a few words from Alena. "Element lock, Sab?" Alena twisted her mouth into a smile. "No- I- won't-" But the struggle was pointless. "Element lock," she whispered, resigned. Her eyes had turned a cool, smooth bluish purple, a shade Alena hadn't seen in a long, long time Resignation. EPILOUGE "Hey, Sav," Carmen greeted. "Why are you here?" Sav shrugged. "I was in the area. My aunt was shopping, so I requested that I walk over here. Your house is cool." "Thanks." "Your aunt actually did something that didn't involve her business?" Lynn's mouth dropped open, but whether the expression was fake or not Sav couldn't really tell. "It's off the ground now. Hey, do you have a furnace? Because some really weird crashes and whines, and when my grandma's house does that, it usually means-'' "That's my brother. He takes his video games down into the basement to get away from my electronica sometimes." "Yeah, I probably would too, if I lived in your house." "Yes, but we like Savvy People." "I can't believe your parents haven't figured out that Lynn's living in your guest room yet. Even my aunt would notice something." "They aren't home, like, ever. Actually, I don't think my mom has come up to the third floor in, like, a year." "Wow. So, have you gotten your schedule yet?" "Yeah. Lynn told me about all the teachers the week before I got it, and I got the six worst teachers, according to her." "Maybe they saw your behavior record?" "Maybe." "Where do you keep the mirror?" Sav asked. "What mirror?" Carmen asked, bewildered. "The one Sab's trapped in, you know…?" "Oh, yeah. Duh. It's in that drawer." "Does she ever talk?" "Yeah. Usually at night she'll start yelling. So I leave my mp3 player in the drawer with Alena's electronica playing. It's pretty funny. Usually that gets her to shut up, but once she started yelling really loud-" "Loudly. You have to use an adverb-" "Loudly. Whatever. Anyway, it prompted my brother, who has this sleepwalking thing sometimes, and he come walking up here, and tries to throw something at the drawer, but he trips on my nightstand, and falls off the stairs. And the whole time he's yelling 'No more Savvy People! No more Savvy People!'." "Was that what that was?" Lynn asked. "Yep." Sav had already walked over and picked up the small mirror, round, with a black back, and outside rim, and with various glass beads and jewels. Her mom had sent it from Australia, hence the reason Sav had brought it with her to summer camp. Sab's face shown in it. The brief flash of resignation that day had quickly transformed into anger, and Sab's eyes were a bright reddish purple. "Hello, Sav," Sab said angrily. "You're never going to go away, are you?" Sav asked. "You manipulated my life, made me destroy my school, destroyed my friendship, ruined my summer! You killed my friends! You have done everything you could to absolutely destroy my life, and yet, there you sit, perfectly content in my mother's mirror!" Sav was shrieking now, and she tossed the mirror. It skidded across the desktop, teetered precariously on the edge of the dresser for a second or so, then fell, crashing to the florr and shattering into a million pieces. "Sav!" Lynn shrieked. "You broke the mirror!" "So?" Sav answered, kind of embarrassed by her outburst and starting to feel uneasy at Lynn's emotion over the mirror breaking. "It's just a mirror? What, I'll give seven years of bad luck." "No. Lynn sat down in a chair, her hand cupping her forehead. "No, you disable it." "So, what, I killed her?" "No, you disabled the lock. Now she can roam freely on any mirror?" "So?" "If she appears in a girl's mirror, becomes the girl's closest friend, and overtakes her body, Sab is free." "You mean…you mean…" "I mean, be looking out for a girl with purple eyes, silvery hair, and failing friendships."