The Other Side Chapter 8
“This close”
She almost held up her hand to demonstrate exactly the amount of distance she was referring to.
“This close to almost getting 29 and myself killed, my army defeated and perhaps putting the world at risk!” Though that last part was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Someone would have stopped it eventually she was sure. But it wouldn’t have been easy though. It might even have taken years until people figured out how it was putting its spell on people and they were able to get it while it was off guard. she shook her head to rid herself of these thoughts, she had work to do in the present.
She rounded the corner in the high school and entered her classroom just before the bell rang. Her students were eager to continue their conversations despite the nuisance of having to relocate themselves.
“All right! That’s enough!” her voice cracked through them like a whip even though she wasn’t yelling, “Pass your homework up to the front of the class please”
“Here Mr. S” said an infatuated Lori. Her highlighted eye lids stood out and she batted her eyes in an innocent fashion. Cybersix glared straight into them. Lori’s hand purposely brushed with her own as she handed her paper in, letting it linger there. Cybersix made no comment for the moment but took her hand away, none too tactfully. This still didn’t seem to upset nor stop the girl’s display of affections but she backed off a little, content to just gazing at him in her fixated way.
Not a great deal of time later, Cybersix was teaching and noticed Lori’s attention or lack thereof.
“Lori! How many times have I told you no music during class!” she reached over and yanked the headphones out of the girl’s ears, “I’m tired of you disrupting my class. Go down to the office” he dragged her out of the room by her upper arm.
“Yeah, yeah whatever” the red-headed girl simply shrugged and began to trudge down the corridor. Cybersix sighed and turned back to her other pupils, glowering all the while as if daring any of them to make her day.
******
The class seemed to be lasting a long time: Cybersix had her hands on either side of her head and was bent over her desk attempting to read. Her class was busy, engaged in the same activity and in similar positions. Her mind kept going back to the kiss Lucas had given her. Really, when looking at it from a detached view, it was no big deal. Yet it was! She wasn’t human and he was, plain and simple. But Technos did that, and more, all the time and no harm had ever come of it. Why was she so different? In a way there was no use in worrying about it now: What was done was done, although she had been hoping not to get into this type of relationship. Like it or not, they had both taken that important first step that night. A small voice in the back of her head asked her if she was more unnerved over the fact that she had enjoyed it! Perhaps that was the main underlying reason: She enjoyed it, but she wasn’t supposed to for so many reasons. Again she tried to convince herself it really wasn’t a big deal.
“And it’s not” she thought, closing the subject in her mind.
*****
“Although authorities have no proof, they are asking citizens to take the werewolf threat seriously.” As she was walking by, Cybersix hit the off switch on her television set on her way to pick up her cape, which was draped over a near by chair. She thought the idea of werewolves roaming around Meridianna to be quite ridiculous.
*********
“I got in!” 29’s voice drifted out of the phone, “I got into the resistance!”
“Good job” she said evenly, although inside she was heaving a great sigh of relief and even one of happiness. This was a good thing.
“I should tell you, though, that there is this one woman who I think is going to give me a hard time.”
“That’s all right. Just don’t give her anything interesting and she’ll leave you alone soon enough. If she proves to be too much of a problem then we can always arrange a little ‘accident’. Did you find out anything?”
“No, at least nothing we didn’t already know. Besides, you know they don’t give out a lot of info to the new guy.”
“True.”
*******
A couple days later Cybersix was walking home from the café where she had spent the evening in Lucas’s company. He had just told Adrian about Twilight and how great he thought she was. Cybersix had decided the man was an idiot. That, or else love really was very, very blind.
She began to think about trying to get into the resistance as Adrian but she had to stop and contemplate her chances and the risks. If she did that, someone might draw the connection between Adrian and Twilight. True, they probably wouldn’t even dream of the truth but they could very well think something was going on. So what? Well there was Lucas to consider, and that if Twilight got “busted” then she would have nothing to fall back on. No. Unless times called on it, Adrian would just stay as someone who had heard of Twilight through Lucas and that was it. A mild mannered, boring, high school, English teacher.
She pulled her coat a little closer around her as she walked, for the air had a slight chill to it. Halfway home she changed direction, remembering she had wanted to pick up some milk for her
coffee the next morning.
“29!” she almost yelled out. Then she saw who was engaging his full attention.
