The day was long and slow, but as the last class came to an end, the school horn blew through the halls. Lex waited until Mrs Agincourt's hologram winked out and the last student left the class for a familiar shadow to appear by the door.
Sighing, Lex swung on her backpack and made for the exit. She winced as she entered the hall, her hand clutching her chest.
"Your heart?" Bell asked, her warm brown eyes glancing at Lex's chest. Lex nodded and rubbed her sweat-slicked forehead. "Do you need your medicine?"
Lex gritted her teeth and trudged down the hall. Bell followed, curly brown hair neatly plaited and pristine white toga coloured by the bright, neon signs that shone through the windows. She was olive-skinned, always smiling and painfully beautiful.
"Come on," Bell said, flashing her teeth. "Where does it hurt?"
"You're not a doc," Lex said, smiling back. "My head mainly," she admitted. "The simulation cooked my slate���it's still burning."
Cold fingers slid down Lex's neck, and she yelped as Bell pushed her back against a locker. She tried to resist, yet her illness drained her limbs of strength.
"Let go," Lex said stiffly, even though Bell's cool hands were soothing. "It's not Empyre proper." Bell never was. She fussed over Lex like the strays she fostered from the street. "Stop."
Bell grinned as she stepped back with both hands in the air.
"I was cold—you were hot," Bell said, puffing white steam as the windows grew foggy with frost. The sprawling city, steel sky and distant underground all lost under a blurred film. "Let's go before we freeze to death."
The hallway was ice cold. The Lord Principle of Hera High said it stopped homeless students camping in empty classrooms, but this was just cruel. He could have at least adjusted the dress-code to allow for puffer jackets, stockings, vests or anything other than stupid Graexian togas.
Lex followed Bell down the hall to where a lone protector shivered at the school exit. A FLEX baton was holstered at his waist, his shirt and pants made of white and bronze scales with the Royal Medusa stamped on the front, while his helmet lay on the table beside the scanner and terminal.
The protector turned; his eyes hidden behind a mop of curled brown hair and smiled with rotten yellow teeth.
"All hail Troezen," he said.
Lex and Bell swaddled cloth between their thighs like a diaper. It was embarrassing, but all the students covered their privates on the way out. All the girls at least.
"All hail Troezen," Lex said through gritted teeth.
Lex allowed the search, even though she knew about the camera in his shoe. Everyone did. But it was the hungry hands at her hips and chest that dredged up thoughts of beating him bloody.
"That's enough," Lex hissed. Being this close was un-Empyrean, and he was taking his sweet time. "I said, enough." Empyre truth, she'd cut off his balls.
"No," he said, his acidic breath stinging her eyes. Balling her hands to fists, Lex fought down her rage. A hand down her front was better than a lifetime in Fourth as an Eros, shovelling plasma and piss until she died.
"I'm confiscating this," the protector said, and pulled out her Maketonian screwdriver. "Don't bring weapons into school. Now you can pay the normal fine, or the joystick fine, it's your choice." He grinned wider as he pressed his pelvis closer.
"I'm a roboticist," Lex said fiercely. "Why should I pay for my tools?"
The protector froze; his lips twisted into a sneer.
"Do Empyrean parents teach no manners, clotmop?" he spat as if she were the disrespectful one. "Perhaps your household needs a purity test?" He waved her screwdriver at her, the silver mark of Maketonia shining at the handle. "Besides, there are no girl mechanics. If you can at least admit that, then I might let this slide."
She saw it in his eyes; he wanted her to beg.
"Ro-bot-ic-ist," Lex said, stressing each syllable.
"All hail Troezen—is it my turn?" Bell said and moved Lex along while opening her arms suggestively. Her confidence was nothing new, but amidst her black anger, Lex wondered how Bell was keeping her cool.
The protector's greedy hands turned ravenous, and his snake eyes shone yellow through greasy hair. He positioned his right foot beneath Bell, the one with the optic. Lex saw the terminal screen flash, a window opening to a group Nmail with his fellow perverts.
While Lex could stand humiliation, seeing her best, and only, friend forced to act like a Third Floor whore burst a valve in Lex's brain, a volcanic hatred spilling into her soul. Planting her feet, Lex threw a fist between his legs—the protector squealing as he fell back. Lex picked up her screwdriver and stepped up to the terminal.
She grinned as she found his terminal both unlocked and connected to his HUD, his info, his Nmail and a 'trophy' folder. The username for it all was 'Manny Grave'.
"You scaeg," Manny hissed, his hands cradling his bruised balls. "You low floorer, clotmop whoring, dirty, tweaking scaeg!"
"This is your own fault, Manny," Lex said and changed his password to 'N0Ball$'. Next, she deleted today's security data. Lastly, she opened his Nmail chain titled 'Check Out These' with an album of explicit pictures dating seven months back. She grouped all his contacts, including the academy board and the parent-teacher network, then re-sent the Nmail chain as a group message.
She added a hasty second Nmail titled 'URGENT!!!' begging the receivers not to open the first. She claimed the protector had been hacked. She claimed an Empyrean student had beaten him up. A little girl.
With a ten-second gap between the two, Lex didn't expect anyone to believe him. They would think he sent the first Nmail by accident and then tried to cover it up. If he tried to call anyone now and tell them the truth, it would only reinforce their initial reaction.
Lex was struck in the ribs. It was a sluggish fist, with thuggish grace and improper form, but it sent her small body flying. Her face smacked against a frost-sprinkled wall, and warm, wet blood flowed from cracked lips.
"You're going to pay for that, scaeg," Manny said. Wiping the blood from her mouth, Lex looked up at the snarling man as his hand grasped at his empty holster. "Huh?"
A crackle of electricity, and Manny dropped like a doll. Bell was already cleaning the handle of the FLEX baton with her toga by the time Lex registered what she'd done. Bell slid the cleaned baton back in his holster. She was always looking after Lex; even when Bell had briefly dated Lex's older brother, Mike, she had spent half their dates checking up on her.
"He'll be out for a few minutes—we should get going." Bell moved to the terminal and logged out. "Before someone comes." She wiped the terminal keys clean too.
Then offered Lex a hand.
Declining, Lex got up using her own meagre strength, even if her ribs throbbed.
"Poseidon's pride," Bell said, dabbing the blood from Lex's face. "Forget your Empyrean issues with touching people for a moment and let me help you." Wiping away the last flecks, Bell draped her arm lightly around Lex's waist.
Stiffening, Lex nodded, even if it was far too close for comfort.
"Thank you," Lex mumbled, her cheeks burning as they shuffled through the sliding doors together, and into the carpark where hot, dusty Undercity air brushed against them like lover's lips.
"Don't mention it," Bell said. "I have to jet now, work starts soon, and you need to get home and get some rest. Remember to put an ice pack on your ribs and busted lip."
Lex frowned. "About the protector—"
"Don't worry about him," Bell said, staring Lex straight in the eyes. "We'll only be back in a few days for our Offers. Then we're gone forever. Besides, I'd be surprised if we ever see Sir Sour-breath again."
Lex smiled, then pulled away, forming the proper distance. "How about we celebrate our last test?" Lex smiled wider, hope welling in her that this time she would say yes. "We could go hang out in Third later this cycle, go to Club Delphine or Crimson Arcade …"
She trailed off as Bell grimaced.
"I'd love to go—you know I would—having a date with my best friend would mean the world to me, but I can't. I've got work every day this cycle—"
Feeling like an empty barrel left to rot, Lex held up a hand to stop her. There were seven days in a cycle, and if Bell was busy for all of them, then she could take the hint.
"You've got work, I understand," Lex said, feeling the blow deeper than usual. Every rejection had hurt, but this time she'd been so certain … "Jet off, you'll be late."
"Don't hover around here. Head straight home, be safe, have your medicine ready." Bell paused, then made Lex suffer under a warm hug. "Get better soon."
Parting, Bell ran past the pylon beside Hera High, the beam of blue plasma piercing the steel sky above. Lex gazed up at the dozens of plasma towers along the horizon, each carrying the precious fuel of the modern age, and the purpose of their city-sized engine. The pylons were like the arteries of Troezen, and should they ever freeze or falter, the enginestate would collapse into ruin.
In return for Troezen's lifeblood, veins of rusted, ill-maintained and failing ventilation pipes carried precious air down into Undercity. One hissing pipe streaked past the school, a crack in the steel blowing crisp surface air against Lex's face. Even a few puffs put her at ease and replaced her mental fog with clarity. In the furthest streets, she noted the yellow lights of a mechanic's truck roaring down the road towards the damaged pipe; nothing got the highborn in gear faster than citizens breathing for free.
When Bell's silhouette vanished into the dark streets, Lex kicked a trashcan. She yelped, hopping on one foot and cursed her foolishness, but the pain was nothing compared to her illness. Because of her faulty heart, Lex had to be saved by Bell day after day. Because of the harm her heart could bring, her best friend refused to go out with her anywhere 'strenuous'. But what was the point of surviving seventeen painful orbits only to study at home, work in her family workshop and possibly work Upstairs until death?
She wasn't going to waste her life. The Crimson Arcade's once-a-cycle droid battle was in two days. After her disastrous interview, it was her only hope. She clenched her fists; Lex would become their new champion and claim the prize money.
Or die trying.