I’d lost my train of thought with the taunt. “As I was saying, nothing of note happened. I observed typical twenty-first-century behavior around me and then Charlie faded me home.”
“Tendril tink,” murmured Paolo under his breath. Several transporters around him grunted.
“You got a problem with Bree?” Charlie leaned back and growled.
“I, uhh…” My throat constricted.
Quigley looked down at my report. “And you rode a school bus to this Chinco”—her tongue stumbled over the name of the town the way mine first had—“uhh, Chincoteague Island. What were the other students like?”
“Very normal.” I could feel a flash of color bloom across my cheeks. Finn and his family were anything but what my teacher would describe as normal. “The kid I sat next to loved movies. And action figures.”
Rab and Paolo were still whispering on the other side of the room.
“And your Buzz level?” asked Quigley as if nothing were going on. In fact, she acted as if she wasn’t interested in my report at all. This just might work.
“Was manageable.” As it was nonexistent. I started to add something else but then paused, struck by something I’d never thought of before. The Buzz is a by-product of the genetic mutation in a Shifter’s hippocampus that causes chronogeological displacement. It’s a payoff. Yes, Shifters can travel through time and space because of a glitch in our brains. But the price is the Buzz. It was only after we came out of hiding that we discovered that, unchecked, the eventual price is much more costly.
My Bio teacher once described the Buzz as like the vibration on a guitar string after you strummed it. Maybe if you had your head shoved up in the guitar. Thankfully, the microchip holds back the Buzz, for the most part. Like pressing your fingers on the strings to control the pitch and tone. The chip doesn’t take it away entirely, but it makes it manageable, almost unnoticeable. It also allows us to choose when and where we go. And then there was the real reason it was invented. (But there were nonShifters in the room, so of course I couldn’t mention that .)
After Mom’s accident, when it was discovered her microchip was no longer functional, most people thought she’d succumbed to some overpowering Buzz. But maybe it was the other way around. Her chip could have started overcompensating or something like that. My lack of Buzz might give us a hint of what went wrong on her last mission.
I was so excited by my new theory that I almost didn’t notice it when Rab took out his stylus and acted like he was slicing his skull open and yanking out an imaginary microchip. I bit my cheek to keep from saying something I’d regret. The snerk. It didn’t matter that there was no proof Mom had purposefully tampered with her chip. There would always be those like Rab and Paolo who claimed she did.
While I was zoning, Quigley had pulled up my QuantCom data. Translucent numbers and symbols streamed through the air in front of her. She seemed transfixed by them, but then I realized she was staring straight through them. At me.
“That’s all.” I scurried to my seat.
Quigley didn’t say a word about my midterm. She walked to her podium and launched into the day’s lesson.
When the end-of-class buzzer sounded, Quigley bellowed, “Twenty-kilobyte essay on the Chinchilla Flu Epidemic by Friday,” as she walked into her office at the far end of the classroom and shut the door.
The comments from my departing classmates were to be expected. Suffice it to say, some of the spicier words would have topped Charlotte Masterson’s “sweet Lord Baby Jesus” list.
As I gathered my things, Rab bumped into me and whispered, “Tink.”
Mimi sputtered, “You’re the … the…”
But I knew she wouldn’t actually say the word.
I grabbed her hand and said, “Ignore him.”
Right when we turned to leave, though, whish, Quigley’s office door slid back open.
“Miss Bennis, Miss
“Tendril tink,” murmured Paolo under his breath. Several transporters around him grunted.
“You got a problem with Bree?” Charlie leaned back and growled.
“I, uhh…” My throat constricted.
Quigley looked down at my report. “And you rode a school bus to this Chinco”—her tongue stumbled over the name of the town the way mine first had—“uhh, Chincoteague Island. What were the other students like?”
“Very normal.” I could feel a flash of color bloom across my cheeks. Finn and his family were anything but what my teacher would describe as normal. “The kid I sat next to loved movies. And action figures.”
Rab and Paolo were still whispering on the other side of the room.
“And your Buzz level?” asked Quigley as if nothing were going on. In fact, she acted as if she wasn’t interested in my report at all. This just might work.
“Was manageable.” As it was nonexistent. I started to add something else but then paused, struck by something I’d never thought of before. The Buzz is a by-product of the genetic mutation in a Shifter’s hippocampus that causes chronogeological displacement. It’s a payoff. Yes, Shifters can travel through time and space because of a glitch in our brains. But the price is the Buzz. It was only after we came out of hiding that we discovered that, unchecked, the eventual price is much more costly.
My Bio teacher once described the Buzz as like the vibration on a guitar string after you strummed it. Maybe if you had your head shoved up in the guitar. Thankfully, the microchip holds back the Buzz, for the most part. Like pressing your fingers on the strings to control the pitch and tone. The chip doesn’t take it away entirely, but it makes it manageable, almost unnoticeable. It also allows us to choose when and where we go. And then there was the real reason it was invented. (But there were nonShifters in the room, so of course I couldn’t mention that .)
After Mom’s accident, when it was discovered her microchip was no longer functional, most people thought she’d succumbed to some overpowering Buzz. But maybe it was the other way around. Her chip could have started overcompensating or something like that. My lack of Buzz might give us a hint of what went wrong on her last mission.
I was so excited by my new theory that I almost didn’t notice it when Rab took out his stylus and acted like he was slicing his skull open and yanking out an imaginary microchip. I bit my cheek to keep from saying something I’d regret. The snerk. It didn’t matter that there was no proof Mom had purposefully tampered with her chip. There would always be those like Rab and Paolo who claimed she did.
While I was zoning, Quigley had pulled up my QuantCom data. Translucent numbers and symbols streamed through the air in front of her. She seemed transfixed by them, but then I realized she was staring straight through them. At me.
“That’s all.” I scurried to my seat.
Quigley didn’t say a word about my midterm. She walked to her podium and launched into the day’s lesson.
When the end-of-class buzzer sounded, Quigley bellowed, “Twenty-kilobyte essay on the Chinchilla Flu Epidemic by Friday,” as she walked into her office at the far end of the classroom and shut the door.
The comments from my departing classmates were to be expected. Suffice it to say, some of the spicier words would have topped Charlotte Masterson’s “sweet Lord Baby Jesus” list.
As I gathered my things, Rab bumped into me and whispered, “Tink.”
Mimi sputtered, “You’re the … the…”
But I knew she wouldn’t actually say the word.
I grabbed her hand and said, “Ignore him.”
Right when we turned to leave, though, whish, Quigley’s office door slid back open.
“Miss Bennis, Miss
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