Sarah and the Steam Dragon
Chapter 3

The last period for Testing Day was always Library Studies, which most of the Year Seven students took to mean “Do Nothing Whatsoever”, unless a teacher was actually looking over your shoulder.

Today the teacher on duty was Miss Abrams, or it should have been but she was late. The students had all filed into the library under the watchful gaze of Mrs Cruickshank, head librarian at the Junior High. Carmody and Sarah had met up again in front of the library doors and entered together, clutching each other’s hand in a show of support.

A few of the other students had sniggered at the sight, since this was something school kids only did in kindergarten. Sarah had been about to pull her hand free until she saw the frightened look on Carmody’s face.

“It’s Okay” Sarah said to the girl and led her to one of the empty reading tables near the shelves of old books. As they passed Miles Jackson, a nasty minded boy from Carmody’s home room, he suggested that Carmody had found herself a girlfriend at last.

Mrs Cruickshank looked up from her desk and shooshed Miles as he yelled and cried, clutching at his toes. Somehow his foot had been right under Sarah’s shoe as it stomped down.

“Sorry about that, Miles” said Sarah with absolutely no conviction. The two girls sat down, pulling out their datapads like the other students.

While they pretended to download some reading material from the library’s vast list of digital books, Sarah and Carmody had a whispered conversation about what had happened in the basement.

Carmody said she had run and hid in the first floor Girls toilets. Sarah had gone to her home room, trying to replace Miss Abrams but without any luck. Both had decided to try and meet up with the other girl here, which is what they had done.

“So who should we tell about Andrew?” whispered Carmody.

“I hoped to tell Miss Abrams, but maybe she is out looking for him right now” whispered Sarah in reply.

“What do you think happened to him?” asked Carmody. “He looked like a zombie” she added, tears starting to form in her eyes.

“I don’t know” Sarah said, “But I bet Mr Albright and Creepy Bob were involved”

“Why would a teacher and the janitor be doing stuff like that?” wondered a tearful Carmody.

Sarah wondered herself. It would be dangerous for them to do anything to students at the school they worked at. Surely it would be too easy for them to be found out?

“Look, wait here” Sarah told the girl. “I am going to try and replace Miss Abrams”. Carmody did not want her to go, but Sarah was insistent. Leaving the reading table, she skirted around the shelves of old printed books, barely used these days, and crouched low to avoid being seen by Mrs Cruickshank.

She got alongside the check-in counter for the library, keeping her head below the level of the counter top. Mrs Cruickshank could not see her while she was here, but anyone walking into the library would see her immediately.

From the counter to the library doors was a five meter gap. If Sarah stood up and walked out she would be spotted right away. Then her cunning mind came up with a solution. If she crawled along the carpeted floor all the way to the door, she would be out of the line of sight for the head librarian. Her view to the floor would be blocked by the counter.

That assumed Mrs Cruickshank remained seated. If she stood up she would probably see Sarah, even if she was flat against the floor. The main bonus to her escape plan was that the only librarian on duty for Testing Day was Mrs Cruickshank, and she was nearly sixty years old. She would not get out of her chair even for a fire alarm, Sarah was positive about that.

Dropping low to the floor, she commenced to army crawl like in the movies, using her elbows and knees to propel herself along the carpet. The back of her neck prickled all the way, expecting a shout of discovery at any moment.

To her great relief, Sarah scuttled like a bug around the corner of the doorway and crouched against the corridor wall. She made it! Now for the next part of her plan, to try and replace Miss Abrams.

Sarah stood up and headed to the main school foyer, turning down a connecting corridor. Then running straight into Andrew Frobisher of all people and knocking herself to the floor.

Andrew looked down at her as she rubbed her head, feeling strangely woozy. His dead fish eyes bored into her and he spoke in a flat monotone.

“Good afternoon, Sarah. I believe you were looking for me?” He loomed over her and the world seemed to go dark.

“Aaarrghh!!” she screamed and fainted.

=====

Sarah woke up in the School Nurse’s office, lying on white sheets with a cool compress on her forehead.

“Wha’ appen?” she managed to say through her gummed up lips. The concerned face of Carmody appeared in her vision, then the face of Miss Kansari, the nurse. Miss Kansari gave her a sip of water from a cup then checked her eyes with a small light.

“Well, you are not concussed” said the nurse and took a medical monitoring band off of her head and the matching one from her wrist. “I think you have just been exerting yourself too much today and not drinking enough water”

Miss Kansari helped her to sit up and let her drink a little more water. “Not too much at once” she warned Sarah and packed away the monitoring equipment.

“How do you feel?” asked Carmody, sitting close beside the bed on a small stool. Her eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying.

“I am better now” said Sarah, still feeling very dry in the mouth. She sipped a little more water and it soothed her throat nicely.

“I’m glad” smiled Carmody and her face lit up. Sarah realised quite suddenly that in the space of a single day, she had made two new friends. A dragon that no-one else could see, and a girl whom Sarah had never really noticed before.

Carmody was about the same height and build as Sarah, but she had long brown hair tied in twin pony tails and brown eyes. She was a normal looking girl but when she smiled she could break all the boys hearts, if they only bothered to look at her.

“Thanks for helping me today, Carmody” said Sarah and gave her a smile in reply.

“I didn’t do anything at all” Carmody answered with a blush creeping across her face and neck.

“You listened to me, which is not something many other people do at this school”

The door to the nurse’s office opened and Miss Abrams entered, her look of concern changing to relief when she saw Sarah sitting up and chatting.

“Goodness, Sarah, you have had a busy day” said her teacher. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked over her pupil. “Hmm, you look alright to me now. When I heard your scream I was two floors away at the other end of the main building and I thought an alarm was going off. By the time I got to you, the entire Year Seven was gathered around. Even poor Mrs Cruickshank had hobbled out of the library to give you first aid”

It was Sarah’s turn to blush a deep crimson. It was not that she minded being the centre of attention, but passed out on the school floor was not her preferred method of becoming famous.

“Cheer up!” said Miss Abrams, identifying the cause of her embarrassment. “You did replace Andrew Frobisher”

“Um, Miss, how was he?” asked Sarah with real concern.

Miss Abrams stopped smiling and her face became serious.

“He was acting rather dazed, quite unlike his usual self. I asked him where he had been and he said he had been exploring the school grounds and got himself trapped up on the roof. The door he used to get up there would not open again, so he eventually climbed down. He had only just come back inside when he ran into you”

“I don’t remember seeing him up there” pondered Sarah, then realised her blunder. “Err, I mean early this morning”

“I didn’t either” said Miss Abrams. “I checked the entire rooftop twice to be sure, since I can do it safely.” She gave Sarah a pointed look with that last statement.

“So where is he now?” asked Carmody.

“Well, the nurse checked him over and he seems medically fit, so his parents came and took him home. I think he is going to be in a lot of trouble when his father gets him alone!”

Sarah could sympathise with Andrew on that point. She had to endure a number of tense discussions with her parents when they were told about some of her school adventures. Which made her think about the events of today.

“Miss Abrams, I don’t suppose we could keep this morning’s incident out of any reports to my parents?” she asked hopefully.

Her teacher considered it for a moment then smiled. “You did replace our missing student, so I think I can let the dragon incident go unreported”

“Dragon?” asked Carmody.

“I will explain that another time” said Sarah.

The school day had already finished a half hour ago, so once the nurse gave her the all clear, Sarah and Carmody grabbed their bags and headed to the main entrance. Miss Abrams came with them and escorted them all the way to the front gates, chatting easily with the two girls.

“Are you sure you are Okay to walk home?” checked the teacher.

Sarah and Carmody both answered her confidently so she let them go, making them promise to call her right away if there were any problems. She transferred her contact details to both of their phones, making the girls feel extra special to have a teacher’s phone number.

“That’s for emergencies only” she reminded them, “Not to chat about boys and stuff”

“Aww, Miss!” said Sarah and Carmody in unison and walked off together.

About halfway home for Sarah, Carmody pointed to her residential tower and said she had to go that way. They promised to call each other later and went their separate paths.

Sarah trudged onwards, thinking hard about everything that had happened in just a single day. She wished she had seen Stanley to wish him goodnight but there had been no sign of him when she was outside.

As for Mr Albright and what occurred with Andrew Frobisher, she wondered if it was related to Stanley and the Emissary he spoke of. It was a lot to take in but with a good night’s sleep maybe things would become clearer.

One thing was sure, Sarah decided. Tomorrow could not be any stranger than today.

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Archimedes Tower, Pan City

The great Pan City was a marvel of advanced technology, a place of learning and science. Its Awakening Centres led the world in revealing and improving the special abilities of children of all nations, making them into the highest Graded Awakened on the Earth.

At the heart of this city was a huge tower that rose a kilometre into the sky, home to the mightiest super computer in the world. This was the Artificial Intelligence known as Archimedes. There were other similar Artificial Intelligences, or AIs as they were called, scattered around the planet. Yet Archimedes had been the first and it was still the most powerful.

From deep within the tower it ruled over the Zone, a portion of what used to be called Queensland in the country of Australia. Since the terrible Global Wars and the Viral Outbreak of 2020, this area had been an independent micro-nation, defending itself with advanced technology and the intellect of Archimedes.

Archimedes used specially grown clones, their brains augmented with their own super computers, to act as intermediaries with his human officials and scientists. There were three of these special clones, called Avatars, who were responsible for running the Zone on his behalf.

One of these clones, named Jericho-Two, was with him now in a private meeting chamber deep below Archimedes Tower. On the outside, Two looked like a normal man, about twenty five years of age, with short blonde hair, pale blue eyes and wearing a dark grey business suit. He wore dark glasses to cover his face even when inside a building, as if to hide his inner thoughts from everyone.

“Have you identified the location of the Anomaly” asked the voice of Archimedes, coming from speakers set all around the chamber. An anomaly was a person or thing that is different from what is usual. Whatever this was, it was definitely out of the ordinary.

“Yes, Archimedes” said Jericho-Two, sitting in a comfortable chair, surrounded by large screens showing images from security cameras. “We were able to identify the Anomaly as located at the 10th District Junior High School”

He pointed to one screen and the image enlarged to show a long blurry shape about four meters in length. Next to it was a young girl with short blonde hair, seemingly in conversation with the dark shape.

“The cameras struggle to record the Anomaly with any precision. Anything that gets too close to the Anomaly becomes hard to track as well. Most of the time the scanners and cameras can’t detect the Anomaly at all. These images are the best we have been able to extract from the school computers”

“Who is the girl next to the Anomaly?” asked Archimedes.

“She has been identified as Sarah Evermore, a Year Seven student at the school. I wondered which Awakened ability she had that allowed her to interact with the Anomaly, but she is actually a NOMA”

“So a girl with no abilities is able to speak with it?” pondered Archimedes. “Could she be one of the Adept?”

“It would not appear so, Archimedes. She has the genetic sequence that allows her to be Awakened, and to the best of our knowledge that means she can’t be an Adept”

“So what is your plan to investigate the Anomaly?”

“As you know, the AURA project recently produced its first viable Agent. I would like to activate Agent-13 and send it into action. It will be the perfect environment to test out its skills and it should fit right into a Junior High School”

“Very well, Two, you have my permission to send it in” agreed Archimedes. “Does it have a cover name?”

“Of course” said Jericho-Two. “It will be known as Eric Hargreaves”.