THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One
Chapter 16

Critock tried to stay out of things and let the day progress as it would if he had never showed up, he really did. But he knew that idea was in jeopardy when he walked into the study hall, to replace Claire sitting alone, and obviously still upset from Critock’s talk earlier in the day. If things were to proceed as they should then he realized she would have to be returned to good spirits, otherwise Kyle would have to deal with her once he was gone, and he wasn’t entirely sure if the normally sullen boy would be up to the task. From borrowed memories he sat in his seat, and whispered to Tom, noticing that the teacher that day was sitting on the opposite side of the room from most of the students and was looking through their own book and oblivious to their actions. “You’re not going to like this, but I need to talk to Claire.” He nodded towards the blonde girl with red cheeks, who sniffed almost on queue.

Tom shook back and forth. “Didn’t you just say…”

“I know! I know. But she’s upset because of what I said at lunch before you showed up. I need to at least try and reset things to the status quo. Right now she thinks Kyle is a bad guy. If I could smooth things over, at least she’s not going to attack him after I’m gone for something I did. That cool with you?”

“Listen to you, using slang. We’ll make an Earth native out of you yet. Yeah, go ahead. Not like we can do anything else in here outside of setting up a fake eye exam.” Tom felt strangely proud. His partner was learning!

Critock considered the eye exam idea for a half second before dismissing it. He stood and quickly moved over to Claire’s table, sitting down at the empty chair opposite her. When she looked up and saw him, she gave him a look that would have killed lesser men. He took the look in stride, and started immediately. “I’m not here to fight, I wanted…”

“You wanted what?” She came back at him like she had been rehearsing what to say in her head for the last two periods. “Wanted to shame me some more? Wanted to humiliate me again in front of all our friends?”

Critock shook his head. “Wanted to apologize.” She stopped, clearly not expecting this. Granted, before today she hadn’t expected much of anything from Kyle, other than random chats online. But here he was in front of her, continuing to speak like he never had before. “I was out of line. Obviously I like Shanna, and I still think she’s a different person than you think she is, but you have every right to your opinion and I shouldn’t have called you out like that in person. For what it’s worth, I think you would’ve been a great cheerleader.” Critock made that last bit up, not having any real knowledge of how she was, but if it made her feel better, what could it hurt?

He thought that Claire would have said something snarky back, or that he would have at least shamed him like he shamed her, but what she did surprised him: She cried. It was soft, but tears were coming out of her eyes and she was making small whimpering noises. This was absolutely not Critock’s usual territory, and he looked around helplessly. He heard a soft muttering nearby. “One of the greatest soldiers in the universe and he can’t handle a crying girl. Here.” Tom had stealthily moved under the tables with a napkin and dropped it on the table. “I thought you were going to make her feel better?” He added, but Critock ignored him and handed her the napkin, which she took and wiped her eyes.

“No, I would have been terrible. I didn’t really want to be in it, I just wanted to hang out with Shanna. We were friends for years growing up, and I saw her going for it, so I figured, why not? She got in, and I got kicked to the curb. And then she’s been hanging out with those plastics.” She paused to blow her nose. “They’re just so awful and she doesn’t seem to care. We haven’t talked for months. I don’t even care about cheerleading! I hate them!” She dissolved into stronger tears now as she covered her eyes, and Critock looked around to see if anyone was noticing. There were a few students glancing her way with concerned looks, but the teacher was too far away and hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He looked at Tom, who slowly floated away.

“Don’t look at me, this is your fight.” The wisp turned and decided to see if he could get close enough to other students to look into their eyes and detect Pt’ron himself. He realized it was almost impossible as the wisp’s vision wasn’t quite clear enough to reliably make out anything other than a colorful blob, but even a fruitless search was better than having to watch this great general make a continued fool of himself calming down a teenaged girl.

Critock sighed. “Have you tried to talk to her?”

“No!” Claire exclaimed. “She’s always hanging around with her friends. I couldn’t get a word in if I wanted to.”

“Try.”

Claire looked up. “What?”

“Try. Part of the reason I went off at lunch was because of how she looked at that table. Not talking with anyone, absolutely miserable just sitting there. I bet she misses you no matter what she gained by getting to sit at the popular table.” He quickly sifted through what memories he could access to see what he knew about Shanna’s schedule. “She works in the office during lunch sometimes, there won’t be any plastics there. Try.”

She looked at him strangely. “Thank you. I will. I think….I think I needed what you told me. Wish it hadn’t been so public, but…”

“Well, it was that or online, and it’s too easy to just ignore that kind of thing online.” Critock didn’t know where those words came from. He didn’t even know what ‘online’ was. He made sure he had control, and continued. “Now if we can just work on your entertainment choices, and get you and John to stop arguing, we’ll be on the right track.” Might as well cover everything.

She was finally smiling again. “Don’t push your luck, geek.” Critock smiled back, and took the opportunity to look her in the eyes as best as he can. Pretty blue eyes, but he was too far away to see if she had any extra rings of color. He got up quickly before she could think that he was trying to start something, and headed back to his seat. He flopped down and exhaled a large breath as Tom came back over to him.

“How’s your luck with the ladies going?”

“Surprisingly well. I should retire here.” Critock joked, keeping his mouth movements to a minimum. “Also, we have as-of-now officially removed two people from consideration as Pt’ron. Only a couple thousand to go.”

“Well good, at this rate we’ll have saved the world in a cycle. Plenty of time. Did you end up stealing this one’s heart too?”

Critock just gave him a look. “No. Got her back to being friends with Kyle. And stop it. It’s not Shanna’s heart I’m interested in.” Even though there was no real face to Tom, Critock could feel the look that he was giving him. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“The way this day is going, I just have to make sure. What’s the plan now?”

Critock sat back in the chair. “Right now? Relax.”

“Relax? How many times do I have to remind you we’re in a little bit of a time crunch.” Tom said, nervously.

Critock sighed, and put his head down on the desk, speaking silently so as to not be overheard by anyone else who would think it strange that Kyle was talking to himself. “You’re not wrong, but outside of going up to everyone and asking politely to look in their eyes, I don’t think we’re going to advance the cause. We can’t do anything productive with the computer system until Shanna shows up, and that’s not going to be until later on. The yearbook…” He tapped it. “…Is useless. In absence of a better plan, we take a breath.” The Five knows we needed it, he thought. He hadn’t had a day this eventful in a hundred cycles. The reward was worth all the risk, he kept saying to himself. Tom let out an exasperated sigh and floated off, and Critock put his head back and closed his eyes. He was very tired, understandable considering what had happened today, and thanked whoever was listening that the teacher overseeing this group didn’t seem to care if anyone was doing what they were supposed to, as long as they were quiet about it. Just a few minutes to recuperate was all he needed, this human body seemed to tire much easier than his Marconian counterpart, granted the exercise regimen and age varied greatly. He felt himself slipping away…

“GET. OUT.” He had slipped too far, and he found himself in darkness, facing off against Kyle himself. He looked down and saw his Marconian body, and realized he was back as himself, his true self. He looked back up at the angry teenager, and prepared to defend himself. He had known that some joinings had led to conversations with the owner of the body in times of sleep or unconsciousness, but this was a wholly new experience to him. He knew that Kyle couldn’t harm him even if he had that ability, but other than that didn’t know what to expect. He could wake up at any time, he supposed, but did want to take the opportunity to speak with the boy.

Kyle’s voice kept the angry edge but mellowed slightly. “Please.”

Critock shook his head, keeping his voice even. “I can’t, Kyle. Believe me, if it was an option I’d be right back to my original plan.”

Kyle paced in front of him, the residual mental image of the consciousness giving him an angry look, more so that he couldn’t do anything about the situation. “This was my life. You’ve taken my life.”

“And you’ll get it back as soon as I finish here. You have my word.”

“How do I know if I can trust you? I don’t know you.”

“Look at my life, Kyle. Look back at who I am. You know I can do what I need to do, you just have to give me some time. One day is all I ask.”

Kyle stopped and stared at his interloper. “Yeah, I have. What do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been rooting through my memories for spare parts? I’ve seen who you are, alien. Soldier. You don’t care about this planet, you don’t care about anyone or anything on it, and if you had your way you’d have it blown up instead of doing anything to save it.”

Critock didn’t bother to argue. “Between this one backwoods planet and a million planets with trillions of lives? Between Earth and the entire Marconian empire? A thousand times over. But I’m here now. In a few hours, Shanna is going to help me get access to the files I need to replace who I’m searching for. I get those, I get Pt’ron, I get the Shards. After that, I’m gone. I don’t want to be in your head any more than you want me there.”

Kyle began pacing again. “Why her? It’s bad enough you’ve gotten me into this, why do you have to involve her?”

“She knows how to get into the system, it’s purely convenience. I’m not exactly leaving you in a bad place.”

“In what way?”

“C’mon kid. The thing with your bully? Shanna falling all over herself to get closer to you? Considering everything that I could replace that happened before I showed up, I’d say this day was not going to turn out in your favor.”

“Oh yeah, and having my body stolen from me and replaceing out the fate of the world depends on some alien hitting on Shanna, and me just being quiet is better? Look, just leave her out of this, she doesn’t deserve to get hurt because you can’t keep your war to yourself. I’ve seen the things you’ve done too, Critock. How many people died because of you, and everything you’ve done to run away. The one thing I’ll thank you for now is that I’ve learned so much about you and from you.”

Critock stepped up to Kyle, their noses so close that another inch and they would be touching. “Oh yeah? What have you learned? Except for the fact that you should mind your own damn business?”

“That this whole thing is happening because you didn’t do what you should have done two thousand years ago. Now everyone on Earth might die because of you. Because of those shards, because of your friend and your war.”

“You need to tread lightly, you know damn well if I want to I can shut you down for good. You don’t have the power to resist me.”

“Oh, so you’re just going to be a body snatcher? Can’t get the little human’s help so you’re going to steal his life? Go ahead. Leave her out of it. She’s got nothing to do...”

Critock was jolted out of his conversation within Kyle’s mind by the sound of the final bell of the school day going off. All around him students hurriedly and excitedly assembled their books and belongings and quickly headed out of the room while he sat there, almost in a stupor, as Tom floated up to him.

“I think that’s our cue to get out of here.” Critock just sat still. “Hey, Critock, you in there?”

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he exhaled. For a moment, there was a slight war within him, and Kyle had struggled to the surface for a moment, but was unable to do anything before Critock had reasserted himself, this time almost smothering Kyle’s consciousness, locking him deep within his mind. It had not been an idle threat, Critock always knew that he could take total control if he needed to, he had just been hoping it would not come to that. Perhaps later Kyle would come to understand what he had to do now, but there was no time now, there was only the mission. He scanned Kyle’s mind, and was pleased to realize that he had full access. It’s not that Kyle was hurt, just contained where he could no longer keep secrets to himself. Critock looked up at Tom, and nodded.

“I’m okay. The kid took a run at me.” Tom started to say something, but Critock cut him off. “He’s contained.” Then he rose, and moved towards the exit of the room with no hesitation. After a troubled moment, Tom followed, deciding that now was not the time to question exactly what had happened within his mind.