"Twin of Three - Chap. 1 & 2" by Lisa Shannon Sanders

Scholar

"The traf is half Karth and Sarren... Sarren is thrice the moon..." They droned on and on. But she was not listening. Nor was she reciting with the rest of them. Her mind was beyond the traf... beyond Sarren... somewhere between the moon and the stars. Drifting, ever drifting into worlds beyond the liquid boundary. Her heart was not in her lessons. It had flown far away into the hands of another. What bliss it was. Like flying.. To love and be loved. At least, she imagined it would be. That's all she could do. Imagine.

"Avriel!" The professor rapped his pointer on his desk. "Avriel Taren LorEnti, we cannot hear you, girl!"

Avriel swiveled her head over quickly at the sound of her name. Her cheeks blushed a deep crimson and, with a soft sigh, nodded her head. She knew that meant she would have to stay after to clean the classroom and do extra lesson recitals for the professor. She had been through this before.

With a quick wave of the proffessor's hand, the room cleared. The pupils darted out of the room, grabbing their belongings, never hesitating a moment to rush off. Avriel stood up from her place and she began her recitals. "As is like the caling fish is like the flian bird. The pacer like the scerth. Sun and moons, bright is their place. Karth and traf. Karth and Moon. Moon and Sarren. The liquid boundary and space..." For two hours she went through every lesson she ever learned it seemed.

The professor remained hunched over his desk the whole time. His long, grotesque nose reaching to kiss the test plates on the surface. His thin wispy hair floating about like cloud gray sea grass in the ocean. The quill in his hand barely moving along the plates he was supposedly correcting. She knew he would soon jump up with a snort and glare at her as if she was to blame for his nodding off. One of these days, with all their knowledge and invention, they would create a child born with all the lessons already memorized. She wished she had been born in that day. And school would be done away with forever! Along with crusty, old teachers.

She started trailing off, "Floating between the mists above and mists below. The water like a free expanse..." It wasn't part of her lessons. But as she was looking out of the window, she spotted one of the many pilots speeding across the sky in their Calings, or Assassin Runners as they were often called. They were smaller in size then the normal war flires. Made for speed first and fighting last, their hull was weaker as well.

The professor started and jumped up with an unfinished snore. "Eh? What's that you are reciting now, Avriel?!" he barked at her. She wasn't expected to answer so just looked at him quietly. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Get out of here, worthless troublemaker."

Avriel grabbed her belongings and darted out the door before he could change his mind.

"Avie!" a voice called to her.

Avriel didn't even bother to turn around. She knew that voice and began to sprint away, clutching her bag and lesson plates close to her. "You can't outrun me, Avie!" he called after her. She leaned into the wind and picked up her legs, speeding up. She heard the voice getting farther and father away and finally disappear. She shot a quick glance behind her and grinned. He was gone. She laughed in spite of her heaving breath.

She hadn't rested more than two minutes when the same boy she was trying to evade knocked her to the ground.

Trouble

"Ha ha!" the boy laughed. His black hair flopped over his eyes as he tackled her to the ground.

Avriel growled at him. "K'lan, you know, you'll pay for this now." And she struggled to overturn him. Her dust brown hair was getting tainted clay-red by the dirt floor. She growled again.

K'lan grinned smugly at her, chuckling quietly. "Surrender!" he barked at her.

"Never!" she snapped at him.

"Then it is with a grave decision that I must do this," he pitied her. Then before she had a chance to flinch, his fist rose up and slapped a handful of red dirt across her cheek.

Avriel shrieked at him. But he jumped up and laughed, darting away before she could snatch him by the heel. She jumped to her feet and ran after him. On most days, she could catch up to him with ease, but he was learning new pathways around the city, ways she knew nothing about. One dart around the corner and he was gone from sight.

K'Ian TroEth Scyre was a boy she'd known all her life. They grew up together; they were even born in the same medical center. All through school, they had the same classes. And while they weren't next door neighbors, they kept tight reigns on each other. K'lan's father had worked for the Flire Quarter for what seemed like forever. He designed and invented the different models. In fact, one of the flires was named after the family name, "Scyre." It was a sight ship that made better scouts than even the Assassin Runners, but not nearly as fast.

Suddenly a voice fuzzed in from her tellink, "Avie?" She pulled the round, hand-sized link from her belt and held it up to her mouth, "Wha..?

"You gotta get home. Hey, change comm to you-know-what," the link fuzzed in.

Avriel gave it a funny look, but turned it over in her hand and popped open the cover shield. She pressed a few buttons and then snapped it shut again. "Kal... What's there?" she spoke into the link again.

Kal and Avie had a "secret" frequency that they used on the links to be sure they wouldn't be overheard. They had worked on their tellinks together to make it capable to operate on that "comm."

"There are a couple of Fleeters at your house giving your Mum a rough time, I think," came in K'lan.

Avriel's deep blue eyes shot wide open, and she darted off towards her family's flat. Their flat was a fairly spacious home, considering that it was just her father, mother and her living there, and their cat, but then again, her parents were a pretty big people in the city. Her father was the head of the Genetics Research and her mother was the spokesperson for GR. Genetics Research was the city's lifeblood and founding purpose. Of course, part of that was because the air was still cleaner.

"What are they doing to her?" demanded Avriel into her link, while running at full pace.

"Oh, they're just arguing for now. But one of them looks like he's gonna pull for the laser at any minute."

"I'm on my way," she panted. It was just one more block and she'd be in sighting view.

"I can tell," was Kal's dry tone.

Avie rounded the corned and bumped right into Kal. He glared at her, pulling a finger to his lips. "Shhh…" And he pointed up to her flat.

The windows of the flats in this district were large and it was fluid in its shape. The whole building complex was. It was simple to look into anyone's home if their shades were open. Avie's mother loved natural light; therefore she always kept the shades open. There was little exception now. And Avie could see her mother in their greeting room, facing two Fleeters. Yes, it looked like they were having a very heated conversation.

"Don't you have an innercomm link?" Kal turned to her.

Avie shook herself from her disbelieving stare. "Huh..? Oh, right! We do." She pulled open her link again and punched in a long series of numbers.

"System is locked," bleeped the link's pleasant female voice.

"Damn!" cursed Avriel.

Kal growled. "Enter the comm and then give it to me."

Avriel tried it again, her fingers flying over the keypad, and then handed the link to Kal.

"We'll see that jam... and raise you a hack," mumbled Kal as he worked at the keypad.

"Innercomm link accepted," cooed the link. "Please enter link code."

Avriel took the link back from Kal. "Avie Nine Karth LorEnti Six," she recited into the mic.

"Link code recognized and accepted." The link make a click sound.

"Mrs. LorEnti, we do apologize, but there is no room for argument here," came a male's voice.

"The hell there isn't! She's our daughter. We didn't choose engineering by the government --" That was her mother.

"According to her files, she is genetically manipulated," interrupted the man.

Avriel's face paled instantly. "Wha..?" she whispered, glancing up at Kal.

"Then somewhere along the way, your files got mixed up!" shouted her mother.

"I'm afraid there is no mix up, Mrs. LorEnti." The man again.

"Then you can discuss that with her father when he gets home." Avriel knew that tone of voice meant she wouldn't budge.

"I'm afraid we don't have the time to discuss matters with Mr. Tor LorEnti. Your daughter must come with us. Today!" He placed a great deal of emphasis on "today."