Technocracy: Epiphany, Part 6

Terry awoke, a few days later, and yawned. It was Monday, actually. The clear, clean brilliance of the morning sun gleamed through his windows. It was time for school. Terry was somewhat proud of himself for training his body to wake up well in time to make the bus; this despite not really naturally being a morning person. But his internal clock had been properly set, and it clicked and chimed perfectly to wake him up at the right hour.

He walked into the bathroom, wearing only his boxers. His house was older, and so it did not have automatic lights; so he had to click the lights on with a switch. When he glanced into the mirror, he

Sighed with some annoyance at the thing the glass revealed:

A big swirling lock of his hair shimmered in the light.

It was that metallic brown, that bronzeish, glinting brown,

That brown that was not like the brown that his hair had been.

Ardo had observed it, all those days ago at Lunch,

And that its extent had grown, Terry could plainly see.

It now covered enough of his hair that he could see,

See it plainly; it no longer hid amid the rest.

Terry leaned forward, and with a disgruntled sigh he fingered the hair. If it got too much worse he risked getting in the same trouble that Ardo, Marin, and Saera had received; even if his hair was still technically brown, it was rapidly becoming brown in a way that could arouse suspicion, especially from the hawklike eyes of the school administrators.

But there was nothing for it. He’d deal with it as it happened. So he brushed his teeth, and showered, and dressed, throwing on his trusty field jacket to top off his sweater and corduroy pants.

“Fuck.”

He rolled his eyes. He walked out the door of his room, his backpack slung over his shoulder. His father was slumped against the wall, a mixture of whiskey and his own urine spattered on the wall and floor. Terry sighed, and shook his head. “I’ll clean that up when I get home.”

“You don’t have to go to school. What the fuck’s the point? Nobody’s ever going to find you valuable.”

Terry was used, so, so used, to hearing such things. He had gotten to the point where they usually did not bother him. But this remark, that remark, made his temper flare. “I have friends,” he said. “I have real friends. Good friends. You’d know that if you bothered to pay attention for once in your life.”

“Are you backtalking me, boy?” growled his father, rearing up, lurching forward.

And instead of feeling fear, Terry felt even greater anger,

And, as his drunk father moved to push and shove around,

Terry stood up to his full height, and said in a shout,

“Don’t you ever talk bad about my friends!” This he barked,

And as he did so his eyes flashed neon copper brown,

And the ground beneath their feet shook—the entire house.

The entire house was quaking, and his father fell,

Spilling out his whiskey over all the wooden floor.

Terry gasped in a dry heave. He saw his father there. His father looked up at him, and Terry saw, in his father’s face, the one thing that he had never, ever seen from his father, when his father had looked at him: fear. It made part of him feel awful. But it made part of him feel savage glee.

“I-I have to go,” he said, barreling across the living room for the door. “I’ll clean all that up later!” And with that, he opened the door, and slammed it shut behind him, locking it with a fierce turn of his key.

“That wasn’t just… not a hallucination,” he mumbled, and his copper eyes shifted to a harder, more bronze shade. He snapped them from side to side. “Ugh. Ugh.” He shook his head. Get it together. He heard the distant rumble of the bus, so he began to run for the bus stop, a block or so away.

The bus arrived at the school, and Terry slid out of it. The students did not pay him any mind. He was, at least, grateful for this; unlike Saera’s white, Marin’s blue, and Ardo’s red, the glimmering brown streaks in his hair were not quite so different from his ordinary hair that they stood out. He could, under most lighting conditions, continue to pass as someone with totally normal brown hair. This allowed him his usual anonymity in the halls, and Terry was grateful for the desolation that surrounded him, the total lack of mind he was paid. But in the back of his mind he wondered if it would last. The shimmer, the iridescence, of that metallic brown in his hair would become more pronounced as it spread. Especially, big chunks of it would absolutely catch the light in ways that attracted attention. And it was definitely growing. He supposed his obscurity was living on borrowed time.

“Hello.”

“Oh, hey!” said Terry, smiling as he glanced to his left. Saera was walking beside him. He grimaced:

One more chunk of her hair had turned shocking, snowy white,

White as milk and bleached white sheets, it sat upon her head,

Sat there, at the back of her hair, at the very back,

Clearly, plainly visible to all who walked behind.

“More white,” he said gently.

“Yes,” said Saera, voice a bit weak as she said it. “I… noticed it when I was showering. There is a mirror in my shower.” She pressed her lips together, forming a thin line. She sighed. “I do not suppose there is any stopping it. I wonder what I shall look like with a full head of white hair.”

“Hmm,” hummed Terry. “And white eyebrows.”

“Yes. Marin’s eyebrow already has a blue stripe in it. So it will not be limited just to the hair on our head.”

Terry had a vivid mental image of his crotch hair and armpit hair turning iridescent. He shook his head, trying hard to clear that from his mind. But it did raise a barking chuckle from him, imagining his pubes shining when the light hit them. He worked hard to banish the thought from his mind, finding it disturbing, however amusing it also was.

They entered the school. “So the doctor didn’t tell you anything was wrong?” asked Terry.

“No,” said Saera. “No health problems. The same for Marin and Ardo, as you know.”

“Yet clearly something is wrong,” said Terry. “I mean, our hair is turning weird colors.”

“And our eyes are glowing,” said Saera. “And we keep having odd occurrences take place around us.”

They reached their Homeroom, and they paused outside it. Ardo sat inside already, drawing in his notebook, those vibrant streaks of crimson red such a startling contrast with the rest of his otherwise-black hair. He seemed at ease, and Saera had not been stopped or bothered by teachers, so she assumed that Doctor Crickson had already transmitted the electronic medical notes to the front office of the school. She stepped forward, preparing to enter the room,

But a swirl of black with glimmers of bright navy blue

Came across her path, and blew, and turned upon its heel,

Bright and lovely came the smile from the sallow face,

As those eyes, as blue as sapphires, were shimm’ring bright.

“Oh, there you are,” said Marin. She grinned at them, her pretty face beaming.

“You seem… dramatic, today,” said Terry.

“Oh, I am,” said Marin, flicking her fingers towards her own face. “I’ve figured it out. It all makes sense now.”

“Figured what out?” asked Saera.

Marin surged forward and wrapped Saera in a hug. “I’ve figured out what’s happening to us,” said Marin. She moved to Terry and squeezed him tightly as well. “I know what the colors mean.”

“What?” asked Terry. “So, what? What do they mean?”

“I’ll tell you at Lunch,” said Marin. “Ardo needs to hear this, too, and I need to show you all something.” Marin turned and pirouetted towards a water fountain. She paused at the fountain, and she actually beckoned at it with her fingers. And to the total shock of Terry and Saera, a jet of water shot out of the fountain’s nozzle and into her waiting, open mouth. She swallowed it. She turned to them. She winked at them. And she danced inside Homeroom.

“Did she just—” Terry started.

“Yes,” said Saera. “Curious…”

“Guess we wait until Lunch,” said Terry.

And the wait was interminable. Terry and Saera were burning to know, to find out, just what seemed to be up with Marin. But they did not have any classes with her from Homeroom to Lunch. Ardo had a class with her: History class. She sat down next to him as class started. She smiled at him. “I like how red your hair’s getting,” she said. She smirked, looking quite smug.

Ardo glared at her. “Fuck you, fatass. How about how your hair has more blue shit in it than ever?”

“Oh, I like it.”

“Wha?” Ardo gaped at her. “But you hated it, like, yesterday, or whatever?”

“Not ‘yesterday,’ a few days ago. Try to keep up.” And Marin practically fidgeted in place. “But I like it now. I understand what it means. I understand what all our hair colors mean. I understand everything.”

“What?!” Ardo almost lunged out of his seat at her. “What does it mean?”

“I’ll tell you at Lunch.”

“Miss Meni,” said Miss Rachel, glaring at her from her desk. “What is so funny?”

“Well, Miss Rachel,” said Marin, not blinking, not moving, not bothered, “we were just discussing the conspiracy theories based on what you were telling us, about the Great Reorganization. It seems very silly.”

“Oh, what? Conspiracy theories?” Miss Rachel shook her head. “Yes, well, those. The theories that there was a single world government that took control of the entire planet after the Ravaging, and it only slowly went away?” She shook her head. “Just nonsense. Humanity was in no shape to band together after the Ravaging. The entire planet was in a state of ruin. There was no basis for international unity. Mankind had mostly reverted to a tribal state.” She shook her head. “I hope you’re not reading too much on the internet, Miss Meni.”

“Oh, no, Miss Rachel,” said Marin. She smirked. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Ugh,” grumbled Ardo, rolling his eyes.