Thom seemed cowed at school, and ignored Keelic for the rest of the week. No one else challenged him, either, and even Uban made a point of staying out of his way.
At endweek his father let him visit the caves before homework. After winning a few single engagements in the simulator, Keelic couldn’t manage to be successful against more opponents. Las-Ann suggested a complete tutorial. It was almost like being at school, but there was nothing Keelic wanted to know about more, except perhaps Leesol Hallod.
A month passed at school without too many incidents. Thom did nothing but glare. One day each endweek, Keelic would tromp to the simulator and spend three or four hours fighting ever more complex battles. Las-Ann continued to repair her matrix and got to Index Eighteen, which allowed full-scale missions to be played out. She told him that the powercore was running out of the residual fuel she was using.
After Keelic returned from another session at the simulator, his mother asked if he would like to make a trip into town. They needed to restock the house and were going shopping. Keelic almost always declined to go on these trips because they would never let him take the alien, but this time he said yes.
The sky was flaming orange over the mountains as they soared over the darkening forest. The seed stalks of the larger Patamic trees were already swinging free in the breeze, though they had a long way to go before release. Keelic had seen the vids of the stalk release down by the equator, and was not overeager to see the local species go, for it meant an end to his trips to the bluff. His mother had made it clear that she would not chance him being crushed by a falling seed pod.
They soared into town after dark. Keelic, tired from his long walk and intense session at the simulator, watched the lights approach and yawned as he stepped out into the shopping center’s shuttle bay.
Once inside he woke up, hearing the noise coming from the childcare center. After begging some credit from his parents, he ran inside, watching one game or another, choosing where to spend his precious credit. The immersive games were best, but he only had enough credit for one of those. While looking in the windows of a proto-fighter simulator, he heard a voice that sickened him.
Thom said, "Look what I found. Someone better clean up this mess."
As Keelic turned, he ducked. Thom’s fist swept air. Keelic charged under his arm and started dodging people for the exit. A stinging tingle gripped his body and he stumbled and fell onto his hands and knees. Someone had hit him with a mild stun. The other kids snickered, and just walked around him. Bigger feet approached and he struggled to get up, to run away, but his body wasn’t working right, and he flopped around on the floor, panic rising.
An adult voice said, "Wait a fluxing minute, boy. It’s all right. That big boy’s gone."
Keelic whirled awkwardly to look up into the face of a game room attendant.
"We kicked Thom out. That’s his fourth offense. He can’t come back now for a year. Why don’t you rest over here, and let that stun wear off. I know you weren’t doing anything wrong, but running like that isn’t allowed. Here’s two free sessions."
Keelic used up his credit and the free sessions. The games were disappointing after the simulator, but he hung around in the room watching others play until his parents came for him.
He didn’t mention Thom to them, but at home he showed the alien all of it. The alien’s anger was deep red, shot through with a black roiling wrath that frightened Keelic with its intensity, partly because he realized that some of it was his own. If only he could have the alien at school.