The Free City

Chapter Eight : Kole

Mr. Sato led me straight to the headmaster's office.

Mr. Abara looked as surprised to see us as I was scared to be there. I didn't want to be punished.

I should have thrown the fight. I shouldn't have kept going after losing my glasses. But it was automatic, I wasn't thinking. The fight was happening so fast... now I'm going to pay for it.

"Sit, Miss Stutton." Mr. Sato pointed at the chair in front of Mr. Abara's desk. I sat quickly with my posture straight and my eyes down.

Mr. Sato leaned against the desk, and Mr. Abara blinked at us in confusion as he slowly sat back in his own chair.

"What seems to be the problem?" Mr. Abara asked us. I kept silent. I knew it wasn't my turn to speak.

"Miss Stutton is enhanced."

I clenched my hands together.

I'm the opposite of enhanced.

The scars on my lower belly were proof enough of that. I wasn't enhanced. I was damaged.

"Is this true, Dianna?" Headmaster Abara asked me. He tilted his head in a way that made me think he was hoping I would look up and meet his eyes, but I kept my gaze down.

"No sir."

"She fought Kole with her eyes closed," Mr. Sato said. Tension kept his shoulders tight and I remembered Jana telling me that Sato had fought enhanced, traitorous Supers in another city.

"Why were her eyes closed?"

"Her glasses broke during the match."

"Ah, I'll order you more pairs, Dianna." Abara said cheerfully.

"Thank you, sir."

"You're missing the point," Mr. Sato said. "She didn't just fight him. She put him down on the mat."

"How impressive," Mr. Abara said. "I've seen Kole fight. Did you win, Dianna?"

"No si-"

"That isn't what's important, Abara," Mr. Sato said. "She said she heard what he was doing. Her hearing has been enhanced. It's against Confederation laws. Carson City Academy needs to be investigated and Miss Stutton needs to submit herself to whatever surgery is required to undo the enhancements. It's the law."

"I never understood that law," Mr. Abara said. I had a feeling he was being deliberately obtuse to needle Mr. Sato. I wished he wouldn't. I didn't need my teacher to be even more upset.

"That law is in place for a good reason and you know it, Abara," Mr. Sato's voice finally broke its cool calm and sparked with impatience. "Supers are already powerful. If we're enhanced any more than we already are we risk making an unstoppable force. The last time a city almost fell to a city-less army, enhanced Super traitors were leading the invasion. You know the history."

"Yes, I know the history." Mr. Abara said, and his voice was quiet. "But the point is moot. Dianna has already said she is not enhanced."

Something about the headmaster's tone made it sound like there was no way to doubt me. Mr. Sato even seemed taken aback.

"Maybe she doesn't know she's enhanced. And why did she refuse to answer my question when I asked her how she did it?" Mr. Sato crossed his arms and stared at the top of my bowed head, I could feel it. "Her lawyer said Dianna wears those ear plugs because of a recent exposure to ear-damaging sound. How could she possibly have better hearing after that?"

I was surprised that the lawyer who had freed me also kept the reason for my damage a secret. Maybe she thought I would be rejected if the new academy knew the whole truth. She was probably the only person to ever care one way or the other about what happened to me.