Gunpoint

The Competition

The first person I decided to meet was the girl Ana had mentioned before she tried to drag me away. I think her name was Skyla Jennings. Ana was right in saying she was shallow. Skyla was really, really dense, but in a harmless way, unlike Ana. Skyla was talking to a boy called Cody Gilford who was supposedly really dumb, with the lowest IQ in history.

Deciding that they were probably harmless enough, I decided to just skip speaking to them and continued on.

Next I met Seth Soren and his cousin Ciera Soren, who were both movie stars however, from what I've heard they hate each other. Ciera was a naturally smart goody-two-shoes, had desirable looks and was really nice, whereas Seth was more like one of those kids who does nothing unless it benefits themselves and prefers video games to school work and friends. With this in mind, I wondered if Ciera could become a useful ally, but I doubted Seth would be much help unless I somehow managed to bribe him.

As I glanced around, I was satisfied to see that Ana had taken Millie over to a corner where she had once again started to talk with her annoying Worker Bees. Now that I knew Millie was safe I continued scanning over the crowd once again.

That's when two girls who looked exactly the same except for their eyes, caught my attention.

"Hello there," one purred, waving me over, when she noticed me staring.

The other girl frowned at her sibling. "Sophia," she complained. As soon as she finished glaring at her sister, she then turned to look me up and down. "Hi I'm Gracie and this is Sophia. As you can see, we're twins. What's your name?" she asked sweetly.

"I'm Jason, but I prefer Jase," I replied.

"Nice name," said the one I guessed was Sophia.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment. Then my curiosity got the better of me.

"If you don't mind me asking," I started. "What's with the eyes? Do you wear contacts?"

The girls laughed a little at this, just as another girl who I vaguely recognised as The Bereneice Jones, walked to join us.

"Berry can explain! She's really smart. She works for NASA, you know." said Gracie. I did know that, and that she had an IQ of 243, but I decided not to say anything,

"Right," Stammered Bereneice. "Um, okay, so the girls both have a condition called Heterochromia, which means that one eye is different to the other. The twins were born with it, but one can get the condition after certain physical experiences around the sensitive eye area. The twins are just strange because, while the rest of them is identical, their eyes are opposite. Though it is kind of handy," commented Berry.

"Woah, woah, hold up!" said Sophia, "You make us sound like crazy people!"

"You know what I mean," said Berry, a cheeky smile creeping up her face. "And you are crazy people. There's no denying it!"

I found myself caught up in the laughter of the girls. I then also wondered if they could become good team-mates. I guessed only time would tell.

Saying goodbye, I left the girls and continued walking around.

I soon found an odd group consisting of two girls and a boy huddled together, but it didn't look like they were talking. So I approached.

"Um, hi?" I half said, half asked. One of the girls spun around to face me as soon as she heard me speak.

"Oh, hi," she said, sounding like she wasn't at all pleased I was speaking with her. "I'm Kat."

"Jase," I replied, holding out my hand. She hesitated for a second before she took it. Kat then gestured to the other girl and the boy who were still sitting together looking at me with curiosity evident in their eyes.

"This is Maren-Elizabeth, or Liz for short," she said, when she realised I was staring. "And this is Kaiden James. He can't hear, she can't speak. They get along well, for reasons that I can't even begin to comprehend."

"Right," I said, finding myself drawn back into Kat's alluring, green, cat-like eyes. "by any chance, do you know sign language?" I ask, intrigued at how she's able to communicate with two people that have a disorder stopping them from speaking.

"Yeah, how else would I talk to these two?" she said, pride evident in her voice. She transferred the challenging gaze back to me. "Do you?"

I would have lied just to get the challenging smirk off her face, but why not have a little fun while I still could. Plus, I did know sign language, so I replied with a simple "yes".

Unfortunately, this Kat girl wasn't giving up. It seems like she's a bit of a sore loser.

"Japanese?" she asked

"Fluently," I replied.

"How about French?"

"That too."

"German, Chinese and Italian?"

I nodded three times, while thinking Thanks for the lessons, mum. Anything to show this girl up.

"Latin?"

Okay, so that one stumped me, I don't actually know any Latin, partly because my mother decided it wasn't really worth learning. That didn't stop me from quizzing her back on the languages I knew though, so I replied, "No, but can you speak Vatu, Spanish and Malaysian?"

"Si, I can speak Two out of three, I'm afraid I never quite got the hang of Vatu" she replied. "Can you speak Amharic though?"

I grinned. Of course I could. So I nodded my head.

"Really?" asked Kat, looking sceptical. Just to prove her wrong I replied, "Awo."

(This is yes in Amharic, from North Ethiopia.)

"I've never met anyone else who could speak Amharicbefore!" she said excitedly, evidently more interested in me than she was a moment ago.

"Me neither!" I remarked. "Well, apart from my teacher."

The girl half-smiled. She was gaining on my list of wanted allies.

After speaking to Kat for a while longer, I decided to get up and check on Millie.

I was acutely aware that Isaac was avoiding me today, probably because of my last name. Not only that, he was shooting Millie wary looks, though honestly, she's nothing to be afraid of. Like seriously dude, how much damage do you think a twelve year old girl could actually do!

Thinking that I should probably speak to him so that we could talk things out, I began to approach him. However, my chances were ruined when Dan suddenly entered the room, turning the lights out with a grunt, and, although I hadn't met everyone yet, I quickly found Millie in a corner. After soothing and calming her down, we both managed to sleep.

I guess meeting the others could wait until tomorrow.