Gristrift

As this is a humanstuck AU, character names that are English words or shortenings of English words (Dad, the Condesce, Spades Slick, etc.) have been changed minimally to sound more like names.

Do you normally read fanfiction on another website? This story is also available on Archive of Our Own, Mibba, and Fanfiction dot net.

Part one: Carapacian Catastrophe

Prologue

When Condelle sat down, light had filtered through the dusty window and the fancy-ass curtains, reflecting off her laptop. Some time after that, the room had darkened, leaving only the computer to light up her smudged makeup and frazzled hair. The shit she went through for power. She made a mental note to get that damn Porrim girl to fix her up later. Condelle dared not look at the little clock at the bottom of the screen. Every so often, her stomach would remind her that she hadn't eaten in the last day, or her throat would remind her that she hadn't drank for hours. Ignoring her body, she focused harder, straining her tired eyes and clicking link after link. She placed a pillow under her laptop to keep it from burning her tyrian purple skirt, her only large movement in hours. Nothing hurt the skirt.

The cry of a baby sounded in the room next to her, followed by the sound of footsteps. Condelle shook her head, trying to concentrate while everybody else decided it was time to throw some kind of shitty noise party. She closed a tab in disgust. The Daunchys had seemed so promising, until they posted on their blog about how gross they thought babies looked. The fuck, man? What's gross about a lil wriggling baby? Only three more nearby families looked like they could meet her needs: the Flothers, the Murels, and the Egberts. If those failed, she would have to cast her net even wider, which would make it all the harder to get the children back when the time came if the parents started causing a shitstorm.

Fifteen of the sixteen babies had already been placed. The families had been contacted and had agreed to the project. Each family met three requirements:

-They were willing to raise a child

-They were willing to give up that child once he or she hit puberty and started showing his or her powers

-They wouldn't tell a soul about Condelle or the school.

She moved onto the Flothers, then quickly clicked away. Mituna was a dumbass motherfucker to recommend them to her. They were a group of total flag-waving patriots who would tell the government everything at the drop of a hat. He must have been so caught up in the posts on their blog about wanting a child that he missed the fucking obvious warning signs.

The Murels seemed promising for a long time. Their firm belief in conspiracy theories actually made things better - nobody who thought the government faked the moon landing and 9/11 would ever report a secret school to that very government. If she played it right, she could convince them her school was out to infiltrate the feds and show the world evidence that the conspiracies were true. The Murels would eat that shit up like candy.

They even talked about wanting to adopt a child but being too distrustful of adoption agencies to do so. A grin stretched the wrinkles around her mouth. Little Johnny Murel. Perfect.

She clicked the "Our Family" link on the Murels's website and read until she stumbled upon the bios of Magda, Kingston, and Wesley Murel. At ages 23, 25, and 31, they all still lived with the senior Murels. That wouldn't do. No matter how strong their anti-government beliefs, it looked like they would never give up a kid entrusted to their care. Condelle let out a small groan of frustration and moved on to the Egberts.

Or Egbert, as it was. Only one person, a man of around thirty. His main profiles were on LinkedIn and Serious Business, under the username Pipefan413. He blabbed on and on about his boring as shit customer relations job at Perio Inc, the company that made Barbasol. Occasionally he posted about how much he would love to be a father, male fashion, baking, and the recent upwards trend in pipe prices. Condelle's grin returned as she read through his posts and profiles. This sucker would work perfectly. He obviously wanted to be a father, but his busy lifestyle meant that he would relinquish John when the time came. Condelle could find no information online about his personal life, so he was good at keeping all hush hush about shit. She just needed to make him keep all hush hush about her shit.