Conniveo

Chapter IV: Bewilderment

"You again?"

I was surprised to find the dark haired boy in my room. I walked in quickly and shut the door, locking it behind me. I could not risk having mother, or even worse Arye find out about him. He backed away from me, with a look of fear on his face. At least I thought it was fear. Maybe it meant something else where he came from. He had shut his eyes and put his hands over his ears and was muttering something to himself. I looked at him. I was confused.

"What are you saying?"

He continued to back away from me until he hit the wall. He did not stop muttering. Maybe he was having some sort of illness. I couldn't tell what effect he must have been experiencing, being away from his home environment. I assumed he was away from his home environment. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was just an unusual Homini who had survived a genetic defect. No, that was impossible. The rigorous screening at our fertility rooms made such extremely unlikely.

I wanted to talk to him, to find out more about where he came from. Professor Norei had not been very helpful when I asked about the existence of other species earlier this morning. That was after I had told Aris that the burn on my skirt had been from an Eigner friend of mine who had gotten excited while admiring the dress. He knew too little about us pex modifiers, so he left it at that. He had excused himself shortly afterwards. I did not care enough to alert mother and father. My brother had emerged later to speak to me. He was uncomfortable with Aris, probably because they were both hard-headed, but he was glad I had stood my ground. Being a sibling to a pex modifier made him a little more aware of what I was capable of.

We had been essentially the same through our first six years of life, going to the same schools and receiving the same lessons. This was the only time when all Hominis, Blands included, could ever be in harmony. As soon as our abilities began to manifest, the caste lines were drawn and there was enmity in abundance. I couldn't understand it. We were all variants of the same thing, indistinguishable by physical appearance. Why was there the need to draw out these lines? A few Endokines had proposed that the lines be drawn much earlier, as our chromosomal typing could be used to determine who was which class prior to our birth. They claimed that the enmities only arose because we had familiarized ourselves across classes in our youthful years. If we had been separated much earlier, there would be no need for argument. I was thankful the Psychokines did not see reason with such logic. But that did stop the Endokines from advocating their segregate-from-the-womb ideology.

"Pardon me, but what are you called?" I walked towards him. I began to wonder if he understood the same language. For all I knew, he was reacting strangely because he could not understand me. I reached for him and he shrank back.

"Don't fuckin' touch me!"

I stopped. I had understood him, save for the second word. Its meaning was lost to me, but the emotion behind its vocalization was strong. Maybe an emphatic stressor of some kind? I stood in front of him, confused. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with him, and he wasn't acting like he wanted to communicate. I walked back to my bed and sat. Maybe he needed his personal space. The Psychokines often got uneasy when another Homini was within close proximity. I sat on the bed and tried to look as docile as possible. Not that it was any difficulty; I was female and smaller than him.

"I'm over here now," I said, because he was still closing his eyes. He opened them and looked at me. He blinked, squeezing his eyelid muscles hard. He looked around and repeated the action several times. I looked at him because I couldn't understand what he was trying to accomplish. Was he trying to concentrate on his pexes? I formed a couple of pexes into a ball and made then glow with a mild static charge, suspending them above my hand. He looked at me and his eyes seemed to grow larger. It amused me and I couldn't help but laugh.