Chapters Beta Academy Chapter 6
This was turning into the worst day in a long time as Jessica bolted out of the gymnasium as fast as she could, closely followed by Amy, “Jess! It’s going to be ok! Here, c’mon, follow me.”
Zipping ahead, Amy led her distraught sister to a side-hall that only led down to the elementary wing, before turning around to face her, butting her chair up as close as she could, clashing front wheels, giving Jess a bump backward reminding her to lift her shoulder and set her brakes.
She finally looked up at Amy, at those caring eyes, who said, “No one will mind us here… look, they still even have the old lockers, and the lights are still those old tubey ones, no one will come down this way, let it out…”
And she did. Jessica cried and cried, leaning forward as much as she could against her belts, reaching out to be held. She would give anything right now to be held by anything other than a nylon strap or a mechanical arm. Amy knew, leaning forward to press her cheek against hers, to kiss and whisper softly, “…it’s not so bad. It will be okay.”
It was just like when they were kids, struggling to roll around on the mats or hop on their bottoms during playtime, inevitably colliding into each other, back when it was easier, before her chest grew so large and sensitive. That’s how her and Amy had met, the hyper, blonde girl with the pigtails who sat two rows back in the stroller, colliding with her suddenly, half-lying on top of her before even introducing herself!
It hadn’t taken long for Jess to ask to be sat next to Amy in the double-wide stroller as the girls were pulled from class to class, so the two could lean over and chat/gossip/whatever anytime they wanted to. That’s how she had met Cathy too, who sat just behind Amy, and the three of them had become the best of friends.
“It could have been any one of us to set her off today…”
Jess faintly remembered one trip into Seattle. They were old enough to have their own self-driving chairs by now, the one they had to ask politely if they wanted to go somewhere — an effective way of teaching manners, Jess had to concede — but being out of the academy meant it was back in the strollers with her best friends and sisters by her side like old times. Oh, the air was so fresh and cool, the sun wasn’t too hot, a smell like it was about to rain, typical. All the Betas were craning their necks, trying to soak it all in, peeking around the Enforcers’ legs and rifles to see the electric trolleys whiz by, the solar panels creak and tilt like mechanical sunflowers, the noise from the shops and restaurants pour out into the quiet streets. It was all so wild and disorderly and lively, nothing like the sterile Academy.
The caravan of eight-seat strollers and armed men all stopped in front of a UNNAP banner proclaiming “Protect our Betas, Protect our Future”, the Enforcers saluting before continuing onwards.
Seattle was pretty big by post-collapse standards, maybe two hundred thousand in the metro area, but she knew they were only seeing the downtown buzzing away. The windows in the bus had been too high up on the drive into town, but the outskirts were probably crumbling, if not already razed or reclaimed for farmland and logging.
Too bad. Jessica had always liked the cows in her picture books and wanted to see a real one.
“Everything is going to be okay, we can head to the bathroom and get your face washed off…”
Downtown, the girls had seen many things. Unhealthy, messy foods they couldn’t dream of, signs and lights striving for attention in a mad frenzy even as no one seemed to pay them a second, but one of the most curious had been an Alpha woman embracing an Alpha man as she let him out of her apartment. Jess remembered her jaw almost dropping as she saw the two wrap their long arms around each other and hold the other’s body to theirs, not to carry the other person, just because! She even pressed her breasts right into him, which went against all the modesty lessons they had been taught. The two were so happy, slipping apart and waving as the man donned his pack and headed on his way, the woman tightening her robe and heading back inside. Jessica hadn’t been the only one to notice, as that night during free time she remembered asking Amy and Cathy about ‘hugs’ as they laid out of their chairs on the mats.
Cathy had guessed that they hadn’t seen one yet because the supers and teachers were only coworkers and those two Alphas had seemed really close, which made some sense. The trio had whispered something about the two normals doing “you-know-what” and left it at that. Of course when they were older and allowed to watch movies they saw much more than hugging, but to young Betas it was a big deal.
Amy had been the one who started brainstorming how them Betas could replicate a hug. “I love you two, I want a way to show it!”
They had tried rolling onto each other, bumping shoulders, a little headbutt, but the only part the limbless girls could replicate was tucking their chins into the crook of each other’s neck, and when they were firmly bound in their chairs as Amy and Jess were now, they could barely do even that, due to their front wheels butting up together.
“Soon we won’t have to see that bitter old lady ever again…”
So the cheek touch had become the way the Betas could feel close with the people around them even as their torsos became less limber and more front-heavy, and they spent more time in their chairs, and it had caught on amongst good friends, and Jess had even seen some younger girls doing it too. ‘Hugging.’ Not as casual as a greeting, it was meant for the hard times, the happy times, the important, lonely, quiet times.
And that’s what Amy did for her sister while Jess couldn’t get the shame of being spanked in front of her whole class out of her head; while she couldn’t wipe the specks of vitriolic spittle off her; while she couldn’t forget the disappointed and hurt expression on Miss Alyssa’s face.
And that’s how Adam found her.
Jess heard the whirr of motors coming around the bend, stop and get closer before he piped up, “That was ridiculous!! Are you okay, Jess?”
Breaking off at the last person she expected, Jess caught Amy’s knowing smirk, before turning to him, trying to blink away the tears. “Not really, but…” Jess sniffled, tried to focus, experiencing a wave of Purpose she didn’t want right now. With an eye toward Amy she continued, “…but I will be.” Her and Adam locked eyes again like in the exercise pods.
Amy interjected, “What do you mean, ‘ridiculous’?”
“I mean it was totally unfair! Miss Harriet should be fired!” The defiance in Adam’s face lit up Jess, before she just started laughing, Amy and her both.
“Yeah, okay, new kid! We’ll go complain to the head super about life being unfair!” Amy was loving this.
“What are you laughing at? I was just about to go there, another supervisor just stepped way over the line with me too! The one that hit you, Jess.”
Now it was her turn. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, seriously. You’ll just get laughed at. Well, maybe with you being… you… they’ll go through the motions, but punishments like that, they suck, and they’re usually reserved for the young ones who need to learn the rules, but they’re not out of the ordinary. I was late, after all.”
This floored Adam, who leaned too far back directing his chair to reverse an inch before catching it, making Jess laugh again, lighter this time. Even if she probably looked like a mess, even if she was a little bit distracted by him being there, she was happy he had broken the ice, finally, though she would never let Amy hear that!
The foreigner looked at both of them, as if he had never heard anything more outlandish, “You’re serious?”
“I mean, yeah? I don’t know what your old academy was like, but Miss Harriet has always had her limbs in a knot about not being able to have her own kids, a lot of the supers do, and they’re way less subtle about it since we found out.”
Adam pressed on. “But shouldn’t she be reprimanded for taking it out on you? We have to stand up for ourselves!”
Amy shushed him to keep his voice down, no doubt seeing flashbacks of their third friend.
“And who would take her place?” Jess laid it out, gently but logically, “Just play it out, you know Cascadia is suffering, the population is still sliding, so they can’t afford to fire her. You talk to the head super, Miss Harriet gets a complaint, sees it on her file, and then takes it out on you for every PT class until we graduate…”
He grew quiet, deflated a bit. “I don’t care. I must have some sway… I want to stand up for you, Jess.”
This made her smile, made her feel warm inside, and for once she was sure that this warmth wasn’t the Purpose. Jess engaged her wheels and drove forward to him, leaning forward, and kissed him on the cheek before he even knew what was happening, the both of them close as Betas could be… and beet red. “Thank you, Adam, that’s really sweet, but don’t stand up, please. Just learn to enjoy sitting. I don’t want to see you end up like Cathy.”
Adam looked stunned for a second, before coming back to reality. “Wait, what happened to—”
But they were cut short by a bell throughout the halls, and short vibration in their seats, the warning to get to class before the interperiod gap ended.
Amy was almost giddy, but had to be the voice of reason for once. “Hold that thought, Adam. Meet us after lunch… uhm… where’s good… ah! By the fountain in the courtyard! We have to go to the bathroom and get Jess cleaned up before the autopilot kicks in again, that will give us a hall pass for a while. See you in Biology!”
Jess pulled back and looked into the clueless Betaboy’s eyes, “See you soon,” before reversing and heading off.
Going their separate ways, finally able to think clearly, Jess was overcome with self-consciousness yet again, and her and Amy could barely keep their mouths shut on the way to the washroom. Only once they were inside, Jessica’s stinging butt firmly planted on a cold bidet seat and her implant letting her pee freely while she hit the attendant button by her shoulder, did she look over at Amy going too and pretty much squeal, “That was so forward, oh my god! How could you let me do that?!”
Amy was leaning back, trying to keep the bottom of her uniform bunched up around her waist away from the spray. “I don’t think you needed any guidance from me, you had it handled, smoothie!”
“Yeah but I’m not even—”
Amy cut her off, “Don’t you dare! You’re into him, and he is obviously into you too! Don’t overthink it!” But Jessica knew she would.
An elderly supervisor came around the corner and only had to take one look at Jessica’s teary raccoon eyes to turn back around and get a warm washcloth. “I keep telling you girls, mascara’s not the most practical choice in your situation!” but Jess just mhmm’d while she felt her sadness wash away under the caring touch of the old woman, holding her steady on the bucket seat, cleaning her off while her shoulders twitched, imagining she was doing it all by herself.
“Better?” the super leaned down, to which Jess nodded and lilted a thank you.
Jess leaned her shoulder into the button on the opposite side, feeling her muscles down below tighten slightly in that familiar ‘safety feature’. Honestly, she had no idea how Alphas didn’t leak moving their hips all day, she was happy to be sealed up. A warm dryer blew across her privates before the Mister picked her up, zipped her spandex bottom closed and strapped her back into her chair.
Watching Amy’s torso get set down next to her and cinched in, Jess just muttered, half to herself, “Lunch… by the fountain… what am I going to do??”
Meanwhile Amy just giggled and told her simply, “Just roll with it!”