“I’m not sure I fully understand,” Gloria began, her eyes darting quickly over to her son, who was reading a book in a far corner of the classroom.
“Oh, I understand all right…” her husband, Joe, began indignantly.
“…Honey, let’s not get worked up,” she said soothingly, a hand on his bicep. “Mrs. DelRey, what do you mean you have to keep a ‘sharp eye’ on Cody because of gym class?”
“Because…” Joe started, voice even angrier than before, then stopped at his wife’s “shush!”
The teacher seemed to palpably center herself, and the two parents leaned forward as she spoke in a low tone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson, Cody is very skilled in gym classes. Very strong. Very fast. Stronger and faster than most second-graders. As public school officials, it is our duty to watch for possible signs that a child might be transhuman. If so, we need to consider special placement to ensure the safety of other students. We have certain warning signs…”
“You have totally random red flags on a checklist that you blindly look at, and then start slapping labels on the kids!” Joe growled. “Cody’s no transhuman. Certainly no Brute or Speedy like you’re…”
“Speedster, Mr. Jamieson. The term is Speedster.”
“Don’t correct me. I pay your damn salary with my property taxes. You know what I mean. My son isn’t notably stronger or faster than other kids; not like you’re making out for him to be…”
“…we can’t just be cavalier about these things, sir,” Mrs. DelRay said. “Cody is just past the 90th percentile for strength and at the 85th percentile for speed.”
“By what measure? And what the hell is the percentile shit? I’m a carpenter, not a math expert,” Joe snapped.
“Cody is in the top 8 percent of his age group in terms of strength, and in the top 15 percent for speed. And to answer your other question, we have experts who come in during certain times to discreetly take note of exceptional students and make evaluations. If their academic skills are too high, we screen for possible signs they are Brains. If they show certain behavior swings, they might be Primals…”
“…So Cody is still within the normal ranges for his age group though,” Gloria noted. “He isn’t falling outside the normal maximums for…”
“…no, but we bring evaluators in whenever a child surpasses the 90th percentile of any ranking,” the teacher responded.
“This is bullshit,” Joe snarled. “So if a kid is athletic or smart, the parents get dragged in for a special meeting and we start talking ‘special placement’ to get the kid out of the normal school population. What is this? The new attention-deficit disorder, minus the pushing of Ritalin? “
Mrs. DelRey sighed, and fixed Joe with a gaze that was part sympathetic and part imperious.
“Mr. Jamieson, we’re not going to make any big moves right now,” the teacher said. “Once a student in on our radar, we simply watch them more closely and see what happens. See if there is an upward trend and whether they start going off the normal charts. I certainly wish Cody all the best, whether he’s simply a very athletic boy or whether he needs to go to the MLK Transhuman Extension School.”
“That’s on the other side of the city,” Gloria noted with mild alarm. “So far away.”
“It’s all too soon to worry, Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson. But we are required by state law to notify you and keep you in the loop.”
“I don’t like it,” Joe said.
“And that is within your rights. You could take Cody out and put him in private school. But almost all of the ones in Lark County will take blood tests and screen him for possible transhuman genetic biomarkers before they even agree to look at an application, and you’ll have to pay for the testing.”
Joe remained silent, though still fuming, and Gloria visibly fretted. Mrs. DelRey tried to smooth things over for a couple minutes, then shifted gears to talking about Cody’s grades and behaviors in class, with which she saw no problems, turning the meeting into something more resembling a normal parent-teacher conference, even though they had already conducted those two months earlier.
When she ushered the two parents and their son out the door of her room, Mrs. DelRey waved to Cody and smiled as he turned back, halfway down the hall, to yell out, “Bye, Mrs. DelRey! See you tomorrow!”
Such a nice boy, she thought. Full of potential, but not a lick of transhuman potential most likely, so don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson. He won’t be going to special programming. Sadly, it also means I may not make my quota this semester of promising leads for Janus to follow over the coming years, and that will not do well for me. I could use a few thousand extra dollars right now.
She returned to the classroom, sighed, and looked down at the student files on her desk. Now, Emma, she thought, might be promising. Extremely high scores in language, math and art. But more importantly, always guessing what people were about to say.
Of course, I won’t be mentioning that last part to anyone. If she is a Psionic, I want to keep her right where I can see her and make sure—probe her with my own powers just a little here and there. Janus would pay a pretty penny for a lead like that.
Tales of the Whethermen 