THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

It turned out that Critock didn’t have to walk very far at all to get to his next class, as it was Science with Mr. Phelps. While the clock continued to tick down until the time that Pt’ron would reveal himself and the Shards would wake from their dormancy, Critock took a respite from the constant worrying about the limited amount of time they had left. After everything that had just happened, compounded on the events that had led them to this point, he deemed it prudent to force himself to relax. Certainly he owed it to Shanna to trust her and her plan to get them into the office. Even there, there wouldn’t be a lot of time left to find Pt’ron after they matched him in Principal Tompkins’ system, but it would give them a good starting point.

Tom, however, had deteriorated throughout the day and now was almost in a full panic mode. As Critock entered Phelps’ room as though he hadn’t just been in there only minutes before, he realized that Tom wasn’t going to be content to just sit near him and watch the extremely outdated lecture and quizzes. Instead, he quietly announced to his Marconian partner that he was going to start searching for the Shards in spaces only a wisp could get to, in case Pt’ron’s plan involved a quick change. Critock knew that Pt’ron wouldn’t let his guard down for a second to change into a wisp, and it was unlikely that Tom would find anything. However, preferring to suffer through the class in silence rather than a pestering soul in his ear, he just waved a hand and sent Tom away, with a promise to return before the lunch period had begun.

Critock continued to his seat, the first time today that he could rely on his own familiarity with surroundings instead of spending an almost awkward amount of time searching for which seat was his, trying to find the correct information in Kyle’s mind before he attracted too much attention. The events yesterday upon his arrival were seared into his memory, and he simply walked to his seat and sat down just like every day that had gone by. He didn’t retrieve any books, not knowing for sure exactly what to pull out. He simply folded his hands and waited.

Phelps, having returned from the loud rally, looked like he had been running a marathon. His clothes were slightly disheveled, and his face, which had already been showing the signs of age, had the appearance of extreme fatigue. Critock was hit with a sudden blast of guilt when he realized his teacher’s appearance and likely general mood was a direct result of his incompetence by not killing the pirate the first time their paths had crossed, and of his unwanted arrival in Kyle himself. Not seeing any way he could reassure or apologize to the older teacher without giving himself away, he remained sitting silent at his desk, hoping for the second and final bell to ring so the class would begin, and both Phelps and Critock could move their thoughts to other endeavors.

Critock was relieved to see, as the time moved closer to the bell and the final students shuffled in, that Brian’s two partners seemed to have been suspended along with the bully. Their seats were empty, and there was no sign of anyone else preparing to enter the room. The bell rang out it’s shrill toll that informed the late arriving students throughout the school that it was too late for them and their fate was sealed, and then all was quiet in the classroom, with all eyes at the near-middle-aged teacher, his head down as he leaned against the wall near his desk. Whether they had seen it on the news first hand, or had heard a slightly embellished version from a friend or classmate, Everyone in the room knew what had happened, or at least what the media had reported had happened, anyway. It was going on that in the first period class that he taught, Phelps had not said a word, just handed out worksheets and went back to his desk, staring out the window. Everyone was uncharacteristically silent as they waited with concern for their teachers wellbeing.

It was another full two minutes before Phelps said anything, but when he did it wasn’t what they had expected. “Show of hands, how many people in this class believe in aliens?”

Critock tried to keep the surprise off of his face as he raised his hand truthfully, though his belief was based on first hand knowledge. He did allow a small smile on his face at the roughly half of the class that did not believe in what was sitting right next to them.

Phelps continued. “Lot more skeptics than there used to be. I blame the internet, you know. Unlimited knowledge at your fingertips makes the impossible even more impossible. But you’re probably right to be skeptical, after all we’ve never seen any of them with our own eyes, and today more than ever we have ways to capture what we’re seeing, between cameras strapped to your head and cameras on phones.”

He let a small, sad smirk show on his face. “However, I’ve never seen a gas leak leave precision shots in a house before, striking the best parts of a house to hit to have it collapse.”

A boy from the back of the room spoke, and Critock swung around to look at him. Remembering his face from the pictures he had already seen, he was immediately able to discount the boy as a Pt’ron possibility, but his words could attract undue attention to himself just the same. “So, you’re saying that you think aliens destroyed your house?”

Phelps pointed at the boy. “It’s a crazy thought. Certainly not something I’d put into writing or pursue openly, lest I get thrown in the crazy house and fired. But I do admit it is more likely than a very selective gas explosion.”

“So why bring it up if you’re not going to go looking for them?” Another voice from a girl in the front of the class. “Aren’t you afraid we’re going to think that you’re crazy?”

Phelps chuckled. “I would have thought that particular ship sailed after the first day of the school year. No, because even I don’t fully believe that’s what happened. Could have been something from the Government drones, could have been a rogue agent of some type. I’ll likely never know for sure, but the good news is since the official word is that it was a gas leak, and that is covered by my insurance. So at least I don’t have to look for a place to live.”

Critock raised his hand, and Phelps nodded towards him. “So you’re not crazy, and that’s great, but honestly, how are you doing?” He may not have been able to stop this from happening to the teacher, but Critock could at least show some empathy, and try to sway the conversation away from aliens on Earth before Pt’ron caught wind of it.

Phelps was slightly taken aback. He had been receiving outpourings of offers to help replace the house and help out, but Kyle Edison wasn’t exactly someone that he was expecting anything from. It looked like whatever that had happened to him yesterday was continuing, and that wasn’t something that he was going to discourage. “Yes, yes, thank you, Kyle. And thank you everyone for your kind words and help. I did end up losing a lot of things, but in the end, they’re just things. The house will be replaced eventually, and I won’t be out anything.

“But I didn’t want to talk about what happened to me really. I’m not sure what I would put on the test in that case. But I wanted to talk about aliens today, as the ‘attack’ reopened my eyes somewhat.”

Critock whispered to himself. “Why today?”

“Space is big. We all know that right?” Phelps was walking back and forth in front of the dry-erase board on the left side of the room. “The Universe is immense and possibly unending. We, are here.” He picked up a black marker and placed a small dot in the center of the otherwise empty white board. “This is the Milky Way, our wonderful home galaxy. The remainder of this board represents the rest of the universe.”

Critock, not able to help it at all, let out an involuntarily scoffing noise, which Phelps picked up on, as he knew that the boy wouldn’t be able to resist a topic like this.

“Do you have something to say, Kyle?”

Critock sighed and nodded. “Didn’t mean for it to come out mean, but that’s not to scale at all. The universe is impossible. It doesn’t match up to any kind of scale or measurement. There just is the universe, a sea of endless black. If there is an end to it I don’t think Earth has ever come close to detecting it. I don’t think any species has.”

“Any…species. So you’re pretty much all in on the existence of extra-terrestrials?” Mr. Phelps sat halfway on his desk, folding his arms.

“Well…Yeah!” Critock answered without betraying the irony of him having to answer a question like that. “Sure, life showing up on Earth is a miracle. But again, space is big. If Earth being in the right distance from the sun and having the right things happen to it during the millions of years of evolution that got…us….to this point is a million-to-one shot, then there’s a trillion Earths out there, each coming about a different way.

A hand went up from across the room, and the ‘boy’, a red-haired sixteen-year-old who apparently needed to learn to shave, was called upon. “Don’t most religions say that Earth is the only place? That it was made specifically for us? That’s why I don’t believe in aliens. Why would God create this place as perfect as he did but also other beings?”

Phelps rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t want a religious argument in here, guys.” Just after he said that, Critock replied to the question.

“Well, you know, I don’t speak for ‘God’ or anything, but for the sake of argument, God exists, everything that happened in the bible did happen and wasn’t just a fever dream of under-educated sheep herders. Earth is millions of years old. The seven days as described in the bible had to be that long. And a lot of that was downtime, I would think. Assuming the ultimate power in the universe still had to obey physics, there was a lot of carefully putting things into position but there would have to have been a lot of waiting for things to naturally fall where they were supposed to, the fish to grow legs and figure out that land isn’t too bad, and so forth. So why wouldn’t he have been able to fill that time with putting things in motion elsewhere? Who’s to say that humans weren’t the first draft but instead the latest experiment? There you go, there’s your loophole, I know religious people love loopholes.” He took the time to wink to a girl In the corner who suddenly flushed red.

His debater was not deterred. “But the bible doesn’t say anything about that, why would it leave that out?”

Critock shook his head, and continued to speak calmly, even if there was a small undercurrent of snark flowing beneath his words. While he wasn’t familiar with this particular planet’s chosen religions or books, he had been around enough of them on different planets to know roughly how they worked. Kyle seemed to be helping as well, with points that he had been thinking about bubbling up to the surface. “Don’t know if you’ve been outside in the last few thousand years, but there’s an awful lot that the bible doesn’t say anything about. Why would it be our business? Bible doesn’t say anything about dinosaurs, but there’s no doubt they were there. Why would anything outside this planet’s human religious experience be covered in a book specifically put together to convince you that this way is the only way and everyone else can suck it.”

Phelps put his hand over his eyes, rubbing his temples. “Kyle…”

And then Critock, spurred on by a series of sudden thoughts from Kyle, said the words that sent the room into an uproar. “What if God was just an alien?”

It took a full fifteen minutes for Mr. Phelps to regain control of the class. Many people suddenly took personal offense to the innocent question, one girl that never said anything in the class started crying, and two students were sent outside to think about the words to use in polite company. Critock managed to avoid the worst of it, surprisingly, as the portion of the room that weren’t religious jumped to the question’s defense without him. After the teacher had gotten everyone to finally settle down, and the loudest and most boisterous were properly chastised for their over exuberance, he gave Critock a long look, and then announced the day’s worksheets. As they were being passed from one side of the room to the other, Critock thought to himself about exactly how much of the day was spent on repetition by filling out sheets, and how much education here could be improved with regular lectures. However, he also realized that perhaps Earth wasn’t quite ready for that yet, considering what had happened just then. He received the worksheet, which had nothing to do with the discussion they had been having, and prepared to take his time as he had done in the math class, when he was interrupted by Mr. Phelps.

“Kyle, could you come up here for a moment? Nothing bad.”

Sighing, Critock stood. He was hoping to escape without another heart-to-heart from his former target. Not for the first time he wished that the plan had worked the way it was supposed to. Phelps seemed like an agreeable enough sort, and was open minded enough about space and aliens that he probably would have helped Critock a lot earlier and without cajoling. Granted, they still would have had to find a way to get the pictures from the Principal, but there probably would’ve been a way, and probably would have saved his house, too. Or at least he would understand why this had happened. But regrets wouldn’t solve this. If he could go back and change anything he certainly would have changed something a lot earlier than just today. He completed his walk to Phelps’ desk and waited for the teacher to explain why he was summoned before him.

“You’ve gotten a real knack for stirring up things around here lately, haven’t you?” Phelps spoke, and Critock took a slight step back.

“I thought this wasn’t bad?”

“It’s not, it’s a conversation. One that probably won’t end with chairs flying across the room.”

Critock shrugged. “Well, maybe some things needed stirring up. Maybe not God being an alien, but you’ve got bullies running rampant with nobody giving a damn, and near as I can tell from the worksheets there’s not a whole lot of space for individuality.”

Phelps sat back in his chair. “You act like you just showed up yesterday. I wish you would’ve been like this sooner. I hope you keep it up.”

Critock narrowed his eyes, thinking he was walking into a trap. “Excuse me?”

Phelps spun around in his chair, and stood up, again walking to the window, but still talking. Critock was forced to follow him to keep up with what he was saying. “The world doesn’t pay attention to people that just sit and follow directions and allow everything to happen to them. They don’t take control of their own lives, they just accept what they get and think that’s their life, that they have no say so. Acting up like you did, taking on Brian, and speaking out intelligently showed you have the ability to take control of your life. A lot of people never get that, or they do it for the wrong reasons and just end up in more trouble than they started out with.” He turned, and headed back towards his chair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Kyle, but I hope you keep surprising me. You can do a lot of great things. I never said that you had to fill those out…” He pointed towards the worksheets, and the multiple students filling them out, never thinking they might have a choice. “Ask questions, be annoying. You’ll get in trouble sometimes, but you’ll be remembered. If you handle things right, you’ll go far.” He sat down in his chair, and Critock came around to face him again.

“Take control of your life, don’t let life control you.” Critock said, remembering Kyle’s father.

Phelps pointed at him. “Exactly. Feel free to return to your seat anytime.” He spun around in his chair again, but didn’t move after that, happy to go back to looking out the window. Critock nodded, and walked back, sitting down and releasing a breath. Yes, he definitely wished he could have joined with Phelps instead. He looked down and glanced at the worksheet. He picked it up, looked at it, and then crumpled it into a ball. Critock glanced to Phelps’ trashcan that sat next to his desk, and launched the worksheet into it. A couple of students that had caught the arc of the paper looked at him strangely, and he smiled at them. He then put his hands behind his head, leaned back, and took advantage of the last few quiet moments he would possibly have before the next bell rang and all hell broke loose.