Voicetesting/considering places

[teekay]

It's all right. I understand why they wouldn't accept me. I'm not even a teenager.

But you should make sure to tell them that I'm very responsible. Gavra said it herself - there's no one else she'd trust with a flock of Sevens! I may have been on a lot of adventures, now, and seen a lot, but if there's one thing I know, it's babysitting.

And I guess now I know how to keep people safe.

So do your best. If I can, I want to make sure no one ever goes through Transition again. If adults have teekay, kids won't have to work all of the time. They'll be able to learn to read when they're little. There won't be any more fagins.

Everyone will be on equal ground.

I want that. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

Comments

[crypto_godress]

Wait, the hell kind of not-reading shit are you talking about?

[teekay]

We don't learn to read until we go through Transition. And become teenagers.

[crypto_godress]

What.

That's stupid. Like grade-A pure unadulterated unfiltered stupidity. Farm fresh. Whose rule is that?

[teekay]

I don't know. Everyone's?

[crypto_godress]

Okay, then everyone is stupid. I learned to read when I was like. Four.

[Admittedly there was kind of a desert island-ish situation so things were boring, but. Still.]

[teekay]

[ w a t ]

When you were four?

[crypto_godress]

Yeah. And I never had to work, either, although I mean - I was all by myself mostly, so maybe it's not the same.

Point is kids are supposed to be chewing on books from the time they pop out, okay, it's called modern parenting or something.

[teekay]

Well, it's illegal here. I got in a lot of trouble, and I wasn't that early.

[crypto_godress]

Trouble.

[unmakeme]

[What Natasha is taking away from this is that someone is exploiting children, keeping them illiterate, making them take care of each other, and she'd bet money that Transition isn't anything good.]

Is that the deal you want to make? To give adults teekay?

[Whatever that is.]

You should be sure that single change will give you what you really want before you ask for it.

[teekay]

It will.

[ She sounds confident of this. ]

Teekay is what makes kids and preteens so important. If you give that to everyone, there's no reason to be afraid anymore.

[unmakeme]

[Once, a very long time ago, Natasha had believed that if the Red Room was gone, it would stop bad men from making broken girls like her. She'd been very wrong. Sometimes it was difficult to see the forest for the trees.]

You... should think about it a little more. Be very certain, before you shake on it.

What is teekay?

[teekay]

I don't have to think about it. This is what I want to do.

[ She understands what's wrong with her world, and she knows something has to be done to fix it. ]

Oh. Telekinesis, is the formal word.

[unmakeme]

[Whoa. Hold the phone.]

So you world is full of uneducated, telekinetic child labourers, and no adults manage to keep this power?

[Yeah, that world is kind of fucked as soon as someone with half a brain figures out why the system is so flawed.]

[teekay]

Yes. It goes away at puberty, when you become a teenager. For everyone.

[unmakeme]

[The thought of this place makes Natasha angry and sad at the same time. She doesn't like it.]

It's a good deal to make. Selfless.

[teekay]

...not completely. [ In fact, she thinks it might be a little selfish. ]

I don't want to lose my teekay either.

[disloyalty]

How old were you when you learned to read?

[teekay]

Fourteen. It was only a few months ago. I'm still not very good.

[disloyalty]

I learned when I was seven. It's nothing to be concerned about.

Why did they not let you learn when you were much younger? May I ask that?

[teekay]

It's complicated.

Tigris is a colony of Earth. But after the first colonization, when children reached the age of five, they started developing telekinesis. A lot of violence resulted, and it's called the Lost Generation. Since then, adults have been afraid of preteens. It means that we don't go to school at all until we lose our teekay.

[disloyalty]

[ Telekinesis — an ability that falls under the umbrella of fringe science, and is hardly substantiated in empirical terms by the journals she's been made to read years ago. See: telepathy. See also: pyrokinesis, mind control, precognition.

Ciela nods. She understands the concept. ]

And you've lost yours? It's a very useful ability to lose.

[teekay]

Not yet.

I broke the law. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I don't think that applies here.

[disloyalty]

Laws don't define what you can and cannot do. [ They're like fences, for the Project agents. Often than not, they simply climb over. ] You shouldn't worry about breaking them.

—Unless you want them to find you? Are you going to be arrested?

[teekay]

They know. I got caught.

I helped find a missing boy, and catch a fagin - because of that, I got rewarded about as much as I did penalized.