Foresight (1)
April 23, 2010 at 7:13 am
Arvid immediately disliked the man in the suit when he showed up at their house. At twelve years old he already knew that there were good people and bad people, and sometimes the bad people acted like good people so they could get good people to do bad things. He and his father had even talked about it. When the man in the suit had shown up and invited himself in, Arvid actually understood what that meant. There was no yelling. He knocked on the door in his very fine dark brown suit, and father answered the door in a pair of loose grey pants and the sky blue tunic that Mother liked so much. He nodded to father and showed him something gleaming and bright in his outstretched hand before pocketing it and walking inside as if he was an old friend or perhaps a land lord. He didn’t even shake father’s hand, but instead walked into the den Arvid was watching from and turned to face the whippet thin boy.
His eyes started at Arvid’s head and travelled his body from there as if he were trying to sight measure the boy for new clothes or perhaps about to guess his weight like the fat man at the carnival they had been to last spring. The fat man had been off by a good 30 pounds and Arvid had walked away with a free sweet for his victory. Instead, however, the man in the suit stooped to bring himself closer to Arvid’s level and smiled.
“Hello Arvid, do you know who I am?” the man said in an obviously faked sacharrine voice. Arvid, never the bravest of his class mates, simply shrank away against the wall behind himself and tried to hide by staring at his feet.
“Ah well, one can always hope I suppose.” he sighed and produced a slim pair of spectacles from one pocket, placing them on his beak-like nose. “My name is Edmund Proust. I represent the Colleges. Do you know what the Colleges are?”
This time the boy nodded and looked, if anything, even more uncomfortable.
“Good, then you’ll already know why I’m here. We’ve been talking to your teachers Arvid. They say you’re bright, creative, but terribly unfocused. Can you tell me what else they’ve told us?”
Arvid’s stomach attempted to drag itself to freedom through his wind pipe. The sound that came out was something between a hiccup and a choking noise. It was Arvid’s usual response to stress or fear and along with his scrawny build and his large eyes had earned him the nickname “Whooping Crane” along with a snickering laughter from the more popular boys in his class.
“They told you I do things to the other boys in the – hiccough – class?” He began, and then the words began to come out like they always did when the subject came up. “I didn’t – wouldn’t – do anything to them!”
Edmund Proust smiled again, a mouth full of teeth that left his eyes looking disconnected above his beak-like nose. “Oh, I know how it is. They picked on you and all you did was stand up for yourself, right?”
“Ye-” Arvid was confused, he had expected something bad to happen when “Big Bill” Thompson had fallen down and somehow broken his nose and left arm while chasing Arvid in the playground, but he had been expecting a call from the school or maybe a visit from one of the principals. He hadn’t been expecting this man in his very fine suit and his smiles that didn’t match the rest of his face. He peered up to get a better look, noticing the faint scar running from the man’s left ear just below his cheekbone almost to the bridge of his nose. He noticed the thin lips that framed his still smiling teeth and he noticed the faint twinkle of what might have been suppressed laughter in his large eyes.
“No!” Arvid exclaimed, deciding that arguing was the only way to get out of trouble. “Bill and Walken were going to give me a beating and he tripped over a rock and smashed his own stupid face and I didn’t-have-anything-to-do-with-it!”
Proust’s smile lessened, becoming something more real and his shoulders shook slightly. “Of course, of course. It sure was lucky that he tripped though wasn’t it? Two boys nearly twice your size after you and one of them just happens to fall perfectly over the only large rock in the yard?”
“Well that’s what happened! All the other kids that watched said the same thing when the teacher asked what happened!” Arvid was finally reaching a real anger. He really hadn’t laid a finger on either of them. They had started throwing pebbles at him in the school yard and when he had told them to stop they had gotten decided to give the whooping crane a real whoopin’. Haha and fun times for all, except maybe Arvid but that didn’t matter.
Proust was staring directly into the boy’s eyes now. “How many of them told the teacher you were moving that rock around the yard before school that morning?”
And there it was, Arvid thought. There was the problem. He really hadn’t hit either boy and he hadn’t meant to hurt either of them. He had just come to school with the feeling that something bad was going to happen either to him or one of the other kids. There was no reason to it, but he knew that if he moved the big rock the kids all used to scribble on and play “King of the Mountain” with he wouldn’t get hurt. So, he had moved it a few times until it felt ‘right’ and then left it there.
Proust seemed to decide that whatever he saw in the boy’s eyes was answer enough. “That’s what I thought. Now you aren’t going to get in trouble. We already know you didn’t mean anyone to get hurt. In fact, I look for children just like you. You could say finding you is my Talent.” The way he said the word, there was no question that it was meant to be capitalized. You could hear the emphasis and pride in the ‘T’ at the start of it.
“Now this is what’s going to happen next young Arvid. Your father,” and here he gestured back towards the man standing by the door with his shoulders stooped in resignation, “already knows that we have the right to take you with us to make sure you get the best education. Your mother and father will receive money from us every month you’re at our school and they’ll be paid even more if they decide to have another little boy or girl because we hope they turn out just like you.” Behind the man, Father raised his head to glare at Proust suddenly. There was no doubt in Arvid’s mine that Mother and Father would be avoiding another child altogether if men like Mr. Proust were likely to take an interest.
Proust, seemingly oblivious, continued on. “But we aren’t heartless. We aren’t doing this just to seperate you from your father or mother, so I’ll be back in two weeks to get you. That should give you time to get supplies and say goodbye to anyone you need to.” He reached out a hand in a gesture of apparent friendliness and patted the boy’s head, then turned and walked back to the door, nodding again to Father as he passed. Arvid spoke up as the man began to step out the still-open doorway.
“Mr. Proust, I do know who you are. You’re the bad man.”
“No Arvid, I’m a good man. I’m just not a nice man.” Proust turned back for a second to face Arvid before leaving for good. “That difference is one of the things we’ll have to teach you,” he said, and then he was gone.
Terminal Labs originally started as a joke when I was in high school in the early to mid nineties. When I wanted a domain to tinker with it seemed like a natural choice. 
