Chapter 10 Chapter nine

Gillian walked toward the dining room, walking slowly and hesitantly.The other children were talking and laughing, like a wall of sound coming over with oppressive fear. She couldn't hear the sound of this wall clearly, so she just tried her best to avoid it. She held her lunch tray in front of her and walked toward an empty table at the back of the restaurant, trembling on her feet, so she was careful to hold the tray steady.Every day she sat there alone, as far away from the noise and anger of the other kids as possible.Occasionally, a particularly loud commotion—a shrill laugh, the clatter of a plate dropping to the floor—would cause her to jerk her head away, as if she'd been slapped.When this happens, she is always careful not to drop the plate.

When she was younger, she usually stayed in the back corner of the classroom.When the lunch bell rang, the others rushed out.Miss Handel or Miss Saunders would bring her lunch, which she ate at her desk, and there was a blessed silence about the place.But she never did that again.She wants to adapt to this environment. Gillian is painfully aware that she is different.Most of all, she wants to be a normal person.But the other kids terrified her.They are so fast.so noisy.They always have physical contact.The boys pushed one another on the back, or threw their fists on the shoulder; sometimes they pushed each other, pushed and squeezed, and laughed at jokes she couldn't understand.Girls huddled close together, cupped their hands in their friends' ears, and exchanged little secrets that could only be whispered.They would snitch, giggle, hold another man's wrist or arm, or hold a friend's hand in their own.Other times she saw them braiding each other's hair.She couldn't imagine what it was like, living in a world where bodies could be touched without burning or prickling: at least no one was teasing her, or joking with her—at least not in public. her face.Most of them just avoid her, stay away from her.It didn't help Gillian though, she could feel the expressions on their faces when they looked her way--bewildered, suspicious, puzzled.She's the kind of weirdo best left out of the crowd.Every day she has to go through the ordeal of walking through the cafeteria, carefully and slowly placing the plate on the dining table in the corner.She hopes it gets easier over time and becomes bearable after it becomes an oft-repeated routine.So far, she hasn't done it.

She finally got to the seat and sat in the same dining chair she sat in every day, with her back to the wall so she could see the entire restaurant.Then she began to eat slowly, bite by bite, chewing bite by bite, looking at the other children with fear and yearning, unable to understand their world, but wishing to be like them one day. Nick watched Gillian walk down the middle aisle of the cafeteria.As she passed their table, Nick whined like a dog being stomped.Gillian flinched sharply, but that seemed to be in Nick's way.So, the tray in Gillian's hand didn't fall to the floor, much to Nick's disappointment.

"Ha, I told you a long time ago!" Sai Shawn smiled happily. Nick is extremely upset and hands the chocolate cake to Seshaun, which is punishment for losing the bet. "What's the matter with her?" he asked the six boys at the table. "She's mentally ill, or something else," replied a boy. "I heard Handel say it once." Nick made a face when he heard the name.Handel closed his confinement, and he was still mad. "If she's really retarded, why is she still in our class?" he wanted to know. "She's not dull, she's not stupid," Seshawn replied, "she's just weird."

"I bet she doesn't even have biotic powers," Nick continued, glaring at her. She stared back, though he wasn't sure if she was looking at him or someone else in the room. "She goes to all the training sessions," another boy retorted. "Yes, but she just sat there, she never did any exercises." "That's because she's very weird," Seshaun repeated. Nick was pretty sure now that Gillian was staring at him.He raised his hand above his head and shook it desperately, but there was no response at all. "Are you waving to your girlfriend?"

Nick responded by gesturing Seshaun to roll aside, a move he had just learned. "Why don't you go over and kiss her?" Seshaun sneered. "Why don't you kiss my egg sack?" "Just go over and have a chat with her. See how she reacts." "Handel said no one was allowed to harass her," a boy interrupted. "Fuck his Handel," Nick replied automatically, though he did look over his shoulder to the front of the cafeteria, where the head of security was sitting with a few other teachers. "Okay, then—" Seshaun pressed him. "Come on, talk to her."

Nick looked at the expressions of the other boys at the table, they all wondered if he was brave, Nick smiled. "Go over and talk, and I'll return the cake to you." Seshawn added.This really sweetens the deal. Nick hesitated for a moment, not very determined.Then his stomach started to protest, and it made the decision for him.He forced himself off the table and stood up so he could never change his mind again.He glanced back quickly to make sure Handel was still busy chatting with the other teachers, then ran down the aisle to Gillian's dining table. Nick finally slid up to Gillian and slammed down on the chair in front of Gillian.She just looked straight at him, but said nothing.Suddenly he felt awkward and embarrassed.

"Hi," he said. She didn't answer, just kept chewing on what was in her mouth.He noticed that her plate was almost full: a bowl of soup, two sandwiches, an apple, a banana, a vanilla cake, and half a bottle of milk. There was nothing surprising about the amount of food on her plate - one of the first things the kids learned was that psychics needed to eat more than other people.But Nick couldn't believe the way she ate.Only one bite of everything on the plate was eaten, even the cake.He looked at the plate in front of him in disbelief.And Gillian just took a bite of the sandwich, put it down again, chewed it slowly, swallowed it, picked up the second sandwich, and repeated the process.

After one bite, she went back to the apple, then the banana, then the cake, then a bite of milk, then the soup, and then back to the first sandwich.She didn't say a word the whole time. "Why do you eat like this?" He finally asked suspiciously. "I'm hungry," she replied.Her voice was flat and muffled, which convinced Nick she wasn't joking. "No one eats like that," he said.But Gillian didn't answer, "You should have the soup and the sandwich first, then the fruit, and then the cake." Her half-chewed mouth stopped, leaving the half of the apple between her mouth and the table. "When shall I have my milk?" she asked still in a dull voice.

Nick just shook his head. "You're not serious, are you?" This answer was not an answer, and she seemed very satisfied, because she was still eating, and continued with the original pattern of taking a bite of everything. Nick turned and looked at Seshaun and the other boys at the table.They were all laughing and making obscene gestures at him.Nick turned back to Gillian, who didn't even seem to notice him. "Why don't you ever do exercises in Biological Powers class?" he asked. She looked uncomfortable, but still didn't answer. "Do you know what's going on? My biological ability is very strong. If you want to see it, I can open your eyes."

"No." Her answer was simple. Nick frowned.He felt like something was going on that he didn't understand, like she was making fun of him.Then he had an idea. "Watch out for your milk," he said with a smirk. "It looks like it's going to be spilled." As soon as he said the words, he stretched out his hand and used his thoughts to shoot forward with a force. The milk spilled over, soaked the sandwiches, then spilled over the plate, onto the table, and wet Gillian's knees. Then Nick found himself flying backwards. Jacob Berger, the college's mathematics professor, was telling a joke about what happened when the Asari and Wallers walked up to the Krogan bar, when Handel saw something horribly unbelievable happen out of the corner of his eye. . At the back of the restaurant, Nick was thrown across the room.He flew seven or eight meters in the air before knocking down the table.The force of his fall knocked plates off the table, snapped its legs, and knocked the table to the floor.The students at the desk ran around screaming, and there was an eerie silence in the room as everyone watched to see who was responsible. Everyone saw Gillian standing at the back of the dining room, pointing to the sky, her face seemed to have a mask of rage and rage, and Handel was as shocked as everyone else when he saw it.What frightened him most was the realization that Gillian wasn't done yet. The table in front of her turned over, and the empty chair next to it moved sideways, as if kicked by an invisible giant.Lunch trays in the cafeteria flew straight to the ceiling, and food and cutlery rained down, showering students all over as they fell. a mess.The students screamed and jumped from their seats, rushed towards the distant restaurant exit, panicked as they fled, and bumped into each other again.The chairs are now empty, flying around the restaurant, adding to the chaos. Handel stood up and walked towards Gillian against the desperate crowd.Despite Handel's size, it took a lot of effort to cross the flow of people fleeing for his life. "Gillian!" he yelled.But his voice was drowned out by the panicked crowd. Nick was still lying where he had landed, among a pile of desks.Handel got down on one knee and checked Nick: he was unconscious, but still breathing. Handel jumped to his feet and walked on, pushing away the desperate running children until he broke through the crowd.Now he was only eight or nine meters away from Gillian. The place between them looked like it had been ravaged by a hurricane: tables and chairs were strewn about on all fours, and food, milk, and juice had been spilled all over the floor, and it was slippery as hell.Gillian was still standing on the edge of the back wall, her hands still raised, screaming so loudly that Handel's neck trembled. "Gillian!" he yelled, rushing towards her. "Stop immediately!" He jumps over an overturned table and nearly slips when he lands on the floor on the other side with his foot on someone's lunch.His arms spin like windmills, regaining his balance.Still, he was knocked down by a chair flying from a direction he couldn't see. The blow was heavy, but it didn't immobilize Handel.He struggled to his feet, his sleeves and knees covered with specks of milk and water-soaked crumbs. "Gillian!" he cried again, "you must stop!" She didn't respond, as if she didn't even know he was there.Handel started walking again, reaching for the shock device on his belt with one hand.But he hesitated, then withdrew his hand again, trying to reach Gillian one last time. "Please, Gillian, don't make me..." His words were cut off by an unseen wave of biotic power.This force hit his chest like a chopping board falling from a height, and he couldn't breathe for a while.Handel flew straight back with his feet in the air, as if a rope was pulling him behind him.He was thrown between the rickety tables and chairs, hit his head, hit his elbow hard on something, and lost feeling in his right hand. He landed seven or eight meters away among a pile of chairs and dinner plates.Handel stood up staggeringly, coughing continuously because of too much effort, he tasted the blood from the corner of his mouth. It took Handel a while to settle down, mobilized his biological abilities, and threw a powerful kinetic energy shield in front of him to block the tables and chairs flying towards him, as well as Gillian's continuous biological abilities. Handel crouched behind the trembling kinetic shield, fumbling for the shock at his waist.His right arm was still numb below the elbow, and he had to grab the shocker with his left hand. "Please, Gillian, don't make me do this!" he called again, but over Gillian's own screams, she couldn't hear Handel at all. Suddenly, a burst of light and heat wave hit Handel's side. Handel turned his head, stunned: a swirling vortex column of black energy stretched toward the ceiling, opening a critical portal before collapsing. A biotic psychic with advanced military training, Handel immediately realized what was happening: Gillian had created a singularity—a subatomic point of near-infinite mass with enough gravity at its center to hold a continuous The fibers of spacetime are emptied in one roll.The nearby tables and chairs all began to move along the floor, pulled relentlessly by the singularity, the center of the cosmic phenomenon that suddenly appeared in the space station dining room. Instinctively, Handel jumped out from behind the shield, tried his best to resist the rapidly increasing gravity emitted by the singularity, and aimed at Gillian.Lock on target, launch.The shocker found its target precisely, and the singularity snapped away, the imprisoned air rushing outward.When the current pulse passed through Gillian, the girl's howling stopped immediately.Her head was thrown back and her body stiffened.Gillian's body then began to twitch, with brief spasms in her limbs, and she lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor. Handel rushed to her side, calling for medical assistance on the radio. Gillian was in a dormant state, still muttering something.Carly sat next to the hospital bed, subconsciously stretched out a hand to comfort Gillian's eyebrows, and only realized what she had done when she withdrew her hand. She wondered if Gillian was awake.Ten hours had passed since Gillian cast her biological power in the cafeteria, and the doctor said it would take six to twelve hours to recover from the shocker. Carly leaned forward and whispered, "Gillian, can you hear me?" Gillian responded to her voice and rolled over on her side, lying on her back.His eyes opened wide after blinking a few times, and he looked at the strange environment around him with confusion and fear. "Okay, Gillian," Carly reassured her. "You're in the hospital." The girl sat up slowly, looked around, and blinked her eyes in confusion. "Do you know how you got here?" Carly asked her. Gillian put her hands on her knees and nodded.She lowered her eyes, unwilling to see Carly. "At the restaurant. Because I did something bad. I hurt someone." Carly hesitated, wondering how much detail the little girl could handle. Property damage was not small. People fell and stepped on when rushing out. Many people sprained their ankles, and many people's fingers were swollen.Nick was the worst injured, suffering a concussion and bruised spine, but is making a full recovery. "Everyone is fine now," Carly reassured her. "I just want to know what happened. Did someone piss you off?" "Nick spilled my milk," she replied.But Carly had talked to Nick and knew about it. "Then why are you so angry?" Gillian didn't answer.Instead, she replied, "Handel yelled at me." Gillian frowned, her brows furrowed. "He's mad at me." "He's not angry. He's just scared. We're all scared." Gillian was silent, then nodded, as if to say she understood. "Do you remember anything else that happened, Gillian?" The girl's face became blank, as if she was deep in thought, trying to dig out the answer. "No," she finally replied, "I just remember Handel yelling at me." That's all Carly expected.When Gillian was in a coma, they had read all the data and obtained the data from the smart chip in her body to see if it could explain some problems.But the data they saw was nothing special.There's been a spike in alpha wave activity these days that eventually leads to her outbursts, but there's no logical explanation for the increase.On a personal note, Carly felt it was an emotional touch: Her alpha levels had been climbing since the day her father arrived. "Why isn't Handel here?" Gillian asked, with a hint of guilt in her voice. Carly replied, "He's busy right now." Which was half true. As chief of security, he is still dealing with other fallout from the incident at the restaurant.Every effort has been made to downplay the incident: statements have been issued to the media, staff and students have been questioned, and parents have been notified.As a further precaution, Grism College remains in full emergency lockdown.Although Handel is busy now, Carly knows that there are other things that keep him from coming.It could be anger, disappointment, maybe even guilt... most likely a mix of all three.However, Carly was not going to explain all this to a twelve-year-old girl. "When is he coming to see me?" "Soon," Carly promised, "I'll tell him you're waiting for him." Gillian smiled. "You like Handel." "He's a good friend." The girl's smile is brighter. "Will you two get married someday?" Carly laughed regardless of her reserve. "I don't think Handel wants to get married." Gillian's smile tightened, but didn't disappear completely. "He should have married you," she insisted gravely. "You're a good man." Now was not the time to explain why it was impossible for them to get married, so Carly decided to change the subject. "You're going to be in this room for a while, Gillian. Do you understand?" This time Gillian's smile was gone entirely, but she nodded anyway. "I want to sleep now." "Okay," Carly said to her. "I may not be here when you wake up, but if you need something, just press the red button there. The nurse will come and help you." The girl looked at the red button next to the bed, nodded again, then lay down and closed her eyes. Carly waited until Gillian fell asleep before getting up and leaving, leaving Gillian alone.