wire, but the joints were left free and loose.
Concentrating on the plastic and the wire frame it covered, I made some modifications. Plastic flowed and metal smoothed until its legs and arms swung freely, the joints now fully flexible. I set Ken down and walked him into the fray, his motion entirely different than the others.
“Jest how are ye doing that, ye cheating bastard?” Ryanne asked, admiring Ken’s smooth gait. The other doll drivers started to pay attention as I pulled her black-haired Barbie from the floor to my hand with a mental tug.
“Here now, don’t ye be taking liberties with her, ye pervey nonce,” she said although her tone was more curious than anything else as I made the same modifications.
“There, I loosened her up a bit,” I said with a smirk.
“Ay, I’ll jest bet ye did.” She eyed me suspiciously, but with a slight twitch of a smile. Within moments, her doll was moving about the course and I quickly had a line of witches looking for customization for their own dolls. My smartest move was showing Michelle what I’d done and letting her help modify plastic people.
Her first customer was Britta while the other twin insisted that I handle her doll. Erika watched me carefully as I loosened joints and added flex to her little Mini-me.
“You know, those body proportions are just about accurate,” she said, leaning close… too close while I worked. “At least for my sister and me. Not so much these other girls,” she said archly. Then she took back her avatar and pivoted on one heel to try out the new, improved version.
“Pretty cool, huh?” T.J. asked quietly, watching the Amazonian witch walk away.
I glanced over at where the other kids, the ones without telekinesis, were sitting and watching the action, their simple construction chores done.
“Not what I envisioned, T.J.,” I said. “Not at all.”
Chapter 16
Tuesday passed rather uneventfully, although Caeco wasn’t too pleased that I gave Ryanne another ride back to Arcane after English. But we were still on the buddy system and it was still January in Vermont. Waiting for me near the entrance, my assassin girlfriend had simply raised her eyebrows when the two of us had walked in and Ryanne had rather loudly thanked me for the lift.
For most girls, that wouldn’t constitute much of reaction, but for her, it said a lot. I’d have to find a tactful way to avoid too much lift giving. My explanation that we were in the same class only fueled the fire, so I asked about her day instead.
Her workload was a buttload more than mine. Oracle had arranged for some fake college credits to compensate for her years of growing up in super-advanced biology and genetics labs. The result was a heavy courseload of second-year classes and their accompanying labs. I asked how the genetics class was going and specifically how my DNA sample was doing.
“Waiting for the karyotype results. Probably find out tomorrow, then I’ll accidentally spill some acid on the sample. Just gotta get the project done and I’ll have my grade,” she said, a trace of weariness in her voice.
She walked with me to my room, where I dumped my stuff, then we walked down to dinner and met up with the rest of our friends. After dinner, everyone separated to get started on schoolwork before Gina’s seminar. We were all rapidly realizing how much work came with college, and Arcane’s special programs took up a ton of precious homework time.
Before too long, we were back in an Arcane classroom once again.
“We ended the other night on a bit of a scare. I’m happy to announce that I’ve met with representatives from the Fey and received their assurances of your safety. Also, the three missing children were located by the Sheriff’s department, all safe and sound.
“However, this illustrates the additional dangers faced by supernaturals, so I hope you all take your morning survival classes seriously,” Gina said, her eyes ending on mine. That pretty much instantly pissed me off. Jenks had obviously been feeding Gina some crap about me and she was buying it. I spent much of the class fuming. She talked more about the obvious things we saw on the news daily. Chris and company were currently touring Europe, cleaning up gate sites too tough or resistant for the regular exorcist types. The media was having a field day following their exploits. The discussion moved to some of the more extreme religious groups that had formed,