"The fuck do you even want from me?" Jason spat. "You got another accusation with no proof? Why don't you just let me go and be done with it?"
The dean smiled, although Jon couldn't see it from his vantage point in the pipe. "No," he said. "We're actually through with accusations, starting today. Do you know how long you've been doing what you do? Twelve years. The entire time you've been in school. I have, in my office, a write-up from your first-grade teacher on your violent tendencies. Oh, sure, you learned to cover your tracks pretty quick, and I must say, you do quite the job of it. But everybody knows what kind of person you are, even if nobody can ever find anything actionable. How you hurt people without a second thought, just because you can. How that's all that even matters to you, although anyone who took a glance at your academic record would have a pretty good guess at that. Frankly, I'm amazed you haven't dropped out altogether yet."
"Fuck this," Jason growled, standing up. "I'm leaving." He strode purposefully toward Ms. Fletcher, one fist clenched.
She simply smiled and let fly with a string of glossolalia. Jason had time to wonder what the hell she was doing before he was completely frozen in place, unable to move, even to look around. "Wh-what the!?" he sputtered. "What'd you-?"
Ms. Fletcher chuckled. "I'm a reality hacker," she said. "I twiddle the bits in the machine of the universe. You don't mess with someone like that, okay?"
"Are you a...a...?" Jon couldn't see Jason's face, but fear was so evident in his voice that his jaw nearly hit the floor. In all the time Jason had been at this school, nobody had ever once seen him afraid of anything. But then, if the new comp-sci teacher was what she claimed to be, anybody would be right to be afraid of her.
"I'm a good witch," she laughed. "But for someone like you, that's not exactly good news, is it?"
"We were fortunate enough to get Ingrid here even before we found out about her abilities," Dean Singleton said. "One day I told her about some of the problem children in this school; not the small fry like Biff Meadows, the real bad eggs. She told me all about herself and offered to help. You're one of the few that made the cut, you know. One of the very worst students in the school. Hardly surprising, really."
"Wh-what are you going to d-do to me?" Jon couldn't believe how timid Jason sounded; sure, he was pretty much helpless in the face of an apparently greater power than he could comprehend, but...he sounded so frail. Jon would never have known this was the guy who handed out bruises like they were party favors.
The dean smiled again. "I'll let Ingrid tell you that; she has a special name for it." Jon heard another stream of random syllables, this one almost lilting, and a gasp from Jason. Then all was quiet for a long time, or at least what seemed like a long time to Jon, who, admittedly, was lying absolutely still in a ventilation shaft with hot air roasting his buttocks. After a while, the dean spoke.
"I really should be used to this by now," he said. "But I must admit, I'm quite amazed by what you can do with a few phrases."
"And I keep telling you," Ms. Fletcher said, "the phrases are not the point. They're just function calls I've set up for myself. Names and parameters, that's all. You couldn't invoke them even if you could remember them. It takes a hackish mindset to even be able to understand how the Machine is put together, let alone find out how to get into it, and that's something you haven't got. I know you, Mark. You want to learn magic? Learn to program first."
"I admit," Singleton laughed, "the thought had crossed my mind. Have you thought about how much potential you have to help the students here?"
"Are you suggesting I use magic to make people learn?" she said. Her voice was tinged with ice now. "You certainly gave a great talk to Stacy about learning from one's actions and being responsible for oneself; do you think we should abandon that just so people can have easy As?"
The dean sighed. "I figured you'd say that," he said. "I guess I can see where you're coming from, but don't you think it would be better to help these kids?"
"Out of the question," she said. "I agreed to help you with the real, honest-to-God problem children; I'm not your personal Scholars' Liberation Army. I don't force help on people who don't want it; the only reason I'm doing this for you is because these are kids who're pretty much defined by hurting people."
"That sounds like something you'd say," Singleton remarked. "Oh, she's coming around."
The next thing Jon heard was a clearly feminine scream. Between that and the mention of Stacy, he knew that his hunch had been right. He briefly considered getting out of there right then, but he decided it would be better to wait until they had gone back upstairs, just in case. Besides, he was wondering exactly what had happened.
As was Jason. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!?" she screeched, breaking down into hyperventilation and half-sobs once she'd finished the sentence. Singleton nodded, surveying the person before him. "Well," he said, "we simply took away your ability to hurt people."
Jason was still paralyzed, but she was facing a full-length mirror, which was showing a young and very petite Asian girl. It was obvious what the dean had meant; she didn't look like she could bruise a peach, let alone another kid. She stared, open-mouthed, as the dean continued.
"Now, I've talked at length before about my belief in personal responsibility," he said. "But that doesn't mean I don't recognize the influence other people can have on a child's life. In your case, for example, would you be as violent as you are if you weren't the child of Dave Alder? I don't think so. So when I look at you, I do see a horrible, violent boy who damn near put Arnold Lang in the hospital two years ago and managed to get off scot-free. But I also see someone who probably couldn't have turned out any other way than like his father. That doesn't mean you weren't the person making the decisions, but it does mean that maybe, given another chance, in a better situation, you could be different."
He paced the room, turning to face her occasionally. "Say, for example, you were the thirteen-year-old middle sister in the Hayashi family. Nice folks, second-generation Japanese immigrants. Fairly modern, but with a number of strong traditional influences, most notably a strong sense of family. If you were Moroika Hayashi, if you had parents and siblings who actually cared about you, do you think you would still turn into an amoral sociopath?"
The girl opened her mouth to say something, but Singleton shushed her. "Don't answer that," he said. "You don't know. I don't know. But we're going to find out."
"Y-you can't do this to me," she whispered. "It isn't fair, you don't have any evidence. And who made you my judge?"
Singleton sighed. "Miss Hayashi," he said. "I think you're misunderstanding me. This isn't about enacting vengeance for your past actions. It's about making sure you never hurt another of my students. And it's also about giving you a chance to be something better; to not be the kind of gutter trash your former father is. Nobody remembers Jason Alder, and who would want to? Moroi-chan the freshman, though, they're not set against her. You have a family that loves you and a school you're just starting in, a school that only knows what you look like, and hasn't yet learned what kind of person you are."
He smiled at her, but not the smug kind of smile he'd displayed at the start. It was a genuine smile, almost a warm one. "Everyone has the ability to change, even someone like you. You have the chance to show them whatever kind of person you choose to be. I think you can do better than this, Miss Hayashi. Show me I'm right."
Ms. Fletcher murmured another command, and Moroika was free to move. "You better get going," Ingrid said. "This is running a little long, even for a visit to the school nurse."
Jon watched from the pipe as the senior-turned-freshwoman stumbled out of the room in a daze. He had been prepared for some kind of evil scheme, but...he actually kind of half-sympathized with the dean and Ms. Fletcher. But did it make it okay for them to rewrite people's lives? He wasn't sure what to think. Maybe if he discussed it with Karyn, she'd have some insight.
