Elsewhere in the school, Jon's younger sister Zoe, a freshman, happened upon a stone in the hallway. It surprised her and depressed her.
For one, why was a stone, especially a very unique looking one like this, doing in the hall? Two...it depressed her because it was bound to be the most exciting thing in her day. School was boring, Lake Point was boring... Pretty much the only interesting things around were her and her friends.
"Cool rock," a perky voice said. Zoe looked up. It was Melony Tyne. Melony was this upbeat girl next door type...and black. Zoe didn't really care about race, but in a predominantly white town like Lake Point, the non-whites tended to stand out. "You should show that to Mr. Thompson..." Thompson taught Earth Science.
Melony had barely talked to her. Few people talked to her outside her group. They seemed to find the Goths either freaks or just too scary to approach. Zoe wondered what her game was. "I just found it in the hall."
"Maybe someone lost it. We should find who it belongs to?"
"Why the fuck are you talking to me?" Zoe snapped.
Melony shrunk back a bit. "You...looked kind of sad," she admitted. "I thought you might need someone to cheer you up."
Zoe felt a bubbling up of rage within her. How dare this girl suggest she was sad? She stared at Melony. "You want to know what is sad? This school! This town! It's so....whitebread."
Melony stared at her. "What?"
"Not...black and white....Boring...like a bag of white bread. Suburban...the school organized into cliques like on some TV show, predictable. Even you...you're just like the rest of them."
Melony looked at her, suddenly becoming angry. "I just came over here to try and be nice to you. I didn't need to be. I just thought..."
"No, you didn't think. You don't know me. You are just another drone, like everyone else in this place. I've got to get out of this place, and maybe move downtown." Downtown was the term for the nearest urban area, about an hour away. Many residents commuted there daily for work, although plenty worked locally, the surburban town having grown its own industries. "Honestly, I wish Lake Point was the exact opposite of the suburban nightmare it is."
To their shared surprise, the stone in her hand flashed a bright flash, then started pulsing with an internal glow, as if it was the light on a computer working on a complicated problem.
