Touchstone 1 - Stray

kindergarten.
    Tuesday, January 8
    Suckitudinous
    They decided to expand my interface. Apparently all the Setari have an interface network all over their bodies, instead of just on one side of their head, because it increases their link to the Ena and thus their strength. They gave me a bunch of ‘hypoinjections’ – even in the soles of my feet! – and then told me what they’d done. And then switched off my interface so that even my language tool went away.
    Tare nearly had a Casszilla incident. They could have at least pretended to ask. I went hot and dizzy and said really rude, overloud things in English and only just stopped myself from shouting because I had to work at not crying in front of them. This was horrible enough the first time.
    Friday, January 11
    O.o
    Cannot begin to describe how awful I feel. Contemplating vengeance of the direst sort.
    Monday, January 14
    For the ones that are still alive
    Well, they nearly killed me this time. I’ve been in the infirmary for the past few days on life support. My expanded interface really expanded and I started having convulsions. Apparently. I don’t remember too much of it.
    I still feel awful; I can barely sit up to write this. It’ll be a few days before I’m anywhere close to not-ill.
    Friday, January 18
    Apologies
    Nenna sent me an email. She sent it a couple of days ago but my interface hasn’t been on. And when they turned it on, they only gave me my language tool, kindergarten and bare-bones basic room functions. Ista Tremmar tells me that I’ll be given access back after further assessment, and that I can write to Nenna, but I can’t explain anything to her, or tell her much about what it’s like here. Then she gave me a big file of rules to read, but my head wouldn’t be up to it even if it was in English. The interface has stopped expanding but I’m still horribly headachy.
    Anyway, Nenna doesn’t hate me. She apologised to me. So now we’re apologising to each other. I told her what little I guess I can – her father’s probably able to tell her more anyway – and promised to translate the lyrics to the songs when I can.
    It was so good to get her email.
    Saturday, January 19
    Blacksuits
    Another test session today with Zee. We did basic lifting. Or, rather, I stood around feeling tired and extraneous while she lifted things. Then there was another woman, Mara, who was talkative and had wonderfully sproingy curly hair. She and Zee and Maze are all from ‘First Squad’: they’re the oldest of the Setari, one of the three original combat squads created from children trained intensively to deal with monsters from the Ena.
    After they decided the early results were promising, the Taren government vastly expanded the Setari program, and now there’s a dozen six-person squads, most of them five to seven Earth-years younger than First Squad. There’s also a lot of people in training who haven’t yet qualified for active duty on the squads. The Setari program has been running for 60 years (twenty Earth years).
    Mara explained all this to me while Zee was working out if being any distance from me affected the temporary increase with her strength. Mara is primarily a Speed talent, but she can also make a glowing light which curls about like a kind of cutting whip. I made her even faster, which she was pleased about, but something about how the whip worked really shocked them. It came out in a different colour and they spent ages studying it and being confused. Then I was put back in my box. I hate being a lab rat.
    More Labrattery
    After a few hours I was recalled for more experiments with First Squad – all of them this time. There’s four girls – Zee, Mara, Alay, Ketzaren – and two guys – Maze and Lohn. All in their mid-twenties, all wearing their black uniforms and looking very fit and smart and…worn. I didn’t like to ask if all the years fighting monsters ran together for them, or if they ever get to stop.
    The uniform the Setari wear is very interesting. It’s flexible and stretchy: solid stuff but not so unwieldy as a wetsuit, and – it’s hard to think what it reminds me of. Expensive sport shoes, with their airholes for breathing and all the extra stitching and complexity. It’s very tight-fitting and all-covering – the neck part goes right up to the chin and the arms to fingerless gloves, and the soft boots seem to be built in too, and it looks like it must be a pain to take on and off. It’s far more