Chapter 20 – The Tests

The Grove was quiet. It always tended to be, but the echo felt softer than normal, the harsh clack of some footsteps losing its cutting edge. Lily did not like it. Her voice felt too far away when she spoke, almost like her mouth was a mile away from the rest her face. It made her sound stupid.

Chrys sounded weird too, like every syllable had to be filtered through a heavy cloth. Chrys kind of liked it. She got to shout to the world and no one could yell at her for being too loud. She was being the right amount of loud and the world was being too quiet.

They stood outside the office of a Botanist Sloe, who they had never met before and never even seen before. Chrys pushed Lily and Lily pushed back, passing the time between them trying to knock the other over, but not actually. They just wanted to feel skin on skin and the force behind it. Lily clung to the notion that if it were for real, she could definitely knock Chrys over and Chrys could not do the same to her. There were advantages to be shorter than her. Several, actually.

The sound came back on and they realized that they were being too loud, every noise they made now threatened to make them deaf. Or worse, get punished again. Neither one of them wanted that.

Another Blossom walked out, taller than Lily and shorter than Chrys, hair so short, it almost wasn’t even there. Lily wanted to touch it, but that might be rude.

“You know we can hear you two in there,” Hibiscus said.

“You can, but I doubt the coat could,” said Chrys.

“Whatever.”

Despite the lack of length, Hibiscus flicked her head like she wanted to send her hair waving in their faces. She stiffened as she realized that she couldn’t do that anymore and walked away, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead. Lily could probably do that. Chrys could, too, but only barely.

“Project Chrysanthemum,” came a clipped voice through the open threshold, “Come in.”

“Can Lily come too,” she asked.

“So long as she stays out of the way.”

Chrys went in first, Lily on her heels. They came to a room almost as large as the Garden, high ceilings, walls on the other side of the world, all crisscrossed with dotted lines. In the center sat a small length of wire, easily as thick as Lily’s thigh, and a table full of tools to far away to make out. Botanist Sloe stood leaning against the wall just inside the door, eyes on a watch. He didn’t have his coat on, tieing the sleeves around his waist. He was shorter than Chrys, and long and gangly, wiry and just plain long. Thin lips worked and smacked as something moved around in his mouth. He blew a pink bubble the size of his wrist and motioned for Chrys to follow. Lily did too, even thought no one told her too.

“So,” he said as he chewed, “We’re doing a couple tests today with you, Chrysanthemum. We-“

“Chrys,” she interrupted, “Just Chrys.”

“Ooookay. Chrys. We have a general idea how hot you can make things burn, as evidence by… previous exploits. I just want you to stand a little down range and try to make a burn as hot as you possibly can. Lily, get behind me an ddon’t touch anything.”

“That’s it,” asked Chrys, “What was Hibby doing in here?”

“That’s it to start. As for ‘Hibby,’ you don’t have to worry about that. We got other things for you to do. Just get over there and light up when I tell you to. Now everyone be quiet. I’m recording this.”

He pulled a little plastic gauge from the table, bright yellow, with a screen at the back. He pressed a button and a red dot appeared on Chrys’s side. He wheeled it down to his palm.

“Audio recording,” he said to the room, “Botanist Ryan Sloe, testing temperature limit on Project Chrysanthemum. Project Lily is also in attendance.”

Chrys pointed to her friend and mouthed ‘that’s you.’ Sloe wheeled the light to glance across his palm.

“Infrared thermomether reads as 37.1 degrees when applied to myself, 44.3 degrees on Project Chrysanthemum. According to charts, that is in acceptable parameters. Alright Chrys, start buring.”

Chrys took a deep breath and let the heat stagnate in her hands, whirling round and round in her palms. The air ignited and a small blue flame to size of her fist appeared, engulfing her digits.

“At first ignition, temperature reads as 1478.33 degrees, dipping down to 1440.02, peaking at 1558.65 degrees. Chrys, let it build.”

The fire slowly crawled up her arms, taking the edges of the fabric and singing them, melting the polyester into black beads dripping onto the floor. She spread her arms wide and the flames crawled up and up taking more of her sleeves and reducing them to slag on the floor.

“Temperature has just broken 2000, holding steady. Give it more.”

The flame hit her shoulders and focused into blades. Lily shifted. She didn’t like that. Her chest tingled and throbbed as the flamed licked and wavered. Sloe started to laugh, hands to knees, then hands to temples. He set the thermometer down and braced himself against the table.

“Okay, okay,” he gasped, “Okay, Chrys, stop. Stop. Stop. Turn it off.”

He took several deep breaths, ballooning his cheeks out, chuckling all the while. The flames cut off and Chrys was left sleeveless, the cut of her muscles coated in a thin layer of sweat. She was panting too, a lone strand of hair stuck to her face.

“Project Chrysanthemum has exceeded the max range of the thermometer. Last recorded temperature was in upwards of 5500 degrees. Jesus Christ, Chrys, what the hell did they do to you?”

Chrys just shrugged. She was smiling though.

The next test had a small blade of flame pop into her hand and the cut through the metal. It all happened flawlessly. Every section of the wire turned motel and red and severed underneath the surgical precision of Chrys and her flames. Sloe took a hand to his forehead and pushed his hair back, as if his crew cut was obstructing his vision.

“You burn really hot,” he said. The room nodded in agreement. Lily was sweating even from way back where she was. Sloe seemed fine. They lack of coat probably helped a lot. Chrys was sweaty, too, but considering how close she was to the flame, no wonder as to why. Chrys smiled.

“Am I next,” asked Lily.

“What,” Sloe said, “No, no you’re not. We still have to go through the results from your last session with Campari.”

“Oh.”

The chill inside her core writhed and licked at the inside of her skin. Lily shuddered. It had been growing recently. Sometimes it was stronger, sometimes it was weaker, always changing a little to never quite be relaxed and comfortable.

“Let her have some fun,” Chrys said. The drips of her molten sleeves cooled in dark streaks down her arms, tracing the dips and valleys in her muscles. “Come on, Botanist Sloe. She hasn’t had any fun all week. She has to let loose once in a while.”

Sloe looked over the instruments at the table, mainly to hide his eyes.

“Sure why not?” He was still giddy at the big number. Everyone gets a little giddy whne they see a really big thing. It could be a number, or a room, or a building, or even a cat that got into the bag of food stashed underneath the kitchen sink. He just saw a woman go supernova and his mind couldn’t help but go back to all the times he played pretend with his big sister. That was her character, Flaming Jane. Really no wonder she started dating Delilah in college. The writing was on the wall.

“Go stand where Chrys is and start building it up. Hey, how would you describe how tapping into it feels?”

“Cold. Really, really, really cold. Its like something in my stomach is filling it and spilling out and flowing through my body and taking over my bones and pooling under my skin, leaking out until it just burst out.”

“Mine feels like that, but hot.”

“Huh, neat. Chrys come over here. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Chrys sauntered over and stood beside the man, who slowly backed away from tall the cold. Chrys was hot, he could feel gentle waves of it lapping across his skin. It was her breath. It came with her breath.

“Alright Lily, go for it. Just not in this direction.”

Lily nodded and sighed the air out, letting the chill pool. It was excited. It got to play and it could play as much as it wanted. Her hair was the first to react, the little ones on her arms and legs, the long streaks on her head, all started to rise as the cold whipped her body. Balloons started popping up on her skin, pools of cold keeping everything smooth. They popped and bolts arced out to touch the ground, fingers feeling whatever surface they could find to jump to and stay there. They wandered aimlessly, jittering steps never taking them too. A massive pool settled in her palm and a sharp crack and boom followed. A black scorch mark appeared on the far wall. The deafness came back, every sound softened and smoothed, all over a dull ringing in her ears

“Jesus Christ motherfucker,” screamed Sloe “My ears, my fucking ears.”

Sloe devolved into a doubled over wreck, coughing on the floor. Chrys was at least doing a little better, clutching the table to steady her feet. She looked at her and gave a drunken smile. She was giddy. There was a loud thing. That was almost as good as a big thing. Sloe came to his feet, grasping at Chrys to haul him up. Twin rivers of blood came from his ears. The ringing softened as Sloe continued to moan in pain.

“Get out,” he shouted, “Get out. Get out.”

Lily and Chrys ran as fast as they could. Chrys was faster, the length of her limbs doing so much to make that process easier. She still did alright, all things considered. Chrys laughed all the while.

“What was that,” she asked as they rounded a corner, “I didn’t know you could do that. Why aren’t you’re ears bleeding?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Lily replied, “I never did one that big before. Why aren’t your ears bleeding. You were just as far away as him.”

“I don’t know either. Did you hear him moan though? Wasn’t that hilarious?”

“Do you think he’ll be alright?”

“He’ll be fine. The people here made us. They can fix anything probably. Hey, did you finish that picture of you yet?”

“No, I haven’t. I made some progress though. Want to see?”

Chrys nodded hard enough to make her head fall off, and the two took off running once more.

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