Quartile – Origin Stories – Stephen
By: Chris Pawar
Tags: Science Fiction, Teens, Heroes

Photo By Oladimeji Odunsi via Unsplash.com

“Stephen, get down here!”

The call was easy enough to hear. After all, fourth-tier housing wasn’t insulated well, and Stephen knew why they were calling. He was dragging them down, and that couldn’t last. His scores were pitiful. Factual knowledge, 82. Word usage and Accuracy, 81. Athleticism, 92. Computational skill, 96. Creative, 99. That made him a composite 90, which wasn’t even at a third-tier level. “You see, Stevie,” Dad lectured him years ago, “if we’re not all striving to score better. We won’t live better.”

But wait, that wasn’t why they were calling. It was the glasses. Fourteen-year-old Stephen had loosened his sister’s frames just enough that one of the lenses would fall out in time for her factual knowledge assessment. It even broke when it hit the floor, which was a bonus. Let’s see her outscore him now!

Ironically, it was one of Dad’s words that he felt best described his school assessments: bullshit. Dad used it after one of his quarterly work assessments. Hypocrite. Stephen’s school and family were both bullshit. The thing is, it seemed like everyone felt the same way about something, but nobody would ever do anything about it. Aside from moments of happiness here and there, people seemed mostly pissed off. It was almost as if the world could come crashing down, and no one would be any less happy.

But why didn’t they see it? People were so blind to how everything connected. If he could be anything better than the fourth tier, why should he try?

Still, there were many other connections they didn’t see. It took Stephen years to realize he could see the physical links within anything, just by touching it. He first noticed his ability when his grandfather, once ranked first among sanitation specialists, complained of pain in his lower back. As he announced it at dinner, the family fell speechless. Stephen later learned this his lowered performance would mean an inevitable drop in quartile. When he grabbed grandpa’s hand that night, he could saw the problem plainly in his mind.

“But Papa, one your parts is broken, can’t they just-”was all he got out before his mother sprung from her chair and slapped him. Through his tears, he saw Grandpa looking like he’d seen a devil or something. It was weird having an adult being scared of him. He almost felt scared of himself.

And now he stood slumped in front of both his parents, studying the interlocking weave patterns in his socks. They must’ve found out about the glasses. The area around the left pinky toe was particularly interesting because the stitching knotted in a way that has to be a mistake. He laughed at the idea of dropping down a quartile because of a sock.

“Your composite is unacceptable and -”Dad started but was quickly replaced by Mom. “And you better get up there and do something about it!” She calmed for a second. He could his sister sitting at the kitchen table, her tears flooding her one-remaining lense. Mom followed his gaze and looked back at him. Then it hit him. She didn’t know he’d done anything to the glasses.

“ Dad and I have decided we’re taking your pencils away. A ninety-nine is good enough in Creative. You need to focus! Now, we need to take your sister to the testing center for an onsite reassessment. While we’re gone, I want you to think about what you can do to raise your scores.”

“What? You can’t! They’re the only way I can handle this bullshit!” The word came out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

“Now you listen to me,” she admonished, “if you don’t score, you can’t survive! We can’t survive!”

Stephen responded at the top of his lungs, “Don’t you mean to move up? That’s all you people care about! How to get more. A bigger house, better friends, everything more, more, more! You don’t give a shit about me or anything we have, all because we’re quartile four! Like that’s all that matters!”

As he poured out his anger, he failed to notice that Dad had gone upstairs and gotten his sketchbook. What was he doing? In it were Stephen’s subway system map, the cat anatomy, and his latest, all 296 parts of the dishwasher. Years ago, he tried to explain his drawings and what they were at a family gathering. Everyone got a good laugh at the idea of a seven-year-old knowing the heating and cooling system’s inner workings. What an imaginative boy! Then it hit him. Because he didn’t have the right words to describe what he saw, they assumed he made it all up.

But he knew what he knew. The seeing part was easy. It was the drawing and describing all the elements of a system that took hours. And now, many of those hours were hanging from Dad’s hand as he used the other one to search for his car keys. And it wasn’t just the time. They were his proof that he could see something other people didn’t and that he wasn’t just some freak.

“What are you doing with my book?” Stephen yelled at his father.

“Mom’s right. This stuff is distracting you! You’re a 99 in creative. You can make it all again if you want,” he said sternly. His eyes darted to where Mom was standing before and to his sister as he asked, “Now, can we leave?” Mom reappeared with Stephen’s bag of pencils. That was typical of Dad to forget what he was told to do – mostly when he was upset.

As Stephen heard the car doors slam, he realized he’d never be free of the visions. He couldn’t touch anything without seeing them, and the only way to make them go away was to draw them, but now he’d be stuck, sinking ever deeper into them. And not only was he stuck with them, but he was also stuck being himself – a loser. How could they do this to him?

He jumped up and threw their poorly-built, piece of crap, kitchen table on its side. Why shouldn’t it suck? Everything else in the house did. As he picked it back up, his pinky touched the floor, and a familiar picture came to mind: their home. He saw the entire structure with its imperfect angles, beams, and supports.

Supports? Then it became clear what was in the basement. He’d need to visit the garage first. Would the bat be strong enough? It was worth a try since he hadn’t used it since his baseball team cut him in fourth-grade. He also grabbed the sledgehammer, just in case.

A minute later, he stood in the middle of their musty basement. No wonder they could throw up houses like his in a week. His Lego creations were sturdier! “The fourth quartile gets what the fourth quartile scores,” his parents and even his neighbors used to say. And maybe they were right. Perhaps they didn’t deserve any more than this shitty house.

But why? Why should he or anyone be slaves to a society that already considered them worthless?

Still, his family entirely bought into it. They’d never say it, but clearly, they thought they’d better off if it wasn’t for him. Every time he didn’t score well, he’d get reminded of their mortgage payment. In Mom and Dad’s eyes, the house was all they had.

That was about to change.

If he wasn’t good enough for this ‘palace,’ then it wasn’t good enough for him.

Leave it to the morons who threw up houses like this to leave one small but crucial weak point in their design. The support beam didn’t look like much – just a grey metal pole. Stephen guessed that it was one of the first things the robots installed after the foundation. Programmed stupidity.

He decided to try the bat first. PONG!!! He barely noticed the sound as the vibration from the blow stung his hands. Reflexively, he lost his grip, and the bat landed squarely on his cold, bare big toe. He collapsed on the damp floor and cursed. Then, as if he was making his last stand against a deadly predator, he grabbed the real weapon, the sledgehammer, and heaved.

To his surprise, his hit was clean, and the beam flew across the room to rattle against their cheap aluminum shelving.

At first, nothing happened. Then Stephen heard what sounded like a dog howling right above his head. Did he mean to do this? He had no time to think as the house’s main support beam bent down toward him. He ran into a corner.

Thankfully it was the right corner because he didn’t get crushed as the house began to implode. The last thing he remembered was the deafening roar of everything they owned coming down at once.

His toe still hurt. He was lying down. Not just lying down, strapped down. A voice was talking.

“Stephen, welcome to Kansas City. I’m Martha,” the voice said. A vibrating wave of pixellated light appeared in the darkness as the voice spoke. He lay in a nicely-constructed bed. He immediately knew that, but Kansas?

“What do you mean?” His slurred words stung his head as he spoke. “What do you mean, Kansas?”

Again Martha’s voice spoke, beginning with a slight laugh, “When I said Kansas City, I meant Missouri!”

Stephen was dumbfounded.

“Stephen, we’re not just IN Kansas City, we’re underneath it. But more on that later. It’s time I explained why you’re here.”

(Check back to meet other characters in the Quartile series. Once you’ve met them all, the action will begin! If you like what you see, be sure to follow me here on Medium and give me a clap!)