Variable

Chapter One

Hazel Thomas wrinkled her nose at the sight of the spaceship. She wasn't one for space. She liked being in enclosed spaces, where the variables were limited, therefore the outcomes were limited. Space introduced all kinds of variables, variables which Hazel couldn't control, and didn't like.

Yet she went on the ship anyway. Her mind was screaming, NO NO NO NO NO This is a bad idea, don't you DARE go on that ship but her feet had a mind of their own, and before she knew it, she was strapped into a seat, next to two boys. Ugh, boys.

She thought it was rather sexist that more boys were chosen than girls. Sure, the people who ran Battle School claimed that it was the mind patterns and decisions of a subject that influenced them, but Hazel had a secret theory that they thought boys were stronger, boys were better, girls were weaker, just like humanity (well, the males) had thought for thousands, tens of thousands of years. She wanted to change that. She wasn't sure if she could, but she could certainly try. Or maybe fail. We'll see, she thought bitterly.

She scrunched down in her seat, avoiding eye contact with anyone around her. New people were unknown variables, too. They could do anything, and until Hazel could read minds (which she didn't see herself doing anytime soon), she would never trust people fully.

Yet one boy next to her made an effort to talk to her, even after all of Hazel's prayers to a god she wasn't even sure existed and her body language which she hoped conveyed something like I do not want to talk to you or Leave me alone.

"Oi! You alive?" the boy next to her said impatiently. British, if Hazel remembered correctly. Which she almost always did.

"Hmm? Oh. Sorry. Yes." Hazel spoke in short bursts. She supposed she'd have to get used to talking to people often. Sigh.

"I'm Freddie. You are...?" he asked her, his dark brown eyes sparkling.

"Hazel." she replied.

"You excited for Battle School, Hazel?" Agh. Conversation.

"Not really..." she said reluctantly. She wasn't, but who knew what could happen if one of the teachers overheard. "I mean, I've heard it's kind of violent up there..." she said.

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'll protect you," he said, laughing a little. Hazel wondered if he thought she was the kind of girl that needed protecting.

Nevertheless, she blushed, because no one had really ever said anything like that to her before. At her school, she was classified as the weird kid sitting in the back row that didn't talk to anyone. It's not that Hazel was mute, she just didn't like talking, especially to the other shallow, athletic kids. It wasted thinking time.

"Girls can take care of ourselves," a girl's voice, through a thick Italian accent, came from in front of her. "Right?"

"Right," Hazel replied softly.

"Marzia Giovanni," the girl said, twisting around in her seat as much as the seat belt would allow her.

"Hazel Thomas," Hazel said. Her name sounded so...plain, compared to the others.

"Frederick Winchester the Third," Freddie said, grinning.

"Is that your actual name?" Marzia asked.

"Yep. I'm a third. Both ways," he said, still grinning that easy grin. Hazel wondered how he could talk about that and just smile so easily.

Hazel heard retching sounds from the other side of the ship, and Hazel, Freddie, and Marzia's heads turned to see a boy looking like he was about to be sick. Hazel winced, and looked away quickly.

"Bag! Give him the bag!" she heard someone say. Choruses of 'ew' and 'gross' filled the ship. Hazel squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to think of something else.

It was then she noticed gravity. The lack of it, actually. Hazel smiled a little, letting her arm float. Come to think of it, gravity was another variable in space. In the Battle Room, there was no gravity. There was no telling how hard it would be to fight in that. That is, if she even could.

She heard a small laugh from the other side of the ship, and turned again. Colonel Hyrum Graff, her superior by a lot of ranks, faced the source of the laugh, a boy, with raven black hair that reminded her of her cat's fur spiked to a point, cropped on the sides, like the traditional military haircut all of the boys had.

"What are you doing, Wiggin?" Colonel Graff asked, an edge to his voice.

"Nothing, sir," he responded. Ouch, not a good answer.

"Something funny? I asked you a question, Launchie," Graff said, using the nickname for the fresh recruits.

"Sir, the way you're floating. Horizontal. I thought that was funny." Hazel tilted her head, like the boy had. He was right, Graff was floating horizontal. Or vertical, she thought. There is no up or down or left or right in space. Just...space. And frankly, that alarmed her, because how was she supposed to orient herself? Humans were used to gravity, you just expect to yank a flower out of the dirt, put it in rocks, and expect it to grow?

"Is that funny?"

"Sir, no, sir." Ah, there it was. This kid had a brain after all.

"Yes, it is. Alai, you know what he's talking about?" Graff faced another boy, one decidedly less handsome.

Hazel wanted to say YES but she knew she couldn't, because then she would get in trouble and trouble was bad and she would get iced or even worse, ridiculed... "Yes, sir."

"No, you don't. There's only one kid on this launch with any brains at all so far and that's Ender Wiggin." All eyes turned to Ender, and Hazel could see his face turning red under the flourescent lighting.

Hazel saw what Graff was doing. Turning the other children against him. Why, she didn't know, but she had seen this happen before. Mostly to her. Ah, the good old days.

Hazel heard Freddie mutter something that she was not allowed to say at home and rhymed with "mart glass". She smiled slightly.

"Couldn't agree more," Marzia replied. "Commanders here play favorites. Wiggin's bright, no doubt about it. That just means the rest of us will have to work twice as hard to even get noticed." Hazel noticed a bitter undertone to her voice.

"Well, would you really want to be noticed here?" She immediately regretted what she said, they would just see her as a coward, her first sort-of-friends, now turned against her like all of her other sort-of-friends.

Sure enough, Marzia and Freddie stared at her like she was crazy. "What do you mean?" Marzia said after a moment of silence. "Of course you would want to be noticed. Isn't that the entire point of Battle School, to move up in the rankings, and get a high-ranking position defending our home?"

"Well, yeah..." Hazel said quietly. "Just...I've heard it's violent here, and some kids have...anger issues...and probably won't take well to teacher's pets."

"No kidding," Freddie said dryly. "You've gotta learn how to defend yourself here, to hurt them before they can hurt you. It's all about being ahead of your enemy," he said, tapping the side of his head.

Hazel knew that of course, but she had to admit she hadn't really thought of it that way before. Hurt them before they could hurt you. For anyone else, it would have been easy.

"If they've got offense, strengthen your defense," Marzia added. "Walls are built to keep people out. Make your walls the strongest." Oh, if only she knew how strong Hazel's mental walls were.

Freddie put a hand on her shoulder, and Hazel flinched slightly at the touch. He didn't seem to notice, though. "Don't worry. You'll survive."

It was supposed to make Hazel feel better, but it didn't, instead, it plunged her mind into a whirlwind of worry, like it always did. Survive? Was he implying she might not survive? Or just not be iced? Would she get iced? How would her parents react to her getting iced?

It always came down to that, Hazel worrying about getting iced. It was, to say the least, her worst fear. Aside from getting hurt in Battle School, but that was really a given.

...

The rest of the ride passed with no events or incidents, just Marzia and Freddie idly chatting, Hazel listening in and sometimes even adding to the conversation. Her mother would be proud.

Something that was unexpected, however, was the fact that Hazel kept glancing over to the raven-haired boy. Ender Wiggin, child prodigy, a prodigy of prodigies, as she had overheard Graff whisper to Major Anderson. Not talking made you an extremely good listener.

She told herself she was curious, curious about him, what made him say that, what made him tick. And for the most part, it was true. For the most part.

A little while later, she felt the ship dock into the International Fleet space station. Away from Earth. Away from home. Sure, it had its downsides, but she would take home any day over the I.F.

Graff told them to unstrap themselves, to follow him. Hazel, Marzia, and Freddie did what they were told. They filed out, single file, to the I.F.

Somewhere, Hazel got separated from Marzia and Freddie, lost in the sea of bodies and canary yellow jumpsuits. But she found herself next to the raven-haired boy, next to Ender. Ender was stopped by Graff on the way out. Keeping a straight face, Hazel looked ahead, but kept her ears trained on Ender and Graff.

"Sir, you made them hate me," he said.

"I told them you were the best. We need a Julius Caesar, a Napoleon," he said simply. Hazel recognized this from history class.

"We hope that will be you," Major Anderson added.

"Caesar was assassinated by the people he trusted," Ender deadpanned.

"And Napoleon lost in the end," Anderson said, tension audible in her voice.

"Not before he conquered the known world," Graff said, while Hazel imagined the smirk on his face.

She didn't hear anything after that, following the crowd out of the shuttle.

…

"You don't want the bunks by the door," Freddie said, steering Hazel to the back of the room.

"Why?" she asked. That made no sense. If you were by the door, you could get out of the room faster, be more efficient.

"I dunno. It's just a thing," he replied.

But Hazel and Freddie found that most of the bunks in the back of the room were already taken. Freddie winced, and took a bunk in the middle. He motioned for Hazel to do the same, to get the one below him, but she wasn't fast enough. She went for the one next to him, but that was quickly snatched up, too. She had no choice but to get one by the door.

She wasn't that disappointed, though, she still didn't understand why the ones by the door were so bad. Status, maybe? If that was the case, she didn't really care. Nothing could drag her status down more by now, students were probably realizing she was a pushover.

She took the bottom bunk of one of the beds nearest to the door. Oh well, it didn't really matter. She saw someone fill up the space above her, and she studied them, noting the familiar head of coppery hair, and realized it was Marzia. "Freddie still paranoid about all the Battle School rituals?" she asked, grinning down at Hazel.

Hazel nodded, a smile on her face. "Yeah. I really don't see why these bunks are bad, I mean, we get out first, so..."

Marzia laughed, bittersweet. "That's true. First to the battle room, first to get our butts kicked." She didn't actually say butts, but Hazel changed it in her mind.

A figure walked in the door, Ender, she noted. A boy in the back of the room, a larger boy, crossed his arms. "Oh look. The smart $$," he said. Hazel mentally chided him. Language.

Everyone turned to look at Ender, all eyes on him. Ender stood there, icy eyes surveying the room. The only bunk left was the bottom one closest to the door. He glanced at it. "Thanks," he said cooly. "I thought I'd have to ask to be by the door."

The recruits, including Hazel and Marzia, then proceeded to code their lockers. "Speak your name," said the female voice of the computer.

"Hazel Thomas," Hazel replied. The screen embedded next to her bunk then spun around, revealing a flash suit, helmet, extra uniforms, and a weird-looking laser gun thing behind it.

She studied the object, when a British voice rang out. "Don't freeze your balls, kid," said a black man in an I.F. uniform. Hazel identified him as a sergeant.

"Attention on deck!" someone said. Hazel scrambled to get in position, the neat rows of kids lining the walls.

"At ease."

Hazel tried not to stare at Ender, who was directly across from her. He, however, didn't even glance at her, his attention focused on the sergeant. She sighed in her mind.

"LISTEN UP LAUNCHIES!" yelled the sergeant. "My name is Sergeant James Dap, ask me a legitimate question, and I will give you a direct answer!"

Hazel tried not to shrink away from Sergeant Dap's...loudness. "But if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on, use a pillow!" Ouch. Harsh. "DO I LOOK LIKE I'M JOKING, SNOTS?"

Hazel's eyes widened. She did not like Sergeant Dap at all. She wondered if Ender noticed her fear. She hoped not.

Marzia, Hazel noticed, kept a stony look of blankness on her face. She admired that. "SIR YES SIR!" the recruits chorused.

"Good! You are to work as a team. You will make this bunkroom your home. You will keep your home clean. There are seperate showers for both genders. If you are found in an area not designated to your gender, I will personally neuter you! Am I clear?" Sergeant Dap had reached Hazel. She tried to wash away the look of terror on her face that was probably there and replace it with Marzia's blank stare.

"SIR YES SIR!"

Dap turned to look at Ender, Ender staring back at him. For a moment, Hazel wondered if Ender would question Dap, but Dap looked away. "Class is in five! Follow the yellow lights, yellow like your current selves!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

Dap then left the room, leaving the recruits to scramble all over themselves, following the yellow lights. Freddie jogged up to the front of the room, standing in front of Hazel and Marzia. "I'm sticking with you guys. Nice to know I actually have some friends in this place." Hazel smiled at him, she really felt the same way. Friends were a luxury in Battle School, sometimes even on Earth. Not everyone was lucky enough to have friends, and Hazel was glad she was one of the lucky few to have friends in Battle School. Well, she hoped they were her friends.

With Freddie and Marzia at her sides, she followed the yellow lights.

It was EXCRUCIATING to find all of the right lines, I hope I did find all of them. I probably won't do that for the next few chapters, I might make up some lines that sound vaguely like the ones said in the movie. Sorry if that bothers you, but YOU try spending an hour searching for quotes from the movie.