Contrary Mia (Mia tags!)

[Kateri Rivera]

It was nice to be finally feeling better. Really nice. She’d apologized to her classes for her behavior the week before, and had managed to recover herself—admittedly with a good deal of flirting involved—to the point where she could actually teach again.

Which meant that she had to come back and deal with the facts of deciding to work again: namely, dealing with students. Today it was Mia Keystone, who was brilliant, but not exactly motivated. At least, not in her class. Kateri hated talking to students like that. She always felt like such a hypocrite doing it. “Here’s why you should work harder in your classes even though I always goofed off in mine.” But it was part of her job, and in this case, it was time to give the talk.

It made her feel a little better that she was trying to help Mia for the better, because unlike her, that girl really could do something. Talk about bright! Now if only she could apply it.

After class ended and she’d finished her lecture, when the class was filing out she rose from her desk. “Mia Keystone, a moment?”

This was going to go well. She resisted the urge to shuffle her papers and reflected that at least this was one student she was taller than, and once the other students were gone, she settled down behind her desk.

“So, Mia.” She smiled at her, although she didn’t expect this to work. Mia seemed like the prickly type from what she’d seen thus far. “I wanted to talk to you about how you’re doing in class. Do you feel like…you’re putting your full effort into this?”

Mm, she needed to be better at wording this whole mess.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia was not in a good mood. She hadn’t been since graduation. Jonah was off doing his thing at university or whatever and even though they emailed a lot, it was not fun and not good and Mia hated it.

So when she was in the middle of sliding Kaylee 2.0 into her bag and heard her name called, her reaction was not joyous. Looking up, the short girl scowled and huffed, but slung her bag over her shoulder and skulked to the teacher’s desk. ”Yeah?” she asked, eyebrows raised expectantly.

She hadn’t done anything wrong that came immediately to mind, and she wasn’t failing (she laughed at the thought). Apart from the occasional smart remark about pots of gold and four leaf clovers, Mia didn’t think she’d done anything to warrant some one-on-one time.


The smile was met with the scorn it deserved, and the bad tempered technopath just raised her eyebrows further. Then finally, it came out, and before she could think about holding it back, Mia barked out a laugh. She was getting Bs pretty constantly, the occasional A coming through when the topic was more suited to her style of thinking or she thought it would be useful.

”I’m putting enough effort in to pass,” she said slowly and honestly, ”given that I can see little to no use for most of what you show, at least, this way of working it. You do realize we have machines and programs for that now, right?” Machines that I can operate with my brain and programs that I can write. If this conversation had taken place at any other point in time, (say, two weeks ago) Mia might have made an effort to soften her words. But no, she was being blunt.

Very very blunt.

[Kateri Rivera]

One-on-one time with students was always tricky to manage, especially if the student was not actually in trouble. Mia was, of course, difficult to deal with at all times, so she wasn’t sure why she’d been expecting anything different. Whenever Kat’s accent slipped—and it did happen, especially when she got frustrated—she was always there with a smart remark. It would have been frustrating, except that Kat knew she’d been the same way. And what was the phrase people used about getting what you deserved?

Oh, right. Karma.

To be fair, though, Mia was also a good deal smarter than Kat. That was part of the problem.

She barely managed to keep her smile at Mia’s laugh. She knew that Mia was doing pretty well, yes, but the fact that it seemed so easy to the girl indicated she wasn’t challenging herself. And a good teacher couldn’t let that pass. Right?

Sometimes, she really just wanted to be the bad teacher. They seemed to have more fun.

“I realize that,” she said with much more patience and cheer than she actually felt. “But you won’t always have compu—” She stopped, reviewed her “power’s cheat sheet” in her head, then changed tactics. Mia was always with her computer. Always seemed to have access to it. That screamed “technopath” to her, and didn’t help her case any, either. “If you ever want to get farther with computer programming and in math in general, you have to know the basics. Besides.” This was the oldest and worst trick in the book, but Kat might have been a wee bit…desperate. “Don’t you want to do more than pass? Push yourself, maybe, and achieve something?”

The inner student gagged. She ignored it.

[Mia Keystone]

For a moment, Mia’s face darkened. She hugged her laptop hard against her chest as Kateri made what might have seemed to her a harmless comment, but what Mia saw as a possible threat. Against Kaylee 2.0. Not a good start. Luckily for both her, and her teacher, Kat changed tactics mid stride and prevented what could have been a nasty situation.

Well, nastier.

”You’re an expect on computer programing then?” Mia asked, eyebrows arched to indicate just how unlikely that really was. ”Because pretty sure calculating the hypotenuse of triangles ain’t something that pops up in codes much. Well, not here in America. Maybe its different on the Emerald Isle.”

But it seemed the big guns were coming out. Or at least, the desperation ones. Miss Rivera must have been really scraping the bottom of the barrel if she was trying to use that old chestnut.

With a very crooked smile, Mia scratched at her head. ”You mean that maybe, if I try really hard, I could even be a teacher like you?” she asked, her tone syrupy sweet. This struck her as excellently pointless, and a waste of time. Sure, with Jonah gone to collage or whatever there wasn’t much she had to do but still, her time didn’t need to be filled with bleeding heart math teachers.

”Is that seriously why I’m here? Because you don't think I’m pushing myself?” Did she not get how weird that was? ”This is America. Don’t I have the freedom to fail, should I so choose? You’re impeaching on my constitutional rights.”

Take that, leprechaun.

[Kateri Rivera]

Judging by the expression on her face, Kateri was very happy she hadn’t decided to try the technical approach. For once, her cheat sheet had actually done something useful. Ha!

But back to the conversation. It wasn’t going well. Of COURSE it wasn’t. What had she been expecting when she’d decided to try this conversation? She could feel her jaw clenching, and forced herself to relax, flexing her hands out of the fists they were curling into. No anger. That was a luxury only students could have. It was a shame, though, because Kateri really just wanted to yell until Mia got the idea that Ireland was not that different from the U.S. of A. And was that going to happen in her lifetime? Probably not. Annyoing much?

“I probably know the Constitution better than you do, Mia,” she said, managing to keep her voice even, but barely. And she was right on that score. Her husband had helped her study for that nightmare of a citizen test. By all rights, she was as American as Mia, but try telling her that. “And yes, you have every right to fail. And I don’t care if you become a teacher or not.” Her smile was humorless. “Believe me. It’s a thankless enough job. But where’s the challenge in getting ‘B’s? Or failing? C’mon, Mia. You can do better than that. So what should hold you back?”

[Mia Keystone]

"Yeah but I can find out more about it in two seconds then you learnt in your lifetime," Mia replied simply, crossing her arms. "Hooked up to the internet, Miss Rivera. Walking wikipedia, dontcha know." Her crooked smile slipped away and she set a hand on her hip with a scowl. "Do you see now why I dont really care much about this stuff?" Because seriously, it was hard to care about maths when you'd seen, accidentally and intentionally, pretty much every type of porn ever.

Because rule 34 had it right. There was a lot of it. And furries. Furries were the spawn of the internet devil.

With a huff of impatience, the increasingly surly technopath chewed on her lip rings and rolled her eyes. "Ok," she said after a slight pause, scratching the back of her head as she held back the rather rude reply she had to that. None of this was a challenge, and never would be as long as she had her ability to tap into the largest knowledge bank in the world with a thought. Not to mention using a calculator always resulted in her getting every other calculator in the room to show up Boobs for all the answers.

Hey, she could be smart and immature!

"My profound realisation that I can't utilise anything within this particular curriculum to my advantage, be it profitable or otherwise," the short girl said drolly. "LOf course I can do better, Miss. I just dont. Care. About. It."

It was a strange sight, seeing such a short girl look so very very sure she was in the right. And it was, even for her, out of character to show such total disregard for how this would play out in the long run. She'd stopped caring. She wasn't allowed to graduate, and her best friend had flown the coop, so math could go suck a big one.

Yeah.

[Kateri Rivera]

Kateri was caught between banging her head against the wall and screaming to the sky or just sending the girl out and giving up on the whole quixotic quest of getting her to actually listen. It was, she realized, really stupid. Mia WAS only getting a ‘B’. Lord knew she’d done much worse when she’d been in school (admittedly, never in math classes, though. She’d liked those enough to actually pay attention.) She’d made Mia irritable, too, which meant that if she meant to continue along this line, she had to change her tactics a little bit.

It was a good thing for Mia that Kateri didn’t know about the calculator trick. Knowing what made her students snigger in the background probably would have resulted in Mia getting detention for as long of a period as Kateri could get. It was a last straw sort of thing.

“All right,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose as she attempted to regain some of her calm demeanor. Friendliness was out of the question, but she thought not being angry was a good step. She didn’t sit. Since Mia WAS the only student she could see eye-to-eye with, she didn’t want to give up that advantage. “I get it. You’re bored, you’re not interested, and you’re not learning anything, so what’s the point of learning? Fine. Reasonable. How about bribery? What can I do, Mia, to make you more interested? And if you say don’t teach or anything along those lines we’re both going to Dr. Neville for a nice, long chat.”

Maybe that was the better solution anyways, she reflected glumly.

[Mia Keystone]

Well.... this was different. Kudos for effort, lass. Wait, that was scottish. But did she have to bring the N-man into this? Mia scowled at the very mention of his name and the lights in the classroom flickered dangerously. "That's not a good idea," she said flatly. "Me and the doc end up having staring contests. Unless you wanna be a referee."

But this seemed like it could be an excellent opportunity for... something. The point was, Mia wasn't so good at the creativity when she didn't have time to plan first. Sharp eyes darted around the room as if looking for a hint, or possibly to see if there was any furniture she could demand as her bribe. A new chair would be nice. Or a sound proof box so she could just be alone with her computers without being yammered at all the time by stupid organics with their feelings.

"Put the coursework up online, or email it to me, and let me do it in my room," she decided on, finally. "That way, I dont have to be surrounded by morons and I can do it at my own speed." That was the worst thing. Having to sit through explanations and questions that were obvious (which she had pointed out a few times. To be helpful.) Her tolerance for fleshies was going down the drain as quickly as an upturned beer and she could not stand the thought of another year of it.

And that way she couldn't mock her teacher's country of origin, and it's love of shamrocks. Everyone was a winner!

[Kateri Rivera]

Kateri’s eyes flickered up at the lights, and she looked back down at Mia. Another sensitive subject. Great. Next thing she knew, she was going to be left to just the weather as a safe topic. And even that one wasn’t good, because Kateri knew enough about the weather to bore even the most interested of listeners.

“I wouldn’t be the referee,” she said, both sour and wry at the same time. “I’d be right in the middle of it, probably hitting someone. So fine. Not a good idea.” She waved it off and leaned against the desk, watching her expression with a slightly satisfied smirk. Gotcha. Or, sort of. It probably wasn’t a good thing that she was eyeing her student like a thing to be beaten. Oh well. If this actually worked, maybe she would actually get along with Mia.

…or not. Not if that was her suggestion. Their headmaster—whomever it was going to be—would go spare.

“They’re not morons,” she half-sighed. “Just ‘cause they can’t do it at your speed. And I can’t let you do it in your room. Put it online, yes. Email it to you, yes. But you have to be here or I lose my job. I know you don’t care,” she added, sarcastically, “but I’d like to keep it, thank you. Look, how about a compromise? I’ll let you listen to music, tune out everyone, sit in the back, and work on advanced coursework so long as you actually sit in class. How does that sound?”

Probably not good. But it was worth a try.

[Mia Keystone]

For the first time time during their little exchange, Mia actually grinned in approval. ”That tends to be how it ends,” she admitted with a shrug. ”I don’t really do the whole psych thing. I’m best friends with a telepath, if I was like, some crazy psycho, he would have told me.” And with that, slight lift in mood plummeted and her face clouded over, back into blue screen of death mode.

Even the contempt seemed to have drained out of her voice as she replied, almost robotically, ”Whatever.”

It wasn’t the smarts thing that made them morons. Jonah had never been great at school work and she’d never thought of him as slow. He was just better at other things then stupid shit like algebra, which she was like, wired to understand. It was their lack of understanding anything, it was the fact that they asked stupid questions,

it was the fact they weren’t Jonah King. And for that, she could not help but hold them in contempt.

But the idea was a good one. Sure, Mia would have liked her room better, but this sounded almost as good. If she wanted, she could just ride the web and leave all the people and their stupidity behind. ”Does that give me extra credit?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. ”If it does, it’s a deal.”

And she would be closer to getting out of this hell hole, and able to dive into her computers as much as she liked, with out people bothering her or making her feel stupid things.

[Kateri Rivera]

She’d gotten a smile? Out if Mia? Kat half had the urge to take a picture or grab a voice recorder and make Mia swear that it had actually happened, and that it wasn’t just her imagination. But it lasted all of three seconds, because then Mia mentioned her best friend, and the mood went straight to hell once again. The teacher resisted the urge to groan and just barely managed to get herself under control. Barely. She’d been actually making progress…

However, at least Mia seemed interested in her offer. “If you do all the coursework I recommend for you to do and do it well, then of course you’ll receive extra credit. It’s practically a requirement. Now I’ll have to clear this with my boss—” whoever that was going to be “—but I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t work.” She’d still be in class, she’d be doing harder coursework… seemed like a win-win to her. And since Mia wasn’t challenged with what she was doing, she could give her harder work. Good. She liked this idea.

However, stupidly, she decided to push it just a little farther. So she inhaled and decided to leap first, ask questions later.

“Mia, is something wrong?” the girl seemed to appreciate bluntness, so she’d try her best to achieve that, even though she was sure this was going to crash and burn. “You’ve seemed more…rude than usual, and I can’t help wondering why.”

[Mia Keystone]

”What, that Claude guy?” Mia muttered. ”Thought he’d retired and left us in the hands of the military or some shit.” It hadn’t really been clear, except that those twins had made some sort of vague reference to recruiting the graduates to fight for america.

The thought of herself in a military uniform was honestly enough to make Mia laugh until she wet herself.

Still, she was highly excited, or well, as excited as she got by the idea of school work. Graduation really, when she thought about it.

It took her a moment to realize that the red head maths teacher was still talking to her, and what exactly she was saying. ”Huh?” It took her by surprise and for a moment the sullen expression dropped away as she looked up at Kateri with wide eyes.

But it was only a moment, then her face clouded over and she swung her bag in front of her like a shield. Her bottom lip stuck out mulishly as the technopath glared out from under her ragged bangs. ”I’m fine,” she snapped, because what business was it of her math teacher if something was wrong, which it wasn’t. They were done here, she’d avoided seeing Sean and she could sit in class without having to communicate with everyone. She had won, as far as she could see, and the idea of being trapped with someone concerned about her wellbeing (seriously what was with that) for what could only be suspicious reasons.

Before Miss Rivera could use maths sorcery against her, Mia slipped out the door and closed it behind her in case Pythagorus got out to try and pull her back in.

[Kateri Rivera]

Kateri hesitated. Okay, so it did sound a little similar to her own thoughts about the subject, but she was going to try not to think about it. What had her husband said? Something along “not always questioning authority,” she thought. Easy for a military man to say. She was still having issues with that particular commandment. Clearly, so was Mia. She doubted her husband’s advice would help much with that. The technopath probably wouldn’t listen.

“We’re not in the hands of the military,” she said with more firmness than she actually felt. “He’s just retired, and we’ll soon have a replacement. I’ll bring that up with him. Or her,” she added, loyal to the possibilities of her own gender. After all, why couldn’t there be a headmistress? Kateri was a feminist at heart. Why not?

All in all, Kat thought she was lucky that Mia hadn’t yelled at her, or hadn’t made something blow up (mind, just in case, Kat had already removed the battery from her laptop so she couldn’t). Had she had the girl’s powers and been in a similar state of mind at her age…oh, she could make no guarantees as what she would have done. But she wasn’t going to worry about it. Still, she tried again. “Look, Mia, you don’t look fine—”

But she didn’t get a chance to say so. Because Mia was already walking out the door. She watched as it shut, then groaned and put her head on her folded arms.

That had gone well.

((Annnnd wrapped!))