“Fine . . . What are you bringing to shoot at whatever we’re supposed to be shooting at?” I asked Warner.
“Plain old zapper. No need to get fancy. We probably won’t run into anything too bad, and there will be a lot of us. Why don’t you just bring your quantum agar thingy? That counts as a weapon, right?”
I should explain. Quantum agar is a special material that is especially prone to quantum events, which allows it to be controlled simply by making certain observations about it. Most of the students at the School are pretty good at controlling it with computers by creating complex mathematical equations to describe the form and properties they want it to take on. For some reason that I’ve never really understood, I’m able to control it by just thinking about the form I want it to take. That can make it a pretty powerful weapon in my hands.
I glanced at my agar, which I usually kept in the form of a silvery bracelet with a thin, faintly glowing blue streak running around its length, and made it shiver a bit. “I don’t have a lot of it left. Most of it was lost along with Tabbabitha, remember?”
Back when I first came to the School, our Practical Quantum Mechanics teacher, Mr. Dolphin, had given me a substantial amount of agar because he owed my dad a favor or something. Unfortunately, someone helped an Old One named Tabbabitha gain access to the School Town so she could kidnap or kill me. Because of the School’s security system, she couldn’t walk right in, so she used time travel to go back to just before the School was established and hibernated until I came along. We never actually figured out who helped her, although the principal had been pretty eager to blame it on my friend Bob Flobogashtimann.
Anyway, I ended up using almost all my agar to knock Tabbabitha into an interdimensional void where nothing could exist, which meant most of it was gone, too. On the upside, my bracelet was a lot lighter.
“Looks the same to me,” Warner said.
“Yeah, but there’s not as much there,” I said, removing it. “Here, feel it.”
Warner moved the bracelet from hand to hand. Something seemed to occur to him, and he stared hard at it for a while. I could tell he was trying to make it do something and failing. For the heck of it, I made the bracelet turn into a pair of handcuffs that jumped out and locked his wrists together.
“Ah! Very funny,” he said insincerely.
A second later, the handcuffs slipped from his wrists like they were made of milk, and the agar slid back across the table and leaped onto my wrist, again taking its familiar form.
Hypatia’s tablet made a noise, and she consulted it briefly. “You’re both coming to my volleyball game tonight, by the way. Jill Green-Eleven Nuclei is sick, so I get to start. It’ll be the first time I actually get to play.”
Warner consulted his tablet. “Yeah, I’m really sorry. I have a lot of work to do. I’m sure Nikola can make it.”
“Actually, Hypatia . . . I would absolutely come, but I don’t want to,” I said.
“Oh no,” Hypatia said, pointing her finger angrily at me. “You’re coming. Nikola, you owe me one, remember?”
She was talking about our orbit trip. Some weekends, the School has an optional activity where they launch a few students into low earth orbit so they can experience weightlessness, being in space, and all that. As soon as I heard of it, I knew we had to go, despite Hypatia’s protestations that “space is dumb.”
When the time came, it was Hypatia, me, and six kids from the preschool class crammed into a tiny, multicolored space capsule that operated on an electromagnetic thruster so we didn’t need a giant rocket to get us up there. The thing was automated, so there were no adults, just a screen with a cartoon version of the School’s pangolin mascot wearing a space suit who spent the whole time jovially telling us “fun facts” about space. It turns out that for students who have been at the School since they were little, going into orbit is a lot like going to a petting zoo: something safe and dull that is a good adventure for little kids.
Here’s a space travel fun fact: seasickness and car sickness have nothing on space sickness. Here’s another fun fact: in space, nausea is very contagious, especially because when you’re experiencing microgravity, vomit pretty much just drifts around in the air. I should have been worried when I noticed all the walls of the space capsule were covered in rubber.
“Fine,” I said reluctantly.
* * *
At the game, I got the distinct impression that the School’s version of volleyball operated on a set of rules that had little in common with normal volleyball. I could be wrong, though; I’m no expert on sports. The game’s final score was Brown Dwarves: 214.999 repeating, Malaria Mosquitoes (Hypatia’s team): 322.5, and Tyler Ruffin: 400. According to Hypatia, this made it the second game that season won by a member of the audience.
When we met outside the auditorium after the game, I’d been prepared to console Hypatia on her team’s loss, but she was thrilled with the results. “It’s about having fun, not winning,” she said.
Her positive outlook surprised me a bit. Perfectionist that she was, I’d assumed losing the game would be upsetting to her.
“Besides,” she said, “audience members aren’t allowed in the playoffs, so we’re still ranked number one. Did you see how I set up that hundred-point spike that landed right in the triple-bonus anti-penalty zone? I was like, ‘Get that ball in the air, and let someone do something with it!’”
“Good thinking,” I said. “I’ve always thought volleyball was just like chess, but without the similarities.”
“You’re totally right,” she said, actually spinning there on the sidewalk with her arms outstretched. “Did you save a program?”
“Do people usually do that sort of thing at sporting events?”
Hypatia rolled her gray eyes and kicked a rock. “When it’s someone’s first game, maybe. It’s not a big deal, though.”
“Because I got one just in case,” I said, handing her the program/rule book, which was about the size of your average paperback novel.
Hypatia jumped and spun, and generally did the sorts of things you expect a puppy to do.
“What has gotten into you?” I asked. “Do I need to find my tranquilizer darts?”
“You’re a stick in the mud, and you can’t handle the fact that I just have a little joie de vivre!” she said as she tripped on a rock and almost fell joyfully onto her beaming face. “Besides, I’m not headed home, so you don’t need to tranquilize me.”
“No?” I asked.
She kicked at another rock. This one turned out to be a lump of gray slush left over from our temporary winter earlier that day, and it splattered all over my left pant leg. “Tom asked me to meet him at Garden Supply for coffee. He wants to talk about my performance on the team and how I can improve,” Hypatia said, taking no notice of the gross splotches she’d left on my jeans.
I wondered if she had caught on to the fact that the meeting probably wasn’t going to be positive. But Tom could offer to sneeze in her salad and she’d be thrilled, so I just nodded.
“Sounds like fun. Don’t stay out too late,” I said.
Hypatia’s eyes and cheeks turned a bright shade of pink. She punched me on the shoulder. “You goof! I’ll be home sooner or later.”
I might have said something funny, but she was gone before I could come up with something good.
4
UNIVERSAL RECYCLED BULK NUTRIENT MATTER
Coming home without Hypatia was deeply weird, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. You know how things can change, and you don’t really notice it? Going home alone made me realize that in my few months at the School, Hypatia and I had been pretty much inseparable. Our little School-provided bungalow was eerily quiet. For the first time, I could understand why some of the older students still chose to live in the large dorms downtown instead of in houses in the residential neighborhood.
I used
to love being alone. Back in North Dakota, I liked being around my dad and nobody else. Dad was always a presence, if not an especially paternal one. Don’t get me wrong—we got along fine, but he wasn’t exactly one for hugs or playing catch in the yard. We didn’t even have a yard; we had a parking lot. His idea of showing emotion was to arrange for dinner to be delivered for us (Nikola! Make food happen!), and we’d sit around discussing how to make unstable actinoid metals stop decaying, ways of transferring human memory into computer memory, or whatever it was he was working on at the time.
Six months ago, things were boring, frustrating, vaguely depressing, and familiar. Now Dad was missing, kidnapped by the Old Ones, and being held in some underground place, if the little information I’d gotten from Tabbabitha was to be believed. Meanwhile, I was studying everything I could ever hope to learn, getting three meals a day, and had all these actual friends coming out of my ears. In short, everything was lovely for me and terrible for him. I don’t blame myself for what happened, but I can understand how people do blame themselves for things like that. The whole situation felt extremely, painfully unfair to me. I almost wished I could believe it was my fault. Maybe I’d feel a little less helpless about it.
I flopped into my chair and pulled a book I’d been reading from my desk drawer. In doing this, I bumped the desk, and a single framed picture slid onto its back and threatened to topple off. I lifted it and leaned back in the chair, inspecting, for what must have been the billionth time, my favorite (and only) family picture.
In the photo, I was wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of a vest and bow tie printed on the front of it, and Dad had on an oxford-style shirt that was so threadbare you could clearly make out the short-sleeved T-shirt he wore beneath it. I’d worked so hard on getting the photo set up that I’d completely forgotten to do my hair that day, and it was an absolute mess.
It was amazing the effort that had gone into that image. The photographer had made me sit on a wooden crate that was very uncomfortable and low so it was out of frame. She stood my dad behind me and said, “Okay, Dad, hands on shoulders.”
So, just as requested, he put his hands on his own shoulders and smiled.
She thought he was being clever, so she said, “Very funny, Dad.”
To which he replied, “Young lady, I think you may have me confused with someone else. I am not your father. Do you have a history of early onset dementia in your family?”
Eventually she had needed to physically place his hands on my shoulders when he hadn’t quite understood the pose she was trying to describe to him.
When the image was finally snapped, I was smiling at the camera, and he was looking just to the left of the lens, wearing a bewildered, almost angry expression. This was because on the wall behind the camera in the photo studio, there had been a sign that said, DON’T FORGET YOU’RE VALUABLES! and he was having a hard time not correcting it in some way.
We were there on a coupon that promised one free photo, and I’d kind of assumed we’d do more than one pose (as had the girl taking the pictures), but the moment the flash went off, Dad considered his obligation fulfilled and left the building. We stopped for ice cream on the way home that day, and I listened to him expound on how the one free photo was “how they get you.”
This was the one copy of that one free photo.
I stared at it for a while, feeling wistful, sad, and lonely all at once. On a whim, I tried to cry, because that’s supposed to make you feel better. But it wasn’t happening, so I gave it up. Then, for practically no reason at all, I decided to check in with the Chaperone.
The Chaperone is the School’s all-purpose artificial intelligence system. She’s wired into most of the structures in town and serves as the class scheduler, security coordinator, residence monitor, and pretty much everything else a rational adult might be needed for, since rational adults were pretty rare at the School. I guess a lot of people find the Chaperone’s semiomniscience a bit creepy, but she’s never bothered me. It’s probably because my dad designed her, so she sounds exactly like the security system at my old home.
“Yo! Chaperone!” I said.
There was a faint buzz in the air, letting me know she was “present.”
“Good evening, Nikola,” the Chaperone said in her oddly reassuring voice. “You have no homework assignments due tomorrow because of an all-day Electronic Combat field trip. According to your schedule forecast you have four assignments due the following day. Would you like details?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Homework is best done at the last minute.”
There was a single click sound in the air, which I knew meant she disapproved of something. “That is an unwise, shortsighted, and childish belief. You should make a point of reexamining your lackadaisical attitude in regard to your education at your earliest convenience.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit silly. “Say, I was wondering—”
“When will that be?” the Chaperone interrupted.
“When will what be?”
Another click. “When do you plan to reexamine your priorities in relation to your schoolwork?”
“Oh,” I said. “Probably at the last minute.”
The Chaperone responded with another click, this one a bit louder.
“Has there been any news on my dad?” I asked.
“Melvin Kross has been the subject of an exhaustive search for some time now. Were you expecting news?” the Chaperone said, sounding a little less stern.
“No. Well, I spoke with Dr. Plaskington a couple months ago, and she said she’d let me know of any developments. I haven’t heard anything recently, so I thought I’d . . . you know . . . check in?”
“Of course. If you’ll wait a second, I can ask the principal if there’s been any news.”
I really didn’t like the idea of having her contact the principal at—I checked the time—9:00 PM. “Oh, you don’t have to bother her now. I can ask tomorrow. I was just—”
But there was another faint buzz in the air, signaling that the Chaperone had “stepped out.”
About two minutes later, there was another buzz. “Nikola, I’m connecting you to Dr. Plaskington’s line.”
I was about to tell her she didn’t have to when I found myself talking to the principal, her voice emanating from nowhere as if she were an invisible person standing in the middle of the room. “Nikola, dear! How are you holding up?” Dr. Plaskington said in her not-quite-chipper grandmotherly voice.
“Ah, pretty good, I guess,” I said.
“Excellent, excellent, that’s so good to hear! It’s very important to me that every student feels valued, challenged, and well cared for. At the Plaskington International Laboratory School of Scientific Research and Technological Advancement, we have always prided ourselves on ensuring an unparalleled . . .”
I picked up my tablet and checked my email as she spoke. There had been a new message from Ms. Botfly reminding us of the impending field trip, and Warner had sent a close-up photo of his bent arm that was supposed to look like a butt.
“ . . . but the opinion of my students is what truly matters. So what do you think?” Dr. Plaskington asked.
“Oh, sorry, the line cut out a bit,” I lied, setting my tablet back down on the desk quietly. “What were you asking?”
“I was just wondering how the cafeteria food has tasted lately. Has it seemed at all artificial or synthetically replicated from universal recycled bulk nutrient matter?”
“Um . . . no?”
“Wonderful!” Dr. Plaskington crowed. “Because that’s just the sort of cost-cutting measure I would never stand for. Can you imagine how the parents would react?”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “Speaking of parents, I was wondering if there was any news about my father.”
“The Chaperone filled me in. As it just so happen
s, I’ve only recently gotten a message from him!”
My jaw dropped. “You have? When? Just today?”
“No, no, let me think,” Dr. Plaskington said. “I’d say it came in about . . . six weeks ago?”
I leaped to my feet, banging my legs against my desk, which almost tipped over. “SIX WEEKS? AND YOU DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING?”
“Well, I’ve been very busy, young lady,” the principal said, a bit testily. “Running an educational community isn’t all daisies and jalapeños, I can tell you that! All this month I’ve had the Parahuman Food Safety Board breathing down my neck about—”
“How did you get the message?” I asked, summoning every ounce of patience I had.
“Well, they just marched in with a search warrant and—”
I gritted my teeth so hard I’m surprised they didn’t break. “NOT . . . THEM! How did you get the message from my DAD?”
“Oh, that. It seems he’s being held in a mixed detention facility of some sort. There are a few other humans and parahumans who come and go on occasion.”
“They come and go? Like they’re free?”
I heard papers shuffling on her end of the line. “Yes, the Old Ones are known to collaborate with willing traitors from time to time. I hear they pay quite well. It seems your father was able to attach a tracking device to one, and as soon as he left the facility, it went online and transmitted a message along with his coordinates.”
My eyes must have almost bugged out of my skull. “So you know where my dad is!”
Dr. Plaskington made a disappointed tsk sound. “Unfortunately, no. That’s turned out to be a dead end. We were able to apprehend the individual your father tagged just outside Boise, Idaho, but our readings indicated he had recently passed through an interdimensional gateway we can’t trace very well. They must be using a kind of transportation we aren’t familiar with yet. He could have been sent from anywhere in the known universe.”
The Unspeakable Unknown Page 4
