A Problematic Paradox

by Eliot Sappingfield

  “What a fascinating story,” I said. “Next could you tell the one about where I am right now and why I’m here?”

  “You are at a school, my dear,” she said, spreading her arms in an expansive gesture. “This is my school, the Plaskington International Laboratory School of Scientific Research and Technological Advancement, but most students just call it the School, since that is a somewhat unwieldy name and many young people lack the commitment to spend the extra ten seconds it takes to pronounce it correctly. I spent decades building this school, and if a few seconds are spent in the pronunciation of its venerable moniker, then frankly—”

  I cut her off. “Ma’am, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how people pronounce the name of your school and watch you set innocent chessmen on fire, but I think I might be able to concentrate better if I knew whether or not my father is dead.”

  Dr. Plaskington looked a little guilty. “I can see how that would be a distraction. Your father is an old friend of mine. One of our finest students. Allow me to put your mind at rest immediately: he has paid for everything well in advance.”

  “Right, but he was kidnapped, and—”

  “Abducted, yes. I heard about that. Got an email yesterday. It said something about an alarm and that you were being brought here as soon as possible. I only wish he’d allowed us to arrange for the transportation. Did you ride on a car?”

  “Ride on a car? Well, I was inside . . .”

  Her eyes brightened with interest. “Of course! Out of the elements, very clever! You just pour some petroleum distillate into a reservoir, aerosolize and pump it into enclosed spaces, set it exploding, turn that linear force into rotary motion, and a few cogs and gears later, you’re rollin’ down the river!”

  “Er, yeah, that’s the general idea,” I said. “But it’s a road.”

  “Yes, yes. It’s boats that travel on rivers!” she said with a wink, like that was a bit of insider knowledge she and I shared. “I can’t wait for you all to get past this obsession with personal mechanized conveyances. We don’t allow them here.”

  “Them? You mean cars?”

  “And boats, but mostly cars. It’s the noise, can’t stand it. Plus they inspire laziness and dependence. Our campus is compact enough that a student can get anywhere on their own two feet. If you want to get around any other way, that’s up to you.”

  “You knew I was coming? Do you know where my dad is?”

  “I do not know,” she said, suddenly serious. “But I can tell you with absolute certainty that your father is alive and well. Those who have taken him do not want him dead and would gain nothing from him being dead. That, however, is all we know.”

  The chess piece was now burning in earnest and becoming something of a distraction in itself. “I haven’t even called the police,” I said. “Should we contact the authorities?”

  “Oh, they wouldn’t have much success with the Old Ones.”

  “The—the Old Ones?”

  “I’m sure your father filled you in. We can be reasonably certain they are behind his disappearance. He’s quite valuable to them, and they’ve been attempting to locate him for some time. It appears they’ve finally been successful. The problem is that we have little way of locating them. We’re working on it. They may be more intelligent, but he’s got—”

  “Hold the phone.” I stood up, finally able to ignore the burning chess set in the corner. “Nobody is more intelligent than my dad. He’s the smartest person in the world.”

  “I’ve run the numbers, and that is correct—by a margin of about three percent, insofar as you ascribe mental abilities to the potential accomplishments of a particular mind. The problem is that even though he might be the smartest person in the world, he’s certainly not the smartest being in the world. As you know, the Old Ones—”

  I threw up my arms in frustration, wishing there was something inexpensive-looking nearby I could break. “Look, lady. I don’t know what you think I know, but what I actually know is precisely squat. Well, I know some people came to see my dad, and that weirdo Tabbabitha came to my school, and she wanted me to—”

  Dr. Plaskington went white. Well, whiter. “You were . . . approached?”

  “Yeah, by a charming young lady named Tabbabitha with the arms of a gorilla and all the charisma of a rubber boot filled with refried beans. She told me I should go with her, and I told her to get bent.”

  The old lady cocked her head to one side, surveying me quizzically. “It is quite remarkable that you were able to resist doing what she asked of you. It took your father years to learn to see through their disguises and to resist their suggestions. Very few humans who encounter them are able to tell them no and live. You say it appeared to you as a young girl?”

  “Well, kind of like a girl, kind of like a mutant, except less pleasant than your average mutant.”

  The principal became suddenly grave. “Remarkable. I need you to tell me everything she said to you—everything that happened—beginning to end.”

  I told Dr. Plaskington about my whole insane day, my visit to the counselor, Tabbabitha and her friends, her conversation with my father, and the catastrophe they unleashed inside our home.

  The doctor appeared to be paying attention, a look of concern growing on her face as I finished. She nodded succinctly. “The Old Ones clearly wish to collect you, much as they did your father. It is fortunate you have finally come here. We’ve been asking Melvin to send you to us for ages. Your test scores are phenomenal.”

  “What tests? You looked at my grades?” I asked.

  “Good heavens, no,” she chuckled as she sprang to her feet and strode to her desk. For an old lady, she moved surprisingly quickly. “No, typical school grade structures are imprecise and primitive. We publish standardized tests and make them available to school districts at no cost. It’s one way of locating students who might do well with a more challenging education. One you took a few years ago alerted us to your location—not many students can manage a perfect score, even on the trick questions. Frankly, you are a shoe,” she said.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “A shoe! No question about it. You’re more than acceptable.”

  “A shoo-in, you mean?”

  “See, there you go, being extraordinary already,” she said. “My school is terribly exclusive and can only accept a handful of humans every year. We’ve been saving a spot for you for some time. Was your father the reason you only took the test once? I assume after our initial offer was rebuffed he didn’t want anyone else discovering how remarkable you are.”

  “He did ask that I not participate in statewide standardized—”

  “That’s Melvin for you. Always a step ahead. Well, half a step ahead. If he wanted to hide you, he could have stopped you from taking even the first one, but I can’t blame him for not anticipating it. Of course, that’s probably how they found you.”

  “So what about my dad?” I asked, growing exasperated. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine! If I’m not mistaken, they got a lot more than they bargained for when they picked up old Melvin. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they showed up with him asking for a refund. To be honest, I’m shocked they thought he would be a good acquisition.”

  “They don’t want him dead, then? They won’t hurt him?” I asked. I was beginning to feel a little hopeful.

  Dr. Plaskington shrugged. “Who knows? They’ll threaten to murder him, of course. Probably try a little torture, mind control, solitary confinement, the odd beating, that kind of thing. But I doubt they’ll kill him, at least not right away.”

  The woman’s forecasts made me feel a little faint. How could she talk about such terrible things like they were the weekend weather forecast? The doctor shared my dad’s talent for empathy, it seemed. “Can we go find him?” I asked. “We need to mount a rescue mission. I can help.”r />
  “You mean assemble a small group of teenagers with unique abilities and personalities to go on an adventure into the unknown, seeking your lost father, but incidentally learning a little about themselves along the way? That sounds fine on paper, but the Old Ones would destroy your sanity, kill you at least once, and bury you in a bad neighborhood under an intentionally misspelled grave marker. No—best to leave this sort of thing to the professionals. I have notified the relevant authorities, and they are investigating the incident.”

  “Fantastic. So will they want a statement or something?”

  “Yes. You’re making it right now.”

  That didn’t quite sit well with me, but Dr. Plaskington pressed on. “Our methods of tracking people are quite sophisticated. If he appeared in a crowd in Times Square without his memory, we would know. If he was dropped onto a life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at this very moment, I would be notified within ten minutes. If he was abandoned with no radio and twenty minutes’ worth of oxygen on the surface of the moon, we could get him home safely.”

  This made me a bit skeptical. “How about Narnia or the center of the sun?”

  “Don’t be flippant. We are capable of a great deal more than you imagine. If he wants to be found, and I’m sure he does, then we will find him . . . eventually.”

  “Have other people been kidnapped by the Old Ones before?” I pressed.

  “Oh yes, loads. Barely a month goes by when we don’t—”

  “Do you get many of them back?”

  She considered this. “Almost never, but this time I’m very confident. Your father is quite resourceful. If anyone can survive the Old Ones, he can.”

  My head swam. Something told me Dr. Plaskington was extremely capable and essentially honest but not 100 percent honest. I could tell she wasn’t giving me the whole story, but I probably wasn’t going to get much more out of her. She was telling me what I wanted to hear but not necessarily what I needed to know.

  Dr. Plaskington fixed me with an intense gaze and took my hand in hers. “I need you to trust us. We can’t find him if you aren’t kept under protection. Right now your father is our top priority. If you left here, or if you allowed yourself to be captured, he would become our second priority.”

  Maybe Dr. Plaskington knew looking for Dad on my own was exactly what I had been thinking about, or maybe it’s what she’d want to do in the same situation. In any case, I didn’t have any idea where to start. For the moment, I decided it was best to trust her or to act as if I did. Without realizing what I was doing, I felt the outline of my old Mr. Happybear Bracelet in my pocket. As I touched it, the bracelet vibrated faintly, reminding me it was on. If nothing else, the bracelet was still a link to my dad. With time, perhaps I could figure out a way to make use of it.

  Just then a small piece of information that had been fluttering about in my brain came to rest in my consciousness, and I let my thoughts about the bracelet go. Something the doctor had said a few minutes ago. “You only admit a handful of humans?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said the doctor, not at all derailed by the subject change. “But I don’t mean that literally. An actual handful of humans would be just the one, unless you had rather absurdly large hands or were trading in miniature people.” She chuckled heartily. “I think we can all agree on that!”

  It seemed I needed to be more specific. “I meant to ask what other—beings?—other than humans could be accepted here.”

  “Well, parahumans are always welcome, but that’s because they’re almost always extraordinary. We have a jackdaw as well. Jeff is his name, I believe. Really, anyone exceptional is welcome at my school. We have sliding fee scales to—”

  If you could have seen me just then, I probably looked like someone who was holding an invisible Rubik’s Cube with both hands and was extremely angry and confused by it. The phone started ringing again. Had she just told me . . . “What? Look. If you’re going to start telling me—wait—” There was so much happening that I didn’t know where to start. “So who are the Old—” I suddenly wondered how the “authorities” were going to get in contact with me, when it struck me a second time that she had just told me I would be attending school with aliens, at which point the room began spinning in that rather upsetting way things spin when they’re standing perfectly still, and I decided to inquire into one particular niggling issue: “WILL YOU PLEASE PUT OUT THE FIRE ON THE CHESSBOARD? IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONCENTRATE WHEN SOMETHING IN THE ROOM IS ON FIRE.”

  The old lady smiled in an infuriatingly kind, bemused fashion. “It is not my move, young miss. I do not cheat.”

  She looked ready to go on, but before she could, a tiny drone helicopter clattered into the window. Knocked off-kilter, it nearly fell, recovered, drew back, and, with a very discreet pop, did something that caused a single pane in the window to shatter into a shower of dust. It flew in, maneuvered over the burning queen, and dropped perhaps a spoonful of water onto it. The queen was extinguished with a faint hiss. The craft then reached out with a tiny saw mounted to a spindly robotic arm, sliced the head off a black bishop, and carried it out the window.

  Dr. Plaskington scrunched her face appraisingly. “I guess Ms. Botfly did see that coming. Where were we?”

  I took a calming breath. “You were about to explain what a parahuman is, who the Old Ones are, and what on earth is going on at this school.”

  “I don’t think I had intended to discuss any of that, but I certainly can, if you’d like. The prefix para- comes from Greek, meaning ‘alongside’ or ‘other.’ A paralegal is someone who isn’t quite a lawyer; paranormal means something that isn’t quite normal. Parahumans aren’t quite human, but we’re pretty darn close.”

  “We?”

  “Why, yes, I am a parahuman, like many of the students here. You might have picked up on my superhuman charm and wit.”

  “How many of you are there?” I said, choosing not to address the presence or absence of charm and wit.

  Dr. Plaskington nodded emphatically. “There are loads of us! Nationwide, I’d expect we number a few thousand, depending on who you ask and whether you count those parahumans who aren’t in contact with the wider community. Here at my school, on the other hand, we have parahumans coming out of our ears. Again, not literally. I’d say the School’s enrollment is about nine percent human and ninety-one percent parahuman, and, of course, Jeff.”

  “So you’re an almost-human? What is the rest?”

  “Alien. We parahumans as well as our cousins, the Old Ones, are descended from visitors from the beyond. We came to this earth long, long ago and have endeavored through the generations to blend in as well as possible. Many of us are quite good at it.”

  “You’re aliens? I don’t . . .” I was about to say I didn’t believe her, but then I realized that I kind of did. “Why did you come to Earth in the first place?” I asked.

  “Why did your great-great-great-great-grandfather immigrate to the United States?”

  I’d never seen a family tree that extended back farther than my grandparents, who I was told lived in Montana. “I . . . I’m not even sure who that was. Do you mean—”

  “Try to understand: you’re asking me the same question but with about three hundred more greats thrown in. The extremely short version is that we do not know, but we have no shortage of theories. You’ll learn more later on in your Parahuman History and Paranthropology classes.”

  “Are you parahumans trying to take over the world, enslave Earth’s population, or kill us all?”

  Dr. Plaskington’s disappointment was obvious. “Oh, don’t be so prejudiced,” she said. “Apart from our staggering intelligence, occasional gifts, superior physiques, and devastating artistic abilities, we parahumans are quite a lot like you. We seek nothing more than to live in harmony. Most of our kind are not welcome in ‘normal’ schools for the same reasons you were probably a ba
d fit at your last one. Our school, in contrast, will accept any student as long as they’re bright, mature, and equal to the workload and intellectual rigor. Your father didn’t explain any of this?”

  “No,” I said, wondering when my dad had started keeping secrets from me. For a guy who tells his kid every revolting detail of what a fifty-year-old man has to go through during his annual checkup, this was a pretty big omission.

  Dr. Plaskington picked up her phone and set it down again to stop its ringing and began to shuffle through her desk, riffling through papers and pulling out drawers. “Did you happen to see a sandwich lying around here?”

  “No. So the Old Ones, they’re the same as you? You called them your cousins.”

  Dr. Plaskington paused, and it was clear she was a little offended by the question. “They are our cousins like chimpanzees are yours. We were the same but have since parted ways. They got nastier while we made ourselves more like you humans.”

  “So why did the Old Ones want me?” I asked.

  The doctor leaned in close. “I believe it may have something to do with the prophecy.”

  “The . . . prophecy?”

  “No, I’m just jiggling your cable. You humans do love a good prophecy. To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea. You are young and untrained. You don’t have any strange abilities or supernatural talents that I can discern. My best guess is that they wanted you for leverage—a way to inspire cooperation in your father.”

  “So why do they need my dad?”

  She shrugged again. “It can’t be for anything good. Probably for his creativity. Your father is very inventive, and the Old Ones can’t imagine their way out of a paper bag.”