A Problematic Paradox

by Eliot Sappingfield

  “ACROBATICS!” called Ms. Botfly from the comfort of her floating La-Z-Boy. “Three more points for the new kid and BIIIIIG BLOOOOOOOOO!”

  I might have taken some satisfaction in the fact that I was doing well in class were I not dangling from a rusty metal pole 120 feet in the air. We hung there for a second longer before Bob was able to get his own grip on the ceiling, which took a lot of weight off my hands. This improved our situation but did not fix it. The next step was to make our way, monkey-bars style, to a ladder that was about twenty feet away. I always hated that part of gym class.

  As we swung along bar by bar, I listened to the action below us, hoping whatever was happening down there could hold the monkeys’ attention enough for us to get to safety. There was a huge crash, louder than any we had heard before. Ms. Botfly spoke up a second later: “Aaaand three for the kid who reminds me of my cousin Alberto!” Another crash. “The kid who reminds me of my cousin Alberto is no longer with us!”

  The ladder was just a few swings away. I had to hurry. Bob was right behind me, and I could tell from the sound of his breathing that he was barely holding on. I watched as a monkey vaulted a storage tank and flew shrieking through the air toward Ultraviolet. She saw it coming, took aim, and waited until it was immediately above her before firing.

  “One more for Ultraviolet!” Ms. Botfly gushed.

  The shot was timed to send the monkey’s metallic corpse rocketing upward, a move I did not understand at first, until I realized it was headed straight for Bob and me.

  Bob saw it, too, but was only able to say “Ultraviolet, you little b—” before the monkey hit him with full force and the two of them toppled into the darkness below.

  Ultraviolet stepped out from her cover and gave me a wink and a curtsy, as if to say, You bet I meant to do that.

  The gesture didn’t make me as angry as it would have if a monkey had not stepped out from behind her at that exact moment, curtsied right along with her, and said, “Aaah-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

  Instantly paralyzed in agony, she collapsed to the floor, where the monkey bent over her face and continued to serenade her as he withdrew a small brown metallic pellet from behind his back and placed it gently on her chest.

  The pink explosion was made even more satisfying by Ms. Botfly, who called out, “Ultraviolet is down! Minus one point for hubris!”

  I grasped the ladder, nearly slipped, but managed to get my feet under me. I climbed down as fast as I could, dropped to my feet when I was low enough, and ran to the area between the vat and the rusty wall I’d just decended, where Bob must have fallen. I found nothing, no broken blue body, no puddle of blue blood, or red blood for that matter. I decided to believe he was safe. We couldn’t have been the first students to fall in the factory.

  I took cover in a corner, where I was able to pick off five more monkeys in relative peace before the main force of them became aware of my presence and chased me out with a hail of their little brown goo pellets.

  The only remaining cover available was a low concrete wall, roughly in the middle of the building. I ran for it, vaulted it, and landed right next to four other students, all of whom looked as frightened as I was.

  The monkeys had herded us to a single point. “This can’t be good,” I said.

  It wasn’t.

  It then became clear just how organized the monkey army was. All around us, the metallic simians rose. They stood openly in a huge circle around our pitiful cover, each with a pellet in its hand. The game was over, and they were offering us an opportunity to surrender instead of drowning in a flood of pink goo.

  I decided to go out fighting, in memory of Bob. But as soon as I raised my weapon, something bizarre happened.

  The remaining monkeys dropped their grenades and raised their paws at once. An unmistakable gesture of surrender. They opened their mouths, and I braced for their screech, but instead they spoke a single sentence at normal volume.

  “The monkey army wishes to surrender to the undefeated Warner Goss.” Then they exploded. All of them.

  After the lesson was over and the scores were tallied, I finished in second place, which was “not bad for a newbie,” according to Ms. Botfly. I had been in the lead until Warner killed the remaining twenty-one monkeys in a single blow by hacking their communications system using parts from the one he’d snatched.

  Ultraviolet, who came in third and believed she should have at least come in second, didn’t think it was fair. “He didn’t engage in actual combat. He just grabbed one and slunk off by himself. Any one of us could have done that.”

  “This is true,” Ms. Botfly said. “Any one of you could have done the same thing, but he’s the only one who did. His strategy wasn’t strictly against the rules, and ‘technically legal’ is the best kind of legal, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, you did very well and there’s no need to cry about it like a big whiny baby.”

  To the class, she said, “Your assignment for next week is to familiarize yourselves with magnetic induction beams and the hunting behavior of peregrine falcons. A falcon can dive at almost 250 miles an hour, so get a good night’s sleep before class. You’ll need your reflexes.”

  I wished I had a camera to capture Ultraviolet’s reaction to the “big whiny baby” comment. Then I remembered my tablet had a camera, so I snapped one and sent it to Hypatia. To be honest, I was pretty pleased to come in second, and disabling the monkeys as a group struck me as completely valid and strategically brilliant. That was until Warner caught my eye and made an L on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. Then he winked.

  I hate it when cheaters get all smug.

  16

  UNDER THE WEATHER

  I’d only gotten about half a block from the building when Warner jogged up alongside me, wearing a self-satisfied smile I could not have mustered by winning all the Nobel Prizes on the same day.

  “Pretty impressive, huh?” he asked.

  “I suppose it was. Especially if you’re impressed by cheating.”

  “Being a superior tactician means being accused of cheating, so I’m used to that,” Warner said. “You should probably get used to being the second-best human on campus.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, I’m not going to be the second-best anything.” I wasn’t sure why I felt like talking tough like that. Gloating brings out my inner pro wrestler, I guess.

  At that moment, Bob joined us, looking winded and confused.

  I swept him into a giant hug. “Bob! You’re alive! I thought you were a goner for sure!”

  This left him more confused and temporarily unable to speak.

  Warner chuckled, “Everything in there is coated with intelligent impact compound. If someone takes a hit, it catches them. I’ve fallen plenty of times—it hurts but doesn’t even leave a bruise. You really think if a student died in a class session that Ms. Botfly would just go over our grades and talk about next week’s assignment?”

  “Um,” I said, blushing a little. “Actually, I could imagine that. People here are pretty casual when it comes to mortal danger.”

  Warner shrugged.

  “So where do they put you when you die? The sewer?” I asked Bob.

  “No,” Warner said, returning to his arrogant know-it-all tone. “You go to the afterlife, a little room in the basement with juice and cookies. You get checked to make sure you didn’t break anything, and there’s a video feed of the action so you can take notes about what you did wrong. What made you think he was in the sewer?”

  “No reason,” I said. The truth was that Bob was smelling pretty rank, but I didn’t want to call him out on a personal hygiene issue with someone else around. Besides, maybe it was a thing with parahumans that some of them smell bad when they get flustered.

  Bob was looking pretty flustered. “I don’t feel so great, to tell you the truth.”

  “Did you ge
t hurt when you fell?” I asked.

  He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “No, I keep seeing things that are going to happen.”

  “Isn’t that normal for you?” Warner asked. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No,” Bob said. “I don’t know, maybe. But I see myself doing things I’d never do.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Bob didn’t answer. Instead he dropped his backpack, stumbled on the concrete, and nearly fell down. Luckily, Warner was able to catch his arm. “You’re really pale, man,” he said. “Let’s get you to the doctor.”

  Bob mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  A small group of students across the street saw something was wrong and were coming over.

  I pointed directly at one. “No rubbernecking. Get a doctor—call for help. Now!” I snapped.

  “Get away,” Bob said, sounding as if he was about to vomit.

  Warner frowned as he laid Bob down on the sidewalk. “Nikola was right—you smell awful. Did you kick a skunk or something?”

  Bob took several deep breaths as if trying to calm his gag reflex. He pulled his backpack closer and started rummaging inside it.

  “What do you need? Do you have medicine in there?” I asked.

  And then all at once, Bob seemed to relax. He took a long, calming breath, looked up at me, and smiled. Inside his bag, an electronic gadget chirped and an electronic woman’s voice said, “Unauthorized access. High power mode is prohibited on school grounds.”

  “What are you doing?” Warner asked him, reaching for the bag.

  But I knew. I’d heard that chirp when I’d powered on my own gravitational disruptor at the start of class. Bob sneered a toothy grin at us as a fresh wave of stench hit me and removed the last doubt I had.

  My first problem was a question of position and strategy. Warner and I were standing immediately above someone who had become a threat—not a good position to be in. I knew and Warner didn’t. If I dropped to the sidewalk he could still hit Warner, but if I tackled Warner, who was downhill from me, we’d both go tumbling farther down the hill, giving Bob the high ground.

  So I spun, ducking as I slipped my backpack from my shoulders, and hit Warner square in the face with it before dropping and rolling sideways out into the street.

  It worked. Warner went over backward like a sack of potatoes and was tumbling down the slope, clubbing his head against the concrete with savage force. I winced, hoping the School’s medical abilities were as good as I’d been led to believe—Warner was going to need it.

  There was a split second of doubt when I wondered if I’d seriously injured Warner for no reason, but then Bob produced the gravitational disruptor and fired one shot just where my head had been and a second where Warner had stood. The shots rippled angrily through the air and ground along the brick wall above me, leaving behind a gash at least a foot wide. Chunks of masonry rained all around. My backpack had come to rest just outside my reach, so I heaved backward and plunged my left hand inside to retrieve my own disruptor. The sound of footsteps and screaming told me the students across the street had changed their minds about helping.

  Bob was on his feet. I hadn’t seen him stand up. He was just standing where less than two seconds ago he’d been lying helpless on the sidewalk. He shot the bag with my hand in it. Instant, blinding pain flooded my senses, and a glance to my left proved to be a bad idea. My arm was bent downward at an unnatural angle and ran to the center of a small crater in the concrete where my bag, forearm, and hand had all been flattened. Imagine someone dropped a small invisible wrecking ball on the street from a hundred feet up—that was what it looked like.

  “No,” Bob said in a high, feminine voice. “No toys for you.”

  The pain disappeared in a flood of adrenaline. Sometimes being in shock has a good side. “Hey, Tabbabitha,” I said. “Long time no smell.”

  She shot my arm again. I heard concrete and bone crack, and another sound that drowned them out—my own screaming. The pain returned and flooded every part of my body. Writhing on the pavement, I rolled on my side. Maybe if I could reach it with my other arm . . .

  Tabbabitha rolled Bob’s head around on his shoulders, stretching his neck. “Always with the stink jokes. You people think that bothers us? I think you don’t like the smell because it’s so biological. Reminds you you’re only made of meat. Filthy, temporary meat.”

  Curled into a fetal position on my left side, I clawed a broken chunk of asphalt and pulled my body over just a little more. I could see my hand in the open mouth of my backpack clutching an assortment of plastic shards and circuitry that had once been my disruptor. I don’t want to describe what it looked like in there. Let’s just say my bag was ruined. Worse, my disruptor was useless. I wondered if I should worry that I could see but not feel my hand anymore.

  “This kid was a challenge,” she went on. “Parahumans are usually a bit tougher, but this little guy really put up a fight. I had to fry a lot of brain cells to get my point across.”

  My agar bracelet! I took a moment to compose my thoughts and focused on making it slip off my wrist and over Bob’s body to restrain him until help arrived.

  But nothing happened. I tried again, nothing. I couldn’t feel it, not like I normally could. It felt like normal, dead plastic. It was just like when Tabbabitha was trying to hurt Hypatia, like I was disconnected . . .

  “You’re pretty good with that stuff aren’t you?” Tabbabitha asked.

  “What stuff?”

  Bob, or, Tabbabitha, leaned forward and grinned menacingly. “What do you guys call it? Agar? I know a few tricks, too, you know. I’m not too great at moving it, but I know the moment you try, and well, give it another shot . . . I’ll wait. Go ahead!”

  I tried to concentrate again. Whenever I worked with the agar, there was a feeling to it, like I could tell where it was and what it was doing, even if I wasn’t watching. But that feeling disappeared like smoke in the wind as soon as I tried to make it work. Tabbabitha was disrupting it somehow. I tried a low-tech approach.

  “Get out of his head,” I snarled, hurling a chunk of asphalt at my friend’s face with my good hand.

  Tabbabitha dodged the rock like someone had told her it was coming the day before. “Listen to me and I’ll let him live. He might even make a full recovery. I wanted to continue our discussion from before. About you joining me for a few projects. Here’s the deal. You and I skip town, have a nice trip to my place, you can reunite with your father, and we can finally get some work done. We can even pretend none of this unpleasantness ever happened.”

  “So help you or you’ll kill Bob? You’d just kill him anyway. I won’t let you make me into some kind of bargaining chip to get my dad to play along with you.”

  Tabbabitha stepped over me and onto my ruined hand, squatting down in the crater she’d made in the concrete. I did my best not to scream in pain and only whimpered angrily. The way she stared out of Bob’s eyes and into mine was appalling in a way I’ll never be able to describe. “You got it backward, sweetie. Your pop is our bargaining chip to get you to play along. We want you alive because you’re special. You’re the one causing all the trouble. This kid, however . . .”

  She lifted the pistol to Bob’s head and winked. “I’ve been working on this for a lot longer than you can imagine. Don’t make me kill him, please. It’s comfortable in here.”

  She took my dad—because of me? It didn’t make sense. There was nothing special about me. Tabbabitha was seriously misinformed, crazy, or both. Suddenly, I was furious—I wasn’t going to let her blame me for her actions. “I’m not special! Why do you think I am? I’m no more or less clever than anyone here! At least, not any better than, like, ninety-five percent of the people here. The boy you’re talking through can see forward in tim
e. I can’t do that.”

  She smiled, and her voice took on a sweet, pleading quality. “You are special in your own apelike way. It’s a really long story, and I’d rather show than tell. Shall we?” She leaned in and closed her eyes as if hearing some really lovely music, and I felt the air vibrate faintly. It was like there was a breeze in the air that couldn’t decide which way to blow. “I left you use of your legs, and your arm doesn’t even hurt anymore. You want to stand up and go back to that building down there. You want to come home with me. Your dad misses you, and mine misses me.”

  I didn’t want to think of whatever monstrosity called Tabbabitha his daughter. “I’d rather not.”

  She shook Bob’s head, grabbed my chin in his hand, and made eye contact. “You want to come with me.” There was something in her voice, something that smelled nice underneath all that stink. It pulled at me in a way I was familiar with. The air all around me seemed to vibrate in a really pleasant, lovely way, and I found myself wanting things I didn’t want just a second before.

  Imagine you just got a brand-new video game. You’ve been waiting for months for it, and you finally have it. It’s in your house, sitting next to the computer or console, and all you have to do is click a few buttons and you can play it. But you have homework or chores and you can’t. Tabbabitha was telling me I could have what I wanted. I just had to let her give it to me. And it would be so easy to just let go and leave it to her. She could handle things . . .

  But there was something else, part of me that knew it was a lie. It was like a voice in my head that screamed in rage every time she made me believe something that wasn’t true. A fresh wave of nausea and vertigo passed over me, and the struggle was over.