A Problematic Paradox

by Eliot Sappingfield

  She smiled Bob’s mouth at me, and I wondered if she knew how little effect she was having.

  With all my might, I forced myself to smile placidly. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  She popped right up. “I told you, silly. We’re going to my place. I have a door all set up down there,” she said, pointing down at the “orriso A besto Pr sing” building. “We’re going to have so much fun. I can’t wait!”

  Keep her talking, learn what you can, I thought. “But where is your place? Is it far? I can’t wait to see it!”

  She stashed her disruptor in Bob’s back pocket and lifted me to my feet. The pain from my arm flooded my entire body again, and the world swam with blackness. My head buzzed, and the ground seemed to vibrate under my feet. She told me it didn’t hurt. I can’t show it.

  Tabbabitha was tugging my good arm, leading me down the hill. Her touch, even through Bob’s hand, was almost unbearable. It was cold and wrong and disgusting. It was everything bad and perverse that had ever existed formed into a single hand on my arm. “It’ll just take a moment, and we’ll be there. Wormholes out of this place are easy. Getting in was the trick. We should hurry. Come on!”

  I shook my head to fight off the blackness. I knew I’d pass out the moment I stopped concentrating on keeping myself moving.

  “I bet you like it cold. You must live in Antarctica.”

  “It’s a nice place to visit,” she said conversationally, “but I’d never live there. Too remote, too cold, nobody good to eat.”

  That caught me off guard. “You eat . . . people?”

  “Nah, just their hopes, dreams, anger, fear, and love. It’s hard to explain. I can show you how it works later, ’kay?”

  “Okay!” I said. It must be somewhere near human habitation with a more temperate climate. Wasn’t really narrowing things down. I was barely keeping it together—my stomach churned, and the buzzing in my head had become a low, constant drone. Everything grew dark. I didn’t have much longer before I had to act or faint from the pain in my arm. “What kind of food do they like there? I like Chinese and Mexican food a lot.”

  “I can arrange whatever you like, but delivery can get a little bit tricky that far under—”

  A thrumming black fist screamed out of the sky and slammed into Bob’s body from behind. His hand was ripped from my arm, and I watched helplessly as his form was dragged shrieking into the air inside a massive cloud of angry bees. Moving with a speed I didn’t think possible for insects, they carried him down the hill and then upward.

  Somewhere inside the black cloud, Tabbabitha was screaming. I could see her thrashing about, batting at the little monsters as they stung Bob’s body again and again. Suddenly, she fell silent. A moment later, it was Bob’s voice that was screaming.

  My mind reeled in frustration and fury—Bob hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t need to die. I had to do something.

  Just then a brilliant column of light rose from somewhere below. Immediately beneath where the cloud of bees were doing their work, I saw Warner lying broken in the gutter with his own disruptor trained skyward. His single shot rose and hit the cloud of bees dead center. The bees were scattered in all directions, and Bob’s body fell. No—he wasn’t falling. He was being pulled down. Warner’s reversed disruptor. Cursing Warner and his stupid tricks, I knew for a second that Bob was doomed. But then I realized: Tabbabitha had left—I could feel it. I tore the agar bracelet from my ruined arm and threw it down the hill. It was a wheel—no—a glider, heavy, fast—it needs to be faster. Something flashed in my memory—a peregrine falcon can dive at 250 miles an hour—faster than a falling body. I saw it change and swoop down the hill, felt it make contact with Bob’s body. The agar enveloped him completely and expanded—inflated and . . . bounced. It sailed down the hill at immense speed like an enormous bowling ball, bouncing and careening off buildings before finally coming to a rest gently alongside the barbed-wire fence. The world around me swam and my vision dimmed. Somewhere in the distance, a tiny voice said, “What wazzz thzzzat?”

  I took a seat on the hill and let myself rest.

  17

  KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF

  There was hot breath on my face. Something tickled the inside of my nostrils . . . pimento loaf?

  “We might have to start charging you for these visits.”

  “What?” I said.

  My arm, my everything still hurt—but not in the same way. It was distant, like hearing someone tell me about the pain rather than experiencing it myself. I smelled . . . salami? I opened my eyes, and Dr. Plaskington’s nose was about a quarter inch from my own.

  “Gah!” I said, sitting up. Doing this caused my arm to move and gave me such a jolt of real, actual pain that I had to lie back down again.

  “What happened?” Dr. Plaskington said. “Tell me everything.”

  “Is Bob alive? How about Warner? Are they okay?” I asked.

  Dr. Plaskington nodded. “Somehow, yes. All of you survived. Now, tell me what happened.”

  I sat up again, attempting to ignore the pain in my arm. “She’s here somewhere. She had Bob, but she let him go because the bees hurt her. Chaperone!”

  A vague buzz sounded from nowhere in the room. “Yes?” the Chaperone said.

  “What’s under the . . . the building where we have Electronic Combat class? Could someone get into the room where they take fallen students without being detected?”

  “An access portal connects the recovery room, which students call the afterlife to—”

  “Chaperone!” barked Dr. Plaskington. “Go away. You and I can talk later.”

  “Very well,” the Chaperone said, and was gone with the same buzz.

  Dr. Plaskington focused back on me, not looking anywhere near as cheerful and dotty as I remembered. “You were about to tell me what happened in the industrial district this morning.”

  “Didn’t the Chaperone tell you? I thought she sees everything that happens in town.”

  “That particular section of our fair school is one of her few blind spots. Because the industrial zone is not of much use for classes or housing, small portions of it are unmonitored.”

  “But the bees—”

  “The bees responded to a distress call from a student who saw Bob Flobogashtimann discharge an illegally modified gravitational disruptor at your head. Did you make him angry?”

  “No!” I said. “Tabbabitha got to him. She told him to do it—she was controlling him somehow.”

  Dr. Plaskington was confused. “Tabbab—you mean the Old One you claim accosted you before your father was taken? The one you and Hypatia believe was talking to you through a wristwatch?”

  Claim? She hadn’t used that word before.

  “Yes, that one! She’s here. Somewhere,” I said, scanning the room. I took a deep sniff and smelled only disinfectant and a faint trace of Dr. Plaskington’s breath.

  “Pull the other leg! That is simply not a possibility.”

  “Listen, lady,” I said. “I heard her voice coming out of Bob. I smelled her. She was there, or close by. I know it. There’s no way she could have—”

  “It’s not possible. Not a single unauthorized atom has entered school grounds from any direction at any point in our history. The gap has been in constant operation for just over forty-nine years and has never failed once.”

  “But when the sonic cannon—”

  “The sonic cannon disrupted the shield briefly, but at no point did it fail. During that time, you could not have passed so much as a molecule through without it being destroyed. I do not speak on faith. I am a woman of science and have confirmed this conclusion repeatedly with the Chaperone and our best teachers. Not only do they agree that the gap did not fail, but not one of them has been able to come up with a scenario where something could have passed through the gap apart from our turning it off altoge
ther.”

  “Listen,” I said. “Maybe it didn’t fail. I don’t know. But she’s here—I know that. She talked to me through Bob. She was about to tell me where they were keeping my father when your stupid psychopathic bees came in and—”

  “From what I understand, those stupid bees saved your life. Bob was about to—”

  “Tabbabitha thought she was taking me back to wherever their hideout or lair or whatever was. But the bees went into terminator mode, and now all I know is that my dad is underground somewhere.”

  Dr. Plaskington shook her head, an expression of pity on her face. “I should have anticipated this. You’ve been through so much in such a short amount of time . . . No wonder you’re seeing the Old Ones around every corner. Are you having other symptoms? Memory loss or unexplained gaps in time?”

  I had some opinions I wanted to share, but Dr. Plaskington held up a hand to silence me, and it was obvious nothing I could say would make a difference.

  “The past few weeks have been difficult for me as well,” she said. “I have been answering calls from parents and staff members nonstop since the accident with the sonic cannon, and all of them at least suspect the Old Ones are skulking around somewhere in my town. Fortunately, things can calm down now that we know who was responsible.”

  “You know who was responsible for the cannon? Who was— You don’t mean Bob?”

  “Who else? He was unaccounted for at times before the incident occurred, and he’s shown both the inclination and the willingness to commit violence. He is confined to detention and shall be referred to the authorities once our investigation is complete.”

  “Lady, for a smart person you sure can be a real dumbass. It wasn’t Bob! He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  She stood angrily. “Young lady! In my day we did not speak to our elders in that manner!”

  “Because in your day you had to do it by carrier pigeon!”

  Her face was turning red. “This discussion is over. I think you ought to take some time to consider whether you wish to continue your education at this institution. If you decide you wish to do so, then perhaps an apology will be in order. Within forty-eight hours, I should think.”

  I might have said something else, but she stormed from the room.

  “Wow! What was her problem?” Hypatia said, peeking in the door.

  I’d never been so glad to see anyone. “Thank god, Hypatia! They think Bob sabotaged the cannon. They think he attacked me after class—it’s awful!”

  “I heard! Are you okay?”

  I glanced at the arm that had been turned into pulp that morning and found a white arm-shaped plastic case where it should have been. A digital readout on the surface said 86% COMPLETE.

  “Looks like I’m almost there.”

  “Warner emailed me after class and told me everything. Why would Bob attack you?”

  “It wasn’t Bob! Do you think he could sabotage the sonic cannon?”

  “Well, he did fail remedial hacking.”

  I nodded furiously, since I couldn’t talk with both hands. “See? It was Tabbabitha! I’m telling you, Hypatia, I heard her voice. I smelled her. She was inside him somehow—it was much deeper than with you, like she’d taken him over. And she stopped me from using my agar.”

  “Yeah, they can do that.”

  “What? They can? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  Hypatia pulled the stool back to the bed and sat down. “Nikola, there’s a lot you don’t know about them. We have a two-year required class on the Old Ones that every student has to take. You just got here. They can disrupt brain patterns—that’s what the smell is. But controlling Bob . . . They can do that, sure, but I doubt—”

  “What? Why is it so impossible that Tabbabitha was controlling Bob?”

  “Because the Old Ones initiate control using some kind of quantum entanglement. Unlimited range, but that kind of thing can’t pass through the gap.”

  I pointed at Hypatia with my good arm in emphasis, which made her jump a bit. “That proves she’s here somewhere.”

  “Nobody is going to believe that,” she said. “After she did that thing with your bear bracelet, I was sure she was here, but . . .”

  “But what?” I demanded.

  “Why hasn’t she done anything since? The gap—”

  I rolled my head back on the pillow and groaned. “I wish everyone would stop telling me about the dang gap. She must have gotten in somehow, and she’s not just here to cause mayhem. She wants me. She said that’s why they took my dad—to get at me.” Hypatia looked as if she found the idea as dubious as I did.

  “I know that sounds crazy . . . but that’s what she said.”

  “Even if she had gotten in, she couldn’t stay long. They have a hive mind, remember?”

  “Yeah, they pass each other the salt.”

  Hypatia went on. “The thing is, they can’t be out of contact for more than a few weeks or they can’t function—and their hive mind can’t penetrate the gap. If they get cut off, they either die or go into a state of hibernation until they can regain contact. If one of them infiltrated the School, they’d either die or lose the ability to function in a month or so.”

  “That means she must have gotten in recently!” I held up my arm, which was now 91 percent healed. “Listen, I know it sounds impossible. But not long ago I would have told you this was impossible. Impossible only means something we haven’t figured out yet.”

  I felt weak, not physically weak, but like my brain couldn’t figure out whether to cry or sleep. “Hypatia,” I said slowly, “I need to ask you a favor. Something I never asked anyone before.”

  “Sure, yeah!” she said, as if it was obvious.

  “Will you be my friend? I need someone on my side, and I can’t do this if nobody believes me. I just . . . I don’t know how I can—”

  She held up a hand. “Of course I believe you! I have the whole time. It’s all unlikely, but the Old Ones are the only explanation that works.”

  “You’ve believed me all along? But you’ve been arguing about everything.”

  “Thought you knew. I was playing devil’s advocate. It’s how I agree . . . I’m trying to help solidify your theory.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You also don’t have to ask me to be your friend, either. That just kind of happened, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling a bit dizzy. I didn’t know if I wanted to sock Hypatia in the arm for being obtuse or give her a bear hug just for being there. Then I remembered something else. “Warner smelled her, too. What did he say?”

  “He said it was the Old Ones. He’d just finished shouting at Dr. Plaskington before she went to see you.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Just down the hall.”

  A minute later, I was sitting at Warner’s bedside with Hypatia and about a hundred pounds of wheeled medical equipment attached to my arm. Warner was still wearing his normal clothes, but his ensemble was now complemented by what looked like an oversized astronaut’s helmet with a clear visor so he could see and hold conversations. A readout on the forehead said 92% COMPLETE.

  “Hey there, Spaceman Spiff,” I said.

  Warner smiled. “Can it. You’re the reason I’m wearing this thing. Eleven skull fractures!”

  I grinned back in spite of the situation. “And yet your personality still shines. We need to talk.”

  “The Old Ones are here, and Dr. Plaskington is blaming the cannon attack on Bob so she can keep the parents calm and the tuition checks coming,” he said without missing a beat.

  I was starting to appreciate Warner’s ability to believe in conspiracies. “So what do we do? How do we stop her?”

  “We?” said Warner and Hypatia at the same time.

  “Yes! It’s not like Dr. Plaskington is going to do anything about it. We know Tab
babitha wants me, for whatever reason, and according to Hypatia, she has a limited period of time before she has to make her escape, or the gap will disable or kill her. That means she’ll need to act fast—she’s going to get reckless sooner or later. More people will get hurt. We have to do something.”

  “Okay,” Hypatia said. “But what?”

  “First of all, we need to know where she is. Then we find her and kill her. What’s the best way to kill them?”

  “They can’t really be killed,” Warner said.

  “Okay, new plan,” I said. “We find where she is and restrain her until the gap renders her a vegetable because she can’t phone home.”

  “They can’t be restrained, either. They’re interdimensional, remember?” Hypatia said. “If you lock her in a cage, she could just slip out of reality for a moment and walk through the bars.”

  “Then how does the dang gap keep them out?”

  “It’s not reality. It’s nothing,” Warner said. “It’s a one-dimensional, one-directional gap in space-time where nothing exists and nothing can enter.”

  “Can we make a reversed one? Where anything can enter but nothing can leave?”

  Hypatia consulted her handheld. “We’d need a miniature reality-dampening matrix, a Rockomax half-duplex spatial separator, a thorium fuel cell, and a low-power cryogenic case.”

  It was hopeless. “Where are we going to get all that?”

  “At the bookstore,” Hypatia said. “Should set us back about two hundred dollars.”

  “You could do it for about one-fifty if you got one of the generic full-duplex spatial separators from Professor Dave’s Discount Hardware and just ran it at half power,” Warner offered helpfully.

  “Just get the name-brand version. Hey, could you also pick me up a new tablet and disruptor?” I said. “Have her put it on my account.”

  “Must be nice,” Warner said ruefully.

  I noticed then that his skull-repairing spaceman helmet had just ticked over to 100% COMPLETE and now said PLEASE REMOVE, ENJOY YOUR BRAIN. I decided to let him wear it a little longer.