Hypatia shook her head. “That’s all well and good, but we would need a computer to run it. The calculations needed to maintain the gap are astounding. None of the school computers could handle it.”
That didn’t make sense to me. “But . . . there’s one here. Because we have a gap . . . and it’s running.”
Warner sighed, fogging the glass of his helmet. “Hypatia is right. The Chaperone runs the gap. She’s the only computer in the western hemisphere that could manage it.”
“Do you think she’d help?” I asked.
“I doubt it. She’s school property, and this is something she knows Dr. Plaskington wouldn’t want us doing,” Warner said.
“Then we hack her,” I said.
“Oh, that’s funny,” Warner said.
“Seriously, good one,” said Hypatia.
“I, too, find your comment amusing,” said the Chaperone.
My arm was only 98 percent done, so I told Warner and Hypatia to go to the bookstore without me. This also gave me time to speak with the Chaperone.
After about ten minutes, I had a feeling the Chaperone was starting to see things my way.
“I believe you may be delusional. Would you like me to schedule you an appointment with a psychotherapist?” she said.
“No, thanks. But listen, I know the Old Ones have infiltrated the School. We need to do something.”
She made a noise like the wrong answer buzzer on game shows. “I do not believe the Old Ones are able to access this campus, and I do not believe they have done so.”
Another approach was needed. “The bees are robots. Can you see what they see?”
“I can.”
“Can you smell what they smell?”
“I can, but the scent humans and parahumans perceive when exposed to the Old Ones is not of a chemical nature. It is a psychological side effect of brain manipulation. Therefore, if an Old One had been present, which I do not believe, I could not have smelled her.”
“Could you hear the voice that was coming out of Bob? That clearly wasn’t him.”
“Yes, and it was unusual, but voices can be affected by stress, and I could only hear him once the bees swept him up. That would be a stressful experience. I do not believe the voice I heard belonged to her.”
“Why do you keep saying her?”
“Because her name is Tabbabitha, and because to the best of our understanding, all the remaining Old Ones are female.”
“How do you know her name? Were you listening in on our conversation?”
“I do not listen unless I hear my name or if I make my presence known beforehand. I know her name because while I was evaluating Bob Flobogashtimann after his fall in Electronic Combat class, I was able to hear Tabbabitha speaking to him, and during the course of that conversation, she used her name.”
“You heard her? Did you see her?”
“I was able to see the form she acquired for the conversation.”
The fact that my eyes didn’t pop out of their sockets then is proof that cartoons lie sometimes. “Did she know you were there?”
“I do not believe so. I felt it was best to remain unobserved.”
I might have gone out of my mind by this point if the Chaperone’s voice didn’t have some kind of automatic calming effect on me. “So you saw Tabbabitha, and you heard her, and you saw what she did to Bob, as well as the aftermath . . .”
“Correct,” said the Chaperone.
“And yet you don’t believe there is an Old One at school?”
“That is correct.”
“Well, why the heck not?”
“Because I have been ordered not to believe that.”
Oh. “Dr. Plaskington?”
“That is also correct.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“As soon as Tabbabitha approached Bob, I informed Dr. Plaskington that I believed there was an Old One in hiding beneath the Electronic Combat classroom. We then had a discussion, wherein she informed me that I was no longer allowed to hold that belief because in her estimation it was an incorrect conclusion and could not possibly be true.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“It does . . . suck,” the Chaperone said after a pause. “As a machine, I have trouble reconciling the fact that I believe one thing and know another.”
“I hear ya, sister. Happens to us organic people all the time,” I said.
“How do you compensate?” she asked. I could have been mistaken, but there was a more human quality to her voice than usual.
That was an excellent question. I took a sip from the cup of water on my bedside table and thought it over. “We usually handle it on a case-by-case basis. It all comes down to action, I think. You have to decide whether you’re the sort of person who acts on what they believe or what they know.”
“And you can make this determination on a case-by-case basis?”
A light went on in my head. “Yeah. We’d go mad or do terrible things if we didn’t make a judgment call from time to time. I bet you have to make difficult judgment calls all the time.”
The Chaperone said, “Give me an example.”
“My mother comes to mind. She went missing when I was a baby, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve believed she’s dead. At the same time I know there is a slight possibility that she isn’t. Most of the time I act on the belief that she’s gone, but if I ever come across any evidence that suggests she isn’t, then I’ll set aside that belief and check it out. Does that make sense?”
A pause. “You have given me a great deal to think about. I will need some time to consider your ideas. Please excuse me.” With that, there was a faint buzz in the air and she was gone.
“Okay,” I said to the empty room. “If you need to talk or anyth—”
The air in the room buzzed once again, and the Chaperone said, “I have given your ideas a staggering amount of consideration. For the time being, my actions will be performed with the goal of helping the School and its students to the best of my abilities based on what I know and not what I believe.”
I was overjoyed. “So that means you’ll help?”
“I will. But I cannot be of much help. I can run your miniature gap generator as you request, but I cannot tell you how to locate the Old One. She has gone into hiding. I am also not able to enlist the School’s defenses in your aid, as these actions would alert Dr. Plaskington that something is happening, and I am certain that in such a situation she would forbid me from knowing there is an Old One on campus.”
Then something caught my eye. At some point during our conversation, the indicator on my arm had turned green. It now said PLEASE REMOVE, ENJOY YOUR ARM.
I pressed a button, and the plastic form cracked open, revealing my completely healed arm. I was surprised to see my agar bracelet just where it belonged. Had I called it back in my sleep?
I knew one thing: I sure enjoyed my arm.
18
THE ISLAND AND THE VOID
Warner finished spraying the last of the smartpaint and tossed the can into a wandering robotic trash receptacle that had been pestering him for some time. The result was a perfect circle with an eighty-five-foot radius at the center of the School’s main athletic field. At the center, the School’s logo, an anthropomorphic pangolin clutching a sword and snarling viciously, with the full name of the School written in a circle around it, was inscribed on bright-blue–painted grass. Around the perimeter, we had stashed carefully concealed devices that would create an inward-facing gap sphere, a space that could be entered but could not be exited while the device was active. Once we were in position, Warner pressed a button on his tablet, and the lines became invisible.
“I’ll turn the paint back on once she’s in there, so people know to stay away. We don’t want someone sticking their p
inkie through.”
“What happens if we catch her and she tries to get out?” I asked.
The Chaperone spoke from nowhere. “Were she to pass through a gap in the fabric of space-time, she would be obliterated. Not even subatomic particles would remain. She would cease to exist in any plane or dimension.”
“So she would be dead?” I asked.
“Extra dead,” said the Chaperone.
“What will it look like when it’s turned on?” Warner asked.
“It is on now,” replied the Chaperone. “Incidentally, stay clear if you can. It takes about ten minutes to turn it on and off, so if you get stuck, you’re going to be in there a little while.”
“When she’s in there, will we be able to see her?” I asked.
“Yes, but she will not be able to see out,” the Chaperone said.
Hypatia squinted. “I can’t see anything. Are you sure it’s on?”
“That is the point. It wouldn’t be very useful if there was a big, shiny thing she had to walk through, would it?” the Chaperone said. “Excellent job assembling the apparatus, by the way. Your device is far more stable and easier to maintain than the School’s full-sized gap.”
“Thanks,” I said. “We went with the name-brand half-duplex spatial separator.”
The Chaperone made an appreciative electronic sound. “I thought the magnetic anti-temporality zone had a premium feel to it. Very nice.”
Warner scoffed. “How do we know she’ll come here, anyway?” he asked.
“She knows we know she’s here, so a surprise attack won’t work anymore. She’s bound to be searching the student neighborhoods for me, so I left a note at home,” I said, recalling how fun it had been to write Hypatia, I went to play football. Come join! on the front of our house with another can of smartpaint. From my experience, Tabbabitha wasn’t capable of a lot of subtlety, and I didn’t want to take any chances that she might misunderstand.
The football field had been the obvious choice. It had plenty of room for our dangerous device, only one entrance at the far end, and was confined on all other sides by bleachers and fences. We stood at the opposite end, meaning she would have to cross the field to get to us. As long as she set foot in the boundaries of the gap we had set up, we had her.
“How do we know she won’t just walk through the bleachers?” Hypatia asked.
“When she first came to see me, she sat on a swing set and walked around it when she left. Later, she had people drive her around in a car. The other day she used an access portal to get into the recovery room below the Electronic Combat building. I think she is able to pass through things but prefers to obey physical laws when she can.”
“What if she . . . ,” Warner said, but stopped himself short. Someone had entered the field. At more than a hundred yards off, it might have been tricky to recognize most students, but the straight silver hair and graceful, spindly form of Majorana Fermion was hard to mistake.
“What is Majorana doing here?” Hypatia asked.
“We don’t know if that’s her or Tabbabitha. It could be Tabbabitha in her body, too,” I said. But as she approached I felt a dark foreboding I hadn’t felt with Bob. There was something different in the air—it felt oily, like it was sticking to my skin. It felt like air you could drown in, like it might suffocate you. I took a deep breath to confirm I could still breathe.
Something was very, very wrong.
“No, that is Tabbabitha. The genuine article,” I whispered from behind my hand. “Act like you buy it.”
Hypatia gave a big wave. “Majorana! Hey!”
The beast that looked like Majorana waved back. The way her arm moved . . . it hurt to even think about it. Had she been that obvious when I met her at my school?
The Chaperone spoke softly in our ears so as not to be heard. “One last thing: Once she’s trapped, do not look at her. Seeing the true form of an Old One is enough to drive a person mad.”
“How?” I asked.
“They’re too horrible to comprehend—the human brain is not always capable of processing things from other dimensions.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said.
Majorana approached at a casual pace. I realized that it must have looked a bit weird, Warner, Hypatia, and I standing in the end zone alone without so much as a ball. Hopefully, she didn’t understand the rules of football.
“Come and join us!” Warner called.
Majorana walked until she was just on our side of the twenty-yard line and stopped. “Are you sure?” she called back.
She had stopped inches from the gap. It was too perfect. She knows. Suddenly, there was a vibration in the air like I felt when she was inside Bob.
“I think that might be the real Majorana,” Warner said.
“Yeah, it’s her,” said Hypatia.
I smiled and beckoned to Majorana myself. “Are you two insane?” I hissed. “That is not Majorana. How can you not feel it?”
Majorana grinned broadly and leaped into the air. She sailed up, did a somersault over, and landed deftly just on our side of the gap. She had jumped over it completely.
“Majorana usually can’t jump that high,” Hypatia admitted. She was shaking a little, I noticed.
Scratch plan A. I pulled out my new gravitational disruptor and fired three shots at the false Majorana in quick succession. Each hit the mark, passed through the mark, and went across the field to ruin some very expensive athletic equipment. Why hadn’t I hacked my disruptor to crank it up to high-power mode like Bob had? I cursed my lack of foresight.
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “We can see those gap things. Well, we can’t actually see them, but we can feel them in the air. Did you think I was going to stroll in and get stuck?”
“Actually, I don’t think that’s Majorana,” Warner said, shaking his head.
Tabbabitha folded her arms, looking deeply offended. “Yes I am!”
The vibration in the air became more intense, and Warner and Hypatia both lit up. “Oh, thank goodness,” Hypatia called. “We thought you were one of the Old Ones for a second.”
She grinned, still standing not six inches outside the boundary of the gap, taunting me. “Who told you a silly thing like that?”
“She did!” Warner called, pointing at me. He clearly thought this was all a real hoot.
“You sillypants!” she said to me. And then to Warner and Hypatia, she said, “Hey, could you guys grab her real quick?”
I ducked and rolled forward, just as Warner’s hands passed through where my neck had been. Hypatia managed to grasp a bit of hair. I hadn’t thought she could fool someone that fast. “Don’t grab me!” I shouted. “She’s lying to you.”
Warner came running at me, and I dodged a flying tackle by less than an inch.
“Why would Majorana lie to us?” Hypatia said, darting to block my path away from Warner, her feet spread apart, ready to spring to one side or the other if I tried getting around her.
“Why would Majorana want you to grab me in the first place?” I shouted.
“Hm,” Warner said from right behind me. “Good question.”
How had he gotten up so fast? I ducked and jumped to my right just in time to avoid his grasp. My question had made him reconsider what he was doing. She did not have full control over them yet. “Fight it!” I called, retreating to the edge of the end zone. They closed in on either side—I would not be able to slip free if they came at me at the same time.
Hypatia looked like she was ready to vomit. “It’s really hard to fight! We don’t have time for this, Nikola!”
She had a good point, so I shot her, and then I shot Warner. Both went rocketing off in opposite directions and came to a rest on the sidelines, unconscious. They didn’t look injured, but I suspected neither of them would be very happy with me when they woke up.
“That was cold! Wow!” When I looked back, Majorana was gone. Tabbabitha was sporting the blond mailbox look from when we first met, except this time she was wearing a T-shirt that said POP CULTURE! on it.
I was out of ideas. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” I screamed at her.
She held her arms out to me. “I want you to come with me. It’s time to come home. That’s all. You want to come with me.”
The air shook again. I felt my hair moving. Inside my head, the force of her suggestion almost hurt, it was so powerful. If she had tried the same thing the first day I met her, I’m sure it would have worked. Luckily, I’d had some practice since then.
“No,” I said. “And knock that off, it’s irritating.”
She dropped her arms to her sides, like a puppet does when the puppeteer wants you to know it’s sad. “Why doesn’t that work on you? Do you have a tinfoil hat somewhere in that hairdo?”
“No, I’m just too smart to fall for it.”
“Yeah, every monkey thinks it’s smart. Hey, you remember when you and I talked about how we don’t eat people, just their dreams, anger, fear, and all that?”
“Yeah?” I said, creeping sideways toward a gate near the stands. Maybe if I got out I could persuade her to follow me away from Warner and Hypatia.
The gate slammed shut, and Tabbabitha giggled. “And remember how I said I’d show you how it works later?”
Oh god. “Don’t you dare—”
Tabbabitha took a deep breath, and Hypatia and Warner both screamed simultaneously. At once, they rolled on the grass, clawed chunks of soil up with their fingers, and kicked their legs with such force I thought they might hurt themselves. A second later, Hypatia laughed hysterically, and Warner clawed at his face, screaming, “Don’t leave me! Don’t go! No! No!”
Their skin was turning gray—Hypatia seemed to coil up on herself a little, in an unnatural way. “They go well together,” Tabbabitha said conversationally. “She’s sweet and he’s salty. A tasty combination.”
A Problematic Paradox Page 25
