The Zanna Function

by Daniel Wheatley

  “Shut up!” Beatrice snapped. She squeezed the cannonball between both her hands. Zanna caught on to her plan at once and copied her, though she didn’t have an Iron to help her focus. Together, they grabbed the air in the doorway, reinforcing Libby’s manipulation. The threat of a Splutter made Zanna’s head split like firewood to halfway down her spine, but she closed her eyes, shutting out the alarm and the fear for her grandfather and the storm of her own emotions. She focused on the air.

  A sound from Libby like she had been punched in the throat, a final massive slam of metal, and then everything went silent. The air was gone, pushed out of the way as the door closed, and with it, the cottage had been sealed. Nothing was coming out until it was unlocked. A limit had been reached.

  Libby lay wheezing on the stone path. Apparently, Nora had pulled her through—and rather violently at that. The girls crowded around her, and she waved them back with her bent fire poker, getting up under her own strength. Blood smeared around her nose, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. In the doorway, an inch of Nora’s once-perfect ruler stuck out like the remains of a squashed fly.

  Beatrice rounded on Zanna at once, the small girl ablaze with righteous anger. She jabbed with a finger, completely ignoring Zanna’s bandages. “Okay,” she said. “You better start explaining. Right now.”

  But Zanna looked past her into the afternoon of St. Pommeroy’s. The alarm in the cottage that had been cut off by the limiting door had gotten picked up by the other buildings. Lights flashed, and Mrs. Appernathy squawked out of what seemed like every corner, ushering students to the cafeteria. Giant shadows passed overhead. The islands were coming in like birds to roost. And then, with a quake that she felt all the way down in her bones, an enormous function was thrown in the belly of the school and the iron bowl began to close up.

  “Fine,” Zanna said. “Keep up. I’ll explain on the way.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Zanna didn’t have a direction in mind, so she took off back toward the Candela. As she ran, she did her best to fill the girls in on everything that had happened since the message from Lord Hemmington had arrived that morning. “She’s got Pops,” Zanna said as they hurried through the plaza with the statue of Hippocrates. She could have sworn that the stone eyes of the kind-looking man followed her and her friends as they passed by. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to find him.”

  The path turned around an ivy-covered building, and she pulled up short. In the lockdown, the administration tower had come to life, its tranquil English garden now full of Particles, as if someone had kicked a beehive. Teachers shot across the empty space, somehow not colliding with the millions of silver spheres whizzing around. The tower at the center of the garden had opened like a wardrobe, its many shelves of offices open to the outside. At the top, its bright candle flame burned an angry martial-red.

  “Man, that seems like overkill,” Libby said as the girls piled up one after another behind Zanna, who had skidded to a stop.

  “Oh, we are going to be in so much trouble,” Nora whispered.

  “I have to get out of here,” Zanna said, as if the mere act of repeating it over and over would make it come true. The iron shell sealing the school was visible above the buildings. It had been waiting for all the orbiting islands to come in, but now that they were docked, the shell resumed its lockdown faster than before.

  “The Primers are walking into a trap,” Zanna continued, ducking back a little into the safety of the stone archway. “They’ve been wrong about the Variable all year. I don’t know what their plan is to rescue my grandfather, but I do know it’s not going to work. They still think she’s just trying to kidnap me, when it’s nothing like that.”

  “The who?” Libby asked.

  Zanna smacked herself on the head. “The Variable. The woman who kidnapped me.”

  “Ah, because she’s an unknown. Gotcha.” Libby snuck another peek out at the administrative courtyard. “So . . . what? Were you planning on just rescuing him by yourself?”

  “There’s no one else to do it,” Zanna said. She struggled to get the words right. “The Primers don’t know her like I do. They don’t know what she’s capable of. But I do. I know how she thinks, how she plans things out . . .” Her throat tightened as the words “I know her Self” almost slipped past her lips. Instead, she said, “I know her.”

  A particularly angry horde of Particles came buzzing through, and the girls flattened against the wall. Nora pinched her lips together and shook her head, eyes transfixed on the Candela in lockdown mode. Zanna couldn’t blame her. They were already in a heap of trouble for attacking Xavier and poor Mrs. Turnbuckle. No reason to make it any worse.

  A cold, firm object slipped into her hands, and for a moment, Zanna wondered if it was a piece of iron. But it was Beatrice, hefting that cannonball up to her shoulder with one hand as she squeezed Zanna’s with the other.

  “Nobody kidnaps Pops and gets away with it,” the small girl said. “I’m with you.”

  “Girls!” a voice behind them shouted. They all jumped and spun around, recognizing Mrs. Appernathy at once. The statue of Hippocrates was pointing at them, directing an approaching squad of lampposts. “All of the students are to report to the cafeteria at once. Stop standing around!”

  “What’s the plan, then, fearless leader?” Libby muttered. Arms emerged from the lamppost poles—long, spindly green things with open palms to escort them off to the cafeteria.

  “I don’t know,” Zanna whispered. The lampposts herded them away from the Candela. “I can’t . . .” She had been expecting a plan to come to her, but there was nothing in her head except thoughts of her grandfather being locked up in the Variable’s mansion. “I can’t think—”

  “Oh, for the love of science, here’s the plan,” Nora said, and she raised her hand. Pinpoint lances of pure oxygen coalesced out of the air and hit the lampposts square in the joints, where the metal was as bright as a new penny. In the blink of an eye, a heavy patina like crusty green barnacles sprouted from the surface, and the lampposts stuttered to a halt like old, arthritic men. “Run!”

  The word revitalized them, and they took off into the chaos of the Candela’s garden. Mrs. Appernathy shouted for them to stop, her lampposts pulling the patina back into the metal so the posts could move again, but that took time, and the girls were already halfway into the garden, running with their heads low to avoid all the overhead Particles. Libby threw a dust storm back over her shoulder, ripping the rose petals and topsoil from the nearby flowerbeds to conceal them.

  “Head toward the parking lot!” Nora shouted as she slammed a door open with more ferocity than Zanna had previously thought the well-composed girl could muster. “Hurry! Before he makes it to the cafeteria!”

  “He?” Zanna asked. “Mr. Gunney?”

  “What?” Nora said. They were inside the castle wing now, and she shot a few preemptive blasts of oxygen at the sconces, rusting them to the wall. “No, you dummy!” she shouted as she knocked over a candelabra. “Cedwick!”

  The name almost made Zanna trip, and she had to stick her arms out like a toddler to regain her balance. “Cedwick?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Nora said, as if it were the most obvious thing. “He’s got a car. And he’s the only one crazy enough to let you borrow it. Now hurry! Before he gets locked up in the cafeteria!”

  As they crossed into the ancient Greek part of the school, Zanna looked up through the columns, and her stomach dropped. The iron shell was almost completely closed. Only a small circle at the very top still let the afternoon light through, and that was shrinking rapidly. They burst into the entrance hall with the reflecting pool and olive trees, and Zanna spotted a familiar figure down at the far end, slowly moping his way toward the cafeteria with his chauffeur, Sophie, in tow.

  “Cedwick!”

  There was no time to explain. Cedwick and Sop
hie had barely turned their heads before the girls were on top of them. Had Sophie known what was coming, she might have put up a better fight, but the girls had surprise on their side. Four uncoordinated bursts of nitrogen hit the woman at once, and she nearly lifted out of her shoes, crashing back into an olive tree.

  “Come on!” Libby shouted as she grabbed Cedwick by his tie. The olive trees were swaying and groaning in a way that Zanna didn’t like at all. She surged forward, overtaking Nora in the lead as she dashed through the main archway and out into the parking lot.

  Dr. Trout stood before her.

  How Zanna stopped, she had no idea. One moment her legs were pounding away like maniacs, and then she was perfectly still, staring at the woman in her way. Her professor looked as she always did, baseball bat held lightly in one weathered hand and a stack of books tucked under the other. Like the entire school was not screaming and flashing and running wild around her.

  Then she was gone, as quickly as an illusion vanishing. Zanna hadn’t even had the time to swallow and explain why she was here and not in the cafeteria.

  “Oof!” Nora exclaimed as she ran smack into Zanna. “Why’d you stop?”

  “I don’t know,” Zanna whispered. There was nothing in front of her except the courtyard.

  “What in the world is going on?!” Cedwick shouted, trying and failing to twist out of Libby’s iron grip. “What did you do to Sophie? We’re supposed to be—”

  “Your limousine,” Nora demanded. “Where is it?”

  “There!” Beatrice answered for Cedwick, pointing beyond the row of buses to the visitor parking.

  Mrs. Appernathy shouted from the lampposts for them to turn around, condemning them to years of detention. In the silver-gushing fountain at the center of the courtyard, something like a monstrous hand rippled up angrily. They ran without looking back.

  “My grandfather’s in danger,” Zanna said by way of explanation. “And the Primers, they’re walking into something they don’t understand. We’re their only hope.”

  Cedwick squirmed. “You can’t be serious,” he said, piecing together why they needed his limousine at once. “My father—”

  “Is in danger,” Zanna finished. They made it to the limousine, but the doors were locked. “I can explain everything, but we have to go.” She checked the shell. Almost shut. “We have to go now.”

  Cedwick didn’t move. Libby tried to pry one of the doors open with the tip of her fire poker. It didn’t budge. “Come on!” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Please,” Zanna said, as calmly as her heart would let her. “Please, Cedwick. I need your help.”

  For a second, she didn’t think he was going to do it. Then he let out a sharp exhale and touched the limousine, disengaging the lock. The door popped open at once and the girls piled into the back as fast as they could.

  “You do know how to drive this, right?” Nora asked as Cedwick climbed into the driver’s seat. The boy’s fingers flew over the dashboard.

  “Of course,” Cedwick scoffed, which made Zanna grin a little. It reminded her of the cocky boy she had met—and loathed—on the first day. The limousine jerked as he twisted his hand around, pulling back on a polished chrome lever that ran deep into the function engine of the automobile. With a little bump, it rose from the ground.

  “Faster,” Nora said. The girls all crowded up to the front to peer out the windshield, fighting for space. St. Pommeroy’s iron shell was nearly closed, and they were going too slowly. “Faster,” Nora said again, and Cedwick grumbled something in response, making adjustments as quickly as he could. They were still too slow, and the gap was only ten feet across.

  “Faster!”

  Cedwick punched something, and they flew. An instant of weightless terror shot through the limousine, and then Zanna slammed against the backseat with the other girls, speed holding her in place. It let go as quickly as it had grabbed them, and Cedwick cooled the engines, safe outside the iron shell.

  “Ow,” the pile of girls moaned in unison as they disentangled themselves. Beatrice’s cannonball had apparently socked Libby right in the nose, and she handed it back with a few choice words about what reasonable people should choose for their Iron. Zanna winced at the pain in her ribs as she sat up, but a few cursory pokes with her finger told her that at least they hadn’t broken again.

  Cedwick looked back at them, the limousine evidently running on autopilot. “Okay,” he said, a little flustered but wide-eyed at the thrill of their narrow escape. “Start talking.”

  The girls were silent, and then Zanna realized all of them were looking at her. At once, her face went bright-red, and she looked down at her empty hands. If she had an Iron right now, she would hold it tightly and draw strength from it, but the best she could do was a bit of nitrogen gas, and that gave her no comfort. “My grandfather was kidnapped sometime this morning,” she said. “That’s why Xavier was in my room. He was part of the cover-up. The Primers are trying to rescue Pops, but it’s not going to work. Your dad has been wrong about the Variable—the woman who attacked you at my house—since the very first day. He thinks she’s just some kidnapper, but she’s not. She’s more powerful than any Scientist I’ve ever seen. They’re walking into a death trap.”

  It was cold in the limousine, cold and bitter like a barren mountaintop. Now that Zanna had a few moments to sit still, the impact of what she had been telling herself had time to permeate. The words death trap were especially heavy.

  “So . . . what? You’re going to warn my father?” Cedwick asked. The pessimism in his voice cut quick. “Because he won’t listen to you. Trust me, I know.”

  “I know,” Zanna said, her chin raised. “He didn’t listen to me earlier. No, we’re going to rescue my grandfather.”

  “Just like that?” Cedwick said dryly. “Do you have any sort of plan?”

  “I do,” she said, though that wasn’t quite accurate. She had known what the plan would have to be ever since she had properly understood the situation, but like so many other things, she had been steadfastly ignoring it. It was stupid and reckless—and the only possible thing that had a chance of working. “This whole time, the Variable’s only been after one thing. She wants me to live with her. So I will.”

  Zanna might well have told everyone she was going to walk into a meat grinder. They recoiled at once, Libby letting out a “What?!” through the wad of napkins she was holding to her nose to stanch the bleeding.

  “There’s no other way,” Zanna said, trying to shout over the other girls, who were all talking at once and telling her it was the worst idea she’d ever had. “I’m trying, I really am, but I can’t—”

  “I did not just brain a Primer so we could hand you back over,” Beatrice said with a scowl.

  “Or break every rule of St. Pommeroy’s emergency protocol,” Nora added.

  “Or steal my father’s limousine,” Cedwick said.

  “Or smash my nose!”

  “Please, listen,” Zanna said, trying to calm the ruckus in the limousine. “Listen!”

  That managed to silence the group, though Zanna could still see the disagreement plain on their faces. She let out a long breath. “The Variable’s been trying to keep me out of St. Pommeroy’s this whole time. Don’t ask me why”—and she stuttered a bit at that part—“but that’s what’s going on. Everything with the illusion at the beginning of the year, at the party, all of this—it’s one attempt after another. She wants to do a trade. Me for my grandfather. So I bet you that the Primers are putting together some sort of metallurgical illusion of me and are hoping to trade that off instead of the real thing. But no matter how complex they make it, it’s not going to be enough to fool her. She—” The words caught again, and Zanna had to work around them. “She’ll see right through it. And I don’t know what she might do to the Primers if she gets angry.”

  When Zanna stopped
talking, none of the girls seemed convinced, but at least they didn’t all start talking at once. “That’s still not a plan,” Beatrice said. “That’s just you getting captured.”

  “No, it’s me being a decoy,” Zanna said. “She’s going to expect the Primers to send a metallurgical illusion. Lord Hemmington would never willingly turn me over to her.”

  Cedwick grumbled something that no one could make out, but Zanna pressed on. “That’s our opening. The Variable’s not expecting the real me to show up. She’s going to be confused. Her guard will be down. That’s when the Primers have to rush in. Not before. While she’s looking for the illusion that doesn’t exist.”

  “You’ll never get my father to go along with that,” Cedwick said.

  “I’m not asking permission from your father,” Zanna replied, eyes flicking up to the boy. “He’s just going to have to keep up with us.”

  “He’ll just as soon arrest you for interfering with a Primer operation,” Cedwick said.

  “Along with attacking several teachers, setting off a school lockdown, and stealing a limousine,” Zanna recounted. “Trust me, what your father thinks of me is the least of my worries right now.”

  “Well, I don’t like it one bit,” Nora said bluntly. “I don’t even need to run the probabilities to tell you they are not good.”

  “Then give me a better plan,” Zanna said. “Because the way I see it, it’s either this, or I never see my grandfather again.”

  Nora didn’t back down entirely, but she didn’t have a good reply either. None of the girls did. Libby let out a hock of dried blood and threw away her stained napkins, her eyes catching Beatrice’s for just a moment. The limousine balanced delicately.

  “It’ll work,” Beatrice said at last, nodding back at Libby. She turned her head toward Nora. “We’ll make it work.”

  Nora sighed. “This is an exceptionally disorganized plan.”

  “I’ll assume that’s a yes. Cedwick?” Zanna asked.