by Joseph Calev
“I see.” His slow movements seemed like he was resonating everything around him, making sure no one else was coming. “And why are you telling me this?”
Unsure which answer wouldn’t lose me points, I paused.
“You wish us to punish him?” he said.
“Well, if he did it . . . then, yes.”
“Very well.” He escorted me to a room at the far corner of the building. “Darstan will see to your request. I need to be off to Heskera.”
Darstan was reading something on his screen when I entered. His mouth went wide and he jumped on noticing me. “A surprise visitor! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Revis destroyed my wormhole.” I was desperately holding back tears. “I’m ruined.”
He approached, peered directly into my eyeballs, then straightened himself. “Very well, then. Let’s take a look.”
I escorted him to Annie’s ship, where he placed a hand over the words written behind the empty void that should have been my wormhole. Though I’d thought that only people’s remains could be orasated, Darstan was a professor who knew a bit more than the average person.
“Yup. That was Revis. We’ll dock him one hundred and ninety points.”
“A hundred and ninety?”
“Well, two hundred for the prank, but ten for figuring out how to collapse someone else’s wormhole. That’s some complicated essonance.”
“But what about me! How am I going to get home?”
“Relax, relax.” He motioned me to leave the ship. The moment we exited, the ship disappeared in a single pop, and presumably began its long journey back. That must have been how they reused them.
“Now, for your predicament—” he said out loud. “Ah! Raynee lives right next to you. So, you can both just take her wormhole tomorrow.”
Though my day had brightened immensely, I feared what Raynee would think of that.
“In the meantime, we can have a little chat, and then I believe you have some studying to do.”
He led me back to his office, which consisted of a single chair and twenty screens across all six walls, each full of crazy symbols.
“Sorry, don’t receive many guests.” He sat in the only chair. “Feel free to avalate yourself something comfortable.”
“I’m fine.” I really didn’t want to lose more points for not knowing how to do that. “I can stand.”
Darstan smirked, then avalated a bean bag chair and, with a blast of resonance, pushed me onto it. He seemed more at ease than in class, with his feet on a futon and his hands holding a milkshake he’d just created.
“Where’s everyone else?”
He shook his head. “They have places to go. Don’t live here like poor old me.”
“You live here?” I noticed a small, worn bed on the ceiling. “Why?”
Darstan looked down. “Mordriss killed my wife and daughter. I came home that day, and—” He looked down and wiped his eyes. “I closed the door and never went back. Some things should never be seen.”
Though I didn’t want to press it, I had to ask someone. Every person here had their Mordriss story, so no matter what, I was bound to upset someone with the question.
“Is Mordriss still around?”
He sighed. “You don’t do small talk, do you? The truth is, we don’t know. I believe he is, but several years ago the killings just stopped.”
“Do we know what he looked like?”
“You’d think so. We orasated every victim, of course, but he wore a black mask and prevented any resonation inside. Weird, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry about your wife and daughter—”
“Yeah.” He looked up. “You kind of missed out on everything, being stuck on Earth. Tell me about that. How was it?”
I wasn’t expecting that question. It took me a few seconds to tell myself how it was. “It seems so long ago now. I mean, in retrospect everything was flat and boring, but it all was so real back then. It’s weird. I feel like I’m living for the first time now, but it’s not like I was dead back then. I’m just something different now.”
“That’s all cute.” He smiled. “But what we scientists would really love to know . . . is about that decombulator. Any idea who made it?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.” I grinned. “That’s why I came here, to ask Algard.”
“Good luck getting anything out of him. He runs the school well, but if it doesn’t have to do with class, then forget it.” He leaned forward. “But speaking of Algard, what’s the deal with that badge?”
I moved lower in the bean bag.
“Well, there was this other world. It was a desert. A woman there told me about him. She said he wanted something badly. She taught me to avalate, too.”
“A turnip?” he asked incredulously. “How would a turnip know about avalation? Are you playing with me?”
“No, no. I swear it was some world built for me. She said the same person put me on Earth, but I don’t know who.”
“Well, that’s some serious use of both avalance and cenosance. I don’t know if even Algard has those skills. Entire universes programmed around you. That’s unheard of.”
I nodded, though in my mind I was determining how to get Algard alone. Perhaps he knew something. After all, the Khan had specifically mentioned him, not Darstan. Regardless, I had a lot of studying to do. Tomorrow was still another day to lose points.
“Thank you for your help.” I moved to stand.
“Of course! Of course! Visit me anytime.”
There was a ton of resonation to review, but I paused just before leaving. The poor guy had been living in this room since his family had died. Every student and other teacher had left, and this was maybe his first casual conversation in a year.
“Back, before Mordriss, what did you used to do?”
Darstan frowned, thought for a moment, then grinned. “I used to be the biggest gamer. That’s why I learned cenosance, actually. I created entire game universes, then we’d play them.” He looked down. “I always used to let my wife and kid win.”
“Do you still have any of them? A game would be great to get the mind off of things.”
The biggest smile I’d ever seen spread across his face. “What kind would you like?”
Though I’d been thrilled by essoball in my primary school, that had nothing on full gaming universes created by a master of cenosance. My favorite was one where we tried to shoot each other from fighters as we flew through countless galaxies, avoided supernovas, and skirted across black holes. Another involved being the general of real-world armies made up of any type of creature we wished. I borrowed Raynee’s pink leopards for my only win of the night.
We clashed until late, though it was difficult to know for sure since there was only that huge nebula outside. By the time we finished, we were both sweating in the real world from the exhilaration.
“Thank you for that,” he said. “It’s been way too long.”
When I left his office, I realized that there were neither showers nor beds in the rest of the school. The shower proved the easier part. After a few attempts, I finally figured out how to avalate water particles, and created just enough to wash up. The bed was an insurmountable obstacle. I couldn’t avalate something that large, so I gathered several chairs together, instead, and had an uncomfortable few hours of sleep. As my mind drifted off, I wondered about Mordriss. I’d heard his name back on Earth. If my world was pre-programmed, why was he included?
*
Just before school started for the day, Darstan gathered me and Raynee in his office.
“It’s not my fault he’s an idiot,” said the seething Raynee when Darstan explained the situation. “He can just stay here until he figures it out.”
“Please! I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t know I wasn’t a turnip. I’m sorry for ditching Sareya. I’m sorry for being an asshole. I won’t bug you anymore. I just want to go home.”
“When were you an asshole?” She cro
ssed her arms. “If you tell me something specific, I’ll take you back home.”
I thought for an uncomfortable few seconds, while Darstan looked on and Raynee fumed.
“When I said you didn’t know what it was like to lose someone . . . because you probably lost someone, too?”
“Fine!” She threw her arms up. “I was hoping to leave you here, but a deal’s a deal. Just don’t talk to me.”
Her hair flew back and she ran to her first class. I thanked Darstan, then prepared to face Fantasa for advanced resonance. She immediately shoved us back into space, her grim stare directly on me. It was obvious: If she wanted me to die, it had to be at the beginning of the lesson.
Yet something about being extremely tired made it easier to avalate. After some uneasiness, I had enough air to breathe. Fantasa, with an air of disgust, continued.
The lesson covered moving actual stars through resonance. With her eyes continuously on me, I stayed near the back of the class, but paid attention and attempted to follow on my screen. Perhaps satisfied that I was no longer collapsing, she didn’t call on me to demonstrate, which would have surely cost me precious points.
Sarlat and Henry joined me again for lunch. I didn’t mention that Raynee was taking me home, out of a very real fear that she’d refuse, but we did scheme on how to get back at Revis. For his part, the lobster just ate his lunch with his mouth open straight at us. He had a look of contentment that made me want to smash his teeth in, but I still had to be careful. I only had eleven points keeping me from expulsion.
The rest of the day was spent in cenosance again. Being an entirely new subject, they were giving us a lot of time to practice, but it was of little use. No one could create even the simplest universe yet, nor generate any kind of spark. It felt strange that such a calm and complacent force could be so violent when forced in a certain way, kind of like a quiet kid in the back who just goes berserk one day.
At long last, the lesson ended and my dream ever since arriving here was about to be realized. Raynee would have to talk to me, even if it was only for the brief time it took to get home.
My eyes found hers just after school, and she gave me a fierce glance that would’ve frightened a polar bear. After waiting patiently for her to finish chatting with several girlfriends, she waved me to the correct ship, then shoved me inside. My heart rose at the sight of an intact wormhole.
“You’re a real piece of work, do you know that?” she shouted once we were inside.
“I’m sorry—”
“No, you’re not, you piece of shit. You don’t even know what you did!”
She didn’t make that up. I kept my mouth shut for fear of never getting home.
“Why didn’t you take your ship back!”
“My ship, but—”
“It has a wormhole, too.”
My mouth stood agape.
“Are you serious! You didn’t know that? How the hell do you think it gets home? We just make new ones each time?”
“Well, kinda—”
Raynee groaned. “You’re such a—”
“A turnip?”
She shook her head. “Whatever . . . Now, we’re going to have to hold hands for this to work.”
I jerked my eyes up to meet hers.
“One hand. And if you start massaging my fingers or touching me anywhere but my palm, I swear I’ll tear the thing down with you in it.”
I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what would happen, but her clenched teeth were enough to ensure it would be horrible.
She grabbed my hand, and every vein rushed while my heart beat faster than a hamster in a centrifuge. For just a moment, her eyes weren’t full of scorn, then they changed back when I stared for too long.
In an instant, we were through the wormhole and back to a small cluster of houses by the forest. Her house was roughly similar to Annie’s, though unlike hers, there were others near it.
“Well, we’re back,” she announced.
Though the woods looked similar, I still had no idea which direction was home. She turned her back and started moving away, and immediately I knew her plan. Sareya was to escort me home.
“Would you like to take a walk?” I blurted.
“A walk?” She halted. “Why?”
I wanted to say because I adored her, and couldn’t stand being so long without chatting with her. She’d opened some door in me back on Earth, and after just a few seconds with her it was wide open again. Even a few minutes’ walk was a lifetime to me.
“Because, I’d like to walk with you?” I said with a cautious voice.
Sareya was next to me now. Raynee took a long look at me, then at her.
“Very well, then. A walk it is. Sareya, you can go home.”
Sareya jumped and skipped to the next house, and I followed Raynee into the forest. However, as we ventured inside, without a peep between us, I was without words. There were so many questions I had for her, but now that she was beside me, I feared asking them. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her response, though I was a little, but that I was enjoying my brief time next to her and didn’t want to ruin it.
“Thank you,” I said after some time, and a few false starts.
“For what?” She didn’t turn around.
“For bringing me here. For finding me in the first place.”
“Do you know the odds of that?” She walked up a tree and signaled me to follow.
“The odds of what?”
“Me finding you.”
I shrugged. “One in a million?”
“You really do suck at math. Imagine that an old man asks you to play a game. He picks one grain of sand somewhere on Earth. You have to guess which one. If you guess right, then he’ll give you one dollar. You use that dollar to buy a lottery ticket, and if you win the one-billion-dollar reward, it’s paid out in pennies and you then have to pick one special penny at random.”
“Wow, that’s—”
“Then imagine, that you do that once and the old man tells you to play the same game one million times in a row, and you have to win every time. Even then, your odds are better at winning the game than me finding you.”
“So, you’re saying . . . we’re very lucky?”
“No.” She turned to me. “Those odds don’t happen. That’s why I blew up at you in the hospital.”
I was confused. “So, you never really found me and this is some crazy dream where I get to spend time with the most wonderful girl in the world who hates me because I’m an idiot?”
There was that hooked smile again. “I don’t hate you. You just piss me off . . . But, I was just saying that me finding you wasn’t an accident.”
“Then, you were meant to find me?”
“I don’t know. But I can say this. Those ships and robots back on Earth. They weren’t Mordriss’.”
“But one of them said Mordriss by name.”
“I know. I still haven’t figured that part out. Think about it, though. If Mordriss wanted you, he’d just kill you himself. He doesn’t need minions.”
Even though I had no experience with Mordriss, it made sense.
“But I do think that something wanted to flush you out. Something wanted you to come here. You probably were always destined to, but why? And why now?”
She’d obviously been giving it more thought than I had. While my efforts were focused on my parents, she was still dwelling on the events on Earth. Regardless, she was no longer seething at me when discussing it.
“There was another world,” I said. “It was all desert. There was a woman. She taught me avalance and how to get into Oreca Gifted.”
“You mean, she taught you to dig up the founder, cause our school to emergency relocate twice, then pawn some avalated metal with the school’s name on it?”
I paused, unsure how she knew about that.
“Seriously, Turnip.” She gave her crooked smile that nearly melted me. “I’m still way ahead of you.”
We stopped for a moment facin
g each other, and for a second I seriously considered pulling her close and attempting a kiss. Yet, she still scared me. I looked down.
“But it’s still strange, isn’t it? She was a turnip, but knew about avalance and our world. Even Darstan thought it was cool.”
She shrugged. “Not really. I mean, it’s interesting that someone created that whole world for you, but this woman— she wasn’t a turnip.”
That idea had never occurred to me.
“Whoever made that universe obviously knew about avalance. She must have lived in our world and modeled that universe on real things. I’ve been reading up on cenosance, of course. It’s possible to create programmed universes like that, but difficult. Whoever did it must’ve been like Algard.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
We walked in silence for some time. Yet with each step, I feared that Annie’s house was around the corner, and I’d have to let her go. There were questions to ask, and she was walking too fast. There was no easy way to start.
“What did you lose . . . when Mordriss came?”
That made her pause. She hunched over as if out of breath, but I knew my question had hit too close. She didn’t want me to see her crying.
“Everything.”
“I’m sorry about what I said. I had it easy. Just hanging out on boring Earth while everything happened here.”
Raynee sat on a log and let the tears flow. I hesitated for a moment to consider whether she’d let me, then sat next to her and put my arm gently around her. Before she had the chance to push me away, two spotted rodents arrived.
“Fuck!” one of them said. “She’s crying, so we’re not getting any fucking food!”
She dried her tears and avalated a few fruits.
“Told you these fuckers are sure bets!” the other shouted, then pointed to me. “That piece of shit and this bitch give us something every time. Morons.”
“I think I need to get my translator fixed,” I said out loud.
Her arm had been halfway to shoving me away, but she then relaxed it and put her head on my shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. I tried it and they still cuss. I think they like to screw with us.”
Raynee was hurting, and I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I still had so many questions. “Val . . . he didn’t make it, did he?”
