by Joseph Calev
She lifted her head and straightened herself. At first, she had a look of disgust, but then turned away.
“He was my brother.”
“Mordriss?”
“Yes. Val thought he could beat him . . . stupid asshole.” Tears flowed down her cheek.
I slowly pulled my arm from her shoulder, while softly caressing her back on the way. “They say Mordriss is gone now. He disappeared. Maybe he’s dead.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “He’s not dead. I’ve never told anyone this, but I know something no one else does. He didn’t die. I know that for sure. He’s coming back, because there’re still more to kill.”
21
“When I was little, Val and I used to portal to the turnip fields and play a game. We’d each avalate our own armies and have a war. He always let me win.”
Raynee brushed her hair back, then stared into a narrow opening through the trees.
“When we started I didn’t know how to avalate, of course, so he taught me. He’s the reason I’m in Oreca Gifted right now. He was eight years older than me, and the best student they ever had. The teachers thought he’d be a professor there one day, or a top scientist. I was his best student. He taught me the coolest stuff. But then Mordriss came.
“No one knows where he came from; he never bothered to introduce himself. Whole towns were wiped out. While Val and I were away playing, he murdered our parents. Val didn’t let me see their bodies, but a year later I orasated them to see what happened.”
“You saw Mordriss?” I asked.
“No.” Her mouth was trembling. “He wore some mask. No one ever saw him. He killed each person differently. The perverted monster just wanted to make it a sport. After that, Val and I never played again. The professors always praised him, so Val felt only he could stop that freak.”
She grabbed my hands. “Before he left, he learned something about Mordriss’s power. He never told me what, but he thought for sure he could get him. All I know is it had something to do with portals. I tried to stop him that day, tried to lure him into another game, but he just resonated me home.”
“What happened to him?”
“Officially, he’s one of the missing. There were others whose bodies they never found, but that’s because I never told them. I—”
I put my arm around her and held tight.
“You don’t have to say it. I understand.”
“No,” she said, but didn’t move away. “It’s important.” She stood and began to pace. “I found his finger.” Her eyes were filled with tears. “Back in those days, we found a lot of parts. There were people we called who tried to put them all together, notify anyone who knew them who survived, but I knew it was his. There was a ring he always wore.”
Raynee leaned down and pulled up a thin strand from between her breasts. I tried to look only at the ring, which was plain silver, with a burst of rays across its face.
“It’s for avalation. You trade particles between it and other things. Makes it easier.”
She frowned upon noticing that my eyes were no longer focused on the dangling piece of metal, then stood back up.
“So, I orasated it.” She grabbed a branch. “Mordriss toyed with him. He ripped off his leg, and while Val was dying, he started saying stuff about me. That creep knows who I am. But my brother was just preparing the whole time. Val then hits him with a resonation blast . . . complicated stuff that pushed both of them several light years apart. Then, he whispered ‘I bought you time, Raynee. Find Avarus.’ Mordriss killed him then, but Val’s finger was outside his portal, so when it closed, that part was cut off.”
“He did it on purpose?”
“Yes. And that’s how I know he’s coming back. Only I haven’t managed to find an Avarus at all. Whoever the guy is, he’s a ghost.”
While I probably should have been completely freaked about the prospect that Mordriss, an undefeatable being whose sole goal was to murder people in sadistic ways, was destined to return, I was far more entranced with my company. There was so much to tell her, but now wasn’t the time.
“No one has heard of him?” I asked at last.
“I even orasated half the cemetery. I know pretty much every family secret, but nothing about an Avarus.”
“Maybe he orasated himself out? That’s what the school founder did. He changed his own orasance.”
“Yeah, but that was his own. Changing anyone else’s is a lot more difficult.”
Not ten feet away, several bushes twitched and we both froze. There was something hidden within the jungle, and it wasn’t a swearing rodent. Raynee laughed a little when I instinctively rose and cautioned her back with one arm. Slowly, I crept to the shaking bushes, and before I could jump a dark shape darted away.
Whatever it was, it moved low and fast. A row of bushes blew off their leaves, but even at full speed I was no match for this culprit. It was nearly out of sight, until one shout of Raynee erected a force field, and a tiny “Ow!” echoed from the thicket.
Panting and heaving, I ran over to the spot, while Raynee calmly resonated herself over. Two blond braids were caught in the twigs. It was Sareya.
“Congratulations!” Raynee said to me. “You caught her.”
Sareya pulled the leaves off her, then defiantly faced Raynee. “I just wanted to see if you were kissing.”
Raynee grimaced a little too much. “What?” she said, and took one look at me. “That’s disgusting.” She turned to Sareya and knelt. “But how much did you hear?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She twirled one of her braids. “I didn’t hear anything about Mordriss or Val or—”
Raynee shushed her. “You can’t say anything about that to anyone. You shouldn’t know any of this.”
Sareya jumped back, then her eyes grew more devious. While darting glances between the two of us, she held down her braids and walked forward. “Agreed, but on one condition.”
Raynee waved her hand and every tree in the forest creaked. Yet this was no contest. Sareya knew that Raynee would never hurt her.
“We all play that game you talked about.”
“What?” Raynee shrieked. “Absolutely not! I’ve told you a hundred times: Avalance can kill turnips.”
“Is that what Val told you when you first asked?” I added.
She glared at me, and an unseen force tightened around my hands and legs. My breathing grew more rapid. I shared no such guarantee from harm.
“Jason taught me avalance,” Sareya said. “Why won’t you?”
I could barely breathe now as Raynee’s resonance grew tighter.
“You taught her avalance! Don’t you know how foolish that is?”
“She taught me orasance.” I gasped. “It was a trade. Besides, it’s not like she’s irresponsible.”
Sareya had a mischievous grin now.
“I didn’t want to do this.” Sareya aimed her hand at Raynee, who was stunned at the act but cautiously lifted her own arms in preparation for whatever meek assault was coming.
“If you don’t teach me, then I’ll tell Jason that you said—”
“Fine,” Raynee shouted. “You win.”
She left no time for questions. In an instant, we were all in the turnip fields. Thousands of blank-faced vegetables awaited our epic battle, though every single one would go through its life without knowing it.
Anxious for an upbeat change to our recent sad discussion, I smiled, then avalated a cup of water and splashed Raynee’s face. “I win.”
She shook her head while Sareya laughed, and returned with a broken frown.
“That’s against the rules,” Raynee shouted. “You can’t touch the other player. Only the things you avalate can fight what the other avalates.”
“But I can only avalate water,” I said.
Sareya avalated a small sponge ball and tossed it at Raynee. Though I was proud to have helped her learn that, I was a little discouraged in knowing that she now was more proficient than I was.
“That’s all I can do,” she said while it innocently bounced off Raynee’s face.
Raynee groaned. “It’s all in the math. Just imagine what you need in mathematical form, and bond the particles that way.”
So, I did just that, only my math capabilities weren’t quite the level of hers. After considerable stress and some grunting, I managed to create a sort of walking gummi bear. Sareya conjured a bouncing marshmallow. Both sat there, awaiting our orders.
“So . . . how do we make them move?”
Raynee had already prepared a platoon of dagger-wielding soldier monkeys. Evidently the pink leopards were too good for us.
She groaned. “You program them, of course!”
Now, I’d taken some beginner programming courses in high school, but I couldn’t recall anything that covered automating life-sized gummi bears. This was made more difficult by the fact that they lacked processors, memory, and brains.
Since giving them any intelligence wasn’t working for me, I just resonated it forward until it collapsed onto one of Raynee’s monkeys, consuming it in the process. Sareya took another out with her marshmallow.
“That isn’t fair!” Raynee complained, but Sareya and I were already in the process of creating more candy troops.
As a wave of gummis and marshmallows devoured Raynee’s proud monkeys, she waved her hand and instantly her finest warriors took the stage. Their soft roars and pink fur belied the vicious creatures underneath. In our celebration, she had unleashed her pink leopards.
The legion of pink demons poured forth and met our newly formed gelatin mass. The first group met head on, and quickly the leopards proceeded to devour the stomachs of my gummis, only there had been one gross miscalculation. Neither marshmallows nor gummis had brains to control. Every single cat was promptly overcome.
Sareya and I shouted and gave each other high fives while the last of Raynee’s legion collapsed. When her wrath turned into a wry grin and that entrancing smile returned, I regretted in hindsight not making a kiss the game’s prize. Then again, it hadn’t been that long ago that she was furious at me.
We avalated back to our own dimension, then sent Sareya skipping home. “We beat you! We beat you!” she cried with each jump, and for an awkward moment Raynee and I faced each other.
Just before I mustered the courage, she turned away.
“Annie’s house isn’t far,” she said quickly.
We walked in silence those few precious minutes. My hand was only inches from hers, and once, our fingertips even touched. Would it be too bold to reach for her hand? That was far more innocent than a kiss. And maybe if she didn’t resist that, I could draw her in, put my arm around her, and lose myself in her trance.
The simple white box that was Annie’s house appeared through the foliage, and I knew my chance was up. Raynee halted, and again my hand brushed her fingertips. She avoided looking me in the eye.
“So, are we good?” I asked. “Are we friends again?”
This time her brown eyes met mine. They were wide with longing, and she moved an inch toward me, then backed away. “We were never friends.” She gave her trademark grin. “But I like you, Turnip. You’re a quality vegetable.”
That night, I found it easier to comprehend the foundation of universe creation with cenosance than to come to any form of conclusion on her answer. When the rodents turned off the suns, I found myself collapsing into a deep sleep, an artifact of my previous late night.
*
Given an important question I needed answered, I arrived early to school and barreled into Darstan’s cluttered office. So sudden was my entrance that he peered up at me like a deer in headlights.
“Why didn’t you tell me my ship had a wormhole the entire time. Raynee wanted to strangle me.”
Darstan straightened himself and did not smile. “Excuse me? You should be thanking me.”
I just glared.
“You’ve been pining after that girl this entire time. And she wasn’t giving you the time of day. That is, until I helped.”
My mouth opened and air went in, but no sounds came out. Darstan stood, and the reality occurred to me that bursting into a professor’s office earned a hefty fine.
“Thank you,” I said earnestly, then bolted before he could respond.
When I reached my first class, to my amazement there was an empty seat next to Raynee. Revis stood not six feet from it. When he noticed my eyes focused on the prize, the bastard just grinned. I moved forward, desperate to get there first. Farlan was in my way.
“Well, hello.” He had a friendly tone. “Have we met before?”
“Yes.” I tried unsuccessfully to budge through.
“Ah! Now I remember! Take a seat, Smith.”
I was too slow. Revis already had one hand on the chair, and the other on Raynee’s shoulder. That proved to be a big mistake.
He had no time to even give me that pathetic smile before his own fist left Raynee’s shoulder and pounded him straight in the face. Desperately, he held it back with his other hand, but he was no match for himself. Blow-by-blow his arm knocked him back until he was edged against the wall. I snagged the chair in the meantime, but didn’t dare touch Raynee.
“Clarice!” Farlan yelled. “That will be a hundred points for assaulting a student!”
Raynee dipped her head and released the strawberry asshole.
“The nice thing about punishments from Farlan, is he always forgets them. Besides, I have tens of thousands of points. That was so worth it.”
Raynee wore an embroidered sweater that appeared conservative, but exactly outlined her curves. Her brown hair was radiant, and her skin was perfect. To avoid staring at her for the entire lesson, I constructed a screen to block the view and proceeded to look up the symbols I didn’t know. Farlan continued to explain teleportation, though thankfully with marbles instead of people. When one became lost, Farlan paused the lesson, and Raynee angrily tore down my screen.
“What are you doing? If I wanted something blank to look at, I would’ve let lobster face take that spot.”
“Well, uh—” Her brown eyes devoured me. “The thing is, you’re amazing, but—”
“But, what?” she said with more than a little anger.
“You’re so beautiful that I can’t stop staring at you, so I put the screen up,” I blurted.
Unknown to me, Farlan had already found the marble and the entire class was silent enough to swallow every word. Surrounding us were muted giggles, toned down for fear of Raynee’s wrath. Her hand reached for me, though not in a hostile way, then she pulled it back. Though I had said it, from her sheepish look, she was perhaps more embarrassed than I.
Farlan shook his head and resumed the lesson. This time, I paid no attention at all. All I could think of was her. Suddenly, the thin Algard resonated into the room, and called Farlan outside. This was my chance.
“Go out with me tonight.”
Her head shrank back. “Why?” Her eyes betrayed her.
“Because I’m crazy about you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and a seat in class is no longer enough.”
“So, like a date?” Her finger caressed her mouth.
“Yes.”
Raynee rested her chin on her elbow and leaned forward. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the best place that occurs to me in the next five hours.”
“That will be interesting to see.” She grabbed my hand and examined my palm. “Very well. I accept.”
Farlan did not return to class, but Darstan took over after a few minutes and switched the subject to cenosance, which I found more interesting anyway.
My stunning success made it difficult to pay attention. When it came time for demonstrations, I moved in a trance, threw this, that, and whatever together and in the day’s second surprise, after a sharp pop, I held a small, rotating marble.
“Did you just do it?” Raynee shrieked and grabbed it away from me.
Darstan rushed forward,
and all three of us essonated inside. My universe consisted of nothing but two dark planets revolving around a gigantic lightbulb. One was populated by life-sized gummi bears, each moving mechanically forward, while the other was inhabited by similarly mobile marshmallows. I looked down while Darstan took notes. It wasn’t much to look at. With no one else in this world, Raynee brushed my hand, then I gently reached for and held hers.
“Very well done,” Darstan proclaimed. “As you practice, the complexity will of course improve. That’s one hundred points for a successful cenosation, and another hundred for being the first in the class. The rest I’ll explain to everyone.”
We returned to the class with all eyes on me. It felt gratifying to not be the idiot for once, even though I truthfully had no idea how I’d managed it. Every conscious thought had been about Raynee.
“Congratulations, Jason, for creating our first universe.” Everyone except Revis give a hesitant applause. “But there is something even more remarkable about it. His world has a fifty percent time correlation.”
Raynee gave me a stunned look, but I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
“You’ll find that most creations will flow quickly. So quickly, in fact, that you’ll barely have any opportunity to investigate them before they expand into nothingness. This one, however, has a time correlation not far from our own. Such a feat is usually reserved to the domain of master creators, so I’m awarding you three hundred points for either your expert ingenuity or pure dumb luck.”
My muscles tensed and I felt barely able to breathe. Had I really just earned five hundred points? Those were far more than a step toward graduation. Now, I truly belonged. The next missed avalation or accident would no longer mean my expulsion. I was here at Oreca Gifted to stay.
During the applause, Raynee reached over and hugged me, then backed away just slightly for the very real fear that I would pull her in for a kiss with everyone watching. Still, her face was mere inches from mine, and for a brief, few moments that was the best time in my life.
“I have some grave news to report,” Algard announced amid our celebration.
