Josh felt the hands slowly releasing from his neck as the sloth contemplated its choices. Most of them ended with death, or worse. The only slim chance of making it out of this unscathed was to be able to plausibly deny that it ever happened. It turned and sat back down at the terminal, flicking switches and turning knobs, muttering, “There’s going to be hell to pay for this.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t bring my wallet,” said Josh, his tongue hanging out in concentration.
The Litigator squared off again, ready for another attack. As Josh prepared to dodge, the two Ticket Busters broke away from attacking their orbs and tried to box Josh in, forcing him to move towards the wrecking ball. There was a slight twitch in the Litigator’s arm as it committed to the attack and Josh jumped, boosting at the apex to avoid catching the whirling destruction on the way back around. As the Ticket Buster landed, Josh kicked the chair of his lawyer. “How long do I have left in this fight?”
“Three minutes and nine seconds.”
“How much booster fuel?”
The sloth checked a panel. “You’re at just over 45%.”
The math wasn’t working in his favour. He’d run out of boosters long before three minutes and nine seconds was up, and with three against one it would just be a question of time before they pinned him in and trashed his only chance of defending himself. One decent hit with that wrecking ball would be enough to send his mech where it was already well on its way to, the scrap heap.
Josh frantically tried to think of a solution. “Does the Litigator have a weak spot?”
The sloth thought for a moment. “I only hit it once, by accident, but once was enough for them to do that to my brand-new Ticket Buster. I caught it in the back with my sword while I was trying to block an attack. The armour there is considerably thinner, but a pro like Jax knows that, so he will never turn his back on you. I mean, me.”
Josh tried to navigate around the Litigator, but the two G.C. Ticket Busters blocked his way. They moved slower than he did, their movements more jarring, and they rarely used their boosters, but with two of them they were still able to impede his movement enough to stop him from strafing around the back of their big brother.
The Litigator swung the wrecking ball again and Josh double-jumped over it, just like before. This time, however, the Ticket Busters were waiting for him. One of them fired something from a shoulder-mounted silo. Initially Josh thought it was a rocket, and he breathed a sigh of relief as it sailed past him, leaving a thick black trail of smoke behind it. Then the missile slowly began a long turn to fly back his way. It was tracking him.
He had no counter-measures for this. Dodging was his only option, but the missile wouldn’t give up so easily. Instead he turned to face the projectile and drew his Blaster. He still couldn’t aim, but if he faced the missile that should give him enough spread to land a lucky hit. He held down the fire button and winced as the first two shots missed. The missile was almost on top of the mech when the blaster fire hit it and triggered the explosion, causing minor shrapnel damage. That was too close for comfort. The blaster started to glow red from the constant firing, and he immediately let go of the trigger.
His challenge was one of split focus. He couldn’t stop watching the Litigator, because one hit of the wrecking ball would be enough to do serious damage, maybe even enough to end the trial. That left him vulnerable to the two Ticket Busters, who couldn’t do anywhere near as much damage, but could move faster and react quicker. They could chip away at him and prevent him from doing any real damage to the only mech he cared about, the one fighting in his trial.
What he needed was a way to disable the Litigator, at least for long enough to get around behind it, without having to worry about dying in the process.
As the huge mech planted its feet and began swinging its weapon again, Josh focused on the chain mechanism. The spool didn’t move, it simply rotated, meaning it was fairly stable. That gave him an idea, with only one small challenge. He still couldn’t aim.
He kicked his lawyer’s chair again. “I need you to do something!”
“I’m already doing something, I am trying not to die,” said the sloth as it slowly flicked switches.
“Instead of pretending, I need you to actually do something. Can you target the mechanism at the top of the left arm?”
“My Mech Controller isn’t doing anything.”
“I think it’s because I’ve mapped most of the functions. Try the targeting buttons.”
The sloth switched a couple of blue switches and perked up a little. “Targeting is still working!”
“Excellent. How many rockets do I have?”
“Three, but please try not to use them, they are extremely expensive and we are on a very tight budget in the public defender’s office. I’m only supposed to use them in an emergency.“
“Yeah? Well, going to jail for the rest of my life definitely counts as an emergency in my book. I’ll pay you back.” Josh wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to do that, but he didn’t have time to worry about the logistics. That was a problem to be solved if he somehow managed to stay out of prison.
Josh watched as the wrecking ball spun faster and faster, occasionally stalling for just a second. Jax was messing with the timing, to make it harder to dodge, but Josh was too busy trying to do math on the fly. He wish he’d paid more attention to Mr. Tucker when he had talked about pivot points. He was only going to get one chance to get this right.
“I need you to target the chain hand. Can you do that?”
“Aim while moving? That sounds challenging.”
“Then prepare to be challenged.”
As Josh ducked the Ticket Buster under the chain, his positioning felt instinctively correct. He said, “Now!” and unleashed all three rockets, waiting to see if they hit the very small target.
His lawyer proved to be more competent than expected. The first rocket narrowly missed the chain reel, but the second and third both hit their mark, with significant explosions doing additional damage.
The effect was instant. The reel exploded, releasing the rest of the chain all at once. The wrecking ball shot out at almost double the length as it swooped around the arena. Josh gritted his teeth and boosted towards the Litigator, directly in the path of the chain.
The sloth tensed up, slowly, and yelled, “What are you doing?” as the chain connected, creating a pivot point. The wrecking ball, suddenly anchored to Josh’s Ticket Buster, swung inwards. The big question now was if Josh’s calculations were correct.
By the time Jax realized what was happening, it was too late. His own wrecking ball was hurtling towards him, travelling at maximum speed thanks to the sudden pivot. He tried to dodge, but his Litigator was tethered to the opposing mech. As the ball slammed into his chest the control panel lit up with damage warnings and system failures. He was losing pressure and the generator was now running at under half its usual output. What had happened? There was no way a public defender was capable of an advanced counter-argument like this, especially this public defender.
Josh cheered as the Litigator fell to its knees, its back exposed. He just needed to get free of this chain. He tried boosting left, then right, slowly wiggling free. As his Ticket Buster broke loose he said, “How long?”
“Less than 30 seconds.”
One of the G.C. Ticket Busters blocked his path, while the other circled around behind him. They weren’t going to make this easy for him. He could see their missile silos preparing to fire, but he was too close to dodge effectively. He needed to buy some time. As the salvo unleashed on either side of him, he waited until the missiles were about to connect before ducking. The missiles sailed overhead and started their slow and steady arc back around to their target, giving Josh enough of a head start to boost away. He headed straight at the Litigator and was racing ahead when the boost jets started to sputter. He was running out of booster fuel, and now the missiles were gaining on him. It was going to be a race to see who would get there fir
st. Would he reach the Litigator, or would the missiles reach him?
***
The librarian knocked loudly on the classroom door and a deep voice bellowed, “Come in.” She popped her head in and said, “Mr. Tucker, I believe this is one of your students. He got lost in the library.”
“The library? Now that is a surprise. Mr. Harper has something of a sporadic attendance recently—he’s lost several grandmas, his father’s car has repeatedly broken down, and there was that entire week he had swine flu. I’m relieved to see him safe and sound for once.”
The librarian nodded and darted from the room before anyone could stop her. She picked up her pace on the way back to the library, just in case young Sarah and Steve discovered that it was unattended. It had taken weeks to get the stains out last time.
Gargle regarded the classroom. It was small and cramped, with old wooden desks liberally sprinkled throughout in orderly rows. There was a large black surface at the front of the room, with a lot of numbers on it. It was a rudimentary math problem, the kind that they would teach in a Blurgon nursery to fresh ethereals.
Maths was an important foundation for most Blurglings; it was essential for a large portion of the core jobs. Gargle had to take the advanced courses to handle the complex route calculations and advanced quantum tunnelling formulas. Everyone was expected to perform all calculations without electronic assistance; they had learned their lesson from the A.I. wars. Anyone reliant on technology was leaving themselves vulnerable.
Mr. Tucker regarded him and said, “Could you please take your seat, Mr. Harper, and turn to page 84 of your textbook. I am sure you can catch up with the others. I would also like to see your algebra homework.”
“I do not have it,” Gargle replied.
Mr. Tucker waited for the intricate excuse, but none came. He said, “Why not?”
“I did not know about it. I can complete it now if you give it to me.”
“I would prefer you to focus on the lesson I have planned. Homework is for home, Mr. Harper, although seeing as you are struggling with that concept perhaps you can join me in detention again after school?”
“I can do it now, it will only take a moment,” Gargle said, not understanding the threat that had been made.
Mr. Tucker rummaged in a leather satchel and pulled out a sheet of paper. He handed it to Gargle and said, “Tomorrow. Last chance.”
“May I?” Gargle said, pointing at a pen on Mr. Tucker’s desk.
“Did you remember anything today, Mr. Harper? I suppose you’d like to borrow a textbook too.” Mr. Tucker said with a huff and handed the pen over, along with a thick blue book. Gargle scanned down the homework, wrote in the answers, and slid the paper back across to his teacher. “There you go.”
Mr. Tucker tilted his head slightly and then carefully lifted up the sheet of paper. One of his eyebrows raised and he said, “Very funny, Mr. Harper, I guess you did do your homework last night after all. I commend you on your excellent memory. Now please sit down.”
Every desk but one was currently occupied, which at least made it easy to guess which one he should sit at. He was right at the front of the room, prime position for optimal learning, which was the first good news of the day. Josh must be a keen student.
Gargle collapsed into the seat. Sitting was still a challenge; he was never sure what to do with his legs. They stuck out awkwardly, straight as an arrow. He turned to page 84, to find more basic problems. He said, “Teacher, how many of these shall I do?”
“How many times must I tell you to call me Sir? Though I suppose Teacher is an improvement over last week. Do as many as you can until you run out of time,” Mr. Tucker said without looking up. He was reading something out of view below the desk.
“Would you say this is my current task?” Gargle asked hopefully.
“I suppose you could say that.”
Gargle waited for something to ping or beep, but there was nothing. A superior had directly assigned him a task, and yet nothing had happened. He’d have to investigate that later, but for now he pulled out Josh’s communicator and slowly tapped out:
Do Math pRoblEms from page 84 OnWarDs
His typing skills were slowly improving too; his thumbs mostly stayed out of the way now.
“Phone away, Mr. Harper, or I shall be forced to confiscate it.”
Gargle slipped it back into his pocket and started on the problems. He didn’t write anything down; he simply calculated the correct answer in his head and then moved on to the next problem. When he was done he got his phone from his pocket, tapped out cOmpLEted next to the task he had set himself, and turned the page.
Mr. Tucker finally removed himself from his desk. He grabbed a long straight stick with notches marked on it and strolled through the rows of desks. He stopped next to a student that had slumped face-down on his desk and slammed it down hard, jolting the student awake. He said, “Do try and stay awake please, Mr. Finn. If I catch you sleeping again, that is detention.”
“Yes sir,” the student replied, straightening his tie and refocusing on the book.
He was on his way back to his desk when he noticed Gargle turning the page. He stopped and slammed the ruler down. “Stay on the page I have asked you to.”
“But sir, you said to keep doing problems until time expired.”
“That is correct,” replied Mr. Tucker, raising the ruler again.
“Well I have completed the problems on that page, and the nine subsequent pages,” Gargle said.
“Where?” Mr. Tucker asked. “I don’t see any calculations.”
“I did them in my head, sir.”
That earned a chuckle from some of his classmates. Mr. Tucker scowled. He stalked back across the room and said, “You expect me to believe that in the two minutes it has taken you to sit down you have solved all those advanced algebra equations, in your head.”
“Advanced?” Gargle said, genuinely confused now.
“Ok, Einstein, let’s play a little game. If you can tell me the correct answers, you win no detention. Perhaps that will wipe that gormless grin off your face.” Mr. Tucker was showboating at the front of the room now, getting everyone’s attention.
“If you insist. Would you like me to list them?”
“No, I’ll pick questions at random. Let’s hear the answer for question 1.”
“x is 17.”
Mr. Tucker checked something at the back of his textbook and nodded.
“Not bad. What about question 4?”
“x is 9.73.”
Mr. Tucker looked a little less confident now. He said, “And question 9?”
“x is 1/8th.”
All the students fell silent, waiting to see how Mr. Tucker responded. His face ran through a gamut of emotions, starting with shock, taking a quick detour to confusion, and settling on anger. He snatched the book back from Gargle and held it aloft. “Thank you, Mr. Harper, for reminding me why I don’t lend out the teacher’s copy of the textbook. I suppose it is still impressive that you managed to remember the correct answers from the answers section at the back.”
“What answers section?” Gargle replied.
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?”
Mr. Tucker moved over to the large blackboard and wiped it clean. He grabbed a small white stick and used it to draw numbers in a long equation. His whole body twitched with indignation as he scratched out the tiny x and slammed the chalk down triumphantly. “Ok, genius, I’ll give you until the end of class to solve this, and if you can’t then you’ll agree to…”
“The answer is 8y over x,” Gargle said, still not appreciating the gravity of the situation. To him, it was as if they were excited that he could breathe.
Mr. Tucker turned a deep shade of red as the class started to laugh. He stormed over to Gargle and said, “How did you do that?”
“I can write down my calculations if it would help you to understand?”
That set
the whole room off, and now everyone was laughing except Mr. Tucker, who slammed his hand down on Gargle’s desk.
“You think this is funny? Let’s see how funny it is in detention. After school.”
“What is detention?”
That one earned the loudest laugh of them all. Apparently Josh would never ask that question. He must already be familiar with detention. Gargle would just have to figure it out as he went along.
Mr. Tucker went back to his desk and pulled out a thick red textbook, with bold white letters that said ADVANCED LINEAR ALGEBRA. The cover was faded and the edges were frayed; it looked like this book had seen a lot of love throughout the years. Mr. Tucker walked back over to Gargle and dropped it onto the desk with a loud thud. He turned his attention to the rest of the class. “Show’s over. Get back to work everyone.”
He loomed over Gargle as he flipped to the first page of the book. His voice was low and menacing. “I don’t know how you are doing this, but I will find out. Until I do, here is something to challenge your newfound brilliance. Start with this page, and I want to see all your calculations.” He gave Gargle a small notebook with grid lines in it, and a pointed instrument with a black tip. As Gargle glanced around the room he saw others using similar things to create markings on a page. This was new. He’d never had to write anything before.
The questions in this new book were barely more challenging than the previous ones, although they were simply slightly more convoluted. Unfortunately, the writing piece proved to be more of a challenge.
Gargle knew what the symbols were supposed to look like, and he knew how to move his hand, but the level of fine motor control necessary to achieve the desired result required a considerable amount of concentration. Each digit had its own muscles, and coordinating them all was a ballet. He slowly printed each letter and number onto the page, being careful to perfectly recreate the image in his head.
As he finished up the 6th such answer a bell rang in the room, making him jump and triggering a stampede. His other classmates raced from their seats and out of the door, all while Mr. Tucker loudly asked them to slow down and leave one at a time. As Gargle attempted to follow them, Mr. Tucker said, “Mr. Harper, would you like to show me how far you got?”
Grow Up Page 11
