Grow Up

by Craig Anderson

  “That wasn’t exactly a warm welcome,” Josh said, stepping into the elevator.

  “Is it customary to alter the temperature during a greeting?” she said, staring at him expectedly.

  “It’s just an expression. Remind me to teach you a few more. What I mean is, that wasn’t very friendly.”

  “Lawyers are our finest warriors, they are constantly under threat of attack from disgruntled customers or hostile foreign powers. They are therefore in a permanent state of war. Friendliness is not a trait they encourage. You would do well to remember that.”

  Josh felt his stomach lurch as the lift accelerated upwards. Then just as quickly it stopped, his feet lifting off the ground for a split second from the rapid deceleration. The doors slid open and a large round creature blocked their exit. Josh went to step off, but Shift said, “This is not our floor.”

  “Going up?” the creature said.

  “Yes,” Shift replied.

  The small face in the centre of the creature regarded them both before shuffling into the lift, taking up most of the space. Josh was slowly pressed into the back corner; the texture of the creature was that of a warm bouncy castle. No matter how hard Josh pressed himself into the corner, he couldn’t escape the squishy mass. He wanted to get out of here, to exit at the next floor, but there were no obvious buttons to press, and even if there were, how would he get to them?

  Thankfully the creature’s stay in the lift was brief and after a couple of floors the doors slid open and it waddled out. Josh managed to get a glimpse of a large space, with dozens of empty desks. He was still craning his neck out when the doors slammed shut, narrowly missing his nose. He turned to Shift and said, “Where is everyone?”

  “This floor is recently completed and will be used for expansion. Since the initial Galactic Corp attack, the High Command have authorized considerable additional resources for the law school, including larger training facilities and several new mechs. Unfortunately it may be too late. It is difficult to find candidates with a classification or sub-classification of lawyer, it requires a very specific skill set.”

  “Why don’t you have a test and let anyone apply? I’m sure you could find lots of suitable trainees.”

  “That is not how things work on Blurgon.”

  “Maybe it should?” said Josh.

  “Is that how it works on your planet?” she asked.

  “Yes, something like that. Anyone can apply for any job, and it is up to the person hiring to determine the best candidate for the job.”

  “But how does everyone know what they are supposed to be?”

  “We don’t, we just kind of figure it out as we go. Lots of people change jobs several times.”

  “That sounds chaotic. It wouldn’t work on Blurgon. We value efficiency,” Shift said, proudly.

  “What happens here if people aren’t good at the job you assign them? Are they reassigned?”

  “Of course not, that would be inefficient. If an individual lags behind the expected performance standard for their role, then they are terminated.”

  “So what would they do for work?”

  “Terminated employees no longer qualify for shells, so they can no longer work. They would join the great collective.” Shift pointed up at a roiling mass of shapes above them that resembled a storm cloud.

  “They die?”

  “Not in the way that you understand that word. On Blurgon, a physical presence is a luxury granted by the Blurgon High Command. If you fail to meet the required standard, then that luxury is revoked. You are free to join the others, but you may no longer use up precious resources.”

  “Wow, you guys are hardcore! I’m surprised anyone dares take a break.”

  “Break?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” said Josh. “When does everyone sleep?”

  ”We stopped needing sleep a long time ago. We favour shells that do not require it. Many species are capable of operating at peak capacity on a continual basis. Why, do you still need sleep?”

  “Yes! I can’t just switch out my body whenever I need to, I need to rest for at least 8 hours every day.”

  “8 hours! That is more than half of every day.”

  “What? No, a day is 24 hours.”

  Shift looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “24 hours? Even your planet is lazy. Blurgon does a full rotation every 15.3 hours.”

  “Great, that sounds like a nasty case of jet lag waiting to happen, but one problem at a time I suppose.” He stared at the readout above the doors of the lift, but he couldn’t read the symbols. They had been going up for a long time; at this rate they would shoot out the top of the building. “Are we nearly there yet?”

  “Yes, just a few more floors.”

  The lift stopped so suddenly that Josh banged his head on the roof.

  He landed in a heap just in time for the doors to slide open. A tall creature with a multitude of arms peered down at him. It looked like someone had taught a spider to walk on its hind legs. The creature had mandibles instead of a mouth, and it clicked disapprovingly. After a few seconds the translation started. “What is this doing here?”

  Shift said, “An A.I. has approved him for the lawyer training program.”

  “Ridiculous. A.I.s should not be trusted with such matters. Have we learned nothing? I do not wish to teach it.”

  “High Command wishes you to try.”

  “High Command does not understand the law, they should not interfere in matters they do not understand.”

  Shift narrowed her eyes. “You will watch your tone. I am an envoy and I speak for the High Command. Check your log, you have been assigned the task of teaching this new trainee.”

  The seriously armed thing pulled out a data pad, reviewed it and then mumbled something along the lines of pointless waste of time. Then it bent down to get a closer look at Josh, its mandibles slowly pulsating. “Does it speak?”

  Josh picked himself up off the ground and brushed fluff off his shirt. “Yeah, I can talk.”

  The tall creature reared back up to its full height. After a moment it said, “But can you listen?”

  “Sure I can.”

  “Then follow me.”

  The spider dropped to all of its arms and scurried away, moving with surprising speed. Josh risked a glance at Shift, who simply nudged him to follow.

  Josh walked into a grand entrance hall. A large sign above an archway jumped out at him, but he could not read it. He leaned over to Shift. “What does the sign say?”

  “It says ‘Welcome to Law School. Lawyers and trainee lawyers only beyond this point. All trespassers will be vaporized.’”

  “Wow, they take this pretty seriously huh.”

  Shift nodded. “Becoming a lawyer is considered the greatest honour, and harming a lawyer is the worst crime imaginable. It usually comes with rather harsh sentences as no lawyer will defend a person that harmed a fellow lawyer, so they are forced to defend themselves in mech combat. That rarely ends well, mainly because non-lawyers are not permitted to control a mech.”

  “How do they defend themselves in mech combat if they can’t control the mech?”

  “Briefly.”

  They walked into a large open room with row upon row of desks, each one currently occupied by every manner of creature. There were large grey stone-looking ones, small sparkly ones, and even a furry one with a long bushy tail. On each desk was a Mech Controller. The only thing missing was seats. Everyone stood, with the shorter creatures using shorter desks. Every creature in the room was currently staring at him.

  “What are they looking at?” Josh murmured to Shift.

  “Fresh competition. Only the best lawyers make it through training. You are an unknown, an outlier that has yet to be proven. To the top-ranked trainees you are a potential threat, to the low-level ones you are someone they hope to beat.”

  “Oh great.”

  The spider creature led them into an office. There was nowhere to sit, but there was a des
k containing a small datapad. The spider gestured to it with one of its arms. “Before you can do anything at all, you must sign this contract. I shall give you some time to review it and ask any questions you may have.”

  Josh picked up the data pad, but couldn’t decipher what it said. A button at the top was marked Translate. He pushed it, and slowly the random symbols became words.

  He tried reading it, but the document went on, and on, and on. Josh scrolled all the way to the bottom and found a small box that said, I Accept. He pressed on it without hesitation. He handed the tablet back to the spider, who stared at him, mandibles agape. Before he could ask why the creature said, “Lesson number 1, always give someone a limited amount of time to read an important contract, it will force them to make stupid mistakes and agree to things they usually wouldn’t.”

  “Meh, force of habit, no-one ever reads the terms of service anyway.”

  “From now on you will. Is that understood?”

  Josh shrugged. “If you say so. You’re the boss I guess.” He held out his hand and said, “I’m Josh, by the way.”

  The spider stared at the outstretched hand and said, “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t shake hands?”

  Shift said, “He wishes you to know he is underarmed. It is a tradition in his culture.”

  “Of course he is unarmed, if he wasn’t the turrets would have eliminated him in the lobby,” the spider said haughtily.

  Josh slowly dropped his hand and said, “So what should I call you?”

  “You can call me Teacher, and you will do exactly what I tell you to do, at all times. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  Level 10: Rankers

  Gargle looked around the room he had been escorted to. The name plate on the desk said Headmaster Matthews in chipped gold letters. The majority of the space was taken up by a desk that was so buried in documents it was hard to tell where the paper stopped and the desk began. There were envelopes, permission slips, report cards, lesson plans and paycheques, each strewn around in haphazard piles. The sheer inefficiency of it was driving Gargle crazy.

  He had been told to wait for an authority figure to arrive, but one was not forthcoming. Instead Gargle was wasting precious learning time. He was still unclear why he had been sent here.

  Perhaps the real punishment was spending time in such chaos. That was the only logical explanation for why this room was such a mess. It must be intentional. His penance must be to clean it. If that was indeed the case, he could save precious time by getting started, without being assigned an official task. Bending down hurt his ribs, but if he concentrated he could block the pain out.

  After several minutes the door burst open to reveal a plump man that was sweating profusely into a cardigan that was doing a heroic effort not to burst at the seams. His hair was thin and his glasses were thick. He didn’t even notice Gargle; he was busy staring at yet another piece of paper.

  Headmaster Matthews navigated into his chair without looking up, and went to place the paper onto the towering pile that no longer existed. He did a double take and checked behind him. The cleaners had been known to take their lives into their own hands and move his documents, running the risk of an avalanche in the process. That did not appear to be the case; there was no precariously balanced heap on the floor. His paperwork had vanished.

  It didn’t take him long to come to a new conclusion. A troublemaker had been left alone in his office, and now all his paperwork was missing. This one didn’t exactly require a deerstalker hat.

  “What did you do with my documents?” he said, his tone low and threatening.

  “I organized them,” Gargle said. “They are now in your desk drawers and filing cabinets.”

  “Aha! There was no room in those cabinets!” the Headmaster exclaimed, yanking open a desk drawer. Instead of the usual explosion of paper he was greeted with neat rows, carefully separated into school years, with alphabetical tabs. He stared at it for a while before saying, “How?”

  “It took a little doing, but once I had worked out the optimal filing system it was just a matter of implementing it. I hope it meets your needs,” Gargle said, hoping this meant that his punishment was now complete so he could get back to learning.

  “Why?” was the Headmaster’s follow-up question.

  “Was that not why I was brought to this office?” Gargle asked, confused again.

  “No! You offended half your classmates by talking about your genitals during sex education. That is why you were sent here. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Why is that a problem? Do they not have genitals?”

  “No. I mean, well, yes, but we don’t just talk about them in class.”

  “Why not? Is this not a place of learning? How am I supposed to learn about my body if I cannot discuss it?”

  Headmaster Matthews sighed. These damn kids, nothing was taboo anymore. There would probably be a protest outside his office tomorrow, declaring that he was body shaming the students.

  “Let me be clear, it is perfectly fine to be curious about your body, and nothing to be ashamed about in any way, but that was not the time or the place to discuss it.”

  “Sex education is not the correct forum to discuss my reproductive organs?”

  The Headmaster was starting to be glad there wasn’t a large stack of documents to throw around the room. This conversation was heading nowhere productive.

  “Listen carefully, Mr. Harper, you do not have long left at this school. I know we’ve seen more of each other than we would like in the last few months, but could you maybe try keeping a low profile for the next couple of weeks? I really don’t want to expel a student so close to exams, that wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

  “I shall endeavour to follow the rules, just as soon as I can determine them.”

  “Excellent, there’s a good lad. You seem to have learned your lesson, and really, the only person you embarrassed was yourself. I don’t believe we need to take this matter any further. You can leave now.”

  Gargle jumped up and winced as he clutched his ribs. He’d forgotten to block the pain. Headmaster Matthews noticed and said, “What is the matter?”

  “Nothing, I just have a small injury.”

  The Headmaster got a whiff of liability and went into full arse-covering mode. “Let me see.”

  Gargle lifted his shirt and the Headmaster almost fainted. The bruise was huge, dark blue, and perfectly circular.

  “How on earth did you do that?”

  “I was hit by a football.”

  “I can see that. I can almost make out the logo. Go and see the nurse at once.”

  Gargle hesitated. “I do not believe that the nurse is a proficient healer.”

  Headmaster Matthews looked shiftily from side to side. He hadn’t exactly done a thorough check of the nurse’s credentials, but she was cheap, which freed up money for other luxuries, like chairs. “Don’t be ridiculous, she is fully qualified to assess your injury and determine if it is appropriate for you to still be at school. Please go straight there.”

  “I would prefer to go to my next class.”

  “I am not asking, Mr. Harper, I am telling.”

  Gargle sighed. That was as close to a task as he was going to get. “I’m on my way.”

  ***

  The giant spider led the way out of the office, toward the other students, who were all staring again. The Teacher spoke loudly, all clicks and scratches, which was translated into, “Everyone please welcome our new student, Josh.”

  No-one spoke, or made friendly gestures. Instead they stared at him intently.

  Josh waved and waited to find out where he would be sitting, but instead the Teacher said, “Who would like to challenge Josh to a mock trial?”

  A few of the other trainees exchanged glances. No-one rushed forward. Instead they waited for someone else to step up. It seemed that nobody was keen to lose to the new guy.

  After a long silence t
he Teacher barked, “If none of you are willing to risk your precious rankings then perhaps I should choose someone.”

  Josh noticed one of the candidates doing a particularly enthusiastic job of not making eye contact, which was hard with a giant spider. The alien was short, only four feet or so, and it was trying to make itself even smaller. It had thick stubby limbs, a humanoid face, and light-green skin. There wasn’t hair anywhere on its body, creating an almost lizard-like appearance.

  The Teacher barked, “Why don’t we make it easy for our new student. Frag, you are bottom of the rankings, it will be nice for you to beat someone for a change.”

  “But, Teacher…”

  “But nothing. You cannot stay a student forever, you need to be preparing for your bar exam.” He tapped something on a data pad and Frag sighed.

  The short green alien slowly inched over to a control panel, its little legs shuffling forward bit by bit. The desk sank down to meet it at waist height. This was an alien that could choose to be whatever it wanted, and this was what it had gone with.

  Shift ushered Josh across to an adjacent desk while the Teacher said, “We shall start with something easy for our new classmate. Before you can attack, you must prove that you can defend. Run scenario 117.”

  A few of the others chuckled and Frag said, “Teacher, that isn’t a very balanced scenario.”

  “Do you think the Galactic Corp is going to try and have balanced fights? If by some miracle you manage to work up the nerve to take the bar again and actually pass it this time, you will almost always be fighting against the odds. You had better get used to it.”

  A huge viewer blinked into existence in front of them, with two vastly different mechs slowly rising from the ground.

  The first one was thick and lumbering, with a giant metal shield in one hand and a long, double-headed hammer in the other. Josh flipped up his wrist and tried pulling up the mech’s profile on his bracelet. To his surprise, it worked, and better yet, was in English:

  Level 7 Defender

  This mech is the perfect choice if you need to hunker down and take some damage. It can also dish it out when up close. It is the ideal choice for defending an orb, or other stationary target. However, its slow movement speed leaves it vulnerable to faster-moving and ranged mechs.