The Unspeakable Unknown

by Eliot Sappingfield

  She gave me an understanding smile. “That’s lovely, dear. I’m sure you were very brave.”

  * * *

  Back at school, the four of us went straight for Fleming’s Sub Shoppe to discuss what had happened. I picked the place because it was right by where the bus dropped us off, and because their blue cheese sub was my new favorite food that week. Over the course of the two hours we’d spent in the bus, Darleeen’s brainwashing had faded noticeably. I had seen the realization that they had been lying about something creep over each of their faces in turn.

  “So, there wasn’t a gun dog?” Warner asked before taking a heroic bite from his hoagie.

  “No,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that was your own idea, but you believed it as soon as it was out of your mouth.”

  Hypatia was shaking her head. “No, I wasn’t lying. I still remember it, clear as day. It just doesn’t feel one hundred percent solid. Like—”

  Warner and Dirac were nodding in agreement. I held up a hand to stop them. “Let’s try something: on the count of three, I want each of you to say what kind of dog it was. One, two, three!”

  Warner said, “German shepherd.”

  Dirac said, “Bloodhound.”

  And Hypatia said, “Chihuahua.”

  Ignoring the physics involved with a Chihuahua discharging firearms strapped to its body, I said, “Okay, does that seem odd to you, that all three of you remember a dog, but not the same dog?”

  “A bit,” Hypatia allowed.

  “Makes sense, I guess. I think I’d remember being able to do a spinning backflip,” Warner said, looking a bit disappointed.

  I patted the back of his hand, feeling sorry for him. “I’m sure you could do a backflip if you really needed to and also had the physical ability.”

  He smiled, then lost the smile a bit. “Thanks?”

  Dirac, on the other hand, was nowhere near a smile. “So, we ran into a genuine Old One, and you didn’t fight her? You just let her mess with our brains?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. She seemed okay to me. They kicked her out, after all, so she can’t be that bad. Besides, you threatened her. It was self-defense.”

  “She seemed okay to you? That’s the most preposterous—they’re all bad, Nikola,” he said, his anger rising. “They’ve killed people I love. Everyone here knows someone who died because of one of them. The only good Old One is a dead one.”

  “You can’t claim to know them all because you’ve had bad experiences with some,” I pointed out.

  He rolled his eyes. “Leave it to a girl to get all softhearted around a deadly predator.”

  “Leave it to a boy,” I said without thinking, “to get all softheaded the moment he gets his hands on a weapon. What the hell were you thinking? You were going to blast an interdimensional creature? You might as well have thrown a napkin at her.”

  “It’s more than you were doing!”

  “Yeah! Because I was talking to her, Dirac!” I could feel my cheeks getting hot. “They kicked her out. She said they took her memories and her name. She’s not one of them anymore.”

  “What do you know?” he said. “You’re just as brainwashed as the rest of us, except that you don’t know you’re lying. We need to take this to Ms. Botfly. She wasn’t affected. She might be able to call in an airstrike or something. Maybe she can have the humans test a nuke there like they did to that hive in New Mexico way back.”

  For some reason, knowing Dirac thought I was lying or just being foolish really got to me. I could see Hypatia signaling to me that maybe we should leave or perhaps have a bathroom conference, or maybe she was trying to say I had something in my teeth—I hadn’t memorized all the signals yet. I figured it didn’t matter because Dirac was going to realize he was wrong and apologize at any moment.

  I said, “I told you—she couldn’t mess with my head for some reason. If she had tried to kill us, I could have stopped it.”

  “You’d have saved us?” he asked, his eyebrows climbing ever closer to his hairline. “Just like you saved them at the football field last fall?” He was pointing at Warner and Hypatia. “Oh, no wait, you blasted them yourself, and once they were out cold, you tried to run away, right?”

  I was momentarily taken aback. It didn’t surprise me that the other students had heard all about what happened when Warner, Hypatia, and I had confronted Tabbabitha, but I didn’t expect I’d have to defend my actions.

  “She was controlling them, Dirac. Knocking them out made her stop before she could make them hurt themselves or—”

  He stood suddenly, which, given his superhuman grace and speed, was almost too quick to see. “Or you? A lot of people didn’t like that you tried running when your friends were down. I told them you were probably trying to lead it away, but maybe you thought it would leave you alone if you gave it someone to eat. Seems like you don’t think the Old Ones are all that bad.”

  I could feel my face reddening. A weird feeling washed over me, like a dizzy tingling behind my eyeballs inside my head. Did Warner and Hypatia think I’d abandoned them?

  “Dirac, I know what their lies feel like. I’m not wrong; I’m certain of it. Please don’t tell Botfly. I like her, but she’s nuts. She might hurt innocent people trying to get an Old One. Remember when she booby-trapped her desk with a live grenade to catch whoever was stealing her gum?”

  Dirac drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and brushed away the tendrils of air-light silver hair from where they had fallen in front of his face. He looked about to say something and changed his mind. Silently, he gathered his things and turned to the door.

  “Dirac,” I said. “I’m sorry. I should have told her not to mess with you guys. I’m . . . I’m just sorry, that’s all.”

  He threw me a sardonic, angry smile and left without another word.

  “That went well,” Warner said around a half-chewed mouthful of hoagie.

  “He won’t tell anyone,” Hypatia said. “He’s just embarrassed that he was fooled so easily. It’s not a wonderful feeling.

  “Hey,” I said, “you guys don’t think I was . . .”

  “No!” Warner and Hypatia said in unison.

  “You did what was best,” Hypatia said. “It’s so creepy, remembering when Warner and I tried to . . . to . . .”

  “When you tried to ‘get me’? Yeah, I remember that,” I said, suppressing a grin at how weird the memory was.

  “You smile, but it isn’t like being remote-controlled. I really wanted to do it. Like, I felt like I was unquestionably right to grab you because she asked. It’s really unsettling to think about. I don’t know how it doesn’t bother you.”

  “It does bother me,” I said. “But I know none of it was real. That helps.”

  Hypatia went on. “We’d all be dead if you hadn’t shot us.”

  “You can’t blame people for being skeptical. It is a pretty unlikely story,” Warner said. “I looked it up and can’t find a single account in history where someone has been as close as you were to an Old One in their true form and come away from it without dying or suffering permanent psychological damage. If I hadn’t been there myself, I’d be sure you were lying about something.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” he said. “We’re all supposed to think like scientists here. Skepticism is our native language.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “So is Dirac going to tell Ms. Botfly?”

  “No, I’m sure he won’t,” Hypatia said.

  “He might,” Warner said. “He gets pretty headstrong sometimes.”

  “Try it,” Hypatia said, flagging down a girl who had been on the way to refill her drink. “Tell Radia here what you saw today.”

  I threw Hypatia a what are you doing? glare, but she ignored me. “Go on. Try.”

  Radia tossed a sheet of deep violet h
air over her shoulder and smiled at Warner, waiting.

  He grinned a little goofily. “Well, the three of us went to the forest today for eCombat and ran right into a . . . I mean, we saw this . . . What’s the word for . . . You know, when there’s a . . .” He seemed to lose his train of thought. “What were we talking about?”

  “See?” Hypatia said. She dismissed Radia with a flick of her hand, which is a common parahuman gesture that means Go away now but isn’t counted as rude. I’ve never been comfortable with it myself.

  “I couldn’t tell her,” Warner observed shrewdly.

  “Nope. I tried earlier and couldn’t. We don’t believe it anymore, but whatever she did to stop us from telling was a little more permanent.”

  “Wait, you tried telling?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’s the law, Nikola. Hiding the existence and location of an Old One is a serious infraction. I hope you decide to tell someone as soon as possible.”

  “Darleeen is not a threat, though. Why can’t anyone understand that?” I said.

  Hypatia sighed. “She didn’t brainwash you, but that doesn’t mean she told the truth. Dirac has a point there. It’s not our call to make. The authorities might decide to leave her be, once they hear she’s not part of the family anymore.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I asked.

  Warner shook his head without looking up from his phone. “Of course she doesn’t believe it. They’ll probably imprison her somehow, which is the best move. Better safe than sorry. I bet they use one of those inverted gap fields like we invented to deal with Tabbabitha. We should have patented it.”

  “Well, I’m not telling if they’re going to be so irrational about it,” I said.

  Warner pursed his lips. “That’s why you should tell. If people find out you aided and abetted an Old One—imagine if she hurt someone, and it got out you knew she was out there. Even if you didn’t get in trouble, people would always assume you might be on their side.”

  “I can’t believe how suspicious you all are about this stuff. Is it common for people to change sides and help the Old Ones?” I asked, remembering what Dr. Plaskington had said about willing traitors.

  Hypatia’s smile was sad but frank. “Sometimes they force cooperation with torture, blackmail, or capture like with your dad. Sometimes they brainwash people for extended periods of time if they don’t need their minds or information. And sometimes they lure them over to their side with the promise of money or power. That’s most common.”

  “You can’t be serious,” I said. “People willingly help them?”

  Now it was Warner’s turn for exasperation. “God, you’re naive. Have you noticed how many of the kids here just happen to come from extremely wealthy families? Think that’s coincidence?”

  “I just figured their families have patents, or that parahumans are just naturally more successful,” I said.

  “That’s part of it,” he said. “But another part of it is that every wealthy family has their own turncoat somewhere in the family tree, and that money hangs around. You sell a secret to the Old Ones, and they’ll make you fabulously rich. They’ll make you so rich it carries over to your children, grandchildren, and so on. Even the best and most honorable parahuman families have a little blood money in the bank they don’t like talking about.”

  I wondered for a moment if any of my dad’s money had come from disreputable ancestors, but I remembered that, as humans, we didn’t exactly have a long history of excellence in the family. I’d never met my grandparents, but according to Dad, they had been Christmas tree farmers.

  “So where do the Old Ones get all their money?”

  “You can make a lot of money when people will believe anything you say. They tend to be really successful in business, law, and politics, jobs where dishonesty can really pay off,” Warner said.

  “Politics? You don’t mean—”

  “God no,” Hypatia said. “We’ve never had an Old One president or senator or anything like that. They like to hide in the shadows. Usually they work behind the scenes, acting as advisers, laundering illegal contributions, encouraging war and pollution, fighting to keep poor people poor and blaming each other about their troubles, and fostering discord in general. Anything that will slow down progress and encourage conflict. Conflict is good for business, after all.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You know, people always talk about how bad the government is, but I never knew—”

  Hypatia popped a candied oak leaf into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “It’s not that bad. Most of the people running things are just regular, flawed people who are actually trying to do a good job and get it right sometimes. The Old Ones intentionally spread the message that they’re all corrupt so they can turn people against one another. If you make people believe working together causes corruption, they’re less likely to try it.”

  Without warning, I came to a decision on something I hadn’t even known I was considering.

  “I’ll go tell Ms. Botfly about Darleeen tomorrow morning,” I said. “People should know, and I don’t want to break any laws.”

  Hypatia appeared to be momentarily taken aback but recovered quickly. “Oh. Well, it’s what you should do.” She stood up and threw her bag over her shoulder. “I really should stop by the synthetic animal sanctuary before going home. I need to return a hummingbird before they charge a late fee. Meet you at home?”

  “Okay,” I said, wondering what was behind the abrupt departure and why Hypatia had rented a hummingbird in the first place.

  Warner pulled out his tablet and started playing a game, and I grabbed my own.

  “You really going to tattle?” he asked without looking up.

  “I said I’d tell someone, and I will. But I never specified how many people I’d tell.” I typed out a quick email.

  Darleeen:

  Really sorry about this, but I’ve just found out that it’s a little bit illegal for me not to inform someone that we saw you, and a couple of the kids who were there are anxious about keeping it a secret. I’m going to spill the beans tomorrow morning, so you might want to make yourself scarce.

  Sorry for the short notice,

  Nikola

  I sent the message and took a deep breath. Something felt wrong. It took a minute to realize what was bothering me. I had been honest with Darleeen and I was coming clean to Botfly, but it felt a bit like I was lying to Hypatia. I decided to tell her I’d warned Darleeen as soon as I saw her again. The moment I’d finished making that decision, my tablet buzzed to alert me of a new message.

  The email was from the same disposable email address I’d sent the warning to a moment before.

  Dear Snitch,

  I already know. The blond Cabbage Patch Kid you had with you just emailed me. Thanks for the heads-up. :)

  Deee

  “That deceptive little fink Hypatia went behind my back!” I told Warner.

  Warner had his face planted firmly behind his screen and only chuckled in response.

  8

  EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS AND THE SNAILS WHO ASK THEM

  The next morning’s conversation with Ms. Botfly went roughly like I’d expected, which is to say it went nothing like what I’d expected.

  “So you’re saying you met an Old One while you were out, and you forgot to mention it to anyone until just now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, realizing I probably should have worked out my story before stopping in to see her. “Kind of slipped my mind.”

  Ms. Botfly was standing behind the counter of the Bookstore Bookstore, fondling a dangerous-looking slab of angular metal and exposed circuitry with polished spikes extending in random directions. To say it looked dangerous was an understatement. “You just remembered an encounter with an Old One, a terrifying interdimensional monstrosity, this morning,” she reiterated.

  “I did,”
I said, trying not to think about what it would feel like if I happened to touch one of the thin rivulets of electrical current that danced between the spikes on the device. “But there was so much going on yesterday. I bought that Eiffel Tower figurine at that gas station . . . It’s all a blur, really.”

  “Very peculiar,” Ms. Botfly said. “I’ve known since last night and haven’t been able to think about anything else. I wondered how it came to be that some of my students encountered an Old One and didn’t tell anyone, and I wondered if they had been compromised in some way. You know what we have to do if a student has been compromised mentally?”

  She pressed a button on the device, and the spikes jittered back and forth and stabbed outward threateningly as a surge of electricity thrilled through its surface. Somewhere on the device a speaker beeped out a shrill, electronic version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

  “You torture them with that thing and leave them for dead in the middle of nowhere?”

  Ms. Botfly only chuckled. “What? This thing? It’s supposed to help with the bags under my eyes, but I just can’t bring myself to stick my face into it. Why don’t you try it first?”

  She thrust it abruptly in the general direction of my face.

  I dodged to the left just in time. “No, no, no! That’s fine. I like bags under my eyes,” I said. Somehow, knowing it was a beauty device made it seem more dangerous.

  Ms. Botfly looked me over appraisingly. “They actually work on you. Makes you look diligent.”

  She placed the device gently on the counter, where it hummed a Chopin tune and sparked ominously. “What I was saying is that if I found out that one of my students had been mentally compromised, I would have to turn them over to the authorities so they could torture you and leave you for dead somewhere. They don’t pay me enough for that kind of work.”

  “Oh.”

  Ms. Botfly went on, making pointed eye contact. “Fortunately, nobody was compromised that I’m aware of. I bet you didn’t even speak to the Old One or encounter her directly. You probably just saw some signs of habitation that you’ve only now realized must have been signs of an Old One. Isn’t that correct?”