She produced a third pair of glasses from a pocket on her blouse and placed them high on her nose. “Come in, come in,” she added.
Books were everywhere. Shelves were packed three books deep, blocked from view by other stacks of books and buried in fallen piles of more books. There must have been hundreds of thousands of them, new stacked atop old. I could just tell there were treasures hidden in the corners of those shelves, buried under dust and copies of automobile repair manuals for every single GM car made in 1993. I liked the store immediately.
“Wow,” I said, mystified, wishing we had time for shopping.
“I know,” Hypatia whispered. “It’s an utter disaster.”
Metal, plastic, electronic, and cardboard signs hung at random intervals made it clear the categorizing system was like none I’d ever encountered. Instead of fiction and nonfiction sections, there were Truth and Lies sections. Within the Truth section, signs pointed out subsections such as THERMODYNAMICS, BIOGRAPHIES, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND ENGINEERING, FRENCH CULTURE, MARK TWAIN AND KURT VONNEGUT, and EXPLOSIONS, among others. The Lies section advertised POPULAR QUANTUM THEORY (HUMAN/NEW AGE), SCIENCE FICTION, GENERAL HISTORY, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, BOOKS WITH KISSING, ETIQUETTE AND GRAMMAR, BOOKS WITH SHOOTING AND PUNCHING, and ARMED ANIMALS.
Hypatia must have noticed that I had already charted a course toward ARMED ANIMALS, because she grabbed me by my backpack and pulled me to a stop.
“We have five minutes,” she said. “Get your things and we can get out of here. This place gives me the willies—not even an attempt to alphabetize. I’ll be in the self-help section.” A moment later, she was standing in the Lies section under a sign that read BOOKS THAT VALIDATE YOUR LOW OPINION OF YOURSELF.
I was about to ask how I was supposed to find what I needed when the clerk addressed me. “Child. You are new. Please come over here.” The woman spoke in a high, proper voice, with a slight accent of some sort that I could not place. German, maybe?
“Is it that obvious that I’m new?” I asked.
“I could tell. People say that I am shockingly perceptive, and on that count, they are absolutely correct. My name is Ms. Muriel Botfly. What is your name, young man?”
“I’m Nikola,” I said. “Miss Nikola Kross.”
“Miss Nikola?” she said, shaking her head and making a tsk-tsk noise. “Such a stupid name for a boy. I can see why you go by your middle name. You must be in fourth grade?”
“Seventh. And I’m a girl.”
She smiled. “No, I’m certain you’re in eighth grade, Mr. Miss. Please do not contradict me. Additionally, we do not ascribe to the grade structure, either in periodic evaluation or in the overall progress of your education. Kindly disregard that ‘eighth-grade’ nonsense at your earliest convenience. I’ll be your Electronic Combat instructor, so you’re going to need to get on my good side. Now—Dr. Plaskington sent over your schedule, as well as an order for a small wardrobe and household items. You arrived without clothes? Is this correct?”
“Just a few things . . . I didn’t have time to pack, really. There were these—”
“Nudity is not tolerated at this school,” she said sternly.
There was a long silence as I considered how to convince her I did not intend to attend classes naked. I decided to change the subject instead. “So, books. I think I need some.”
“You certainly do,” she said, producing a large paper bag. “I’ve assembled your books just over here.” She indicated a large oak bookshelf behind her.
“Which ones?” I asked.
“Well, all of them! The shelf will be installed in your room this afternoon, along with enough clothing and other personal effects to get you through the school year. Do you have a weapon yet?” she asked.
“For what?” I said.
“For causing injury to people or creatures and either destroying or damaging objects, of course. What kind of weapons do they let children play with these days?” She leaned forward and stared into my eyes. “You look like the kind of boy who would enjoy a good tachyon temporal tampering beam.”
Hypatia popped out from behind a huge stack of books that threatened to topple over at any moment. “You don’t want that one! They blast things before you decide to shoot at them.”
This seemed to make sense to Ms. Botfly. “Yes, your friend Hyperion has a point. They are rather unpredictable but guaranteed to only shoot at things you would have shot at on your own eventually. Perhaps a magnetic singularity, then?”
“Are you trying to kill her?” Hypatia asked. “Remember the new kid last year? You sold him one, and he was almost crushed when it pulled in a dump truck from the highway.”
“Ah, yes. Terrible mess that was,” she said. “How about a used magnetic singularity, then? Half off. Just a little dent. They’re very durable.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Just curious, though: why do I need a weapon? Am I going to be attacked?”
“Eventually,” she said. “I’ve seen your schedule. We’ve also had problems with nanobot rebellions, sporting competitions gone wrong, superintelligent breeds of animals bent on world domination, psychopathic robot monsters . . . those are particularly difficult . . . my Creative Robotics students are usually to blame.” I could have been mistaken, but it seemed there was a distinct note of pride in her voice.
She held up a massive black sword that seemed to stab itself in my general direction of its own free will before setting it aside. “You are required to be ready to defend yourself at all times while at this school. Self-defense is not a skill—it is a collection of good habits, and if you are to live a normal life in the outside world, you need to start internalizing those habits now. We conduct defense spot checks after students have attended a full year.”
“Defense spot checks?” I asked.
Hypatia’s head appeared once again. “Last month she jumped out from behind a vending machine while I was having dinner, and I hit her in the head with my plate. That kind of thing.”
“That kind of thing indeed. You barely passed that assessment, young lady. You can’t hit an Old One in the head with a dinner plate and expect them to fall over.”
“But what about the bees? Aren’t they supposed to take care of dangerous things?” I asked.
“They’re excellent but localized. If you want to hold down a job, you can’t very well go to work in a cloud of defense insects. Besides, they’re rather stupid,” Ms. Botfly said. “The upshot is that you’ll need a weapon for combat and self-defense classes. How about a nice AR-15?” She produced a frightening-looking machine-gun thing and set it on the counter. “A true classic, no frills, available in black, camouflage, or bubble-gum pink. Comes with five hundred rounds of nonlethal ammunition.”
“What’s that?” I said, pointing to a shiny, metallic purple device on the shelf behind her that looked a little bit like a remote control with a trigger.
“Ah, the new gravitational disruptor,” she said, producing another from a cardboard box kept under the register and handing it over with the faintest reverence. “One of the rechargeable models. It’s also a hand warmer, has a built-in alarm clock, and can store over a thousand of your favorite songs. Nowhere to attach a bayonet, however.”
The disruptor had a small handle, not quite as large as a pistol’s, and a trigger that looked like it might be at home on a video game controller. The top of the disruptor had several buttons and a small screen, which at the moment read:
SAFETY ON
100% CHARGE
PLEASE KILL RESPONSIBLY
I looked to Hypatia, who didn’t look too concerned for once. “I’ll take it.”
“Very good!” Ms. Botfly said. “I’ll have it delivered this . . .”
She trailed off and was paying attention to a small window open above the front door. I followed her gaze and saw the tiny drone helicopter I had seen in Dr. Plaskington
’s office. It flew in the window, zoomed over to us, and beeped a few times.
“A mine on that square, you say? Well . . . here.” She rummaged under the counter and returned with what looked like a miniature jet pack. “Slip this onto the bishop and leave it hovering over that square, then take the knight and call check.” The little claw on the helicopter took hold of the jet pack and zoomed back out the window.
“You’re Ms. Botfly,” I said, connecting Dr. Plaskington’s chess opponent with the woman before me.
“I already told you that, young man. Pay attention. Now, with the books, clothes, gravitational disruptor, your required school computer, and other standard supplies, your total comes to . . .” She did some calculations in her head. “Nine thousand, two hundred eighty-one dollars, and ninety-four cents. No checks, please.”
“I’m supposed to have an account with the school,” I said.
Ms. Botfly’s face lit up. “In that case, I’m throwing in the magnetic singularity for twenty dollars. Not like it’s your money, right? Now, stick your hand out.”
I did as she asked, and she set a little metal thimble on my thumb. A green light blinked, and I was suddenly aware that it had stabbed something through my skin.
“Ow!” I shouted, sucking on my injured thumb.
She took the thimble and set it on a corner of her keyboard. “Blood sample for authorizing your purchase. And here you are, Nikola Kross. It says here you’re female. Did you know?”
“I’ve had my suspicions.”
“Hm,” she said. “You should have your records updated.” She went back to the computer, typing ferociously. “And here we are! Your receipt and your class schedule, Miss Miss Nikola,” she said with a wink. “Here are the books you need for the rest of the day and your computer with the standard-issue Kevlar computer cozy with a pink turtle design.” She handed over a screen a bit like the tablet Hypatia had been using, only a little larger. I had issues with the pink turtle, but I wasn’t about to question her for fear of how bad the next selection might be.
We were on our way out when her small helicopter flew back into the store. Well, I’m not sure you could call it flying. Whatever you would call limping for something that is supposed to remain airborne—that was what it was doing. It scraped through the portal over the door and flung itself wildly around the room like the death throes of a housefly, bouncing off the floor, ceiling, and stacks of books. As it buzzed frantically past, I noticed a small horse’s head lodged in one of its rotors.
Ms. Botfly reached for the injured machine, calling to it like it was a sick pet. “Oh, B-129J model autonomous quadracopter, what did she do to you?”
“There’s a knight in one of the rotors,” I offered.
“I see it!” Hypatia said. “Why are its eyes blinking?”
Ms. Botfly must have known the answer to this question, because she immediately gave up trying to catch it. She shouted, “DOWN!” and vaulted the counter and tackled Hypatia and me where we stood.
There were a few seconds as I lay underneath one of my new teachers when I began to wonder if she had been overreacting, followed by about a tenth of a second when I was pretty certain I had just died. When the chess piece exploded, it not only completely obliterated the copter but also managed to knock over everything on every shelf in the room and blast out a storefront window not far from where we had been standing. Once the dust and debris settled, Muriel Botfly stood up, brushed herself off, and handed my computer cozy back to me. It was unscathed, except the pink turtle’s happy, smiling head was now blackened with a blob of melted shrapnel. I loved it.
“The old knightbomb,” Ms. Botfly chuckled as she surveyed the damage. The front half of the store was in shambles. Small fires burned somewhere in the Artistic Forestry and Beginners Cooking sections. Smoke and fragments of smoldering paper drifted in the air, and the robotic mannequins were cowering in a corner. Their display sign had been changed to say UNSAFE WORKING CONDITIONS.
“Where’s the phone?” I asked. “I’ll call 911.”
“We don’t have that here,” Hypatia said. Then to Ms. Botfly: “I’ll get the door.”
She sighed. “No need, dear, the window’s been opened for us.” She gingerly picked her way through the wreckage until she was standing at the shattered window. “Second time this month my store has been destroyed,” she grumbled.
Once we were outside, she shouted, “Cleanup!”
There was a strange whooshing sound, and the smoke was instantly sucked from the room and into the ceiling. Every fire went out simultaneously, and though it was hard to believe, a bookshelf that had been knocked over stood itself up again, unassisted. The windows were growing back from the edges inward with a slightly irritating crinkling sound.
“Come on,” said Hypatia, waving her hand in front of my face to stop me from staring, fascinated, at the store as it repaired itself. “This is going to take a while, and Mr. Dolphin does not like stragglers.”
8
PRACTICAL QUANTUM MECHANICS
As Hypatia half led, half dragged me toward the Main Street Deli and Quantum Mechanics Laboratory, I stared at the storefront, trying to see through the camouflage. I knew it was supposed to be a classroom in disguise, but I started to suspect that I was being duped. A vivid red-and-green awning fluttered above large, spotlessly clear windows. Through the glass, several people, mostly men, sat along a counter. They munched on pickles, chips, and hoagies while gazing blankly out into the street in the way people do when they’re concentrating on food. The smell of baking bread and cured meats wafted in the air. “Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.
Hypatia rolled her eyes. “Come on, Nikola. You’ll see.”
“That’s not a classroom,” I said.
“It’s alternate reality glass,” she explained. “We made it for a project last year. Pretty neat, huh?”
I had to admit, it was. Either that, or she was flat-out lying. “How does it work?”
“See, the way time passes, changes in the world come down to tiny variances at crucial points that make big differences later on. For instance, you might drop a quarter and forget about it, but someone finds it and sticks it into a parking meter, and some guy’s car doesn’t get towed because of it, so he is able to drive it to the hospital when his wife is sick, and because of that, she doesn’t die, or something. Your dropping a quarter saved a life, in a way. Those windows use a special material that shows an alternate reality where one tiny thing somewhere in the distant past happened differently.”
“What was it?”
“No idea—which is why they’re useless for anything else. Maybe in that universe, some Neanderthal back in the Paleolithic era tripped over a rock he missed in our timeline—or maybe Napoleon forgot his umbrella on a rainy day. Whatever the case, in that world, the Main Street Deli is still a deli. It took days of fiddling to get it right. One time they were all naked—it was super gross. Another time it was full of Elvi.”
“Elvi?”
“The plural form of Elvis. Look it up.”
I didn’t think she was right, but it wasn’t worth arguing. Hypatia waved cheerfully at a woman wiping down a counter. To my surprise, the woman waved back with a smile. Hypatia pulled the door open and ushered me inside.
I had to take a moment to gather myself. Everything I had just seen was gone as if I’d stepped behind the screen at a movie theater. The diner was replaced by a spacious room with all-white floors, walls, and ceilings that looked to be made of a slightly shiny plastic coating. No checkered tile, no lunch counter, no sandwiches, no deli smell—not even the windows remained. There were no obvious light fixtures, so it took me a moment to realize that every surface in the room was glowing faintly.
There were about twenty or so kids scattered here and there around the chamber, some seated and many more standing around looking distinctly nervous. As we ste
pped into the room, a hush fell over the conversation. A second later, almost all of them were looking at me. It made me wish I could enjoy being the center of attention. Thankfully, a second after that, most of them seemed to go back to what they had been doing when we came in—mumbling nervously to one another and casting furtive glances at the back wall of the room.
The furniture was unlike any I had ever seen. Every single object in the room that was not a person was formed of the same white plasticky substance. And all those objects were chairs. Some of them were simple stools or basic cubes that seemed to be attached to the floor; others were breathtakingly gaudy with spires, jagged edges, and intricate carvings. A throne hung from the ceiling by a single delicate filament; a huge white mouse sculpture held its forepaws out to accommodate the butt of an orange-tinted young lady. A lanky Asian boy sat upon a lifeguard’s chair so tall he had to hunch over so his head did not brush the ceiling. My favorite was a carefully balanced sculpture that reminded me of the colorful mobiles people hang above cribs, except this one was standing on a needlelike pedestal that rose from the floor. Rife with counterweights and wide sails to catch the breeze, the chair, which hung from one of the arms, moved about seemingly at random as the air in the room circulated.
I might have noticed more, but I found myself suddenly unable to ignore the students themselves. Now that I was in a room with them, I was suddenly registering just how alien many of my classmates looked. Up until then, I had assumed that parahumans were, as a whole, just like regular human-style people, only smarter. This assumption could not have been more wrong.
I was also struck with how different they all were. I’d assumed that because parahumans were a single species, that they would tend to look alike, but everywhere were striking features like unusual skin and hair colors, and alternate limb design. Had I not known otherwise, I’d think several of the students were species unto themselves.
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