“Oh. Rog, honey, I didn’t see you there.”
Roger and his new class were clustered around his mother’s food stall. The man in the tuxedo was watching without much enthusiasm. Roger and Charlotte had shifted to the front of the group, the others quietly moving backward to watch.
“Yeah,” Roger said. “You didn’t see us outside, either.”
He tried to keep the testiness out of his voice, because he was aware that it wasn’t helpful and she was stressed enough from work without him chewing her out for it, but he didn’t quite succeed. He’d really hoped she’d be able to make time for them on the first day, at least for Charlotte’s sake. She was more sensitive to that sort of thing than he was.
“I’m sorry,” she said, visibly struggling to stay awake and upright. “I had a shift last night. I barely got here on time.”
“Yes, well,” he said, trying to hold back, “it’s a pity. Still, we’re doing well in class. Everyone, this is my mother, April Abercrombie.”
“An agreeably alliterative appellation,” Jason observed.
“Absolutely,” Sue said. Bright shot them both a look of disgust.
“Hi,” April said, forcing out a smile. “I’m glad to hear that. I –” she yawned widely “– it’s great how much you’ve learned yourself.”
“Someone’s got to do it,” he said, and this time he let a little too much bitterness into his tone, because she frowned.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” she said. “I have to take the shifts they give me.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, “and you have to rest and relax in between, and you have to sleep late to make up the difference, but after all these things you have to do, there sure isn’t a lot of time left for anyone else.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” she asked. “I have to work, and I can’t get a nice unionised job like teaching. It’s easy for you to be judgmental …”
“Yes, it’s very easy,” he said, “because I wasn’t a born genius. I worked for this. It took hard work and responsibility.”
Charlotte’s eyes had widened in panic, but she froze. Sue and Jason had instinctively taken a step backward. Bright stood her ground, silently watching Roger’s body language.
“I’m working as hard as anyone,” April said indignantly. “That’s why I don’t have time to hold your hand every day. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll set an earlier alarm next time.”
Roger had a moment where he could very clearly see himself replying, ‘Or a louder one,’ to the point that he half thought he’d said it, but he managed to swallow it.
There came a clatter of footsteps from behind them, and they turned to see Blank approaching.
“Hey guys,” she said. “Mister Abercrombie, Mister Robards,” she added to Roger and the man in the tuxedo, her voice the careful neutral of someone trying to keep their temper in check.
“Hi,” Roger said, more shortly than he’d intended. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hello,” he repeated, more gently this time. “What did you think of the RAYS?”
“Not exactly what I was expecting,” she said. Her eyes flicked over to Charlotte, then back to him. “Not that it wouldn’t work, it’s just that there were lots of weird photos in there.”
He filed this fact away. “Wait, you said Mister Robards?” he said, half-turning to the man in the tuxedo. He hadn’t realised he’d gone off at his mother with a colleague watching.
“He’s our English teacher,” Sue explained. She peered at him more closely. “Aaand no offence but I think it’s probably a good day to focus on the sciences.”
“Are you okay?” Charlotte asked him nervously.
He mumbled something, then cleared his throat and repeated, “Great, ‘cept I’m useless at everything.”
Bright rolled her eyes. Sue and Jason exchanged glances of, ‘Here we go again.’ Blank balled a tight fist and muttered, “Adults,” venom in her voice.
“What happened?” Charlotte pressed.
April replied for him. “His girlfriend’s gone away,” she said. “Uh, I’m not sure if he means” she drew a finger across her neck “or that she just had to move for work, or she found some way up and out of here. Probably not the first one, but I can’t really tell, he’s not very coherent. He’s had a lot of hot dogs; I really should have cut him off two or three dogs ago.”
“Should we maybe look for her?” Charlotte asked. “We’re already looking for the Keycard; maybe we’ll find her before that.”
“If it’s still in the school at all,” Blank murmured.
“If you see anyone like that around here, I guess you could ask her to give him a visit,” April said. “I don’t think he’s in any condition to go with you, not after all those dogs. I’ll make him some coffee and watch him while he sobers up.”
They looked at him, and he stirred vaguely.
“We should get back to it,” Roger said.
“Er,” Sue said. “While we’re here …?” She looked up at April with puppy-dog eyes.
April shrugged and bent down behind the counter. When she straightened, she had a box of chips and fried chicken.
“No hot dogs until you’re eighteen,” she said, pushing it forward. Sue took it and ate a chip, her eyes fluttering shut with pleasure. Jason took a drumstick, then stepped away, making room for Charlotte and the others to take something.
“No thanks,” Bright said, waving them off. “I’m on a diet.”
“Why?” Sue said. “You’re already almost as skinny as Lottie.”
“Half of that explains the other half,” Bright said. “And I’m a picky eater.”
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“Come on,” Roger said again. “See you around, mum.”
“Bye,” Charlotte said.
“Nice meeting you,” Sue added.
They turned and headed back to the classrooms.
“Do we have a strategy?” Jason asked.
“Work through the problems methodically,” said Roger.
“If I may,” Bright said, “I think it’ll be faster to focus on high-priority areas. Ones where we can make progress quickly, ones where the think the Keycard is likely to be. We’re mostly good at the sciences, and we’re most of the way through already.”
“We’ll have wasted a lot of time if it turns out it’s at the back of the English wing,” Blank noted.
“We can’t do much there right now anyway, not with Robards being … well,” Bright said, her nose tilted upward, despite not being tall enough to look down it at anyone. “And I have a theory, that it doesn’t really matter what path you take, they all lead to the same place in the end. So it’s best to just go all the way through one route, rather than dabbling in several.”
Blank said nothing.
“You don’t look happy,” Charlotte said.
Blank opened her mouth, shut it, let out a breath, and spoke. “I think maybe Bright’s right,” she said, “that they all lead to the same place. But I’m worried that they all lead nowhere. I think the Keycard isn’t here at all. I think maybe someone took it away before any of us were even born. I don’t have any better ideas, so I didn’t want to bring it up, but I can’t get enthusiastic if this might be a wild goose chase.”
“To be honest, I don’t really care whether it’s here,” Bright said. “What matters is that we get through the important doors. The Keycard’s one way to open them, but it’s not the only way, and it probably isn’t even the best one. If the Keycard quest falls through, I have plenty of backup plans.”
“Shouldn’t we just take one of those, then?” Charlotte asked.
Bright looked from her to Roger and back. “We might as well keep trying this for a little longer,” she said. “After all, we’re already here.”
They’d made it back to the maths wing, and a new room overflowing with reference books, old scrap paper, and more puzzles. An entire-wall window gave a view of the city, and the imposing Chypros tower.
“Everyone, pick one,” Roger directed. “I’ll circle around and help if you get stuck.”
At that exact moment, there was a flash from the Chypros tower, as a fireball billowed out near the base. A few seconds later, the shockwave reached them and rattled the window in its frame.
“The heck was that?” Sue asked.
They stared out the window. The fireball swirled in a cloud of smoke and dust and began to dissipate. The tower’s superstructure didn’t look damaged.
“Eh, probably nothing important,” said Jason.
“I really hope that was facetious,” said Roger. “That being said, it doesn’t directly affect us.”
“Should we evacuate anyway?” Charlotte asked. “Better safe than sorry, and there’s a RAYS nearby.”
“That won’t help,” Sue said. “Those aren’t rated to stop explosions. It’s in the acronym.”
“I’d rather actively solve problems,” Bright said. “For example …”
She walked over to Blank’s lock and made a sequence of deft motions, and the lock clicked open.
“I had that,” Blank said. The door swung open, revealing yet another classroom, this one with two people in it.
One was a man in a neat business suit; on the lapel was a Chypros pin. He was big, taller even than Roger and significantly more muscular, with dark hair and sunglasses. He had a telescoping chainsaw in the small of his back, but right now he carried a digital tablet. He looked at them with surprise.
The other was a woman, also in a Chypros business suit, hers fitting very well. She looked very tall, but most of it was her generous heels. It worked well with her lean physique. Her hair was platinum blonde, slicked back with gel that revealed a long stretch of her temple. She had a smart phone in one hand, and a sidearm in a holster. Her blue eyes skated past Roger to Bright.
“Michelle,” she said, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Mother,” the younger Bright replied, in the polite tone of someone who would prefer to be swearing. “I didn’t expect to see you. Here.”
“Mister Truman,” Roger said stiffly to the larger man.
Truman smiled and nodded. He didn’t have the most appealing smile, but at least it looked sincere. “Roger. You look well.”
“A friend of yours?” Michelle asked.
“Not exactly,” Roger said.
“We met under … trying circumstances,” said Truman. “Things look better now, though.”
Sue noticed that Charlotte had darted behind the wall and out of Truman’s and Mother Bright’s line of sight, but she carefully didn’t turn to look and give her away.
“Of course I came here, darling,” Mother Bright said. “I came across a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I need a student to help me.”
“Of course,” Michelle repeated. She had excellent composure, but Roger still had the distinct impression that she was not happy and rapidly getting more annoyed as the conversation continued. “Unfortunately, we’re all busy with our study, but I’m sure you can find someone else to do what you want. This is a school, after all.”
“I can’t use just anyone, Michelle. It needs to be someone special. Someone with the right set of talents. Aren’t you interested? It could be an excellent beginning to your career.”
“No, Mother,” Michelle said rigidly, “I’m not, because I think it’s likelier to be an excellent day in the life of your career. And like I said, we’re busy here.”
Roger looked Mother Bright over. Her sidearm didn’t look standard-issue: he could see circuitry along one side, fuel cells and capacitors.
“You’re being unreasonable, darling. You didn’t even listen to what the opportunity is. It could be an incredible benefit to us both.”
“I’m sure it could be,” Michelle said, “but I told you, I’m already busy.”
“All the more reason to look for ways to make things easier. With this, we’ll be able to write our own ticket. Imagine what you could do with the cloner.”
“One thing that I couldn’t do would be to find the Keycard,” Michelle said. “I assume this cloner needs the original to make a clone.”
“With something like that, you don’t need a Keycard. Don’t you see how valuable it would be? With it, it’ll be no problem to go wherever you like.”
“Er,” Jason said, raising a hand. “I hate to interrupt when you’re having fun, but what exactly are you asking for? Why do you need a student to make something like that? Doesn’t Chypros have its own researchers?”
“The cloner’s already complete,” said Mother Bright. “It was a project for a science fair two years ago, part of the same research that led to our deinonycops.”
“Well done with those,” Michelle undertoned.
“Watch it, young lady. The cloner’s currently locked inside the science wing. This isn’t just a school, you know, it’s so much more than that. Eric and I” she indicated Mister Truman “know the way, but only a student is allowed to solve the problems and gain access. Anything else is counted as cheating and triggers deinonycop intervention.”
“Since those are part of the same organisation you work for,” said Michelle, “this sounds like something you should be able to deal with on your own. But of course you can’t,” she continued, “you wouldn’t be here right now asking for help if you didn’t have to be.”
Roger looked from mother to daughter. He was sure he was missing context. He was also sure that it wasn’t a good idea to antagonise an unknown quantity who was carrying a gun.
“Well, too bad,” Michelle went on. “This is your problem, not mine, and I’m already tapped out studying at the school that you enrolled me in.”
“Forget that,” her mother said impatiently. “Don’t you see how much bigger this is?”
“Er,” Jason said again. “What if I find it for you?”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“Some of these problems are very difficult,” said Mother Bright, “and we’re not allowed to give you the solutions.”
“I’m as good at the sciences as Bright is,” he said, “when I try.”
“Why?” Sue asked him. “A cloner is just about the most useful thing imaginable that won’t be useful for what we’re trying to do.”
He shrugged complacently. “Like they both said, we have ideas other than finding the Keycard. Worst-case scenario, I waste a whole lot more of my life than I already have, but best-case, I get a big head start on our plan B. It’s worth a try.”
She stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. “I want to keep trying here, but good luck. Hurry back.”
“I’ll waddle as fast as I can,” he promised. “Be seeing you,” he said to the others. He walked through the doorway to join Mother Bright and Truman, and followed them as they turned and left.