Far away from Sam, in another city, in an unmarked building, behind two locked doors and three computer screens and a pair of thick-lensed glasses sat a mousy little man called Farnsworth. This man was looking at a clock and sweating profusely.

He’s late! Five minutes late! Five more minutes and we’ll have to reschedule! I can’t afford to lose another bloody customer!

It wound up being two more minutes until a knock on the door was followed by the appearance of an old man. The knock bothered Farnsworth, but at least the old man had the good sense not to speak until the door was shut.

“Sorry for the delay,” the old man said.

“Sorry’s right! Three more minutes and the codes on the locks would have changed.”

“Would they? Oh, yes, you did mention something like that. Must have slipped my mind.”

The mousy one stared at his elder for a few seconds with some exasperation.

“Never mind that,” Farnsworth sighed. “Your message said you’ve got an IP you want to trace.”

“Yes.” The old man pulled a phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. “This app, Bod.io, sends out a signal whenever this button is pressed. I suspect it was made by a single person and I’m trying to find them.”

Another moment of silence passed as Farnsworth waited for the old man to clarify what he’d just said. When this didn’t happen, he took the initiative: “You want to use this IP to try to find this person?”

“Well yes, it’s an address isn’t it?”

Oh lord have mercy I’m talking to a fossil. “That’s… that’s not how that works. An IP address is less like a residential address and more like… a PO box. So, even if I traced the signal, you wouldn’t necessarily get their location, just the location of a server they’re using. Also it wouldn’t be the server’s location: an IP has only crude location data, think city or zip code. Also a server isn’t quite like a PO box because you don’t even need to be near the server to use it, so even if you found the server that might not help you.”

The old man had sat through all that with a neutral expression that Farnsworth couldn’t quite read. When he was done speaking, the old man shifted to return the phone to his pocket.

“So you’re saying it’s not worth checking?”

This question invited panic. What have I done? I’m gonna lose another customer! “Well, now anything’s worth checking of course. It’s not like there’s nothing in an IP, and a fair bit of cyber security is spent protecting IPs, and there’s a whole lot of people who could find someone using an IP and… Oh! Yeah, I’m actually one of those for that matter.”

The old man had been a bit disoriented by the sudden quickening of Farnsworth’s words. “One of… what?”

“One of… um… See, there are much better ways to find a person than tracing their IP. Whoever made this… well, it’s an app so you’ve got to advertise it so there’s got to be some sort of trail online. If you know someone’s account then usually they let something slip sooner or later. In fact, any information about this person would help, like what makes you think the app was made by an individual as opposed to a group?”

The old man shrugged. “These things happen one at a time.”

Once again Farnsworth expected more elaboration than he got. “Pardon?”

“I suppose it would take too long to explain. Think of it like a gut feeling.”

“Righto, great, sounds good.”

How did you get the contact info for this place if you don’t know anything about anything? was a question he knew better than to ask.

The old man pulled the phone back out. “So you can help locate the app’s creator… Will you be needing this?”

“I… uh… well, like I said, anything helps.” He took the phone and plugged a cable into it. “Oh, you’ll need to unlock it.” He unplugged the cable, waited for the old man to type in the password, and then reattached it.

Farnsworth brought up the topic of payment, they came to an agreement, and the old man left. Sparing no time, he began googling furiously.

----------------------------------------

The next day, when Sam woke up, he made sure to measure his height. At first, when this came out at a little over 5 feet, he figured he was misremembering the previous day. Or maybe he hallucinated it, that also seemed plausible. However, he then remembered that they’d tried resetting the height slider at lunch.

I guess it only works when I’m sleeping?

His father gave him a mildly confused look at breakfast, but didn’t bring up the subject.

That day at school was occupied by two things mainly: classes and sliders. The former because, well, school, and the latter because Sam was utterly absorbed by his new character creation menu. 5.7 feet had seemed reasonable the other day, so he entered that into the app. Dexterity and arm strength seemed natural for dribbling and throwing.

“Leg stuff too,” Ben added at lunch.

“Oh yeah, for running.”

“Jumping too.”

“Jumping?”

“Yeah, like to throw from higher.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Hand size too. That definitely helps.”

Ben didn’t watch basketball but he’d heard somewhere that big hands definitely help. Sam took for granted that Ben must know a lot about basketball.

The seating arrangement in his last period turned out to be more merciful than he’d expected. On one hand, it was awkward being so near Helen after two days ago. On the other hand, she was behind him and therefore invisible. Seeing her take her seat was stressful, but seeing her go only strengthened his determination.

The “update” button in the app was pressed by the end of the day.

----------------------------------------

As it happens, Sam was not the only one at Nash High to download Bod.io before it was taken off the store. The other was a junior called Rex.

Rex had spent his middle school years in a loose knit group of friends, united not by any shared interest (not even in each other) but rather by the principle that they had nothing better to do. The transition to high school had broken this bond and Rex had spent his freshman year sulking instead of putting a new life together.

For sophomore year he decided to change something. He didn’t quite get that he was lacking friends, and instead decided that women were the answer. As it turns out, biology class is not necessarily the best place to try to pick up chicks, even if you’re on a reproduction unit. This didn’t stop Rex from trying.

“You must have good genes,” he’d once mumbled out during work in pairs.

His target had been perplexed. “...what did you just say?”

“Well, uh… you’ve got uh… he he… Your tits are coming in pretty well and… umm… I bet you’d make a good mother.”

“Oh. Ok.”

She quickly returned the topic to their assignment and for the rest of class showed a truly heroic level of polite forgetfulness.

Over the course of the year, he racked up seven rejections and two awkward conversations with the teacher in that class alone. By the time prom came around, which he was a year off from being eligible for anyway, he had become so angry that he attempted to act out. He came into school a few hours early one day and scrawled a loathsome tirade across a bunch of whiteboards against all who he felt had wronged him. His named enemies included such classics as “females” and a couple teachers who’d given him low grades. He figured that this grand act of graffiti would get him noticed. Maybe it would even get him suspended for a day, then people would know the name Rex!

However, in the next few hours the janitors’ schedule had them washing all the whiteboards before classes started. This wasn’t a daily thing, or even weekly, he’d just happened to choose the wrong day. There was a chance that they might have reported his writings for their content, but his handwriting was bad enough that the janitors didn’t notice what he was getting at.

When he went into his classes and all the boards were clear, he felt his grip on reality slip slightly. When one teacher he asked said they hadn’t heard about any writing on the boards, he slipped a bit further. He wandered through the last few weeks of that year in a haze.

Over the summer, though, he’d found the app. All reason said it wouldn’t work, but Rex wasn’t the type to let reason get in his way. To be fair, the app wasn’t exactly bound by reason either. His first modification changed his hair color and strengthened his jawline. When these changes came true a whole world of possibility opened up in front of him.

On the first day of school, while Sam was distracted by Helen, Rex had entered as a giant. Before he even got to class, he had walked into a teacher knocking her over.

“Watch it,” he’d said, trying to sound tough.

This particular teacher was on the older side and, despite his intentions, he hadn’t actually spoken loud enough for her to hear. She picked up her papers fairly quickly and admonished him.

“You should really watch where you’re going, young man.”

On reflex, “yes ma'am.”

“And put on a proper shirt. This school has a dress code, you know.”

“But I don’t have any that fit,” he whined.

He left the interaction incensed. Not only had a crone talked down to him, she’d produced an ugly yellow track jacket that the school kept in case of dress code violations and made him wear it. He vowed that by the end of the year, everyone would know and fear his name.

Vendettas don’t always survive a full day of classes. Rex made an effort for his first two periods, but after lunch it got a little hazy so he wrote a memory onto his arm:

REMBER: THEY WILL KNOW ME (AND FEAR)

By the end of the day his arm remembered better than he did. As he left his last class, a teacher pulled him over and asked the giant to join basketball practice. By that point he was out of it enough that he agreed before he realized what he was agreeing to.

On Tuesday's practice he spent the whole time under the net. He’d made himself tall enough that he didn’t even have to throw it that far if he stood in the right spot. By the end of practice he convinced himself that he was a star player. Thus the words on his arm took on a new meaning: everyone would know his name as their savior of hoops.

----------------------------------------

On Sam’s third day using the app, he realized something about his pajamas. They fit at his default height, but they’d also fit both times he tried changing things. They didn’t get tighter or feel shorter either, the app just seemed to change them with him.

Maybe it’s because I wore them while I was asleep?

This presented a difficulty when picking the day's clothes, but less of one when swimming came around. He’d not gotten sufficiently wider that his trunks didn’t fit.

The pool room consisted of a pool flanked on either side by a wall of one way windows for natural lighting and a large concrete stair-like structure which suggested an attempt at seating. Presumably the school hosted swimming events here and had prepared for an audience. Somehow they seemed to have missed the fact that not everyone in a pool room would have their back guarded by clothing.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

When Sam entered, he found Cyborg seated on the edge of a concrete step near the bottom. She seemed excited, which made sense. Their trio and some other friends had made a habit of going to a local pool over the summer, during which time Cyborg had proved herself a water fan of sorts.

“My legs can’t balance for shit,” she’d once explained, “but I don’t have to balance if I’m floating!”

Sam sat down beside her. Flat concrete didn’t make for ideal seating, but he tried to make it work. He checked there was no one behind him and leaned back. The next step turned out to be farther away than he anticipated, leading to a somewhat slumped posture. Moreover, when he made contact, he discovered something which made him jolt forward.

“Yeesh, that's cold!”

Cyborg laughed at him. “Don’t worry, we’ll be in the water soon and it’s way colder there.”

Sam looked around. “How’d you get out here anyway?” he asked when he couldn’t find her crutches.

“I used the wall,” she said, proudly.

Has she always been that small? was a thought that occurred to him before he remembered what he’d done with the app. Aside from that, she usually dressed in baggier clothes than a swimsuit, so it was natural that his impression would be a bit off.

A teacher came out and explained what they’d be doing for the first day in the water. Better swimmers were going to practice at the deeper end of the pool, so the first day would be used as an initial skill test. The specific strokes and floats that would be tested were listed and the class was released from the concrete.

Cyborg stood up excitedly. Her legs wobbled. She stumbled on the first step. A brief chuckle gave way to a request for Sam to help walk her to the pool. Gone was the girl so proud of having used the wall. He agreed and helped steady her as they walked.

Now, over the summer Sam had come to learn that, despite her appearance, Cyborg was a fierce swimmer. She could hold her breath like a starfish and sneak up underwater like a piranha. So, when the two dropped themselves about midway across the pool, he figured that she’d be moving deeper and he shallower.

However, over the course of the class period, the true power of limbs revealed itself. Longer legs made for better kicking, longer arms made for a stronger crawl, and he’d increased his speed generally which built on both of these. He hadn’t touched his lungs in the app, but some other setting must have increased their capacity somehow because he and Cyborg were neck and neck in holding breath.

Sam ended up rated third in the class. The teacher noted that he probably would’ve been first if his technique weren’t so sloppy. Cyborg stayed around the middle for reasons which were utterly opposite. The class was told to memorize the faces of the people to their left and right so that they would get the order correct in the future. Both of Sam’s new neighbors were strangers. The app had separated him from his friend.

When class ended, he helped her back to the locker room wall.

----------------------------------------

Rex had scarcely begun to think of himself as a basketballer when his new foe appeared.

After the first day he’d tweaked his build to focus more on the sport, speed up and all that. In the first week of practice he’d been paired up with some shrimp for one-on-one matches. He was the obvious superior but wound up tripping over unfamiliar legs enough to lose the match. So he did some practice at home running around and switching directions and all that. Next time one-on-ones came around, he relished the opportunity to send some peon home in tears. He won the match but was disappointed when the kid gave a “good game” and came back next practice.

This pattern repeated itself over the next couple weeks. Some new challenge would present itself, he’d brush it away with the app, and then for some reason a team-sized crowd would keep showing up to oppose him.

On one occasion, the group was split into two smaller teams to simulate an actual game. Rex’s position as mvp was obvious, so he figured the strat was just to pass to him so that he could throw the ball into the basket. But then when they went to do the actual game some kid from the other team kept coming up and standing between him and the ball. It was frustrating: no matter where he stood, this kid moved to block him from receiving a pass. How was he supposed to shoot when this asshole was keeping the ball away?

Rex put out an arm and shoved the kid to the side, knocking him down. He spent about a second feeling proud of how he’d stood up for himself. However, the blocking kid was soon replaced as a whistle prevented him from getting the ball.

Getting put on time-out felt unfair. Like, sure it was against the rules but that guy was being a dick. Men are supposed to take what they want, right? And really he would have appreciated a warning first so that he could do it a couple more times before seeing consequences.

It was watching from the sidelines that he realized something about the balance of the teams. Without him his team was obviously losing, but the reason why surprised him. Some tall guy was on the other team running circles around them. Rex hadn’t paid much attention to almost anyone in particular during practice, but now this guy happened to stick out. The teams had been selected by the coach and this guy seemed almost like some sort of counterbalance.

He later found out that this guy was named Sam. He imagined himself challenging Sam to a one-on-one match when they did that at future practice. He did not do this when one-on-ones came around again.

Leaving practice one day, he happened to overhear the coach talking to an assistant outside the gym.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “He came into practice a few weeks ago knowing squat about the game and now he’s probably the best on the team.”

Rex, feeling rather flattered to hear this, casually slowed his walk to listen.

“Which kid was that again?”

“Sam, who else?”

They went on like that while Rex grit his teeth. Rex had made himself taller, faster, stronger, everything. He knew for a fact that he was all these things more than Sam, they’d stood in the same room after all. What right did this other guy have to get recognized?

The next time they did a match in small teams, he made a point to target his new foe. He tried to block like that asshole had before. Instead of getting shoved, the ball somehow found its way around him, into Sam’s hands, and through the hoop. Rex later got the ball and took a long shot, but it bounced out. His enemy caught it, ran it halfway down the court, and then, standing in a spot where Rex knew he could have made it from, had the gall to pass it to a teammate. Like, sure, this resulted in a point scored by the teammate, but the disrespect of it gnawed at Rex.

He didn’t get it. He was obviously better at basketball but it almost seemed like everyone, the ball included, was somehow conspiring to keep him down. He resented Sam for daring to challenge him in this competition.

Thus Rex’s vow gained a new clause. Everyone would acknowledge that he was on top, but they’d also come to see that this particular person was nothing.

Naturally Sam did not notice this.

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Sam’s mother brought a bowl of pasta to the table where the other two were sitting.

“Sorry dinner’s a bit late today,” she said. “I lost track of time.”

“It’s fine,” replied the father while transferring some to his plate, “looks good regardless.”

She turned to her son. “How was school today?”

“I dunno, it was fine.”

The father passed the bowl. “Not gonna tell her the good news?”

Sam took the bowl. “What news?”

“Oh, you know what.”

The mother’s eyes bounced between the two of them as she waited for clarification. She would’ve asked had her mouth not been busy with food.

“Well, if you’re not gonna say then I will. Sam made it onto the basketball team!” The proud smile on his face could’ve charged a car battery.

This announcement got two pairs of staring eyes. Sam swallowed faster.

“How did you-”

“Find out? Extracurriculars are listed on the same website as your classes and grades. They also sent out an announcement when y’all got through tryouts.”

His mother wasn’t so thrilled. “You just did this without telling us?”

“I guess it didn’t seem like such a big deal.”

“No big deal?” She shook her head. “I guess there’s not much harm in… But what about your schoolwork?”

The father came to his defense. “School isn’t everything you know.”

“Sure, but it is important. You don’t want to end up like-”

“End up like what?”

“Like… someone who doesn’t have opportunities they may otherwise want,” she said delicately.

The parents went back and forth for a while longer. Sam was the first to finish his noodles. Eventually they settled on a conclusion.

“I guess it’s fine as long as he keeps his grades up,” she said.

“Right,” he turned to Sam. “You think you can-” The microwave clock caught his eye. “Woah, would you look at the time!” He stood up. “Could you get my coat, dear?”

The mother got up, opened the closet, and pulled out a coat emblazoned with the word “SECURITY” and the logo of a dying mall. The father assembled his uniform, kissed his wife, and hurried out the door.

Back at the table, Sam’s mother finished the question. “You promise to keep your grades up?”

“Of course.”

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The next day, Sam got back the results of a recent math test. 60 points were available. He spotted the number 52 in the top right corner. This surprised him because he hadn’t felt that confident while taking the test. Then he noticed the percent symbol and it made more sense.

With tests distributed, the teacher went over the most common errors.

“Now, on question 3 we want to expand (x+2)^2. If I recall correctly, about a third of you wrote x^2+4 for that one. Sorry to crush your dreams, freshmen, but if we plug in 1 for x we can see that this doesn’t quite work.”

Sam managed to take notes on the first few but it got repetitive after a while and his mind started to drift. By the time the teacher got to an extra credit question at the end of the test, his mind was rehearsing for later that day.

“For this last one, we want x values where this function equals 0. There are actually seven of these, one point each. I don’t think any of you found all of them, but I think it’ll be worth going through the ones you did get.”

He went around the room asking each person what they put. There were a couple blanks here and there, a lot of 0s since the polynomial had no constant term, and some 1s, 2s, and 10s. Whenever there was a repeat he used tally marks, and whenever there was an incorrect number he crossed it out. Some people had repeated incorrect numbers, but they generally didn’t say them after they knew they were wrong. Eventually he got to

“Sam, what did you have for this one?”

Jolted back to attention, Sam looked down and listed out the three numbers on his page.

The teacher scratched his head. “I understand 0 and 1 but how did you get that huge one?”

“I dunno, it was already in my calculator and it didn’t come up anywhere else.”

“Oh. Decent strategy, though the last class to use those was taking a different test. I’ll remember to wipe the calculators’ memories next time.”

The teacher turned back to the board, incremented the scores for 0 and 1, and then wrote 80085 in a new line. He explained that this was way too big to evaluate to zero because the leading term would be orders of magnitude too large for any of the others to cancel it out.

72 was the last true answer he got, making five of the seven desired roots. He then revealed that nobody got the last two because they needed square roots to write, which they would be going over next class. As the bell rang, he promised the topic would be “radical” and played a guitar sound effect out of the speakers to emphasize this.

As Sam got his lunch, it occurred to him that he’d felt hungrier the last few weeks.

“It makes sense,” Ben said. “Your body probably uses more energy than it used to.”

“Because of basketball?”

“There’s that, but you’re probably also heavier too so you’ll use more energy walking around.”

“You sure? It doesn’t feel harder to walk or anything.”

“You’ve got more leg muscle so it feels easier, but the weight thing is, like, physics.”

Ben changed the subject to a new video game he’d gotten recently and invited Sam over to try it out later.

“Can’t. I’ve got practice today, remember?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’ve actually got a game tomorrow.”

“Huh. Any time before or after?”

“No time before and I should probably study after.”

“Oof, some other time then.”

The day dragged on and english 1 crept up at the end. Sam slotted himself into his far-wall seat. Helen walked in, passed him, and sat down. His heart quickened and his head spun with anticipated dialogue.

Before class everyone had picked out a poem, written a first draft of an essay about it, and printed the pair of documents out. During class, rows 1 and 3 were told to turn around and exchange their papers with the person behind them. Thus Sam and Helen were face to face. About ten minutes were spent silently proofreading before the class was told to discuss.

Talking through their red marks on each others’ papers didn’t take especially long, especially not with one party so eager to speed through it. They finished before the discussion period was done and Sam squeezed a new topic at the end.

“So… uh… did you hear I got on the basketball team?”

“Oh? No, I didn’t.”

“Well I did.”

“Okay. Congrats, I guess?”

“And our first real game is tomorrow. It’s here too, so… you could come see it.”

“I… I’ll think about it.”

He barely mentioned when it was before time ran out.

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Sam scanned the audience from below. He turned to an upperclassman who seemed more experienced.

“Do people typically show up after the game starts or…?”

“I dunno. Whoever’s here is here. I’m usually focused on other things.”

Maybe she’s just late.

The coach huddled them into a circle, discussed strategy, and released them to start the game. Both teams assumed positions for the opening jump ball. Sam stood next to the referee, glanced at his counterpart from the other team, and trained his eyes on the ball. The ball was tossed. Sam jumped higher, passing it to Rex who dribbled around before shooting. First shot went to Nash High.

Possession of the ball moved to the other team. Sam scanned the stands again while he moved to a new position. Helen was nowhere to be seen. His parents, though, had appeared. In particular, he sighted his father wearing a big foam finger. It made a good argument for focusing on the game.

Things progressed, scores increased, and the ball passed from hand to hand. At one point, Sam wound up with the ball. Other players blocked his motion. From his position, the best strategy would’ve been to pass the ball between his blockers to another teammate who was better placed to shoot. He did not notice this other teammate, though, and, in the heat of the moment, took the shot himself. The ball bounced off the hoop and into the possession of the enemies.

Later on, he happened to intercept the ball from the other team. From where he was that time, he could’ve made a shot. However, the memory of the failed shot turned him to pass the ball to another player, away from the net. Instead of a score, his team passed the ball around for a bit before it landed in Rex’s hands.

Rex was nowhere near the basket at this point but, instead of passing it to a teammate, he opted to weave his way toward the net. It was risky and the ball was taken as he dribbled. By halftime Nash was down on the losing end.

The coach pointed, “Sam. Rex. Over here.” They obliged. “Sam. You need to take more shots. I know you missed one, but that’s no excuse to miss more, got it?”

“Yes,” he said, looking one more time for someone who wasn’t there.

“Rex. You need to work more with your team. If you’re not in shooting distance, you can pass the ball instead of just moving, understood?”

“I guess.”

In the end, Nash High managed to eke out a close win. Sam, however, didn’t feel too successful. He shook his head.

There’ll be more games. She’ll see me eventually.