Lee reviewed her notes on rune-charging while she sat on the Quad. She had only charged a rune successfully about four times, and those were the simplest possible runes. Vell’s trap for Zombie Edison would be orders of magnitude more complex. She buried her nose in her notes, so intently focused on reviewing her technique that she didn’t even notice approaching footsteps.
“Hey Lee,” Joan said. Lee, suddenly pulled back to reality, turned sharply in her seat, not realizing there wasn’t much seat to turn in. She slid off the side of the bench and took a tumble to the ground, landing hard on her rear. Joan did the little jump of shock everyone did when someone fell, and then reached down to help Lee up.
“You okay?”
“My pride might be a little bruised.” Also her butt, but Lee wasn’t going to mention that to Joan. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” Joan said. “Sorry I surprised you.”
“Oh, no trouble at all, dear, I was just a little caught up in my studies,” Lee said. She gestured to her notes, and Joan took a quick glance at them.
“I know those runes,” Joan said. “You helping Vell with that booby trap he’s making?”
“To an extent,” Lee said. “Vell and Harley are doing the hard work, I’m just charging the runes.”
“You don’t really strike me as the booby-trapping type,” Joan said. She crossed her arms. “Who pissed you three off so bad you’re going to zap them?”
Lee considered her options. The simplest solution seemed like the best one, in this case.
“Would you believe me if I told you it was Thomas Edison?”
Joan’s curious expression immediately shifted to anger.
“That motherfucker?”
“If by ‘that motherfucker’ you mean the man oft credited for inviting the light bulb, yes,” Lee said. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but-”
“Oh, I’m aware of everything about that jackass,” Joan said. She rolled up her sleeves dramatically for no particular reason. “When I was a kid, I wanted to meet Edison more than anything! I wrote him letters, I recreated his experiments-”
“Not the elephant one though, right?”
“No, not the elephant one. Just the cool ones. But for years, I was crazy about the guy, and after years and years of trying, I finally got to meet the guy, I showed him all my work, and the son of a bitch tried to steal it!”
“Oh dear,” Lee said. Joan’s face had turned red just from ranting about it. Joan shook a fist at nothing in particular and then grabbed Lee’s note’s off the desk.
“If you’re electrocuting him, I want in,” Joan said.
“Most of the work is done, I believe, but you’re more than welcome to watch him get zapped,” Lee said.
“Works for me.”
Joan’s unsettling enthusiasm for electrocution was interrupted by the only person even more excited to see Thomas Edison get fried. Harley bolted around a corner, drifting slightly as she took a turn too sharply, and dashed in Lee’s direction. Vell was only a few steps behind, and he fell even further behind as he saw Joan standing there.
“Hi Joan,” Harley said, because she was polite. Then she turned to the matter at hand. “Lee! Charge us up, we’re going to fry this bitch!”
“We’re going to mildly shock this bitch,” Lee corrected. Harley rolled her eyes.
“We’re going to mildly shock this bitch,” Harley groaned. She held out the remote, which now had several runes fused to it. “Just charge it.”
Lee stood in place and stared at the remote. She tapped her foot a few times. Harley groaned again.
“Just charge it, please,” Harley said, emphasizing the “please” far too much. Lee nodded approvingly and took the remote from Harley’s hand. She also took her notes from Joan’s hand and double-checked them before she did anything. While she reviewed, Vell walked up to Joan.
“Hey Joan.”
“Hey Harlan,” Joan said. “You should’ve told me you were going to electrocute Zombie Edison.”
“You’re on board with this?”
“I am not only on board, I want you to up the voltage,” Joan said. “Right now you’re basically just going to tickle him. You can pump it up about ten volts and really give him a shock. Twenty if you aren’t afraid of some mild damage.”
Harley, Vell, and Lee all looked in her direction at the same time. She stared blankly back.
“What?”
“Why do you know the exact voltages to electrocute people with off hand?” Harley asked. Joan hesitated, and then deflected.
“Why did you know the make and model of my eyeballs just from looking at them? We’re at a school for supergeniuses, people know weird stuff.”
“That’s valid,” Harley said. “Up the voltage, Lee!”
Lee froze in place for a moment and turned to Vell.
“We did agree you’d set the voltage,” Lee said, expertly passing the buck. Vell, in turn, looked to Joan.
“What? His arm might be tingly for a day or whatever,” Joan said. “It’ll be fine. Up the voltage, Vell!”
Joan nodded at Vell, who nodded at Lee, who nodded at Harley, who wondered what everybody was nodding for. With the everyone’s approval, Lee got ready to charge the rune. She took a deep breath, held the rune at arm’s length, and barely brushed her fingertips against the carved basalt surface. Lee pulled her hand back slowly, as if drawing a bowstring, and as it pulled away, the bright light of mana coalesced around her fingertips. Magical energy coalesced in different colors depending on the user, and for Lee, the mana became a deep ocean blue, that flared with sparks of octarine, the true color of magic, around the edges. She held the flare of light in place for a moment, and then, with a twist of her glowing fingertips, the oddly colored flare focused into a single bolt of energy that shot into the rune like a dart. The energy splashed across the surface of the rune and then drew back in on itself as the runestone drank the mana and coalesced it inside itself.
Lee held the rune in place silently for a moment until the carved symbol on the stone started to glow. The dull light emanating from the symbol stayed steady, a sure sign that the charging was successful. Lee breathed a sigh of relief. She had not been expecting to get it right the first time.
“That was sick,” Harley said. “Now you only got to do that like three more times!”
“Wonderful,” Lee said. Three more chances to mess something up, as far as Lee was concerned.
----------------------------------------
Three chances to mess something up had come and gone, much to Lee’s surprise, and the booby trap was complete. Harley had then returned the remote to the robotics workshop and then made her way back to the dorm, chuckling maniacally all the while, or so Vell and Lee assumed. She’d been chuckling maniacally when she left, when she got back, and while on the camera they’d be using the monitor the robotics lab. She only stopped chuckling when she finally took her seat in front of the laptop. Immediately afterwards, she summoned Botley to her lap and began stroking him like a Bond villain’s cat, which wasn’t a huge improvement over the chuckling.
“You know, I want to see Edison get zapped too, but Harley’s still kind of weirding me out,” Joan whispered. Vell nodded.
“She’s, uh, passionate,” Vell whispered back. “Edison’s tried to steal her stuff more than once.”
“That tracks,” Joan said. “Motherfucker was a plagiarist in his first life, can’t expect him to improve in the second one.”
“Why’d you ever look up to the guy in the first place?” Vell asked. Joan had explained her own vendetta against Undedison while they’d waited for Harley. Vell found it unfortunate but not surprising that they were both victims of Undedison’s attempts at intellectual theft.
“Oh, you know, I was twelve and just getting into science, and my parents, not knowing any better, bought me some Edison related stuff,” Joan said. “They meant well, at least, and I did learn some important stuff from the ‘My First Chemistry Set’.”
“You actually learned something from one of those?”
“Yes, I learned that if you use the beakers to combine some of the colorful bottles under the sink, your whole family has to go to the hospital,” Joan said. “My dad put the bleach on the top shelf after that.”
“Well, at least you learned your lesson,” Vell said.
“I learned ‘a’ lesson.” Joan corrected. “That was not the last time I fucked up.”
“Should I renew my health insurance?” Lee asked. Joan chuckled, but shook her head.
“I like to think I’m smarter than that now,” Joan said. “I burned off my dad’s eyebrows enough times to learn my lesson.”
Vell nearly asked for the story behind the eyebrow-burning misadventure, but a cherry bounced off of Joan’s nose and interrupted both their trains of thought. Shortly thereafter, a second cherry bounced off of Vell’s forehead, followed by Harley shushing them both.
“It’s almost time, everybody shut up!”
Harley focused intently on the laptop screen. Joan took a look as well, and saw no sign of movement.
“Wait, how do you know when he’s going to show up?”
“I’m very smart,” Harley said. She’d jumped the gun a bit using her knowledge of time loops, but never missed a beat in shaking off Joan’s suspicions. “Don’t worry about it. Just watch Edison get zapped.”
Harley scooted back to give everyone else a good view of the show. After a few seconds of silence, the door to the robotics lab started to shift. Undedison crept through, checking that the room was empty, and tip-toed into the room. Harley started rubbing her hands together in anticipation as Undedison poked through the machines in the room, slowly getting closer to the drone remote Harley had left on the workbench. Joan’s grin got wider and wider until Undedison finally saw the booby-trapped remote.
“Oh, this looks important,” Edison said. He grabbed it in his clammy hands and pressed one button.
The lightning burst that followed made the screen go white, as a loud shriek of pain echoed out across the room. Lee, Harley, and Vell jumped back from the sudden burst of light and noise, while Joan just kept smiling, unfazed by the explosive electrical burst. As they recovered from the unexpected flash-bang, Joan appraised the camera feed. Undedison was no longer visible, but there were thin streams of smoke rising from the floor where he’d once stood. Vell regained his senses and watched the smoke rise.
“Oh shit,” he mumbled.
“I think we might’ve overdone it,” Harley said. Her violent enthusiasm was mostly for show, and crumbled with the prospect of actual harm.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Eh, he’s fine,” Joan insisted. Her enthusiasm for violence was a little more sincere.
“We should go check on him,” Lee insisted. Vell and Harley nodded in agreement and followed Lee as she sprinted off. Joan followed behind as well, at a much more relaxed pace.
“I’m telling you, he’s fine, no need to rush,” Joan said. As they scuttled frantically towards the robotics lab, Joan got sick of being left behind and hurried after them. She managed to catch up to Lee, though Vell and Harley were still speeding on ahead.
“How are they so fast?” Joan wondered aloud.
“I believe we’re just slow, Joan darling,” Lee said. Joan managed a single chuckle as she struggled to catch her breath.
----------------------------------------
By the time Lee and Joan caught up to Harley and Vell, Harley was surprisingly still struggling with a keypad on the door to the robotics lab. Frantic beeping filled the air as Harley punched in a very elaborate keycode.
“How did Edison get into your lab easier than you can?” Joan demanded.
“That’s a very good question and one you’re not going to get a satisfying answer to,” Harley said. She held up a finger to put a pause on further comments and then punched in the final few numbers. A final confirmatory beep rang out and the keypad flashed green. Harley slammed the door open and headed inside.
The interior of the robots lab carried a heavy scent of metal in the background, with a far more prominent smell of smoke currently dominating the air. Harley pushed aside a cart covered in various soldering irons and found the workbench where she had left her remote. There, on the floor, slightly singed, slightly smoking, and slightly weeping, was the prone form of Thomas Undedison, curled into the fetal position with the remote lying at his side.
Harley froze in place for a second, watched Edison sobbing quietly on the ground, and sighed.
“Get off the floor, Edison,” she spat.
“I don’t want to,” Edison whimpered. Joan crossed her arms and shook her head.
“I told you he was fine,” she said, gesturing to his pathetic display.
“Well, physically fine, in any event,” Lee said. She took a step back as Edison continued to sob while sprawled on the floor. “Though his mental problems are his own fault.”
“Oh, he’s just being a little bitch, get up, you zombie fucker,” Joan said. Vell put a hand on her shoulder and stepped between the three women and Edison.
“Okay, uh, hold on,” Vell said. “I know you all have a lot of, like, problems with this guy, but I think it needs to go maybe like one or two steps back.”
The three women shared a look for exactly one second.
“Nah.”
“Nope.”
“He deserves it.”
“Seriously?” Vell said. “Look, just, well, let me handle this, alright?”
The trinity of skepticism that stared back at Vell nearly made him reconsider. He managed to disregard their cutting stares and turn to Edison. Vell crouched down to get closer to the sobbing Undedison.
“Hey, uh, Mr. Edison, I know this was a bit much, but, if you want to be successful, I think you need to focus more on, well, first focus less on stealing things and then maybe focus more on learning and making your own stuff.”
Edison let out a mewling whimper and rolled to turn away from Vell. Without even turning around, he could feel the eyes of the women behind him rolling in unison. Vell looked around the room for a moment, seeking inspiration for a new avenue of persuasion. He caught sight of a row of inert drones above Harley’s workbench and seized the change of topic.
“Uh, you know, you really need to be informed about the things you’re getting your hands on,” Vell explained. “Like, that remote, if you used it wrong, it could make all of those drones explode.”
Undedison rolled onto his back and looked up at Vell with red, puffy eyes.
“Explode? Really?”
“Yeah, and that’d obviously be-”
Vell never got to finish his sentence. Undedison made a surprisingly sprightly roll to the side, snatching up the remote as he did so. Any remnant of misery dropped off his face in an instant as he held the remote aloft, holding a finger above the buttons menacingly.
“Then none of you will live to tell the tale of what you’ve seen,” he declared, his voice dripping with what he thought was malice.
“Seriously?”
“Told you so,” Joan said.
Ignoring the fact that absolutely no one was intimidated by his current act, Undedison held the remote high and backed towards the door. Vell shrugged as he made his retreat. As he reached the door, Edison let out one last maniacal chuckle as he looked at his hostages, and then pressed the button. The four witnesses shielded their eyes.
Once the flares of electricity, and the screaming, had stopped, Harley lowered her hand and crossed her arms. It would take days to get the smell of smoke out of the workshop now.
“What, you thought that remote got less booby-trapped in the past five minutes?”
“I know I said that voltage would be fine but I meant like, once,” Joan said, her voice edged with concern (albeit very little). “We should probably get that away from him.”
“Yeah yeah, I got it,” Harley said. She stepped up and pried the booby-trapped remote from Undedison’s twitching fingers. As an undeserved courtesy, she also snuffed a small fire that was burning on his tweed sleeve. “Lee, you want to grab security and get this guy dragged out of here?”
“I’ll grab a doctor while I’m at it,” Lee said. Joan shook her head.
“He’ll be fine,” Joan insisted. She gave the twitching for of Undedison a glance. “Well, fine in the long-term, anyway. The undead can take a lot of punishment.”
At the mention of the undead, Harley looked to Vell. Sure enough, he had the look of trying -and failing- to hide his discomfort at the topic. Harley sprang into action.
“We should probably get him looked at just so we can’t get sued for anything later,” Harley said. “You want to get a nurse, Joan? Me and Vell can take cleanup duty.”
“Oh, uh, maybe I should go, actually,” Vell stammered. “I could, uh-”
“It’s fine, Vell,” Joan said. She gave him a reassuring nod. “I don’t want to clean up after this guy anyway.”
She gave Undedison a light kick in the elbow. He let out a soft groan of pain, and Joan stuck out her tongue at the zombie.
“You sure?”
“I trust you, Vell,” Joan said. “Come on, Lee. Let’s get moving.”
Harley waved goodbye and shuffled her way past Undedison to reach a cleaning cabinet. The robotics lab was an unfortunately flammable location, so there were plenty of ways to get the smell of smoke out of the air. Harley beckoned Vell to the cabinet and handed him a bottle of air freshener.
“So, uh, it didn’t occur to me to talk about this earlier, sorry,” Harley said. “I hope you know none of our issues with Edison are because he’s undead.”
“No, I get that, he’s just a tremendous asshole,” Vell said. Harley nodded in agreement. “It just kind of has me thinking.”
“Does this circle back to Joan wanting to bang you?” Harley asked.
“In a roundabout way, I guess,” Vell said.
“I know it’s roundabout, Vell, that’s why I said ‘circle back’.”
“Right, thats, uh- Whatever, anyway, let me explain,” Vell said. “Edison’s whole problem is that he won’t just admit he’s struggling with something and get the support he needs, right?”
Harley did not think that was right, not even slightly. Edison’s main problem was that he was a huge asshole. However, Vell seemed like he was having a breakthrough and she wanted to be supportive.
“That sounds right,” Harley lied.
“So, I need to communicate,” Vell said. “I need to talk to people about my problems or I’ll end up like him.”
“Yep.” Harley said with a stiff nod. This still had nothing to do with Edison, but Vell was making progress and that was what mattered.
“I think I know what to do,” Vell said. He put the can of air freshener down and wandered across the room towards the door.
Harley looked at the air freshener he’d left behind and then watched him as he opened the door to the robotics lab and started to step out.
“Vell!”
“I know, I know, you told me to just talk to her hours ago,” Vell said. He waved a hand in her direction dismissively. “You can say ‘I told you so’ later.”
Vell stepped out, leaving Harley alone with the cleaning supplies, and with the zombie of Thomas Edison. She stepped closer to the door and shouted as Vell retreated.
“Vell! I didn’t just call you here for a powwow about your girl problems, you actually need to help me clean!”
Harley received no answer.
“Vell!”
----------------------------------------
Lee stepped out of the security office and held the door open for the security robots who filed out. The operator had thanked her, profusely, for the information and made sure to mention their own name far too many times, clearly hoping that Lee would mention them to her father. Lee promptly forgot their name and stepped back into the lounge of the faculty building. Joan had, apparently, been waiting for her, and hopped out of her seat.
“So, are they going to arrest him or what?”
“They are going to escort him off of campus, as usual,” Lee said. “Unfortunately there’s not much to be done. It’s very hard to make any legal punishments stick against a person who’s technically dead.”
Joan nodded in understanding.
“Well, if he ever comes back again, you give me a call,” Joan said. “Actually, do I have your number yet?”
“I don’t believe you did,” Lee said. She pulled out her phone and exchanged numbers with Joan. Lee held her phone at an angle to hide her very small contacts list, until she saw that Joan’s contact list was even shorter. With numbers exchanged, the two left the faculty building side by side.
“So, Joan, if you don’t mind my asking, and do please let me know if I’m overstepping my bounds, I was wondering,” Lee began. “When we left earlier, you told Vell, ‘I trust you’?”
“What about it?” Joan said. If she had any strong feelings about the question, she was hiding them very well.
“Well, it seemed like Vell thought there might be an issue with him being alone with Harley, and I was just wondering if you and Vell had been having, any, well, conflicts, specifically to do with Harley,” Lee said. “I just don’t want you to think that she is-”
“Hey, uh, thanks, I appreciate the sentiment,” Joan said, cutting her off. “We talked about it. It’s fine, I get what Harley’s deal is. It’s not a problem. I was just being a little oversensitive.”
“Oh. Okay, well, excellent, all well and good, then,” Lee stammered. “I hope I’m alright asking, it’s just that I like Harley, and I like you, and I don’t want any unnecessary problems.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
Lee and Joan continued walking back towards the dorms, side by side. It took Joan a second to muster up the courage to talk again. It helped that the atmosphere was awkward enough already, and she couldn’t possibly make it worse.
“Though, uh, while we’re on the subject,” Joan began. “How do you feel about Vell?”
“I think he’s a very fine young man,” Lee said. “Surprisingly cool under pressure, if terrible at improvising.”
Joan sighed.
“I mean romantically, Lee.”
Much to Joan’s surprise, and slight chagrin, Lee answered her question by snorting with laughter. She stopped in her tracks and bent at the waist to try and stifle the sudden onset of laughter. Joan stopped and watched her giggle for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” Lee said, struggling to choke down her chuckling. “I’m sorry! Hah, this must seem rather rude.”
“Little bit.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just, well,” Lee said, taking a deep breath to stifle her chuckling. “I think rather than you being worried about Vell and I, perhaps Vell should be worried about you and I.”
The attempt at a clever turnaround of the situation backfired immediately, sunk by the weight of Lee’s anxiety.
“Not that I would- I mean, I would but won’t because- You’re very- But I don’t- You and Vell are-”
Lee inhaled sharply and grimaced as she prepared for a hard reset.
“If at all possible I would like to recant this attempt at innuendo and instead say very directly that I am a lesbian.”
“Oh. Ooooh,” Joan said. She put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah, that’ll do it.”
She gave a small chuckle, and that alone was enough to get Lee laughing again. The two shared a short burst of laughter before starting to walk again.
“Yeah, well, now I feel dumb for bringing it up,” Joan said. “Sorry. I must look like a real idiot right now.”
“You look like someone who’s concerned about their relationship,” Lee said. “Which you have every right to be.”
“I guess,” Joan said. “Sometimes it feels like I’m not Vell’s number one priority. Which, I don’t have to be, I’m not jealous or anything, but sometimes I feel left out when you guys whisk him for whatever shenanigans you do. I want to get whisked away for shenanigans too, you know?”
“Joan, Lee, glad I caught you,” Vell said, as he swung around a corner. He seemed exhausted as he snatched Joan by the wrist and pulled her in the direction of the dorms. “Mostly Joan. Can we talk?”
Joan nodded and allowed herself to be whisked. Lee gave a polite wave goodbye as the two lovebirds scuttled off. Joan was pleasantly surprised as their scuttling came to a halt in front of her dorm. Vell finally let go of her hand and took a moment to catch his breath as he leaned on the door.
“Wow, in retrospect, I uh, really could’ve walked slower,” Vell said. “Personal epiphanies are very energizing, but the crash afterwards is crazy.”
“Take your time,” Joan said. Vell put his back to the door and took a deep breath. Once his heart rate had lowered, he raised a wrist. He was wearing a simple bracelet with a glowing rune latched on to it.
“So I made this,” Vell said.
“You made a whole rune in twelve minutes?”
“Yeah, like I said, epiphany energy,” Vell explained. “And I had most of the stuff lying around anyway, because of the trap thingy.”
While Vell had most of the necessary supplies on hand, he’d had to make a quick detour to the school store for a battery. He didn’t particularly feel like borrowing Lee to charge this rune -not considering what he intended to use it for.
“Anyway, the thing is, it’s an illusion rune,” he said. He pointed to the rune, and then to himself. “And it’s an illusion on me.”
Joan raised an eyebrow while Vell put a hand on his stomach.
“So, I have, uh, some scarring, and marks, down here in this area, that I’m pretty sensitive about,” Vell admitted. “It’s a long story, and I’m not really ready to have a conversation about that yet, but...uh, you know, and you can decide if you’re okay with me keeping that to myself, if you want to do, uh, other stuff.”
“Other stuff?” Joan said. Her eyebrow remained in its raised position. Vell started to wonder how long she could hold that expression.
“Yeah, um, you know, what you sort of, uh, earlier today we were-”
Joan interrupted Vell by leaning forward and opening the door he was leaning on. He tilted backwards for a moment before Joan caught him by the collar and pulled him inside her dorm room.
“Oh, right now, uh, okay, yeah, let’s, uh- okay, wow.”