Chapter 75: Book 2 Chapter 5: Cyrus and the Presumably Normal Dorms

“And this is the quad,” Colville said, gesturing to the broad, grassy expanse.

“You showed us the quad yesterday,” Cyrus sighed.

“It’s a big quad,” Colville explained. “There’s a lot to show.”

“I think there’s better things you could be showing us,” Anishka added. “Like where the classes we’re about to be late for are.”

Cyrus and Anishka, like many freshmen, were still finding their way around the convoluted campus of the Einstein-Odinson College. Though they still had each other, a boyfriend/girlfriend didn’t do much good when it came to navigating an artificial island of studies and super-science. Colville, a sophomore, had taken it upon himself to show them the way -and navigate a few of the other dangers of the EOC campus.

A few doors down, Harley bumped open a lab door and carefully shuffled out, keeping her hand firmly on a container the vibrated slightly.

“Alright, halfway there,” she said. “Don’t even think about looking at it again, Hawke.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Hawke said. Today they had to wrangle a container of Heisenberg Quantum-Concentrate, a highly unstable material that randomly altered one of it’s spatial qualities every time another was observed. As they struggled to manage carrying something they couldn’t look directly at, Colville made sure Cyrus and Anishka averted their eyes as well, though for different reasons.

“Alright, keep your heads down, and stay quiet,” Colville advised. “Whatever you do, don’t get involved.”

In spite of Colville’s advice, Cyrus couldn’t help but glance. Colville grabbed his head and turned it back towards the ground.

“Do not make eye contact!”

“Why not?”

Colville dared to glance up. Harley and the others seemed to have vanished, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with those guys,” Colville admitted. “Nobody does. I’m not sure even they know. They’re just involved in this endless torrent of random, dangerous bullshit.”

“Really? They hurt people and they’re still allowed to run around doing whatever?”

Anishka looked distressed by the prospect of recklessness on campus. She’d be in for a very rude awakening later, but for now Colville had some words of reassurance.

“Oh, nobody’s ever actually gotten hurt,” Colville said. “Actually, what they do is almost exclusively helpful. But still. It’s weird. Normal people don’t ride around on robot horses or get kidnapped by principals.”

“Oh, so that’s who that was,” Anishka noted. She’d heard one of the sophomores had been kidnapped at the end of last year, but never been able to put a face to the name.

“Yeah. And if you get involved with them, next thing you know you’re corralling cloned cows or getting attacked by pirates or something.”

“I think I could take a pirate in a fight,” Cyrus said.

Anishka very much doubted that, but she kept it to herself.

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It took a few more days for Cyrus to see any of those strange people again. He was sitting in an aeronautics lab when the very tall skinny one and the obscenely attractive woman barged in.

“Sorry, Professor, slight hiccup,” Vell said. “You got the, uh, wrong fuel there.”

“What?”

Kim gestured to the small model rocket being prepped for a demonstration.

“A mislabeled container has resulted in you possessing a blend of liquid oxygen and highly refined kerosene, similar to that used for the first stages of the Atlas V, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Soyuz, Zenit, and developmental rockets like Angara and Long March 6.”

After raising a curious eyebrow at Kim’s oddly specific warning, the professor did double check his fuel supply. What he discovered made him raise both eyebrows. Kim’s warning, while oddly phrased, was correct.

“By god, how did that happen?”

“You offended a wizard,” Kim said.

“What? I have never- Wait. Tall fellow, blue robe, pointy hat?”

“That describes most wizards, so I guess yes?”

“Say no more,” the professor said. “But, may I ask, how did you discover this?”

“Uhh…Google.”

Vell immediately turned and fled. Kim did a double take and then followed behind him. It took a few minutes for the professor to disconnect the dangerous fuel tank and get back on track.

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“Freaks,” Anishka scoffed.

“I think they were being helpful,” Cyrus added. Anishka got back to her notes after the sneer fell from her face.

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“Anishka!”

She paused mid-step as her boyfriend caught up to her in the quad. Cyrus leaned on the nearby wall and tried to crack a cocksure grin.

“Long time no see, stranger,” he said, feigning confidence. She hadn’t so much as texted him in two days.

“Sorry,” she said halfheartedly. “I’ve been working on that accelerant project, you know how much trouble it’s been giving me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cyrus said. “I helped you start it, remember? I’m always here to lend a hand again.”

“Right. Well, Joaquin -you know, Colville’s friend-”

Cyrus knew him very well. Very smart, very friendly, and very good-looking.

“He’s just a bit more knowledgeable, you know, you help, but he really helps.”

“So then both of us should super help,” Cyrus suggested.

“Cy, I get it. I just- I don’t really need your help as much anymore now that there are other people who actually understand me when I talk about this stuff.”

Back in their hometown, Cyrus and Anishka had been the pinnacle of intellect, and that mental match had made them fast friends -and faster lovers. The jump to the Einstein-Odinson College had made it very clear that they’d been big-brained fish in a small pond.

“Well, maybe you don’t need it as much, but I still want to help you.”

Anishka carefully considered her rebuttal to that, and never got a chance to speak it aloud.

Hawke came screaming –in both senses of the word- around the corner, holding a sparking battery clenched to his chest. The sound of his shouting hadn’t faded when a waist-high robot, easily recognizable one of the food service drones from the dining hall, came racing around the corner followed closely thereafter by Harley. She grabbed one of the robot’s limbs and held on for dear life as it dragged her behind it.

“You make sandwiches, damn it,” Harley shouted. “Nobody needs radioactive sandwiches!”

Harley vanished from sight. Cyrus took two steps after her before Anishka grabbed him by the arm.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To...stop a robot from making radioactive sandwiches,” Cyrus guessed. “I assume.”

“You heard what Colville said. Don’t get involved with those weirdos.”

“I don’t know about you, Anishka, but I don’t want plutonium on my reuben. I’m pretty sure they’re the good guys. We should help.”

“They managed the last dozen stupid things they did just fine without you,” Anishka said.

“Okay, great!” Cyrus snapped, trying not to raise his voice. “I shouldn’t help you, and I shouldn’t help anyone else either, great, I’ll just go back to my dorm and do nothing, then.”

Vell and Kim dashed past the two, carrying an extension cord and three potatoes respectively. Cyrus and Anishka silently agreed not to say anything.

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“Get in the shit,” Harley said, jumping up and down on top of the thick plastic lid. The evil slime below her struggled against her repeated impacts as it tried to loosen the lid.

“Careful, Harley, we have to return this to the culinary department,” Lee cautioned. “Giant tupperware is expensive.”

While the others struggled to keep the slime contained, Vell checked the time. He was cutting it a bit close.

“Hey do you guys mind if I bail for a second? There was something I wanted to do today-”

“No, you’re good, I think we got it,” Harley said. With a loud squish, the sentient gelatin finally sank into place and was safely sealed inside the massive tupperware. “Do your thing.”

Vell took off, abandoning the lair to head for the freshman dorms. While hunting the malevolent jello in the freshman dorms the previous loop, he’d noticed something that he felt compelled to deal with today.

Cyrus stumbled his way through the dorm room hall, keeping his head low to hide his red eyes. His abject misery weighed so heavily that he almost -almost- didn’t look up as Vell thundered to the top floor of the dorm and dashed a short distance down the hall before stopping to catch his breath. He stopped and leaned on the wall a few feet ahead of Cyrus and tried to act casual.

“Hey, uh, hi,” Vell said, between deep breaths. Cyrus stared at him.

“What are you doing?”

“Uh...practicing. For a race. To the top of the dorms,” Vell mumbled. “That happens here sometimes. Weird contests.”

Cyrus continued staring. Vell did not continue pushing his luck.

“So, uh, what about you? You, uh, you look rough, no offense.”

“Yeah. I sort of just got dumped.”

After four years together, and more than a decade of friendship before that, Anishka had decided to end it all. She’d reasoned that the two had only ever spent time together because of “a lack of any other options”, as she put it. According to her, they’d only ever loved each other because their small town had no other intellectual equals around. Cyrus did not agree, but he also didn’t have a say in the matter, apparently.

“Oh. Shit, sorry. I’ve been there. Repeatedly.”

Vell stared blankly ahead for a moment as he recalled his own painful -and occasionally lethal- breakups before refocusing on Cyrus.

“This your first relationship?”

“That easy to tell, huh?”

“It stings in a different way the first time,” Vell said. “Long term, I’m guessing?”

“Four years.”

“Ah. You want some advice?”

Cyrus shrugged. It couldn’t hurt.

“Go be yourself for a while. Do some hobbies. Watch some movies. Being in a relationship that long sort of makes you feel, uh...like one half of a whole. Remind yourself who you are on your own.”

Even through the haze of Cyrus’ sadness, the advice struck true. Anishka had been his constant companion for a long time -half the pain of the breakup was loosing that “other half”. But, in a way, Anishka had a point. They had more options than just each other now.

“Thanks. I think that’s going to help,” Cyrus said. “My name’s Cyrus, by the way.”

He extended his hand, and Vell met it with a shake.

“Vell.”

“Vell Harlan, right?”

“Yeah, how did you- Oh, yeah, the kidnapping, right?”

“Among other things.”

“That tracks.”

At that moment, Vell’s phone buzzed. A call from Harley, which was never a good sign. She usually texted, and only called in dire scenarios. He held up a finger indicating he needed to pause the conversation and took a step away from Cyrus as he answered the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Vell, help us with the jello monster,” Harley pleaded.

“Did it get loose?”

“No, this tupperware is just really heavy,” Harley whined. Vell sighed.

“Be right there,” Vell said. He hung up the phone and turned back to Cyrus. “Sorry, got an emergency.”

“Need a hand?”

“We should be good. You take care of yourself first, Cyrus.”

Cyrus nodded, and Vell nodded back, before turning to go push a tupperware full of jello monster around the school. Confused and comforted in equal measure, Cyrus returned to his dorm a little less downtrodden than before.