20: Finagle's Law

The perversity of the universe always tends toward a maximum.



By Monday morning I'd made a full recovery. No, more than that; I felt better than I'd ever had. I was staying in Dylan's house and away from the Emrys family weirdness. I was whole; there was not a trace of the wounds I'd suffered less than four days ago. Recreation-wise, I had the latest movies at hand and could see them in my brother's DvD player anytime I wanted, I was exempt from homework in order to "fully recover" and, most important of all, I had an unlimited supply of ice cream, courtesy of my most conspicuous and least fathomable aunt. Clouds. Linings. The reverse was also true; with all that goodness, something was bound to go seriously wrong again.

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

I went to class early, one arm wrapped up in so much "protective" clothing it made me look like a half-mummy. Don't look at me like that. Protection from homework is still protection. The only downside to it was the weather; even so early in Monday morning, the sun blazed with an unusual ferocity for the season and, despite the cloudless sky, humidity was off the charts. The namesake of the day hung low in the sky, its pitted and scarred faded-grey surface looking down upon a civilization that crawled out of the mud yesterday and would blast itself into oblivion with nuclear fire tomorrow. Or maybe the heat made me grumpy that way.

As I slowly climbed the stairs before the school's steel-and-glass entrance, I saw my least favorite teacher waiting there. What does it say about modern education that there are still teachers universally disliked from the first day of the new academic year? You want a bunch of immature, semi-intelligent, self-aware young humans to learn? The worst thing you can do is give them reason to despise the establishment. Ms Shiloh might be one such reason. It was too soon to know for sure but still; something about her struck me as wrong. Pronouncing my fake limp a bit and wiping all too real sweat from my face with my "good" hand, I stood before the doors while the plump, bespectacled woman stared at me. She only frowned so I walked in, a good half hour before first bell. Something close by beeped as I did and ms Shiloh stopped me with a smile.
"Hand it over young lady." she asked sweetly, left hand extended, palm up.
"Excuse me?"
"Cellphone, jewelry, knife, gun." she cheerily explained. "Whatever you have. They're against school policy."
Separating a teenage girl from her phone? Sacrilege! I thought about it while I scrutinized the school doors. There; those bars were way thicker than they needed to be and definitely not in the right place.
"A metal detector? You can't be serious." Her smile widened at my objection.
"Ms Emrys, the days this school has suffered due to adolescent immaturity and parental indulgence are gone. After the incident with that gang in the toilets last year and the supposed thefts of valuable property the owners actually pawned then reported stolen, we have permission for a great many things."
Maybe. But Big Brother-level interference was something most students, myself included, would not appreciate. Especially since it was any human's unalienable right to pose and brag and display she had the best/latest/coolest/sparkliest/geekiest stuff, right? Sighing, I handed over my phone after removing the memory card.
"That's all. No jewelry, guns or pocket nukes today" I snarked.
"Thank you." The teacher said but then frowned at me. "Pass through one more time."
That I had to hand over the cellphone didn't really bother me; who would I call anyway? But that someone, anyone, would call me a liar to my face made me fume. I may be a bit... unruly as adults reckon things but I always prided myself on telling the truth. The scowl I sent ms Shiloh was ugly enough to warrant her thrusting me back through the door forcibly, apparently broken arm or no. What happened next I would remember for a very long time.

Someone screamed. Despite the shower of sparks and tiny flames that burst from the semi-hidden metal detector it wasn't me. Honest. Next came the automated fire extinguisher, showering us with water. Which, of course, was the very worst thing when near malfunctioning electrical equipment. I felt a strangely pleasurable tingling go through me but ms Shiloh gasped, her hand locking on my own like a steel vise and was about to give a repeat soprano performance when the fuse box next to the entrance blew apart, belching sizzling metal pieces and black smoke. The tingling faded, the plump teacher stopped trying to crush my arm and fell on her back. The school's private bus arrived then, the throng of students wealthy enough and lazy enough to pay for it gathering around us and gawking. Chaos ensued.

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

I was standing in the girls' locker room next to the school gym, wrapped in a heavy towel. The towel was me procrastinating; I was neither cold nor wet, having somehow dried out about ten minutes after the freak accident. The same doctors that took ms Shiloh to the hospital had pronounced me unharmed--to their and my surprise. There wouldn't be any lessons today (the classes were too wet) and most students had already left do why was I still in school? I stared at the red and silver of my cellphone and sighed. Sometimes, the advantage of communication without limitations was outweighed by the disadvantage of a compromised privacy. Especially if one wanted to brood.

My brother Dylan knocked on the door not much later. He wasn't allowed in but that didn't stop him from being annoying;
"Come on Jessie!" he breathed through the keyhole. "We need to get going!"
See what I mean? Typical Emrys temerity.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!"
Letting the towel fall on the floor, I bagged my cell, put on my shoes again and I was ready; when I'd come to the bathroom under the pretense of drying out, I'd lacked the energy to take off anything else. That had been an hour ago; I was better but still not a hundred percent. Kicking the door open, I launched myself at my brother's embrace.

Dylan was dressed for travel; trench coat, khaki pants instead of his usual jeans, sensible linen undercoat with far too many pockets and military-style boots. Matched for speed and utility rather than style, it was an ensemble I hadn't seen before and one I'd never expect from my easygoing older sibling.
"What's up?" I asked, worried.
"No time for that, sis." He grabbed my hand and dragged me after him.
"But..."
"No time for that either."
We were out of the building and down the main road in no time but I didn't worry. If Dylan had time for Ian McKellen quotes things couldn't be so bad, right? It was then that I noticed the entire street was empty; no traffic, no people. No-one except for us.
"Dylan..." I whispered as I crushed his hand with my own. "Is the street supposed to be empty?"

"Skittish little rat, isn't she?" said a vaguely familiar condescending voice from right behind me. The speaker's hair was dyed a bright pink this time but the goth look-black leather, spikes, chains and sequins-was just the same. I didn't have much room to scowl this time; having landed on my butt after jumping at her sudden appearance limited my options. My brother, Creator bless his soul, chose that very moment to speak, saving me the trouble of finding a witty comeback.
"Dilys." He frowned at the empty street then gave her a questioning stare. "Found anything interesting enough to require a private meeting?"
"Not interesting." She shook her head, sharing his frown. "Try unsettling. And if the street isn't your working, we need to vanish. Because it isn't mine either."
Dylan spat a curse I would never have expected of him, dragged me unceremoniously to my feet with one hand and then carried me at a dead run. Miss Mysterious-yet-Tasteless followed in our heels.

We crossed main roads and side streets, ran before countless stores and through every normally crowded place we could think of, from malls to parks, all to no avail. My panic and my brother's frantic search mounted with every moment that passed and with every abandoned place we passed through. No cars, no pedestrians, no nothing. It was as if a great plague had fallen upon the city, a curse that turned every sign of activity unto dust.
"That is ridiculous!" my brother's girlfriend protested. "No-one can weave a Weirding that large. Unless you somehow insulted an entire order of magi, this should not be happening. And not even you Dylan are that stupid."
Of course, the universe conspired to prove her wrong. Just as we took another turn, we found several men with automatic weapons waiting for us.

Before I could even shout in surprise, they opened fire...