The Octopus Effect (3 page)

Besides keeping his speed in check as he zipped and zoomed, he had to pay attention to his direction. For example, if he went off course and flew too low, he could go down to where there were buildings. Hard, unyielding buildings. That would be bad. And messy. But Simon was quite good at doing many things at once; he was able to watch his speed and stay on the proper path while still thinking about the Book.

When a problem occurred, it was due to something much simpler: someone, somewhere far below, might have been celebrating their birthday. Either that or they just had a thing for multicolored clusters of balloons. Whatever the reason, the person clearly wasn't very good at holding on to those balloons.

Simon was zooming high over Lawnville's Town Square when he got a red balloon full in the face. Even at that speed, a regular, helium-filled round balloon isn't going to hurt much. But it sure can be distracting.

Simon was quickly entangled with a dozen balloons in all the colors of the rainbow, their white strings wrapping around his arms and neck as he flailed. He batted at the balloons and tugged at the strings, which only wrapped him up more. In the midst of his struggles, he accidentally shifted direction and kept falling faster. And faster. Oh, and straight up.

Seconds roared past as Simon struggled with the balloons while moving at around one hundred forty miles per hour. The balloons swiftly burst and stuck to his face and body. By the time Simon got free of the mess, about twenty-five seconds had gone by. That's not too long . . . but it was long enough for him to have flown almost a mile up into the sky.

Okay, that's nowhere near as high up as airplanes fly or many mountains reach, but for a boy without a plane, flight suit, or a pair of goggles, it was not pleasant. And every passing second sent him another three hundred feet higher.

In just a few eyeblinks, Simon was into high altitude—the height at which the atmosphere's oxygen level starts to thin out. There was less wind to sting his face and batter his body, but the temperature was also a lot lower. That kind of cold wasn't much fun, either. Worse, what little air he could suck in was less useful to his horrified brain, and his fear was about to turn to panic. The kind of panic that would keep him from finding a solution and, instead, leave him to keep going up until he passed out.

Simon didn't know if losing consciousness would undo his gravity formula and send him dropping back to the ground, or if he'd keep rising up until he left the Earth's atmosphere, but both were pretty awful scenarios.

Somehow he was able to beat down his rising terror and work the gestures needed to change his direction and speed. He cut through the sky quickly, moving fast enough to get him to safety but not so fast as to give him trouble seeing or breathing. Finally, he reached a reasonable height, back at the bottom of the cloud layer, and he used all his focus to balance out gravity around him.

Simon let several minutes slide by while he floated there in the cloud, taking deep breaths and celebrating how alive he was. Once he felt ready, he continued his flight; this time he stayed focused on control. At last he reached his destination, hundreds of feet above a multistory apartment building across town from his house. He shifted gravity so he fell to the alley next to the building, dropping hard and fast in hopes that nobody glancing in that direction would get a good look at him.

When he was hidden from sight between that apartment building and the one next to it, Simon reversed the pull of gravity to reduce his speed. He then adjusted it so he could float down slowly, his whole body tingling from the gentleness of the motion. Once his feet touched the earth, he restored all laws of physics to normal and sprawled out on the ground.

Simon lay there quietly, gulping air and appreciating how wonderful it felt to not move. After a minute or so, he stood up, adjusted his clothes as best he could, and threw up into the nearest trash can.

He grabbed the nearby brick wall to steady himself, took several deep breaths, wiped his mouth, and then casually strolled out to the sidewalk.

Simon wasn't surprised that nobody was waiting for him; he was
very
late. His friends must have gone inside already. So he popped a piece of gum into his mouth, entered the building, and walked down the hall to apartment number 106.

My apartment.

“ ‘Rocket time!' ” Owen shouted. He spoke his formula and sent the jungle gym streaking through the air toward the school. Simon returned the jungle gym's gravity so it had its full weight again, and the Order members barely managed to duck before the metal framework slammed into the school's brick wall. It cracked the wall and broke apart.

My apartment shook from the sound, rather like a pile of washing machines crashing down a flight of stairs. Or, to be more accurate, like a bunch of thick metal rods shattering against a big stack of bricks. Inside my living room.

“Kids!” I shouted. “Will you
please
lower that?” I hated to yell; normally, I have the reserve of a true Englishman. But when dealing with such noise, I do as I must.

I tapped a button, and the four adults—those Order members who ducked under the jungle gym—froze in place. They weren't really in my apartment. Neither was the jungle gym nor the playground where the battle was taking place. (My living room is spacious, but there are limits.)

All those things were displayed on my Viewing Screen: the wall-size, television-like device I use for my work as a Narrator. That battle with the Order members was a replay of past events from a former Chronicle being watched by two twelve-year-olds perched on the edge of my sofa. That is, until I pushed “pause.”

With the Screen's replay frozen, Owen, Alysha, and I could hear the sound of knocking at the door. As the kids turned to look, I hastily closed the handheld device I'd been staring at and moved to let my new visitor in.

Simon Bloom glared back at me, his hands folded. “Thanks a lot, Greygor,” he said to me as he stomped into my place. “You couldn't have waited fifteen minutes for me before starting?” He turned to his young friends. “How much did you watch?”

Alysha Davis burst out laughing, pointing at Simon's head. “Are you okay? Did you get your head stuck in a blender?”

Simon turned to a mirror on my wall and gaped; his short, light brown hair was twisted and tangled around him in a mess of knots and curls. His face was streaked with light gray dirt with trails down his cheeks from where the wind had dragged tears from his eyes. All in all, he didn't make a pretty picture.

“I—” he started to answer. “I don't want to talk about it. Ever.” He dashed off to my bathroom to clean himself up and rejoined us a few minutes later.

Owen Walters, the smallest of the three youths, looked at Simon with the expression a dog might have when caught flossing his teeth with your favorite slipper. “Sorry-Simon-but-we-didn't-know-when-you'd-get-here!” He spoke in the rapid-fire, breathless way he reserved for times of extreme anxiety, which, for Owen, was fairly common. Even when only mildly upset, he rarely bothered with punctuation.

“Yeah, sorry; we only just started,” Alysha said. “Besides, you know this is Owen's favorite part. He can't get enough of it!”

I frowned at Alysha. On the one hand, they were admiring a Chronicle I had Narrated, and it was lovely to have my work appreciated. Narrators rarely get to meet their Chronicle subjects, while I, Greygor Geryson—Narrator
extraordinaire
—even got to appear in Chronicles with them.

On the other hand, enough was enough; Simon and his friends had come by my apartment many times during the last five months so they could review their exciting exploits. They also tended to empty my fridge and cupboards of all food and drink. Honestly, I've seen swarms of locusts leave more in their wake.

Indeed, Owen used his own physics formula—control over velocity—to snag a doughnut from off my kitchen counter and send it soaring over to Simon. “I saved you a jelly filled,” Owen said. His formula let him control the speed and direction of things, though he was most fond of using it on food.

Simon shook his head. “No food. Not yet.” He paused. “But thanks.”

Owen, taking this as forgiveness, used velocity to send several doughnuts flying from the counter; they zipped across the room and began a fast, if jerky, dance in the air around him. Every time one came close to his mouth, Owen reached out with his mouth and took a bite. Soon his face and shirt were covered in powdered sugar, gooey purple jelly, smeared chocolate sauce, and an assortment of other fillings.

“Hey!” I yelled. “You're getting that all over my couch!” I swear, every visit from these kids taught me new and more wearying methods of stain removal. You'd think entering the seventh grade would have made them act more responsibly.

“Ugh!” Alysha shouted. “And you're getting some on me.” She spoke her own formula—capacitance—and generated a bluish white spark of electricity that fried a glob of jelly in midair before it could hit her.

I waved my hand to clear the stink of burned jelly. “Alysha, please,” I said. “You'll set off the smoke alarms. I can only imagine what you'll do to my electrical bill.” Indeed, Alysha's formula let her absorb huge amounts of electrical energy and discharge it . . . but that electricity had to come from somewhere.

“Don't worry about it, Greygor,” Alysha said. She sent an arc of electricity sizzling back and forth between her fingers, casting a glow on her face. “I'm not getting it from your outlets. There are electrically charged atoms all over, even in the air. I figured out how to absorb some of their charges.” She spread her hands apart, creating bigger arcs and sparks.

“Wonderful,” I said in a flat tone. “Clearly you have both been practicing since you got your old formulas back.” I sighed. “How lucky for me the Order of Physics let you in.” Union rules stated that Alysha and Owen had to give up their formulas at the end of my last Chronicle. But once they were officially admitted into the Order . . .

“Would've been sooner if Owen hadn't kept failing the entrance test.” Alysha muttered.

“I failed it
once
!” Owen said with a stamp of his foot. “Fine, twice.” He shrugged. “I've never been good at tests.”

Alysha laughed. “It was multiple choice!” She saw Owen's hurt look. “It doesn't matter; we got in, we got our powers back, and everything's fine. And now it's back to fun and games!” She plucked a doughnut from the air and zapped it with a controlled burst of electricity. “Here, try one that's heated up.”

Owen accepted it happily while Simon joined them on the sofa and, at last, felt well enough to eat one of the doughnuts. After a quick bite, he gave a sticky smile and devoured it. Using formulas tended to tire the user, but rest or food restored their strength. With all the gravity control Simon used today, no doughnut was safe.

“Ah yes, you're all very impressive,” I said. “But do any of you remember this?” I triggered the remote for my Viewing Screen, focusing my latest, greatest Chronicle on tall, menacing-looking Mermon Veenie, a villain who hurled devastating bolts of lightning. Then I showed them Sirabetta, a beautiful blond woman whose arms and legs were covered in a variety of colored tattoos. Each tattoo gave her command over a different science formula.

I showed the kids a series of images: Sirabetta using one tattoo to fly through the air, as well as resist Simon's gravity and Owen's velocity control. Next, an image of another tattoo melting the street with sizzling heat. Then another to cause explosions with air pressure. And a fourth to launch a glowing, destructive ball of silvery energy.

“Together they put the Keeper of the Order of Physics in the hospital and almost stole the Book of Physics!” I said. “With that, Sirabetta would have stolen the other science Books and done who-knows-what to the entire universe. And she almost killed you all! How is
that
fun and games?”

“Yeah, but Greygor, we beat them,” Alysha said. “They've both had their memories wiped and their powers taken away. There's no more threat . . . not even the need for a new Chronicle,” she added, gesturing to my Viewing Screen. So far as the kids knew, they'd be on-screen if another Chronicle had begun.

“Plus Simon's officially joining the Council today,” Owen said. “I hear there'll be cake!”

Simon frowned. “Actually, something bad might be happening.” As Alysha and Owen turned to stare at him, Simon related what the Book said earlier that morning.

“That's got you worried?” Alysha shook her head. “That's the dumbest warning ever! It's like a psychic saying something bad is going to happen soon. Of course something will—that's how life works. But what? And when?”