Author: Laurence E. Dahners
Date: 2022-03-08T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: This hard Sci-Fi novel is the first book of the “Time-Flow Stories,” a series of tales about Witt Ryllin, a young man who abruptly gains the ability to psychically control the flow of time. In it, he navigates the plights of his senior year in high school. At the same time, his mom and family are struggling with issues arising from his parents’ recent divorce and the financial problems caused by his father’s drinking and subsequent loss of employment. Witt first realizes he has a talent for controlling the flow of time when one of the football players throws a punch at him—for the sin of talki
Publisher: Independently published

Fast-Time　at　Aldmont　High

The　Time-Flow　Stories

#1

Laurence　E　Dahners

Copyright 2022

Laurence　E　Dahners

Kindle　Edition

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

Other Books and Series
by Laurence E Dahners

Series

The Ell Donsaii series

The Vaz series

The Bonesetter series

The Blindspot series

The Proton Field series

The Hyllis family series

Single books (not in series)

The Transmuter’s Daughter

Six Bits (a collection of short length stories)

Shy Kids Can Make Friends Too

The Little Redheaded Boy and His Flying Saucer

For the most up to date information go to:

Laurence E Dahners website

Or the Amazon Author page

Table of Contents

Copyright 2022

Other Books and Series

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Author’s Afterword

Acknowledgments

Other Books and Series

Author’s Note

Though this book can “stand-alone” please understand that it’s to some extent a continuation of the story that begins in the novelette “Porter” and the short story “Guitar Girl,” both of which can be found in my collection of short-length stories called Six Bits

Thus, it’ll be more interesting to read Fast Time at Aldmont High if you begin with those shorter stories.

I’ve minimized the repetition of explanations that would be redundant to the earlier books in order to provide a better reading experience for those who’ve read those stories.

Prologue

Reiter’s News Service, Vinnea, Anstrup— After a brief deliberation, the World Court convicted Barras Anshed, President of Cyreea, of using banned neurotoxins to attack his own citizens in the town of Dainier. Presiding Judge Haikam pronounced the conviction, describing the evidence as voluminous and incontrovertible. He pronounced Anshed’s actions, “a travesty against humanity.”

When one of the observers confronted Judge Haikam afterward, asking whether there were any teeth behind the conviction, the judge wearily shook his head.

Though world leaders have almost uniformly expressed their revulsion regarding Anshed’s actions, none have evidenced any intention to act. Not even any modifications of trade agreements have been put forth. To justify their inaction, they’ve cited the conventional wisdom that embargoes and other such maneuvers will hurt the Cyreean people more than their leader.

It seems that Anshed is unlikely to suffer consequences unless he makes the mistake of leaving Cyreea, a country he holds in an iron grip.

Will no one do anything to stop his reign of terror?

Chapter One

Witt Ryllin first evidenced a talent for affecting the flow of time while he was in high school.

***

Not having realized Cinna even knew he was alive, Witt felt shocked when she stopped him on the stairs. “What?” he asked, later realizing this conversational foray lacked style.

Cinna seemed uncertain; an emotion Witt hadn’t realized ever affected the consciousness of girls as pretty as she. “Um,” she said, “I’ve heard you’re very good at math?”

Wide-eyed, Witt said, “Who told you that?” He was, but didn’t want other kids to know. He had enough social stigma without word getting around that he was smart.

Cinna glanced away, then back to Witt, “I’m having a lot of trouble with calculus…”

Unsurprised, Witt just stared at her. He had an unconscious bias that all nice-looking girls were bad at math. Cognitively, he should know it wasn’t true. In fact, given a few moments to think about it, he would’ve realized that, because the three kids at his school who had better GPAs than he did—who, perforce, must be good at math—were all non-ugly girls, the stereotype was already disproven.

Looking embarrassed, Cinna said, “I was hoping you could help me?”

“Oh,” Witt said, startled. Though a few other kids seemed to have figured out he was a good student despite his diligent efforts to hide it, no one had ever asked him for help before. He knew some of the nerds tutored other kids and charged for it, but Witt desperately didn’t want anyone to think of him as a nerd. What if she’s asking me because she…? he wondered momentarily, then decided the chance Cinna harbored any romantic inclination toward Witt Ryllin had to be infinitesimally small. Isn’t she Bear Ballidge’s girlfriend? he wondered musingly. Still… He cleared his throat. “Um, I don’t think I’m your best choice…” Witt broke off as he saw Bear Ballidge turn the corner onto the landing at the top of the flight of stairs.

Bear’s eyes lit when he saw Cinna, then narrowed when they jumped to Witt. He grated, “Hey, dweeb, are you talkin’ to my girl?!”

“Um…” Witt said, uncertainly, a little dismayed to realize he ranked so low in the school’s social standings that one of his classmates didn’t seem to know his name. This school’s not that big, he thought.

Bear lunged forward, his fist coming around in a mighty roundhouse swing that rocketed toward Witt’s face.

That is what initiated Witt’s first time-flow event.

Wide-eyed, Witt started trying to dodge to his right, fully certain he’d never be able to move his head and upper body fast enough to get them out of harm’s way, but still making the effort.

He was already anticipating the avalanche of pain he’d feel when the blow struck.

Abruptly, everything suddenly went silent and dark.

Witt got the sensation that he was moving faster.

He felt like the oncoming train of Bear’s fist, even though he couldn’t perceive it in the darkness, was now moving at a snail’s pace.

Witt thought he was easily ducking out of the path of Bear’s fist.

Once Witt felt his head was out of the way, he sensed himself slowing back down. There was light now, though colors seemed off…

Bear’s knuckles flew past.

Without the impact he’d expected, Bear stumbled forward.

Witt scrambled to the side.

Bear’s foot came down only halfway on a stair. It immediately slipped off, causing him to lurch and sprawl full-length down the stairs.

Bear’s shoulder struck Witt on its way past, staggering him back. For a moment Witt thought he’d tumble down the stairs too, but the colors got even weirder and he felt that he sped back up, though not as much as when it went dark.

This gave him time to carefully place his foot fully on a dark, bizarrely-off-color stair.

He looked up to see Bear almost horizontal in the air—as if he were swimming.

Bear was so dim he was hard to see, except for deep red panels on his letter jacket, panels which should’ve been the school color—violet.

Things sped up again and colors and sounds returned to normal.

A minute later, Bear was sitting on the lowest step, holding his wrist and bawling like a baby.

***

Witt sat in the waiting area outside the principal’s office, awaiting his judgment for fighting in school, an offense that carried a mandatory two-week suspension for both parties. At present, Principal Gardner was talking to several witnesses. When Witt had taken his seat, he’d fully intended to work out his defense in his mind.

Instead, he found he couldn’t stop thinking about what’d happened on the stairs. Did I imagine myself speeding up? he wondered. And getting dark with weird reddish colors? He’d read stories about people who claimed the world slowed around them when they were frightened, but he didn’t think in those cases the world slowed while the person involved could still move normally. His impression from those stories was that everything was in slow motion. The person experiencing the phenomenon moved just as slowly, still unable to dodge fists or bullets…

Didn’t they?

Impatient to experiment with the effect, he glanced around to see if anyone was watching. They wouldn’t be able to tell I was doing anything, he thought. But I should wait to do any experiments until this thing with the principal’s settled. I’ve got to focus on how to deal with it. It’s really gonna upset Mom if I get suspended.

My defense, he thought trying to get his mind back in the game, should be based on the fact that I didn’t start the fight or even fight back. Bear started it and all I did was… Witt’s eye had focused on the analog clock on the office wall. Not on the time, but on the big second hand, ticking its jerky way around the circumference. Witt focused on the sensation he’d had when he sped up during Bear’s attack…

The room dimmed, colors changed, and the second hand didn’t jerk ahead when it should’ve.

What felt like an extra second passed before the hand clicked ahead another second.

Whoa, Witt said to himself, letting himself slow again. It does happen… and I seem to have some control over it!

The principal’s administrative assistant rose suddenly to her feet, knocking her chair back into the cabinet behind her.

When Witt’s eyes went to her, he saw she was looking at him with alarm.

“Are you okay?” Mrs. James asked, looking alarmed.

Witt nodded, saying, “I’m fine.” And why wouldn’t I be, he wondered.

Still staring at him, she said, “You jerked around in your seat. I, uh, I thought you were having a seizure. Are you epileptic?”

“No,” Witt said, doing his best to sound calm and unworried. However, he thought, Shit, of course my movements look jerky when I speed up. Then, I wonder if it’s even possible to hold still enough that she wouldn’t notice I was in fast-time? To Mrs. James, he said, “I’m fine. I, uh, was reliving Bear throwing that punch at me and me trying to get out of the way.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes still suspicious.

When she looked away, Witt focused on the clock and sped himself up again, trying to hold completely still while pushing harder, trying to go fast enough that the second hand stopped moving. It promptly got so dark he couldn’t see the clock. However, he thought the second-hand stopped because he couldn’t hear ticking. After what felt like thirty seconds, he thought he heard another tick, and after another minute, one more tick.

Witt let himself slow back down so the lights would come back on. He wondered whether the second hand seemed to take longer to click ahead the second time because he’d been progressively speeding himself, or whether he’d sped time when it was already halfway through the first second, then it had to go through a full second before the next click. Or, my perception of how much time is passing could be way off, he thought. I should use the stopwatch app on my phone to watch my personal seconds pass while I’m doing this.

He looked up at Mrs. James. She was staring at him again.

“What?” he asked. “Did I twitch again?”

Looking concerned, she slowly shook her head. “It was more like you… got blurry.”

Crap, Witt thought. I can’t hold still enough. Tiny motions like breathing and fidgeting would make me look blurry if I’m moving really fast. To Mrs. James, he said, “Um, I felt like I had a shiver. You know, like what happens sometimes after something bad happens?”

She tilted her head thoughtfully, then shook it. “It was definitely more than a shiver. I think you should see the nurse.”

Would that be better or worse than seeing the principal? Witt wondered, thinking perhaps he should agree with her. Or maybe not. I’d probably just get stuck seeing them both.

He was opening his mouth to say he felt fine and didn’t need to see the nurse when the door of Principal Gardner’s office opened, saving him. The students’ who’d witnessed the episode with Bear shuffled out, giving Witt side-eyed looks he didn’t understand.

No one spoke to him.

Cinna wasn’t amongst them and Witt wondered whether she’d be willing to tell the principal she’d been the one who started the conversation with Witt that got Bear upset. Maybe not, Witt thought. Bear seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t want her talking to other guys, even if it was just for help with her studies.

“Mr. Ryllin,” Gardner said, waving Witt into his office. The older man dropped wearily into his chair. “Close the door.” When Witt had done so, but remained standing, Gardner impatiently said, “Sit, sit. Don’t loom over me.” He asked Witt to tell his version of what’d happened.

Witt did so, stumbling a couple of times when he inadvertently reached the precipice of saying something about how time had slowed.

His halting explanation didn’t seem to tickle suspicion. Gardner said, “That pretty much agrees with what the other kids said. So, the facts don’t seem to be in doubt. No one thinks you did anything to incite Mr. Ballidge. In fact, the other students seem to think he’s pretty combustible.”

Witt nodded, not wanting to say anything to screw up a situation that seemed to be going his way.

The principal studied Witt a moment, then said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with who’s at fault, since it seems pretty conclusively proven the guilty party was Bear, but…”

Witt had a sinking feeling, but once again said nothing for fear of digging himself a hole that didn’t exist.

After a moment Mr. Gardner tugged his ear and pensively said, “The other students seemed to be in awe of how… quickly you dodged. Do you have martial arts training? Boxing, maybe?”

Witt shook his head, “No, sir. Maybe it was just adrenaline? I’ve felt pretty shaky since then.” He felt proud of having inserted a possible justification for what Mrs. James had seen in the outer office. Then immediately decided that Gardner would see through his explanation. Witt knew adrenaline was secreted by glands. The adrenal glands, he thought. It’d take a minute or so for something secreted into the bloodstream to get around your system and take effect, wouldn’t it? Even if it’s a lot faster than that, for sure it’s a lot longer than it would’ve taken Bear’s fist to hit me.

Either Gardner didn’t think of the gland issue, or he knew adrenaline worked instantly by some means Witt didn’t understand. The principal shrugged, “That’s probably it. In any case, you’re out of here with the admonition to stay out of trouble, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Witt said standing and opening the door. He left Gardner’s office and quickly strode across Mrs. James’ territory in the outer office. The admin was on the phone and, out of the corner of his eye, Witt saw her lift a halting hand. He pretended not to notice, striding out the door and away down the hall before she’d have a chance to tell him to go see the nurse.

“Witt!”

Witt turned and saw his best and perhaps only real friend, Jesse Caldwell, trotting down the hall after him.

“Hey, Jesse,” Witt said, still walking quickly. He didn’t want to talk to anyone about his new ability until he understood it better. He wanted to get home and start experimenting with it. To learn more about it before he had any more events or had to explain it to anyone

“What the hell, man?!” Jesse said, jogging faster to catch up. “You trying to avoid me?”

Witt didn’t answer that one.

Despite Witt’s trying to ignore him Jesse caught up and asked, “How in holy hell’d you dodge that punch, Wittless?! One moment you’re about to get creamed, the next your head’s suddenly off to one side and Bear’s flyin’ down the stairs!”

Still walking quickly, Witt glanced at his friend. “You were there? How come you didn’t get called into the principal’s office with the other kids?”

Jesse gave him a surprised look, “You know I avoid involvement. But I was at the bottom of the stairs and saw you talkin’ to Cinna. I was just wonderin’ why she was talking to you when she could have me, but then Bear came outta nowhere.”

“You saw it?” Witt asked, incredulously, upset his supposed friend hadn’t stood up for him with the principal.

Jesse shrugged, “Didn’t I just say so? I claimed I didn’t see nothin’ when Jake was tracking down witnesses, I didn’t want to get sucked into your mess.” As if Jesse couldn’t understand what Witt was upset about, he went on, “The bigger question’s how’re you still alive? Bear’s a big-ass dude.”

“Just call me ‘the Dodger,’” Witt, said sarcastically.

“Come on, man! No one could’ve dodged that punch! Sure as hell not Witt Ryllin, my slow movin’, clumsy-ass buddy.”

Witt shrugged, irritated by the insult—mostly because it was true. He was a jogger, not a sprinter. “Obviously, someone could’ve, because I did.” He shrugged, “I think I just got lucky. Maybe I’d started moving out of his way before he started throwin’ that punch. Or,” he glanced at Jesse, “maybe I’m a mind reader and knew what he was about to do?”

Rolling his eyes, Jesse shook his head, “Naw, man. You moved so fast you were a blur.”

Witt kept his eyes straight ahead, wondering if he should try bringing Jesse in on his secret. After all, I’m probably gonna need someone to help me figure out how it works. Someone to run a stopwatch app and tell me what they’re seeing when I’m in fast-time. He blinked in surprise, Oh, hell no, Jesse’ll want to do something… immoral or even illegal with it. Rob a bank or something. Witt said, “You’re right. I’m no athlete. So, if I looked like a blur, you probably need to stop playing with yourself. Or, you could leave your eyes messed up. That way you could keep thinking the girls you like

are cute.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “At least I’ve gone out with a few girls, DimWitt.”

“Yeah, monkey girls.”

Jesse kept after him about what’d happened on the stairs, and Witt continued to fend him off with various half-assed insults until they split to go to their respective homes. As they went their different ways, Jesse called out, “My vision’s fine and so’s my stubbornness. I’m gonna keep after you till you spill.”

This’s gonna be annoying, Witt thought, waving dismissively at his friend and continuing on his way.

***

Once home, Witt forced himself to do his studying and practice his saxophone first. He knew, once he started experimenting, he’d keep putting off his homework until it’d gotten past time to go to sleep.

He managed to work straight through on his studies with only one stop to wonder if he could study in fast-time and still have plenty of time afterward for experiments. He decided that, since he would’ve lived through that time, he’d probably be just as tired as if he stayed up late. He finished what he’d planned to work on just before his mother called Witt and his sister for dinner.

When he got to the kitchen, his mom seemed distracted and worried. Witt considered asking her about it but didn’t want her unloading on him.

Claire came in before he could decide whether or not to say anything. Plopping down in her chair, she faced their mom, “All my clothes are horrible. You’ve got to get me some better things!”

Their mom gave a tired sigh, “Now’s not a good time, Claire.”

“It’s never a good time, is it, Lindsey?” Claire asked in a sarcastic tone, using her mother’s first name because their mom didn’t like it.

Mom, a plate in each hand, stopped between the stove and the table, closing her eyes and, Witt suddenly realized, looking miserable. She looks like she’s going to cry! he thought. A moment later she set the plates down in front of her children and walked out of the kitchen.

Witt stared after her a moment, worry constricting his throat. He glanced down at his plate. Rice and beans again, he thought. His mother’d been serving variations of the meal more frequently of late. He’d asked her if she was trying to turn them into vegetarians and she’d given a little laugh, saying that knowing how to eat vegetarian was a good life skill. Then she’d launched into a mini-lecture about how grains and legumes—beans—combined to make a complete protein which was very important to understand if you weren’t going to eat meat.

At the time he’d been annoyed, thinking that he wasn’t planning to go veggie. Now, regarding his plate with a jaundiced eye, he wondered whether they were eating rice and beans to save money.

Claire, apparently oblivious to the concerns rising in Witt’s mind, shouted after her mom, “Ducking the issue of my clothes isn’t going to make the problem go away, you know. Are you happy your daughter’s an outcast?! Are you ever going to do anything about it?! Do you even care?!”

“Claire,” Witt began, though talking to his sister always turned into a disaster, “Mom seems pretty upset. Maybe you should cut her some slack.”

Claire had just put a spoonful of food in her mouth. She looked up at Witt as she chewed, loathing in her eyes. She swallowed and said, “That’s right, you sniveling momma’s boy, take her side. I’ve been cutting her slack for months. Has it done any good? No!”

“I think she’s worried about money. She hardly ever feeds us meat anym—”

Claire interrupted by slamming her fist on the table, “That’s such bullshit! Dad sends her a load of child support every frickin’ month. Is she spending that on you? ’Cause, she’s sure as hell not spending it on me!”

“But there’re a lot of other expenses—”

Standing so suddenly it slammed her chair back against the wall, Claire hissed, “That’s bullshit, momma’s boy, and you know it!” Curling her lip disgustedly, she picked up her plate, “I can’t stand being around you, so I’m gonna go eat in my room.” She turned and stalked out of the kitchen.

Witt gaped after her. He’d heard his uncles complaining about how bitchy teenage girls could be. Is this a normal amount of bitchy? he wondered. Or not bad and it could get even worse?

He didn’t feel hungry after all the vitriol, but knew he’d be starving later if he didn’t eat, so he shoveled in his rice and beans, still worrying about his mom. By the time he put the last spoonful in his mouth, he’d convinced himself there was nothing he could do. However, when he took his plate to the sink, he saw the plate his mom had made for herself sitting next to the stove. The least I could do is take her food to her, he thought rinsing his plate and leaving it in the sink.

Picking up his mom’s plate, he grabbed her fork off the table and left the kitchen himself.

Entering the small living area of their apartment, he started across, intending to go to his mother’s room where he thought she’d be. Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned to look.

His mother was sitting on the end of their couch in the dark.

“Mom?” he asked, but she didn’t respond. He walked over and sat down beside her, “Um, I brought your plate.”

“Thanks, Witt,” she said listlessly. “Just set it on the coffee table.”

“Aren’t you gonna eat?”

She shrugged, “In a minute… When I get hungry. I don’t think I could choke it down right now.”

“Um, you seem upset. I mean more than I’d expect from the way, uh, Claire’s been acting like such a…” He trailed off, deciding that calling his sister a “bitch” would just be one more problem for his mother to deal with.

His mother nodded but said nothing.

“Uh… what else’s the matter?”

She gave a forced-sounding chuckle. “Claire thinks she’s unhappy now…?” After the little pause, her voice faint, she continued, “Wait’ll she finds out we’re gonna have to move to a smaller apartment.”

“Smaller?” Witt asked, thinking their apartment was already embarrassingly tiny and wondering how they could possibly fit into a smaller one. “Um, why?”

His mother gave a tiny shrug. “’Cause, we can’t afford this one…” She trailed off, then her shoulders gave a little jump. Witt suddenly realized it was a sob. Her voice raspy, she said, “Just like we can’t afford nice clothes for Claire.”

Witt frowned, “Did you lose your job?”

She shook her head. “But it doesn’t pay very well.”

“Oh,” Witt said, stunned. His mom seemed really smart, so he’d always thought her job at Barnes and Goforth had to be a good one. Now he realized he didn’t even know what she did there. Now’s not the time to ask, he decided. “Have you applied… or whatever… for a promotion or something like that?”

She nodded slowly. “And I’ve applied for better jobs at a bunch of other places. No luck so far.” She squared her shoulders, “I’m sure something’s going to come through, but right now we’re out of money…” she cleared her throat, “Actually, we’re in quite a bit of debt.”

“Can’t we ask Dad for some extra money to carry us over till you get a better job?”

Giving a bitter laugh, his mom said, “We wouldn’t be in this fix if your dad was making his child support payments.”

Gut clenching, Witt said, “He’s not?!”

A shake of her head. “Stopped about eight months ago.”

“But can’t the police or somebody force him to make payments?”

“You can’t get blood out of a turnip. He got fired. He’s asking me for money!”

“Oh,” Witt said, feeling like his world was crumbling around him. Hesitantly, he asked, “Have you found a place?”

His mom nodded unhappily.

“When are we moving?”

“This weekend.”

Oh… shit! Witt thought. And Claire doesn’t even know! After a puzzled minute, he said, “Um, how can it be smaller than this one? We each only have one bedroom here, so, um… I thought apartment sizes mostly went by how many bedrooms they have?”

“We’re getting a one-bedroom. Claire and I’ll share the bedroom.” She looked at Witt, “You’ll sleep on the couch.” She must’ve seen the horror in his eyes because she said, “It’ll only be temporary.”

Feeling like he was in some kind of nightmare, Witt said, “When are you gonna tell Claire?”

Firming her chin, his mom said, “When the time seems right… It’ll probably never be right but… I’ll have to figure something out. Unless you want to tell her?”

Witt recoiled, “Oh, hell no!”

His mom studied him a moment. “I might just slip a note under her door. Think she’ll read it?”

She won’t, Witt realized. “Don’t fold it and put it under face up. Write, ‘We’re moving,’ at the top. She’ll read it to find out what you’re talking about.”

“Good idea. I’m meeting someone about a job before work tomorrow, so you guys’ll be on your own for getting up and making your breakfast. That means you’ll have to deal with Claire’s tantrum when she reads the note, okay?”

No! No, no, no, no! Witt thought. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud when his mother looked like she was about to crumble. “What should I tell her when she’s, um, going batshit on me?”

His mother shrugged, “I don’t know. From the way she and I’ve been getting along, you know I haven’t figured out to deal with her. I think the truth’s the best, no sugarcoating things. But it’s still gonna go badly.”

Witt sat staring at her until she said, “Thanks for bringing my dinner. It’s nice to feel like I’ve got someone on my side in this.”

He nodded, his mind a million miles away.

“You should go study,” she said. “Good grades’ll help you get jobs that’ll keep you out of financial shitholes like this one.

Witt slowly got up and headed to his room. He stopped just inside the door. Could I make money with my new talent? he wondered. Jesse’d say to use fast-time to walk into a bank vault, fill a bag with money and walk back out… But I’m not doing that. He frowned, Besides, that’d depend on them leaving the vault door standing open during business hours. I’ll bet that only happens in the movies.

After thinking for a few minutes without coming up with anything lucrative, he realized, I need to know a whole lot more about how it—my talent?—works and what it can do before I have any chance of turning it into cash.

Author’s note:

The next few pages detail the experiments Witt performs to help him understand the science of how his fast-time world works. If you find this kind of stuff boring you can skip ahead to the bold-faced summary of what he learns (which falls at the beginning of Chapter Two).

Sitting down, he pulled out his phone and pulled up its stopwatch app. Opening his laptop, he found a similar stopwatch app on it.

As he was about to try to activate both stopwatches simultaneously, he paused, thinking, This’s ridiculous. If I can go so fast it pauses time for the rest of the world, both the phone and the laptop are going to stop. He shrugged, And…, that’s why scientists do experiments. To see if what they think is true actually is.

He tapped the start icon on both devices as simultaneously as he could. When he held the phone’s screen up next to the watch app on the laptop, he was pleased to see that, as best he could, tell they were registering the seconds simultaneously. Both of them were also registering hundredths of a second digits, but he couldn’t tell whether they were simultaneous because they were ticking by too rapidly to read them.

After a moment, he did what he’d done when he’d sped his time previously. The room went dark, but to his surprise, the phone in his hand remained bright. The stopwatch on the phone kept going—the hundredths of a second numbers changing so rapidly he only caught a number occasionally—the stopwatch on the laptop had disappeared because the laptop’s screen was dark like the rest of the room. He was wondering whether the phone kept his time because it was in contact with him, but got distracted when he noticed the laptop’s keyboard was dimly visible where his phone’s screen lit it. He turned his phone toward the laptop’s screen in hopes of seeing the computer’s stopwatch app displayed there but only saw a mirror-like reflection of the phone’s light from the glass of the laptop’s screen.

What the hell? he wondered. Why’s everything dark just because my time’s fast? I need Jesse to tell me if it’s dark out there in the world when I’m in fast-time. He blinked a couple of times, Though, if the rest of the world goes dark when I speed up—or the world slows down, or whatever you want to call it—then surely someone would’ve mentioned that happening when I dodged Bear’s fist.

Is this darkness an all or nothing phenomenon? he wondered. He eased off his time-speeding somewhat. When nothing happened, he kept easing. Sure enough, when he felt like he’d mostly released the pressure he’d been putting on the passage of time, the world started to light up, dim red colors appearing first, and then… Damn! Even my violet school pen’s red! He remembered the violet panels of Bear’s letter jacket had been red when the big footballer was flying down the stairs.

The laptop screen lit up, though it was dimly red as well. He could, however, make out the stopwatch on it. The hundredths of a second numbers were still too fast to register like they were on his phone, but he thought they might be a little slower. He felt almost sure the seconds were clicking over slower than they should. When he did his best to compare them to the seconds on his phone, he thought the laptop’s seconds were taking almost two seconds each, nearly a 2X increase.

Whoa! He thought about the track team—on which he was a so-so middle-distance runner. Even if I only sped myself ten to twenty percent during races, I could probably win the hundred-meter dash! He shook himself, irritated. I sure as hell hope I can find something better to do with this than cheating on races… His thoughts halted as he realized, Maybe, if I turned pro, the winnings could help us financially? After consideration, he realized turning pro wouldn’t bring in money quickly enough to solve the apartment problem.

He went back to work.

He further eased his push on time. He noticed a little glow appear from the lights and the room brightened. He noticed his violet pen going through oranges to yellow, then green, and on through blue toward violet… All the colors of the rainbow, he thought. He looked at the clock on the laptop, seeing it better now. He thought the seconds were taking almost a normal amount of time to turn over now. He checked the time on the laptop versus his phone’s stopwatch. By watching it for a while, he decided the laptop’s clock was still fractionally slow.

So, it seems like I can judge small differences in the speed of time by the color of the room but when I speed up more than 2X I’m in the dark?

He considered trying to measure the time differences more accurately but decided he didn’t need any more accuracy on the differential. After all, he didn’t know if his phone was exactly keeping his personal time, or whether time was running somewhat slowly on the phone compared to himself as well as on the laptop compared to the phone.

With that thought, he watched the seconds tick by on the phone and decided they felt like they were the right length. He compared phone seconds to his pulse, which usually ran about sixty beats per minute. They were about the same.

Letting himself go completely back to normal-time, he started searching the internet.

~~~

Witt leaned back, fascinated by the physics of light he’d just learned about. I think I might like to work as some kind of light scientist, he thought.

It turned out that the highest frequency waves of visible light, violet, were about 790 Terahertz—or 790,000,000,000,000 waves per second—and the lowest frequency, red, was a little more than half that at 400 THz. So, he thought, trying to picture light waves. If I speed up almost 2X, violet light waves from outside would be arriving at my eyes half as often as violet waves normally do, therefore hitting my retinas at about 400THz and looking red—a phenomenon he’d learned was called “red-shifting.”

At that point, he’d thought, All that’s good, but why aren’t the—even higher frequency—ultraviolet waves getting red-shifted down to fill in the upper frequencies of the light spectrum? Why does it go dark?

More searching on the internet had taught him that UV covered a much wider range of frequencies than visible light so some of those should indeed be shifted down to become visible light, even if he sped time a lot more than 2X. However, there just wasn’t that much UV around down at ground level. Plenty of UV came from the sun, but most of it didn’t get down to Earth because the higher its frequency, the more our atmosphere filtered it out. There was a moderate amount of lower frequency UV-A, some UV-B—the stuff that caused sunburns—and almost none of the highly toxic UV-C. Human lighting systems didn’t generate much UV—both because it’d be wasted energy—since we can’t see it—and because it’s bad for us.

So, some of the small amounts of light he was seeing at 2X probably was redshifted UV, but the more he sped time, the less light there was to see—because there just wasn’t much higher frequency UV running around, especially indoors because window glass blocked what little came down through the skies. Above UV were X-rays and there were even fewer of them at the bottom of Earth’s atmosphere. Essentially, this meant that if he sped time past 2X it was going to be dim. And at high enough X, it’d be dark.

Crap, he thought, just when I was thinking I’d be able to do all kinds of cool stuff with this ability, I find out I’m gonna be blind doing it! If I did try to rob a bank, I wouldn’t be able to see the money.

He considered for a moment, thinking there’d be an awful lot of amazing things he could do if he were simply faster than other people, even staying below 2X. It was just that he had a feeling he could go so fast people couldn’t even see him. But, even if I can go that fast, I won’t be able to do shit if I’m blind! he thought disappointedly. He frowned, wondering. And why do I think I can go faster? Because, he realized, I feel like I only have to push a little to speed up to 2X, and I’m sure I can push a lot harder. That I have pushed a lot harder and was moving a lot faster. Even if I couldn’t see what was going on around me, I had the sense I was going so fast the world out there was stationary by comparison.

Witt sat pondering for a few minutes, then had a little eureka moment, remembering that earlier, when he was going fast enough that the world had gone completely dark, he could still dimly see the laptop’s keyboard where the light from his phone’s screen lit it! He quickly tried it again and confirmed it worked. For a moment he pictured himself wandering around in the dark world of fast-time, holding his phone out in front of him so he could see just a little. It can’t be just the phone, can it?

He closed his eyes, wondering whether any kind of light emitted from fast-time could go out into the slow-world around him, bounce off something like his laptop and then come back into his time and arrive at his eyes and be visible. Would a flashlight work too? he wondered.

He got out a little LED flashlight he kept in his drawer and tried it. He could indeed see, but everything looked weird. Some objects were brighter than they should be and colors weren’t what they should be.

Wait, he thought, if, the frequency of light waves were 500 THz—orange—when they left my flashlight, then, when they entered slow-time, the waves would arrive a lot closer together. If I was in 10X fast-time, that 500 THz wave would be sped up to 5,000 THz when it left my bubble and went out into the slow-world around me. But, when it bounced back to me, the waves would arrive farther apart. The light’d be slowed back down to 500 THz and I’d be able to see it again!

He blinked, thinking, Wait a minute, what kind of radiation has a frequency of 5,000 THz? Is the flashlight emitting gamma radiation or something? It took a brief search to realize it wouldn’t be gamma, but that 5,000 THz lay on the border between UV and X-rays, both of which ionized molecules and were therefore toxic. Not as bad as gamma, but bad nonetheless. And if I’m able to reach 100X and the radiation was 50,000 THz, I’d be way up into the X-ray band.

Holy shit, he wondered, could I give someone cancer by shining this flashlight at them? Maybe at 100X, I wouldn’t even be able to see people because X-rays would just go through them?

With more research, he learned that the lowest power x-ray machines, like the relatively safe ones used in dentistry, consumed about 2,000 Watts, whereas, the label on his flashlight said it only used 1.2 Watts. Also, he found that a significant part of an x-ray beam bounced off—they called it “scattered”—from the patient it hit. So, he thought, the X-rays my flashlight sent into the slow-world around me would be very low-dose and a lot of them would reflect back so I could see them… I already knew that, he realized, because light from my phone’s screen bounced off the plastic of my laptop’s keyboard.

Oh, he thought, thinking about the way leaves were green because they reflected green light and absorbed the higher and lower frequencies, the way the colors and brightness are weird in the light of my flashlight probably has to do with the way things absorb and reflect UV and X-rays differently than they reflect visible light. Something white, which should reflect all frequencies of light, might reflect the higher frequencies of X-rays differently than the lower ones.

Remembering that the digital clock his grandmother had given him had a display that wasn’t lit— he thought it was an LCD screen—instead, having to be seen with reflected light, he got it out of his drawer. Because he used his phone for clock functions, he’d never used the clock. When he turned it on, he felt quite pleased to see it displaying seconds though it didn’t show hundredths. Putting his finger over the start button on his phone’s stopwatch, he pointed the flashlight at the clock and pushed hard to slow time. He could read the clock with the flashlight, so he sat and waited for the clock’s second digit to change.

And waited and waited.

When it finally changed. he’d gotten so bored he almost missed it. He started the stopwatch app a few seconds late.

Then waited and waited and waited and waited.

When the clock’s second digit flipped again, his phone registered six minutes and thirty-one seconds, or 391 seconds. Call it 400X, he thought, which is pretty much stopping time from my perspective.

That means I’d live close to seven minutes of my time for every second that passed out in the outside world! If someone was in the room with me, I doubt they’d be able to see me as long as I kept moving around. If I laid out on the bed and took a nap, they’d notice me since a twenty-minute nap would keep me in the same spot for three seconds. But, if I kept moving around, I’ll bet they wouldn’t see me any more than they’d see a bullet go past… In fact, if the average walking speed’s three miles an hour, at 400X I’d be going… 1,200 mph!

When he realized that’d be well over the speed of sound, he felt a frisson of relief that he hadn’t tried to run down the hall at school. Breaking the sound barrier inside the building would probably blow out all the windows, he realized. I’ve got to bring Jesse in on this, just so I can get him to tell me what he sees and hears when I’m doing this stuff… Oh, and I need to get a feel for what 200X is like and try to stay below that so I won’t cause sonic booms.

Leaning back, he spent a minute staring at the ceiling, then thought. If baseball pitchers can throw over ninety miles per hour, I assume I can throw forty or fifty mph. I’d better not even swing my arms around hard if I can reach high multiples of fast-time. He wondered, Could swinging my arm sound like the crack of a whip? That “crack” sound’s supposed to come from the tip of the whip breaking the barrier, isn’t it?

Witt sped his time somewhat. Then, wondering whether the laptop would respond at the lower speed, put his phone down and reached toward the laptop’s touchpad. With surprise, he realized that when he’d moved his hand away from the phone toward the laptop, the phone’s screen flickered, then its timer app suddenly ran slower. So, when it’s close to me—or a part of me—it runs at my speed, but when I move away from it, it slows down. How close does it have to be to run at my time?

He moved his hand slowly back to the phone, expecting its stopwatch to suddenly speed up. Instead, when his hand came within about six inches, the phone glitched a number of times while the timer app intermittently increased its speed. When his hand was within a couple of inches, he thought the phone got back up to full speed.

Do those glitches mean something’s wrong with my phone, or are the time changes I’m putting it through screwing it up? he wondered. Or, instead of gradually, is its time changing in incremental steps that just look like glitches?

When he started to reach back over to the laptop, the phone glitched a couple of more times, then settled down with its clock running slowly. As a rough timekeeper, he counted, “one, and two, and three…,” deciding at the end of a count of twenty that his own clock speed was about two seconds for each second in the outside world, or 2X. After easing off on how hard he was pushing time, he got his speed down to about twelve seconds for every ten seconds in the outside world, or about a twenty percent speed increase. The room had brightened and when he looked at his violet school pen, it was a light blue-green he later learned was called cyan. When the school colors turn light blue-green I can probably win races, he realized.

He pulled open his drawer and fished out his violet and white school wristband. It was pale blue-green too. He slipped it on, thinking it’d be easier to check than his pen when he needed to know how fast he was going.

Witt spent a little time making himself a table that would let him know the approximate multiple of real-time he was running, based on the color of his wrist band. For instance, at a fifty percent increase, his pen was orangey-red and at eighty percent it was deep red on its way to going black.

When he moved his hand back over to the laptop, he realized it’d crashed. Realization dawned. That’s what’s happening! The laptop’s components are far enough apart, he thought, that my hand being closer to some and farther from others has them running at different speeds. Speeds that’re changing as my hand moves around. Same thing with the phone, but lesser since its components are closer to one another. The desynchronization of the components only glitched the phone, but completely crashed the laptop.

Stunned, he sat back to consider the implications of this transition zone. It’s like I have a bubble of differential time modulation around me.

Holy shit! Transitioning in and out of the bubble might apply to air molecules too, he thought. If I completely stopped time, then held so still my bubble didn’t move around enough to encompass fresh air… my little bubble of air would get stagnant! Mildly speeding time should be okay because air molecules should transit in and out of the bubble the same way light does, but I shouldn’t hold still when I’ve sped time a lot… Though, I can’t imagine why I’d speed my time, then sit still so I guess this isn’t anything to worry about.

Tilting his head curiously, he wondered, Can I increase the size of my bubble?

On that thought, he began to wonder how he could tell how big the bubble was. He opened his desk drawer and looked through it. Pulling out some paper clips, he sped his time and chucked one at the far wall. As he’d been expecting, immediately after leaving his hand, it rapidly slowed, then sailed across the room in slo-mo to bounce off the wall and float down to the floor. He could tell its time-flow was normal for it out there, because it bounced farther off the wall and floor than it should have while traveling at what he perceived to be such a slow speed.

He tried this with a few more clips, deciding that they started decelerating a couple of inches after leaving his fingers. About four to eight inches farther on, they were as slow as they got and kept the same speed from there on.

Getting out another clip, he tossed it straight up. Again, it slowed shortly after leaving his hand. Even though it sped up in the last inches before falling back into his hand, the slow rate of fall made it easy to catch.

Catching was something he’d never been good at. Though he could still use improvement in the way his hand closed on the clip as it landed in his palm, it was easy to position his hand so he couldn’t fail to catch it. This could convert me from nerd to superjock, he thought with a sense of awe.

He blinked, What if the reason some athletes are so great is merely because they can control time this way? Or, even if they don’t change the speed of time the way I do, what if they just run on slightly faster clocks?

He shrugged, deciding he had no way to test the idea.

Pulling out another paper clip, he pictured his time bubble expanded to several feet, then tossed the paper clip. He felt a surge of excitement when it slowed over about three feet instead of just a few inches. The same thing happened when he tried expanding his bubble most of the way across the room.

His eyes fell on the laptop. What if…? He reduced the size of his bubble, but pictured it extending out and around the laptop. The laptop was still frozen, but when Witt rebooted it, it came back up and worked perfectly—as long as he kept his bubble pushed out around it. But I don’t have to keep my hand next to it for it to work, he thought excitedly.

He looked at his phone and saw it was past his usual bedtime. He let time come back to normal, watching the tiny clock in the upper corner of the phone. A moment later, the clock jumped back in time when the phone reconnected to the network. Apparently, the time-differential had caused enough trouble with the phone’s link that it hadn’t updated its time to match that transmitted through the internet. It probably jumped back each time I let it keep normal-time, he realized, so I have no idea how far off from normal time I am.

Doing this could seriously screw up my sleep cycle, he realized. I’ve physically been awake quite a bit longer than the clocks register. He still had eight hours before he had to get up though, and he’d read it didn’t help to sleep extra to make up for being awake too long. Maybe I’ll be okay tomorrow, he thought hopefully.

Chapter Two

Summary of what Witt learned in the first chapter

- When he goes into fast-time, colors shift toward red (red-shift).

- He can tell how fast he’s going by the color shift of his violet wristband.

- At a twenty percent speed increase, the wrist band turns light blue-green.

- When he’s going over twice normal speed (2X) the world goes dark.

- He can go as fast as 400X.

- If he walks at 3 mph, then at 400X he’s going 1200 mph out in normal time, well over the speed of sound.

- He can use a flashlight to see in the darkness he encounters when he’s beyond 2X.

- The light from that flashlight gets blue shifted up into the UV and X-ray ranges but is so low power it should be harmless.

- When the light from the flashlight bounces back to him, it red-shifts back down to the normal light range so he can see it.

- When he’s in fast-time, there’s a bubble surrounding him in which time transitions down to the 1X speed of the rest of the world.

- He can change the size of that bubble.

- That bubble of time transition has the effect of muffling sound waves passing through it and preventing sonic booms from his fast movement.

- That bubble can glitch electronics like computers/phones (because different components of the computer are working at different speeds in the transition zone).

Witt stopped right after exiting their apartment the next morning. Shaking his head, he went back, got his little flashlight, and put it in his backpack. Going out the door a second time, he felt amused that he thought he might need the flashlight so he could stop time today. Maybe someday, he thought, but surely not today.

At school, everything seemed normal. He kept feeling as if there should be major changes in the world around him. Transformations that reflected the monumental revolution in his own life. Instead, other than a couple of people calling him the dodger, the world seemed unimpressed by Witt’s life-changing personal events.

Between his fourth and fifth classes of the day, Cinna stopped him in the hall. Witt raised an eyebrow and said, “Thanks for stopping me here.”

She frowned, “Why?”

“It’s safer than the stairs, I’m not as likely to die if Bear knocks me down on this level flooring.”

Cinna sighed, “I’m sorry about the way Bear acted yesterday.” She shrugged, “He’s… obscenely jealous. I’m gonna talk to him and make sure he doesn’t do anything like that again.”

Witt leaned back, giving her an astonished look. “You think you can control Bear?! ’Cause, from what I’ve heard, guys like him don’t let women tell them what to do.”

She gave Witt an intense look, then leaned closer. “If he doesn’t cut that shit out, I’ll dump him.”

“Oh,” Will said sarcastically. “My dead body’ll appreciate that!”

“Come on, Witt,” Cinna said softly. “I really need help with calculus.”

“There’re girls a lot smarter than me who tutor. You could talk to Kerry. Bear wouldn’t be jealous of her.”

Cinna looked off down the hall, then turned back to Witt, a blush on her face and tears in her eyes. Her eyes dropped to her feet, “Kerry charges a lot for tutoring.” Cinna looked away, then softly added, “A lot more than I can pay.”

Witt made a show of surveying her expensive clothing, then rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.” He turned on his heel and started for his next class.

With a rush of small steps, Cinna caught up to him, grabbing his elbow. In a small, broken voice, she said, “Yes, my dad buys me nice clothes, but he… he wouldn’t pay for a tutor. He doesn’t care about my grades.”

Given his own mother’s attitude about grades, Witt found this hard to believe. Rolling his eyes, he scoffed, “You’ve got to be kidding. Your dad doesn’t care about your grades?”

She shook her head. “He’s really… um… It’s like he’s from the dark ages. He buys me nice clothes because he wants me to look good. So…” her lip quivered and she looked uncomfortable, “So I can marry someone like Bear. Dad thinks education’s wasted on girls. Um,” she seemed embarrassed, “he doesn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure he thinks I’ll have a better chance with guys like Bear if I don’t do well in school.”

Witt realized he could see that being true. Bear seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t want a girl smart enough to show him up. Turning away, he said, “So why do you care about calculus then? Sounds like your life plan doesn’t require it. If it’s a struggle, why fight it?”

Cinna grabbed his arm again, pulling him around to face her. The look on her face was intense, “My life plan involves going to college, getting a good education, then a great job. I don’t want to depend on a man.”

Witt pulled away, saying he had to get to class. The humiliated look she gave him as he moved off left him feeling terrible. Once in class, he couldn’t stop thinking about how different Cinna had turned out to be from what he’d expected.

~~~

When he walked out of his last class of the day, Witt saw Cinna striding down the hall toward him.

He wanted to tell her to give it a rest, but the embarrassed, nonetheless determined look on her face stopped him. She opened her mouth to speak but he suddenly couldn’t stand listening to her plead with him again. Abruptly, he found himself saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it. We can start in study hall tomorrow.” He looked away and mumbled, “Sorry I was such an asshole before.”

She didn’t say anything for several moments. When Witt turned his eyes to hers, relief suffused her previously tense face. She took a deep breath, then said, “I was planning to apologize for being insensitive… um…to your concerns about Bear. I’ve decided to break up with him anyway. I shouldn’t be going with a guy who’d take a swing at someone just because I’m talking to him.”

“Naw. You don’t have to do that on my account. Just make sure Bear agrees it’s okay for me to help you.” Witt winked, “I don’t need your dad pissed at me too.”

Cinna gave him a grin, “I’ll just tell Dad you’re way smarter than Bear.”

Witt shrugged, “That’s only possible because Bear’s dumb as a post.” He narrowed his eyes, “But Bear’s family’s rich, right? That probably counts for a lot more than smarts with your dad.”

She frowned, “Unfortunately, you’re right about that. But Dad’s big on brains too, he only thinks intelligence is unimportant for girls.” She grimaced, “I’m worried about what his attitude’s doing to my younger sisters.”

“They buying into the idea that marriage will solve all their problems?”

Cinna nodded slowly, then studied Witt a moment. She frowned, “Thanks for agreeing to help me, but I don’t want you to think that, just because you’re tutoring me, we’re going to start going together or something. I’m doing this to become independent, not to hook up with a different guy.”

Without thinking, Witt asked, “So, then, you won’t pay me and you won’t be…” he decided he’d better not say “my girlfriend.” He cleared his throat, “…um, my friend. Why am I helping you again?” As he said it, he felt like a jerk again. But, even though he felt like he should apologize, he didn’t do it.

She got a pinched look on her face, “I heard you were nice. Are you just one more asshole… like everyone else around here?”

“Are you that much of an asshole? You want me to help you but you’re going to disdain and disrespect me the rest of the time?”

“I respect you,” she said, looking hurt. “I respect anyone as smart as… as I’ve been told you are.” She sighed, “Yes, we can be friends. I just don’t want a boyfriend. And I certainly don’t want to sell myself for math lessons!”

“Ah, okay then. No selling. We’ll be friends. Um, maybe you could put a good word in with some of your girlfriends who do like…” Witt broke off. Lance Richards, one of Bear’s oversized football buddies, was coming down the hall, eyes laser-focused on Witt.

Shit! Witt thought. The hallway had gone dark, making him realize he’d reflexively sped himself so much the world around him seemed stopped. Don’t move! he thought to himself—because with time essentially halted, if he went somewhere, it’d look as if he’d disappeared from this location and reappeared somewhere else. Probably, no matter how still he tried to stay, it was still going to look like he’d jerked around.

At least, that’s what he thought it’d look like. Yup, he thought, I’ve got to get Jesse to be my observer.

Fairly certain he hadn’t moved much from where he’d been when he halted everything, Witt forced time back down close to normal speed. The lights came on and Witt stopped changing time when the violet parts of Lance’s letter jacket turned blue-green—suggesting that Witt was moving about twenty percent faster than normal. I’ve got to slow my movements here in fast-time, he thought. Slow enough I don’t look freakishly fast to everyone else, even though I’m fast-timing enough to be quicker than Lance.

He stepped a little to the side so Cinna wouldn’t be between Lance and himself.

Apparently walking in mildly slowed motion, Lance took about twenty more steps, then came to a halt in front of Witt. He rumbled, “Bear told me to make sure you stop sniffin’ around Cinna. Looks like I’m too late.”

Cinna had turned to see what Witt had been looking at. She lowered the pitch of her voice and slowly said, “Lance, I’m not—”

Why’s her voice suddenly lower, Witt wondered. I thought when you were scared or upset your voice got high and squeaky?

Eyes still on Witt, Lance put a blocking palm out before Cinna’s face, “Shut it, bitch. This here’s between me and Ryllin.”

Witt hadn’t often heard Lance speak, but he didn’t think—even though the guy was big—that he talked this slowly or that his voice was so deep. Suddenly, Witt understood, The fast-time’s affecting the speed and pitch of his and Cinna’s voices.

Oh, he realized, and, since I’ll be speaking in fast-time, my voice’s gonna sound fast and squeaky to all these people who’ve turned to stare at us. His words would come out closer together because of the time differential. Sound waves were still going to be closer together after they left his bubble and sped up, so their pitch would be higher. I should talk slow, and I should pitch my voice lower to make up for the way being in fast-time’s going to make me sound.

Talking somewhat slowly and lowering his voice—enough, he hoped, to make it sound normal—Witt said, “Hey, Lance. She needs a calculus tutor. You gonna handle that for her?”

Though Witt felt like he’d insulted Lance, Lance didn’t seem to realize it; nor to notice any speed or pitch differences. The guy just shrugged and said, “That’s not my problem. Makin’ sure you stay the hell away from Cinna, that’s my deal.”

“Yeah, but who’s gonna tutor—” Witt broke off when Lance lunged forward, hand outstretched to grab the front of Witt’s shirt. From Witt’s perspective, it didn’t seem like much of a lunge because Lance’s relatively slow movement made it seem less threatening. Nonetheless, Witt recognized it’d be a problem if the big guy got a grip on him. Witt leaned his body back to dodge the grasping hand and let that motion leverage his right foot forward, kicking out and up while balancing on his left.

When—in slow-time—Witt realized his foot was going to miss Lance’s crotch, he easily arched his back a little. The weight shift landed his foot solidly in the guy’s junk.

I’m moving way too fast! Witt thought, as Lance’s sweats billowed away from the guy’s crotch in waves. Glancing down to be sure Lance’s hand didn’t have a grip on his shirt, Witt forced time back almost to normal and stepped away.

Lance’s eyes widened, first in surprise that he’d missed his grab, then in agony as the pain radiated up from his balls. Doubling over and dropping to his knees, Lance curled around his crotch.

Cinna was staring at Witt in astonishment. “Holy crap!” she said, “Where’d you learn to do that?!”

Witt shrugged but didn’t otherwise answer. Mostly because he didn’t know what to say, but partly in an effort to appear blasé and confident. Worried he might’ve seriously injured Lance, he leaned down toward the big guy, “Hey, Lance, you okay?”

“No!” Lance spoke in grunts. “I’m not okay! And you are gonna regret that till your dyin’ day.”

“Hmm,” Witt said, his anger slowly rising. He started walking around the downed man. “I was thinking I shouldn’t kick you while you’re down, but that was before you started threatening me even though you’re whinin’ and shakin’ like a dog shittin’ pinecones. Where do you want me to plant my foot next?” As if he were an observer of his own behavior, Witt thought, I’ve been watchin’ too many wisecrackin’ action movies! He looked up to see a loose circle of kids forming up, two to three deep around the fight.

Or, the dregs of the fight, Witt thought when Lance whimpered, “Naw, man, just leave me alone.”

Despite thinking, I should just drop it, Witt nonetheless used a threatening tone to ask, “You gonna apologize for tryin’ to grab me?”

Lance heaved his body upright but didn’t make it off his knees before sinking back with a groan. His eyes focused on Witt. For a moment it looked like he was going to glare and make another threat, but when Witt stepped closer instead of backing off—the kind of reaction Witt figured Lance normally got—Lance grimaced and said, “Sorry.”

Though he was still thinking he should let well enough alone, instead Witt found himself saying, “And you’re not gonna give me any more trouble about talking to Cinna, are you?”

Lance started looking mulish, but then the voice of Jake Smith, the school’s security cop, boomed over the crowd. “Hey, what’s going on here? Lemme in there!”

Oh shit! Witt thought. Sudden darkness told him he’d radically sped his time again. A surge of stress had swept over him on hearing Jake’s words and this seemed to be a new and involuntary reaction to anything that made him want to crap his pants. Feels like I’m at several hundred-X, he thought.

Without moving his feet—to keep from jumping around in anyone’s field of view—Witt got his flashlight out of his backpack and slowly shone it around, looking at the kids that’d gathered around the fight. They all looked weird because the way they reflected the UV/X-rays emitted into their normal time scale was different from the way they reflected normal light. Despite the weirdness of their appearance, he could still tell what was going on. All their eyes had turned to look in the direction Jake was coming from. No one’s looking at me, he realized. Certainly, he was still in their fields of view, but at the periphery where Witt didn’t think people noticed much.

Thinking about how he was probably at a speed where his flashlight, low powered as it was, would be emitting on the border between high UV and low-frequency X-rays, he eased off the pressure he’d been putting on time somewhat. He thought he’d gone about down to 100X, which still left him going so fast the world around him seemed pretty much on pause, Witt used the flashlight to find an opening and just walked out of the circle of kids, carefully moving through gaps in the crowd so he didn’t bump anyone—since he didn’t know what’d they’d feel or notice if he did. Just one more thing I need to check out with Jesse, he thought.

Once he was outside the circle, he moved around the periphery of all those kids until he was behind the spot where he could see Jake shouldering his way in. This is so weird, he thought, feeling fairly confident that, when he let time speed back up, the other kids would think he’d just snuck away. That they’d think they hadn’t noticed him creeping away, rather than realizing he’d simply vanished. I could just go home, he mused, thinking there was an excellent chance Lance—because he didn’t want to be involved in an investigation, a trip to see the principal, and a probable mandatory suspension—would claim he’d accidentally injured himself and that the rest of the kids would go along with it.

But I need to know what happens, Witt thought. He swept the flashlight’s beam around, seeing that he’d be able to get out of everyone’s line sight at the end of a row of lockers. There he could listen to events as they transpired.

Heading over there, he checked to confirm no one had a line-of-sight on him. Turning off the flashlight and letting time go back to normal, Witt listened as Jake pushed on into the circle of kids, yelling, “Make way, make way.”

When Jake stopped yelling, Witt stopped time again, turned on the flashlight, and stepped out to have a look. He had to take a few steps before he could see through a gap to where Lance stood, hunched over, still grimacing in pain. The big guy’d also twisted around, as if he’d been looking for someone or something.

He’s trying to figure out where I went, Witt realized. He walked back over and stepped back behind the lockers.

When Witt returned his time to normal, Jake said, “Lance, what’s going on here?”

After a moment to think, Lance said, “There was something slippery on the floor over here. My foot skidded out from under me and I did the splits.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake said, “and all these kids just gathered around to watch you get up, eh?”

“It was pretty brutal. I, uh, thought it was gonna rip me in half.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake sounded like he’d rolled his eyes. “Anyone else see what happened?”

“It was pretty brutal alright,” Donnie Wright, class clown, said. “He probably should go to the nurse so she can check to make sure there isn’t some serious damage down…” Witt felt pretty sure Donnie broke off on receipt of a glare from Lance.

Jake said, “Well, if everyone, including any victims, are fully clammed up, I’m not going to do anything else except tell you to break it up and get on to wherever you’re supposed to be.”

In my case, I’m supposed to be on my way home, Witt thought. He sped his time again and headed down the hallway toward the exit. Deep in thought, he hit the release bar on the big door as he’d done thousands of times before. However, this time the door didn’t open and he crashed into it, bashing his hip against the release bar and his shoulder against the glass of the door proper.

What the hell? He thought, picking up the flashlight he’d dropped. I thought, in case of fire, these doors couldn’t lock people in? He was turning to look at it with his flashlight, when he realized what’d happened. Dumbass, he thought about himself. Time’s almost frozen and my bubble’s only a few inches thick! The air molecules inside the crash bar and on the other side of the door are moving about as fast as frozen sludge. By then the release bar had depressed a little, so he knew it wasn’t locked, just moving very slowly. Even after the latch mechanism releases, the air on the other side of the door’s gonna be really slow to get out of the door’s way and let it open. From my perspective, the door will open, it’ll just take forever.

After a second’s thought, he expanded his bubble to include the entire door plus a few inches of air on either side and pushed again.

The release bar depressed normally and the door swung out the way it always had. Not wanting anyone to see it instantly wide open, Witt stayed by it, keeping the door in fast-time until it closed. Shaking his head at how confusing these time-flow issues could be, he walked down the stairs outside, looking around with his flashlight for a good place to resume normal-time. A spot where no one would see him reappear.

Witt recognized Jesse’s back a little way ahead. Witt walked past his friend, still looking for a place to drop out of fast-time. With the crowd of kids leaving school, he didn’t find such a place for a couple of blocks. He was just realizing that his walk home was pretty featureless when he came to a gap in the hedges between two homes. Stepping into the gap, he let time come back to normal, then waited impatiently for Jesse to come by.

After about a minute of standing there bored, Witt tried pushing his talent the other way, slowing himself, so Jesse’d arrive sooner by Witt’s timeline.

Holy crap, That works too!

The world had brightened enough he squinched his eyes shut, then opened them into a squint to watch for Jesse. The colors were weird again. He realized it wasn’t dim because there were plenty of infrared wavelengths to blueshift up into the visible light range. The increased brightness was because more photons were arriving per second. I’ve got to start carrying sunglasses, he thought, in case I want to do this again. As if the brightness wasn’t enough of a clue that he was in slow-time, a flying insect of some kind zipped past like a little rocket.

Uh-oh, he realized, if someone in normal-time looks into this gap in the hedge as they walk by, I’ll look like a statue. He sped time back up toward normal. Enough that he thought he’d see them arrive and could speed up the rest of the way before they realized he was standing too still.

A moment later Alice Waters rushed by, though, since Alice never did anything quickly, Witt knew she was probably meandering at her usual speed. Witt sped time up to normal as soon as he noticed her, but by the time he was up to speed, she’d pretty much gone by. She didn’t glance his way so it didn’t cause a problem. Haven’t I heard that people don’t notice stationary things as much as they do moving ones? he wondered. Being in slow-time might not be as much of a problem as I expected, especially if the lighting’s dim.

Witt didn’t speed back up for the next few passersby. None of them noticed him standing essentially motionless in the shady gap between the two hedges as they zipped by.

Shortly thereafter—to Witt’s perception—Jesse whizzed by. Witt sped up to fast-time and caught up with his now slow-moving friend. Once he was beside Jesse, he resumed normal-time.

Jesse jerked away from him in a panicky startle reflex. “Where the hell did you come from?!

“Whadda ya mean?” Witt asked, as innocently as he could.

“You just, poof, appeared out of thin air!”

“No, I just walked up beside you.”

“You didn’t!” Jesse said, staring at him. “It was like you materialized there! It wasn’t as if you moved up beside me. There was a ‘pop’ and, like a genie, there you were!” He paused, looking confused, then wide-eyed in an epiphany. “No footsteps! I can hear you walking now, but there weren’t any coming up alongside!” He frowned, “What the hell’s going on, Wittless?! You gotta tell me how you did that! Some kind of magic trick or something?”

I could just tell him he was daydreaming or something, Witt thought. That he wasn’t paying attention when I walked up. After all, he already confirmed my expectation that coming out of fast-time makes it seem like I suddenly appeared, but is it true that going into fast-time makes it seem like I vanished? And, what about when I just speed up a little so I’m a better fighter or athlete. Does my voice truly get squeaky like when you speed up a recording? I’m pretty sure the pitch doesn’t come down when it goes through the transition zone out to the world’s slower speed, but I’ve got to be sure.

Still staring at Jesse, Witt decided, I need his help, I’ve got to tell him.

Witt let his expression transition to a sly smile. “You know the way you were asking how I moved so fast yesterday…?”

“What?” Realization dawned on Jesse. “Yeah! Was that something like this?”

Witt went back to fast-time. Flicking on the flashlight, Witt walked around to Jesse’s right side and slowed his time back to normal. He said, “Yep, like this.”

Jesse’s head whipped to the right. “What the hell…!” he said, looking both startled and perplexed. Jesse stopped walking to stare at Witt.

Witt stopped too. “If I explain what’s going on, you’re gonna have to keep it a secret.”

“Of course!” Jesse said, “You don’t have to tell me that!”

“Yes. I do have to tell you that. Your story’s a major section of the Wikipedia entry on ‘loose lips.’”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Relax. Personally, I think the issue’s more that your picture’s in the Urban Dictionary under ‘uptight asshole.’”

“And I’m gonna need your help figuring out what’s going on…”

“Good God, Witt! Are you gonna tell me what this is, or are you just gonna keep stringing—”

“It’s time-control, Jess. I can speed up and slow down time.”

Jesse stared at him. “You. Can. Not!”

“See you in your bedroom, loser,” Witt said, waved goodbye at about four times normal speed, then turned on the flashlight as he went to much faster time—not a couple of hundred times normal like he had when leaving the school, but only about a 100X. He walked the rest of the way to Jesse’s house. Knowing the combination to the door from the hundreds of times he’d been over there with Jesse, Witt expanded his bubble to include the door, unlocked it, opened it, and went in. After closing it, he dropped the bubble on the door and walked past Jesse’s apparently stationary mom who looked like she’d just come in the back door from work. He climbed the stairs to Jesse’s room and, closing the door behind him, stretched out on the bed.

Witt squinted and went to slow-time.

~~~

It seemed but a few moments until the bedroom door slammed open and Witt resumed normal-time. He instantly realized the door hadn’t really slammed, it was just that the time differential made it seem that way. Despite rationally understanding, he still found himself expecting a bang from the apparently violent opening.

Jesse stood in the doorway gaping at him for a moment, then slowly closed the door behind him. “You really can control time, can’t you,” he breathed.

Witt slowly nodded.

“You looked like a frigging statue when I first opened the door!”

Witt shrugged. “That’s about what I expected. What else have you noticed?”

“That you need to wear sneakers to do this shit. Those dumbass leather boots you think are so cool make noise, and when you zipped away down the street, it made a high pitched ‘brappp’ sound like a squeaker fart.”

Wow, he adapted fast, Witt thought, remembering how long it’d taken him to come to grips with what was happening. He tilted his head curiously. “Was this ‘brappp’ sound loud?”

Jesse shook his head. “A little louder than the sound your shoes normally make, probably because they were all jammed together. It must’ve been there when you first came up beside me too.” He shrugged, “Not sure why I didn’t notice it then.”

“Ah. I arrived a lot faster than I left.”

“That’s it!” Jesse said, “I heard a ‘popp’ when you first appeared. Probably all those footsteps pretty much squeezed into one noise.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you’re going through the air so fast, how come there’s no whooshing sound?”

“You didn’t hear anything?” Witt asked, surprised since he hadn’t considered that issue except as it applied to the sound barrier.

Jesse shook his head, then tilted it curiously, “Maybe? Some kind of low-pitched faint ‘poof?’ If it was there it was hardly noticeable,”

Witt shrugged. “I think it’s because I seem to have some kind of time-transition bubble around me. A zone where time gradually slows from my fast-time speed down to the speed of the rest of the world. A world that’s in… I call it ‘real-time.’ But I don’t know very much because I’ve only been able to see things from my side of the bubble. I need your help to—”

“Wait!” Jesse interrupted. “How would a bubble, or whatever, keep you from whooshing?”

“Well, I haven’t given this a lot of thought,” Witt said, frowning, “but imagine I’m walking in my bubble where time’s going at a hundred times normal. From my viewpoint, I’m walking an ordinary three miles per hour but from your viewpoint out in real-time, I’m going 300 miles an hour and ought to be whooshing loudly. But for the air molecules in front of me, time speeds up as when they enter my bubble. They zip around inside my bubble, moving from the front of me to the back of me without leaving my area because the air outside my bubble to either side is almost immobile.” He shrugged, “Or if they do leave my area, they slow down to real-time so they aren’t moving fast anymore. The molecules move faster to go around me, but realize that when you’re in normal-time, the air has to move faster to go around you then too. Now, those molecules that went around me slow down again when they transition out of the bubble behind me. At that point, they’re moving at ordinary speed in real-time again and any sound waves created in them have changed frequency from up where we could hear them, down to subsonic waves our ears can’t detect. Also, I’m thinking it doesn’t create a big wave front of sound ripples in the air, because as far as those molecules are concerned, they’ve been moving at ordinary speeds.”

“I call bullshit! You’ve piled that crap deep but it doesn’t make any sense!”

Witt shrugged, “Yeah, I’m not sure it does either, but the fact is, you’re telling me it doesn’t make much noise. If my theory doesn’t explain it, there must be some other theory that does.”

Jesse frowned but eventually gave him a little nod. “What do you know about what’s going on?”

They spent the next hour, Witt explaining what he knew so far and Jesse arguing that it couldn’t be true, then grudgingly accepting the evidence of his own eyes when Witt demonstrated.

Witt got Jesse to confirm that when he went to fast-time and moved away from in front of Jesse, he appeared to vanish in a similar fashion to the way he seemed to pop into being when he arrived in front of Jesse and slowed down to real-time.

Also, when he swung his arms around in high multiples of fast-time there weren’t any whip-crack noises as if he’d broken the sound barrier. This seemed to support the idea that the movement of his time bubble through the air had its effects intensely muffled by the time transition zone. He tried tossing paper clips again and found that the bubble increased in size when he was at high multiples of time. Or, perhaps you could say the time transition tapered off over a greater distance—which perhaps smoothed the transition in terms of the sounds you’d expect high-velocity movements to make.

“So,” Witt said, “I’m gonna go to about 100X and try to stand still for a minute so you can tell me what that looks like.” He did so, counting off sixty seconds—which would’ve been six-tenths of a second, real-time—then going back to normal-time. “So, what’d you see?”

“For a moment you went blurry. I’ve never noticed but you must fidget like a little kid who’s gotta pee.”

“I wasn’t fidgeting. It’s just impossible to hold completely still. Think about what you’re doing yourself. You’re swaying and wiggling all the time.”

Jesse frowned, “I could hold still if I needed to.”

“You could not. Try it.”

Only about ten seconds into his own effort to stand motionless, Jesse swore and said, “It’s harder than it sounds.”

“What’s this look like?” Witt asked, then went to 200X, turned completely around, and went back to 1X when he was again looking at Jesse. It only took a couple of seconds so should’ve been such a short period of time—0.01 seconds—it’d be hard to register.

Jesse said, “You jerked to the side about half an inch.”

“I was afraid of that. That’s because I couldn’t come back to exactly the same position I’d been in. You couldn’t tell I’d turned around, just that I’d suddenly moved?”

“You turned around?!”

Witt nodded.

“Yeah, I couldn’t tell that at all. Just that you’d moved. If I wasn’t focused on you I might not’ve noticed it happen.”

Without warning Jesse, Witt went to 200X and stepped over to lightly touch his friend on the shoulder, then stepped back to where he’d been and resumed normal-time. “What’d you notice that time?”

“You really jerked that time. You’re getting worse at it, not better.”

“You didn’t notice anything else?”

“No…” Jesse narrowed his eyes. “What’d you do?”

“Just touched you lightly on the shoulder. You didn’t feel anything either?”

“No!” He frowned, “How could I not notice something like that?!”

Witt shrugged, “I didn’t touch you very hard and you were focused on something else? Or it was so short it didn’t register? Or, maybe because the skin of your shoulder transitioned to my time when I touched you and then back and, uh…” Witt closed his eyes in concentration. Maybe that disrupted your nerve function or something? he wondered. “…I don’t know,” he said, unsatisfactorily concluding his response to Jesse’s question.

Witt went to fast-time and stepped over to Jesse again. He intended to pick his friend up and lay him down on his side. He thought it’d be a great practical joke for Jesse to suddenly find himself on the floor. Instead, when he tried to move him, Jesse felt like dense clay and barely budged.

Of course, Witt realized, his molecules are almost frozen in place relative to me in fast-time. This makes him seem rigid, and the nearly stationary air molecules around him keep me from moving him. Almost reflexively, Witt extended his bubble out and around Jesse like he’d been doing to go through doors, intending to lay him down the same way he’d swung the doors.

As opposed to the doors, though, Jesse suddenly came to life and recoiled away from him. “What the hell’re you doing?!” He looked up at the ceiling. “And what happened to the light?!”

Witt let time drop back to normal, thinking that he’d just learned he could put someone else in fast-time with him and that they’d stay there at least as long as he did.

“I, um, took you into fast-time with me.” Then Witt had to explain why it’d been dark and the practical joke he’d been trying to play.

Jesse narrowed his eyes, “You sure you weren’t just perving out and trying to feel me up?”

“What?! No!” Witt said.

“You were! I can see it in your eyes! You’re hot for the J-man!”

Witt snorted, “You wish.”

“Do not!” Jesse looked at Witt’s hand and frowned, “You carrying that flashlight because it’s dark when you’re at high speed?”

Witt nodded.

“If the room light’s not working, how’s your little flashlight work?

Witt explained how going over 2X, or doubling the frequency of light, resulted in them trying to see with red-shifted UV and how there’s only a little UV at the bottom of the atmosphere, especially inside buildings.

“Okay,” Jesse said grudgingly, “I guess I get that. But, why isn’t the light from your flashlight redshifted when it comes back to you?”

“It gets blue-shifted on the way out of the bubble…” Witt said, without mentioning that it was presumably getting blue-shifted all the way up into the x-ray bands. “Then it gets red-shifted back into visible light when it comes back to me.”

Jesse frowned and scratched his head, then shrugged. “What about the fact that once it leaves your bubble it’s slowing down by 400X. Isn’t it way behind what’s happening by the time it gets back to you?”

“Light goes 300,000 kilometers per second, Jesse,” Witt said patiently. “Divide that by 400 and it’s still going 750 kilometers per second. That’s plenty fast enough for our purposes.” When Jesse looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything for a moment, Witt said, “Let’s get back on topic. I need some help with what I sound like when I only boost my speed twenty percent.”

“Why would you wanna do that? People’d be able to see you, no problem.”

Witt explained his theory that, if he was just somewhat faster, he’d be able to win races and fights. He didn’t mention the fight with Lance a few hours ago.

“Aren’t you worried that’d be cheating, Mr. Goody-two-shoes?”

“Were Muhammad Ali and Usain Bolt cheating,” Witt asked, “when they used their God-given talents—?"

“Oh, shut up,” Jesse interrupted. “You know I don’t give a shit whether you cheat.”

It turned out that with a speed increase of twenty percent, the pitch of Witt’s voice did go up and he talked too fast.

Jesse had a small electronic keyboard and they used it to estimate that the pitch went up about three notes, or as he thought of it, the three intervals from do, to fa—as in, “do, re, me, fa.”

Finding a table of the frequencies of notes, Witt was able to calculate that—unsurprisingly—there was approximately a twenty percent difference in the frequencies of notes three semitones apart on the scale. To his surprise, three notes below his normal talking voice was lower than he could go, so the best he could do was to speak as deeply as his vocal cords could reach. He spent a little time practicing speaking slower and as deep as he could while at 1.2X.

Jesse listened and critiqued, eventually saying, “Now you just sound a little scared.” He snorted, “Normal enough for you.”

Witt was about to move on to another experiment when, looking irritated, Jesse asked, “Hey, skidmark. You gonna teach me how to do this or not?”

Jerked up short, Witt stared at his friend, “I… I don’t think I can.”

“Can’t? Or won’t? ’Cause I’m suspecting that Mr. Do-no-evil’s afraid I might do something bad if he teaches me his new trick.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t?” Witt asked suspiciously.

Jesse shrugged and glanced away, “Not evil, no.”

“What kind of bad are you considering? Robbing banks?”

“No banks, no.” After Witt stared at him for maybe ten seconds, he shrugged and gave Witt a sly grin. “Maybe I was thinking about a little visit to the girl’s locker room.”

“Jeez, Jesse,” Witt said, shaking his head. “I was afraid you’d wanna do stuff like that.”

“Tell me you hadn’t thought of the same thing!”

“Well… yeah, I might’ve thought of it. But I’d never act on it. You probably would.”

“Okay. I promise I won’t do anything even the least bit questionable without running it past you first.”

Shaking his head, Witt said, “I still don’t think I’m gonna be able to teach you how. It’s not like I can say, ‘First you do A, then you do B, then—’”

Jesse interrupted, “What do you do?”

“I just think about time… I, uh, picture time as a turning wheel, then I kinda push on it to slow it down.”

“Wait a minute,” Jesse said, “I thought you were speeding things up?”

“Speed me up, slow the world down… it’s the same thing in terms of its effect. To reduce confusion, I try to think about it by what it’s doing to me, not what it’s doing to the world. To say I’m going into ‘fast-time,’ not that I’m slowing the world around me.”

“So… you think of time… then, like the heroes in the movies, you grunt dramatically while imagining that you’re pushing backward on the wheel of time?”

Witt snorted, “No. No constipated grunting.”

“Constipated? You weirdo! Can’t you just say, ‘No grunting like I gotta take a shit?”

Witt rolled his eyes. “I have no idea why I’m your friend.”

There followed another thirty minutes of Witt trying to describe how he sped up his own time and Jesse cursing while unsuccessfully trying to do it.

Witt hid his relief that Jesse couldn’t do anything to time’s flow, partly because he worried about what Jesse might do, but also because he liked feeling special. He didn’t want it to turn out that anybody could do what he could do.

Then Jesse’s mom texted him that dinner was ready downstairs.

Witt checked the time. It was past time for his own dinner. Why hasn’t my mom called? he wondered, checking his phone. It had no messages and it couldn’t reach the network. Saying, “I’d better get home,” he started for the door.

Jesse said, “For God’s sake, leave here in fast-time. We don’t want my mom to find out you’ve been up here all afternoon, keeping me from doing my homework.”

Reflexively, Witt widened his eyes and asked, “You do homework?” But his heart wasn’t in it. The fact that Jesse’s suggestion about fast-timing it out of there made sense hardly made a dent in Witt’s consciousness. He had a sick feeling he knew why his phone didn’t show any service. Going to 200X, he turned on his flashlight and vanished from Jesse’s house. Once outside, he decided he trusted their results that suggested he didn’t need to worry about sonic booms. He went to 400X and headed home.

***

Claire was on pause with the front door pulled open about six inches when Witt got home. He went to real-time as he walked up behind her, thinking of asking her whether her phone was working. However, she started yelling as soon as she stepped into the doorway. “Mom! What the hell’s the deal with my phone?!”

Witt slowed down, feeling the anxiety rumbling in his gut. It’s not just my phone…

His sister slammed the door shut in his face, which would’ve been offensive except he felt pretty sure she had no idea he was there.

Witt opened the door behind his sister. She was in the midst of a full-on rant about how her phone’s failure had ruined her day. “Everyone else’s phones were working. It’s just our crappy carrier! You’ve got to switch us to a better service!”

Realizing his sister hadn’t gone off on him this morning about their impending move, he wondered, Didn’t Mom leave her the note? Or didn’t she read it?

Tiredly, their mom asked, “Did you read the note I left you this morning, Claire?”

“Note? What’s that got to do with—”

“Claire,” she said, looking irritated, “If you’d read the damned note, you’d have a pretty good idea what’s going on with your phone.”

“Are you talking about the piece of paper that was under my door this morning?!” Claire asked incredulously.

Their mother nodded.

“I saw it, but I didn’t know what it was so I ignored it. I certainly didn’t read it! Why didn’t you text like normal people?”

Frustrated by all the yelling, Witt said, “The note told you we’re broke. That we’re going to have to move to a smaller apartment this weekend.”

Claire turned to give him her usual look of loathing.

She opened her mouth to bark at him, but Witt bulled ahead, “And, I suspect Mom hasn’t had enough money to pay the carrier and they cut our cell service.”

Claire’s look of fury morphed into one of wide-eyed bewilderment, then of disbelief. She turned back to their mother, “What the hell’s my idiot brother talking about?!” Her tone held both anger and fear.

“He’s telling you what the note would’ve told you if you’d read it. We’re in serious financial trouble and we’ve got to cut everything that’s not essential. Dinner, however, is on the table.”

“Oh, my, God!” Claire gasped in horror. “You cut our cell service? That’s what you think’s not essential?” She lifted her phone and said, “I’m calling Dad and telling him I’m moving in with him!” Then her eyes dropped to her phone and puzzlement bloomed on her face. She looked up at Witt, “How am I gonna call Dad?” she asked plaintively.

Witt couldn’t believe Claire would move in with their dad. Even if she doesn’t remember him hitting me, I can’t believe she’s forgotten the way he slapped her around!

He’d been gaping at his sister as if her head had grown cauliflower. She was crying now and she whimpered, “Witt? How am gonna I reach him?”

Witt looked up at his mom, “Do we still have internet service? Could she e-mail him?”

“E-mail?!” Claire asked, as dismayed as if Witt had asked her to move into a cave.

“I had to cancel the internet too,” their mom said tiredly. “Once we get to the new apartment, internet’ll be included for the first month, so there’s that.” Eyes still on Claire, she said, “Your phone still works, we just don’t have a plan. You can use it prepaid; you’ll just have to buy some minutes.”

“What?” Claire said with no sign of understanding. “I don’t have money.”

Their mother got up and headed to the kitchen. “Come on. We can talk about things while we’re eating.”

“I’m not hungry!” Claire bleated.

“Well, that’s where we’re going to talk about it, so come in and sit. I’m pretty sure Witt’ll be happy to eat your food for you.”

In the end, Claire ate her rice and beans.

Their mother suggested Witt and Claire consider getting after-school jobs so they could buy minutes for a prepaid phone plan. To Clair’s great distress, their mom explained how they were going to live in a one-bedroom apartment where she and Claire would share the bedroom, and Witt would sleep on the couch.

“Share a room with you?” Claire said, teary-eyed, looking like she’d rather sleep with snakes. Looking back and forth from her brother to her mother Claire said, “Isn’t there any way for me to call Dad? Have you bought any minutes for your phone, Mom?”

Their mom nodded slowly, but said, “I have some minutes, but I think calling your dad’s a bad idea, honey. He’s drinking again.”

“He’s probably drinking for the same reason he left us. ’Cause you’re such a bitch! I don’t know how he stayed with you as long as he did!”

Witt thought, She can’t remember how horrible he was or how hard mom had to fight to make him leave?

Her mother’s eyes welled with tears at her daughter’s insults, but she didn’t say anything.

Claire held out her hand, “Give me your phone. Then you and dim-Witt will be able to have that one-bedroom apartment to yourselves.”

“Ten cents a minute,” her mother rasped, holding out a trembling hand. “For a dollar, you can talk for ten minutes. I suspect it’ll take longer than that to convince your dad to let you live with him.”

“I don’t have a dollar!”

“Then you need a job.”

“I’ll ride my bike over to his place tomorrow,” Claire said threateningly.

“Not a good idea,” their mom said, shaking her head. “His neighborhood’s… awful.”

***

Up in his room that night, Witt again pondered how he might be able to make money with his new talent.

The problem was that most of the useful—and therefore perhaps valuable things—he could think of to do with that talent, say stopping bank robberies, would land suspicion on him. If he offered to stop robberies, the banks and police would think he was part of the team initiating them, and that all he was actually doing was calling the team off. They’d think I was offering a protection racket like the mob, one in which I demanded they pay me not to steal from them. Besides, he thought, imagining himself calling the police, or some association of banks to offer such protection, why would they believe I could do it? I’d have to stop a robbery first, leaving my calling card with an offer to stop robberies in the future for some kind of fee.

Hmm, he thought. There’d be the advantage that, during that first robbery, I could leave the robbers handcuffed to a rail for the police to pick up, thus proving I’m not personally the bad guy. But, to be able to stop the first one, I’d have to have a way to find out one was in progress.

He sighed, How the hell do superheroes in comic books support themselves?

Lifting his phone to Google an answer to that question, he realized he couldn’t because he was so poor he didn’t have internet. After pondering, all he could remember was that some of the imaginary superheroes—for instance, Batman and Iron Man—were rich before they went into the superhero business and that Spiderman was poor, barely supporting himself as a photographer.

Someone, somewhere, must need the services of someone who can stop time, he thought, but I don’t know who that might be. I’ll have to Google it at school tomorrow. There he’d be able to use the school’s Wi-Fi to surf the net.

After he finished his homework and practiced desultorily with his sax, he spent the rest of the evening sorting through his stuff. Per his mother’s request, he made a huge pile of stuff to throw away before they moved.

Because their new place wouldn’t be big enough to hold everything.

Chapter Three

The next morning Witt ran into Jesse on the way to school. His friend greeted him with a sarcastic, “What’re you in the dumps about, Flash?”

“Don’t say things like that!” Witt said, irritated.

“There’s no one around,” Jesse said, unfazed. “What’s your problem?”

Witt shrugged, “I need money.”

“I thought you were gonna tutor Cinna?”

“Yeah,” Witt sighed, unwilling to tell Jesse he was tutoring her for free. Jesse’d assume he must be angling for sexual favors. Or that he was a complete dupe. “I need a lot more money than I could get from tutoring. My dad lost his job and Mom’s having trouble making ends meet without his child support payments.” He told Jesse they were going to have to move to a smaller apartment.

“Oh…” Jesse said, looking a little freaked out. For once he didn’t have a snappy comeback. After a moment, he quietly asked, “Um… You thinkin’ about robbing that bank after all?”

“No!” Witt said, rolling his eyes. “There must be something positive I can do. By that, I mean something good I could get paid for.”

“Well,” Jesse said thoughtfully. “You could go over to the physics department and offer to be their time-stopping guru and guinea pig. I’m not sure they could afford to pay you very much…” he snickered, “but, I’ll bet they’d love to take you apart to see what makes you ‘tick.’”

Witt looked his friend askance. Ignoring the stupid tick/time joke, he said, “I’ve watched some shows where the government grabs people with talents… um, not the same as mine, but you know, still weird abilities… They’re held by some secret agency that never lets them see the light of day. Controlling them. Using them for the agency’s arcane purposes. Studying them. Claiming they’re keeping them safe from spies for the other side… You think that kind of stuff could really happen?”

“Naw,” Jesse said cheerfully, “but if I were you, I wouldn’t tell anyone. You already screwed up when you told me.”

Sarcastically, Witt said “Thanks for pointing that out. Got any useful ideas?”

Jesse shrugged, “You’re gonna need to give a guy a minute to think about it.”

“Yeah,” Witt said dispiritedly. “I’m worried ’cause I’ve been thinking about it since last night and I haven’t had any ideas.”

“Ah, yes, but you aren’t devious like I am.”

“Not robbing a bank, Jesse. No breaking laws or doing anything… immoral, or offensive, or…” Witt broke off, unable to think what other classes of bad things Jesse might want to try.

Jesse gave him a little salute and turned off toward his first class.

Shit, Witt thought, considering his family’s financial state, I hope I don’t have to eat those words.

***

Getting closer to the school, Witt was surprised to get high-fives from some few kids he didn’t know well. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the way Bear, Lance, and their ilk treated the rest of the students.

Paying more attention, he noticed quite a few girls glancing at him. Some looked disdainful, but a few seemed admiring.

Witt tutored Cinna during their study period. He found it terribly distracting, sitting next to someone so pretty.

Especially when she kept telling him how grateful she was for his help and, how, even though she didn’t think guys should fight over girls, she admired the way he’d given Lance his just deserts. Also, he kept thinking about how his family needed the money she wasn’t paying him.

And, he kept worrying that another of Bear’s buddies might show up and this time he wouldn’t see them coming.

Plus, there was the nagging feeling that he should be using the school’s Wi-Fi connection to research ways to make money instead of tutoring her to no benefit.

When the bell rang for the next period, she touched the back of his hand, looked him in the eye, and thanked him sincerely.

She got up and walked away, leaving Witt sitting there, rubbing the tingling back of his hand, and thinking about how her fingers felt… hot.

~~~

Over lunch—to save money, Witt was eating a sack lunch for the first time in years—Jesse gave him a conspiratorial look and said, “How about an idea that may break laws but isn’t immoral?”

Witt studied him a moment, wondering what could meet those criteria, “Are you talking about prostitution?” He waved a hand up and down at himself, “I don’t think my goods are exactly upmarket.”

Jesse snorted. “No. I think you’d have to pay them.”

Witt rolled his eyes. “Probably,” he acknowledged. “What’s your idea then?”

“Rob a drug lord. Technically it’s against the law, but stealing from them’s moral. If you strip off their cash, they can’t buy product and they’re out of business. It’d be good for society.”

“Holy shit!” Witt exclaimed, leaning away, and turning to study his friend’s face. “Are you insane?!”

“No. What’s so crazy about that?”

“You know what those kinds of guys do to people who encroach their turf? Much less steal their stash?!”

Giving him a puzzled look, Jesse said, “How would they ever catch you?”

“They don’t have to catch me. They can go after my family!”

“Think about it, half-Witt! You walk through in fast-time, scoop up their cash and you’re gone! There’s no way they’d know who did it!”

Witt stared at his friend, trying to see by what means this plan could turn to disaster, feeling certain it would, but unable to figure out how. Finally, he asked, “What if the cops had slipped them some marked bills and I got caught turning them in at a bank?”

Jesse snorted again. “You’re just desperate to shoot down my ideas, aren’t you? There’s no way the cops could be slipping marked bills to drug lords. But, given that’s your concern and it’s got your undies in a twist; you go to the bank in fast-time, go back where the tellers are, and swap the money you stole from the pushers for some clean bills out of their tills. Then go back out, to return later in real-time and deposit that pristine money.”

Witt wanted to object that he’d be stealing money from the bank, even if he replaced it, but realized that even though it might not be legal, it wasn’t immoral. After thinking for a minute, he said, “There’re all kinds of cameras in banks. What if they got an inkling and went through the recordings?”

“Come on, Witt! If people can’t see you, cameras can’t see you either!”

“I don’t know,” Witt said slowly. “I’d be standing in one spot for a while, taking money out of the till, counting it, and replacing it.”

“If you stood there for six minutes—360 seconds—at 400X, that’d be less than a second of a blurry blob visible on the video record!”

“I’m pretty sure,” Witt said, exasperated, “that it’s a dumb-ass idea. I just haven’t figured out what’s dumb about it yet.” he got up, “I gotta go. I need to Google some stuff.”

As he walked away, Witt thought, There’s gotta be a better way.

~~~

In the library, Witt Googled, “Ways to ethically make money if you could stop time.” When he hit enter, he didn’t expect to find any answers to such a silly search. In fact, he was already trying to think of a different search string. He wasn’t surprised that Google returned 244 million results, but he didn’t expect any of them to be relevant. To his astonishment, there were discussions on Reddit, Quora, and other forums on pretty much exactly his question. There were even a lot of references to movies and TV shows where characters were able to stop time.

Though the posted questions had been looking for ethical ways to make money, most of the answers instead proposed pranks you could play on people or other things you could do to have fun. Of the ones that did suggest ways to make money, the means to that end that were almost always unethical, immoral, and/or illegal, robbing banks being one of the most common suggestions—frequently offered by people who felt that, since the deposits were insured, it was okay to steal them. As if the insurance company isn’t going to charge everyone more to cover its losses, Witt thought. Or maybe they think that costing a lot of people a little bit of money is less objectionable than destroying one person by stealing all their money?

Among the less objectionable to Witt were ones proposing to use such an ability to win at gambling. Some of those admitted to the point that you were taking unfair advantage of casinos or other gamblers—who would, by your winning the money, necessarily get less or lose more.

A number felt that stealing money from criminals was ethical, or, like Jesse, believed criminals deserved to lose their ill-gotten gains.

Witt couldn’t help thinking that money taken from criminals should be returned to the people the crooks had stolen it from. Of course, it’d probably be impossible to figure out who the original victims were. And, he realized, the victims of a drug lord are to some extent offenders themselves.

The least ethically questionable suggestions were propositions that you could rapidly age cheese or wine or something like that, thus adding value to a product. However, Witt had a feeling he’d have to sit with the cheese to keep it in fast-time and, as a teenager, would have a hard time finding a sales outlet for his end product. Especially since he didn’t have food handling licenses—or whatever you were supposed to have to age cheese.

There were also suggestions that you could save people in disasters—for instance, snatching people out of burning buildings—but how you’d get paid for such services without “coming out of the closet,” so to speak, wasn’t at all clear. And if no one was willing to pay you to do it, did you just let victims die? Nor did they tell him how he’d know such a disaster was in progress so he could make himself available to save endangered persons.

And with most of the suggestions, there was the problem that he didn’t want people to know what he could do.

Or at least didn’t want anyone knowing he was the one doing such things since—thinking of secret government agencies—he didn’t want to find out what the world might do to him.

It all left him feeling pretty frustrated.

***

As Witt walked out of band class that afternoon, Ms. Santee called out after him, “Mr. Ryllin?”

What now?! Witt wondered. Am I in more trouble? Is this more bad news? He put on a pleasant expression and, hoping his dismay didn’t show, slowly turned back to her, “Yes, Ms. Santee?”

She cocked her head and considered him, “I’m wondering, Witt, are you hoping to do anything with your music?”

“Um,” he said, blinking in confusion, thinking she meant sheet music. “Did I forget to return some of it?”

“Oh, no!” she said, a surprised smile on her face. “No, it’s just that… You have real talent, Witt. I’m wondering if you’ve thought of trying to do anything with it?”

Taken aback, Witt thought of quite a few people who, having heard him play his sax, had said they thought he was amazing. He’d always assumed they were just trying to be nice or merely blowing smoke. After all, he was pretty bad at reading music, though once he’d worked his way through the struggle of figuring out a song from its music, he seemed to be able to remember and play it just fine. He just put the music in front of him like everyone else did and mostly pretended to read it, only occasionally getting any help from it. He’d thought himself, as a non-reader, to be “musically illiterate,” then had been surprised to learn that the term didn’t mean an inability to read musical notation. Instead, it supposedly suggested a “marked lack of musical knowledge.”

Studying Ms. Santee, he slowly said, “I’m not so sure. I… I still struggle a lot with reading music. If I don’t get to figure a piece out at home first, or at least hear a song before you have me play it in class, I… well, I’m sure you’ve seen me struggle sometimes.”

“Oh, yeah,” she grinned, “I can tell you don’t read worth a damn. It’s obvious you mostly, um, ‘play by ear’ they call it. But in your case, it’s an awesome ear. Much more importantly, you can deliver the feeling of a piece better than almost anyone I know. And, when I ask you to improvise…” she shook her head as if a little in awe, “that’s when you deliver the goods. I mean, wow!”

Witt narrowed his eyes, “You’re not just putting me on?”

She shook her head, a twinkle in her eye. “Trust me, you have real talent.”

Frowning, Witt said, “Are you thinking I should be a musician?”

She nodded, “You could be if you wanted to.”

He scratched his head uncertainly. “I’ve heard most musicians are broke. I, uh, I’ve had enough experience with family money trouble to know I don’t want that.”

She nodded sadly. “Yeah, for every musician who gets rich, there’s a thousand barely scraping by. Deciding to avoid that trap’s probably smart. Getting an engineering degree to earn your living and playing your sax on the side’s a lot smarter.” She grinned again, “But if you change your mind, let me know. Maybe I could help somehow.”

Witt moved on to his next class, trying to envision himself playing saxophone in some radical band. It was a pleasant daydream for a few moments. But then reality came crashing back.

No way, he thought, stepping into the classroom for his senior elective in computer science. He looked around. This class is one that might earn me a living.

***

On his walk home that afternoon, he thought about how he’d had Jesse in fast-time with him and wondered how long it was going to be before Jesse demanded Witt take him back into fast-time and what Jesse would want to do once he was there. And, can he be in fast-time if he’s far away from me? Witt worried. ’Cause if he can, he’s going to want me to put him in fast-time and let him go off by himself to do… who the hell knows what he’d want to do? After a moment, Witt decided that, even if his friend could stay there, he should drop Jesse out of fast-time as soon as he got out of sight. I can’t let him be in fast-time when I don’t know what he’s doing, Witt thought, I don’t want to feel responsible for whatever he does.

And why am I friends with a guy that might do… bad stuff if I’m not supervising him? Witt wondered. He realized he sometimes thought of Jesse as one of those alter-egos you read about. The little devil that stood on your shoulder and told you to do bad things, arguing against the little angel that stood on your other shoulder advocating that you behave decently.

Somehow, Jesse was his friend even though Witt sometimes felt appalled by the guy’s tendencies. I’d even try to rescue him from trouble he deserved, Witt realized, wondering what that said about himself.

Trying to take his mind off of these thorny ethical dilemmas, Witt let his eyes follow a flight of geese going by overhead, one trailing the rest by about fifty feet. He realized they provided a prime opportunity for an experiment, and he imagined boosting time fifty percent around the laggard goose. With a surge, the trailing goose quickly overtook the others. Rather than zooming past, it slotted into position at the back of the “V.” Unexpectedly, when it did, it took a nose-up position and its wings kept beating rapidly.

Hah, he thought. In order to fly as slow as its flock when it’s at 1.5X, the goose has to fly nose up the way a plane does when it’s landing. Otherwise, it can’t get enough lift within its fast-time bubble to stay up. Though he found the phenomenon fascinating, Witt had other experiments to try out. He looked away from the goose while thinking that he wanted the goose to stay in fast-time, then back.

It was still nose-up, beating fast.

He looked away and thought of something else, then turned back to the goose.

For a moment he thought his goose had vanished, then he realized that it was simply back to normal-time, flying level like the others. It was hard to tell his goose from the others when it wasn’t nose-up.

He pondered the knowledge that he could put something else in fast-time without going into fast-time himself, but that it wouldn’t stay in fast-time without his attention purposefully focused on it. He couldn’t decide whether that meant something important or not. But if he wanted to age Parmesan cheese for nine to twelve months at 400X he’d have to sit and focus on it for a large part of a day. He could do it in pieces, he supposed, but couldn’t imagine he’d get paid all that much to age cheese. Aging wine a few years would take several days, but he had no idea whether there’d be any market for that.

Even if it had more value than he thought, he’d never work out the details of how to make money aging things quickly enough to help resolve their current financial problem. That problem was, after all, right now. He needed money soon. Am I gonna have to suck it up and go with Jesse’s plan to rob a drug ring? he wondered. If I did, how would I even find those kinds of people?!

***

When Witt got back to their apartment, he called out for his mother. Then for his sister.

No one was home.

They still weren’t home when he’d finished his homework and pensively practiced his sax.

Thinking to call his mom, he reached for his phone, then stopped as he registered its blank screen and remembered it was practically useless without a link.

With no internet or phone, I’ve got nothing to do, he realized, vaguely wondering what people did back before such electronic devices were available.

He practiced running time at different speeds for a while. Then, after once again stifling the impulse to reach for his phone, he walked into the kitchen. His eyes, tracking to a flicker of motion, found a cockroach crossing the room beneath the table. It stopped as soon as he came into view, evidently hoping immobility would keep him from noticing it.

He thought about trying to stomp it but knew he wouldn’t have a chance, it was too close to an escape route under the baseboards.

With a sudden thought, he imagined reaching out and putting a bubble of slow-time around it.

He couldn’t tell if he’d had an effect—since it hadn’t been moving anyway—but when he walked over to it, it stayed right where it was without skittering into a hidey-hole. He leaned down close and it still didn’t visibly move, not even slowly waving an antenna.

Wondering what use this new skill might have, he stood back up and stomped the roach as he’d originally intended.

To his astonishment, it felt like stomping a pebble, hurting a little and giving him the sense that the cockroach had indented the sole of his shoe! When he moved his foot away, he felt a tiny tug on his shoe as if it were sticky, but the roach looked fine.

Thinking hard, he squatted down and studied the insect. It looked like one of those bugs preserved in a science display. Certainly, it remained unsquashed. He poked at it, and his finger encountered a hard-rubber sensation just above the cockroach.

So, he thought, as the sole of my shoe approached, it entered the slow-time zone and those molecules stopped progressing downward. The molecules piled up on top of the slow-time zone and impressed themselves into the bottom of my shoe, denting it upward and feeling like a pebble. The tug I felt moving away was from the molecules that’d gotten incorporated into slow-time and were slow getting pulled out.

The roach, in the depths of its slow-time zone, never even noticed what’d happened.

It’s like I can cast a zone-of-invincibility around something—or someone! he thought excitedly, picturing someone trying to stab Jesse. Witt could intervene by putting his friend in slow-time. Driving the point of a knife into the slow-time zone would probably feel like sticking it into hard rubber except you might be able to get through hard rubber, no chance with slow-time. If you stayed there leaning on it, the knife would eventually penetrate Jesse, but presumably, Witt could do something to stop the attacker before that happened. Oh, and, just like my shoe stuck to the bubble over the roach, if I let the guy keep trying to shove the knife in for a minute or so, it’d take him a minute to pull it back out. The knife being stuck would’ve disarmed him so he couldn’t hurt me while I got him off Jesse!

Musingly, he pictured putting Jesse in slow-time just before someone shot a gun at him. The bullets would bury themselves in the transition zone of slowing time, and then… Oh, shit. As soon as I let Jesse’s time go back to normal, the bullet would—from my point of view—fly on in and kill him! He wondered if he could dig the stuck bullets out of the slow-time with a knife, but realized he’d never be able to get the even slower-moving knife point deeper into the zone than the fast-flying bullet in order to try to lift it out—or even deflect it.

No matter how much I slowed the bullet, eventually it’d kill him! he realized, imagining the agony of standing there, keeping Jesse in slow-time but knowing that nothing he could do would keep his friend from dying in the end.

He was staring at the cockroach and worrying about his mom and sister when the knob on the back door turned. As he turned to look toward the door, out of the corner of his eye he saw the cockroach scurry under the baseboard. I took my mind off it, he thought. Oh well, that roach is gonna be the new tenants’ problem soon enough.

His mother stepped inside the door. “Is Claire home?” she asked, sounding worried.

“Hi, Mom,” Witt said sarcastically, irritated that she’d placed Claire’s welfare above checking on his own. He immediately felt embarrassed that he’d sounded like he cared. He shook his head. “No Claire here. Maybe you should’ve waited a few more days before canceling our phone service.” He immediately felt terrible when tears welled in her eyes. “Sorry,” he followed up weakly. “I didn’t mean that.”

“No,” she said in a choked voice. “You’re right. It was terrible timing. But our billing cycle was up. If I’d waited another day, we’d have owed for another full month and I wouldn’t have been able to pay it.”

“It’s okay,” Witt said, giving her a little hug. “I’m sorry I said that. How come you’re home so late?”

“They asked me to stay late at work,” she said, blowing her nose, “and we need the money.” She glanced around, “Did Claire leave a note? Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?”

“Um,” Witt said, stepping to the window and looking out to where he and Claire locked their bikes to the rail. Only his was there. “Her bike’s gone. I… think she might’ve made good on her threat to ride over to Dad’s place.”

“Oh, no…!” his mom said in an agonized tone. “He lives in such a… terrible area. I hope she hasn’t… um, that no one…” she paused, obviously unwilling to give voice to her fears, then finally choked out an attempt at an upbeat concluding line, “uh… that she’s okay.”

“Have you checked your voice mail? Texts? E-mail?”

“But…” his mother frowned, plaintively saying, “she doesn’t have a phone to call me with.”

“She might’ve borrowed someone’s phone or computer.” Witt shrugged, “Or used Dad’s. Or maybe Dad called you to tell you Claire was over there?”

“You’re right,” his mom said, digging in her purse. She turned it on and studied its screen, touching icons. Her mouth twisted bitterly, “Nope, no calls, texts, or emails from either one.”

Witt held out his hand, “Let me check mine.”

She pulled the phone away. “Do you have money to pay for the data?”

Wanting to lash out, instead, he gave her a reproachful look. “Considering the way you two last spoke to one another, I’m thinking Claire might’ve reached out to me instead of you?”

Swallowing, she held out her phone, “You’re right, sorry.”

But when he checked, there was nothing there.

~~~

Witt and his mother made dinner together, talking about anything but Claire’s absence.

However, she remained at the top of Witt’s mind and he felt sure his mom felt the same way. He wondered how he could be so worried about someone who was such a pain in the ass, but he was.

As they were putting the dishes in the dishwasher, Witt said, “We should call Dad. If necessary, we need to drive by Dad’s place. See if she’s there. If she’s not, we could ask him to help look for her. Also, then we’d be justified in making a police report that she’s missing.”

A revolted look flashed across his mom’s face when he said it. Witt realized she’d been hiding tremendous disdain for their father, perhaps in an effort to keep her children from hating him. If he’d lost his job to drinking and dropped all the responsibility on her, Witt could imagine her loathing might be a lot closer to the surface now. After a moment, and with apparent effort, she got control of her expression. “You’re right. No matter how much I don’t want to interact with the… with him, I owe it to Claire to check.”

~~~

Five calls in a row had gone directly to voice mail, so they were driving over to knock on his dad’s door. Witt had been daydreaming, trying to figure out when he’d last seen his dad, but then he’d realized that, if for some reason he wanted to ride his bike over to his dad’s place—for instance, to search for Claire, or if he wasn’t there tonight—he’d better pay attention to the route. He wouldn’t be able to use his phone’s GPS to find it.

He pulled out his phone and was using its notepad to write down some turn-by-turn directions when his mom asked whether he’d bought some data for it. “No, I’m just writing directions in case I need to get back here.”

“No! Do not try to come back here! This is a terrible neighborhood and… Even I’m afraid to come here. I’m ashamed to admit I wanted you to come to keep me company, but I shouldn’t be putting you at risk.” She slowed and swung the car wide, preparatory to making a U-turn.

“Mom,” he said patiently, “taking me home’s not a good solution. If you got hurt over here without me, I wouldn’t even know it’d happened. I wouldn’t be able to call and see if you were okay. I wouldn’t be able to find Dad’s place to check on you or to tell the police where to look. And, remember, I can’t take care of myself without you. We need to check on Claire and we’re both a lot safer if we’re together.”

She stopped the car and rested her forehead against the wheel a moment, then sighed. “You’re right. We’ve got to go for Claire and we’re definitely safer together.”

When they arrived, it quickly became evident that she’d never been to their dad’s place before. She slowly rolled their old car down the street peering at building numbers. Many of the street lights were out and a lot of building numbers had been defaced or removed.

“Wait. I think that’s it,” Witt said.

She stopped the car and leaned down to look with him, “Which one?”

Witt pointed. “I think it’s 883, but it could be 886, 888, or 889.” He got out his flashlight and shone it that way, but at that distance it did little.

When Witt opened the door to go closer for a better look, his mom said, “No! Don’t get out of the car until we’re sure!”

“Mom, we’re never gonna be sure until one of us goes up there and gets a closer look. I can get up there and back a lot faster than you can.”

She sighed, “Okay. I’ll stay here in the car, ready to drive up and run over anyone that hassles you.”

Witt got out and trotted up to the building. It was 883, so he waved his mother to come after him. Though, he thought, if this neighborhood’s as bad as she says it is, it might be better if she stayed there to make sure no one steals the car. Deciding he’d never talk her into that plan, he didn’t try.

It turned out his dad’s apartment, #10, was in a partially-below-ground level under the main floor. It was at the end of a hall that stank of urine. Geez, this’s awful! Witt thought, wondering how the pleasant father he remembered from a years ago could’ve sunk so low. Could something like this happen to me? he wondered, resolving to never, ever, drink a first drink.

His unshaven malodorous father answered the door in a stained t-shirt with a beer in one hand. He blinked at Witt’s mom, then grinned, “Hey, babe. You decide to come crawling back?”

“Did you get a job?!” his mom asked angrily, then shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t want to fight. We’re here because Claire hasn’t come home. Um, last night she said she might come over here. Have you seen or heard from her?”

“Aw. Isn’t everything peaches and cream in your little realm?”

“No,” his mom said, sounding both angry and embarrassed. Stiffly, she said, “I can’t afford to feed, clothe and house two teenagers on my salary. Claire especially, since she’s not happy about wearing secondhand clothes.” She sighed, “It would immeasurably improve your children’s lives if you stopped drinking, got a job, and paid the child support the courts have assigned you.”

Witt tried to peer into the apartment but his dad was standing in the door with an arm braced across to the other jamb, making it hard to see much.

His dad waved the beer at his mom, “This? This ain’t drinkin’. Just a little bit of brew to take the edge off is all.”

“Well then,” Witt’s mother said, “if that’s the case, it’d sure be great if you went back to work so you could help your kids out financially.”

His dad’s eyes focused—a little blearily—on Witt. “Hey, Witt. How’re you doing?”

“Okay,” Witt said, uncomfortably.

“You wantin’ to come live with your ol’ dad like Claire does?”

Witt started to shake his head, then, like a bolt, it struck him that his mother hadn’t said anything to his dad anything about Claire wanting to live here. He narrowed his eyes, “She’s been here, hasn’t she?” Witt asked angrily. “Where is she?”

His dad sneered, “That’s not how you talk to your—"

The lights went out.

Witt realized he was so angry he’d gone into fast-time again. His first impulse was to go back to real-time before he moved enough to disturb anyone by reappearing in a slightly different location. Of course, then he’d still be in the midst of what he expected would develop into a hell of an argument. But as long as I’m in fast-time, he thought reaching into his pocket, I’d just as well sneak into the apartment to see if Claire’s here.

When he turned on his flashlight, his dad’s face looked angry, mouth open in mid shout. Witt’s mother looked furious, evidently having realized—like Witt had—that Claire must’ve been in contact and might even be in the apartment.

She knows Dad’s jerking us around.

Witt ducked under his dad’s arm and walked down a short hall into a filthy, one-bedroom apartment. Around the corner, he found a kitchen in shambles, dishes stacked high in the sink. A mouse hunched frozen in mid-scavenge next to an overflowing trash bin.

Claire’s bike leaned against the wall.

Witt almost turned back to the hall to confront his dad, but decided he should be sure she was here and get a look at her to make sure she was okay. For a moment he pictured her leaning an ear against the bedroom door, trying to hear what their parents were saying. Then he blinked, wondering if Claire would be willing to live in such a disgusting wallow. Then he thought, The way she keeps her own room, maybe she hasn’t even noticed Dad lives like a pig.

Picturing his sister falling out of it, Witt opened the bedroom door slowly in case she was leaning against it.

His eyes widened to see her on her side on the floor, ankles and wrists tied with the tails of the power cords for a lamp and a fan. She had duct tape over her mouth and the time-stop had caught her in mid-strain against her bonds. Oh, My, God?! he wondered. Are parents allowed to do something like this to their kids?

He didn’t think so, but… he wasn’t sure.

Getting out his phone, he took a couple of pictures, using the flash as well as his flashlight. He felt somewhat surprised when they turned out to look fairly normal, dim around the edges, but those could be cropped. Though I hope these pix never see the light of day, they’re only for insurance in case Dad…

Witt decided he didn’t know what his dad might do, but he thought he’d better keep the pictures as evidence of what his dad had done already.

Witt knelt and extended his bubble out around his hands, big enough to let him loosen the knots in the lamp cords somewhat. That done, he thought for a moment then grossly loosened the cord at the wrists for fear, once back in normal-time, Claire might jerk at the cord around her wrists, tightening the knots. He wanted her to be able to win free easily. He stared at the duct tape, trying to decide what to do. He didn’t want Claire to have any idea what he’d done. With her personality, she’d dig like a badger, trying to figure out how she’d been released. He wouldn’t put it past her to keep after it long enough to get some inklings. If she learned anything, there’d be no chance Witt’d be able to get her to keep his secret. She might believe she worked the lamp cords loose herself, he thought, but there’s no way she’s gonna believe the duct tape just fell off.

After a moment he peeled up a corner of the duct tape, making it easy to remove the rest of the way, though Witt felt sure it’d hurt like hell coming off. Then he snugged the knot in the cord around her ankles back up a little. Hopefully, she’ll think she finally got the knots at her wrists to slip and never notice the knots at her ankles aren’t as tight as they were.

He paused for a moment of introspection, thinking how there’d been times Claire had so annoyed him he’d’ve liked to bind and gag her himself. But what Dad did’s wrong on so many levels, he thought, getting up and heading back out to the hall.

Stepping under his dad’s arm, he wondered how he could keep his parents from noticing his translocation when he went back to real-time—as he apparently jumped from where he’d been, to the new position he was in after his undertakings in fast-time. Getting an idea, he stood about where he thought he’d been, put away the flashlight, and gave it a few seconds’ more thought.

He didn’t resume real-time, instead slowing to twenty percent faster time. As he did it, he lunged forward and shoved his dad—hoping the sudden motion would obscure the spatial shift from his trip into the apartment. He spoke slowly, lowering the pitch of his voice as much as he could as he shouted, “You’ve got her in your apartment, don’t you?! Where is she?!”

Witt’s extra speed increased the force of his hands as they planted on the man’s chest. Drunk and not expecting the shove, his dad stumbled back into the little entry hall. “Hey!” he bellowed, taking a swing at Witt.

Witt easily ducked under the blow, unsure whether it was so easy because of his own increased speed, or because his father was even drunker and clumsier than he’d thought.

Once he’d passed under his dad’s fist, Witt kept going into the apartment. There he made a show of looking around. Checking his wrist band to make sure it was still the light blue-green that indicated a twenty percent speed increase, he again spoke low and slow. “Mom! Claire’s bike’s in the kitchen!”

He strode to the bedroom door and jerked it open, this time noticing the slightly increased resistance as he pulled the door through air that was moving twenty percent slower than he was.

His sister was just finishing untangling her wrists from the cord—which he thought was great, since the likelihood she’d notice the loosening of the cord around her ankles in the midst of all the hoorah seemed low. “Claire!” he gasped theatrically, “What the hell?! He tied you up?” Witt pulled out his phone and started taking pictures. Ones that wouldn’t be weird like the ones he’d taken in fast-time—which he’d just realized not only had weird lighting but all showed Claire frozen in the same position.

Behind him, he heard his dad bellow. “You’d better not be taking pictures!”

Farther back, he heard his mother gasp.

Touching the video icon so it would record the audio of the upcoming conversation Witt slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned to face his dad. “I’ll take pictures if I want. I’m pretty sure tying up your kids is against the law.”

“So is barging into my place without permission!”

“I’m pretty sure children don’t need a warrant to enter their parent’s home.” He turned to look at his sister who was tugging at the duct tape but only had it about one-third off her face, “Claire, you okay?”

“No!” she said, muffled by the tape but sounding like she was seething. “I hadn’t been here ten minutes before that son-of-a-bitch started hitting me. Screaming about how he was going to ‘straighten me out!’ Then,” at this point she sounded completely indignant, “he tried to put me over his knee and spank me! When I wouldn’t hold still for that shit, the bastard tied me up!”

Witt turned to face his father. Having lived with Claire for the past several years, he knew just how infuriating she could be. He felt sure that didn’t justify the way his dad had treated her, but couldn’t help wondering how you were supposed to handle a kid like her without violence. Not like Dad did, he decided. Looking his dad in the eye, he said, “What do you have to say for yourself?” He glanced at his wristband to make sure it was still blue-green, then at his mom. She was looking at Witt as if he were a stranger.

When he looked back at his dad, the man looked sullen. “I don’t have to say anything.”

He sounds like he’s talking to a cop! Witt thought. As if he’s affirming his Miranda rights or something.

Then he noticed his dad’s clenched fists. Is he about to throw another punch at me? Witt realized that, since he was in fast-time, he didn’t fear the punch—he felt confident he could dodge it. But he didn’t want his dad to throw it, creating even more bad blood in the family. Trying to sound understanding, he softly said, “Hey, Dad. You’ve had a rough time, huh?”

His dad’s face suddenly trembled between anger and tears. He rasped, “You have no idea, son.”

“I think you’d better let us take Claire home before you do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

Looking deeply ashamed, his dad nodded. In a near whisper, he said, “I… I just didn’t know how to deal with…”

Feeling like a stranger had taken over his body, Witt reached out and put a hand on his dad’s shoulder. “I think you gotta stop drinking. Then get a job and start helping instead of hurting your family. After that, maybe we could work out a way for you to be our dad again.”

Turning away to wipe at tears, his dad nodded jerkily. He stumbled across the room and sat heavily on the couch, putting his head in his hands and sobbing.

Having gotten her ankles unbound, Claire stumbled out of the bedroom. She looked about wildly, then started toward her dad.

Witt grabbed her by the upper elbow, halting her. “Hey, Claire. Give it a minute. I think Dad’s realizing he’s in bad shape.”

“In bad shape?! You goddamn right he’s in bad shape, and I’m—"

Witt pulled her into a hug. Or, maybe it was a bear hug. He squeezed her tight and whispered calmingly in her ear, “Give him a chance or we’re never gonna heal our family.”

“Our family’s not worth shit!” she said.

“You’d rather be in foster care?” Witt asked.

Slowly, Claire turned to eye her dad, looking broken on the couch, then seemed to wilt in Witt’s grasp.

Astonished by the way both his dad and Claire had come around, he eased his grip on her, thinking, What the hell? Does being in fast-time somehow make me more convincing?

Claire slipped out of his arms and went to hug her mom.

Witt stared, unable to come to grips with her transformation—or his dad’s—but couldn’t imagine how it could’ve had anything to do with his new talent.

It took five or ten more minutes to get out of the apartment building with Claire’s bike. As he followed them to the parking lot, Witt was still puzzling over Claire’s transformation. Maybe now she’s seen how bad life could be and it’s made her more accepting of what she’s got? he wondered.

His mother and Claire abruptly stopped, his mother giving a little gasp. When Witt looked up, he saw some guys gathered around his mom’s car.

Holy shit! he thought, They’re jacking it up to steal the wheels.

Once again, he involuntarily went into fast-time. The lighting went from dusk to completely dark. He thought, It’s just one thing after another! How much more crap’s gonna go wrong?!

Getting out his flashlight, he checked his mother and sister to make sure they hadn’t turned toward him before he’d gone into fast-time. They both looked like they were turning to flee back into the building, but neither had turned enough for him to see their eyes, ergo, they couldn’t have seen him vanish.

He walked over to the car, wondering what he could do about the guys around it. They’ve gotta be a gang of some kind, he surmised. His first thought was that he could drag them away somewhere. But then he remembered how—because of the nearly stationary air around Jesse—when Witt was in fast-time, he hadn’t been able to pick up his friend. Then how Jesse’d come to life when Witt brought him into fast-time.

Witt felt a nervous shiver.  I’ve got plenty of time to figure this out, he reminded himself.

The first of the guys he came to seemed to have been standing guard. An older teenager, he had his back to the others and was standing up straight, gazing a little to his left as if he’d been sweeping his eyes back and forth.

Using the light on his camera, Witt took a picture of the guy’s face, though he had no idea what he’d do with it. He was wondering whether there might be some way he could search a database for a face match, when he snorted to himself, thinking, You idiot! He walked around behind the fellow, enlarged the fast-time bubble around his hand, and reached into the guy’s back pocket, retrieving his wallet. Handling the driver’s license by the edges, Witt read, “Michael Johnson.” There were other ID cards in the wallet, carrying different names, but the Michael Johnson license matched the guy’s appearance the best.

Witt started laying the contents of the wallet out on the pavement to take pictures, thinking it’d be a lot easier to do if he had a headlight—instead of a flashlight—so his hands would be free. He halted when he found a thick sheaf of cash. He counted out two one-hundred-dollar bills, seven twenties, and a smattering of smaller bills. Is this how I start stealing from criminals? he wondered.

He shrugged, stuffing the big bills in his pocket. I guess it is.

He put the small bills back in the wallet. Witt took pictures of all the ID cards, then put them back in the wallet, which he put back in Michael Johnson’s pocket.

Witt made his way around to each of the other gang members, snapping pics of the contents of their wallets, taking most of their money, and wondering what he was going to do next. If I just go back to real-time, they’re gonna finish stealing our wheels and we aren’t going to be able to get home. He hadn’t tried to tally the cash he’d stolen from them but it was a lot. He felt pretty sure it was enough to buy new wheels and tires. But, it isn’t gonna pay for the hassles of tow trucks and repairs. So, I’ve gotta do something to make them leave us and our car alone… But, what?

He pondered dropping out of fast-time and calling 911, but wasn’t sure the police cared very much about crime in shoddy neighborhoods like the one they were in. The wheels might be gone before the cops arrived.

What if I put their bodies in fast-time, he wondered, leaving their heads in slow-time so—without their brains to control their bodies—they wouldn’t fight me when I’m moving them around?

After giving it more thought, he became quite concerned that, the spinal cord might get damaged where it crossed the fast-time/real-time interface. He rolled his eyes at himself, The guy’s head would still be stuck in the almost stationary air around it! The spinal cord would probably get injured when I start trying to pull the body off to another location but the head wouldn’t budge!

He felt pretty strongly that paralysis from the neck down wasn’t a commensurate punishment for stealing wheels.

Can I scare them badly enough to make them run away? he wondered.

What if…

Witt stepped around behind the gangbanger he was next to. He turned off his flashlight, put the guy in a bubble of 10X time, and gave him a hard shove. If anything happened, it was going really slow compared to Witt at 400X, so he boosted the guy’s bubble to 100X fast-time. Now, to Witt, the guy stumbled forward in 4X slow motion. After the gangbanger had taken a few clumsy steps, it looked pretty certain he was going to sprawl onto the ground. Witt dropped the guy’s bubble, sending him back into apparently motionless real-time.

Witt thought for a moment. Seems pretty scary, suddenly going blind, then getting shoved so hard you can’t keep to your feet—especially when you can’t see where you’re going. And, if this doesn’t scare them into running, I can just keep shoving them until they’re a long way from here.

Witt went to another of the gang members, putting that guy in a 100X bubble and giving him the hardest shove he could impart, then letting the guy go back to real-time. He immediately went to another guy, repeating the process.

He had to modify the process for the three gang members who were crouching around the wheel. They were too close to the vehicle to let him give them a substantial shove away from it. However, he found that, as he put each of them in 100X, they seemed to panic, rising to a crouching position. Witt flicked his flashlight on and off to let him see what they were doing as well as for the confusing strobe effect. Once each of them was fairly upright, he gave them a little shove toward a position where he was able to give them a big shove, then dropped them back to real-time.

Once he had the area around the wheel cleared, he put the wheel’s lug nuts back on, tightened them, and let down the jack. He checked the other three wheels but it seemed that he’d interrupted them when they were starting work on their first wheel.

He tossed the jack and battery-powered lug wrench into the bushes and went back over to take up something like his original position behind his mother and sister.

He dropped back to real-time.

His mother and sister finished their pivot toward Witt, his wide-eyed mother hissing, “We’ve gotta get the hell outta here!”

Claire said, “Call 911!”

Witt stood on his toes and stretched his neck, looking into the parking lot, saying, “What’re they doing?” He hoped he just looked curious, not as if he were trying to see the results of what he’d just done. He was glad the women were turning away from the car so they wouldn’t see what happened to the gang.

What Witt saw was the gang members suddenly appearing some distance off in different directions from where they’d been—the initial movement having happened back when he was in fast-time—and then stumbling forward until all but one of them sprawled onto their faces.

Claire and his mom weren’t looking at him as they hustled back to the building.

Five of the gang scrambled to their feet, but the sixth one looked around, then started yelling at the others. He’s the boss, Witt thought, remembering that he’d looked older and had more than five times as much money as any of the others. I’ll bet he’ll make the others come back and finish the job.

Witt looked over his shoulder. His mom was just following Claire into the building.

Going back to 400X, he trotted over to the boss gangbanger. The guy had his mouth open, mid-scream. Witt was just about to give the guy another shove when he decided the guy needed a bigger scare than that. Besides, he presented too inviting a target. Witt scanned the ground without seeing much. He walked over to the brushy area under the trees and picked up some deadfall limbs and found a golf-ball-sized stone.

Back at the gang boss, Witt extended a bubble of fast-time around the rock and the guy’s jaw, then pushed the dirty rock into the guy’s open mouth. Getting out his pocket knife, he extended his bubble around its blade and cut a slit in the seat of the guy’s pants. He tucked a couple of sticks through the hole, seating them between the guy’s ass cheeks.

Witt gave the dude a healthy shove, stepped back twenty feet, put the hood up on his jacket, and went back to real-time.

The gang-boss stumbled forward a few steps, almost falling again, but catching himself at the last minute. He couldn’t spit out the stone, instead having to reach a finger in and pry it out. Then he reached back and pulled the sticks out of his pants. He started turning about, fury on his face, apparently looking for who’d done this to him. He opened his mouth to shout again.

Witt stopped time, reinserted the rock and the sticks, gave the guy a harder shove, then went back to his position twenty feet away and resumed real-time.

This time the guy couldn’t catch himself, stumbling forward four or five steps while trying to maintain his feet, but finally sprawling onto his hands and knees.

This time, while pulling out the stone with his left hand, he pulled out a gun with his right. When his eyes reached Witt’s hooded figure, the gun started to rise.

Once again, Witt involuntarily found himself in the dark at 400X. Even though it’d now take forever for the guy to lift the gun far enough to shoot at him, Witt found himself moving away from where he’d been standing. After thinking a bit, he went back out under the trees. This time he sorted through the deadfall for a stout, solid branch that’d make a good club.

Returning to the gang boss, Witt put a 100X bubble around the guy’s arm from the elbow down. This softened the arm—without any controlling messages from his 1X brain—and the elbow slowly drooped down toward straight.

Pulling his sleeve down over his fingers so he wouldn’t leave prints, Witt tugged the gun out of the gangbanger’s nerveless fingers. Witt dropped the guy’s arm back to real-time while he spent a couple of minutes figuring out how to eject the magazine. That done, he threw the gun out toward the brush. It slowed to a stop in mid-air about ten feet away.

He considered getting it and carrying it out into the brush, but then shrugged and threw the magazine out toward the brush in a different direction. When I go back to real-time, they’ll finish flying out into the brush, he reasoned.

Gritting his teeth, Witt used the club to break the man’s arm between the elbow and wrist. The crunch of the bones when he hit the man’s arm turned his stomach. For a moment he felt a little nauseated, but then he got a grip and walked back to where he’d been when the guy pulled his pistol. He checked the position of his hood and went back to real-time.

This time the gang boss hadn’t been pushed, so he wasn’t stumbling. Instead, he immediately hunched over, grabbing at, then cradling his broken arm. Once again, he looked around. This time he looked frightened instead of furious. When his eyes lit upon Witt’s figure—presumably shadowy and ominous in his hood—he nervously started backing away.

Witt strode after him.

The guy turned and ran, shambling as he tried to stabilize his broken arm with his good one. He kept turning to look back at Witt, panic in his eyes.

Witt looked around and saw the other five gang-bangers running away.

He went to 400 X once again and headed back to the apartment building. Arriving there, he resumed real-time and opened the door. Claire and his mom stood just inside it. His mom was on her phone, telling someone—presumably the police—that someone was stealing the tires off her car.

Witt felt himself wanting to tell her the gang was stealing the wheels, not the tires, but told himself it didn’t make any difference. Getting their attention, he said, “Someone must’ve scared those guys, they’ve run away! Let’s go.” Neither Claire nor his mother moved, so he spoke again, with emphasis, “Let’s GO! Before they come back!”

Twenty seconds later they were jogging across the parking lot toward the car. Witt wanted to tell them to stop looking around and hustle, but bit his tongue.

His mom told them to check the wheels to make sure the “nuts weren’t loose.” It was good advice given her understanding of the situation, but Witt desperately wanted to tell her they didn’t need to waste the time.

Finally, they were in the car and on their way. Witt slumped back in the seat and tried to relax. After a bit, he started wondering how he could give large wads of cash to his mother. She’s gonna want to know where it came from and I sure as hell can’t tell her I stole it from the gangbangers who tried to rob us.

Chapter Four

Saturday, they held a “yard sale,” trying to make a little money from the stuff they no longer had room for. Even lowering prices quite a bit below what they’d hoped to sell things for, they couldn’t sell much of it. Some of the stuff they hadn’t been able to sell they took to a thrift shop and decided to hope they could wedge the rest into their tiny new apartment. While at the thrift shop, Witt managed to pick up a bicycling headlight for a dollar.

The move was tomorrow and Witt had to figure out how to give the money he’d taken from the gang to their mother so she could cancel the move.

Witt’s chance came after dinner when their mom told them to pack everything in their rooms except what they’d be using the next day.

Back in his room, he stood looking around for a place he could “find” the money. A while later he was thinking, Hiding it sounded easy, but it’s not.

He’d tried to find a place inside the desk before he remembered they’d moved that desk into the apartment from their old house. Any money in it would’ve had to come with them, so that was no good. He spun around, looking for some other possibility. The closet!

Witt pulled up the carpet in the back corner of his closet and tucked the cash beneath it. It seemed a great place to “find it” but when he laid the carpet back down over it, it made quite a lump. A lump that there was no way he would’ve missed when he moved in or in the years since. He lifted the money out and felt the flooring beneath, hoping to find a loose board he could lift out to form a cavity. Instead, he found that the flooring was some kind of solid sheet fiberboard rather than separate boards various movies had led him to expect. What the hell am I gonna do now? he wondered, irritated that he hadn’t tried to figure this out sooner.

Wait, he thought. He tried spreading the money out into a thin layer, then dropped the carpet back down on it. Surveying the result, he thought That’s pretty good. He tucked the edge of the carpet back under the baseboard everywhere but the corner.

Pulling it back up again, he stared. The money looks too clean to have been under here ever since we moved in.

His mother called from the other room. “Witt, sweep the kitchen. Claire, you mop the bathroom.”

Thinking, Aha! Witt called out, “I’m on it.”

Predictably, Claire shouted, “Mom! That’s a waste of time! This place is gonna get cleaned before the next tenants.”

While Claire and his mom were arguing, Witt swept up the kitchen—filthy from the tramping in and out and packing. There was debris shed by their boxes and a spill of flour. He picked through the contents of the dustpan, removing bigger stuff, but leaving the dirt and dust. His mom had gone outside to try to fit something else into the car, so he headed back to his bedroom.

Pulling up the carpet, he dumped the dustpan in on top of the money.

To his dismay, now it looked like clean money with dirt on it.

He stirred the money around in it, shuffling it back and forth and around, and flipping it over until it all seemed pretty dusty.

But now dust choked the air in the closet!

Coughing, he dropped the carpet back down and beat a retreat. He went out the back door and dusted himself off.

Seeing his mom coming back from the car, he headed back to his bedroom and checked the situation in the closet. The dust seemed to have settled.

When he stepped back out into the hall, Claire came around a corner, took a look at him, and asked, “What the hell happened to you?”

Ignoring her, Witt took a deep breath, pitched his voice to sound excited, and shouted, “Mom! I found something under the carpet in my bedroom closet! Come look!”

He had to call her again before she responded. When he stepped back into his bedroom, he found Claire on her hands and knees in the closet. “Claire, get the hell out of there!”

His mom came up behind him. “What is it?” she asked wearily.

He realized she expected another disaster. Some damage that was going to cost them part of their deposit or something. “Somebody hid money under the carpet!” he said, trying to sound joyously excited. “Claire! Get out of there and let Mom have a look!”

Claire came up to her knees and turned, her face joyous and her hands filled with wads of cash.

“Oh!” his mom said, shocked. “What… where…” She blinked, then peered over Claire at the lifted carpet, “You think this’s been here the whole time we’ve lived here?”

“I guess,” Witt said. “I just saw the corner of the carpet was loose and tugged on it. When it came up a little, I started to see money.” $3,760 in cash, to be exact, he thought. He narrowed his eyes at the ecstatic expression on his sister’s face, wondering if all the money was still there. He wouldn’t put it past his sister to have some of it in her pocket by now. And I can’t accuse her of taking some without admitting I knew how much there was, he realized. I’m gonna have to let her have this score.

He was upset about his sister, but his dismay doubled when his mother said, “We’ll have to ask the manager whether the tenants before us left contact information.”

Claire gaped in horror at their mom. Knowing his sister was about to start screaming, Witt glared meaningfully at her while calmly asking his mother, “What if it wasn’t the tenants right before us?”

His mom frowned, “if the last ones weren’t the ones who left it, then I’ll ask about the ones before that.”

“Mom,” Witt said patiently, “It might’ve belonged to people seven tenants before us, but the tenants right before us are gonna claim it was theirs.”

“Oh,” his mom said, finally getting what he was driving at. “How would we figure out who it belongs to?”

And Jesse thinks I’m a goody-two-shoes, Witt thought, once again surprised by his mother’s deeply hardwired honesty. Patiently, he said, “Mom, you should keep it. Whoever it belonged to seems to have forgotten about it and there’s no way to figure out who it actually belongs to. Besides, you truly need it.”

Eyes fixed on the cash, his mom shook her head, then reached out and gingerly took it. “Yuck!” she said with dismay. “It’s filthy! I guess it’s been under there a long time.” She looked around, “I’ll go dust it off outside, then we can count it.”

Claire headed off that idea, “Mom! Not outside! You don’t want anyone to see you waving a wad of big bills!”

Surprised she hadn’t realized the dust was fresh, Witt reached out, “Here, I’ll shake it off over the kitchen trash can.”

His mom let him take the money.

Once he’d gotten most of the dust off it, they counted it. Witt wasn’t surprised to find it sixty dollars short. He had a hard time not giving Claire the stink-eye. He considered the possibility of going to fast-time and snatching the money out of her pocket but decided it’d be better to let her have it.

He didn’t want her getting suspicious.

Besides, she did kinda deserve something after what she’d been through.

I just wish she hadn’t taken it, he thought, giving Claire an appraising glance. How can my sister fall so far from Mom on the honesty scale?

Giving him a glare in return, Claire snapped, “What?!”

His mom clapped her hands, “Okay, kids, let’s get back to it. This stuff isn’t gonna pack itself.”

Witt opened his mouth to protest but Claire beat him to it. “We’re still moving?! We’ve got all this money now!”

Their mom sagged like someone had stuck a pin in her. “Claire, I don’t think you understand how far in the hole we are. This,” she nodded at the stack of money, “fills a little bit of that hole. But as long as that hole lives on my credit card, it’ll just keep growing because of the interest on the debt. We’ve got to live as cheaply as we possibly can until we’re out of debt, then we can return to a life that’s something like normal.”

Oh, God! Witt thought, staring at the money. I thought I’d solved all our problems, but I haven’t even come close.

~~~

The next morning, they finished packing the car with the stuff they were moving. Packed it until there was barely room for Mom in the driver’s seat.

When Claire arrived out at the car with another load, she took in the situation and asked, “Where the hell am I supposed to sit?”

Witt waved at their bikes, leaning against the fence, “We’re gonna ride. It isn’t that far.”

Claire rolled her eyes but didn’t make any rude comments. She’d been nicer to their mother since she’d realized living with her dad wasn’t an option. Everybody knew foster care was no good.

It took quite a few carloads to get most of the stuff out of their old apartment. The new place was small enough that—even after taking a few more loads to thrift shops, the new one still felt seriously overcrowded.

***

Mr. Dameron, the track coach, was about to give the team his usual start-of-the-season speech. Witt was standing in his customary position at the back of the group, worrying about how to talk to the coach into letting him try out for sprints.

And whether he should. Despite spending long hours trying to convince himself that fudging time was an innate talent, not a cheat, he still felt like it was crooked.

Jesse arrived, late, as usual, stepping up beside Witt. “Hey, have you heard of this new band, Eve of Destruction?”

Distracted, Witt shook his head.

“They’re supposed to be awesome! I heard some of the guys in the band just graduated from Northside High last year.”

“Mm,” Witt grunted, thoughts still on whether he had the courage to talk to the coach.

“‘Mm?’” Jesse asked incredulously. “That’s all you’ve got to say, DimWitt? We oughta be startin’ a band ourselves.”

Witt blinked at this. “Our own band? With who? Me on sax or guitar and you on your nonexistent instrument? That’s not a band, J-dog.”

Jesse shrugged over this unimportant detail. “I could sing. Hell, I could learn to play guitar if I had to.”

Witt stared at him. “Jesse, you can’t sing!”

“I can! When I sang ‘One Day,’ you told me I sounded great,”

“I was kidding! You were so far off-key I thought you’d left the building!”

Coach interrupted them, “Mr. Ryllin, Mr. Caldwell, you want to be part of this team?”

“Yes, Mr. Dameron,” they replied together.

After his introductory remarks, Dameron started assigning seniors to lead groups of kids in conditioning drills. It startled Witt to hear Dameron say “Ryllin” while naming the leader of the middle-distance group. I’m not all that good and I’m sure as hell no leader! he thought, trying to think which senior should have the job instead. The leader needs to be someone who commands respect. Let’s see… he started going through his classmates on the track team. Jones quit and Perry moved away… Holy crap! I’m the only senior middle-distance runner! He looked around, thinking, Coach should put Anderson in charge. He may only be a junior, but he’s our best runner.

“Ryllin!” Coach Dameron barked. “You gonna get your middle-distance guys together and lead them on a run, or not?”

Witt trotted toward the coach. “Um, Mr. Dameron, can you have Anderson lead them? I…” I need an excuse for wimping out on this, Witt realized, and he had the perfect one. “I… I’d like to try out for the sprint distances.”

The coach rolled his eyes, “Come on, Ryllin. You don’t move your feet fast enough to be a sprinter. With your stride, I’d be moving you to long-distance except you don’t have the endurance either.”

“Um,” Witt said, more hurt than he expected by the critical evaluation. “I, uh, I had a little growth spurt in the off season and I, ah, seem to be able to move my feet faster now. Can I try out for the shorter distances? Uh, if I don’t run times that look competitive, you could move me back to the 800 meters.” Or, better yet, I could quit and get an after-school job, he thought. When the coach didn’t say anything, Witt followed up with, “Besides, Anderson’s a better middle-distance runner than I am. He should lead the group anyway.”

Dameron looked Witt up and down, then said, “It doesn’t look to me like much of a growth spurt, but, sure, I can time you on a sprint or two. I’d love it if you proved me wrong.”

The coach spent a few minutes getting Anderson up to speed, then told Witt to go run some easy hundred-meter sprints, “to get a feel for it.” He went off to talk to the senior leading the long-distance runners.

Witt made his way down to the starting blocks for the hundred and tried to figure them out. Steve Allsup, a junior who, as a sophomore, had been by far their best sprinter last year, stopped, gave Witt a weird look, and asked, “What’re you doing here?”

“I, uh, asked Coach if I could try out for the sprint distances,” Witt said, irritated with himself for being hesitant talking to a lower classman.

Allsup snorted, “You think you’re a sprinter?! There’s no way, man. I’ve seen you run!”

Witt shrugged, “You’re probably right. I don’t even know how the blocks work. Can you show me how to set ’em up?”

Allsup rolled his eyes and walked away, leaving Witt even more embarrassed and irritated.

He screwed around with the blocks some more, finally figuring out how to move them forward and back, but that seemed pointless since he had no idea where he should position them. He got down and put his feet against them, deciding that they had him folded up too much, so he moved them farther and farther back from the starting line until he felt more comfortable. Looking at them, he realized the blocks on the one he’d been adjusting were quite a bit farther back than any of the others. I’m pretty sure I’ve screwed it up, he thought disgustedly. Should’ve left them where they were.

He tried starting from the one he’d adjusted. It felt comfortable, but he could tell he didn’t accelerate very well.

He tried positioning himself one of the other sets of blocks, but couldn’t get comfortable.

Finally, he ran the hundred off the blocks he’d set up, so he’d be running practice sprints like Coach told him.

Looking around the field, he saw Coach Dameron over talking to the high jumpers. He ran the hundred again, this time pushing slightly into fast-time to be sure his talent hadn’t evaporated while he wasn’t using it.

Walking back to the start, he realized Allsup and two of the other sprinters were lining up in the blocks. No one was using the one Witt had adjusted. He trotted off to the side of the track and tried to see how the sprinters were positioning themselves but they took off before he got a good look.

A moment later, he heard Coach Dameron say from nearby. “Ryllin, go get in the blocks. I’ll go down to the finish line and give you a buzz.” He waved an electronic starter horn.

“I’m not running against the other sprinters?” Witt asked, alarmed.

“Nah, just run as fast as you can and we’ll see if your times are even close to competitive,” the coach said, starting toward the other end of the hundred-meter track.

Realizing he had no idea how far into fast-time he needed to go to be competitive, Witt felt a sense of panic. He’d been thinking he’d just have to run faster than whoever the coach had him run against. Running by himself, he’d have no way to know how he was doing. It’ll be bad if I’m too slow, but disastrous if I run the hundred in some ridiculously fast sub-Olympic time, he realized. Do some math! he thought. He knew the high school boy’s record for the hundred meters was close to ten seconds—or a speed of ten meters per second. His own split time for the first hundred meters of the 800 was usually just over eighteen seconds, which was—it took him a moment to work it in his head—5.55 meters per second. Holy crap, he realized, I don’t need to increase my 800 speed by twenty percent to win sprints, it’s more like eighty percent! Well, not quite that much, since I don’t need to break the record for high school, just come close. Plus, I’m starting off blocks and I don’t have to pace myself the way I do in the 800. Maybe sixty or seventy percent? From the table he’d made up he knew that seventy percent was red, but so was eighty percent, just a different shade. I’d better shoot for slightly orangey, he thought.

Looking down the track, he saw Coach Dameron reach the finish line and turn to look at Witt. The coach waited a moment, then shouted, “You gonna get in the blocks?”

Dammit! Witt thought, turning to look at the blocks. He took an abortive step toward the blocks Allsup had just used, then, shaking his head, stepped to the ones he’d certainly set up incorrectly but were the ones that felt good to him. He got down in the blocks and looked at his wristband—currently orange. Before he adjusted it toward red, Dameron’s starter horn blasted.

Cursing himself, Witt launched out of the blocks and ran.

For a moment, he was trying to run as fast as he can—as if he really was a sprinter—then he realized he should be replicating his start for an 800 and slowed down. He checked his wristband as his fist pumped up into view—it seemed orange. Which is okay, Witt thought. If I started out running too fast, being in the orange should keep me from coming in too quickly.

Just before arriving at the finish line, Witt decided he was going too slow. He pushed his wristband up to red, furiously thinking, It’s too late to make a difference!

Passing the finish line, he dropped back to real-time and coasted to a stop. When he turned back to the coach, Dameron was shaking his head and said, “12.4 seconds. Way better than I expected, but not good enough to displace our other sprinters. You’d better stick with the 800.”

For a moment, Witt considered just going with the flow like he usually did. After all, a time adjustment could let him win at that distance as well… But then, frustrated, he said, “Coach, that was my first timed sprint. I didn’t know how to use the blocks, I’ve never been coached, and I didn’t have anyone to run against. I know I can do better. Please give me another shot at it.”

Dameron rolled his eyes but started walking toward the starting line. “Okay. I’ll give you a quick once-over on the blocks, but, if you wanted this, you should’ve Googled block set up and strategy before you came out here and started wasting my time. Once I show you the blocks, you practice some starts by yourself. Then you run against the other sprinters when they cycle through the hundred, okay? If you can beat any of them, we’ll talk more.”

When the coach saw how Witt had his blocks set up, he shook his head in disgust and moved them closer to the starting line. He had Witt get down into position, then pushed and shoved him into a stance he liked. The whole time he kept up a patter about proper launch technique. He watched Witt make two starts, then told him to keep working on it until someone came around for him to run against.

Finding the stance Dameron advocated cramped and uncomfortable, Witt kept feeling the coach might be playing a practical joke on him. But it looked like the blocks Allsup had started from were similar to the setup Coach had established for Witt, so he didn’t change them, just kept trying to get a better start off of them.

Witt was positioning himself on the blocks—butt higher than his shoulders—for the umpteenth time when he heard Allsup’s voice come from behind. “You’re still here?”

Witt looked up, seeing Allsup with a couple of younger kids, probably freshmen. He said, “Yeah. Coach said I should run the hundred against some of you guys to see how I do.”

Allsup rolled his eyes, “You don’t even know how to set up your blocks!”

Witt forced himself not to drop his eyes, instead disdainfully saying, “Yeah, since you wouldn’t help a teammate, Coach had to waste his time showing me how.”

Allsup snorted and started teaching the two freshmen about blocks. He spent a long time on it. Witt thought, Allsup’s going over it in such detail to irritate me, but I’m glad to get a more comprehensive explanation than Coach gave me.

Eventually, while down in the blocks next to the two freshmen, talking about strategy, Allsup suddenly called out, “On your marks, go!”

Allsup and the two freshmen burst out of the blocks.

He’d obviously done it abruptly to deny Witt the opportunity of getting in the blocks himself. Infuriated, Witt took off down the track from a standing start, pushing time until the world started getting dark. Running hard he easily caught up to the two freshmen.

Witt slowed after passing the two younger runners but made sure he kept going fast enough to pass Allsup in the last ten meters.

When he’d coasted to a stop and turned around, Allsup was glaring hatefully at him. “Where the hell did that come from?”

Witt shrugged, “Growth spurt?”

“Idiot! Growth doesn’t make you faster!”

Witt felt an urge to up his speed and slap the arrogant look off Allsup’s face. Instead, he managed to relax, shrug again and grin. “Speed spurt?”

From off to the side, they heard the coach’s voice, “Allsup, what the hell just happened?”

The rictus of loathing vanished from Allsup’s face and he turned an ingratiating smile on Dameron, “Oh, I was taking Gomez and Wallis,” he waved at the two freshmen, “through an easy hundred when Ryllin jumped in uninvited.”

“He didn’t tell you I wanted him to run against some of the sprinters?”

“Well,” Allsup cleared his throat, “he might’ve said something, but I was focused on bringing the frosh along like you told me.”

Though butter wouldn’t have melted in Allsup’s mouth, Coach gave him a suspicious look. He didn’t ask about the outcome of the hundred they’d just run. After a moment he said, “Okay. I was just thinking about timing some sprints anyway. Gather the rest of the sprinters, all of them, and I’ll time you guys on the hundred first. See if anyone’s gotten faster or slower since last season.”

It turned out that “all of them” included the guys who ran the 200 and the 400 meters. Soon nine Aldmont High sprinters—counting Witt—were getting into the blocks at the starting line while the coach stood down at the finish setting up his phone to video them crossing the line.

This time Witt started off the blocks. He didn’t launch very well so he started out behind the others but quickly caught up in fast-time. Once again, he let Allsup lead the entire distance but passed him in the last few meters.

Though Coach Dameron looked astonished, he enthusiastically clapped Witt on the back. “10.7 seconds! Probably not good enough to win state, but the season’s just starting.” He looked around the group, “Hopefully all of you guys will improve. Maybe we’ll have some contenders.”

To give them a break, Coach went off to spend time with other parts of the team, coming back to time them in the 400 and the 200-meter distances later in the practice. Witt won both, but pushed hard enough to win the 400 by almost ten meters. The 400, after all, was closer in distance to the 800 he’d always run. Though Allsup continued to regard Witt with appalled disbelief, several of the other sprinters congratulated him enthusiastically. They’re in it for the team, rather than themselves, Witt thought.

The coach was more than enthusiastic, encouraging him and suggesting that, with a little improvement, a college athletic scholarship might be a possibility.

Since his mother certainly couldn’t afford to send him to college, Witt felt ecstatic at the thought. He decided he just had to get a grip on his concerns about whether it was fair to use his talent. It’s an ability, like some distance runners probably succeed because they have bigger lungs to oxygenate their blood, he told himself.

As he got on his bike to ride home, Jesse’s voice came from behind him, “Hey, I hear you decided to go ahead and cheat?”

Irritated and defensive because he couldn’t stop feeling guilty, Witt turned and snapped at him. “I’m just using my God-given abilities. Besides, you wouldn’t care if I did cheat.”

“That’s right,” Jesse said, grinning unrepentantly. “I kinda like goading Mr. Clean about it though.”

Witt rolled his eyes.

“Hey, we gonna go see Eve of Destruction, or not?”

Witt blinked, “Who?”

“Eve of Destruction, knucklehead. I was tellin’ you about them before practice. The ones that graduated last year from Northside High. I hear they’re gonna hit the big time pretty soon. Now’s our chance to check ’em out while they’re still playing small venues.”

Witt gave Jesse a suspicious look, “Where are they playing?”

“Zen’s Arch, Friday night.”

“We can’t get in there! Zen’s Arch serves alcohol.”

“Not true, they give you a red wristband if you’re underage.”

Witt shook his head, “I can’t afford it.”

“Won’t cost us anything if you walk us past the ticket takers in fast-time.”

Witt shook his head again, “Not gonna happen.” He got on his bike.

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Okay, dufus. I knew you wouldn’t do it and wouldn’t have the money. I’ll front you a loan.”

Shaking his head once again, Witt said, “I wouldn’t be able to pay you back.”

“You would. Soon as we rob ourselves a drug dealer.”

And there it is, Witt thought. We’re on to how we can use this new talent for… Witt paused his judgmental thoughts when he realized he’d been about to accuse Jesse of using Witt’s ability to get money, when Witt had just finished using it to win races for praise and admiration. And possibly a scholarship. Witt already had an academic scholarship that’d cover tuition and books, but he was pretty sure athletic scholarships covered room and board too. Shit! he thought. I’ve gotta get down off my high-horse.

Not knowing what to say, Witt grumbled, “I’ll think about it,” and rode away.

***

When Witt walked into study hall, Cinna was sitting with two other girls. Disappointed, he thought, She’s not serious about learning this stuff! As he walked over to Cinna, he decided he wouldn’t tutor her anymore.

However, when she saw him coming, she smiled cheerfully and said, “Hi, Witt. I’ve been telling Teri and Rachel what a great calculus teacher you are. They’re hoping you’ll help all three of us? I think it could work. When you explain math, I just get it. I don’t have to ask a lot of questions. Hopefully, they won’t either.”

Witt was opening his mouth, still about to say “no,” when Cinna threw in an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“They’ve each agreed to kick in ten dollars a lesson, so that’ll considerably improve the financial aspect for you.”

That’ll infinitely improve it over the zero dollars you’re paying me! Witt thought as his frown morphed to a smile. He couldn’t help wondering how they could afford that kind of money but wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “That’d be great! My monetary situation absolutely sucks at present.”

Witt felt flustered when he went to sit down and they moved to let him sit between them. However, as he became immersed in describing how vectors applied to the problems they were working that day, his embarrassment faded.

When Teri said, “Oh! I get it now!” Since vectors had always seemed obvious to him, Witt’s reaction was, Of course you do.

But then Cinna said, “See? That’s what I’ve been telling you. When Witt explains it, it makes sense! Why can’t Mr. Nichols teach it this way?”

Still not feeling he was doing anything special, Witt said, “It’s only because I’m telling you for the second time. I’m just reinforcing what—”

Teri interrupted by throwing her arms around him and saying, “No. You’re not just reinforcing! You’re doing so much more. It’s like you’re turning on a light!”

Flustered, Witt said, “I’m not… I’m, uh.”

“Blushing!” Teri said. “I’m sorry. I, um, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But really, you should be a teacher. Better yet, you should teach our teachers how to teach!”

Having pretty girls notice, appreciate, and talk directly to him had seriously muddled Witt’s thoughts by the time he left study hall.

But he had twenty dollars in his wallet. I should give half of my earnings to Mom. Or more.

But he couldn’t help wondering how much the tickets to the Eve of Destruction show cost… Then he realized, I’ll be getting twenty dollars tomorrow too.

***

Witt arrived back in their tiny new apartment with a small bag of groceries. He’d decided to spend his twenty dollars on food, partly because it’d be a nice surprise for his mother, but more because he’d wanted to eat something besides another variation on rice and beans.

However, the price of food had appalled him.

This had led him to realize that his extra-large teenage boy appetite had been contributing significantly to their monetary problems.

After picturing himself arriving home with steaks, he was seriously disappointed to have settled for chicken thighs. Pre-shredded cheese had been too expensive. To be honest, block cheese was too expensive too, but he’d brought home a small one. Some tortillas, tomatoes, and lettuce had rounded out his purchases. Tacos!

His stomach grumbled as he put the food in their little refrigerator. When he’d first seen how small the fridge was, he’d expected it to be constantly overstuffed and hard to find space in. After he put the stuff he’d just bought in it, he felt dismayed at how much room was left.

If I hadn’t brought groceries home tonight, would we have gone hungry? he wondered, thinking about how little there’d been. Worrying about whether they’d have enough to eat had become an ongoing concern for him. I guess the beans and rice are dried so we don’t have to keep them in the fridge unless they’re leftovers from the night before, he realized.

His mom came in the door before he left the kitchen. “Are you scavenging?” she asked with a worried look at the fridge.

“Um, no. I’ve started tutoring calculus for some kids at school. I, uh, bought some groceries with what I got paid today…” His mother stared at him. When she didn’t say anything for a minute, he weakly said, “For tacos?”

She sat down heavily and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Witt. You’re growing up…” she swallowed and croaked a finish, “You’re having to grow up too fast.”

Witt sat down next to her and put his arms around her, just holding her while she sobbed. Maybe I do need to rob a drug lord, he thought. But where would I tell her that money came from?

Eventually, with a sniffle, his mom asked, “How much are you charging these kids to tutor them?”

“Um,” Witt hesitated, worrying if he told her she’d expect all of it and he wouldn’t make it to the Eve of Destruction show. He decided he shouldn’t lie to her now. “They’re paying me ten dollars each. There’s two of them.”

“Per week?”

He hesitated again, worried she might not be happy with how much he was charging, but again honesty won out. “Ten dollars a session.”

She sat up and looked at him questioningly. “That’s a lot.”

He shrugged, “Girls get paid that much or more an hour for babysitting. Um, from the clothes they wear I think their parents are rich…”

His mother didn’t say anything, which left him feeling guilty. After a moment, he volunteered, “I tutor a third one for free. Her parents are… cheap about stuff like that.”

“How long have you been doing this?” she asked softly.

“Um, today was my first day.”

“And you bought groceries with your first earnings?!”

Witt shrugged, “I was hungry.”

This made his mom start crying again so he regretted his off-the-cuff answer. “Sorry. I was just trying to be funny. I’m not starving.”

“No, but kids shouldn’t have to worry about putting food on the table.” She sniffled. “Maybe I shouldn’t be so tight, but… if I’m not, it’s going to take forever to get out of debt and the interest on that debt just eats away at our income, trying to keep us in debt forever.”

“It’s okay Mom. It really is. I don’t mind buying us some groceries with my money, and I’ve got some ideas for other ways to…” he came to a screeching halt since he definitely didn’t want to tell her about those ideas. You idiot! he thought of himself.

“Other ways to what, Witt?” she asked, somehow sounding both suspicious and concerned.

“Um, other ways I might be able to make some money. They probably won’t work though.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Witt said, desperately trying to come up with something other than robbing drug gangs. “Uh… A job maybe?”

***

The taco dinner that night was awesome. The tacos came with beans and rice so his mom could stretch the chicken to another night. The lettuce and tomatoes were as big a hit as the chicken.

Claire was so excited she helped their mom cook dinner and, more astonishingly, they seemed to get along without snapping at each other.

After dinner, Witt moved to the couch in the living room—the one where he slept—and finished his homework. That done, he found himself thinking about the nuts and bolts of how he and Jesse could go about robbing drug lords, worrying about a gun battle of some kind. He was thinking about his concerns from before, where fast or slow-time bubbles didn’t protect you. Once a bullet entered a fast-bubble around one of them, it would speed up and hit them in short order with no way to avoid it. That’d be a problem if you were standing still in fast-time, but could you outrun a bullet if you ran away from it?

He Googled bullet speeds and found out that pistol bullets were slower than rifle bullets but still usually went over 1,000 feet per second—which was about 681 miles per hour. Hmm, he thought, walking at three mph in 400X fast-time I’d be going 1200 mph and would leave the slower pistol bullets behind. If I ran at ten mph, I’d be going 4,000 mph and could outrun most rifle bullets. After a minute’s thought, he decided that he’d be better off moving transversely to the path of a bullet, rather than trying to outrun it. Though that’d mean I’d have to know the trajectory of the bullet so I didn’t walk into it.

If one guy shoots at me, I could dodge, but in a hail of gunfire, one of those many bullets could still hit and kill me, he realized. …unless I completely leave the area. The solution isn’t dodging bullets, it’s getting the hell out of Dodge.

Thinking about dodging in fast-time brought him back to thinking about slow-time. He’d worked out that he couldn’t protect Jesse by putting him slow-time to massively slow the bullets, because, even though a bullet stuck in the bubble might seem almost stopped, as soon as Witt let the slow-time bubble around Jesse go back to real-time, the bullet would immediately shoot forward to kill his friend. There must be some way… Witt paused that thought with an exciting realization. I don’t put Jesse in the slow-time bubble! I put the bubble in front of him like a shield! He pictured the bullets coming at Jesse, entering the bubble, and slowing drastically. Jesse’d be able to see them radically slowed within the bubble, decide where they were going to come out, then step out of their way!

He closed his eyes, thinking. I’d better do the math. If I can slow time as much as I speed it, 400X, then a 1,000 foot per second pistol bullet would still be going two and a half feet per second… His eyes widened, Holy shit! Depending on how thick the slow-time zone was, that still wouldn’t be easy to dodge, ’cause it’d take less than a second to cross an eighteen-inch slow-time barrier!

Deciding he needed better data, Witt synchronized the stopwatches on his phone and his laptop as best he could, then put the phone in a slow-time bubble, pushing it hard. He thought he could push it even slower if he had to, but he wanted to see how slow he could get it with a quick effort. One he’d easily be able to form in an emergency.

Deciding he should form a shield like he might actually use, he collapsed what he’d just formed, and practiced forming a slow-time zone six feet tall, four feet wide, and eighteen inches thick. Once he was comfortable with it, he resynchronized the stopwatches and put the phone on the floor, then formed the big shield so it contained the phone.

He got up and touched the shield with a finger. To his surprise, it felt like the shield bounced away the way a balloon would. He’d expected it to be fixed in place the way Jesse had been when Witt had been in fast-time and had tried to pick his friend up.

Puzzled, he scratched his head, thinking. Abruptly, he saw why. Compared to fast-time me, real-time Jesse was immobilized in the surrounding, relatively slow, real-time air. Therefore, I couldn’t move him. But, in this case, the slow-time barrier’s free to move in the surrounding real-time air, air that’s fast-moving compared to the barrier.

Witt caught the barrier between hands on both sides to keep it from moving away so he could see what it felt like. It wasn’t hard like steel, or even hard rubber. It had a kind of spongy give to it. Also, it stuck to his finger when he let go, as if it were covered with soft, sticky, goopy adhesive. It’s just the surface of my finger sinking a little into the slow-time transition zone, he realized. That makes it seem to have some give. Then when I try to pull my finger back out of the zone I feel resistance because its slow-timed components don’t want to come back out of the zone quickly. He walked around the shield, worrying that if his mother or sister came out of their bedroom, they might see the barrier. It seemed pretty invisible to the eye, though he could still sense it with some innate faculty related to his ability to modify the flow of time. He realized that after it’d been up for a while, the light coming through it from the other side might be out of sync with current reality. Shadows on the wall behind it shifting, for instance, though… Once again, he stopped to do the math, then shook his head. As he suspected, light wasn’t relevantly slowed at 400X, since it’d still be traveling 750 kilometers per second inside the barrier.

A moment’s listening convinced him neither his mother nor sister were moving around in the bedroom.

He threw a pencil as hard as he could at the shield. It slowed drastically as it entered. He thought through the math, If I can throw a pencil at forty miles an hour—which was a guesstimate based on baseballs being thrown 70-100 mph—and I slow time by 400X, the pencil would be going… 0.15 feet per second or about one and three-quarters inches per second. He studied the pencil suspended in the slow-time zone. He could see it was moving, but very slowly. If it was slowed by 400X and traveling 1.75 inches per second, it would’ve already come out the other side of the eighteen-inch slow zone, he realized. When I push hard, it must slow things a lot more than when I push to speed them up.

When he had enough time on the stopwatches to feel confident of the answer, it turned out he’d slowed time in the zone by a factor of 50,000 to about 0.00002X. That’d mean a pistol bullet traveling 1,500 feet per second would only be going about a third of an inch per second inside his slow-time barrier. With an eighteen-inch barrier, it’d take the bullet about fifty seconds to pass through the barrier and come shooting out the other side.

He thought for a moment about the stress in the bullet as the front of it rapidly slowed from 1,500 fps to 0.014 fps while the back of the bullet was still trying to travel at 1,500. Depending on how the transition zone works, slowing down that much as it enters the barrier’s bubble would squash the bullet… or whatever term they use to describe the way a bullet deforms when it hits something.

He pondered a little longer, decided that if they got in trouble robbing a gang, the barrier should protect them. But a prerequisite would be that he’d have to realize they were in trouble so he could get the shield up in time.

Thinking back to some of his first experiments, he remembered making the transition zone of a fast-time bubble thicker. I wonder if I can make the transition zone thinner so bullets would be more likely to splatter? Then whatever does manage to come through wouldn’t be as dangerous. He’d already collapsed the shield he’d made the measurements on, so he cast another one, this time concentrating on it having a very thin transition zone.

He also extended the bottom of the new shield down into the floor and joists below, curious to see if he could anchor it so it didn’t float around like a big balloon.

This time when he touched it, he couldn’t move it.

It felt really hard. He would’ve said it felt like concrete rather than metal because it had concrete’s amount of friction against his finger sliding across it, rather than a little bit of slip like metals had. The friction from this had to be from the outer layers of his skin getting stuck in the thin layer of slowing time around the block-shaped barrier.

He slapped it, which felt like slapping steel with double-stick tape on it. The noise his slap made was quite dead though, none of it coming from the block—which, being in slow-time, didn’t vibrate to make sound—the only sound came from the air squeezed out from under his hand as it hit, and the shockwaves in his flesh. The slap hurt like slapping concrete would. He thought I’ll bet bullets splatter on this. They might not ricochet much, though, since the layer striking the block will tend to stick… or maybe they will, since there’s gotta be some friction when bullets ricochet off steel, and there must be more friction when they spang off concrete.

Wondering about what might happen made him feel like he was having brain spasms. But, he realized, there’s no way for me to do experiments with bullets.

Chapter Five

Rachel nervously sat down next to Cinna in the study hall, glancing around for Witt Ryllin. She’d known who Witt was before he’d started tutoring them, but had barely spoken three words to him. He’d seemed nice enough, but completely uninteresting. Rachel tended to go for racy bad boys and Witt didn’t fit that mold.

She’d had no idea he was smart until Cinna mentioned it.

Then he’d started explaining calculus and she’d decided he was smart in ways tests couldn’t even measure. So smart she got a bad-boy vibe off it.

Rachel’s GPA was usually in the top three of their class and she’d thought of herself as really smart since she’d never had to study to get all those A’s. She’d been planning to put in some effort this year so she could move up to the salutatorian or valedictorian slot.

Then came calculus.

She’d suddenly found herself studying hard and still not getting it. In danger of getting a B. Or even a C! The resultant GPA would never meet her goals. After a frustrating night of studying without getting it, she’d been crying one morning when Cinna’d asked her what was the matter. Rachel found herself spilling emotion about how she suddenly felt stupid.

Cinna’d asked, “Just because of calculus?”

With a sniffle, Rachel had nodded.

“Is Mr. Nichols your calculus teacher?”

Rachel had given another nod.

Giving her a little hug, Cinna had said, “You’re only having trouble because Mr. Nichols is a terrible teacher. Come to some tutoring sessions with Teri and me and we’ll turn that li’l calculus problem around.”

Frowning, Rachel had asked, “Who’s your tutor?” Since she’d been competing with Kerry for grades, she didn’t want to be tutored by Kerry. Rachel had tutored a few kids herself. Being tutored would be embarrassing enough, but it’d be horrible to face Kerry’s arrogant sneer.

The last thing Rachel’d expected Cinna to say was, “Witt Ryllin.” She felt so surprised that a little snicker of amused protest had burst out of her. “Wittless?! How could he tutor anyone?”

After Cinna’d explained that Witt was generally smart and a genius at math, she’d gotten Rachel to agree to pay ten dollars a session—not a problem since Rachel’s family was rich—and promised her she could drop out if she didn’t think the sessions were worth it.

Not at all presumptuous, Witt had diffidently explained how vectors could solve the problems set before them, somehow making them seem simple and the solutions obvious. In fact, he’d made it so clear Rachel couldn’t believe she hadn’t understood them by herself. His words and diagrams made things kind of fall into place, forming what Rachel thought of as an organized whole, rather than the random gaggle of knowledge bits she’d been trying to memorize from Mr. Nichols’ lessons. The confidence she’d gained from that one session had left her feeling like she could do it herself and wouldn’t need any more tutoring—until she’d gotten home and tried the next day’s homework.

Nichols may be terrible but the book’s bad too, she’d realized.

Calculus is hopeless.

But, Witt Ryllin’s a Godsend, she’d decided.

She’d seen him at a distance in the hall a couple of times today, her eyes drawn magnetically to him. He wasn’t well-dressed. Nor particularly handsome, though he wasn’t bad-looking. Yet Rachel—who’d never particularly noticed him before—suddenly and unexpectedly couldn’t tear her eyes away.

She’d felt dismayed to realize his eyes hadn’t caught on her as they’d passed—the way the eyes of so many other boys clung to her momentarily. This was a guilty pleasure Rachel would never admit to—that the attraction boys felt for her roused a frisson of excitement.

That, even though she might sneer at them, such looks proved her own appeal.

And, that sense of her own desirability drew sparks of exhilaration.

To have a boy she suddenly admired pass her by without noticing left her feeling… downcast.

Now, expecting Witt to sit next to Cinna, Rachel sat next to her too. Ideally, Teri would sit next to Rachel, and then Witt would wind up sitting between Rachel and Cinna. Even if Teri sat on the other side of Cinna, Rachel’d have a 50-50 chance of sitting next to Witt. The disaster would’ve been if Teri and Rachel had arrived first and Cinna had sat down next to Teri, thus placing Witt between the two of them. Aha, she realized, I could’ve left a gap between Teri and me and Cinna would’ve had to sit between us… Or maybe Cinna would’ve thought we were leaving the gap for Witt… which would’ve been okay too.

To her relief, Teri didn’t come in until after Witt did. Cinna made room for Witt to sit between her and Rachel. When Teri arrived, she’d had to sit next to Cinna. Be the first one here whenever possible, Rachel thought to herself as she felt little tingles run down the side of her next to Witt.

Once again, Witt made sense of the confusion that’d overcome Rachel last night when she’d been trying to understand the book and the lectures by herself. How does he do this? she wondered in astonishment. His explanations made so much sense, she kept thinking that, if only he’d written the book, kids wouldn’t find calculus challenging in the first place.

When his elbow bumped hers as he pointed to something, a wash of heat expanded outward from the point of contact. What’s happening to me? she wondered, having never been bowled over by an infatuation before.

And, then, to her dismay, the tutoring session was over. As before, assuming that they’d figured out how to do calculus for themselves by now, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow if you still want help.” Witt was getting up, taking his twenty dollars, putting his stuff in his backpack, and preparing to go to his next class. Teri and Cinna were already out the door. Witt slung his backpack over one shoulder and started for the door.

Rachel scrambled to gather her stuff and follow, a disjointed plan to request further tutoring in the evenings forming. I could ask him to help me understand the earlier chapters I didn’t get. I need to figure them out before finals, she thought, resolutely not thinking that she might just be coming up with a strategy to spend more time with Witt.

Alone.

She hurried after Witt but he’d stopped.

Bear Ballidge blocked the door out of the study hall.

Rachel’d heard about the incident last week, when Bear had confronted Witt on the stairs, telling him not to talk to Cinna. Bear had slipped on the stairs when he attacked Witt and currently wore a cast on the wrist he’d broken in the fall.

Rachel expected Witt to turn and run, but he didn’t. Instead, he pleasantly said, “Hello, Bear.” Despite his attempt to appear calm, Rachel heard the slightly higher pitch of his voice betraying nervousness or fear.

Moving forward and aiming to step in front of Witt, Rachel thought, I’ll go stand between them to keep them from fighting… and Bear from killing Witt. She decided to remind them that, if they fought, the principal would expel both of them. That might help calm the waters too.

Witt took a step back. Make that a fast step back, while quickly glancing behind himself. He saw Rachel coming up on his rear quarter and put out an arm to block her.

Bear launched a massive punch with his unbroken right arm.

Moving unbelievably quickly, Witt not only shifted to dodge Bear’s fist, but did it while turning, grabbing Rachel’s shoulders, and moving her out of harm’s way. Despite the speed with which he did it, his hands felt soft as he moved her.

Rachel turned to watch Bear flail past them. He looked like he was about to catch himself and turn back on Witt, but then tripped over nothing, sprawling full length. Landing with a penetrating shriek, he rolled to his back, cradling his injured arm, Or perhaps his re-broken arm? Rachel wondered.

Bear started bawling.

Witt stepped over to him and asked, “Hey, man, you gonna be okay, or should I call for the nurse?”

“You broke my goddamned arm again!” Bear bellowed in a fury, starting to surge up to a sitting position, but then squealing and falling back.

“Okay,” Witt said, calmly. “I’ll let you deal with this yourself, then. Hope you get better soon.”

Somehow, Rachel thought Witt managed to make the words sound as if what he meant by “get better” applied to Bear’s attitude rather than his wrist.

Rachel hung around and made sure Jake scooped her up as a witness to the incident. She wanted to be sure Witt didn’t get in trouble for fighting when all he’d done was dodge a blow again.

And protect me, she thought with a warm feeling, even more enamored than before.

~~~

For his part, Witt felt quite surprised that he’d thought to anchor an ankle-high barrier—made of slow-time—in front of Bear’s feet as the big guy plunged past him. Not surprised that he’d thought of it, but that he’d thought of it in the moment and done it quickly enough to trip Bear, who otherwise might’ve recovered without falling.

He felt a little guilty that the barrier might’ve been responsible for re-breaking Bear’s wrist.

But he wasn’t as regretful as he thought he should’ve been.

***

In track practice that day, Witt, worrying about looking excessively invincible, let Allsup win the hundred by a hair, and Jansen similarly win the 200.

Coach Dameron insisted Witt try the high jump. There he failed miserably since fast-time didn’t put any more spring in his leap. Whereas, when the coach demanded he try the long jump, fast-time gave him enough momentum to jump well, He just had to keep himself in fast-time until he landed. The main problem was figuring out how far into fast-time he should go to produce a competitive jump, but not one that would be beyond the pale. Witt did this by jumping badly the first time, using only a ten percent speed increase. He gradually increased his speed until he was landing competitive distances. Elated, Coach insisted that, with coaching on his technique, Witt would be able to break records.

If only you knew how little coaching matters in my case, Witt thought.

This left Witt thinking about whether he could be a baseball pitcher. He’d originally thought that impossible, since in his early experiments he’d shown that, once an object he threw left his bubble, it slowed down. But now he was thinking about how he could maintain bubbles as they traveled away from himself. So, he thought, I could, in theory, throw a high-velocity pitch in fast-time and keep it going at a high speed by maintaining its bubble… But what happens if the batter hits it? If the ball’s bubble was big, it’d soften the blow from the bat and that’d look weird to everyone. I should make the bubble as thin as possible…

While he was thinking this—as happened occasionally—a ball rolled onto the track from the adjoining baseball practice field. Witt trotted over and picked it up. Boosting his speed by thirty percent, he threw it toward home plate, intending to keep it in the bubble all the way there.

He snorted a laugh at himself. His throw had been so wild the ball would’ve sailed over third base if he hadn’t dropped it out of fast-time to keep people from wondering how he’d thrown it so far. I’m not gonna be a pitcher without a hell of a lot of work on accuracy, he thought. Nothing about my ability to adjust time’s gonna make up for an aim this bad.

~~~

He and Jesse walked home together after practice. Witt told Jesse he had money for tickets to see Eve of Destruction.

“What? Did you rob a drug lord without me?” Jesse asked.

Witt laughed, “No, I’ve started tutoring calculus. I have been thinking about your idea though. How would we find this drug ring you’re planning to rob?”

“Really?!” Jesse asked excitedly.

Witt nodded.

“I’ll look into it,” he said thoughtfully. Oh, and I’ll get tickets to the show, too. Friday, or Saturday?”

“Either one.”

***

When he arrived in study hall to tutor the next day, only Rachel was there. Witt felt a stab of panic because he’d bought data for his cell phone with the money they’d already paid him. If Teri’d decided she didn’t need any more tutoring—Witt felt like what he was teaching them was so simple he really couldn’t believe they needed his help—he might not have enough money for the tickets Jesse was buying.

Sitting down, he asked Rachel, “Isn’t Teri… and, uh,” he stumbled, realizing he shouldn’t sound focused on Teri, since he didn’t think the other two girls knew Cinna wasn’t paying, “and, uh, Cinna coming?”

He didn’t realize Rachel felt dismayed to have him asking about whether the other two girls were coming. She’d been hoping for a one-on-one session. She said, “I think they’re just late. Cinna’s late to almost everything… I, um, wanted to say how much I appreciated you protecting me from Bear Ballidge yesterday.”

“Oh, sure, but I don’t think he was attacking you.”

“I know, but with him throwing such a wild punch at you, when he missed he could’ve hurt me pretty bad,” he nodded at him, “if you hadn’t moved me out of the way.”

“I… did think he might run into you.” Witt winced, “I didn’t hurt you when I moved you out of his line of fire, did I?”

She gave him a gentle smile, “No. I was amazed by how soft your hands were when you grabbed my shoulders. That didn’t hurt at all.” She winked at him, “You did move me fast enough to give a girl whiplash though.”

Witt’s eyes widened, “Oh, no! Sorry!”

Rachel grinned, “I’m just teasing you. Though you are surprisingly… quick.” She leaned forward and gave him a swift peck on the cheek. Leaning back, she said, “I do appreciate that, when you had Bear Ballidge bearing down on you, you still managed to worry about me. Thanks!”

Witt blinked, touching the cheek she’d kissed and wondering that a girl like Rachel would give him a kiss when he didn’t think she’d even known he was alive last week. Also, did she do that “Bear Ballidge bearing” alliteration thing on purpose, or by accident? Deciding it didn’t matter, he said, “No problem,” just as Cinna and Teri arrived, apologizing for being late.

***

Shortly after Witt got home, his mother opened the door, calling his name. As if, he thought with a bit of irritation, she wasn’t gonna see me as soon as she got in the door of this tiny apartment. He looked up, “What’s up?”

She held out a manilla envelope. “Can you run this downtown on your bike? It’s a job application I promised I’d get in today.”

“They want a paper application?!” Witt asked, disbelievingly.

She shrugged. “I think the boss is a kinda old school.”

He rolled his eyes, “Couldn’t one of his minions print it out for you?!”

“Witt, I don’t want to ask them for favors when I’m trying to impress them with how they want to hire a helpful, can-do person like me.”

“Why can’t I take the car?” he asked, getting even more peeved. He liked driving.

“Two reasons. Well, make that three. First, the cost of gas. Second, the cost of parking downtown. Third, it’s good exercise for an athlete.”

Witt thought of protesting further but thought about how badly he wanted to have his own room. If she was doing her part to try to get a better job, he should do his part to help her get it. Stretching out his hand, he asked, “What’s the address?”

She reeled it off. “They said, if they’ve already closed when you arrive, you can slide it under the door.”

To avoid using his limited cell data, he downloaded the route map while he was still on the free Wi-Fi they had for their first month in the apartment. It turned out the place was only a few miles away, so not too bad. Also, it was in a trendy area, full of big hotels, nice restaurants, hot new bars, and exotic clubs. The closer he got, the more distracting the people became. Girl watching, he almost ran into a car.

While he was chaining his bike to a lamppost, a busker playing guitar near the corner distracted him. She had a gorgeous voice. He wanted to walk down to the corner and listen, but decided he ought to deliver the envelope first.

The office was still open so he was able to hand the packet to the guy in reception, at the last moment deciding to pretend to be a bike messenger. The clothes he had on wouldn’t make a good impression for his mom if they realized he was related.

Back out on the street, he walked down to the little crowd of people listening to the busker at the corner. She was playing an acoustic guitar and displaying what Witt thought was phenomenal virtuosity for someone who appeared to be on the younger side of twenty. Her complex playing style wasn’t in service of wowing the crowd with her technique, but seemed wholly aimed at generating beautifully elegant tones and rhythms to go with her rich alto voice.

She had slicked back, reddish-blonde hair and wore a button-up blouse, snug jeans, and short boots. She was on the tall side of average and wore wrap-around mirrored sunglasses that obscured her eyes. Very pretty, even though she didn’t look like she spent a lot of time on her appearance. Witt gaped, knowing she was way out of his league, but still wishing he had the kind of courage it’d take to go over and talk to her.

Suddenly he realized that, because of the mirrored sunglasses, he couldn’t see her eyes and didn’t know where she was looking. She might’ve seen me gawking, he thought, mortified.  He started carefully watching what her hands were doing with the guitar, to avoid his tendency to examine the rest of her.

That wasn’t too hard, since her sound was even more amazing than her looks. A huge part of that phenomenal sound was due to her technique on the guitar. Technique he found more and more astonishing the longer he watched.

She retuned her guitar before almost every song. At first, Witt thought she had new strings that were quickly going out of tune or, more likely, that she had a much more acute sense of “in-tune” than he did. But, recognizing that—song after song—she was making big changes in some strings, he realized, She’s using special tunings, and they’re different for each song! He thought she was doing it so she could play a lead part on some strings of the guitar while using the rest of the strings to play a rhythm part.

Where’d she learn to do that? he wondered. And how the hell does she keep track of the different fingerings for each song? As time passed, he became more and more focused on trying to figure out how she was doing what she was doing.

At one point he realized he’d become so focused on her method and technique that he wasn’t fully enjoying the beauty of the musical end product. He forced himself to pull back and appreciate the result rather than the process for a while but eventually found himself falling back into analysis again.

Why isn’t this girl famous? he wondered. He noticed that the crowd gathering around her on the street had increased a great deal since he started listening.

Witt stayed, listening to the busker with such an intent focus, for so long it shocked him to realize the sky had dimmed.

By the time he got close to home, it was so late he could barely see.

In fact, he had to get out the bicycling headlight he’d taken to carrying everywhere and for the first time use it as a bicycling headlight instead of to see in fast-time. I need to carry two, he thought. If it breaks or goes dead from all the use I’m giving it, it’ll surely do it at the worst possible time.

***

Arriving home, Witt’s phone rang as he approached the dinner table where his mother and sister were already eating. He glanced at his cell, expecting to reject the call to save money.

“Dad,” it said, bringing him up short. He stared at it for a moment, considering how he didn’t want to waste his cell plan talking to the bastard who’d hit him and tied up his sister. But, he decided, after telling him to stop drinking as if I thought he could be salvaged, I should at least answer the phone. He stepped away from the kitchen corner of their main room.

His mom said, “Witt! Call them back. Your dinner’s gonna get even colder!”

On the phone, his dad said, “Witt, thanks for answering.”

Brusquely, Witt said, “Make it quick. I can’t afford the minutes.”

“Got it,” his dad said. “Not that I blame her, but your mom won’t answer my calls. I’m trying to let you guys know I have quit drinking and I’ve started looking for work like you asked. This week, while I’ve been waiting and hoping for a response to some of my applications, I’ve been working as a day laborer. I tried to bring you guys some of the money from those jobs, but I guess you’ve moved and I don’t know your new address.”

“Money’d be nice,” Witt said, wondering if there was any reason not to tell him where they lived now. With a mental shrug, he reeled off the address.

His dad said, “I know your mom doesn’t want to see me, so I was gonna slip an envelope with cash under your doormat. Do you still have one?”

“Uh-huh,” Witt said, thinking he should be thanking his dad, but deciding he should wait until the promised cash actually arrived.

“Okay. I’ll call you again when I put it under the mat. You don’t have to answer.” The call went dead.

His mother sounded suspicious as she spoke over his shoulder, “Who’d you just give our address to?”

He turned, “Dad.”

A range of expressions flashed over her face, ranging from anger to disappointment. “Why would you give him anything?!”

“He says he’s quit drinking, applied for jobs, and been working as a day-laborer. He wants to bring us money.”

The spark of hope that crossed her countenance immediately faded to disgust, “There’s no way! He’s lying, as always, and,” she sighed gloomily, “now he knows where we live again.”

Witt shrugged. “I had all those thoughts too, but he sounded sober. He says he’s going to put the money under our doormat and call me to let me know when it’s there. We don’t have to interact with him at all. I don’t even have to answer the call.”

She shook her head, “I hope you’re right. But don’t let it break your heart if you’re not. Let’s eat dinner.”

~~~

About thirty minutes later, Witt’s phone rang twice then stopped. When he looked at it, it said he’d missed a call from his dad. When he opened the door and lifted the mat, there was indeed an envelope there. As he pulled out the envelope, he looked around. His dad stood about a hundred feet down the walkway, watching. The man gave him a little wave and walked away.

The envelope only contained two hundred dollars. Which isn’t much, but’s considerably better than the nothing he’s been contributing, Witt thought. Later when he looked up what day laborers earned, he realized it was probably almost half of what his dad had brought in over the past four days.

A note in the envelope asked if they still had a box of his dad’s clothes. It concluded, “Nicer clothes might improve my chance of getting a better-paying job.”

Witt’s mom looked at the cash and he thought she went through the same “better than nothing” thoughts he’d had. She said, “There’s a box of his stuff in the top of the bedroom closet if you want to arrange a way for him to get it.”

Witt needed to get to his homework and still wasn’t convinced his dad had turned his life around. He considered ignoring the request but then decided that, once again, if his dad was trying, ignoring as small a plea for help as this one would be a slap in the face.

Getting up, he went into the apartment’s bedroom. There were boxes piled on the top shelf of the closet and, of course, his dad’s was way in the back and beneath all the others. He almost missed it because, when he opened it, the top item was a bra. He was setting it aside when he recognized he’d seen one of his dad’s shirts. The bra had apparently fallen out of another box and wound up in that one.

I’d better make sure there isn’t any more of Mom or Claire’s stuff in here, he thought, setting the box on the bed, and carefully unpacking it. Everything he came to obviously belonged to his dad, except when, to his surprise, he found a small leather case he didn’t recognize in the bottom.

When he opened the case to be sure it also belonged to his dad, he found it contained an oddly shaped cross of a silvery-bronze-colored metal. The tips of the arms of the cross flared out and it had a circular button-like feature at the center of the cross with an ancient-looking sailing ship engraved in it. A blue ribbon with a white central stripe dangled from an attachment point at the top of the upper arm of the cross. Or, he wondered, is the cross meant to hang from the ribbon? There was a little bar—also covered with a blue ribbon having the same central white stripe—lying loose in the box.

What’s this? he wondered. Did Dad belong to some strange fraternity or society, and this is its symbol? Or did he inherit it? Or, Witt remembered his maternal grandfather had belonged to a lot of organizations, maybe it came from Mom’s dad?

After repacking the box—sans bra—Witt carried it out into the main room. Seeing his mom working on her computer at the kitchen table, he went over and showed her the cross, “Mom, what’s this?”

She glanced at it and returned to what she’d been doing, “Some award your dad got when he was in the Navy.”

Witt frowned. “Dad was in the Navy?”

She nodded distractedly, “Before you were born. Actually, before I met him. He went through college on the G.I. Bill.”

“G.I. Bill?”

She glanced up at him. “Yeah. It’s a program that helps pay for college after you get discharged from the service. Something you might think about since there’s no way we’re going to be able to pay your way.”

Witt waited a moment for her to tell him more, but she’d returned her attention to whatever she’d been working on before. Feeling frustrated, he brought his laptop to the table and Googled images of Navy awards. There were a lot of awards to sort through. Many of them looked like they were made of metal and suspended from ribbons somewhat similar to the cross in his hand. Those were usually called “medals” rather than awards. The one he held matched images of the Navy Cross.

On further reading, Witt was shocked to learn that the Navy Cross was the highest award given by the Navy. His hair prickled on end when he read that recipients must, “distinguish themselves by extraordinary heroism during military action.”

“Mom?” he asked softly. “Did Dad inherit this medal? Or was it awarded to him?”

“Hmm?” she responded, obviously not listening.

“Mom!” When she looked up and focused, he repeated the question.

“I think it has to be his,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he was the first of his family to serve in the military. Maybe the first ever.”

“You know it’s the Navy Cross?”

She gave him a blank look, then glanced at the medal. “I see it’s a cross, yes.”

“You didn’t know it was the Navy’s highest honor, given only for extraordinary heroism? The only higher military award there is the Congressional Medal of Honor.”

She blinked, staring at the medal. “Um, no. Your dad never talked about it. I’m not sure why. Um, he certainly never let on that it was any big deal.”

Frowning again, Witt asked, “Do you know what he did in the Navy?”

She shook her head. “His mom said something about how he’d been an otter…?” She frowned, “Or maybe some other sea animal… Orca, Walrus? Porpoise?”

“SEAL?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said with a little flash of recognition. “That was it.”

Holy crap! Witt thought, more tingles running through his scalp. My dad was a SEAL and earned the Navy Cross?! He opened his mouth to tell his mom what those accomplishments meant, but her focus had returned to her computer. Maybe Dad didn’t want her to know? he wondered. I guess there’s no real reason to tell her now. There’s plenty of time to ask him whether he objects to her knowing first.

Another thought intruded, But maybe it’s related to his problems? “Mom, do you think Dad might have PTSD? Maybe he drinks to deal with that?”

Once again, she responded, “Hmm?” This time he didn’t have to jolt her to get her to focus on his question, because a moment later she looked up and asked, “You think he might have PTSD?!”

“The Navy Cross is awarded for heroism in combat, Mom,” he said patiently. “Not for helping old ladies cross the street. If he were a combat hero it seems that PTSD from whatever happened might be at least part of the reason he’s been having trouble.”

She sat up and studied Witt a moment, then said, “I don’t know much about PTSD. Is there any treatment for it?”

Witt shrugged, “I don’t know, but I could look into it after I finish my homework.”

Giving him a relieved look, she said, “That’d be nice. I’ve…” she glanced at what she’d been doing on her computer. “I think I should keep working on these applications. My first priority’s got to be getting a better job so I can provide for this family. If your dad’s got PTSD, he’s presumably had it for a long time and hopefully it can wait until I get a better job and have time to focus on him. Uh, if you decide he does have PTSD and urgent treatment could make a big difference, tell me. I can shift priorities.”

Witt nodded, wondering if she should be delegating an issue as important as this one to an eighteen-year-old. Homework first, he decided, then figure out whether I’m up to it or I should ask Mom to do… whatever it is that might need doing.

~~~

Later that evening, having caught up with his homework, Witt started researching PTSD. It wasn’t long before he leaned back in his chair, thinking, Dad sure has a lot of the signs. He especially thought of how his dad overreacted to loud noises. One time in particular he’d looked ready to kill someone over a slammed door. And then there was how easily he took offense or sometimes got in people’s faces over minor insults. Even before his dad started drinking a lot, Witt had been reluctant to have friends over for fear they might witness, or be subject to his dad’s prickly behavior. Dad could be loving, then turn furious in the blink of an eye, he thought.

And, of course, self-medication was common in PTSD. The booze Witt’s dad had turned to was the most common of those home remedies.

As he turned to researching treatment strategies, he thought, It’s a good thing we don’t have a TV to suck up any of my time.

After looking through a mind-numbing number of medical websites and articles, it seemed that most treatment programs required the investment of a lot of time and effort in the form of therapy sessions, meetings, counseling, and the like, but that, unfortunately, any resultant improvements were modest at best.

But, to Witt’s astonishment, some illegal psychoactive drugs had recently achieved exciting results. One, MDMA—also known as ecstasy, Molly, and by a host of other street names—seemed quite promising in the treatment of PTSD. When administered in conjunction with standard therapy, MDMA had achieved markedly improved outcomes compared to placebo.

Increased empathy, friendliness, inner peace, and a relaxed sense of diminished anxiety, Witt read of MDMA’s typical effects, who wouldn’t want to be taking this stuff? Further reading about adverse effects like sweating, rapid heart rates, memory problems, addiction, and occasional deaths answered that question for him. Though I’ll bet such bad effects are less prominent with medically controlled dosing than they are with the random quantities and concentrations street product probably comes in.

He was fascinated though, to read that when octopuses received MDMA, the singularly solitary animals—many of whom only interacted with another octopus once in their lifetime, and then only to mate—would crawl all over one another, writhing in each other’s embrace. He thought, I’d guess that’s a pretty emphatic tilt of the meter toward friendliness.

Best of all, the local university medical center was running a study of MDMA treatment of PTSD and looking for subjects.

Of course, if his dad joined the study, there’d be a chance he’d be in the placebo group, but it included conventional therapy as well. And it’d be better than free.

It included a small stipend for participation.

He considered trying to talk to his mom about it right then, but she and Claire had gone into their bedroom and closed the door. Tomorrow’s soon enough, he decided.

Chapter Six

Witt and Jesse were on their way to Zen’s Arch for the Eve of Destruction show. Jesse’s mom had let him take the car and they were excited to have wheels. Witt was just realizing that Zen’s Arch—a venue he’d heard of but never gone to—was downtown, about five blocks from where he’d gone as the courier for his mom’s job application. He wondered whether there was any word about that job yet.

They soon encountered problems.

All the street parking was full. Jesse cursed and reminded Witt he’d wanted to come earlier.

Eventually, they had to park in a deck and the cost was high. Once they’d split the cost of that, Witt considered his remaining funds and decided he wasn’t going to be able to get anything to drink in the Arch.

But it turned out the Arch had a two-drink minimum and Witt had to borrow money from Jesse for the drink tickets. Jesse said he didn’t mind, but Witt felt embarrassed. Also, since Witt always paid Jesse back, it was going to be one more monetary burden that’d keep him from buying as much food as he’d hoped for his family. I shouldn’t have said I’d come to this, he thought glumly.

They got their red—too-young-to-be-served-alcohol—wristbands and moved on into the club. Witt swiveled his head around, trying to get as much out of this new experience as he could.

Jesse wanted to get right up front to be close to the band. Witt wasn’t sure about that, thinking the sound would be better somewhat farther from the stage.

Getting down front was impossible because the crowd had packed in so tightly there was no way to slip in. Jesse tried to squeeze between people but they angrily rebuffed him.

Uncomfortably realizing he had people in contact with him on all four sides, Witt felt if it got much tighter, he’d have trouble breathing. This can’t be safe, can it?! he wondered. He edged backward until he had a little breathing room between himself and the closest patrons but lost touch with Jesse doing it.

He was getting out his phone to text Jesse and see if his friend was okay when the house lights suddenly went out. For a moment Witt thought the power’d gone off, but then realized the lights over the bar and some of the ones around the big room’s periphery were still on.

He started the text, then thought, Surely, if the pressure of the crowd were crushing people there’d be some screaming.

Gradually he became aware of an organ tone. It filled in to form an ominous minor chord that slowly grew louder. A spot glowed to life and brightened, highlighting a tall box. Is that a speaker? Witt wondered. It seemed a weird thing to put a spotlight on, but he couldn’t think what else it might be. Then something started spinning inside the top section of the box. The rich organ tones began to pulsate, then warbled faster and faster as the speed of the spinning object increased. Having never seen a Leslie speaker before, Witt had no idea what he was looking at, but he liked its sound.

A choppy, distorted, high-pitched, guitar chord edged into Witt’s consciousness, gradually growing louder until he realized it perfectly complimented the lower organ chord, giving a rhythm to the sound that, though slower, somehow fit with the warbling pulsation of the spinning speaker. The guitarist must be timing it to the warble. He frowned in concentration, wondering, How many pulsations per strum?

Then two more spotlights came in, the first on a guy manning several keyboards next to the big rotating speaker, the second on the guitar player. The keyboard player was a nice-looking dude with shoulder-length dirty blond hair and a sleeveless shirt. The guitarist had black hair standing out all spiky from his head, a heavy vest with some kind of dangling ornaments, and ripped, baggy pants.

Wait, Witt thought, Is that guitarist a chick?! He narrowed his eyes, Maybe she’s trying to look like a guy? Or she’s trans or something?

The guitarist chopped down with the neck of her guitar and the chord they’d been holding finally changed. Then changed again, moved on to a third chord, then a fourth, fifth, and a sixth. When it came back around to the first chord, she leaned forward and started to sing. Something about her voice, although it was lower and rougher, somehow reminded Witt of the busker he’d heard the day before. He wondered if they might be related.

Seems unlikely, he decided, since their hair colors are so different.

Yet two more spots came on to highlight a drummer and bassist, just as a tom fill and cymbal crash introduced a steady snare and kick beat and the bass started filling the lower octaves. The guitarist started singing the chorus for the song with all three guys singing backing vocals. The harmony was surprisingly sweet.

Holy shit, these guys are amazingly good! Witt thought, realizing they fully justified the word on the street that claimed they were gonna be the next big thing. I hope they don’t start fighting each other and have a meltdown like so many other groups.

Suddenly the guitarist chopped the neck of her guitar down and threw her right hand up in the air, exploding her fingers out from one another.

A second later, the room lights bloomed brightly to a level that felt brighter than daylight. The music broke off to absolute silence.

Except, to Witt’s dismay, for the sound of people screaming.

The guitarist pointed at her mic, jerked her thumb upward, and spoke. Her voice boomed around the hall like the voice of God. “You guys are crushing the people down front! Back up! Back up, back up, BACK THE HELL UP! We’re not gonna play another lick until you’ve made room for the people down front to breathe!”

She kept urgently shouting, but if the audience had started backing away it was hard to tell. Assholes! Witt thought, finding it hard to believe that they seemed willing to risk lives because they didn’t want to lose their spots near the stage. Or maybe they just don’t comprehend what’s going on.

Witt saw one of the club’s bouncers trying to force his way into the turmoil but thought the guy might just be making the crowding worse.

The guitarist kept shouting at the crowd, telling them to move back.

Could people die in here? Witt wondered, then remembered reading about crushing deaths at a concert in LA earlier in the year. That’d been at an arena though. Isn’t this place too small for that?

What’s my problem?! Witt thought, horrified by the way he’d been mindlessly gaping at the disturbance while waiting for someone else to do something about it. There must be some way to use my new talent to help those people!

He quickly surveyed the farther reaches of the room while pulling out his flashlight—doing it while he could still see stuff farther than the flashlight would reach—then stepped quickly to the left to distract observers from his impending disappearance. He went to fast-time, not to do anything, but to give himself a few beats to think. Turning the flashlight on so he could see gaps in the crowd, he kept moving—not standing still for fear people in real-time might notice him. At first, he failed to have any great ideas, but then thought, I could scope out this mess from the balcony. Going up there felt like wasting time, But, in fast-time, I wouldn’t be wasting much and I’ve got to understand what’s going on before I can come up with a plan for dealing with it.

Witt went to real-time. The room lit up so he could see and he quickly looked around. It only took a couple of seconds to recognize the stairs to the balcony. Back in fast-time, he headed for the stairs as fast as he could thread his way through the apparently stationary crowd.

On the balcony, he wedged into a small empty spot against the crowded rail and leaned out to shine his flashlight down on the immobile crowd near the stage. As he’d feared, it wasn’t bright enough. He thought wistfully of the brighter bike headlight, out in his backpack in Jesse’s car. He let himself slow down till he was at about 1.7X, just fast enough that he could see pretty well—though the colors were off. He glanced around the crowd below, then went back to 400X so he could think.

They’d looked most densely packed next to the stage and just a little bit to the right of center. Where Jesse was, Witt realized with horror. Many looked as if they were in agony, mouths open to scream, but perhaps unable to draw the breath to do it. He hoped the colors being off made the scene appear even more hellish than it was—but had a sick feeling it was worse than it looked.

He thought there were over fifty people packed in so tightly they might be having trouble breathing. Those were the ones who’d looked agonized. He turned around and started weaving his way back through the crowd to the stairwell, thinking, I’ll just go down there in fast-time and drag all those people away. In fast-time, I’ll be able to unpack them before they have time to suffocate. His mind wandered for a moment to how they’d react afterward, when they started talking about how they couldn’t breathe in the depths of the crush, then suddenly found themselves far from the center. They’ll be wondering what happened and there might be an investigation… Which doesn’t matter! he thought angrily to himself. What matters is keeping them alive!

Nonetheless, he was glad that, at the speed he was moving anything the security cameras picked up would be a blur.

He hoped. I should have Jesse record video of me so I can see.

Almost back to the stairs, he halted. Shit! I won’t be able to move people unless I bring them into fast-time with me! And when I do, some of them are gonna fight me. Maybe most of the ones around the periphery are gonna resist being moved away from the spots they think they own. Ones who don’t understand what’s going on and don’t want to give up their spots. Of course, they’d see Witt too, though he immediately considered cutting himself a mask out of someone’s shirt. But the big problem would be that he just wouldn’t be able to move a lot of them against their wills.

Especially big guys.

What if I brought them up to 50X, grabbed their belts, and jerked them backward from 400X? he wondered. Caught by surprise, they should just fall over backward, right? Then I drop them back to real-time so they can’t do anything about it. He pictured a swath of fallen people, pulled far enough aside to leave a path he could use to unpack the center. Some of them might get hurt when they fall, but that’s way better than the people dying in the middle, right…?

Wait! he thought, having an epiphany. I’m going about this backward! I’ll bet slow-time’s a better solution! He turned and picked his way back through the crowd to the edge of the balcony, slipping into the same open spot he’d just left. Taking a moment to think—he had to remind himself that, since he was doing it while he was in fast-time, taking the time to get it right didn’t significantly impact the people in the crush—he reasoned it out. If I slow-time the crushed people in the middle, so not enough time passes for them to suffocate, that’ll ease the danger. I’ll make a wide transition zone around them so the people near the periphery can move away—or get pulled away by the bouncers. As the pressure in the crush eases, I’ll just slowly shrink the slow-zone until everybody’s back to real-time.

Maybe they won’t even notice it happening? He rolled his eyes at himself. Of course, they’re going to notice! The most I can hope for is that they won’t understand what happened and will only think something bizarre transpired. The least I can reasonably hope for is that they won’t be able to connect it to me.

But there’re gonna be a lot of freaked out people!

Getting back to the problem at hand, he brought himself up to 1.7X so he could see, then focused on the group of people in the center of the crush. The ones who looked like they were in real trouble. Mentally centering what he estimated was almost a twenty-foot circle around them, he slowed time to about 0.00002X inside of it.

He tried to make the transition zone about six feet wide, but as he formed the bubble, he could sense that the transition zone was at most eight inches thick. He felt surprised since he’d made thicker zones in the past. Is this because there’s a limit to how big I can make a bubble plus its transition and twenty feet’s close to the limit? Witt wondered. Or because big bubbles just can’t have really thick transitions? I need to do more experiments to understand my capabilities!

Witt stayed in real-time so he could see events play out. The first thing he noticed was the agonized looks on the immobilized faces of the slow-timed people in the middle of the crush, at least all of those whose faces were visible.

A movement at the edge of the slow-time circle caught his eye. He studied a girl near the edge… Oh, her head just slumped, he thought with the sudden realization that the sagging motion was what’d attracted his attention. She seemed unconscious. He wondered if the crowd pressure had just asphyxiated her to unconsciousness before he established the zone. Or, has she been unconscious and the pressure around her just eased enough to let her head fall, he wondered? After a moment’s study, he decided that wasn’t it.

Oh… he thought as he realized that—because of the way she’d been leaning when time essentially stopped for her—her head, shoulder, and right arm were in the transition zone, in an area of moderately fast-time or even in real-time. The rest of her—and most importantly her heart—was deep in slow-time. My God! as far as her brain’s concerned, her heart’s stopped beating!

No wonder she’s unconscious, he thought. In a few minutes, she’s gonna be braindead!

In a panic, Witt almost dissolved the entire slow-time zone on the realization he was the one killing her. But if I do that some of the people in the zone are probably gonna die from compression!

Instead, he focused on the girl and shifted the surface of the bubble out a bit so it included her head and arm. To his surprise, it wasn’t difficult to create the complex shape of a bubble that fit around her. Realizing that his own bubble followed his body’s form, he recognized that this ease of shaping wasn’t that surprising. He quickly swept his focus around the periphery of the circle, making sure no one else crossed the boundary. He knew the brain needed constant blood flow, but wasn’t sure whether other parts of the body might be almost as sensitive. It just seemed better not to have anyone partially in and partially out of the bubble.

When his attention came back around the circle to check on the girl, he noticed that the people next to her had backed away, loosening up the pressure. But the guy next to her was in real-time and, with a panicked look on his face, was trying to reach in after her. Boyfriend, Witt thought. He probably has his hands stuck in the slow-time region by now.

Witt returned the lacunae around the girl to real-time, surprised at how easy it was to change just the space that surrounded her.

She slumped but the guy’s hands lunged in around her shoulders and he dragged her out.

With a sick feeling, Witt saw she remained unconscious. He desperately wanted to rush down and do something to help her. However, a moment’s thought convinced him his talent wouldn’t be able to help her problem, whereas there were still a lot of people in the crush that he was helping.

The crowd was slowly easing away, partly because the guitarist continued shouting commands at them, partly because the bouncers had begun pulling people away from nearby.

As space opened up next to them, Witt converted people back to real-time. Tempting as it was to return a bunch of them to normal at once, he kept doing it one at a time. Most stumbled away but some collapsed when he released them, presumably because they were already unconscious when they went into slow-time. The only thing holding them up had been the people crushed around them.

Witt kept his focus circling the edge of the crush, releasing people from slow-time when he thought there was enough space for them to breathe. Each circuit, he checked on the girl whose brain he’d briefly cut off from its blood flow.

On about his fifth or sixth such circuit she was back on her feet, her boyfriend helping her stumble toward the exit.

At that, Witt felt a sense of relief that nearly overwhelmed him. He sagged against the rail, thinking he might pass out.

The rail creaked and shivered.

It’s giving way! he realized. Not because Witt had sagged against it, but because a lot of people were leaning against it, trying to see what was going on below. He might’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but he was only a tiny part of the problem. As he tried to lean away from the rail, he realized the biggest share of the problem belonged to the people behind those against the rail. They were leaning against the ones in front of them as they tried to see too.

He didn’t think the pressure was high enough to crush folks against the rail like was happening to the people down below, But, if this rail gives way, we’ll have a whole other disaster on our hands! he thought.

Unable to think of anything brilliant to do to stop the failure of the railing, he just slowed its time by a multiple of 50,000—to 0.00002X slow-time—thinking that if it gave way, it’d do it so slowly that the crowd might have time to pull back.

Witt shifted his attention back to the people in the crush below, worried that—by splitting his attention—he’d accidentally let their bubble go and they’d come out too soon.

In fact, they and the bubble seemed fine. He thought he must be getting better at maintaining a bubble with only part of his attention. As he again sent his focus around the bubble down there, he found quite a few of them had enough space to be returned to real-time. When he realized he’d just released Jesse from the scrum, his concentration wobbled, enough he almost dropped the rest of the bubble all at once.

Jesse staggered away from the bubble and dropped to his knees as if he were about to barf. This gave Witt a panicked moment, but then his friend heaved himself to his feet and tottered away.

After another circuit, things had loosened up enough that Witt did drop the rest of the bubble at once. One of the girls near the center immediately collapsed to the floor. Unsure how bad off she was, Witt put her back in slow-time until the crowd thinned further and someone dropped to his knees next to her. The guy seemed to be about to attend to her so Witt let her go back to real-time again.

Witt shifted his focus to the railing in front of him, dropping it to 0.1X slow-time.

It immediately started sagging outward, so he put it back in 0.00002X slow-time and started shouting at people to back away from it, “The rail’s about to go!” he screamed, wondering whether anyone would hear or listen. However, it seemed a lot of people had felt it give. A bunch of other people started screaming the same thing and pushing back against the crowd behind them. When Witt could see only a few people still leaning on it, and those lightly, he returned the rail to real-time.

It sagged some more and the last few people snatched their hands away. They started pushing, shoving and yelling in their efforts to get away from it.

Going to 400X fast-time, Witt turned on his flashlight and headed back downstairs to check on Jesse. He also wanted to see if he could do anything for any of the people who’d been packed in the scrum. When he found Jesse, his frozen friend looked wild-eyed, but otherwise okay, so Witt didn’t stop.

Arriving at the center of where all the people had been in trouble, his flashlight illuminated a group of people standing, apparently horrified, around the girl who’d fallen. The man on his knees beside her had straightened and seemed to be shouting something.

Witt went to real-time to hear what the man was saying.

“Call 911! We need an ambulance! Help! Is there a doctor or a nurse here?”

Seeing several people stabbing at their phones, Witt assumed the 911 call was underway.

Someone dropped to her knees beside the girl, said she was a doctor, and took the girl’s wrist, evidently to feel for a pulse.

A bouncer stepped up to the other side of the girl and started bellowing at people to back up and give the doctor room.

The doctor shook her head, dropped the girl’s wrist, and leaned down to give her a breath, mouth to mouth. Then she started chest compressions and shouted, “Does anyone know CPR? I need help!”

Having taken basic CPR when he’d been a lifeguard a couple of summers ago, Witt started to step forward, but another guy beat him to it, kneeling down across the girl from the doctor. A moment later the guy was doing the chest compressions while the doctor continued trying to examine her patient.

Bending down to look in the girl’s eyes, the doctor got out her phone, turned on its flashlight, and shone it into the girl’s pupils.

Witt stepped forward and said, “I have a regular flashlight. Would that help?” To his distress, his voice broke.

The doctor didn’t even look up, just shook her head.

Could I do anything with my talent? he wondered thinking back to his lifeguard CPR class. He thought being squished in a crush probably caused similar problems to those from drowning. If something kept you from breathing, the heart and lungs couldn’t deliver oxygenated blood to the brain, so you went unconscious. Then, if that lack of oxygenation went on long enough, brain damage started to accumulate. With a serious lack of oxygen, the heart didn’t beat properly so you might need CPR. This is a little better than drowning ’cause the lungs aren’t full of water, he thought, but it might be worse if she’s got broken ribs or other injuries. There’s nothing I can help with my talent… Wait! If the CPR’s not fully oxygenating the blood… He remembered their CPR instructor droning on about how you had to do CPR exactly right or the patient might suffer damage to the CNS (central nervous system) from inadequate oxygenation. Does CNS include the spinal cord? he wondered.

Witt stepped back, wishing he could ask someone. After a moment he just went ahead and put the girl’s skull and, because he didn’t know, her spine, in a bubble of slow-time. Once again, it wasn’t that difficult to create a complexly shaped bubble around something.

What the hell, he wondered, how do I know where her skull/brain and spine/spinal-cord is?! He realized he felt absolutely sure he did know where they were. If that’s correct, I must be able to feel… um, sense… inside things?!

Until now, Witt had been thinking he could only put what he could see in bubbles, but that certainly wasn’t true. When he put Jesse in a bubble, it didn’t just encompass the near and visible side of his friend, but seemed to follow all the way around the outer surface of him including the side he couldn’t see. And now, Witt realized he could “sense” structures like the skull and spine and other bones inside people too.

Witt shook his head to clear it of these thoughts. Time enough to worry about this new aspect of my ability later, he thought. I’ve got to think about what I’ve just done!  He closed his eyes, worrying anxiously about whether putting the girl’s CNS in slow-time might be doing more harm than good.

What about the interface between the spinal cord and the nerves? Should I be trying to put all the nerves in slow-time too? Following a few, he realized that the nerves kept splitting into smaller and smaller trunks and eventually into microscopic fibers. He got the sense that there was no way he could put all the nerves in while leaving the rest of the body out.

After a moment, he stepped forward, thinking he should ask the doctor what he should do. He hesitated when he realized she was now taking a turn doing the chest compressions and perhaps he shouldn’t interrupt

Then he came to a full stop. And just what the hell would I ask her?! “Is it okay if I put her brain and spinal cord in slow-time so they don’t need oxygen…?” She’d have me committed!

Witt was rubbing his temples in an agony of indecision when he felt a slap on his shoulder. Jesse said, “There you are Wittless! Where the hell have you been?!”

Deciding to keep the girl’s CNS in suspended time, Witt carefully kept a part of his focus on her while turning to Jesse, “Hey, man. Are you okay? Last I saw you, you were in the area where the worst of the crush happened.”

“Hell, yeah!” Jesse said. “I was squashed like a bug, but I’m like some kind of super cockroach. Can’t kill me.” He looked around the room and said, “How much longer you think it’ll be until they get the music going again?”

“For God’s sake, Jesse!” Witt said, horrified. “They’re doing CPR on that girl. There’s no way they’re starting the show back up after this!”

Jesse glanced over at the group tending the girl and looked a little startled. He seemed to have been completely oblivious of what’d been going on just ten feet from him. “Really?” he asked with a frown. “You think we’re gonna get our money back?”

“You really are a cockroach!” Witt said furiously, looking over at the girl and wondering whether she had any chance of survival. It would’ve been better if I’d never taken her out of slow-time, he thought. But I can’t put her back in now.

Jesse said, “Oh, wow. It’s Eva.”

Witt frowned, Is the girl someone we know? He shifted back and forth, trying to see the girl’s face between the legs of the people standing around her, then realized, I don’t know anyone named Eva, so I’m not gonna recognize her even if I do get a look. He turned to ask Jesse who Eva was and realized his friend was stepping toward a girl with spiky black hair, a heavy vest, and ripped baggy jeans.

“Hey, Eva, can I get an autograph?” Jesse asked her.

Unable to believe his friend would ask for an autograph at a time like this, Witt reached out and grabbed Jesse’s arm, dragging him back.

With tears in her eyes, the guitarist—who Witt assumed was named Eva—turned to give Jesse an intensely loathing look.

Witt mouthed, “Sorry,” at her.

She spun back to the little group who were trying to save the girl’s life.

Witt turned on Jesse, “I can’t believe you’d ask her for an autograph while she was out here to check on a fan who’s getting CPR!”

Jesse had the grace to look a little embarrassed, but he shrugged, “There’s never a good time to ask for an autograph.”

“You are such an asshole,” Witt said, sickened. He restrained an urge to look at the girl, hoping she’d appear to have forgotten about Jesse. When Witt finally did look that way, she happened to be turned partially toward them. Oh! he thought, staring in consternation, She’s the busker!

It took Witt a minute or two to wrap his head around the fact that he’d watched Eva, apparently the lead singer and guitarist of his new favorite band, Eve of Destruction, busking on a street corner. The musical styles of the band and her solo play were wildly different. Eva must’ve worn a wig for her busking and she’d played an acoustic, rather than an electric guitar, but now the question was no longer, “What’s someone as talented as that doing on a corner?” Instead, it was, “Why in the world is Eva busking?”

She might not be a big name yet, but there was no doubt in Witt’s mind that Eva was gonna be huge.

Witt—and therefore Jesse—stayed another half-hour so Witt could maintain the girl’s CNS in slow-time while they waited for an ambulance. The congested traffic from people leaving the show had apparently blocked incoming traffic. Witt knew ambulances and emergency personnel usually staffed big concerts but heard someone say the Arch was small enough no one had thought it necessary until they’d had to deal with the crowds brought by Eve of Destruction.

Later he’d learn that the Arch temporarily lost its license for admitting far more people than it was certified for.

While they waited, the cops were asking questions. To Witt’s disquiet, a number of the people who’d been in or near the crush tried to report the effects of Witt’s time modifications, saying things like, “He seemed frozen,” or, “I couldn’t touch her,” or, “They looked like statues.” Most telling were a few who’d been in slow-time themselves, saying they felt crushed, then, in the blink of an eye, they were free.

Despite Witt’s gut expecting someone to suddenly point at him and say, “There. He’s the guy who did it,” the people’s stories fell on deaf ears. Witt thought that, like any outlandish tale, the cops just disregarded what they heard, deciding the people were simply expressing bizarre psychological reactions to trauma.

The doctor who’d managed the CPR seemed to despair when the paramedics successfully restored a pulse by shock/defibrillating the girl. It seemed that whatever she saw when checking the girl’s pupils still looked bad.

Witt was close enough to hear when the doc and the paramedics held a quiet consultation, apparently about whether to give up on the resuscitation. Witt saw the doc shrug. She said, “Declaring her dead now’s untenable. Her heart’s functioning. You’re going to have to take her to the hospital and they’ll have to go through their protocols to determine whether she’s braindead.” She sighed, “Maybe I shouldn’t have started CPR in the first place.”

Braindead?! Witt thought. Putting her brain in slow-time didn’t protect it? Then he winced. Her brain’s still in freaking slow-time! he thought, cursing himself and dropping her CNS back to real-time. Slow-time probably makes her seem braindead! He looked at the doctor, Check her pupils again! he thought at her, but, of course, the doc didn’t react.

The paramedics were preparing to put the girl on a stretcher.

Witt was still trying to figure out how to get them to check her pupils again.

Then the girl groaned and raised a hand to her face.

“My God!” the doctor exclaimed excitedly. “Give me that penlight,” she said to the paramedic, holding out her hand. A moment later she excitedly said, “Pupils equal and reactive!”

“Way to go, Doc!” the paramedic said, holding his hand up for a high-five.

Minutes later they wheeled the girl out to the ambulance.

Jesse and Witt headed for home.

***

After the aborted concert, Witt spent his Saturday morning learning everything he could about Eve of Destruction—apparently named after a protest song from 1965. They were also listed as EOD in a lot of places. Before they left the Arch, someone had announced that tickets from the aborted show would be good for a show to be scheduled later. Witt planned to get to that show, come hell or high water, and he badly wanted to know more about the band before he went.

He went into his research wondering how he could’ve been unaware of such a phenomenally talented group. Especially, since they’d originated in his hometown! It soon became evident that a big part of the reason he hadn’t heard their music—or even heard of them before Jesse brought them up—was because they were very new and hadn’t, as yet, gone to a studio and knocked out a recording. Instead, they’d pretty much limited themselves to touring. There were a lot of recordings out there, of course, but all of them consisted of low-quality video recordings people had done at shows using their phones. Even those sounded fairly good, but they didn’t convey the mastery of Eva’s play, nor the power and beauty of her voice. More importantly, they weren’t on radio or streaming services where they might generate a wide following.

When Eva—who seemed to be one of those artists who went by only one name—had been asked about recordings in interviews, she’d said they’d get around to them someday, but were holding off until they were “fully ready to record,” whatever that meant.

Eva’s going only by the one name seemed to be serious business. Apparently, no one knew what her last name was or even whether Eva was her real first name. Her bandmates had all graduated last year from local high schools. The bass player, Joe Randall, and the keyboard player, Davis Tandy, both graduated from Northside High. The drummer, Shaun West, came from Dinsmore High. No one knew where Eva came from, though the assumption seemed to be that she came from their town as well.

A consensus seemed to be that the other three were very good musicians, but that they paled in comparison to Eva’s transcendent play.

Besides, most people thought she wrote and arranged all their songs—though it was hard to be sure since EOD hadn’t published any of the songs or put out recordings that specified who’d done what.

Having learned what he could about Eve of Destruction, Witt dedicated a few hours to playing along with the crappy EOD videos he found on YouTube. First, he played along with the melodies on his sax, then worked out the chord structure on his guitar.

But there was a lot more to those songs than just the melodies and chord structures.

It was when he tried to look up current articles about EOD that he saw items about last night’s concert. To his immense relief, the reports claimed everyone had survived. Some people called it a miracle. There were a couple of comments about how quite a few of the people caught in the crush felt like it’d only lasted a minute or two, though most of those assumed they must’ve been unconscious. They said they’d felt the crush coming on in the dark, then suddenly wakened in a brightly lit room.

Eva had posted a succinctly beautiful apology for not recognizing what was happening even sooner, though many observers said they had no idea how she’d figured it out so quickly in a darkened room.

***

With some trepidation, Witt called his dad Saturday afternoon. He had a sick fear his dad would sound drunk again.

“Hey, Witt,” his dad answered softly, speaking as if he didn’t want anyone to hear.

He sounded sober, which heartened Witt, but the near whisper set off alarm bells. “Um, I was hoping to come over and bring you those clothes this afternoon?”

“That’d be great! I’d love to see you.” his dad said, still quietly. The hunger in his dad’s voice heartened Witt, but he didn’t know what to make of the continued use of such a soft voice. After a moment’s hesitation, his dad said, “Could you come at 5:30? I’m at work and really can’t afford to leave early… uh or talk much longer.”

Stifling a huge sigh of relief, Witt said, “I’ll be there. I’m… um, very proud of you.” He hung up without waiting for a reply. The last thing he wanted was to get his dad in trouble at his job.

***

Witt knocked on his dad’s door at 5:33, once again worrying his dad might’ve backslid.

That he’d answer the door with a beer in his hand and curses on his tongue.

Witt even put himself in a bit of fast-time so he’d be able to react if something physical happened.

When the door opened Witt relaxed.

His clean-shaven dad, short, neat hair damp from the shower, stood before him in freshly laundered shirt and jeans.

The parts of the apartment Witt could see looked clean and sharply organized.

It even smelled good.

His dad said, “Hi, Witt. Thanks for coming over.”

Is this the man I grew up with? Witt wondered. He said, “Uh, hi,” as he handed over the box of clothing. Thinking back, he realized he had early memories of his dad that featured a man much like the one before him. The father he’d grown up with had been like this. Only over the past four or five years had there been gradual deterioration. One that led to the state his dad had been in before he’d left home. Or Mom threw him out, whichever you called it. Witt stepped forward and threw his arms around his dad, saying, “You look good!”

His dad chuckled, “Now, that’s a lie. I’ve never, not on my best day, ‘looked good.’ But, I think you’re trying to say I look better than I have in a long time, eh?”

Witt leaned back. It’d been years since he’d heard his dad make a joke. He decided to respond in kind. “Yeah. I probably should’ve said, ‘Wow! You don’t look nearly as bad!”

His dad deflated a little. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Come on in and we’ll talk about it if you want.”

Feeling bad about a joke that had been more of an insult, Witt stepped into the tiny apartment, saying, “I’d like that a lot. What exactly’s been going on with you, and… how’d you turn it around?”

As they sat down, an unhappy grimace crossed his dad’s face. “Force of will mostly. After what happened with Claire, I told myself this couldn’t go on. So, I called upon the discipline I used to have and went cold turkey on the booze last weekend.” He shook his head, “It was tough, believe me, but I’ve been through worse stuff.”

Witt gave him a quizzical look. “I’m thinking the SEALs provided both the discipline and the ‘worse stuff’ you’ve been through?”

His dad gave him a surprised look. “Your mom told you I was a SEAL? I didn’t think she even knew what a SEAL was.”

“Well,” Witt couldn’t hold back a little laugh, “she might’ve said you were an otter.”

His dad laughed out loud, which sounded great. “Lindsey was never interested in my military service. I mentioned it once and got the impression she had no idea what a SEAL was, but I’ve never had it confirmed that brutally!”

Witt gave him a grin in return. But, he wanted to move on to more important stuff. “So, what happened, that… um, you know…?”

“How’d I let my life, uh, and yours… turn into such a massive, stinking, pile of feces?”

Despite trying to stay serious, Witt couldn’t help another grin. Just the fact that his dad had a sense of humor about his failures, somehow made Witt feel better about the prospects for the future. “Um, yeah. Something like that.”

His dad turned serious, “Well, you know I was a cop, right?” When Witt nodded, he went on. “When I left the Navy and started looking around for a career, people told me my military skills would make me a good policeman. That made sense to me, so I used my GI Bill to get a degree in Criminal Justice, and, uh…”

When his dad hesitated and then didn’t go on, Witt wondered whether he’d been a failure as a policeman. But he needed to know and he had a feeling that, if his dad had failed as a cop, he needed to face up to it and start over in something else. Since his dad didn’t seem to be going on, Witt prompted him, “What happened?”

“Um, kid, you ever hear the saying that when you’ve got a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?”

Witt hadn’t heard the saying but thought he got the drift. He nodded. “How’d that apply to you?”

“As a SEAL, I’d, uh, solved almost every problem with… with, um, let’s call it ‘extreme violence.’” He rolled his eyes, “Now, I knew that wasn’t the approved solution in police work, but…” He sighed, “The things I was seeing, they brought back bad memories. I got angry. And, even though things weren’t nearly as bad as in a war zone, I started to feel like I was back in the fight. Things that surprised me started getting overreactions. I’d explode at loud noises. When bad people got in my face,” Witt’s dad looked curiously at his son, “you understand, criminals have a real tendency to get in your face?”

Witt nodded and dryly said, “I can imagine.”

His dad sighed, “When they did, I had a real tendency to just start busting heads. When my superiors told me I had to cool it, I tried, but couldn’t’ seem to do it when my nerves were jumpy.” He snorted, “So then I got the genius idea of calming myself with vodka.” A distant look in his eyes, he continued, “The booze did help in a fashion. It helped me realize my problems were all someone else’s fault…” He paused for several long seconds, then wiping at an eye, softly said, “Make that a lot of other people’s faults… and none of my own.” He looked up at Witt, “Your mom shouldered a whole lot of undeserved blame. You and your sister became victims of friendly fire.”

Witt didn’t know what friendly fire was but thought he could make a guess. He didn’t think he should focus on it if he wanted his dad to heal. After waiting to see if his dad was going to vent any further, Witt softly asked, “I’ve been reading about PTSD—”

“Yup. Got that diagnosis,” Witt’s dad interrupted. “The treatment for that didn’t do any more good than the vodka.” He sighed, “Or maybe it didn’t do any good because of the vodka?”

“Is this why you quit the police?”

With a look of shame, his dad said, “I quit because they were about to fire me.”

“Did you think of changing careers? Something that wouldn’t trigger PTSD?”

“By then I was an alcoholic too. No one’s gonna hire a guy who shows up drunk to an interview.”

Witt swallowed, dismayed by how bad it’d been. “So… what’s your plan now?”

“Discipline. Work as a day laborer until I’m sure I can stay sober. Then figure out what kind of work I can do that won’t, as you say, ‘trigger me.’”

Witt stared at his dad, for several long moments, then asked, “Do you think it would help if I moved in with you for a while? I could sleep on this couch as well as I can the one at the apartment.”

His dad looked surprised, “Are you and your mom having trouble?”

“No. I’m just wondering whether having your son around might help. Give you someone to be responsible for besides yourself. Make you embarrassed to think about drinking again. Provide a taste of the family life you’ve been forgoing?”

After studying Witt for a moment, his dad snorted and said, “I keep having the feeling you’re the adult in this discussion.”

Witt grinned, “Nope. It’s just that this downer of a conversation has kept my immaturity at bay.”

His dad gave him a solemn nod. “I’d love to have you live with me. I’d like it a lot… and you’re probably right that it’d help me keep, uh certain tendencies in check. But, you’re gonna have to ask your mom. She’s the adult in this family.”

“I will,” Witt said solemnly. When his dad didn’t say anything for a few moments, he spoke hesitantly. “Um, I wanted to mention that, in my reading, I learned the University’s got a research study going on PTSD. They’re looking for volunteers.”

His dad got an unhappy look on his face. “I don’t want to be a guinea pig.”

“But, if it works, not only would you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting better for free, but you might be helping prove out a treatment that could help a lot of other soldiers.”

“Fifty-fifty?”

Witt shrugged, “You might be in the placebo group.”

His dad frowned, “Seems like it’d be hard to hide whether the talk therapy in my group was the stuff that was supposed to make a difference.”

“Oh,” Witt said, taking a minute to grasp his dad’s objection. “Um, no, they’re not testing talk therapy… Well, everyone in the study gets talk therapy too, but what they’re testing is a drug. It’s easy to give placebo pills for that.”

“Something new they’ve invented?”

“No. An old street drug called MDMA. It’s…” he winced uncomfortably, “It’s popular for parties.”

His dad frowned, “Ecstasy?”

Witt nodded, realizing a cop would certainly know about the various drugs.

“Party drugs are supposed to cure PTSD?” his dad asked disbelievingly.

Witt gave him a steady look. “MDMA’s supposed to increase your empathy and friendliness as well as giving you a sense of inner peace. It also diminishes anxiety to let you feel more relaxed.” Witt tilted his head questioningly, “Those things sound good, right? And, I don’t think they give you as big a dose as you might take at a party. I’m assuming you get a low regular dose, just enough to change your attitude a little. Previous studies have found that people improve, and then stay that way long after they’re back off the drug.”

“If they’ve already done the studies, why’re they doing another one?”

“I think they’re trying different doses. Looking for one that works but doesn’t have as many side effects. Besides, everything in science bears repetition, right?”

“Sounds too good to be true. You know what they say about things that’re too good to be true?”

“They are too good to be true,” Witt said calmly. “But I thought you might want to sign up and see if this one’s just barely good enough to be true.”

His dad snorted. “I’ve missed your weird sense of humor. What’re you gonna do when you graduate? Become a comedian?”

“Nah. I’m only a little odd. Not funny enough to get a laugh.”

His dad looked at him for a moment, then said, “Seriously. What’re you planning to do?”

Witt shrugged. “I’ve got a scholarship to the U.”

His dad drew back and gave him an awed look. “That’s great! Does it pay for…?”

“Room and board? No. Just tuition and books. I was hoping I could live with mom, but that was before I found out how bad her financial situation was.”

“Oh. Shit. I’ve screwed you over, huh?”

Witt shrugged. “I’m gonna figure it out.”

His dad gave him a slow nod, “And I’m gonna do my best to help you.”

“So, can I sign you up for that study?”

His dad grinned, “You figure you’ve got a better chance of parental support if I get my shit together and keep it that way?”

Witt didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “I think you’re already compacting your shit into dense little bricks, but I think a little help… that’d be a good thing, rather than a bad one.”

“Okay. Send me a link and I’ll sign myself up.”

“Will do. Can I ask what you got the Navy Cross for?”

With a surprised expression, his dad asked, “How’d you hear about that?”

Witt shrugged, “It’s in with your clothes.”

His dad glanced at the box but didn’t open it to look at the contents. “…I kept some of the guys on my team from getting killed.” He shrugged, “They would’ve done the same for me.”

Probably at great risk to yourself, Witt thought, gaining even more respect for his dad for downplaying it. “Well, I’m proud of you for that, and for kicking the booze and getting your shit together.”

“The second one’s probably more important to you, huh?”

Witt grinned. “I cannot tell a lie.”

His dad studied him a moment, then said, “I’d like to ask you about the night you guys came over?”

“Um, sure,” Witt said uncomfortably, not at all sure where the conversation was about to go.

“When you shoved me—”

“Sorry,” Witt interrupted.

“Don’t be. From what I remember, I deserved it. But, I thought you moved awfully fast…?”

Oh, no! Witt thought, realizing people might not be as oblivious to how he moved in fast-time as he thought. Deciding to brazen it out, he said, “Um, you were pretty drunk. I think your memory of that night’s probably faulty. Don’t you?” He inserted a laugh he was afraid sounded fake. “No one’s ever thought I was quick before.”

His dad gave him an accusatory look. “I wasn’t athletic either… until I was about your age.”

“Um, what do you mean?” Witt asked worriedly. Does he know about my super speed? Does he know because I inherited it from him?

“Suddenly I was a lot faster,” his dad said. “Faster than kids who’d picked on me before then. I, um, got a lot of revenge once I realized.”

That didn’t sound like time-control to Witt. But maybe it’s related? he wondered. “Faster?” he prompted.

His dad said, “Yeah. When I got scared, it was like I sped up. I could dodge punches and hit people with impunity. After a while, it got to where I could do it without the fear thing. That’s when I started picking fights with the guys who’d tortured me in the past.” He stopped to give Witt a serious look, “Um, when you shoved me, you moved so fast it made me think you can do the same thing. Can you?”

Witt slowly nodded, both disappointed he wasn’t unique and comforted to have someone he could talk it over with. To make sure it truly was the same thing, he tentatively said, “The… uh, world kinda changes color when it happens to me.”

“Yeah!” his dad said enthusiastically. “It’s kind of the opposite of colorblind. I can see reds, greens, and yellows, but any of the bluish colors are almost gone. And the colors I can see are all messed up, right? The green of leaves turns red, right?”

Witt slowly nodded. He’d memorized the color changes with speed well enough to know that green to red was about 1.3X. Is that as fast as Dad can go? he wondered. Thoughtfully, he said, “Sometimes, when I’m really upset, even green leaves go dark. It’s like I’m in a dim forest. Does that ever happen to you?”

“No,” his dad said. “I wonder what that means?”

He hasn’t figured out why the colors change, Witt thought, wondering whether he should explain it. Not tonight, he decided, sitting forward and saying. “I’d love to talk about this some more, but I’d better be going before it gets too dark for my bike.”

His dad blinked, “Your mom didn’t let you take the car?”

Witt shrugged, “We’re really hard up for money. Besides, I’m going out for track and biking’s good exercise.”

“Sorry,” his dad said, looking ashamed.

“It’s okay,” Witt said, though it wasn’t. He gathered his dad into a hug, surprised to realize his dad was about an inch shorter than he was, though bulkier. He said, “I’m pretty sure you’re gonna keep getting better now, right?”

His dad gave him a hard squeeze, then leaned back to consider him. “I sure as hell intend to.” He frowned. “Um, about your moving in here. I’d love to have you; I just think I should prove to myself that I can stay on an even keel a while longer before you do. Okay?”

Witt nodded, feeling a little relieved.

“I’ll text you when I’m feeling sure, okay?”

“I hope it’s soon,” Witt said, as he headed for the door.

As Witt rode away, he thought, I guess I inherited this talent, but it’s different for me than my dad. He shrugged, We only look a little bit alike, after all. I guess it’d be even more surprising if this worked the same for both of us.

Thinking of what little he knew about inheritance from biology, he wondered, Could I have inherited some of my fast-time ability from Mom too? Is that why my version seems stronger than Dad’s?

Chapter Seven

Witt’s phone said he had a call from Jesse. He still felt pissed at Jesse for the way he’d treated Eva and considered ignoring the call. But, since he was at home, his phone would VOIP it over Wi-Fi so it wouldn’t cost him minutes. Reluctantly, Witt answered, “Hey Jesse.”

“Hey. Um, you know how we’ve been talking about buying some stuff?”

“What…?” Witt asked, a little surprised to have Jesse open a conversation without an insult.

“You know the stuff we were talking about? How we might… um, make some money?”

Is he talking about drugs? Witt wondered. We don’t want to buy any. We want to find the guys that sell them. Deciding Jesse might be talking around it ’cause Jesse typically thought the government had nothing better to do than to listen to everything he said, Witt cryptically replied, “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I found a guy who sells it and I’m set up to buy one, but I got to wondering whether I could buy it cheaper from his source.”

“Okaay.”

“So, you wanna come to meet him with me at four PM? You could help figure out where he buys it.”

Because he still felt pissed, Witt wanted to say no, but this was Jesse trying to help Witt, so he felt compelled to agree.

Jesse gave him an address and when he looked it up it turned out it’d be tight getting there in time. He downloaded the map data before leaving the apartment’s Wi-Fi and mounted his bike.

Witt got there in time without having to go to fast-time. When he arrived, Jesse was waiting on his bike. He impatiently waved Witt to come on and took off down the street without even saying hi.

Witt went a little into fast-time to catch up with him. “Hey, what’s the deal?!” he asked, irritated.

Jesse turned a corner hard, then said, “I was supposed to meet this guy at four, so we’re already late.”

“Why didn’t you have me meet you there?!”

“Didn’t wanna transmit the exact meeting place.”

Witt rolled his eyes. “What’s your plan?”

“We each buy a little smack, then, when the guy leaves, you fast-time follow him back to his base.”

“What’s smack?

“Heroin.”

“Aw, jeez.”

“What’d you want me to do, dumbshit, find a guy that sells sugar?”

“Do these guys really have a base?”

Slowing, Jesse shrugged. “This’s how we find out.” He pointed with his chin. “The red Mustang there.”

“We’re gonna ride up to him on bikes?”

“You think he’s gonna respect you more if you walk?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“What’re we gonna tell him you’re doing here, DimWitt?!”

Witt shrugged. “Making a connection for the future?”

All the fretting was for nothing. Witt didn’t think the guy in the Mustang gave a shit who they were. He wouldn’t have cared whether they had a pulse as long as they had money. The dealer spent a minute trying to get Jesse to pay more than they’d agreed, but when Jesse started to back out of the deal—after all this whole thing was just to find a dealer, which they’d already done, they didn’t need to complete the buy—the dealer gave in and sold him a tiny bag of powder for the quoted price.

He certainly didn’t care about Witt. He did glance at him when Jesse introduced him as a “potential future customer,” but Witt didn’t think the guy’d remember him. This guy’s partaking of his own product, Witt thought.

Witt had visions of hiding somewhere to wait for the guy to start back to his… if not “base,” what? Instead, as soon as they finished the transaction, the guy started his car and wheeled it around, taking off in the other direction.

Witt looked at Jesse and gave him a little wave goodbye, but Jesse said, “Speed me up and I’ll go with you.”

Though Witt was doubtful, putting both himself and Jesse and their two bikes into fast-time didn’t turn out to be difficult. Witt put on his biking headlight and handed Jesse a flashlight. Jesse quickly learned it was hard to hold a flashlight while riding. Witt didn’t want to tell him to hold it in his mouth because he didn’t like the idea of slobber all over his flashlight. I’ve gotta start packing a spare headlight, he thought again.

They’d wait until the Mustang turned a corner, or was otherwise about out of sight, then go to 200X fast-time and ride down to that spot. Though it shouldn’t have, it kept giving Witt a subliminal feeling of surprise to arrive at a corner and find the Mustang barely past the turn. Witt would lead them past the car and find a spot where he didn’t think anyone would see them reappear, then take them back to normal-time. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the Mustang to go past them and out of sight again.

After a few of these runs, Witt tried to talk to Jesse while they were riding their bikes in fast-time. Doing that, he encountered another “duh” obvious problem he should’ve seen coming. Witt was slightly behind Jesse and said something to him. Jesse ignored him. He shouted and Jesse still didn’t act as if he noticed. Witt rode up a little ahead of Jesse and yelled back at him. This time Jesse was looking at him and got a surprised expression. He said something back—but Witt couldn’t hear him either.

The sound doesn’t cross from one bubble to the other? he wondered with surprise. Then he realized, Of course it doesn’t. Not only does leaving the bubble and passing through the transition zone muffle the sound, but even if it’d be loud enough to hear, once it’s out between the bubbles it’d be moving so slowly we’d leave it behind! Hell, even if we weren’t riding bikes, it’d move so slowly, crossing from one bubble to the other, that you’d have to wait—seemingly forever—to hear it!

Wait, he thought, we were both in fast-time back in Jesse’s room the first time he helped me do experiments… We could hear each other then, couldn’t we? He thought about it and decided they’d definitely heard each other. But, how?!

He remembered he’d formed those bubbles by first forming one around himself, then extending it to Jesse when they were in contact, then they’d pulled apart… but maybe the bubbles still connected somehow? This time I formed a bubble around myself and my bike, then I formed a separate one around Jesse and his bike. He pictured the connected bubbles back in Jesse’s room as having a narrow fast-time conduit connecting them, along which sound waves could readily travel. However, he couldn’t think of a way to tell if such a conduit existed, or whether sound created in one bubble manifested in the other through some kind of physics he didn’t understand.

They rode on past the apparently stationary Mustang and pulled into an alley. When they went back to real-time, Witt explained his new sound/bubble theory, then tried intentionally forming connected bubbles. It only worked when he formed his own bubble, then extended it to surround Jesse and his bike.

Witt was about to try another experiment when Jesse said, “Hey, Mr. Science, we’d better look out of this alley before the Mustang goes out of sight and we lose track of it.”

Witt wanted to do the experiments because he thought they were more important, but Jesse’d spent his own cash on the smack and didn’t want to waste the investment. So, they stepped to the end of the alley and watched the Mustang.

The next time the Mustang disappeared, it was because it’d turned into a parking lot. When they arrived and went back to real-time, the dealer got out of his car and climbed into the back seat of an idling Suburban. “Those things are built like tanks,” Jesse observed.

I doubt it, Witt thought, though there was no question the big, black SUV had to be heavy. “What do you think’s going on in there?” he asked Jesse as they chained their bikes into a rack and, still in normal-time, walked slowly down toward the corner of the lot.

“I think the guy in the Suburban sits here, collecting cash and doling out product to his dealers for hours every day. I’ll bet, to stay off the cops’ radar, they do it in a different location each day.”

Witt felt dubious of Jesse’s assessment but didn’t express his doubts. “So, we’re supposed to rob the guy in the SUV?”

Jesse shrugged, “I don’t know. I thought we’d be following this guy to a warehouse full of drugs where there’d be pallets of cash.”

Glancing at Jesse out of the corner of his eye, Witt asked, “Really?”

Jesse shrugged again. “Movies probably aren’t the most reliable sources of information on how drug rings actually do business, but the Wikipedia article wasn’t all that informative either. You think we should rob the Suburban? Or, d’you think there’re a bunch of Suburbans around town and they’re all going to meet up at my proverbial warehouse full of drugs and pallets of cash?”

Witt shrugged. “I think I’ll have a fast-time walk around the tank to scope things out.”

“Take me with you!”

Witt stepped off the sidewalk and in between a couple of parked vans. Jesse came with him. After checking both ways for people that might have a line-of-sight into the opening between the vehicles, Witt took them into connected fast-time and put on his headlight.

Walking to the Suburban, Witt circled it, peering in the windows. The tinted windows blocked the light of his headlight well enough he could barely see into the interior. The windshield won’t be tinted, he thought, walking to the front. He glanced back at Jesse.

His friend was leaning right up against the window, hands cupped around his eyes and the flashlight as he tried to see in. Witt thought of telling Jesse that, since there wasn’t much light in the fast-time environment, shading his eyes wouldn’t help. Instead, he just said, “Hey, dumbass. Keep moving. You stand in one place for a while and they might notice a flicker.”

Jesse jumped, then calmed as he realized it wasn’t a big deal. Saying, “Couldn’t see shit anyway,” he sauntered to the front of the big SUV behind Witt.

In front of the SUV’s bumper, they moved from side to side, shining their lights through the windshield and trying to see what was going on. A big guy occupied the driver’s seat, blocking much of their view of the drug dealer, though Witt could tell the guy looked upset. The third man, the one behind the passenger seat looked… Evil, Witt decided.

His research had taught him that a lot of the people in drug rings treated their work much like an ordinary business. Yes, they were selling a product that ruined people’s lives. Yes, they often enticed people into addiction to that product. Yes, they sometimes brutally killed people who got in their way. But most of them got little joy out of hurting others, it was merely a part of the way they supported themselves and their families. Though the lower ranks of the organization, especially dealers, often partook of the drugs they sold, for the most part, the higher-ranked members avoided them.

But that man, Witt thought, studying the man with the nasty smile in the back seat of the SUV, likes hurting people. Witt thought the guy’d given their dealer some bad news and was savoring the man’s dismay. He’d read that one of the mid-ranks in some drug organizations was called a “lieutenant.” He didn’t know if the evil-looking guy in the right rear seat was a lieutenant or perhaps a “falcon,” the next rank below lieutenant on that scale. Or perhaps this drug ring didn’t use those designations at all. Witt found it easier to think of him with a label, so “lieutenant” was the one he assigned the guy.

Jesse said, “I’ll bet our dealer’s a user.”

No shit, Witt thought.

“And the profits on his sales weren’t enough to cover his consumption, so his boss is shorting him on product for next time.”

Ah, Witt thought. Aloud, he said “You’re probably right. You think they’re armed?”

“What’s it matter? We’ll be long gone before they could take a shot at us.”

Witt swallowed, He’s thinking we’re going to rob them now?! He jumped up in the air.

“What’re you doing?” Jesse asked.

“Trying to look down past the dashboard to see if any of those guys are holding weapons.”

Stepping on the bumper and climbing up on the Suburban’s hood, Jesse said, “Hey dipshit, you’re the one who told me the slow-world around us is locked in place because its molecules can’t move fast.”

Witt reached out to stop him, then realized Jesse was right. “Keep moving around,” was all he could think to say in an attempt to regain the high ground.

Jesse moved around, shining his flashlight into the recesses inside the vehicle. He looked back over his shoulder at Witt, “I can see all their hands and they’re not holding guns. They might have concealed ones though.”

Witt looked at the doors. “Looks like the doors are locked. We couldn’t get in anyway.”

“Come on, Wittless! We just wait till the dealer climbs back out.”

Jesse got down off the hood and started walking around to the rear of the vehicle. “Let’s go. We hide at the back and go back to fast-time. When the dealer opens the door, we haul him out, climb in, take the money, then high-tail it out of here.”

We’ll go back to “normal-time,” Witt thought pedantically but didn’t say. He knew what Jesse was saying and was only irritated because Jesse’d come up with what sounded like a reasonable plan and he hadn’t. He followed Jesse to the back where his headlight showed Jesse sitting on the back bumper. “Get off the bumper,” he said, squatting down himself.

“Why? They can’t feel it. They’re in slow-time.”

This time Witt decided he had an excuse to correct his friend. “They’re not in slow-time. They’re in normal-time or real-time. We’re in fast-time, which admittedly makes them slow compared to us, but you’re using sloppy terminology. We need to use the right words ’cause we want to be sure we say it right when it matters.”

Jesse was still on the bumper. He rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. They’re in real-time. They won’t feel it.”

Witt rolled his own eyes. “If brains were blades, yours’d be the dullest one in the kitchen. When we go back to real-time like they are, the weight of your fat ass is gonna sink the bumper and that’ll tip off the guys inside.”

Saying, “Shit!” Jesse slid off the bumper and crouched next to Witt. “Wittless, I just hate it when you’re right.”

“You must be hatin’ it all the time then,” Witt replied, sending them back to real-time.

Witt estimated they’d crouched there less than a minute when he started worrying someone had noticed them skulking around behind a drug dealer’s Suburban.

But then the door started opening and Witt took Jesse with him into fast-time.

When they walked up the left side of the SUV, Witt realized he should’ve waited a little longer before fast-timing it since the door was only open about a foot.

Jesse saw the problem too. “Are we gonna have to go back to normal-time until he finishes opening the door?”

“No,” Witt said, irritated with himself. “We’ll be able to open it if I extend my fast-time bubble around the door.” He did so, but the door still wouldn’t pull open because the dealer’s rigid arm had a grip on it. Witt extended his bubble far enough to include the guy’s hand and wrist and he tugged on the door again.

This time the handle pulled out of the guy’s fingers and the door came open, but now the dealer—still rigidly fixed in the seat, his left arm lifted and the right pushing down on the seat preparatory to getting out—pretty effectively blocked the opening all by himself.

Witt was kicking himself for not thinking it through when Jesse said, “Jeez, Wittless, you shoulda let this dude get all the way out before we went back to real-time.”

Pissed at himself, Witt tried to think of a cutting rejoinder.

Jesse said, “What? Can’t come up with a Witt-y reply?”

“No, just trying to think of a way to explain the solution at a level low enough for a dumbshit like you to understand it.” Then he dropped Jesse’s bubble so he wouldn’t have to listen to his friend’s bickering harassment while he figured out what he was going to do.

With a sigh, Witt extended his bubble around the guy’s left arm, up to include the shoulder. The arm—being temporally disconnected from the dude’s brain—softened and fell straight. He did the same with the guy’s right arm and voila, there was a path into the SUV, if you didn’t mind clambering over the dealer.

Before he got in, Witt dug under the dealer’s ass, pulling out his wallet. It was devoid of cash. He patted the guy down without feeling anything that seemed like it could be a weapon or a hidden wad of money.

Witt climbed up and across the man’s lap, sitting down on the bench seat between the dealer and the lieutenant. In Witt’s headlight, the head-on view of the lieutenant’s sneering smile looked even more malevolent. He looks like maliciousness personified, Witt mused. The lieutenant’s wallet had $1,257 in it. Witt took $1,255, leaving behind the two one-dollar bills.

When he patted the lieutenant down, he didn’t find any other cash beyond a few coins.

Could that be all he has? Witt wondered. I shoulda checked the dealer to see how much cash he had on him before he met with this guy. That would’ve given me a little better idea of how much the lieutenant should have. Witt realized it’d depend on how many other dealers the lieutenant had met with already, but if Jesse’s dealer had given the guy over thirteen hundred dollars, Witt could’ve been confident there had to be more money somewhere else in the SUV.

Witt started searching, looking under seats, in the console, in pockets on the backs of the passenger seats, and in door pockets. To his unease, the passenger side door pocket held a pistol. He wondered whether to take it to disarm the guy, but decided the lieutenant would just buy another.

Before he climbed into the front seat to check the driver and glove compartment, he realized something bothered him about the console. A lid-type door opened in the top of it—between the two front seats—but only into a shallow tray-type compartment. He couldn’t find any other way into the console even though it seemed pretty big for such a small compartment. He started tapping on all sides of the console, listening for an indication of hollowness…

Dumbass, he thought about himself and used his sixth sense—the one associated with time control that let him perceive the opposite side of things he was putting in fast-time—to explore the interior of the console. He could immediately tell another space lay beneath the shallow plastic tray that formed the compartment in the top of the console.

Witt started tugging up on the plastic tray, but it wouldn’t move. He sent his sense in around the box and could tell there was a little metal lever that locked into the side of the tray. The other end of the lever was under a finger-stained area in the fake leather covering the console. Witt pressed the latch through the fake leather while tugging upward on the box.

The plastic compartment readily lifted out.

The space beneath the visible compartment wasn’t full, but it had several stacks of bills in it.

Witt took out the cash and pinned it between his knees while he popped the plastic compartment back into place and closed its lid.

Now what? he wondered, concerned that he’d been between the two men long enough that they might become aware of him.

Climbing out over the dealer’s lap, he realized he didn’t have a good place to put the stacks of bills. He dithered a moment, then stuffed big wads of cash into the front pockets of his pants. Big enough he knew he’d look stupid if anyone got a good look at him. He still had a third wad in his left hand.

Shaking his head, Witt brought Jesse into fast-time with him. “Here,” he said, holding the stack of bills out to his friend even as he started striding toward his bike.

“Holy shit!” Jesse exclaimed, trotting a few steps before snatching the money out of Witt’s hand. “What happened? Is this my cut?”

“Yeah, that’s your cut. Let’s get outta here before something goes wrong.”

“How much is it?” Jesse asked, looking down and thumbing through the bills.

“I didn’t count it!” Witt replied. “Let’s focus on getting safe before we worry about what we got!”

“Come on! We’re as safe as could be!”

“Hey, asshole! What if my ability suddenly fails me?!” Witt stopped at his bike and bent to undo the combo lock on his chain.

Jesse stopped by his bike and started counting his money.

Witt took a moment to stuff all his cash into what he thought of as his backpack’s “hidden compartment,” though it was simply a zippered compartment positioned between his shoulder blades. A pickpocket would have to reach between his body and the backpack to get into it and it wasn’t visible if the backpack was on his back or laying on its straps. Therefore, Witt thought of it as a hidden pocket, even if it wasn’t fully concealed.

Shrugging into the straps of his backpack, Witt glanced over at Jesse.

The guy was on his knees, Witt’s flashlight in his mouth, sorting his bills into stacks of the various denominations.

“Jesse, dammit! If you don’t get your ass up and on that bike, I swear I’m leavin’ you here!”

Jesse looked up at him, a startled look on his face. He pulled out the flashlight. “Porcupine crawl up your ass?”

“You crawled up there, asshole. I’m not happy about stealing, even from criminals, but I’m far less happy about hanging around the scene of the crime. Let’s get the hell out of here!” To make sure Jesse understood he was serious, Witt got on his bike and started riding, thinking Jesse’d hustle when the source of his fast-time looked like it might vanish around the corner.

Just before he went around that corner, Witt looked back.

Jesse was still on his knees, sorting bills.

Furious, Witt turned the corner, hoping when Jesse realized Witt had actually left, it’d galvanize him.

With a sudden flash, the world was bright and colors were back to normal. Street noises were audible. Shit! I’m back in real-time! Witt realized. Did I lose my ability the way I threatened Jesse?! Or is it just that I’m around the corner or too far away? Or something else? The sound conducting conduit getting… what? Stretched? Bent? Distorted?

His eyes widened when he realized the building was the first thing to fully block the line of sight to a bubble he’d extended. I’ll bet it broke the conduit and breaking the conduit broke fast-time in both bubbles, he thought, feeling somehow certain the explanation was correct though it still needed confirmation by experiment.

Oh, God! Jesse’s in real-time too, Witt thought, skidding to a stop and dropping the bike. Wanting to put Jesse back in fast-time where he’d be safer from the druggers, Witt tried to “sense” his friend as he ran back to the corner. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel like his time-related sense could stretch that far.

Witt skidded to a stop at the corner and peered around it but Jesse wasn’t visible! Where the hell could the idiot have gone?! he wondered, his eyes darting wildly about. He lowered himself to his belly so he could look under the cars in the lot. A moment later he saw Jesse’s red sneakers pattering along as if his friend was running in a crouch. Maybe Jesse broke the link, ducking down behind a car, Witt thought, trying to assuage his guilt for going around the corner.

Witt was wondering what the hell Jesse was doing between the cars when a hand dropped into view and grabbed something. Oh, shit! Witt thought, realizing the breeze in real-time must’ve blown away some of Jesse’s money and he was chasing it. For a moment Witt’s mind derailed onto thoughts about whether they ever felt the wind in fast-time. He couldn’t remember ever feeling even a gentle breeze. Probably, he decided, because air movements in the real-time world around us get damped out as the air molecules cross the transition zone into our bubbles. When Jesse was on his knees, sorting bills, the ones in his hands were in his fast-time bubble, but the ones he’d set on the ground were out there in real-time…

Oh! No! Because he couldn’t extend his bubble to incorporate the entire bill the way I can, the molecules at the other end of the bill would be stuck in position within real-time! If he got a hold of one end of a bill and pulled on it, it’d just rip away from the far end because those molecules would be stuck in the slower real-time!

Witt pictured Jesse’s growing consternation as he tried but failed to pick up the bills he’d set down. The wind wasn’t blowing them away, Witt suddenly realized, he just couldn’t pick them up! And, probably, just as he tried to yell at me for help, I went around the corner and the conduit broke so I couldn’t hear him.

In horror, Witt wondered what he’d been trying to prove, running out on his friend when danger lurked nearby?! It shouldn’t’ve mattered that Jesse was acting like an asshole!

Then, when the conduit broke, Jesse was in real-time and then the breeze did blow away some of his money. And, instead of coming after me, Jesse started chasing it!

Witt’s woolgathering came to an abrupt end at the sound of three loud bangs—a moment later he recognized them as reports from a pistol.

When he looked in that direction, he saw the dealer stumbling out of the Suburban. The guy staggered a couple of steps, then, looking surprised, collapsed to the ground.

The evil-looking lieutenant stepped out of the SUV behind the dealer. As he got past the end of the door, he pivoted and the weapon swung toward the end of the parking lot that Witt and Jesse were in.

The gun barked again…

The world went dark except for a small area of light.

Did I just get shot? Witt wondered. No, I’m back in fast-time, he realized, and the light’s coming from the headlight I never turned off. I should’ve been in fast-time as soon as I realized we had a problem! How in God’s name am I not smart enough to jump into fast-time as soon as things go to hell? Am I always gonna have to wait for a damned panic reaction to do it for me?!

Witt gave his head a sharp shake to stop the recriminations so he could move on to solving problems. I’ve gotta get Jesse outta here! He turned trying to see where his friend was but Jesse wasn’t visible. Hiding, crouching to chase bills, or too far away to see in the weak beam of this damned headlight? Witt wondered.

He tried to think where he’d seen Jesse’s feet, but in the dim lighting, he wasn’t sure of his orientation to the parking lot. A feeling of panic rose in his gut.

Witt took a couple of deep breaths, telling himself to calm the hell down. I’m in fast-time. There’s plenty of time to figure this out.

Witt turned in the direction he thought Jesse was in and walked to the closest car. He started walking down the row of vehicles, turning his light between each pair to check for Jesse. Just as he was getting frustrated with his lack of progress, he found Jesse crouched low between two vehicles.

Witt stepped closer and extended his bubble out around his friend. “Let’s get outta here!” he said, turning back toward the bikes.

“Huhnnn…!” Jesse grunted.

When Witt turned to look at his buddy, Jesse’d sunk even further toward the ground. Witt stepped back so he could see between the cars and found Jesse on his knees, hands gripping his left side. “Jesse! What happened?!”

“Dunno…” he grunted.

Witt stepped to him and pulled his hands away. His headlight showed a small hole in Jesse’s shirt, on the left side, just below the ribs. That fourth shot hit him! It wasn’t bloody, but Witt was pretty sure some bad wounds didn’t bleed to the outside. Besides, it’d only been seconds for Jesse, Witt realized. His guts clenched. The lieutenant was about sixty feet away and hadn’t taken time to aim.

Witt hadn’t thought the bastard could’ve hit anything, but…

DO SOMETHING, DAMMIT! Witt mentally shouted at himself.

Suddenly, Jesse was in slow-time.

Now I’ve got scads of time to figure this out, Witt told himself and took another deep breath to calm down. Going off half-cocked is not what’s best for Jesse. For a moment his mind looped back into recriminations regarding what he should’ve done, but he managed to crush those thoughts once again. Fix it first, then self-flagellate, he told himself.

Wait, first figure out what happened, Witt thought. He tried to picture the world back when they returned to real-time. The lieutenant and the dealer would’ve been feeling a sudden jerk from when Witt moved them around to search their pockets. Aw, shit! Witt thought, realizing he hadn’t put the lieutenant’s wallet back in his pocket. He probably sensed its absence under his butt about the same time he saw it lying on the bench seat beside him. When he checked it and found it empty, he blamed the dealer, pulled the gun out of the side pocket, and shot the poor bastard for stealing.

Trying to get away, the dealer stumbled out of the SUV.

The lieutenant got out too, then Jesse’s movements distracted him. Maybe he saw Jesse was chasing bills and decided he must’ve had something to do with the robbery. Or maybe he was just on edge. He snapped off a shot at Jesse and, since he took no aim, hit him pretty much by accident.

The lieutenant’s pissed, Witt thought, and it’s gonna get worse when he realizes the stash in the console’s gone.

My first priority should be getting Jesse to a hospital, Witt decided. He almost panicked, remembering how—in his room on the day of their first experiments—he couldn’t move Jesse when his friend was in real-time while Witt was in fast-time. But, he thought, since he might be bleeding, I have to keep Jesse in slow-time!

Moments later Witt remembered that the reason he hadn’t been able to move real-time Jesse when Witt was in fast-time was because the almost stationary real-time air surrounding Jesse blocked Jesse from being moved at fast-time speeds until Witt put Jesse himself in fast-time and he had a transition bubble. But, Witt knew for certain that a chunk of slow-time could be moved around at real-time speeds when the surrounding air was also in real-time. Witt knew this because he’d made those big slow-time shields in his living room and been able to move them around in real-time air—except when he locked them into the floor structure.

Witt almost dropped himself out of fast-time, thinking he’d just pick his slow-timed friend up, throw him over a shoulder and start carrying him to the hospital. He stopped just in time, a shiver running over him as he thought, You’re such an idiot! The lieutenant’s still got a gun pointed this direction! We go to real-time and he’ll probably fire again, hitting me this time!

Witt stood, thinking things through the way he should’ve a while ago. Then reminding himself that—with Jesse in 0.00002X slow-time—it’d take almost fourteen hours of real-time for another second to pass for Jesse, Witt thought through each step a second time.

Having an “oh shit” moment, he slowly turned, searching the area for CCTV cameras that might’ve recorded what’d happened so far and could be about to record what he did next. He didn’t see any but felt worried enough to do another visual search, carefully looking at all the shops to be sure they didn’t have cameras facing the parking lot. If there were, they were inside the shops, not out on the eaves. He considered going over and checking them from up close, but couldn’t bring himself to take the time—even though in fast-time he essentially had unlimited time, he’d wind up exhausted.

That done, he turned and walked back across the parking lot to the Suburban.

Step one, deal with the lieutenant, Witt thought, so he can’t shoot us again when we go back to real-time.

Witt shone his light on the pistol and found the safety. He expanded his bubble around the drug dealer’s two-handed grip on the gun and, pulling his sleeves down over his fingers to keep from leaving prints, he clumsily put the gun on safe. Next, he pulled the pistol out of the lieutenant’s hands. It took him a minute to figure out how to drop the magazine out of the butt of the pistol, then he racked the slide to pop the chambered bullet out. Next, he stepped back over and popped the bullets out of the magazine into the seatback pocket of the big SUV. He put the magazine back in the gun and dropped it back into the very back of the Suburban for the cops to find when they arrived.

They’re gonna wonder why the gun and its bullets are in different locations, Witt thought, but the gun will have been recently fired, its ballistics will match the slugs in the dealer, and the prints will match the lieutenant. That’s as good as I can do, ’cause I’m not leaving these bastards with a loaded weapon. Hopefully, they’ll assume he fired all the bullets in the gun and tossed it in the back when it went empty.

Standing back up, Witt re-extended his bubble around the lieutenant’s left hand, then started bending the guy’s fingers back one at a time until each knuckle unnervingly popped out of joint. That done, he turned to the other hand and did the same.

The guy’s hands looked so grotesque when Witt got done that—even though he thought the guy deserved it—Witt couldn’t help squeamishly averting his eyes.

Step two, Witt thought. Check to make sure Jesse’s still in slow-time. Witt did not want to realize that while dealing with the other steps he’d let his friend’s protective bubble lapse again.

To his relief, when he turned his attention to Jesse’s bubble, he could tell it was still working.

Step three. The dealer’s a criminal but also a victim. He probably doesn’t deserve to die.

Witt stepped over to study the dealer. When he and Jesse had been making a deal with the guy, he’d seemed an older, more experienced man. Now, the expression on his face made him look like a scared kid. He had three holes in the right side of his shirt, all chest-high, two of them tinged with blood already. Aw, shit! Those look bad! Witt thought with dismay, wondering whether there was some way to put him in slow-time and personally carry him to a hospital the way he was planning to do for Jesse. Witt decided there was no way he could keep two people on his bike much less take them to a hospital on it.

For now, he put the guy in slow-time.

Step four. Check on Jesse’s bubble again.

It was okay.

Step five. Do something about the lieutenant’s driver.

Witt assumed the burly-looking driver didn’t just drive, but also helped strong-arm people. If Witt returned to real-time, even if his boss the lieutenant was down, the guy might come after Witt and Jesse.

Witt extended his fast-time bubble around the left front door of the Suburban. Reaching in through the open back door, Witt lifted the door’s lock-knob. Stepping around to the driver’s door, he opened it and assessed the situation. Of course, there was no way to tell whether the big guy was just doing a job or was a horrible human being like the lieutenant.

Witt started patting down the driver. He didn’t think he’d find a lot of cash but thought a lot of weapons would indicate a not-so-nice human being. The guy was packing alright. A pistol and a couple of knives. However, he didn’t have much money. More interesting, the driver had a set of handcuffs in a little holster on the back of his belt. Something like a cop might have. What for? Witt wondered. Kidnapping people and taking them somewhere for torture or killing, was the uneasy answer that came to mind. Witt had no proof, but the idea somehow resonated with truth.

The cuffs did solve a problem for Witt. He got them out and spent a minute figuring out how they worked by putting one on the big guy’s left wrist. Then he sped up the guy’s arms so they’d be flexible, and passed them between the spokes of the steering wheel. There, he applied the other cuff to the driver’s right wrist.

Pulling his sleeve down over his fingers, he pulled the keys out of the ignition and gave them a hard throw out across the parking lot, keeping the bubble on them until they skidded under a car. He tossed the handcuff key after them.

Witt stood for a moment, thinking and trying to be sure these guys couldn’t do him any harm when he went back to real-time. With a start, he wiped down the shiny surfaces of the cuffs on the likelihood he’d left partial prints. Same for the door handle. He didn’t think anything else he’d touched looked like it’d hold a print, but he wiped down the console anyway.

Finally, he moved on to step six and checked Jesse’s slow-time bubble again.

Still okay.

Step seven was an add-on to try to save the dealer. He dug the guy’s phone out of his pocket, interested in the fact that his fast-time bubble let him reach into the slow-time bubble surrounding the dealer to get the phone.

Witt stepped around to the other side of a neighboring car, a Ford Escape. When he pressed the wake button on the phone, it lit right up since it was inside the big bubble around Witt’s hands. As he expected, without the guy’s password the only active feature was a call to 911, but that was all he needed. When Witt dialed it, he got a “no service” message because the phone was in fast-time. Idiot! He thought of himself.

Witt went back to real-time. The world lit up and got noisy again. No sirens yet. Insufficient real-time had passed, so far, for anyone to have even started making an emergency call. Witt checked again to be sure Jesse and the dealer were still in slow-time, then dialed 911 again. This time he had service and it went through. When they answered, he pitched his voice high and said, “There’s been a shooting! Someone’s down!” Then he started rubbing his thumb back and forth over the phone’s microphone. He hoped to make the operator think there was something wrong with the connection when Witt didn’t answer questions.

He set the phone down on the Escape’s bumper so it would continue transmitting GPS to the emergency services people.

Next, he went to fifty-percent fast-time and chanced a look around the back corner of the Escape, wanting to see what was going on over at the Suburban.

The lieutenant had dropped to his knees, cursing and staring in horror at his dislocated fingers. In the front seat, the driver was heaving up and down and back and forth, as if he thought he could jerk the handcuffs right through the spokes on the steering wheel.

Witt decided not even a big and burly guy like that could break a spoke. He was pretty sure they had stout steel beneath the plastic shell.

Witt went back to real-time and picked up the dealer’s phone, wiping it to remove any prints and then sliding it on the pavement so it fetched up against the dealer’s hip, still turned on and transmitting GPS. He could still hear the tinny voice of the 911 operator shouting questions.

Step eight. Witt went back to fast-time and walked over to stand at the corner beyond which lay his bike. Taking a deep breath, he focused on maintaining Jesse and the dealer in slow-time while he made a dash to get his bike and ride it back around the corner.

It didn’t work. When he got back around the corner, they were both real-time. This supported his line-of-sight theory. Even though he was in fast-time, Witt couldn’t keep himself from frantically riding his bike the rest of the way back over to Jesse. There he quickly put Jesse in slow-time again. Taking a deep breath, he rode over to the dealer and put him back in slow-time too.

Riding back over to Jesse, Witt wondered how the hell he was going to load Jesse onto the bike. Maybe I should just call an ambulance for Jesse too? he wondered. I could keep him in slow-time until the paramedics get here. He shook his head. That can’t be as good as staying in slow-time until you’re in the Emergency Department, he decided.

Time for careful thought again, Witt decided, pondering the problem while studying Jesse and the bike. He stuck the front wheel of the bike between the vertical bars of the rack. They held it almost perfectly vertical. Next, he carefully thinned the slow-time bubble around Jesse until it didn’t even extend out of his skin and into his clothes. This eliminated the pillowy, sticky characteristics of the bubble and made him easier to grip. More importantly, it’d prevent Jesse’s slow-time bubble from incorporating pavement and locking Jesse down so he couldn’t be moved when Witt was back in real-time.

He took the wad of cash out of Jesse’s hand and put it in the hidden pocket in his backpack.

While thinking about what a stupid-ass move it would’ve been to deliver Jesse to the ED (Emergency Department) with a wad of cash in his hand, he suddenly imagined the nurses at the hospital finding the little baggie of heroin in one of Jesse’s pockets. Shit! Witt searched Jesse’s pockets until he found it. Then searched them some more to make sure his buddy wasn’t carrying anything else embarrassing. He found a condom in Jesse’s wallet. Old enough that the wrapper had cracked and failed, but it’d still be embarrassing if the nurses handed the wallet over to his mom. Taking the smack and the condom over to stuff them deep into the trash can next to the bike rack, Witt endured a little shiver.

Now the issue was how to move Jesse without the lieutenant and his heavy seeing it. Even though he’d disabled the druggers, Witt worried they might notice Witt and Jesse. They might decide Witt and Jesse had been involved in stealing the money, and somehow seek revenge in the future. At worst, they might somehow harm Witt and Jesse right now, even though Witt couldn’t see how that’d be possible.

Besides, passersby might get weirded out and try to say or do something.

Witt decided the best strategy was to go to 20X fast-time when he moved Jesse. He wouldn’t be moving so fast as to be blurred to invisibility, but it’d be difficult to tell what he was doing or to recognize him later. And moving Jesse twenty times faster than normal shouldn’t be impossible.

Even though he’d felt sure it’d work, Witt still felt relieved when he was able to move Jesse. That quickly turned to frustration when moving him 20X faster than normal turned out to be more work than he’d expected. It felt like he was trying to haul a dead body around in a swimming pool. Also, nothing made Jesse any lighter, and just dragging Jesse to the rack in normal-time would’ve been difficult since Jesse weighed as much as Witt.

The mere fact that he could move his friend, did not, however, mean that he could get him on the bike. Witt’s bike had a small “luggage carrier” behind the seat, a thing intended for strapping on objects the size of books. Witt had been thinking he could straddle Jesse on the luggage carrier but Jesse’s legs weren’t well-positioned for it.

After some thought, Witt put Jesse’s legs and hips—essentially Jesse from the waist down—in fast-time while leaving his upper body in slow-time. Then he heaved Jesse up off the ground and got him vertical. Kicking his legs out to the sides, he slid Jesse’s crotch onto the luggage rack, trying not to think about how uncomfortable it would’ve been if Jesse hadn’t been in slow-time. He wiggled his friend around a little to square him up, then put his legs back in slow-time.

The problem was that Jesse’s feet were on the ground which wouldn’t be tenable once Witt started riding the bike. But, they were propping the bike up, necessary since, when they’d been flexible, Jesse’s weight had threatened to twist the bike loose from the rack.

Crap! Witt thought, going back to 400X to think. He scratched his head and wondered whether transporting Jesse was going to be possible.

Just on the verge of giving up, Witt had a eureka moment. He began by calling himself a dumbshit for not having done it already. Then he put the front half of the bike and the bike rack, in a big bubble of 0.00002 slow-time that extended deep into the pavement. This essentially welded them together and eliminated the issue of balancing the bike in a rideable vertical position.

Next, straightening Jesse on the bike, he extended the bubble of slow-time out of Jesse’s crotch and down into the bike rack and frame, locking them together, so the bike held Jesse in a vertical position.

Then, he put Jesse’s right leg back into 20X fast-time so he could bend it up off the ground. At first, this didn’t work because he hadn’t included the hip joint. Somewhat queasily, he used his new sense to figure out where the joint was so he could fast-time the joint and enough of the surrounding tissue to allow him to bend up the hip, knee, and ankle, thus fixing Jesse’s foot in space about eight inches off the ground.

He did the same with the other leg, then stepped back to look at his handiwork. Jeez, that looks uncomfortable, he thought. He closed his eyes and reminded himself that, as deep in slow-time as Jesse was, his time on the back of the bike would feel like less than a second.

Witt struggled a moment, trying to mount the bike. He was having a hard time getting his leg across the upper tube that joined the front and back of the bike. Normally he swung a leg over the back end of the bike to get on, but Jesse was in the way. After a moment’s struggle, he reminded himself that everything was solidly locked in place so he didn’t have to worry about balancing the bike. Keeping this in mind, he climbed up onto the bar, holding onto Jesse and various parts of the bike—parts that, if they’d been in normal-time would’ve twisted about—then lowered himself back down with a leg on each side of the seat.

Next, he thought, thinking through the problem.

Reaching back, he grabbed Jesse’s right hand, then, putting his friend’s arm in 20X fast-time with himself, he pulled it loosely around his own waist, then put it back in slow-time. He did the same with the left arm. At first, he’d been thinking they’d need to grip Witt’s body tightly enough to keep Jesse from falling off. That would’ve been a problem with Witt’s backpack separating their bodies somewhat. But, now that Jesse’s crotch is solidly welded to the bike, Witt thought, they just need to look like they’re holding him on, so people don’t wonder why he isn’t falling off.

Bracing his feet, Witt released the chunk of slow-time that was locking the front of the bike to the bike rack and pavement. Jesse’s weight made the whole thing feel clumsy as Witt pushed back out of the rack and slowly turned the bike around. With a little push, he lifted his feet to the pedals and rode the bike over to the corner of the building and stopped.

Backing and jacking the bike around, he worked it partway back around the corner, maintaining line of sight to the dealer he was keeping in slow-time. At that point, he went to real-time to wait for the ambulance—which otherwise would take forever to arrive. He formed a big chunk of 0.00002 slow-time to lock the back of the bike into the pavement so he wouldn’t have to hold it up.

Getting out his phone, Witt used some of his precious data to download a route to the nearest hospital ED.

Then, uneasily, he used his new sense to follow the course the bullet had taken in Jesse’s body. His strange sense had no trouble detecting and tracking the damaged tissue along the path the bullet had followed. It’d entered Jesse’s side, punched a hole through a structure about the size of a fist, and stopped in the tissues of his back—Witt didn’t know what it’d gone through, but thought the tissue where it stopped was muscle.

Lotta good it does to have tracked the bullet, Witt thought. I don’t even know what that structure the bullet went through is called! Wait. Maybe I can tell if Jesse’s bleeding internally?

That seemed important, so Witt spent a little time searching Jesse’s insides with his sense but quit when he realized that, since he didn’t know what was supposed to be inside the human body, he didn’t know what wasn’t supposed to be there either—except for the track of the bullet and the bullet itself. He felt sure they weren’t supposed to be there. But, whether some of the stuff he sensed was blood or not, he had no clue. I’d need to go to med school before this sense could be useful for evaluating people’s injuries, he thought.

Hearing sirens, Witt turned his attention back to what was going on out near the Suburban. The lieutenant seemed to have gotten back in the vehicle but the door remained open. Witt hoped he was having a hard time closing the door with his injured hands. It seemed pretty unlikely that they’d be able to drive away or even call someone else in the drug ring for help so Witt figured they’d still be there when the cops arrived.

Several cop cars arrived and pulled to a stop at the edge of the lot.

Someone near the edge of the parking lot pointed them toward the Suburban. Cops wearing body armor got out and started working their way between the cars, crouching low as they did so. One pulled out a megaphone and started talking at the Suburban.

An ambulance rounded a corner. Its flashing lights were on and it blipped its siren before it entered the street but then it pulled to a stop. Ah, they’re not gonna get near until the police have made sure the shooter’s neutralized, Witt realized. I’m gotta be here a while longer if I’m gonna do the dealer any good.

Witt couldn’t hear the druggers’ part of the conversation well enough to know what they were saying, but after a little back and forth, the lieutenant got out of the SUV holding up his deformed hands. A couple of cops, guns drawn, approached from the left rear quarter, keeping the lieutenant between themselves and the driver.

Then one of them opened the driver’s door and looked inside.

More cops approached.

Witt wished he could hear the conversation as he tried to picture the druggers’ explanation for how they got into their predicament. Partly because he thought their story might be hilarious and partly because he might someday need to know what they said.

A few minutes later, the ambulance pulled up near the Suburban. Its crew got out and approached the dealer.

Witt let the guy go back to real-time and pushed off on his bike. He grunted as he started pedaling against the increased weight and thought, Oh, this’s gonna be a pain in the ass!

~~~

The last block to the hospital was an uphill grade. Even though it wasn’t steep, in combination with everything else that’d happened, it left Witt feeling exhausted. He rode right up to the big sliding doors, repeatedly screaming, “Help!” Stopping, he tilted the bike to the right and twisted to cast his left arm back around Jesse before bringing him into real-time.

As Witt tried to kick his left leg free of the bike and hold Jesse up at the same time, he kept screaming for help.

Jesse gasped, then groaned, “What the hell’s happening?!”

Finally kicking his leg free of the bike, Witt leaned close to Jesse’s ear and said, “You got shot. I put you in slow-time and brought you to the closest hospital. I’m gonna tell your Mom we were in the area trying to buy more Eve of Destruction tickets from a scalper, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jesse groaned. “Shiiit, it hurts!”

A nurse came out and asked Witt what was going on. When he told her Jesse’d been shot, she called for a stretcher and more help.

Several people poured out and started taking Jesse away from Witt and loading him on the stretcher.

As they rolled Jesse away, loudly asking him questions, the nurse who’d come out first turned to Witt. “So, what happened?”

Looking after his friend, Witt heard Jesse say, “We were trying to get concert tickets and some asshole started shooting…

Witt turned to the nurse and began, “We heard a guy downtown had tickets to EOD, but there was a shooting in a parking lot near where we were supposed to meet him. I think a stray bullet hit Jesse.”

“And, instead of calling an ambulance, you loaded him on your bike?!” she asked incredulously.

“I, uh, I was afraid the shooters might keep shooting,” Witt improvised. Then he had a better idea. “Besides, I’ve heard ambulances won’t come into areas with active shooters, so this seemed faster.”

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then gave him a nod and went on with her questions.

Witt was dreading having to call Jesse’s family to tell them what’d happened, but the nurse said she had to call Jesse’s mom to ask about his medical history. To Witt’s relief, this meant she took the phone number from Witt and spared him the agony of calling with bad news.

But he still had to call his mom…

~~~

Witt was sitting miserably in the waiting room. His thoughts swirled in circles from one unpleasant thing to the next. He worried about how Jesse was doing, but since he wasn’t a relative, no one would tell him anything. Second, he wondered how better to deal with his own mom who’d seemed suspicious of the story he gave her. Third, he self-flagellated for riding away from Jesse during a dangerous situation.

Other random worries rose and fell. Eventually, he’d find himself back to worrying about how Jesse was doing.

“Witt!” someone said.

Witt looked up. It was Jesse’s mom, staring down at him with a panicked look on her face. There’s another problem to sweat about, he thought, standing and uncertainly wondering what to say. “Um, hi, Ms. Caldwell,” he’d began tentatively but she cut him off by throwing her arms around him.

“You’re okay?!” she asked.

Witt nodded.

“How’s Jesse doing?!”

Witt sniffed disconsolately and wiped his eye, “They won’t tell me anything ’cause I’m not related.” He pointed, “That nurse’s pretty nice. I’m pretty sure she’ll tell you what’s going on.”

Saying, “Come with me,” Ms. Caldwell headed that way.

~~~

To Witt’s dismay, they said they’d taken Jesse to surgery because the bullet hit his kidney—thus kindly naming the fist-sized organ the bullet had gone through.

They said his kidney was bleeding a lot and they hoped to put it in a mesh bag to stop the bleeding. He’d be in surgery and/or recovery for the next several hours.

Jesse’s mom tried to get Witt to go home and study, but he pled an inability to concentrate while worrying about Jesse. Witt felt ill at ease over the fact that he had a selfish motive. He wanted to be aware of and try to explain any discrepancies between his story and Jesse’s.

Jesse’s dad and his older brother arrived a little later. They all sat around the waiting room in a kind of anxious boredom. Witt felt like the family’s fifth wheel but they seemed to appreciate his presence.

When they asked what’d happened, he kept it basic, claiming to know very little except that the guy with the EOD tickets was supposed to be near the parking lot where Jesse got shot.

Then he started worrying that there was a CCTV camera inside one of the shops. One that would show them and their bikes suddenly just appear at the edge of the lot, then Witt’s bike leave with both of them on it. That’d prove Witt and Jesse weren’t just passing by when Jesse got shot.

Wait, he thought. Surely the druggers wouldn’t do business in a parking lot monitored by CCTV. They must’ve checked for cameras already.

Just as Witt started to relax, he had another thought. Shit! Jesse’s bike’s still chained to the bike rack at the parking lot!

Abruptly grabbing his backpack and standing, Witt said, “I’m gonna go get Jesse’s bike before somebody steals it.”

The Caldwells protested, saying the bike wasn’t worth it. They wanted Witt to stay safe because if Jesse could get shot in the afternoon, there was no telling what might happen at dusk.

Edging toward the exit from the waiting room, Witt protested. “I’m just gonna run down, jump on his bike and hustle back here. I won’t be down there long enough to get in any trouble. Besides, riding’s good training for track.”

“No, Witt,” Jesse’s dad said, in the authoritative tone of an adult speaking to a kid about to do something foolish. “We’re responsible to your parents for you, so—”

Jesse’s brother Ron abruptly interrupted, standing and saying, “I’ll run him down there and we’ll throw the bike in the back of my SUV. That way we won’t have to go look for it tomorrow. It’ll probably be long gone by then.”

Jesse’s dad looked like he was about to protest, but Ron strode out of the waiting room, curtly saying, “Come on, Witt.”

Witt turned and followed while the going was good. He’d never liked Ron but at that moment he could’ve kissed the guy for his help in this escape. And then kicked him for coming along since he’d be able to report back on where the bike’d been located.

As they walked down the long hall to the hospital’s entrance, Witt said, “Ron, no need for you to come along. I can get it, no problem.”

Ron gave him side-eye. “Witless, I know you’ve gotten yourself caught up in one of my brother’s asinine schemes. I owe Jess for… some help he gave me. Let me help you erase the evidence of whatever stupid shit you guys were involved in.”

Witt stared at him, not sure how to react. “Um…”

Ron rolled his eyes, “Don’t waste time protesting your innocence.” He cocked his head, “Or at least don’t waste time trying to tell me the Jess-ass is innocent. From what he tells me of how gullible you are, I suppose you could be blameless.”

Witt blinked, “Jess-ass?” Why didn’t I think of that?

He didn’t argue further.

~~~

When Ron’s beat-up old RAV-4 arrived at the parking lot, pylons and police tape cordoned off the central portion. Some cops stood around the edge of the crime scene while crime investigators went over the Suburban.

Witt had hoped the police weren’t very interested in internecine drug shootings and would be gone by now. Oh, he realized. There’s stuff they can’t figure out, so they’re going all out. They want every last bit of evidence they can gather.

Realizing that the lieutenant’s dislocated fingers had probably drawn a lot of interest, Witt thought, I shouldn’t’ve been so… flamboyant. Next time, not that there’s ever gonna be a next time, I’ll try to make things look… more ordinary. Well, ordinary for whatever went down anyway.

Ron had to park a block and a half away since cop cars, unmarked cars, and curious bystander vehicles had sucked up all the spaces.

Witt considered running ahead to the bike. He wanted to get the chain off it before Ron saw it locked to the rack—thus giving the lie to the idea they’d just been riding by when Jesse got shot. He was still dithering about this, when Ron said, “You go get the bike. I’m gonna ask the cops what happened. Meet you back at the Toyota.”

“No problem,” Witt said, trying not to show his relief.

~~~

On their way back to the hospital, Witt asked, “What’d the cops tell you?”

“It was some kind of drug war,” Ron said. “Other than that, they didn’t say shit.” He glanced over at Witt. “Give it to me straight. Was my brother tryin’ to score some drugs?”

Giving Ron a wide-eyed stare, Witt said, “No way!”

Witt didn’t think Ron bought it.

Chapter Eight

Monday was a lost day at school because Witt’s mind was far away. Constantly distracted by random thoughts and “shoulda dones” about what’d happened the day before, Witt couldn’t pay attention in class. He especially worried that his mother was going to see through his story about how they’d been down there trying to buy concert tickets when Jesse got shot at random.

His focus was so poor that, while he was tutoring the girls, he kept losing his train of thought. After he got lost in the middle of yet another explanation, Rachel touched his arm and, with concern asked, “Are you okay?”

“What? Yeah. Of course,” he said, flustered. “Why?”

“Um, your explanations are all… muddy and confusing. We’re here ’cause you normally make things so clear, but it’s obvious you’re having trouble today. Something’s gotta be bothering you.”

Witt glanced at Cinna and she gave a serious nod, confirming what Rachel’d said.

Shit! You’ve gotta get your act together! Witt told himself. You need the money from these tutoring sessions! For a moment he thought about telling them how he’d been with Jesse when he got shot, something everyone seemed to have heard about. But if people didn’t know he’d been there, he didn’t want it to become common knowledge.

“Yeah, sorry,” Witt said slapping his own face. “I had a bad day yesterday but right now I’m gonna focus on your problems.” He reached out to point at the problem they were working on and get back to the discussion.

Rachel touched his arm. “What happened?” she asked sympathetically.

He shook his head. “Not at all your problem. I shouldn’t’ve let it distract me. Just let me focus on your calculus issues. That’ll take my mind off my petty ass troubles.”

He managed to maintain his focus for the rest of the tutoring session and hoped he managed to be helpful to them. When they stood to leave, Rachel gave him another kiss on the cheek, this one soft. She quietly said, “I hope your troubles fade quickly away.”

He watched her walk away, wondering whether something more than tutoring was going on. She is really cute, he thought.

***

As soon as his last class was over, Witt bolted out of school, grabbed his bike, and hightailed it to the hospital. Last night he and Jesse hadn’t been able to say much to one another because Jesse’s parents were always around. Besides, the drugs they’d given Jesse for his surgery left him kinda loopy.

Today he hoped to get there before Jesse’s mom and dad got off work so he could go over the story with Jess.

To his relief, when he entered Jesse’s room, his friend was alone. “How much time do we have?” Witt quickly asked, wondering whether Jesse knew when his parents might arrive.

“How the hell did I get shot?” Jesse responded in an angry and suspicious tone.

“Oh, shit! Jesse!” Witt said realizing he should recognize his friend’s injury. “Sorry. How are you doing?”

“Sore and irritable. Since you have the ultimate protection spell, I’m wondering just how the hell I got shot?”

“Um, sorry. Do you remember you were counting your money?”

Jesse nodded, “And you had a gerbil up your ass to leave, yeah. But there shouldn’t’ve been any rush.”

“Well, I thought there was,” Witt said defensively. “I was afraid something could go wrong… and it did.”

“Why?”

Thinking Jesse wondered why he thought something might go wrong, Witt said, “’Cause I’ve only been doing this for a matter of days now. I don’t completely understand how it works and so I thought something might—”

“No,” Jesse said, interrupting, “I’m asking why did something go wrong.”

Witt stared at Jesse a moment, then carefully said, “I was scared and said, ‘Let’s go!’ Then I took off, assuming you’d hop on your bike and catch up. What I didn’t know was that when I went around a corner and got out of the line of sight to you, we’d both drop back into real-time.”

“‘Line of sight?!’ That’s bullshit. You don’t keep your eyes on me all the time!”

“No. But I think there can’t be anything massive between me and you when I’m keeping you in fast-time. I, uh, think it’s easiest to describe it as blocking the line-of-sight. Things that partially block you aren’t a problem, but buildings are.”

“So, you rode off and—”

“Jesse! Goddammit! We need to get our story straight before your folks get here. You can put me through an inquisition after we’ve done that, okay?!”

Jesse looked like he was about to yell, “Hell, no!” But then he nodded sullenly and they got to work on their story.

Witt breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out there were only a few minor discrepancies between the stories they’d told people so far.

Once they had that straight, Jesse gave him an intense look and Witt feared the inquisition was about to start again. Instead, Jesse narrowed his eyes and asked, “What’s our haul?”

“Um,” Witt said, caught off guard, “we got $9,130.”

“That’s all?” Jesse asked suspiciously.

“Well, some of the money you were counting blew away…”

“You didn’t collect it?!”

“Jesse,” Witt said, tiredly, “you and the dealer’d been shot. That asshole still had a gun pointing our way. I had to figure out how to disarm him, try to save the dealer, and get you to a hospital. Collecting the money you’d lost was pretty low on my priority list.”

“You had all the time in the world, you cretin!”

“You thought you had plenty of time to count your money, didn’t you?! Shit happens, Jesse,” Witt said tiredly.

Jesse rolled his eyes and stuck out his hand.

Witt shook it.

“I don’t wanna hold hands, DimWitt. I want my half of the money.”

“I don’t have it here,” Witt said, thinking, He thinks he deserves half? He didn’t do anything but cause trouble! “Besides,” he said, “the last thing you need here at the hospital is a big stack of bills. How’re you gonna explain them?”

“Why would I have to explain them? I’m not gonna show ’em to anyone.”

“Come on, Jess-ass. When it’s time for you to leave the hospital, your mom or a nurse is probably gonna pack up your stuff. If they come across that much cash, they’re gonna think you got shot because you were dealing drugs. I’ll give you the money when you’re back home.”

“You’ve been talking to my brother, haven’t you?” Jesse asked suspiciously, without commenting on the plan for Witt to deliver the money later.

How’d he know Ron and I’ve been talking? Witt wondered. Then remembered that he’d picked up the “Jess-ass” nickname from Ron.

Before they could argue any more, Jesse’s mom arrived. Shortly after that, Witt made his excuses and left.

On the way home, Witt wondered whether he was going to be able to figure out a way to give his mom most of his half of the money.

***

With a great deal of trepidation, James Liddell stepped into the prisoner interview room at the county jail. He often wondered how he’d gotten himself sucked into a career even he considered depraved. As a law student, he’d heard of attorneys who worked as “mouthpieces” for criminal organizations. He’d thought of it as an immoral but highly remunerative line of work. It wasn’t until he’d already gotten pulled into a quicksand of illegal maneuvers that he found that—in his case at least—he wouldn’t be paid. He worked because Marta blackmailed and threatened him.

Essentially his legal practice supported him and Alphonso Marta paid him a pittance. But if he didn’t do what Marta wanted, evidence of some of Liddell’s less savory dealings would reach the DA. And if he worked around that with some kind of plea deal, Liddell’s family would suffer.

When he’d first heard that someone broke all of Marta’s fingers, Liddell felt elated. He hoped someone else might get the SOB off of his case.

Instead, it turned out Marta’s fingers were only dislocated. They’d been relocated and now Marta expected Liddell to get him out of charges of murder and attempted murder.

A murder of one of Marta’s dealers, committed with Marta’s gun, with said gun bearing only Marta’s fingerprints.

Marta thought he should be absolved of the murder because someone had dislocated all his fingers. The thought that was proof positive that he couldn’t have fired the gun. Apparently, the same people who’d dislocated Marta’s fingers had handcuffed Marta’s muscle to the steering wheel of Marta’s Suburban. Neither Marta nor his muscle, ’Fredo Vargas, admitted to having any idea how it’d happened. They swore someone had drugged or gassed them, and that the murder had to have occurred while they were under.

Which was just batshit crazy.

Clanging at the door interrupted Liddell’s woolgathering. It gave him a small surge of pleasure to see Marta in an orange jumpsuit with chains at his wrists, waist, and ankles. The pleasure didn’t last past the moment he looked into Marta’s eyes.

The guy had splints on his fingers which appeared to render his fingers useless.

Momentarily, Liddell had to restrain a smirk as he wondered how Marta cleaned up after going to the bathroom.

The guards started chaining Marta to the table, but Marta burst out, “I can’t consult my attorney while I’m chained to a goddamned table! Tell them, Jimmy!”

Liddell hated the diminutive form of his name, but couldn’t tell Marta that. He would also greatly prefer to have Marta chained to the table, but he couldn’t say that either. Instead, he caught the guard’s eye and shook his head.

The guard stopped locking Marta down and gave Liddell a grim look. “Your funeral, man.”

Marta insisted the guards back away to give them privacy, then leaned close to hiss, “You get the video record?”

The question referred to the recordings from hidden video cameras mounted on Marta’s Suburban. Liddell wanted to say he hadn’t seen them, but Marta’s men had delivered them to him. Denying he had them could get him killed. He nodded.

“You figure out who the puta was?”

Liddell blinked, “Your dealer?”

“No, estupido! The POS who was chasing my money around the parking lot!”

“Um, Mr. Marta,” he whispered, “the cameras suffered some kind of malfunction. You’re not gonna want to bring the video record up in court. They show you shooting the guy chasing the money, but they don’t show him taking your money…” Liddell trailed off at the look in Marta’s eyes.

“They show who did my fingers?”

Liddell shook his head.

“They show who chained up ’Fredo?”

Again, Liddell shook his head. He considered pointing out that none of the cameras covered the interior of the vehicle, but decided against it.

Threateningly, Marta asked, “The video show someone else taking my money?”

“Um, no.”

“And you think,” Marta hissed in a furious tone, “some other asshole just showed up in that parking lot with a bundle of cash he let blow in the wind? A wad he stole from someone else?!”

Digging in his pocket for a Rolaids, Liddell said, “Um, no, sir.”

“So, that son of a bitch got shot. He went to a hospital somewhere. You tell ’Fredo to figure out where he went, then who he was, and who helped him. ’Fredo’s dumb as a bag of weed, so he might need help figuring all that out. You’re gonna have to help him.”

“I can’t get that kind of information! Hospitals are really big on privacy!”

Marta looked at Liddell like he was a pile of dog shit on the kitchen table. “All you gotta do is walk ’Fredo through the idea that he’s gotta lean on somebody from the closest hospital and make them cough up a name and address. ’Fredo can take it from there.”

As so often happened when he met with Marta, Liddell wanted to protest that, as an officer of the law, telling someone like ’Fredo to break the law was forbidden. But he’d crossed that line long, long ago. He just nodded.

“Once you and ’Fredo find that son of a bitch, you get, me, my, money!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now. How you gonna get me the hell out of here?”

***

Witt stopped at the credit union’s ATM and filled out a deposit for two hundred dollars of the cash from the robbery. He hadn’t come up with a way to give his mom cash without arousing suspicion, but he’d decided to start depositing cash to his bank account. That way he’d have funds he could spend electronically. He wanted to buy more data for his phone and couldn’t use cash to do it.

He could use the cash directly to buy more groceries. This would have the dual benefits of lowering the burden on his mom’s finances and putting stuff he liked to eat on the table—as long as he didn’t stray too far from Mom's approved menu choices.

Those solutions wouldn’t deal with very much of his $4,565 share of the drug money. He worried about the undeposited cash, currently rolled up in the toes of a pair of dress shoes he rarely wore. There’d be no way to explain where it came from if his mom came across it.

On the other hand, he worried as he slipped the envelope with the deposit into the slot on the ATM, if Mom looks at my account, she’s gonna want to know where the money for a bunch of cash deposits came from. She had access to look at his account because her name was on it—she’d helped him set it up when he was twelve. And, because money was so tight, he worried she might look at his account with an eye to borrowing from it. He’d be happy to loan her money, but he didn’t want her noticing a lot of recent cash deposits. He could explain a few as proceeds from tutoring, but, a bunch of them…

No, he couldn’t think of an excuse.

As he was turning to leave, his eye caught on a sign saying, “Open an account today!”

Now that I’m eighteen, he thought, I’ll bet I could open an account without Mom…

Twenty minutes later he was in the Bank of America branch office a block from the credit union. It turned out BOA would indeed be happy to help him open an account there with $800 cash. An account his parents didn’t need to know anything about.

When he got home with the groceries, his sister, Claire, was out in the living area of their tiny apartment, rather than holed up in the bedroom as usual. Surprised, he said, “Got a minute?”

“Whadda you want?!” she asked, scorn in her voice.

Witt just stared at her for a moment, not wanting to give his hostile sister anything. But, if I give her some data, it’ll get her off Mom’s ass, he thought. He sighed, “I was thinking of buying some data for your phone.”

A startling transformation came over her face. Some kind of cross between hope and suspicion. She settled on the latter. “What do you want?”

“I’m trying to help Mom. I figure if I give you some data, it’ll get you off her ass for a few weeks.”

“Really?!” she asked hopefully.

He nodded. “Really.”

“That’d be awesome!”

“I’ll need the details for your account.”

“Okay,” she said, eagerly. “I’ll text them to you.”

“I don’t think you should text financial stuff.”

She gave him a confused look. “How am I supposed to get them to you?”

“Write them down.”

“Um, okaay,” she said, as dubiously as if he’d proposed chiseling them in stone. She got up. “Let me find something to write with.” She disappeared into the bedroom.

When she returned with the info on a scrap of paper, she said, “Could you put some money in my bank account?”

No wonder that vein pops up on Mom’s forehead every time she talks to Claire, Witt thought, staring at his sister. She always wants more, more, more. “If I did that, what would you do for me?”

Claire gave him a puzzled look, as if she’d never encountered a quid pro quo before. “I don’t know. What’d you have in mind?” Her suspicious expression returned, “Is that what this’s all about? You wanting something?”

“No! I offered you some phone data. You’re the one that accepted that gift then weren’t satisfied. You’re the one asking for even more.”

“Okay,” she sighed, as if disgusted by the concept that she might have to earn the money, “then what do you want?”

Witt stared at her a moment, trying to think what he might want that his sister might be able to provide. A light came on. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you make dinner three times a week and don’t fight with Mom.”

“What?!” Claire said, staring at him like he’d vomited up a rat.

“Each week. You make dinner three times and don’t raise your voice to Mom, and I’ll give you twenty.”

“Why do you care whether I make dinner or fight with Mom?” Claire asked, wide-eyed.

“’Cause I feel sorry for her. For how hard she has to work and I hate listening to you yelling at her.”

“So, what if I made dinner three times but got in a fight with her once?”

“Then you get ten dollars.”

“What?! Shouldn’t I get my twenty dollars for the dinners and only miss out on part of the twenty for fighting?”

She thinks I was offering twenty dollars for the dinners and twenty for the yelling? Witt thought. She can’t think I’d pay her that much, can she? He decided she knew very well what he’d meant. He didn’t know whether to be appalled by, or envious of her negotiatory skills. He blinked, I’m trying to inject money into this family and this is one way to do it and get some peace. He said, “Okay. If you make three dinners, you get twenty, if you make two, you get ten. You raise your voice to her once, you get ten, you raise it again, you get none.”

“If I only make one dinner, I get five?”

“You make one, you get none.”

She studied him a moment, Witt thought, trying to decide whether she could wheedle a better deal, then said, “Okay, but can you make this week’s deposit to my account now?”

Witt laughed, “Nice try. I’ll pay you in cash each Monday, after you’ve made the dinners and been nice to Mom.”

“In cash?! I don’t want cash! I don’t carry that crap around!”

Witt shrugged. “Okay, the deal’s off.”

“What?! No! Don’t you know how to use PayPal or Venmo?!”

“I do. But I get paid in cash, so that’s what’s easy to give to you. You can deposit it in your account if you want.”

“Come on, Witt,” she said pleadingly.

She was making puppy dog eyes at him. For a moment Witt considered it, then he thought, Oh, she’s good. If I ever need someone to negotiate a deal for me, I’ll know where to turn. He shook his head, “Claire, I’m offering you something for nothing. Stop trying to wheedle even more and just take it or leave it.”

“Okay,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.

You’d think she’d gotten screwed instead of getting something for nothing, Witt thought. “Help me put the groceries away,” he said, “Then you can start dinner. I bought stuff for burgers.”

To his astonishment, Claire was a pretty good cook. At least she did great with hamburgers.

Claire’s cooking without raising a ruckus delighted their mom, who stayed in a great mood through dinner. Witt thought a good part of their mom’s buoyant mood came from the way Claire consciously stayed pleasant throughout the meal. If their mom detected the effort Claire was having to make—to keep from getting in a fight and losing some of her money—she didn’t let on.

As they were finishing up, though, their mom revealed another reason for her chipper mood. She started by turning to Claire and thanking her for making dinner, then turning to Witt and thanking him for buying the hamburger, buns, tomatoes, and lettuce. Then, giving him a steady look, she said, “I got a call from Jesse’s mom today.”

Witt just stared at her, panic rising in his gut as he wondered what Ms. Caldwell had to say.

After a moment’s pause, his mom said, “She told me Jesse got shot when you guys went downtown to buy concert tickets?”

Witt's bladder spasmed, but he managed to give a little nod.

Witt’s mom continued, “She just wanted to tell me how much she appreciated you taking care of him. She says you loaded him on your bike and rode him to the nearest hospital. The doctor told her that, even though he’d normally recommend calling for an ambulance, in Jesse’s case he was bleeding so fast that minutes counted. He told her to congratulate you for doing absolutely the right thing, and she told me to thank you for saving Jesse’s life.”

“Oh…” Witt said, his mouth too dry to tack another word on.

His mom tilted her head curiously, “Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

Because I feel guilty! Witt thought. “Ah, I didn’t think it was any more than anyone would’ve done.”

“Well, I’m very proud of you.”

Witt glanced at Clair. She was giving him a sour look for stealing her thunder. Turning back to his mom, he said, “Thanks.”

His mom smiled, “I have a little good news too.”

Claire didn’t ask so he did. “What’s that?”

“I got a new job.”

Witt said, “Congratulations!” but Claire said, “It’s about time. Can we move out of this shithole yet?”

Witt turned to glare at Claire but his mom didn’t seem fazed. “Not yet,” she said. “But maybe in a few months. It should let me make progress on our debt.”

When they finished, Claire went to the bedroom while Witt and his mom cleared the table. Suddenly curious, he went to fast-time and, saying, “Think fast!” he tossed her the squeeze bottle of mustard. She caught it with a whoop of surprise. Being in fast-time himself, he could tell she’d sped up to catch it, then immediately slowed back down.

She hadn’t gone very far into fast-time. Witt would’ve guessed only about ten percent. He felt pretty sure she had no idea she’d done it.

But, he thought, I’d bet getting a gene for changing the flow of time from both parents is what resulted in me being so much more capable—if I am—than Mom or Dad. And the fact that Mom doesn’t seem to realize she can do it suggests that there could be quite a few other people out there who can go into fast-time but don’t realize they can or even that they’ve done it.

He put the last dish in the dishwasher and closed the door, thinking, I’ll bet those people’re good at sports though.

***

Jesse saw her first.

Rachel, one of the cutest as well as—supposedly—one of the smartest kids in their class was walking across the cafeteria toward himself and Witt. Not just walking in their direction, but from the focus of her eyes, walking to them.

When she sat down across from Jesse and next to Witt, Jesse asked, “What’re you doing here?!”

She put her hand on Witt’s forearm. “Sittin’ with Witt.” She looked at him, “You don’t mind do you, Witt?”

Looking mystified, Witt shook his head.

Jesse said, “I can see you’re sittin’ with the Witt-nit, but why?”

She grinned at Witt, then turned back to Jesse, “’Cause I like him.” She winked, “World’s best calculus tutor, you know.”

Jesse gaped at Witt who looked embarrassed. “You’re tutoring Rachel?!”

Witt shrugged, “I just get calculus. I, um, seem to be able to help people with it.”

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me!”

“I wouldn’t shit you—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jesse broke in, “I’m your favorite turd! I taught you that lame-ass line.”

Witt shrugged again, “I was gonna say ‘favorite feces,’ but I’ve got to remember such words and alliteration are beyond your limited vocabulary and appreciation.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and turned to Rachel, “You don’t wanna hang with Wittless. I should know since I hang with him a lot.” He put his hand on his chest, “You wanna hang with someone like me, recently wounded in a ferocious gun battle. Back in school just a few days later. So tough no one even knew I’d been hurt.”

Rachel’s eyes sparkled, “You mean, ‘hit by a stray bullet’? Peed so much blood your mom bought you Kotex? Whined to everyone about how much pain you were—”

“No, no, no!” Jesse interrupted. “Stop! Those are all malicious rumors, spread only by the worst kind of people!”

Rachel turned to Witt, a huge smile on her face. “You’re right, he is kinda funny. If only he were ‘funny, ha-ha’ instead of ‘funny, ooh gross.’”

Jesse blew a raspberry. “Don’t listen to what DimWitt says! I’m funny, hilarious.”

Rachel was still looking at Witt. “Are you ever gonna ask me out?”

Witt appeared stupefied by this. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Taking pity, Jesse said, “His brain’s overloaded and he can’t talk, but, yes, he’d like to take you out. Would Friday or Saturday be better for you?”

“Saturday,” she said, eyes still sparkling at Witt. “Not this week though. Maybe next weekend?”

“Dinner? Movie? Sporting event? Concert?”

She frowned and looked at Jesse. “There’s a concert this weekend?”

“Don’t know. He’ll have to check it out and call you. Does he have your number?”

She nodded, said, “I’ll await your call,” got up, leaned back down and kissed Witt’s bright red cheek, then walked away.

Jesse admired her departing form for a moment, then turned back to the still blushing Witt. “Score, man! Rachel Wood’s hot! How in all the holy hells did you manage to hook up with her?”

Witt hotly began, “I haven’t hooked up—”

“Well, no shit!” Jesse interrupted. “All I have to do is look at your face to know that! But you’re gonna, you know?”

“I am not. Have some respect, asshole!”

“Oh, I do. You gotta respect a girl who’s so cool she’s not afraid of going out with a loser who’d destroy anyone else’s social standing! A guy who’s such a dweeb he can’t even talk to her. A guy who—"

“I talk to her!” Witt interrupted indignantly.

“You do not! You tutor her maybe, but you don’t talk to her. I carried the entire conversation for you. The one you think you just had with her. I even asked her out for you.”

Witt shook his head mulishly. “I don’t know why I’m your friend.”

Jesse hooted, “’Cause I just got you a date, DimWitt. You owe me big time.”

***

That Friday, Aldmont High went to its first track meet. It was against Dinsmore and Witt couldn’t help thinking about how EOD’s drummer Shaun West graduated from Dinsmore and wondering whether Eva might’ve gone there as well.

More importantly for the team, Dinsmore was a big school. With so many kids to draw from, their coach had turned the available talent into the local track powerhouse. Coach Dameron had a fatalistic view of the meet, talking to his team about how they should be happy if they placed in the top three in any of the events. “Dinsmore’s class Triple-A and it won’t surprise anyone if they win most of the events. It may seem harsh, but, unless you let it break your spirit, going up against stiff competition like this is gonna challenge you to do better. You may lose, but I’ll bet you break your personal bests, then when we’re back in practice, you can try to break that best.”

The coach focused his attention on Allsup. “Steve, last year you came second in the hundred at this meet, so you’ve got a shot. You think you can do that well again this year?”

“Count on it,” Allsup said, in such a serious tone that Witt had a hard time restraining a laugh.

Give the guy some respect, he told himself. He may be an ass, but he’s probably the best this team’s got and has a right to be proud.

Dameron focused on Witt, “Ryllin, you’re pretty much an unknown, but you’ve been keeping up with or beating Allsup in practice. If you can do that well in a meet, you might place too.

The coach surveyed his team. “Another one whose times suggested he might’ve had a chance to place would’ve been Jesse Caldwell in the 3,200-meter race. As you know, he’s out of the meet ’cause he got shot in some kind of drive-by last weekend. Think of him when you’re competing. Go out there and bring back a ribbon or two for Caldwell!”

“Shot in a drive-by?” Witt wondered, amazed at how the story’d morphed as if it’d been through a game of telephone. Glancing around at the rest of the team, he also wondered whether Jesse getting shot could actually inspire anyone to perform better. That’d be kinda creepy, he decided.

~~~

It being his first meet running sprints, Witt got caught by surprise when they called for the 100-meter event. He’d only ever run the 800-meter race which usually came late in a meet. The hundred was early. He found himself nervously scrambling to set up his blocks and then when he got in position, he thought they felt wrong but didn’t have time to change them.

He’d just gone into fast-time and was checking the color of his wrist band when the starting gun caught him by surprise. Next to him, a guy from Dinsmore exploded out of his blocks. Witt found himself behind and having to push farther into fast-time to make up the loss.

As they ran the race, Witt had the sensation something was wrong. It felt like he was having to push harder into fast-time to keep up with the guy. When he pulled up close to him, the Dinsmore sprinter surged ahead again, forcing Witt to push even harder. He wanted to check the color of his wrist band but decided the only thing that mattered was staying close enough to surge ahead of the guy at the last moment.

In the last twenty meters, the Dinsmore guy was still a meter and a half in front of Witt. Witt tried just running harder and thought he gained a little with that. However, he could tell it wasn’t going to be enough. He pushed a little farther into fast-time, caught up, then pulled inches in front of the guy just before the finish line.

As they coasted to a halt, Witt glanced back over his shoulder. He was surprised to see Allsup and the rest of the sprinters were much further back. Oh, shit, he thought, glancing over at the guy he’d just beaten and realizing the guy looked stunned. If this guy’s supposed to be really good, that’d explain why he was so hard to beat.

It turned out the Dinsmore sprinter had won state in the hundred meters his sophomore and junior years. This year, everyone thought he was a lock for a three-peat and might even get into the Olympics.

Witt had just broken the state record in the hundred-meter sprint.

Coach Dameron was ecstatic and, except for Allsup, the rest of the team congratulated him enthusiastically. However, Witt hadn’t wanted to stir so much controversy for fear someone might realize there was something off about the way he’d won. Before running in the 200 and 400-meter races he used some—what he still considered to be precious—phone data to research the other Dinsmore sprinters before those competitions came around.

It turned out the guys who ran the longer sprints for Dinsmore were good, but not that remarkable. Witt went ahead and won the 200, but barely, and far from the record since the Dinsmore 200 runners weren’t standout stars. He also won the 400, again well below the record, but several meters ahead of their 400 specialist. That guy’d placed at state last year but he hadn’t been close to the record either.

The long jump was simpler, since it was easy to have two bad jumps and a mediocre one, thus not coming close to placing without any raised eyebrows.

As they rode the bus back to Aldmont, Witt enjoyed the praise of his teammates but felt embarrassed to have attracted so much attention. He still had the sense he’d cheated, no matter how much he argued to Jesse that it was a God-given talent just like a real ability to run. He couldn’t help wondering whether he should keep doing it.

Then Coach sat down next to him. “Wow, Ryllin! A few more performances like that one and you’re sure to get a full-ride scholarship!”

As Dameron babbled on, Witt was thinking, Oh, I am gonna have to keep doing this…

***

The next Tuesday, Witt’s dad had his first appointment for the MDMA study. He’d made the appointment at the end of the day since he wouldn’t be allowed to drive after his treatment. Witt had volunteered to drive him home as long as it was after school.

After his last class, Witt grabbed his bike and headed for the parking lot. There he saw his dad leaning up against his car. To his relief, despite Witt’s fear that his dad might’ve started drinking again, his dad leaned away from his car looking sharp in some indefinable way Witt attributed to military training. The car, old as it was, looked well cared for now. Witt studied him a moment, then said, “Looks to me like you’re doing great. How’re you feeling?”

His dad stepped around to the passenger door as he told Witt, “Hangin’ on by the skin of my teeth. I’m keeping it together but I’m still jumping at loud noises and wishin’ I could have a drink.”

Going to the driver’s door, Witt worriedly asked, “Should I move in with you? Try to steady you somehow?”

His dad looked wistfully at him, “I’d like that more than you could know… but I don’t want you getting hurt if I go off the deep end.” He gave Witt a weak smile. “I’m hoping this treatment today will make enough difference that I… that I’ll feel you’d be safe around me.”

As he studied the controls of his dad’s old car, Witt wondered, Should I tell him I can go a lot farther into fast-time than he can? That if anyone could be safe around a trained killer, it’d be me? He shook his head. I’d better not assume that I’m for sure faster, or that speed alone could protect me from someone with my dad’s skills. He started the car, then glanced over at his dad before he started to back it out, thinking, Besides, I think he’s proud of his ability to go into fast-time and happy we share it. Even if mine is stronger, I shouldn’t belittle his ability by telling him.

Despite his worries, Witt didn’t have much trouble driving his dad’s vehicle. He’d never driven anything but his mom’s car and that one infrequently. He’d been afraid the differences between the two vehicles would make a fool out of him.

Instead, it was lousy awareness skills that let him almost pull out in front of a truck.

His dad yelled, “Witt, goddammit!”

Witt slammed on the brakes.

They survived.

As Witt sat there, heart pounding, his dad looked at him with fury on his face for a moment, then slowly took a deep breath and seemed to force himself to relax. “Sorry for yelling. I thought you said you were quick?”

“Yelling seems appropriate in a situation like that,” Witt said, gasping. “I can be quick by going into fast-time, but most of the time I’m my usual slow self. I don’t know how yours works, but mine doesn’t keep me from doing something stupid, just makes me faster afterward.” His dad looked puzzled, so Witt elaborated, “It doesn’t keep you out of trouble, just helps you deal with a problem after it’s reared its ugly head.”

His dad cocked his head, thinking. “You know, I guess you’re right. You seem to have analyzed what we can do a lot more carefully than I ever did. I’ve just kinda used it without giving it much thought.”

The rest of the trip to his dad’s appointment was uneventful, other than his dad asking him about the track meet and being extraordinarily pleased that he’d won three events.

~~~

Witt got most of his homework done in the waiting room while his dad was in getting his guided therapy and either the MDMA or the placebo.

When his dad came out, he seemed… calm. Witt felt disturbed by this impression since he hadn’t thought his dad had looked jittery before the treatment—except for his near explosion during the fright of Witt’s near car accident. What am I basing this feeling on? he wondered.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

His dad gave him a placid smile, “Like I just took a little dose of Molly. For me it, um, feels soothing.” He gave Witt a serious look. “You should be aware not being on edge feels so good I’m already wondering how I can get some more.”

Oh, shit! Witt thought, staring at his dad. “I, um, don’t think that’s a good—”

His dad patted Witt’s shoulder, interrupting his anxious reply. “Don’t worry too much. The desire for Molly’s a lot weaker than my desire for booze and I’ve successfully held off the alcohol urge for nearly a month now. I just wanted you to know that it felt really good and that there’s some potential for trouble. I intend, however, to follow the study protocol.”

“Um, that’s great. Are you sure you got the drug, not the placebo?”

His dad nodded calmly and confidently. “Either that or” he grinned, “it’s the best damn placebo ever made.”

“Ah,” Witt said as if he understood, though he didn’t. “When do you get your next treatment?”

“Next week, same time.” His dad frowned, “This’s going to be a problem for track practice, isn’t it?”

Witt studied his dad, “Um, you understand I don’t need to practice to win sprints, don’t you?”

His dad looked flummoxed for a moment, then said, “You mean…?”

Witt nodded. “Just a push into fast-time and I’m pretty much guaranteed to win.”

An unhappy look spread over his dad’s face. “That doesn’t seem—”

“…fair, I know,” Witt interrupted. He launched into the arguments he’d been honing on Jesse. “Did you know most winning sprinters have a very high proportion of fast-twitch muscle that lets them run fast for short distances? Is that fair? Or fair that tall people are more successful at basketball? Or that big people make better football linemen? Or that tiny people are better gymnasts?”

He studied his dad who hadn’t said anything. He could tell the man was considering these things for the first time. “Or, Dad, that some people are better warriors because they fight in fast-time?”

His dad’s eyes widened at this last.

“You’ve lived with this for a lot longer than I have,” Witt continued, “but have you ever wondered whether some of the world’s greatest athletes might’ve been the greatest because they ran on different clocks? If Muhammed Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard won all those fights because they were living at different rates of time than their opponents?”

They were getting into the car at this point. His dad said, “I’ve never considered it, no. But, now that you point it out, it… seems obvious.”

As he started the car, Witt opened his mouth to reply, however his dad held up a hand. “You concentrate on driving for now. If you want, we’ll talk more after we get to my place.”

Momentarily, Witt felt irritated, but remembering how he’d almost killed them both on the way to the appointment, he nodded.

At his dad’s place, he was getting his bike out of the trunk of the car when his dad said, “I can understand how you can win races without as much training, but isn’t your coach gonna have a fit if you’re taking me to appointments every Tuesday?”

Witt gave a little snort. “Yeah, he’s upset about today and he’s gonna be even more upset when I tell him about the rest of your appointments. But, trust me, he isn’t gonna throw me off the team. I can win four events per meet and that makes him look good. Heck, I could win more than that, but I’m raising enough eyebrows as it is.”

His dad drew back, “‘More than that?’ What other events are you thinking you could win?”

“The 800 and 3,200-meter events.” He shrugged, “An easy run that’s speed boosted would win. But then I’d be winning events that’re normally won by people with predominantly slow-twitch muscle, and people shouldn’t believe I could win both sprint and middle distance types of events. It’d be a little like a gymnast playing football lineman.”

Chapter Nine

Following the young nurse home from her shift at the ED, ’Fredo became more and more annoyed by the length of her commute. By the time she pulled in at her apartment complex, ’Fredo was furious at her with no awareness of the fact that she hadn’t chosen to live so far away just to piss him off.

Still fuming, he followed her into the quad of the complex, then wandered over to the pool while watching her out of the corner of his eye. She climbed the corner stairs up to her second-floor apartment and entered apartment 209.

’Fredo turned and headed for the stairs.

Putting on his sunglasses, he sauntered down the open walkway in front of the apartments, glancing around to be sure nobody was watching. Arriving at 209, he tried the knob with an outstretched arm as he continued walking toward it. Finding it locked, he didn’t slow but slammed his beefy shoulder into the door. It burst open and he continued on into the apartment, trying to make it look as if he’d met no resistance.

Pushing the door shut with a foot, he grabbed an end table near the door and shoved it up against the inside of the door to hold it shut—so people wouldn’t wonder why it was ajar.

Looking up, he saw the young nurse heading for her phone on the table.

A couple of quick strides and he’d crossed the apartment.

Ripping the phone out of her hand, he looked at it. She’d dialed a nine and a one but hadn’t had time to finish 911. He hit the backspace button a couple of times, then the side button that shut off the screen.

Looking up, he saw the girl was edging around him. He lunged and grabbed her wrist before she could sprint for the door, enjoying the ease with which he dragged her back. He studied her panicked face, then tried to calm her by saying, “As long as you cooperate, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She started screaming.

He slapped a hand over her mouth, threw his other arm around her body, and bore her down onto the couch, driving the wind out of her.

Putting his mouth near her ear, he—despite his excitement—tried to keep a calm tone as he said, “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m not gonna rape you. I just need information.”

He held her tightly restrained, staring into her frightened eyes.

Eventually, he felt the rigidity of her musculature begin to relax. He eased his grip. “All I want you to do is go on your hospital’s medical records system and get me information on a patient.”

When her eyes widened and she tried to shake her head, he grabbed her boob in a crushing grip. “I am gonna hurt you if you don’t help me.”

He’d considered following a male nurse who left the ED before she did, but this was a lot more fun.

It took ten more minutes of threats and interspersed pain, but he finally had her seated in front of her computer, logging into the hospital medical records system. In a trembling voice, she asked, “Who do you want me to look up?”

“The guy that got shot Sunday before last.”

“What?!” she asked, wide-eyed. “I’ve got to have a name!”

“Figure it out,” ’Fredo said, menace in his tone. “Or else…” he grabbed the hem of her scrub top and started to lift it.

“Wait!” she said, grabbing the bottom of her shirt to hold it down. “Let me think!”

’Fredo relaxed, though he felt a little disappointment. He’d wanted to rip the scrub top right off her. Next time she stonewalls, he thought.

It surprised ’Fredo how long it took. Not because she was dragging her feet but because she didn’t normally have reason to use the system for such a search. She didn’t know how to do it, so she had to figure out a work-around. ’Fredo kept her on point by slowly sliding a hand under her scrub top and caressing her. He could’ve hurt her, but this kept her on edge and provided him with enjoyment at the same time.

In the end, she found a list of admissions from the ED that day, sorted it by sex, and clicked through the records of the young men until she found the only one admitted for a GSW (gunshot wound) that day.

An eighteen-year-old named Jesse Caldwell.

’Fredo had her write down the kid’s name, address, and phone number. He put the scrap of paper in his pocket, then took the girl by her wrist and tugged her to her feet.

He’d seen a bed through a partially ajar door and he towed her that way.

Getting alarmed, she began to struggle but was no match for his strength.

Once he had her in the bedroom, he said, “You remember what I said about not raping you?”

She relaxed fractionally.

“I lied,” ’Fredo said, hurling her onto the bed and scrambling after her.

He had to hit her to stop the screaming, but that was fun too.

~~~

When he finished, he put his clothes back on but made her stay naked. He had her strip the bed and put her sheets in the wash with the packet of Oxi Clean he’d brought with him. He’d heard it’d get rid of any DNA he might’ve shed onto the bedclothes.

He’d worn a condom and had it knotted in his pocket so he didn’t have to worry about semen.

In case she’d scraped some skin with her nails, he had her clean under them, then made her wash her hands and scrub under her nails with her toothbrush.

Finally, he had her get in the shower and thoroughly suds her hair and body. He made her keep the curtain open so he could be sure she did a good job.

And for the enjoyment, of course.

He walked out while she was rinsing, saying, “You tell anyone about this, I’ll be back. Next time I won’t be such a sweetheart.”

***

Jesse’s heart started to pound just seconds after he turned onto his street. There was a black Suburban parked on the street, two doors down from his house.

No way! he told himself. You’ve gotta stop shittin’ yourself every time you see a black SUV!

Nonetheless, he drove right past his house, turned the corner, and parked just before the alley. He didn’t get out right away. He told himself that was because he needed to figure out what to do, but in actuality, it was mostly because his legs were trembling so badly he feared he might have trouble walking.

After taking a few deep breaths, he began considering options. Calling 911 to report a black SUV on his street seemed ridiculous. Though, he thought, since I got shot by a guy driving one of them, they might understand. But the guy who’d shot him, Alphonso Marta, was supposed to be in county lockup, awaiting trial. So, they might wonder why he’d be worried.

They might send some cops, but when the cops didn’t find anyone, they’d be pissed. And, next time, when he did need help… they might drag their feet.

And, if Marta had gotten out on bail, and that was him, and the cops came, and Marta told them he’d come for the money Jesse’d stolen… Jesse shivered at the thought of trying to explain that one.

Jesse gave himself a mental lecture, Come on! Just get out and go to the freakin’ house! It’s a black Suburban. There’s gotta be hundreds of them in the city.

But there’s never been one on my street before, he answered himself.

Though his feet felt like lead, he opened the car’s door and got out. Front door, or alley? he wondered. The front door was more public, so if it was someone from the drug gang, they might be less likely to attack. But they’d see him coming from a long way away. The back door had limited sightlines, so he might be able to get close and peek in a window without them noticing.

Just because you look in a couple of windows and don’t see anyone, his alter ego pointed out, it won’t mean no one’s there!

His bladder twitched, which was the last thing he needed right then. There’s gotta be something else I can do? He realized he could ask Witt to come over. In fast-time, they could check the house without anyone inside knowing it was happening. If someone from the drug ring is here, then I could call 911. Though, there’d still be the issue of those guys telling the cops Witt and I stole some of their money. And, if the police investigated, they’d find out I made a four-thousand-dollar cash deposit to my bank yesterday! And it wouldn’t take much digging to figure out I don’t have a legitimate source…

It didn’t escape Jesse’s notice that illegally obtained cash was a lot bigger hassle than he’d ever expected. At least in large quantities.

He started slowly down the alley, telling himself there weren’t going to be any druggers at his house and all his worries were gonna seem funny tomorrow.

Just before he came to his little backyard, Jesse had an idea. Getting out his phone, he entered a text to Witt. “Witt! Urgent! The drug dealers are at my house! Help us! Please!!!!!!” He didn’t send it, just hovered his thumb over the send icon as he stepped up to the corner that led into his yard and up to the back stoop. He only planned to send it if he did encounter druggers.

He paused, thinking. If I’m right and those guys are in my house and Witt comes over and… does something about them… Jesse tried to think his way into the future, picturing what could happen. Supposing Witt kills some of those guys and… he does it so no one knows what happened. It saves my life, but then the cops come and try to figure out why there’s a dead body at my house… And I’m claiming I have no idea what happened. He pictured himself saying “I don’t know what happened, Officer. Just all of a sudden the side of the guy’s head was bashed in.” And the cop says, “Hmm. Your phone says you texted a friend of yours just before all this went down. Let’s see what that was about…?”

A little shiver went over Jesse and he backspaced to delete the unsent text. Then he clicked the phone icon instead.

Witt answered, “Hey, dipshit, whatcha need?”

“Um,” Jesse said, thinking. He didn’t think cops could call up phone conversations, but if they could, he wanted to make it harder for them. “I just got home and there’s a black Suburban parked in front of my house.”

“You mean—”

“Uh-huh,” Jesse interrupted. “Like the one the guy was driving when I got shot. It’s got me scared.”

“Um…” Witt said, obviously thinking through the implications. “You gonna call the cops?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Jesse said, “but I’m feeling all panicky. Maybe I’ll call you again if I decide I need you to, um… come settle my nerves?”

“Sure. Phone rings and I’ll be right over.”

“Okay, thanks,” Jesse said, hoping the emphasis on “right” meant Witt would come in fast-time.

Hanging up the call, he hovered his thumb over the call icon and entered the yard.

Edging to the side of the stoop, he peered into the kitchen.

No one there.

For a moment he felt relieved, then realized again that one empty room proved nothing.

Slowly he turned the knob and pulled the kitchen door open, silently cursing a hinge squeal he’d never noticed before.

Stepping into the kitchen, he paused to listen and look. Nothing to hear, nothing to see. Of course, he couldn’t see much of the combination dining and living room, but he was starting to feel like his concerns were unfounded.

He slowly crossed the kitchen and crept into the big room.

Something poked his ribs and a deep voice said, “Hi, Jesse. You’ve kept us waiting.”

A sense of horror rolled over him as he looked down to see a pistol resting against his ribs. His thumb spasmodically punched the screen on his phone, sending the call to Witt. He desperately wanted to check to see if his thumb had correctly hit the icon and it was ringing but was afraid to give away what he was wondering by looking. Then he faintly heard ringing, indicating the call was going through. He hoped Witt was on his way.

Looking left, Jesse saw his mother and brother sitting at the table, duct tape over their mouths.

Their postures were unnatural, shoulders back. Their wrists are tied behind their backs, Jesse realized with dismay.

Ron’s cheek was bruised and his mother’s hair was badly tousled, suggesting they’d been handled physically. The expressions on their faces were terrified, but of course, they couldn’t say anything.

Jesse’s eyes turned further and met those of the drug lieutenant’s big driver. His enforcer, Jesse thought. How the hell’d he find me?! he wondered. Why in God’s name did I tell Witt robbing a drug lord in fast-time would be safe?

The gun poked him in his ribs again.

Harder this time.

A shit-eating grin on his face, the guy looked inordinately pleased. “Guess what?” he said. “We want our money back.”

“What money?” Jesse asked, voice trembling.

The big guy pivoted and kneed Jesse in the balls. As Jesse hunched over, groaning in pain, the guy said, “You know what money I’m talkin’ about. Where is it?”

Witt! Jesse thought, falling to his knees and crawling away from the dude. Where the hell are you?

A foot on his ass drove Jesse to his belly. The guy bellowed, “Where the hell’s our money?!”

“I—”

“You’d better not be about to say you don’t know!” the enforcer growled, dropping to one knee, and poking the muzzle of the gun into the back of Jesse’s head.

Then he grunted and collapsed forward across Jesse’s body.

As the guy landed on him, the gun roared.

Jesse braced himself for a wave of pain, but, other than the big guy’s weight hurting the sore wounds around his kidney and making it a little difficult to breathe, he seemed okay. Well, except for the ringing in his ears from the gunshot.

Jesse heaved up and rolled the considerable weight of the enforcer off of him, turning to see what was going on.

There was a placid look on the guy’s face and a small burnt hole in the front of his shirt.

Except for the charring, this hole was much like the hole in Jesse’s shirt.

The one Jesse’d had on when he got shot.

There was one other difference.

This one was over the right lower front of the guy’s chest.

Witt killed this guy, Jesse suddenly understood, slowly standing up. Here I thought he was all non-violent and shit.

Jesse heard grunting behind him and turned to see Ron and his mother struggling with their bonds. “Just a minute,” he said, and bent to pick up his phone.

The call to Witt had disconnected.

He dialed 911 and walked around the table, putting the phone on speaker.

“911, what’s your emergency?” a tinny voice said just as Jesse started tugging on the duct tape around his brother’s hands and wrists.

Wondering whether his volume was set low or he just couldn’t hear because of the ringing in his ears, Jesse said, “A guy broke into our house and tied up my mother and brother. When I got home, he grabbed me and started threatening to hurt me too, but then he passed out. He fell over and seems to have accidentally shot himself.”

“Shot? Where?” the operator asked, a suspicious tone in her voice.

“In the chest.”

“Does he have a pulse?”

“I don’t think so. Lemme check,” Jesse said, straightening up and grabbing the phone to walk back around to the other side.

The 911 operator said, “An ambulance and police have been dispatched. Is this your address?” she asked, reeling off Jesse’s address, presumably from GPS.

“That’s our address,” Jesse said, feeling for a pulse, though he wasn’t sure he knew where to feel. “I don’t feel a pulse.”

“Can you start CPR?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse said. Giving Ron and his mother an apologetic glance, he rolled the massive enforcer to his back and began half-heartedly shoving on the guy’s chest the way he’d seen in the movies. He thought of telling the woman he’d never had CPR training but decided she’d probably try to tell him how to do it right—a waste of time since he fully intended to do a half-assed job.

Instead, he started thinking about his story.

A minute or so later, he heard sirens.

A few minutes after that, cops in bulletproof vests burst in brandishing weapons. “Is this everyone in the house?!” one of them shouted.

Jesse nodded, “As far as I know.”

They split up, rushing into the other rooms. They shouted, “Clear,” after checking each of them.

One of the cops came over and looked down at the enforcer. “Vargas,” he snarled contemptuously.

“You know him?” Jesse asked, still pumping away at the CPR. Even though he wasn’t pushing all that hard, he was getting tired and wondered if anyone was going to give him a hand.

“Drug muscle,” the cop said loathingly. “Reputation is that he likes hurting people. He’s so malicious they’re all afraid to testify against him.”

One of the other cops went to the front door and called in the paramedics.

The first one to arrive eyed Jesse’s efforts critically and said, “You gotta push harder than that.” He dropped to his knees and took over as another medic went to Vargas’ head and started checking him over.

“Sorry,” Jesse said. “I got shot last week and doing the CPR hurts pretty bad.” Not that painful, he thought, but painful enough to keep me from doing more for this son of a bitch.

“You got shot last week?” the cop said, now sounding suspicious.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, sounding distraught because he was. “Me and a friend were downtown, trying to buy some concert tickets when there was a shooting in a parking lot there. I got hit by a stray bullet.”

“That was Marta and his people,” the cop said, looking down at the paramedics. “Vargas works for Marta and was almost certainly there.” The cop looked up at Jesse with narrowed eyes, “What’s he doing here? Did you have something to do with that shooting?”

Jesse shrugged, “Other than catching a bullet, sir? No. I have no idea why they came over here. He kept saying he wanted…” Jesse trailed off, thinking, For God’s sake, don’t tell him Vargas wanted his money! Jesse thought, picturing them finding out about his cash deposit. “Um, he kept rambling. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about.”

Eyes still narrowed, the cop said, “You were saying he ‘wanted’ something. What was that?”

Suddenly it came to Jesse. “Oh! He kept saying he wanted his money, but I didn’t get what he was talking about. But, thinking about it now, when I got shot, there was some money blowing across the parking lot. I bent to pick up a twenty, and, ‘bang.’ Next thing I knew, my side hurt.”

“So,” the cop said slowly, “you’re tellin’ me he came to threaten you and your family over twenty dollars?”

“I don’t know, officer. Maybe there were a lot more bills blowing around than I saw. Maybe he thought I’d picked up a bunch of them, instead of getting one and dropping it as soon as they shot me?” Jesse tilted his head inquisitively, “Maybe it’s some kind of machismo thing with these guys and twenty dollars is enough? You know ’em better than me. What do you think?” He hoped he was managing to keep a straight face but thought to himself, I’m going to prison because I deposited that damned money. How the hell could I be so stupid?!

The paramedic at Vargas’ head said, “We’re calling it. Call the coroner, this guy’s a deader.”

The cop looked down at Vargas for a moment, then leaned closer to Jesse and whispered, “Whatever actually happened, getting this asshole off the street made the world a lot better.”

Jesse almost nodded in acknowledgment but came to his senses. “I don’t know what happened, but it sure wasn’t any heroics on my part. He had me down on my belly and I thought he was gonna kill me. Then he grunted and fell on top of me. His gun went off just as his weight smashed me into the floor.” He looked the officer in the eye, “Tell the truth, I thought he’d shot me and I just hadn’t felt it yet.”

The cop looked down at Vargas a moment, then said, “Maybe he had a stroke.” He shrugged, “Not my problem. The coroner’ll figure it out.”

Shit! Jesse thought. Whatever Witt did, I’ll bet it doesn’t look like a stroke to the coroner!

Suddenly remembering his mother and brother, Jesse turned. Their arms were already free. A young cop was working the duct tape off their faces, peeling a little, then spraying—of all things—WD-40 on it, then peeling a little more.

Their eyes were shooting questions at Jesse. I hope they don’t start asking them in front of the cops, he thought. The police don’t need any help with their interrogation.

~~~

It was late that night when a tired-looking Witt appeared in Jesse’s room. “Hey, you doin’ okay?”

Jesse got up and threw his arms around his friend, giving him a firm hug. “Thanks for saving my life, man. I owe you… big time.”

“What, you’re not riding my ass for being too slow or something?”

Jesse slowly shook his head.

“You look pretty shook up. You gonna pull through or am I gonna have to put you on my bike and take you to the psych hospital this time?”

“I am shittin’ myself,” Jesse admitted. “That guy kept asking me where their money was. As if it isn’t enough of a problem that some of his drug asshole buddies might show up, I deposited four grand cash in my bank account yesterday. If anyone looks into his claim that I took their money, I’m in deep shit.”

“Your mother and brother must’ve heard him asking you about the money?”

Jesse nodded.

“What’d you tell them?”

“Same thing I told the cops. That money was blowing across the parking lot when I got shot. That I was picking up a twenty when the SOB put a hole in me. That maybe they thought I got a lot more than just that twenty.” Jesse shook his head despairingly, “But if anyone checks my bank account, they’ll know.”

“Is your mom on your account?”

“Aw, shit! Yeah, she is.”

“Remove her ASAP. You’re eighteen, you can take her off now.”

Jesse closed his eyes. “First thing tomorrow.”

“Bank’s not open until after school starts.”

“Shit, shit, shit, shit…”

Witt put a hand on his shoulder. “Skip out of class and do it as soon as the bank’s open. You can say you slept in. It’s probably gonna be okay, but I’d suggest you open an account at another bank. One only you know about.”

Jesse looked up at him, “You opened another account?!”

Witt nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me to do that?!”

“Sorry man…”

Jesse thought his friend did look sorry. “Hey, how’d you deal with that big dude?”

Now Witt looked seriously disturbed. “I, uh, lost control. It took me less than two seconds to get here, but then I wanted to figure out how best to deal with the guy, so I stopped and went to near real-time so I could look in the window and see what was happening. Then that guy knocked you down—”

“Vargas,” Jesse said.

“What?”

“The enforcer’s name was Vargas.”

“Oh. Well, Vargas knocked you down and put the gun to the back of your head, so I went to 400X and came inside cause I thought he was about to pull the trigger. I didn’t want to take any chances that he’d… You know?”

Despite the serious subject matter, Jesse felt amused by Witt’s squeamishness about saying, “…kill you.” He nodded to Witt’s implied question. “So, what’d you do?”

“I, uh, put Vargas’ head in 400X. Um, his heart was still in real-time so…” Witt shrugged, “essentially, his brain wasn’t getting any blood. He passed out. I imagine to you his lights went out suddenly, but to me, they faded out slow which made me kinda sick. He couldn’t do anything about it, though. His body was still stuck in real-time.”

Jesse frowned, “He was behind me, so I didn’t see his lights do anything. But once it happened, he woulda been dead. How’d he wind up getting shot?”

“He wasn’t dead yet. It takes several minutes for the brain to die without its blood flow. But if I’d let him die that way… Witt looked away, then back, “There’d be lots of questions. I’m pretty sure an autopsy can tell when a brain dies for lack of blood, like in a stroke, but I’m pretty sure a stroke only affects part of the brain. And, they’d wanna find out what blocked the flow and they wouldn’t be able to find anything.”

“So, you shot him?” Jesse asked, surprised.

Witt shook his head. “I put on some gloves, turned the pistol so it was up against his chest, and mashed his finger on the trigger.”

“You shot him.”

Looking depressed, Witt said, “Yeah. I guess I did. I shoulda just eased off his time differential. You could’ve tied him before he woke up, then called the police.”

“Hey, Witt,” Jesse said, sympathetic. “I think shootin’ him probably saved my life, if not now, then later when that SOB got out of jail and came after me again. Even if you didn’t save my worthless life, you probably saved some other people. The cops told me Vargas was a miserable excuse for a human being. They said he liked to hurt people and I got the impression they think he’s killed a bunch. The way he was acting, I believe it.”

“You think he deserved to die?”

Jesse nodded. “You damn betcha.” My morals, he thought, are a lot simpler than Witt’s.

Witt sighed, “I hope you’re right. Is there anything else we need to get our stories straight?”

“What do you think the coroner’s going to decide happened to him?”

Tiredly, Witt said, “I hope he’ll think the guy slipped and fell on his gun, accidentally shooting himself. Or passed out and fell on his gun, I don’t know. Maybe they’ll decide you overpowered him and made him shoot himself, but you could argue self-defense.”

Jesse laughed, “No way they’re gonna think I overpowered a big mutha like him.”

“Yeah,” Witt gave him a weak smile. “Not a wimp like you.”

“Hey, I’m wiry!”

Witt snorted.

“Besides, they swabbed me for gunpowder residue. I don’t know how reliable that test is, but they should find it on my back, not my front or hands.”

“Glad they didn’t test me then,” Witt said, standing and turning to the door.

“Witt?”

“Huh?”

“You did a service for humanity when you killed Vargas. Don’t get… all upset about it.”

Witt gave him a nod, then vanished.

Epilogue

For Wednesday’s dinner, Claire had made something surprisingly good she called Mexican pizza. While Lindsey and her son were putting the dishes in the dishwasher afterward, Witt asked, “Mom?”

“Um-hmm?” Lindsey replied distractedly, as usual, worrying about money.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t know I’ve been taking Dad to treatments on Tuesday afternoons?”

“What?!” she said, surprised and unhappy, now fully attuned to him.

“Um,” he said, looking uncomfortable, “you remember me talking to you about how I thought he might have PTSD?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied suspiciously.

“Well, it turns out the university medical center’s running a study on PTSD. I talked him into applying to be a subject and they accepted him. He has to have someone drive him to the appointments so I volunteered to do that on Tuesdays.”

“You’re skipping class to take him to his treatments?!”

“No. He scheduled them for after school. I only miss my track practice.”

“I thought you were hoping for a track scholarship?”

Witt looked like he didn’t know how to respond. “I’m… pretty sure I’ll get that even if I miss a practice.”

“Witt! Pretty sure’s not good enough! That scholarship could change your life!”

“So could having a dad again,” he said softly.

“Oh, Witt,” she said, sadly. “He’s had counseling in the past. It’s never helped. You shouldn’t take a chance of missing your scholarship on the remote chance he’ll get better. Besides, he could take an Uber or something if he had real commitment to his own treatment.”

“Um, this is a specific program for PTSD. It includes medication and they won’t turn him over to Ubers or taxis. Besides, Ubers cost a lot of money which we’re trying to save.” When Lindsey opened her mouth to further object, he rushed ahead, “He’s only had three treatments, but he’s a lot better, Mom.”

“How would you know?” she asked dismissively.

Reproachfully, he said, “I do know my father, Mom. He’s not as jumpy. He was staying sober before he entered the study but says he was only doing it through sheer willpower. Now he says he doesn’t feel the booze calling him anymore.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess…” she said dubiously but hopefully.

“I…” Witt hesitated. After a moment, he continued, “I think we should invite him to dinner.”

“Witt! Have you forgotten the man used to hit you?! Do you remember what he did to your sister?!”

“No, I haven’t,” Witt said, looking sad. “But I think he was sick when those things happened. Now that he’s made a big effort to get treatment… now he’s tried to help himself… I think we should respond with love not hate.”

That suggestion tore at Lindsey’s heart. But she steeled her resolve. Tilting her head to study her naïve child, she said, “That’s a noble sentiment, Witt, but…” she shook her head, “I think you’re setting yourself up for a vast disappointment.”

“I’m willing to accept the possibility of disappointment in hope of joy,” he said somberly. “Can you do the same for the man you once loved?”

Oh, God, she thought. What a way to pull my heartstrings. I’ll feel like such a terrible mother if I say no. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to look resignedly at her son. “This matters a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

He nodded, his eyes not moving from hers.

She grinned, “And you’re gonna do all the work to make it happen? You’ll talk your sister into it? Buy and cook the food? Invite your dad?”

“Yes!” he said, a giant smile on his face.

God, she thought as he gave her a big hug, please don’t let this blow up in his face.

***

Reiter’s News Service—Today a small group of citizens attempted to assassinate Barras Anshed, President of Cyreea. Anshed rarely ventures out of his heavily fortified palace, but on this day, when he did, a team lay waiting.

The attackers almost succeeded in killing Anshed but then Anshed’s ruthless military police force cut them down. In the moments after their death, a small charge on top of a neighboring building released tens of thousands of leaflets describing the horrors Anshed has perpetrated on his people and begging for international help in unseating him. The leaflets ended with what has become their rallying cry, “Will no one stop Anshed’s reign of terror?”

This is the third such futile assassination attempt in the last twelve months. While the group’s attempts have stirred sympathy, they seem destined to accomplish little in the face of the excellent equipment Anshed provides his police. Nonetheless, their spokesperson says they will not rest while Anshed lives.

Anshed’s military police tortured, then killed the attackers who survived the initial hail of gunfire. They carried out these atrocities in the streets before hundreds of witnesses. Then the police brutalized the bodies of all the attackers and dragged them through the streets.

It may not be possible to further terrorize Anshed’s people, but such atrocities have been quite effective in rousing animus against him.

***

Jesse was in the kitchen getting a snack when the doorbell rang. When he answered, it was the cop who’d done most of the talking when the thing with Vargas happened. Jesse’s butt clenched with fear that they’d discovered his bank deposit. Forcing a smile, he said, “Hi, Officer Streely. What’s up?”

Streely said, “I’m here in response to your mom’s query about how Vargas found you. Is she here?”

With a sense of great relief, Jesse said, “Just a minute. I’ll get her.” However, when he turned around, she was already coming out of her little home office. “Um, Mom, Officer Streely—”

“I heard,” she interrupted, her eyes already on Streely, “I hope you’ve figured out who released the information?”

“Um, yes, ma’am. We have. Can we sit down to talk about it?”

She hesitated. Jesse could tell she wanted to be a hard-ass, but after a second, she relented, saying, “Sure.” She waved at the couch, asking, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Oh, sure, that’d be nice,” Streely said, a relieved and grateful look on his face.

To Jesse’s distress, she said, “Jesse, can you get a cup for each of us?” She turned back to the officer, “Do you want milk or sugar?”

“Both for me,” Streely said.

“There should be some in the pot, Jesse,” she said without even looking at him. I’ll take mine black.”

Jesse was glad to find enough for two cups in the carafe. He knew if he’d had to brew more, the noise it made would have kept him from hearing. By carefully handling the cups and pot he was able to hear all but a couple of words while he poured.

His mother opened the conversation by essentially reiterating her complaints even though Streely was there with the answer she’d been demanding. She said, “I’m sure you can understand how upset I am that this information leaked to Vargas’s gang. I… I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but…” she hesitated, then bulled ahead, “Whoever leaked it needs to be punished. The penalty needs to be serious enough to send a message. One that’ll keep this kind of thing from happening in the future. I don’t care whether it leaked at the hospital or the police station, those responsible need to be tracked down and dealt with. I don’t want you to tell me no one can figure out who’s guilty. Poor management of this information put our lives at risk and this event should be pursued like any other criminal event even if it’s just criminal negligence.”

Streely didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m sure you’re thinking about how I warned you that sourcing information leaks can be extraordinarily difficult and often impossible. However, in this case, it turned out to be quite simple. All we had to do was check the hospital records system. They track every access of the electronic medical record. In no time they’d discovered that someone accessed Jesse’s record the day before Vargas showed up over here.”

Jesse interrupted, by handing them their cups of coffee and sitting down.

Surprised, his mom asked, “You’re not having one?”

The question wasn’t surprising given how much coffee Jesse drank, but he didn’t want to admit the reason he was reluctant to brew more so he just shook his head.

His mother narrowed her eyes at him. He could tell she was trying to figure out how to get him out of there. She still thought of him as a child to be protected from unpleasant information. However, after a moment she turned her attention back to Streely. “So, who did it?”

“A young nurse who works in the ED.”

Jesse didn’t miss the fact that Streely hadn’t given his mother a name and wasn’t surprised when his mother jumped on it. “Who?” she asked peremptorily.

Streely shook his head. “I can’t tell you that because she’s at least as much of a victim as Jesse was and she’s entitled to her privacy.” Recognizing the impending firestorm Jesse’s mom was about to unleash, Streely put up a hand to fend it off. “Wait, please, until I’ve finished.”

His mom subsided but Jesse could tell she intended to ruthlessly pursue her question after Streely’d finished.

Streely looked down at notes Jesse didn’t think he needed to consult, then continued. “Vargas followed this nurse home when she left her shift at the ED. Since we can find no evidence to connect them prior to this event, we are certain she was merely a target of convenience. Shortly after she got home, he broke in through the door of her apartment, snatched her phone, and tackled her. Alternating threats and torture, he forced her to log into the hospital records system with her personal computer. Then he made her find your son by using a brute force search of the records of ED admissions, looking for males who’d been shot the day of Jesse’s incident. This took hours because there were a lot of admissions that day and she didn’t know how to sort them by diagnosis. Eventually, she found Jesse and Vargas wrote down your address…

“Then he raped her.”

“Oh!” Jesse’s mom’s hand flew to her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am too,” Streely said softly. “I see various forms of brutality all the time, but Vargas was a real piece of work.”

“Wait,” Jesse’s mom said, narrowing her eyes, “she didn’t report the rape?”

Streely slowly shook his head. “Vargas has probably done this a lot. He wore a condom and took it and its contents with him. He made her wash her sheets with a detergent he brought with him, probably Oxy Clean which is known to degrade DNA. He made her clean under her nails and take a shower. He wiped all surfaces where he might’ve left prints. Essentially, he made it so, if she reported, we wouldn’t be able to produce actionable evidence. Doing so would be an immense further humiliation but wouldn’t result in justice. Finally, of course, he threatened her with far worse if she did report it.”

Jesse wanted his mom to let it go, but she still wanted someone to blame. “But, but, accessing those records was a crime!”

Streely nodded. “You don’t think she’s been punished enough? Do you think further public shaming and discipline would keep others from doing the same thing in those same horrific circumstances?”

His mom looked as if she were about to protest further, but she suddenly shrank into herself. “No. I’m sorry…” She shook her head and wiped at an eye. “I—I’ve been so determined that someone had to be punished, but…”

Streely softly said, “Vargas was the one who deserved to be punished and he’s received the ultimate penalty. That poor nurse is a victim just like your family.”

Jesse’s mom caught him by surprise by beginning to sob. Jesse moved next to her and put an arm around her trembling shoulders.

When minutes had gone by without her subsiding, Jesse looked Streely in the eye and gave him a nod.

Streely returned the nod, then quietly rose and let himself out.

***

Their tutoring session finished, Rachel started to get up with everyone else, but Witt’s touch on her forearm settled her back in her seat. She looked at him, but he was looking straight ahead. “What?” she asked.

“Um,” he murmured, jerking his head toward the exiting Cinna and Teri. “Just waiting for them to leave.”

“What?” she said. “Are we about to have a secret conversation? Some kind of cloak and dagger?”

“Um, no,” he said, blushing. “I… just didn’t know if you’d want people to know.”

“Know what?” she asked, pretty sure she knew but unable to resist torturing him.

“About our… date. I was wanting to ask if—?"

“What? You thought I’d ask you to take me out, but that I’d be embarrassed if anyone found out about it?!”

“Well, uh…”

“You thought I’d be ashamed of you?!” she asked, enjoying the way his cheeks had gone even redder.

“Um, maybe?”

Rachel leaned closer and put an arm around him for a squeeze. “I’d be proud for anyone to know I was going out with you. Would you like me to get up on my chair and shout it to the world?”

His eyes widened in panic, “No!” He turned to study her as if he were afraid she was making fun of him. Evidently reassured by the expression on her face, he said. “Sorry. I’m glad you don’t mind if people know but you definitely don’t need to shout it out.” He got back on topic. “I… was wanting to ask you whether you’d like to go to the EOD concert when, we, uh, go…”

“On our date?” Rachel asked, now feeling like she was putting him out of his misery.

He nodded.

“What’s EOD?”

“Eve of Destruction,” he said eagerly. “They’re a new band. They went to school here in town and they’re really good.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Rachel said. “Just not as EOD. I’d love to go but I’ve heard tickets are impossible.”

“Um, Jesse and I went to the concert that got canceled because some people got crushed. Our tickets from that one are valid for the one they’ve added on.”

“Oh! Did you get hurt?”

Witt shook his head. “Jesse got kinda squished for a while, but no real damage. If you ask him though, he’ll tell you how horrible it was and how he’s borderline maimed.”

Rachel snorted, “Jesse! How’d a loser like him wind up with a friend like you?”

“Um, ’cause I’m just as much of a loser as he is?”

She punched his shoulder, “Are not! But aren’t you gonna have a hard time prying that other ticket out of him?”

“Oh,” Witt said, then waved an imaginary cigar and spoke like a gangster, “he owes me, big time. It won’t be a problem.”

“Well,” Rachel said, giving him a one-armed hug, “going to the EOD concert would be awesome. I’m looking forward to it.”

***

When Jesse got home, he found Witt sitting on his bed. “What the hell, man. You think you can just break into my castle anytime you want?”

Witt shrugged, “Evidently, I can.”

“If you weren’t such an asshole, you wouldn’t.”

“If you weren’t such an asshole, I wouldn’t. Hey, I asked Rachel to the EOD concert.”

Jesse drew back, “Good luck getting tickets! Even paying premium prices they’re really hard to get.”

Witt looked him in the eye. “I’ve got a friend with a ticket who owes me.”

“Not that much!”

“I’ve got a friend who owes me his life…”

“Hey, man, my life wouldn’t’ve been in danger if you hadn’t—”

“If you’d come when I asked you to,” Witt interrupted. “Instead, I had to kill someone to protect you.”

Stunned by that viewpoint, Jesse sat down hard. “I’m, uh…” He cleared his throat, “I’m sorry. I know it’s got you down.”

Witt was looking out the window. He nodded without turning back to Jesse. “Yeah…”

“I know sometimes I’m kind of a shit, but—”

“Sometimes?”

“Most of the time,” Jesse admitted with a shrug. “Hey, about that. Yesterday, a cop came by ’cause my mom had a bug up her ass about who’d released our address to Vargas.”

Witt nodded. “What’d he tell you?”

“That Vargas kidnapped a nurse and tortured her until she looked it up in the hospital record.”

“Oh,” Witt said, looking uncomfortably disgusted.

“And,” Jesse continued, “that, after she gave him the info, he raped her …”

Witt looked horrified but didn’t say anything.

“I’m just sayin’, man, that Vargas was a disgusting subhuman who needed to die. He’s probably done similar shit to countless others and gotten away with it. You shouldn’t feel bad about what you did, you probably saved a bunch of people from him in the future.”

Witt nodded. “Maybe I shouldn’t… But I do.”

“Would it make you feel better if you had an extra ticket to EOD?”

His friend looked up at him from beneath lowered brows and gave him a weak grin. He nodded. “Probably, yeah.”

~~~

A little later, when Witt got up to leave, he found himself the recipient of a bone-crushing hug from his friend.

“Sorry, man,” Jesse said in a choked voice. “You did save my life and I didn’t deserve it. I owe you more than that ticket and all you need to do is ask…”

“Gotcha,” Witt said, choked up himself. He wanted to say more but knew his voice would crack.

Instead, he just went to 400X and disappeared from Jesse’s room.

***

After they’d both been embarrassed by her parents, Rachel followed Witt out of her house, wondering what kind of car he’d be driving. She didn’t recognize it, but it looked like a recent model. She’d heard his family was poor and had feared he’d be taking her to the concert in some kind of junker.

To her astonishment, he guided her to the back door of the vehicle and opened it. She hesitated a moment, then got in, wondering if he was going to drive her to Zen’s Arch like some kind of chauffeured back seat princess.

Then she saw someone in the driver’s seat.

And realized Witt was standing at the door of the car, waiting to get in behind her. This is an Uber! she realized in consternation. Is he planning to get too drunk to drive? Does he expect me to drink too?

Once she scooted over, Witt sat beside her. Even in the dim evening lighting, she could see he was blushing again.

“An Uber?” she asked apprehensively. “Are you gonna be drinking?”

“Oh, no,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “It’s just that… I… don’t have…”

He didn’t want to take me in his family’s car! Rachel realized suddenly. She touched his arm. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”

“I should,” he said resolutely. “You probably won’t want to go out with me again once you know just how poor my family is.”

She drew back to study him. “That’s okay. I like you, not your money.” She cocked her head, “We could’ve taken my car.”

He snorted softly, “In a sense, we are. What you’ve been paying me for tutoring is paying for this Uber.”

She laughed, but felt bad about it. She thought about offering to pay for the Uber but thought it’d embarrass him even more. “I’ll buy the drinks then, okay?”

“Um, we won’t be able to get alcoholic drinks, you know?”

Rachel nodded. “I know. I’ve been there before. But they have a two-drink minimum and those’re expensive. Let me get them.”

“I, ah, I’ve got enough.”

Rachel figured his hesitation indicated he barely had enough. “Come on. I practically held you down and forced you to ask me out. The least I can do is pay for the drinks.”

“I wanted to ask you!” he said. “I’m just too chickenshit… um, excuse me.”

“Don’t worry about swearing in front of me. I cuss like a sailor. And, my family’s got lots of money. Let me pay, okay?”

“Okay,” Witt said, obviously embarrassed. “Thanks.”

Concerned, Rachel asked, “Are you gonna be able to go to college next year?”

“I should,” he said, sounding uncertain nonetheless. “I’ve got an academic scholarship to the U that’ll pay tuition and fees. And, I’ve got a good shot at an athletic scholarship that’d pay that stuff plus room and board.”

“Athletic?” Rachel asked, surprised. She didn’t think of Witt as athletic, but she had to admit she knew very little about him. She hadn’t known anything about him six weeks ago.

“Um, yeah. I run track.”

“Really? What events?”

“The sprints and the long jump.”

“What’re sprints?”

“The short races. The 100-, 200-, and 400-meter runs.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, not surprised she hadn’t heard about it. Their school wasn’t big on athletics. “So, you’re pretty fast?”

“Fast enough,” he said, enigmatically. As if there were something more to the answer but that he wasn’t going to elaborate.

Soon they were entering Zen’s Arch. It was more crowded than it’d ever been when Rachel had been there before. Witt was looking around so curiously that she wondered whether he’d been there before like he claimed. Saying, “We gotta get our drinks while the getting’s good,” she led him to the bar.

When they had their drinks, she wanted to work her way down to the front, but Witt shook his head, “That’s where the crush was last time. We’ll be able to hear just fine back here without risking our lives.”

The lights flashed and a guy came out on the stage to make an announcement about the crush at the previous concert and how the show would get canceled again if people didn’t follow the new safety rules intended to limit crowding down front. The floor had been fenced into sections and, only so many people were allowed in each section of the floor. The area nearest the stage was already maxed out, so Rachel couldn’t’ve gotten down there anyway.

Then the lights went out.

Rachel worried something bad had happened, but Witt leaned closer to her. “This is the way the show starts. You’ll hear the organ come in slowly. As each musician joins in, they’ll throw a spotlight on them.”

But the dark persisted and persisted.

People started to fidget and a few started calling out in annoyance.

To Rachel’s annoyance, someone worked their way in beside her, crowding her over against Witt. Is this area gonna get overstuffed while the bouncers can’t see for the dark? she wondered. Then the person’s shoulder started rhythmically moving and she heard a rhythmic scraping sound coming from low in front of them. What the hell’s this guy doing? she wondered, afraid he was playing with himself.

Then she realized that a crunchy guitar chord was faintly coming from the speaker system – its rhythm matching the movements and sounds beside her. It got louder and louder. Realizing they weren’t starting with organ, the way Witt had predicted, she wondered, Did their guitarist sneak up to stand beside me under cover of the darkness?

As seconds passed the sound had built to a pulsing, compelling rhythm that made it hard to stand still.

A faint glow appeared around the person next to her, slowly brightening as the spotlight ramped up.

Now, to Rachel’s surprise, she saw she was standing next to a woman. The girl had spiky black hair exploding out of a visor. Taller than Rachel, she had on a thick vest covered with charms and was indeed strumming an electric guitar. Eva! Rachel thought, overcome to realize she was standing next to someone everyone thought was a musical goddess.

People all around the big club were turning to stare and she got the sense that they were wondering who Rachel was.

With a crack on the snare, the drums came in, and a spot came up on the stage to show the kit.

Then the bass began to thump with the kick drum and a spot brightened on the bassist who was up on the balcony!

Rachel was waiting for some kind of keyboard part, since she knew EOD featured those four instruments on most of its songs.

Instead, the music abruptly fell silent and the woman leaned forward to a microphone Rachel hadn’t noticed—even though it’d been set up less than eighteen inches from her.

In a gorgeous voice, Eva sang a capella, “Seven soldiers strode the silver sky…”

The crowd went apeshit.

~~~

As they left Zen’s Arch at the end of an astonishing three-hour show, Rachel realized she’d just had an experience she’d remember for the rest of her life. As soon as the crowded sidewalk loosened up a little, she turned and embraced Witt. “Thanks!” she said, uttering the most heartfelt single word she thought she’d ever voiced.

He looked a little dumbstruck himself. “That was…” he said, trailing off with a shake of his head. Rachel thought because he couldn’t think of words with which to express sufficient awe.

“I know what you mean,” she said, then leaned closer for a kiss.

As their lips touched, a sudden shove sent them stumbling on.

“Stop blockin’ the goddamned sidewalk!” a drunk guy shouted.

With an impossibly quick shove of his own, Witt sent the guy flying backward. Before the guy landed, skidding, on his ass, Witt took Rachel’s hand and led her on, “He’s got a point, if rudely expressed. Let’s keep moving.”

A few feet further down the sidewalk, Witt looked back over his shoulder, presumably to ascertain the whereabouts of the guy who’d shoved them. When he turned back to the front, he winked at Rachel, “I can hardly wait for that kiss.”

Thinking she should be terrified after what’d happened, Rachel was surprised that she felt completely safe with Witt by her side. She’d never thought he might be the kind of guy who’d win a fight, but she suddenly realized that he’d fended off Bear twice, Lance once, and now this guy, who hadn’t been small either.

He must know karate or something, she thought wonderingly.

When Rachel looked over at him, Witt’s eyes were tracking a slender blonde who’d just stepped out of one of the side doors of Zen’s Arch. He seemed almost perfect, she thought but I guess expecting he wouldn’t gawk at other girls would be too much.

The End

Hope you liked the book!

To find other books by the author try Laury.Dahners.com.

Or his Amazon Author page

Author’s Afterword

This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I like science fiction that poses a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically plausible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t currently thought to be possible. Essentially you ask, “what if” something such as faster than light travel (or time travel, or a jump drive) were possible, how might that change our world?

I think the rest of the science in a science fiction story should be as real as possible.

Therefore, in this story, the central question revolves around the question of “what if control of the rate of flow of time were possible?”

Such stories—often called “time-stoppers”—where a character (often an antihero because of how such a power lends itself to unsavory undertakings) can control time are not new in science fiction, though most involve completely stopping time in the world around the character while they carry out various shenanigans. I’ve always been bothered by such flights of fancy because the limits of such a power are seldom addressed. For instance, if time in the world around them is stopped, how do they move objects in that world (for instance to remove someone’s clothing—in jest or with evil intent). Clothing that’s time-stopped should be immovable. And, if time is fully stopped around you, aren’t you moving infinitely fast in comparison to that world? Wouldn’t that cause some disastrous side effects?

This book explores the possibilities of speeding yourself (or slowing time around you), but not completely stopping it. This however makes it evident that there remain a number of issues that would crop up, at a minimum with the speed of sound and light. To deal with these I’ve had to propose a transition zone between the differentially timed parts of the world. Through the gift of an author’s “handwavium,” that transition zone almost completely damps out sound emitted by fast-moving objects.

I’ve had great fun researching what effects such time differentials might cause and trying to figure out what they’d mean to the characters in this story. I’m sure I haven’t thought of all of them, and it’s hard to know whether some of them would work the way I envision them.

I especially loved the idea that some real people might already be living in a slightly faster time flow and that such a time differential might explain their phenomenal athletic abilities. If you’ve never seen a YouTube video of Sugar Ray Leonard’s speed in the boxing ring, it can be simply astonishing to watch.

Of note, some studies do back MDMA (Ecstasy, Molly) as a possible treatment for PTSD, and the thing with it and octopuses is true!

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Nora Dahners, H. Jeff Durham, Scott McNay, Milt Sanders, Henrie Timmers, and Stephen Wiley; each of whom significantly improved this story.

Other Books and Series
by Laurence E Dahners

Series

The Ell Donsaii series

The Vaz series

The Bonesetter series

The Blindspot series

The Proton Field series

The Hyllis family series

Single books (not in series)

The Transmuter’s Daughter

Six Bits (a collection of short length stories)

Shy Kids Can Make Friends Too

The Little Redheaded Boy and His Flying Saucer

For the most up to date information go to:

Laurence E Dahners website

Or the Amazon Author page