Falls gasped. Before him lay a strange city, bustling with activity. The buildings were made of wood and stone, and the roads were unpaved. He expected this, though. He could hardly expect Centros to be identical to the world he left. He did not, however, expect the whole city to be upside-down. It was.
“What? But… gravity… It’s pulling down for us. How can it pull in a different direction for them? Is there a lens here? There should be distortion if it were; is it a large lens? Some other optics trick I’m not familiar with?”
“Optics? Ha! No, this is much more exciting than simple optics. This is a Force your world does not have.”
“That would mean we’re in an entirely different Universe.”
“I thought that would be obvious by now.” Arath casually poured two equally-sized beakers of water into each other and ended up with less water than before. He poured the water back, and the beaker overflowed. Watching Falls’s incredulous reaction, he proceeded to break several other laws of physics.
“What is this madness?” Falls finally asked.
“Oh, this is just something we like to call ‘magic,’ ” Arath replied nonchalantly.
Falls fell to his knees. Magic! Magic couldn’t exist! It was impossible, ridiculous! It was the antithesis of science; it was a tautology that magic doesn’t exist. It directly contradicted everything he had based his life on…
Arath did not seem to notice. As casually as ever, he asked, “Want me to teach it to you?”
Everything Falls had based his life on… utterly obliterated… Did he have a choice? Even with no choice, Falls still knelt on the floor of Arath’s room for a long time.
Finally, holding back tears, he spoke. “Yes.”
The malice in Arath’s eyes was gone by the time Falls looked up.
—
Topp knocked on the door to Olson’s room.
“Come in!” Olson called.
Topp did. Olson was at her desk, reading a book she had found. “You know, Meinke, Falls, and O’Neill are all gone. Those Centros guys are leading them around who-knows-where. Meanwhile, we’re stuck here with nothing to do.”
“I noticed,” Olson replied. “It’s because we’re women, and the people here are sexist.”
“It’s also because we’re minor characters, so no one cares about us,” Topp said.
“…You lost me.”
“Oh, I’m a Communications teacher, so I get to break the fourth wall,” Topp explained. “It’s really fun.” She then muttered, “This is totally not a lampshade.”
“I’m still confused.”
“You’re supposed to be,” Topp said, smiling. “In any case, if we want to be known, we have to make ourselves known. We have to be proactive!”
Olson thought for a moment. “That makes sense. But how do we do that?”
“Have you ever noticed this wooden chest at the foot of your bed?”
“The weapons chest?” Olson asked. “Yeah. It’s hard not to notice.”
“There’s one in every room. I think everyone knows how to fight here; probably because this isn’t a very stable place. If we want to survive here, we should also learn how.”
“That’s easier said than done, you know.”
“Everything is easier said than done,” Topp said. “So let’s stop ‘saying’ and start ‘doing.’ You’re a math teacher. You can probably estimate trajectories.” Topp opened the chest and started rummaging through it. “Here, try shooting this bow and arrow.”
“Look, I know theoretical math, that’s completely different from practical math,” Olson protested as Topp shoved the weapons into her arms. “There’s a reason Newton wasn’t a famous marksman.”
“Just try it! Aim outside this window, at that tree right there,” Topp said, pointing. “It’s not like anything bad will happen if you miss.”
“Fine,” Olson grumbled, “But only because you’re insisting on it.”
—
“First,” Laras said to O’Neill, “I have something I must confess to you.”
The two were still standing in the room with strange objects.
“You see, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you,” Laras continued. “I am not as absentminded as I appear. I only act like this to keep Arath’s suspicions away from me. That way, I can do science with impunity.”
“Um… okay…” O’Neill said. He wasn’t entirely sure whether or not to believe Laras.
“Arath has told King Stevis that you’re prophesied to destroy all of Centros. A laughable claim, but the King believes him. Now, there are many ways to handle our situation, but I have enough authority to allow you to stay here for now. There’ll be a full-scale search of the Middlefort and the surrounding area, but if I tell them not to search here, they won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Smart man, O’Neill thought. He believed him now. “So I stay with you?”
“I have an extra room back there.” Laras gestured to a door O’Neill hadn’t noticed before. “You obviously can’t stay here permanently, but it’ll do as we figure out what to do. Arath is obviously planning something; let’s wait to see what he does before we decide on what to do next. In the meantime, let’s teach you some useful things. In your lands, you’re a Healer, right?”
“A Health teacher, actually,” he corrected.
“The disciplines seem closely related. You know the basics of anatomy and human biology, right?”
“Of course.”
“And how to treat injuries, right? You know about all the different chemicals that can catalyze regeneration in the human body, right?”
O’Neill hesitated. “In the human body? Science isn’t that far along yet…”
“Oh, well, some of these are well-kept Centran secrets; I’m not too surprised you don’t know about it. I’ll just have to teach you now.”
—
Olson lowered her bow. Still looking out the window at the place where the arrow had landed, she frowned slightly.
“What’s the matter?” Topp asked.
“This… isn’t Earth. We’re not on Earth anymore,” Olson said.
“What makes you say that?”
“That arrow landed too far away. The acceleration of gravity isn’t 9.8 meters per second per second. I’d estimate it’s around…” Olson thought for a moment. “…around half that.”
“You mean the arrow landed four times as far away as it should have? Twice? Less? I’ve never been very good with math.”
“Twice,” Olson replied.
“So what does that mean for us?” Topp asked.
“It means, among other things, that gymnastics is a…” Olson started to do a cartwheel. “lot… easier…” Topp grabbed her before she could crash into a nearby bookshelf. “Thanks. Why are you smiling like that?”
Topp was beaming. “And you said theoretical knowledge could never be practical.” She took a quiver out from the weapons chest. “Let’s see how much you can learn while everyone else is busy with their own things.”
—
“Hello, Meinke,” Veril said.
Meinke looked up, startled. Veril was standing at the entrance to his room. It had somehow been opened without his noticing. He smiled at him. “Hi, Veril.”
Veril didn’t smile back. “How much do you know about defending yourself?”
Meinke shrugged. “I suppose I know something, but it’s not something I can say exactly or give a numerical value to—”
Meinke suddenly noticed a sword at his neck. When he looked up at Veril, he saw him shaking his head. “You wouldn’t survive a day in Centros,” Veril said with a disappointed look.
“Well, it’s a good thing it’s only been a day in Centros so far, then,” Meinke joked. Veril didn’t laugh. He was being so serious it was unsettling to Meinke.
“Well, it is my solemn duty as a Centran to teach you how to survive. And that means to teach you the art of swordfighting. Do you accept?”
“Um, okay,” Meinke said.
Veril opened the weapons chest in Meinke’s room, took out a sword, and handed it to Meinke. He showed him the basics of how to hold the weapon, then held up his own sword. Their blades touched.
Veril finally smiled. “It begins.”
Meinke wasn’t as relieved to see Veril smile as he thought he’d be.
