Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms

Alexandria Grey Hawk was five years old, and she had just gotten an A+ at school. She knew just what to do. She jumped off the bus, ran to the front door, and held her test up high above her head.

“This is the A+ Song, now it’s mommy’s turn to sing along,” Alex shouted. Across the house, Alex’s mother dropped what she was doing and came to the door, clapping her hands.

“This is the A+ Song,” she sang. “Now it’s daddy’s turn to sing along.”

“This is the A+ Song,” dad sang, from his seat on the couch. “Now it’s done, it’s not very long.”

Alex held her test even higher, and basked in a short round of applause from her parents. Her mother snatched the worksheet out of her hands.

“Ooh, in math,” she said. “Daddy and I were never very good at that.”

“I did fine.”

“We both did fine, and look how that worked out for us,” mom said. “Go get out of your school clothes, Lexie, dinner’s almost ready.”

Alex sprinted into her room to get changed, while mom wandered back into the kitchen, followed by dad.

“I don’t know if I like that singing thing,” dad said.

“We have to encourage her somehow,” mom said. “I said fruit snacks, you’re the one who didn’t want to spend any money on it.”

“You still could’ve come up with something better than a song,” dad snapped.

“If you-”

Alex wandered back into the kitchen. Mom and dad shut up as soon as she arrived.

Alexandria Grey Hawk was twenty-one years old. Six months ago, she had gotten stuck in an apocalyptic time loop. Yesterday, she had found out she’d spent most of those six months being manipulated by the people who were supposed to be her teammates. She did not know what to do. She got up and wandered out of her dorm.

She had been assigned roommates, as was the standard for freshmen at the Einstein-Odinson. They had been conversing over breakfast, but they shut up as soon as Alex left her bedroom. She wandered past them. She didn’t even remember their names, most days.

Out of habit, she wandered to the dining hall. New Year’s Break was now in session, meaning classes were canceled (as were the apocalyptic loops), leaving most students with nothing to do. Many took the time to go home and relax, but still more stayed on campus due to a lack of travel funds. Now that they no longer had the patronage of Lee’s parents to fuel travel plans, most of the loopers were staying on campus. They sat at their table, engaged in conversation with Joan and their other friends, apparently getting them up to speed on the situation with Helena.

As Alex walked in, the conversation stopped. Samson shot a glare at her from across the room.

Alex went somewhere else.

Alexandria Gray Hawk was six years old. Today, she had gotten seven A+’s. She knew exactly what to do.

“Now it’s done it’s not very long,” dad sang. Alex laughed.

“Okay, now this one,” Alex said, holding up her history test. “This is the A+ Song-”

“Lexie, baby,” mom interrupted. “We’re not going to sing the song seven times.”

“Why not?”

“You get a lot of A+’s, Lexie, we’re getting tired of the song,” dad said.

“What your dad means to say,” mom spat. “Is that we don’t always have time to sing that many songs. I’ve got to cook dinner.”

“What cooking, all you do nowadays is throw frozen shit in the oven.”

“And what are you doing, huh? Too busy sitting on the couch to sing to your daughter?”

“You aren’t singing either!”

“But I want to sing,” Alex said. Mom broke away from the argument to kneel down by her daughter.

“Look, Lexie, the singing isn’t the important part,” mom said. “You remember what I told you, right?”

“Get good grades and get a lot of money,” Alex said.

“Exactly. The grades are the important part, not the singing.”

Mom and dad got back to their argument. Alex went back to her room. She’d always thought the singing was nice. Apparently she’d been wrong.

Alexandria Gray Hawk was twenty-one years old. She had gotten zero A+’s this semester. She did not know what to do.

The drop in her grades was perfectly understandable. She had been dealing with a lot of pressure this semester, from various sources. Hopefully now that she would no longer be dealing with some inane conspiracy, she would have more time. Alex got started right away.

She returned the general science division, and sat down at her workbench with a textbook. She was able to sit there without interruption for the better part of an hour before someone else showed up. Freddy and Goldie walked in, having a jovial conversation, and set some food down on Goldie’s workbench. They looked like they were going to have a nice lunch and work on some project together. Alex kept her eyes firmly on her desk as the two took notice of her.

“Oh,” Goldie said. Alex wasn’t looking, but she could still feel the sneer on Goldie’s face. “Maybe we should head somewhere else, Fred. This place stinks.”

“Goldie, come on, she’s still our classmate,” Freddy said. He set his things down and turned to Alex. “Look, I know about everything going on with you and Vell, but, uh, there’s no reason we can’t just be civil with each other, alright?”

Alex stared at the page of her book for a few seconds, not absorbing any of the words.

“I agree,” Alex said. “Glad to see someone in this school is as smart as they’re supposed to be.”

Freddy pondered her oddly reserved demeanor and took a few cautious steps towards Alex.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I feel fine.”

Alex stopped turning the pages of her book.

“Thank you for asking.”

Alex kept her attention on her book as Freddy gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder and walked away. She kept staring at the book, not really reading it, for a long time. After a few minutes of blank staring, she brushed a hand over the shoulder Freddy had grabbed. For some reason, it felt warm.

Alexandria Gray Hawk was seven years old. She had just had her first magic lesson. It was not technically graded, but she had asked the instructor if what she’d done was worthy of an A+, and been told yes. She thought she knew what to do.

She could hear the shouting match before she even stepped inside. She recognized the sound of her mom and dad shouting all too well. She took a deep breath and tried anyway.

“This is the A+ song-”

“Shut up, Alex!”

A door slammed loudly, and the shouting continued. Alex went to her room. She snapped her fingers and repeated the spell she had been taught: a simple conjuration trick to make a small light. When she had made the light this morning, it had been a bright emerald green.

This time, there was a little hint of gray.

Alexandria Gray Hawk was twenty-one years old. She was trying to cast a spell. She thought she knew what to do.

She snapped her fingers, and the magic fizzled on her fingertips. She went back to the books, and consulted the rituals again. She was doing everything right. She’d done spells like this a thousand times. It should’ve been simple, almost effortless. Alex tried harder, put more effort into it.

The spell exploded on her fingertips with enough force to send her reeling backwards out of her chair. As the flashing sparks of gray and green faded, Alex regained her bearings and wondered what could possibly be going wrong. She’d been able to perform this kind of magic as recently as-

Yesterday.

“It kind of feels weird to be sitting around playing poker,” Hawke said. “What with everything happening recently.”

“Everything happening recently is exactly why we’re playing poker,” Vell said. “I need a fucking break.”

He set his cards down and prepared for the next hand. He really did need a break from the non-stop stream of high stakes bullshit in his life. But he wasn’t getting one.

“What the hell did you do to me?”

The door to the lair slammed open so hard it almost got torn off the hinges, and Alex barreled through. Kim put down the deck right in the middle of shuffling it.

“Oh for fucks-”

“What did you do?”

“I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about,” Kim said.

“You know exactly what you did!”

“Fuck, Alex, can you at least stop screaming?” Vell asked. He rubbed sore temples and put his elbows on the table. “What even happened?”

“My magic,” Alex shouted. She clenched fists that sputtered with volatile magic. “It doesn’t work like it used to. You did something, cursed me somehow.”

“Wow. Would you believe we actually dealt with something just like this last year?”

“Did you cause it last time too?”

“Sort of, technically, but-”

“Then undo it now!”

Alex looked about ready to leap across the room and throttle someone. Vell stood up and put himself between Alex and the table full of loopers.

“Okay, for starters, Alex, why do you think we did anything to you? What reason would we have to do that?”

“Jealousy? Simple spite? Maybe this is some second layer of a plan to get back at Helena at my expense?”

Her voice cracked as she ranted, and Vell’s shoulders dropped.

“Okay, that last one, I can kind of see why you might think that,” Vell admitted. “But also, uh, when would we have done this? We haven’t been near you all day.”

“It wasn’t you,” Alex snapped. “You tricked Freddy into doing it for you.”

“What?”

“I could do magic just fine before, then Freddy found me in the lab, touched me on the shoulder, and all of a sudden I can’t do anything,” Alex said. “He must have done something to me!”

“You think Freddy is the kind of guy to curse someone?”

“No, you made him do it,” Alex screamed. “I know Freddy would never hurt me.”

Vell’s forehead wrinkled. Every second of contemplation came with a new wrinkle, until three seconds later, he had hit the famous four wrinkles state of thought. Then he started laughing.

“I knew it!”

“No no no no,” Vell said, as he struggled to contain his laughter. “I’m sorry, this is super rude, I can’t help it. I get it, I get it, I can explain everything.”

Vell put his hands on his knees and took a few deep, wheezing breaths. Once his laughter was contained he stood up straight and let out a long sigh to chase off the last of the giggles.

“Okay, let me explain,” Vell said. “You remember Cupid, right? Came here and told you how you don’t love anything and nothing loves you, right?”

Alex did not seem amused by the starting point of this “explanation”.

“Yes.”

“Alright, so, in a sense, ‘love’ is wanting something, and willpower is your determination to get what you want,” Vell continued. “And since you didn’t want anything, you had no willpower to balance in that whole willpower slash discipline thing that runs all magic.”

“That’s...logical,” Alex said. “Not necessarily correct, but logical.”

“Hear me out: your magic is all on the fritz now because that willpower and discipline dynamic is all out of whack,” Vell said. “Because for the first time since you were seven years old, you want something.”

Vell held out his hands, cautiously, towards Alex.

“Alex,” Vell said. “You’re in love with Freddy Frizzle.”

Alex said nothing. She did not speak, move, or even blink. Kim braced herself for whatever explosion was about to happen. Alex tensed, clenched her fists, and started to shake like she was ready to burst.

Then she started to cry. Her body wracked with ugly, trembling sobs, and she clutched at her face in distraught confusion, as if she didn’t even recognize tears. Samson averted his eyes from the pitiful scene, and looked at Vell, who had his own fists clenched.

“Vell.”

Vell was red in the face with frustration already, and his hands were shaking.

“Vell, don’t do it,” Kim said, as she also caught on to his internal conflict.

“I’m...trying...not to,” Vell said, through clenched teeth.

“Vell!”

“I can’t,” Vell said. “I’m sorry.”

The internal struggle ended, and Vell stepped forward, put an arm around Alex, and gave her a shoulder to cry on.

“Come on,” Vell said. “It’ll be alright.”

Alex continued to sob, and Samson rolled his eyes.

“Really should’ve just kept playing poker.”