Chapter 170: Book 3 Chapter 18.2: You Are What You Eat

Apparently seagulls had some way to spread the good news, because dozens, if not hundreds more had descended upon the campus. Kim felt bad about all the foodified students being torn to pieces, but she had no way to fend off hundreds of birds while also solving the day’s apocalypse. She just tried to ignore the flocks and get to the culinary lab.

Somewhere between the rune lab and the culinary department, Kim saw a massive flock of seagulls suddenly panic and take flight. That bore investigating, so Kim changed course as birds continued to take flight. As she approached the source of the disturbance, another flock of birds took flight and swarmed in her direction. She covered her face as the swarm of feathers raced past, and when she looked up again, there was a wildebeest looking back at her.

“Oh. Uh...zoology department trouble, I guess,” Kim said. “Easy there, I’m-”

“I am aware of who you are being, Kim,” the wildebeest said, in Sarah’s voice.

“Jesus! Sarah?”

“I am.”

“What are you-” Kim started and stopped before realizing the nature of the day’s apocalypse. “Was the last thing you ate a live wildebeest?”

Sarah did not answer the question, as she never did, though Kim found the silence more suspicious than usual.

“Sarah.”

“There is no relevance to my diet in the situation,” Sarah said. “Do you wish to do more wildebeest pondering, or solving the problem?”

“Solving the problem, but I will be pondering the wildebeest while we do it,” Kim said.

“Your brain is yours to do things with,” Sarah said. “Investigation should be done at the culinary labs, yes?”

“That’d be the place to start,” Kim agreed. The wildebeest led the way across the quad, scattering the spooked seagulls as it went.

The culinary lab was easy to find, but getting inside was not.

“Locked,” Kim said. She tugged on the door handle a little harder, and could not budge it. Her current body had mildly enhanced strength, but apparently not enough to break whatever was blocking these doors. “Maybe barricaded too. Give me a bit and I can grab my heavy-duty body from storage.”

Kim took one step away from the door, and then a second step away from the charging wildebeest. Sarah slammed into the door horns first and rammed it down. She stepped back from the cloud of splinters and dust, to lock eyes with a very surprised and impressed Kim.

“Guess there’s some advantages to being a wildebeest,” Kim said.

“This could also be done by my normal self,” Sarah said. “Come. There is finding answers to be done.”

Kim followed Sarah inside. Beyond the initial chaos of the door Sarah had headbutted down, the culinary labs were surprisingly orderly. The epicenters of daily apocalypses were usually more chaotic. Much like Sarah’s deliberate obstinance vis a vis wildebeest eating, Kim found the silence suspicious. Her suspicions redoubled when Kim realized that, unlike every other place on campus, the floors weren’t covered in foodified students.

“Something’s not right,” Kim said.

Something got wronger when the screaming started. Kim dashed towards the source of the noise, followed shortly thereafter by a stampeding wildebeest. The muffled screaming led the duo towards one of the labs in the center of the building. As they got closer, the smell of burning food got more and more prominent. Kim disabled her olfactory sensors, knowing it was going to get worse before it got better. Though she already dreaded what she was going to see, Kim opened the laboratory door.

“Hey Kim.”

Kraid’s voice was only barely audible above the screaming, but that scream came to an end a moment later when Kraid bit down on the last piece of the lasagna he was eating. Faint sounds of agony came from his mouth as he chewed. He glanced in Kim’s direction, and then looked sideways at a pile of burning food in the corner of the room.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

In a true sign of his pure evil nature, Kraid spoke with his mouth full.

“So let me guess,” Kim grunted. “You did this because you were hungry?”

“Actually I already ate, I just love a good lasagna,” Kraid said. He pat his stomach contentedly and sighed. “Really should’ve asked her for the recipe before I ate her, that was good.”

He set an empty plate aside and stood up, walking around the room. He walked past the bonfire he’d made out of the foodified students and enjoyed the heat on his back.

“Professor Lasagna there wanted to use a little illusion magic to make a point about nutrition, illustrate that old saying ‘you are what you eat’. I made a few tweaks,” Kraid said. “I thought it’d be funny. And it was.”

For a time, at least. Kraid’s sadistic delight had worn off in a matter of moments. The transformed students could still scream, but they couldn’t run away, or struggle, or writhe in agony, or any of the other things Kraid liked to watch his victims do. It was hard to enjoy such static suffering.

“If you’re upset, I’m still willing to take a punch,” Kraid said. He could see Kim’s metal fists clenching, and feel the heat of latent fire magic ready to ignite. “What do you say? Want to shoot your shot, Futura?”

Kim’s fist clenched even tighter, and flames licked across her knuckles. She thought about it, and then started doing it. A metal fist slammed hard into Kraid’s chin, and flames scattered across his face.

“What do you know, it did work,” Kraid said. Kim’s ironclad punched had scraped right off his magical barriers. “Well, that’s that experiment done. Boop.”

Kim saw a bony finger extended in her direction, and then a wall of black. Then she was back in her room, at the beginning of the day, staring down the second loop.

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“Nobody at this table knows anything, that’s no surprise,” Kraid said. He released his death grip on Samson’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later. All of you.”

Quenay made mocking gestures as Kraid departed once again. Vell wasn’t nearly so amused to see them the second time around. He and the other loopers held their breath until Kraid was long gone.

“Whew. That was a pain in the ass.”

“Good work keeping it together, everyone,” Lee said. “Especially you, Samson.”

“No problem. It was easier the second time around, at least.”

In order to avoid raising any suspicions, the loopers had made sure their meeting with Kraid proceeded exactly the same on the second loop. Their feigned surprise would hopefully lull him into as false sense of security, and make his plans for the day easier to thwart.

“You made any progress on sabotaging that demonstration, Harley?”

“Yeah, I got a couple ideas,” Harley said. “Renard says he’s free to do a cooking demonstration, in person or over livestream, and that oughta change some schedules.”

Though Vell’s former roommate had flunked out of the Einstein-Odinson College in his first year, he was still regarded as one of the greatest minds to ever grace the culinary program. Professors would trip over themselves to get his advice, or even just hear his recipes.

“And if that fails, I found the illusion stuff they’re going to use and had Botley put a bomb in it.”

“Harley!”

“It’s a small bomb,” Harley said. “Like a firecracker type thing. Big enough to break it. Maybe blow a bit of somebody’s finger off, in the worst case scenario.”

“We’re removing that later,” Lee scolded. Much later. With Kraid on the field, it might help to have a desperate last resort.

“How about you, get anything useful out of our inside man?”

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“I was just about to call Joan, actually,” Lee said. They’d texted earlier, but Lee had saved the strategic discussions until the entire crew was on hand to hear.

She dialed up Joan and put her on speaker, and made sure to say a polite hello before asking her for insider info on her evil employer.

“Honestly, I know nothing about this,” Joan said. “He hasn’t paid much attention to me since that time he sent me to the island last year.”

The loopers shared a nervous look. That about lined up with the time he had supposedly learned about the time loops from Derek.

“Has he been acting different at all, since then?”

“I don’t know, I’ve only seen him a couple times,” Joan said. “When he does bother me, it’s usually about the same old same old. He pesters me about you guys, or what the campus is like. That kind of thing.”

Lee contained her sigh of frustration. Kraid was insane, but he was also smart. He wouldn’t give anything away by acting differently in front of Joan.

“Thanks for the help,” Harley said. “Isn’t it about time you got around to quitting, though? No offense, but you aren’t doing a great job of spying on Kraid.”

It took a suspiciously long time for Joan to answer.

“I’ve got my reasons,” Joan mumbled. Sensing something was amiss, Lee and Harley immediately looked to Vell. He nodded along. He was the only other person who knew about Joan’s sister Helena, and her potentially lethal condition. Kraid, for all his evil deeds, was genuinely helping keep Helena alive, and so long as that was the case, he had Joan firmly in his clutches. Though Lee and Harley did not know that story, they knew they could trust Vell, and took him at his word. Or nod, in this case.

“If you say so,” Harley said. “Keep doing your best, Joan, and try not to get your brain sucked out or whatever else Kraid does to people.”

“Not much to steal, but I’ll make sure he keeps his hands off of it.”

“Goodbye for now, Joan,” Lee said. “Call me when you get off work, my father has been especially stupid this year and I need to vent.”

“Ooh, I’ll make popcorn,” Joan said. She always loved talking shit about Noel Burrows. “Talk to you then.”

Joan hung up, and the loopers marked off yet another dead end.

“Kraid has been remarkably coherent for someone suffering Butterfly Effect Psychosis,” Lee said. Usually when a non-looper became aware of the time loops, it made them incoherently deranged.

“Maybe it just affects different people differently?”

Samson tried to find a silver lining in this situation. If Kraid could endure knowledge of the timeloops, maybe his brother Ibrahim could too.

“More like being driven crazy was a short drive for him,” Harley said. “Kraid was a homicidal psychopath before he learned about the loops. Shit can’t possibly have broken his brain more than it was already broken.”

When it came to depravity, Kraid had hit rock bottom long ago, and then spent his time inventing new, faster ways to dig. He had achieved a life goal of committing every possible crime some years ago, even the weird crimes like fishing for whales on Sunday in Ohio, and started sponsoring the passage of new laws just so he’d have new crimes to commit.

“Right. I guess that makes more sense,” Samson sighed. “I guess it’s only natural the one person we don’t want to know is the only person who can know.”

“Hey, you’re learning how things work around here,” Harley said.

“You don’t need to be so discouraging, dear,” Lee scolded. “Now, Harley, if I may be so bold as to suggest we have a backup plan that does not involve blowing something up?”

“If you insist, killjoy,” Harley said. “I might be able to throw together something, but it’ll take some time. Possibly more than we have.”

The downside to their prolonged deception of Kraid was some severe limitations on their schedule. They had gathered in the dining hall to recreate their lunch on the first loop, cutting in to time they might have otherwise used to prevent the apocalypse.

“Alright, I’ll go bite the bullet,” Vell said. “Maybe if I allude to some bullshit the ten-lined rune can do I can distract Kraid for a while.”

“Your sacrifice is appreciated, Vell.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I’m done and you can bail,” Harley said. “Won’t be too long.”

Vell waved goodbye and headed out to find Kraid.

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Vell scanned his workstation in the rune tech labs one more time. Nothing appeared to have been tampered with, and none of his research had been touched. Nobody had even left a rude message on his desk. Kraid obviously hadn’t been here.

Usually Vell could not shake off Kraid if he tried, but right now, Vell could not seem to find him anywhere. He had already checked his dorm, the rune tech classroom, and even near his and Joan’s old dorms from freshman year. Kraid was nowhere to be found.

“If I were a billionaire asshole trying to harass me, where would I hide?”

Vell put on his rune glasses and looked behind him, just in case Kraid was lurking in invisibility. Vell had checked three times so far, and Kraid had been there zero times. No one else he’d asked had seen Kraid either, visible or otherwise.

“Alright, worst case scenario time.”

Vell took a deep breath, turned around, and headed for the looper lair. He didn’t want to think that Kraid might have infiltrated their private sanctum, but he had to check. Vell noted that the door was intact, punched in the code, and stepped inside. He braced himself for the worst.

What he got was an empty room. The computer still had its screensaver active. When Vell logged in, he found no sign that anyone else had been digging through their files. The chair was even in the same place they’d left it this morning, and nothing else had been moved either.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out something was amiss. Vell did a quick stock of the situation. Kraid was primarily interested in his rune and the time loops. It was possible he was seeking out Kim’s rune instead, but she would’ve noticed any interference by now. There was also the possibility he was after Botley, as he had shown a passing interest in the past, but Harley could also take care of herself.

After a moment of thinking, Vell remembered something else that Kraid had shown interest in lately.

“Shit.”

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This should have been a study session with his brother. He didn’t really like having to drag his brother through academia, but all things considered, Samson would rather be studying.

“Come on, kid. We’ve met twice now, are you still not going to introduce yourself? How about you, thing two?”

Kraid examined both of his new targets with equal levels of curiosity. The twins, in turn, were regarding him with general terror. Ibrahim was now meeting Kraid for the first time, but still knew of him by his generally terrifying reputation.

“Still no introductions, huh? Rude,” Kraid said. “I just want to get to know you. Maybe share a story. Do you like stories?”

The twins continued to stay stunned in silence. Kraid rolled his eyes. He hated static prey. When he was on the hunt, Kraid wanted to watch his prey squirm.

“Fine then. I’ll tell a story, and you can decide if you like it at the end.”

Kraid leaned on the wall and glanced at one of the photos Samson had on display in his dorm. It was an old family photo, with mom and dad and the twins all together.

“Once upon a time, there were two brothers,” Kraid began. “They had a dream of being the best in the world. They’d grow up, study hard, and one day start their own business, get rich together.”

Samson had figured “story time” would end up something like this, but it was still disturbing that Kraid knew so much about his life.

“Things started out pretty good. They worked hard, got good grades,” Kraid said. “For a while, at least. In the last few years of high school, things started to get hard, for one brother at least. The work started to get harder, grades started to slip, and more and more, they relied on their brother to do all the hard work.”

Kraid glanced very pointedly at Samson, and the stacks of textbooks close at hand.

“And of course this all happened so gradually the smarter brother didn’t even notice that ‘helping’ was slowly being turned into ‘dependency’, and a partner was rapidly becoming a parasite. It’s possible neither of them even noticed. Not until…”

After a long pause, Kraid leaned forward, and placed himself between Ibrahim and Samson. He patiently waited for them to finish the story, but they were both stunned silent. He rolled his eyes and continued on his own.

“Until one of the brothers got something new to focus on,” Kraid continued. “And suddenly he couldn’t devote as much energy to dragging his useless brother along with him. Now someone’s grades are dropping, and the dream is dying.”

As he got closer to his big finale, Kraid started hamming it up more and more, and he punctuated his final sentence with an overly dramatic sigh.

“What’s a guy to do when his own brother is facing expulsion?”

Kraid let another beat pass before sighing heavily.

“You two are terrible at dialogue, you know that?” Kraid said. “Anyway. I’m rich and powerful and I can bail you out of the mess you’re in. You just need to tell me everything I want to know about Vell Harlan.”

Kraid reached into a coat pocket and withdrew two business cards, then flicked them in the direction of the twins. Samson did not dare to touch his, but Ibrahim reached down to pick his up.

“Call me when you’re ready to get out of this mess you’re in,” Kraid said.

He threw up a peace sign with his skeletal hand and walked out of the dorm, nearly running into Vell as he dashed the other way.

“As usual, you’re too late,” Kraid said, with an evil chuckle. He let the chuckle fade as he walked away, and Vell entered the dorm.

“You guys alright?”

“Yeah. He didn’t do anything except talk shit,” Ibrahim said.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine,” Samson agreed. Having Vell here actually did make him feel a little safer. “Nothing but a bad story.”

Vell took a quick look around to make sure Kraid hadn’t left behind any unpleasant surprises, but all he found were the mundane business cards. Even that simple paper carried a threat when it had Kraid’s logo on it.

“I take it he made you some kind of offer?”

“Yeah, he wants us to tell him secrets about whatever weird shit you’re up to,” Ibrahim said. He threw the business card he’d been given away, and Vell watched it drift into the trash.

“And you’re not interested?”

“Of course not,” Ibrahim said. “You’re fucking weird, Vell, but you’re not a supervillain. Between you and Kraid, I pick you.”

“Well. I appreciate that.”

“Don’t get chummy,” Ibrahim warned. Vell nodded and stepped away from the twins.

“Well, I’m going to go, uh, make sure Kraid doesn’t fuck anything up on his way out,” Vell said. He actually did want to do that, but getting away from Ibrahim was a nice bonus. Vell followed Kraid’s trail, leaving the twins alone.

“So now the worst person in the world wants to know about him,” Ibrahim said. “You sure know how to pick your friends, Sammie.”

The casual mockery barely registered with Samson this time. The close encounter with Kraid had given him much to think about, in more ways than one.

“I know he’s evil and all that,” Samson said. “But do you think Kraid had a point about us?”

“Of course not,” Ibrahim said. He gave his brother a firm clap on the shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about failing.”

Ibrahim took a seat on the couch in his dorm and grabbed one of the textbooks Samson had brought.

“I’ll dig you out of the hole those weirdos put you in, no problem.”

It took Ibrahim a few seconds to flip to the right page for their current subject, which did not help Samson’s already waning confidence in his twin brother. He glanced at the Kraid Tech business card in his hand, and tucked it into his pocket.