Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms

“Does anyone else hear buzzing?”

Vell instinctively ducked. The last round of buzzing had resulted in murder wasps, and he had no desire for a repeat. Joan, who had no recollection of murder wasps, looked around. Cane joined her in her search for the source of the noise.

“I don’t hear anything, guys,” Renard said. “You sure you don’t just have tinnitus?”

“A shared case of tinnitus?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know how tinnitus works, do people get it at the same time?”

“No.” Luke said. “I know that because I have tinnitus, and I hear the buzzing, and that’s not what my tinnitus sounds like.”

Joan stood up and looked out the window. Vell bit his tongue. They were still on the first loop, and looking out the window couldn’t mean anything good. Joan’s red eyes narrowed.

“Edison?”

Everyone in the dorm immediately crowded around the window. Standing just outside the dorms, trying to wrangle a swarm of remote controlled drones, was Thomas Alva Edison -or the corpse of Edison, at any rate. His skin was grayed and slimy, his eyes were sunken, and the suit he wore appeared ancient, dusty, and frayed. The half-decayed scientist was swearing under his breath as he struggled with the controls of the drone swarm. Joan opened the window and leaned out, shaking her fist in Edison’s direction.

“Hey, Edison, you undead asshole, what the hell are you doing?”

“Unveiling my latest and greatest invention, of course,” Edison stammered.

The semi-successful resurrection of Thomas Edison had caused quite a stir several years back, and the undead genius had become an overnight celebrity. Unfortunately, his rise to fame had been followed shortly thereafter by an equally meteoric fall. The famed genius had been unable to catch up to modern technology and science, and any hope for a new renaissance at the hands of the inventor of the lightbulb had died as swiftly as the elephant Edison had electrocuted that one time. Also, people remembered how fucked up it was that Edison had electrocuted an elephant that one time, and began to wonder why they’d bothered resurrecting such an asshole in the first place. Zombie Edison, for his part, had sworn to recapture his past glory and invent something new and exciting to wow the world.

After years of effort and expeditious exploitation of academia, he had succeeded in failing spectacularly. Today would be no different, if the pint-sized blur of red clothing and rage barreling towards him was any indication.

“Undedison you zombie fuck! Give me back my remote!”

Harley sprinted across the quad towards Edison, who saw her coming and flailed at the controls even harder.

“Pay no attention to the furious dwarf, she has no idea what she’s talking about! She is quite hysterical!”

“You shut your maggot-filled mouth!” Harley shouted. She was rapidly closing the distance, and Undedison was getting more and more worried the closer she got.

“Worry not! Prepare to be shocked and amazed at the grand innovations of the one and only Thomas Alva Edison!”

Harley got within striking distance, and pounced. Undedison slammed his fist down on the first button he found as she tackled him. Overhead, the swarm of drones started to surge faster and faster, beginning to slam into each other and explode in midair, scattering flaming wreckage around the quad. Vell covered his eyes. He knew how this was going to end.

“Fucking Undedison, son of a bitch,” Harley said. She huffed and puffed as she laid on her couch. The morning meeting had been called, in Harley’s dorm this time. She had made sure Vell noticed that it did, in fact, smell like cherries before returning to her fuming about Undedison.

“It’s a shame he hasn’t learned his lesson,” Lee said with a sigh.

“If he could learn shit he wouldn’t be here trying to steal my ideas,” Harley grumbled. “Somebody needs to put that asshole back in the ground where he belongs.”

“So, uh, does Zombie Edison or the Marine Biology department rank higher on your shit list?” Vell asked.

“Undedison,” Harley spat. “At least those fishfuckers have the decency to come up with their own terrible ideas.”

“Mr. Edison has come to believe that robotics will be his return to greatness,” Lee said. “Unfortunately, he lacks any particular understanding of the field, and so in desperation he has turned to-”

“Stealing my shit!” Harley shouted, slamming her fist against the back of the couch.

“-Plagiarizing the works of others,” Lee concluded. “Harley, being pre-eminent in her field of study, is an unfortunately frequent target of his misguided efforts.”

“You sound a little more sympathetic,” Vell noted.

“Oh that’s just how I talk, dear,” Lee said. “Undedison can kiss my ass.”

Hearing Lee swear brought a sly smile to Harley’s face, but it soon faded into a scowl again. She turned away from Lee to look at Leanne.

“Leanne, would you kill Undedison if I asked you to?”

Leanne stopped petting Botley’s head for a moment, much to the tiny robot’s chagrin, and considered Harley’s proposal. After a concerning amount of thought, Leanne shook her head.

“Ugh, fine,” Harley said. “I’ll have to do it myself.”

“Now hold on just a moment, Harley,” Lee said. She grabbed Harley’s shoulders and held tight. ‘Take a deep breath and think of a solution that’s not murder.”

Harley let out a deep sigh, thought for a moment, and relaxed.

“Assassination.”

“No, dear.”

“But then I pay somebody else to do it!”

“Harley.”

“Fine,” Harley said. She crossed her arms and sulked. Lee moved on.

“Vell, you have a fresh perspective and a new set of skills, do you have any ideas on how to prevent Undedison’s chicanery?”

“I could kill him.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Harley sprang up, and Lee just as quickly pushed her back down. Vell chuckled to himself and then crossed his arms.

“But, seriously, if we know what he’s after, I could probably put a security rune on it,” Vell said. “Key it to Harley’s DNA or something, so nobody else can use it.”

“Could you key it to explode if someone else uses it?” Harley asked.

“Yes, but I’m not going to.”

“I’ll have -ah, darn it,” Harley grunted.

“What?” Vell asked.

“I was going to offer to sleep with you if you blew up Zombie Thomas Edison but I remembered you’re dating Joan now,” Harley said. “You’re all monogamous and shit.”

“And shit,” Lee said, nodding thoughtfully. “Your offer would also fall flat, dear, based on the simple fact that Vell knows you’d sleep with him for free.”

“Dang it, you’re right,” Harley said. “Okay, no explosions, but how about we zap him. Like, not hard enough to stop his heart, but enough to make his arm numb.”

Vell looked to Lee. She considered it, and pointed in Harley’s direction.

“Fine, but Vell is in charge of setting the voltage,” Lee said. Harley gave a triumphant pump of her fist and jumped out of her seat.

“I’ll get the stuff, you get the runes ready,” Harley demanded. Vell nodded and started searching up the runes he would need. He was looking at three at least, possibly a fourth to trigger the electric shock. He had plenty of runecrafting materials already on hand, thanks to his studies, and hopefully a quick way to charge them. Vell looked up at Lee.

“Hey, you’re magikinetic, right? Do you know how to charge runes?”

“I’ve actually been poking away at it since we met,” Lee said. “I figured it would come in handy sooner or later.”

“Good instinct,” Vell said. That would cost them a little time, but save them a lot of money. He could buy magic batteries at any store, but they were expensive, and they all came from skeevy companies like Kraid Tech or Roentgen. Vell would feel much more comfortable having his magical charge come from Lee.

“I’ll get carving. Message you when I’m ready for them to be charged,” Vell said. “See you around.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Lee said. She lingered in Harley’s room while Vell headed for his own dorm.

Vell brushed a few of the basalt shavings off of his table before continuing his carving. He was three runes in, and his wastebin was coated in a layer of grey dust.

Carving runes wasn’t the most exciting task, but Vell found a pleasure in it all the same. To get a rune right, every line had to be carved in the right order, to exactly the right proportions. A rune with even millimeters of imperfection would never function. It required a methodical, disciplined approach. Or a robot, but Vell didn’t have one of those. In retrospect he should’ve asked Harley if she had one, or knew anyone who did. The pleasure of a job well done was starting to seem small in comparison to the ache in his wrist.

Vell was glad for a distraction from carving when someone knocked at his dorm room door. He set the pieces of igneous rock aside and shouted in the direction of the door.

“It’s open,” Vell said.

He heard the door open and slam shut, and in a second, Joan was standing in the doorway of his room. She leaned on the doorframe and put one hand on her hips.

“Shouldn’t you be in class, Mr. Harlan?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Vell snapped back. Joan smirked. The Einstein-Odinson College had a very loose attendance policy. As long as your test scores stayed high, most professors didn’t care if you showed up to lectures or not. Vell and Joan had particularly high tests scores, so they could skip classes at their leisure. A privilege Vell abused quite frequently to deal with the daily apocalypses, and Joan abused for the sake of abusing it.

“What’re you carving there?” Joan asked. She walked up to Vell and leaned over him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and very insistently pressing her chest to his back.

“Oh, Harley’s worried about someone stealing her stuff, so I’m helping her build a rune booby trap,” Vell explained. Joan’s grip on him loosened.

“You know, it seems like you skip class to help Harley a lot,” Joan said. The displeasure in her voice was obvious even to Vell.

“She’s, uh, got a lot going on,” Vell said. He hesitated for a moment. “That didn’t sound convincing.”

“It wouldn’t convince most people, but I know ‘uh’ is your catchphrase,” Joan said. “Sorry if I sound jealous. It’s just that I am. A little.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Harley and I are just friends,” Vell said. He hesitated for a second before elaborating. “Admittedly Harley did almost try to bribe me with sex earlier, but she remembered we were dating like three words in.”

“Thank you for being honest about that,” Joan said. She patted him on the head. “I know Harley’s just...like that, but I can’t help worrying. I’ve-”

Joan caught herself about to say ‘uh’ and stopped in her tracks.

“Look, I’ve just been cheated on before, so I’m kind of touchy about it,” Joan said. “I know I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, but I’ve had a lot of shitty relationships and it’s made me kind of paranoid.”

“Sounds like you have every right to be,” Vell said. “I’m, uh, sorry about that. Let me know what I can do to make things easier.”

“I don’t want to nag,” Joan said. She leaned forward and kissed Vell on the temple. “Just hearing you say that does a lot.”

“Okay,” Vell said. “Though frankly it’s hard to believe anyone would be dumb enough to cheat on you. Have you looked at yourself? Who’d cheat on this?”

Vell gestured to her entire body. Joan smirked, but sighed shortly afterwards.

“You’d be surprised,” Joan said. “I think I chase a lot of guys off with my smarts. And the eyeball thing.”

She removed one of her prosthetic eyes and examined it for a second. Vell bit his tongue.

“You know, uh, just a suggestion, but it’d help if you didn’t pop an eye out every time you mentioned it,” Vell said. Joan looked at the eyeball, and the eyeball looked back. She sighed again.

“You’re probably right.”

Joan replaced her red eye and leaned on Vell again, pressing her cheek against his.

“See, this is why I need a guy like you,” Joan said. “You’re weird enough to make rune booby traps for your nymphomaniac friend and normal enough to remind me I should keep my eyeballs in my head. Which, admittedly, I probably should have figured out sooner.”

“Thanks?”

“It’s a compliment, Harlan,” Joan said. “A weird one, but still sincere.”

“I knew that,” Vell said. He grabbed the basalt token and his carving tool again. Joan ran a hand along his shoulder and arm, down to his wrist, and held his hand in place before he could start carving again.

“If you’re not in a hurry, how about we go to my dorm for a while? We can skip Professor Nguyen’s class too.”

After the misunderstandings about her flirtatious behavior earlier on, Joan had adopted a very direct approach with Vell. She made it very clear that she had a lot more on her mind than skipping class. Vell bit his tongue. He glanced towards Joan’s hand wrapped around his, then at the clock, and then down to his waist, towards his hidden scar.

“Some, uh, other time, maybe, sorry,” Vell said. “I actually, you know, learn things, in Nguyen’s class, and I should probably finish this, and, well, I’m not really ready for, uh, certain things, yet.”

“Okay, I get you,” Joan said, disappointed but accepting. “I’ll see you in class.”

Vell turned and got out of his seat long enough to kiss her goodbye before she left his dorm. Vell got back to work, or tried to. It took a while for his palms to stop sweating.

“Okay, here’s your rune trap thingy,” Vell said. He slammed the carved basalt onto Harley’s work desk. Her excitement at the prospect of the booby trap was muted by Vell’s odd behavior.

“You’re doing your ‘nervous Vell’ routine, Vell,” Harley noted. Vell slumped down into a nearby chair and sighed. He had gone through an entire class sitting next to Joan, with awkward tension buzzing between them.

“I’m pretty sure Joan wants to sleep with me.”

Harley set her tools aside and rolled her eyes.

“Vell, I love you, and I am always here to listen to your problems, but it gets kind of hard when half your ‘problems’ are about how badly a hot chick wants to bang you.”

Vell stared at her for a second before lifting his shirt just enough to expose the scar around his waist. Harley raised her eyebrows and nodded.

“Oh yeah, that does complicate things, doesn’t it,” Harley said. “I guess that having to explain how you were cut in half would kill the sexy-times mood.”

“I’ve tried, and I know for sure that it does,” Vell said. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. Harley, noticing his sour mood, turned her chair around and leaned towards Vell.

“That sounds like a story,” Harley said quietly.

“Several stories,” Vell said. “Feels like every time I start a relationship, I just- I end up worrying too much about explaining it, and the one time I actually did explain it...I don’t want to talk about it.”

Harley put her head in her hands. She’d been turned into a kangaroo more than once, so her weirdness radar was entirely off-kilter, but Vell’s resurrection still struck her as strange. Harley couldn’t imagine how weird it would seem to the average person.

“Whoof,” Harley said. “I got to admit, Vell, this is a bit above my paygrade. Usually the only thing I got to talk about before I bang is favorite positions. On that note, maybe just pick a position where she’s going to be facing away from you the whole time?”

“That seems less than ideal,” Vell said.

“Just spitballing,” Harley said. “On a serious note, this is the kind of thing you’re going to have to talk about eventually. Might as well get it done as soon as possible. Either she’s cool with it, in which case it’s cool, or she’s not cool, and you find out fast before anything gets too serious.”

Vell crossed his arms and slumped into his seat. Harley leaned on the desk and eyed the booby trap Vell had built for her.

“You know, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Vell, but Joan is a little bit crazy. Probably has a decently high weirdness threshold,” Harley said. “I think you’re going to be okay, Vell.”

“I don’t feel okay,” Vell said.

“You’re overthinking it,” Harley said. “Give yourself some time to chill and stop stressing about it. Luckily, you can distract yourself by helping me electrocute Zombie Edison. Now get over here and tell me how this shit works.”

Harley reached over and tugged Vell by the shirt towards her desk. He didn’t know if it would fix anything in the long term, but the distraction at least took his mind off things for now.

“First hook up that one and that one,” Vell said.

“Sounds good, I’m great at hooking up,” Harley said.

“Are you good at soldering, because this kind of hooking up involves wires,” Vell said. “Once everything’s connected we can take it to Lee to charge.”

“I’m good at soldering too,” Harley said. “Let me hop my brain into Botley so I can use him instead of unpacking my gloves and goggles and everything.”

Harley walked to her closet and started assembling a soldering-capable body for Botley. As a robot, he didn’t have to worry about burned fingertips or flying sparks.

“I’m not holding you while you jump into Botley this time,” Vell said.

“That’s cool, I got my bed made,” Harley said. “Keep an eye on me though, right?”

“Of course.”

Harley emerged from the closet, tossed Botley to Vell, and then leaped into her bed. Her body flopped limp on the mattress and bounced once before falling motionless. Vell sat Botley’s body on the desk and let Harley get to work, then took a seat and tried to relax. He had a long day of electrocuting undead plagiarists ahead of him.