Chapter 4: Outside In
Layla walked along the empty, dimly-lit corridors and rubbed ineffectually at her thudding temples. It had been a long day. She had just finished arguing with Larry, the editor of the school paper, about her report on MacZees. He kept using words like 'controversial', 'defamatory' and 'potential libel action'. Layla countered with 'censorship', 'civil liberties' and 'freedom of the press'. But, despite her best efforts, and despite pointing out how unlikely it was that anyone from the fast food company would ever read something written by a student reporter in the paper of a school that didn't officially exist, she was told the story couldn't run.
"I'm sorry, Layla, it's just too risky," Larry said, not unkindly. "But you are a good writer. Why don't you try something that's less likely to get us sued, like that inter-school Save the Citizen competition that's coming up? Or prom?"
All those hours of painstaking research wasted, she thought sullenly as she hurled her books into her locker and slammed the door. For someone who could turn into a giant rock monster, Larry was such an unbelievable wuss. So what if the story might upset a few people? Sometimes the truth hurts…
And Magenta and Zach were really annoying her at the moment. Layla usually found their jokey bickering cute, even amusing, but not today. She realised she was missing the buffer of Ethan. He was still in hospital, but in a stable condition and apparently would be fit for discharge in a couple of weeks.
And to top it all off she was missing Will, who seemed to be joined at the hip with Warren these days. So much for wanting to stay friends, she thought, although she knew that was unfair. Of course they were still friends, even if it wasn't quite the same. But was that Will's fault? Could a relationship move from best friends to lovers to best friends again that easily? Or at all?
Layla stood still. Her locker door squeaked as it swung back and forth on its hinges, but there was another noise. Footsteps. They were echoing faintly further down the corridor. She crept to the edge of the wall and peered around the corner. Lash was standing outside the mad science lab. He looked around and Layla held her breath. But he did not spot her and tried the door handle, which appeared to be locked.
What happened next surprised her. Lash stood at the door and slowly seemed to be shrinking, then melting. He was flattening himself. Layla's initial amazement that Lash had such control over his body soon disappeared when she saw his flattened shape edging towards the gap underneath the lab door, then slither into the classroom.
What was he up to?
She felt a heavy hand rest against her shoulder and almost screamed.
"Why so jumpy, hippie?"
"Oh, Warren, thank God it's you! What are you doing here this late?" She frowned. "Don't tell me you got detention again?"
"Spare me the lecture, Layla," said Warren, looking away from her. "Why are you sneaking around anyway?"
"It's Lash, he's broken into the mad science lab…"
"Not our problem," Warren shrugged. "Let's get out of here."
"Warren, you don't understand! He's up to no good…"
"No shit. He's Lash. And he's just broken into a classroom. Of course he's up to no good."
The longer Layla looked at him with her big brown eyes, the more guilty Warren felt. He wasn't even sure what he was feeling guilty about.
"Oh, hippie," he sighed. "You have really got to start keeping your nose out of other people's business."
Lash walked over to the black filing cabinet in a back corner of the laboratory. Fortunately for Lash, even though Medulla was a mad scientist obsessed with technology, he liked to keep one thing traditional. Lash placed a finger over the lock and concentrated, his face glistening with effort and pain. He forced his finger through the keyhole, commanding every fibre and tissue in the digit to twist and contort until he heard a faint click. He pulled a drawer and it slid open smoothly.
Jackpot.
Lash softly laughed to himself as he rummaged through the files. This was too easy. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. He removed a sheaf of papers from a folder and slowly closed the drawer, taking care to lock it up again.
The classroom door flew open in flash of flame. Warren stood in the doorway, his dark brow furrowed, fire snaking down his arms. Layla stood by his side, her face pale and tense.
"God, Warren, you didn't have to blow up the door," she said under her breath.
Lash yelped as a well-aimed fireball struck him in the stomach. He batted at the flames eating his shirt as Warren sped towards him, snatching the papers away.
"What have we here?" Warren asked, scanning the documents in his hands. He gave a low laugh. "Exam papers? You were planning on cheating?" Warren couldn't believe that Lash was that stupid. "You know this means instant expulsion, Lash."
Layla looked over Warren's shoulder. "But that isn't Lash's exam paper… that's mine!" Warren and Layla's eyes locked.
"You-you were going to plant this on Will, weren't you?" Warren's voice shook slightly. Layla gasped. Hero schools across the country took a zero tolerance approach to cheating and any kind of fraudulent activity. A student who could engage in such behaviour was thought not to have the moral sense required to be a hero. It meant social death in the superhero community. Abject shame for the family of the cheater.
Lash simply smirked in reply.
Warren raised a fist. "You bastard…"
"Now, now, Peace," Lash interrupted. "You can't actually prove anything."
"What…"
"Think about it. I didn't blast the classroom door. You did. My prints aren't on the exam paper. Yours are." Lash held up his hand. "That's the beauty of having elasticated skin – I don't leave a mark... Unless I want to."
"Shit," Warren muttered. Layla covered her mouth with her hands.
"Everyone knows how you've been helping Stronghold with his science homework. But to think of the depths you'd sink to. Tsk, tsk."
What the hell, Lash thought. If I can't go for the main prize, I may as well get second best. And this will piss Stronghold off anyway. Who knows, maybe this could cause him even more damage…
"I think I'm more disappointed than angry, Warren. What will your mother say? Seems like you've turned out to be just like your father after all…"
Warren didn't care about flaming Lash, punching him would be enough. He charged at him, swinging his fist at his face. Lash elongated and curved his body from Warren's reach.
"Warren, don't! Don't make it any worse!" Layla shouted, knowing full well how futile it was. Warren wasn't listening to her.
Lash extended an arm and struck Warren across the jaw. He fell backward into Layla, causing them both to stumble over a stool. Warren threw a jet of flame at Lash as he ran past. The flames caught Lash's sleeve and he stopped to swipe them. Lash ducked to avoid another firey projectile, which crashed into a desk, sending out a shower of glass and wood. Warren raced after him, every fireball he tossed deftly evaded by Lash. The air rang with explosions and shattering glass.
"Fight me properly, you fucking coward!"
At this, Lash began throwing things at Warren. Stools, bottles, boxes of mad science equipment… They circled one another, Warren throwing flame, Lash throwing anything he could lay his hands on. Layla didn't know what to do. Someone was going to get hurt, but there was no vegetation in the mad science lab. She felt powerless.
Lash ducked inside the hatch of a large, sliver machine partially covered by a dust sheet at the back of the lab, narrowly avoiding a fireball. The flame blasted against the chamber-like contraption in a flurry of sparks. Warren chased Lash into the machine, ignoring its crackling and whirring, and the flame that was twisting along the exposed outer wires. He tripped on Lash's outstretched leg as he entered. Lash lengthened his arms and grabbed Warren as he was momentarily off balance, slamming him repeatedly against the side of the machine. Layla ran inside.
"Get off him!" she yelled, kicking Lash hard on the back of his knees. He screamed in pain and slackened his grip on Warren, allowing him to struggle free.
Warren didn't quite know what happened next. Hot, metallic blood was filling his mouth from a cut on the inside of his cheek. He had never felt so angry, never wanted to hurt anyone more…
His whole body erupted into one flaming mass. Both Lash and Layla shrunk away from he intense heat. Lash staggered back, his elbow catching a switch. The hatch door clanged shut.
"Oh my God," said Layla, frantically pressing the switch Lash triggered. "We're trapped!"
The whirring grew louder and became a thunderous deafening roar, filling their ears. Everything turned red, then faded into black.
The emergency lighting sputtered overhead as Mr Medulla walked into his laboratory. His eyes rested on the rubble strewn across the room, moving onto the bodies of the three unconscious students and then the shattered remnants of the silver chamber.
"Oh dear."
Vivid purple dots danced in front of Warren's eyes as his vision blinked into focus. He was lying on the floor, but he could feel the room spinning around him, even when he closed his eyes again. He resisted an overwhelming urge to vomit.
Warren got his breathing back under control and sat up, clutching onto a table leg for support. He opened his eyes. Something felt wrong. Very wrong. He looked down and…
…screamed? His voice… no… no…
"What the fuck?"
Warren inspected his hands, but they were not his. They were small and white and covered in oversized floral rings. Layla's hands! He looked wildly at the unconscious bodies next to him. Lash and… himself?
At Warren's scream, the prone figure of Lash began to stir. As Lash's eyes flickered open, he gaped at Warren for a minute before he too cried out in shock.
"My body? You… what are you...?"
"Layla? You're in Lash?"
"Oh my God, Warren? You're inside me?"
On another occasion, that sentence would have prompted a snigger from Warren at the very least, if not some crude comment, but instead it led him to the obvious conclusion. "So Lash is in my…"
"Oh no…" said Layla, a look of horror spreading across Lash's face.
Warren's body shifted, eyes groggily opening. From within Warren's body, Lash stared at himself.
"What the…"
A cough from behind them made them all turn around with a start.
"I don't think you are quite aware of how much trouble you are in," said Mr Medulla. A blue vein pulsated on his expansive cranium. "Notwithstanding the fact that Messrs Peace and Langford are already on their final final warning, and are therefore likely to be expelled, have any of you any idea how long it has taken me to develop the mindswapper?" He waved his hand at the broken pieces of machinery littering the classroom. "This was to make me my fortune – it was to revolutionise the whole interstellar travel industry. Consciousnesses were to be exchanged between different life forms, allowing people to experience new worlds. The years of toil I have spent creating the mindswapper in this lab…"
"Hold on…" Layla started, then stopped for a moment. It sounded so wrong, her words coming out of Lash's mouth, being spoken with Lash's sneering voice. "Are you saying you've been using school resources for your own purposes?"
Mr Medulla's eye twitched. "Not that I have to explain myself to a group of delinquent school kids that have broken into my classroom, but the Principal encourages the faculty's personal projects. After all, our individual successes equate more kudos for the school…"
"So Principal Powers is fully aware that you've been using school money to fund your personal project for the past few years?"
Mr Medulla hesitated, then gave a small, grim smile. "Well, it seems that we have reached something of a stalemate."
He noticed the blank expression Lash was wearing on Warren's face and sighed. "Clearly not a chess player."
God, thought Warren as he took in the slack jaw and glazed eyes, do I always look that stupid?
"But I can't stay in Peace's body!" shrieked Lash. Layla stared at him. She had never heard Warren shriek like that before.
"I can assure you I'm not exactly thrilled with the arrangement either," she said, looking at Lash's hands.
Mr Medulla walked over to what remained of the silver chamber. "The ionic crystals need replacing, and they're not the easiest items to source. And the circuitry is damaged beyond repair – most of it will have to be rebuilt from scratch." He shook his head. "It's going to take at least a couple of weeks… "
"A couple of weeks?" Warren repeated quietly.
The mad scientist looked at the broken machine in silence for a few moments. "You must all promise to say nothing of this matter," he warned. "Principal Powers must not suspect any foul play." No one spoke. "Well, go on then. Promise you won't speak of this to anyone else."
As Lash, Layla and Warren dully made the promise, Mr Medulla strode to a cabinet at the back of the lab, delved inside and pulled out a small glass bottle. He placed a bright, green pill into each of their palms, instructing them to swallow it immediately to counteract the after effects of the mindswap. Dazed, the three of them did as they were told. They soon regretted this.
A sly smile played on Medulla's lips. "When a person makes a promise or a vow, the prefrontal cortex in their brain becomes hypersensitive. The drug you have all just taken, Pledgerin, maintains that sensitivity and is activated by the electric charge caused when that promise is broken. Pledgerin suppresses the efficacy of the upper brain, causing the cognitive functions to shut down and inducing a permanent cataleptic state."
The students were silent as Mr Medulla's words sunk in.
Lash scratched his, that is Warren's, head. "Uhhh… you lost me at full-frontal codex…"
"Lash, you complete moron," Warren hissed. "He just told us that we talk about this to anyone and our brains turn to mush!"
"Precisely, Miss Willi- I mean, Mr Peace. Now, I must ask you all to leave my classroom. I will inform you when the mindswapper is operational again."
Mr Medulla watched them unsteadily make their way out of the lab. That was too close. The mindswapper was a ground-breaking invention, but wholly unethical. If Principal Powers had any inkling of the experiments he was conducting at the school, it would probably be more than his job on the line…
He tossed the empty pill bottle into a trash can. He couldn't believe he managed to dupe those stupid children with that ridiculous load of sci-babble he'd just spurted out. Pledgerin indeed! Medulla wiped his brow with a trembling hand. He had a lot of work to do.
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A/N
Does Lash have a surname? I'm not sure, so have invented one for him anyway!
The whole concept of mindswap as a mode of interstellar travel is borrowed (OK, blatantly ripped off) from MindSwap by Robert Sheckley. It's been some time since I read it, but I do remember it being quite funny (worth a read if you can find it - I think its out of print now)
And thanks to all for your reviews! Sorry I was so slow in replying, but I've been pretty busy lately and am disorganised by nature, but I really do appreciate it! I'm about to go away to Ireland for a couple of weeks, so it may be some time before I manage to update this… I'll try my best, though.
Oh, and as you may have already guessed from my spelling, I'm a Brit, but I want to make this fic sound as authentically American as possible. I do exist on a diet of US films and TV shows, so I hope I manage to pull it off most of the time. Please let me know if I haven't!
Cheers,
AzulTigress