The Fall of the City of Steel

The Theft

The next morning, over breakfast, I remembered the pills of yesterday. Immediately after I took them, they had puzzled and frightened me too much to fascinate me, but, now, I could not stop thinking about them, wondering about their contents, who made them, and for what. Jerry, immediately sensing my absent-mindedness, quickly learned of my sudden fascination. For the first time in months, I had found a subject of conversation that interested me noticeably more than it did Jerry, who still found the pills frightening.

"They're like weapons, Damon," Jerry explained, while I flew us to the school building. "The way they made you act... that's not who you are. I'd still like to find out what's in them, but..." His voice trailed off.

"I don't think we will," I forecasted sadly. "Even if they figure it out, the police probably won't tell us, and you and I are both pretty poor nutritionists."

"But I do meteorology," Jerry excused reflexively.

"Right, right," I digressed, "there's nothing wrong with that. All it means is that those pills are not in our wheelhouse."

As I landed my hovercraft, and Jerry and I dispersed, I waved to him with my usual cheerfulness, but he responded with barely concealed apprehension, as though expecting me to relapse into the pill's frightful aftereffects at any moment.

That day, immediately after mathematics, I tracked down Tony in the disorder that always followed class. While I remembered my resolve to distance myself from him, I could not stop myself. Being only vaguely familiar with Tony's area of expertise, and knowing him to be relatively intelligent, I mentioned the pills to him, hoping that he might be able to discern something about them.

"I got a bottle of pills in the mail yesterday," I explained to him, as soon as I got his attention, "They looked just like my allergy medication pills, but, when I swallowed them, they made me feel hot, and my muscles got stiff."

Tony gave me a curious look as I tried to recall the exact nature of the effect. "I can't remember it too well," I continued. "I recall feeling just a bit dizzy, sick to my stomach, and irritable."

"Irritable?"

"Yes," I remembered. "I was wound as tight as a piano wire while that pill was taking effect. I just remember getting so angry at everyone over such trivialities. Eating carrots felt like fighting someone."

"That's... certainly something you don't hear every day," Tony commented sincerely. "But I'm more surprised that you know what it's like to fight someone."

"Just once," I elaborated. "It was back in grade school. A boy mistook me for his brother's rival and just piled onto me with only two words' warning. I actually fought the fellow back, but only long enough for him to realize he had the wrong target. A couple of days later, believe it or not, he actually apologized to me."

"Wow," Tony reacted. "I wish the bullies had apologized to me after beating me up in grade school. I was short back then. It didn't go well."

"The strangest thing about those pills," I reintroduced, "is that we don't know who sent them. The return address just said 'null.'"

At this, Tony fell silent, and, after a few steps, I noticed that he had frozen in place several feet back.

"Are you sure?" Tony asked, suddenly transfixed.

"Um... yes..." I answered, stopping and wondering what made such an unhelpful address so important to him.

"Please, for the love of god, meet me after school," Tony suddenly implored. "I want to hear all the details of this."

With just that, he left, his face still molded into that unforgettable, ashen pallor that I misconstrued as dismay at the time. I burned to know what about the address 'null' shook Tony so deeply. Soon enough, I began to suspect that he had deliberately left on such dramatic circumstances, so as to bait me into meeting with him using the lure of curiosity. As much as I hated to imagine involving myself even tangentially with any of his business, his trick worked; I decided to indulge him and meet him after school, even though there was little left to be told.