One Hundred Ways To Leave The Planet

Chapter 10: Coffee, Side Hugs, and Binary Boosters

Thirty-Six was bored.

Not like 'click-a-pen-and-annoy-everyone' bored.

Like...

'Kick-the-door-down-using-Square-Power-and-get-out-of-this-stupid-meeting' bored.

He hated Step Squad meetings.

So he was doodling.

Yes, doodling. Yes, we are still talking about Thirty-Six. He would do nearly anything to stimulate his overactive mind right now.

So he sat at the eighth seat at a long, wooden table, sick and tired of hearing Fifty-Five's maddening monotonous voice drone on and on, drawing in a very Thirty-Six-like way. Completing a series of practice sketches before starting, taking into consideration the length of every line, the degree of every angle, the space it would require overall.

Halfway through the sixth of eight practice sketches, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned to his right to see Forty-Five.

"What in Numberland are you doing?"

"...Drawing?"

"Why? I've never seen you draw a day in your life."

"I'm bored as heck and let Sixty-Four borrow my Rubik's cube, therefore, I have nothing to mess with and no puzzles to solve. This is the only kind of stimulation available to me right now."

"Sixty-Four? That weird Square?"

"Yes. You've met her?" Thirty-Six ignored the adjective because he knew that's just how Squares and Step Squads interacted. Neither liked the other very much, and they competed over everything, both refusing to let the other have any power over them.

But it still annoyed him a bit.

"No, but it doesn't take long for word of a new Numberblock to get around. You never let anyone even touch your Rubik's cube, let alone borrow it. Are you okay?" Forty-Five put a hand to his forehead to check for fever. Thirty-Six swatted it away as if it were a fly.

"I'm fine," he said, an edge to his voice. "If you haven't met her, you have no right to call her weird. She's very nice, and surprisingly smart."

"From what I hear, she's dreamy and zones out of every meeting. A bit dumb-"

"Dumb! Who told you that!? She's smart enough to have invented the Binary Boosters!"

She scoffed. "Her? No. No Square could possibly have even thought up such a complicated machine!"

"And you could?"

"No, and that's why she never could!"

"Don't assume you know anything about her. She's intelligent and funny and different, and that's what I admire about her. Don't judge her because of what you heard second-hand."

Forty-Five studied him for a minute, a bit baffled by how passionately he defended her, then returned to her binder.

Thirty-Six scoffed and resumed his sketch, non-existent blood boiling. How dare she think she knows anything about Sixty-Four? Dumb, his boot!

He scribbled furiously and stuffed the ruined paper into his backpack sitting in a lump on the floor next to him. Focusing once more on the disorganized mess of papers in front of him, he saw a note taken down on a piece of cat-themed stationary in her neat handwriting.

Ditch the Square and hang out with me

-45

Thirty-Six read it incredulously and shoved it into his backpack, absolutely livid. Was she trying to drive him mad? She was doing a good job of it, he had to admit. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the Square Power surging through his blocks.