Zero Sum

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November 1, 2019

12:06 a.m.

"Professor—what is he talking about?" Nathan asked apprehensively as Luigi started breathing in sobs.

"I don't know," muttered Gadd. "I don't..."

King Boo sent the group another .jpg attachment, titled "True Love".

Click on it, Professor, typed King Boo.

"Why don't you click on it?" challenged Gadd.

Click on it, and your protégé lives. King Boo initiated a ten-second countdown.

Luigi blubbered incoherently.

"All right, all right—I'm opening the file right now!" said Gadd, clicking on the link. "Take it easy."

The attachment was a black-and-white photo of a teenaged couple, dressed formally and smiling with their arms around each other.

Look familiar? 3:D

"Where did you get this?!" snapped Gadd.

I'm afraid that's not relevant right now.

King Boo then sent another attachment, entitled "Touch U Good".

Open the file, Professor.

As King Boo initiated another ten-second countdown, Gadd immediately clicked on the attachment.

It showed another black-and-white photo of the same couple, this time sharing an intimate moment.

"Wait a minute," said Nathan. "That's—you!"

Gadd nodded.

"But who is she?" asked Nathan, indicating the girl in the photo.

Who IS she?

"I—I can't," Gadd said in a small voice.

Professor, can you please identify the woman in the photo?

"No," Gadd said vehemently. "You can't make me!"

"Please, Professor—just do as he says!" pleaded Luigi, tears racing down his face.

"I don't want to get her involved," said Gadd. "Can't you understand that?!"

Don't sweat it, Luigi, typed King Boo. The Professor just needs some more encouragement, is all.

King Boo's video feed switched to a view of what was presumably his own computer as he typed a website URL into the internet browser.

The browser then showed the home page for some sort of high school Nathan had never heard of before.

Am I jogging your memory, Professor?

Gadd was nearly gray in the face.

King Boo then executed some sort of hacking tool which allowed him to access the high-school's yearbook database. He scrolled down to the yearbook for the 1915-16 school year and clicked on it.

There was a closeup of a teenaged Gadd, before the camera panned down to the woman in the photo. The yearbook identified her as Virginia Clarisse Davenport.

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