Extra Life by Derek Nikitas

great.”
    “Not myself today, that’s for sure.”
    “You should take an early day—maybe go see your doctor.”
    “It’s that obvious, huh?”
    I was wary of saying too much, but I had to convince him. “You should, you know, be careful of your blood sugar.”
    He cocked his head. “My blood sugar?”
    “Watch your insulin or whatever.”
    “Russ—what makes you think I’m diabetic?”
    “You’re not?”
    “Not that I know of. Did someone give you the impression I was?”
    Yeah , you, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t accuse him of lying about being a diabetic because he wouldn’t actually be telling his lie for another hour and a half. In fact, I pretty much just ensured that he wouldn’t end up having that conversation with me at all.
    “I guess I was thinking of someone else,” I said.
    “Someone else, huh?”
    I could see Mr. Yes didn’t buy it, but we were in a standoff.
    “All I’m saying is—it looks like it might be worse than just your average flu bug. My Mom’s in the pharmaceutical business, so, you know, I hear about these things.”
    “Okay. Right,” Mr. Yes said. “I’ll get it checked out.”
    The mention of my mother, Madeline Belmont, put Mr. Yes on his own dark little cloud. Creepy, but effective, because it gave me a chance to slip away without further questioning. I’m not sure he even registered I was gone until I left the studio, camera case in hand. I had a plan to carry through.

S OMEHOW I had to get in contact with Conrad, but there were two Horace Vales wandering the halls of Port City Academy. If no divergences had happened yet, one of me was still in the cafeteria with Connie, so I couldn’t exactly make a double showing at my own lunch period, even if, after something like fifteen hours of fasting, I was hungry enough to eat those gray green beans all over again.
    Instead, I loitered in the East Hall, a “free zone” just off the cafeteria, where upperclassmen on their lunch break were allowed to mill around and socialize after mealtime. It was mostly just the Future Runway Models of America who refused to eat or even sit within sniffing distance of food.
    Ten minutes until 1 p.m., the milestone moment when Savannah sends the text agreeing to meet me at the Silver Bullet Diner for videotaping. Fierce jitters. You’d think the second time around I’d be more confident, but I couldn’t be sure 2.0 had laid the groundwork just right. Very possible he blew it with Savannah because of some unforeseen variable, and now I wasn’t going to get that text at all.
    When my phone buzzed seven minutes early, it was Connie, not Savannah. For privacy, I crouched into an auditorium side-exit alcove and read his text:
    testing. r u there?
    I considered not answering, but I’d already obliterated Connie’s former past. I texted:
    yep
    who? someone stole russs phone, he wrote.
    me, real russ
    ?
    from the future! I wrote. I could erase the texts later if they needed redaction.
    ur here? stole his phone???
    my phone too. is 2.0 with u?
    no. just left, looking for his phone! where r u?
    I started to type, but then the implications of Connie’s comment sank in.
    2.0 was on the loose.
    I glanced around the corner and, sure enough, I got walloped by another bout of metaphysical double vision. Because there he was, Russ 2.0, stalking up the hall toward me.
    One look at his zombie posture and I could see how stricken with worry he was. I’d probably look like that if my phone went AWOL right before I was destined to get my first text (and maybe only text ever ) from Savannah Lark.
    Even if my day was looking up, his was sucking rotten limes.
    I popped my head back into the alcove and yanked the hood over it. The phone never buzzed as loudly as it did just then.
    Connie: where r u?? I didn’t type back until I was sure 2.0 had walked well past my hiding spot. free zone, third alcove, I wrote.
    I left the borrowed HD camera in the alcove so Connie wouldn’t see it when he came out