The Flinkwater Factor by Pete Hautman

ACPOD campus. In the morning the ACPOD corporate tower sends its long, ominous shadow creeping over the school building. Mrs. Singh, my English teacher, claims that’s a metaphor, but I attribute it to plain old bad planning.
    Since I had been delayed by Agent Ffelps, I wasn’t sure if I’d arrived before Billy. I tried the front door. It was unlocked. I stepped inside.
    I had never before been in the school when it wasn’t full of students. It was eerily empty, and not at all romantic. I stood there for a few seconds, undecided. Should I wait for Billy, or go straight to the nanolab? The door opened behind me, and I think my heart stopped. I spun around. It was Billy.
    â€œAre you okay?” he said.
    â€œI’m fine. You just startled me.”
    He cocked his head. “You look different.”
    Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I smiled and said, “Thank you.”
    â€œYour lips are kind of red.”
    â€œThat’s called lipstick.”
    â€œOh. How come you’re wearing lipstick?”
    â€œBecause I’m a girl?”
    â€œOh,” he said, blinking in apparent astonishment.
    This first-kiss business was going to be more work than I’d thought.
    â€œSo  . . . you said something about grey goo?” I asked.
    â€œI was kidding,” he said. “Professor Little called. He said he needed an assistant to help him with a self-replicating nanobot he was designing. He was pretty excited.”
    â€œBut  . . . isn’t that kind of dangerous? Like, turn-the-planet-into-a-giant-ball-of-grey-goo dangerous?”
    â€œI’m sure the professor has plenty of safety protocols in place to prevent that from happening.”
    â€œWe’re talking about a teacher who once showed up for class wearing SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas,” I said doubtfully. “Why did he call you, anyway?”
    â€œWe’ve been working on some things.”
    â€œGrey goo things?”
    â€œWell  . . . not exactly. You know he’s been working on some antitumor nanotech, right?”
    I didn’t, but I nodded.
    â€œHe—we, actually—came up with a variation on a self-replicator that attacked a certain kind of growth. Specifically, melanocytic nevi.”
    â€œMelano  . . . what?”
    â€œMoles.”
    â€œI see,” I said.

34

    In the Dark
    Professor Lancaster Little, our nanotech teacher and a researcher for ACPOD, was one of the ugliest human beings I had ever met. Physically, I mean. As a person, Professor Little was quite nice—albeit a tad absentminded. But he had several large, unfortunately positioned moles. The biggest one was the size and color of a grape, and it was situated on the tip of his nose. It was impossible to look at anything else. Even if you were able to tear your eyes away from that supermole, they would land on one of the other moles, like the double mole on his chin, or the one hanging off his left eyelid, or the constella­tion of moles decorating the top of his mostly bald head.
    Don’t get me wrong, I liked Professor Little. I just had a really hard time looking at him. Itmade perfect sense that he would try to develop some antimole nanotech.

    â€œThe professor said he had a breakthrough,” Billy said as we walked down the hallway. “He asked me to stop by the nanolab.”
    â€œTo help him get rid of his moles?” I said, still trying to wrap my head around the idea.
    â€œI don’t think we’re quite to that point yet. The nanobots haven’t been tested.”
    â€œSo we’re not about to perish in a sea of grey goo?”
    â€œWell, no. At least I don’t think so.”
    I figured that once we had to look at Professor Little’s face it would kill any chance of romance, so as we were passing by the school theater, I moved closer to Billy.
    â€œListen,” I whispered.
    â€œWhy?” he said. His voice boomed through