A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls) by Hank Green

Author:Hank Green [Green, Hank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

You’re supposed to believe all of the same things as your friends and your allies. These days, everything is a battle, and so you can’t give any credibility to your opponents’ views. Even when you do understand where your opponents are coming from, you’re not supposed to say so. Well, as much as I hate it, I’d always felt like the Defenders had one thing right. To me, the Carls did feel threatening. I was scared then in that boiler room, feeling small and fragile and also . . . just angry. There was a thought in my mind that I couldn’t fight against, and as Carl placed April delicately on the futon and then turned back toward me, I managed to push past the fear and say it out loud.

“I don’t forgive you.”

“I know,” robot Carl replied immediately. Their high, clear voice felt incongruous coming from the giant. “I’m sorry about the dolphins.”

“What?”

“It was a side effect of creating this.” They pointed at me, at the spot where the bullet had gone in, the place where the white stuff had now become a part of me. “There was energy released, it damaged them, and they were not able to recover. I didn’t kill them just to lead you to April.”

“I didn’t think you did,” I said.

“You would have, eventually, if I hadn’t explained it.”

I wanted to ask how they were so sure of that, but before I got a chance, Carl said, “There is food and water in the fridge. Do you need anything else?”

I looked around the room and my eyes landed on the potato sprout. “A grow lamp,” I said, “for the potato.”

“I can do that,” Carl said. And then, with their head hung low to avoid scraping on the ceiling, they walked back to the stairs and disappeared up them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.