Pharmalarm carried NZT behind its counter.
The clerk stated the price: three million dollars per pill.
For a moment even Edgar seemed to understand how large a number that was.
“Do we look like we have that kind of money?” Hexcel asked.
Astrid opened her wallet.
The wish at the fountain had apparently kept working in the background; its odd, recursive logic produced enough money to meet the impossible price.
“Bottoms up, brainiacs,” she said.
The pills dissolved.
The city sharpened around them.
Thoughts stacked into thoughts.
A bright diagram of cause and effect unfolded inside every skull, including Edgar’s.
The balloon dog watched with glowing eyes, as if it had been waiting for its turn.
Edgar discovered the Smartest Punchers Olympics.
Ordinary training had never held much appeal, but equations scribbled across a punching arm and a target at the far end of a room now seemed intimately related.
He punched.
A shower of game-like one-ups filled the air.
Somewhere in the celebration, he won a new car.
No one was certain which rule had allowed that.
Astrid put her new intellect to work by hiring a maid.
The little blue android could clean a wrecked room almost instantly.
When a monstrous face appeared at the door, the maid continued working.
She swept up debris from the next fight before the dust had landed.
Rosie, meanwhile, produced a picture of Butlerham Lincoln.
It was a startlingly specific idea, and it led to an even stranger turn in the team’s day.
Miriam built an android version of herself with cat-eared headphones, bright mechanical limbs, and a kick precise enough to make a machine proud.
Edgar found another answer to his new intelligence: practice.
His balloon-dog form, now Edgaursine to the team, took up Muay Thai.
He planted his feet, lifted his guard, and threw a disciplined strike.
“Way to go!” Astrid called.
Hexcel and Miriam cheered while the dog bounced with delight.
By evening, their improvised household looked like a cast assembled by a magician with no editorial supervision: human heroes, armored golem, clever dog, maid, and Miriam’s android.
The city still had questions about their licenses, their animals, and their parking.
Edgar had one question of his own.
“More punch?”
Astrid looked at the friends around her, then at the trouble waiting beyond the door.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
Edgar considered that unfamiliar word.
For once, he decided it sounded good.