Chapter 3: Chapter 1: The Missing Egg [3]

3.

‘Can you ring my dad? It’s been an hour.’

Again, no answer.

Confused, Andre looks around the red-carpet area, finding nobody. Did everyone go home? No, they couldn’t have. He would have noticed, and his dad would have arrived by then. Is everyone outside? Maybe. He gathers his things, leaves the foyer, and steps out into the rain again.

What’s going on?

Not only is there no one in the school, but there’s not a single soul on this entire block. Cars lay idle on the roads, no drivers, no passengers, and everything is silent save for the rain. 

He looks over at the terminal; no one. The parking lot; no one. The café to the right of the school building; no one. For the first time in a long time, Andre Xavier is stumped. This isn’t possible. Am I dreaming?

That’s not possible either. For him to be dreaming, he would have to be asleep, and as far as he’s aware, he’s fully conscious. He can still feel the rain, he can still hear the river babbling towards Lake Michigan, and he can still make out the structure of his hands. He once read an article published by Science Daily that the dreaming brain finds it difficult to delineate precise features such as hands. Looking at them now, his fingers are normal. Everything is as it should be.

This is real. It’s not a dream.

Andre walks over to the motionless cars on the road. The engines are running, creating a normal, everyday din, but all the seats are empty. He follows the tailback until he reaches the bridge. Over the balustrade, he sees Lake Michigan as still as a statue. That’s strange, especially considering the terrible weather; even the lightest of winds can bring waves of high-reaching crests.

‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’ His heart races and sweat drips down the back of his neck. This is the only plausible answer. The afterlife must be real. Purgatory. He’s a wandering ghost. Mark must have beaten him hard in a fit of unbridled rage. He certainly has the strength to do it. Is he lying on the bench beneath the pergola right now? Blood oozing from his temple? He backtracks to the school, then to the pergola, half expecting to see his body, perhaps pulled away into some secluded bush. It’s horrific to think about.

Andre checks the pergola and, while he doesn’t find his body, he does spot the torn, mushy pages from his math book. Not knowing what else to do, he gets down on one knee, picks the pages up, and looks to see if there’s anything out of place on them (apart from the stains, of course). He flips through each page, trying to discern any differences, and stops once he sees a solution highlighted in blue, just near the cut-off.

The solution reads:

‘I got it right,’ he murmurs. ‘The Quantum-Differentiation Theorem.’

There’s a peculiar sensation in the air, like static electricity. The hairs along Andre’s neck stir and move, like a ripe pondweed bed, and his afro puffs up as though he touched a plasma bulb.

He hears something behind him. A spark. He turns. A white light flickers in and out of existence on the road. He stands and backs away behind the bench table, thinking that the electrical charge between the vehicles will build up in a few moments and the orb will explode.

It does.

An EMP sends an enormous shockwave across the entire area—the school, the roads, the commercial businesses built along this side of the block—shattering windows and lampposts. The boom is deafening, and for a moment all Andre can hear is an intense ringing sound. His vision is blurry at first, but when it clears, he sees that the white light has changed from an orb to a perfectly circular white hole. It’s as if God took his cosmic scissors and cut out a piece of fabric from the universe.

Fear grips him, now more than ever. The idea that he’s dead is still strong in his mind, but even if that’s not the case, he feels he will be soon. 

I have no control. 

Something appears from the hole. A foot – no, a leg. It wears a peculiar fabric, a mix between spider web, haptic padding, and chain-mail armour. It steps on the ground. An arm appears, clad in the same material. Soon, a whole body emerges. It stands seven feet tall, faceless. There's a white hexagon printed on its chest, and it rotates, slowly, like a cogwheel. 

A suit.

An advanced-looking one at that. Once more he's reminded of being trapped in an endless fever dream. This isn't something that the universe should allow. It's too paranormal, ridiculous, impossible.  

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But it's happening. All the books Andre read about quantum mechanics are wrong. Whatever science allowed this being to open a portal is not science; it's dark magic. 

Andre struggles to breathe. He backs away, slowly, over towards his school, one step at a time. He makes his way towards the reception area, thinking that he can take the other exit at the back of the school.

The Suit cranes its neck from side to side.

The Suit watches.

The Suit walks.

Andre drops his backpack and sprints through the front schoolyard, into the reception area, and across the foyer. When he turns the corridor, he sees rucksacks, not under desks or against walls as they often would be, but across the floor. He tries to manoeuvre his way around them but trips.

When he looks back he sees The Suit walking towards him from the opposite end of the corridor.

If that thing's walking then there’s no way it should have covered that much distance in that much time. No fucking way.

Andre picks himself up off the ground and continues running through the school hallways, heading for the exit on the other side. Glass cracks beneath his shoes; the fluorescent lights on the ceiling must have burst from the EMP.

He snatches another look behind, thinking that The Suit would have covered more distance—at the rate it’s walking, it surely would have—but…

Where is it?

Andre slows down. He’s almost at the end of the school now, and he’s not sure whether to feel relieved or terrified. Strangely, he feels a mixture of both. He doesn’t dare say a word, he doesn’t dare retrace his steps, because why would he? Even if he’s dead and wandering purgatory, he doesn’t want to interact with whatever cosmic demon decided (or is deciding) to chase him down.

Although The Suit may be gone, there’s no saying whether it will come back soon. Better safe than sorry. Andre turns one last corridor and sees a sign placed above a white door at the very end. PUSH THE BAR TO OPEN, it reads. The green stencil of a running man and an upward arrow is pegged tautly beneath it. The fire escape. He books it.

Just when his hand is about to touch the handlebar, the door opens, and a blinding white light shines through. Heat rashes out across Andre’s skin, causing the hairs along his back and neck to rise once again.

Something grabs his arm and Andre feels an electric shock. His entire body burns with pins and needles, and the sound of a stun gun goes off, only he knows he hasn’t been pronged. The something is familiar: a human hand.

He squirms. ‘Get off me, get off!’

The light fades. Andre can see again. He looks up.

The Suit stares down at him, still faceless, still soulless. ‘Collection successful,’ it says, the voice deep and robotic.

‘—fuck off me!—’

‘Initiating Quantum Discharge.’

Andre feels another surge of electricity, but this time it isn’t painful. It’s quite… relaxing… like he’s being massaged by an automatic chair. Oh….

Soon, his problems dissipate. The shock stops. His heart stops beating.

Darkness.

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