by Gregg Braden
He had a vision of a desert as seen out of a cracked window, sunglasses reflecting the sun.
“Hey?” Ernesto asked. “What’s the matter with you? Are you okay, kid?”
Jack opened his eyes and blinked several times. Seeing Ernesto’s face, he was about to respond when there was a banging sound from right next to him.
A gloved hand was knocking on the car window. Jack jerked around in panic to find a young security guard in a bulky uniform standing at the window, pointing his flashlight on him.
Glancing back in the rearview mirror again, Jack now saw that a security car had pulled up behind him. He realized that the headlights hitting the raindrops on his windows was probably the cause of the dancing lights.
“Shit,” Jack muttered under his breath.
“Excuse me, sir?” The security guard’s voice was so high that he sounded like an adolescent.
He tapped the window again, and Jack rolled it all the way down, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.
“Can you please stop shining that light in my eyes?”
On the computer screen, Ernesto moved, leaning close to the camera.
“Jack? Are you there?”
“Hold on, Ernesto—”
The guard eyed the laptop suspiciously.
“Sir, what business do you have in this neighborhood?”
“I’m parked on a public street. That’s my business.”
“May I see your license and registration?”
“Hey, you’re a security guard, not a cop. And I’m allowed to be here.”
Jack turned back to Ernesto.
“Ernesto, don’t hang up. Sorry—”
The guard pulled out his radio, and after a few bumbling seconds, announced in an officious voice, “I’ve got a 251 in progress at 1501 Euclid. Requesting police backup.”
“What the hell is a 251?”
“Sir, you appear to be stealing Internet access.”
Jack started to get out of the car, but the guy was so jumpy, he suddenly changed his mind. “You can’t steal Internet access! It’s in the air. It’s not like stealing a car!”
“It’s exactly like stealing a car.”
Suddenly from the laptop, there was what sounded like a radio transmission of men yelling and swearing, and a far-off explosion.
Jack turned back to it. On the screen, Ernesto looked behind him, then turned back to the camera.
“Jack, I gotta go.”
“Wait! What’s happening? Ernesto!”
“Gotta go, dude.”
“Tell Charlie—I’ll be online no matter what,” Jack said frantically. “I’ll find a place.”
But Ernesto was gone, and the Skype window went blank.
Jack was swept with an anxiety so strong that he knew he couldn’t sit still, not for another moment.
“Sir, may I please see your identification—hey!”
The security guard stepped back just as Jack slammed the car into gear and peeled off. In the rearview mirror, he could see the guy fumbling with his cell phone.
Jack sped back into a commercial area where businesses were closed and dark.
“Where can I go? Where can I go?” he chanted out loud. Suddenly, he realized where he was. He turned the car around, and in a short time, pulled up in front of his high school.
He turned off his headlights and grabbed his laptop, clicking on the networks icon. The Roosevelt High network was unlocked.
“Yes!” Jack said. He clicked again, but found the connection was weak.
He looked around to see if there was somewhere he could park closer to the school buildings, but there were no other spaces. He slipped his laptop into his messenger bag, got out of the car, and began to climb through the bushes down to the school.
When he reached the fence, he slipped through a small break that looked as if it had been there for years.
Lights burned on the first floor of building one—the science department. One of the brightest areas was Peter Keller’s physics classroom, where he’d created his own private world, suffused by the scent of cigarette smoke and fragrant coffee that he was bringing to a boil in a lab beaker. There he was, surrounded by books, cups, and food wrappers, with classical music—a cassette labeled “Research Mix 45”—playing in the background.
Peter lit a cigarette from the Bunsen burner and carefully placed it in a petri dish, his makeshift ashtray, then mixed the dark coffee with a bit of milk foam he procured from a silver cup and made himself a cappuccino. He removed a yellow disk of sugar cookie from a scale, pulled out a precision knife, and cut it into perfect quarters. All his actions were measured and exact, as if they were part of some solemn and solitary ritual.
Peter rented a small apartment on the other side of town, but he was rarely there; no one realized how many hours he spent in this classroom, his after-hours sanctuary. No one realized what a loner he’d become.
He ate a quarter of the cookie, then rearranged himself on his meditation pillow and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he stared transfixed at the chalkboard in front of him before he picked up a small tape recorder and began speaking. “Pull up the Michelson-Morley experiment for review. Cross-reference the Schrödinger equation with the Pribram/Bohm holonomic model. Also pull up any additional journal reports on the Geneva twin-photon experiment.” He paused for a second. “If possible, find parallel examples dealing with quantum entanglement.” His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of metal clinking. Outside, he could see the chain-link fence shaking in the wind.
The glow of the laptop screen illuminated Jack’s face as he stood in the gravel driveway of the school’s loading dock. The Skype window was open, but both Charlie’s and Ernesto’s names were inactive.
Suddenly a message appeared on the computer screen with a beep: low battery.
Jack whispered, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
He snapped the laptop closed and studied the school building. Then he moved to the lit windows and started testing them to see if any were open.
Peter stood at the blackboard, a cigarette dangling from his lips as loud rock music blared from his stereo. He stood, jotting notes in chalk, absorbed in writing a complicated mathematical equation. He’d paused to consider what he had just written when he suddenly heard a thud out in the hall.
His face went pale as he turned and looked toward the door. He heard it again, louder this time. Someone was definitely there. He glanced at his watch, confused.
He moved over to extinguish his cigarette in the sink, waving his hands to disperse the smoke. Then he lowered the volume of the stereo; the room was silent for a moment. There was more noise, followed by a light tapping sound.
Peter picked up a mop from the corner, took a deep breath, and moved out into the hallway.
Jack had wedged open an upper window transom enough to reach in with his arm. Using a stick he tapped the lock of the window below, trying to release it. It worked. He pushed open the window, grabbed his messenger bag, and began to climb in.
At the same moment, Peter peered around the corner, at the end of the long hallway, holding the mop like a weapon.
“Hey!” he called.
The sound of Peter’s voice took Jack by surprise, and he fell into the building with a thud, landing awkwardly on his left leg.
“Hey!” Peter yelled again. “What are you doing?”
Jack said, “I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’m just trying to—”
“This is school property!” Peter said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Jack rubbed his ankle, wincing in pain. “Look, I know it’s school property.”
“You’re breaking and entering!”
“I think I just broke my ankle.” Jack started to stand up.
“Don’t move! I’m calling the police right now.”
“Why? Don’t—please. I can explain.”
Peter felt in his pocket for his phone, then realized that he’d left it back in his clas
sroom. All the while, he continued staring at Jack. There was something vaguely familiar about him. “Just stay where you are. I’m going to get my phone and then I’m calling the police—”
“Hold on! I’m not trying to do anything bad. I just need to plug in my computer, okay?”
Jack started hobbling down the hall toward Peter.
“Don’t come any closer. Do you have a gun?”
“It’s just my computer,” Jack said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not trying to steal anything. I told you, I just need to plug in my computer.”
“You broke in to plug in a computer?”
Jack was growing exasperated by so many questions; time was ticking away, and he couldn’t seem to get his old physics teacher to understand his plight.
“Look, I tried to log on to the network from outside, but the signal was too weak. So then I made it through the fence to connect in the breezeway, and my battery started to die. Please, Mr. Keller, it’s an emergency. I have to get online.”
Peter stepped forward to see better, and something in his face relaxed.
“You’re Charlie Franklin.”
“Close. Jack. We’re—”
“Twins,” Peter said. “I remember now.”
“Good memory.”
“Class of 2005. Good students. What happened? You look like a hoodlum now.”
“Why? Because I’m wearing a hoodie?” He slipped it off, revealing his long hair.
“No, because you’re breaking into the school in the middle of the night.” Peter stared at him for a moment. “Are you high?”
“Mr. Keller … look, my brother, he’s a soldier in Afghanistan, and something’s happening, okay? I have to reach him, right away. I have to get on Skype so I can talk to him. Please.”
The plaintiveness in Jack’s voice made a dent in Peter’s doubts. Why am I being so suspicious, anyhow? he asked himself.
He gazed at his former student’s face. He remembered him now perfectly, and his brother, too—intense young men with level hazel eyes who seemed so linked that it had been a little odd to encounter them as a pair. How do you distinguish yourself when there is another one of you, so alike, so attuned? he remembered wondering.
Like so many of his students, Charlie and Jack seemed on the brink of some critical turning point in their lives. And perhaps this had been it—one of them at war, the other at home.
Peter sighed. He hoped he wasn’t making some grave error.
“Okay,” he said to Jack. “Come on.”
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Peter and Jack walked through the high school halls together, Jack limping heavily on his injured ankle.
“We’ll get you some ice,” Peter said, suddenly solicitous. “Do you think your ankle’s really broken?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just twisted it.”
They walked through the lobby, past the glass display of student photos. Peter glanced at Jack’s photo, but actually stopped and stared at Charlie’s—the same open sensitive face, but with close cropped hair and a more focused, intense look in his eyes.
“There he is,” Jack said. “I can’t believe he’s so far away.”
After a moment, he moved on and Peter followed.
“What are you doing here this time of night, anyway?” Jack asked him.
“Just grading … things,” Peter mumbled. When they reached the physics classroom, Peter said, “Wait a minute,” and went in alone.
He quickly tossed his cigarettes and ashtray into his desk, then pulled down the projection screen in front of the chalkboard so it covered his elaborate equation. Finally he opened the door for Jack.
“All right, come on. Try plugging in over there. In the third station, there’s an outlet on the side.”
In minutes, Jack’s laptop was plugged in and set up at one of the student lab tables. He logged back on to Skype, but Charlie’s name was still grayed out.
“Any word?” Peter asked.
Jack shook his head. “Nothing yet. Ernesto, a guy in his unit, said he’s due back at the base by 2:30, our time.”
Peter looked up at the clock—it was 1:34.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll call. Can I get you anything? I just made some coffee.”
“I don’t do caffeine. You got any herbal tea?”
“You don’t do caffeine? You’ve never had my coffee,” Peter said proudly. He waited a moment. “You want herbal tea? All right. I think there’s some in the teachers’ lounge.”
“Nah—that’s all right. Maybe water?”
Peter filled a glass and handed it to him. “How long has your brother been in Afghanistan?”
“Two years. He should have been back by now, but you know how they extend everybody.”
“Yeah. It must be hard. Him being so far away.”
“Yeah.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “Man, I’m getting crazy with this shit.”
Peter stood beside him expectantly, waiting for more.
“This is the longest we’ve ever been apart. Plus, it’s the first time we ever disagreed about anything as big as this.”
“What did you disagree about?”
“Our father ended up spending our college nest egg, so we both knew we had to get to college on our own. Charlie became friendly with this recruiter who was hanging around town and decided to enlist. The recruiter tried to get me to enlist, too.”
“And I take it you weren’t interested?”
Jack gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding?”
“So what’s your financial plan?”
“Computer work, teacher-assistant work—anything except the military. Anyway, when we were alone, I gave Charlie a hard time. He was always against war—both of us are. He’s a vegetarian and pacifist, like me. But he wouldn’t listen. He figured this was his ticket out, that his service would be short and that he’d collect a lot of money. We fought over it.”
“A physical fight?”
“No, but yelling—and we never fight. I can count the times on one hand. So it was super upsetting. Before I knew it, I heard he was wearing his uniform around, and people were talking about how brave he was. God, it was like World War II or something.”
“Maybe you were jealous?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Problem is, we never got to really talk to each other alone after that discussion, everything happened so fast. I had to go out of town for a job, and when I came back, he was gone. Now it’s almost impossible to get ahold of him for more than a few minutes … or make him understand what I’m saying.”
“So exactly what happened to Charlie that you’re so upset about now?” Peter asked him.
“I’m not totally sure,” Charlie said. “But it could be really bad.”
“What does that mean? Did you get a call? Was there something on the news?”
“No, no.”
“Did this Ernesto guy tell you something?”
“Not really.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, I don’t know how to explain it, but I just know he’s in serious danger right now.”
“What do you mean, you just know?”
Jack took a deep breath. “I saw something happen to him.”
“You saw?”
“Yes. Saw. A premonition, or a dream.”
“Okay, so you broke into school in the middle of the night because you had a bad dream.”
“My brother could be dying over there, and you’re grilling me over using the school’s Internet?”
“I’m grilling you about breaking into the school and then not being straight with me about why.”
“But I am being straight with you—I told you I know something is wrong. I know something bad is going to happen to Charlie, unless I can warn him!”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do!”
“No, you think you do, but you don’t have any factual information.”
“Look, I don’t expect someone like you to understand. I’m
not making this up. We’re twins! We just know things.”
This stopped Peter, who looked at Jack’s face, then turned and moved over to his desk.
Jack went back to his computer. Peter opened a book and pretended to read. Finally Jack looked up at Peter.
“You want facts? Okay! Jack and I were seven. We were at camp, playing by a river. I slipped on the mud. It was raining. The river was moving fast, and I fell into it. It was so cold that I could barely breathe. All I could do was try to keep my head above water. Charlie ran to get help from the counselor, and he told him what happened and that I was under an old bridge.
“I was under a bridge, but miles downstream from where we’d been playing. I was washed underneath this thing, and I grabbed on to a strut, and I was holding on for dear life. Charlie had no way of knowing that. Yet he knew. He knew exactly where I was. He knew.” Jack paused and looked at Peter, who was listening to him closely. “I get it. You’re a science teacher, and you don’t believe in anything you can’t prove with a stupid equation—”
“You have no idea what I believe.”
“Whatever …”
There was a long silence between them; finally Peter spoke. “Look, I completely appreciate your concern for your brother, I do. I guess all I’m saying is that when you’re upset, it’s very easy to start using your imagination. And one can never overestimate the power of a negative imagination.”
Jack jumped to his feet and said fiercely, “It’s not my imagination! I saw it through my heart. I felt it.” He smacked his chest for emphasis. “It’s here.”
Peter stared at him, now more curious than skeptical. Something Jack said had struck a nerve. “What do you mean, you felt it?”
“It’s beyond words, but it’s real. Hasn’t there ever been anything you just knew was true?”
Peter looked down at his messy desk, considering Jack’s words. His eyes fell on a photo of Manuela.
“Look, I need to speak to my brother, Mr. Keller.” He began making gathering movements, as if he were leaving. “I’ll do it somewhere else if I have to—”
“All right, calm down,” Peter said. “You can stay. Just promise me that when your brother calls and says he’s fine, which he will, you’ll go home and get some rest.”