Bridgeworld

by Travis McBee

  “Isn’t it too late for me to join?” Will asked suddenly, “I mean it’s the middle of the school year.”

  “Only Earth schools have such strange seasons,” That smirk seemed clearer, “Bridgeworld starts their academic year in what you would call winter, and ends it the following fall.”

  The blur of stars began to shorten and before Will realized he was slowing down a new scene jumped into sight. A massive planet materialized in front of Will. Its surface was a cloudy gray with intermittent streaks of blue that must have been miniscule oceans. Shining down on the planet was a sun that looked sickly as it sputtered red.

  “Welcome to Broglio Will,” Mr. Roberts announced in a bored tone, “Ah and here comes Bridgeworld.”

  Will glanced towards where Mr. Roberts was pointing and saw a shape emerge from the darkness. It was a massive cube of dark metal that appeared liquid as it reflected the dots of stars on its surface. The smooth darkness of the cube drifted closer and Will could grasp how massively huge the thing was. Each side was easily longer than a football field and he whistled air that shouldn’t have been there through his teeth.

  “That’s a school?” He asked dumbstruck

  “Yes, William. That is Bridgeworld.”

  Darkness descended across the starts and blotted out the already dark shape of the school. Black took its hold over his field of vision until a thin line of light appeared. He blinked and he was in his living room, the pseudocepter sitting hot on his head. He reached up and snatched the circlet of metal over his brow and tossed it to Mr. Roberts who was taking a similar circlet off of his own head.

  “Well Will?” His mom looked at him, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get some answers,” He said calmly, “Explain why we live on Earth if all of this is true?”

  Barbara Haynes glanced at her husband before answering, “Your father and I moved to Earth shortly after we got married. We wanted to do something exciting and unexpected. We wanted to break the norm.”

  Will looked at them in disbelief, “Pleasant Valley is exciting?” he laughed as he said it

  “To us it was,” His father answered, “It is vastly different from Broglio and different is almost always exciting.”

  “I’m sorry,” Will shook his head, “But this is still the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

  “What about the pseudocepter?” His father voiced, “Earth technology just isn’t that advanced son,”

  “No, well maybe top secret government stuff,” He hazarded

  “And you think the government would want to play a joke on you?” His mother replied logically

  “Fine. Fine!,” He gave in, “We’ll pretend like this is all true. What about your family then? Are you both really only children whose parents died?”

  His father exchanged a solicitous look with his wife before answering, “No. Your mother is an only child but I have a brother. Both of our parents are still alive, well they were when we left.”

  “You don’t know if your parents are still alive?” Will was dumbfounded, “How can you not know if your parents are still alive?”

  “We gave up our citizenship to move here,” Barbara replied, “We have no way to communicate with them.” Another tear made its way down her cheek

  “If I do go to this Bridgeworld place, will my parents be able to visit me?” He directed the question towards Mr. Roberts

  “No,” He answered without emotion, “Like your mother said, they are no longer citizens and are therefore forbidden to leave this planet.”

  “Then how am I going to attend Bridgeworld? I was born here.” Will rebuked at once

  “You will be under a student visa,” Mr. Roberts explained, “You will be able to travel wherever you wish as long as you are a student and once you graduate you will be able to apply for full citizenship.”

  “And my friends? What will you tell them happened to me?”

  “Your friends will be informed that you were given a spot at an elite private school in England. The school does not exist but information has been entered into the appropriate computer files that make it exist. It is the same cover story for all of our Earth residing students.”

  “And I’ll be able to come back to visit?”

  “Any weekend you wish,”

  Will ran out of questions and slumped backwards into his seat exhausted. After all, finding out your parents are from another planet is tiring business.

  “Well William,” The dry voice resonated again, “Will you or will you not take your offered place at Bridgeworld?”

  Will looked at his parents who smiled at him bravely although tears were falling in salty rivers down his mother’s face. He closed his eyes and flashbacks of the past weekend flooded in. Images of Jessica dominated them and the accompanying drop in his stomach was not far behind. He envisioned himself ambling around Pleasant Valley a backup quarterback, a loser. He opened his eyes with his mind decided.

  “I’ll go,” He announced firmly, “Even if it is just some government ran thing, that’s still pretty cool. I’ll take my place.”

  “Excellent,” Mr. Roberts replied standing up from his chair, “I will be back tomorrow night to collect you then. Good evening”

  And without another word the man walked out of the room and out of the house.

  Chapter Five

  An End and a Beginning

  A clap of thunder served as Will’s alarm clock as his true alarm clock approached eight o’clock. He groaned and swung his legs out of bed. I guess I never will get to sleep in this break. He thought to himself as he kneaded sleep from his eyes with a knuckle. He listened to the rain patter its percussion on his roof as he thought about the dream he had seemingly just emerged from. It had been incredibly vivid even though the contents had been so bizarre that he was surprised his brain could have served as the origin for the plot. He had dreamt that The Stranger had been sitting in his living room and his parents had confessed that they were from another planet, a planet that was offering him a place at an elite school known as The Bridgeworld Academy.

  “What a weird dream,” Will muttered as he staggered towards the bathroom

  The weirdest part of the dream for Will was that he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t a dream at all. As he took his morning shower, the water that poured down on his head seemed to drive this idea deeper and deeper into his skull. That’s stupid he thought it couldn’t have been real, could it? He considered it as best he could with his hair full of frothy shampoo and soon dismissed the idea that it could have been real.

  By the time he emerged from his room and made his way to the kitchen he had almost completely forgotten about the dream. The smell of bacon and eggs greeted him as he entered the state of the art room to find his parents both present. His father was sitting at the table immersed in the paper and his mother was working busily over a pair of frying pans that steamed on the hot stove.

  Will pulled out a chair and sat opposite of his father who looked up at the sound of the scraping chair and greeted him sleepily. Will noticed the dark rings and bloodshot eyes of a man who hadn’t slept well the night before staring out of his father’s face. He was going to question what had kept him awake but his mother interrupted with a steaming plate of bacon and eggs that she set in front of him.

  “We heard your shower going so I started cooking,” His mother explained as he thanked her for the meal.

  He noticed her eyes also bore the signs of sleep deprivation but, at that moment, the food before him seemed more important than any worries about his parent’s sleeping habits. He had a voracious appetite that surprised him, and he consumed the meal at a pace that would have awed competition eaters. He finished his meal quickly and glanced up at his parents. Neither of them had made noteworthy progress into their meals, that along with the tired looks on their faces forced Will to voice his concern.

  “What’s wrong?” He inquired as he stared at the bags that sat so morosely under the two pairs of
eyes that he cared about so much.

  “We’re sad honey,” his mom replied staring at him as if he might vanish.

  As if he might vanish….that dream….

  “Why are you sad?” he inquired again knowing in his heart the answer but feeling his brain fighting stubbornly to refute it.

  “Because, we’ll miss you,” at this his mom broke into tears as she often did on occasions that merited any emotional response.

  Will’s head was sent into a tailspin of thought. So it wasn’t a dream after all. I am going to leave Earth…tonight.

  “Don’t worry it’ll be OK,” he told his parents not believing it himself

  He had made the decision on gut instinct out of the misery that he had just returned from. He asked himself if he was truly miserable on Earth and one word would crop into the forefront of his mind at each inquisition, no.

  “You should hang out with your friends today Will,” His father told him bringing Will back to the real world which he so frequently vacated

  “Yeah, yeah I will,” he replied to his father thinking of Mike and wondering how he would be able to survive without the solid presence of his stocky friend.

  “Just remember,” his father added, “You can’t tell him anything. The cover story will go into effect after you leave tonight.”

  Will nodded to show his understanding. How could I tell him anyways? I didn’t believe it myself. Heck, I still don’t believe it. He excused himself from the table and wandered back to his room with almost no conscious thought guiding his feet. Five minutes later he found himself sitting at his desk staring out the window without seeing anything. He knew he had been in deep thought but that thought had apparently taken place on a level deeper than memory would allow and the thoughts slipped through the net his brain set to snare it as easily as dreams often do.

  He realized what he had meandered into his room for in the first place after he exhausted his brain energy trying to recall what he had been thinking. He picked up his cell phone and deftly flipped it open with one finger. The time that sat informatively under the picture of a viper told him that it was still too early for his best friend to be awake but decided to give Mike a call anyways. Heck, not like anything else strange has happened lately.

  Will wasn’t entirely surprised to find that Mike answered his call on the third ring. Will learned a long time ago that when crazy things started to happen, they happened in mass.

  “What’s up homeboy,” Mike answered after he saw on his caller I.D that it was Will, Mike was notorious for screening calls.

  “Not much dude. Want to hang out?”

  “Sure sure, what ya wanna do?”

  Will had to pause at this; he hadn’t thought ahead to what they actually would do, after all there wasn’t that much to do in Pleasant Valley, or most towns in America for that matter.

  “Want to go back to the outback and check that thing out again?” Mike asked when he received no reply.

  Will suddenly remembered that the expedition into the outback had only been yesterday morning even though it felt like it had happened months or even years ago. Time has a remarkable way of warping to the situations around you, a semester in school might feel like no time but a weekend can be an eternity. That weekend had been a lifetime or two for Will.

  “No, let’s do something different,” Will said thinking quickly, “We might get in trouble poking around there,”

  “Never stopped you before,”

  “Yeah well an official looking dude in a suit never showed up before either,” Will thought for a second, “Want to go over to Lee’s and play some games?”

  “Yeah sure,”

  Will flipped the phone closed with a sharp click and turned towards the window to watch the rain that fell in waves upon the ground staining the world a shade darker than normal. What great weather for my last day.

  * * *

  Will spent the rest of the day in the company of his friends. He played with Mike and a few other members of the team at Lee’s for several hours before heading to MAW’s Burger Shack for lunch. A hefty hamburger and a smooth milkshake later Will went to see one of the movies at the Gatehouse dollar theater across town.

  The entire day Will seemed to be exceptionally happy to those who saw him, which surprised most of them because of the weekend that had punished the boy so severely. Will himself was surprised and a little sad to find the jubilation that filled him at hanging out with his friends. He knew that it would be a long time until he saw them again and that brought him some sorrow, but the indecision of that morning had passed and he felt excitement coarse through his body at the impending change that his life was about to undergo. Mike had sensed something had changed in Will from the second he saw him that day but when asked, Will told him that there was nothing special going on. It was the only thing that day that wasn’t easy for Will; He and Mike had been friends since first grade and he had always shared everything with him. To tell a lie to his oldest friend was excruciating, no matter how necessary it was.

  Will returned to his house that night as the rain first began to slacken, halfway through dinner it ceased completely leaving a world of wonderful stillness and calm dampness behind. His mother had pulled out all the stops for dinner that included his favorite dish of homemade fried chicken finished off by a freshly baked chocolate cake. Conversation through dinner was sparse and his mother seemed close to tears at all times but the meal was enjoyable none the less. Mid way through dinner he had asked if he needed to pack anything and his mother had told him no in a fit of dry sobs.

  After dinner the three went into the living room to enjoy their last few hours together by watching some television. The screen hadn’t even fully turned on before the chirruping ring of the doorbell rang through the house. Will felt sweat break over his skin as he realized the time had come and listened to his father walk over to the front door and open it. He heard the perfect yet vacant speech of Mr. Roberts voice mix with the deep tones of his father as they met each other. His father led Mr. Roberts into the room. He was dressed in his traditional perfect fitting black suit with a white shirt and a blood red tie.

  Mr. Roberts looked down at Will with little interest.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Will replied simply.

  Will stood up from the comfort of the chair he was sitting in with difficulty. The excited anticipation that he had sat in his stomach all day had instantly turned into a cold soup of dread and fear. His mother’s tears were no longer held back and torrents of them fell down her face as she ran forward and hugged him goodbye. His father ambled over and stood patiently behind his wife until she finally liberated Will from her smothering embrace. His father looked both proud and sad as he extended a hand towards his son. Will grasped it to shake it but was instead dragged into another hug.

  Mr. Roberts waited calmly at the entrance to the living room. His face remained the same impassive surface that he always showed to the world, as if an external stimulus that could affect his emotions simply did not exist. That man is like a robot. Will mused to himself as he was released from his father’s strong embrace.

  “We’re going to be late,” Mr. Roberts told him

  His mother glanced away from Will long enough to launch an evil frown at the Dean of Admissions and hugged Will one last time. After this second hug Will walked calmly up to Mr. Roberts and looked directly into those boring brown pits of eyes.

  “Let’s go,” He uttered solemnly.

  Mr. Roberts was apparently under the impression that enough verbiage had been wasted so he didn’t bother to answer Will with words. Instead he simply turned and walked towards and then out of the front door of the Hayne’s house. Will followed immediately and only paused long enough at the door to say goodbye one final time to his parents.

  * * *

  Will had expected Mr. Roberts to have a car waiting at the end of the path way that led from the front door to the sidewalk but the street was deserted.
Mr. Roberts was walking down the path without looking back, and Will followed him all the way down the short path and was dismayed when the man turned onto the sidewalk and began walking away from town with no sign as to the distance they would travel. Will did not want to be seen with the strange man even though people would hear the story planted by The Bridgeworld Academy which would be corroborated by his parents and assume that this man had not been a part of foul play. Will would be half in luck on that night, no citizen of Pleasant Valley spotted them as they made their exodus but the journey itself was not a short one.

  Mr. Roberts led Will all the way out of town and into the Outback. Will had guessed that’s where they would be heading even though he had hoped it wouldn’t be. They did not follow the same path that Mike had guided him down yesterday, which felt more like an eternity ago. Instead Mr. Roberts led him down a path that was less overgrown and thus much more pleasurable to travel.

  The path may have been more pleasurable but the journey was certainly not. The Outback was a stereotypical forest, beautiful and relaxing by day, terrifying by night. The little light that managed to filter down from the moon through the trees offered little illumination but still managed to cast strange shadows that lurked under the trees like mysterious beasts. All around him played a symphony of sounds as leaves rustled in the wind and dripped fat drops of rain down onto other leaves to create a constant chatter as if the Outback was talking to itself.

  After what seemed like an eternity of walking the duo found themselves at the lagoon where the long skid of destruction ended. Mr. Roberts stopped at its edge and took out a small device which he consulted briefly before placing it back in his pocket.

  “Well are you going to call your ship up or not?” Will asked after waiting anxiously for several minutes.

  “It’s coming,” was the simple dry reply.

  “Isn’t it right there under water?” Will asked perplexed by his own assumptions