For my protection?
Protect me from what?
Did I just activated some sort of secret weapon?
Then I saw the note suddenly vaporize on my desk, leaving nothing more than a thin layer of dust.
CHAPTER 8
The following day, a rainy Monday, I lay my tray on the table and sat down across from Jeffrey. From the huge cafeteria, we sat close to the windows, viewing the cold and damped weather, heavy rain dribbling against the glass and leaves taken up by the strong wind.
“Hey, buddy!” he greeted.
“So, how did it go?” I asked subtly.
For a minute, he had his face into a question mark. “Oh, you mean my dad’s car.”
I nodded.
“It was close … my folks arrived precisely a minute after I reached home. I even hid the keys back from where I took them.”
We both took a large bite of our burritos. They actually tasted good, savoring the numerous flavors all at once. Obviously accompanied with a portion of fries. A perfect lunch for a growling appetite.
“That’s a cool looking watch!” Jeffrey exclaimed.
“Yeah … that … uh,” I muttered.
“Where did you get it?”
“I went to Smarttrox Electronics, yesterday afternoon,” I said. “Just shopping and looking around. Then I caught a glimpse of that watch. It was the only one left.”
“Looks pretty high-tech.”
“Hey guys!” Jennifer said, walking by with Samantha. They arrived with their trays and sat down with us. Samantha sat next to me. We all shared the same classes, also being good friends. Jennifer was the one with straight long brown hair, sometimes tied into a ponytail, or left loose. She had dark brown eyes that gazed through her black frame glasses. She had the image of the simple intellectual girl: petite in size, often wearing jeans, T-shirts and wool tops.
Samantha had her red hair cut into a bob hairstyle, beautiful blue eyes and voluptuous lips. She wore fashionable styles that always suited her perfectly. Like all of us, she had a penchant for geeky stuff that most people seemed surprised when they came to know about it.
“I can’t stand gloomy days,” Samantha cried.
“At least lunch is good,” Jennifer replied.
“Tell me about it. I’m gonna go get dessert,” Jeffrey said, getting up and swallowing his last bite.
Jennifer smirked affectionately, watching Jeffrey heading toward the counter, ordering some dessert. “Boy that guy eats fast. I’m surprised he never gets any digestive problems.”
“Jeff’s the big guy, he can take it,” I said, grinning.
“How about you?” Samantha asked me.
“I’m not a dessert guy,” I replied.
“Neither am I,” Jennifer admitted. “Except for chocolate.”
“Hey Derek,” Samantha began. “I was wondering if you could help me with something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I know you’re good with computers. My laptop froze completely since last night. I turn it back on and my operating system won’t boot anymore. All I see is a black screen with a blinking cursor.”
“No problem,” I told her. “I’ll take a look at it.”
She threw a dashing smile. “Thanks, I’d appreciate it.”
Jeffrey came back with a large piece of chocolate mousse cake. “Now, that’s what I call an awesome dessert.”
“Good lord!” Jennifer exclaimed. “You gonna eat all that?”
“No! Of course not! You guys are gonna help me. Aren’t you?” Jeffrey said, holding up three other disposable plates and plastic spoons. “Come on guys, let’s split this in four.”
“Aw! You’re so sweet,” Jennifer cried.
“Thanks!” Samantha said.
“I asked for one piece,” Jeffrey explained. “And the lady from the kitchen offered me to take it all or she was going to throw it. The cake is still good. She said she doesn’t keep desserts for more than three days.”
CHAPTER 9
At home, I sat at the dining table, working on Samantha’s laptop. Right after school, she made a stop at her house to pick up her computer and drove by with her mother’s car.
Sitting next to me, she gazed at the screen discouragingly.
“Don’t worry, Sam. I’m pretty sure I can fix this,” I assured her.
She turned to me and smiled.
In fact, I immediately knew what the problem was. Some program interfered with the entire hard drive, keeping the operating system from booting up.
Then I fell into my thoughts, rubbing my chin, which Samantha seemed suddenly worried by my gesture.
Her eyes widened. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m manually trying to access the command-line interpreter to see if I can boot your operating system from there.”
“Whatever that means.”
“Did you make a backup of your hard drive?”
“Yes … I keep telling myself that I should. I managed to do it last night with the system running extremely slow.”
I nodded. “I’ll see if I can get this fixed without having to wipe the hard drive and reformat it.”
“That would be great,” she said. “But if it’s not possible, might as well erase everything.”
After a few short tweaks, I suddenly got to the command-line interpreter. By typing various command lines, I surfed through many lists of programs and files – the hard drive was intact but unable to boot on start.
Weird!
I got to access the drive’s recovery partition. I ran a command-line to start the recovery process. Then I pressed Enter to confirm.
“I need you to type in your password,” I asked her.
“Samwelden17,” she blurted.
“All right!” I exclaimed, entering the password and confirming the command once again. Finally, the recovery process began, working by itself, restoring the system to its default status.
“Wow! It’s working?” she said, smiling triumphantly.
I soon felt myself blush for feeling a smack of Samantha’s lips to my right cheek. Then I turned to her, staring into her amazing blue eyes.
“Thank you!” she said.
“My pleasure,” I replied.
She stared back with a grin, slightly dimming her eyes and gently tilting her head. Although Samantha and I had been good friends for many years, somehow my feelings for her were changing. That afternoon she looked more beautiful than I ever saw her. We gazed into each other’s eyes, slowly moving closer to each other, feeling our warm breaths close to our faces. Our lips slightly touched when the entrance door suddenly blew open – my brother entering the house. He soon drew near the dining table, with his ball tucked under his arm. Seeming surprised to see Samantha, he greeted her with a grin.
“Hey sport!” I called him.
“Sport?” My brother frowned. “Here’s something new!”
“How’s it going, Thomas?” Samantha asked, flashing him a wink.
“I’m fine.” Thomas smiled timidly, with sudden reddish cheeks.
“All your friends went home?” I asked him.
“Yeah, to start our homework.” He sighed. “I’m hungry. When is mom and dad getting home?”
“Dad will be working late this evening. Mom’s having dinner at a restaurant with a few colleagues for someone’s birthday. You could have a snack while you do your homework,” I said. “And I’ll be cooking dinner this evening.”
“You cook?” Samantha said.
I nodded. “Want to stay over for dinner?”
She seemed a little shy. “Well … I …”
“Oh! That would be cool!” Thomas exclaimed.
“All right,” she said.
“I’m already starving,” Thomas cried.
“You want me to make you a sandwich, meanwhile?” Samantha offered.
Thomas shrugged.
“All right, sweetie. I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, getting up for the kitchen. “It’s not a problem for me if it�
��s all right with you, Derek?” she asked me.
“It’s fine with me … meanwhile I’ll finish this up,” I said, pointing her laptop.
CHAPTER 10
Right after his homework, my brother wandered up to his room to play video games. In the meantime, Samantha and I went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
“What are we having?” she asked.
“Spaghetti with homemade sauce and meatballs,” I replied.
“One of my favorites! Pasta is always a winner for me.”
I took out two grounded tomato cans from the bottom cabinet, along with Italian spices, then a large onion and grounded meat from the fridge. Samantha offered to give a hand, knowing that we both shared a similar pleasure for cooking. We sometimes talked about it at school, once teaming up for baking cookies at our home economics class. But that evening we were indeed having fun preparing dinner, enjoying our great teamwork. Samantha began mincing an onion and a clove of garlic, chopping them finely, working skilfully with the kitchen knife. Meanwhile, I began mixing the meat along with the spices into a large bowl.
Samantha then caramelized the minced onion and garlic into a pot, soon filling the kitchen with a pleasant aroma. I rolled the meatballs and placed them on a tray with parchment paper, while Samantha poured the grounded tomatoes into the pot, also adding some spices.
With the meatballs now in the oven, and the sauce cooking on the stove, I dropped a handful of spaghetti noodles into a pot of boiling water.
“There! That will take about seven minutes to cook.”
The biggest part of our preparation was done, congratulating ourselves with a high five. We then turned our gazes at the front counter where my brother already sat on a high bench, with is arms crossed.
“It smells good in here!” he said.
Later after dinner, Samantha and I stepped out the front door as she was ready to go home. I closed the door as we both remained on the front porch, among a mild weather. She wore her jean jacket.
“Thanks a lot, Derek,” she said, swinging her backpack onto her shoulder, containing her laptop.
“It’s my pleasure. If you still have any problems with your computer, just let me know. I’m good at fixing things.”
She smiled. “I had a wonderful time.”
“Me too. I really enjoyed having you this afternoon.”
“I like being with you, Derek. You’re fun to be with. And your brother’s a cute and funny kid. I like him a lot.” She laughed.
“Indeed he is.”
Then we remained silent, gazing into each other’s eyes. We slowly drew closer to each other until our lips finally touched for a long and soft kiss. Then we both remained breathless.
“Good night,” she said, heading toward her car.
“Sam!” I called, descending the few steps to the pavement.
She turned back to me.
Even though knowing Samantha since early childhood, I suddenly felt nervous. “How about if you and me we … go somewhere to … on a date?” I closed my eyes, feeling clumsy and foolish.
“I’d love to … I’d be more than happy,” she said.
“Perhaps this Friday?” I asked.
“Absolutely!”
We gave each other another kiss before she hopped into her car. I watched her drive away until she turned into another street.
Stepping back into the house, I saw my brother sitting on the stairs, holding a smile to wide to be true.
Knowing what his behavior was all about, I stared back wincing at him.
“Don’t mind me,” he said.
“You’re such a snooper!”
“Hey! You should know that as your brother, I’m happy for you,” he explained, following me to the living room. “I mean, it’s about time you two finally got together.”
“Yeah right … And it’s just a little date,” I told him.
“That’s the way it always starts,” he crooned, smiling confidently.
I started laughing. “Thomas, you’re only ten years old, what do you know about love and dating?”
He leaped onto the couch and grabbed the remote. “I know plenty. Don’t you watch any romantic movies?”
I glanced at my watch. “It’s gonna be bedtime pretty soon, buddy. Better go brush your teeth instead dreaming about romance.”
CHAPTER 11
My parents arrived home soon before Thomas went to bed. My mother seemed tired from her little evening out at the restaurant. Especially on a Monday night, feeling slightly irritated about the idea, preferring spending a week night with the family. My father also came home, looking pretty exhausted from his long day at the office. Both my parents quickly slipped themselves in warm pajamas and relaxed, cuddling each other on the couch, watching a late TV show.
Sitting on my bed, I began playing around with my incomprehensible high-tech watch, still knowing very little about it. I remember reading on the note, before it self-destruct, that further instructions would follow in the upcoming hours. More than thirty-two hours had passed.
Turning on my computer, I began searching the Internet for X-Agency. Whatever that was, or whatever it could, possibly, mean. My search resulted with a large list of various electronic components or telecommunication devices – radio frequencies. None of the results represented what I was looking for. Obviously, the piece of equipment around my wrist wasn’t from this time, or perhaps this world. The man I saw the other night, definitely came from somewhere else than my time.
But what does all this have to do with me? I asked myself. That man is part of the so-called X-Agency project, possessing some kind of technology, or way to transmit himself to wherever he wants. And somehow, for whatever reason, he’s deliberately transmitting me to that same location, which appears to be a time in the future … Why?
Laying back in my chair, I rubbed my eyes under my glasses from sudden exhaustion. I was still wearing my casual clothes, eager to slip into my comfortable joggers and T-shirt.
I did remember that nothing happened during the night of Sunday through Monday – that night I slept peacefully in my bed until morning.
Suddenly shaking my head, I began losing my patience and hope of ever finding a concrete answer. My mind had gotten blurry from all the thinking and wondering. Too tired to do anything else, I decided to lie my head on my crossed arms, on my desk. With my heavy eyelids, I closed my eyes just for a moment.
I just need a minute … just a minute.
With my eyes closed, there was nothing but darkness, at first. Then faint images appeared, coming to me like a ghostly-appearance. I was seeing the hallway, slightly blurred and faint against the darkness of my mind. Its shiny metallic walls and reflective black floor, and blue-lit tiles from the ceiling high above. Slowly the hallway began to appear more vibrant and colorful until I abruptly opened my eyes, as if woken up from a nightmare. But my eyes felt too heavy to remain open.
I laid out a long exhaustive sigh and thought, Why do I have the feeling that something’s going to happen tonight? Please just let me sleep … just leave me alone.
That was the reason why I didn’t want to slip into my sleeping clothes so fast.
My head fell back onto my crossed arms, my glasses pushed up slightly above my forehead. Once again, from the darkness of my closed eyes, more images began to slowly emerge from the obscurity – so blurry at first. Only this time, it was the corridor leading to an immediate opening to the mall. I was curiously wondering whether it was only a memory. It was as if I was already there, but in spirit. I felt like I was floating. It soon all became more vibrant, but never completely clear – the side angles remained sort of liquefied, a slight fade to the darkness of my mind.
But even though being tired, I was completely aware that I hadn’t fallen into a dream, knowing that my eyes were closed, still feeling my head against my crossed arms and breathing the air in my bedroom.
Then I felt myself fall forward, the entire scene taken by a split-second blue flash of light and sparks
, leading me to fall onto the solid floor of the corridor. I landed on my belly as my glasses flew a few inches ahead of me.
I picked up my glasses and stood up from the ground. Obviously, I still had my clothes on, but no shoes as I, indeed, left them at the entrance of my house.
Time Leap: A Teen Superheroes Saga Page 3