by Sevan Paris
“Hey, guys,” Reagan said “I didn’t know you were coming to UTP.”
“Not just to,” Bo said. “At. Know what I’m saying? Oh, yeah, that reminds me, there’s a hottie over there that needs to meet me. Later.” And just like that, Bo was gone, walking in the direction of a blonde in a halter top.
I’m not sure if Reagan got the crude joke or not, but she smiled like she did, showing two rows of bright teeth, straightened perfectly by the braces that came off last December. “What’s your major?” she said, shifting her weight to one sandal.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t really decided on one yey—yet. I’m wanting to see how it will fit into my work that I want to work for—that I want to work at …”
“Oh,” she said. Crinkling her nose and freckles a little bit. “Well, uh, okay.”
Even in the July sun, I could feel my cheeks warm. And Reagan’s eyes flicking to them, and her grin, seem to make them warm even more.
What is that female smiling at? And why is your blood pressure increasing? Are you two boning?
I cleared my throat. “So, uh, what’s your major?”
“Think I’m going for science,” she said.
“Really? Me too.”
“Oh. Well, cool. Which one?”
“Which what?” I said.
“Which science?”
“I … thought there was just the one.”
A microphone squeal echoed around us as the music quickly faded away.
“Welcome, future UTP Freshman!” A young girl’s voice said over a microphone. Her voice sounded echo-y, like she was in a garage band. Her blond hair swung left and right as she quickly paced back and forth on a stage setup in front of the University Center. She had a lean build, pale skin and wore UTP’s colors: black and red. “Are you excited to be here?”
There were some yeahs and some yells here and there.
“I said … ARE YOU EXCITED TO BE HERE!”
The reply went up by a factor of a bajillion. Reagan clapped and yelled beside me. So I did too.
You are embarrassingly pathetic.
“Stop your noise.” I said.
Reagan turned. “What?”
“I said … let’s make some noise.” I gently fist pumped the air … “yay.”
Reagan opened her mouth to say something, but the girl on the stage started talking again.
“Okay, future freshman, that’s what I’m talking about! My name is Noel, and I’m going to be one of thirty super-orientation leaders today. Anytime you have questions, just find one of us—we got the answers. Now, in a few seconds, these doors behind me are going to open and you’re going to see rows and rows of tables. Each table is going to have a major listed on a little white sign. You’ll check in there, and your major will then become your tour group with your own super-orientation leader. Might be me. Might be somebody else. It will definitely be awesome. Any questions?! …. Okay, let’s go, and GO SUPERS!”
“See you later!” Reagan said and hurried off, wide eyes full of giddy excitement. I watched her go for a moment, sundress quickly swishing back and forth into the crowd.
If you are to partake in this foolish courtship, Gabe, then so be it. Just remember that I will not have my existence threatened. The Council can be hiding anywhere, as anyone or anything. You will keep this Superhero identity to yourself.
I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling very alone. I wondered if this was the stuff M was talking about earlier, about what it really meant to be a hero.
Fifteen minutes later—when the screaming and dying started—I found out it was something very different.
CHAPTER THREE
“So, I guess you decided on a science?” Reagan said after I fell in place next to her in the tour group.
I tapped the laminate badge fastened around my neck by a black lanyard, showing my name and major in a bold font. “Yep. Turns out, I’m a future physicist. You?”
Reagan lifted her badge. “Same.” She narrowed her eyes slightly, and the hint of a grin touched her lips. “What were the chances?”
Considering Gabe trailed you to the registration table like a Regelian bull does a cow in heat—explicably high.
“Okay, guys, let’s hold up here a moment,” Noel said. The twenty of us gathered around her in the hot sun, at the steps to a five story brick building that covered most of the block. Turns out, Noel was a physics major too, which was why she’d been assigned to our group.
“This is our Engineering, Science, and Math building,” she said. “It’s called Sequoyah Hall, named after the Superhero that died back in 1969. Anybody know what else in Prose is named after—”
“Our power plant.” I said.
Noel nodded. “Yep. The technology that powers the city’s reactors wouldn’t have been possible if Sequoyah didn’t donate his body to UTP, like a lot of other Supers do. Scientists here figured out how his body naturally created those massive amounts of energy and then, later, a way to replicate the process. And even now, decades later, we’re still making new discoveries based off that original research. One of which, we get to see today.”
A member of our group pointed at the building. He had black hair and glasses, which he kept pushing up the bridge of his nose. “You mean we’re about to see an experiment? Right here? Right now?”
Noel smiled and squinted at his name badge. “Yes … Brent. I mean right here. Right now.”
***
Noel took us up to the fourth floor of Sequoyah Hall, where double doors opened to a room as large as a five car garage. The floor was a metal grating surrounded by computers and machines that beeped, hummed, and blinked multi-colored lights. Catwalks stretched out from the grating to wrap around the room’s centerpiece: a massive, metal column that plunged through the floor and deep into the heart of the building. A series of blue lights pulsed up and down the machine, producing an electric hum.
Reagan hurriedly crossed the room and pressed her hand against the machine’s lights. Her eyes widened.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, rushing up beside her.
“Each one—each pulse of light is …” She took my hand and firmly pressed it against the throbbing light. “Do you feel that?”
Oh, he’s feeling something alright.
“It’s like it’s pressing against your chest.”
“Yeah …”
“Isn’t it wild?!” Reagan said.
“Yeah …”
Reagan smiled, turned away, and started walking around the machine. I grinned and stood there with my hand still on the thing, like I was trying to keep it warm for her.
Thousands of years worth of so-called evolution, Gabe, and a redhead in a pretty dress is still enough to reduce you to a panting cartoon canine. I swear, if you and the rest of your smelly ilk could drag yourselves away from these primitive coitus rituals long enough to … M trailed off, something obviously grabbing his attention. Gabe—REMOVE YOUR HAND FROM THAT MACHINE IMMEDIATELY!
I jerked my hand away and looked at my palm, as if I expected to see burns or some other kind of injury. But it looked fine. And it felt fine. “What?” I whispered.
I’m sensing a very specific power signature. Something that … remaining here is unwise. Our presence may endanger you or, more importantly, me. We should leave this instant.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Like you were when that car backfired yesterday and you almost sent the driver into orbit?”
How can I help it if your primitive combustion vehicles sound like the retort of a Rakon Pirate’s side arm?
“Which is exactly my point. You don’t know this planet. I do. They wouldn’t let us in here if it weren’t safe.”
Reagan rounded the other side. I pointed to the rest of the group gathered around Noel. “Think they’re about to get started.”
…. Very well, Gabriel, message received. When this blows up in your face—like I guarantee you it’s about to do—just know that it’s all going to be on your foolish head.<
br />
As we rejoined the group, a double door opened behind Noel, and in walked a man in his mid-forties. Brown hair touched his shoulders, wavy but well-kept. His dark eyes passed over us and then lingered on Noel. She returned his look with a warm smile.
“It is better to grasp the universe as it really is,” the man said through a faint British accent, “than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring—Carl Sagan.” He grinned. “Hello, and welcome to UTP. My name is Dr. Silas Thatcher, and you’ve already met Noel here. Thank you for coming today and allowing the both of us to show you … the rest of existence.”
We all blinked at each other.
“Allow me to explain.” Dr. Thatcher held out his hands, palms up. “When Newton discovered the formula that explained universal gravitation, it was enough. It was predictable and it stood up. But later, as more powerful devices allowed us to cast our gazes farther and farther into the cosmic heavens, we discovered that something strange was occurring. Celestial bodies had far more of a gravitational effect on each other than their masses could account for. One possible theory for this effect, and in my opinion the best, is the idea of dark energy and dark matter. They are among us, they affect us, they encompass the majority of our universe, yet they escape our perception. That is still the case with dark energy … but it is no longer so with dark matter.”
Dr. Thatcher clasped his hands behind his back. “Taking a glimpse at this dark matter requires a lot of moving parts, but one of the most important elements is a very precise regulation of matter and antimatter. Matter doesn’t present a problem. But it is very difficult, even with all of the stupendous leaps in technology that we’ve made since splitting the atom, it’s been very difficult for us to create, contain, and control antimatter. The very nature of the particle makes it a bugger to do so. Fortunately, the late Superhero known as Sequoyah, indirectly solved the problems for us with this:” Dr. Thatcher reached into his lab coat and pulled out a small, clear vial containing a slender object one inch long. It was uneven and had a slight curve on both of its short sides.
“What is it?” Reagan said.
Dr. Thatcher gave her a tight smile. “A proximal phalanx.”
Brent’s eyes widened. “Phalanx … you mean that’s Sequoyah’s finger?”
Several people close to Dr. Thatcher stepped back with raised lips.
Brent, however, stayed right where he was and grinned. “Cool.”
Looking over Brent’s shoulder, Dr. Thatcher motioned the retreating crowd back towards him. “Relax, relax—” he laughed a bit—“it’s just a bone; it’s not going to hurt you.” They took several small steps forward, but remained farther away than they had been.
Dr. Thatcher slowly walked toward the machine. “People often think that, because of Sequoyah’s name and Native American heritage, his powers were spiritual in nature. Although this idea is perhaps … sexier in the minds of popular culture, it is complete nonsense. His ability to produce incalculable amounts of destructive energy had nothing to do with ghosts, shamans, or any such dribble. Instead, it had everything to do with his nervous system’s natural and unique ability to produce massive amounts of power.” He held the finger bone up between us and him. “Power that the genetic makeup of his skeleton then allowed him to regulate and release in the form of controlled photon blasts. Most of it is kept under lock and key at the power plant. But the university is allowed occasional access for the sake of experimentation.”
Dr. Thatcher palmed the finger bone and tapped a nearby computer screen. “This massive machine you see before you is called a … well, it’s formal name is way too long and cumbersome to bother with. My students have recently taken to calling it the Dark Lighter. Good a name if any I suppose.” After a few more taps at the same computer screen, the Dark Lighter spun slowly, producing a series of clicks and clacks. Metal panels raised away from its smooth surface, releasing clouds of loudly hissing air and exposing a thick nest of cables and spinning parts. A green rod telescoped out of the machine and flowered open at the end.
Dr. Thatcher removed the bone from the vial and delicately placed it in the rod’s opening. The rod spun back into place as he turned back to us. “It was my original hypothesis that Sequoyah’s skeleton, along with this machine here, would provide enough data to argue dark matter’s existence. But what we ended up with was so much more. And now, for the first time, I’ve chosen to share this wonder with others. Noel? Would you get the lights please?”
Noel walked over to the switch plate in the wall and seconds later, the lights in the room dimmed; we were lit almost entirely by wave after wave of the blue light pulsing up and down the Dark Lighter.
Dr. Thatcher tapped the screen a few more times. Panels continued to rise from the Dark Lighter, exposing more and more of its insides. The blue lights became brighter. The humming pressed harder and harder against my chest as the machine slowly spun faster and faster. Dr. Thatcher closed his eyes …
And then, in the blackness of the room, it was like … chunks of air changed. Little floating clusters, here and there were glowing shades of blue, pulsing in time with the machine.
“Gabe?” Reagan said next to me.
I turned. Reagan grinned as sections of body pulsed the same colors, but in a different rhythm than the Dark Lighter. Her arm glowed light blue. Her face. Then her legs. Reagan blinked on and off like as if she were a human Christmas tree. And it wasn’t just her. My body was doing it too, as were the bodies of everyone else in the room.
“Behold,” Dr. Thatcher’s eyes slowly opened, “dark matter. Instead of merely regulating a precise enough matter and antimatter flow, Sequoyah’s donation has acted as a lens, piercing this veil. With it, comes a glimpse of another part of our universe. The keys to locks both dreamt and undreamt. Disease, energy consumption, starvation, climate change … dark matter may present us with the remainders of these problem equations, allowing science—allowing me—to formulate a solution.” He reached out towards a cluster floating by him. “We have to but stretch out our hand …” The cluster gently sparked from the area he touched, and spun to me.
Thatcher’s eyes and mouth opened wide. “That—that’s impossible,” he whispered. “We shouldn’t be able to manipulate it.”
The cluster lightly bumped into another, then another. The glowing clumps moved sideways, oblivious to the slower bunches around them, spinning, turning and dancing … right to the spot on the Dark Lighter that I touched earlier.
And they stopped.
Dr. Thatcher’s console chirped at him. He stepped over it to it, furrowing his brow at the computer screen.
The clusters of illuminated dark matter next to the machine vibrated, slowly at first. Then they blurred, and produced a bright, shimmering light. The sound of screeching metal filled the room as the panel closest to us tore free from the Dark Lighter and folded in on itself—again and again, violently, until it just … disappeared into nothing. More panels started peeling away, bending towards the dark matter.
Other clusters in the room jerked to a stop, then towards each other, piling together, growing larger and larger. They shook so fiercely they began to blur.
“Leave!” Thatcher pointed at the door. “Everyone, now! All of you—leave!”
The dark matter separated Thatcher, Noel, and me from the doors. Gasping and screaming, Reagan and the others ran for the exit. They slammed into the doors’ push bars in a wave, spilling a glimpse of light onto the horrified face of someone trapped in the far corner.
Brent.
Clusters separated him from both us and the exit. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, but watch the blue insanity meander its way closer and closer to him. Brent turned around, as if he were going to climb the wall itself, when two of the clusters touched his shoulders.
All of us—even Thatcher—looked at Brent, helplessly. He fell to his knees, hands covering his face. Blood squirted from between his fingers, adding a deep gurgle to his muffled scream.
The glowing clusters at Brent’s shoulders collided, forming one circle of vibrating light at the center of his chest. An unseen force jerked his hands away, leaving splotchy pits where his eyes, nose and mouth had been. His upper and lower body twisted in opposite directions, filling the room with a loud, wet crack.
And he kept screaming. Through it all, he was still alive and he kept screaming.
His forearms shoved their way into—into—his upper arms with crunches and pops. His feet went into his legs, and then the rest of him … just folded up and disappeared into the cluster, leaving nothing but echoes.
“Dr. Thatcher, what’s happening?” Noel screamed.
Thatcher looked back at the monitor. “These readings—they’re … something, some sort of radiation, affecting the dark matter! Allowing us to randomly manipulate its gravitational effects somehow!”
Some kind of radiation.
And then it all fell into place like the most macabre domino set ever. The Void. Dark matter. They had different names, but they were the same thing. M uses Ramma Radiation to manipulate stuff there, and since we were always bleeding a little of it … we’d somehow caused those random manipulations. M tried to warn me. And I ignored it.
And Brent was dead.
“This … is incredible,” Thatcher said.
I backed away, so that Noel and Thatcher couldn’t hear me. With the humming machine, and the vibrating dark matter, I didn’t have to back away far. “M, if we leave the room, will that be enough to shut this thing down?”
Nothing.
“M?!”
Oh, so now you want to talk to me? I figured at least one, perhaps two more humans would have to perish before—
“Can we do this later?” I said.
Noel yelled something at Thatcher, her hands furiously waving at the air.
Why? So you can ignore me then too?
“I was wrong, okay? I should have listened. Now help me fix this!”