by Joseph Calev
Lunch ended, and one-by-one the students filed by and pointed at me, helpless. My arms and feet were sprawled and my tongue was sticking out as if I’d just been run over by a steamroller. Raynee was last. She looked up at me, and I was hoping for at least a tear. There were none.
“You don’t belong here, Jason. Go home.”
Then she was gone. They had all gone to their next class, but I couldn’t move.
After a few minutes, Darstan found me. “You’re late for class.” He failed to withhold a bit of laughter.
I couldn’t even move my lips and tongue to respond.
“You know this is fourth level resonation, right? He put you in a case. Just resonate it open.”
I closed my eyes and, sure enough, sensed a thin shell around me. Remembering how I had to push the squimmers away, I did the same for the case and in a few moments I was gliding back down to the floor.
“Minus ten points for not knowing basic resonation.”
“You didn’t see what he did to me?”
“It doesn’t matter. If it was something serious, then he would’ve lost hundreds of points. But this should never have affected you. There’s a lot for you to learn, Jason.”
I nodded, and made for my next class.
“Oh, and that’s another ten points for being late.”
Double shit. I was now officially the first kid in history to fail lunch. I was also down to one measly point to my name, thanks to my lame cube. Next up was variable essonance.
Raynee was in this class too. The strawberry bastard was also there, and what pissed me off more, he was happily chatting away with Raynee. I bit my lip and tried to concentrate. There was no way I could give in so easily. Even though I had no clue about variable essonance, this was my last stand. A single mess up here meant the thought of that redheaded prick would torment me for the rest of my life.
Darstan was the professor, and it caught me as strange that he’d started class late on my account. I kept my mouth shut and avoided looking at Raynee and that bastard for fear of screaming. All I needed was to not lose any points. There could be no distractions.
“How are we able to essonate?” he shouted over the chatting.
Everyone went quiet. There were no volunteers.
“We’ve covered many aspects of it. But how are we able to manipulate it? Why are we the only ones who can move between dimensions? For example, why can’t someone from a lower dimension set essonate to an even lower one?”
I thought back to the desert world. The Khan knew perhaps everything about essonation, resonation, and avalation, but could exercise none of them herself. On Earth, though, my parents had proved themselves extremely strong, as had the creatures who killed them. Yet they weren’t of the paramount dimension. If they could resonate, why couldn’t they essonate? It suddenly occurred to me that there was only one answer.
This was my moment. I raised my hand, then lowered it upon realizing they didn’t do that here. If I answered this stupidly, I was gone.
“It’s because we made those dimensions.” I stuttered a bit. “We made everything, and we didn’t want them visiting each other.”
“You are absolutely correct. And how did we do that?”
“Cenosance?” It was a complete guess.
He smiled. “Very good, Jason. Very good.”
19
Based on Darstan’s broad smile, I thought for sure a few points were heading my way. But instead, we just lumbered into theoretics on essonance. Given the miniscule thread on which I was now operating, I did my best to pay attention. Again, I looked up everything on my screen, but he moved too quickly. Lucky for me, this was a pure lecture. There was to be a test to fail in a few days, but I had survived.
That was also the last class of the day. Red shithole deliberately ran into me while shouting something about turnips, but I was just grateful to have made it through my first day. The celebration would have to wait, though. After all, I had failed lunch. It was still possible to lose points until I left.
Without hesitating, I jumped through my wormhole and arrived home. It was still morning, but there was no time for play. Virtually nothing in any of the lessons was familiar. If I was to turn this day into many, I’d have to get studying.
It took everything not to scream out loud at my lack of knowledge. Actually, I did scream a thousand times. The amount of material was daunting, and after three hours I think I understood just one of the symbols used that day. There was a knock on the wall, which felt odd.
“What the hell, asshole!” one of the spotted rodents said. “Why aren’t you taking a fucking walk? We’re hungry, you poor excuse for a shit turd.”
I tossed some random fruits at them, then resumed studying. Two hours later, there was another knock. It was Sareya.
“How was your first day?” she asked with bright eyes.
“Well, I’m at negative ninety-nine points. One more and I’m expelled.”
She laughed. “How did you lose so many?”
“I disturbed two classrooms because I forgot to wait, disregarded a teacher, failed to crack a resonation shell, was late to class, and . . . I couldn’t breathe in space.”
“Ah. For that last one, you just need to avalate air particles.”
Even though I had no idea how to do that, I nodded in understanding. I made a note to figure it out after dinner.
“Did you see Raynee?” She was swaying and grinning.
“Yeah. She told me to go home.”
Sareya ignored my response and resonated inside to see the multiple screens I now had set up. Several chairs and couches were clustered around them.
“So, what are you learning tomorrow?”
“Cenosance.”
“You shouldn’t be telling me that.” She was examining my screens. “It’s supposed to be a secret. Also, you’re not reading this right.”
“I’m not reading Raynee right?” My thoughts were now entranced by those few glances I stole that day.
“No, silly! You’re researching the tarvazal properties of matter. The right sided tarvazal consists of myratile and moratile substases, but this screen has the miaratile substase. That’s a different thing.”
“Oh.” I realized I’d spent the last three hours studying the wrong subject. “How do you know all this?”
“Learned it a few weeks ago,” she replied without thinking. “Well, I’ll let you get back to studying.”
After she left, I cried for a few minutes and then turned to studying what I now knew was first-level material. When I’d given up on that, I returned to avalating air particles. However, to learn that I needed to study up on paramount dimensional avalation, and there were several branches of mathematics to comprehend that.
Way after the rodents turned off the suns, I’d nearly asphyxiated myself while trying to avalate air particles. Maybe if I just fainted instead of falling off the platform, I wouldn’t lose any points? The day ahead of me looked hopeless.
When the credit card ship appeared on the table, I made a note to figure out how it got back. After all, I had technically left it two years in the future without a wormhole. In the meantime, I had a school day to survive. To my surprise, Raynee was on her way inside the school. To my horror, the strawberry turd walked next to her.
“What are you doing back, Turnip?” he said.
“I just had to see your face again. Together with your hair, it looks like a lobster died giving birth to you.”
Raynee snorted, which interrupted any concentration for the bastard, who had already raised his palms to do something. Before I could say anything to her, she shoved past both of us to get inside.
To my relief, we didn’t have the same classes every day. That meant another day or two before I would suffocate in space. Up first was Principles of Entanglement, taught by the rather thin and almost bald Farlan.
“Good morning, Jennifer,” he said to Raynee when she entered. I was still confused why she answered to a different name when he grabbed my shoulder a
nd proceeded to look me over.
“Have we met?”
“No. I’m new. Name is Jason.”
“Ah, yes! I heard of a boy, stuck in another dimension on a planet called Pluto. Had the most amazing decombulator we’ve ever heard of. His name was Argyle. Is that you?”
While I stood stunned, another kid behind me whispered “Just say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Well, glad to meet you Argyle! Have a seat. Now,” Farlan said after tidying his beige suit, “we’re going to cover the principles of teleportation.”
“We did that already,” a student muttered.
“We did?”
The student replied with a short lecture that rehashed the subject well enough that Farlan halted him.
“Very well.” Farlan hesitated. “Have we covered full duplex communication across light years with entanglement?”
“Yes,” answered a chorus.
“The miaratile substase?”
There was silence.
“That’s nice. So, can anyone offer something about the miaratile substase?”
Again, there was absolute silence. With some trepidation, I spoke up.
“The miaratile substase is the counterweight to the heveral stage of ariatosis, most commonly found in dark matter.” I then recounted nearly everything I’d learned until Sareya made me realize it had nothing to do with resonance. Farlan had a broad smile.
Raynee, from a quick glance, had her hand over her mouth to restrain her laughter. When her eyes met mine, she frowned.
“Well, someone here is proactive!” Farlan said. “Ten points for your outstanding fortitude.”
Those points were the most precious gift I’d received since arriving in that dimension. I only wished they were physical things, so I could’ve kissed them. Now I just had to get through the day without losing them.
I’d like to say that I finally understood an entire lesson, in truth, I could only follow the first few minutes. He then moved into symbols I didn’t know, and again I spent the class furiously attempting to follow on my screen.
Because Darstan had a special extended class prepared for us, lunch was next. To my amazement, two other kids sat opposite me.
“Name is Sarlat,” said a thin one with chestnut hair that burst almost from a tesla coil. “That’s Henry.”
Henry was a head shorter, with thin brown hair and a furtive smile of someone constantly on the verge of a joke. I cautiously introduced myself, aware that it could be a setup for a prank.
“So, how’d you know all that about the miaratile substase?” Henry asked.
I laughed a little. “I read the wrong thing last night. Thought I was studying the myratile substase.”
They both had a long laugh.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Sarlat asked at last. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to offend you, but the myratile substase . . . isn’t that like level-two stuff?”
“Yeah, level one, actually.” My eyes started to scan for Raynee. “I know—”
My sentence was interrupted when I saw her. She was chatting with several girlfriends, and looked more beautiful than ever. I pulled my stare away before she noticed.
“Oh, I see why you’re here!” Henry said with a laugh. “I like this guy. He’s got high standards.”
“Yeah,” Sarlat said. “But dangerous ones. Seriously, don’t mess with Raynee.”
“You know Revis, right?” Henry said.
I shook my head.
“Redheaded creep. Keeps calling you a turnip. Well, anyway, he had the balls to spread a rumor that he was going with her. She got so pissed that she resonated a toilet bowl that kept flushing on top of his head. Her resonation’s so good that the poor bastard spent the entire day getting it off.”
My day was getting better by the minute. I decided it was worth trusting these two.
“So, what’s with Farlan? Why does he get all the names wrong?”
“Haven’t you noticed?” Henry asked, then remembered that I was an idiot. “He’s big into teleportation. Uses it all the time to get places.”
“So—” I said, completely aware how ignorant I was.
“It’s entanglement,” Sarlat added. “Two particles are connected across space. What you do to one affects the other, so you send particles through a special type of wormhole we can’t go through. Then you change the particles over here to be you, and now there’s a copy over there.”
“Sounds cool.”
“Hell, no,” Henry replied. “The original you goes bye-bye. The copy’s the same, but loses some short-term memory. That’s why anyone sane doesn’t do it.”
While chatting with them, I realized that I’d never had such a discussion before. Everyone decent on Earth always ignored me, even my parents. It felt nice to talk about nothing at all for a change.
Just before Darstan’s lesson, the entire class was fidgeting. No one had any idea what cenosance was. I gathered that it wasn’t top secret, but the reality was few students ever reached this level of learning.
There was a near applause when Darstan appeared. His dark skin was gleaming and he wore a broad grin. His face turned serious.
“Before I begin this lesson, I have some words of warning. Cenosance is the most complicated and demanding of our forces. You will not master it quickly, nor will you find it intuitive. Instead, it contains so many intricacies that a lifetime of study isn’t sufficient. Many have been driven to madness attempting to understand everything.”
“Let us essonate,” he said loudly, and each of us created a portal to an empty, black world.
“To cenosate is to play in an unparalleled arena, where every other force takes a back seat to the creations possible through cenosance. Now, let us begin.”
Darstan motioned for all of us to form a sphere around him, then asked that we step several dozen feet back. There was absolutely nothing in this world, just darkness. Each of us was instructed to avalate in a way to allow lower dimension objects to pass through us. I quietly began to hyperventilate, since I had no idea how to do that, until Sarlat slapped me. He whispered several equations in my ear, and I confidently followed suit.
“Cenosance is a force that exists between two particles, or between multiple sets of particles. We’ll get into the details of that later. It’s ordinarily a weak and unnoticed force, but when manipulated in a certain way, the results can be spectacular.”
While we all stooped to catch a glimpse, he carefully cupped his hands and blew softly through the opening. “It’ll just take a second,” he said, then added, “you might want to move back.”
A momentary spark appeared in the darkness and then suddenly we were engulfed in a sea of fire and light. The blast was so deafening that all I felt was a roar of blinding flashes, turning into a storm of plasma. Entire planets seemed to explode from tiny specks and hurtle straight through me. Across the burst I tried to look around, but so powerful was it that I was now virtually alone in a sea of burning mist and galaxies.
“The power of cenosance,” Darstan boomed over the onslaught, “is to create the unknown. It is the beginning of all life and essence. To master cenosance is to become an artist of universes.”
We stood in awe as entire galaxies and nebulae formed around us. It felt weird to think that multitudes of species would grow up in this universe, having no idea that everything they knew was just a class demonstration.
A gigantic quasar flew past us, then Darstan and the others came back into view.
“The key is to place the two particles in a way that their combined cenosance causes an explosion, then mold and bend the result. The math is the most complex we have. The effort to create a properly functioning universe is extreme, but when successful, it is beyond satisfying.”
Darstan snapped his fingers and we avalated back to school.
“Now, it’s your turn. We’ll focus on what we call bead universes these first weeks. Those are the simplest kind. The idea is to create a world encapsulated i
n a single marble. You can then visit it whenever you like.”
While I expected to not begin to comprehend the mathematics he was about to present, it wasn’t so bad. Because he had to explain even the basics, since none of us were familiar with this force, for the first time I was on a level field with the others.
When it came time to produce my own universe, however, I failed. A few students burst their marbles, but the rest of us accomplished absolutely nothing. Darstan didn’t seem to mind. We were just starting our adventures with this new force, and failures were to be expected. Of course, I didn’t receive any points.
After several more failures, the school day ended and I felt exhilarated. I’d still earned ten points and two friends this day, so it easily counted as the best day in my life. Finally, I had something cool to share, and I couldn’t wait to pop through my wormhole and tell Annie and Sareya all about it.
The day was so wonderful I was whistling when I jumped into Annie’s ship. Then my tune stopped and my feet halted. In seconds my life went from an all-time high to complete destruction.
Written in black across the wall of my ship were the words, “Go back to your field, Turnip! You’ve just lost two years.”
It wasn’t the lame insult from lobster face that bothered me most, but the absence of something far more important.
My wormhole was gone.
20
A series of emotions from complete breakdown to the desire to resonate every shit I’d take for the next two years on Revis’s head occurred to me, but nothing could ease the reality that my life was over. There was no way to get home unless I made another two-year journey. That would mean missing a full four years.
I considered just flying somewhere, maybe to lobster face’s home to beat the crap out of the future him, but that solved nothing. Resigned to the inevitable, I left the ship and wandered back into the school.
Algard, with his mustache in full twitch mode, was just inside. “Well, this is unexpected. Did you compute the next day incorrectly?”
“No.” I was aware that a positive response would’ve docked my remaining points. “My wormhole is gone. I think Revis did it.”