The noon sun was blazing overhead whilst Ned sat on the bench behind the oval with his friend Gars. He had tried his best to explain everything to Gars without sounding totally insane.

“So, let me get this straight,” started Gars. “You opened your window for Robbie at midnight when he knocked on your window, he climbed in, broke off a piece of your desk proving something and then he injected something into you and you blacked out, he disappeared.”

“Yes, what don’t you get?” asked Ned sucking juice into his mouth from the juice box.

“Oh, I was just wondering whether I missed any pieces that would suddenly make what you said a whole lot of sense,” said Gars twirling his phone.

“Well, whether it makes sense or not, it is what happened,” said Ned.

“You shouldn’t have even opened your window and at midnight too,” said Gars. “Both of you are crazy and he injected something into you, the first thing I’d be doing is getting a check-up.”

“I told you, I feel fine,” said Ned crushing his juice box slightly.

Gars snorted, “Yeah so do people with STIs at first until-.”

Gars stopped at the glare he got from Ned and pretended to be very interested in twirling his phone.

“It was probably nothing,” said Ned seemingly unconcerned.

“Sure, jabbing a needle into your neck is probably nothing,” said Gars.

“Look, he came up during the middle of the night, it’d be rude to drive him away,” said Ned crushing his juice box.

“Sure, that’s what everyone says to people that turn up at their freakin’ windows at night and asked to be let in.”

“This was Robbie ok, not some stranger.”

Gars’ best reply was, “He was a little mad at the best of times, he might’ve been high on something.”

Hearing this sentence Ned accidentally snorted a little of juice up his nose and he started a coughing fit.

“I still can’t uninstall this,” said Gars sliding through his phone and Ned gave a quick glance at the Future World app that had somehow mysteriously installed itself on Ned’s and Gars’ phones.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” said Ned.

“Still can’t believe you added that rich jerk and that Lockwheeler to the team, I understand Lockwheeler, he doesn’t have much presence either way and you chose randomly but even with that Rook, why on earth would you add that first-class a-hole to the team, whatever it’s for.”

“I didn’t really care,” said Ned.

“Course, you didn’t, if you did, you’d remember what he did or used to do when we were in middle school.”

“He’s already apologized for it,” said Ned as he squeezed the juice box dry.

“Doesn’t change the fact that our lives in middle school were hell because of him.”

Ned and Gars stood and Ned adjusted his blue lined shirt, which was part of the Trade City East Academy’s school uniform and chucked the juice box into the garbage can. As they walked away from the oval, Ned flashed back to that morning and what had happened in the aftermath of being injected with a possibly lethal substance.

When he had opened his phone after waking up with what was a very sore neck, head and several other body parts he had seen this app and he had immediately realized it was the same thing that Robbie had opened for him. When he clicked the play word, the phone had gone into something called the team creation and several minutes of loading the screen popped up with seven names and pictures which somehow unnerved Ned because the pictures had never been on his phone at all, and they all pictures of the people whose names had popped up on his phone. He tried closing the app and restarting his phone but none of it would work until he finally just clicked three random names, one happened to be Gars’ and the other three as far as Ned remembered was Rookfield Jonathan and Clinton Lockwheeler. All three were his FB friends, only Gars was on his contact list, which made him regret further when he finally clicked add to the team for those three names. Now, sure enough, the same app had installed itself onto Gars’ phone as well, and he willing to bet enough to make a small killing that this app was installed onto Rookfield Jonathan’s and Clinton Lockwheeler’s name. There was even a meeting time set for the team, something that Ned was planning on ignoring but Gars was all for it, he wanted to see if the other two would show up.

***

English class was a chore but regardless Ned sat awake in class, taking down the occasional notes necessary. Gars meanwhile had propped his book like a wall and had his head propped down onto the table in a gentle snooze. It was towards the end of the English class that Ned’s phone suddenly beeped and Ned was woken out of his dazed stupor. He gazed down confusedly at his book which some writing partly readable. He felt the phone in his pocket vibrate and the teacher in front stopped talking. Just then three more beeps came out in occasion on three different phones. As soon as the beep on Gars’ phone sounded there was a ruffle of books as the stuff to his side and the book he used as a wall fell over and he stood up abruptly.

Stolen story; please report.

“I wasn’t sleeping!” he said somewhat groggily but still in a loud but unconvincing voice.

Ned gulped as he looked around as the rest of the class stared back at Gars. After a three second pause the entire class burst out into laughter and Gars embarrassedly looked around occasionally shooting Ned a frustrated glance.

“Sit down Mr. Hurst,” said the teacher amused. “I shudder to think of your grades this semester if this is how you perform in every class.”

“Sorry Mr. Howard,” said Gars as he hurriedly sat down to the sounds of the now dimming laughter.

The English teacher Mr. Howard tapped on his desk twice to quieten the class.

“Yes, indeed that was a humorous display, there is however something far more entertaining now coming,” said Mr. Howard as the class quietened down. “That is homework, ladies and gentlemen, I expect a summary of the poem we have just discussed and an explanation of how it portrays true ANZAC spirit, you may choose not to do this homework, of course and if you are an exceptional genius much like Mr. Hurst is I’m sure you could even sleep during class…” as he said so he looked at Gars who had his head down fidgeting with his thumbs. “For those however who are less so of a genius, this work is something that will help you during your upcoming assessment, so please take care to perform to this task to the best of your standards.”

The class started murmuring again and then the bell rang. Mr. Howard up front put all his books in order and adjusted his vest and he looked at the class.

“Class dismissed.”

Gars didn’t however wait for this, he was out the door even as Mr. Howard said the word and Ned followed. Behind Ned the hubbub of packing in the class broke out and Ned followed Gars.

“Judas!” hissed Gars and Ned smiled weakly.

“You were asleep,” he pointed out.

“Not that…” said Gars and he took out his phone showing the screen to Ned. “This!”

On the phone screen the Future World app open with a map at the top and instructions down at the bottom. Ned quickly took out his phone and sure enough, it was there on his phone as well, the map and the instructions.

The tutorial for Future World will begin in:

00:28:01

Warning: If you do not arrive at the place for tutorial on time, not that your AR Matrix will be disabled.

The timer was going down quickly and from the looks of the map the place was on the southside of Trade City East in the part of the city commonly referred by others as the Arch.

“What do we do?” asked Ned.

“Honestly, I want to go,” said Gars. “I want to know what this is all about.”

“I wish to know about this too,” said a quiet voice from behind them making both jump.

“Dammit!” exclaimed Gars as he and Ned turned to look at the short and somewhat fat boy behind them wearing square-rimmed glasses.

“Clinton,” said Ned looking at him, it was of course Clinton Lockwheeler, one of the boys that Ned had invited on Future World.

“I’m coming too,” said another rough voice from behind them making both Gars and Ned jump again.

“Dammit who the-!” but Gars voice died down as he turned to look the brown skinned large boy that towered over all three of them.

“Oh, hey Rook,” said Gars in a smiling amicable manner as Ned speechlessly nodded.

“You’re gonna explain to me what this thing is,” said Rook holding out his large phone.

Ned opened his mouth to speak when Gars stepped on his foot and the open mouth turned into an exclamation of pain.

“We’re going there to find that out ourselves,” said Gars. “Why don’t you come?”

“I intend to,” said Rook. “If we’re going to Arch and in thirty-minutes no less, we’ll take my car.”

“Your car?” frowned Ned. “But you’re on your learners.”

“So,” scoffed Rook.

“Yeah that’s right, so Ned,” said Gars nodding. “You go right on ahead be a rebel Rook.”

“Are we going?” butted in Clinton. “Time doesn’t stop while we talk.”

Ned quickly looked down at his phone and another minute had passed.

“Yeah let’s go quickly,” agreed Ned and followed Rook.

They passed several students and arrived at the school carpark.

“Stay, I’ll go get my car,” said Rook and left Ned, Gars and Clinton to wait at the edge of the grass fields.

Behind him after about a second or so he heard Gars groan. He quickly turned around and his heart dropped out of his body. It was the worst person to meet at present. Mrs. Byron was the wife of the headmaster and the head of the English faculty and every student agreed that she was the most horrible teacher on campus.

“What do we do now?” asked Ned.

“Knock her out,” suggested Gars helpfully.

“I will take care of this,” said Clinton thoughtfully and he walked up to Mrs. Byron.

“Your sacrifice will not be forgotten,” said Gars as if he was watching a friend walk onto the battlefield.

“Gars, shut up,” said Ned as they moved back a little and to the right with the hope they might not catch her.

Soon Clinton had caught up Mrs. Byron and they started chatting, the topic about which they were chatting was something that caught both Ned’s and Gars’ curiosity because partway into the talk Mrs. Byron started smiling and the universe would unequivocally that even it had never seen Mrs. Byron so much as crack a smirk before.

“What’s got her smiling?” asked Ned with amazement.

“The world is ending,” said Gars. “It’s all wrong,” he added further. “Maybe he’s flirting with her.”

“I don’t know about that but I am pretty interested in what they’re talking about,” said Ned.

There was a short burst of laughter from her mouth which sent shivers down both Ned’s and Gars’ spine and she turned and walked back. Clinton came over like nothing had ever happened, with his usual deadpan look.

“What the hell did you tell her?” asked Ned with amazement, Gars nodded his approval of the question.

“I wanted the exam questions for the previous year 10 semester 1 exam for English, I simply told her that and she went to get me a copy, we also discussed some pointers about tonight’s homework regarding poetry,” said Clinton.

“My god,” said Gars. “You full on went studious little boy on her and she liked it.”

The horn of a car beeped behind them and this time all three of them jumped, though Clinton still had the blank look layering his face.

“Dammit to hell, that’s three times in five minutes,” said Gars gritting his teeth.

Ned too nodded as he breathed in to calm his heartrate down. He turned around and his mouth dropped to see a metallic red Ford Focus RS pull up.

“Learners and he’s already got a car like that,” said Gars shaking his head. “Well with a car like that I’d break the law too.”

Rook hurriedly motioned for the three of them get onboard. On board, they hurried out of the carpark with Ned in the front seat next to Rook and Gars and Clinton in the back.