Alice liked to scare me when we were kids. She told me once he’s after you, the boogeyman never really leaves you alone.
She’s right.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m being watched. “James is in your head, duh,” you’re probably thinking, but that doesn’t explain the playground when I was seven, or the bus stop twice a month all of seventh and eighth grade, or the occasional flashes outside our basic living apartment whenever I make ramen and peanut-butter apple slices for dinner.
And the scariest part about Alice’s story? I know the boogeymen saw me when I was five, during my first merge. And even though they vanish for a while, I know they’ve never stopped watching.
James let that cat out of the bag.
----------------------------------------
Outside Victoria, British Columbia - May 23, 2043, 12:57 PM
- - - - -
As Keith and I turn the corner and half-run and half-fall down the stairs, I breathe a sigh of relief.
It’s cut off by my burning lungs screaming for air and by the thinling right behind us.
I feel its breath/stench/exhaust on the back of my neck. Its claws/jaws/saws scream behind me, and I push Keith. He falls onto the landing, and the force of the shove spins me around. The closest mirror is in the bathroom across from the office. I can’t see the thinling for sure. I’ll only get one shot.
The Revolver belches flame, and the thinling slams into me a moment later. I’m crushed between its weight and the landing; its gaping wound burns against my chest. I don’t have time to start wriggling my way out from under it, though. Keith grunts and pulls on the monster’s body. “Come on,move, you asshole,” he mutters, and the thinling shifts.
He holds out his hand, and I gratefully clasp his wrist and let him pull me up. “Thanks, Keith. Let’s keep going.”
He doesn’t answer for a moment. Instead, he stares at the thinling, transfixed. I grab his hand and keep going down the stairs, dragging him along. “I didn’t know…they look like that?” He mumbles as we walk.
“Yeah.” I glance back at it. Its six-legged frame and lamprey mouth give me the shivers, but the hole through its body where I’ve shot it still glows faintly red inside. “They mimic other things, and they hunt people. I saw like twelve of them outside. The thinning—“
James clears his throat. “Claire, don’t talk to him.”
“—The thinning they came out of was under the bleachers, in the middle of the Truth Club circle,” I finish, ignoring the voice in my head. The whispers I’ve been hearing are almost as loud as James’s, so it’s easy to pretend he’s just another indistinguishable hissing sound. “Now come on. We’re close.”
“You’re making my job harder,” James complains. “At least promise me that once you’re in the shelter, you won’t show anyone Object 573-V-1/1O.”
“Show them what?” I ask. Keith looks at me, and I point at my ear. “I told you someone was talking to me through my augs. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Right,” Keith says. His face is flushed and sweaty, and he pulls his hand from mine. “So, once we’re at the shelter, then what?”
“The gun. The unregistered, unclassified, untested anomaly you’re carrying around,” James says. He sounds exasperated. Maybe I’ve been too hard on him for lying to me. “It’ll be a real mess for SHOCKS if too many people see it.”
“Got it,” I say. “When we get to the shelter, we’ll find Sora and Alice and Dad, and we’ll be safe. It’s got a URA inside. Uh, that’s a reality anchor. It’s supposed to fix stuff like this. Don’t ask how I know.”
Keith’s face doesn’t look less confused at my answer. I don’t roll my eyes, though I want to. I’m not supposed to know about Universal Reality Anchors, and I don’t feel like explaining why I do. Not while James is listening. Some Truths shouldn’t be aired outside of Truth Club.
West End High’s main hall stretches from the cafeteria to the back door that leads to the shop classes and the Canada’s Young Farmer’s Forum building, even though Alice wasn’t in elementary school the last time we had CYFF classes here. Unlike the math and science or social studies wings, this one’s poster-free. Instead, trophy cases from West End’s super-illustrious sports history line the walls between two massive double doors that lead to the cafeteria. And on the other side, with big glass windows and speakers so the secretaries don’t have to actually smell parents or students, is the main office.
I’ve been inside of it twice. The first time was for smoking under the bleachers while I waited for Alice to finish soccer practice, and the second was to say something on the morning announcements. Assistant Principal Stephenson believes in ‘empowering at-risk students’ or something, and apparently, she thinks talking on the intercom is uplifting or life-changing.
Keith and I pass the cafeteria’s double doors and the office’s windows. It’s dark inside, and the whispering is almost deafening now; whatever’s speaking the almost-understandable, soft words is in there. But I don’t need to learn the Truth about whatever’s haunting the office.
We arrive at the locked security door at the end of the hall. Keith and I press thumbs against the thumb scanner, let the optic aug scanner verify our augs, and wait as the door grinds open. The stairs down to West End’s shelter open before us like a creature’s maw, lit by LEDs that cast the whole thing a greenish-yellow tint. Something shimmers for a moment at the stairs’ bottom.
We head down. Keith takes the stairs two at a time, descending into the shelter’s abyss. I tuck the Revolver in my cargo pants pocket and follow him, heart pounding. We’ve made it. I’ve made it.
Keith reaches the second door, far below, and puts his hand on the scanner. I hit the shimmer at the bottom of the stairs and stop like the first thinling did when it tried to cross the mirror.
I can’t get in.
----------------------------------------
I try again, but there’s nothing—nothing but a hum that grows louder the more I push and the shimmer, which sparks with all the colors of the rainbow as I try to move past it. My heart won’t stop pounding a machine-gun beat like a bass drum in my ears that accompanies the hum and the whispers and drowns out Keith’s shouted question, leaving me to stare stupidly at his face as I try to understand why I can’t get inside. I try one more time. Nothing. No give. It’s like pushing against a brick wall.
And just like that, I’m right back in the math and science girls’ bathroom, leaning against the wall and wrapping my hand with paper towels. I’m not getting out of this. I’m stuck, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Hang on, Claire. I’m looking up typical shelter security measures to see what’s going on,” James says in my ear as if it’s so easy to hang on—to not lose it. A moment later, he speaks again. “You need to put Object 573-V-1/1O down. Leave it in the hall and try moving through. Most shelters use an anomaly-detection system to detect and quarantine incoming anomalies. Object 573-V-1/1O is triggering that system.”
Put down the Revolver. Leave it here. I shudder as a breath—not the shallow, panicked breaths I’ve been taking, but a full, deep breath—escapes my mouth. I can do that. I set it down and step through the barrier. Or I try to.
It still won’t give.
“What’s going on, James?” I ask as Keith looks at me, that same confused expression on his face again.
“I think I know…Claire,” James says. “But you’re not cleared to know the answer. The version you’re cleared for is—“
“Don’t lie,” I whisper hoarsely. I’m too quiet for him to hear, but he does anyway.
“—alright. I can’t explain it to you, but I’m working on an alternative way out. For now, you need to leave the shelter entrance. The outside door won’t shut unless everyone inside’s supposed to be inside, and,” James pauses. “You’re not supposed to be.”
{Truth Learned: West End High 1}
{Active Skill Learned: Bullet Time}
{Stability 4/10}
The truth hits me like a sledgehammer, enough that I don’t bother experimenting with my Active Skill. My Anomalous Bond with the Revolver—that’s why I can’t get in. The anchor inside, or whatever’s protecting the shelter, must see me as one with my gun. I can’t leave it, either. Whatever’s going on here, the Revolver must be at its core…and so am I now. I realize I haven’t been breathing, suck in air in a ragged gasp, and turn to Keith. “I…I can’t get in. I can’t."
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He looks at me for a moment, then starts walking back toward me, away from the door. Away from safety. His face is ashen—I imagine it’s a reflection of mine—but he sets his jaw. “Then we’ll find a different way. I’m not leaving you.”
Three people in my life have never lied to me. Mrs. Helquist is one. Sora’s another. And Keith is the third. If he says he’s coming with me, he’s coming with me. But then James talks in my ear. “Your friend’s five minutes from becoming a Type Three Incomprehensible. His reality levels are too low to be outside of a shelter. You can’t let him come with you—not if you want him to stay him.”
I nod. My hand wraps around the Revolver’s grip, and I start walking away. “You can’t come with,” I say.
“I’m not leav—“
“Yes, you are. I’ve got another option. It’s something I can do, but you can’t.” The lie comes easily but doesn’t stop Keith from walking toward me. I point the Revolver his way. “Listen. The voice in my aug says if you come with, you’re gonna turn into a monster, so you have to stay.”
He freezes, and I back up the stairs until I’m at the door. I push on it. It slides closed, and I get one last look at Keith’s hurt, pale face. Does he know I’ve lied to him? Does it matter?
No. I decide it doesn’t. I haven’t lied to him. Just because James hasn’t told me what to do doesn’t mean I don’t have a way out. So I’m being honest. Still, I lean my ear against the sealed shelter door until I can’t hear anything moving inside. “James, what’s your plan? Give me something, please.”
“Okay, we’ve got a procedure for persistent, reality-changing merges. You have about an hour before the recovery and stabilization team finishes setting up outside. They’ll breach, try to find the Universal Reality Anchor, and reactivate it if it’s down or boost it if it’s weak. In this case, we have you inside, and I know the URA is off. If you can turn it on, that’ll let the recovery and stabilization team in early, and they can boost it to end the merge.”
“Okay.” I stand up. My muscles scream; it’s been a long day already, and it’s not even 1:30 yet. “What about just waiting in the shelter hall?”
“You need to be inside the barrier to be protected. Since you can’t get in, you’ll get worn down, and it’s unlikely you’ll make it more than forty-five minutes before you become an Incomp,” James says. There’s something there that’s not true.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing I can tell you,” James says smoothly. “If you’re going to turn on the URA, you’ll need to go through the office. Based on the school’s blueprints and the hall above us, that could be a challenge. The spatial anomaly merge likely started in there. Are you familiar with the inside of the office?”
I’m seething too much to hear his question, and the whispers are too loud, so he repeats it. I’m sure he’s monitoring my heartbeat or something, so he knows I’m upset. But he doesn’t apologize. He asks a third time, and I snap. “Yes. I’ve been in the office before. Twice. Why do you care?”
“The layout in there has probably changed, so get ready to be confused. And because something inside is causing the duplication you saw earlier. You may need to stop that to find the URA.”
----------------------------------------
The whispers only increase in volume as I step down the hall and look into the office for the first time. Its left wall overlooks the school’s entrance with tall glass windows so the secretaries can see who’s coming long before they get there—a nod to school safety or something. There are only two of them, plus the one in the principal’s office in the back.
So when I peer in and see twelve, I groan.
The windows aren’t all that’s been replicated. The whole room is a maze of secretaries’ desks, computers, and open doors to the principal’s, vice principal’s, and three counselors’ offices. There’s only supposed to be one counselor’s office. The doors aren’t supposed to be open. I know for a fact the staff locks everything up. But then again, the teachers all lock their doors, too. The duplication must be responsible for it.
“Hurry up. It’s only going to get worse in there the longer you wait,” James says over the whispers. He’s realized I can’t hear him, and his volume has increased to match, but with it comes a tinny sound, probably my sub-par aug.
I open the door and duck inside.
The moment I do, the whispers stop. Instead, a long, drawn-out scream echoes through the overly-large office. It goes on and on, and I hear it even though my hands are pressed to my ears. Then, as suddenly as it starts, it stops, leaving silence behind. “Did you hear that, James?”
“Hear what?”
“…Nothing. Nevermind.” James is keeping secrets from me, so turnaround is fair play.
“Go for the principal’s office first,” James says. “The anchor’s supposed to be in there.”
“How do you know?”
“The blueprints say so. The real blueprints, not the ones they give students for engineering and architecture math assignments. If it’s there, you can be safe in five minutes. If not, we’ll have to work harder.”
I reach for the door handle. I take a deep breath, hold the revolver at the ready, and jerk the door open.
Something lunges at me from above, and I scream and pull the Revolver’s trigger. Fire rips from the gun’s barrel and across my body, and I squeeze my eyes shut, half-expecting that I’ve missed and that a horribly-wrinkled, tentacly monster is about to choke me to death or something.
“You got it,” James says.
I open my eyes. “Fuck.”
Dad will have to forgive me, and the tree face that used to hang over the door isn’t in any shape to complain about language. I’m back in Mrs. Lightsen’s room.
A quartet of thin, spindly legs curl up under the tree face, just like a spider that’s been squished. I look at the walls. At the dozens of tree faces, all of which creep toward me. And I slam the door shut. It clicks locked. I didn’t think Mrs. Lightsen’s room could get worse, but somehow, even replicated spaces aren’t as bad as whatever’s happening in there.
I take a second to shake off the heebie-jeebies—that’s entirely too many legs for a tree face—then reach for the assistant principal’s door. But something tickles the back of my neck, and instead, I take three more steps past the endlessly long counter and the dozens of copy machines, and I open the counselors’ office door.
Neither Mr. White nor Ms. Vorhese tell the truth, and knowing my luck, the Universal Reality Anchor is through the door on their office’s far side. That’s a problem because their office has at least three hundred feet of repeating opened doors, each with two work desks and a round table. And at the far side is…something.
{Stability: 3/10}
It’s hard to tell what it is through the long line of half-open doors, but it’s about six feet tall. It’s a brassy metal color, but I can’t see more from this far away. I zoom in with my optic aug, wincing as it heats up. Its top looks like a gyroscope, with a bunch of rings designed to spin around and dozens of lightbulbs lining each ring. A control panel covers one side.
“That’s it. Get going,” James says.
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I start running. But the moment I do, the whispering begins again. It’s still not words. In fact, I’m not sure it’s supposed to be words. But one of them sounds like one. It sounds a little like ‘duck.’
I don’t duck. I see a Blur in space from the corner of my eye. Then it hits me.
It knocks me to the ground, and I’m rolling under the circular table in the second counselors’ office. For a moment, I keep running, though, before I watch myself fall apart. The other me vanishes in a cloud of dust, and Mom’s dress and my cargo pants crumple to the floor in between two copies of the counselors’ offices. They don’t disappear, though.
I try not to vomit as I stare at the mud-spattered, red and white dress and the baggy cargo pants where I’ve just disappeared. Am I the real Claire, or was that? If I’m not real, which dress is my mom’s? Dad will kill me if I bring home the wrong one. I start tearing up on the floor.
{Stability: 2/10}
“Claire, focus.” James has a description almost immediately. “That’s the cause of the spatial anomaly. It looks like a Type One. It duplicates everything but living matter. Based on what I’ve seen, Object 573-V-1/1O won’t solve it.”
I lower the gun—I hadn’t realized, but I’d leveled it at the wall where the blur came from. The hit has left me shaking, like on the bathroom floor. “So what do I do?”
“Run, try to figure out the timing, and dodge. Type One spatials aren’t alive. It’s following a pattern.”
I nod. Then I stay under the table, running a new equation. It’s been fifteen—no, eighteen—seconds since the Type One passed. It’ll take me at least a minute to cross the echoed counselors’ offices if I take cover every time, which means—
The anomaly whooshes back around. Twenty-three seconds.
—I need to hide three times unless I want four copies of Mom’s dress to sort through. I’m already running, counting in my head as I duck through one door after another, clambering over tables and hoping my count is right.
Three. Two.
I throw myself to the floor under the round table.
The Type One Spatial Anomaly—too long, too SHOCKSish—the Blur whooshes overhead. I pop back up and keep running. Behind me, something crashes. I take three seconds to look back.
I wish I hadn’t. The first counselor’s office is filled with tree faces. The desks and tables go under like the San Juan Islands in a tsunami—every Mrs. Lightsen’s Room must’ve emptied out, and every one of the tree faces is after me.
The Blur is coming. Eight seconds. If I hurry, I can make it to the next room. But instead, I slam the counselors’ office door shut behind me, then drop to the floor. If the door holds off the tree faces, even for a minute, that’ll be enough time to turn the Universal Reality Anchor. At least, I hope it will.
The anomaly appears through the wall and whooshes over my head again, and I watch the safety-glass window in the door behind me bend from the weight of tree faces. I’m already up and running as the safety glass pushes in with a ‘whing!’ sound and smashes into the computer. Did the door hold for seven seconds or eight? It could be the difference between life and death by tree faces.
I’m not sure, and I don’t have time to experiment. The Blur replicates rooms as it passes through, but it’s also replicating tree faces, and if I don’t hurry, the tide will bury me. Mr. White and Mrs. Vorhese’s office fills almost instantly behind me as I slam the next door and sprint.
I make it through one office, then the next, pushing doors behind me as I run. James yells something in my ear. “Two seconds!”
Shit, I think. Then The Blur slams into me again. I see myself again momentarily as I roll across the floor toward the next door. When I roll back around, the other me is gone, leaving behind a pile of my clothes.
{Stability 1/10}
I’m up and running a moment later, but it’s too late. The door splinters from the weight of a trillion tree faces. They’re all around me, flooding into the room. I struggle to my feet. Their plastic jaws bite at my legs as they fill my cargo pants to my knees, and I scream so loudly my throat stops working.
“Get to the anchor!” James says in my ear. His attempt at being calm is a transparent lie.
His words are right, though. The truth is that I have one chance. If I can turn on the anchor just one room over, it might make the copied tree faces disappear. I keep staggering toward it, pushed forward by the flood of crablike decorations.
The Universal Reality Anchor is right there. I take one more step.
“Green! Green!” James says.
I push the green button, and the gyroscopes start spinning. My vision goes shimmery and multicolored for a moment, then that fades to the edges, but doesn’t stop.
As the tsunami of tree faces towers over me and starts crashing down, it fades away into dust that falls slowly around me and vanishes. I take a shaky breath, tears of agony running down my face, and slowly, gingerly roll my left pant leg up to my knee. My calf and shin are a bloody mess, and I wince and sob in pain as I lower the pant leg back over it. The universal reality anchor hums and whirs behind me as I lean against its controls, then slide onto my butt.
James speaks in my ear in the suddenly silent counselors’ office—the only counselors’ office between me and the half-destroyed secretaries’ desks. “Good job, Claire. You survived a Type One Spatial Anomaly and safely brought Object 573-V-1/1O through the Reality Anchor’s effect. Now, hold your position. Recovery and stabilization team Lambda-Four will be here in…”
I don’t hear the rest of what he has to say.