Squaring the Circle

by B K Brain

  “But the most important question is how you could know any of this. Like I’ve been saying, you and I are connected. Something happened to us in the first wormhole. Our energies got mixed up. Does that all make sense?”

  “Oh my God,” Eddie exclaimed. “Squaring’s been cancelled? That sucks.”

  “This is serious, Eddie. Try to stay focused.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You said something about purpose. What did you mean by that?”

  3

  “I said no books at dinner, Samuel.”

  A thirteen-year-old Sam closed the textbook, slid it under the table and out of sight. “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be better.”

  Mom said, “He has a test tomorrow. He was just-”

  “Was I speaking to you?”

  Mom put a hand to her shoulder, lowered her head, seemed to shrink in her chair. “No dear. You weren’t.”

  Sam’s father set down his fork, rubbed at his eyes, inhaled slowly. A clear indication that his patience was dwindling. He looked back to Sam. “What is the first commandment?”

  “Honor thy father and mother?”

  “No, Samuel. NO. I swear, you get straight A’s in school, but you can’t seem to remember what’s really important. People that don’t know the commandments burn in Hell. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is the first commandment?”

  Sam’s hands had begun to tremble. He’d better get it right this time. “Thou shalt not kill?”

  Dad’s open hand connected with the side of his head like a bat. Sam screamed at the surprise explosion in his ear, tumbled to the carpet. Mom was screaming too.

  “You fucking with me, boy?”

  “No, Dad,” he forced out between big, lurching sobs. “Please.”

  His father’s face softened. “Go to your room, open your bible and read Exodus. When you can tell me the first commandment, you may finish your dinner.”

  Sam reached for the science textbook, which lay open at Dad’s feet. A big black boot stopped him. “Leave it.”

  Susan’s glow faded. A single line of sweat trailed down his cheek. The screaming, and, dear God, the crying. Her eyes, so wide.

  A gunshot stole his attention.

  It had come from the north entrance. A man in black, down on one knee. Helmet, body armor, pistol. Sam knew they’d find a way in eventually.

  Another shot. Then three more. All surely on target, yet useless.

  The voice of a second man, out of sight and around the corner. “We’re compromised! Blow the charges!”

  Sam thrust a hand forward, shoving at empty air between him and the shooter. The agent was thrown to the wall behind, hard enough to shatter bone, flatten the backside of a helmet. A sound escaped the man’s throat, gurgling through a rush of fluids. After a moment he fell to the floor, away from a spidered dent of cracked brick.

  His father’s voice. Don’t be sorry. Be better.

  Sam took in a breath, collected himself, narrowed a gaze on Susan.

  A series of explosions shook the floor, one from each corner of the facility. Overheads snapped to black. They weren’t going to give up.

  “You’re nothing,” Sam whispered into the shadows. “It’s time you understood that.” Sam was the teacher now, and it was time for a lesson. He headed for the door.

  “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” he said.

  4

  Eddie looked to David. He was distraught, exhausted, drained beyond any reasonable limit. His eyes, glazed, raw with sadness. He’d seen too much, lost too much, in a meager span of days.

  It was strange seeing him from the outside, up close, in the real world. The creator of her favorite television show, the hairy-knuckled man from the magic picture frames, the drunk guy at the bar. Everything she’d seen felt like daydreams now, hazy memories of things made up to occupy a few empty minutes at the shrink’s office. Or maybe ducked down in the car at the awful supermarket. God she hated that place.

  None of it seemed real anymore. Was it? Had any of it happened?

  Over the years she’d gotten used to discounting her perception, talking herself down from the voices. Down and away, because they weren’t real. Everyone said so, Mom, Sis, Doctor Thatcher. They’d made it their life’s goal to correct her, redirect her mental mistakes, her chemically-induced brain hiccups.

  Had it helped? The therapy, the medications, the endless complaining?

  Not at all, but she had gotten better at pretending. Not good, but better. With Sis anyway.

  But this was different, wasn’t it? Why?

  Because David was real. He was sane. And he was not only telling her it was okay to believe, he was telling her she had to. Lives depended on it. Actual human lives. But Eddie already knew that. It’s the reason she came.

  She told him everything. The bookstore, the pictures, the bar, the inky void. An explosion of loose paper. A chair in the window. A dog named Maurice.

  Norritech.

  Nothingman.

  And purpose. Illusive, infuriating purpose.

  She hoped something she’d said meant more to him than it had to her.

  David’s turn.

  He described each unbelievable event in detail. Black holes, baseballs, hockey sticks. He cried through the telling of a man on a sidewalk. And Steve. It was obvious that he blamed himself for everything that happened.

  Emotional, yes. The worst thing Eddie ever heard, but useless. His description was merely a listing of events. How it all went down, A to B to C, and so on. The new information didn’t solve the puzzle; it only added more pieces. Clearly, David didn’t know anything.

  We drove all night for this?

  “That can’t be all of it,” Eddie said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  David locked eyes with her. “You and I are connected for a reason. We need to figure this out.”

  5

  With eyes closed, David let his inner teenager take the wheel. After a moment, he looked to the sisters.

  “Our spins are opposite. That means Sam can’t hurt both of us. If one gets hurt, the other gets better. Does that make sense?”

  The women were starting to get it. He hoped so anyway.

  Eddie said, “So, he breaks your arm and mine feels warm and tingly. How the hell is that going to help us, David?”

  He rubbed his nose, collected his thoughts. “Well, I think it goes deeper than that. If one of us grabs hold of that baseball, like Sam did, the other one would…well, I don’t know. It’s worth a try though. Don’t you think?”

  “Where did you say he went when that happened? Like, um, nowhere?”

  “Sort of, yes.”

  Eddie huffed. “Okay, let’s say you run in, grab the ball and disappear. You’d go nowhere and I’d…What? Go everywhere?”

  “It’s not our position in space that’s opposite. It’s our spin, our energy. Being displaced from reality would take my energy away. At that point, you’d be at full power… Or something….”

  Eddie smirked, put hands to her hips. “You’d disappear and I’d go supernova. What then?”

  David’s vision dropped to the ground. “I don’t know.”

  Rachel threw her hands in the air, growled. “We don’t know shit. And we’re going in there anyway? That’s just fucking wonderful.”

  Eddie turned to her sister. “Not we, Rachel. Me and David. You’re staying here.”

  “What? Absolutely not. You’re not going in there without me. I forbid it.”

  David said, “She’s right. There’s no reason for you to go. It would be an unnecessary risk.”

  “Unnecessary my ass. I’m going.”

  “Rachel,” Eddie said. “Please-”

  “You’re not talking me out of it, Ed. You might as well get over it.”

  Eddie looked back to David, shrugged her shoulders.

  “Fine,” David said. “Whatever. But we’re going right now. You wanna tie th
e dog to a tree or something?”

  The sisters answered in unison, both of them angry at the ridiculous suggestion. “Absolutely not.”

  Looks like the dog’s going too. David shook his head, let out a sigh. Great.

  6

  A chair in the window. Eddie, levitating in the bedroom. A man falling out of a tornado, a tornado her sister said was coming. Rachel’s new world.

  A lightning tongue licked at her fingers. Maurice the magic pooch. She patted his head.

  Little Sis had always been her responsibility. If Eddie was going, so was she. Rachel sucked in a breath, held it for a moment, let it go. She then jogged to catch up with the others.

  “Come on, Maurice. Let’s go.”

  They couldn’t get there by car, not with mysterious men blocking the road, so they’d walk. Yet another fun-filled experience. Damn she was tired.

  But like Eddie would say, tired was not the word.

  Exhausted is a word. Dead on my feet, even better.

  The trio speed-walked through the trees with a television producer in the lead. It made no difference what he said, this was his fault. Had to be. She didn’t trust him, not one bit. His desperation to get back to his girlfriend would probably get them all killed. Speaking of words, Rachel still had a few choice ones waiting for him, asshole sitting comfortably at the top of the list. But she’d hold back, for now.

  David was careful to keep the road in sight to their left. Good thinking. A person lost out here in the forest might never find their way back to the highway. How far was the building? Two miles? Three?

  Maurice trotted along beside Eddie, sniffing, scanning for trouble. He hadn’t barked even a single time, not since Eddie told him to keep quiet more than an hour ago. He did bare teeth and growl before racing after a rabbit a quarter-mile back, but that was it.

  Little Sis told him to fight the urge, and so he had.

  It took no time at all to give up on the rabbit. Once his predator duties were satisfied, he reappeared back at her side.

  “Make you feel better?” Eddie asked.

  He didn’t respond.

  Everything south of the interstate seemed to be uphill. Rachel hadn’t noticed in the car, but she felt it now. Muscles burned at each step. The ground, spongey from years of fallen leaves and rotten tree bark, only added to the workload. It was like walking on memory foam.

  Again, Maurice took off on a full run.

  “Where you going now, dumb ass?” Probably another rabbit, or maybe a bird. He’d be back. They kept going.

  A glance right. Left. Then ahead. David had stopped. Eddie too. Then Rachel saw why - a man pointing a gun. Her heart leapt, lungs locked tight.

  He said, “What do we have here?”

  David held both hands up in surrender. “Don’t shoot.”

  Dressed in black. Body armor. Military-issue rifle. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Walking our dog,” Rachel said. “That’s it. We swear.”

  “Oh yeah? Where is it?”

  As if on cue, Maurice made himself known. At top speed and from seemingly out of nowhere he jumped. He struck the man’s left arm, his jaw clamping down on a gloved hand. Taken by surprise the man spun, let out a grunt, lost hold of the weapon. It fell to a patch of weeds at his feet. Maurice, growling and frothing at the mouth, did not let go.

  Holy shit.

  A free hand slapped to a belt and came away with a small rectangle of plastic, like a fat cell phone. He jammed it into the dog’s neck. A snapping crackle of electricity, a high-pitched yipe, and Maurice fell lifeless to the ground.

  “Maurice!”

  In one fluid motion the man produced a pistol and aimed it down at the dog.

  “No! Please!” Eddie threw hands up, took a step forward, stopped.

  The gun changed directions. “Don’t move.”

  He reached for a radio mic at his shoulder. “Control, this is Kilo-Six. I found someone.”

  “What have you got?”

  “Two women, one man,” he said. “Unassociated, most likely.”

  “Bring them in.”

  “Copy that.” He snatched the rifle off the ground, slung it over a shoulder. Aimed the pistol. “Let’s go, people. Move it.”

  “What about our dog?”

  He looked at his bloody hand, scowled. “Fuck your dog.”

  7

  David walked slowly beside the women, all three with hands in the air and a gun pointed at their backs. What the hell were they gonna do now?

  There wasn’t time for this crap. How long would it take to explain things to these guys? If they were as bad as Sam said, would they even listen? The doctor had been lying to him this whole time, but had he lied about them? Were they really here to kill everyone involved?

  I have to do something.

  He stopped, turned to face the man behind them. “Listen to me, please.”

  The agent went rigid and aimed the pistol at David’s face. “Turn around or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”

  Eddie said, “David! No!” She grabbed for his arm.

  Rachel screamed, “Eddie!”

  He would not be moved. “We need to get back inside that building. There’s a man-”

  Something rang in his ears. A pop surrounded by a sound, a word. CHICK. Or maybe CHUCK? But it wasn’t a word, not really. Loud, but not loud enough to be a-

  His body was thrown back at the shoulder, as if he’d been hit with a bat. He stumbled, reached up, somehow managed to stay on his feet. It made no sense, he couldn’t understand what just happened. A growing warmth dribbled down his chest and over his stomach. His hand arrived. It came away wet. His head went cloudy.

  Too fast, he thought. What…What did…

  He suddenly realized the pistol’s barrel was too long. It had one of those things attached, to muffle the noise. A…silencer, yes. That’s why it’d made a word instead of a boom.

  Jesus.

  Screaming, voices he couldn’t make out. A girl named Eddie. Her sister. Crackling dry leaves over spongy ground. Snapping sticks underfoot. A darkening blur.

  And pain, rising.

  8

  All this way, Eddie thought. Just to get arrested. And then, Poor Maurice.

  She walked over soft ground, trying to keep pace with David. He was taller than her, had a longer stride.

  He was planning something, she saw it in his face. What was he thinking? Then she heard his voice, his inner voice.

  I have to do something.

  At that moment he stopped, turned back. Spoke. The man in black was having none of it. David was going to get himself, maybe all three of them, killed. She reached out to stop him, told him no. Then, the bullet. It spun him to the left, sent him stumbling.

  An explosion hit Eddie at the same moment, but not of pain. Her right shoulder went white-hot, seized like a tsunami of pure, molecular density. Like the atoms were suddenly relieved of their wasted space. Thicker, tighter, stronger.

  What the hell?

  Eddie snapped a look to David, then to the other man, the one with the pistol. He’d shoot again, sure he would. At her, Rachel, or anyone else who came along. It wouldn’t affect him in the slightest. Even so, he paused.

  Paused to stare at her, because she was glowing.

  He’s gonna shoot again, at me.

  Screw that. Eddie stepped up, reached out with her new and improved arm. Not to punch, no. To grab for the gun. Or to block. Thing was, she really didn’t have a plan, but she had to do something. The strange muffled gunshot sounded again. Pointed right at her, but it didn’t connect, didn’t hinder her momentum.

  Her hand met the man’s arm. A blinding flash and his body was knocked back into a tree. He hit the ground. The pistol went sailing into weeds. She gasped, her fist recoiled. The man wasn’t moving.

  She spun to David. He’d gone pale. Knees went rubbery and his butt hit the ground. He cried out, his eyes watering. They rushed to his side, eased him to lying down. A dark stain swel
led across his shirt.

  “What?” he said, his voice weak, mumbling. “…What happened…”

  “Don’t move,” Rachel said. “You’re hurt.” She looked to Eddie, her eyes pleading.

  “David,” Eddie said. Her hand slid across his chest, toward the sticky wound, stopped. She felt a barrier of pressure around his shoulder, pushing at her hand, holding it back. She tried again.

  Impossible. It was like pressing two oppositely-charged magnets together. Pushing harder made her shoulder feel…strange. Hot. But not with heat, with ...

  Hot with what? Energy?

  Yes, Ed. Opposite spin.

  Measure one and you know the spin of the other. That’s how it worked, right? What if the two came in contact with each other? Would one cancel the other out, break the connection? Or would something else happen? Eddie rubbed at her eyes. Took a moment to breathe. Perhaps something magical?

  She eased her hand closer. David grabbed for it, squeezed. “Not magic, Eddie,” he said. “Science.” Had she been thinking out loud? No, but that didn’t matter anymore.

  She smiled down at him, because bad feelings weren’t allowed. Not here. Not now. “Science is magic, David. Now hold still.”

  She moved her hand above the wound, pressed down hard. The negative polarity pushed back. Eddie and David, two powerful magnets, each repelling, resisting the other. “Help me, Rachel.”

  “Help you what? I don’t-”

  “Grab my wrist and push! Come on!”

  She grabbed hold, hesitated.

  “Do it, Rachel. Now.”

  Sis didn’t understand, and didn’t need to. She helped anyway. The two women shoved with all their might as a light between opposite energies grew. Brighter. Then brighter still. Eddie squared her shoulders above him, gritted teeth. A final shove and the two met. A simple touch, skin to skin.

  A singularity of light, bright as the sun, pounded. Eddie was thrown to her back on hard dirt. She grunted at the shock, snapped a look to David.

  Slowly, he sat up. “The pain is gone,” he said. “What did…” He rolled his shoulder, testing it. Peeled the shirt away at the collar to see. There was no bullet hole. No oozing blood. No wound. “What did you do?”