by Bryan Young
“Of course boys! Especially you, cutie. I’ll go take care of these orders! And y’all stay safe!” she exclaimed with her trademark wide grin as she walked briskly to the back.
“So, what do you guys make of that?” Tye asked excitedly.
“Well, I’m hoping it’s not horseshit,” Brodie responded, leaning back in the booth.
“It doesn’t make you think, though?” Tye replied.
“Think about what?” Tony asked.
“Think about the fact that there’s a grace period,” Tye said.
“A grace period?” Tony inquired.
Tye looked around the room, leaned in closer to Tony who was sitting on the opposite side of the table and whispered with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. “Yeah. A grace period. For someone to make a run at that thing.”
Brodie threw his hands up in the air at Tye’s suggestion. “Dude. You’re not serious, are you? Someone to make a run? What idiot would... Wait... You’re not thinking of...?”
Tye let out a fake laugh, crossed his arms, and shook his head. “Nah, man! Me? Psh. I don’t have that kind of time or energy. Plus, I have no idea how I’d get to L.A. I’m just saying that in theory... if someone wanted to, this might be the right opportunity to do something while we still have our daily, unregimented freedoms.”
“That sounds an awful lot like the seeds you were referring to earlier,” Brodie eyed him with suspicion.
Tye gave Brodie a smile and tapped on his temple twice, signifying that he was on the right track, before getting up to excuse himself to the bathroom. He wandered around the small diner for a bit before spotting the nearly hidden bathroom in the back. After using the restroom, he left the stall to wash his hands. He briefly looked in the mirror and noticed two thin, faint beams of light emanating straight from the center of his irises.
He raised an eyebrow and moved his head closer to the mirror, trying to comprehend what exactly he was seeing. Confused, he splashed some cold water on his face and shook his head, looking in the mirror again, only to still see the faint beams of light in his eyes. He took a moment to focus. The more he focused on the beams, the brighter and more precise they became, until eventually, a loud POP echoed in the bathroom, pushing Tye’s head back and forcing him to cover his eyes and duck below the mirror.
Gingerly moving his hands from his face and standing up to see what had happened, he noticed two small burn holes in the mirror. His eyes grew wide and he yelped in shock, jumping backwards. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT! He paced back and forth in the small restroom, stopped, and pointed at the mirror and said to himself, “That’s not normal! You, Sir, are not normal! You gotta figure out what the hell is going on and sort it out because we... you... me? Um. Yeah! I can’t shoot lasers at mirrors from my fucking eyes!” He bit his lower lip, washed his hands again quickly, and stormed out of the restroom back to the table.
Just as Tye sat back to the table, the plucky waitress returned with a cart with five identical meals of pancakes, four sausage links, and four large bacon strips nearly hanging off the sides. “Here’s y’all’s food. The pancakes are all you can eat, so if you want more, feel free to ask! Enjoy fellas!” The boys all thanked her, and she flashed another smile before disappearing into the back.
As the other boys began digging into their meals, Tye stared at the food before him, his left hand holding his head as he poked at the sausage on his plate. Nearly halfway through his meal, Nathan stopped and looked at Tye, perplexed.
“Dude,” he began, “you’re usually done with your food before any of us even touches our plates and you’ve barely touched anything. Are you okay?”
Tye glanced up at Nathan’s concerned face. He looked back down at his plate and took a deep breath. “Uh. No. I had an... accident. If you can call it that.”
“You shit yourself, man?” Brodie asked with his mouth full of sausage meat and pancakes. “I can’t smell it.”
Brodie’s remark brought a fleeting smile to Tye’s face and he replied, “What are you on about? You’re crazy, son.”
“So, what’s the problem then?” Nathan asked.
“It’s uh... really hard to explain.”
“Try us,” Jax responded earnestly. Tye sighed and resigned himself to telling his friends about what had happened, pointing all of them to the restroom. Each of the boys returned in complete disbelief.
Brodie was the last to return to the table. He sank into the booth and said, “Okay. Just to recap. You shot two lasers, powerful enough to pierce holes into a mirror, with your... eyes?”
Tye took a sip of water and replied, “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”
“This whole situation is messed up, man,” Tony mused, chewing on a piece of bacon.
Tye looked at Tony with a raised eyebrow, wondering how he could casually stuff his face with food at such a stressful time.
“You’re telling me,” Tye began. “Dude, I saw who knows what in that crater, got jumped by a weird floating thing, got shot at, gained the ability to jump like no human before, moved faster than people could even see, pushed a kid hundreds of feet by barely touching him, and now I’m shooting lasers from eyes? Forget the situation! I’m messed up, man! What if I accidentally hurt someone? What if someone di—”
He downed the rest of his water and slammed the glass on the table. “What if I can’t control what’s happening to me and I hurt someone really bad? What if my friends and family get dragged in? God, if something happens to you guys or my parents or my brother... I don’t think I could live with that.”
His shifted uncomfortably in their seats, the reality of the situation hitting them.
Jax excused himself from the table to pay the bill, leaving Tye and the other boys in silence. Brodie stood up from the other side of the booth, walked over to Tye, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He gave him a warm smile and said, “Tye, don’t worry. We’re going to figure this out together. We’ve been brothers from day one and we’re not going to let you go through this alone. Don’t worry about what happens to us. We’ll be fine and we need you to be fine too. Whatever happens, we’re here for you and we’re here with you.”
Touched by Brodie’s words, Tye responded with an equally warm smile. “Thanks, man. That means a lot. It really does.” His smile quickly turned into a frown as his face took on a look of concern. “Unfortunately though, I feel like there’s gonna be some places you guys aren’t allowed to go and I’m going to have to face those demons alone. I don’t want to force you guys into something that’s ultimately not your problem.” He stood up as Jax walked back to them with the receipt and motioned for them to go back to the car.
The boys shuffled out and sat in Jax’s car. “So, what’s the plan now?” Tye asked, sitting in the passenger seat.
“I’m not sure. Ideas?” Jax asked the group.
“Let’s go to Viewer’s Point!” Brodie gushed.
“Isn’t that all the way back in Los Altos Hills?” Tony asked.
“Yes, but worth it!” Brodie nearly shouted with enthusiasm.
“Well, we have to go back to Mountain View to drop everyone off anyway so why not drive through Los Altos?” Jax commented.
Tye suggested they also grab some post-lunch snacks for the trip, garnering the approval of the rest of the group. With that, they sped off towards Los Altos.
When they arrived, everyone got out of the car apart from Nathan, who was looking for a lighter and joints in the back. They made their way to the cliff’s edge and looked out over the Bay Area. They stood, taking in its majesty and appreciating the fact that they lived in such a place. They began to discuss their childhoods, their experiences together, and what it would be like to go off to college next year and explore the world outside the communities they had grown up in. They found a spot nearby to sit down and talked about life while munching on snacks until it got dark. The ever-present bright blue streak illuminated the night sky.
As he lay on the dry grass and gazed
up at the stars while his friends smoked next to him, Tye once again found himself being unable to look away from the magnificent glow.
“Hey, guys,” he said, attempting to get their attention.
The conversations stopped, and Nathan was the first to respond, “What’s up, man?”
“Nothing, it’s just...” Tye began again. “I don’t know if this is a bit morbid but the light from the dome is actually kinda beautiful across the night sky.”
The other boys simultaneously looked up to admire the powerful beam and became almost as entranced by its incandescence.
“You’re not wrong,” Tony admitted. “It really is kind of cool to see.”
“Right?” Tye agreed. “And as strange as it sounds, we’re responsible for it. As far as we know, we could be the first humans ever to see something like this, and part of me wants to just acknowledge that we’re experiencing something really freaking cool in this moment.”
“And what about the other part?” Brodie asked softly.
Tye frowned and paused for a moment. His eyes darted away from the sky and looked at the bleak darkness encompassing the trees on the other side of the street. “The other part says that light is a beauty born out of darkness. And sometimes, even though you want to appreciate what pleases the eye, you have to take a deeper look and recognize the danger that’s staring you in the face.”
The boys contemplated what Tye had just said, an inexplicable sense of fear settling into all their hearts. “So, what are you gonna do about it?” Brodie asked.
Tye let out air through his nose and said, “I have an idea. But nearly every part of my body is screaming that’s it’s a terrible one.”
Nathan pressed Tye for more details until he finally relented and continued, “It’s just... Ever since I saw that thing on the news, I’ve had this urge to seek it out. There’s some innate feeling in me that’s telling me I need to get to the dome and that only once I’m there can this situation be resolved. But at the same time, I know I can’t. I’m not a hero. I’m not some ‘super’ guy. I’m just... me! Every part of me knows that going to that thing is suicide. Who am I to take on a force humanity has never seen before?”
Brodie sat up and looked at his friend with determination in his eyes, “So that’s what we’ll do then! We’ll go to the dome and figure it out as a team. You don’t have to be alone in this!”
Tye stood up, put his hands in his hoodie pocket and shook his head decidedly. “That’s the thing though, Brodie.” Tye pointed at the sky. “That thing is calling to me. It’s in my head. It’s been there ever since I made the stupid decision to force you guys to come to the Hills with me… Look, you guys are my brothers and that’s never going to change. But this... this is something I know I have to do by myself. It’s a place you guys can’t follow me. And even if you could, there’s no way in hell I’d allow you to.”
Brodie stood up and took a puff from the joint between his fingers. He then took a couple small steps forward and placed his hand on Tye’s shoulder. “Be honest with me, Tye. Is that why you wanted to hang out with us today? Did you know deep down that you’d have to go away for a while to do this?”
Tye looked down at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with his best friend. He shrugged and said under his breath, “I don’t know. I still haven’t really figured out what I’m gonna do. But if I have to leave, then yeah. I wanted to try and forget about all the craziness and just be with you guys today.”
Brodie held a half smile on his face and pulled Tye in for a hug. “I understand. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just don’t hesitate to call one of us, man. Even if we can’t be there with you physically, we’ll support you in any way we can.”
Tye nodded and sat back down on the grass, gazing up at the stars once more.
The boys talked, joked, and laughed deep into the night until the urge to sleep came over all of them, prompting a mutual agreement for Jax to drop them all home. The drive down the hills was quiet. A mix of fear and anticipation of the coming events was palpable. No one quite knew what would become of Tye and a real sense of this being the last time they would see their friend crept into all their minds. Tye, for his part, feared that whatever was about to happen would not only profoundly change him at his core but also profoundly change his world.
As Jax pulled onto Tye’s street, the boys all fist bumped and said their goodbyes. When he looked back from his door, Jax’s car was still waiting on the street. He gave one final wave goodbye and walked into his dark home. Feeling his way around up to his room, he flopped onto his bed and lay there for a moment, trying to process the entirety of his day.
Suddenly, a thought hit him. He wildly reached into his pocket and fished for his phone, frantically searching through his contacts until he found the name he was searching for. He waited for her to pick up with his heart pounding. After a few rings, a gentle voice greeted him from the other end.
“Hello?” Gemma answered with a hint of grogginess in her voice.
“Hey Gemma, it’s Tye. You told me to call, you? But you sound like you just woke up so sorry for waking you.”
“Oh! Hey, Tye. No, it’s fine. I just didn’t think you’d call this late. I kind of assumed you’d be home earlier.”
“Yeah, well. My day with the boys dragged out a bit. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still awake past 12.”
“Hah. Usually I’m not, but since we have a day off of school tomorrow why sleep early?”
“That’s the best philosophy in my opinion. The next day doesn’t start until you wake up, right? Staying up until odd hours is the secret to extending life.”
Gemma laughed. “I agree. Why only have 16 hours in a day when you can have 20?”
“Exactly! You get me! So, did you just want to shoot the shit or was there something you needed to talk to me about? You sounded pretty serious earlier.”
“Yeah, actually there was. Have you been online in the past few hours?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Outside of all the dome stuff, there’s a... video. Of you. And it’s been going around.”
“A video? Can you send me the link?”
“Sure, hold on a minute.”
Gemma’s text popped up with a link attached. When Tye opened the link, his eyes grew wide as he watched himself launch Thad into the air with a simple touch. He looked at the views and saw that in a few hours, it had already amassed over 100 million views.
“Jesus Christ,” Tye whispered.
“Yeah...” Gemma said softly. “Tye, is there something going on?”
“Something like what?”
“Something like the fact that you now have superhuman speed and strength? Please, please, please tell me that was just a really good fake.”
“And if I did say that?”
“I’d say you’re lying because I know Thad has been in the hospital with a broken... well, everything.”
“Okay, but I was only defending myself and Rak—”
“I don’t care about Thad! But I need to know what’s going on, Tye! The timing with you guys being the only ones to come back from the hills with the lights and this dome is weird and I need you to be honest with me! Because whatever is happening to you is happening to a friend I’ve known for a long time. I don’t want you to suffer and be confused because you won’t talk to anyone!”
Tye went silent for a few moments, contemplating whether or not to tell Gemma the truth. He considered whether she’d believe him and if it was worth having another person worry about his well-being. She pestered him until he finally relented and recounted everything that had happened in the last week.
“Jesus,” came her response when he was done.
“Yeah,” Tye answered.
“So... What now?”
“Well, like I told the guys. There’s been this innate... feeling to go to the dome, but I don’t know...”
“You don’t know?”
“Yeah. It’s... difficult.”
“Is it? Tye, if you feel that’s where you need to be then maybe it made you feel this way for a reason.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you. But even if you’re right, I don’t exactly have the means to just drop everything and go to L.A.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t steal my dad’s car and drive to Los Angeles.”
“Then fly!”
“I can’t afford a flight to L.A. either!”
“How serious are you about this, Tye?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean... If you had the money to go to L.A., what would you do?”
“I dunno. I think... I think I’d go, but I can’t say for certain. Why?”
“Because... maybe I could pay for the plane ticket and the hotel for you. That’s the finances taken care of. All you have to do is show up.”
“What? Gemma. No! That’s way too much! I can’t accept that.”
“Tye... please. Look, I know you only went to the Hills to try and impress me. I feel like I have some responsibility here. I’ve been working the past two summers and you know my family is well off. A plane ticket for a two-hour ride and a hotel stay really isn’t a lot of money for me. I probably blow the same amount on a day of shopping. If you can pay for everything else, then I want to help.”
“Gemma, I...”
“Please? Let me help? If a few hundred dollars is what it takes to figure this thing out, then wouldn’t you make that small sacrifice?”
“Figure it out? I’m just a kid, Gemma! I’m this tiny thing that’s going up against who knows what? I don’t know if the dome is harmful but I’m still terrified of what could happen to me. It’s one thing to say that I should be brave and do what’s right but look at that thing! It’s beyond human comprehension! And to have to face that alone? It terrifies me.”
“I’d be lying if I said I’m not scared too, Tye! Me, my mom, my dad, my grandparents, my baby sister... We’re so afraid of whatever the hell that thing is, and if you think for one second that it can hurt people and that you could maybe prevent it from doing so... Why wouldn’t you take the opportunity? It’s not just us. It’s your friends. It’s your family. It’s everyone you’ve ever cared about. Please...”
