by Rob Rosen
Tag nodded. “Everyone in this building lives in the newest units. This is how it goes on our planet. You move to the most modern house or apartment available. The government then maintains the equipment for you. It’s far easier than building something new.”
“Ergo,” said Craig with a wink and a grin, “the oldest apartments have remained untouched for centuries.”
Milo clapped his hands. “It’s worth a shot!” He looked at Tag. “Can you monitor the system to see if we’ve been discovered?”
He nodded. He shook his head. “Highly illegal.”
“But?” Milo said.
“But I could do it. In theory,” Tag replied. “Seeing as I’ve never attempted such a thing, I can only assume that I could detect our being found out.”
“Probability?” I asked.
He seemed to think it over. Or at least take a few moments to make the calculation. “There’s a seventy to a hundred percent chance that I could make the detection.”
I nodded. “High enough. Worth the risk. Ask the girl, ask her if she’d be able to hack the old system?”
Britney had been watching us the entire time, eager, it seemed, to be included in the conversation, in the plan, however meager said plan was. When Milo eventually turned to her, she jumped.
The conversation was short. The eventual smile on her face said it all.
“She can do it?” I asked.
Milo nodded. “Probably. The orphanage is housed in an apartment building on the edge of the city. They use the top four floors; the bottom six are empty. She sneaks down there from time to time, fiddles with the old systems, so at least she has a working knowledge of how they operate. If she can break into a similar system in this building, we should be good to go.”
If and should. His wording didn’t offer much confidence. Still, what choice did we have? We had to know what they were up to, had to stop the invasion. It sounded good on paper. Ironically, though, there didn’t seem to be any paper on Planet Six. Metal, yep. All metal. All cold and sterile.
“Okay,” I said with a clap of my hands. “Let’s go find an old apartment, an old system.”
Craig suddenly jumped up, animated as a Pixar short. “I’ll take her!”
“But Milo can communicate with her,” I replied.
He lifted his wrist. “I have Tag.”
I shrugged. “Go for it, little bro.” I looked at our see-through friend. “Watch them like a hawk, please.”
“Hawk,” he said, head tilted to the side. “Earth animal. Hunts small prey.” His head righted. “I cannot hunt, Randy.” He lifted his see-through hands.
A sigh joined my previous shrug. “Never mind.”
Craig grabbed Britney’s hand. Britney seemed to enjoy having her hand grabbed. I would’ve called it puppy love, but puppies seemed about as scarce as paper around this place. In any case, they were gone a moment later.
“Wanna fuck?” Milo asked, now that we were once again alone.
“Are all Cureans this horny?”
He laughed. “Are all twenty-two-year-old humans?”
He had me there. And in about a white-hot minute, he had me down there. BOOM! I mean, seriously, BOOM! Picture waves crashing and lightning striking. Picture a storm raging. Now picture that in my hole, in my head, in my heart.
It hurt. It felt exquisite. It felt predestined.
He was buried deep inside me as he perched above, huffing as I puffed, our eyes locked as his fingers found refuge in my hair. “God,” he said.
It was an apt word to exhale at that moment. God had, after all, brought us together—or at least belched us together. Plus, his dick pummeling my ass was indeed divine. And so, “God,” I echoed as I pumped my prick and he pounded my hole and my body felt as if that lightning I mentioned had ricocheted out to all four limbs—the rigid one dead center especially.
We came together as the final bolt struck between my eyes, a blinding flash exploding inside my head as my cock erupted, splashing us both in gobs of hot spooge. We’ll go with BOOM! again. Mainly because my heart was doing just that: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“God,” he repeated.
“Yeah,” I agreed as I tried to catch my breath.
The earth slightly trembled at that moment, as he breathed out His name and I breathed in Milo. It was the first quake I’d felt since I’d been there. It reminded me of home. I missed my parents. I missed my bedroom. I was afraid for Craig. My cock was still hard. My cock, apparently, was A-Okay being where it was.
“The quakes back home happen more often,” I said as he withdrew his prick from my portside.
“Doubtful,” he replied. “They should always coincide.” He hopped up, sweaty, naked, still hard, dick swaying. “The city we’re in is quakeproof. If we felt it, it must’ve been a big one.”
I frowned, despite the beautiful vision in front of me. “What’s going to happen to us, Milo?”
“Us, as in me and you, or us, as in my people and your people?”
My brow furrowed to match my frown. “Both.” I mean, we were all tied together now, our destinies merged, his and mine, my people, his people, rushing toward some blurry conclusion in the distance. “You know what you’re helping us to do, right?”
He sat down by my side, his fingertips gently raking my chest. My eyelids fluttered in response. “Save your people, doom my own,” he replied. “I know.” He nodded. “I know.” His eyes locked with mine again as my belly rumbled, matching the ground below. “My people will take over your planet, my government replacing yours.”
“And you have no fondness for your government.”
He shook his head, a sad look appearing across his face. “They see to all our needs. We are obedient. We do not question. We do not…live.”
“Stagnant,” I said. “A pool without ripples.”
He nodded. “A good analogy. I’d like some ripples for a change.” He leaned down and kissed me, divinity again coursing through my body.
I liked ripples as well. I prayed they didn’t become waves, though—waves that crashed and dragged us under.
§ § § §
Craig and Britney and Tag returned a while later. Milo and I had showered, eaten our, blech, paste. The government cared for its people; the government, apparently, didn’t care for their taste buds.
“Well?” I asked expectantly. Craig shrugged. Tag shrugged. Britney stood there. I suspected she would’ve shrugged had she known what I said. “Is that a good shrug or a bad shrug?”
“She got in,” Tag said. “It’s an old system. She had no trouble.” His eyes locked with mine. “Even with my advanced programming, I could not have done what our young friend here did. Remarkable.”
“So, it’s a good shrug,” I said, hope building up before it was quickly dashed.
“And now we’re in trouble,” added my little brother.
I gulped. “So, it’s a bad shrug.” He shrugged. “Please, stop doing that, and just explain.”
“She got in,” he said, again. “The government had reset the system back to factory standards, in a manner of speaking. Basically, she just had to register the system, do a bit of reprogramming, and we were good to go. Easy, at least for Britney. Plus, Tag didn’t sense any government detection. It was as if—and just like we thought—we were on two entirely different systems.”
“And the trouble?” I asked as dread rose from my belly.
“Earth-Watch has vanished off the system,” he replied.
To which Tag added, “Every trace of them, all wiped clean. They don’t exist anymore.”
“But we know better.” My shrug mirrored theirs. “Little good it’ll do us now.” I squinted their way. “That the only trouble for us?”
Tag frowned. Tag being both a hologram and a watch, the frown seemed out of place. In any case, a beam of light suddenly shot from the vicinity of Craig’s wrist. An image instantly appeared on a far wall. It was us, all of us, the girl included.
“Wanted posters,” I said with a g
ulp the size of Cleveland. “All of us. Even Tag. But how? How did you find those?”
Craig’s gulp was only Detroit-sized, but since he was way smaller than me, that was to be expected. “You go searching for Earth-Watch, and these come up. I’m gathering it’s a message of sorts.”
“But is it a warning or threat?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” asked Milo. “Either way, they’re aware of us, of our intentions. Next time they run across us, we won’t so easily escape.”
“So, now what?” I asked. “We can’t hack into them, and they, most likely, are looking for us.”
The room was silent. It seemed that everyone was thinking about the question. Me, I was lost as usual. I wasn’t thinking anything; I was praying. And since God seemed to exist in this world like he existed in mine, tag, He was it—not Tag, but tag.
And then it hit me. “God!” I said.
They all jumped, even Tag. “Is that a prayer or are you blaspheming?” he asked.
“Neither,” I said. “God. God is our answer.”
Craig tilted his head. “Have you suddenly turned religious, dude? Because, may I say, if God is listening to our prayers as of late, He has a funny way of showing it.”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, God is our answer, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Lost me,” Craig said.
I clapped my hands. “Finally!”
“Dipshit.”
I shrugged. “Anyway, God belched. God belched, and the universes were created. God belched, and the universes eventually joined, for a time. The government must know of a connection point, a spot where our two universes connect, like Milo’s and mine do. We just have to find it, and then we can close it up.”
I beamed. Craig rolled his eyes. “That’s it? That’s your grand idea?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because,” he said, “how can we find this other connection point? And if we do, how do we close it? And who’s to say there aren’t several connection points, dozens, hundreds? The government might already have innumerable ways to enter our world.” He looked at Britney. His eyes lingered. “We already know that she doesn’t know where the government is entering our world; we already asked, and she already told us.”
“Um, oh.”
He stood there, weak little arms akimbo. “Yeah, oh.”
I turned to Tag. “Any thoughts?”
“I don’t think, Randy,” he said. “I calculate, retrieve data, scan, analyze, estimate, compute.”
“And tell time,” I added.
He could, it seemed, also roll his eyes. I suppose we were bad influences. Go figure. “Yes, tell time, too. In any case, I assume you meant to ask me if I can find another connection point.”
I nodded. I touched fingertip to nose. “Bingo.”
“Human Earth game,” Tag said. “Do you think now is the appropriate time?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, can you find another connection point, seeing as the government was able to do so?”
Milo looked at me. “I didn’t go searching for the connection point, Randy. It was in my bedroom, same for you. The government might’ve simply stumbled across theirs, too.”
And still I turned to Tag. “Well?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “The quakes must hold the answer. Whenever the quakes occur, there is a simultaneous connection. One would assume that the epicenter of the quake is near the connection point.”
I snapped my fingers. “And you can scan for that, for the epicenter.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not programmed to do such a thing. Plus, the city is built to withstand quakes. Even if I could detect one, it’s doubtful I could pinpoint the epicenter.”
I sighed. Tag was pretty to look at, but a nightmare to have a discussion with.
“But you said perhaps.”
“You can’t ask the walls in here for the information; it’s restricted,” he replied. “Only scientists and government employees are allowed to view such things. To use an Earth quote: ignorance is bliss.”
Craig snickered. “That must make Randy the most blissful human alive.”
It was now my turn to roll my eyes. “Anyway,” I said, “what other option do we have.”
He pointed at the girl. “She can’t hack into Earth-Watch, but there is a government agency that monitors planetary weather, earthquakes, etcetera.”
Milo spoke with Britney, her face once again lighting up like the Fourth of July. She nodded. She walked over to the wall. She touched it, and it seemed to glow a more brilliant white. Her fingers moved fast, waving through the air, seemingly bringing the inner workings to life.
“Here?” I asked. “What if we get caught?”
“We’ll simply switch buildings,” Milo replied. “It’s faster here. If she breaks in downstairs, it could take hours to find what we need. Here, it could take minutes.”
I nodded. I watched. Symbols scrolled down the wall. Britney continued to poke through the air, her hand moving up and down, side to side. There was no keyboard, just her fingers and the wall, animate melding with inanimate. I wondered if this is what Tag looked like inside his head, inside the watch. It was an unsettling thought.
Several minutes later, the wall lit up further. Planet Six appeared, or perhaps a really good digital representation. Either way, there were dark spots and lights spots scattered here and there across the image.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Storms,” said Tag. He looked at Britney and spoke in their common language. “I asked her to find the quakes.”
A minute passed, two. The image morphed, the planet dark, save for two bright spots, both situated near one another. I pointed. “Two!”
“Two distinct quakes,” said Tag. “Those points were generated during the most recent tremor, located around this very city. Though that doesn’t mean that there can’t be more connection points, if we are correct in our quake/connection assumption. There might be multiple synapses each time the universes meet. This last time, there were simply two.”
I tapped my finger on my chin. “Maybe,” I said, “but then how come these synapses happen so often in my bedroom and Milo’s bedroom?”
He started to reply, and then stopped, then started again, then stopped. “Huh,” he finally managed.
I smiled. I’d stumped a holographic watch. “Yeah, huh.”
“Maybe,” interjected Craig, “there’s some sort of magnetism between those points.” He pointed at the wall. “Maybe the same connections happen over and over again for a reason, not just by chance.”
I wanted to say that the reason was fate, that Milo and I were meant to be, that, therefore, the connections happened in my bedroom and his, but even Hallmark wasn’t that schmaltzy. So, though it sounded romantic as all hell, even I knew better. “Wall,” I said, “are there any geological or geographical irregularities beneath the spots that are currently lit up?”
The wall blipped and blooped, the planet in front of us pixilating, the colors blending. We all watched, faces reflecting the emitted light, and then, at last, the wall replied, “City Northeast Nineteen is highly magnetized.”
I turned to Tag. “And?”
Tag neither blipped nor blooped, though he momentarily froze as he seemed to look for an explanation. He eventually blinked, then said, “The city is built on a series of magnets that stretch many miles beneath the surface of the planet. The magnets and Planet Six’s molten core attract one another, thereby stabilizing the city, making it nearly quakeproof.”
Craig snapped his fingers. “Our house, Randy,” he said with a wide smile. “It’s made completely out of steel.”
My smile mirrored his. “And our house is also on one of the tallest hills in the city.” I looked at him. “Maybe that’s enough to bring the two universes together.” But was it a fluke or fate? In truth, I was still rooting for the latter. In any case, I looked at Tag expectantly. “Well?”
He shrugged. “It’s as good of an expl
anation as any.” He looked again at the wall, which had reverted back to the quake imagery. “Perhaps there really are only two connections then. There’s yours and Milo’s.” He pointed to the bright spot on the left. “And the second one, presumably the one the government is using.” He pointed to the bright spot on the right.
I nodded. “Wall, show us satellite imagery of the two bright spots.”
The spot on the right appeared first, the area quickly magnifying.
“No way,” I said when I realized what we were looking it. “It’s the same building as the prison we rescued Milo from.”
“Said space,” said Craig, “is half blown up.”
“But the other half remains. The second corridor. The one we didn’t go down.” I looked at Milo. I looked at Tag. “Well, at least we know that the building isn’t indestructible.”
“Yeah,” said Milo, “but ten to one it’s now far more heavily guarded.”
I frowned as I nodded. “Wall, magnify the second bright spot.” I figured we had to confirm our hypothesis, that the second point was Milo’s house.
FYI, our hypothesis was indeed correct.
PS on the FYI, I suddenly wished we’d figured wrong.
“Fuck,” exhaled Milo, his face instantly pale, jaw dropping as he stared at the house on the wall. That is to say, as he stared at what remained of said house.
“Fuck,” I echoed, realizing that his house, his bedroom, both now destroyed, was the connection to my bedroom, to my house, to my parents. “Fuck,” I repeated, though I could’ve said it a hundred times, a thousand, and it wouldn’t have altered the fact that in order to save my planet we had to destroy the only other way back home, namely that government building.
I locked eyes with Milo, my heart simultaneously breaking.
Had he forever lost his parents? Had I forever lost mine?
Chapter 10
We raced as fast as we could to Milo’s house. Thankfully, Britney had some money on her, a credit card of sorts, and so we were able to take public transportation—legally, this time—though we were sure the government could still track us. Still, we had no choice; we had to see what had happened, praying that Milo’s parents survived, even as we looked over our shoulders the entire time, expecting to see an advancing army at any moment.
