Brady spoke up, realizing she didn’t quite realize what they were asking. “Well—what about other dimensions? Like parallel universes?”
Ms. Cooper removed the pen from behind her ear and rapped it on the wooden desk. “Why do you two look so guilty?”
Brady and Felix shrugged in unison.
She narrowed her eyes. “Well… sure—I believe it’s possible. In fact, there are theories in science that actually predict this.”
She smiled as the boys’ faces lit up with wonder.
Felix continued the questioning. “You mean science predicts different universes?”
“Well, it’s sort of complicated—but yes, that’s one theory. It’s actually called the multiverse. The idea works something like this: every time you make a decision, your current world branches into many new ones. Try to think of it this way. This morning you decided to come to see me. That’s one universe. In another universe, you decided to stay home. In another you did something entirely different—like homework, for a change. There are an infinite number of them, actually. One for each possible outcome, for which there are infinite permutations, really.”
“That’s cool,” Felix said. “So… is there any way you could travel between these different universes?”
“Again, it’s all theoretical—but yes, I suppose. There is an idea of a wormhole. Generally it’s thought of as a way to allow people to fold space and time. But it also has been suggested that a wormhole could allow people to bridge different realities as well.” She paused for effect. “No one has ever seen a wormhole, but mathematically… they should be possible. Even so, it would take the gravitational pull of stars to open one, and even then…” She trailed off. “Are you two boys thinking about traveling to another universe sometime soon?”
Brady looked at Felix with mutual realization. What they had seen in the woods was true magic.
At that moment, the lights in the bookstore began to flicker, and Ms. Cooper looked around in frustration. Felix couldn’t help but think out loud. “I bet it’s happening again.”
Brady nudged him in the arm with his shoulder.
“Ouch!”
“You bet what’s happening, Felix?” said Ms. Cooper, peering down over her desk. She had stopped rapping the pen.
Felix caught himself. “Um… another power outage, Ms. Cooper. They seem to be happening more often these days.” Felix thought about telling her the story of the light in the woods, but figured she wouldn’t believe them. Anyway, he didn’t want it getting back to their mom that he and his brother were spending their free time lurking around his neighbors’ yard when she had clearly instructed them not to.
“Ah, yes, well… I wish someone would figure out whatever is causing it and put an end to it once and for all. It’s starting to hurt my business.”
The boys looked around the bookstore and were suddenly disheartened by how empty it was.
“Sorry, Ms. Cooper.”
She quickly changed the topic. “So, are you two ready for school? It starts in less than a month, right? Brady, you’re going to be a sophomore this year, I believe; and Felix, this is your last year of middle school, if I remember correctly?”
The boys nodded.
Another flicker.
Ms. Cooper stepped out from behind her desk. “Well, before you go, let me get something for you to read.” She guided the boys through a maze of bookshelves and began scanning through an aisle. Her finger ran across a row of book covers as she narrowed her search. A wooden sign on top of the shelves read “Physics” in engraved black letters.
“Found it,” she said, removing two leather-bound tomes from the shelf. “One for each of you.” She put the books into their arms with a thud. “You can borrow them as long as you bring them back when you’re finished.”
“Thanks, Ms. Cooper,” they said at the same time.
The lights flashed another few times, and then went out for good. The wooden ceiling fans slowly ground to a halt. It was if the life had suddenly been sucked out of the room.
“Sorry about the lights, Ms. Cooper. I guess Felix and I should probably go find our mom.”
“It was great to see you both. Please tell your mom I said hello.”
“Will do. Bye.”
Books in hand, Brady and Felix left the store, squinting as their eyes adjusted to the sunlight.
“I bet that girl opened the door again, Brady,” Felix said excitedly as they walked down the street. “That’s why the power is out.”
Brady nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.
Chapter 6: Blitz Realm
THE POWER WAS STILL OUT when the Bankses arrived home. Felix and Brady were exhausted from the night before, and despite their mom’s protests, they managed to sleep the rest of the afternoon away. By the time they woke up, the power was back on and dinner was simmering on the stove with a handwritten note stuck to the counter.
Felix read it to himself and tossed it in the trash. “Mom forgot something and had to run back to the store. She said she’d be home in a bit with dessert, but to go ahead and help ourselves to the food.”
“My pleasure. I’m starving,” Brady said, and he eagerly ladled steaming chili into two bowls. They garnished the dish with cheese, sour cream, green onions, and some corn tortilla chips their mom had set out for them on the counter. They were digging hungrily into the meal within seconds.
Finally, Felix paused to come up for air.
“What do you think about what Ms. Cooper told us?” he asked Brady, who was busy inhaling his food.
“I don’t know what to think,” Brady replied, swallowing a mouthful of chili. “None of this makes any sense. Last night feels like a dream—I still can’t believe the whole thing even happened. I mean, I sort of understand what she said about multiple universes and all, but come on. It seems like someone is pulling a prank on us.”
“It’s no prank. No one could pull off something like that. And even if they could, what would be the point?”
They continued the rest of the meal in silence, too hungry to speak. When they were done, they moved to the living room and plunked themselves down on the couch.
“You up for some Voxelverse?” Felix asked.
“Always.”
Voxelverse was a digital universe that consumed vast quantities of the boys’ free time—and then some. It was a different type of game. Instead of following a fixed script, players were free to do whatever they liked, which for the most part, involved building things from blocks and just trying to stay alive. There were no winners or losers. There was a block for almost any material imaginable—dirt, water, stone, lava, wood, glass, and many, many others. Different combinations of blocks could be assembled to make things in the game. In fact, people had worked together to recreate entire cities. Wood blocks could be broken apart into sticks, which could then be combined with stone to make swords, shovels, and other things. What had started out as a cult phenomenon had quickly grown into an international bestseller and become the currency of young and old gamers alike. And just when it had appeared that interest was starting to wane, a group of software developers revived it with support for virtual reality, bringing it to the next level. Now it was more popular than ever. For Brady and Felix, as well as most kids their age, it was safe to call it an addiction. It enraptured them and set their imaginations free.
Brady and Felix scooped their Orbature virtual reality glasses off the floor. Using his shirt, Felix wiped off the lenses—they had gotten somewhat dirty during their excursion in the woods. Then they launched Voxelverse on their phones and quickly pulled the glasses down over their eyes.
The title screen appeared in front of them, prompting them to choose a server. There were thousands of addresses to pick from, thousands of entirely different worlds, each with its own inhabitants and rules.
“Which server do you want to connect to?” Felix asked.
“I don’t know. How about Blitz Realm?”
“Sounds good to m
e. Finding the address… Okay, we’re there.”
The lenses faded to black, and a loading bar appeared, floating directly in front of them. The next thing they knew, the boys were standing in a grassy meadow overlooking a vast, pixelated landscape. A waterfall splashed down to their left, sending hundreds of tiny aquamarine cubes hurling out of the froth and high into the air. A bright square sun hung directly overhead as cubic clouds drifted lazily across the sky. The outline of a castle loomed on the horizon; it had taken the boys weeks of careful assembling to build it.
“What should we do first?” Felix asked as a blocky pig with a vacant expression meandered by.
Brady had already wandered off and was busy chopping down a tree so he could make wood planks for new construction. “We could try to find some villagers to trade with,” he suggested. “Or we could spend some time working on the dungeon. I’d like to put in a library.”
“A library? In a dungeon?” Felix asked.
“Of course,” Brady responded, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to do.
“If you say so. Let’s just get going toward the castle. We should try to get there before the sun sets.”
Felix looked over at Brady, who was now switching between different kinds of armor. His character’s head changed colors as he cycled between gold, diamond, and iron helmets.
“Come on, Brady.”
“Wait,” Brady said, and his avatar froze. “Do you see that?” His character waved a rectangular arm at a strange dot moving on the horizon. It started as a single pixel that grew larger as it approached. Soon the jumble of pixels coalesced into a person.
In Voxelverse, every player’s character had his or her name written above it, and no two players had the same name. This made it easier to tell exactly whom you were dealing with.
But there was no name above the visitor’s head.
The boys watched curiously as the anonymous player approached. Like everything else in Voxelverse, the game’s characters were constructed from blocks. As the stranger came nearer, the boys could see that it was dressed in all black. Its eyes and long hair were as dark as its clothes, and its face had only an expressionless rectangle for a mouth. It hovered rather than walked when it moved. None of the other players were coded this way.
The visitor stopped when it reached Brady and Felix.
The words walk with me scrolled in front of their world.
Felix and Brady both knew that characters couldn’t talk to other players without their approval first. The game was designed so that friends could only talk to other friends. So either this was a computer player, or someone had found a vulnerability in the code.
Troubled, Brady took off his glasses. “I’ve had enough weird stuff happen in the past twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime. I think I’m done.”
Felix, who was still wearing his glasses, replied, “It’s just a game. Calm down. They probably just added some new AI algorithms in the most recent update. Although… I admit though, this is pretty weird.”
Feeling silly, Brady reluctantly put his glasses back on. The mysterious player was still floating in front of them, waiting. After a few seconds, the message repeated itself once more. Then the player in black turned around and started walking toward the waterfall.
“Where is it going?” Brady asked. “There’s nothing but water and rock over there. We’ve gone back there a million times—the server won’t let you break those blocks.”
The player glided across the stream, passed straight through the waterfall, and disappeared.
Felix and Brady turned their cubed heads to stare at each other.
“No way…”
It was a rare occasion when something actually surprised Felix in this game.
He pushed his thumb forward on the phone screen and his onscreen character chased after the player. Brady did the same. They could hear the crystal clear roar of the waterfall in their ears as they neared the stream.
They plunged into crystal blue water before quickly resurfacing. Together they swam across the stream and into the waterfall. Brady looked up to see hundreds of cascading bubble blocks pass through him.
They were almost to the other side of the waterfall when their lenses went black.
The words “REDIRECTING SERVER” appeared in the center of their screen.
“What the—”
The message disappeared almost as soon as they read it. Now they were standing in a dark cavern. Two rows of flickering torches led down the rocky passage to a wooden door at the end. The walls were ablaze with fiery-hued pixels that blinked around the flames.
Felix glanced back at where they had entered. Ruby lava poured over the mouth of the cave, sealing them in.
The door was their only way out.
The boys made their way forward. Felix reached for the doorknob.
“You sure you want to go through there?” Brady said. “I don’t think we’re on the Blitz Realm server anymore.”
“Only one way to find out.” Felix opened the door with a click and stepped through. Brady was right behind him.
What happened next was almost too strange to describe.
The boys looked around and realized they were standing in their own living room—only this wasn’t real. Brady reached up to make sure he still had his glasses on. Every part of their house had been exquisitely recreated using blocks. A pixelated couch sat in the middle of the room, along with the coffee table, television, and everything else. Black and white rectangles danced randomly around the TV. Every detail was there. Even the wall colors were faithful. It was incredible.
Felix spun around, only to find the door they had just entered had vanished.
“I don’t like this, Brady. Someone’s hacked into the server. Someone who knows who we are.”
“Turn it off,” Brady said urgently.
Felix took his glasses off to power down the game. On his phone’s display were more words.
Continue on, Felix.
Yeah, right, he thought.
He pressed a few buttons to try to close out the program, but his phone wasn’t responding.
“Felix, you really need to see this.”
Curious, Felix put his glasses back on and was instantly transported back to the virtual living room. On the TV, the rectangular static was gone. There were now instructions waiting for them.
Go outside.
Beneath the screen was an arrow pointing toward the garage.
The boys followed.
As their avatars walked through their kitchen, they were astonished at how meticulously their house had been recreated, block by block. It would have taken Brady and Felix months to produce something this sophisticated, and even then, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as perfect.
On the kitchen table was an exact replica of Felix’s quadcopter. The word “Unwelcome” was painted in pixels on the exterior.
“Felix, do you see this?”
“I see it. Come on.”
The boys hurried past.
Outside, the player in black waited for them by the fence across their yard. Its rectangular arm extended outward, pointing at something near the fence. It was too hard to tell what it was from this distance.
As they walked across the back yard, the sky began to turn from a light blue to a dark crimson red. The sky grew darker with each step forward.
And then they saw what the dark player was pointing to.
Two other players were climbing the fence. The first was tall and skinny with red hair. The second player was shorter, with blond hair. The realization hit Brady and Felix like a ton of bricks.
They were watching themselves.
There was no question now who was behind this. The sky continued to darken as they stood and watched the virtual Brady and virtual Felix drop to the other side and run off into the blocky woods.
Brady looked back to the player in black, but she was gone. In her place was a sign.
It read: “Stay Away.”
They heard t
he sound of a door opening somewhere. They looked around but didn’t see anything. It took a few seconds for them to realize the sound had come from the real world. Then they heard the sound of their mother’s voice.
“I’m home! Can you guys help me unload the car please?”
“Sure Mom, just a second,” Felix responded queasily.
When they looked back at the sign, the words had changed. It now said: Tell no one about us.
The game stopped and the lenses went blank.
11000110
Brady’s mind filled with questions. Were they in danger now, he wondered? He wanted to tell his mom what had happened, but thought better of it. The stranger in black had warned him against that.
The sound of Felix’s voice brought Brady back to reality.
“They were watching us the other day.”
Brady looked down at his brother, who was sitting on the couch with his glasses dangling around his neck.
“Yeah, I know. It’s freaking me out!”
Brady felt his stomach tighten up as he started to realize the implications of what was happening. The stranger who had walked through the door of light was probably the same person who had sent this. Perhaps even more unsettling was the realization that someone had followed them home without them even realizing it.
It didn’t help that the girl had a sinister-looking mechanical hound as a pet. She had looked human, but the animal did not. And whatever it was, Brady knew he wanted nothing to do with it.
But they know who we are.
Right then and there, Brady decided he would spend the rest of the summer inside. Where it was safe—hopefully. He had seen things yesterday and tonight that he didn’t think were possible. If anyone else had shared these events with him, he would have thought they were crazy.
“I guess we’re probably in trouble now,” said Felix with resignation.
The Quantum Door Page 5
