Hawking's Hallway

by Neal Shusterman

  The past few months had been traumatic for him and Danny. But the haziness of his memories of Colorado Springs seemed more than just shock- and grief-related. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something crucial he was missing.

  To escape his thoughts, he decided to take Danny to the beach that weekend.

  The Jersey Shore was not exactly like the beaches in Florida. And in May, even though the day was warm, the water was far too chilly for swimming.

  “I don’t like the sand,” Danny said as he tried to build a sand castle. “It’s too brown.”

  There weren’t all that many people on the beach with them. Some couples, a few muscle-bound poseurs, an old man scouring the sand with a metal detector.

  As the man moved closer with the device, Wayne Slate began to feel a sense of growing dread. There was a memory on the cusp of his mental horizon, trying to force its way through. An important and terrifying memory that seemed to peak every time the old man swung the metal detector toward their blanket.

  It wasn’t only him. Danny sensed it too.

  “Dad,” he said, looking up at him for some explanation, “I feel weird.”

  Wayne nodded, and glanced at the metal detector.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I seem to have dropped my keys in the sand. Do you think you could help me find them?”

  The old man was happy to oblige, swinging the metal detector around them and over their blanket.

  Now the sensation was even stronger. The magnetic field, thought Wayne. It was giving him the same feeling he’d had when they’d passed through the metal detector at the airport—a feeling he’d never said anything to Danny about.

  He reached into his bag, grabbed a pen and a crumpled napkin he found on the bottom, and gave them to Danny.

  “What do you want me to do with these?” Danny asked.

  “In case you feel the urge to write something.”

  And though Danny didn’t get it, he took the pen and napkin and stood at the ready anyway.

  “No, over there,” Wayne said to the man with the metal detector. “Over where my son is.”

  The man swung the metal detector closer to Danny, scanning the sand right near him.

  Danny gasped, and began to write on the napkin.

  Then he seemed to throw himself away from the magnetic field, as if it was just too much to bear.

  Wayne reached into his pocket. “Will you look at that? My keys are right here. How silly of me.”

  The old man chuckled. “Happens to the best of us,” he said, then continued along the beach in search of buried treasure.

  As soon as the man was gone, all sense of lost memories vanished.

  “Dad,” Danny said, “I wrote something, but it’s weird. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Wayne Slate took the napkin. In hastily scrawled block letters, Danny had written a simple sentence:

  I HAVE A BROTHER AND HIS NAME IS NICK.

  Wayne Slate’s older son—the son he didn’t know he had—rode in a pale opalescent SUV that seemed to change color from moment to moment. Occasionally a passing driver would notice it and make a mental note to himself: I want one like that. Of course, the motorist would never be able to get it, at least not until the Accelerati licensed the electrostatic pigment technology to the automotive industry for a ridiculously high price.

  While Nick was with Edison, he was stuck wearing Victorian fashions. For work out in the field he’d been offered his own Madagascan spider-silk suit, but he’d refused, insisting instead on a cotton polo shirt, jeans, and a light nylon jacket.

  “You really should try it,” Petula said, sitting next to him in the SUV. “Spider silk breathes when it’s hot out and insulates in the cold.” She wore an Accelerati blouse of seafoam green. “Wanna touch it?” she asked Nick.

  The thought of touching anything that was touching Petula was beyond questionable. “I’ll pass,” he told her.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and shrugged. “But if you’re gonna be Accelerati, you’re eventually going to have to buy the whole farm.”

  Nick looked out the window to avoid Petula’s gaze. Originally he had agreed to wear the pin, and to be Accelerati in name only, in order to save his father and brother.

  But here he was, actually working for them.

  He could tell himself that Edison was the only one with the resources to make Tesla’s machine work properly. He could also tell himself that the Accelerati represented more than the greedy desires of Alan Jorgenson. Still, none of that changed the fact that Nick was now doing the bidding of the very organization he had been trying to protect the world from.

  He had never felt so divided.

  “If I were you,” Petula said, “I wouldn’t try to get in touch with Mitch and Caitlin. Bringing them back into this would only hurt them.”

  “Really?” said Nick. “And who’s going to hurt them? You, with your online theoretical jujitsu course?”

  “Theoretical jujitsu is only used in self-defense,” Petula said. “But there’s an Accelerati enforcement division, and I wouldn’t want to rub them the wrong way.”

  If only he could pick up a phone and call Caitlin just to talk to her, even if she told him he was an idiot for what he was doing, it would make him feel better.

  But Edison was very strict about keeping Nick as isolated as possible. Even here in Colorado Springs, there was a whole team in a second SUV behind them to make sure he stuck to the plan.

  “Why aren’t you riding back there with them?” Nick asked Petula. “Why are you here with me?”

  Petula looked away. “You won’t always be this angry,” she said. “Someday you’ll realize I’m only trying to help you.”

  Nick wondered if Petula really believed that. It was hard to buy that she was trying to help anyone but herself. That’s what made her a perfect Acceleratus. She was skilled at making herself believe that what was good for Petula was good for everyone else in the world.

  But was Nick any better?

  Things had been easier when the Accelerati were very clearly the enemy. Even if Nick didn’t know how to fight them, he knew whom to fight. Now he didn’t even know that. He couldn’t even be sure there was an enemy at all.

  No, that wasn’t true. Time was everyone’s enemy, because the copper asteroid was continuing to build up a deadly charge, and the machine was still the only way to discharge it.

  When they arrived on the street where the man who’d bought the prism lived, there was a car in the driveway, indicating that someone was probably home.

  As Nick, Petula, and the men in the second SUV piled out of their cars, Nick addressed them. “I’m going in alone.”

  The Accelerati seemed dubious.

  So Nick made it very clear. “I’m going in alone, or we’re not going in at all.”

  “We could go in without you,” one of the Accelerati threatened.

  “The Old Man left me in charge of this,” Nick said as forcefully as he could. “And you don’t even know what you’re looking for. So you’ll wait.”

  The Accelerati backed off, and Nick found it amazingly satisfying to be able to order them around.

  “Well, I’m coming with you, right?” Petula said.

  “I said I’m going in alone,” Nick repeated. He turned and marched toward the front door.

  The Accelerati, he knew, would tear the place up while looking for the prism, and bully the people inside, either physically or through subtle threats, until they got it. Nick had to believe he wasn’t like them.

  Edison had said he thought the Accelerati were capable of change. If that were true, Nick would be that change. He knocked on the door with confidence and a singularity of purpose.

  The door was opened by a kid maybe six or seven years old. He took one look at Nick, said, “Get lost!” and slammed the door.

  Considering Nick’s previous run-in at this house, he concluded that this was an obnoxious family. He pounded again. Then a second time, and a third, m
aking it clear they could ignore him all they wanted, but he wasn’t going to go away.

  Finally the man who had purchased the prism in the first place came to the door. He was perhaps sixty, bald on top, with a rim of gray hair.

  Before he could speak, Nick barged past him into the house. If they wanted him out, they would have to physically throw him out.

  “I don’t know what you want,” the man said, “but you can’t come in here.”

  Nick ignored him. “We both know why I’m here,” Nick said, “so don’t play games. I sold you something that I need back.”

  “You can’t have it,” the man said, and he turned and stormed deeper into the house.

  Nick pursued, only to be ambushed. A twenty-something guy grabbed him and held him while a kid his own age started punching him in the stomach.

  Nick kicked high, breaking a lamp, but also connecting with the teen, bringing him down.

  “Careful,” said a guy in his thirties who was holding a baby.

  The seven-year-old shouted, “Beat him up! Beat him up! It’s all his fault!”

  The teen, having hit his head on the table when he fell, was still rubbing his wound, giving Nick a moment to break free.

  He had only an instant to take in the situation. There were seven people in that living room. The man with the baby, the obnoxious seven-year-old, the kid his age, the twenty-something dude, the guy from his garage sale, and an extremely old man sitting on a rocking chair in the corner, mumbling to himself. They were obviously all related. It was a big family of all men. The house didn’t seem large enough to accommodate so many people and so much clutter.

  “Hear me out!” Nick said. They all hesitated. “The thing you got in my garage sale, the prism inside a vacuum tube, is part of a very important machine, and I need it back.”

  “What makes you think we want to give it to you?” asked the man holding the baby.

  “That EMP that knocked out the power happened because you wouldn’t give it to me the first time I came.”

  “That’s not our problem,” said the twenty-something guy.

  “I’m willing to pay for it,” Nick said, and he reached into his pocket. He had convinced Edison to allow him to bargain. His hand shook when he held out the bills, because they were all thousands. “What did you pay for it? Forty dollars? Here’s twenty thousand to get it back. That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask me.”

  The man with the baby looked toward the sixty-year-old, who must have been his father. “That would really help with expenses.”

  “The cost of food alone is killing us,” grumbled Great-Grandpa, all the way in the corner.

  “But we can’t give it back,” said the kid Nick’s age. “If we do, we’ll never—”

  “Shut up,” said the sixty-year-old, who seemed to be in charge.

  “You know what? Just give it to him,” said the twenty-something. “See if I care.”

  “Easy for you to say!” shouted Great-Grandpa, trying to rise from his chair but unable to. “You have your whole life in front of you!”

  “Yeah! And I won’t waste it like you did.”

  “Here we go again,” said the seven-year-old. “Blah, blah, blah.”

  “Let’s just take the money and then kick his butt out of here,” said the kid Nick’s age.

  “Stop it!” insisted the man in charge, and he turned to Nick. “The answer is no. It will always be no. Now get out of here if you know what’s good for you.”

  Nick put the money back in his pocket. “All right, then, if that’s the way you want it.” And he reached into his other pocket and pulled out something that looked distinctly like a weapon, because that’s exactly what it was.

  Edison had agreed to let Nick bargain for the prism, under one condition: that Nick also went in there armed with an Accelerati weapon to protect himself.

  “What does it do?” Nick had asked.

  “Let’s just say it will remove the subject from the situation,” Edison had told him.

  The family froze when they saw the weapon.

  “Don’t you understand?” yelled Nick. “I need it to save the world!”

  “Maybe the world shouldn’t be saved,” grumbled Great-Grandpa, shaking his cane from his seat.

  Nick had never seen a more bitter collection of people. The man in charge looked at the weapon and shrugged.

  “Then shoot us,” he said. “We’ll all be better off.”

  Nick leveled the weapon at him. “I’m not joking,” he said.

  Then the twenty-something guy lunged at him. Nick swung the weapon toward him, and out of reflex, fired.

  The guy vanished. All that remained were his clothes and the earring he had been wearing, which fell to the floor.

  “No!” yelled the seven-year-old.

  “What did you do to him?” shouted the teen.

  The baby started crying, and his father tried to comfort him.

  Nick was as horrified as the rest of them. “I…I don’t know,” he stuttered. Then he cleared his throat and spoke more firmly. “But I’ll do it again if you don’t give me the prism.”

  Just a moment’s more hesitation, and the guy in charge put his hand on his bald head. Then he reached into a cabinet, pulled out a little velvet bag, and handed it to Nick. Inside was the glass vacuum tube containing the prism.

  “Just go,” the man said. “Get out of here.”

  Nick dug in his pocket for the wad of cash. When he fished it out, the clip opened, and the bills fell to the floor. “Keep it,” he said, but no one went to pick them up.

  “Money can’t save us,” Great-Grandpa said.

  Nick looked at the prism. Had these people been unhappy before it had come into their lives, or was misery the only gift it had brought?

  “What does it do?” Nick asked the gray-haired man.

  “You’ll have to find that out for yourself,” he said.

  Nick backed out the door, holding the weapon on them with shaking hands, fearing that any one of them might leap on him and take it back. Once outside, he ran to the SUV.

  “Did you get it?” Petula asked.

  Nick held up the velvet sleeve. One of the Accelerati moved to grab it, but Nick put it back into his jacket pocket. Mine, he wanted to say. Instead he said, “Just leave it with me. I need to study it, so I can figure out how it works.”

  They got into their respective cars. Nick held his silence until he was alone with Petula.

  “I think I killed somebody,” he confessed, his face pale.

  “With what?”

  Nick pulled out the weapon and showed her.

  Petula laughed. “No you didn’t. You just gave him a spatial hiccup. In twenty minutes he’ll appear back in the exact same spot, a little bit confused and a whole lot naked.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. We call it ‘birthday-suiting.’”

  Nick handed the weapon to her in disgust. He had told himself he wouldn’t bully those people, that he would reason with them, and with reason he would get what he wanted.

  But in the end, he was nothing more than another Accelerati thug, bending innocent people to his will.

  While Nick was bending innocent people to his will, Caitlin, Mitch, and Zak were a few miles away in Memorial Park, standing in front of Tesla’s ruined historical marker. It had been run down a few weeks earlier when they were escaping from the Accelerati and the angry tornado filled with angrier felines.

  “Don’t ask,” Caitlin told Zak when he wanted more information about that particular fiasco. There were parts of the story Caitlin chose not to share with him. As far as she was concerned, they were best forgotten by all.

  “And we’re here because…?” Zak questioned.

  “Because I said the answers were in Tesla’s lab,” Mitch told him. “And my predictions are always right when I’m angry.”

  Zak shook his head in what seemed to Caitlin a mixture of amazement and disbelief. “Someone ought to do a study of you. You defi
nitely have pistons firing in alternate dimensions.” And then he looked around. “You think it’s safe to be out in the open like this?”

  “The Accelerati are busy excavating the steel ring around Nick’s house,” Mitch said. “I’m sure they know we’re back in Colorado Springs. If they really wanted to nab us, they’d have done it at the airport. I’d say right now they’ve got bigger fish to nuke.”

  “Good point,” Caitlin said. “Let’s hope they see us like ants at a picnic. Until we’re in the potato salad, we’re somebody else’s problem.” She looked around to get her bearings, then pointed north. “Nick once told me Tesla’s old lab was up this street. There’s just a house there now, at the corner of Foote and Kiowa.”

  They left the park, and as they approached the house they could see about a dozen people camped out on the sidewalk, to the chagrin of the guard dogs on the other side of the wrought-iron fence.

  “Who are all these people?” asked Zak.

  “I don’t know,” said Caitlin, a little bit worried. The crowd did not appear to be Accelerati. This was something else.

  As they got closer, they noticed the people were wearing T-shirts with pictures of Tesla and Wardenclyffe Tower. One woman had weird Tesla-coil earrings. One guy held a sign that read HONK IF YOU LOVE TESLA. And people were indeed honking as they drove past.

  “I think your secret is out,” said Zak.

  “This can’t have anything to do with us,” Mitch said.

  A man wearing a tinfoil-covered baseball cap approached them and asked, “Are you part of Team Tesla?”

  Caitlin remembered Nick telling her that the occasional Tesla fanatic showed up at this house. She supposed that the EMP had dragged out a fresh slew of them.

  “Uh, kinda,” Caitlin said.

  “Tesla’s cryonically frozen head is under Colorado Springs, you know,” said the woman with the weird earrings.

  “No,” said Caitlin, “that’s Walt Disney.”

  “Walt Disney is under Colorado Springs?” the woman asked, surprised.