Have you ever spent a lot of time with someone without really realizing it, spending time with almost no one but that person? And you're not quite sure if you want their company, or if they want yours, or if it's both? Even if you don't really know the person?
Well, a couple weeks after Poppa left, James comes into my bedroom where I'm stretched out on my bed reading, and says, "So I've noticed you and Amacus have been spending a lot of time together."
"Oh?" I say absently.
"Yeah, oh. What are you two doing? And don't tell me you're training."
I rest the book on my stomach. "Eating desserts, mostly. They don't really have sweet stuff on Tura, can you imagine that? That sounds like hell to me. And he's got such a sweet tooth."
"Mm. What about Alexa? Do you hang out with her too?"
"Sometimes, yeah. Why do you ask, James? Is it because you don't trust them?" I ask suspiciously. Suspicious of what, I'm not quite sure.
"After seeing you two train for three weeks, I don't really think they'll betray us, but it is nice that you are getting to know them. No, I was wondering, since you and Amacus are spending so much time together, that-"
Suddenly I know what he's talking about. I stand up quickly, heat rushing to my face. "It's nothing like that, James! At least not that I know of," I add weakly.
"Not that you know of?" James repeats. "What's that suppose to mean?"
"I-I don't know," I say, covering my face with my hands. "I really don't want to be having this conversation, James, not with you."
"Who else are you going to talk to?" James asks. "Hey, I'm the guy who told you about the birds and the bees."
"Do you not remember how uncomfortable that conversation was for both of us?" I demand, pulling my hands away so they rest on the sides of my face.
"I didn't say I wanted to be having this conversation, either, Callie. I don't want to think about it, but I know you're going to fall in love eventually and I don't want you to get hurt, that's all." James looks down at his hands.
"I'm. Not. In. Love," I say firmly.
James holds up his hands. "Okay, just making sure. I'm leaving now. Bye-bye." He slowly backs out of the room. I quickly go over and put my hand on the door so he doesn't close it all the way. "Can you just keep this between you and me?" I ask him.
"Sure, what is it?" he asks, leaning against the door frame.
"No, I mean this conversation," I clarify. "I don't want...certain people...getting the wrong idea."
"Masan," James guesses.
"Anybody, really. This-whatever it is- I don't want it to be public knowledge, okay?" I say.
"It's a small complex, Callie, I doubt it's going to stay quiet for long."
"I know, but for now, I'd like to deal with this myself. I don't know what's going on and I want to figure it out on my own, if that's okay," I say, placing my hands on the wall and leaning against them.
"Of course, but know that you can still come to me for advice if you really, really need it," James says. "And remember: you've only known the guy for three weeks. I don't want to sound hypocritical- I only, uh, knew Baya for a few, uh, days before we, um, uh, started seeing e-each other-" The discomfort in his voice was almost palpable- "but, uh, just take things slow, okay? I don't want you to get hurt."
"I get that, James, and I don't want to do anything until I figure out what's going on? And why would I only go to you for advice if I really, really need it?"
"Because I know you, Callie, and I know that you won't come to me for advice until it's catastrophic," James says.
"Okay, good point," I admit. "Speaking of advice, I think the twins only trust you or me for it."
"Meaning....?"
"Meaning that Amacus has told me that they don't really trust anyone here."
"Um, okay," James says, sounding very surprised. "Well, I'm flattered. And did they specify why?"
"No, but it's probably because you're in cahoots with the Chief and they seem very uncomfortable around the other adults or Keepers. They're not very out-going, if you've noticed," I add.
"No, I've noticed. They like to do their own thing," James says.
I smile and hold my arms out for a hug. James steps forward and squeezes me tightly. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I just wanted a hug," I say into his shoulder. "You're very warm."
"Oh, excellent, I thought I would be as cold as ice," James says. "You're warm, too. Actually, I'm fairly certain that most of the people in this building are warm, because we're alive and Azerans are very warm-blooded beings, did you know that?"
"I try to pay attention in Biology," I say, burying my face into his shoulder and breathing in the sweet scent of lavender-the only type of soap he likes. If you think that lavender's too girly for a guy, you don't know James.
"You try to?" James replies. "I thought you liked Biology."
"I can only learn so much about cells and life," I say.
"I have to agree with you there, I never did like Biology. By the way, I'm the only guy in this building you're allowed to hug," James says.
"Well, you're warm and smell nice, so I guess I can live with that," I pull away. "'Night, James. I'll see you in the morning."
"Ah, you're going to bed already?" James asks. He looks at the clock on my wall. "Oh, crap, it's late. Yeah, go to bed, kid. Love you, see you in the morning."
"Love you too. Go away," I say.
"Pfft, rude. Goodnight." And with that, he closes the door, allowing me to get ready for bed in privacy. I pull on my pajamas and climb into bed.
A man, a woman, and a soldier all stand in a large room dominated by an immense metal object. It's rectangular in shape with slanted corners, and at certain points inside the object purple lights pulsate. The man stands up close to it, the soldier right behind him. The woman lounges in a swivel chair behind them. She twists it back and forth aimlessly, her expression one of boredom. The man is contemplating the device in deep thought, and the soldier looks dreamy and out of it.
"Are you sure I need the girl to activate it?" the man asks.
"She was chosen for that reason, sir," the man says dreamily.
"Dammit," the man growls. "I thought it was just the files on the bio-chip! I thought I could find a loophole!"
"Well, those files can't time travel, can they?" the woman asks. "I mean, isn't that a time machine? And it worked before, with those weird tall people with the pointy teeth and black eyes."
"It's not a time machine, it's a gateway," the man snaps, "to a whole other dimension, where those 'weird tall people' came from and wiped out twenty of my people!"
"You have thousands, I doubt twenty made a difference," the woman says boredly.
The man doesn't seem to hear her. "Unless...maybe the twins passing through the gate somehow turned it on."
He turns to the soldier, who smiles blankly. "You, go stand on the ledge there."
"Yes, sir," the soldier says, and steps onto the gate.
"That makes no sense," the woman protests. "They weren't the first to pass through, so wouldn't it be on already?"
Both the man and the soldier ignore her. The soldier bounces on the balls of his feet as the man fiddles with the controls. Suddenly the purple lights stop pulsating and purple bolts of lightning shoots between them, connecting with different spots on the soldier. They glow brighter until I'm no longer able to make out what's going on. Then I hear a terrified scream.
The lights slowly dim, revealing the man and the woman staring at the gate. The soldier is nowhere to be seen.
"My love?" the woman says tentatively.
The man shrugs. "He was expendable."
"Maybe we should make sure he isn't dead?" the woman suggests. "You know the soldiers have trackers on them, so he should show up, if he's just...somewhere else..."
"Like a portal," the man says thoughtfully. He rushes over to a bank of computers behind the woman and pulls up a screen of a rotating planet. Azera. There are pulsating lights all over the maps, and in a lot of places, there are clusters of them, some blinking, some not. I think the still ones are the ones of the dead soldiers. The man types in a name-Tyler Con'Starah- and the picture changes completely. It no longer shows Azeroth but a mostly blue and green planet. I've never seen a picture of it, but I'm almost positive it's Earth. On a small continent towards the south the light blinks.
"Kiki, if we wanted to, we could go to Earth with this thing!" the man says excitedly.
"We already knew that, and don't call me Kiki," the woman says. "It's Kira."
"No, we knew that we could go to other dimensions because of the rift here," the man corrects her. "But we didn't know that we could go to Earth."
"Which we are able to do without the use of portals and rifts and all that good stuff," Kira points out. "Can we see the other rifts in this universe, though?"
"Oh, good point," the man says. He types in something else, and another point shows up. "There's two of them on Earth."
"Congrats, you can count," the woman turns the chair around to look. "I think that might be either Scranton or New York. Zoom in."
The man obliges. The woman leans in closer. "Yeah, that's closer to Scranton. Probably in the woods somewhere. Weird."
Scranton and New York go completely over my head, but I think they're cities on Earth.
"So, for now, we could go Earth," the man says.
"How would we get back? Simon, for as smart as you are, you tend not to think things through."
If this weren't a flashback, my knees would probably give out on me. This must be the super-secret military project that Poppa told us about. It's not a weapon, like I assumed. No, it's something more powerful. And possibly more dangerous. And if I'm right, those tall people Kira mentioned are sleeping on the same floor as me.
If I'm right, the twins aren't from this universe.
One of the best-and worst-parts of being an author is that moment when the pieces all fall into place and you have an amazing basic plot and it's just perfect-and the story isn't developed enough to start developing that plot because you just don't have enough information. I had this thing planned out for a few weeks now, and it drove me nuts because I had to wait until the right time to start working on this plot line. Ergh. But it's all good now, and I'm really excited for you guys to see how this all turns out.
On a side note, what song do you think best describes this story? I'm hoping I can get my readers more active and find more music to listen to (as if I need it- I have over two hundred songs on my MP3 and 155 songs on the playlist on Spotify I listen to while writing). Personally, I think "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys (which I listened to while formulating this idea), "It has Begun," by Starset (good song-you should listen to it!) or "Castle of Glass" by Linkin Park. What do you think?