By the time school started, Anna had run five miles, performed pull-ups and push-ups until her arms gave out, and listened to an introductory tour of special relativity. She also rode her bike the three miles to school. By first period, her legs were rubber and her hands began to cramp as she wrote. By second period, she had dozed off in the back of the room..
That night, just before sleep and in the darkness of her room, Anna received another call on her iCom. This time it was to play a game, at least that’s what Mara called it. The rules were simple; all she had to do was stare at a small glowing sphere that floated six inches above her iCom. Any time her mind wandered or she tried to focus too hard, the sphere of light would fade. The best she could muster that first night was thirty seconds of uninterrupted focus, which she accomplished just before collapsing on her bed asleep, still in the clothes she wore to school earlier in the day.
So this is what bootcamp feels like, Anna thought as she woke up the second morning. As Mara barked orders, Anna began to fantasize ways of disabling her iCom, like putting the iCom on mute or cutting her arm off. She ached in places she didn’t know could ache. It was a new dawn, a new path to run, and a new lecture on the nature of time.
Throughout the day, no one else could hear Mara over the iCom. No one could see the lights or the holographic images projected above her wrist. Mara said that was because the light signals and audio waves from the iCom were beamed directly onto Anna’s retina and eardrums. Mara was like an ever present voice in her head, an imaginary friend.
By the end of the fourth day, people began to notice the odd behavior. Anna had ditched the bike and began running back and forth from school instead, past the muscle aches, past the farm fields and irrigation lines, and the odd looks from farmers as they watched this strange new girl sprint home. One farmer even stopped his truck and asked her what she was running from, his face concerned.. At home, Uncle Jack had noticed the quick spike in her appetite and predicted a growth spurt would be coming soon. Armstrong women tended to be on the tall side.
As the week rolled on, Scout volunteered as Anna’s training partner and rode his bike along with her as she ran back and forth to school. Fiona and Lula joined soon after and the four became a familiar sight, a caravan of friends along the one lane roads outside the town of Smartt
Mara began to change the cadence of Anna’s morning runs. Sprint...now slow your pace...jump...sprint...jump. She broke down why these movements were necessary, and that they were perfectly calibrated to maximize Anna’s conditioning and endurance. Anna was sure it was to maximize her irritation, instead.
Each day Anna asked when they would meet again. And each day, Mara responded with the same answer — when you’re ready.
New movements and exercises were introduced. Some to develop focus. Some to improve flexibility and boost strength. Some to increase visual acuity, which Anna didn’t even think was possible. Each movement had a purpose, and Anna performed them without fail, even though she felt awkward, and looked awkward like a girl trying to put out a fire.
Up, down, back and forth, focus, focus, focus. New things to learn and paths to run. She was given a crash course in classical physics the first month, then ventured into subjects no schools would teach for more than a hundred years, the next; reshaping neural networks in her head and allowing for brand new connections. The days melted into one another as the end of school drew near. Temperatures rose and the fireflies emerged and the spring crops carpeted the fields in a bed of green.
Anna didn’t notice the changes at first. They were subtle. But, she soon found she was able to do pull ups without the help of the wooden crate. She could run, even sprint, for miles without losing her breath. And, the daily aches were long gone. She noticed lean muscles and cuts in her arms and legs that were never there before. Even her face began to look different, older.
The changes weren’t just physical. She could now focus for extended periods of time, keeping the sphere of light suspended above her iCom without faltering. The world had slowed down for her, too. Things that had once moved by in a blur, now came into focus; the flap of a bird’s wing or the gait of a running horse. She remembered hearing about baseball players who could see the individual threads of a baseball spin as it left the pitcher’s hand. And, somehow over the weeks of training she had developed a similar ability.
Two months in, she no longer asked when they’d meet again, she no longer saw her training as a task to get through, but just the way things were. A constant in her life, just like Mara’s voice over the iCom.
Anna hadn’t physically seen Mara in almost nine weeks, but over that time she learned to understand her quirky sense of humor and timing. She had grown accustomed to Mara’s constant presence. Like clockwork, she knew when to expect Mara’s voice over the iCom. So, on that morning before the last day of school, when Mara failed to contact her as scheduled, Anna had a feeling something was wrong.
Mara hadn’t called all day. No signal. No orders. No new course to run. The anxious feeling that started as a hollow pit in her stomach earlier that morning, became a full blown panic attack by evening.
Anna sat out on the front porch with her Uncle Jack, as the sun set and the night sounds came out in full chorus. Fireflies circled the Oak tree in the front yard like strings of Christmas lights. She tried to read, but found herself stuck in a loop on the same paragraph for almost fifteen minutes. Her uncle sat across from her, pencil in his mouth, and all of his attention focused on the sketchpad in his lap. The porch light cast long shadows across his face.
“What are you working on?” Anna asked, trying to distract herself.
“I’m just doing a little math. I’m trying to figure out how much carbon we can sequester, or capture, over the course of a year,” Uncle Jack said. “Want to double check my work?”
Uncle Jack handed over his notebook. On the left side of the page was a systems diagram with inputs and outputs. On the right, a lot of really sloppy handwriting.
“It looks like you sketched this with your feet,” Anna smiled.
“Don’t grade me on neatness, just let me know if it makes sense,” Uncle Jack laughed.
“The diagram makes sense, but…”
The sound of crickets stopped as if someone suddenly flipped off the volume. The air felt charged. A dry breeze rustled the leaves, but there were no other sounds except for the slight squeak from the porch swing. Herbie, who had been sleeping next to Uncle Jack’s feet, started to whimper and looked nervously towards the horizon.
Uncle Jack and Anna exchanged a puzzled glance. From across the lawn, the fireflies started to blink in unison, on and off and back on again, like Morse code.
“That’s weird,” Uncle Jack rose slowly from his chair.
Anna felt it first; a static itch that raised the hair on her arms. She instinctively looked down. Uncle Jack must have felt it too because he was absently rubbing his arms.
“You feel that…”
Uncle Jack was cut off by the deep rumble like distant thunder, followed by the sound of a horn, a sound so deep Anna could feel it in her bones. She put her hands over her ears in surprise. The horn blast changed pitch, deeper now. It seemed to come from everywhere. The sound of two ocean liners ramming into each other. Twisting metal. Herbie began to howl in harmony.
Uncle Jack grabbed his mobile phone. He tapped on the screen and then paced back and forth waiting for the person on the other line to answer.
“Hey, RG. RG!” Uncle Jack shouted into the phone. “Are you hearing this?”
“Yeah, [static]. Everyone…[static] hearing it,” Dr. Gloria’s voice on the speaker could barely be heard above the sound.
“Is it a weather event?”
“We have our drones out, but we’re not ...[static],” Dr. Gloria shouted above the noise. “Wait —we’re getting some crazy barometric readings! Holy cow! Sensors in the northeastern fields just dropped below 26.”
“That’s impossible. There’s not a cloud in the sky,” Uncle Jack shouted back. “Can we track the origin?”
“Not yet. What the heck [static], Jack?”
“I don’t know, but I’m heading over to the lab right now. Maybe the AEDT can identify where this is coming from. Call me back if you find anything,” Uncle Jack tucked his phone in his pocket and looked down at Anna.
“Stay put. I’ll be right back!” Uncle Jack shouted as he bounded down the steps.
Anna watched her uncle run in a full sprint across the yard and out towards the barns. Just as he faded from view, her iCom flashed blue. The first sign from Mara in over a day. Anna waited until she was sure her uncle was gone.
“Mara! What’s going on!?” Anna shouted into her wrist.
“The sound? It isn’t me. Not directly,” Mara’s voice was clear and sharp in Anna’s ear.
“What do you mean, not directly?”
The horn blast began to trail off, followed by a rolling echo that she could almost see dissipate across the valley. Anna heard shouts from some of Uncle Jack’s team. People were scrambling under the barnyard lights. Some were quieting the horses agitated by the trumpet blast. Gladness and Uncle Jack were talking side by side in the distance.
“That was one of those tears in space time you talked about, wasn’t it?” Anna asked.
“I’ll explain tomorrow. Wait for my call,” Mara paused. “Based on what happened tonight, this phase of your training is over.
Minutes later, as the last of the trumpet blast echoed across the valley, a shadow peeked its head above the surface of Tyson Lake. It stared out across the water, disoriented, unsure if it was swimming in a sea of stars. Long, spider-like fingers dragged across the surface, creating ripples in the water that disturbed the reflection of the stars and the moon overhead. The shadow could breathe here through its skin and mouth-lining, but everything else felt wrong. It looked up into the heavens. The familiar planets and stars were gone, as was the gaseous purple nebula that served as a constant and comforting marker in the sky. The magnetic fields were all wrong, too. And, it felt so light here, like floating.
The shadow easily leapt from the water, using only its legs to propel it, and landed silently on a small patch of land. So much lighter here, and warmer. Strange plants rustled in the night breeze. The shadow reached out with its one of four fingers and touched a leaf, leaving behind a trail of green light. Time to plant. It made a soft clicking sound in its throat, and the skin on its forearm unfurled in small black feathers. Slowly lights began to float from the opening in its skin like small phosphorescent dandelion seeds; small, blue and green lights that caught the breeze and began to float lazily across the lake.
The shadow watched and listened as the lights skimmed across the water’s surface. Some lazily descended into the water where their lights were extinguished. Others spun around each other, darting and bouncing off one another, like birds playing. A few made a direct line to the far shore where they landed on the ground to form a straight line of light that pulsed in the distance. A signal to follow. The shadow leaped into the water and headed to the far shore, barely making a sound.
The last hour of the last day of school dragged on forever. Time was broken, the kids were all sure, including the teacher who repeatedly tapped on the side of the clock in a futile attempt to hurry time along. Finally, the bell struck noon and the kids exploded from the classroom like horses from the starting gate.
Anna and her two friends headed for the Ivanhoe Diner right after school. They shared theories on what caused the sound from the night before as they walked down cracked sidewalks lined with weeds towards the fairgrounds. Fiona said it might be a strange weather phenomenon. Lula wondered if it had anything to do with climate change. Anna stayed silent. A rip in time space might be a little difficult to explain.
As they turned the corner they were greeted by a large neon medieval knight perched atop a run-down drive-in that had seen much better days. The Ivanhoe Diner was a local landmark and a tradition for local students on the last day of school. Most of the kids in town had had the same idea and by the time the three friends made it to the front door of the cafe, all the seats inside had been taken.
The three ordered their food and took it outside to a small bench near the entrance. Inside, the diner was all chaos and music blaring and loud voices. Out in front, it was quiet enough to hear the flies buzz in the heat.
“Congratulations, you guys. We’re officially high schoolers,” Lula lifted her strawberry shake in a toast.
“Yep. And, look at us. Still on the outside looking in,” Anna tapped her plastic cup in return.
“I hear there is a party at the quarry tonight? A high school party,” Fiona said. “All the incoming freshmen have been invited. Even us, I guess.”
Anna paused. She wanted more than anything to tell her friends the truth, that she was actually wearing something called anti-gravity boots, that she’d been hiding a great secret and she would be searching for wormholes that night, yes...wormholes to other dimensions with her new friend from the future. But, she was good at keeping her promises even though she wanted to burst. It was the single hardest thing she’d done over the past nine weeks, harder than all the workouts, the lectures, the early mornings, and sleepless nights combined.
“I don’t think I can make it,” Anna kicked at weeds that had grown beneath the bench. “My uncle has plans I think.”
“Yeah, I probably can’t either. My brother ruined it for me when he went to a quarry party last year. My parents found him shirtless in a tree…”
Bam!
All three girls jumped at the loud crack against glass and quickly turned to see a figure laughing hysterically inside the diner. It was Scout, his hands and face pressed against the plate glass window.
“You’re such an idiot!” Fiona shouted through the window. “You made me spill my onion rings.”
Scout blew air kisses in her direction. Then realizing he had an audience, he pressed his mouth against the window and blew his cheeks out like a puffer fish. For a brief moment they could see the exact contents of Scout’s mouth, from silver fillings to a chipped tooth.
“Ewww,” Lula's lip curled in disgust. “That boy is so strange.”
Scout walked casually to the front door of the cafe and poked his head out. “What are you ladies doing out here by yourselves?”
“Avoiding you,” Fiona said.
“Ha, I love you too, Fiona,” Scout strolled outside with his hands in his pockets, then pointed to the onion rings scattered at Fiona’s feet. “Are you going to eat those?”
When the girls didn't answer, he picked up one of the larger onion rings and knelt before Anna. He took her hand in his own and looked up into her eyes.
“Anna, will you take this onion ring as a sign of my devotion?”
“Sorry Scout,” Anna smiled and yanked her hand back. “You’re a little too young for me.”
“Fair enough,” Scout stood up and tossed the onion ring out into the street. He wiped the grease on his pants leg. “So, are you guys going to the quarry party tonight?”
“Quarry is off limits for me,” Lula said. “Don’t tell me your parents are actually letting you go.”
“Are you kidding? I can do whatever I want,” Scout picked up another onion ring and tossed it at a passing car. “And what I want is not to be pummeled by my older brother and his stupid friends. He told me they’d pants me if I showed up tonight. So yeah. I’m not going.”
“What’s the plan then?” Anna asked.
“That’s why I came out here to ask you guys. The fellows are thinking about a game night at my house,” Scout asked. “All the cold pizza you can eat. What do you say, Anna?”
Anna’s iCom buzzed. Although she knew the others couldn’t hear, she’d learned not to react too quickly to avoid raising suspicion. The iCom buzzed again and Anna casually glanced down at her wrist, even though she wanted to get up and run out as fast as she could. She looked for a graceful exit instead.
“How quickly can you get here?” Mara’s voice was urgent on the iCom.
“Uh...” Anna almost answered out loud out of habit. She stopped just in time, but forgot to shut her mouth, which now hung open like a dead fish.
“Hey Armstrong. Are you having a seizure?” Scout waved his hand in front of Anna’s face.
“I see you have company. Hmmm, I have an idea,” Mara paused. “Accessing your cellular networks. Calling now. Answer your phone.”
“Excuse me?” Anna tried to process the two simultaneous conversations.
“I asked if you wanted to come over tonight,” Scout spoke slowly.
“I said answer your phone,” Mara’s voice was impatient.
Anna’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She was glad for the reprieve. She raised her index finger in a “give me a second” gesture and pulled out her mobile phone. Mara was on the other line.
“Tell your friends it is time for you to go,” Mara said. “Meet me at the lake in the next thirty minutes.”
The line went silent.
If her friends had been paying close enough attention, they’d have seen Anna’s eyes dilate less than a half a millimeter and her pulse quicken. Even though Anna had no idea what to expect, her body was already preparing for what was ahead. Adrenaline had kicked in.
Anna shoved her phone in her pocket. “Sorry guys. I have to fly.”
She closed her eyes briefly at the pun. She couldn’t help herself.