A Beginning
By: Daniel Frank
She walked into the coffee shop and took a seat in the booth beside the door, opening the newspaper as soon as she sat down. The front page showed a picture of a few men and women in white coats standing around a building, smiling at the camera. Something about “evidence of a Higgs boson found at CERN” ran across the top of the page. She didn’t really see the words though, as her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. She focused on her form like she’d been taught, horrified at the idea of an accidental Shift, and tried to calm her nerves. She slowly lowered the newspaper to peek over the top of the page, searching for her target. It was early in the morning and few people were in the shop. She slowly let her gaze travel along the rubber floor towards the tables around the café. Each table had four metallic stools, with red cushions emerging from the top like rubies. For a moment, the legs seemed to spring out of the chair bases like a spider ready to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Just your nerves, they are just chairs. A student sat at one of the tables, lost in his thoughts, blue bags under his eyes and with unkempt hair. He was fervently flipping through a large textbook entitled Basic Biology. She sighed with relief that she was done with her academic studies and looked at the bar in the far corner of the shop, scanning the metallic barstools, larger brethren of the small spider stools around the tables. Only one person was at the bar, sitting in the middle, his back turned towards her, his long white hair tied with a blue ribbon. He sat very still, seeming to focus on something he held in front of him in his hands. Curiously, she shifted in her seat, trying to get a glance at what he was holding. The man’s head whipped around and he stared straight at her. She dropped her gaze to the table top immediately and cursed herself silently.
Oh god. Violet eyes. She studied the table meticulously and tried to slow her breathing. Lesson 23: Distraction. She focused on the table in front of her, and noticed a thin layer of dust covering it. The silverware in front of her had water spots on it, and a piece of what appeared to be egg stuck to the middle prong of the fork. She let her gaze wander slowly across the table, focusing on the edge the table, noticing a glass that seemed to have a smudge on the rim, with brown liquid filling it about halfway. Her gaze dropped down from the glass in slowly increasing terror to the plate with eggs on it. They seemed to be scrambled, with little pieces of bacon and a half-eaten biscuit on the other side of the plate. A fork was sticking in the eggs, no, it wasn’t sticking. A hand was attached to the fork. The fingernails were neatly trimmed, and a thin coat of hair covered the knuckles and upper part of the fingers. She tore her eyes off the hand and followed it up to the arm, over the elbow and up the broad shoulder to the face inevitably attached to the neck, looking at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement. Bright blue eyes met hers, brown at the moment, and the young man sitting across from her cocked his head to one side.
“Hi, can I help you?” he asked.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry. I didn’t realize anyone was, that is to say, I didn’t… realize… I … I… I have to be… somewhere else… Now,” she stammered in response, got up, and opened the door to the café. As she walked through the door, she risked a quick glance at the bar, but the man with the violet eyes was gone. She ducked into the nearest alley, checked that no one was around, and Shifted.
***
Jack stared after the old woman who had just stumbled out of the coffee shop and shook his head, perplexed. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the first time a random stranger had sat down right across the table from him without even noticing him, though the last time they didn’t have that look of shock and complete horror on their face. But just for a split second he could have sworn that her eyes… He stared down at this Irish coffee and pushed it to the edge of the table. Jesus, I really gotta lay of the booze.
He glanced down at his watch and sighed, looking around for the waitress. A tall man with broad shoulders slid into the booth across the table from him.
“Hello Jack. I was just passing through on my way to a meeting and saw you through the window. I thought I would come in and see how you were doing. Is everything all right? Did anything out of the ordinary happen to you?” he asked in his typical flat tone.
“What? Yea fine. Some old lady practically sat down on top of me, kind of funny, but… what are you doing here? I thought-”
“Did she say anything? Do anything strange? Or give you something?” his uncle interrupted.
Jack leaned back and looked at this uncle.
“No, she was old. She probably didn’t even see me at first. Then she did all of a sudden and looked horrified and basically ran out of the café. Man, I never want to get old. Completely out of it-”
His uncle arched an eyebrow at him and Jack suddenly became very aware of his uncle’s white hair.
“Not like you, I mean not you-old. Like old-old, not that you’re old. You know. 70 old. Anyway… how’s teaching? Any interesting stories?”
“Fine, fine. Are you sure she didn’t give you anything at all, Jack, or say anything strange?” his uncle persisted.
“Yes, I’m telling you, she was just confused. Why are you so interested in this?”
His uncle nodded and turned towards the window, scanning the street outside. He stood up and walked to the door, turning back to Jack halfway through the door.
“You should go home soon. It’s getting late,” and with that he was gone.
Jack stared after his uncle in utter confusion. Late? It was barely 8 in the morning. Crap, 8? Shit. He shook his head silently and looked around again for the waitress. Nowhere to be found. As usual. I hate this place. He pulled a twenty out of his pocket and slid it under his plate of unfinished eggs before zipping up his jacket and grabbing the backpack lying beside him. He exited the booth and checked his pocket to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. As he crossed the bridge in order to cut across the plaza to get to class on time, he stopped dead in the middle of the bridge. He was sure it must just have been his imagination, but had his uncle seemed… worried?
***
Anaya was still cursing herself when she spotted the young man leaving the café and hurrying across the bridge. He stopped in the middle for a second, and then moved on. She glanced down at herself, checked her form, and followed him, keeping an eye out for the old man.
She focused on his appearance, trying to memorize all details about him. Her target was about six feet tall, with broad shoulders but a scrawny frame, and short brown hair. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a nylon jacket with a collared blue polo shirt popping out the top. He had a black knapsack slung over one shoulder, which was relatively empty judging from the way it sat high on his shoulder.
I practically sat in his lap, she scolded herself as she snaked through a group of students watching a street performer juggling some balls near the fountain. My first assignment and I almost screw it up completely within a minute of contact. And on top of that I run straight into a Guardian. No wonder Serafim left me. The man with the violet eyes worried her. On one hand, it meant she had found her target. On the other… well, she’d just have to deal with him when the time came. I really hope the time doesn’t come. She roused herself from her thoughts and looked up just in time to see the man vanish into a large, stone building. The architecture looked Gothic to her, with thick, dominant stone columns framing a large wooden door with a smaller glass door cut into the bottom right corner. Angels and Demons crawled up the wall of the building, fighting each other or perhaps… frolicking? She couldn’t be sure and didn’t really have time to wonder, opening the glass door and stepping into the building. She stopped short as she watched her target flash a small, white card to the security guard sitting behind a large desk. He nodded, and the target moved further into the building. She saw him enter a room across the hall, and noticed the security guard eyeing her curiously. She glanced down at her short frame and the pink dress ending just above her knees. Probably shouldn’t have taken this form. Now he thinks I’m lost and looking for my parents. Better try to stay under the radar here. She quickly glanced around and noticed a tall blonde girl walking into the women’s restroom. Perfect. One of those vapid cheerleader types. My favorite! Anaya followed the girl into the bathroom.
***
Jack took a seat near the back of the classroom. He might decide to take a nap and had no intention of having Professor Zweifelsen catch him at it again. He put his backpack down beside the chair and pulled out his textbook. Students were still trickling into the room, and as he looked around he saw Sara coming through the door. “Hey Sara! Over here!” She didn’t hear him, and stopped short of the last row, glancing around the room. Jack cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Sara, Sara!” She ignored him, and a boy next to him snickered. He swore to himself silently and got up to walk towards her. “Sara,” he said when he was next to her, and she stumbled, tripping over the step at the door and falling flat onto her back. She scrambled up on her elbows, her face turning bright red when she saw him and staring up at him with wide eyes. “Woah, you ok?” he asked.
“Yes… yes sorry. I just, um… Oh my god!” She giggled. “I didn’t even see you, like, at all. I’m Sara!” She giggled again.
Jack looked down at her, “Yea, I know who you are. Though right this second maybe I’m not so sure. Are you sure you’re ok? You’re acting kind of weird.”
“Yep, I’m like, totally ok. Really. Just sore from practice,” she replied.
“Practice?” Jack asked, but before he could continue, a voice drew his attention to the front of the room, “All right everyone, settle down. Please take your seats.”
Jack led Sara back to his seat and she sat down next to him. He glanced at her and she smiled, her eyes tight and her mouth seeming to almost form a forced grin.
“Ok, let’s start with a pop quiz on the reading I asked you all to do, which I’m sure you all did. Please get out a blank sheet of paper and refrain from talking to your neighbors. I’m sure they can wait another hour before you regale them with stories of your wonderful weekend.”
“Oh shit, I totally forgot,” Jack whispered to Sara, “I didn’t even look at it! You know all this stuff by hard right? What was it about?”
“What are Newton’s three laws of motion?” Zweifelsen’s voice range from the front of the room.
Jack looked at Sara, waiting expectantly.
She started back at him blankly, uncomprehending. She hadn’t gotten out a pen or paper. “What? I don’t know. How should I know?” she replied.
Jack looked back at her, incredulously, “Um, because you’re the smarted person I know? And you study particle physics in your free time? This should be a cakewalk for you. Are you sure you’re ok? You really seem out of it.”
Sara looked back at him, turning a sickly shade of green. “Er, no. Now that you mention it. I feel rather faint, mayhap I have come down with something. I shall join you later. Apologies.” She stood up and practically ran out of the classroom. Jack stared after her, his mouth wide open. He turned his head to follow her escape through the door, but Professor Zweifelsen’s voice whipped his head around.
“Scare away another one, Mr. Herston? Looks like you’ll have to figure this one out on your own. Question 2, what is the law of universal gravitation? Please don’t write out the formula, just describe it.”
Jack sighed and tried to come up with the most convincing laws he could think of.
***
“All right everyone, pass your papers to your left, I will come along the rows and collect the quizzes.” Professor Zweifelsen’s voice roused Jack from his failed academic stupor. He glanced at his blank paper and sighed audibly. A student in the front row raised his hand, and the professor said, “Yes Zach?”
“Professor, I was watching a program yesterday and they mentioned something called M-theory. I didn’t entirely understand what it was, and I was curious if you could tell us?”
The professor stopped and looked back at the student. “M-theory? You must have been watching some very scientific television. Luckily for you, M-theory, or the Superstring theory as it is also called, is my field of study.” Professor Zweifelsen finished collecting the papers and returned to his desk, resting on the edge.
“As you all know there are a number of forces in the universe. We have studied some of these, and those of you who follow physics will study the rest. You can trace these forces all the way back to the early philosophers, some of whom thought the elements represented the forces, while others claimed something called Ethos constituted all matter and forces, and there were many other theories.”
Professor Zweifelsen got up from the edge of the desk and walked behind it, sitting down in his chair.
“It is perhaps somewhat ironic that the original philosopher who came up with the concept of the atom was ridiculed by his peers. But, let me start at a more reasonable point. At the onset of the modern days of physics, the five fundamental forces in the universe were considered magnetism, electricity, the weak force, the strong force, and gravity. James Clerk Maxwell, in 1873, presented some results which ultimately ended up showing that electricity and magnetism were actually one and the same force, the electromagnetic force. Now, skip forward in time, and we find that the electromagnetic force and the weak force were actually also the same force, the electroweak force.” He got up from the chair and wandered to the blackboard, staring at the black abyss for a while.
He turned back to the classroom, and said “Very recently, at this institution in fact, we have been able to show that the electroweak and strong force were at one point, early in the creation of the universe, the same force as well. So, you see, we have 4 out of the 5 forces actually being the same. The goal of M-theory is to prove that gravity is actually part of this force as well, and that this force runs everything in the universe. Furthermore, it is carried by miniscule, sub-atomic strings of energy that constitute all particles. Proof of this theory is difficult, but over the weekend a group from CERN actually claimed to have found evidence of the Higgs boson. Assuming this is true, evidence of the Higgs boson would…”
***
