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Angus’s mind was racing, his skin was on fire, his ears tingled, and his heart pounded. He was positively gleeful. It had worked! He had deduced the coordinates, trusted himself, and taken a chance, and it had worked! He had programmed his World Jumper to follow Ivy into another world, and here he was. No sign of Ivy yet, but he knew he would find her. At this moment, he felt like there was nothing he couldn’t do.
He was in a gray room. The walls were gray, the floor was gray, the chairs were gray, a long bench, or perhaps it was a bed, was gray. Though there were no sheets, no comforters, and no pillows in this room, he knew it was a bedroom. He saw no door, no windows, and no lamps. There was nothing superfluous in this room—it was simply gray. He pushed his goggles to his forehead, making his hair stick up. He looked up; the ceiling glowed coolly.
He walked across the floor, and the grayness buoyed him. He stomped a foot and rocked back and forth; the grayness met his efforts, responded to his movements. The grayness was firm, yet pliable. He zipped his World Jumper into his backpack and dumped it on the floor. It landed softly, silently.
He climbed on to a chair and jumped as hard as he could on to the floor. The grayness caught him, sank slightly beneath his weight, and pushed him gently upward. There was no abruptness in his landing, no jolting in his knees. Neither did he bounce. He threw himself forward as though he had tripped, and the grayness softened and cradled his fall. He pushed himself upright and the floor seemed to anticipate his movements and guided him upward.
Next, he decided to try the bed-thing. It was a simple gray slab built into the gray wall. He lay back on it and the grayness shifted to conform to the contours of his body while the light in the room softened. The grayness molded itself to support the curve of his lower back, rose to lift his head ever so slightly, and cradled his neck. The backs of his knees were supported; his feet tipped gently to the side, and the bed responded. It knew how to make him comfortable. The bed grew warmer, heating his body from the inside out. He began to feel slightly overwarm, and the bed responded with a minute change in temperature.
If he stayed here, he was likely to fall asleep. He’d told Billy he’d be back in a couple of hours; he needed to find Ivy first. But it would be so nice to sleep on this wonderful gray bed. He closed his eyes ... but, no. He pushed himself out of the grayness and stood. The room brightened. With no door and no windows, how was he going to get out of this room?
There must be a door here somewhere, otherwise this room couldn’t have been built. It was logical. Of course, any gray door in a gray room would disappear into the grayness. He’d have to look for the doorknob. But as he scanned the walls, Angus realized that there was no doorknob. Next, he ran his hands along the smooth gray surface of the walls. If he couldn’t see the door, certainly he’d be able to feel it. The walls responded to his fingers, the grayness undulating gently beneath his touch. There was no separation in the wall anywhere. The grayness was a continuous, unbroken façade.
“Help!” he called. “Let me out!” Silence. He pressed his ear against the wall in several places, and heard ... nothing. Was he all alone here? Was this gray room, this cell of grayness, the entire world? If so, where was Ivy? “Ivy! Where are you? Ivy!” Silence.
Angus clutched the World Jumper to his chest. At least he could go home. He really didn’t want to leave until he found Ivy, though. He paced back and forth, absently running a hand through his hair.
“If only I could find the door!” he said. He heard a sound. Not silence. It had been a plop, the sound stones made when he’d tossed them into the pond back when he was a little kid, when his parents still took him camping.
“Hello?” he called. “Is anyone out there? I’m looking for the door!” There was that sound again, that plop. He looked around the room, around the grayness, and there in the corner he saw it. A doorknob! How had he missed it before? He grabbed the knob and pulled, and the grayness separated, pulled back, and revealed an opening in the wall—a doorway.
Angus peeked his head through and saw more gray, nothing but gray, as far as he could see. He stepped into the bedroom again and closed the door. Instantly, the wall grew up around it and sealed off the opening. The knob receded into the grayness and disappeared.
Angus cleared his throat and said, “Door.” The knob pushed out of the grayness with a plop. He pulled on the knob, and the doorway appeared. “Coool,” he breathed.
He turned around and said, “Window”. He heard a plop, and a handle popped out of the opposite wall. Angus raced to it, the floor cushioning his feet, and pulled. The wall opened, revealing a transparent material. He pressed his finger against it; like the grayness, the transparent material moved beneath his touch. Not glass then.
Angus pressed his nose against the not-glass, and it conformed to his face and bent outward. He laughed. He was sticking his head out the window, but it was technically still inside the room. He looked outside. More gray. Gray ground. Gray buildings. No green lawns. No flowers. No trees. The only color besides gray was the sickly green and yellow of a few intrepid weeds and the bright blue of the cloudless sky. He pulled his head back and the face impression remained for a moment before receding with a sucking noise.
“Awesome!” Angus laughed out loud. A wicked smile crossed his face.
Giggling to himself, Angus dragged the chair toward the window. The floor rippled in his wake. He stood on the chair and turned his back to the window. Bending forward, he jutted his rear end into the not-glass for a few moments, and then retreated quickly and turned around. The impression of his behind stayed in the not-glass for a moment. When the window reverted to its normal shape, Angus climbed on the chair again and repeated his bum impression. He laughed even harder, imagining what could be seen from outdoors. As he climbed up on the chair for the third time, the gray wall popped and the door opened.
“AC! Whatever are you doing? I heard the alarm and thought it must be a malfunction. No way is my son doing anything so dangerous! Get off that chair right now!”
Angus stared in disbelief at the woman glaring at him. She resembled his mom, so he assumed he was in his alter’s house. But this mother’s eyes were jutting out of her head like a cartoon character gone wrong. Similar to a slug’s eyes, her eyes were affixed to the ends of stalks—shiny, aluminum stalks.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” asked the mother.
“Ummm ... your eyes ...” stuttered Angus. “They’re ... ummm ...” He jumped off the chair and approached her. As he watched, her eyes retreated back into their sockets.
“Well, what do you expect? When you scare me like that!”
“I’m sorry ... Mom. I was playing with the window. I didn’t think I would fall out.”
“Fall out?” The crazy mom-eyes spun around in their sockets. “Of course you wouldn’t fall out. The window polymer is tremendously flexible and nearly indestructible. I was afraid you’d fall off the chair.”
“Fall off the chair?” asked Angus. “It’s barely two feet off the ground. And even if I did, this floor ...”
“The floor is gray polymer, not clear. It’s not as flexible as the window. You know that it’s embedded with cross-linked polymers to give it strength. Between that and the integrated circuits, it’s hard. You could have bumped your knee or your head.”
Angus recalled that word: “polymer.” That was the chapter he was supposed to read for his science experiment.
“Father needs a knee upgrade and Grandmother has some new fingers on order. We don’t have the money right now for you to injure yourself. Our family can’t afford any new implants right now. So enough of that. Did you take your supplement?”
Angus didn’t like the sound of that, so he said, “Yes.”
The monster eyes poked out of the mother’s head again and examined him. “No, you didn’t. Come downstairs and we’ll take your reading.”
When she uttered the word downstairs, the gray surface outside the door molded itself into a stairway and sprouted a railing. Angus followed the mother down into another gray room, as utilitarian as the bedroom, but even smaller. Four chairs surrounded a table. The centerpiece of the table was a one-foot square box with a computer touchscreen and a chute not unlike that found on a bubblegum machine.
The mother sat down. “It’s only you and me tonight. Father is working late, and Grandmother was feeling tired and is taking a nap.” The unworldly eyes rolled in their sockets as she regarded him. “Are you okay? Are you feeling sad? Are you missing your friends?”
This time Angus knew how to answer the question. “Yes. I especially miss Ivy.”
“Ivy! Of course! I forgot to tell you. Ivy woke up today. Mrs. Calloway says the doctors are running tests to find antibodies. They’re hoping they can make an antidote for the other children. I know you’ve missed your friends at school. It’s been several months since they all got sick. Don’t worry. We can add some happy particles to your supplement tonight, and you’ll be feeling better within an hour.” She touched the computer screen, and several icons appeared: MC, FC, AC, GC, and Add New.
“Maybe I’ll have a little happy, too,” she said as she touched MC. The next screen displayed three icons: Nutrition, Feeling, and Nutrition + Feeling. She selected the third icon, and the screen repainted again with a list of emotions. She touched Happy and Calm. The next screen displayed a handprint. The mother pressed her palm on the screen. The machine hummed, a capsule rolled down the bubblegum chute, and the initial screen reappeared. She popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“No, thank you,” said Angus. His mom had told him never to take any medicine from strangers. This woman was his alter’s mother, but to him she was still a stranger. And he certainly wasn’t going to put anything in his body that he wasn’t sure about.
“Have you had anything since your morning supplement?” asked the mother.
Angus took an amino acid supplement every morning to help him focus in school. That and a multivitamin were the only two pills he took each day. He answered, “No.”
“Then take your evening supplement,” she said.
“What’s in it?” asked Angus.
The mother seemed perplexed. “What are you asking?”
“You want me to take a pill. I want to know what it is.”
“AC, you know all this,” answered the mother. “The composition of the capsule is different for each of us. The nutrition analyzer scans our palms and determines our individual protein, fat, carbohydrate, and caloric needs along with any vitamins or minerals we may be deficient in. The machine customizes each capsule.”
“So that’s the nutrition button?” asked Angus.
“Yes. The feeling button is different. You push the button for whatever feeling you want to have, and chemicals that affect your brain’s neurotransmitters are added to the supplement.”
Angus thought that all sounded very much like something Mrs. Clark would not allow.
“No, thank you,” he said.
“What’s that?” asked the mother.
“I said, no thank you. That’s not something I like to do.”
“You don’t want a happy feeling? Or you don’t want a calm feeling?”
“I don’t want any feeling that comes from a pill. I want to feel what I feel,” said Angus.
“Are you sure? You said you were depressed,” pushed the mother.
“No, I didn’t. You asked if I missed my friends, and I said I missed Ivy a little. I don’t need to take a pill for that! I’ll just go see her.”
“You can’t see her. She’s in the hospital.”
“Then I’ll go to the hospital.”
“She’s in quarantine. They won’t let you anywhere near her.”
“Why is she in quarantine?”
“Because of the virus! You know that. That’s why you haven’t been to school for months. So many of your school friends caught it. I don’t know how you escaped getting sick, but I’m certainly not letting you go to the hospital!”
“But I have to! I have to find Ivy!”
“You don’t have to find anyone,” said the mother. “Now, have your nutritional supplement.”
The weird eyes had turned red and were emitting wisps of smoke. Angus had seen a similar expression on his own mother’s face, and he knew that he was going nowhere until he had acted like a dutiful son. He looked at the screen of the nutrition machine. What was he supposed to press? AC were his initials, so he supposed that was his button. But what were MC, FC, and GC? Maybe Mother Clark, Father Clark, and Grandma Clark? He tentatively pressed the AC button. On the next screen, he pushed Nutrition.
“Only vitamins and minerals, right? No chemicals? No drugs?”
“No drugs. You’ll still feel sad. But you’ll have the nutrition your body needs.”
Angus was wondering why they didn’t simply eat dinner. He said, “Oven. Stove. Microwave.” Nothing popped out of the wall. Then he tried, “Refrigerator. Sink. Cupboard.” Nothing.
“What are you doing?” asked the mother.
“I was wondering if we could cook dinner or even just warm up some leftovers.”
“Dinner? What’s that? Have you been reading history books again?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that. And it would be so unsanitary and dangerous.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, I think you’ll say almost anything to shock me. Now, take your supplement.”
Angus reluctantly placed his palm on the computer screen. The machine spit out a capsule. Angus held it up to the glowing light of the ceiling. It was a clear capsule filled with a fine white powder. It looked like the amino acid supplement Mom gave him each morning at breakfast. He didn’t like to take pills, so Mom opened it and mixed the powder into a bowl of applesauce or yogurt. There would be none of that here, so he’d have to take the pill with water. Ugh.
“Could I have a glass of water, please?” he asked.
“A glass of water! Aren’t there enough sick children in town? We need to breed bacteria and mosquitoes in our house now? I’m telling you AC, enough stalling! Take your supplement.”
Angus didn’t know what had made her so angry. He tried again. “I can’t take this without something to wash it down with. It will get stuck in my throat.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? Straw,” she said. Angus heard the plop noise, and a clear straw popped through the surface of the table. Angus stared at it and looked at her. What was he supposed to do with that?
“Now what?” she asked.
Angus was afraid to ask. “How do I ...”
“You suck on it.”
Angus picked up the straw. It was flexible like the bedroom window had been and was sealed on both sides. If there was a hole, it was tiny. He sucked on the straw, and droplets of water dripped into his mouth. At this rate, he’d never have enough water to wash down a pill. Why couldn’t he have a glass of water?
He heard a giggle and looked up. The mother was leaning back in her chair, staring at the ceiling with a ridiculous smile on her face. Happy must be working. Luckily, she hadn’t noticed that his supplement was still on the table. He casually palmed it and stuffed it in his jeans pocket.
“I’m going to my room ... umm ... Mom,” he said.
She turned her head and smiled at him. Her eyes swirled around in their sockets. “Sleep well, honey. And no more of those history books. They’re giving you crazy ideas.”
“Door,” said Angus. He left the room. He stood in a longer room now, maybe a hallway. Like the other two rooms he’d been in, the entire room was gray with a soft light emanating from the ceiling. He was fast becoming sick of gray. He heard a rough “Maow.”
“Ivy!” he hooted and spun around. A shining, four-legged robot held a ball in its metal mouth. “What is that?” he asked. “Are you in there, Ivy?”
The robot repeated “Maow” from a voice box welded to its neck. Angus knelt down and examined the robot. He thought it was supposed to be an animal, a pet of sorts. It was built from scraps of disparate metals that had been polished to a glossy sheen. It had two different-sized triangular ears. Red LED lights glowed where eyes should have been. Its paws were three nuts wired into a clover shape and wrapped in rubber.
The metal creature wagged a PVC pipe that appeared to have been added as an afterthought for a tail. The robot groaned as it moved to an upright position and clanked painfully toward him on copper piping legs welded to its nut and rubber feet. At first, he thought it was a dog, but then it looked more like a cat. Whatever it was, it was clear that the builder of this robot had never before seen a household pet.
And Ivy was not inside this creature.
Angus reached out to take the ball from the robot’s mouth. A clumsily-engraved emblem on the creature’s side proclaimed it to be “CATT.” He traced the emblem: It was his own handwriting. Activated by the gentle stroking, the robot began to rumble like an idling scooter. The screws rattled as the robot shook.
“Is that supposed to be a purr?” asked Angus. He tossed the ball and the robot ceased purring and bounced along the gray floor to fetch it. It yipped from its voice box and wagged its PVC tail as it retrieved the ball. The robot dropped the ball at Angus’s feet, then ran to the stairway, whining.
“It’s like you’re trying to tell me something. What is it, robot? Do you want me to follow you?” asked Angus. The cat-dog yipped and jumped. It ran back to Angus and rubbed itself against his legs. He bent down to touch it, and it ran to the stairway again.
“Okay. I’ll follow you. Up the stairs?” Angus jogged up the stairs behind the robot and followed it back into the bedroom. The robot half leapt, half scrabbled on to the gray desk. It was nudging something at Angus.
“You know I’m not AC. I’m not your boy. You know that, right? I look like him. But I come from another world. A parallel world. Do you understand me?”
The robot began to purr and clanked from side to side on the desk around something. Angus looked at the desk. When he’d first transported himself to the room, he hadn’t noticed that there was a screen built into the desk. It must have gotten lost in the general grayness.
“Is this what you’re trying to show me?” The robot purred in response and twitched its PVC tail.
Angus touched the screen, and a virtual notebook opened. Angus sat on the chair and began to read.