Chapter 5

A week had passed since the shooting, and everything was normal except that nothing was normal. As Akemi had noted in the bathroom, everyone tried to act as if nothing was different. Almost everyone. Nikki had to hug each of them every time she was near.

Their schoolmates had asked a few questions, knowing that the three had been in Seattle the day of the shooting, but none of their fellow students had been told that they were at the site of the shooting when it happened. Apparently, Nikki and Joseph had not said a word as well. The conspiracy of silence wore at Eitan’s nerves.

“Perhaps we will be the ones to survive the zombie apocalypse,” Sten had said last night, while he and Eitan were reading in their beds.

“Please, I beg you,” Eitan said, “go back to your Batman comics. Dark is so much better than gore.”

“There is no going back, my brother, the wheels have already been set in motion,” Sten said before rolling over, turning his back to Eitan.

Sitting in the waiting room outside of Dr. Hobart’s CEO office, Sten’s last words sounded ominous. There was a new secretary and all she did when looking up from her console was glower at Eitan. She had the figure, hair, and demeanor of an executive secretary, accompanied with a personality of peeling wallpaper. Akemi would have already launched a poisoned dart off the tip of her tongue, but Eitan was not witty-bitchy-kitchy like she was.

Dr. Hobart rushed through the doorway, mumbling curses about clueless drones and petty little shits. He rushed up to secretary and stopped short. He whirled around, noticing Eitan sitting there, and whirled back to face her.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was here, waiting?” Dr. Hobart said.

“You did not mention that he was a priority,” she said, looking defiant.

“You read what comes across my calendar,” Dr. Hobart said with pique. “You are supposed to keep me prompt.” He looked back at Eitan. “You’re with me in my office.”

After the door was shut, Eitan stood behind the chair as Dr. Hobart plopped on heavily in his plushy I-must-be-the-CEO chair. “She isn’t your secretary, you know.”

“Of course she’s my secretary.”

“She reports to someone else,” Eitan said. “She is probably on the phone right now to her real boss.”

Dr. Hobart leaned forward and tapped a couple of keys on his keyboard. He studied the computer screen for a moment. “You’re right.” He pulled out his cell phone from his lab coat and hit a speed dial button. “Camille, come up to my office and take my new secretary down to your office for a debriefing. Find out who she is reporting to because it certainly isn’t me. Bye.”

“Sorry about that, Eitan,” he said. “Good catch, thank you.”

Eitan sat, folded his hands in his lap and waited. He had already rested in this chair many times.

“Last week,” Dr. Hobart said as he put his elbows on his desk, “Last week was a real-world test for the three of you that was unusually random ... and reprehensible. Nikki and Joseph were much more perturbed by the shooting than the three of you were, which is a secondary topic. We need to talk though because Stefan gave me an unusual debriefing, one he insisted be private.”

Eitan pinched his lips.

“Stefan reported that first you stood and appeared to take your bearings. Then you hustled your brother and sister to the inside seating of the café, out of harm’s way. He also reported that you gave him a silent “heads up” that something was about to happen. You had a breakthrough, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Eitan said.

“Would you care to enlighten me?”

“I can’t,” Eitan said. “You never explained to me what the second series of nano contained in detail. All you told me was that you were experimenting on sensing electrical energy, which sounds like new age, touchy-feely, snorting crystals for profit crap.”

“I see Akemi’s cynicism is rubbing off on you,” Dr. Hobart said. “I could not say more with Dr. Whitcomb present, and I’ve been remiss in bringing you up to speed. Dr. Whitcomb was interested in how nerve cells read hair follicle reactions to static electricity because hair has no nerve cell components. He discovered the mechanism. However, during this preparatory time, the first proofs of dark matter’s existence from the space telescopes were being published. These new proofs further refined the theory of dark energy, what it must be and what it must do. The first Hobart insight was that mechanical detection of dark energy was going to be vague, quasar-sized, and decades away. The second Hobart insight was that a human body would be a superior and immediate detection device of dark energy.”

“Why?”

Dr. Hobart leaned back into his chair. “Dark energy is the glue that holds the universe together. Scientists call it ‘dark’ because human eyes cannot see it; it’s invisible, which is a good thing. If we could see dark energy, we would be blind because it is everywhere and everything.”

“You used the nano to turn my body into a dark energy detector,” Eitan said.

“If only I was that good, Eitan,” Dr. Hobart said. “I gave your body a potential it never would have had without intervention. My first hypothesis is that living creatures can create dark energy, which helps create the underpinning binding mechanisms that make sophisticated biospheres possible. Dark energy is the fabric of the spacetime continuum, leading to my conclusion that living beings can make the fabric denser, as necessary. My second hypothesis is that when you are attuned to your environment, you sense bursts of dark energy that rise above the baseline. As we sense electricity in the air from a lightning strike, we should be able to sense the dark equivalent if properly attuned.”