Chapter 10: Back from Lunch

Adrift in my own mind, I soared through the topology of my thoughts. I let dream-like wings effortlessly take me away on the thermals of sanguine thought. So long had it been since I had begun to focus my attention on the planet of humans, that now when I was away from it all I could feel myself stretch muscles that had begun to fall asleep from disuse.

I woke with a start as I felt a Q'ren nearby. Though my species has never had a need to name itself, we do all consider ourselves children of the first of us. It seemed apt than that I should come to think of us as Q'ren, the children of Que'estlar.

In front of me, like a snow globe of unfathomable depths, I beheld the universe. Tucked away somewhere in the infinite reaches of three physical dimensions where only I could ever hope to find it, was the Earth; Spinning in circles as it danced around its star.

I could feel my grand-sire searching for me. I cowered in my hiding place, knowing full well what my fate would be if I were caught. I wondered if Earth would miss my presence. Not many people would care, to be sure, but a few of them would grow old and die having never solved the puzzle of my disappearance.

My grand-sire passed its gaze over me and then stopped. In the moment that it began to focus, I sprang into action. Scrambling to form a coherent plan, I managed to dodge out of view just in time. With thousands of nooks and crannies to search though, how it had thought to look in mine was a complete mystery. I had to assume it was luck.

Searching is not about looking in the right place because a Q'ren can look everywhere at once. The problem is looking with the right fidelity. Imagine looking at the entire Earth at once. Consider that if the Earth were shrunk down to the size of a billiard ball, it would actually be smoother than one. Under those conditions, it would be difficult to spot a mountain, let alone an individual person.

If, however, you look too closely, then you begin to miss parts of the bigger picture. You can't find a person by looking through a microscope. A device which would do well when finding a cell is not well suited for finding anything bigger. So it is for a Q'ren. Its odds of finding me should be relatively small. It will, of course, have set traps in places I was deemed likely to go. Boredom, if nothing else, should eventually drive me out into the open.

Not seeing me, my grand-sire quickly retreated to continue the search elsewhere. I cautiously made my way back to the universe I had been using to hide. It was then that I realised my big mistake. In the fright of almost being caught, I had lost my place in the universe. Literally.

I looked into the universe and as I focused in further and began to separate the stars, I realized I had no way of knowing which star was the sun. Last time it had taken me nearly 30,000 years to find the Earth. Now that I knew what I was looking for I could do it considerably faster, but it might still take a few thousand years. By then, every human I knew today would be dead.

I stared into the void of the universe and felt lost. I didn't want to start over. Who knew how much the human race would change in a few thousand years? Who knew if they'd even still be alive? I didn't want to start over. I wanted to continue my life as Simon. Class would be starting soon and I wanted to be there for it.

The thought came to me unbidden; I wanted to kiss Sarah again.

A dread spread through me as I considered the vast emptiness of space. I was just about ready to give up, but some small part of me knew I had to try. I owed it to my friends to at least try. Where to start? One place was as good as any other, but something kept drawing in a precise direction. I tried to keep myself open to my surroundings, but the closer I went, the more sure I started to become.

Was this the Milky Way? Impossible to tell from where I was, but my optimism told me it was. When I stopped and looked around, I wasn't yet in our solar system, but it was a place I'd been to before. This system was Alpha Centauri, just a hair's width away from my destination. It took me a quick moment to find the right solar system, less than a moment to find Earth, and then I nearly instantly found my way to the school.

I had made it. How I had managed a task that should have taken thousands of years in under five minutes, I could not understand. I didn't have time to dwell on it just yet.

I felt strangely naked walking through the school hallways with fake clothes on. I knew that nobody would be able to tell the difference, but it made me feel exposed nonetheless. I tried my best to ignore it. I was a bit late for my morning class, so I had to stop by the office for a late-pass. We were only allowed to be late so often before we'd get into trouble. Since this was my first official late pass, it wasn't a big deal.

The morning went without incident. I was still in shock over somehow having found my way back. I did not believe in fate or magic. It wasn't a coincidence. Sure, there is some chance that the first place I would look would be earth, but the chances bordered on impossible. I had somehow felt this was the right direction to go. How could that be possible?

At the beginning of math class, Sarah gave me a big hug.

"Simon! Where were you this morning?" she asked

"I slept in," I said sheepishly.

"Oh. Kerry had a totally random panic attack! She spent first period in the nurse's office. I've never seen Kerry so out of it. It was crazy. You missed a crazy morning Simon!" said Sarah.

Richard had just walked in and was now standing next to us.

"Dick. Oh my god. Your leg! Simon said you went to the hospital. How are you?" asked Sarah.

Richard smiled, "The cast itches more than my leg hurts."

We sat down for class. Ms. Darraday looked as cheerful as ever that morning, but her lecture was a bit shorter than usual. I wondered what, if anything, she had made of my tardiness this morning.

I questioned Richard about the fight he'd been in, but he was less helpful than Matt had been. In the end, I was just glad he was alright, so I dropped the issue entirely.

When class ended, Kerry was waiting for us outside with an eager expression on her face. She ran up to Richard, Sarah, and I.

"Guys! Meet outside the caf. I'll explain after! See you there!" she said before running off without giving us a chance to say anything.

She stopped after a few steps and swung her head back around, "Bring Matt if he wants!"

"Wonder what that was about," said Richard.

"Don't know," said Sarah, "Morning breakdown, afternoon craziness? Is she pregnant?"

Both Sarah and Richard turned to look at me.

"Oh, Ha. Ha. Very funny," I said.

"Well, let's go. Matt'll show up at the lunchroom anyway," said Richard.

We weren't waiting for long before Matt arrived. He was sceptical about waiting for Kerry. I couldn't blame him since our last lunch adventure with Kerry and Sarah hadn't exactly panned out that well. Kerry arrived with the socialites, Timothy, and Craig in tow.

"So," said Kerry, once we were all together, "my dad just gave me this as an early birthday present."

She held up a credit card. Tim whistled. When one of the girls turned and gave Tim a question look, widened his eyes.

"Have you guys seen her house?" asked Tim, "what's the limit on that?"

Kerry shrugged and then grinned mischievously, "What's the most expensive place we can eat at in under an hour and fifteen?"

The girls all exploded with chatter. Most were trying to thank Kerry for treating them while suggesting a place to eat all in the same breath. Again, I couldn't fathom how they were able to understand one another, but they managed it somehow. It wasn't long before they'd settled on a family restaurant nearby. Anything fancier, they reasoned, and they'd never make it back in time for class.

"So how are we gonna get there?" I asked. None of us has a license.

"I rented a limo," said Kerry, her look was so smug that couldn't stop myself grinning.

One of the girls literally screamed, "A limo!?"

We left out of the front doors and were halfway across the parking lot where a limousine and chauffeur awaited us when the football nearly hit me in the head. I had to give Tom some credit, his aim was rather fantastic.

There was a synchronized intake of breath as I caught the ball just a moment before it would have hit me in the head. Surprisingly, Matt was relatively calm, but Richard looked ready to try to throw one of his crutches at Tom. Kerry, however, seemed most pissed of all.

I put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped moments before starting to yell. Without a word, I pointed at the top of a nearby streetlight. As though on cue, everybody turned to look at what I was pointing at. Tom's curiosity got the better of him as he turned to look as well. It was all the distraction I needed.

The ball hardly had to arch at all as it spiraled toward Tom's head. Tom noticed the ball at the last second; it was already too late. It smacked him in the forehead with enough force that he almost lost his balance and fell over. For a moment, I had feared that I'd thrown it too hard. From the way he held his skull, I could tell that it hurt, but he was fine.

Everybody is the group was silent. We could hear Tom swear and some of his friends asking if he was alright.

"Well, let's go!" I said cheerfully. It wasn't the same as sending somebody to the hospital, but I felt a bit better. From the way Matt slapped me on the back and howled with laughter as he relived the moment in his mind, I could tell he felt better too.

Richard looked at me and shook his head as though to say, 'why am I not surprised?'

The limo was more than big enough to fit all of us. Kerry told the driver where to go and we were off to the races. For a bit, I basked in what it would feel like to be rich. The limo was stocked with glasses, buckets of ice, and every fruit juice and carbonated beverage you could think of. Some of the girls put apple juice and sprite in a wine glass; pretending it was wine.

"That was a sweet throw, Simon," said Tim, "do you play football?"

"Nah, just luck," I said.

Richard snorted, "Luck. Right."

Tim gave Richard a curious look, I just shrugged.

Unlike our last lunch together, this time we found ourselves much more the center of attention. Timothy, who was usually so full of interesting stories seemed only interested in figuring out mine as he asked me question after question.

Soon the entire table was gossiping about my childhood. They realised very quickly that even if I wasn't very forthcoming with information about my past, Matt would answer just about anything if you were pretty enough and asked in just the right way.

"How did you guys start hanging out with Dick?" asked Tim.

Matt and I both shrugged, but Richard seemed more than happy to field the question.

I'd never actually heard this story from his point of view. It was much less glamorous from my perspective.

"I was playing soccer with some guys at lunch time. I didn't really know them, but they normally let me play soccer with them even if I was always last pick. Well it was the end of grade 9 and Tom and a bunch of the better players all thought it would be fine to team up on everybody else. They said it was fair because it was like 1 on 2, but it really wasn't fair because half the people were just standing around not playing anyways.

"Tom was being a complete dick about it too. Like when they kept scoring, most of the guys would just high-five and then run back to their side of the field, but Tom kept taunting us and telling us we sucked. Anyway, there was only 20 minutes left in recess and they were winning by so much that we didn't even keep score anymore.

"I tried to defend against Tom, but he's like 10 times bigger than me," said Richard, Timothy laughed at that since Richard had to be one of the smallest guys at school, "so he just knocked me to the ground and then kicked me in the side as he jumped over me. He went and scored a goal."

Some of the girls were just shaking their heads. It made me curious, because I'd always assumed Tom was a friend of theirs. He had, at the very least, dated a few people in this group of friends. It was clear that from Richard's point of view, Tom was simply a villain. That nobody seemed too put off by that description surprised me.

Richard continued, "When I sat up, Simon was next to me and asking me if I was okay. I had GYM class with Simon, but nothing else and I don't think we'd ever talked before but he was probably the first person who was, like, actually nice to me."

I rolled my eyes at the sentimentality of it.

Some of the girls beamed at me, Timothy was grinning, and Craig looked bored. Richard sold the story quite well. I wondered if he was aiming for sympathy points, because if he was, this story was pure genius.

"He asked me if he could play," continued Richard, "Everybody knew Simon was okay from GYM class, but he never played at recess. Most of the guys on our team were on board to let him play if it could help even the odds at all."

"Oh! I know the rest of this story, who could forget?" said Timothy, "I remember people were laughing about it for weeks after. They didn't get a single goal while Simon kept scoring and scoring."

"I was there! I remember that too," said one of the girls.

Tim laughed, "Man! Tom was so butt-hurt over it. People were talking about that for weeks!" Tim laughed out loud, "Ha. I'd forgotten all about that!" he exclaimed, "So you did it for Richard eh? That's some serious bromance."