2160
"It's just a big ball of energy."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means it's...I don't know, a bunch of energy all in one big pile, and it keeps making more and keeps sucking more of it in, sort of like a black hole except with energy instead of matter."
"That sounds like complete bull to me. I seriously...like, that means nothing. At all."
The boy whose name was only the number 116 sighed and looked at his friend. 838 was a showoff. At a slim 185 centimeters, his black hair and heavy eyebrows both flashed with white in a decision his parents had made and he heartily approved of, he exuded a permanent air of being the center of everything. He acted that way, too. He had a tricked-out airbike that he rode everywhere, even indoors, and he would never get off until an adult started yelling at him. He would magnetize the soles of his feet and hang upside down. He got himself cool-looking cybernetic upgrades and then got them removed three months later when he got bored with them.
Right now he was reclining with his arms behind his head and his steel-booted feet on 116's dad’s antique wooden coffee table, which was not going to go over well with the latter party. 116 knew that his friend was trying to annoy him, but it was still working. It wasn't that 838 didn't believe him; more likely he was actually curious and was trying to get 116 to tell him more while still feigning disinterest. Well, nothing to do about it but play along.
"I don't know how it works. I'm not a quantum physicist. That's my dad, 2181. He designed the thing."
"I thought you said it was an accident."
"It was. I mean he designed the energy transformer that they were trying to make, but when they turned it on, it began to malfunction. Nearly destroyed the whole facility. They had to evacuate. Observing it remotely, they found that it had formed this ball of glowing stuff right in the middle of the lab. It all seemed stable and there wasn't any radiation or anything, so they went back in. They've been analyzing it ever since. No idea what it is. The machines are running full power and it just sucks it all in and doesn't send out anything except flashes of light. They don't know where it's all going."
“Your dad must be a pretty sucky physicist if he makes that huge of a screw-up by accident.”
“Is not! My dad’s about a million times smarter than you and he made something awesome.”
"Why don't they just turn it off?" asked 838 boredly, or, more likely, faux-boredly.
"My dad wants to,” 116 admitted. “He’s nervous about the whole thing. He wants to shut it down before it gets out of hand and someone gets hurt. But he can’t because they don't know what would happen if they destabilized it. What if it ate the whole city or something? Besides, they're scientists. They want to know what it is. 496—he’s the director—he’s really interested. He has all kinds of ideas. If they turned it off and then they couldn't figure out how to get it back, they'd never find out."
"So what does it look like?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen it."
"Hasn’t it been there for what, two years? Your dad hasn't let you look at it?"
"Of course not. It's a giant energy anomaly. It could be incredibly dangerous. You think they're going to let some random seventeen-year-old into the lab?"
"You're not random. You're 2181's son."
"Doesn't matter. The lab's on complete lockdown. Nobody gets in without security clearance."
"Nobody?" 838 grinned.
It took a second for 116 to catch up, but then he protested, "No! Absolutely not. That's the worst idea ever. Don't even think about it."
838’s grin became ear-splitting. "Like I said, you’re 2181’s son. And with biometrics, that means it’s a fifty-fifty chance, probably on lucky chromosome 27."
"I'm not going to help you break into the lab!"
Three days later, as they crouched in the weeds looking out at the energy fence, 116 muttered, "I can't believe you talked me into this."
"Live a little," 838 told him.
"I want to. Like another 100 years. Which I won't if we get caught, because my dad will kill me. Literally."
"Oh, come on. It'll be fine. You’re a lucky 27, aren’t you?"
“And why do you own a biometric tester? Where did you get that? I mean, you’re not allowed to just buy those things, are you?”
“It’s handy. Haven’t you ever tried to get into an over-21 club?”
“Let me think. No.”
A pair of headlights flashed over them and they both flattened themselves into the grass. The hovercar passed and once again the only light came from the blue glow of the fence.
"So you told me you had a way to get through this," 116 hissed.
"Have a little faith!" said 838. "It's just an electro-optical field. We should be able to divert it into another conductor." He held up a little metal cylinder with grooves running around it and flipped a switch on the bottom. He held it out towards the fence.
"Careful with that!" 116 warned. "If the current jumps to that thing while it's in your hand, you're going to get quite a shock."
838 tossed the cylinder. It landed a couple of meters from the fence. The blue lines of current began to warp, then jumped to the cylinder, forming a V-shaped path where the current diverted from one eight-foot-tall fence post to the little object on the ground and then back up to the next fence post.
"Now we can just step over. You remembered to wear rubber-soled shoes, didn't you?" asked 838.
"Of course I did! I'm not stupid."
They rose, furtively looking around to see if there were any more cars, but the roads were empty at this time of night. Even the streetlights had dimmed down to power-saving mode, ready to flash on again when a vehicle approached. They crept forward, gingerly stepped over the diverted fence, and approached the lab. It was only a few stories tall, for the majority of the facility lay underground to minimize vibrations, but the starkness of the architecture, the blankness of the opaqued windows, and the darkness of the whole scene created a forbidding impression. 116 had come here with his father before the anomaly happened and he had never been frightened, but that was during the day.
The only lit areas were the entrances. The two boys headed for a small side door that looked greenish beneath a dim fluorescent bulb. 116 pressed his thumb onto a panel beside the featureless door. Immediately there was a chirp, a green light flashed, and the door slid open. The hall lights were already on. 838 gave him a grin and two thumbs up.
"That was easier than I expected," 116 admitted.
"Should be smooth sailing from here," his friend told him.
"Yeah, unless we get caught by a security robot."
116 tried not to act startled every time the lights came on as they crept along the hall, down three flights of stairs, and through the outer labs. It was only automation, he told himself. Nothing to be afraid of.
Most of the lab's doors slid open silently at their approach, but they now reached one with another biometric lock, this one surmounted with a keypad.
“I’m so going to get sent to a forced labor camp or something,” he muttered. “My dad’s going to open a forced labor camp so he can send me to it.”
“Quit being a wimp!”
116 swallowed and touched the lock. It beeped and flashed. The keypad lit up.
“You said you got his code,” hissed 838.
116 nodded and punched a series of keys, saying, “He had it written down. Genius for physics; terrible head for passwords.”
The door slid open with what seemed like intentional slowness and out poured a widening stripe of white-green light. The boys’ jaws dropped.
The room was a huge dome. Towering machines covered with displays, conduits, and flashing lights covered the walls. Iridescent energy streamed from six nozzles spaced evenly around the room down towards the center where, fenced off with waist-high plastic rails, was the anomaly.
It was so bright that they needed to shield their faces until their cybernetically enhanced eyes could acclimate. Then they saw that it was an orb of light, roughly spherical but constantly warping and distorting, easily ten meters across, ten meters of blinding, pulsing, almost solid-looking radiance. Swirls of color, mainly green and yellow, mingled with the whiteness. Now and then, it gave off a brilliant flash of green that cut out the machines and rails as stark silhouettes. The room was filled with a staticky hum.
“That...is awesome,” whispered 838. They both felt the need to whisper.
“Told you,” said 116, allowing himself a moment of smugness. “And my father...”
“...Is not a bad physicist.”
They stepped cautiously into the room, awe and curiosity temporarily pushing aside the fear of being caught. The door slid silently shut behind them.
Approaching the rail and gingerly putting their hands on it, they could see that the center of the room was a full story lower than the place where they stood, and that the orb, which had appeared truncated like a setting sun from the door, was in fact a full sphere even larger than it had first appeared, most of which was below them.
They just stared at it for a while, and then 838 moved over to one of the streams of energy that fed it. They were railed off as well and flowed along at knee height, forming eddies and currents.
“This thing pulls in enough energy to power a whole city,” 116 told him.
“And it just all makes light?” said his friend.
“It doesn’t just make light. You could make that much light with one percent of that energy. We don’t know where the rest goes. It just disappears.”
838 knelt to get a closer look. “I wonder if you could touch it. What would it feel like...”
He began to reach out one gloved hand. 116 grabbed it and pulled it back. “Don’t. Seriously, don’t. We have no idea what would happen.”
Just then, a sudden noise made them both jump up and turn around. “Security!” hissed 838. “Time to get lost!”
“If it’s a drone, maybe if won’t come in here if it doesn’t hear us,” 116 whispered back.
They crouched by the energy stream, trying not to breathe. The sound resolved itself into human footsteps. 838 gave the other boy a pointed look, to which he responded with a helpless shrug. As the footsteps approached, 838 finally said in his lowest voice, “Seriously, we have to go!”
“We can’t!” his friend replied in the same tone. “They’re coming towards that door!” And he pointed towards the door through which they had entered.
They looked around wildly for other exits. There were several across the room, but all were separated from them by the energy streams. 838 rose and put his hand on the rail. 116 watched the door, paralyzed, a lump constricting his throat. There came a chirp.
838 didn’t wait for the door to open. He vaulted up onto the rail and jumped across the iridescent current of energy onto the other rail and then back down. He turned to his friend and waved a hand. “Come on!”
116 climbed onto the rail as the door opened. A man entered, tall, gray-haired, with a hard-lined face. When he saw the boys, he yelled, “What are you kids doing in there? Get over here!”
838 was already bolting for the far door. 116 jumped across and onto the other rail, landing just by the intersection where the stream flowed into the orb of light.
I’m so lonely.
Loneliness was the last thing on the boy’s mind at the moment, but the thought had suddenly entered his mind. Or else he had he heard it, so quiet as to be subconscious. He did not ponder this; he had no time to think, only to escape. But then his right foot slipped. Slipped? It felt as though it had been pulled. He tried to balance himself with his hands, but the rail was thin and slick. He couldn’t get a grip. A second later he lost his balance entirely and, with a sickening feeling, found himself plummeting off the wrong side of the rail and down, down into a vortex that swirled ravenously as though it had been anticipating him, and he was consumed by light and color.