The Paladin Prophecy

FLASH

It was five-thirty when Will entered their pod. Ajay sat at the table scarfing a bowl of cereal. Will filled him in about Todd and the other seniors on the cross-country team and the likelihood that they might be the Knights. He also told him about what he and Nick had just found in Lyle’s closet.

“What’s in those containers?” asked Ajay.

“I think it’s more of the … you know,” said Will, suddenly self-conscious.

“Monsters?” said Ajay, his eyes widening. “You know, Will, I want to believe everything you’ve told us, but you’re the only one who’s seen any of them so far.”

“If you’re lucky, that won’t change,” said Will.

“Well, I have a lot to show you, too,” said Ajay, taking his dish to the kitchen. “Meet me in my room. Bring your tablet.”

Will hurried to his room. His tablet sat up on his desk, a screen saver of the crest floating in a liquid blue field. He stopped when it dissolved to black, then faded up on a replica of his room. A young man sat at the desk with his back to Will, working at his tablet.

The figure turned. It was Will’s syn-app, fully fleshed. He had the same face, hair, and clothes as Will, except for a different-color shirt, light gray to Will’s blue. Then—after the syn-app saw Will—his shirt changed color to match his exactly.

It was like looking in a mirror, but not quite. The figure appeared smooth around the edges, slightly vague, like a nearly finished sketch. Computer Will met Will’s eye and smiled, as if he had been waiting for him.

The syn-app waved. Will hesitated, then waved back. He thought about asking the figure to stand, so thrown by this eerie thing that he felt the syn-app needed to move so he could reach his real tablet. “Will” stood and stepped away from the desk, smiling agreeably and awaiting Will’s next instruction.

Did he just hear me think that?

“Okay, that’s a little creepy,” said Will. “Shut down.”

“Would you like me to run a system security check, Will?” asked Will in a spooky simulation of his own voice.

“Not right now—”

“I highly recommend you let me perform a—”

“I said not now. Shut down.”

“Will” snapped his fingers and the screen went black. The legs folded into the frame and the tablet settled down flat on the desk. Will warily picked it up. Holding it like a ticking bomb, he hurried to Ajay’s room, knocked, announced himself, and heard Ajay open the locks before the door opened.

“Come in quickly,” said Ajay.

Ajay closed and locked the door behind them, noting the cautious way Will carried in his tablet.

“I take it your doppelgänger has finally arrived,” said Ajay.

“This thing’s freaking me out.”

“Perfectly natural reaction. I couldn’t even stay in the same room with mine at first. Set it on the desk next to mine. We’ll need it.”

Gauzy sheer panels of material hung down from the ceiling of Ajay’s room. Big soft throw pillows covered the floor. An animated wall poster of the periodic table adorned one wall, molecules lazily circling around each other. Ajay’s desk stood under a suspended muslin pyramid covered with bright red satin. A printed banner spanned the bookshelf above the desk:

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