Back in his room, Jack sat cross-legged on his bed and studied his friends, now arguing over the relative merits of different consoles. He fiddled with a roll of black paper as he did so. On the surface, it looked like ordinary black craft paper, but it promised to change his life and the lives of his friends forever.

Everything hinged on the next hour, but there were so many unknowns. Jack couldn’t predict what would happen and maybe couldn’t control anything once it did. All he could do was make sure his friends were there to experience it with him.

So, he fiddled with the letter and tried to think of a surefire way to keep all of them in place for another half hour. Surely that wouldn’t be too hard?

His room was so small that the four of them barely seemed to fit in it these days, and yet having them here, together, felt good. Jack hadn’t seen them in one place for a long time. Everyone had gone away and left him, the youngest of the group, stultified in his final year of high school. It was tough being the runt. Jack was determined not to go through another year like that.

His eyes drifted to Daiki. Daiki was the challenge. Steve always went along with Jack’s suggestions, no matter how convoluted or crazy they might be. And Zac would follow the group if everyone else was in.

But Daiki, his long, lean form currently slouched on the sofa, as though he was bored, was always cynical, always stubbornly picking apart whatever they did as though there needed to be a point to everything. Sometimes Jack suspected his half-gaijin friend only went along with their trouble-making so he could take photos of the aftermath. His camera was never far from his hand.

Every few minutes Daiki reached up to check on his purple-black hair. He had, no doubt, spent hours getting it to look just the right amount of disheveled. He wasn’t exactly going to be thrilled to be without his hair dryer, if the plan went the way Jack hoped it would. Or… maybe he could take it with him? Jack wasn’t sure about details yet. At any rate, they would find out soon.

His attention snapped back to the conversation just as it died away. The only sound was the soft patter of Zac’s hands as he drummed idly on the arm of Jack’s old sofa.

“Well guys, I think I’d better take off too...” Steve carefully set down the basketball he had been playing with and stood. “I’m going to go watch a movie with Zoe.”

“Got you on a tight leash, huh?” Zac grinned up at Steve who stretched out, rising up on his toes to touch the ceiling.

Steve had developed muscles on his muscles, working on that ship, Jack thought and glanced at his own arms. Wiry, maybe, but no one could call him ripped. Pale, freckled, mousy hair, Jack was an all-around average-looker, except for his height. He was shorter than Zac, the next tallest, by a good two inches.

Not like Steve at all. The tallest of the group, Steve was deeply tanned and had hair that had been bleached to coppery straw after working for the last two years on his uncle’s fishing boat. His scarred hands and knocked-about nose made him look older than his nineteen years. But his kind blue eyes were more attractive than the straightest of noses.

Steve dropped down on his heels and winked at Zac. “I’ve got to admit, she works me to the bone.”

Zac groaned and Daiki snickered. Jack chuckled along with the others but his mind was racing, trying to think of a delay that wasn’t going to make them suspicious. His friends thought they had the rest of the summer to catch up. They had no reason to linger. He was going to lose them.

The long hand of the old starburst clock on his wall was still centimeters away from the 8.

“Wait a bit, Steve... you haven’t told us about... about... your New Year’s resolutions.” Jack winced inside even as he said it. Dumb, real dumb. You might even call it shit.

“Resolutions?” Steve thought for a moment. “How about... don’t drink the Kool-Aid. At least, not when it’s mixed with straight gin.”

Jack flushed red but managed a polite grin as the others laughed.

Steve and Jack had spent New Years on a local beach, along with Zoe and a few dozen people from Jack’s graduating high school class, passing around cheap, colorful mixed drinks and throwing armfuls of driftwood on a massive, sloppy bonfire. There had been stinking, Day-Glo splashes of vomit speckled all over the dunes the morning after.

Steve wasn’t a heavy drinker and Zoe only had one or two, but Jack had made an unfortunate Hawaiian Lime contribution to the group effort. Most of the night was a bit blurry. He did remember Steve patting him on the back after he had emptied his stomach. From the smirks on Zac and Daikis’ faces, they knew all about it.

That was before I answered the ad, Jack told himself. When I thought I was going to have to work in a supermarket or a McDonalds. Before there was any hope that it would all be OK.

“No need to rub it in, mate,” he said lightly, glancing at the clock again. Come on, come on... “You know, I think there might be some more beer in the kitchen if you want to stay and have a few with us. Mum won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Nah, I really should go,” Steve said and headed for the bedroom door. “I told Zoe I’d meet her there at four.”

“Oh, uh...” Jack bit his lip and scoured his mind for inspiration. A mental light-bulb went off. Finally.

“Steve, I forgot to ask you- how’s that old dog of yours anyway? Grace? I haven’t seen her in ages.”

Much better, Jack congratulated himself. Get Steve talking about one of his animals and he’ll never stop.

Steve swung around in the doorway. “She’s doing really well. You should come over sometime and see her. I’ve had to change her diet to-”

“I think maybe I’d better head off as well,” Zac said, right on schedule. Not that he was pandering to his strict parents or anything, Jack thought bitterly. No, he just happened to want to run home right when they wanted him.

Jack swore to himself as Daiki shrugged and tossed down the console controller he’d been playing with and they both pushed themselves off the couch and it was still only 3.32pm.

Gritting his teeth, Jack threw caution to the wind and slipped past his friends to insert himself in the doorway, blocking their exit. Steve trailed off as he realized no one was listening to his one-sided debate over the benefits of fish versus beef for old dogs.

“What’s going on Jack?” Daiki asked, suspicion in his eyes. “You’ve been sneaking looks at the clock all afternoon.”

“Aw, come on man, I don’t need this,” Zac said. He was holding himself stiff, like he was prepared to charge past Jack and out the door. He tapped one of his brown leather shoes nervously on the floor. “Last time you pulled one of your stunts I was grounded for months, remember? You promised you wouldn’t do that shit again.”

“That was over a year ago, Zac and it wasn’t all my fault. You shouldn’t have let them find out we went to that concert.”

“It was on the news, Jack!” Zac’s voice tended to get higher when he was upset. “It was on the bloody news!”

“Well, maybe if Daiki hadn’t sent them those photos...” Jack ignored the look Daiki shot him. He was trying to see the clock over their shoulders, but it was blocked from view. Surely though, it was going to happen any second now. He was more than over this waiting and getting sick of all these unfounded accusations.

“Just tell us what you’ve done this time, Squirt.” Daiki had plastered a little smile on his face, like he was indulging a child.

“I don’t think I can explain it, exactly...” Jack really hated that little smile.

“How about we promise not to make any sudden breaks for the door and you give it a shot?” Daiki sat back on the old couch.

Zac glanced at Steve, then back at Jack, and snickered uncertainly. But some of the tension left him, and he sat down as well. Jack understood the joke. If Steve wanted to go through that door, itty, bitty Jack wasn’t going to provide much of a barrier.

On the other hand, Jack had been taking jiu jitsu for years. He was pretty sure he could give Steve a run for his money in spite of the size difference.

Not that he ever would. His big friend was a teddy-bear.

Steve reluctantly moved to stand beside the couch but didn’t sit down. He pulled out a cell phone and started tapping away at it, no doubt letting Zoe know he was going to be late.

“Uh...” Jack glanced at the clock again and caught Daiki rolling his eyes. Maybe the clock was broken. The relevant hand seemed to be stuck between the seven and the eight.

The others were all looking at him expectantly. But at least they weren’t trying to force their way out of the room.

Jack took a deep breath and wished fervently that he had prepared a speech. He had been counting on special effects to back up his story. But apparently, they weren’t going to wait for the good part unless he gave them a hook. He thought briefly of showing them the black scroll, which was sitting on his bed, but then decided to start slowly.

“A few weeks ago I found this ad in a science magazine.” Jack pulled a snippet of paper from his jeans pocket.

Seeking Apprentice

Want adventure?

Want fame?

Want riches?

Do you have what it takes

to be the one with all the answers?

Apply now to:

[email protected]

Jack let them pass the clipping around as he counted the seconds. Struggling to keep his eyes from flicking back to the clock, he tried instead to catch the time on the screen as Steve slid his phone back into his jeans pocket.

“So I take it you emailed the guy?” Zac now sounded impatient. “Come on, this looks like one of those fake get-rich-quick schemes. You know, work from home, make $10,000 an hour, and all you need to do is give us your bank account number and password. It’s a con.”

“Or it’s a prank,” Daiki said. “This email looks like a Hitchhiker’s reference. Or maybe a 420 joke they were too stoned to finish.” Daiki heaved one of his heavy, why me sighs as he surveyed the piece of paper. “I don’t even know what country .cyn stands for. It’s just a made-up email. Did you actually spend money on this, Jack? Or was it you who made it in the first place?”

Daiki passed the clipping on to Steve who frowned at it.

“It’s not my ad, I swear,” Jack said. He was starting to wonder if his friends really deserved the opportunity he was about to offer them. “And it’s a real email. You guys just need to listen…”

“Why don’t you just go to university like a normal person?” Zac was tapping his fingers so fast on the sofa arm it sounded like a drum roll. “It’s not as bad as high school, I promise.”

“Yeah,” Daiki said. “You might even get laid.”

“I just... wanted to know what the deal was.” Jack swallowed his resentment and tried to sound nonchalant. He had good reasons for not wanting to go to university, but they were none of his friends’ business.

“So yeah, I emailed, and I got an automatic reply with a link to a test.”

“A test.” Daiki was politely skeptical. His smug little smile was lingering like a bad smell.

Steve was now peering at the other side of the magazine clipping as though it held some answers.

Sweat prickled the back of Jack’s neck. For the first time, he was starting to doubt. What if nothing happened at 3.42? Maybe he should clam-up before he dug himself into even more well-deserved ribbing.

Maybe his friends were right to be so skeptical.

Unable to help himself, Jack glanced at the clock again. The long hand was now well beyond the eight, almost to the nine. The time had passed.

Jack felt sick. It was all just a sophisticated prank and he had fallen for it, flat on his face. In front of his friends.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Steve to leave, just leave, when Jack caught the faintest whisper of anomalous sound. It was a hum, barely audible over his own breathing, and he was sure none of the other boys had noticed it.

Along with the overwhelming wave of relief came a touch of cockiness.

“Yeah, a test,” Jack said. “I aced it of course. Just a bit of logic, philosophy, riddles, advanced calculus...”

There hadn’t been any advanced calculus, only a short section of algebra. But Jack wanted to wipe that smile off Daiki’s face. Daiki couldn’t do calculus to save his life.

There had been other questions, too. Ones that Jack didn’t want mention just yet. He knew his friends would be concerned if they heard about those. Personal questions about ethics and boundaries, and what-if scenarios that could be considered slightly morbid, really, if you thought about them too hard.

Jack didn’t know why he had answered those. He didn’t know why he had answered any of it, except that he really, really didn’t want to work in a supermarket.

The hum was getting louder. Zac noticed it first and paused his tapping to listen.

“Hey, can you guys hear that?” He frowned, his forehead wrinkling. “It sounds like... like some kind of flute... or maybe a saxophone?”

The sound increased rapidly until they could all hear it. Until they could hear nothing else.

It was much louder than the last time. Jack was grateful that his mother was away on a truck run. There would have been no way to disguise a sound this loud.

“Jack! What the hell have you done?” Daiki yelled over the noise, his hands pressed into his ears.

“Just wait!” Jack mouthed the words.

A light was floating in the middle of the room. At first, it could almost be mistaken for some kind of after-image, but it held steady and grew brighter, like a lime-green firefly, then a candle, then a lamp. Gradually it grew large enough for Jack to see that it wasn’t a solid disc. It was a ring of fire.

Daiki was on his feet now and had rushed up to Jack, while Zac was pushing himself into the couch, clutching at the back of it as though he could be sucked into the light. Steve was standing next to the couch, frozen like a stag caught in headlights.

The air remained completely still even as the noise grew ever more painfully loud. Jack kept glancing from his friends to the ring, hoping they weren’t too freaked out. Maybe he should have warned them somehow, but he hadn’t himself known what to expect. The last time, he had only heard the noise, and seen a green light flash under his door, gone before he’d made it into the room.

The portal was now as big as a basketball, a circle of fiery green lining a blazing gray center. It was as bright as a 100-watt light bulb, bright enough that Steve had wrapped his hands around his face, with his thumbs in his ears, and was looking at it through his fingers, his mouth hanging open beneath them.

An unheard gasp ran around the room as a tiny hand darted from the ring. The hand was attached to a flap of skin- a wing- that flicked open as it passed through the portal. It was a translucent membrane stretched beneath a long, gleaming arm. Three thin fingers fumbled for the blazing edge, caught and pulled.

A beak popped out, and then a creature was sitting, silhouetted against the light, on the ring, as though the blazing fire was no more than a sun-warmed tree branch.

It gazed around the room at the boys, their faces bleached by the brilliant green light. It was only a little bigger than a lovebird but was most emphatically not a bird. Its wings were bat-like and its skin was covered in tiny alligator scales, all glimmering forest-green and obsidian.

That was strange enough, but it wasn’t all. The bulk of one wing and one leg were sculpted from an aluminum-like metal and anodized bright green. The membrane of that wing was a soft, silvery material that folded readily against the small body, yet was obviously not organic. Gleaming gears the size of pinheads spun in its shoulder joint as it turned to search the room for the one it had come to see.

It was a cyborg. It had huge, purple eyes... and it was looking at Jack.