Glitches (Book 1)

Chapter 1.5: Claire

"What's the matter? Come on, get in!" said one of the guys as he surfaced, slicking back his hair. He had just finished spitting out a mouthful of water, trying to spew it as far away as possible for no apparent reason, as young boys sometimes did.

"Sorry, I'm not allowed to," Justin sighed, clearly disappointed. "My parents said I'm too little to swim in a twelve-foot pool."

"You're such a baby!" another boy taunted. The whole group broke into a laugh. Justin's face fumed red, but he continued to stand on the edge of the pool.

"Come on, get in," yelled the first boy. "I dare you."

By this, they all fell silent. A dare was a huge deal to a little boy. It was a measure of one's worth, and not accepting a dare meant shouldering a significant blow to one's pride. Of course, due to this unspoken principle, Justin would listen, even though I knew for a fact that he was even worse at swimming than I was.

Adding to his already long list of reasons to accept the dare was the fact that he was only four, and all of his friends were already in Kindergarten. Being the youngest, he would obviously have felt the need to prove himself. This was, in the mind of a four-year-old boy, the perfect opportunity to do just that. However, I had spent enough time around Justin and his unruly friends to know that a dare never ended well for my brother.

Yet, somehow, he refused to learn from experience and continued to take on dares by the dozen.

At that moment, pausing for a moment in the middle of my thoughts, I glanced at the Floaty Computer above his head casually. I didn't expect to see anything out of the ordinary, but what I did find was rather alarming. The usually green Floaty Computer symbols had changed into a bright red, and were frantically circling my brother's head instead of traveling slowly in their normal, tranquil path of motion.

Unfortunately, that wasn't even the worst part.

Through years of carefully watching the Floaty Computer and quietly observing its operations, I had gained a decent understanding of how it worked. Not unlike the computer code from which it got its name, the Floaty Computer used a system of text and symbols to state, in sequences of varying length, what was to happen, where it was to happen, and how it was to happen.

The sequence above Justin's head read "Take dare. Drown. Die."

I instinctively reached out and altered a few letters and numbers, changing the sequence to "refuse dare." This was another one of the techniques that I had learned from experience. I could touch and move pieces of the Floaty Computer, changing the encoded instructions that they contained, although holding them for too long caused my hand to grow uncomfortably warm.

Sure enough, obediently following the instructions of the symbols above his head, Justin shook his head and returned to my side, unaffected by the jeers of his friends.

I was unimaginably proud of myself, I had saved his life!

See? The Floaty Computer was useful after all! So much for people saying it didn't exist.

Just as we were walking back around the pool to the shallow side, ready to get back into the water, two burly men in black suits motioned for my brother to come over to where they stood. They waited in the shade of a plastic palm tree, their lips tightly pressed together in unfriendly scowls. Being very young myself, I didn't know about warning him to not talk to strangers.

He cheerily walked over, spraying the men with water from his bright orange swim shorts. The fact that their once immaculate suits were now peppered with little droplets of water didn't seem to faze them in the slightest. They did not bother to look down at Justin, who barely came up to their kneecaps, while speaking to him. This forced him to crane his neck to look up at their stern faces. They talked to him for a while, nodding and writing something down on their notepads. Soon, he was back to the poolside, skipping along the edge of the water as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

"What happened?" I asked, curious about the strange men and their intentions.

"The big men asked me about you, and why I didn't get in the water," Justin grinned. "I told them all about how awesome you are, and your magical green number powers!"

"It's not magical," I argued. "I can see the numbers. They're there. And they have a name: The Floaty Computer. If you don't call them that, you might hurt their feelings."

As children typically did, I had begun to grow attached to the Floaty Computer. I considered it my friend, and would take grave offense to any insult that was thrown its way.

"Whatever," Justin rolled his eyes, skipping back to the water.

After swimming for a little while longer, I unsuspectingly took him back to where our parents sat under a torn green awning. We both dried off and were ready to go home.

.......................

Later that evening, just hours after our trip to the pool, my brother and I had already forgotten about the day's unusual events. I reclined on a faded, pink beanbag chair outside my room and flipped through a picture book. However, my reading was soon interrupted by two sharp knocks on the door. While Justin continued to lie upside down on the couch, I walked over to the wooden railing that stood a few yards in front me and lay down on my stomach. In this position, I was out of the view of those downstairs but could still see them to some extent and listen to what they were saying.

When I looked up, I was shocked to see the two men from the pool standing in the doorway, talking to my parents. While they appeared confident and sure of themselves with their crisp suits and precise hand gestures, my mom seemed totally bewildered. She stood with her mouth slightly open, giving the men a slow, disbelieving nod. My dad remained completely motionless at her side, his arms crossed over his chest.

Although I ardently endeavored to pick up on their conversation and even resorted to looking into their Floaty Computers, I couldn't catch any coherent sentences. I only heard bits like "real psychic power," "million dollar potential," and "all costs covered."

What psychic power? I didn't have any psychic powers! All I did was change my brother's numbers to save him! It was the right thing to do!

I never knew that the world would consider me 'psychic' or what ramifications that would have for me. The most puzzling thing was the kind of interest these mysterious men seemed to show in my brother and me, and the "million-dollar potential" they thought I had. A million dollars was a lot of money, more money than I had ever dreamed of seeing let alone possessing.

What I forgot to think about at the time was the last snippet of conversation, "all costs covered." I didn't stop to wonder what costs they were talking about. If I only knew then, then trust me, I'd be downstairs within a second begging my mother to send the men away – never to come back to our house again. That was the worst part of it all. I had no idea what I was in for until the next week, when it was too late to change anything. The next week, when a new chapter of my life began.