The Sinister Shadows [Prequel to White Noise]

4. The Declaration of War

My eyes scanned the projection in front of me, the symbols and words fading into blurs as I scrolled through the information, searching desperately for a pattern. There had to be some explanation, some particular way people were Matched. It was in our DNA; there had to be something to help me create a formula. My brain was filled with an ocean of fast moving thoughts. I needed there to be a reason. Behind me, Eli sighed loudly. I turned around, my eyebrows raised.

My older brother lay on his back on my bed, one of his knees in the air with his other leg resting on top of it. His left arm was slung behind his head, as if it were a pillow, and his right arm was in the air, throwing a red rubber ball up and down in absolute boredom.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

The ball froze in his hand. “I don’t like you hanging out with him.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the projection. “Everyone here is male, Eli, you’ll have to be more specific than just ‘him’.”

“No I don’t.” Eli’s voice was stern. “You know exactly who I mean.”

I sighed. “Nothing is wrong with Will, Eli. Everyone’s wrong about him.”

“I don’t like it.” My brother pressed. “Something about the guy just feels… wrong.”

I spun around again. “What makes you think that?”

He shrugged, throwing the ball again. “I just have a bad feeling about him.”

“I don’t,” I said simply. “I like him. He understands.”

Eli sat up, raising his eyebrows. “You don’t have a bad feeling about him… Do you have other feelings about him?”

“Eli, I just met the guy a week ago!” I said exasperatedly. “No, I don’t. He just understands why I don’t want to talk about things. He doesn’t want to talk about things either.”

My brother collapsed back onto the bed again, his hands over his face. “You can stop there. I don’t want to know what you guys do whilst hanging out and not talking about things.”

I looked around desperately and threw the only physical projectile around me at my brother. I didn’t think the small, metal pen would do much damage, but his body jerked and folded in on itself as the pen collided with his diaphragm. If I ignored the fact that I was aiming for his head, I could almost say it was a good shot. “We came up with an Invention, actually.”

He sat up, rubbing his stomach where the pen had landed, his gaze curious as he sent me a sideways glance. “You got a guy like him to want to save the world?”

I made a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. “You’re wrong about him, Eli.” I said, closing the Projection and forcing my computer chair backwards. I stood, pushing the chair grumpily under the desk, and walked over to the door of my room, snatching my jacket off its hook. “The meeting, silly.” I said, replying to my brother’s questioning look.

Eli launched himself off the bed, leaving the red ball to roll around on the purple sheets. He made his way over to me and opened the door so I could leave, before following me out. I shoved him playfully into the wall of the alcove surrounding the entrance to my room and locked the door, ignoring the rattling noise my keys made. I would not. I would not have another hallucination. I would get better.

“So,” he asked casually as we walked from the apartment block to the central building of the Compound. “What’s the Invention you came up with?”

I shook my head. “It’s silly.” I admitted. “Chances are it won’t even work, anyway.”

My brother raised his eyebrows. “It must be pretty important to you,” he observed. “I’m taking a shot in the dark here and saying that whatever your Invention is, it’s what you’ve been slaving away at in front of those projections in your room.”