2400 AD

Constance and Jack escorted the young boys to the anti-simulation lab. They had never seen anything like this before. Tumelo met them to explain simulation protocol. A quick lesson about the helmet, the suit, and the rules. The boys were entering the wild unknown. Whereas they could make things appear and disappear with their minds, this time they’d experience it through the heart of a machine.

In a fraction of a painless second, they were gone, and when they next appeared, they were standing beside Callum whom they had never met. Kendall came forward and introduced them. Callum explained the situation while Jacob stared at the building. He took note of the children standing at the windows on each floor, and something else, something Callum least expected.

“There’s a shield between us and the building,” Jacob said. “It’s impenetrable.”

“Nothing is impenetrable,” Callum said audaciously. “Those children are going to suffer in there. They’re looking for children with the same powers as you. We need to get them out, and we need to rescue Gideon. Let’s just hope it’s not too late.”

Callum gripped his shoulder. “Do it.”

Jacob took Thespian’s hand, their knuckles turned white in the grip. Their foreheads tightened above closed eyes. Suddenly their eyes opened like a curtain being drawn across a white, icy landscape. Only the white of their eyes appeared.

They looked unearthly. Not human.

Thespian broke into a sweat, and Jacob began to tremble, mumbling in a strange language that sounded like Latin and Portuguese. He continued this way for several moments then, with a last gulp of breath, collapsed, taking Thespian to the ground with him.

Callum turned to Cleo. “What the hell is happening?”

Cleo placed a finger on her lips. “Maybe this is what they do. Give it a few more moments.”

Thespian rolled over and gripped Jacob’s other hand sending a bolt of visible electricity through his body. The electricity increased in size and strength and soon both were enveloped in a large circle of electric light, like a crackling, white balloon.

And then something undeniably fantastical happened. The circle slowly formed a tunnel, like an arm reaching out towards the building. It covered the invisible shield protecting the building, and sent branches of electricity throughout the shield’s matrix.

The shield exploded outwards and in an instant the electrical charges reached the building. The conductivity grew stronger. The branches of staggered lightning penetrated Xenocon’s steel walls and windows. Each bolt reached for a subject and the moment it struck, the subject disappeared. Some fell and writhed on the floor, others ran towards locked doors, screaming in absolute terror, whilst others welcomed these deathly tentacles and embraced them as though this was to be their last moment of life.