Numerical Apocalypse

two

"How was your day?" My mom asked as she braked the car for a red light.

"Fine." I squinted at my phone screen in the setting sun, scrolling through Google search results.

"Just fine?"

"Yeah."

"Did you meet the new boy?"

I nodded. "We spoke a little bit in the hall." I lowered my phone to glance across at her. "Why do you ask?"

"Mrs. Jackson was telling me about a little incident in their class involving him." My mom nonchalantly scanned the traffic, oblivious to my inner turmoil.

Incident?? Would that have anything to do with his number?

"What happened?" I asked calmly.

Mom smiled at me. "From what I heard, he got into a fight with another student over chemical properties. The one kid wouldn't admit he was wrong, and started throwing punches."

"Well." I focused my eyes on the yellow stripe in the middle of the road, my impression of the new kid growing as my mom continued to talk. "He wasn't nearly that assertive when I talked to him. Mostly seemed brain-dead."

"What?"

"He said he needed more caffeine. I explained the lunch pass privileges to him." I said, turning my phone back on.

"Ah."

As soon as i entered my house, i hurried up to my room and dropped my backpack next to my desk.

My laptop took forever to power on.

After a moment of staring at it, pressuring it to turn on, I darted downstairs and grabbed a bag of chocolate.

My mom glanced at me questioningly as I climbed the stairs.

I shrugged. "I need brain food."

She nodded concernedly. "Right."

When I finished the homework due in two days — our school schedule was staggered—, I plugged my phone in at my desk and continued my google search on a larger screen.

"Why.... are..... some... people... more-" I started saying what I typed.

Google autocompleted my search to 'why are some people more dangerous than others'. I hit enter.

After loads of results about military personnel, a book about politicians, and some psychological studies about animal cruelty, I came upon a 'sketchy' website detailing a person's life with abilities similar to mine.

I eagerly clicked on it, but not before making sure my firewall was still in place.

Sadly, the article didn't have anything in it about unusually high numbers, though the author's experiences were eerily similar to my own.

Well, whaddayaknow, almighty google isn't so almighty after all.

I sighed and closed the browser.

Right as I hit 'x', the author's profile caught my eye.

"No, no, no, noooooooo...." The browser closed.

"Wonderful." Now even more grumpy than I had been, I hunched my shoulders and went to my chrome history.

With the site back up on screen, I scrolled down until I saw the 'about me' section again.

A quick click enlarged the photo of the author and his family, and I leaned forward, then almost fell out of my chair.

"Hey, mom- wait." I typed in my school's website, logged in, and scrolled to the student section.