The school library smelled like floor wax and old paper. In the back corner, behind the rows of encyclopedias, was the "Computer Lab"—a small room with four bulky beige computers that hummed loudly.
It was 3:15 PM. The rest of the school had cleared out, students rushing home to watch TRL on MTV. But the five members of the "Glitch" team were huddled around a single monitor.
"It's so slow," Sarah groaned, leaning against the table. "Can't you make it go faster?"
"It's 56k, Sarah. It's not magic," Aris muttered. He was typing furiously on the clunky keyboard. The screen showed a loading bar inching forward, pixel by pixel.
Screech-bong-hisss.
The sound of the modem connecting filled the room.
"Okay," Aris said, adjusting his glasses. "I've been searching for the symbol you found. And I've been cross-referencing it with the frequency we heard last night."
"And?" Kenji asked. He was keeping a lookout at the door, making sure the librarian, Mrs. Higgins, wasn't walking over.
"And, I found something weird. Look at this."
Aris pointed to the screen. It was a grainy black-and-white photo from a scanned newspaper article dated 1984. The headline read: LOCAL PHYSICIST MISSING: DR. ALDRIC VANCE VANISHES IN LAB EXPLOSION.
Sarah froze. She pushed off the table and leaned in. "Vance? That's... that's my grandpa."
The room went silent. Everyone looked at Sarah.
"You never said your grandpa was a physicist," Marco said softly.
"I didn't know!" Sarah said, her voice defensive. "My dad never talks about him. He just said he died in a chemical accident before I was born."
"Read the article," Aris said.
Kenji leaned in and read the blurry text aloud. "Dr. Aldric Vance, a researcher for the cryptic Project Echo, disappeared last night. Authorities found high levels of electromagnetic radiation in his basement lab, but no body. The only thing recovered was his notebook, which contained sketches of theoretical 'Static Gates'."
Aris clicked the mouse. A second image loaded. It was a sketch from the notebook.
It was the symbol. A circle with a jagged line cutting through it.
"Project Echo," Aris whispered. "That satellite station we went to? It was built by the military in the eighties. I think your grandpa was working on it, Sarah. I think he was trying to open the door we just kicked down."
Sarah stared at the screen, her face pale. She reached out and touched the monitor glass. "So... this is my fault? My family started this?"
"No," Kenji said firmly. He stepped away from the door and put a hand on Sarah's shoulder. "We turned the machine on. We did this. We fix it together."
"Guys," Maya interrupted. She was standing by the window, looking out at the football field. "You need to see this."
Her voice was trembling.
Kenji joined her at the window. The computer lab was on the second floor, giving them a view of the back of the school, near the boiler room entrance.
Down below, the janitor, Mr. Henderson, was sweeping the pavement. But he was moving strangely. He was jerking, his limbs twitching like a broken puppet. He would sweep the same spot over and over again, staring blankly at the wall.
Then, he stopped. He dropped the broom.
He walked straight toward the heavy metal door of the boiler room. But he didn't open it. He slammed his head against it.
Thud.
He pulled back and did it again.
Thud.
"What is he doing?" Marco whispered, horrified.
"He's acting like the dog," Kenji realized, a cold chill running down his spine. "Remember the dog at the station? How it moved? All twitchy and wrong?"
"You think he's... infected?" Sarah asked.
"Or possessed," Aris added. "If the signal is a frequency, maybe it can broadcast into people's brains."
Mr. Henderson hit the door one last time. His forehead was bleeding now, leaving a smear of red on the gray metal. Then, he opened the door and disappeared into the darkness of the boiler room.
"That's where I saw the symbol," Sarah said. "This morning. Scratched into the paint right next to that door."
Kenji looked at his friends. He saw fear in their eyes. Marco was rubbing his stone arm. Maya was hugging herself. Aris looked like he wanted to throw up.
They were just kids. They should be worried about algebra tests and who to sit with at lunch. Not possessed janitors.
But Kenji felt that pull in his gut again. Not the power this time, but the responsibility.
"We have to go down there," Kenji said.
"Are you crazy?" Marco asked. "Mr. Henderson is huge. If he's a monster now, he'll crush us."
"We don't fight him unless we have to," Kenji said. "But we need to know what's down there. If he's building something... or if he's hurt... we can't just leave him."
Kenji looked at Aris. "Aris, bring your tape recorder. We need evidence."
He looked at Sarah. "Sarah, can you make the light sword again?"
Sarah hesitated. She looked at her shaking hands. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and clenched her fist. A faint flicker of white light sparked, then died.
"I... I can try," she said. "But it's flickering. I'm tired."
"It's okay," Kenji said. "Maya, stay behind Marco. Marco, you're the shield. I'm on point."
"Why are you on point?" Marco asked. "You're the squishy wizard."
"Because," Kenji adjusted his glasses, trying to look braver than he felt. "If things go bad, I'm the only one who can blink us out."
It was a lie. Kenji knew he couldn't teleport the whole group yet. He barely teleported himself three feet yesterday. But he needed them to believe they had an exit strategy.
"Let's go," Kenji said.
They left the library, sneaking past Mrs. Higgins, and headed for the stairs. The school hallways were empty and dim, the afternoon sun casting long, orange shadows across the lockers.
As they descended toward the basement level, the air grew colder. The smell of floor wax was replaced by the smell of rust and damp earth.
And something else.
A low, buzzing sound. Like a fly trapped in a jar.
Bzzzzt... Bzzzzt...
"I hear it," Aris whispered, covering his ears. "The Static. It's loud down here."
They reached the boiler room door. The smear of blood from Mr. Henderson's forehead was still wet on the metal.
Kenji reached for the handle. It was freezing cold.
He pushed the door open.
Darkness swallowed them. The only light came from the pilot lights of the massive furnace in the center of the room, casting dancing shadows on the pipes.
"Mr. Henderson?" Kenji called out softly.
No answer. Just the hiss of steam and the buzzing sound.
"Over there," Maya pointed.
In the corner of the room, behind a stack of old desks, something was glowing. It was a faint, pulsating blue light.
They crept forward, stepping over puddles of murky water.
When they looked behind the desks, Marco gagged.
"Oh, god," Sarah whispered, covering her mouth.
Mr. Henderson wasn't there. But his clothes were.
His gray janitor jumpsuit lay on the floor in a heap. But inside the jumpsuit, there was a substance. It looked like gray sludge, thick and bubbling, smelling of sulfur. It was as if the man had just melted.
And rising from the sludge was a structure. It looked like a cocoon made of black wire and blue crystal. It was pulsing, beating like a heart.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"He didn't disappear," Aris said, his voice trembling with scientific horror. "He was... raw material. The signal used him to build this."
"To build what?" Marco asked.
"A repeater," Aris said. "It's trying to boost the signal. To open the gate wider right here in the school."
Suddenly, the cocoon cracked.
A blue mist hissed out. The buzzing noise became a shriek.
"Back!" Kenji yelled.
The cocoon tore open. But it wasn't a dog that came out this time.
It was a hand. A human-shaped hand, but made of translucent blue glass and shifting shadow. It gripped the edge of the cocoon, pulling itself up.
A head followed. It had no face, just a smooth surface reflecting the blue light. But the shape of the head, the shoulders... it looked exactly like Kenji.
It was a copy. A Doppelganger.
The Shadow-Kenji tilted its head. It didn't speak, but a voice echoed in all of their minds at once.
Found you.