S.O.S (6 page)

“My maths,” he said. “It's mostly equations. I'm working on something quite complex.”

“You're not kidding,” Molly said, “WOW!” Then, not wanting to seem too impressed added, “You're such a geek.”

Dev smiled. He came and stood beside her, looking at the wall and leaned in close. Molly's heart gave a lurch. He's going to kiss me, she thought. She closed her eyes.

“It looks difficult but in the end it was quite simple,” Dev said.

Molly opened her eyes. He was pointing out a series of figures that tailed across the wall. He hadn't been about to kiss her, he was just trying to explain an equation. She felt herself blush. She nodded, not really understanding anything he was saying.

“I'll show you it on the computer,” he said, “that should make it easier to understand.”

Again she nodded and watched him turn on the PC. “Come and sit here,” he said, pulling up a chair next to him. “I really want you to know this,” he said, suddenly serious, “And I think you should be sitting down when I tell you...”

*

Full of
MacFlurry
, Jenny tucked Sophie into bed. It was late and there had been no time for stories tonight.

“OK, lights out right away and straight to sleep,” Jenny said.

Sophie snuggled down under the duvet and Jenny pulled it up to her chin, leaning down and kissing her daughter.

“Night, night Sophie,” she said, turning off the bedside lamp and leaving the small night light glowing in the corner. “Sleep tight.”

Jenny waited for a few minutes by the door until she heard Sophie's breathing regulate and then, sure that her daughter was asleep, she made her way to her own bedroom, thinking that she might get her book to read downstairs. She stopped, just inside the room.

Her bed had been turned down and an old fawn teddy bear was propped up against the pillows. Tears welled up immediately. Jenny snatched it up and hurried down to Sophie's room.

At Sophie's bed, she stopped and looked down at her daughter. What warped ideas were going on in her mind? Why was she doing this? Jenny hugged the bear into her chest. When had it happened? This morning? No, Jenny had changed her jeans to go out for ice-cream; there was nothing in the room then. When they got back? No, she and Sophie had been together all the time.

Jenny sat down on the bed and shook Sophie awake. It was mean, she thought, although Sophie probably had no idea just how hurtful it was. She must have put the bear there whilst Jenny was getting the hot water bottle. Sophie woke as Jenny shook her.

“Mummy?”

Jenny nodded.

“Why have you got Chris's bear?” she asked.

“You put it in Mummy's bed,” Jenny said.

“I-I didn't,” Sophie responded in a small, confused voice. “It was on my bed.”

Jenny ignored this. “Please don't keep putting Chris's things out,” she said gently. “Please leave them in his room.”

Sophie's eye lids fluttered closed, but Jenny knew that she'd understood. She bent forward and kissed her daughter again. How could she be cross? They all missed Chris and showed it in different ways.

*

Dev paced up and down his room, excitedly spewing out his theory, whilst Molly lay on his bed, propped up on her elbow watching him. The faster he explained everything, the faster Molly's head swam with the deluge of sums and possible theories that poured out of his mouth. Desperately trying to keep up, Molly focused hard, but everything that he said was beyond her grasp. It was just too complex.

“Dev, please slow down. I think you've lost me!” she finally blurted out. “I was only asking what it all meant! I didn't expect you to go off on one.”

Dev stopped. He turned to her and finally sat down on the chair opposite the bed so that he faced her.

“OK, OK, I'm sorry.” he sighed. “It's just that you're the first person that I've been able to tell, apart from my parents, who don't understand a word I'm saying.” He took a deep breath. “They think I'm mad anyway and this wouldn't help...”

Molly sat up on the bed and crossed her legs into the lotus position. She narrowed her eyes and looked again at the wall.

“So,” she began, “all of this, all this maths...”

“The theorems, yes....”

“They are all pointing to a discovery. Right?”

“Correct.”

“And this discovery challenges the current thinking – whatever that is – sorry, but you lost me on that part, it challenges the current thinking on the subject of ‘dark matter'. What do you mean by dark matter? I don't think I understand.”

Dev nodded. His face was grave. He took a deep breath. “OK, right, well there is dark energy – it turns out that roughly seventy five per cent of the universe is dark energy and then there is dark matter, which is about twenty per cent and finally there is matter, which is pretty much everything else that we can measure with instruments and that makes about five per cent. Are you with me?”

“Yup, with you so far.”

“Right. Dark energy is the stuff that affects the expansion of the universe, but no-one knows exactly what it is made up of. I'm not going to confuse you with particle science but with my calculations, what I think I now know challenges all the thinking on what dark matter is and how it interacts with the universe to date.” He ran his hands through his hair and pushed it back off his face.

Molly thought for a moment, trying to take it all in. “Blimey. So that's pretty big then?”

“Yup.” Dev smiled, but his face was strained.

“So why is this a problem? Isn't it, like, the best thing that ever happened to you? I mean you could change the world, couldn't you? You're a genius, aren't you?”

Dev shook his head. “No. What I've discovered is not some amazing invention. If I've got it right, I don't think anyone is going to thank me for it.”

Molly stared at him. “OK, so what does this all mean?”

Dev paused, then said, very seriously, “If dark matter is what I think it is then I believe it means that the Earth is spinning out of control. The energy created by the dark matter - which according to my calculations is increasing - is pulling the Earth out of its orbit around the sun.” He stood up and the enormity of what he was saying began to sink in. Molly felt herself go cold.

“Life on Earth exists because we are in what is called the Goldilocks Zone, which is just right to sustain existence. If the angle of the orbit is even one degree out, then we would either freeze or burn and all life would cease to exist. With an increase in the energy that constitutes dark matter there will be a change in the angle of the orbit. It's inevitable.”

Molly listened with dawning horror at this terrifying statement, willing it to be untrue, though the conviction in Dev's eyes told her otherwise. “So the earth will begin to spin out of the orbit round the sun...”

“Yes.”

They sat there in silence for a few moments. Then Molly stood up. “You must have got it wrong Dev,” she said, “it can't be right. People must know about this, there must be scientists who...-”

Dev shook his head. “It's not wrong and I am the first person to have worked it out.”

“Have you told anyone about this?” she spluttered. Again Dev shook his head grimly.

“No one would believe me if I did,” he said, “They'd think I was insane.”

Molly looked at him then, his hair on end with all the times he'd run his fingers through it, and recognised those eyes that burnt with frustration and resignation. It was exactly how she felt; she understood his problem and felt a new closeness to him.

“I'm just a kid with a mathematical brain who has worked his way through all the books and all the theories on Astrophysics and come up with this. No-one is ever going to take me seriously.”

She thought about the voices and the shadowy figures; she thought about the dark, lonely boy down in the front room and she knew what it was to hold a secret; something that no-one would ever believe.

“So dark matter,” she began, “This energy. What do you think it is?”

Dev sighed. “I think it's made up of particles, axions, or some kind of WIMPs.”

“WIMPs?”

“Weakly Interacting Massive Particles...” He looked at her. “Don't worry about it; just imagine some kind of energy particle that we can't fathom.”

“OK. Then it seems that if you know that this energy, this dark matter is expanding and altering the angle of the orbit then you need to find out what the energy is made up of, right?”

Dev grinned. He shook his head again and kept grinning. “Yeah, right.”

“What's so funny?”

Dev came and sat down on the bed next to her and Molly felt a jolt, like someone had just shot her through with electricity. He took her hand. “If I could find the secret of dark matter Molly, I could save the world.”

She smiled back at him. “And your point is?” She looked at the reams of calculations on the wall opposite her, at the books on the shelves, at the complex computer program on the screen of the PC. “You're halfway there Dev,” she said.

Suddenly the shadowy figure of a boy appeared just inside the door. He stood and watched them on the bed. Molly eased her hand away from Dev's and stood up. “And it seems to me that if you can do this much, you can do more.” She turned and looked at him. “So?”

“So what?” Dev asked.

“So what are we waiting for? You said that if you could find the secret of dark matter you could...”

“Save the world.”

“Exactly.”

They looked at each other and smiled. They both knew that whatever Dev was going to do, Molly would help him and for the first time in ages, neither of them felt alone.

Molly woke with a start from her nightmare, sitting up in bed shaking and drenched in sweat. The images of the world spinning away from the sun, of ice and dark faces crying, screaming, began to fade, but the darkness pressed in around her and she peered into the gloom, watching as the familiar shapes of her room slowly emerged.

The echo of voices from the dream still sounded in the blackness. She took a deep breath to steady her racing heart, rolling over to turn on the light on the table beside her bed. The dimness vanished, retreating into eerie shadows that slid along the walls and pooled upon the floor. The light illuminated the figure of a boy sitting in a chair across her room, head lolling onto his shoulders as he slept.

Not for long. The bright light pierced through his dreamless state and he stuttered awake, his soundless snores ending abruptly as he blearily opened his eyes then shut them again.

“Turn it off!” he said grumpily, pulling his hood up over his head. “I was sleeping.”

He opened one eye and looked at her. “Or at least I think I was sleeping. My mind was blank anyway.”

Molly ignored him. She sat up, stared fixedly at the wall and tried to pretend he wasn't there – not easy as he started humming.

“Shut up!” she said. She was annoyed. Hadn't he given her enough trouble today? She just couldn't get rid of him – from the street to the café, to the cinema, Dev's and now here, home – even in the privacy of her own room he was there. She hugged her knees and tried to block out the constant low humming.

“What is your problem?!” she suddenly snapped.

“What's yours?!” he snapped back. “It's three a.m.” Zack threw off his hood and stood up, stretching out his cramped muscles. The light made no shadow on the wall behind him.

“So? You're dead. What does it matter to you?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. It just does, that's all.”

Molly shook her head and continued to stare at the wall.

“What was it anyway? Nightmare or something?” Zack's voice was needling. “Pathetic little dream?” He wanted to get a rise out of Molly.

“Yes,” she said dully, “it was - a bad one.”

Zack paced the floor a couple of times, still humming then sat back down. He watched the girl in bed for a few minutes, wondering what to do next. He wasn't used to being ignored. All his life Zack had gained attention by being irritating, and, as he got older, by being nasty and sometimes vicious. It worked. Even bad attention was better than no attention and the nastier he was, the more vicious he was, the more attention he got.

“Aww did little Molly have a bad dream?” he mimicked, “Oh, poor little Molly.”

Molly looked away, refusing to be drawn in. The silence stretched between them, elongating as the seconds ticked by.

“OK!” Zack suddenly said, unable to take being shut out. “What was it about then?”

He came over to the bed and sat down. He was weightless and made no impact on the bed. He wasn't especially interested in her dream. There was nothing more boring than having to listen to someone drone on about themselves, but Zack didn't like silence – it made him uneasy; it gave him time to think and that wasn't good.

Molly looked at him and weighed up the options. She could turn off the light and ignore him, but she wasn't tired now and sleep would evade her, she knew that. If she spoke to him, and it might help to have someone to confide in, there was always the probability that he would mock her or even worse, that he'd form some kind of relationship with her and she would never, ever get rid of him. But, and this is what made her do it, talking was a way of unburdening and her dreams were a terrible burden.

She looked at him. He was waiting for her explanation.

“I can hear voices inside my head,” she said, watching his face for any reaction. “They are constant, they never stop. It's like there are thousands of people trapped and crying out for help and I can hear them all. Sometimes at night I can hear them in my dreams too.” She bit her lip. “And see them – the voices become faces – but only in my dreams thank God - all crying in pain, all looking at me.”