Skippy Dies: A Novel

The others – when they have recovered sufficiently to speak – want to call the news stations right away. ‘You just teleported a robot into another dimension, Ruprecht! You’re going to be on TV!’ But Ruprecht insists they verify their findings before they call anybody.

‘Come on, Ruprecht, it’s not like Optimus is going to reappear.’

‘Yeah, you should be celebrating. You can verify tomorrow.’

Ruprecht smiles benignly and continues about his work. ‘First verify. Then celebrate. That’s the way we do it.’

He is oddly calm. Apart from a maniacal twitch that pulls sporadically at the ends of his mouth, the vertiginous weirdness of what has just happened, the world-historical hugeness of it, seems to have passed him by, or even had a sedative effect on him; he moves around the room with a quiet surety, setting up the equipment for another run, like a man who after long months roaming in an unknown territory has spotted a landmark for home.

‘Guys…’ Since the experiment, Dennis has been hunched over on a piece of styrofoam. ‘I don’t feel well.’

‘You don’t look well…’

Dennis’s complexion is pale and clammy, his hands wrapped protectively around his stomach.

‘What’s wrong with him, Ruprecht?’

‘Do you think he got radiation from the rays?’

‘It’s not impossible.’ Ruprecht frowns. ‘Although they shouldn’t do him any harm…’

‘Maybe you’ve turned radioactive, Dennis!’

‘Holy shit, Dennis – maybe you’ve got superpowers!’

‘I don’t feel super,’ Dennis says sorrowfully.

‘You should go and lie down,’ Skippy says.

‘I don’t want to miss the verifying.’

‘We’ll tell you what happens.’

‘Plus, I can film it on my phone, which ironically you said earlier was no use.’

‘Okay,’ Dennis agrees reluctantly. Hands still clutching his stomach, he limps to the door. But there he pauses. ‘Hey, Ruprecht?’

‘Hmm?’ Ruprecht, bent over his keyboard, quarter-turns.

‘I don’t know what just happened here. But all those things I said before, about how you were a big fat fake and a liar, and your portal was a piece of crap that couldn’t heat a bowl of soup, and you were gay and all scientists were gay?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well… I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ Ruprecht replies gallantly. With a nod, Dennis makes his sickly way out of the basement. Among the others, this uncharacteristic show of contrition causes a brief flurry of concern, tied to speculation over the nature and desirability of an irradiated or super-Dennis; but it is quickly lost in the excitement as Ruprecht primes the pod, this time with Skippy’s wristwatch inside it, and invites them to lower their goggles again.

Verification, however, proves harder than expected. Enough power from the original radiation burst should remain, by Ruprecht’s calculations, to facilitate a second teleportation; but while the pod hums as before, the cable overheats and the power surges, the magical apex of the first experiment, that consecrated instant in which Optimus Prime was snatched away, never rearrives.

At breakfast the following morning the mood is greatly changed. ‘I just don’t understand it,’ Ruprecht says, staring into space and chomping his cereal disconsolately. ‘Why would it work perfectly the first time and then every other time not work at all? It just doesn’t make any sense.’

To make matters worse, it appears that Mario’s phone for some reason failed to capture the original successful experiment. ‘But we saw it, Ruprecht. We saw it.’

Ruprecht will not be consoled. ‘Who’s going to believe a bunch of fourteen-year-old schoolboys? They’ll say we dreamed it.’

Leaving his toast uneaten, he returns belowstairs to wrangle some more with his creation; as the hours drag by, it seems that even two storeys up in their dorm, Skippy can feel his friend’s exasperation, the exuberance of last night bleeding away. Did they all just dream it? Was it just some kind of consensual illusion they’d conjured up from sheer boredom, like the others said he’d done with Lori?

Dennis will have none of this. ‘That robot left that pod,’ he says, ‘and that is a fact.’

‘Okay, but even if it did work that time, what if he never gets it to work again?’

‘Well, Skipford, I’m no scientist, but I can tell you this: if anyone can open up a gateway to a parallel universe, it’s Ruprecht.’ Dennis is in his pyjamas on Skippy’s bed; he seems to have recovered from his dose of radiation-poisoning, and isn’t showing signs of paranormal or any other ability, aside from a new-found and somewhat unsettling appreciation of Ruprecht.

‘He didn’t seem like he thought it was going to work again.’

‘That’s why he needs us to support him,’ Dennis says. ‘We might not know much about science, but we can help by believing in him.’

‘You believe in him?’ Surprised to hear Dennis even use the word, Skippy turns momentarily from the computer.

‘Of course,’ Dennis says simply.

But Skippy – eyes darting involuntarily, for the hundredth time since lunch, to his unlit phone, and from there through the window to the empty yard of St Brigid’s, like a grey showcase for the rain – is not so sure. What if the truth about other worlds is that when they touch yours – through a gateway opening, or a perfect kiss – it’s only ever at a single point, for a single moment, before the turning of the Earth drags you away again? What if the world is not just a bare stage where magic sometimes but usually doesn’t take place, but rather a force actively opposed to magic – so it doesn’t matter whether these other worlds, gateways, kisses, were dreamed or real, because either way you will never be able to get them ba–

Wait –

‘Did you find tits?’ Dennis clambers up to peer over Skippy’s shoulder at the computer. ‘What is it – holy shit…’