I stood in the observatory looking at the light seemingly sent from heaven. It bothered me that it was so dark that I couldn't see the button I had pushed. My dad stood next to me gazing in amazement at the giant beam of light that soared into the sky. The clouds that gathered around it gave me the heebie geebies. Yet the crew of scientists just clapped.
My best friend, Beth, glared at me from across the room. I could almost hear her thoughts -I'm gonna kill Carter Banks- and honestly that scared me. I jumped at the sound of lightning strikes from outside. Don't get me wrong, building a weather manipulator was not the brightest idea my parents had ever had. Actually it was one of the dumbest. Beth thought I was just being parsimonious when I wouldn't help her shut down their million dollar corporation. But when I saw her run out of the observation deck, I knew I had to follow her. She didn't know these halls like I did.
If my name wasn't from the Bank's family, two kids roaming hall's full of highly dangerous and expensive equipment would have frightened someone. I didn't even know where we were going, yet I felt that I did. We passed the faculty lounge and the freeze room. This hallway only led one way.
"Beth!" I finally called out to her.
"What Carter?" Beth's black hair swung over her shoulder, "why are you following me when you couldn't even stop it when you had the chance?"
"Wow don't even look at it from my point of few," I said feeling slightly hurt, "those were my parents back there. They've been waiting for a breakthrough like that for years!"
"Well now it's your turn." Beth said, "Get off your high horse and help me. They can really upset the balance of life. And by that, I mean they are going to have us all killed! It’s unstable! Sometimes mother nature wins, and trust me, she isn’t losing this battle."
“ Well maybe there is a chance that nothing bad will happen.” I said, wisping a piece of curly brown hair from my face, “I mean look outside, it’s only rain.”
A clap of thunder rolled from outside, “Rain Carter? We are in the Sahara Desert it doesn’t rain! It’s not natural!” Beth shouted.
“It’s not supposed to be! It’s supposed to help us! Look we could make this desert into a growing rainforest!” I argued.
“Everything on this Earth was made the way it was meant to be. If you want to help out the planet so bad, then clear up the part of Asia that no one can breathe in. How will being able to create tornadoes and junk we able to clear up the air huh? This is the year to change for the better! Not the worst! This isn’t twenty ten you know.”
“No, it’s twenty fifty-eight. You are a serious environmentalist.” I specified.
“We’re African, what do you expect? So do you want to be the generation that ruins life as we know it?” Beth asked me, “Well, ruin life more than humans already have.”
She won that round. I grabbed her hand and tried to lead her back the way we came.
"What are you doing? The generator is this way." Beth said.
"Yes but destroying the generator could lead to a massive cloud that would destroy everything in its path."
"Got it. Destruction bad." Beth shook her head, "You know, I’m glad your great grandfather was a genius. He was basically like an African Legend. He could have saved us a lot of trouble if he would’ve married someone dumb."
I simply smiled and led her back through the long corridors. To my left I saw the cow milking room. I still remember dad's old project of using cow milk to power batteries. It didn't end well. We turned a corner to where the computer lab was located.
There was a guard at the door and we jumped behind a pillar. This was a restricted area. Then again, everything was.
"Okay how are we going to-" I started. Then I saw a dart fly past my head and hit the man in the neck, "Beth!"
"What?" Beth said holding a dart gun full of amnesia fluid, "he'll only be out for about thirty, maybe forty five minutes. Come on let's go."
“Why, and where did you get a dart gun?” I asked.
“We passed by the lounge. Mom and Dad came home fighting about how their hands had no precision when it came to darts, so they made a dart gun. All I did was sneak into the lounge and grab one. When you get focused you don’t notice much.” Beth smiled. When we entered the computer lab, there was close to maybe twenty computers, but it was the giant Mac that I wanted. It was in the center of the mission control looking lab. I sat down in the comfy chair and stared at the screen.
"What are you doing?" Beth asked.
"Besides enjoying this wonderfully comfortable chair? I'm just now realizing that dad has this thing under lock and key. Literally. If we guessed the code wrong too many times it could set off the alarms. Heck, it might even erase every file on that computer. Dad would have my head!”
"What, is it a puzzle?" Beth said getting down on her knees.
"Yeah like some weird match the color, picture thing." I said. Beth crawled under the computer, which made it hard to see her since we couldn't turn on any lights. She began to finagle with some of the computer cords.
"Turn it on." She called as I heard the sounds of something being unplugged.
I turned on the computer and watched the little apple smiley face wave at me. The puzzle came up, taunting me to decode it. Then the odd puzzle melted away and turned into an enter password screen. Beth almost tossed me out the chair and started typing. I also figured I wouldn't ask how she learned to hack a seventy five thousand dollar computer.
“And done!” Beth said happily. The computer opened up to the main screen and I nearly passed out. There were over maybe fifty folders just on his desktop. I began to search for anything that would shut the machine down. The only problem was that my parents weren’t stupid. It just so happens that they were so smart that they had no information on the machine at all.
Then I came across something that would haunt me the rest of my life. It was a folder marked Carter Banks. I stopped thinking about everything and swiped my hand over the screen. I had to open it. Right here, right now.
“Carter what are you doing? We have to find out how to shut this thing down.” Beth said calmly. Luckily she didn’t make a move to stop me. I opened the folder and held my breath. There were pictures from when I was a kid, all the way up to me winning the science fair last week. I had no idea that they even cared that much. The most they had ever let me do with them is probably press the stupid button that activated the machine. Seeing all the pictures made me feel like a whole new kid.
Well that was until the power went out. At that moment the window burst open and I instinctively grabbed hold of Beth and ducked under the table. This was no happy accident. It was more like an accident out of a horror movie.
“What was that?” I heard Beth shriek. I dared to take a peak over the counter. What looked like a tornado inside the eye of a hurricane had formed outside in the middle of the desert, literally.
“What the what,” I started just as a piece of glass scraped the side of my face, The emergency lights had begun to flash. I saw what I recognized as the lounge’s pool table fly away into the tornado. One by one, the lounge was taken piece by piece. There was no longer any sun. Only darkness.
Beth and I screamed as one of the Jeeps that we use to get around came hurling through the window and into the giant computer, nearly taking our heads off. It took everything in my power not to start crying over all of the pictures that Mom and Dad had kept a record of. All of my accomplishments—everything I had worked so hard on just to fight for their attention—gone.
“Stay here, I’m going to go try to turn on the emergency generator.” I said, fighting tears.
“Wait Carter!” I heard her call as I made a mad dash for the supply closet outside the lab. I had never started a generator, but then again, there was a first for everything. I knew how to start a lawnmower and I hoped that this was the same thing. I had always been sort of arbitrary, always relying on everyone else to do the dirty work. Right now, I was wishing I wasn’t. I had the highest IQ at my school back in Orlando, Florida and it didn’t even occur to me to look for an on switch.
I could see bits and pieces of the lab flying away, but what got my attention was the roof collapsing in on itself behind me. My heart was racing now and I couldn’t stand the pressure. I was always that kid that would hyperventilate in front of crowds, or taking his first trip using a helitrain. I didn’t have a bag though. Only the will power to try to calm down. Then I saw my worries melt away. There was an on switch literally labeled on. All I had to do was switch it on and it would reset the entire system. Every electrical wiring, every computer, and every machine no matter how big the size. I reached out to press the switch, but the door connecting the lab to the hallway had unbolted itself and smacked me in the face. The last thing I heard was a shriek from inside the lab.
When I woke up, the first thing I saw was Beth smiling at me. Then, I noticed my parents on the side of her, beaming with joy. Lastly I felt the gigantic headache that had formed on the side of my head and the bright white lights of the hospital room.
“Thank the heavens, you’re okay!” Beth said pulling me into a hug, “You scared me half to death! The next time you want to try to save the world, can you at least warn me?”
“What?” I smiled up at her, “I have no memory of being so selfless.”
She laughed and gave me another hug. Then my parents gave me a hug, telling me how much they loved me.
“Mom? Dad,” I said looking at them, “I saw the file on the computer with all my pictures in it. I honestly never thought you cared so much.”
“Are you kidding son? You mean the world to us,” Dad said grabbing Mom’s hand, “Now I know we haven’t always been there for you-“
“And sometimes we may not,” Mom jumped in, “But you will always be our main focus. The only reason the two of us work so hard is so that we know you will always have a home, food on your plate, and clothes. Sometimes we just forget about the love part. But that doesn’t mean we have ever stopped loving you.”
“Yes, and the next time you may even remotely disagree with one of our crazy experiments, just tell us.” Dad smiled.
“Experiments?” I realized I hadn’t asked what happened to the lab, “wait what happened? Did you guys find a way to shut off the machine?”
“Actually,” Beth said, messing with my toes, “You never truly hit the switch. Since the door flew off from the lab, I saw everything perfectly. You didn’t get knocked out from the door. It only grazed your head. But you did jump straight into the generator and you got a little electrocuted.”
“Electrocuted? I should have died then!” I exclaimed.
“Right you should have. However the electrocution worked and it shut down the machine. I saw you unconscious on the floor and I knew I would have to act fast. So I gave you CPR until you started breathing again, then I used the intercom to call for your parents.”
“Wait you gave me mouth to mouth?” I exclaimed, wishing I would have remembered. Beth was normally too dark to see her blush, but she did back away and smile.
“We will, uh, leave you two alone.” My mom smiled tugging Dad away.
“Technically yes, I did. But it was to save your life.” Beth said as she sat on the chair next to me, “okay so I never got to thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“For saving my life,” Beth said, “You grabbed me before when the window busted. I don’t know how you reacted so fast but you did. I always had a higher score than you on reaction time.”
“Well, I am a pretty macho man.” I laughed. Then I cringed as Beth grabbed my hand.
“Yeah, I don’t see how you saved the world either. Your ego outshines your selflessness any day.” Beth smiled. I honestly had no idea what to do at this point except for smile. Then Beth began to lean in and I felt my entire body tense up. I was not ready for this. I was sixteen and I so was not ready for this. She kissed me though. I was certain there were fireworks in the background somewhere.
So what if my parents’ weather machine project didn’t turn out right? I found out my parents truly care for me, we are still rich, and it looks like my best friend might turn out to be my first girlfriend. My guess? It can only get better from here.