TIMEWARP: Goodbye Canada

[Callum Bowen-Lund]

“Bah,” the blonde teenager groaned as he jumped on his bed and checked his phone. Still no new messages. Sure, he could understand that almost everyone’s still fairly shaken by the riots that happened two days ago, but what use would it be to stay in their rooms and mull over it? It’s not going to change anything. What happened happened and they should just move on.

And what better way to move on and release all those pent up negative emotions (and make good use of the two days that the school was closed) than paintball?

“You guys suck. Losers,”

[/u] he typed quickly before throwing his phone away and crawling over to his laptop. He mindlessly looked over his Facebook wall, scrolled through the boring status updates and photos and was just about to get off to simply play his PS3 when a name caught his eye. Keith. He’s finally online. Callum’s face lit up and he quickly sent a curt “Hey.”

And he waited. One minute. Two minutes. Three.

The ‘Seen’ notification was then visible.

Four. Five. Six. Still none.

Callum’s smile vanished. He bit his lip, anxious. Seven minutes, eight, nine. Still no reply.

His spirit went up when he saw that Keith was typing something, but then dropped as quick as nothing came after.

It’s been fifteen minutes and nothing still. Keith doesn’t usually take this long to respond.

That’s it. Enough waiting. Callum closed his laptop and flopped to the floor, grabbing his console controller.

“Cal! There’s someone here to see you!” yells his step-father downstairs, “Says they’re from the Hammel Institute!” Callum would’ve loved to say “Say what now?” but he knew better than to talk back to George, at least when it comes to these things. So he quickly put on a shirt and some sweatpants, ran downstairs, and upon seeing the man in a suit, extended his hand and flashed him a grin. “Hi. I’m Callum. You need me?”[/justify][/blockquote][/font]

[Deleted]

Blue eyes darted through the living room after the family had invited Milan inside. Of course it had first required an explanation about Hammel and the fact that it involved their son and recent events. The recruiter never had been one to spill a lot of details from the start. He had made that mistake in the beginning of his career and it usually developed into parents dropping it all on their children before he even got a chance to cautiously approach the child. It tended to be a lot to take at once, so he rather went step by step. Still, every situation required a different approach and he was pretty certain that it wouldn’t be any different today.

After the stepfather had called out for him, Callum appeared in the doorway and Milan spun around as the boy friendly greeted him. ”Hello, Callum.” He began with a friendly smile while reaching out his hand to shake the other’s. Upon letting go, he continued. ”My name is Milan, and I’ve been sent here in the name of the Hammel Institute. It is a private school located on the outskirts of Vermont. And it is a school for those who are gifted.” His gaze studied Callum’s face to detect whether or not he had ever heard of the school before.

He briefly glanced at the parents as well, knowing that they had to be updated about this as well. Milan often opted to let the recruited participate in connecting the dots though. ”Do you happen to have any clue why I might be here?” Did he acknowledge that what had taken place had to be linked to him?