The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(41)

With each lonely year, Evan became increasingly convinced that Earth wasn’t a fan of him either. Most of his frustrations came from the pretty young women of his world, who continually rejected his awkward attempts to engage them, his creepy leers. It had been theorized in more than one ladies’ room that Evan Rander had a stack of restraining orders at home. Or worse, a stack of bodies.

If his lovely detractors could have seen inside his mind, they would have learned that his fantasies, while hardly chaste, were actually quite romantic. But after a lifetime of cold shoulders, Evan feared he didn’t have the looks to attract a suitable girlfriend. He certainly didn’t have the money. His lean existence as a part-time computer specialist had left him in a sinkhole of debt, enough to force him out of his apartment and into his father’s house in City Heights West.

No baron himself, Luke Rander was far from happy to share his meager abode. For years, his best hope for Evan was that the boy’s baffling nerd proclivities would one day lead to some profitable nerd venture. Soon his furtive disappointment began leaking out of him like sweat. No work again today, huh? You should be pounding the pavement instead of playing computer games. At least get some exercise. How do you expect to find a woman if you’re all pasty and scrawny? Guess the family name’s dying with you. No work again today, huh?

Round and round the record spun, until the stress caused Evan to wake up with ginger hairs on his pillow. The only ray of sunshine in his dismal life was Shannon Baer, a young account executive at his main worksite. Though she’d failed to make his A-squad of office lusts, she was an indisputable cutie, and she bucked the trend of her peers by treating Evan with smiles and banter. He even detected flirting when she teased him about his LEGO coffee mug.

Eager to learn her feelings without the risk of asking, Evan used his administrative access to log into her e-mail archives. She’d only invoked his name three times. The first two mentions were work related. The last one, in response to her teasing boss, was a knife in the eye.

Oh shut up. It’s not like that at all. I just feel sorry for him. Anyway, Evan’s not as creepy as everyone thinks. Of course if I ever go missing, be sure to check his basement first. :)

The next day, he returned to the office in his nicest clothes and warmest grin. After engaging Shannon in friendly chitchat, he told her he needed to install a new antivirus program on her PC. He joked that she was getting the special package, despite her misguided hatred for LEGOs. She laughed and let him do his thing.

Unfortunately for Shannon, his “thing” was a custom malware script that, at the stroke of midnight, erased her project files from her computer and every backup server. Thirteen months of work, irrevocably destroyed. For Evan Rander 1.0, it was the cruelest punishment he was capable of inflicting, though he’d spent the night imagining far worse.

His vengeance quickly backfired on him. Once his handiwork was discovered, the president of Shannon’s company had him blackballed from all his freelance agencies. With a simple series of phone calls, Evan had become a toxic commodity, unemployable.

Luke Rander gritted his lantern jaw when he learned of his son’s comeuppance. “You know, for all your flaws, I never thought you were stupid until now. But you did it. You screwed up your life, all because you couldn’t handle a little rejection.”

For the last three weeks of his endemic existence, Evan moved through the house in a grim and listless state, his thoughts frequently dancing around the handgun under his father’s bed. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was high past time to put the world out of his misery.

On the third Saturday of July, he woke up in freezing cold, his gadgets blinking in confusion. He barely had a chance to process the new peculiarities before a large, round pool of radiant white liquid bloomed on his wall like an oil slick.

Evan watched in bug-eyed wonder as a towering stranger stepped through the surface, a white-haired being of crystalline perfection. Despite his splashing entrance, there wasn’t a hint of wetness on his skin, his hair, his tieless gray business suit.

Expressionless, the man approached the bed and addressed Evan. His voice was honey smooth, peppered with an anomalous accent.

“Listen up, boy. Time is short and I have much to do. In five minutes, everything around you will cease to be. If you wish to continue living, extend your wrist quickly.”

Evan raised his arm with meek and dreamy deference. Azral’s thin lips curled in a smirk.

“Your cooperation is a welcome change. I won’t forget that.”

He procured a featureless silver bracelet from his pocket. Evan’s thoughts screamed as he watched it break into four floating elbows. They glided over Evan’s fingers, reconnecting at the thinnest part of his wrist with a clack.

“What is this?” Evan asked in a tiny voice. “Am I dreaming?”

“I don’t have the time or mind to explain your situation, child. Just keep your head. Stay where you arrive. Help will come for you shortly.”

Azral squinted with revulsion at the unwashed garments on Evan’s floor. “You’ll wish to find proper clothes, if you have them. Then say good-bye to your father. You won’t be seeing him again.”

Amidst all the daft and scattered notions in Evan’s head, it occurred to him that he’d rather eat his own arm than suffer one more look of disapproval from the bearish old man.

Suddenly Azral’s white brow crunched in wrathful scorn. He lurched forward and grabbed Evan by the collar.