"And Lily don't worry, we will ask Lucifer about this on the way", Shawn said in the most polite manner.
Lily flicks her middle finger and whispers to fuck off. We got out of the warehouse and began our downward hike.
"Sorry for that philosophy book shit", Shawn said.
"I should be thanking you instead. You didn't have to put yourself in the line of fire to pull me out".
"It was important. You never know when relationships sour up. It could be with anyone, even your family. I have been there, believe me".
What can I say, he was a great guy and that made it really worthwhile defending him.
"What do we do now?", I asked.
"You have the Rexus switch, right?"
I took it out of my pocket and handed it over to him. We ended up again at the telephone booth. As dried leaves drizzled onto the booth from a vast naked tree enveloping the booth, Shawn came out of the booth with a dejected face yet again.
"Why don't we call him from your phone?", I asked.
"He has strictly prohibited me from doing so. Maybe due to the fear of exposition of his location or something".
The sun was taking its time to fully rise up and had already painted the dark blue star filled sky with orangish yellow hues.
"Now?", I asked.
"Let's take a jog in the park", he said. A good replacement statement for 'I fucking don't know'.
While taking a jog, I began to get incessant calls and messages from both Seth and Tyler.
'Have you done Mr. Lin's graph homework?' was one of the messages.
I had completely forgotten that he had a class that day.
'It will be fine', I messaged.
'He's gonna fuck anyone who hasn't done the homework. Didn't you hear about what Liu did with that kid from section E?'
'What?'
'Close to being expelled'.
'What?!'
'Yup. Teachers are like deserts. When they are cool, it's all chill but when they are angry we are all fried.'
'I will copy it from someone, duh! ', I messaged back.
'Mr Liu has the first period.Good luck with the copying'.
What is more dangerous? An existing bigger problem or a new small problem which might become a bigger problem?
"I think I have to run home", I said to Shawn.
"Why?"
"I have shit loads of homework, man.... Wait you will help me with that, won't you?", I asked.
"I don't think I clearly remember the old stuff to help you out. What's the subject though?"
"Maths"
"Oh.. Then maybe I will be helpful you partially. But what exactly is the homework?"
"Graphs".
"From Mr. Lowe's book?"
"Ya"
"Oh, I can surely help you. Graphs were one of my strong points in high school", he bragged.
"I will never understand you people. Let's jog to my house".
Inspite of being a late riser, I have seen many mornings but this morning was awfully strange and different from others. I was jogging with a stranger to my house to finish my stupid homework while my sisters were on the verge of extinction in a few hours.
As soon as we reached my house, I rushed to my room to take out the graph book and my homework copy. Shawn began loitering around the empty house.
"Where are your parents?", he asked.
"Gone on a vacation for their anniversary. Will be home tonight, I guess".
"Is that Rose's room?", he asked.
I looked at him. Should I allow this guy to have a sneak peek into my sister's room? I mean there's possibly nothing he can do other than to have some perverted thoughts. By the time I nodded slyly, he was already in the room, staring at a Michael Jackson poster.
"Come to my room. You gotta help me with these questions".
"Try them yourself first!", he shouted.
"Come on, dude. They are difficult", I said. After sometime, he came into my room and stared at the mathematical functions, waiting to be converted into graphs.
"Like just look at question I," I showed him the question which read '(x^3 + y^3 - 1)^2 - x^2.y^3=0'.
"How the fuck do I draw it's graph?"
He looked at the question and just as he was about to speak, his phone rang. The call was from an unknown number. He picked it up.
"Hello?….Lucifer!", he exclaimed.
I got startled as well. I signalled him to put the call on loudspeaker mode.
"Again fucked up?", the voice came.
"Sorry, Lucifer. We just couldn't find a book so we decided to print the stuff and.."
"And they turned into machine humans, didn't they?"
"Yeah....", Shawn said with a bit of regret and shame in his voice.
"You can help us, can't you?", I asked.
"Make the girls use the Rexus switch, you will get the same words. You already have the solution for that", he said and the call was cut.
"What the hell did he mean by that? This is the shit we were worried about", I said.
He kept staring at my desk. I stood up and began circling my room, psychologically buried under anxiety. After sometime, as I came into senses I saw that Shawn wasn't there. As I began looking for him, I noticed that his cycle wasn't there. He had run away. I sat down on the porch, completely crestfallen.
I catch a small hum coming from somewhere. I tried to locate it's origin and realised that its my phone ringing upstairs in my room. I rush to my room and pick up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey! It's me, Shawn", the voice came from the other side.
"Where the hell did you disappear?"
"I am going to the warehouse. Cycle here fast. Will explain to you later", he said and cut the call. I rushed down the stairs and paddled to the hill as fast as I could. Had he found the solution to this shit? Or was it just another bullshit idea that would go wrong?