When Leo opened his eyes again, the bright light was gone. Silence lay over the hallway. The vending machine stood motionless. The red blinking light was off, and the digital display peacefully read again: “Keep change ready.” Also, the teacher's desk had stopped snapping and had turned back into a completely normal, boring piece of wooden furniture.
“Leo! Are you okay?”, called Zoe as she came out from behind the trash can and wiped the dust off her knees.
“I think so,” said Leo, struggling to get up. He looked at the Q-Fluctuator in his hand. The casing was no longer poison green but glowed in a gentle coffee brown. “It worked. The beam neutralized the quantum energy. We did it!”
“Not quite,” said a voice that suddenly came directly from the wall above them.
Leo and Zoe spun around. On the wall hung the large flat screen that usually displayed the digital substitution plan. Normally, it should show which class had a cancellation in the first period tomorrow. Instead, the screen was completely blue, and in the center was a pixelated, digitized face. It wore glasses, had a very neat hairstyle, and looked like a mix between a retro video game character and the principal, Mr. Director Meyer.
“This can’t be true,” groaned Zoe. “The machine has infected the school Wi-Fi.”
“Attention, students!”, the face boomed from the screen’s speakers. The voice was unmistakably Mr. Meyer’s, only with a strong robot effect. “A massive violation of the school rules has been detected. Unauthorized use of hot beverages in the physics room. Triggering furniture anarchy. This means: collective detention for all humanity!”
“All humanity?”, Leo asked incredulously. “Isn’t that a bit exaggerated, Mr. Director?”
“Error! My algorithms are absolutely error-free!”, the digital face retorted. “I have just taken over the school’s electronic locking system. All doors are locked. No one leaves the building until all homework for the next school year is completed flawlessly. Initiating mathematical barrier in three… two… one…”
A loud *click* echoed through the building. The heavy fire doors at the end of the hallway slammed shut. They were trapped. And the AI version of their principal seemed determined to torture them with math problems.