The Gate Keeper

by William Mezger III

  Chapter 14

  Meetings

  I

  Henry sat on a chair outside of Roberts’s office. They were waiting for an appointment to speak with her about their progress in training. They had been very busy with Sir, and had not seen Roberts during that time. They had got a message from Uktu that Roberts wanted to see them today. He wondered if Roberts wanted to talk about the incident earlier this week. He thought about the incident with Amica. It had all happened so fast.

  Sir said that it was possible to save her if Henry was willing, but it was very dangerous. The procedure had only been successful when someone who knew the person well went in after them. . Even then it was a fifty/ fifty toss up if the second person survived. He would have to go into the gate, and channel as much of the gate’s power as he could taking the burden off her mind, then try to talk her back to reality. She was his only friend, and she was dying.

  He went into the gate with her, placing his hands on the gate allowed him to channel the energy of the gateway into his body. He took as much power from her body as he could, his own body screaming with the strain of it. He begged her to come back to him. But she was unresponsive. He pulled more power into his body; he had never held so much before, his focus centered on Amica. When She spoke in that ghost voice his focus had wavered a little, and he was almost lost, but there was just too much at stake. He redoubled his efforts. The things she had said to him in that lost dream voice still haunted him. He had nightmares where he heard her saying good-bye in that voice, and she was lot forever. In the end he was able to save her, he had never felt so scared. Sir had put him through his paces, while they waited for her to wake up. He was actually glad to have something to focus on; he didn’t know what his life would be like with out her smiling face.

  When she woke up he took her to the car, and he told her everything about Britney, Paul, and the whole mess. He couldn’t bear the thought that what had pushed her into the darkness was that their friendship was crumbing. He rededicated himself to his promise to help her in training. They had still not made the progress that Amica hoped for. The next night, Sir had worked with her on her focus, and concentration, but she was still not able to reliably align the connection, and close the gate. More often than not she would have to release the gate before making the opening to prevent a repeat of her accident. Henry also worked tirelessly to deal with his own focus problems; the next time he slipped he could be lost as well. Henry paid close attention to the exercises that sir did with Amica learning as much as he could. He also worked out on his own time, spending an extra hour every morning, and evening before he went to bed; meditating, and clearing his head. He became very good at holding his focus, and using his ability to see the truth.

  He did not know what was going to come next. He was afraid that Roberts would want them to come back to work, but Amica was not ready to be on the floor. He had tried to talk to her about it, but she was still pretty sensitive about the whole subject. He hoped that Roberts planned on keeping her in training, he did not want to stand between Amica, and her dream, but he would do what ever it took to keep her safe.

  The door opened, and Roberts was there, motioning them to come into her office. Amica got up, and smiled at him. He looked up at her, and smiled back. He would do what ever it took to keep her safe

  II

  Roberts sat at her desk trying desperately to calm her nerves, and focus her thoughts. She had spent the afternoon putting out fires all over the station. It was really nothing out of the ordinary, given her position, she had managed to keep her calm, and focus her abilities through out. It was not until she came back to her office, and found the file from Albert, her former mentor and trainer, that she lost her focus. She tried to mentally claim fatigue for her inability to focus, but deep down she knew the real reason was fear. She closed the file on her desk; it was certainly not helping her to form the mental focus she would need to observe the two anxious potential keepers sitting outside her office.

  For a girl who was not a natural Amica had made remarkable progress. Albert had been pushing her as hard as he could, and she was progressing in leaps, and bounds. She could feel the gates, see the orb, even charge the gate, and make the connection, but she was still very unreliable. She had to abandon the opening, and start over as often as she succeeded. She had even gotten lost in the gate once, and remarkably been able to be retrieved. The girl had amazing potential, maybe even beyond what her initial testing indicated if she could be retrieved in that way. Granted it helped that the person who had retrieved her was Henry, one of the most powerful natural keepers she had seen in her lifetime. The report in front of her was full of wonderful achievements for a beginning keeper, and Henry’s report was even better still, what terrified her was a hand written note tucked into Amica’s folder. The note read:

  The girl is not ready, and the moment is upon us. The time for retrieval is nearly at hand. It is still as I feared. Unless the two of them go, and go alone, all will be lost. I have made the preparations we discussed.

  For nearly a thousand years, she had watched, and waited. She had conferred with Albert. It had been uneasy at first; he would always be her teacher in some ways, but eventually they developed the type of friendship that can only form between two people who were master, and student. She had hoped, and looked for a way to retrieve Melchiorre, but in the end she had had to settle for looking after his family, and those members of his race he had managed to get to freedom. Now all of her waiting was for nothing. Albert’s vision was clear on that; it had to be Amica who went after her father. Sending Henry was dangerous enough, if he was captured the ripples that would cause to the future were so far reaching as to be unreadable, but one thing was clear from Albert’s visions, if she, or he went near Scultura. The mission would certainly fail. She had begged, and raged at Albert to find another way, they were just kids. They did not deserve to be burdened with this task.

  In the end, things had moved too quickly. After a thousand years, it had all come down to a couple of weeks, and two untrained keepers. At least she had managed to keep their training a secret. As far as anyone knew Amica was just a Gate Attendant who had been on vacation for a couple of weeks. She had even had Uktu hold off processing Henry’s union membership until after he was officially through with training. With the exception of the few attendants who had worked with Henry, few people in the universe knew of their status as keepers. Their anonymity was the only protection she would be able to give them, that and training. There were just not enough hours in the day. She had suggested putting Amica in training all day, while Henry was in school, but Albert insisted they would need the bond they were forming during training if they were going to survive. Albert was confident they would be lifelong friends; if they could just get past the insecurities they felt about their own lives. He had pushed, and nudged them, working them hard creating opportunities for them to encourage each other.

  In the end it took Amica’s accident to get them over the hump. She was still angry with Albert for putting Amica in that situation. She closed her eyes, and began to work through the calming exercises she had learned from Albert over two thousand years ago. She found her calm, rose from her desk, opened her office door, and motioned for Henry, and Amica to come in, and take a seat. They entered the room taking a seat in the chairs in front of her desk. They were in street clothes. She went to her chair, and sat down looking over the desk at them. Amica refused to make eye contact with her, but Henry held her gaze. His face was set, she could tell that he had something heavy on his mind, but the nature of it was as yet unclear to Roberts. She would never be able to read people the way a natural could, but over the years she had honed her skills, so she could she the truth, and emotions of the people who sat across her desk. His mind was certainly set on something; the trick was to figure out what it was before it became a problem.

  The first thing she noticed immediately
about Amica scared her even more than the note on Amica’s file. Amica was sick with keeper sickness. Albert had been working her too hard, and for some reason not providing her with the nutritional supplements that would have prevented this. It was this second lapse in Albert’s judgment, and not Amica’s sickness that terrified her. Amica’s illness was still in the very early stages, and could be easily treated with vitamin supplements and rest, but Roberts had hung so much on Albert’s ability to see the future, and he was missing things in the here and now. The idea there maybe other things he was missing scared her.

  Amica had a sallow look to her; her hair looked dull, and her skin appeared to be losing some elasticity around the eyes. She would have to speak with Albert; as much as she wanted Melchiorre to be safe, he would never allow his safety to jeopardize the health of his daughter in this way. Melchiorre was going to be angry enough with them for training Amica, and allowing her out of her sight to begin with.

  “So Amica, you are doing to many openings. I can see the sickness in your face,” Roberts said. Henry’s head whipped around, examining Amica face. Over the years she had had a few opportunities to actually watch a natural at work, and it was something to see. As she watched she saw the tension drain off of Henry’s face. The crinkles, and wrinkles around his eyes melted away as he focused his calm, and examined the girl. They were gone for only a moment, before returning even deeper. His gaze returned to her, and the determination she had seen on his face had increased. So that was it, he feared for Amica, and from the way he was making eye contact, Henry saw Roberts as the center of his concern.

  “Albert is working you too hard, and on gates that should be out of your ability level for some time yet. I know that there are reasons, but your health needs to come first. I will speak with him,” she said.

  “What is going on? What are we not being told?” Henry asked. He did not sound happy, in fact he sounded angry. She had never heard him use this tone of voice before, granted she had not had many conversations with him. It was nice to see he had a backbone in him after all. After the incident with the bullies outside the gate she had not been sure. She hesitated to answer, and watched as the wrinkles melted off of his face again, only this time directed at her. He focused on her for what felt like a long time, trying to ferret out information, but she had practiced hiding things from the public for a thousand years. She had spent years perfecting her calm exterior demeanor.

  “There will come a time when everything becomes clear to you both, there are events elsewhere in the universe in motion, but this is not the time, or place to discuss them. I am sorry Henry; you can stop trying to read me. I really can’t tell you any more now, with out jeopardizing the outcome. Predicting the future is a very tricky, and dangerous thing,” she said. She was pleased to see Henry blush slightly, embarrassed to have been caught.

  “Amica, I see that you are doing very well in training, you are far more advanced than you should be for a normal keeper at this point in your training, but it is coming at a cost. You are in the first stages of keeper sickness. It is evident in the luster of your hair, and the bags under your eyes,” Roberts said. Amica lifted her head, and met her eyes; she looked tired, but determined to succeed.

  “You are put on restricted duty, I don’t want you opening above a copper, and even then no more than once a day for the next three days.” she said. She saw a good portion of the worry lines fade from Henry’s face, and a small smile appear. He looked over to Amica, and saw that she was frowning, and the smile left his face, but the worry lines did not reappear. Roberts understood that Henry had come in here prepared to fight to keep Amica off the floor, but was probably unsure how to go about it. She stood from her desk, and walked to the filing cabinet in the corner near the window. She opened the middle drawer picking two bottles she had placed there, behind the hanging files. Roberts closed the drawer, and returned to her desk. She placed the two bottles in front of Henry and sat down in her chair. They were triangular bottles roughly five inches tall; each bottle had a small cup built into the cap.

  “Henry, I want you to make sure she takes a capful of each bottle every day until it is gone,” Roberts said, and was pleased to see Henry nod his head in the affirmative.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Henry said. Amica had an ugly look on her face, but wisely held her tongue. Roberts did not envy the position she had just put poor Henry into, but the girl would need the medicine.

  “Amica, Keeper Sickness is very dangerous. Your body is not able to keep up with the energy output required to open the gates at the rapid rate at which you have been performing. These will help your body reenergize, and metabolize sunlight, it is very important that this condition not worsen. If you don’t balance out the systems in your body, and do it soon this condition is going to get worse,” Roberts said. “It can affect you cognitively, causing focus problems. Your body is in the beginning stages of mitochondrial failure. Your body cannot produce enough energy to power the cells in your body plus the gates. If left untreated the condition can drastically affect your bodily functions, causing organ failure, and eventually death,” Roberts said. She was please to see that Henry looked as determined, and resolved as he was when he walked in her door. Suddenly she felt sorry for Amica, but only for a second. Suddenly the phone on her desk rang. She felt an immediate sense of dread come over her, the only time her phone ever rang this time of night was if something in the terminal had gone seriously wrong.

  “Please excuse me I need to answer this,” she said picking up the phone. Uktu was on the other line, and she sounded panicked.

  “Ms. Roberts I have an unauthorized opening at Intergalactic Gate 24, I was going to block it, but …well they indicate,” she stopped talking. Roberts was caught off guard by Uktu’s panicked tone, the station had unauthorized openings from time to time. What usually happened was someone had put in the wrong coordinates. They were off by a number, like dialing a wrong phone number. It was an easy matter to see who was opening the gate, and kill the power to the gate to block the opening if it was necessary.

  “Uktu, what do the preliminary readings indicate? Talk to me Uktu,” she said trying very hard to retain her calm.

  “It is an unregistered gate ma’am, but planet of origin is Scultura,” Uktu said, it was clear from the tone of her voice that Uktu was on the edge of panic.

  “Find out what you can about the incoming gate, and clear that hall. I want no one, but you, and I there when that gate opens, am I clear? I want all other incoming openings in that hall suspended for at least the next half hour. I will be there soon,” Roberts said hanging up the phone. She took a deep breath, wondering if this was the event Albert had said they were waiting for. She looked across her desk at the two children sitting there, and prayed that it wasn’t. I wish there had been more time, she thought to herself.

  “The two of you are to sit here until I return, there is an emergency in the main terminal I must attend to, but our conversation about your condition is not over young miss, do I make myself clear?” Roberts said. She was pleased when the girl’s frown deepened, but she nodded her head in the affirmative.

  “Yes ma’am,” Amica said. Roberts rose from her desk heading down the hallway toward the main terminal. She was trying to remember the gate schedule for Intergalactic Hall B this evening. If she remembered correctly, and everything was running according to schedule it should be all but empty at this particular moment, with traffic picking up again a little latter in the evening as overflow from Intergalactic Hall A bled over. She ran towards IG 24 remember another opening a little over a thousand years ago. It could not be a coincidence, the same gate number, and planet code. She arrived at the gate just as it was pulling open; who ever was doing the opening was not very powerful. She thought about the length of time that had passed since Uktu had called, and her arrival. Even a golden gate like IG 24 should not take this long to open, something was definitely wrong o
n the other side of this gate.

  The gate was only open for a second when two men in rags ran through the gate pulling it closed behind them, the moment the gate was closed the glow of power winked out as if it had never been.

  “Please help us, we are looking for Brigid Roberts, can you take us to her,” the men said. Roberts was startled.

  “I am Roberts, lets get you to somewhere less conspicuous, and we can talk.” She said. She took a moment to examine the men. The first was tall, and broad of shoulder, but had obviously gone with out the proper nutrition over the last thousand years, his face had the gaunt look of someone who has lost the fat off his face, in fact she could see the underlying bone structure of his shoulders through his clothes. His skin was clean, and had the same pinkish alabaster highlights common to his planet, his clothes were well worn, so thin as to almost be transparent in some places, but once again they were clean. His partner was also broad through the shoulders, but not nearly as tall. He wore the same worn out clothes as his partner. She turned to Uktu.

  “I want a path cleared to my office, I know we can’t block off the main hall, but I want as few people as possible to see them. Also when you get to my office, have Henry and Amica wait downstairs in waiting area until I come for them, is that clear?” Roberts said watching the women’s face. There were a lot of people who came, and went through this station, but Uktu had been with her the longest, and she trusted her to do what needed to be done, and keep silent.

  “Yes Ms. Roberts I understand,” she said, turning on her heels, and heading off to do what needed to be done.

  “We will give her a few minutes head start, then we will go to my office, and you can tell me how you gentlemen got here, and where you heard that name,” she said. The two men looked at each other, and then looked back to her.

  “It is a long story, but we will tell you what we can. We have brought a request from…”.

  “I am not sure whom you brought a request from, but this is not the place to discuss it,” she said as she was looking around, she still felt uneasy, and would until the men were safely hidden in her office.

  “Let’s go,” she said. Intergalactic Hall B was the hall closest to the hallway leading to her office, and Uktu had taken the Privacy dividers they put up when they were cleaning the bathrooms to build a screen that hid the Sculturians from view. With in moments they were at her office where she found Uktu standing next to her desk.

  ”Please have a seat in the chairs,” she said closing the door. “Can I get you guys something to eat, or drink?” Roberts asked. The pair’s eyes lit up at the prospect of food, but they nodded their head no.

  “Ma’am we really need to get back, we are just hear to get some supplies, and maybe some medicine, they said hopefully.

  “I understand, but it will take a few minutes to put the supplies together. Uktu get them paper, and a pencil, please. One of you can be making a list of what you need while the other tells me about what has been happening on Scultura. In the mean time Uktu, please go down to the kitchen, and make some sandwiches the gentlemen can eat while we gather what supplies we can,” Roberts said. She looked at Uktu’s face for the first time since she had walked into the office, and did not like the look she found on the woman’s face.

  “Is there something else Uktu?” she asked noticing that she clutched a note in her hands.

  “Henry, and Amica where not here when I got to your office, just this envelop with your name on it,” she said, brining it over to her. Roberts looked down, and recognized Albert’s handwriting.

  “Thank you Uktu, I will handle this, please go get those sandwiches. Ask Philip to help you,” she said ushering the women out of her office. As she ushered her out the door she whispered into her ear.

  “Say nothing of this to Nathan,” she said looking into the woman’s eyes to be sure she understood. Uktu met her eyes, and nodded in understanding.

  “Yes ma’am I understand,” she said. Roberts stood with her back to the door for a moment to catch her breath, before remembering the envelope clutched in her fingers.

  Her name was written on it in Albert’s hand. She opened the envelope, and with drew the paper inside, it also was written in Albert’s clean clear handwriting.

  It is time; I will be in touch soon.

  She said a silent prayer to the universe for the safety of Henry, and Amica. She collected her thoughts, calmed her focus, and took a seat behind her desk. She could no longer help Henry, and Amica, but she could hopefully help the two sitting across her desk.

  “So gentlemen, tell me how I can help you,” she said calmly.