“It happens more often than I care to think about,” Perry said. “We’re not always out of touch though. Blake may have all the cool toys, but we do have something.” He pointed to the spiral clock logo on his shirt. He put his finger over his mouth and pointed to the door as if to warn against saying too much. “We can talk about it more later because it’s kind of involved, but the short version is that among other things, it does let us talk to each other if we need to.”
“Don’t we need to now?” Michelle asked.
“Absolutely not,” Perry replied. “We’re all here together, and the situation is under control for now. Talking to Blake would cause more harm than good. For now, just understand that it’s something you have, and we’ll cover how it works and the rules of using it, as it were, when we have a moment. I knew we were forgetting something when we left.”
Michelle nodded. It would have to do, but it was some level of comfort knowing that they were never completely cut off from each other. Blake and Perry had standards for using it, and she didn’t even know how at this point, but its time would come. For now, they were left to wait.
* * * * * * *
As soon as he saw the other two taken away, Blake was certain he was going to be questioned with the usual array of “who are you” and “what are you doing here” questions. He really never knew how much to tell people since no matter how much truth he gave, they never believed him. His main hope was actually that he could ask them some questions. He guessed that Michelle and Perry would be thrown in a cell so they would be both out of the way and hopefully safe.
Thraskin and another soldier whose nametag read “Plinge” led him down the stone hall to a plain room with a single chair facing the door and a very tall, imposing man standing behind it dressed in a uniform similar to the rest of the soldiers, but clearly of a higher rank since as soon as they entered, they regarded him respectfully. Blake noted his name as Halloway as he gestured to the chair, and Blake sat down. Once seated, he noticed two guards on either side of the door as Thraskin and Plinge left the room and closed the door behind them.
“I’m told you were asking questions about the city,” Halloway said in a deep, commanding voice.
“You were told correctly,” Blake replied.
“I’m also told that you said you can fix it,” Halloway continued.
“I would certainly be interested to know more about it, sir,” Blake said. Halloway stared at him with a look of absolute disbelief giving Blake the definite impression that the state of this city was considered common knowledge in this area, but Halloway’s reluctance to give him any information made him wonder if his impressions might be off at the moment. “I don’t suppose you’re at liberty to say.”
“Who are you?” Halloway asked, ignoring Blake’s request. “And who are your companions?”
“I’m Blake, and the two who travel with me are Perry and Michelle.”
“And why are you so close to Carburast?”
“Well, we actually came up inside the city, and only discovered the pitfalls of that after one of us started to disappear. I don’t suppose you can explain that.” Halloway chuckled and shook his head.
“No one just ends up in Carburast.”
“Yeah, we’re just lucky that way.”
“That’s not lucky,” Halloway said, losing his smile again.
“Lucky on the wrong side of luck then.”
“And how is it that you just happened to end up there?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain. Is the city hard to explain as well?”
“How is it you don’t know about the city?” Halloway asked, again giving Blake the mixed impression that it was equal parts common knowledge and not discussed.
“I’m very excited to learn about it,” Blake urged.
Halloway stared at Blake. His face still betrayed nothing but disbelief for this person who just turned up in a city that it was apparently his job to guard. Blake could tell Halloway was trying to both size him up and decide whether he was lying. Blake always did his best to maintain a casual and honest air about him for those species who could read such things, whether they knew it or not. He could tell Halloway believed him, but at the same time, he could see Halloway’s fight with his rational mind telling him that Blake’s story must be impossible. Always a conundrum in situations like this, deciding between the improbable and the truth.
“Perhaps we could start with who you are,” Blake suggested hoping to move along this little interrogation.
“Do you have any idea what happens to people inside that city?” Halloway asked, ignoring Blake again.
“We were inside it.”
“How?”
“That’s just where we turned up,” Blake shrugged. Halloway shook his head. “While I can appreciate this little dance where I say something and you stare at me like I have two heads, I would be interested to know more, if you can tell me. Or at least, reunite me with my companions so we can carry on. Or maybe you can tell me why it feels like I’ve been arrested.”
Blake looked at Halloway whose expression did not look amused by Blake turning on him like he was the novice. Blake sighed. “Okay, we turned up in the city and the people in there let us know that we needed to leave. When we were going, one of us started to, shall we say, phase.”
“That’s what happens,” Halloway said. “Anyone who goes inside that fence disappears.”
“Everyone?” Blake asked.
“Without exception,” Halloway nodded. “Until now, if you are to be believed.”
“Is going into that city a crime then?”
“Attempted suicide is considered a crime, and that’s what you’re doing by entering Carburast.”
“Those people aren’t dead.”
“No one is left in there.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me.”
“If you just got here like you said you did,” Halloway said, “then it seems to me that you really don’t know what happened, do you?”
“Like I said,” Blake said leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, “I would be very interested to learn. I might even be able to help.” Halloway stared at Blake for another long moment, as if deciding whether or not to believe him.
“I’m Major Halloway,” Halloway said. “I’m the commander of this base, which is situated on the main road to the city of Carburast which has been declared off-limits by the Pilkrand government. It is off-limits for the reason that you, apparently, have already discovered: it’s dangerous. No one is allowed in. We don’t impose penalties for entry since the city imposes its own. You disappear, never to return.”
“What happened to Carburast to cause such a phenomenon?” Blake asked. “It can’t be natural.”
“I’m going to have to discuss this with my people,” Halloway said. “To allow anyone to enter the town is like allowing someone to commit suicide.”
“I’m currently less interested in entering, and more interested in history.”
“As I said, I’ll have to get back to you.”
“I thought you were in charge,” Blake said, hoping to incite a little pride in his authority, but Halloway was clearly prepared for this sort of question.
“I am in command of this base, but not the operation,” Halloway said without a trace of humor. “I have superiors with whom I will need to discuss everything from your very presence to your unusual request to help with this.”
“What is your operation then?”
“All things will need to be discussed before I can talk to you about anything.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“It wasn’t aimed to do so,” Halloway stated bluntly. Blake was getting tired of this little game.
“So are we prisoners?” Blake asked. Halloway crossed his arms and looked at Blake, who was still unmoved by his looks, though this look made no attempt to be intimidating.
“There is one thing here that keeps me interested,” Halloway said. “As I said, passag
e into the town of Carburast is forbidden for your own safety. On the other hand, no one has ever returned from the town to receive any kind of punishment, so there is a chance that you might actually be able to do something. This does not change that I need to talk to my people about this before I discuss it any further with you.”
“While you spend the necessary time discussing this,” Blake said, “may I be reunited with my companions?”
“You are not to leave the base,” Halloway warned as he turned to the door and knocked.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Blake smiled and stood up, ready to leave. He exited the room and joined Thraskin and Plinge who escorted him through the sterile halls of the base. They reached the detention area and Blake waited patiently for one of the soldiers to release Perry and Michelle.
They burst out of the cell flooding him with a million questions at once, but he put up a hand and assured them that he would answer them once they were in a better place to talk about it since an echoing stone hall seemed like the worst place in the world to have any kind of conversation. Their escorts led them to the exit and stopped at the doors as the trio walked back outside into the clear day.
They walked down the steps and around to the side of the building away from the main doors on the side facing Carburast to sit against the structure and talk about what Blake had gone through. Though it was a military base on the edge of a forbidden city, the outside of the headquarters had a very well-groomed lawn around it along with a lone tree on the side of the building where they all decided to sit down for awhile. Blake recounted the experience, which took very little time since in the end, he and Halloway had not spoken of much.
“Basically,” Blake concluded, “there is definitely something wrong with that city. Whatever that is frightens Major Halloway, who claimed that he needed to discuss with someone else even the prospect of telling me about it. Something is wrong here, and I don’t just mean with that city.”
“Something wrong like what?” Michelle asked as Blake looked at the tents and soldiers closest to them.
“It just doesn’t sit right,” Blake said.
“You mean having a permanent base at the edge of a city where its residents have all disappeared and appear to be trapped isn’t normal?” Perry asked cynically.
“Exactly,” Blake said. “It would be like buying a new car to tide you over while you fix the flat on your old one, and then never fixing it.”
“How do you know they’re not fixing it?” Michelle asked.
“If they had a crack team of scientists working on the problem day and night, I would have thought they would take us to them,” Blake said with a touch of irritation.
“Maybe those are the people he needs to talk to,” Michelle suggested.
“Maybe,” Blake nodded, but sounded very non-committal about it.
“Do you have any thoughts on what’s causing it?” Perry asked.
“A couple,” Blake said, “but I can’t really be certain of anything until I hear their side of the story. You know, the one thing they aren’t telling us for some reason.” Blake got up and took a few steps toward the city of Carburast a few hundred yards away. “He’s hiding something about this, but of one thing we can be certain: this is why we’re here. I love it when it’s clear.”
“How are we supposed to fix something that the people of this area haven’t sorted out on their own?” Michelle asked, quite logically.
“Could be lot of stuff,” Perry said. “You have to remember that we aren’t on Earth. Maybe we know something that never existed on this planet.”
“It’s come up before,” Blake said as he rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “Though I’ve not run across anything like this.”
“I can’t tell sometimes,” Perry continued, “but Blake is always able to sort it out.”
“Don’t discount yourself so easily,” Blake assured him. “I have a lot of experience in this sort of thing, but you’ve been invaluable along with everyone else who has traveled with us. Everyone brings their own unique experiences to the table wherever we go.”
“I can’t see that I’d be much use,” Michelle lamented. “All I’ve ever done with my life is screw it up.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Blake assured her. “Perfect people aren’t interesting enough to come up with creative solutions. You might be surprised to know that the worse someone feels their life has been, the better they tend to be at getting out of tough spots. You’re just getting your feet under you here, but since the Maze chose you, I’m sure you’ve got something inside of you that will blow you away when the time comes.”
Michelle scoffed, but Blake decided to leave it alone for now. After all, he wanted to study what was going on around them and work out what was really going on here. It would make sense for someone to want a problem like Carburast to be fixed, but Halloway had to check with someone else first? Something was not right beyond the obvious, and he hoped that they would discover it before they inevitably got knee deep into trouble first.
CHAPTER SIX
With nothing to do but wait, the three of them settled onto the grass outside the base headquarters until the Major sent for them. Michelle found it difficult to accept that the world on which she currently rested was not Earth. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the sun was yellow, there were trees and roads, and even the people looked like people. She had noticed some minor differences here and there on how some things looked and worked, but other than that, this might as well be any cool, spring day back home.
“Tell me something,” Michelle said, looking over to Blake who was laying back on the ground, his eyes closed and hands behind his head. At the sound of her voice, he glanced over to her.
“What do you want to know?”
“You say we’re not on Earth,” she said. He nodded. “Then why does it look just like Earth?”
“Just lucky in this case,” he responded. “Not every planet that can support our form of life is exactly like Earth because humanity is a very resilient and adaptive species. But it’s a big universe, and so a lot of them are.”
“And the aliens here don’t look like aliens,” she continued. “They look like us.”
“Or we look like them,” Blake said. “Who can really say?”
“But how is that possible?” she asked. “Wouldn’t life evolve differently on different planets?”
“You know how some people say that the existence of alien life would prove that God doesn’t exist?” Blake said. She knew what he was talking about. Every time something comes up that suggests life on other planets, religions of the world freak out thinking that proof of life on other worlds would cause their parishioners to lose faith in the Almighty. Even she wondered what the implications of life elsewhere would be in relation to what the Bible says. Finally, she nodded.
“Well,” he continued, “I’ve always disagreed with that notion. God created people in his image, right?” Again, she nodded. “So I would think that the existence of a planet like this, at the very least, would show some sort of single mind behind it all. And when you’ve traveled and seen as much as I have, especially the sheer number of bipedal species, it’s actually hard to disbelieve the hand of a superior being behind the universe. I’m not one to believe in coincidence. Strictly speaking, I’m a being of science. I like facts. I like proof. Sitting on one planet, it is hard to have faith in a ‘God of the universe,’ but if you visit many worlds, such as I have, and see species after species and culture after culture that seem to mirror each other, and they’ve never achieved space travel? Well, I think that points to some kind of greater power involved. Whether that’s the supernatural God that is going to take you to heaven or something else that has been in control of it all from the beginning, I couldn’t say. But if you’re the least bit religious, then traveling through the Maze will make that faith unwavering. The theory of evolution makes life a miracle. Throwing evolution on a universal scale such as you’ll see makes a
ccidental evolution an impossibility.”
“So that’s your theory then?” she asked. “God has to be involved because we’re the same?”
“If you like,” he said. “God or something like him, anyway. I would wager our DNA structure is very similar to theirs. That sort of thing can’t happen by accident, I don’t care what Darwin says.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of yet another pair of soldiers making Michelle wonder just how many errand boys they had in this base and if they actually did anything besides fetch people. Blake jumped to his feet prompting both her and Perry to do the same, though neither of them pounced up quite as energetically. Apparently, it was time to move out.
“Where to then?” Blake asked with that tone of insatiable curiosity which seemed to permeate everything he said. He was like a big kid in every situation they were getting into as if it were planned this way from the beginning. Then again, they were here to learn and explore, and they had nowhere else to be, so going with the flow was definitely par for their course.
“You will follow us, and ask no questions,” the one called Jeerson, according to his nametag, said curtly. Without giving them a chance to respond, he turned on his heel and walked past them behind the headquarters building. They followed as he requested and found that they not only passed the headquarters, but they walked behind all of the tents on the Carburast side of the base toward the base’s fenced border.
Once they reached the fence, the other soldier, whose nametag read Varlin, pulled a pin from the solid frame of the chain link fence and swung a hidden gate outwards. At this point, Blake’s expression had changed from amused to attentive, and she wondered how long he would do as they commanded and ask no questions. Beyond the gate, the grass field disappeared quickly into a forest of trees, and as Varlin closed the gate behind them, Jeerson led them directly into those trees and out of the sight of anyone on the base that might have paid any attention to them leaving. Since they left in the accompaniment of a pair of escorts, it did not appear that anyone gave their passing a second notice.
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