Escaping Ordinary

by Scott Reintgen

  Indira shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You went into the darkspring—whatever that is—and you came out the other side. This isn’t the time for more backstory. There’s someone out there wreaking havoc. Now is the time for action. Let’s get moving.”

  It was the middle of the night, but Indira knew they’d be able to follow the road well enough to make up time. She found herself hoping that Joey had stopped somewhere to rest. Did Authors sleep the same way characters did? She’d never thought to ask any of her teachers. As they started, she could hear Squalls whisper a question to their new friend.

  “Hey. So, as the resident bad guy in the story, you wouldn’t happen to know how I was supposed to die? Is there some kind of accident? Pirate attack? Maybe a flock of rogue owls? Just wondering if your advisors gave you any extra information….”

  But Cavern just shook his head. “We were not given plans. I have only my instincts.”

  “Right,” Squalls replied. “Yeah. Makes sense. Sorry to bother you.”

  Indira couldn’t help grinning at that. The group continued walking. It didn’t take long for Gadget to prove her usefulness again. She managed to hack into their tutor devices and change some of the operating functions. A few minutes was all it took to coordinate their devices so that now the messages were slightly muted. Notifications kept popping up—most of them instructing Indira to head for the mountains—but they were easier to ignore now.

  Phoenix constructed a makeshift torch, lit one end, and handed it to Indira. She thanked him with a smile as they continued to march. The kingswolf did her best to lead the puppies in a ragtag row. Every now and again they’d resort to their designed instincts, going after Allen’s ankles, but for the most part they walked along behind the group on their unsteady little legs.

  After a while, Joey’s trail became easy to follow.

  About thirty minutes down the road, Cavern pointed to a distant building. It was not one that Indira and her crew had passed. “I stopped here earlier,” he said. “It was a tavern. And it was full of citizens from the neighboring village.”

  The building was no longer a tavern. It looked more like a bulge growing out of the earth. The doors were reinforced with steel. There were no windows, or people for that matter.

  “It kind of looks like a bunker,” Gadget said. “You know? Like the military uses…”

  Indira nodded. “We might want to keep a list of what Joey has summoned. So far we’ve got a pirate ship and a military bunker. Not sure I see the connection, but let’s gather the clues….”

  They kept marching. Indira knew everyone must be exhausted, but she could feel it in her gut that they needed to make good time. There was no telling what trouble a rogue Author could cause if no one else knew he’d entered their world. It didn’t take long to find more ominous signs.

  Indira was thankful that most of the clues were along the roadside. So far Joey hadn’t stumbled off toward any of the larger villages. She didn’t want to think about what might happen when he encountered more people. That silver lining didn’t make the changes they discovered any less disturbing. They found a military-style barracks, followed by a massive treasure chest that was full of onions. That little detail had Cavern cracking up.

  “It’s funny. Because you are expecting gold. But it’s onions. Clever guy.”

  Eventually, they stumbled across the same carriage they’d crossed paths with earlier. It stood abandoned in the middle of the road, the driver gone. Indira searched the back of the cart and found it empty. Only a colorful bird remained, fluttering from the roof to the driver’s seat and squawking unintelligibly. The group was trying to figure out what exactly had happened when Gadget’s eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t you see? It’s got the same mustache! That’s the driver we met on the road. The one who was going to turn us in. Joey magicked him into a parrot!”

  Indira squinted. There was a strange curling line right beneath the parrot’s beak. Gadget’s eye for detail was impressive. “Fits the theme,” Indira agreed. “Pirates have parrots.”

  The group vowed to help the man—who merely squawked in return. All they could do was keep on moving. The next bend in the road showed off more of Joey’s handiwork. Indira led her crew toward the same monument they’d passed the night before. It seemed like that had happened ages ago. Their crew had been in danger ever since.

  The great monument that honored all the characters who’d come before them, all the characters who had crossed the threshold in their own famous stories…

  Phoenix whispered, “He destroyed it.”

  Destroyed was too small a word. Pieces of stone had scattered in every direction. Joey appeared to have used the monument as target practice. Huge scorch marks overlapped along the center of the road. The famous sword—Excalibur—had been cast aside, warped by the fire. Each of the digital displays had fallen or shattered in what looked like a series of explosions.

  Indira was trying to process the destruction when the air around them shivered with movement. There was a bright flash, and Indira turned, her hammer raised.

  But it wasn’t Joey.

  It was the girl with the pigtails. Last night she’d been a projection. Now she appeared before them as a flesh-and-blood character. She took in the sight of their crew. They all watched as she clutched the little dog tightly to her chest and broke into tears.

  Indira finally remembered her name. “Dorothy? Are you okay? What happened?”

  Her choking sobs made her first responses difficult to understand, but she kept repeating the same sentence until they understood.

  “My Story House,” she gasped. “He destroyed my Story House!”

  Have you ever felt unlucky, dear reader? The one night you didn’t do your homework is when your teacher decides to call your name for the answer? Or the candy bars in the vending machine only get stuck when you try to buy them? That was how Indira was starting to feel about the world of Imagination. It was almost as if it decided to glitch whenever she was around.

  First she’d been the target of an unfinished character disguised as one of the school’s trusted brainstorms. Ketty had been using dark magic to force her way back into a story, all while forcing Indira out of it. That adventure had nearly broken the entire city of Fable.

  Now she was right in the middle of another breakdown.

  The province of Plot was clearly under attack. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz was soon joined by dozens of other characters. There was King Arthur, clutching the broken sword to his chest, asking if anyone knew a good local blacksmith. The boy in overalls—Huckleberry Finn—was trying to keep Dorothy calm. She kept clicking a pair of ruby heels together and looking at the sky.

  As the noise and chaos grew, Indira decided enough was enough. She found the largest stone chunk from the broken memorial and climbed atop it. Cupping both hands, she shouted.

  “Hey! Everyone! Calm down. I need everyone to be quiet for a second!”

  The swirling mass of characters paused long enough to look her way. She didn’t exactly have a plan, but she didn’t want to lose the momentum. “Let’s figure this out together. Dorothy. You were the first one who appeared. Tell us what happened.”

  Hearing her name, the famous character finally looked up from her glittering red slippers.

  “I woke up in my Story House,” she replied. “I was going on a little walk through my first scenes—basking in the glow of my adoring fans, as usual—but there was no door. The story had changed. I didn’t ever go to Oz. My—well, I stayed in Kansas. I never left.”

  Huck Finn nodded. “I never took to the river.”

  “And when I went to pull the sword from the stone,” King Arthur added, “I failed.”

  More characters shared their stories, each with a common thread. The destroyed monument had been a celebration of crossing the threshold. It was the beginning
of nearly every character’s adventure. Moving on from the ordinary and into a world of unknown. As the noise started growing out of control again, Indira waved for silence.

  “Raise your hand if your story changed.”

  Every single hand went up.

  “So none of you actually went on the adventure?”

  There was a muttered agreement. Indira’s mind was racing. She’d thought at first that Joey had simply destroyed the monument. Somehow, though, his powers had echoed deeper than just into the physical stones. He’d actually broken a crucial step in the Hero’s Journey. Authors were powerful, she knew, but apparently walking into the world of Imagination increased that power to something dangerous.

  “If you can’t cross the threshold…”

  Phoenix was nodding. “No adventures. A whole lot of stories that never begin.”

  “That makes this puzzle simple to solve,” she replied, raising her voice. “There’s a rogue Author out there. All we have to do is find him and defeat him. If we can do that, we can return all of this back to normal.” She looked around at those gathered. There were centuries of famous protagonists with them now. Joey would regret that. “And with a team of heroes like this? No chance in the world we lose.”

  Indira leaped down from her makeshift pedestal. She signaled for the rest of her crew to gather their knapsacks and get moving. There was a churning excitement all around them. She’d known the speech would work. Inviting old heroes to fight in a new story? Who could resist?

  Every single one of them joined Indira’s march. She’d made it about fifty paces down the road, though, when there was a resounding pop. She flinched as more pops followed the first. Turning, she watched the characters vanish one by one, expressions full of terror.

  They were not gone for long. Back at the monument, the characters reappeared. Indira started jogging toward them.

  “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

  Huck Finn called back, “Hey! S’pose I give another direction a try.”

  He turned the opposite way and sprinted downhill. As he reached about the same distance, another pop split the air. Huck vanished, only to appear right beside the monument yet again. “Well, ain’t that somethin’,” he said with a frown.

  “We’re stuck!” Dorothy groaned. “On a road. And it’s not even a pretty road.”

  King Arthur collapsed dramatically, tossing his sword onto the ground like a broken toy. He lowered his face into his hands. “All my kingdom,” he wept. “Reduced to this.”

  Indira tried to put on a brave face. “Hey! We’re going to fix this. My crew and I can go. We’ll find the Author and we’ll fix this. Don’t worry! We’ll be back.”

  “Wait! Peasant!” King Arthur stumbled to his feet. Indira resented the term peasant, but Arthur looked so desperate that she said nothing. He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “If a deal must be made with this dastardly foe, consider freeing me first. I’m a king, after all.”

  Indira resisted knocking him on the side of his armored head. “Unbelievable.” She made an effort to look past him and at the other characters. “We’re going to fix this! I promise!”

  Turning, she marched back to join her crew. Gadget and Allen watched her carefully. Even Cavern was looking at her with something close to respect.

  Phoenix whispered, “So, what’s the plan?”

  “No idea,” Indira admitted. “But step one is finding Joey. Gadget, can you get that carriage back there working?” The girl nodded. “Good. Let’s start moving.”

  If they wanted to save Plot, there was no other option.

  It was time to fix the world of Imagination. Again.

  Gadget had the borrowed carriage up and running in no time. Unlike their stolen carriage, it was not designed to fail halfway through the trip. The batteries still had plenty of charge.

  At first the transformed parrot wasn’t eager to leave his vehicle. It took some effort to get him to flap out of the driver’s seat and back onto one of the shattered stones of the monument.

  Their kingswolf ally agreed to stay behind with the trapped protagonists. Indira was glad to have something of a base. The magic of Imagination was fickle. It was possible the characters might disappear again, or worse. And they’d need someone who knew what was happening to report. It also helped that the puppies would remain there. Indira thought their presence would lighten the mood and keep the trapped characters from going stir-crazy.

  A few minutes later, Gadget had them moving. The voices died away. Now it was just the whipping of the wind in their faces and the roar of the engine beneath them. Indira told the others to be ready for battle. All the clues were leading down the main road. It wasn’t hard to figure out where Joey was heading. Indira just hoped they’d catch up to him before he got his hands on the town of Ordinary and all the characters there.

  When they reached the farming outskirts, Gadget slowed the carriage to a stop. It was agreed that they should leave the vehicle in a safe location and approach on foot. Easier to keep the element of surprise that way. Everyone climbed down, except for Allen.

  “I want to go back to the monument.”

  Indira shook her head. “Back at the monument, you said you didn’t want to be left behind….”

  He nodded nervously. “That’s because I thought maybe there’d be a secret attack on the monument, and I’d be the guy who got left behind…but now I’m thinking I’m the one who gets blasted as soon as we enter the city. You know? Sacrificial death. Lets all of you know where the bad guy is hiding or whatever….”

  Indira was about to say something when Phoenix spoke. His voice was steady.

  “Hey, Squalls. I’ve been thinking about something.”

  All the nervous muttering died away. Phoenix waited until Allen looked at him. Not with fear, for once, but with curiosity. “About what?” he asked.

  “All this time,” Phoenix said patiently, “you could have just run away. Right?”

  Squalls shrugged. “I mean…I guess…”

  “You could have left,” Phoenix confirmed. “Fable is to the south. All you would have had to do was start walking away. But I noticed…you’re still here. You stuck with us. You kept going. You never left. Do you know what I call that?”

  Squalls considered his answer. “Lack of awareness of my options?”

  “Bravery,” Phoenix corrected. “I call it bravery. You can go back to the monument if you want. None of us will stop you. You can even head back to Fable. But I have a feeling we’re about to face something really powerful. And I’d feel a whole lot better if you were with us.”

  Indira watched Phoenix nod once to the boy before turning and walking away, as if he was certain that Squalls planned on joining them. Allen took a deep breath before sliding out of the carriage. He didn’t say anything. No one else spoke either. But he walked beside them like there had never been any thought of leaving. Indira caught Phoenix’s eye and winked at him. He was pretty good at finding the best in each of them. She liked that.

  The group doubled back to the road and nearly ran right into yet another person. Indira gasped at the sight. The figure was barely standing. It took Indira a second to recognize the old-fashioned business jacket. “Minerva? Are you all right?”

  She swept forward just in time to catch her pretend mother. The catch was a little awkward, and she did her best to ease the woman safely to the ground. They sat there in a heap as the others gathered around. Indira had a feeling this wasn’t a part of the scenario either.

  “Don’t go,” Minerva gasped. “Too dangerous.”

  Fear cut through Indira. Her words confirmed the worst. Joey had arrived.

  “Tell us what happened.”

  Minerva shook her head. “Something wrong about him. He wasn’t—he didn’t follow any of the normal rules. None of the guards could stop h
im. He was too powerful.”

  Indira nodded. “He’s not from our scenario. That’s why we came back. We’re here to stop him.”

  “Wait.” Minerva shook herself. “No. Wait a minute. There’s a protocol. If an outside force interferes with the scenario, there’s a protocol for reporting it back to the Editors. I thought he was just an antagonist getting carried away. You’re sure he’s crashing the scenario?”

  Indira and the others nodded.

  “Come on, then.” Minerva struggled to her feet. “I know where to go.”

  Following Minerva proved difficult. She was almost too weak to walk. Indira roped one arm around the woman and they made their way together. Minerva directed them to an abandoned barn at the southeastern end of the valley. There were massive gaps in the siding, and the paint was peeling from every surface. Minerva led them up to the front door—which barely hung on its hinges—and knocked a distinct pattern.

  Her touch rippled along the very fabric of the building. Indira stared as the wooden panels warped and twisted. The entire building shrank down, kicking up great puffs of dust, and reshaped itself into a polished wooden desk. Minerva sat down in the lone chair that appeared. Indira thought it was an odd sight, an office desk like this out in the middle of a cow pasture.

  Minerva picked up a phone and dialed. She tapped a button to switch the setting to speaker, and all of them listened as the call went through. There was a brief click, then the sound of someone rummaging in the faraway background, followed by an incredibly bored voice.

  “This is the Editor Hotline. How may I direct your call?”

  Minerva spoke. “Hi. I’m out here with the Hero’s Journey tutorial in the southern province located in Plot. Identification number is 91719. We’re encountering some outside interference from an individual known to us as Joey. He is not assigned to our scenario. We are requesting assistance. The unwelcome party has taken over the starting town.”