by West, Shay
He set the stove on simmer as he placed the lid on the pot, and sat down at the small kitchen table to wait for Tani and Keena. Ava joined him and they kept an eye on the hallway to wait for their guests to join them.
Tani shyly walked up to the table, swimming in the sweats and T-shirt Eli found for him. If the sweats hadn’t had a drawstring, they would have fallen right off. Keena came down the hall a moment later looking much better in her clothing. She and Ava were a little closer in size, so the jeans and shirt she wore fit a little better.
“Thank you for the use of the clothing. It is strange, but surprisingly comfortable,” Tani said as he took a seat at the table.
“Yes, thank you. Even with our position of high standing, we never enjoyed such luxury,” Keena said.
“You think this is luxury? You’d probably faint if you saw some of the mansions in the mountains,” Eli said.
“Where is your fire?” Tani asked.
Eli blinked. “My fire?”
“For heating the water.”
“Well, it comes in a tank, so we don’t use fire.”
Tani nodded. “I suspected it was magic of some kind.”
Eli laughed. “It’s not magic. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led the way to the hall and opened the door to the closet that held the furnace and hot water tank.
“This is where the hot water is held and this device heats the home when it’s cold,” Eli explained.
Tani got down on his hands and knees, observing every inch of the water tank. “I thought you said it wasn’t heated by fire?”
Eli looked where he was pointing and sighed. “It’s a pilot light, so it’s not fire exactly. It burns gas.”
“It looks like fire,” Tani said.
“Well, it is, sort of.” Boy, this is difficult.
“Your world is very strange and wondrous,” Tani said as he stood.
Ava was at the table and showed Keena a small compact.
”I was just showing her how I do my make-up. Apparently only ladies of ill-repute wear this stuff on her world.” Ava grinned.
“I always knew there was something you weren’t telling me,” Eli said as he sat down at the table.
The four sat in silence. Despite the questions milling around his head, Eli couldn’t speak. It was as though there were too many things happening, and his brain couldn’t make the necessary adjustments to make his mouth work.
Ava clapped her hands and rubbed them together. ”So, why don’t you tell us about where you’re from.”
“A place very different from this,” Tani said as he looked around the house. “This place is loud and everything is so big. The loudest things on my world are the steam engines.”
“Steam?” Eli asked. “We used to use steam-powered engines.”
Tani gave a small smile. “Maybe our worlds aren’t so very different after all.”
“Hang on. I need to get something.”
Eli jumped up from his chair and went to his office. He came back carrying his laptop.
“I thought some visuals might help us to understand things a bit more.” He opened the computer and invited Tani and Keena to gather around. “This is called a computer, and with it I can access information in other places, on the other side of the world even.”
“How is such a thing possible? To send messages long distance we have to use pigeons,” Tani said.
“It uses invisible waves that travel through the air and bounce off satellites that are high above this planet.” He shook his head at the look of confusion on Tani’s face. “Never mind, it’s not important.”
He brought up a Google search page, typed in some keywords, and chose to view the images. Eli smiled as Tani and Keena gasped.
“That’s very similar to what we have. Only ours is bigger and doesn’t seem as streamlined.”
The next half hour was spent looking at pictures of various steam-driven machines, medieval pictures, Victorian era pictures, modern day photos depicting things like motorcycles, airplanes, rockets, space ships, and other things that were totally foreign to Tani and Keena.
When the timer went off, signaling dinner was ready, he and Ava went to grab everything from the kitchen. Eli turned the oven on to heat the naan and Ava grabbed the salad from the fridge. Eli took a big whiff of the mango curry chicken soup and sighed in contentment. This had always been one of his favorite meals, but living alone meant he tended to make microwave dinners or grill a steak as opposed to cooking large pots of anything.
“I hope you like this. I’m guessing you probably have never had anything like this,” Eli said as he brought the pot of soup to the table.
He went first, putting a large spoonful of rice in the bottom of a bowl, followed by a couple ladlefuls of the soup. He heaped salad on his plate followed by globs of Ranch dressing. He watched as Tani and Keena took their first bites and smiled when their faces broke into grins.
“I don’t think I’ve had anything quite this good,” Keena said.
“The main spice is called curry. Well, technically it’s a blend of a lot of spices,” Eli said.
Eli ate until he thought his stomach would burst. He glanced into the pot and smiled when he spotted a few dregs of soup left and a few bits of rice clinging to the pot. He and Ava brought the dirty dishes into the kitchen. Eli filled the pots with water and put the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher. He grabbed a soap cube, placed it in the container, and started the machine.
“What manner of device is that?”
Eli glanced up at Tani who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. ”It’s called a dishwasher. It uses hot water to clean the dishes.”
His mouth dropped open. “You mean you do not wash them by hand?”
“Some of them we do. Some things will get damaged in the machine.”
“But why use it at all? Wouldn’t it be faster to wash by hand?”
Eli shrugged. ”I suppose in my case it would, but the machine uses water that is much hotter than human hands can touch and that gets the dishes cleaner than just doing them in the sink.”
“Your world is full of wonders.”
“Wait until you see the washing machine,” Ava said as she grabbed another beer.
“A what?” Tani asked.
Eli and Ava spent the next several hours showing Tani and Keena the various technological wonders around the house: the microwave, washer and dryer, TV and DVD player, the BBQ outside on the patio. Each thing Eli and Ava showed the pair led to tons of questions, explanations, and comparisons to their own world. The four went back to the table. Ava flopped down into one of the chairs.
“I hate to break this up, but it’s getting late. I’m going to head home,” Ava said, yawning and stretching.
“Are you sure? We haven’t even started talking about the gateways yet,” Eli said as he took a seat.
Ava waved her hands. “I’m sure. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
Eli stood. “I’ll take you back to the station to get your car.”
“Nah, it’s all right. I’ll take a cab. You guys stay and talk. There’s still a lot of ground to cover. You can catch me up in the morning,” Ava said as she grabbed her phone from her purse.
Eli knew he should do the chivalrous thing and protest, but truth be told, he wanted to stay and talk with Tani and Keena. They had barely scratched the surface of the similarities and differences between their two worlds, let alone discussed the gateways and how to close them for good. He continued to show Tani and Keena pictures on the internet and barely heard Ava shout good-bye when her cab arrived.
“Do your people have a King, someone who makes the decisions?” Tani asked.
“Some countries do, but it’s mainly just for show. Our government is made up of several groups of people who work together to make laws.”
Tani frowned. “That seems rather complicated.”
Eli barked laughter. “You have no idea.” He met Tani’s eyes. “Time to tell me about the monastery
.”
Tani nodded. “The monastery is the one thing that can override the King, but no head priest has ever gone against the King. Until the scrolls were found pertaining to the strange machinery. It had always just been there in the basement. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. No one knew what it was for or how to run it, so it just sat there collecting dust and myths.
“It took years for the priests to copy what was written on the delicate scrolls to the books to be archived in the library. But it was Master Kelhar who took an interest in them. He holed up in the library for weeks, barely eating and sleeping, cross-referencing the scrolls to earlier writings and our Holy books.
“One day he gathered everyone together, claiming to have figured out the purpose of the machinery in the basement.” Tani smiled and shared a glance with Keena. “Remember the first time we officially met?”
She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes at Eli. “Our families happened to be visiting the monastery during our yearly pilgrimage, along with many other families. It was a fun time to meet up with friends while the adults prayed in the chapel. Anyway, he and I ended up being dared to go down to the basement and touch the machine.” She fixed Tani with a glare. “He made me go first and locked me in the room.”
Tani rubbed the back of his neck, cheeks going red. “I spent the next several years apologizing every time we met back there.”
“I should have made you grovel even more.”
“I can’t believe you’d lock her in a scary basement,” Eli said, covering a smile with his hand.
“It was awful. I pounded on the door and screamed till I was hoarse.”
“I let you out. Eventually.” Tani pursed his lips together.
“You’d better not be laughing at me.”
Eli burst out laughing at how much Keena looked like Ava when she was angry. I think all women look like that.
“Finish telling me about Master Kelhar,” Eli said, jaws creaking in a yawn.
“Would you rather wait until morning?” Tani asked.
Eli waved him off. “I’d rather hear at least this much before bed.”
“Master Kelhar claimed the gods had spoken to him in dreams. That, coupled with what was written in the scrolls, made him certain: the machine was used to make gateways to another world. And he also said that we could save many of our sick and dying with the use of the gateways. He didn’t spell it all out right away, of course.”
“I imagine telling everyone that the gateways would be used to murder people wouldn’t go over so well,” Eli said.
Tani looked guilty. “That is what I think as well. But at the time it all seemed so logical. Each year he would claim to have more information from the gods, another piece of the puzzle. He seemed sincere.”
“How long did it take for him to speak of harvesting organs from the people here?”
“I can’t remember exactly, but it was many years after the initial discovery of the scrolls. That was when he started recruiting the Harvesters.”
“Who does the actual transplantation of the organs?”
“Master Kelhar mostly.”
Eli leaned forward. “How does he have the knowledge to do that? On this world it takes a team of specially-trained surgeons to do such a thing.”
“Some of the machinery in the basement is used for keeping a body alive while the organs are being replaced. I’ve never witnessed the surgeries, so I don’t know how it works. But he claims the gods gave him the knowledge to transplant the organs.”
“Doesn’t that seem fishy to you? What if someone came to you and said they had a dream and could all of a sudden build a rocket ship. Would you believe them?” Eli asked.
Tani shook his head.
“And yet your people believed this Master Kelhar about the surgeries. He was able to perform the extremely difficult surgeries just fine by having some sort of dream?”
“Of course not. It took him many surgeries to perfect the technique. But once he did, he was able to save people who would otherwise have died.”
“He practiced on the patients?”
“Of course. How else was he supposed to learn?”
“Doctors on my world practice on cadavers prior to working on a living being.”
Tani looked horrified. “It is against everything we believe in to desecrate the bodies of the dead.”
“But you have no problems practicing on the living?” Eli asked, his anger returning.
“Master Kelhar said it was the will of the gods,” Tani said in a small voice.
Eli stood. ”Well, you’ll have to excuse me, but I think your gods can go screw themselves.”
CHAPTER 32
ELI STARED at the ceiling as the alarm blared. He reached over and turned it off. Didn’t even need to turn the damn thing on. He hadn’t slept the whole night, but he didn’t feel as groggy as he knew he should. His mind was alert and churning through the information from the previous evening. He was divided between wanting to know more about Tani and Keena’s strange world, and wishing he’d never heard of it. The more he heard about Master Kelhar, the more he wanted to travel to that world and put a bullet in the man’s head.
So many deaths lay at his feet.
He hopped in the shower and scrubbed his skin as though trying to erase what he had heard from the previous night. He wasn’t sure how to proceed with the case. According to Tani and Keena, there were dozens of killers back at the monastery. He knew it was impossible to get them all and bring them here to serve justice. And what was to stop Master Kelhar from training more?
Eli was afraid Tani was right; the only way to stop the head priest was to destroy the machines that ran the gateways. But how? Destroying the machines meant traveling to Tani and Keena’s world and planting some sort of explosive. Which meant that whoever planted the bomb wasn’t going to be leaving.
By all rights it should be Tani and Keena who planted the bomb, but if they were right about their punishment, they would be put to death. They deserve it for what they’ve done. Eli didn’t want to listen to that voice, but he couldn’t help it. Regardless of how much he liked them, that didn’t change the fact that they had killed five people. He had a job to do and the law to uphold.
Maybe Ava has some brilliant plan up her sleeve.
He went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Eli started the coffee, making a full pot, unsure if Tani and Keena drank coffee. Do they even have coffee where they’re from? He grabbed eggs, bacon, and bread from the fridge. He pursed his lips and reached for the onion and tomatoes, having a sudden urge for some scrambled eggs. He chopped the onions and tomatoes while the bacon was cooking. As he was scrambling the eggs, Tani and Keena walked shyly into the kitchen.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Keena asked.
Eli shook his head. “I think I have it under control. The coffee will be ready in a few minutes. Not sure if you know what that is or not, but I have to have it to function in the morning.”
When the coffee was done brewing, he showed them how to add creamer and sugar. The pair licked their lips and took their coffee to the table. Eli scrambled up the eggs along with the onions, tomatoes, and some cumin and pepper. While the eggs were cooking, he put several pieces of bread in the toaster. He put the bacon on a paper towel to drain as he scooped the eggs into a large bowl. The toast was hot as he pulled it from the toaster. He hissed and dropped it on the plate. He slathered the toast with butter.
Eli took the food into the table along with some jelly for the toast.
“You have bacon!” Tani exclaimed.
“You know what bacon is?” Eli asked.
He and Keena nodded emphatically.
He loaded up his plate with eggs, surprised he was so hungry after the enormous amount of food he ate last night, but as soon as the bacon had started cooking, his belly rumbled.
“What a strange way to cook eggs,” Keena said as she eyed her fork.
“It’s called scrambled eggs
. The fun thing about these is you can put stuff in them: vegetables, cheese, meat.”
“We eat them boiled mostly, but I’ve had them fried before,” Keena said.
Eli nodded. “We boil them too. We have a holiday called Easter where we boil eggs and decorate them and hide them for kids to find.”
“And then what do you do with the eggs?”
“Eat ‘em, I guess.”
“Sounds like a very strange holiday,” Tani said.
“I suppose it does, doesn’t it?”
The three of them ate every bite of food, much like the night before. Eli took the dishes to the sink and groaned when he remembered the dishes in the dishwasher were clean. For some reason, he had always hated putting away clean dishes.
Screw it, I’ll leave them for when I get home.
He ignored the other voice in his head that said he would be even more irritated coming home to a sink full of dirty dishes. Eli stood for a moment trying to decide if he wanted to bring Tani and Keena with him or leave them here. Captain Platt will go ballistic if I bring them.
“Okay, you two, here’s the deal. I have to go into the office today and I can’t take you with me, so you’re going to have to stay here until I get home.”
“We understand,” Tani said.
“I suppose you can’t read my language, can you?”
Tani shook his head.
“Reading’s out of the question. Guess you guys can watch TV.”
Eli showed them how to work the remote and how to move through channels using the satellite guide.
“Since you can’t read, you’ll just have to pick something and watch.” He shrugged as he handed Tani the remote.
He showed them where to find the stuff to make sandwiches for lunch. Eli opened the cupboard where he kept the chips and other assorted snacks.
Eli left, hoping he wasn’t making a huge mistake. Guess there’s no way for them to burn the house down. As he drove to the office, he dialed Ava’s cell phone.
“You better be on your way to the office,” he said when she answered.
“Give me a break, Robins. I’m already here.”
