Ferdie and the Seven: book two: Time Flies

by Larry Buenafe

  An uncharacteristically grave, somber expression clouded Rafael’s face. I thought he was going to deflect the question by focusing on Ling, but instead he said, “Things have become complicated, Mr. Ferdie, Ms. Ling. If anyone else were to ask me I would not tell them, but with you I must be honest. I have been doing my best, running all over the world trying to make contact with other angels and attempting to discern if they have seen any evidence of aberrant behavior from their charges, but I have been unable to locate any of them. This is most unusual and concerning. There are angels here for each of The Seven, so being unable to find any of them… well, I don’t know what to make of it, my friends.”

  Oh, great. So now the angels really are gone? “So what do you think has happened, Raffy? You must have some ideas.”

  Rafael slumped as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders, and said, “Well, I fear the worst, Mr. Ferdie. The Others may have captured or enslaved or otherwise brainwashed their angels. I am not at all sure how they would accomplish this, but if this has occurred, they must be wielding a great deal of power indeed. To be honest, I don’t believe that they could capture an angel, and this would necessarily mean that the second possibility is more likely. They have somehow convinced or fooled them into taking their side. I do not need to tell you that this would be highly negative for us in our struggle to stop them.”

  Holy crap, what next? Is the whole universe, or all the universes, against us? “So do you think this is what they’ve been up to for the past couple of months? Eliminating the competition?”

  “Well, I do not know this for a certainty, but I believe that is exactly what is occurring, and if additionally they are able to convince these angels to fight for them, this will again pose a great difficulty for us as we go forward.”

  Go forward to where? We sat quietly, taking it all in and trying to make sense of what we were hearing. Finally, Ling said, “I think it would be good for us to decide what things of advantage we have, things that we can use to go on, what is the word… offense, is that right?”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right, Ling. If we just sit around here moping about having no way to win, then we’ll lose for sure. So here are the things that we have as I see them: Marsh-dog was close to locating another one of The Seven, and that’s something we can probably use in our favor if we can work out a way to finish his simulation. I guess that’s up to me. I’m going to have to go over to the university to see if I can get his professor to finish it up. Second, we have two angels on our side, although we haven’t seen Gabriella for a while; hopefully she’s ok and will come back soon. Third, ok, this might sound a little arrogant, but I don’t think they have anyone who can take me, at least not one on one. What else do we have in our favor? Hey, Raffy, it just occurred to me… do you think they know about Marsh-dog still hanging around in the in-between? I think that’s something we can definitely use in our favor if they don’t.”

  It was a relief to see Rafael break into his signature smile, as he said, “Very good, Mr. Ferdie. The Others will not know about Mr. Marsh-dog unless he allows them to see him, which I assume he has not. As he is no longer alive in the traditional sense, they have no way of finding him, but because he can see from the in-between into the physical world, he can definitely, among other things, act as a sort of early warning system for us. This is a major asset.”

  “Ok, give me a minute, I’m going to go find Marsh and see if he thinks he’s been discovered. Be right back.” I quickly faded into the in-between and scanned around, and as usual was momentarily distracted by the beauty of it all. I forced myself to snap out of it and called, “Marsh! Marsh, are you in here?”

  “Well of course I’m in here, dummy. Where else would I be? And you don’t have to tell me what you dudes were talking about, I was watching. Yeah, alright, maybe that’s a little creepy, but I don’t have a lot else to do right now. I think you got it right, though, and no, I don’t think anyone knows I’m in here except you dudes, maybe some other ghosts, although they don’t seem to pay much attention, and whatever these other things are in here. I haven’t figured them out yet, but I will.”

  “Dude, you’re floating.”

  “Yeah, I know, I can do that. You’re doing your head-tap thing, you know.”

  I snatched my hand away quickly and said, “I know. I was doing it on purpose.”

  “Sure you were. So I think the first thing to do, like I told you before, is get over to the university and figure out how to get Dr. Reyes to let you finish up the simulations. I’m pretty sure it won’t take more than maybe a half hour once you get started, and the results should both pinpoint a spot on the globe, and give a description of the person we’re looking for. If we get lucky, and there have been any incidents related to this person, we might also get the actual identity. I’ll go over there too and once you convince him to let you run it, I’ll actually push the keys from in here. You’ll just have to pretend like you know what’s going on. That way he doesn’t have to do anything but let you in the lab.”

  “Ok, but you know I’m a little nervous about this. If they try to bust me I’ll have to do something, and then they’ll know what’s going on.”

  “Well, so what? It’s not like they can catch you, unless they knock you out or drug you or something. On second thought, you better be careful, dude.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll proceed with caution, Robin.”

  “Ok, that’s it, I’m haunting you now.”

  We cracked up, and then I faded back into the apartment. Standing next to the table, along with the seated Ling and Rafael, was Gabriella.

  Chapter 4

  Finally! She looks rough, though… like she hasn’t slept in a week… has she been crying? I didn’t know angels could do that… Gabriella was always on the petite side, but now she looked positively skinny, and her beautiful blonde pixie hair hung limply, as if she hadn’t washed it in weeks. What’s wrong with these angels? Have they become anorexic? Before I could say anything, Gabriella spoke: “I am sorry for being gone so long, all of you. After my failure regarding Arnie Hayward, I have become somewhat more… human. In some ways this is good; I feel more connected to all of you, more a part of our group. In some other ways, maybe not so good; my current status is the same as all of you, in that we are scheduled, if that is the right word, to die in about two years, likely in a rather gruesome way, and at the end of that to spend eternity in the Bad Line.”

  “It’s 781 days, although who’s counting,” I said as I tapped my head.

  “Thank you for your accuracy. At any rate, I was very much missing my earthly family in Sweden, and I took the opportunity during the current apparent lull in activity to visit them. I couldn’t really visit them physically, though, as they do not know where I have been for the past year; they think I somehow just disappeared. Obviously I couldn’t tell them where I was going or what I was doing when Rafael and I came here to be with you permanently, so the only thing I could do was simply fade away. I did leave a note to tell them that my departure was not due to anything any of them did, and that I loved them very much, but I had to go. I thought perhaps they would be comforted by knowing that I hadn’t been abducted or something of that sort. So, all I could do was look in on them from the in-between and wish that I could be with them in the flesh.”

  We all seemed to be on the verge of tears. Ling croaked, “But Gabriella, what would the harm be to visit them in real? At least they could know you had safety, and perhaps they could not worry for you then.”

  Gabriella almost smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I was trying to convince myself of the same thing as I viewed them from the in-between. I could not bring myself to do it, though, it was just too painful. As I was watching, however…” It was obvious that she was working intently to keep her composure; she turned her eyes toward the ceiling and grimaced mightily. The room was totally silent; our complete attention was with Gabriella and her story. “Ahh, this is very hard… clearly I was somehow b
eing observed by The Others. While I watched, my earthly husband, Lars, attempted to attack our daughters, Sara and Lisel. Sara is the older, twelve, and very fierce; she fought him and protected Lisel, telling her to run, to get away. Lars is of course much larger and stronger, and he was obviously being controlled. He was saying, “Just hold still, it will be over in a minute,” and was swinging a large knife at Sara. She was throwing things at him and screaming; I could not let him hurt her, I had to stop him, so I exited the in-between and… I killed him. He was my husband, but I killed him. That was the only way I could stop him; I don’t have your ability to go into the mind of humans, Ferdie. If I did, I could have driven out the invader and saved him, but I could not. So, I made my hand rigid and pushed it through his chest, and stopped his heart. He smiled in the end.” Then she just broke down and started sobbing. I didn’t know what to do; we gathered around her and helped her to a chair, and everyone was patting her awkwardly and feeling awful. I stood back, and saw a drip of blood; I had been doing some severe head tapping and had opened up a little cut on my temple.

  After a few minutes we had all regained our composure and began talking again, sitting around the little kitchen table of our apartment. Rafael seemed totally overwhelmed, which surprised me. He was holding Gabriella’s hand as he asked, in a trembling voice, “Dear, dear Ms. Gabriella, I am afraid to ask, what has become of your daughters?”

  Gabriella looked down for a moment, and then brought her gaze to eye level, saying, “I knew that they had to be away from me. Having me near obviously put them in danger, but I had to explain to Sara what was happening; she witnessed too much and I could not keep the truth from her. I told her who and what I was, and why we must be apart. As I said, she is very fierce, and also very intelligent. She took it all in as if she knew it was coming, and it was her suggestion to take Lisel and go to Malmo, on the far southwestern tip of Sweden, to live with their grandparents. She had even been saving money and had more than enough for the train ride there for Lisel and her. I agreed that this was the best plan of action, but I told her I must leave quickly, in case The Others attempt further carnage. She agreed and left to find her sister, and I… I returned to the in-between, and eventually returned here.”

  “Ahh, yes, yes, what a relief,” Rafael gasped.

  Hey, wait a minute… they usually just attack when I’m around… “Did you try to connect with me while you were there?”

  “Well, Ferdie, we are always connected. That is my duty and my fate.”

  All right, that’s it. No more stalling, we’ve, no I’ve, been waiting around too long. We have to start moving. “Raffy, do you have a family in… I can’t believe this; I never asked you where you’re from.”

  His expression immediately changed, and his laugh rang out. Man, that sounds good after all this stuff… Then he said, “Yes, Mr. Ferdie, you never asked, and I never offered, so we are even, eh? Tell me, did you assume I was from Jamaica or some such place?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. It kind of seems like you would be from a place like that.”

  “Right again, Mr. Ferdie. I am indeed from Jamaica, from a little place called Spicy Hill. Unfortunately for me, I was an orphan, but fortunately for our current situation, I have no family for The Others to threaten or kill. That is good, yes? Ahh, but how about Ms. Ling? What can we do to protect her family in Hong Kong?”

  Our attention turned to Ling, as she responded, “Please make me correct if I am wrong, but I do not think they ever have attacked any of our families when we were not there. I think that our families are only important to them as method to get to us. Therefore, if we do not go there, they will not go there either.”

  “Yeah, yeah that’s right… they don’t care about our families at all, they just see them as a means to an end.”

  Gabriella looked up, sighing heavily. “I think that is very astute, Ling, Ferdie. I wish I had thought of that a few days ago.”

  Oh, crap. “Sorry, Gabriella, I didn’t mean… well, you know what I mean.”

  She projected a joyless half-smile and said, “Yes, I know, Ferdie. I will shake it off, as they say, it will just take some time.”

  “Ok, so, sorry Ling, but you are going to have to stay away from home, at least for now. I’m going over to the university now and try to talk Dr. Reyes into letting me finish Marsh’s work. When I get back, if we both feel up to it, let’s try our little peek into your brain again, ok? Marsh, are you with me?” In a few seconds, I heard one of Marsh-dog’s computers beep, and I knew that was him saying “Of course, ugly,” to me.

  Chapter 5

  At two in the afternoon, I decided to walk over to the university rather than go through the in-between. It would give me a little time to prepare, and I could use some air and time alone. It was about three miles to the university, although almost a straight shot up the street, with just a couple of turns. I didn’t really expect to see anyone I knew but just in case I kept a hood up over my head, and kept my eyes forward. Feels good to just get out and move… maybe I’ll jog a little… nah, that would look suspicious, especially while wearing jeans and a hood up like a gangster… might look like I just robbed a place or something…

  Luckily, the walk was uneventful, and I arrived at the university at three p.m. Universities can be confusing places, with buildings scattered in a seemingly random way, and this one was no exception. It took me fifteen minutes and three requests for directions, but finally I found the Department of Mathematics building where Dr. Reyes has his office. I made my way to the second floor and through a series of twisting hallways, and finally found his office door. It doesn’t look like a door where you would need to knock first… should I just enter? Man, I feel nervous for some reason... Come on, dude, quit stalling and go in…

  “Marsh, are you there?” I whispered, and felt the lightest possible flick on my ear; I knew that had to be him. “Ok, here we go…”

  I opened the door, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was not it. The office was a disaster; papers piled up everywhere, boxes with folders full of paper spilling out, coffee mugs and fast food soda cups all over the place. Directly across from the door was a desk with several computer monitors blocking the view, and from behind the monitors I heard, in a high, nasally voice, spoken rapidly: “Hang on just a second, I must, must, MUST complete this item right now or I’m dead. Well, not literally dead, it’s just an idiomatic statement, you know… who’s there, by the way?”

  Ok, just follow the plan… “Um, hi, hello Professor Reyes. My name is Ferdie Shamley. You don’t know me, but I was an associate of Marshall Nolan.” Associate? Where did that come from? Sheesh…

  Immediately, a head popped around the side of the monitors, and there was Dr. Reyes. Small in stature, very thin, with long, straight, graying hair in a ponytail, and glasses so thick they made his eyes look like saucers. He’s wearing a Metallica t-shirt, and there’s a big stain on the shoulder… I wonder how that happened… “Ok, you have my attention. How are you associated with Marshall?”

  “Ah, well, you know the project you were helping, ah, assisting him with? We were working on it together, and… well, obviously you know what happened to him, and I wanted to complete the project as a tribute to his memory.” Whoa, that sounded corny coming out of my mouth. I hope it didn’t sound as corny to his ears…

  Dr. Reyes rolled his office chair around the side of the desk and we were now face to face, him sitting and me standing. He’s wearing gym shorts. What kind of professor is this? I thought they all wore sweaters and smoked pipes and stuff… and he’s a little guy, not tall and imposing like I thought professors would be… Dr. Reyes extended his hand, and I did the same, and he shook my hand vigorously. “Marshall was the single most talented math student I ever had the pleasure of working with. To do what he was doing, and especially at his age… well, to be honest, I didn’t have all that much I could teach him. You’re an associate of his, eh? If that’s true, you must also be very special. Yo
u’re hoping to finish his simulations? The most complicated project I have ever been involved with. How he thought to combine chaos theory, which in itself is a brain buster, with analytics and population projections, and then overlay geography, well, it was simply genius. Such a tragedy, his passing. Of course, I was able to decipher what he was trying to do. He was looking for an individual, or maybe a couple of people, and he used past information and the aforementioned theories and statistics, to try to find them. I’m pretty sure I know why he was doing it, too. Do you know?” He said all of this in the space of about eight seconds.

  Dude, this guy is quick. I see why he and Marsh-dog hit it off. “Ahh, well…” That was as far as I got, because he jumped in: “Ok, let me tell you what I think. I know about what happened to his parents; tragedy followed that kid around. I believe he was so distraught over his family’s passing that he became obsessed with the occult, hoping to somehow contact them from the beyond. I think he was searching the world for certain people with magical powers, although of course there is no such thing as magic. Desperation will make people do strange things. Do you know anything about any of this?”

  Dude, this guy is almost on the right track… “Well, I…” And he jumped in again:

  “I knew it! So sad… you don’t believe in this magic mumbo-jumbo, do you?”

  Well not when you put it like that… it’s really not magic, though, not exactly… it’s more like stuff that we haven’t figured out yet… we just don’t know how it works… maybe we’ll never know, especially if The Others win… there’ll be no one left to figure it out… “Well, I don’t really…”

  “Of course not, that was a silly question. There’s one thing I just can’t figure out, though… several times over the last few weeks a message will pop up on my computer, and it says ‘Hi Dr. Reyes, it’s me, Marshall’. I don’t know how he programmed my computer to do that; I’ve torn it apart but I can’t figure it out. I even swapped out the PC, and it popped up on the next one too. At first I just thought it was someone playing a sick prank on me, and then I thought it must be a virus of some kind, but I cannot figure out how it was occurring. It hasn’t happened in a little while, so maybe it’s fixed. That Marshall was very clever, though, and if anyone could set up something like this and then cover his digital tracks, it would be him. Well,” he clapped his hands loudly, “when do you want to start?” In a flash, he was up and walking rapidly to the door and down the hall. Man, that was way easier than I thought it would be… I hope the rest of this goes that easy… I trotted along to catch up, and then I had to continue at a jog to match his pace as he plowed down the hall. Finally, we reached a door labeled “Computer Lab”, and in we went. Inside the windowless room were dozens of desktop computers on tables, but Dr. Reyes said, “Don’t stop now. We’re going to the real computer,” and he walked through a door at the back of the room.