by James Phelan
I watch the footage of a bright burning mass in the night sky, taking me back to another science class when we watched magnified images of comets streaming through space.
‘That’s me?’ I ask.
‘You are inside. This footage was still some two hundred kilometres west of here. We scrambled two fighter jets to take a closer look at your pod.’
The images change to what must be video footage from the jets. It is impossible to judge the size of the pod but one thing is clear—it is travelling fast.
‘Our jets quickly ran out of fuel trying to keep up with your speed, and it was decided by our central command that whatever you were, you were a threat to our airspace.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, I’m sorry to say, that our nation’s air defences shot you down.’
‘Shot me down?’ I say. ‘Like, out of the sky?’
Wow. Maybe this bit’s true?
Demetri nods and points at the screen.
It is vision from a new angle. There is the bright light of my pod, hurtling along, then a tiny bright arrow streaking up from below–the collision inevitable.
The impact makes me jump in my seat. A huge fireball engulfs the pod and it immediately changes direction, shedding debris in its wake as it lost altitude.
Images of Sebastian being shot out of the sky by a missile in New York flash through my mind–the flaming wreckage crashing to earth. I swallow hard to stop the rising bile in my throat.
Don’t get emotional. Stay neutral.
‘Here we have the impact as captured by yet another angle. You can see in the early morning dawn that this footage was taken from a helicopter.’
My pod is now a steaming hulk the size of a delivery van, driven hard into a snow-covered expanse of earth, the gouge in the ground from the initial impact a couple of kilometres long.
‘At first, the military was going through ridiculous celebrations,’ Demetri says. ‘They thought that Superman had landed–that he exists, and that he will be Russian!’
Demetri laughs but I just watch in shock as the footage now shows the President of Russia inspecting the crash site.
‘When I arrived with my team and analysed the site, we found that it was in fact a rocket capsule made in America, for their Ark program,’ Demetri says. ‘It’s a fall-back site for their government, in the advent of an all-out nuclear war. We have a similar program here. After breaching the hull and finding that it only contained you, and following a lot of tests, we managed to take over your observation as you safely recovered.’
The Ark? Did they find out about that from me?
They’ll say anything to trick me into giving them information.
‘Recovered?’
‘You sustained a head injury on impact,’ Demetri says.
I feel the back of my head–it is shaved, and I can feel stitches running along a vertical scar.
I didn’t have a scar.
‘You slipped in and out of consciousness a few times,’ Demetri explains, ‘and I suspect that you may have loss of some memory function.’
‘When was this?’ I ask. ‘When did this accident–this shooting-down of the pod, happen?’
‘A week ago.’
‘A week?’ I say. ‘I’ve been here for a week?’
‘More or less.’
‘I need to call …’ I look blankly into middle distance.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t remember. Someone. Someone is worried about me. I’m sure of it.’
Demetri smiles. ‘It will come back, trust me. First, tell me, do you remember why Solaris put you in that pod?’
I shake my head.
Demetri’s smile remains unchanged.
‘That is unfortunate,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you close your eyes a moment and think about it?’
I close my eyes. My world goes dark.
36
EVA
Dr Dark’s private jet was waiting on the wet tarmac at London’s Heathrow Airport.
‘You can’t come?’ Eva asked Lora as they exited the private terminal and walked towards the jet.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s better for me to stay and direct our efforts from here.’
‘You’ll tell me if you find anything about Sam?’ Eva said. ‘Of course,’ Lora said, hugging her. As they embraced, she passed her a wrapped package. ‘Open it in private.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something that you may need. Be safe out there, and remember to be careful who you trust.’
Eva looked at her oddly but Lora waved her off and made her way back to the terminal. Eva slipped the parcel into her backpack and walked towards Dr Dark, who was waiting for her at the entrance to the plane.
‘Eva, good to see you again,’ he said.
‘Where are we headed?’ she asked, going up the stairs.
‘First stop, New York City,’ he replied as they got out of the drizzle and into the warm cabin. A crew member poured coffee. ‘We take off in five minutes, we’re just waiting for another passenger. Make yourself comfortable.’
Eva helped herself to a plush leather chair that was more comfortable than her bed back at the Academy.
‘How’s my son getting on?’ Dr Dark asked.
‘Good,’ Eva replied, putting her backpack at her feet. ‘He’s a gifted Dreamer, though he’s taken Sam’s disappearance quite hard.’
‘Yes, it’s messy, but we’ll find him,’ Dr Dark said. ‘The two boys were classmates in high school, so Xavier’s bound to be more affected by it than most.’
Not as much as me.
‘So,’ Eva said, ‘Why New York as our first stop?’
‘Well, I watched the recording of your last dream,’ Dr Dark said, ‘and since the thirteen zodiac tablet you saw appears to be Ancient Egyptian, I think we should start with my research team’s archives. I had them moved from Berlin to New York.’
‘You think we’ll find answers there?’
‘Possibly, it’s worth a try,’ he said, sipping his coffee. ‘But ultimately, there’s only one way that we can see into every mind on the planet to really know everything for sure.’
‘Every mind?’
‘Yes, via their dreams.’
‘No-one can do that.’
‘Maybe not, but I think there may well be a way,’ Dr Dark said with a cryptic smile.
He handed over a black leather-bound book.
It was heavy, with thick, cream pages. Eva opened the cover.
There was a notation on the next page. Eva read it out loud to herself.
‘The tower was destroyed two years ago but my projects are being developed and another one, improved in some features, will be constructed … My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success—Nikola Tesla, 1919.’
Eva looked up from the book. ‘I understand that Tesla’s work as a Dreamer and scientist is important—that’s what we’ve got Alex and Shiva working on in New York, right?’ she said. ‘Are we going to see them?’
‘Yes, and no,’ Dr Dark said. ‘I’ll explain on the flight there, and my friend should be able to shed more light on this than me,’ he added in response to Eva’s questioning expression. He checked his watch. ‘Where is he? It’s not like him to be late. I’ll just check.’
Dr Dark left the cabin.
Looking around the plane cabin, Eva was reminded of her family—her parents moving around all the time, flights to new cities taking them across the country. Now she better understood why.
It must have been part of their work with the Enterprise. And I always thought it was because Dad worked short-term contracts with architectural companies. Huh.
She opened up her backpack and took out the day’s paper she’d picked up as she’d walked through the terminal minutes before. The front page headline made her heart skip a beat, and she read it slow
ly.
Eva swallowed hard.
She folded up the paper and put it into her bag.
Alex and Shiva are in New York, and we’re going there now. We can help them.
Then we just need to find Sam and it’ll be the three of us again. Like it was at the beginning.
Looking outside the window, she saw a man walking with a limp towards Dr Dark.
The two embraced like old friends. She heard the engines of the jet powering up for take-off. She looked at Lora’s gift in her bag and tore the end open. There was a box.
Inside, Eva was surprised to find a dart gun, standard Enterprise Agent issue. The information with it stated it was accurate to fifty metres and could render a person unconscious for anywhere from an hour to a full day. There were sixty darts in the box. She zipped up her bag, pulling it closer to her.
Dr Dark stepped into the cabin once more. The other man was close behind. He had an open, friendly face and with his round glasses, beard and rumpled clothes, he gave off the air of a teacher or scholar. He reminded Eva of Tobias, just a little older.
‘Eva, this is a good friend of mine, Dr Ahmed Kader,’ Dr Dark said smoothly.
What!
That traitor.
Eva struggled to smile and muttered out a mumbled greeting as she leaned forward and threw back the zip on her bag. Pulling out the box, she reached inside it and in one fluid movement she leapt to her feet. She raised the dart gun level to point it right at Dr Kader.
‘He was in Denver with Mac—he betrayed us all,’ Eva said through gritted teeth. ‘How could you?’
‘Eva, you don’t—’ Dr Dark said.
‘I’m not going anywhere with this man!’ Eva shouted. ‘I’m getting off this plane—right now.’
37
ALEX
‘Phoebe really managed to get those cops to let us go?’ Shiva said as they walked down the corridor to Shiva’s apartment in New York.
‘She can be very convincing,’ Alex said. ‘Besides, the files she gave them on Stella and Matrix are huge and will keep them busy. And with any luck, they’ll arrest the pair of them so that they’re out of this race long enough for us to get to the Dream Gate.’
‘You know, I always thought your mum was cool,’ Shiva said, ‘but now she’s made my all-time favourite people board.’
‘I’ll be sure to let her know that,’ Alex said. ‘Hey, are you sure you’re OK? Maybe you should have gotten some crutches at the hospital?’
‘What? This little leg thing?’ Shiva said, pointing down as he limped along next to Alex. ‘Nah, I’ll be fine. Give me a day or two and I’ll be back on my board.’
Alex laughed as they walked into Shiva’s home. ‘Whoa. This is your place?’ he said, looking around the big open-plan apartment. They were in a Brooklyn suburb, just across the East River. Alex turned to look back to the twinkling lights of Manhattan’s skyline.
‘Yep,’ Shiva replied, kicking back on a couch with his legs up. ‘Used to live here until the Enterprise recruited me last year. Now it’s more of a weekender, though my brother seems to crash here a lot.’
‘Some weekender, it’s so cool!’ Alex replied, walking around the expansive space and taking it in. To one side of the main room stood a table-tennis table, next to consoles and massive screens and a mini indoor-golf driving range. A couple of basketball hoops were at either end of the room, while at the front floor-to-ceiling windows was a custom-made half-pipe with grind bars along the window sills for skating. ‘You weren’t joking about boarding, hey? And you got all this from skimming money out of criminals’ bank accounts?’
‘Yep. A few cents here and there across thousands of accounts daily, all adds up. Plus I do get paid a pretty nice salary at the Enterprise. I don’t work there for free, you know.’
‘Nice work, man,’ Alex said. ‘So, getting back to business, how’d you think that Tesla—’
‘My recording device!’ Shiva exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.
‘What about it?’
‘I forgot—it’s back at the site, we have to go and get it!’
‘That place has been cordoned off by the cops,’ Alex said.
‘Then we’ll have to break in!’ Shiva pulled himself up and hobbled for the door. ‘Come on—and you’ll have to drive!’
He tossed Alex a set of keys and together they went to the basement car park via the lift.
The car Shiva stopped beside was a midnight blue high-performance sports car.
‘Is this . .?’ Alex stuttered, pointing at the car.
‘Yes, it is,’ Shiva replied. ‘A Tesla Roadster, totally electric. I believe in my work, what can I tell you?’
‘That’s impressive, man! But you, ah, sure you want me to drive? I only just got my probationary licence.’
‘Sure—just try not to scratch it,’ Shiva said as Alex helped him into the passenger seat. ‘I’m kidding, but seriously, don’t scratch it.’
‘Man, this is a sweet ride,’ Alex said, adjusting the seat and steering wheel. ‘If I didn’t know you as a Robin Hood hacker type, I’d wonder how a no-good cyber bum like you managed to have all this.’
‘I like to think of myself as a cyber punk.’
‘A what?’
‘A high-tech low-life,’ Shiva explained with a grin.
Alex laughed, started the car and drove up the ramp. ‘How’d you find out about all this Tesla stuff?’ Alex said. ‘I mean, it seems as though the Council and Academy, and even your bosses at the Enterprise, turned their back on it ages ago.’
‘I cracked a code a while back,’ Shiva said as he pressed a button to open the garage door. ‘No-one at the Enterprise believed me, so I did it all from here. Took three years, but I cracked it.’
‘Code to what?’ Alex said, creeping the car forwards as the garage door slowly tilted up.
‘A group in Eastern Europe who have been working on the Tesla Wave angle for the past hundred years,’ Shiva said. ‘They’re known as the Hypnos, and I’ve been tracking their progress ever since.’
‘Why don’t the Enterprise and Academy do anything about them?’
‘They’ve got their own problems. Rather, had. The entire world’s going to have to come together on this race to the Dream Gate, right? I mean, these guys have tech that we’ve forgotten about—but it’s going to come in handy.’
Alex thought back to the front page of the New York Times which had shown the downed aircraft from the last time he’d been in this city.
Yeah, we’ve all been busy.
As the garage door clunked fully open, Alex put the car in gear and accelerated to climb the exit ramp to the street.
And stopped.
Blocking their path were a couple of big, black SUVs—an effective road block.
Beside the cars stood several people, waiting for them. With the blinding sunlight behind them, they cast long silhouettes.
‘Oh damn it …’ Shiva said as Alex gasped in shock, recognising the two who walked forwards as soon as Shiva did—it was Stella and Matrix, and they weren’t making a friendly house call.
38
SAM
Sam woke to find himself in another blank room, this time someplace distinctly dank and eerie.
Underground.
One eye opened first. It took in a grey room full of dull light. It closed again for a few minutes. The image of a blue sky flitted across his mind. He heard laughter, the sun was warm on his face.
Nice dream.
Wishful thinking.
Wake up, Sam. Open your eyes.
His eyes fluttered open.
He saw a machine straight ahead of him. An outdated mess of switches and lights and dials on a military-grey box along with a few new add-ons that suggested laptop computers. A thick bunch of cables went under the door.
He sat up. He was in a bed, starched sheets wrapped around him.
There was nothing much else in the room, only bare concrete walls, an IV drip connected into his arm and a heart-rate moni
tor on a wheeled stand. Some small screens bleeped next to him while control panels on the larger machine at the other side of his bed looked like they were charting his sleep patterns.
Every now and then the heart-rate monitor bleeped, and the big boxy machine whirred and whacked out of sync every time he … thought.
What?
He reached up to feel his head and flinched when he touched a rubber skullcap. He turned to see it was connected by wires to the machine next to him. In the near complete silence all Sam could hear was the faint whir of a ducted fan above him and the rhythmic beeps of the machines.
Thoughts … that machine is recording my thoughts, awake and asleep. My brain waves.
He was wearing a hospital gown.
Think. Where am I?
There was a door with a little wire-mesh window set in at eye level. No cameras that Sam could see. The room seemed old—the damp stains in the concrete walls where it met the floor suggested it had been built a long time ago.
You know where you are, Sam. Control your mind. Think about the past, don’t give anything away.
OK, the Dreamer, Cody, back at … where? The Grand Canyon. That was it. An old temple. The Gears—
He instinctively touched at his neck where a leather strap had been under his t-shirt.
Gone.
Ahmed took the Gears … Dr Kader, Xavier’s godfather, working with—
The US government.
No.
Mac. He went outside the government. A senior member of the Dreamer Council, who was he working for . .?
Solaris.
Solaris was there. In Denver.
Denver. The flash of light—
Stop it, Sam! Think of something else …
I can’t, I can’t, my mind wants to go there.
Imagine a different story … tell them something else.
‘The nuke is going to detonate!’ Sam said, suddenly more awake than ever as he fought to create a false trail, a lie that Hans could believe. Yes, he’d been in the bunker deep below Denver airport, Mac’s lair, when Solaris had crashed the party. A self-destruct mechanism had been set off.
