by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 11
When they finally reached an area that branched into six smaller tunnels spaced roughly five-feet apart, Jayden knew he needed a plan fast to have any chance of finding Nora and getting home in one piece. Every one of the six tunnels went off at different angles with boys flowing one way into each.
He studied each passageway, and then motioned for Parker and the others to huddle up on the far left side of the main tunnel. As recruits passed, he spotted an angry-looking older kid in a black Space Command uniform and hat with the apparent job of yelling.
“Take your assigned walkway and move your rear!” the teen shouted, then pushed a recruit near him and tripped another. “Move it, you little whiners!”
“Did you see any way out of this tunnel?” Jayden asked Parker.
Parker shook his head. “I haven’t seen any doors at all since we started this crazy hike.”
Jayden gazed at the other boys with them. “Any ideas?”
Knifetango, Zebraguts, and BBgun all shook their heads no.
“Hey! You!” the older teen yelled from across the tunnel, his gaze fixed squarely on Jayden. “Get moving, punk!”
“We should ask him,” BBgun said, pointing at the kid.
The last thing Jayden wanted to do was talk to a loud mouth bully, but he couldn’t think of any other options. “You guys wait here.”
Jayden pushed through the moving crowd of boy-recruits and made his way over to the teen with anger management issues. He wasn’t about to ask for directions to the closest exit though the thought had crossed his mind. Instead, he asked the next best question. “Dude, which way to the restroom? I seriously need to take a leak.”
The older boy scowled. An awkward moment passed before the scowl changed into a smirk. “That one.” He gestured to one of the smaller tunnel's entrance, and then shoved Jayden in that direction. “Get your butt moving!”
“Gee, thanks,” Jayden grumbled, before pushing his way back through the crowd toward his squad. When Jayden reached his squad, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Angry Boy grinning at him. Bite me, he thought.
Jayden walked toward the smaller tunnel. “The kid said this way to the bathroom,” he told the others. “There has to be an exit near there. I’m thinking they must have some maintenance crew keeping the place clean.”
“It doesn’t smell clean in here to me,” BBgun muttered.
After a few minutes along the tunnel, they passed closed red doors on their right, spaced about fifty feet apart. Jayden checked each one, but every door was locked. They continued on in the tunnel.
A man’s voice suddenly echoed all around them. “Stay in your squads. Proceed to the first open door along the wall. Enter that room with your squad. Once your squad is inside, the door will close automatically.” The announcement repeated.
Jayden kept searching for any other doors that might be a way out but didn’t see any at all. Worse yet, he had no idea where the girls were. No chance to find Nora.
When they reached the first open door marked “Pod Z24B,” Jayden led the way into the room.
Once inside, he estimated the room to be about twice the size of his bedroom. But the walls and ceiling of the room freaked him out the most. They were made from the same kind of weird translucent material that changed from an eerie yellow to orange, to red, and then back to yellow.
The door automatically slammed shut behind them.
Jayden sprinted back to the door to try and open it, but it had locked. He turned his attention to the center of the room where a circular grouping of five high-backed chairs faced each other. Each chair looked similar to a dentist’s office patient chair, except for the over-the-shoulder, race-car-like seat belts.
All five boys froze when a man’s voice boomed from a speaker concealed somewhere in the room. “Sit your backsides down in any one of the five seats. You’re all going to the same place.”
A hologram of a floating digital timer appeared in the center of the circle of seats. It displayed six minutes and counted down in seconds. “Place the belt over your waist and the straps over your shoulders. Put both forearms on the armrests of your seat.” The voice paused. “Prepare yourself for metal safety bars to cover both your legs and your forearms,” said the booming voice. “Failure to comply with these instructions may cause death during transport.”
They needed no further encouragement. The five of them sprinted to get into a seat as if they were playing musical chairs.
Jayden sat down in a seat and buckled up, as did Parker and the other boys. He placed his arms on the armrests and gazed at the floating holograph. It showed four minutes and began to count down faster after they’d all found their seats.
“Launch activation engaged,” thundered the voice. “Prepare for Stage One . . .”
Metal clamps thumped across Jayden’s arms and legs. He felt a slight jerk, but nothing too intense. The hologram timer changed into a three-dimensional hologram showing the sun, an approaching spacecraft, and a hovering, dotted line. From Jayden’s gaming experience, he presumed the dotted line was their flight path.
A gong sounded. “Your present position is here.”
Jayden watched an arrow appear directly above the hologram of the spacecraft. From the flight path shown, it was clear to him they were heading straight into the core of the sun.
His head felt heavy, and the room started to spin when he shifted his eyes away from the hologram.
“We’re going to crash into the sun!” shouted BBgun.
Jayden fixed his gaze on the hologram and stopped the spinning. Another clock hologram appeared, counting down from ten seconds.
When the timer reached zero, a message blasted out of the speaker. “Prepare for grav-singularity activation and dark energy drive engagement.”
The flight-pattern hologram showed the spacecraft moving, yet Jayden couldn’t feel any motion at all. Another timer hologram floated near the first one. This one counted down from thirty seconds. When it reached zero, a loud chime echoed. An announcement followed. “You may feel sick, but it will pass.”
Oh, that’s nice to know, Jayden thought as the room spun again. Sweat dotted his forehead and ran down into his eyes.
The timer reached zero. “Brane travel has commenced.”
Brane? Like P-brane? Jayden vaguely remembered Parker mentioning string theory when Nora had used the term, but he still didn’t have a clue what any of that meant.
Another gong sounded. “You are traveling in the ‘space between the space.’ Enjoy your trip in the Multiverse.”
Jayden groaned. “Whatever that means.”
The sun disappeared from the hologram, and only blackness remained. A new timer appeared—counting down from five minutes.
Jayden wasn’t feeling dizzy anymore. Instead, he felt lightheaded with a minor case of the chills.
BBgun’s face turned pale, and his voice shook. “I'm going to puke.”
“Hang on, only a few minutes to go,” Jayden said, staring at the timer and digging his nails into the armrests.
Finally, the timer reached zero. Jayden felt another jerk. The metal clamps retracted and the door to the area opened with a loud burst of air. He hopped out of his chair. Parker and the rest of the squad followed him.
“Welcome to the outpost on Zeta 109b’s third moon,” a woman’s voice said over a concealed intercom somewhere in the room. “Proceed directly to the first open door down the hallway. Robo pods are ready, Space Fighters.” A chime rang.
“Didn’t Sanders say something about training on Jupiter’s moon?” Parker asked.
Knifetango walked to the doorway and poked his head into the hall.
“Screw that,” Jayden said. “Let’s see if we can find the exit now.”
“Maybe we should wait,” BBgun said.
An older teen in a black uniform appeared at their doorway and pulled Knifetango into the hall. “Get moving!” he yelled.
Jayden took a step towards
the boy. “Dude, we’re looking for—”
“I said move it!” the kid screamed louder and yanked Jayden out of the room. The boy's dark, sunken eyes narrowed. Jayden reluctantly marched forward. Parker and the other boys followed.
Jayden quickly realized this passageway was way different than the last one. Bright white light lit up a square tunnel that would easily hold three minivans side-by-side, and black, roll-up doors lined both sides of the seemingly never-ending hallway. Recruits his age wandered through the passageway in a daze.
An older guy in his late twenties directed traffic. “Find the first open pod transport. Hurry it up!”
It was hard to tell exactly how big the place was, but it felt massive to Jayden. He tried to find any door at all that might get them out of the tunnel. But every one of them was locked.
“You see any girls?” Jayden whispered to Parker.
“Nope,” he replied. “Just boys.”
“We’re so screwed,” Zebraguts mumbled.
Parker shoved him. “Shut up.”
Zebraguts pushed him back.
“Hey!” Jayden said. “Keep it together, guys. I’d like to get out of this alive, if you don't mind.”
Parker and Zebraguts went quiet.
“That’s more like it,” Jayden muttered.
When Jayden and his squad reached an open door, a bald, pasty-skinned man greeted them with a furrowed brow. The man was wearing the SECC uniform and looked to be in his forties with scars on both cheeks. He pushed them all through the door.
Jayden, Parker, and the other boys continued through a long, empty hallway that opened up into a huge room. They all stepped inside, hoping to find some exit door.
The door to the hallway shut with a metallic echo and locked. Jayden froze when his gaze fixed on five massive machines.
Robo pods.
