by Moore, Gabi
“Glad you two made it inside when you did. I don’t think I could’ve kept it up for much longer. I might have used all the gas I had in it just to land the copter on that platform. I’d hate to have to get somebody up there to retrieve it, but I might have to do that.”
He put the control box down on the floor and came out from behind the counter. Dion saw how big the man really was at this point. He was over six feet in height and had to carry at least three hundred pounds on him. Jupiter Hitch rattled the floor when he walked. He walked over to the door and put the closed sign up while turning the latch in the door.
“I’ll catch a lot of grief from the mall for closing early again and flying the helicopter, but I can deal with it. Besides, they didn’t tell me what was so important that I had to run down to the security office today when I arrived. That cursed Officer Karanzen kept me in the lobby for a good two hours waiting. When he came out, he claimed it was a big misunderstanding and they didn’t need to see me at all. Of course, they pulled it in the middle of a busy day when I didn’t have any one to mind the store for me. I should charge them for the two hours of business I lost.”
He turned his attention back to Dion. “So you’re the young man all those elementals are scared about, huh? I can’t see why. You look harmless enough to me. I talked with Alexandria and she told me you are cleared to use your full abilities on the earth elements. She also told me the ghouls tried to keep you away from her pharmacy. Something is up from the top level, I can feel it. There are some powerful forces at work here.”
“They don’t want me to obtain all four of the elemental powers because then I can gain the fifth. I need them all because my parents are held inside the clock tower, where the offices are located for the mall.”
“Do you feel you can handle the responsibilities which come with being a Master of the Air Element? I understand you have the power over the earth elementals, but the ones in the air are not so easy to control.”
“Yes, I am certain. I have not come this far and learned so much to back down now.”
“Very well. Come into the back room and we will see what can be done.” Hitch turned to Lilly and looked at her with concern. “This is only between Dion and myself, I hope you understand.”
“I do,” she told him. “The Grandmaster of the Earth Element said the same thing.”
“It shouldn’t be too long. It’s just a matter of knowing he’s ready.”
Lilly leaned on one of the counters and watched him go in the back room with Dion and shut the door. She’d learned the process, test, or whatever the Elemental Grandmaster administered made no light or noise. It didn’t happen at all like one saw in the movies.
She wandered around the hobby store while they were in the back room and looked at the merchandise. There was an entire wall dedicated to model cars and airplanes. She remembered when building model cars were all the rage in her neighborhood with the boys. Then it was model ships and planes. Somewhere in the meantime the kids began to build the plastic movie monsters too. Later on, many of the plastic models would be smashed when they fell off the table or end up in the trash by an over-zealous parent who needed to clean.
She noticed the paints were displayed by code and tied into whatever model needed to be painted. It seemed like a lot of money to pay for a small bottle, but she never did understand why so many places charged so much for so little. She found the lengths of balsa wood, which was used to build model airplanes. Some of the planes were wire guided, but the better ones were radio controlled. It seemed the way of the future, especially after she saw the stunts performed by the miniature helicopter. It was almost magic watching it do those maneuvers out in the concourse.
The door opened and Dion emerged with Jupiter Hitch. Dion had a smile on his face, the first one she’d seen all day.
“Congratulate the new Master of the Air Element,” Hitch said to her. “He passed with flying colors. Now you can make those sylphs do whatever you need. Just heed the warning I gave you.”
“Is there anything else I need to know about the air elementals?” Dion asked the older man. “They seem to be very independent minded. I didn’t get such resistance against the earth ones.”
“They’re all over the place and congregate whenever there is a storm. They’ll do what you tell them in the future, but don’t push them too hard or they’ll find a reason to mess up whatever you attempt to accomplish. Always follow through on anything you might promise because they have long memories. I have met air sylphs who still hold a grudge against Paracelsus for revealing too much about them. And don’t be tempted to use your abilities the moment you leave here. I’m sure the mall owner has all kinds of opposition to throw at you, but resist the temptation to escalate.”
“Thank you,” Dion said to Hitch as he turned to leave. “I will do all I can to be worthy of your trust.”
“I’m sure you will,” Hitch called to him as they left the hobby store. Dion turned and saw the “open” sign flipped back as the door was left unlocked when they left. In spite of his high reputation among the element manipulators, Jupiter Hitch still had a business to run and couldn’t afford to miss a sale. Dion wondered when Hitch would try to get the miniature helicopter down from the platform on top of the elevator shaft.
The mall had returned to normal. Shoppers were going about their business and no one talked about the miniature helicopter which buzzed the security guards. Given the short attention span of most people he encountered, Dion wasn’t surprised by this revelation.
He was accustomed to people who didn’t care much beyond the end of their street corner. He’d grown up in a different world where his parents had scolded him if he even tried to use his elemental worker abilities on a pool of water or on the stove burner. They made it very clear to him it was not for uninitiated eyes.
He could sense the air elementals floating around the top of the mall. They knew he’d achieved full power. The only ones who’d actively opposed his attempts to gain full power over them were gone; the helicopter drove them outside the mall and into the atmosphere to regroup. These sylphs were not the sort who would give him any problems. Other than some help in wind gusts and weather control, the air elementals weren’t the sort to be of much use.
He looked up and saw several spinning in the upper rafters. This part of the mall was dedicated to them and they enjoyed being inside this place.
“You have half of your powers,” Lilly said to him, “are you going for the remainder?”
“Of course,” Dion said quickly. “It’s not a question of want. I need all four to work the fifth. I don’t know how my uncle managed to obtain the fifth without the others, but something tells me this is why he’s gone out of his mind. The power he obtained isn’t supposed to be gained on its own. The other four abilities support it. He’s a table without legs floating in an ocean of chaos. Somehow, he thinks possessing my mother will make him free of his inner torment. It won’t happen. The only person who can free him is himself and he may be too far gone to save his own soul.”
“So are you going back home?” she asked. “To your aunt and uncle’s house?”
“No. I need to find out more about my uncle and his background. I can’t do that here, so I’ll have to find a travel agency which can take me where I want to go.”
“You mean like that place we were in yesterday?”
“No, I need to find a travel agency which can take me to a place of my own choosing. I need to find one that can take me outside this time circle. However,” he said while unrolling the map, “I have a way to find one.”
He traced his finger on the map and Lilly noticed a red dot appear in the map. She looked at it and saw the dot was located in a section of the mall right outside Jupiter Hitch’s hobby shop. The dot indicated where the bearer of the map was at any given time.
“It appears there is a travel agency which can take me where I want to go just down the concourse in a back hall under the stairway. It’s here on the
map.”
Lilly looked at where he pointed and the map showed a location called Purple Zone Travel. It was shaded in such a way to indicate that it wasn’t open to normal mall patrons. Since they’d wondered into the last place which took them outside the mall by accident, Lilly could only speculate what this one was like on the inside.
“So who is this travel agency meant for?” she asked him.
“Travelers. But not always human ones. The place we were at yesterday was specifically for human travelers. The place we are going is for any creature that needs to travel from one point in the multiverse to the next. They have stations everywhere and can generally get you where you need to go.”
Dion took both of her hands in his after he rolled the map up and placed it under his arm. “I want you to understand you can wait for me outside or just leave. You’ve been through a lot already and it will only get worse. I can take Emily and Sean home this evening on my own; all I have to do is phone my uncle. I can give you the keys to my van and you’ll be able to leave this place.”
“I don’t want to go,” she said as she let go of his hands and wrapped her arms around him. “I’ve gone this far, I’ll see it through.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Dion said as he leaned over Lilly and lightly kissed her on the lips. “We need to get moving if we’re going to reach this place. Let me check one more thing.”
Dion rolled the mall map open again and checked the path it showed him to the travel agency. “Good, it recommends a direct route. I guess this means Karanzen knows his men were unable to stop me again. I’m sure we’ll deal with him later, but not right now.”
They continued down the concourse, waving at a few friends from the high school. As this was spring break, there were quite a few kids from the school out today. All the stores were decorated with their special savings signs and the full weight of consumer culture was on display. Every other person was weighed down with a shopping bag or carried some box. All the major department stores in the area were represented by whatever they had in their hands. It was a grand parade today of endless packaging. Dion and Lilly didn’t stop to reflect on the contradiction between the mall culture and what it was built over, but continued on their way. The travel agency would be hard enough to find without the mobs of people blocking the entrances to the stores.
Purple Zone Travel didn’t even have a sign outside to tell the potential customer what it was. There was a blank storefront window where the travel agency was supposed to be located. Dion walked up to the storefront and looked at it. Most people would have assumed it was closed or not yet opened. The mall tended to put facades over closed stores or ones, which hadn’t been opened. It looked bad on them when there was a blank space, so they did everything they could to hide it.
Dion looked at the glass door, which lead to the inside, and saw a small notice on the door right above the handle. He bent down and read it.
“PZ Travel,” the small sign, no bigger than six inches read. “We are open by appointment only. Please call this number to arrange an appointment.”
There was a phone number listed after the notice, which would probably go directly to an answering machine so the owners of the travel agency could screen the callers.
Dion placed one hand on the door handle and tried it. It was loose, but he felt a tingle in his hand as if the door had examined him. The door was tuned to let only those inside who needed the services of the company and to keep out the idle visitor. Dion turned and looked back at Lilly.
“It’s open, we can go inside,” he called to her.
They pushed the door open and went in. As they heard the automatic door closer swoosh behind them, they examined the room they’d just entered.
It was painted black. Everywhere. Even the ceiling was black and Dion wondered how they’d managed to paint it without spilling the paint everywhere. The floor was a shiny black color and reflected their images as they looked at it. Lilly thought about how difficult it must be to keep the floor clean and free of scratches.
Artifacts and paintings lined the walls. For a minute Dion thought, he’d made a mistake and walked into an art gallery, although it would be odd to see one in a shopping mall. There was faint light, which was provided by a series of candles, which were strategically placed over the inside of the room. It created a sense of unreality. It was hard to believe they were still in the mall.
Before them, a man sat behind a huge desk. This was an antique desk which was carved from wood and made by carpenters who distained the use of nails. Lilly knew a few things about furniture and estimated the desk to be over a hundred years old. It would not have looked out of place in an antique auction where people in eveningwear bided with sums higher than most made in an entire year.
The desk was neat and orderly with stacks of paper over it. Behind it, in a wooden chair, sat a bearded man. He wore glasses and was very thin, not more than a hundred and twenty pounds. His grey hair was long and cascaded down his back; although it was obvious, he was bald on top. He was in the process of stamping out a clove cigarette in an ashtray made of a single piece of polished stone when they opened the door.
“I know,” he said as the cigarette smoke vanished into the air, “no smoking in the mall. Please tell me you’re not with the building inspector. I don’t think the door would’ve opened if you were, but put my mind to ease.”
“No, we’re not,” Dion said. “We’re here to plan a trip.”
“Glad to hear. Please come over here and sit down.” The man pointed to a seat by the desk where two chairs were positioned. “I need to fill out some forms. You are over eighteen, right?”
They both nodded.
“Good, that way I don’t need parental permission forms.” He detached a sheet of paper from the clipboard he held and placed in a drawer.
Lilly and Dion seated themselves by the desk and waited to see what would happen next.
“You’re in luck today. It’s been slow in here so I have the time to fill out the forms for you. I just need some basic information.”
He proceeded to ask them their names, addresses, birth dates and other contact information, which he wrote down with a silver pen. His eyes glanced over his glasses when Dion told him about his current living arrangement, but the man asked no further questions beyond occupation, which both told him was “student”.
“Anything to declare?” he asked them again. “I don’t think you do since neither of you have any luggage, but I have to ask anyway.”
The shook their heads.
“Okay, on to the reason for you coming inside. Where do you need to go?”
“My uncle is the man behind the mall,” Dion told him. “I need to learn his background. He told me a little bit about it last night, but I know very little of my family’s history. I need you to send us back to the beginning so I can view it all and know what I’m up against. I need it done in observation only.”
The man behind the desk let out a whistle and leaned back.
“Tall order, kid. You want me to give you information you can use against my landlord? Now I have no love for Mr. Seth either, but I don’t need to get into hot water with the old coot. If he finds out, and I know he will, that I helped you, I could lose my lease. Then I’d have to get another one. Do you have any idea what it takes to run this franchise? You have no idea what standards I have to meet. I might end up moving my office halfway across the planet to keep my franchiser happy.”
“In other words,” Dion said, “this is going to cost me a lot.”
“Precisely. I hope you have enough money to cover it all.” The man took out a slip of paper and wrote a sum on it, and then he handed it to Dion.
Dion looked at the paper and nodded. “You are right, it’s not cheap. But I can afford it.” He took the paper from the man and wrote down an address. “Bill my aunt and uncle; you know they are good for it.”
The older man looked at the address on the page and then to Dion. “I won’t do this for anyo
ne else, keep it in mind.”
“Your help will be rewarded, don’t worry. Now what else do you need from me?”
“Fill out the destinations you need on the form and how long you want to be there and I will see you are on your way.”
Dion spent thirty minutes filling out the form and adding the destinations he needed on the back. When he was done, he handed it to the man across from him. The travel agent looked at the locations and placed the form into a folder, which was then put in a file cabinet behind him.
“So, how do we travel?” Lilly asked them. “Is there some door we need to pass through to get there?”
“You’re thinking of the other place,” the man told her. “We do it differently at PZ Travel.”
Lilly blinked and the room disappeared.
Chapter 13
The background changed instantly to the desert setting she had visited before. This time she still wore the same clothes, but the chair remained as well. Both Dion and she were still seated in with the man at the desk in front of them. They were in a desert and the sun blazed overhead, but the working part of the office had gone with them.
“You know,” the man behind the desk started to say, “We were never introduced. I see your names on the form, but you don’t know mine. It’s Lou.” He extended a hand over the desk, which both Dion and Lilly shook. He sat back down in his chair. “Is this the setting you wanted?” he asked Dion.
Dion glanced around and his eyes focused on a series of rocks piled up near them. “Yes, you took me this time to the very place I wanted. And we will have the time I listed on the form?”
“No problem,” Lou the travel agent told them. “Everything is squared away on my end. Now if you will do me the honor, please rise.”
