The surge of energy which flooded through her and into the portal almost knocked her off her feet, and she had to redouble her efforts to stay upright in the now-stiffening winds. Almost no time left. With one thrust of her hand, she released a bolt of pure, crackling plasma from deep within and hurled it into the portal. She shot a glance to one side to see Malden. He had his eyes fixed firmly on her, waiting for her signal. She disengaged herself from Lucio’s hand, grabbed the Professor’s, and leaped forward into the spitting orange abyss.
~ 61 ~
Caught
She whirled around. Where were they? She saw Malden next to her, picking himself up. A delivery area in a car park? With a shock she recognised the building. They were at the rear of Professor Harrison’s building, outside. Not inside, and safe in the café.
“Everything in one piece, my dear?” Malden had finished dusting himself off and was looking at her.
“Yes. A few bruises probably. But why didn’t we come out in the café? I don’t—”
A boy stepped out from the alleyway that ran alongside the building, and stopped, staring at them from twenty or so metres away. He kept his eyes on them and yelled back down the alley. “Hey, guys! I’ve found two of ’em here. I saw ’em appear in front of me very eyes, I swear. Quick!” He didn’t move, and even from this distance, Sarina could see the mixture of fear and thrill in his eyes.
A gaggle of kids—teenagers as far as she could see—bunched up behind him, and joined him in staring. An older-looking boy pushed his way forward. Terry Atkins. One of the Sawyer gang, the bullies from her old school. His eyes danced with glee. “It’s one of them, alright. Get them!”
The jumpy crowd of fierce-faced kids needed no further encouragement, and swooped on Sarina and the Professor, whooping battle-cries.
“Run, Professor!”
~ 62 ~
The Video Call
Nathan sat at the back of the truck on a tethered office-style chair, as the truck rumbled along whatever route Blanchard had ordered. Computer screens stared down from above him and to each side. In front of him rested three identical keyboards in a row. For the last hour, he’d been sliding back and forth along the bench, taking up position at each keyboard, tapping for a while, then moving along again.
Professor Harrison came down the narrow gangway, hanging on to one of the grab-rails above with one hand, and clutching a coffee in the other. “Any luck?”
“No.” Nathan twisted back to look at the Professor, with a morose expression. “No news. Just increasing activity. They’re definitely being stirred up. But then again”—he pointed to the TV—“it’d be easy to whip up any crowd with that kind of story headlining the news.”
Professor Harrison glanced up at the TV, which was running a story about the unusual gravitational aberration now linked to the moon’s changes. Some community leaders had complained about a cover-up orchestrated by NASA, and pointed to leaked evidence showing a serious issue affecting the universe itself, and damning the idea of a ‘gravitational aberration’.
“Agreed. But no less worrying.” He pointed to the TV, now showing faces of angry protesters holding banners that said: ‘Secret Experiments Broke Our World’, and ‘Super-Kids Caused Climate Change.’ “If they discover this is actually true ... then we have little chance of rallying anyone. Let’s just hope Sarina has destroyed the collider and can find a way back.” He pursed his lips. “Though if that was the case, I would have expected at least some cosmological changes to be reported by now.”
Nathan gestured to the TV. The camera had zoomed in on one protester carrying a sign that said: ‘NO To Mind Readers! Tell Us Your Secrets.’ “Maybe we should ask them, since they seem to be getting all the inside information. That’s pretty funny though: they’re against mind-reading, but want to know everyone’s secrets.” He swivelled back to the computers, and resumed his activities on the keyboard in front of him, leaving the Professor to shake his head at the screen.
Lena appeared at the doorway from the driver’s cab and called down the truck. “Mr Blanchard says to tell Nathan the mobile phone activity is going crazy and can he run another scan as soon as possible?” Nathan held a thumb up and slid across to another keyboard, punched in some codes, and grabbed the mouse. The Professor leaned in next to him, still holding on to the rail with one hand. He threw the empty paper cup away, then used his newly-freed hand to steady himself as the truck lurched.
The screen in front of them refreshed. Several columns slid across: the first was a list of mobile phone numbers registered to known members of S.E.E.K. The list continuously refreshed, showing any phone in use in bold type at the top of the column. The second column showed the name of the owner—which also refreshed in sync with column one—and clicking on any of the numbers or the name, revealed their location on a small map window in the third column. The fourth column showed the type of media in use: voice; text; photo; video; live video call.
Nathan gasped. He pointed to a number at the top. “This one’s Terry Atkin’s phone. He’s one of the active ringleaders on one of the websites I hacked.” He clicked on the name ‘Terry Atkins’ and the map opened up in the column adjacent. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Professor Harrison peered at the map. “Ah. I see. He’s not far away from here. Just around the corner in fact. But that doesn’t mean anything necessarily, does it?”
Nathan shrugged. “Wait. I know a lot of those names. Watch.” He tapped his cursor down the list of active names. Each one revealed an almost identical map location. He looked up at the Professor. “There’s a whole bunch of them. And they’re right next to the lab building.”
Harrison tapped his cheek with one finger. “Up to no good, I bet. We’d better head there and take up watch. We can call in the authorities if they start any trouble. I’ll be right back.” He lurched up the truck’s aisle and into the cab, passing Lena coming the other way. She sat in the chair next to Nathan. Nathan looked at her and held his finger to his lips. She nodded.
Harrison strode back, clinging to the hand rails above as the truck sped up and turned. “We’re no more than five or six minutes away, according to Blanchard. What are they doing now? Can we tell?”
Nathan scrolled through the active callers. Almost all of them were texts, but the statements were cryptic: ‘got 1’, and ‘sykid hunt’, and he couldn’t figure out what they were up to. One of the numbers started to flash. “Wait!” Nathan said, “Atkins has started a live video call. I’m gonna hack it, hold on.”
He clicked on Terry Atkins’s name, bent over the keyboard, and tapped away like a crazy man. A black rectangle opened up in the fourth column, with a rotating circle in the middle.
“Come on. Load!” Nathan said to the screen in a loud voice. The screens were jolting up and down now as the truck gathered speed, and all three of them held on tight, staring at the black rectangle, willing the video to come to life.
Which it did.
A jerky, pixellated image peeled itself down the screen, revealing two figures running away from the camera holder, who was also running, as far as they could tell from the jiggling image. The video was still loading, and becoming clearer with each sweep. The figures—one tall and skinny; the other smaller with long hair, were running across some kind of car park and toward a low fence. The tall skinny one looked back, just as the screen cleared.
Professor Harrison dropped to his knees with a sudden exhalation of air and stared up at the screen. “Good grief!”
Lena jumped up, and sent the chair squab behind her spinning around. “Daddy! It’s Daddy. We have to go get him!”
Nathan stared at the other figure, a realisation dawning on him. The girl—it was definitely a girl—looked around, revealing a pasty white face and eyes full of fear. “Sarina!” He stood, helpless to do anything but watch. “Who are they running from?” The video answered for them, as a crowd of what looked like young boys ran past the camera holder.
Then the screen went black. Atkin
s had hung up.
Nathan twisted around to look at the Professor, then looked down. The Professor was still kneeling on the floor, looking like he’d seen a ghost. “Professor. We have to do something. Quick!”
Harrison shook his head. “Nothing we can personally do until we get there, Nathan.” He clambered up. “I’ll tell Blanchard to step up our pace and call in the authorities—anonymously of course. We’ll have to guard ourselves against discovery. Let’s cross our fingers we’ll be there before they get ripped apart.” He staggered along to the driver’s door, already calling for Blanchard.
Lena looked at Nathan with wide eyes and drawn cheeks. “Will Daddy and Sarina be okay? Can’t you stop those nasty boys using their phones?”
It wasn’t their phones he was worried about—
“Brilliant, Lena,” he muttered. He slid sideways, and pushed Lena out of the way. He pulled the keyboard towards him and tapped away again. A small box popped up onto the screen. He typed in a message, clicked to close the box and hit enter with a smack of one finger. “Now we wait.” He slid back across to the mobile phone scanner, drumming his fingers on the benchtop.
Professor Harrison rejoined them. “We’ll be there in two minutes. Any new information?”
Nathan didn’t reply, but stared at the screen.
“Nathan?”
Nathan jumped forward, closer to the screen, then thumped his fist down on the bench. “Yes!”
“What?” The Professor leaned forward to peer at the screen. The list of numbers in bold was diminishing rapidly, down to one or two. Nathan arrowed across to the map column and clicked down the numbers in quick succession. Every single one of them showed a dot moving away at speed from the lab—in clusters, each cluster taking a deliberate route somewhere.
Nathan slumped back in his chair. “I hope I got them in time.” He smoothed his hands through his hair and looked at Professor Harrison. “I guess we’ll find out shortly—”
The truck rounded a bend at speed and lurched to a halt.
“—or now.” He jumped up and ran to the truck’s side-door, and hurled it open. On the other side of the car park from him, trapped up against a wire-fence and gingerly picking themselves up, were a pale and emaciated Sarina, and a tall skinny man, with a very familiar countenance. Neither of them appeared to be sporting any serious injuries. He ran across and helped Sarina to stand, then hugged her tight, for once not worrying about who might see them.
A ball of squealing energy burst from the truck and jumped up on Malden.
“Daddy!” Lena shouted. “You’re home!”
Nathan looked at the skinny man, freed his right hand and held it out. “Professor Malden, I presume?”
The man narrowed his eyes, and glanced at Sarina before returning to Nathan. “Is everyone going to say this each time they meet me?”
~ 63 ~
The Mole
Sarina pushed Nathan away from her. “I must smell bad. I really need a shower—and some food.” She glanced longingly at the back of the lab building. “Do you think ... ?”
Nathan shook his head. “We have to scram. The police and who knows who else will be here any minute, and it would be best if we’re not waiting for them.”
Professor Harrison ran out of the truck at last. “Sorry. Just trying to call off the emergency squad, but Blanchard thinks it best we leave immediately.” He stopped in front of Malden in an awkward pause—then clapped his arms around the skinny man, who returned the embrace. “Ted. It’s good to see you. Now let’s get out of here. We can talk in the truck.”
“And order takeaway? Do you have a shower in that thing?” Sarina squinted at the black news truck.
Nathan snorted. “It’s not a campervan you know.” Then he grinned. “But it is totally cool. Come on, before Blanchard wets his pants.”
Minutes later they were ensconced in the truck and occupying all spare chairs and floor space in the truck. Agent Blanchard, who had escaped the predicted toilet accident, had managed to drum up a pile of chicken sandwiches at a lightning-quick pit-stop, and delivered them apologetically. “I’m sorry, Miss Metcalfe. I’ll do better next time. It’s just that we—”
“Need to thaive a univerth or two?” she said, with a mouthful of sandwich already underway.
Agent Blanchard pointed his finger at her, inclined his head briefly, and clicked his tongue with a tchk. “Now you’re talking my kind of language.” He perched himself on a nearby bench and crossed his arms.
Sarina turned to Nathan and Professor Harrison. “I know we’ve got a lot to talk about—but can you tell me what just happened? We were about to be eaten alive by a rabid bunch of teenagers—who knows why—then all their mobile phones went off at once and they ran away. In a big hurry. Bizarre.” She bit off another hunk of sandwich, and opened her mouth to continue. Nathan waved her to stop.
“Please don’t. Not a good look. You eat, I’ll explain. Oh, and no problem. Anytime. You’re welcome.”
She glared at him over her sandwich, but kept eating, gesturing for him to continue.
“Certainly, madam. At your service—Ow!” He whipped around. Lena was scowling at him and kicking his ankle. “Stop that! Okay, okay. She can thank me later.” He looked back at Sarina. “It’s pretty cool, actually. I’d already hacked into all their websites ages ago, then I found out they were using a mass-communication service. Someone had set it up—we still don’t know who, but we think the Consortium is the likely culprit—so they could mobilise large groups, which is kind of what happened when they first found you. When I saw Atkins’s video, I thought you were done for, but then I had a stroke of genius. You know—the ones I’m well known for?”
Sarina, still eating, made a face at him.
He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I hacked the text-service and made it look like it was coming from the head-honcho of S.E.E.K., and I told them the mole they had long suspected in their organisation had been discovered, and he was about to release all their real names to the newspapers, unless they got to him first.” He started to chuckle. “I told them where this goose lives—it’s only a few blocks from the labs—and gave them the order to ‘fetch’.”
Sarina swallowed her mouthful and looked him square in the eye. “This wasn’t a real person though, was it? Tell me you made it up, just to get them off us.” She folded her arms and waited.
He stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean? Of course it was a real person!”
She gave him a cool look. “Who did you send that angry pack to?”
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re saying this, after I rescued you and everything. I sent them to Smacker, of course.”
“Smacker?” She had no idea who he was referring to.
“Davo Sawyer. Terry Atkins’s mate. Smacker’s his online name. I told them Davo was the mole. And where he lived.” He leaned back in his chair. “Pretty cool, eh? Right now he’ll be running as fast as he can.” He started to laugh, then stopped when he saw the look on Sarina’s face. “What?”
“What if he didn’t run? What if he tripped? What if he was looking after his little brother?”
Nathan spluttered. “Little brother? He doesn’t even have a little brother. What planet are you on? I just saved your skins. How about a little thanks?”
“I appreciate your help, Nathan, believe me. But what you did?”—she shook her head—“it’s no better than them. You’re just as much of a bully as they are. If we’re to save our universe, it’s going to take more than a few genius tricks.” She leaned closer to him and looked him in the eye. “You don’t know it yet, but we’re going to need everyone on our side. Even them. And thanks to you, you’ve made that a whole lot harder.”
Nathan looked like he was about to explode. He stood up, opened his mouth, then thought better of it. He spun on his heel and walked off to the truck driver’s cab, pushing past the others. He turned when he got to the door, angry tears in his eyes. “Well it’s great to see you, too. Good luc
k saving the world!” Then he was gone, with a slam of the door.
Professor Harrison raised his eyes at her.
~ 64 ~
Intelligentsia
Sarina left the two Professors deep in discussions about string theory, spin, quintessence, and goodness knows what other gobbledygook. She looked at Agent Blanchard, and flicked her gaze at the cab’s door. He nodded, and got up, but she held him back with her hand. “I mean, do you think I should go talk to him?”
“Yes, Miss. Probably a good idea. And if you don’t mind me saying so, Miss, probably a good idea to do two things we males thrive on: praise him first, and then ask him for advice. And keep your mouth shut and let him run until he has no more steam in him.”
She pulled down the corners of her mouth in a grimace. “Yikes. Is that what he needs? Thanks. I would have told him to stop acting like a baby. Can you help me?”
He smiled. “See what I mean? Works every time. Of course I will help.” He ushered her along the narrow metal aisle, and together they ventured into what she saw was a very roomy cab: three seats in front next to the driver, two pairs of seats either side of the aisle in the back. She poked her head in and sat down, followed by Agent Blanchard. Nathan was pretending not to notice them, and stared out of the side window.
She wanted to slap him, and tell him not to act like a baby, but managed to swallow the words, and instead said, “Nathan, I’m terribly sorry. You probably single-handedly saved my life and Professor Malden’s, if not at the hands of those savages, then for sure at the hands of whoever they work for.”
Nathan hmmphed, twisted away from her, and kept looking out of the window.
She shot an anxious glance at Agent Blanchard, and mouthed, ‘It’s not working!’, but Blanchard shook his head, pointed to Nathan, and indicated she should carry on.
“And, ah, I’m really going to need your help, because there’s this rift thing sucking our universes together, and now that the collider is destroyed when it shouldn’t have been, we have to get quite a few Dreamer Kids together, and you and I will have to, um, help them all focus their energy so we can fix the rift-thingy.” She looked around at Blanchard for help, but he just smiled and pointed to Nathan again.
The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults) Page 92
