by Brandt Legg
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“I didn’t say you were but you’ll need help. Because he is one of the seven, there are only three mystics who can aid you in this.”
“You and Spencer, right? But you’re not willing.”
“That’s correct. Even if we wanted to, our hands are quite full just now.”
“I’m assuming the third is the Dark Mystic.”
“Yes.”
“A long time ago you promised to help me find him.”
“Perhaps it is time. We can discuss it this evening.”
While Yangchen and Linh went for a walk, Amber and I went to the kitchen in search of more food. I told her Linh refused to tell us who sent Nares.
“Linh told me about your lifetime together as Nares and Bola,” Amber said.
“Really? Did she happen to say who she was working for?”
“She was working for the Movement, but didn’t say who was in charge.”
“Yangchen’s probably trying to get it out of her right now.”
“Maybe. But you should trust Linh. You know Nares and Bola wasn’t your only time together.”
“I know.”
“Linh and I discussed what happened at the waterfall. I told her you were letting me go first.”
“Amber, it’s not that simple.”
“We talked about the different lives in which we’d loved you,” she said, ignoring my attempt to explain again. “We all have crisscrossing destinies. Linh and I have been together in many lives, too. We were married once, father and son, brothers, sisters, lovers. Our souls are imprinted on each other and destinies are a complicated thing.”
“You know I love you.”
“I do, but you made the right choice on the island.”
“It wasn’t like I chose one of you . . . are you warm?”
She shook her head.
“It’s too hot in here,” I started moving toward the door.
“Nate, they’re coming!” Spencer yelled.
62
We all knew what to do. We’d been through raids, practiced and prepared, but we’d come to feel safe at the lake house. The golden rule was not to try and save anyone else. It had been drummed into us all repeatedly. It’s safest to get yourself out. “We’ve got to find Linh!” I yelled, grabbing Amber’s hand, pulling her towards the deck.
“You know the rules,” Amber shouted back as she tried to lead me back to the hidden stairs.
“I’ve never been a fan of rules. I’m not abandoning Linh again.”
Spencer appeared on the deck. Which power he used to get there was in question but his purpose was not. “Nate, please. Linh is with Yangchen.”
“You know I have to go,” I said.
“I know.” He stepped aside.
“I’m going with Spencer,” Amber said. “I’ll see you in the forest.”
There was only time for a glance, and it hurt.
The bright morning sun was extinguished as I hit the back lawn. I hoped it was Spencer’s doing and not an Omnia tactic. Helicopters, too numerous to count, were hovering and landing everywhere. Lasers sliced the air so close, I felt the heat. No doubt their night vision could see me easily. I reached Linh on the astral. They’d been on the cliff overlooking Klamath Lake when they felt the warnings. Yangchen had one of Booker’s planes in a TVC and they were taking off.
“Nate, get out of there.”
“I was coming for you.”
“I don’t want you to die for me, Nate. I want you to live for me.”
“Ask Yangchen to give me a class five hurricane.”
“She can’t until we’re clear. Nightfall and the TVC are already taxing her.”
I was tucked in a Timefold, watching lasers rip apart the lavender labyrinth. Hundreds of troops were suddenly converging on the house. I knew what was coming next and had to break the Timefold to Skyclimb. They locked in on me again but I made it over the cliff. At the same time, the house blew up in a series of rapid explosions. Almost every Booker property had self-detonating defensive measures deployed. I ran along the surface of the lake. Gunships flew across the water, firing lasers. Troops scaled the cliff, shooting machine guns. Then Yangchen’s storm hit.
It was the island all over again. The helicopters were swept into the winds and dumped into the lake like toys in a bathtub. Soldiers vanished into the abyss. My prior experiences in supernatural storms allowed me to fight through them but pain burned my chest. The cliff was sheer, the water deep, to stop would be suicide. After a few more minutes, the pain overtook my senses. I couldn’t last much longer. A narrow ledge opened just in time and I collapsed onto it. Staying there took enormous energy and my chest was bleeding heavily.
“Yangchen,” I said on the astral. “Stop the storm. I can’t get through it.”
She didn’t answer. If anything, the hurricane intensified.
“Nate, where are you?” Spencer asked across the astral.
“Can’t you see me? I’m on the cliff over Klamath Lake a mile or so from the house.”
“Nate, where are you?” Spencer asked again.
“Spencer do you hear me?”
“Nate,” Linh said.
“I’m here on the lake,” I answered, scratching the dirt and rocks trying to hold on.
“Any luck?” Linh asked Spencer.
“No, he’s not coming through.”
“I’m here,” I screamed out loud and on the astral. Soaked clothes weighed a thousand pounds in my agony.
“Nate, this isn’t good,” Kyle said.
“Kyle, can you hear me?” Stinging rain cut my face.
“You should not have done this. You are too scattered. A leader cannot lack focus.”
“Kyle!” Pain stole my breath.
“Meditate.”
“Screw meditating!” Finally the winds pushed too hard. Clawing, gasping, I slipped from the ledge and tumbled into the churning waters.
63
All I saw were trees and I decided in that moment there could be nothing better than to wake in a warm forest shaded by a million trees.
“He’s awake,” a familiar voice shouted. Gibi smiled at me. “Close one, Nate.”
“But I can’t move.”
“You’re okay, it’s early yet in the healing. You had three bullets lodged in your chest, one of those ‘millimeters away from the heart things.’”
“I remember the water.”
“Not sure how long you were in the lake . . . a while. Spencer bent time and Yangchen split a dimension.” She sighed. Gibi, too, looked older and gone were her giggles and sparkle.
Spencer had performed psychic surgery and removed the three conventional bullets. Constant healings for several days helped my body recover from the extensive loss of blood.
Amber and Linh were there now. They both smiled, on their best behavior for the injured warrior. They told me we’d been there at least a week but maybe a month. Between Spencer’s time-bend and Yangchen’s dimension-split, things got very confused. No one needed to tell me where we were. I knew when I left the lake house that there was only one stop left, “the final command.”
Gibi’s presence confirmed it; although far from the redwoods, she remained exclusively in the forests. The harshness of the human world weakened her. Losing the lake house, and sixteen other properties at the same time, meant no safe place remained and the Movement had retreated into the forests. In the days to come, I healed nicely but the desperation of our situation became frighteningly clear.
Omnia’s ability to find us increased hourly. There, even in the middle of the Gila, one of the largest national forests, I still didn’t feel safe. The flow of information from the Movement became more fragmented and we relied more and more on interdimensional dispatches.
Spencer warned, “This is a dangerous road we’re on.”
“There is little choice,” Yangchen said.
Whenever there was a drone flyover, we slipped into the Verde Portal, which led to at least s
eventeen forested areas around the world. In the month since I regained consciousness, we’d evacuated ten times. Twice we became lost in the portal; the last time it took us three days to find our way out.
“All these forests look the same,” I said.
“Only because you aren’t really looking at them. Each forest has its own magic and is as unique as books in a library,” Gibi said.
On a brisk morning, as the first sunlight filtered through the trees, a drone-warning sounded. We rushed into the Verde Portal and emerged in an open conifer forest. After encountering a nomadic tribe of Native Americans, it was clear we’d traveled through time as well as space.
They were a beautiful people who knew of soul powers. We mingled and taught each other for days. Communicating over the astral removed all language barriers. The break from the stress of our world did us good.
After what might have been four days, we could no longer ignore the battles of our own time. Yangchen went back first. As the rest of us prepared to return, a tear opened in the sky.
“Run,” I yelled, without waiting to see who came through the dimensional seam. We dove behind boulders. The laser bullets sang past.
“What the hell do we do now?” I asked, while scanning for other portals. They usually weren’t difficult to find in forests, but none appeared nearby.
Florescent red and yellow lasers hit the rocks above, raining down rubble which sliced my arm and banged up Amber’s leg. More laser bullets impacted nearby. We were hemmed in and Omnia’s agents could close at will. Spencer tossed an Air-swirl, causing the lasers to bounce away in haphazard angles.
I worked a Lusan up Amber’s leg, concentrating on her knee. Spencer sent two more air-swirls out.
“Maybe we should do a storm,” I said.
“Nate, look!” Amber screamed.
On our side of the boulders, between two large beech trees, a seam opened. I grabbed Amber and Skyclimbed. Spencer dropped into a Timefold. Linh tumbled behind an old oak, then joined us in the canopy. Eight black-clad agents came through. Four jetted skyward. At first they appeared to be Skyclimbing, but Linh spotted slim propulsion-packs on their backs. It was a technology Omnia had no doubt stolen from another time. Flying agents now neutralized one of our great advantages. We sprinted across the treetops, dodging laser fire, when suddenly three of our pursuers plunged screaming to the ground. I had no idea what happened to them until I saw an arrow hit one in the heart. Our native friends were hiding in the upper branches.
“Are they invisible?” Amber asked in awe. “Or just masters of camouflage?”
There wasn’t time to figure it out. The agents on the other side of the boulders had joined the four still on the ground. We glided across the trees until they ended, a wide river on one side and open meadows on the other. Agents broke out of the trees just after we landed in a wide marshy field. I produced a thick fog behind us which slowed them but laser bullets still sliced out of the mist. The war cries of our friends and the screams of the Omnia agents told us we’d been rescued again, and then Spencer appeared.
“We should get back to the Gila before more agents show up,” Spencer said.
“Do you think it’s any safer there?” Amber asked.
“It has been so far.”
This time the seam opened from the ground. Omnia agents poured out like ants. We ran back toward the forest, hoping our friends would offer another round of protection. Suddenly I slammed into a yellow cab! The driver didn’t seem to notice as I rolled over his hood, dodged an old blue sedan and plowed my way through pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk. Somehow we’d slipped into a dimension and were running through the concrete canyons of Manhattan.
“Omnia has made a mess of the dimensions,” Spencer yelled. “Nate, we’re a year in the past.”
We ran into a hotel lobby. I knew no one could see us because a mystic had once told me that people from other dimensions can occupy the same space without knowing it. Omnia unleashed a barrage of lasers as we dashed into a restaurant. I knocked over a stack of serving trays, tripped a waiter, and sailed into a line cook bringing us both to the floor. Yet, to all but us, these happenings were odd accidents. We were there but the inhabitants of New York were oblivious. Amber, Linh and Spencer had similar mishaps and I’m certain a man in the dining room had a heart attack caused by a stray Omnia laser bullet passing through his chest.
“We need to get to Central Park,” Spencer told me over the astral.
I didn’t know if that was one block away or a hundred. We stumbled out to a back alley and Skyclimbed up the sides of the buildings. I started a torrential rain below us as we leapt from skyscraper to skyscraper. I was able to hold the rain to a mile radius and once we got high enough, I could see the park.
“Maybe twenty blocks,” I said to Amber, who clung to my back.
“What are we going to do when we get there?” Linh asked.
“There’s a portal,” Spencer shouted, as he Skyclimbed two hundred feet down to a lower building top. “At Belvedere Castle.”
Occasional lasers cut through the storm and from our vantage point, I could see they were spread out, not knowing which way we were heading. There were hundreds of them. I widened the storm. Holding onto Amber with Gogen, Skyclimbing high above the city, and maintaining a large rainstorm normally wouldn’t have strained so much, but I’d taken a laser in my shoulder, so my fall surprised no one. Fortunately, Linh caught both Amber and me, then got us safely to another roof. After being convinced I could continue, I went solo while Linh carried Amber.
We landed in the park near the Pond. It was another twenty blocks to Belvedere Castle, but Skyclimbing over trees was much easier and safer. I kept expanding the rain behind us, just in case.
“The portal is directly above the turret,” Spencer said. “We can get to Wizard Island from there.” Once again, I realized that whoever decided to place the castle at that spot in the late 1860s knew the portal was there. Portals, as it turns out, are not rare. What’s rare is the absence of them.
As we dove through, Omnia forces stormed into the park from the side of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 84th and 85th Streets.
64
Getting to Wizard Island was more complicated than I’d imagined and once there, a frantic conversation ensued.
“Where to? The final command is lost,” I said.
“The final command has one move left . . . we can scatter across time, which is why I must know who sent Linh as Nares.” He turned to Linh.
“You do not need to know,” she said.
“Omnia agents are all over time; they can find us anywhere,” Amber said.
“There are places . . . there are times,” Spencer said.
“No,” I said. “We should stay in this dimension, in the present. The Movement is about awakening the world now.”
“We can win nothing if we are dead or in prison,” Spencer said.
“We’ve survived this long.”
“Can’t you feel the noose tightening?” Spencer asked.
“It’s been choking me for ages,” I said. “But we know it’s Devin Moore. Let’s find him.”
“We need time to regroup,” Spencer said. “We should get safely into the past of one of the parallels.”
“What about the butterfly forest?” Amber asked.
“Good idea,” I said.
“Where’s Yangchen?” Amber asked.
“Outin,” Spencer said. He looked at me. “She’s trying to reach Dustin about the list.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Fine, we’ll make a plan once we meet up with her,” Spencer said firmly.
There were now three Dustins at Outin. They were waiting for us at the lodge with Yangchen. Spencer had alerted her we would be coming.
It took me a second to pick out my-Dustin, the one from my life.
“Three against one, little brother.” He laughed. “Hey, nasty wound; you should get the shoulder into Floral Lake.”
�
�My leg, too,” Amber said.
Everyone followed us there. Amber and I disappeared separately into the tall flowers by the banks to undress. We floated to a spot along the shore where several smooth boulders would allow the others to sit while we healed.
“I saw on the news that you blew up another mall,” Dustin said. “Strangely, they say I helped but I’ve been here at Outin the whole time.”
“If it’s on the news, it’s not true,” Spencer said.
“How do you see the news?” Amber asked.
“Oh, it’s really cool,” Dustin-two answered. “We can see just about anything on TV; it’s just finding the right Window.”
“If it’s on the news, it’s not true,” Linh echoed. “But there are three of you, maybe one of you snuck out.”
I laughed but Linh still laid a little blame on my-Dustin for Kyle’s death, and the whole Storch episode wasn’t helping.
“I agree you can’t trust the media but there’s this alternative newscaster. I’m amazed Omnia allows her to broadcast. I really like her.”
“The newscasters you like the best are the most corrupt,” Spencer said. “Reliable information is scarce.”
The Movement had been severely restricted since Omnia shut down the Internet. Years ago, in the earliest days of the Movement, the Internet was a great rallying point for our side, as well as an abundant source of intelligence for Omnia. Then the NSA’s monitoring scandal broke and complex encryption software became so common that even the supercomputers used by Omnia couldn’t keep up. Eventually they shut it down to curtail the sharing and planning of demonstrations and other Movement activities.
“Now we’re limited to communicating over the astral and there are still only a few thousand who have that ability,” Yangchen said. “We’re training more all the time but it’s slowing us down. We’ve begun recruiting from other dimensions.”
“Where are we going to go?” Linh asked.
“How is Dunaway avoiding detection for his Inner Force?” I asked.
“He’s got that deal going with Omnia,” Dustin-three said.
Everyone looked at him.
