by Bill Myers
“You’re in reverse!” I shouted.
He ground the gears looking for first. But, like I said, my transmission don’t always cooperate. So, still racing backwards and with no other choice, Tank cranked the wheel hard. We missed the car behind us by inches and flew into the street.
Drivers honked, swerved, and cursed. Somehow Cowboy managed to miss them all as the bad guys closed in on us. (Actually we closed in on them). But instead of jumping out of our way, they came straight at us, one from each side.
“Roll up the windows!” Andi yelled.
A nice idea but, again, we’re talking my car. The goon on the driver’s side got there first. He reached inside and grabbed Cowboy.
“’Scuse me,” Cowboy shouted over the roar of the engine, “but yer gonna have to let go.”
Before I could point out his good ol’ boy manners probably wouldn’t help, Goon Two arrived at my side, reached in, and grabbed me.
“Faster!” I shouted to Cowboy.
He punched it. The engine whined and we picked up speed. So did the goons. I don’t know if they were running beside us or being dragged. Didn’t matter. By the look of things, they weren’t letting go.
Cars kept honking and swerving past us. Drivers kept exercising their freedom of speech and hand gestures. And Cowboy kept trying to talk reason to his man. “You’re sure makin’ it hard to steer this thing,” he shouted.
I wasn’t so polite. I grabbed the pencil I keep in the cup holder and jabbed it into my guy’s face. He yelled and screamed, but still wouldn’t let go. So I did it again. Same yelling and screaming, but this time he managed to lose his sunglasses.
That’s when I saw he had no eyes. Only empty sockets. Just like those guys in Rome.
“Cowboy!” I shouted.
He glanced over, then yelled, “I thought they looked familiar.”
Andi shouted from the back seat. “They’re not going to let go! If they’re like the others, they’ll hang on ‘til the end!”
Cowboy nodded, then cranked the wheel hard to the left. We slid our way onto the Strip . . . still going backwards, still drawing irate horns and colorful language.
“Where you going?” I shouted.
“Not sure!” he shouted back. (He was big on honesty).
My guy was still hanging on so I jammed a couple more holes into his face. He yelled and screamed, but still didn’t get the message. I glanced over my shoulder and saw we were coming up to our hotel. “Cowboy!”
“Hang on!” he yelled. “I got an idea!”
He swung the car to the right. We bounced up on the curb as pedestrians screamed and jumped out of the way. We headed straight for the front wall, which was mostly glass.
“Cowboy!”
He hit the brakes and we did a perfect 180, coming to a stop, looking out the windshield at the hotel—complete with bell hops running every direction. But Mr. Toad’s wild ride wasn’t quite over. Cowboy stomped on the accelerator again.
“Tank!” Andi shouted.
We shot backwards again, this time straight for the street.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
He motioned to the two giant hitching posts in front of the hotel. The ones spaced as wide apart as my car. Well, almost.
“Just scrapin’ off the barnacles!” he shouted. Hang on!”
We flew between the posts and did exactly what he’d hoped . . . removed the unwanted debris, leaving the bad guys in a groaning heap on the sidewalk. In exchange, the sound of scraping metal told me I’d also acquired a racing stripe the length of my car.
“Where’d you learn that?” Andi shouted.
“Barrel racing.” He grinned. “I used to do rodeo as a kid.”
Chapter 7
“This the place?” Cowboy asked as he crawled out of the car and crossed to my side.
“This is it.”
Once he helped me to my feet I got a healthy look at the gouge running from my front fender to my back bumper.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
The good news was he’d gotten my car out of reverse. The bad news was it got us to Chad Thorton’s.
It’s not that I didn’t like the kid, it’s just—all right. I didn’t like him . . . a lot. I didn’t like his arrogance. I didn’t like how he treated his assistant. And I didn’t like him calling us amateurs, particularly after all we’d been through.
“Look,” Andi said as she got to the door. “A note. It’s addressed to a Belinda.”
“Give that to me.” I ripped it down and read:
Welcome back. Come in if you must.
But don’t disturb. Our work is too
vital.
“Wow,” Cowboy said, reading over my shoulder. “He sounds important.”
I crumpled the paper and tossed it to the ground.
Instead of knocking, I pushed at the door. It opened and we stepped inside. Everything was like before, except for the flute and harp music playing in the background. And the two rooms. Both of their doors were shut.
“Where is everybody?” Cowboy whispered.
I limped to the little square window in the door of the observation room. The girl, Stephie, sat at the console in her white stocking cap. I tapped the glass. She looked up, grinned, and motioned for us to come in, but quietly.
We entered, all reverent, like in a funeral home. Once introductions were whispered, she turned back to the console and window looking into the other room. Chad sat in one of the recliners, all sorts of wires and sensors attached to him.
“Is he sleeping?” Cowboy asked.
Stephie shook her head. “Traveling.” She glanced up at the digital clock above the window. It read:
02:59:38
“Almost three hours now.”
“Traveling?” Andi asked.
“Bilocating.” Stephie looked at me, a question on her face like I should have already told them. I shook my head and she continued. “It’s a fairly simple technique where you train your phantom body to leave your physical body.
“Lucid dreaming,” Andi said.
“In a fashion.”
Andi nodded. “There have been multiple studies on the practice. Not always favorable.”
Stephie continued, “Unlike lucid dreaming, bilocation occurs when the subject is fully awake.” She pressed what must have been an intercom button and spoke, “Coming up to three hours.” She looked at the clock, waiting until it clicked over to:
03:00:00
“And mark: Three hours.”
“How is that possible?” Andi asked. “While being awake?”
“It takes several months of training—learning to merge the brainwaves of the left and right hemispheres, using various biofeedback techniques to lower breathing and heart rates, dropping brain waves from beta to alpha until they finally reach the target state, which would be theta activity.”
I was impressed at how smart and confident she sounded when Chad wasn’t around.
“Chad told me it used to be an Army program?” I said.
“That’s right. They would find gifted individuals and train them to bilocate—send their phantom bodies into enemy installations and spy on top secret operations.”
“When you say phantom bodies, is that like their souls?” Cowboy asked.
Stephie shrugged. “Call it what you like. Either way, the results were quite accurate.”
“You said, ‘gifted’ individuals?’” Andi asked.
“That’s right. People like Chad, here. Or,” she motioned to me, “Belinda.”
“Brenda,” I corrected her.
“Really? Because he said it was—”
“Trust me, it’s Brenda.”
“By gifted,” Andi said, “what do you mean?”
“People who have a natural psychic ability.” She nodded to me. “Like the drawings Chad says you draw. I imagine your psychic rating is quite—”
“She ain’t no psychic,” Cowboy said.
We turned to him. He was doing his best
to be polite, but wasn’t quite pulling it off. “Miss Brenda here, her gift is prophetic, like in the Bible. Not psychic. That’s occult.”
Stephie frowned. “I fail to see the difference.”
“Trust me, ma’am, it’s a big difference. One is a gift from God, the other, it’s a counterfeit used to trick and trap people into—”
“I’m in.” Chad’s voice came from the console speaker. I looked through the window. His eyes were closed and he seemed totally relaxed, but it was definitely him doing the talking.
Stephie hit the intercom switch. “What do you see?”
“The usual snow. Lots of it.”
She scooted to a nearby keyboard and began typing as he continued.
“Same mountains. Everything’s the same.”
“And the wall?” she asked.
“I’m approaching it now. Seems a lot colder today.”
Stephie glanced at another readout. “Your skin temperature is 89.9.” She leaned closer to the window. “I see goosebumps on your arms.”
“I should have worn a coat.”
“Is that possible?” I asked. “Goosebumps?”
She answered while checking other readouts. “There has to be some connection between his phantom and physical body.”
“Or?”
“Or he’d be dead.”
His voice came back through the speaker. “Still no opening. Still no way to access—wait. What the—”
“Problem?” she asked.
“There’s a giant triangle. Can’t make out its composition, but it’s floating five, six hundred meters above me and to the right. The thing is huge, like an ocean liner and—” He sucked in his breath. “It spotted me. It spotted me and is heading directly for me.”
“Chad, get out of there. Now.”
“Wait. Something’s got hold of me. Nothing physical but . . . like a force field or something.”
“Chad?”
No answer.
“Chad, answer me! Chad, I’m ending the session.”
“No,” he gasped, “too dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” I asked.
She answered without looking. “Shock to his limbic system. The transition has to be gentle. And self-initiated. Too abrupt and it could break the connection, his vitals could shut down, go into cardiac arr—”
“It’s okay. I’m free.” You could hear the strain in his voice, see his chest heaving up and down. “Now if I can just hide behind this outcropping.”
Stephie called out another reading. “Heart rate 182. BP is—”
“There. Good. Okay, I’m coming home.”
And then silence.
“Chad . . .
More silence.
I looked to Stephie. She waited, nervously watching the clock. Tens seconds. Fifteen. We all figured it was better not to talk.
At twenty seconds, she hit the intercom again. “Chad, can you hear me. Chad, do you—”
He began gasping for breath.
“Chad—”
Suddenly his eyes popped open. He blinked, then lifted his head and looked through the window, grinning.
“You’re back!” Stephie cried.
Still breathing hard, he answered, “Of course I’m back.” He spotted me and our little group standing beside her. “So the pupil has returned to the teacher, has she? Oh, and look, she’s brought her pals.”
Chapter 8
“The Gate?” Andi asked incredulously. “You were at the headquarters of the Gate?”
“Their wall, yeah.” Chad didn’t bother swallowing his mouthful of eggs. “You want to pass those hash browns here? These little excursions leave me starved.”
Cowboy, who’d put away a fair amount of breakfast himself, passed the platter up the table.
It had been a long night. The sun was just peeking over the mountains. Stephie had thrown together a pretty impressive breakfast—unnoticed by Chad, but appreciated by the rest of us. We were eating outside, enjoying the few minutes of cool air before the desert heated up. Well, Cowboy and Chad were eating. Stephie was flitting about the table making sure we were all happy (we as in Chad)—while me and Andi nibbled here and there, carefully listening.
The kid continued, doing his best to impress Andi. At twenty-two, he was three or four years her junior. But it didn’t stop him from making the moves. Moves she was either too polite to comment on or too naive to notice. Didn’t matter. If Boy Wonder was trolling, me and Cowboy would make sure he got both arms broken before reeling her in. “It’s their headquarters,” he said, “at least here on earth. Or above it.”
I frowned.
“From what I’ve been able to hear, they have plenty more.”
We all traded looks, rememberin’ Littlefoot’s comments during our last outing.
“You’ve seen ’em?” Cowboy asked.
He shook his head. “Just heard their thoughts.”
“And you think they’re from another planet,” I said.
“Another universe,” Andi corrected.
I nodded. “Right, another universe?”
“For starters, yeah. But from what I can tell, there’s something more.”
“More?” I said.
“We’re talking another dimension. Maybe several.”
We traded looks some more.
Andi cleared their throat. “You say you’ve heard their conversations?”
He looked at her and smiled. “Yeah, lots of times.” He gave a little stretch. “Not that I’m one to brag—”
“Since when?” I muttered.
“—but with my gift it’s pretty easy to hear what they’re thinking. And believe me, sweet cheeks, you folks better worry, because they’re thinking a lot.”
Andi ignored the flirt and said, “I thought you didn’t care what they were thinking, that you weren’t interested in stopping them.”
“I’m not.”
“Then . . .”
“I’m just interested in the money.”
“How’s that work?” I said.
“Easy. I sell you information. You pass it on to the Watchers. I walk away rich and safe.”
“Safe ’cause you’re not taking sides,” I said.
“Safe’s important.” He turned to Cowboy. “Which explains that AK-47 you’ve been wondering about at my front door.”
Cowboy’s jaw slacked. “How did you know I was thinking . . .” He slowed to a stop as the kid tapped his temple. The big fellow scowled, not liking it one bit.
“And how do we know the information you’ll offer is correct?” Andi asked.
“Because I’m never wrong.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Belinda that,” I said.
He smiled. “I’m never wrong about important issues.”
“And how do we know we can trust you?” Andi said.
He turned his gaze on her, getting all Barry White. “Because I never lie to people I’m attracted to. Or to those who find me attractive.”
I cut in. “And the professor. You’ve seen him?”
“Maybe.”
I scoffed. “How much they supposed to pay for maybe?”
Stephie, who was making the rounds with a pitcher of orange juice, came to his defense. “Everything Chad’s seen has been carefully recorded. We keep very good logs.”
Chad ignored her and leaned across the table to me. “What if I were to show you?”
“Show me what?”
“Like I said, you have a little bit of the gift. Pathetically small, I’ll grant you, but you still have it.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You have enough for me to at least take you for a little spin.”
I felt myself stiffen, but managed to look calm. I think.
He turned back to Andi. “And you, there’s so much you could learn by watching. By just staying at my side.”
“Me?”
“Of course. I can always use another assistant. The more the merrier.”
The pitcher slipped from Stephie’s hand, cra
shing to the table. “Gracious me, I’m so sorry.” She grabbed a napkin and started mopping up.
I barely noticed. Not because of Chad’s flirting or his out-of-control ego. But because of the offer. What if I really could connect with the professor? What if there really was a way to discover the Gate’s headquarters?
I turned back to him. “How long would it take?”
“For what?”
He was dangling the bait, but I had to play along. “How long would it take to get me ready for something like that?”
“With me as your teacher? I’d say . . .” He gave us a dramatic pause, then answered: “Now.”
I caught my breath.
“If you have the nerve.”
I closed my mouth, gave the muscles in my jaw a workout. He was setting the hook all right, there was no doubt about it. And we both knew I had no choice but to swallow it.
“Miss Brenda?”
I looked to Cowboy.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Because?” Chad asked.
“Because it’s the occult. You’re playing with things you don’t understand.”
“And you people do?” Chad asked.
“I understand what’s forbidden.”
“According to?”
“The Bible.”
It was the kid’s turn to scoff. “Too bad your professor the Bible scholar didn’t get that memo.”
“You really think she could see the professor?” Andi asked.
“Maybe. Who knows? Like I said to—” he paused, pretending he was trying to remember my name—“Brenda here; the man was definitely researching our stuff.” He turned back to me. “I can’t promise you the professor, but I can take you to the Gate. At least its perimeter, the one here on Earth.”
I felt my ears beginning to burn. Heard the faint pounding of my heart.
“Miss Brenda?” It was Cowboy again. Doing his best to warn me.
The kid cocked his head sideways, all coy-like. “Well?”
I took the slightest breath to steady myself, then gave the answer. “Of course.”
Chapter 9
