Owen lay quiet for a moment, studying his father’s face. It looked as if years had took their toll on it compared to how it seemed yesterday (or was it the day before by now?) when Owen last saw him. “Dad,” he said finally, “can I ask you something.”
Christopher hesitated, and then nodded slowly.
“Why didn’t you tell me? About me I mean?”
“What about you?” he responded slowly and carefully.
“About my abilities, of course,” Owen replied, wondering what else his father might have thought he meant.
“Oh,” Christopher replied, seeming relieved. “Well, your mother and I agreed it was best to shelter you from that until you started to exhibit signs that they were emerging. From what I have heard of the guards talking, you’re a flyer?”
Owen shook his head. “Not really,” he explained. “Mrs Argyle can fly. I just reach out and grab hold of rocks and stuff that apparently are in another world, and then swing along through the air. Like a monkey I guess.”
Christopher again looked concerned. “You can hold onto objects in other worlds?”
“Yes,” Owen said slowly, worried by his father’s expression and tone that suggested this was a bad thing.
To compound this theory, Christopher leant back on his stool and rubbed his hands down his face. “We need to get you out of here.”
“I know that. That’s why we’re here.”
“No, we need to get you out of here. You are exactly what they need. I’ve heard them talking: the last piece of their puzzle, whatever diabolical thing they have up their sleeve, is to obtain someone who can actually make physical contact with other worlds.”
“But I can only hold onto things,” Owen explained, “it’s not like I can bring stuff back. And I always stay in this world, not like Clive.”
Christopher stood up and paced about. “Clive’s here too?” He chewed his finger nails, and then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You are physically making contact with other worlds, which is what they need. As far as I know Clive has never been able to touch or hold anything in the place that he travels through. His existence there is in a state of flux with our own world.
“You on the other hand… If you can grasp onto things, have a physical presence there… I don’t know why, but that is really important to them. They want someone who can bring something back, and you would fit the bill perfectly.”
“But I can’t bring anything back,” Owen explained.
“Have you tried?” Christopher asked.
“Well, no,” Owen admitted.
“Try,” Christopher said, leaning towards his son. “Reach out, and see if you can bring something back. Do it slowly and subtly though. I can’t see any cameras but I’d be surprised if there weren’t any hidden away somewhere.”
Owen put his left hand under the blanket that was covering him, keeping his hand to the side of his leg. He opened his hand and experienced the familiar tingling sensation. Closing his fingers they made contact with a rough feeling surface. Owen gripped and pulled. At first it wouldn’t budge, so Owen pulled again. It came away in his hand so Owen brought it out from beneath the covers, concentrating on bringing his hand back to his own world.
He withdrew his hand from the blanket so that his father could see, his closed palm facing downwards. He slowly turned his hand around and opened his fingers.
Resting in the palm of his hand was a small piece of shiny black rock, the size of a golf ball but elongated. Christopher stared at it silently, a resigned look of dismay on his face.
The silence was broken by a metal clang and the sound of the door sliding open. Owen slipped his hand and the rock back beneath the surface of the covers, tucking the rock into his pocket. Two men entered the room. The first man was wearing a lab coat and looked to be in his mid-thirties. He had a mess of black hair and was frantically making notes on a clipboard.
The second man was much older and was wearing a black suit, with a matching black tie on a white shirt. He was very tall and his long thin head was completely bald, an insincere smile on his face. His right hand was in his jacket pocket, fiddling with something.
“Thank you, Mr Johnson,” he said, “we couldn’t have arranged a better demonstration of your son’s abilities ourselves.”
“Leave my son alone,” Christopher said angrily, darting up and blocking the way between the men and Owen.
“Now, now,” the man said calmly, “there’s no need to get upset. We have no intention of harming the boy; we just need his help with a couple of matters.”
“No intention to harm?” Christopher repeated incredulously. “From what I overheard you fired a damn rocket at him!”
The man smiled and shook his head, holding his hands up apologetically. “That was unfortunate, I grant you. An error by one of our more trigger-happy employees, who has been dealt with accordingly I assure you. Although in fairness to him, he had been subjected to a trial by fire, no doubt courtesy of our old friend Mr Wyllt.”
“Fafnir?” Christopher questioned, looking at Owen. “He’s here too?” Owen nodded, and it seemed to him that his father relaxed slightly at this news.
“Oh there’s quite a reunion of sorts underway in our grounds,” the man said. “They’re becoming somewhat of a nuisance, but they’ll be subdued in time. With your help of course, young Owen.”
“I’m not helping you,” Owen spat at him.
“Oh, but you will. I am not asking for much, just the briefest of errands. Think of yourself as a courier; bringing back a small item that we desire.”
“And why would I do that?” Owen said.
There was a voice outside and the man with the clipboard responded by stepping out of the room, saying that he would be back in a moment. The bald man didn’t seem to take any notice.
“Why would you do it? Why to save your father’s life of course,” the man said. He pulled out a small silver pistol and fired it at Christopher. There wasn’t a loud bang, as one would expect with a bullet, just a small escape of air.
Christopher turned slightly and Owen saw that there was a thin black object resembling an insect’s leg protruding from his right arm.
Christopher looked at the dart, and pulled it out, leaving a small patch of red blood on his white shirt, and stared at its barbed tip.
“Oh my,” he said, before collapsing to the floor, the dart rolling away from his fallen body.
24
Mantis
“Dad!” Owen cried out, scrambling off the bed, ignoring the pain that this sudden movement caused. He dropped to his knees by his father, who was lying on his back, his eyes staring up blankly. He glared at the man holding the pistol. “You’ve killed him! You’ve killed my dad!”
“Do calm down, boy,” the man said curtly, “your father is quite alive.”
Owen felt his father’s wrist and detected a weak pulse. He let out a sigh of relief. “What have you done to him?”
“I have done nothing to him. Well, to be fair I may have given him a rather large dose of this most potent of poisons, but it was you, young Owen, who forced my hand.
“There is, however, an antidote that I would be more than willing to provide, if properly motivated to do so.”
Owen stared at his father through tears. “What do you want me to do?”
The man smiled and clapped his hands. “That’s the spirit!” he said jovially, “but time is of the essence. We only have twenty minutes until the paralysing effects of the poison spread to the respiratory system. After that no antidote will be able to save your father. Shall we hop to it then?”
Owen stood up, thinking that it was him that was being addressed. But the man seemed to be expecting a response from behind him, and turned around to see why no one had replied.
“Where is that blasted technician?” he asked himself angrily, clearly oblivious to the man’s recent departure. “No matter, I’m sure that you are wise enough not to behave in an unruly manner, young Owen. And just in case yo
u do get any funny ideas, you should know that I do not have the antidote on my person. We will collect it once you have successfully carried out my little request.”
“How do I know you’ll keep to your word?” Owen asked, managing to stand.
“You don’t!” the man laughed. “But presented with the choice of watching my own father die and assisting someone with the most trivial of tasks, I know which one I would rather choose.”
Owen looked down at his father and sighed. “Okay,” he agreed.
“Good choice,” the man said. He fiddled with the pistol that had fired the barb and pointed it at Owen. “Just in case you decide to act the hero,” tapping the top of the weapon to highlight his meaning. He walked to the door and held out his other arm in the direction of the corridor beyond. “After you, my dear boy.”
Owen’s anger at what the man had done to his father was being amplified by the over-familiar and creepily avuncular manner that he was adopting. Reluctantly he made his way to the door, gritting his teeth against the pain that each step caused him.
His left side seemed to be in the worst shape, with every step sending a jolt of agony from his buttock down to his calf. His arms seemed okay, save for a large abrasion on the underside of his forearm that was now an unpleasant combination of raw skin and grit. The wound to his head that he had sustained from the fall off of the leisure centre roof seemed to have reopened, as blood was dripping down the side of his forehead into his right eye.
Owen wiped the blood from his eye and passed by the man who smiled. Owen countered his smile with a scowl, which had the unwanted effect of making the man chuckle.
“You’re spirited, I’ll give you that!” he said. “Off to the right, please.”
He glanced back at his father’s inert body, whose glazed eyes were staring blankly at the ceiling. The thought of losing him added to Owen’s resolve, and he made a mental effort to dismiss the pain that was telling him that his body had been damaged.
Owen turned right out of the room, into a long corridor that continued for at least fifty metres in front of him and a further twenty behind. Based on his aerial views of the house, he presumed that he was either underground or within the hill behind the manor house.
“Where are we?” Owen asked, hoping for confirmation.
“That’s not important,” the man answered unhelpfully. “Keep walking, please.” Owen did as he was asked, finding that the movement was easing the pain in his body slightly.
They continued down the corridor, on either side of which were more of the metal cable trunks that were in the room they had just left. These were much wider and thicker, and every so often bundles of cables emerged upwards and disappeared into the ceiling. The ceiling itself had a continuous strip of bright light down the centre, with large air vents on either side every two metres or so.
Aside from the room that Owen’s father now lay unconscious within, they were only two other doors that led from the corridor. One was at the far end of the corridor in the opposite direction that they were heading, and was double the width of the one they had exited.
The other door they were just passing by and was closed, beside which was a large frosted window. The room behind was brightly lit, and Owen could see someone moving around inside. As they passed he heard the door open, and Owen turned around to see if someone was leaving. He briefly saw a blonde man’s face look back at him before it retreated back inside, his features looking slightly familiar. He supposed that it must have been a technician like the one that had entered with the old man earlier, but Owen had the nagging feeling that he had met or seen him somewhere before.
They reached the end of the corridor and followed it to the left for a short way before it merged with a flight of metal stairs.
“Down we go,” the man said cheerfully.
Owen started walking down the steps, which led to a landing and then turned down further. Peering through a gap between the bannisters, Owen saw that they went down for what would work out to be around five floors, had there been any landings or doorways present.
They silently descended the steps until they reached another corridor that continued in the same direction as the one above. This continued for ten metres or so and then ended, a double door standing in the wall to the right.
A flat black panel with a red light above was on the adjacent wall. The man rolled up his jacket and shirt sleeves and placed his wrist against it. There was a loud clang followed by the sound of air escaping. The doors slid apart and they entered a small room that measured about three metres square with a further set of doors and a black panel on the opposite wall.
The man repeated the gesture with his wrist and the doors behind closed shut. There was another loud hiss of air and the doors that stood in front of them opened to reveal a large black expanse.
The man gently pushed Owen forward and they entered the room. There was the sound of repeated metallic clangs above as innumerable lights flickered to life. Their brightness dazzled Owen at first, but as he squinted at the room before him his eyes adjusted and he started to appreciate the enormous size of it.
Above there was a short space between the lights and the ceiling which itself was at least fifty metres high, and supported the roof of the building without the need for any pillars. Owen’s best guess had the distance to the far wall to be at a minimum of ten lengths of his local swimming pool, making it five hundred metres long, and about one hundred metres wide.
The floor was composed of highly polished black tiles, each about half a metre square in size. The walls were covered in smaller white tiles, which also had a glossy sheen to them. On the left wall was a large set of doors that had the appearance and size of ones that large trucks use for loading.
The room was completely empty save for Owen and the man, and an object that stood on the ground towards the rear wall. It was too far away to determine what it was exactly, but from its size and colour it resembled a camera tripod.
“Onwards,” the man said, his voice echoing around the room.
“What is this room used for?” Owen enquired.
“You’ll see,” the man said.
Their footsteps reverberated throughout the room, emphasising its scale.
“Where is the antidote?” Owen asked, conscious of how long had passed since his father had fallen.
“In the adjacent room to where Christopher is napping,” he replied lightly.
Owen increased his pace, desperate to help his father as quickly as possible. The object on the floor was much more discernible now, and had the same insectoid features as the barb that had struck his father. Of its three legs, the front one was straight, whilst the two rear two bent back slightly. They were joined in the middle to a spiked ball from which two antennae-like spines pointed upwards and slightly apart. Overall it had the nightmarish appearance of a giant black praying mantis.
Once Owen was a few footsteps away from the tripod, the man asked him to stop. “Stand there,” the man said, pointing at a small black cross on the ground in front of it. From one of the arms of the cross there was an arrow that pointed towards the wall ahead.
“Now what?” Owen asked.
“Touch the device,” the man said. “Feel its strength and its texture.” The man was talking about it like it was his lover. Looking at the spikes, Owen sincerely hoped that it wasn’t.
Owen did as he was told. Expecting it to be cold, he was surprised at how warm it felt. It was by no means hot to touch, but was a similar temperature to another person’s skin. It reminded him of how Myrtle’s horns had felt, and wondered whether the object was in fact alive. The surface seemed to be composed of small scales like those on a snake, as when Owen rubbed it in one direction it was smooth, whereas it was slightly rough the other way.
“Exquisite isn’t it?” the man gushed.
Owen didn’t offer his own assessment, but considered it to be the most unpleasant thing that he had ever held. He let go and wiped his hand on his trousers, a
s a symbolic gesture rather than to remove any residue (of which there was none).
“Okay,” Owen said, awaiting his next task.
“Now you perform your magic. I want you to stand exactly where you are but face in the direction of the arrow. Now feel for something unseen with both hands, for objects that have an identical texture to the tether you just studied. There should be two such objects. Once you have grasped them both: bring them back here.”
Owen looked at the man searchingly. “Why?”
“Tick-tock,” the man replied, tapping his watch. The implication was clear: time was running out for his father.
Owen moved so that he was facing in the direction of the arrow, closed his eyes and reached out. He moved his hands through the air, the tingling sensation more intense than ever before. He might have described the feeling in his hands as being painful, but wasn’t sure if this was as a consequence of his fall.
He slowly moved his hands through the space in front of him. In his left hand he felt something firm, but realised it was made of flaky rock and not the same scaly material as the tripod so he released it. He withdrew his left hand and reached out once more.
This happened on three more instances, each time Owen grasped something firm, only to realise again that it wasn’t composed of the same material as the object behind him.
“What are you waiting for?” the man asked testily, his genial manner vanishing.
Owen whipped his hands back and glared at the man. “I’m trying my best!”
“Your best is making your father slip further from my help.”
Owen resisted the temptation to punch the man, aware that the small pistol was still aimed at his chest.
Resuming his position Owen exhaled slowly, closed his eyes and reached out once more. He visualised the surface of the tripod in his mind, and concentrated on how it felt. Instantly his right hand closed around a similar structure, although this one was less rigid. Stopping himself from letting go in surprise, he held on and felt for something similar with his left hand.
The Remarkables (The Remarkable Owen Johnson, part 1) Page 19
