by Paul A. Rice
Jonathon swayed and nearly collapsed, only the agony of Red’s wicked grasp intertwined in his hair kept him standing. Then, clutching the mutilated hand to his chest, he staggered to the large case holding the Light Maker.
Red threw him forwards and he crashed to the floor on his knees in front of the case. With a low moan, he punched some numbers into the keypad with his uninjured hand. The keypad glowed green, and then, with a hiss, the lid of the case eased open. Red pushed the weeping old man to one side and stared greedily at the device that lay securely held within the steel sides of the first case.
‘Good!’ he said, turning to stare at the other cases.
As Red turned, Jonathon, unseen by his tormenter, quickly tapped another set of digits into the keypad. It flickered briefly and then turned a dull red before returning to its former serene colour.
That same tormentor, Red, had opened the second case and was checking the contents, seeing everything to his satisfaction, he rose to his feet with a horrible smile across his face, and walked back to Jonathon. Reaching down, he dragged the old man to his feet before slapping him across the side of the head once more. The blow sounded like a pistol shot and sent Jonathon reeling to one side, where he collapsed into a heap. Red shouted something and immediately four armed men entered the room. Between them they picked up the cases and made for the door with their terrible bounty in tow.
Red looked down at Jonathon, saying: ‘I will be seeing you in a while, ol’ man. My advice is to stay put until I’ve gone. Get your fukin friends to contact me and then maybe we can parlay!’ With that, he turned on his heel, walked out of the room and made his way into the corridor. Opening the outer door, he stepped into the dust that was gathering in swirling devils outside the Funny House.
The disturbance roused Mr Wilson from his mid-morning nap. Walking bleary-eyed into the room, he stared down in shock at Jonathon’s prostrate form as it lay upon the dirty stone floor. Rushing forward, he knelt down and raised the old man into a sitting position – gently cradling Jonathon’s head in his arms as he looked down in horrified concern at his blood-streaked face.
With a low groan, his friend’s eyes rolled in their sockets before snapping wide open. With a sharp gasp, Jonathon regained consciousness, and then, whilst struggling to sit up, he uttered five, fateful words.
‘He has the Light Maker!’
19
Fatal Collaboration
It was the next day, whilst seated in the lounge nursing some hot coffee and a slight hangover, that Ken listened as George explained how the situation had become critical. So critical, in fact, that his people had decided to physically make contact with the men in suits, or in the very least, their chosen representatives. It was the only way they could demonstrate to the Hyenas the folly of their actions. The venture was extremely risky and received much attention from all those involved.
However, in the end it was seen as the only viable solution, they had to tell them face-to-face about their peril, they had to tell them to stop. The thought of George and his kind making the decision to come to Earth, actually doing it, and then waltzing in to deliver their ultimatum to some of the most influential people on Earth, amazed Ken.
In shock, he asked: ‘What? How did they react? I mean...how the hell did you get there, how did you…?’ George raised his hand to halt him in mid-sentence.
‘There are certain places we can use to enter that parallel with a minimum of fuss,’ he said. ‘There is one in the SD House, the one you used – there is one in a place called England, near the Big Stones, and there is also one inside Uluru, where Michael comes from, the land of the singing sticks.’
Mike looked at Ken, and with a slight grin, whispered: ‘He means Ayers Rock, it’s the name the Aboriginals use for it, mate. Uluru is their sacred place!’
Ken thought about the weird bedside phone back in his room, and also the ones in the abandoned SD building. The realisation was amazing.
‘So that’s what the shape reminded me of, bloody hell!’ he thought, in awe.
George progressed. ‘The final aperture is located near the pyramids. However, only the one where you were has been used recently. The others have not been operated for years, and that is such a shame because I used to really enjoy visiting those places…’ He sat and thought for a while, staring into the distance without blinking. Then, unexpectedly, he announced his plan, as though the idea had only just struck him – which, incidentally, it had.
With a huge smile, George said, ‘Yes, what a marvellous idea! Look, you two have a cup of coffee, just give me five minutes and I will be right back.’ Leaving them in a dazed silence, George rose to his feet and made his way hurriedly over to the door, just before he left the room, the old man turned back and seeing them still sitting in confusion, said, ‘Come along, my boys! Chop-chop!’ With that, he turned and wafted out of the room.
Mike rose to his feet, ‘Right then,’ he said, ‘we’d best do as the old bugger says.’ Ken nodded, and went to join his friend by the coffee machine.
It wasn’t long before George re-entered the room, the old man had a bundle of the silver flight suits in his arms. Walking over to join the men, he handed them each a suit, telling them to slip them on over their normal clothes. Looking at Ken, he said, ‘We have to wear these when we go on our travels, Kenneth. In simple terms – the ability to move between dimensions, or parallels, is known as Shrink Down.’ He smiled, before saying: ‘Although, it has to be said, the correct technical phrase is somewhat more elaborate, either way I do believe that we should be getting a jiggle on…’
Ken nodded and started pulling on the suit. Soon the three men were all similarly clad – together they walked across the lounge. Ken heard the suits rustling softly as they followed their leader into the corridor. George turned left and opened another door, which lay just down the hallway. Entering the room, Ken saw that it appeared to be a small cinema. George told them to take a seat in the front row. As they took their seats, he walked over to a glass cabinet and picked something up from one of the shelves therein.
Returning, he took a seat next to Mike and then pointed a device, one that looked suspiciously like a remote control for a TV, at the darkened screen that lay on the wall at the head of the room. In an instant the whole wall illuminated and the watching men saw that it was a map of the world – George fiddled with his little, remote control. After having pushed a series of buttons, he pointed it at the screen once more. The map rapidly enlarged. When it finally halted, they found themselves staring at a close-up view of Ayers Rock.
George looked across at them and said, ‘Yes, that looks lovely, hold onto your seats, gentlemen!’ Without any further warning, he operated the zapper once more.
In a singular, headlong rush, Ken felt as though he had been launched into the screen. It was a much more violent sensation than he had experienced before, instead of his mind floating into a dream-like state, gently observing all before him, this time it was as though he had been fired into the scene. Just as his surroundings became a blur of rushing light, Ken began to feel the sliding sensation entering his mind once more. Then, being unable to fend off the awful feeling of having been liquefied, he relaxed and let the darkness take him to wherever it so desired.
***
Awakening some short time later, the men found themselves lying on a long stone ledge, a warm and dusty stone ledge, a stone ledge that protruded from the side of Ayers Rock. After taking a moment or two to gather his thoughts and get his bearings, Ken rose to his feet and carefully walked to the edge.
Leaning forward, he peered over the side – the drop was a long one.
‘Fuck me,’ he said, ‘this is really high, we must be a thousand feet up, I never knew it was this big!’ His head was still a bit fuzzy and he heard a strange ringing in his ears, like tinnitus but not exactly, maybe more like having a drop of water trapped in there. He shook his head and looked at the other two. Both of them were casually sitting on the stone and lo
oked to be as cool as cucumbers.
George nodded in affirmation to Ken’s observations. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This rock is indeed very high, almost another two hundred feet above us sits the summit – it is also an extremely old rock and is riddled with caves…’ He went on to say that the rock was a very holy place, and that he and his kind had been coming here for thousands of years.
Ken looked past him and saw that there was a small opening just beyond where Mike was sitting, looking further afield, he saw that there were many other openings cut into the face of the giant rock. Turning to gaze out across the endless expanse of red sand, which rolled away into the far distance, Ken realised that there was a total silence and no sign of life whatsoever, human or otherwise. ‘Where is everything?’ he asked, ‘where are the birds and the bees and…’ He looked at Mike, saying: ‘They do have ‘em out here, don’t they?’
Realising, Ken turned back to the view and stared out across the desert once more. It shouldn’t have been a desert, Ken had seen the photos. Then the reality dawned upon him. ‘Where is all the green stuff, where are the trees, where are all the bushes and the grass...why’s everything so deserted?’
He stood there gazing outwards, there wasn’t a single thing left standing – the only thing above the surface of the earth was the huge lump of sandstone, upon which he and the two others were currently perched. He turned back to them and looked at Mike once more – this was getting weirder by the minute. His friend smiled and nodded across at George.
The old man, upon seeing Ken’s confusion, said, ‘Well spotted, once again it becomes apparent as to how observant you are, well spotted indeed!’
Ken didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Turning around to stare out across the desert one more time, he was pretty sure that even a two-year-old would have been able to pick up the sense of utter desolation that the silent land before his eyes exuded. It was almost palpable in its loneliness. Hearing George speaking, he shrugged away the dark thoughts and turned around to catch the old man’s words.
‘We are here in a time after the effects of the Hyenas’ actions have reached their final conclusion – all life on this parallel has ended, in a few years this planet will be no more, this is what their selfishness will have brought to you!’ Pointing upwards, George said. ‘In the heavens above us there now sits the beginnings of a Black Hole, a tiny, rotating rip in the fabric of space. Before long it will have pulled all of this…’ he spread his hands out to indicate all that surrounded them, ‘…into its black heart – all we have ever known in this parallel will be gone, taken into the endless void at the centre of the rip.’
He then said that the rock was one of the only places left that had been almost totally untouched by the fire that had rained down upon the planet. ‘Rather fitting, I would say,’ he wryly commented. ‘After all, this is one of the oldest rocks on this planet, how fitting that it should remain untouched until the very end.’ George shuffled over to the ancient ledge, where he stood in silence for a while before turning to look at them. He had a terrible expression in his eyes, one of utter despair and immense anger. He said, ‘I would like to have taken you to see the pyramids – the Egyptians were one of our most successful projects, yes. But, unfortunately their wonderful monuments no longer exist; the fire has turned them into nothing more than lumps of melted glass.’ He sighed, saying: ‘And as for the big stones, the Henges, they are gone too, they have all been destroyed by the forthcoming events.’ After a short, but very intense pause, he said, ‘And that, gentlemen, is why we must succeed, why we have to succeed!’
Returning to the present, and in a blatant attempt to rid the atmosphere of its depressing sensation, George changed the subject. ‘Anyway, as I have mentioned,’ he said, ‘this is one of the places where we can enter your world, and as we needed to come and meet your leaders face-to-face, we needed to find a suitable place in which to do so…’ He stood thinking for a while, leaving the two men to gaze out into the barren surroundings of the enormous rock. Then, as though satisfied with his conclusions, he looked at the men and smiled. With another sigh, he said, ‘In the end we decided to use the one where you were located, Kenneth. So we studied the personnel within that place, the base, I think you referred to it as being named...It was whilst we were carrying out the survey that you and your good friend, Michael, came to our attention, although, to be perfectly honest it was mostly Michael at first.’
He switched his gaze to Mike. ‘Your gift, Michael, is quite extraordinary. Quite extraordinary! You have an understanding of these simple devices, a touch that is almost as though you can read their minds…’ The smile he gave Mike was one that a doting father would have given a favourite son.
Mike shrugged his shoulders, as if in early surrender. ‘Yep, okay, you got me!’ That’s what Ken read the gesture to have meant, he had known it for years anyway. Mike had the touch, always had done.
The old man’s explanation continued.
Mike had been spotted and because they were always together, it was inevitable for Ken to come under scrutiny as well. George said the Team had liked Ken because of his courage and his honesty – his abilities to do his military work without remorse or judgement were astonishing, and they had also greatly admired his ability to organise things, especially Michael’s things.
The comment helped lift Ken out of the hole, a black hole that he kept finding himself thinking about sliding back into. ‘Slipping softly down and going back to sleep, that would be so much easier than dealing with all of this bullshit!’ he thought, shuddering as he felt the coldness slither into his mind once more. Concentrating hard, he continued to listen to the words that were pouring from George’s direction again.
‘Anyway,’ the old man was saying, ‘we made contact with a very powerful member from one of your endless Governments, a man who was using the war in that area to cover up their true mission, a mission centred on investigating the gas and mineral deposits lying hidden under that wretched and beaten land. We touched him about eight years ago and the response we received was extremely positive. It was almost as though he had been waiting for us.’
‘What do you mean, you touched him?’ questioned Ken.
George smiled at his baffled audience, and then beguilingly explained. ‘We touched him like you were touched by the bathroom mirror, Kenneth – when you were frantic with fear and worry about Michael. We showed you things that eased your mind and made you understand. We have touched you with coffee, with food and with alcohol. We have also touched you with dreams. There are many ways that a person can be touched, but they have to need to be touched, their minds must have good intentions and they must have a pure heart.’
Ken sat there and mulled that one over for a while. ‘Touched me?’ He closed his eyes for a brief moment and listened to the sound of emptiness echoing through his mind. Ken didn’t quite like the sound of that word, ‘touched’, but supposed that he’d just have to live with it. He wasn’t sure if it was the effect of George’s words or perhaps a slight breeze caressing the back of his neck, but either way, he felt decidedly chilled. He felt the hairs on his arms and neck rising, and subconsciously hunched his shoulders in defence against the eerie feeling.
George smiled knowingly at him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this particular gentleman had all of those things and much more; he had good intentions and a deep sense of unease about the activities of his masters. A thick root of distaste had grown within him and he abhorred the secrets he knew about the ravenous Hyenas who dominated the world leadership. He knew an awful lot of secrets about an awful lot of people, and he was ashamed!’
George said the man’s name was Wilson and that he liked him a lot, even though Wilson liked a drop of the hard stuff, he was still a good man. ‘We showed him a dream, a dream very similar to the one that both of you witnessed…’ he said, pausing for breath. Sitting in silence, he ran his hand downwards over his head before finally rubbing his eyelids with those bony fingers. As his fingernails refle
cted the desert’s light, they seemed to be nearly transparent, George looked almost ghostly in his frailness. Looking up, he said, ‘The dream moved this man deeply, he truly understood it, and so we showed him the device…’
Then, like some wizened magician, he reached into the pocket of his brown corduroy trousers and removed a small, silver case. It was exactly like the one Ken had seen in the dream. In the flesh he saw it was more like a mobile hard-drive for computers, than a cigarette case, only much thicker, and it came fitted with two snake-like leads, which hung limply from its shiny metal body. The blue glass top was dull, as though in waiting for some form of power to ignite the captivating glow he’d seen in the dream. He held out his hand and without hesitation, George passed him the object. Ken grasped it fervently.
He felt the warmth from where it had been in George’s pocket, but he also felt something else resonating within its slender form. It felt like a thrumming magic, barely perceptible and probably imagined, but it was there in his mind nonetheless. Ken turned it over in his hands, only just containing a slight tremble, which had started in his head and was now heading down his arms. There were no markings on the machine and it was incredibly light in construction, one of those objects that when touched transmits a feeling of the most exquisite function and quality, very rare, hugely expensive and extremely desirable. It felt like a jewel. ‘Let’s have a look at it…’ Mike’s softly-spoken request shook him from his stupor. Shaking his head, Ken reached out and passed the silver case over to his friend.
