by C. W. Trisef
Just then, one of the archivists rehearsed the minutes from the former meeting, confirming Lionel’s recollections in their entirety. Proven wrong, the American delegates sat down and sneered as Lionel walked away with their Stars and Stripes.
“These are perilous times,” Lionel repeated with unfailing vigor, concluding his remarks the way they began. “The current problems that vex your countries are serious, yes, but not nearly as serious as the danger we’ll be in if the continents collide into each other. The time to act is now, my friends. With your help, I can stop Ret Cooper and make sure the elements remain under the care of the United Nations. Then, and only then, can we use the great power of the elements to repair in-part the damage that has already been done and prevent any more from occurring. Most importantly, with the elements in our possession, we can keep the continents from crashing into one another and save the world.”
Yemen. Zambia. And, finally, Zimbabwe.
“All those in favor of bestowing upon Lionel Zarbock all rights, privileges, and powers that he deems necessary to carry out his stated objectives,” the Secretary-General announced, “please vote in the affirmative now.”
The votes were cast, the numbers were tallied, and the results were broadcast on the wall for all to see: it was a landslide.
“Congratulations, Dr. Zarbock,” the Secretary-General said from the podium amid thunderous applause from the floor. “We expect you to make regular reports of your efforts in this most important matter.”
“Indeed, I will,” Lionel promised, smiling as he walked from the back of the room up to the front, clutching his hat full of flags. “It is with greatest humility that I accept this responsibility. Given my close association with Ret and his wrongdoings, I feel it is my duty to do my part to help the world in these troubled times. You will not be disappointed. Thank you.”
At the end of his impromptu acceptance speech, the delegates again erupted in celebration. Nations that had been accusing one another just moments ago were now embracing each other with rekindled hope. Instead of pointing fingers, they were shaking hands. A room that had recently been divided now stood reunited, all thanks to one man.
Upon reaching the front of the hall, Lionel turned to face his jubilant admirers. He bent down and picked up the small glass globe that had fallen from the podium earlier. Then, with globe in one hand and flags in the other, he triumphantly raised his hands into the air, causing the standing crowd to cheer even louder.
And, from that moment on, and in more than one way, Lionel Zarbock had the whole world in the palm of his hand.
CHAPTER 1
A HOUSE DIVIDED
Ret wasn’t himself these days. He didn’t feel like his normal, happy self. Neither was he thinking like his normal, hopeful self. In fact, he didn’t even look like his normal, abnormal self. Truth be told, he didn’t want to be himself anymore. So he wasn’t.
For starters, he returned from Africa with a lot more baggage than he had brought—the metaphorical kind, the kind that weighs nothing on a scale but tons on your heart. And, stuffed in his imaginary suitcases, he found a slew of unsavory souvenirs. Sitting right on top was a neuroscope, which never failed to bring Conrad to the forefront of his mind, with a blue lotus flower tucked in each pocket to give everything the scent of Lydia. The bulk of the burden came from the sandstone blocks—a whole pyramid’s worth of them, each a reminder of the ancient Egyptian structure he destroyed. And, carefully stowed in the zipper pouch, was a scrapbook full of mental photographs that chronicled the upheaval he brought to the Nile River, its delta, and the millions of people who depended on both—just in case he ever wanted to flip through its pages and do some reminiscing on a Sunday afternoon.
Yes, there was so much figurative luggage to keep in check that Ret seriously wondered if he would ever be able to carry on.
Yet, he had one possession that, though perhaps the lightest, seemed to weigh more than all the rest: the Oracle. The glass sphere, no bigger than an orange, now contained half of its six original elements. These were the most painful souvenirs of all. The only thing that remained of the lost city of Sunken Earth was the dirt clod now wedged into one of the Oracle’s six sections. Likewise, all that was left of the doused Fire Island was a single flame. But the Oracle’s newest addition—a golden nugget—was leaving a legacy as large as a river, and that Great River of ore was now snaking its watery way across the entire width of the Sahara Desert.
It was the river that seemed to wash over Ret’s mind the most, especially while they were still in Africa. The continent proved to be a place that was easier to get into than out of. The aftermath of Ret’s procurement of the ore element had brought immense chaos to the entire Saharan region almost overnight. Every nation was on high alert. Security was beefed up everywhere. Some governments were calling it a large-scale terrorist attack; others attributed it to a series of natural disasters. A wave of fear was sweeping from east to west as the news of this “Great River” came charging in the same direction. No one knew where it meant to flow. Would it plunge straight through the heart of a major city? Would it collide with an existing body of water and cause widespread flooding? The pandemonium was rampant.
In fact, it was enough to convince Mr. Coy that he and his companions needed to distance themselves from the river as much as possible if they ever wanted to return home—alive and not in handcuffs. Soon after their graveside tributes to the martyrs Conrad and Lydia, everyone piled back into Coy’s All-terrain Vehicle Extraordinaire (or CAVE, for short) and began to put as many miles between them and the river as quickly as he could. At Ishmael’s request, the group bid farewell to him at a remote village in northern Libya where some of his distant relatives lived. Doing so took them in a direction that was pretty much opposite the one in which they needed to go, adding another day or two of travel time to their schedule, but they were in no rush.
At least, that’s how they wanted to be perceived, for the fact of the matter was they were in a great rush, hoping to escape before they were found out. Rather than blaze their own trail and cut quickly through the desert, they took the long way—the unsettlingly scenic route along the common roads and highways. But because the entire region was essentially on lockdown, there were roadside checkpoints into and out of each country and major city, and, as expected, the CAVE was stopped at every single one of them. Since it wasn’t exactly your average mid-sized sedan, the CAVE was a sitting duck in such situations, and it didn’t help that its passengers were five American tourists. People didn’t seem to look at (or, more appropriately, overlook) them in quite the same way as when Ishmael, Lydia, and Conrad had been with them.
As they had made their way west from Tripoli to Algiers, then south from Morocco into Mauritania, and further down until finally Liberia, Ret witnessed firsthand how the whole world was abuzz with talk of the Sahara’s new waterfront. Whenever traffic slowed to a crawl in congested downtown centers (which was often), the little English being spoken along the sidewalk always seemed to find his ears, and the subject matter was all the same. Ret saw more than one protest in front of government buildings, and they drove by a few mobs descending on suit-clad individuals with a barrage of demands.
Worst of all, however, were the scenes being broadcast on television. Ret could see them through busy storefronts and small cafés where hordes of passersby stopped to gasp and wince at what was being shown. There was aerial footage of the Great River hurtling ever onward, entire villages first falling with the collapsing sand and then being swallowed whole by the rushing water. There were brief interviews with devastated farmers from the Nile Delta whose crops were failing due to the sudden inflow of salt water from the Mediterranean Sea. There were newscasters from every continent holding microphones up to the mouths of politicians pledging aid and celebrities expressing condolences. What’s more, the Great River already had its own hashtag on Twitter. Though only days old, the news was flying on wireless wings to all parts of the earth.
; All in all, the horrendous traffic and frequent stops made for a painfully slow and extra-long journey back to Monrovia where Mr. Coy’s airplane was (thankfully) still stashed. But, to their dread, then came the tricky business of trying to gain clearance for their private jet to take to the skies. It was not easy, nor very expeditious. But, after a few more days of nearly-stranded patience, the Coys and the Coopers (and their tagalong Leonard Swain) became airborne, flying over the Atlantic Ocean on their way back home, knowing that each thrust of the engines was taking them far, far away from the banks of the Great River.
But there was no escaping it. The flight back to Tybee was full of turbulence—caused not by what was in the air but in the airwaves. A never-ending stream of thoughts and images was swirling in Ret’s mind like a hurricane. Although he was characteristically silent on the outside, there was a great storm of doubt and heartache raging within.
Ret’s silence bothered Paige; in fact, it drove her crazy. She knew what it meant: he was thinking. How she wished she could just grab a can opener, pry open that brain of his, and get him to spill his beans. “Just talk to me!” she would shout in her own tin can, “Tell me—tell someone, anyone!—what’s going on. Just talk; open up; let me in. Let me help—let me try to help, I want to. Share the load. Let me take some of the pressure off before you explode. You can’t do this all by yourself. Please, let me help.”
But Ret always remained hermetically sealed.
“What do you think’s troubling him?” Ana whispered to Paige, nodding her head at Ret. He was sitting across the aisle, staring out the small window at the endless ocean below.
“Who knows?” she sighed with frustration. “Probably just the post-procurement woes.”
“The what?” Ana asked.
“Every time he collects an element,” Paige explained, “he gets like this afterwards, and I’m sure it gets worse each time. You know how hard he is on himself.”
“Maybe he’s bummed he looks pretty much normal now,” Ana suggested. “Do you think he’s noticed?”
“I’m sure he has,” said Paige, “but that’s one thing he might actually be happy about—to not look so different anymore.”
They were conversing in hushed tones, as if Ret couldn’t hear them, but of course he could. It seemed he was always hearing others talk about him. It privately bugged him that people never came to him to talk about him.
“Why has he changed so much, anyway?” Ana wondered.
“I reckon it’s ‘cause there’s no more uranium in his blood,” Leo joined in. Ana liked how his southern accent was more noticeable when he spoke quietly.
“Uranium?” Paige questioned earnestly. “In his—blood?”
“It was something I overheard Lye saying to him when me and Conrad snuck into the room with the element,” Leo told them. “Lye said the reason Ret looked so different was on account of the uranium in his blood. It was while he was using that fission gun on him.” Paige winced at the thought. “Lye said the radiation coming from the gun was splitting the uranium atoms in Ret’s blood, which is why he was bleeding so much—”
“—Which is why he looks normal now,” Paige interrupted, anxious to change the subject away from the thought of Ret’s pain, still wishing she had been there to help him. “His uranium is gone.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leo concluded.
“So that’s why he’s been getting sunburned,” Ana put together. “And why his hair and eyes are not so…not so…”
“Luminescent?” Leo offered.
“Sure,” said Ana.
“Oh,” Paige exhaled, sounding deflated. “And I thought it was just because he was sad.” She had been rather fond of Ret’s eccentricities and was somewhat disappointed to think they might not come back.
Relief filled each weary traveler’s heart when the sea finally met land. Coy Manor, that curious cross between a castle and a circus, rose above Little Tybee Island. A large door, hidden in the island’s hillside, parted its panels and admitted the plane into the Manor’s underground hangar and onto a short runway.
Pauline was standing close by to greet them. Sick with a broken heart, she had stayed home from the adventure this time, opting instead to spend the week at Coy Manor as a sort of guest instructor in its culinary program. The students fawned over her as she shared with them all the tricks of the trade. Her break from all things Oracle had been good for her, as evidenced by the smile on her face as the plane rolled by. Naturally, she had become quite worried when the week ended and her children were still on the other side of the world. Through daily text messages, Ana was able to bring some peace to her fussbudget of a mother by keeping her apprised of their progress in their days-long quest to escape from Africa.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” Pauline cheered as she embraced Ana. “After you told me what happened, I’ve been watching the news nonstop. It’s unbelievable, what’s going on over there. And to think, all from what Ret did.”
Ret froze. By far the last one off the plane, he had just stepped over the threshold and onto the landing of the rollaway staircase when he heard Pauline’s words. Those last three words—“what Ret did”—struck him like daggers, though the harm had no doubt been unintentional. He closed his eyes, as if it helped in absorbing the pain.
Still sporting his perpetual silence, Ret started down the stairs. Each step, heavy and slow, echoed into the dark shadows of the hangar. Everyone, huddled not far from the last stair, turned to watch. The two parents in the group were standing close to their respective daughters. Leo was also there, to the side.
When Ret stepped onto the cement floor, he stood still, his head down. After a few moments, he spoke for the first time in days.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. His words were as dull and emotionless as the color gray.
No one knew how to respond.
“Oh, Ret,” Pauline tenderly cooed, “it’s been a long trip. I’m sure, once you get some rest and—”
“—No,” Ret countered, a little annoyed as if he had been misunderstood. “I mean I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Do what, Ret?” Mr. Coy asked softly, though he seemed to already know the answer.
“This.” Ret held out the Oracle. There was a slight pause as everyone (except Ret) stared at the sphere. “Here,” he said, taking a few steps toward Mr. Coy and extending it to him. “Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”
In the past, Ret had always given the Oracle to Mr. Coy when they returned home from finding an element, as Ret felt it would be safer in Mr. Coy’s possession until he needed it again. But it was suddenly different this time. This time, Mr. Coy feared if he took the Oracle from him, Ret might never ask for it back.
“Take it,” Ret restated more forcefully, avoiding eye contact with Paige.
“No,” Coy refused, “I will not—”
“TAKE IT!”
Ana had never heard Ret yell like that before. Pauline swallowed a gasp before it escaped. Paige buried her face into her father’s side while he remained stone-faced. Leo looked down at his worn-through shoes.
Ret broke down. He slowly fell to his knees and began to weep, his hand still clutching the Oracle that no one else would take.
Mr. Coy stepped over to Leo’s side and said softly, “Do me a favor, son, and take the Cooper women across the creek back to their home, will you?” Though surprised, he liked the sound of an adult male calling him “son.”
“Yes, sir,” Leo obeyed.
Then, turning to Paige, her father said, “You go, too, dear.”
The four departed, leaving Mr. Coy alone with Ret. Paige looked back at Ret more than once before the elevator doors closed.
“I never wanted any of this,” Ret said, wiping his eyes dry, though he was more mad than sad. “All I ever wanted was to be a normal guy and live a normal life—hang out, play ball, go to the movies. Why can’t I have that? Why is my life so different?”
“You can have that, Ret,” Mr. Coy told
him encouragingly.
“No, no I can’t,” he quickly countered. “I can’t start my first day of high school without making a scene or go to a football game without burying people in dirt or even attend a school dance without things blowing up. It’s a curse. It’s like I’m smitten by the universe, or something. My life is not my own. It’s being lived for me.”
Suddenly, the elevator doors opened with the chime of a bell. Ret and Mr. Coy looked to see who was there, but they saw no one. Leo must have been mindful of them and sent the elevator down for their future convenience.
“No one’s forcing you to collect the elements,” Coy resumed. “You can still choose not to.”
“I know—it’s a choice I’ve made many times,” Ret said, “but then a triangle appears on the palm of my hand—or a moai statue or a squiggly river. It invades my thoughts and presses itself against my feelings until I do its bidding. It’s like I have no choice. The prophecy says ‘one line has the rite,’ doesn’t it? If that includes my entire family line, then where is everyone? Why do they have a choice? Why don’t they do it from now on?”
“You can’t quit now, Ret,” Coy pled. “We’re halfway there—we’re doing so well!”
“‘Well’? You call this ‘well’? The whole world hates me—and for good reason. How many more people have to die to ‘fill the Oracle’? How much more damage must be done to ‘cure the world’? ‘Cure the world’—what a joke. I’m not curing the world; I’m destroying it—I’m tearing it apart. It’s just as Lye said: this world will never change. He’s been right all along.”
“But we can change it, Ret,” Coy urged. “It’s changing as we speak. There’s now a river in the Sahara Desert, for crying out loud. We only have three more elements to find, and then we can—”
“Don’t you get it?” Ret responded, as if speaking to a child. The full expression of his never-spoken thoughts was finding a voice for the first time. “Don’t you understand? This isn’t about elements. This was never about elements, Mr. Coy. It’s about people. It’s about people’s hearts. The Oracle has so very little to do with collecting elements but such a great deal to do with changing hearts. That’s how you ‘cure the world’—by purifying people’s hearts, not by filling a glass ball. I used to think it would be my power over the elements that would enable me to eventually cure the world. But what good would it do to use my power over earth to, let’s say, push the continents back together—cure the world that way—if people still seek for conflict and war in their hearts? Or what good would it do to use my fire to, maybe, burn away all pollution if people aren’t willing to purge their own hearts of unclean desires? Why should I go to the trouble of using my ore to redistribute wealth if people would rather hold onto their greedy hearts? I may be able to move mountains and kindle fire and mold metal, but I have no control over another man’s heart. That’s where the real power is in this world, and from what I’ve seen of people’s hearts, I’m not sure this world wants to be cured.”
