by Ned Rust
“Don’t you miss your family? And don’t you worry about them?”
“I guess,” he said, thinking on it. “I mean, yes, mostly.” It was pretty different situations for him and Oma. Other than for deciding to join her on this trip tonight—he actually hadn’t made any choices. He wasn’t really responsible for being away from his family. He’d just sort of ended up here and gone along for the ride. She, on the other hand, was apart from her family because she had decided to be apart from them.
“But your family will be okay, right?” he said. “I mean, they’ll miss you and worry and stuff I’m sure.”
“I hope they’ll be all right. But things might get hard on them—they’ll be investigated at least.”
Patrick thought of Oma’s parents discovering she was gone. They must be freaking out right now, much, he guessed, as his own parents would be if he went missing. Which he supposed they might be doing right now, were this not a dream. A dream in which the person he was talking to was stressed out and obviously needing some reassurance.
“But,” he said to Oma, “it’s all worth it, right?”
“What’s all worth it?” replied Oma, her voice tight.
“You know, saving the world, or—you know—helping to anyhow.”
“It’s worlds, not world.”
“Oh, you mean Earth and Ith both, right?”
“Yes, and Mindth.”
“What?”
“The world of dreams, the realm of the Minder. Purse-Phone is from there.”
“And the Minder is who exactly?”
“The soul behind the three worlds. Some old traditions would call him or her or it a God or Holy Spirit.”
“So, wait. This Commonplace stuff—it’s like a religion?”
“I guess so,” said Oma. “But probably not in the sense you think. You see, it’s not about a God in charge of everything and the little people obeying him. It’s a God who is built of everything. The Minder relies on Earth, on Ith, and on Mindth to keep sane. The Minder depends on the lives and doings of every single one of us.
“That,” she continued, now seeming to Patrick a degree less impatient than she had been, “is why the book, the collection of everything wise, our guide, is called The Book of Commonplace. It all comes from the common place. From real life.”
“So it’s a book. That’s what you were talking about with editors and stuff?”
“Exactly,” she said. “And it’s being updated all the time.”
“And the government doesn’t like this book.”
“Ha!” she shouted more than laughed. “No, the government does not like this book. It’s kind of exactly against everything the Deacons stand for.”
“And the Deacons, they’re like a group of priests or something…”
“No,” she said, scowling, “they’re not priests. They’re a bunch of augmented freaks.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how the Tenth Tenet is ‘You shall not harm or alter flesh of any living creature’?”
Patrick shrugged.
“Well the Deacons don’t obey that one. That one’s just on the books so that we peons don’t try to augment our bodies or brains like they have. They’re not real keen for any rivals.”
“So they’re, like, supervillains or something? Part super-robot?”
“Part human, part machine, total control-freak creeps,” she said.
“So how are you guys going to fight them?”
“I don’t really know. All I know is they called me up, and they asked that I help bring you over.” She aimed her—glistening, Patrick noticed—eyes up into the sky.
“I can’t believe I just left my family.”
Patrick very much wanted to reassure her. He just didn’t have any idea how to do it.
“Well, enough of that,” she said, looking back down, her eyes purposeful and even slightly hard now. “As it says in the Commonplace, ‘Rolling in the muck is not the best way to clean.’ Sorry, I’m over it. The die’s been cast and all that.”
“Here we go!” boomed the giant, and sat down upon the ground so that Patrick and Oma could clamber down.
They were at the edge of a clearing and in the next pulse of lightning Patrick saw that it extended in a straight line right and left—a swath cut through the forest like for a highway, only there wasn’t any pavement—just overgrown grass.
Purse-Phone wandered out in the middle of the narrow field. She appeared to be looking for something.
“Here we are!” she shouted, and bent down.
There was a scraping metallic sound.
“A manhole?” asked Patrick.
“What?” said Purse-Phone.
“Did you say man-hole?” asked Oma.
“Well, yeah,” said Patrick.
“That’s awe-some!” laughed the giant.
“Why, what do you call it?” asked Patrick.
“Umm, a maintenance access lid?” said Oma.
“Well,” said Patrick, racking his brain, “I guess, you know, it’s like a mouse hole or a snake hole or something: it’s a hole that a man goes into.”
“Well, you better get down that hole, little man,” chuckled the giant. “The Peepers’ll be back on their game soon enough.”
“Thanks for the lift, Purse-Phone,” said Oma. “And it’s a thrill to have finally met you.”
The giant bowed and daintily shook Oma’s hand—no elbow-bumping, Patrick noticed. “Likewise, my friend. Now, just make sure you get the soothboond or you’ll end up in Canada, ay?”
“The southbound what?” asked Patrick as a roaring noise erupted from the darkness below them.
“We’re catching a train,” said Oma.
The giant patted him gently on the back. “Be safe, little man,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Patrick, leaping backward as a mottled gray face peeped out of the dark hole.
“Boo!” said the face.
“Holy—what the—?!” shouted Patrick.
“It’s just Skwurl,” said Oma, laughing at Patrick’s reaction.
“Aye! It’s me, Skwurl the tunnel monster!” said Skwurl.
Patrick, the sudden picture of sheepishness, dropped his arms and hung his head as Oma and Skwurl exchanged bemused looks.
“Sorry,” said Purse-Phone. “Forgot to mention I was passing you off to a new guide. I can’t fit down that tiny little hole. Now, be safe down there.”
“Thanks,” said Patrick.
“See you later, Pursey!” said Skwurl, and then turned to Oma and Patrick. “Now come on, you two. We’ve got a train to catch.”
CHAPTER 48
Stay Close
Oma, Patrick, and Skwurl were standing on an empty flatbed car somewhere in the middle of a miles-long robotic train that was part of the Underground Rail Line—URL—system. Skwurl had explained that it was the primary method of moving freight on Ith—the extensive tunnel system crisscrossed the entire globe, keeping the surface pristine and the surface environment unaffected. It also offered the Commonplacers a relatively safe method of getting themselves from place to place without being seen.
“You’re both rather narrow-shouldered,” said Skwurl, appraising Patrick and Oma’s new skin-suits in the dim light of the train tunnel. “But they fit just fine. And now Patrick doesn’t look so much like a bumblebee. Now go ahead and put on the headpieces, like this.”
She pulled the fabric at the back of her neck forward over her head and face, joining the forward seam right to the suit’s collar. It was basically like one of those Halloween Morphsuits, although there were two patches of lighter gray fabric where her eyes were, kind of like a SpiderMan costume. She struck a pose with one hand low and the other high in the air like she was holding an invisible platter.
“Really?” said Oma.
“Really,” said Skwurl.
Patrick pulled his on. Amazingly, the fabric didn’t seem to hinder his vision or hearing in the slightest, although it did kind of scrunch up his
ears and nose.
He looked over at Oma, standing arms akimbo and apparently looking right back at him because as he turned to her she nodded her head, pivoted on one leg, and did a karate-style kick in his direction.
“Now, any questions?”
“Umm,” said Patrick, “how did I get here?” He was meaning to be funny but Oma had turned and was wandering away across the open train car. And Skwurl clearly entirely missed the humor.
“Ith?” she replied. “You were transubstantiated.”
“What?”
“When somebody has enough transcense and they burn it in an enclosed area, the person or persons who are in that space, they get sent to the other world.”
“So, wait, does that mean I made transcense—that’s how I got here?”
“I don’t think so,” continued Skwurl. “You see, there are two parties to a transubstantiation—the intentional one heading one way, and the unintentional one that replaces the intentional one.
“It works like a counterbalance, and since you are roughly the same mass as the agent we intentionally sent to Earth, you were the unintentional result.”
“Oh,” said Patrick, on some level disappointed that his kitchen sink chemistry experiment hadn’t been responsible for this whole thing. “So what is transcense?”
“Transcense?” asked Skwurl. “I frankly don’t know what it is. I just know what it does. You get enough of it, and know how to use it properly, and it can send you from Ith to Earth, or Earth to Ith. Though, like I said, always in exchange for somebody on the other world.”
“Like lucky you,” said Oma as she strode up next to Skwurl, apparently finished with her martial-arts moves.
“Lucky,” said Patrick, trying out the word as if he’d never pronounced it before.
“So, Skwurl,” asked Oma, “who was the person they sent to Earth that caused Patrick to come here?”
“Actually, Mr. BunBun’s a sentient jackalope,” said Skwurl.
“Wait. What?” asked Patrick.
“Part antelope, part rabbit. Only he’s more antelope-sized than rabbit-sized. Same mass as you, of course.”
“Oh,” said Patrick. “So this, umm, Mr. BunBun landed in my house in my place?”
“Well, not exactly,” said Skwurl. “There’s a three-hundred-cubit displacement due to the time it takes for the process to occur, and the fact that the worlds are always in motion. So he probably didn’t quite arrive in your house—unless your house is pretty huge.”
Patrick looked at her and at Oma. It was hard to tell with their hoods on, but neither appeared to be cracking a smile. “And the reason you sent him to Earth was what?”
“To save it.”
“Save Earth?” asked Patrick.
“Yes,” said Oma.
“Huh,” said Patrick.
“You don’t sound all that blown away,” said Skwurl. “Are you thinking that sending a jackalope to save an entire world is maybe not the greatest-sounding plan?”
“Let me ask you, Patrick,” said Oma. “In your experience, are there a lot of giant talking jackalopes on Earth?”
“Umm, no.”
“So if one showed up,” she continued, “might it cause people to ask questions?”
“Oh,” said Patrick, remembering what the superattendant had said about causing doubts. “I think I gotcha. It’s kind of an attention-getter. Like, you know, a publicity stunt.”
“And hopefully a massively effective one,” Skwurl said. “The plan is simply to draw attention to what’s about to happen on Earth so your people start asking questions and do something before it’s too late.”
“What’s about to happen on Earth?”
“I’m right now taking you guys someplace where you can see for yourself. For now I’ll only suggest that you maybe don’t believe every single thing in that wikimentary you were shown. Now,” Skwurl said, glancing at her binky, “let’s get ready to jump.”
“Jump?” said Oma, looking apprehensively over the side of the speeding train.
“What? Shouldn’t we wait for the train to stop again?” asked Patrick. It was very dark down there on the rail bed but he could make out plenty of passing metal ductwork and buttresses that seemed like they might be fairly suicidal to land upon.
“It’s not going to stop till after our destination,” said Skwurl. “Come on, it’s not going that fast. Trust me.”
“Do we have a choice?” asked Oma.
“Wait—hold still—I almost forgot!” said Skwurl.
“Forgot what?” asked Patrick.
She reached up, pulled off their hoods, and stuck something in each of their left ear holes.
“Hey, what the—” said Patrick, jerking his head away and reflexively trying to pull the thing out.
“Leave it—it’s an audio plug in case we get separated and I need to talk to you.”
“Okay,” said Patrick. “And what if I need to talk back?”
“Just talk—your hood has mic fibers. Wait—you feel that?—the train’s starting to slow. Pull your head cover back on and hand me your old clothes there. We’re getting close.”
She threw Patrick’s and Oma’s former clothes out into the roaring darkness.
“That shirt wasn’t very comfortable anyhow,” said Patrick.
“They might spot them eventually,” she explained, “but if we left them here on the train, they’d find them as soon as they offloaded. We can’t be giving them clues quite that obvious.
“Okay,” she said. “Now, join hands. And then be ready to let go after we jump.”
“Wait, how fast are we going?” asked Oma.
“About a hundred kilometers a dunt,” Skwurl said and leaned out over the side of the flatbed. “Just tuck and roll when you hit the ground.”
Patrick did some quick math. He’d figured out last night that a dunt was about two and a half hours, and he knew a 5K run was like three miles, so converting the units, you’d get about twenty-four miles per hour.
He looked down into the pulsing darkness and considered what would happen if a person jumped out of a car going twenty-four miles per hour. He figured it probably wouldn’t be fatal unless they hit something stationary, like a tree, or a rock, or a metal train-tunnel buttress.
“Are you sure—” he started to say, but just then Oma tugged on his hand, startling him. He lost his balance and fell after her into the roaring black maelstrom.
There was a sensation of weightlessness, and then Oma’s hand jerked from his own, and then his left foot kicked into the ground (or, rather, the gravel bed seemed to kick into his foot), and he realized—as he tumbled like a rudely thrown rag doll—that he’d forgotten to tuck and roll.
Elbow, hip, right knee, left elbow, left side of his face all felt the full fury of the sloping gravel rail bed, and then he was lying on his back and all was still and he listened as the train continued to trundle past, and then away.
“You both okay?” said Skwurl’s voice from somewhere close by in the darkness.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” said Oma, panting slightly. It was too dark to see but Patrick sensed a smile in her voice.
“I think I’m okay,” said Patrick. His tailbone was killing him, and his elbow. And the side of his face. But he was pretty sure he hadn’t broken anything.
“Good,” said Skwurl. “Now let’s go show you what the Deacons are all about.”
There were some low lights along the magnetic tracks and he barely could make out the girls’ receding forms. He scrambled to his feet and followed them up a series of metal rungs in the wall, through another manhole, and up into a forest clearing.
“Shouldn’t be too bad a walk from here,” said Skwurl. “But let’s get cracking—we don’t want to be strolling around in broad daylight. Quick, put the access lid back and let’s get to the trees.”
A noise like a foghorn boomed through the darkness and off to the east the sky glowed orange.
“Was that an alarm?! Were we spotted?
!” asked Patrick.
“No, that’s what we’re going to see,” said Skwurl. “Now, come on.” She took off toward the woods.
“Oh,” said Patrick, and dropped his eyes as the glow turned pink and drained out of the sky. It was pretty dark now—he could just make out where the light-colored grass stopped and could see the gray, spidery silhouettes of trees against the star-pricked sky—but Skwurl’s camouflage was already as hard to discern as a drop of ink in a pot of coffee.
“Hey, where’d she go?!” said Patrick to Oma. “I can’t see jack.”
“You can’t?” asked Oma.
“No, seriously, it’s dark out here.”
“It’s not so bad. Maybe it’s your little Earthish eyes? Come this way,” she said.
“What way?” he replied.
“Here,” she said, actually taking his hand.
“Shh!” Skwurl scolded through their earpieces. “They do use microphones sometimes, too. So, if you make enough noise … wait—you’re having trouble seeing? I forgot to have you engage your night vision!”
“Night vision?” asked Patrick.
“Well that might help,” said Oma.
“Behind your head you’ll feel a little bump on your suit hood, just at the base of your skull. Press it.”
Patrick did as he was told and his vision exploded with green light. Now he could see all kinds of detail—the texture of the seamless asphalt, the spiky roadside grass, the young scraggly clumps of bushes toward the tree line and, just a few paces in front of him, Oma shaking her fabric-covered head in wonder. She turned and waved at him.
“See better now?” asked Skwurl.
Patrick and Oma both nodded. They could both now see her standing at the tree line.
“Sorry about that,” said Skwurl. “How on Ith did you manage to stay with me coming out of the tunnel?! Let’s all try to stay close, okay? Much easier to coordinate if I don’t have to keep stopping to wait for you to catch up, okay?”
“Coordinate what?” asked Patrick.
“Umm, coordinate not getting caught,” said Skwurl.
“And sent to a collar camp,” added Oma.
“Or simply killed,” said Skwurl.
“What?” said Patrick.
“You heard me—the Deacons won’t be asking to play checkers if they catch us at this point.”
