Mr. Real

by Carolyn Crane

  Twenty-four hours had passed. Hyko had made all that progress and still Sir Kendall didn’t have the answers he needed to save his world.

  Two hours to go until they both blinked back to their world. Hyko sat at the desk, just a few feet in front of Sir Kendall, absorbed in whatever shone on the screen of the old monitor, tapping away now and then. He’d taken off his coat and his floppy, wide-brimmed hat. It was in profile that you could see the reckless size of Hyko’s nose, so big and bumpy. Even his nostrils were too big. And his lips were over-large too, all puffed out in concentration. It was as if he’d requested more than his share of flesh, as though even his creator wasn’t immune to his dark charms. To Hyko’s right was Alix’s laptop, and to his left sat Sir Kendall’s own laptop; Hyko seemed to have networked them with one of the mini supercomputers that was up and running. Hyko had gotten into the UNIX command files easily enough, and seemed to have developed a way to process them, perhaps to identify unusual code.

  “Ding ding ding.” Hyko looked up and smiled at Sir Kendall. “Another string.” He liked an audience when he was being brilliant. This would surely qualify.

  It was starting to look like Hyko would crack it. Without the book. His mind was enhanced here—just like the rubies.

  Sir Kendall felt desperate. He’d managed to remove his false toenail while Hyko had gone off for a snack. He now held the small tube that contained the drugged pin between two fingers. He had only to place it in his mouth and blow, and he could knock Hyko out and run out the clock so that they’d blink back to their world with Hyko asleep...but what kind of world would they return to? One that was about to be plunged into darkness and chaos? He had to know the location of the launch or he wouldn’t be able to stop it.

  At one point during the night, Hyko had shown him some of the Derangerous comic strip, which featured palm trees in the background. Equatorial, but Sir Kendall knew that. There were no other clues.

  Hyko seemed also to have gathered a lot of information on his creator, this Avon. He seemed obsessed with her. He’d told Sir Kendall she was hot. Could she be in danger? Really, what could Hyko do in two hours?

  Things got worse an hour later, when Alix’s computer dinged with a new email. Hyko opened it, then sat up straight in his chair. “Why thank you, Karen.”

  Sir Kendall’s ears perked up.

  “You know her?”

  Sir Kendall gave a Paul-ish shrug. “Met her.”

  “Seems the trashy tigress appealed to her brainy galpal to crack the code. ‘Alix,’” Hyko read in a breathless, girlish voice, “I hope things are okay there! I haven’t heard from you. I’ve narrowed the enchanted elements down to five possibilities, listed below. Sit tight. I’m going to develop a protocol for you to follow to get control of all this. Keep the book hidden and I hope you’ve trashed the scans. I’ll get back to you asap.”

  Hyko looked up from the laptop. “So there’s a book. And scans. How delightful. Well, Karen,“ he began, as though dictating a letter, “I appreciate your hard work, but I think I can take it from here. And I imagine she did hide the book, and she did trash the scans. Unfortunately, nothing is ever really trashed. Love, galpal Hyko.” With that, he began to tap away. Looking for the scans. He’d find them, too. Child’s play.

  Impressive that Karen had worked so much of it out—she really was quite a woman. Disastrous that Hyko had her findings.

  Sir Kendall could tell by Hyko’s eyes when he found the scans.

  “So this is how it goes.” He worked the three monitors at once, moving between the scans, Karen’s email, and the original computer code. “The keys to the kingdom.” When he finished typing, Hyko turned his large, lippy smile onto Sir Kendall, then picked up the phone and ordered a pizza. Cheese and sausage.

  “You’re thinking about food right now?” Sir Kendall asked.

  “It’s not about the pizza, Paul.” He shoved a flash drive into the side of Alix’s computer and copied something. Then he extracted it and wrapped it carefully in newspaper and masking tape. He scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper—a note, it seemed. He placed the note and the wrapped up flash in a small box and wrote an address on it. Then he put postage stamps on it.

  “What are you doing?” Sir Kendall asked.

  “I’m not an organized man, Paul. In fact, I sometimes lose my keys. I’ve found it’s good to make duplicates of them and give a set to a friend for safekeeping.”

  What friend? Avon? Was Hyko sending the code to Avon? Did he imagine the pizza delivery person would mail it for him? He supposed a pizza delivery person would do whatever you paid him to do. Surely Avon would dismiss whatever he was sending as the work of a crackpot. Still, he needed to warn Paul and Alix of this.

  What he didn’t understand was why Hyko wasn’t spending every bit of his energy modifying the program so that he could stay in this realm.

  Hyko began digging around in his pants pockets and pulling out scraps of paper until he found a blue flyer with a blank back. He flattened it out on the desk and pulled a pen from his pocket, and began copying from the screen.

  And then Sir Kendall understood.

  With a perfectly fine pad of paper in front of him, Hyko had chosen to write on something from their world. Because he knew that at 7:46, in less than ninety minutes, they’d both blink back, along with the car and everything else they had arrived with.

  Including everything in their pockets—scraps of paper. Hyko meant to bring the code back with him as insurance, in case he couldn’t extend his visit.

  Hyko scribbled, then tossed the pen across the room. Out of ink? He searched his pockets, wisely not wanting to use the pen from Alix’s kitchen. Because only ink from a pen brought over from their world would survive the trip back.

  Hyko found a stubby red pencil in his front shirt pocket and continued copying, immersed.

  And with that, a wonderful calm came over Sir Kendall. A stubby pencil could only mean Hyko had been golfing recently. And red was the color of the Canterbury country club of Jamaica, one of the oldest courses in the Western Hemisphere. Sir Kendall squinted. There should be a tiny pineapple stamp on it. The pineapple would confirm it. If so, the launch was somewhere near Kingston. Hyko would’ve had a driver take him from the airport to the launch site. That information could be bought. This was all Sir Kendall needed. He only needed to see the pencil up close in order to confirm the little mark was a pineapple.

  A noise upstairs. Somebody at the door. Hyko picked up his gun and the package and headed up. Sir Kendall tried furiously to get himself free—he needed a better look at that pencil! Footsteps.

  Hyko was back. “Just the dog,” he mumbled, and went back to his copying. Not long after, the doorbell rang. The dog barked.

  “That would be the pizza.” Hyko took off again with the package, tearing up the stairs.

  Just then, much to Sir Kendall’s delight, the pencil rolled off the desk and onto the floor. He writhed on the couch, moving painstakingly slowly until he was able to grab a bit of cardboard with his feet and use it to roll the little pencil toward him. He rolled it nearer, until finally he was able to make out a tiny pineapple stamped into the side of it. His heart leapt.

  Kingston. He had the location of the launch. He could stop Hyko now. And then a delicious scent filled the air. He looked up.

  And met Hyko’s eyes.

  Hyko smiled. “Drats. The telltale pencil.” He swept around the desk, set down the pizza box, and picked up his gun. “So it is you, Sir Kendall. I shouldn’t have used it, but can you imagine my disappointment if I’d copied down all that code, all those ones and zeros, only to have the ink stay in this realm?”

  “I do hope you enjoyed your golf game, old chap.”

  Hyko smiled. “I shot one under par, if you must know.”

  “I daresay it’ll be the last game you play for a very long time.”

  “Will it?” Hyko asked.

  “Yes indeed,” Sir Kendall said. He needed to get the tiny tub
e from his fingers to his mouth. He would break the seal and blow through it, sending a drugged pin into Hyko’s flesh. “Jamaica. A bit predictable of you.”

  “Well, I always say, if you’re going to plunge the world into a second Dark Age, you’d better damn well enjoy it or what’s the use? And that really is my favorite course.” He cocked the gun and sat, crossing his lanky legs. “I’ll admit, it had thrown me, the idea of you and the trashy blonde out there. You usually like them sleek and smart. I thought it was maybe the country air.”

  Sir Kendall nodded at the blue flyer. “You really think you can use that code over on our side?”

  “At last resort. But I don’t think I’ll need to. I have a good idea already of how to give us more time. But you know these old computers.” Hyko set his hat back on his head, gazing at the machinery. “All gates open from two sides. That’s what this is, you know. A gate between the real and the ideal. Did you ever suspect such a thing?”

  “Of course I did.” Sir Kendall said. “I recognized the truth of the matter far more quickly than you did, as I recall. Sitting upstairs, watching you nutter through that smartphone, I couldn’t help but wonder, when is this poor devil going to put it together? I rather think you’re losing your touch.”

  “Then why are you sitting there? And not here, in the driver’s seat?”

  “Furthermore, I think it’s sad,” Sir Kendall said. “I think it’s sad that you have this chance to do things over here, and you’re only up to more of the same. The lack of imagination is stunning, especially for you. Why not use it as a new start?” Sir Kendall twitched his nose, as though it itched. “You like to live dangerously, Hyko—the most dangerous life of all is that of an honest, truthful man.”

  Hyko laughed. “Do I come and itch your nose, Sir Kendall? So that you can disarm me? Is that what you’d like?”

  “You’re still an innocent man on this plane,” Sir Kendall said, twitching his nose again. “We’re innocent men here. Our crimes are all fictions.” He bent his head to his lap, to his bound hands, and rubbed his nose, pretending to itch, smoothly taking the tube into his mouth.

  “Don’t be dense,” Hyko said. “Geography doesn’t change anything.”

  Sir Kendall shifted the tube in his teeth so that he could talk, a long-practiced move. “This isn’t a mere relocation, Hyko. It’s an alternate context.”

  Hyko snorted. “Wish on, my friend. We two can never be clean.”

  Sir Kendall gave Hyko a blithe smile, as though it was all quite humorous, but he knew Hyko had a point. Really, had he, Sir Kendall, ever been innocent? Ever been anything but a monster? He smiled wider, all the better to mask his anguish.

  Hyko stood then and came to him, gun trained on Sir Kendall’s head. “Something funny?”

  If Sir Kendall remembered far back enough, surely there was some innocence somewhere. He wanted what they had—Paul and Alix and the rest—their innocent pasts full of mundane details that meant nothing and everything. He couldn’t remember his own childhood! Did he even have one? The uncertainty made him want to weep.

  “Things are unusual here, though—have you noticed?” Hyko said. “The food is so much better. Even the air is different. And the violence has a much more intense flavor. The sex is more animalistic.”

  Sir Kendall gazed up into Hyko’s pale eyes. Leave it to Hyko to notice even the taste of the air. Hyko, the sadistic sensualist.

  “And have you noticed,” Hyko continued, “that we’re just a little more awesome than everyone else in this place?”

  Sir Kendall continued to smile, rolling the tube in his teeth.

  “Of course you have. We’re like demigods compared to them.” Hyko lowered the gun to Sir Kendall’s chest and drew his finger up to touch Sir Kendall’s cheek. “I look at you and I know it’s true,” Hyko said. “You want to talk about new beginnings? Imagine, for a second, what it would be like to rule this place. To rule this realm together as gods.” Hyko lowered his voice. “With our superior powers of intellect and awesomeness, backed up by that computer, the delights of this realm would be ours. Nobody could stop us. Indulge the beast, Sir Kendall. I know it’s in you. Imagine it, just for a second.”

  Sir Kendall did just that. He imagined staying for a second—one lush and luxurious second. And then he stomped Hyko’s foot, causing him to lower the weapon further, and he blew the pin into Hyko’s neck.

  “Son of a bitch!” Hyko slapped his neck and knocked out the pin, but it was too late; he was swaying already. He pointed his gun at Sir Kendall. Sir Kendall rolled the best he could, making himself as small a target as possible, but not small enough. A bullet seared through his side belly just before Hyko collapsed onto the floor.

  Sir Kendall worked feverishly to undo his bonds, at least the ones holding him to the couch. There was no time to get his wrists and ankles free of the cuffs. Heat and pain seared his belly—pain worse than he’d ever remembered. Feeling lightheaded, he assessed his options. Hyko was out and would ideally remain so until they blinked back and perhaps for some hours thereafter. But would he, Sir Kendall, make it back alive? He had to return alive or he wouldn’t be able to get to the sun spot machine and cancel the launch. He needed Hyko alive, too, just in case.

  Several things had to happen in the next hour, and he doubted he could stay conscious long enough to see that they all did. He needed help.

  It took twenty precious minutes just to free himself from the couch. He knelt next to Hyko and found the keys to the cage, but not the keys to the cuffs. Damn. He took the keys in his teeth and started the slow trek up the basement steps. He moved on his elbows and knees, like a bloody, bloated inchworm, when all he wanted to do was curl up against the pain. He stopped in the kitchen, grabbed a paperclip, and continued on out, down the back steps. He made his way across the grass and, painfully, across the gravel and out to the cage where Paul and Alix were.

  “Sir Kendall!” Alix gasped.

  Sir Kendall went up on his knees and unlocked the door. “I need you to help me. I’m losing blood.”

  “Oh my god!” she shrieked.

  “Sir Kendall—” Paul said.

  “Shh,” Sir Kendall said. It would be difficult for the poor man even to speak. Painful immobilization agent—a horrible thing. It would hurt even to breathe. “Merely a stomach wound.” Sir Kendall crawled over to where they were tied and began to pick the lock on Alix’s cuff with the paper clip. “Listen to me. I’m begging for your help to save my world. I know I might not be deserving of that, but I need you. And, frankly, it could be both our worlds in trouble.”

  “You need medical attention first,” Alix said.

  “No, I need you to do the things I ask of you first,” Sir Kendall bit out. “Or everyone goes. Us, your family, your dog, your friends.”

  “Okay,” Alix said as he freed her hand. She stood.

  “I can’t move,” Paul said. “I can’t be much help.”

  “I don’t expect it,” Sir Kendall said. “It’s up to you, Alix. It has to be you.”

  “Whatever you need,” Alix said. “Tell me what to do, and I’m there. I’m on it.”

  “Awesome,” Paul said, exhibiting a damn sight more confidence in the girl than Sir Kendall felt. He began to give instructions. There was much to do—including tying Hyko up—and little time.

  And if Hyko awoke before Alix finished, heaven help them all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Paul had never been prouder of Alix. He watched her run to Sir Kendall’s car to get the rope as Sir Kendall worked at the lock on one of Paul’s handcuffs—or tried. Sir Kendall’s own hands were bound up pretty well.

  “Getting a tad shaky here,” Sir Kendall said. “This may take a bit.”

  “You’re losing blood,” Paul said. “You have to stop.”

  “I only have to make it to my side alive, that’s all. The doctors on my side can work wonders.” He toiled on, hands shaking. “And you’re in no position to argue.”

  It
was true; Paul was helpless. Any movement was agony. But the agony of the painful immobilization agent was nothing compared to the agony of not being able to help Sir Kendall.

  Sir Kendall looked so pale. His paperclip slipped.

  “That’s it,” Paul commanded. “So I stay cuffed to the bars. I’m no use anyway. Let me put pressure on your wound. Scooch under my arm, and I’ll press it down on your belly. Your docs can’t save you if you’ve bled to death!”

  “No offense, but you won’t be using your muscles for a while yet.”

  “The hell I won’t,” Paul said. “You’ll let me help you.” He raised his arm.

  Sir Kendall swayed, there on his knees, seemingly confused—not a good sign.

  “Don’t argue,” Paul barked. “You have no choice. Get under my arm.”

  He saw the change in his eyes when Sir Kendall’s will collapsed in the face of his pushing. Sir Kendall shimmied under Paul’s arm, positioning his belly wound under the flat of Paul’s forearm. He let out a sigh of relief as he stilled. The man was fading fast.

  Paul pressed the back of his arm to Sir Kendall’s belly, stanching the wound. His arm burned as it never had. It ached with searing heat and sometimes the sensation of pins and sometimes bone-scalding iciness. But hell if he’d let up. He kept the perfect pressure on Sir Kendall’s wound, listening to his breathing.

  Alix was back with the rope, alarmed to see Sir Kendall stretched out next to Paul, seemingly pinned by the back of Paul’s arm.

  “I’m stanching the blood with the back of my arm,” Paul explained, like it was nothing. “Now what, Sir Kendall? What do you need Alix to do next? She’s collected the rope.”

  Weakly, Sir Kendall instructed her to put it down and run into the house and find his pen in his room.