“No, I’m serious,” she insisted. “Very few people of any age would handle themselves as calmly and decisively as you. You should consider becoming a physician when you get older. You would really excel as an emergency room nurse or a doctor, or as a paramedic. I should know.”
Now I was really embarrassed. I also realized that this was nothing compared to some of the situations I’d been through on Mearth. Heck, I’d fought werewolves and nearly died. Then it struck me. This wasn’t a dream. This was real, and that was my dad, who had almost died. Everything suddenly came crashing down when I realized that I almost lost my dad tonight. I collapsed in a heap as thoughts of living my life without him flooded into my head, and I cried for nearly an hour.
✽✽✽
The rest of the week was a blur. Chloe and I went to school the next day because Mom was at the hospital and there wasn’t anyone to stay with us, but I can’t remember anything that happened. Everybody was kind to us, but nobody knew what to say other than that they were sorry. It just felt weird.
Our grandparents arrived in the afternoon to take care of the three of us, and we stayed home from school for the rest of the week. Mom stayed with Dad in intensive care most of the time for a few days, but we weren’t allowed to see him until Thursday. He was lying in bed looking weak with tubes in his arm when we were finally able to visit. It’s funny. I had been desperate to see him all week long but didn’t know what to say once we were there. Chloe and I gave him the cards we had made and just sat there, holding his hand and sniffling.
Club S&M is supposed to go to the hospital to work on our science project. But I don’t want to see another hospital ever again. Mom says that being with friends will help and that I should go. Dr. Price noted that a news reporter will be there to do a piece on us to promote the science fair, so I guess I don’t have a choice.
✽✽✽
I did go to Children’s Hospital but am sitting in the back, letting everyone else talk. Shon, Malik, and Ethan did most of the work on the project anyway. The guys gave Abdo his prosthetic before I arrived, and he was beaming. Malik, Ethan, and Tyler might not have Shon’s electronics expertise, but their design was ingenious. They used springs, pistons, and levers instead of servo motors and sensors.
The concept was simple and elegant, although their implementation was a bit clunky. Abdo didn’t care, though. He could use the stump of his other arm to slide back a lever which spread out the fingers and cocked the springs. Then he would press a mechanical button on the arm, and the fingers would slowly close. The springs pulled the fingers together, and the guys had installed small pistons used to keep toy-chest lids from slamming shut to slow them down. There was even a second slider with three positions to control the order in which the fingers closed. It was pretty slick.
Candice’s hand, however, was incredible. We had been working with her for weeks, and she could close or open each finger independently. They couldn’t move side to side, but it meant she could grasp a pencil, shake a hand, or even play notes on a piano. This was the kind of project that would wow people at the fair and was why the news crew had set up lights and cameras.
The reporter started her interview with Dr. Price, who explained what the hospital did and talked about the therapy group. Then she shared how our group had come up with the project concept, convinced her to do it, and done all the design and implementation. Finally, she asked us to describe it.
Shon wasn’t much of a public speaker and asked Malik to talk. He talked about the mechanical design, and she discussed the electronics. Shon became much more comfortable once she was talking about technology, and the reporter finally cut her off. It was clear that the pretty blond woman with way too much makeup had no idea what this eleven-year-old girl was talking about. She said, “Thank you, Miss Jackson. Why don’t we see what you’ve done?”
Candice’s mom nudged her in front of the cameras, and I knew from her expression that we were in trouble. Candice was wearing a pretty, sleeveless dress, and our prosthetic was strapped to her right arm just below her elbow. I still couldn’t get over how cool it looked. It was made of light-blue plastic and was just a little wider than her arm would’ve been. You could see the LED lights, cables, and motors inside, and it made this excellent, soft, whirring sound when she moved her fingers. It was sleek, beautiful, and looked like something out of a movie.
The reporter asked this pretty young woman to show what the kids had done for her, and Candice went insane. She said, “You want to see what these geeks did for me? What you mean is what they did to me!”
She waved her arm in front of the reporter, who jumped back in alarm.
“They made me a freak! Look at this thing. It looks like something out of a trashy monster flick. Oh, and look at the cute tricks they make me do. Ooooh, Candice, the pet monkey can move her fake fingers.”
She stretched, wiggled, and closed her fingers several times, which was pretty impressive. Then she faced the camera and carefully made a fist with just her third finger extended.
“How about this finger movement? They promised me a hand, and I get this piece of junk. I can’t feel anything with it, and it makes me look like a frigging robot! And look at this.”
Then she swung her fist against the wall and smashed the hand. Several pieces were bent while others broke off. We were in shock, and the reporter gasped.
Candice ripped off the destroyed hand and yelled, “They could’ve at least made it strong enough to hit someone hard and really hurt them!”
Then she ran out of the room with her mother chasing after her yelling, “Wait, Candice. Oh, my poor baby!”
Tyler, Ethan, and Shon were sitting on the floor, staring at all their hard work ruined and in pieces. Malik was standing beside them, shaking with rage. They were too upset even to say anything.
The reporter instructed her camera crew to pack up and shook her head, muttering how they couldn’t use any of this material. Then Abdo tugged on her sleeve. The reporter instantly transformed from a grumpy woman who had just wasted an entire morning into a sweet, warm local television personality with a fan.
“And who are you, young man?” she asked in a sing-song voice.
Abdo replied, “My name is Abdo. I am in the second grade, and Candice is wrong. These are smart people. They are good people. Look at what they made for me.”
He promptly held up his oversized, clunky, prosthetic hand for her to see, and she asked, “My, what is this?”
Abdo beamed and answered, “This hand is everything I need. This is the best thing ever!”
The reporter smiled and noticed for the first time that Abdo didn’t have a left hand either.
He saw her expression change and said, “I have never been able to hold a spoon. I have never been able to write with a pencil. But now I can do anything. I am going to be a big movie star, and my new hand does everything I need. You will see.”
You couldn’t help but love this seven-year-old kid with his big dreams. The reporter grinned the first honest smile we’d seen on her face as she asked, “And how will your new hand help you be a movie star?”
Abdo didn’t hesitate. “This hand will not make me a movie star. I am going to be a great movie star because I am a great actor. You will see. But now I can hold a spoon and eat all by myself. I can hold a pencil and learn. And I will use this hand like this when I win my Academy Award.”
He cocked his hand, stuck it out toward her, and clicked the release button with his left stump when she reached to accept his handshake. The fingers slowly curled as she shook his hand, and she gasped with a pleasant surprise.
Abdo calmly said, “I want to thank the academy for nominating me for this wonderful honor.”
Then he cocked his hand to release his grip, changed the setting, and pressed the trigger again. The prosthetic smoothly flowed into a pencil grip motion, although he did not have a pencil in his hand.
Abdo pantomimed signing an autograph and cocked the hand a third time. This
time he placed it next to a can of soda before he released it. The fingers curled around the drink, and he lifted it high above his head, pretending it was an Oscar.
He puffed out his chest and proclaimed, “I want to thank the Academy for this great honor, and I want to thank my dear friends, Malik, Tyler, and Ethan for making this all possible!”
The reporter saw that her film crew had been recording this and quickly turned to the camera to close, “And there you have it. This is just one of the many amazing projects you’ll see at the county science fair next Saturday. I’m Leslie Walker from Action News, and I will see you there!”
Chapter 17
The Grail
February 6, Mearth
Mearth felt different on this visit. Everything was darker and more somber than before. Stavius was still reeling from Mark’s dad’s near-death experience, and those thoughts were on everyone else’s minds as well. It was only February, but the weather had cleared enough for the group to travel. Any indication of the coming spring should have been a cause for celebration. However, it reminded everyone that soon, they would be marching on Septumcolis. There was much to do in very little time.
It also became apparent that the team would need to separate into smaller groups to prepare. They had spent the past nine months coming together and becoming friends along the way. The thought of splitting apart was a bit scary. Also, Janus needed to begin constructing the engine, which meant that Janus, Stavius, Nariana, and Elisa would lose their talisman tattoos. This should not have been upsetting, but it was.
Janus removed his Spear of Mars tattoo and resized the spear to full length. He then spent an hour removing all the gems and other embellishments until it was a simple, cylindrical rod with no telltale tendrils of persistent magic. He placed the ornamentation removed from the Spear of Mars into a small basket and set the rod on a little carpet.
Elisa volunteered to go next and transformed her tattoo back into the Cradle of Terra. Janus stripped it down to create the engine housing. Nariana handed Janus the Core of the World, which looked completely different when Janus was finished. It appeared to consist of wires intricately wrapped around a hollow cylinder with symmetrical protrusions. Janus explained that it was a rotor, and everyone accepted that he was correct, although knowing the part’s name did not help in the least. Merlin, however, was especially pleased to know its proper name.
Stavius removed his tattoo and handed Janus the Necklace of Venus, which resembled his mother’s pearl necklace. He gasped when Janus unclipped the clasp and let the beads cascade into his hand. Janus collected them into a small bag and explained to Merlin that these were called bearings. They permitted the shaft to easily spin by rolling on them rather than just sliding on a sleeve but that they still needed to be lubricated. Merlin nodded.
Versera was the only one with tattoos, and Ops softly thanked her for carrying all three but suggested that she should share two of them with the others. She didn’t want to part with any of them but removed the sphere and diamond and returned them to Elisa and Nariana. Ops transformed them back into tattoos for the two girls before turning to Janus and Stavius.
She held out a cube and a pyramid and said, “Euryale was kind enough to give me some of her old stones, which I cut into these jewels for you.”
She tattooed the cube onto Janus and the pyramid onto Stavius. Then she held out a beautifully-carved star, which she tattooed on Saturn. He thanked her and drew her into a tender kiss. The girls sighed, and the boys groaned. Neither of the boys wanted to watch old people make out.
✽✽✽
Janus placed the stripped talisman parts inside the engine housing, bolted the two haves together, and filled it with foam. Then he shrunk the partially-complete engine down to the size of a baseball and gently placed it in his rucksack. Stavius never tired of watching his friend’s magical feats. He asked Janus what he planned to do with the ornamentation removed from the talismans, and his friend slyly grinned and said he had an excellent idea.
Janus was going to ride Juice back to the cave valley and store the partial engine in the Order of The Key room. Then they were going to head west in search of Mount Rushmore. He planned on scattering the jewels in the mountains near the end of his journey and relished thinking of where they would lead the Septumcolan searchers. His face fell, however, when he thought of Mount Rushmore. All he knew was that it was somewhere in South Dakota. The boy had no idea how to find it with every human signpost obliterated by a nuclear war ten thousand years ago. He wasn’t surprised that neither Merlin nor any of the dragons had ever heard of it, but he was disappointed nonetheless.
The dragons asked if Earth people worshiped the figures they carved, but Janus said it wasn’t like that. Versera explained that these were carvings of former presidents. Nariana then described what presidents did, and soon they were trying to explain the concept of a country governed as a democratic republic. An hour later, everyone was confused, and Saiph asked whether they were carved to show respect to these people.
Nariana shouted, “Yes! Finally, one of you understands what we’re talking about.”
Saiph then asked, “And did these presidents appreciate your carvings?”
Elisa groaned, “No, they were all dead a long time before these carvings were even started.”
The dragons looked more confused than ever, and the heroes decided just to drop the conversation, but Juice wouldn’t relent.
He said, “I don’t understand defacing a perfectly good mountain to carve enormous likenesses of dead people. Why would anyone do that? I mean, at least the zealots at the Temple of the Gods are worshiping the gods.”
Elisa asked, “What zealots? What are you talking about, Juice?”
Juice casually replied, “You know, the zealots are those crazy people who dedicate every moment of their lives to worshiping the gods. They claim to be the creators of the Temple of the Gods, but most of us think they are just the maintenance crew.”
Elisa was becoming frustrated and asked, “And what is this Temple of the Gods?”
Juice shook his head in amazement and said, “You guys don’t know anything, do you? The Temple of the Gods is a mountain carved into likenesses of the four gods’ faces. There is even a gigantic dragon carved into the mountain behind it! The zealots claim their ancestors carved them, but other people maintain the carvings were created by the gods themselves. Either way, it is one of the oldest and most impressive monuments in the world.”
“Juice! That sounds like what we’re describing!” shouted Janus. “Do you know where the Temple of the Gods is located?”
Juice was taken aback and replied, “I’ve never been there myself, but of course I know how to find it. I had an uncle who visited it once, and you know how dragons have long, shared memories. It is a long way northwest of here, and the journey would require several days of flying.”
Janus shouted, “That’s it! I’m sure that’s the place!” and leaped up to wrap his arms around the startled dragon’s neck.
A voice from behind said, “A human hugging a dragon? Well, that’s a first.”
It was Mars. He and the other three gods had reappeared while they were talking.
“Hey, buddy, why are you wearing my body?” asked Mars when he saw Merlin.
Merlin hemmed and hawed, saying, “Uh, I’m sorry. You weren’t using it, and I hated to see it go to waste. I was just keeping it warm for you. Here, do you want it back?”
Mars laughed and said, “Nah, we’re not staying. We have to get back home. Planets don’t run themselves, you know. We just wanted to say goodbye, and I wanted to have a word with Mars Junior.”
Stavius did not ever want to be called Mars Junior, but he followed Mars into the other room. Mars and the others each wanted to offer some suggestions and to make some requests of their replacements, should the heroes succeed. The group compared notes after the gods had left and agreed that they really are idiots.
Mars felt his planet was nearly perfect
but suggested that Stavius should work on getting barley and hops to grow there to make beer. The planet Mars was evidently rather barren but populated with massive herds of dangerous beasts. Mars and the peoples he had created spent endless hours hunting and wrestling these creatures, and Mars never tired of the sport.
“The best part,” he grinned as he concluded his planetary description, “is that every wild animal on Mars tastes like bacon! Is that awesome or what?”
Stavius was a vegetarian, but politely nodded his head and said, “Yeah, it sure sounds great.”
Luna, the moon, sounded like a green version of Mars. It had oceans, forests, plains, and deserts, but Luna, the god, primarily used these ecosystems as hunting grounds. She would hunt boar with a bow and arrow or chase stags on foot for days until they dropped. Luna and Mars did not particularly like each other but seemed to have similar personalities and interests.
Venus was somewhat cryptic about her world. It was primarily enveloped in a veil of clouds but sounded like the entire planet was a heavenly resort. She mentioned endless beaches, hot springs, and lush tropical gardens but refused to offer any specifics.
Goddess Terra had some particular advice for Elisa. She warned her to get Mars and Luna off the planet as quickly as possible. They evidently divided the world amongst themselves when they arrived with Mars getting Africa, Luna getting Eurasia, Venus getting South America, and Goddess Terra getting North America. Venus and Goddess Terra began terraforming their continents, but Luna and Mars spent their time creating titans instead. They would stage massive battles between their armies and then fall back to create even larger versions for the next match. Eventually, these titans were the size of small mountains, and Goddess Terra was worried they were going to damage the planet. The world didn’t settle down until she gave each of the other three gods their own worlds. Even now, thousands of years later, there are still a few titans roaming around, causing mischief.
Prophecy Page 18
