18. Bring a Warlord to School Day
“What happened?” Helen asked as Brendan came through the gate.
The solid floor beneath his feet felt amazing. He helped Tina sit on the headmaster’s desk. Helen steadied her, and Tina winced with pain.
“Close that thing already before he pops through,” Tina said.
With a gesture, the gate closed. He then turned off the machine. He half expected Donnie to reappear, but the shimmer in the air was gone.
“Where did Donnie go?” Helen asked.
“We left him behind in the other world. He’s now banished from this one.” If he’s alive…
He found a few bottles of water in the kitchenette’s small refrigerator. He drained one and brought two to Tina. Helen helped her drink both down.
“I didn’t think you’d come back, but I didn’t dare leave,” Helen said.
“Thanks for waiting,” Brendan said. “If the machine had been turned off, we would be stuck there for good. How are you?”
“Tolerable,” Helen said, nodding to her slung arm. “I found some Tylenol with Codeine in the secretary’s desk. I need to go find someone with a radio. We need to get the news out there about who these people are and what they’re capable of.”
“Help me get her downstairs.”
They fashioned a crude splint from cut sections of curtains and a pair of short shelves. Helen checked the leg carefully before it was secured.
“Are you a doctor?” Brendan said.
“Yes, but not a physician. I earned the Gold Award in Girl Scouts, if that counts.”
“Tell me straight, will they need to amputate?” Tina asked.
“There’s only a little swelling. It’s probably just a simple fracture and some torn tendons and ligaments.”
Tina nodded. “I’ve had worse. Can you give us a minute?”
Helen stepped out into the front office.
“I think I may have really hurt Donnie,” Brendan said. He tried not to think about the large rock and what it would have done to the warlord.
“I don’t know how much of a choice he was giving us. But if these warlords’ resilience is worth anything, then he might still be alive. Have you given thought to what we do next?”
“If we use the ring in the box in the lab, we can reset the gate. Whatever world Donnie is on will be disconnected, maybe permanently. He really will be banished.”
“Do it.”
Brendan held up a hand. “Hold on. What if we need him to bargain with the other warlords to get Charlotte back?”
“He wasn’t exactly on the top of their food chain. He wasn’t even a lieutenant, maybe a grunt if I’m following their command structure. No one said ‘boo’ when he executed the woman Helen pinned with the truck.”
“Yeah, but they think in terms of property. What if he belonged to one of them?”
Tina tapped her lip with a finger. “So we leave the gate set where it is. But if he’s a Donnie pancake now, they’ll be less than thrilled anyway.”
***
Getting Tina down the stairs was easier than climbing with her, but each step caused her pain. Helen did her best to assist with the light.
“Hurry up, and let’s get this over with,” Tina said.
“Absolutely not,” Helen said. “Your leg might shift. And if he stumbles, you could really get hurt.”
Tina’s laugh echoed down the stairwell. “Whatever, doc.”
Brendan took the steps one at a time. Tina felt lighter here. Brendan was experiencing a boost in his energy being back on Not-Earth, but he knew it would be temporary.
Once outside, they headed for the gym. Two men were standing and vaping near a light pole connected to a softly rumbling gas-powered generator. Nearby were tables with pallets of water bottles and boxes of energy bars. Someone had also brought a pallet of apples.
“Is there a doctor or nurse here?” Helen asked the men.
They brought Tina into the nurse’s office, and in minutes a bleary-eyed medic with a few days’ worth of stubble came in. Helen assisted the man, who turned out to be a surgical resident at the local hospital. They began cutting Tina’s pants away and Brendan excused himself. He settled in a chair in the waiting room and fell asleep.
A blanket had been placed on him sometime during his slumber. The first thing he checked was the ring. It was still there. Everything ached. The nurse’s office door was open, and no one was inside. Sunlight shined in through the front doors of the athletics building. Brendan stepped outside and saw it was midmorning. Several dozen students milled about in the open air. Someone had a barbeque going and was grilling sausages.
He didn’t see Tina or Helen around. He was just about to start looking when he realized he needed food.
Brendan grabbed a couple of water bottles off the table and took a few energy bars. He ate and drank. A few adults smiled when he made eye contact, but no one spoke to him. He didn’t know any of these people. A few of the students he recognized as upperclassmen, but they went to Not-Earth’s Dutchman Springs Academy and not his. Brendan was the stranger here.
He entered the gym.
The large interior had been converted into a temporary shelter, with hundreds of cots covering the floor. Many more students and some faculty were here, most awake, and some wearing bandages and casts. A hospital barrier of green cloth separated one corner of the gym. Through a gap Brendan saw more seriously injured people. Patients on that side of the barrier were connected to saline drips and a variety of machines. Attendants wearing street clothes were changing sheets.
Why aren’t these kids in the hospital?
Someone whistled.
Brendan looked across the gym and saw Tina sitting up on a collapsible chair with a footrest. He made his way through the rows of cots. Many students were sleeping here who didn’t appear to have any injuries. Some lay on their pillows with their eyes open, staring listlessly into nothing. A large television had been set up in front of a score of chairs, but it was switched off. Situated closer to the doors were teachers and staff, some asleep.
Tina’s leg was in a Velcro-and-plastic splint. “Got a spare tibia? Mine’s broken. That’s about all they can say without an x-ray. They want to take me to the hospital eventually. The doctor also wants me on antibiotics. I didn’t tell him the germs might be from an upstream Earth.”
“They give you anything for the pain?”
“Oh yeah,” she said with a little too much enthusiasm. She gave him a hard look. “You’re filthy. They’ve got showers outside on that side of the gym for the boys. Also, the doctor took a quick look at you while you were sleeping. He said you should get checked for a possible concussion when I go in.”
“Is he not around?”
“A kid’s spleen ruptured so they took him to the hospital. I get the impression it’s worse there.”
Helen showed up carrying some water, oranges, and power bars. She handed them all to Tina, and Tina started eating. Brendan watched the woman closely. She had been quick to let the warlords know about the other gates, but then she had come through in helping them with Donnie. Perhaps her earlier actions had been out of fear.
Time to trust someone.
“I want to take Tina back home through the gate in the park. I need to bring the remains of Charlotte’s glove with me so I can try to repair it.” He explained to Helen what the glove could do and was amazed when she believed him about it being able to send people to another Earth two steps away from her own. “Have you pinpointed where the warlords’ gate actually is?”
“No. It’s in the direction of the interchange, judging by where they are right now. I can’t imagine their head guy traveling too far just to be in a place like that. It’s got to be close.”
“I need time in my lab back home. If you take us to the park and help us get through, I’ll come back. I promise.”
Helen gave him a look that reminded him of his mother. “How old are you?”
“Too old to believe any
of this, except it’s happening.”
“Why can’t you just use the machine to go back?”
“Because the machine doesn’t connect there anymore. I don’t know if it’s even possible to find the right world that’s actually our home.”
She nodded as if she understood. Maybe she did.
From outside they heard the rumble of a motorcycle. Brendan ran to the front door and saw a bike with two riders pass between the track and the west parking lot. He ran to the corner of the athletics building. The man wasn’t familiar, but it looked like one of the warlords. His passenger was the female warlord with the mane of blonde hair. They were both armed. After pausing momentarily they rode off.
He returned to the others. “We need to go now.”
***
Several tents were pitched in the park and the picnic tables were full of locals who sat with a few possessions and their pets. Many nearby homes had been knocked off their foundations. Water covered the street from a broken main. More than one power line draped into the street.
Tina reclined in the back of one of the school’s electric carts.
Helen brought the cart to a stop by the park entrance. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to take her back? Her break could get worse if going through requires some sort of jump. If you land wrong, she could suffer permanent damage.”
“I’ll be fine,” Tina said.
“We’ll be careful,” Brendan said. “We know the lay of the land now so it won’t be a blind stepping across. I think we’ve had enough of those.”
Helen surveyed the park. Children were playing on the dry grass. “You’re nervous about what the warlords will do here.”
“I saw what one of their worlds looks like after a few years of their rule.”
“Part of me wants to get everyone to follow you. I want to follow you. But I realize now that they’ll find your world eventually if it’s the next one downstream.”
“You’re a scientist. Do you have any theories on what moving between worlds is doing to us?”
“Physically or mentally? Either way, I have no idea. What I’m more concerned about is what the gates are doing to the very fabric of our reality. There could be repercussions. None of this has been studied. Who’s to say every air molecule that passes through doesn’t run the risk of causing its own catastrophe? And here you are, a hundred-twenty-pound kid, stepping back and forth like getting on and off a roller coaster.”
“You should come with us,” Tina said. “Maybe you can learn something important. See the other side. It’s just like here, really.”
“No. I’m going to stay at the school and try to contact someone from my team, if any are still alive. So, your ring. That controls it?”
Brendan felt the old flush of worry. “Why?”
“It’s best you take it from here and get rid of it. We need to start closing as many of these loopholes as we can.”
“Thanks for your help, doc,” Tina said.
They had brought a small stepladder. The adults in the park ignored them, but a few of the kids followed them to the hill.
“They’re about to see a magic trick if we let them watch,” Tina said.
Helen handed over some power bars to the children. “Go share with your mommies and daddies.”
The kids ran off.
“Once they bite into one of those, they’ll feel betrayed,” Tina said.
Brendan set the stepladder up on the slope. Tina was up on one foot with a hand on Brendan’s shoulder. She climbed the few steps up and paused. The shimmer in the air was right in front of her.
“You’re coming, right?” Tina asked.
“Right behind you.” He helped her step through and looked down at Helen. “We’re not abandoning you. I’ll meet you at the school, hopefully by this evening.”
Helen just nodded. “Go while you can. If you don’t return, I’ll understand.”
Brendan stepped off the ladder and went home.
19. Homecoming Drone King
Their landing was controlled, but it wasn’t soft. Tina was sprawled on the hill and trying to get herself away from the gate when Brendan came through. When he appeared next to her she flinched. Both were at the topmost part of the slope, but neither fell. The park of their world had similar weather, but here white wispy clouds filled the sky. It felt a couple of degrees warmer, too.
As they looked across the nearby rooftops it was instantly obvious that this Dutchman Springs was still intact.
“Help me up,” Tina said.
He got her to the bottom of the hill. Whatever painkillers she was on weren’t shielding her from the worst of her discomfort, judging by her expression as she leaned on him and limped along. Brendan waved to a passing man walking his dog. He asked the man to call an ambulance.
“Why?” Tina asked. “I’m fine. I’m going to help you get your project repaired and we’re going back.”
“What am I supposed to do? Carry you all the way to school?”
The EMTs arrived quickly. The story Brendan told was that she had overestimated her ability to use her crutches and had taken a fall. They loaded her in the ambulance and offered to let Brendan ride along to the hospital. He declined. He watched the ambulance make a turn on the narrow street and drive off with lights flashing.
Brendan then realized he wasn’t even sure what day it was. The school would know they were missing. Returning to campus wouldn’t be easy. He took his phone out from his pocket. The screen was cracked and the power level was a fragment of a red bar but it still came on. He had messages from his mother, his father, Vlad, his dorm monitor, and his counselor, Mr. Childes. The dorm monitor would have alerted Mr. Childes after Brendan didn’t come home. A message popped up for Brendan to plug in his phone.
Have to do that later.
He called the headmaster.
It felt like a calculated risk worth taking. The man had sworn to care for Charlotte to make amends for his Not-Earth counterpart’s role in disrupting all their lives. It was time to bring the man off the sidelines. Besides, Brendan had news.
Sperry Appleton’s car pulled up to the park entrance and Brendan got into the back seat. Sperry sat behind the steering column but had his hands on his tablet.
“Is Charlotte not with you?”
“No. I’ve got some things to tell you that might be a lot to process. But I need to get to the electronics lab. And I need to know if Charlotte has set up a workshop at your house.”
“Where is she? What’s happened? It looks like you’re hurt.”
Where to begin? “There’s a gang that’s invaded Charlotte’s Earth from further upstream. I believe they’ll be coming here next. Tina, Charlotte, and I are trying to stop them. Whatever machine they use to cross boundaries between worlds is worse than anything that Charlotte’s father did. It rips multiple gates between worlds, worse than anything the other headmaster’s machine might ever have done. It causes earthquakes everywhere. The other Dutchman Springs is devastated. Charlotte’s dad—the other you—died in one just yesterday. Charlotte got captured.”
It took Sperry a moment to process this. After hearing himself speak, Brendan thought there would be a good chance the man wouldn’t believe a word. But Sperry had been kidnapped by his other self. Was this such a stretch of the imagination?
“Why couldn’t you all have just stayed here?” he asked in a small voice.
“They would be coming anyway. Nurse Dreyfus is one of them.”
“Mimi Dreyfus? That’s not possible. She works for the school.”
“You always knew there was something different about her. She’s part of their gang. She captured Charlotte.”
After a moment, Sperry said, “Tell me what we need to do to get Charlotte back.”
“Does she have a place at your home where she keeps her projects? Anyplace where she might have stored parts?”
“She has some of her things at my house. You’re more than welcome to go through them. I’ve always respected her pr
ivacy and never went into her things. She explained the damage my counterpart’s machine did enough times, so I didn’t want to be tempted.”
“Mr. Appleton, this is the one time I wish you were the other you. Because I need all the help I can get.”
***
Charlotte’s room had nothing but her personal possessions, all neatly put away in a closet. When Brendan first entered the room he thought it hadn’t even been occupied. He did his due diligence and checked under the bed and in every drawer, and inside a giant armoire large enough to park a small car.
“She spent little time here,” Sperry said. “Not that I was around much. I know she had another home she would go to.”
“Yes. Nurse Dreyfus’s house across town. But no workshop there. I’ve looked. So you don’t keep tools here she might use?”
“Nothing of consequence. My days of fiddling with such things are well behind me. There are some standard tools in the garage but nothing like you’d find in the electronics lab.”
Brendan examined the bundle of crushed glove and realized that understanding its individual components was beyond him. He might be able to replace it module for module if the parts were available, but repairing and troubleshooting wouldn’t be possible without knowing what each part did. Without another similar model to study, he could spend an unlimited amount of time tinkering and accomplish nothing. He’d have as likely a chance of success by putting it all in a clothes dryer, turning on a spin cycle, and hoping for it all to work.
“What can I do to help?”
“Call my counselor and Tina’s. Let them know we’re fine. Tina should be at the hospital by now with a broken leg. Let me borrow a phone charger.”
“I’ll go get one.”
Brendan paced about the room while he waited. Even though the bedroom was large and plush it felt strangely uncomfortable, as if everything was too nice and too expensive to be sat or slept upon. Even the bathroom was overly luxuriant, with a giant granite countertop and fancy fixtures. The large shower had nozzles on both walls as well as the ceiling. There was a clothes hamper with a basket of laundry next to it. Brendan opened the hamper. It was empty. Charlotte had been using the basket as her depository for dirty laundry. He saw underwear and found himself blushing. He was turning away when a thought occurred to him.
The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series Page 59
