The Edge of Nothing_The Lex Chronicles_Book 1

by Crystal Crawford

  “But you made video games,” Lex said. “Why did they think you could–”

  “I did it though, didn’t I?” Nigel snapped. “We’re standing right here in the proof of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lex said, “I didn’t mean–”

  Nigel sighed. “Do you know how tedious it is, telling someone things they already know? You should try it sometime. It’s excruciating.”

  Lex bit back the words he wanted to say, and waited for Nigel to continue.

  “Arameth’s entire atmosphere is electrical,” Nigel said slowly, “a reactive electrical field which acts as a protective barrier. But unlike Earth, where I come from, Arameth’s atmosphere is almost like a living thing. Some even think it has consciousness. Essentially it’s an intangible nervous system, pure neurons transmitting information constantly through a giant, invisible network, deciding what is allowed entry and rejecting anything it deems to be a risk to this world. Here they call it the Worldforce. It functions like a massive, ethereal computer, so once we found the place where our two worlds touched, it was only a matter of writing the right code to control it and finding a power source to supply the needed energy from our side to breach the gap. Then I simply knocked on its dimensional door, so to speak, and told it to let me in.”

  “That seems easy enough, I guess,” Lex said.

  “It wasn’t,” said Nigel. “It took an inordinate amount of electrical energy, risks you can’t imagine, equipment I can’t even explain, months and months of coding and building, and we all nearly died. But language fails to capture the true process so that explanation is the best you’re going to get. Anyway, we were too late. My wife died before I even completed it.”

  “Oh,” Lex said.

  “But The Gatekeepers made me finish it anyway. They tend to be like that. Vanessa had been too weak to be our power source, even if she’d lived, so they brought me Samantha.”

  “Wait,” Lex said. “The power source was a person?”

  Nigel waved his hand. “It’s not human sacrifice, if that’s what you’re thinking. But the portal I built was essentially an open circuit, and the only way to close it was with energy from Arameth itself.”

  “Samantha was a dual-born,” Lex guessed.

  “Exactly. The process was hard on her, but not lethal. More like running a marathon in your cells. She had to rest between attempts, and the first time we nearly drained too much from her. But in the end...” Nigel stopped.

  “In the end what?” Lex asked.

  “It worked,” Nigel said gruffly. “But not as we expected.” He paused. “The system malfunctioned and I had to rebuild the whole thing. Took me months. Then I came through.”

  “Wait,” said Lex. “You said you were the second traveler. Who was the first?”

  “Lily,” Nigel said, his voice suddenly soft. “My granddaughter.” He paused, took a shaky breath, then stared off for a moment into a dark corner of the room. Then he said, “She was the reason Marcus agreed to help me.”

  “To help you what?” Lex asked.

  Nigel spun toward him. “To help me find her, send us home, restore the balance and close the breach!” He paused again. “Only, to do that, he had to go through back to our world himself and get her.”

  “Lily? But I thought you said she came through to here. Why would he have to go back to–”

  “Not Lily!” Nigel interrupted. “Aren’t you paying attention? When Lily came through, she was pulled in by an energy flux, completely by accident. We didn’t have the correct protocols in place. The portal wasn’t ready, the energy wasn’t harnessed properly. It ripped her apart. Wrong place, wrong time.” He paused, then continued in a calmer voice. “Her consciousness went through but her body got bounced back, and the whole system collapsed... and not just the portal. The whole thing was affected. The Worldforce is pure energy, electricity unbridled. And Lily was a short-circuit, a live wire sparking out of control. She was trapped. No body, just consciousness, stuck in the void, unable to fully enter – do you get it now? Once I realized that, I knew we needed a dual-born, someone to straddle the worlds and pull her back.”

  “But if her body–”

  “I can make her a body!” Nigel shouted. “Don’t you listen? My first console would have been capable of that, especially with access to Arameth’s energy to power it. But without her mind, without her soul, there’s nothing to put in it. I needed her pulled back through, but the system was unstable. And I realized only one who carried energies from both worlds could stabilize the magic and fix what we’d done. But there were no dual-borns here; someone had to go back through and get one. I couldn’t go back myself, because I’d already had to tweak the programming to get myself through after the collapse, and there were… consequences. I wasn’t able. But Marcus–”

  Lex felt like his head was swimming. “Marcus?”

  “People from our world were never meant to cross over to this one. The portal had destabilized the Worldforce and Arameth was suffering for it. The Worldforce sees us as foreign bodies – as viruses. And with both me and Lily stuck here in Arameth, the Worldforce was reacting like an immune system on overdrive. It started small, just some bad weather and ground tremors, but the Ancients predicted it would get worse. Tsunamis, earthquakes, random bursts of electricity bolting down from the sky – they said it would be like the apocalypse. So they sent Marcus to help me fix it. He agreed to go through in my place, to find Samantha, since she was the dual-born who’d helped us open the rift. But there were complications. Samantha was dying and couldn’t come. But she could.” He paused. “Marcus was just a child when we sent him, really. We never should have put so much on him. He was only twelve, even if he was a Prince of the Ancients. But he was the one chosen to go, and we needed her.”

  “Who?” Lex asked.

  Nigel’s wild, dark eyes locked on Lex’s. “Jana. Samantha’s granddaughter.”

  “Jana was from your world, too?” Some of the glimpses were starting to click together, but Lex’s understanding was like a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

  “Yes,” Nigel said, “but Marcus refused to bring her.”

  “Why?” Lex asked.

  “Because his own family had sent him across dimensions with no help at all, even though he was only twelve, and he ended up lost and starving for weeks on end, and Jana found him on the streets and helped him and he spent three years living in that world and falling in love with her without telling her anything about any of it and he didn’t want her to have to be a part of this. Then when he hesitated to bring her back, they sent an Aiac to kill a member of the foster family who’d taken him in, and then threatened to kill everyone else Marcus cared about if he didn’t hand her over.” Nigel stopped and shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him for his lack of compliance. It wasn’t a very inspirational form of persuasion. He came back without her.”

  “But I saw her. “ Lex paused. “In one of my glimpses.”

  “Glimpses?” Nigel questioned.

  “I have visions, like memories, but they aren’t mine. They’re from Marcus.”

  “Really?” Nigel asked, lifting his eyebrows. “That’s interesting. How long has this been happening?”

  “Since I woke up,” Lex said.

  “You mean here? It’s only been a few minutes.”

  “No, I mean since I woke up. At Dalton. It was days ago, but… I don’t remember anything before that at all.”

  Nigel stared at him. “That’s very interesting,” he said. “Anyway, to answer your question, if you’ve been seeing Marcus’ memories, then certainly you saw Jana. Marcus was a bit obsessed. You may have even seen her in his memories from here, since the silly girl came anyway.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently everyone back home thought Marcus had run away, after the death of his little brother. His foster family didn’t blame him; officially the death was ruled as SIDS. But the police thought he might have blamed himself si
nce he was the first to find him. Jana didn’t buy it. She thought he’d been kidnapped. When she found Samantha’s version of the console and realized what it did, she jumped straight through after him.” He shook his head. “Stupid girl. If she hadn’t been a dual-born, even with my tweaks it would have exploded her into a million pieces. In any case, we were wrong. Having her here didn’t solve the problem. It made it worse.”

  “How?” Lex asked.

  “Immune system on overdrive, remember?” Nigel said. “She wasn’t strong enough to stabilize the energy.”

  Lex’s thoughts were spinning, but one took precedence, the same question which was always present. “What about me?” he asked.

  “You?” Nigel snorted, then walked toward Lex’s chair and pulled something out from under it. “You were never meant to be.”

  “What?” Lex said, his pulse speeding.

  “But don’t worry; I can show you,” Nigel said, standing. He shoved a dull, metallic box into Lex’s lap. The console. “Now, where were those… Ah, yes,” Nigel murmured. He unrolled a long cord from the back of the console and drug it toward the nearest wall, where he plugged it into an outlet.

  Outlets? Here? Lex wondered. He’d only seen them in his glimpses. Glimpses of the other world, he suddenly realized. Memories from when Marcus had been there. Suddenly something occurred to him.

  “Nigel, you said you had to find where the two worlds touched in order to make the breach. Where was that?”

  “My attic,” Nigel said, still fiddling with the outlet. “Weird, right? But they say those connected to the Worldforce are drawn toward it. My wife chose the house.”

  The outlet. The Aiac bringing me here. Something still wasn’t making sense. “Why are we here, then?” Lex asked.

  “Please tell me you mean that literally and not existentially. I simply do not have the time,” Nigel replied. He looked up. “You mean why did the Aiac bring you here? Why not anywhere else in the wide, crazy world?” He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s my attic. Or Arameth’s version of it, anyway. On my side, it has a lot more windows.” He stood. “Now, we don’t have a television screen on this side of the breach, but what we need to do will work just the same, you being you.” He moved back in front of Lex.

  Lex looked down. The light on the console lit red.

  Nigel knelt, his pointer finger hovering over a button on the front of the console. “Are you ready to know what you are?” he asked, looking up at Lex.

  “Yes,” Lex said, feeling something steel inside him.

  “Good!” Nigel said with a grin, and pushed the button.

  CHAPTER 13

  The calendar on the wall said 2002 – June.

  Lex was in a dim, wood-paneled room, motes of dust floating in slants of light from the narrow windows.

  An old man knelt on the floor, hunched over something.

  Lex approached, and as he reached out to the man he was pulled in, his own awareness blending with the other’s. Luther Alvari. 72. Scientist. Genius. Grandfather.

  Luther Alvari’s old heart was jackhammering. He took one long, deep breath and then another, willing it to slow. Calm, old man, he told himself. You can’t save anyone if you die of a heart attack first. Another deep breath. “Breathe, baby girl,” he hissed. “Breathe.”

  Lex looked down. A girl’s small body hung limp in Luther’s arms.

  Luther hovered his cheek over her face, his stomach twisting. Just one soft, little breath, he willed. Just one puff on my cheek. Nothing came. He lowered her to the floor and sank back onto the ground. He knew there was nothing that could help her now, not CPR or any other medical means. This was not a medical problem. This was something other.

  Luther raised up onto his knees again, studying her. His Lily. She seemed so small now with her lifeless body sprawled on the attic floor, her wispy blonde waves spread out like a crown of feathers about her, more and more life seeping from her little frame by the moment. His eyes drifted over her slender fingers, peeking out from the sleeves of her favorite purple sweater – she always complained Luther kept the house too cold – and her bare feet protruding beneath the ends of her jeans, her stubby toes so much like her grandmother’s. Her delicate, perfect face, blue eyes closed as if sleeping. He could almost believe she would open them any second, and give him her usual, goofy smile…

  “She’s only nine!” Luther cried out suddenly. “God, help me; she’s only nine!” It was not a mindless expression; he was calling out to someone, to anyone… but there was no answer. He looked at her face – so still. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know you were home.” He let his face fall onto her unmoving chest. His Lily, his beloved granddaughter. Only nine, and gone.

  And it was all his fault.

  Lex was pulled backward.

  He was kneeling on a wooden floor, frantically pulling out boxes from a pile.

  “Marcus?” a voice called up. “Did you find it?”

  “Almost, Mrs. Martin,” he answered. He shoved the console into a large, dusty box far back in the corner and folded the top closed, then began piling the other boxes on top of it. They’ll never think to look for it in their own house, right? he thought. Or this could be a huge mistake. But he didn’t have many options. “Got it! Coming down!” He placed the last box on the pile then grabbed the dust-layered catcher’s mitt he’d found in the first box and headed back down the attic ladder.

  Jana’s mom was waiting for him below. “Always makes me nervous when you kids go up there,” she said.

  Marcus paused, one foot still on the ladder. “I didn’t know anyone went up there.”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, not very often. Jana does now and then when she needs to pull out something from storage.”

  Marcus stepped down and folded the ladder back up. It was too late, now. He’d try to sneak back in later and move it somewhere safer.

  “I always worry about spiders,” Jana’s mom continued. “Anyway, what were you looking for up there, anyway? You said it was something for a school project, but Jana didn’t mention anything.”

  Marcus held out the mitt. “It’s for history,” he said, knowing Jana had a different history teacher. “A presentation on the history of my favorite sport. I thought an old mitt would be a good way of showing how the sport has continued through multiple generations. Jana said her grandfather had one stored up there.”

  “What an interesting idea,” she smiled. “Though I’m surprised your dad didn’t have one. Didn’t he play baseball in college?”

  “I wanted more than one,” Marcus said, “to show the widespread impact.”

  Mrs. Martin nodded. “I like your creativity,” she said, then winked. “I hope you get an A.”

  “Thanks,” he said, giving her a smile. “I’d better get home.”

  “I’ll tell Jana you stopped by,” she said.

  “No need,” Marcus replied, holding his smile in place. “I’ll see her at school tomorrow.” The pain of that lie clenched his chest.

  Mrs. Martin looked up at the attic door. “It’s a shame about that old video game,” she said. “Jana was so excited when her father found it.” She turned back to Marcus. “But of course that doesn’t matter; we’re all just so glad you’re safe. Being in the room when those thugs broke in must have been terrifying. No one blames you for running home–” She paused. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I nearly forgot that was the same day that Gabe–” She reached out and stroked his hair. “You know we think of you as family, too, right? If you ever need–”

  Marcus felt the walls closing in on him. “Thanks,” he said. “I need to go.”

  He rushed out of the house.

  Lex was pulled backward.

  Jana sat on the edge of her bed, the tulle of her prom dress pluming up around her, staring at a box on her bedroom floor. Her therapist had said prom would be good for her, doing a normal teenage thing.

  She was starting to think normal just didn’t work
for her.

  She leaned over and pulled back the top of the box. There it was – the console. She still didn’t understand how it had ended up in a box in the attic. Hadn’t it been stolen that day? The thieves, Marcus’ brother, her grandmother’s dead, then Marcus disappearing… it all seemed so long ago, a lifetime rather than just a couple years. When she’d found the console while looking for her grandmother’s old dance heels, she’d been stunned. For some reason she’d brought it down to her room without even mentioning it to her parents. Just looking at it brought back a flood of memories: Hot Pockets. Steve. Marcus.

  But then everything reminded her of Marcus. That was the problem.

  She reached inside the box and pulled out the console. Something stirred inside her, a sharp flutter like razor-edged wings. She gasped and leapt to her feet, the console under one arm, and rushed to the small television in the corner of her bedroom. She crouched in a panic to attach the wires and cords of the video game. It was like a primal urge, a must felt deep within. She clicked the last cable into place, grabbed the controller, and reached toward the console’s power button.

  The doorbell rang. “Jana!” Her mom’s voice called out.

  Jana jumped up, dropping the controller on the floor. Steve was here, and they’d be late if she didn’t get down there. She hated being late; it only made people stare more. But at least she was going with Steve. She would never have even considered going without him, even if she had once imagined her prom date being someone else.

  She grabbed up her small purse, sliding a lipstick into it, and glanced into the mirror. “Marcus gone,” she told her reflection. “He isn’t coming back.” She smoothed back some stray hairs with one hand, and gave herself a stiff smile. “You are going to have a magical time. The best night of your life.” She nodded once, then strode toward the door.