by Mark Frost
“Let’s look in here,” said Will.
The thick glass door to the central room wasn’t locked. They pushed inside for a closer look at the two cylinders. They stood five feet high, fashioned from a glossy metallic substance that reflected so much light they were almost painful to look at. No straight edges or corners anywhere on them, every angle rounded and smooth.
“Is it just me, or do these things look aphotic to you?” asked Ajay.
“Totally,” said Nick.
The three guys took out their dark glasses for a look, but aside from a strange white glow emanating from both cylinders, they didn’t notice anything different about them.
“See if you can find a way to open them,” Will asked Ajay, putting his glasses away.
Ajay walked all around and studied each object carefully from every angle. “The metal appears to be seamless,” he said.
Ajay took another small electronic measuring device from his vest. He turned it on and it emitted beams of light that he shined up and down along the object on the left; then he did the same to the one on the right.
“They’re slightly different,” he said. “The one on the left is denser. There seems to be more mass inside it.” He ran his hand over the top of the cylinder. “And there’s something odd here. The very slightest indentation … it almost feels like … the shape of a hand … one a lot bigger than mine.”
Put your hand there, said the voice in Will’s head.
Will stepped forward and placed his hand on top where Ajay had indicated. He felt around until he found the described pattern of fingers and palm. It was a tremendously subtle depression, but his hand was a perfect fit and as soon as he locked in on it, he felt the cool metal under his skin warm up and start to yield, almost as if it were melting slightly to his touch.
“Something’s happening,” he said.
“I think you unlocked it,” said Elise.
A razor-thin seam opened along the front of the metal, running up and down simultaneously until it split the entire cylinder. When the halves started to separate, Will moved his hand away and the others stepped back. The two halves of the cylinder folded back, and a single shelf slid out and fanned open into a half-circle tray. Fashioned from the same metallic material, it appeared to be floating in air. Will looked closer and saw the shelf was attached to the cylinder by a single joint at the back.
There were three indentations on the shelf for three distinctly different objects. All three slots were empty but retained the shapes of the things they were designed to hold: a depression on the left, about a foot across, then a hook-shaped hole next to it that held something like a gun and a spray nozzle, and the last a perfect square about four inches wide and high.
“The Knights must have built this place,” said Will, running his hand over the shapes. “Probably to keep devices they use in here that they either made or brought across.”
“Aphotic devices,” said Ajay. “From the Never-Was.”
“You’ve seen more of these than we have,” said Brooke. “Do any of the shapes look familiar?”
“The middle one,” said Will. “I never held it in my hand, but that thing Lyle used to open the portal to the Never-Was would probably fit here. It was like a gun.”
“You mean the thing we saw Hobbes give to Lyle on Ronnie’s tape?” said Elise.
“Yes. Hobbes called it the Carver,” said Will.
“Where is it now?” asked Nick.
“Damn, I hadn’t even thought about this,” said Will. “Lyle threw it into the cave after the wendigo came through.”
“You think we could still find it there?” asked Ajay.
“We better try,” said Will. “Before they do.”
“What do you suppose these other shapes were holding?” asked Elise, running a hand over the indentations on the shelf.
“Either objects that they found in the ruins or ones they brought across from the Never-Was, I’m not sure,” said Will. “But this tells us there’s at least two more of these gizmos around that I’d like to get a look at.”
“Maybe they’re in here,” said Nick, knocking on the other cylinder.
“Why would they hide something in that one that they’re supposed to keep in this one?” asked Ajay, annoyed.
“I don’t know, dude. Why does any of what these dudes do even have to make sense? Everybody keeps saying they’re not human.”
“Humans built all of this, Nick,” said Will. “Humans that are helping the Other Team. That’s what this whole place is for.”
Will noticed Brooke looking at him intensely. “If the Knights built it, then why did your hand open it?”
“I have no idea,” said Will.
“Well, then, see if you can open this one,” said Elise, looking at the cylinder on the right more closely.
Will moved to the other cylinder and ran his hands along the top, looking for another depression. He couldn’t feel anything there, but then he slid his hand along the side. About halfway down he felt the same hand-sized pattern in the metal. Nothing happened when he fit his hand to it, so he ran his left hand down the other side and found another pattern for that hand.
As soon as both hands were in place, Will felt an energetic jolt shoot through the metal. The cylinder started to move, this time splitting in four equal quarters all the way down, sliding slightly away from each other. Will quickly yanked his hands away because once the pieces had completely separated, they turned to face each other and began to rotate clockwise, rapidly picking up speed. Within seconds the sections were spinning around in a tight circle so swiftly that all they could see was a blur.
What they could see was a still object around which the panels were spinning: suspended in midair in what would have been the middle of the cylinder was a slender, featureless bright metal tube, about six inches long.
Will quickly threw on his dark glasses—Ajay and Nick did the same—and saw the now-familiar aphotic glow emanate from the silver tube, along with a series of complex studs and buttons that rhythmically emerged from the metal and then liquidly merged back into it.
“If that isn’t Nepsted’s key,” said Ajay, “I’ll eat my spectromagraphic topometer.”
“I beg your jargon?” asked Nick.
“I think you’re right, Ajay,” said Will.
“That’s great, but how do we get it out of there?” said Nick, sharing his glasses with Brooke and Elise so they could see it.
Will took a piece of paper from his bag and extended it slowly toward the spinning sections of the cylinder. The whirling blades instantly shredded the paper.
“Can’t you reach in from the top?” asked Elise.
Will, the tallest in the group, stepped closer and raised his arm above the center to reach down in for it. Sensing movement, the blades adjusted position, two now spinning directly above the silver tube. Brooke pulled his hand back protectively.
“Be careful, those things could take your hand off,” said Brooke.
“We’re not leaving without that key,” said Will, his mind racing. “We need to attack this together.”
A plan took shape in his head and he gave instructions to the others. Brooke was the only one puzzled by his suggestion, but she said she’d give it a try. Four of them stepped back and took positions, waiting for Will’s signal. Nick put his heavy leather gloves back on and moved closest to the cylinder. Ajay knelt down and stared intently at the spinning blades. Brooke stood next to Elise, raised both her hands next to Elise’s back, and waited.
Will nodded at Elise, then walked back to the end of the room.
Elise took a few deep breaths and then summoned up a rumbling, low-frequency stream of sound that took shape like a transparent cloud, distorting the air in front of her. She slowly eased it forward into the path of the spinning blades, creating resistance. They started to slow, but the effort
of sustaining it against their brute force almost instantly drained Elise of most of her strength.
“Now, Brooke!” said Will.
Brooke closed her eyes and placed his hands on the center of Elise’s back, supporting her. Elise looked revived and the power of her vocal projection received an instant boost: now the blades slowed enough, almost by half, so you could almost see them.
And Ajay could see them quite distinctly.
“Now, Nick!” said Ajay, staring at them intently.
Nick reached down and grabbed the edge of the nearest blade, planted his feet, put all his leverage into it; all the blades slowed another twenty percent, but their force dragged Nick partway around the floor.
“Now, Will!” shouted Ajay.
Will took two steps and dove up and over the cylinder. Once over it he reached down in between the slowed blades. Before they could react, he snatched the silver tube, then tucked and rolled onto the ground on the other side.
“Get away from it!” he yelled.
Nick let go of the blade, Elise dissolved her sound cloud, and all of them were knocked back by an energetic concussion as the blades resumed whirring. Will looked at the tube in his hand, intact, glowing with a slight pulsation of light. It felt almost weightless, as if it might float away if he didn’t hold on to it.
The sections of the cylinder stopped moving and reassembled into one solid piece with a loud clank. The metal changed color, turning from bright silver to a dark shade of crimson.
“That can’t be good,” said Nick, shaking his hands in pain as he took off his gloves. “It’s never good when stuff turns red.”
“I don’t know,” said Will.
“Your fingers are bleeding,” said Elise.
“Lucky for me we’re in a hospital,” said Nick casually as Elise examined the cuts.
Brooke moved to Will, took him aside, and spoke in an urgent whisper. “What did I do just then? How did you know I could do anything like that?”
“Something I noticed earlier,” he said. “We don’t have time to talk about it right now.”
She looked frightened. “But it means—”
“I know what it means,” he whispered, trying to smile. “Don’t worry, you’re okay. The good news is you don’t have to feel left out anymore.”
“Will, look behind you,” said Ajay, pointing.
Will turned. The wall on the left side of the chamber had a window in it. Overhead lights had dimmed in the next room, allowing them to see inside. By far the largest of the three chambers, it was also the strangest.
Two orderly rows of large metallic canisters, a dozen of them about ten feet high, took up most of the room that they could see. Stacks of advanced electronics and technological devices and monitors surrounded them.
“Will, we got what we came for,” said Elise, grabbing him by the shirt, whispering fiercely. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We need to look in there first,” said Will.
HOBBES
The others followed Will as he hustled out of the cylinder room and moved to the door of the chamber on the left. They couldn’t see much through its front glass wall, even with lights on inside, because this glass turned out to be clouded and opaque.
“Can you see anything?” Will asked Ajay.
Ajay pressed his face up against the glass and opened his eyes wide. “Nothing moving. All I can make out are large, stationary pieces of equipment.”
Brooke asked Will to wait, long enough to dress some bandages from her pack onto Nick’s hands. He looked like he’d tried to grab a bacon slicer, but once she’d cleaned them, the cuts turned out to be superficial. When she finished, he slipped his leather gloves back on.
“Good to go,” said Nick.
Will put his dark glasses on and examined the external lock hanging on the room’s door. It had a complex, unearthly appearance similar to the one on Nepsted’s cage, fingers of steel slithering around a central gemlike shaft as if the whole thing were alive, glowing with a ghostly green nimbus. Will looked over and saw that Ajay had put his glasses on as well.
“I think it might work,” said Ajay.
“Let’s give it a try,” said Will.
Will lifted the silver key and held it next to the lock, and the device came alive in his hand. Fingers of liquid metal extruded from the body of the tube, reached out, and interacted with mobile parts of the lock in a complex dance, twisting and merging while changing colors rapidly, all in a way that seemed organic, a process that Will could somehow sense was the key persuading the lock to yield.
The interaction ended with a satisfying clunk as the bolt opened. All the moving parts of both devices instantly withdraw back into their original forms, and the sickly green light drained out of the lock. As soon as it was completely inert, the door gave way and swung open as if an unseen hand had pushed it.
Will eased it open the rest of the way and stepped inside. Ajay and Elise followed him, but Brooke stopped on the threshold.
“What’s wrong?” whispered Will.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I can’t go in there.”
“Stay with her, Nick,” said Will.
Nick signaled that he would. Will, Ajay, and Elise moved inside. Huge stacks of equipment, most rising to the ceiling in a strangely haphazard way, generated a disabling drone that overwhelmed all sound and made it hard to even think.
Will looked at Elise and asked silently, Can you do anything about the noise?
I can try.
Elise concentrated for a moment, opened her mouth, and emitted a high note beyond Will’s hearing, but when he activated his Grid, he could see it energetically deploy throughout the room like an opening parachute, neutralizing the din, dampening its disabling effects by half.
“Remind me to invite you to the prom,” said Ajay as he moved past her, taking readings with one of his devices.
The canisters stood on raised concrete platforms, three feet high, spaced far enough apart to create an aisle between the two rows. The three friends moved slowly down the aisle. Each canister had an aphotic lock near its base similar to the one on the door. They weren’t solid metal, as Will had first thought; each had a riveted panel of curved glass in front, about five feet off the ground. They were pitch-black inside, but they could see just enough to realize that all of the tanks were filled, at least to the level of their window, with some kind of dark liquid.
“There are numbered plates on the base below each container,” said Ajay, pointing out small pieces of brass attached to the concrete. “One through twelve. Followed by letters … two apiece … all these same initials were on the page from 1937 in that ledger up front …”
“These last two tanks are empty,” said Will, reaching the end of the row. “But the plate on number twelve has initials like the others—E. S.”
“Number eleven, too,” said Elise, reading the plate on the next to last canister. “R and L.”
A chill run up Will’s spine. “Ajay, pull up that picture I took of the plane crash memorial.”
“Give me a moment,” said Ajay, taking out the camera pen.
He transferred the digital image to a handheld device that projected it into the air nearby. Will turned to Elise, eyes wired by what was in his mind, and sent a quick picture of what he was thinking—knowing she was strong enough to handle it—and she was.
I need your help, he said.
I’m right here with you, she answered.
“Read the names, Ajay,” said Will, standing by the first canister. “In order.”
“Gerald Alverson … Thomas Bigby … Thornton Cross … Jonathon Edwards … Professor Joseph Enderman … Carl Forrester … George Gage … Richard Hornsby … Robert Jacks … Theodore Lewis … Raymond Llewelyn … Edgar Snow.”
Will and Elise traveled down the rows, checking initials ag
ainst the names.
“The Knights of Charlemagne, class of 1937,” said Elise quietly. “Ten of them anyway.”
“Twelve students and one teacher went down on that plane,” said Will, looking at the photo of the memorial. “Abelson, the teacher, isn’t here. Neither are two of the students.”
“Edgar Snow and Raymond Llewelyn,” said Elise. “Aka Hobbes and Nepsted.”
They heard a distinct splash in one of the tanks, somewhere in the middle of the row, next to where Ajay was standing. All three of them froze.
“What was that?” asked Ajay, his voice very small.
Will and Elise locked eyes and knew they were thinking the same thing. They swung their flashlights up and trained them on a tank in the center of the left row, taking a couple of steps toward it.
Another splash from inside the tank. Turning toward Will and Elise, Ajay’s eyes looked big enough to jump out of his head.
Will sent a word to Elise: NOW!
They switched on their flashlights and pointed at the glass panel on the front of the tank. The liquid inside, dank, yellow-green, and thick with sediment, was sloshing around.
Ajay still hadn’t turned to look at it, but he did now, slowly, when he saw the flashlights come on.
Something slapped up against the glass right above Ajay. A large, misshapen melted mass that reminded Will of a cluster of kelp washed up on a beach, pale and sickly, and somewhere in the middle of it they could make out a pair of distended, almost human eyes. A keening wail issued from the tank that froze their hearts.
And then, all around them, fluid stirred in the rest of the tanks. Other terrible things inside began throwing themselves at the glass. Will averted his eyes but still picked up impressions: paddles, fins, eyes, sacks of mottled flesh. Other sounds, equally piteous and strange, cried out to them, a chorus of ungodly voices.
They ran on blind instinct, picking up Ajay along the way, carrying him out the door, his eyes shut tight, trying to catch his breath, paralyzed with horror. Will slammed the door behind them, which didn’t do enough to kill the haunting voices trailing after them. The aphotic lock reengaged as the door closed.
