Priti pulled on the shoestring and it snapped. She ran down the street from the drifter. Kyle watched in horror as he expected the drifter to aim his contraption in Priti’s direction. He was surprised that the man ignored her completely. In fact, he seemed…satisfied, pulled back on the reins leading to the pterosaur’s head and depressed a button on the front of the saddle. The flying reptile responded with a screech and the drifter smacked it across the back of the head. It tried to snap at him, but his firm grip on the reins prevented that from happening. He pressed the button again and, in a moment of frantic flapping of its massive wings, it began to lift slowly off the ground and back into the air. Garbage and papers flew out from under the animal’s wings and a cloud of dust covered the ground like fog.
Kyle waited for the drifter to disappear over the apartment before venturing out after Priti. Had the drifter aimed his disruptor at Priti, the harmony of the entire universe would have fractured and crumbled. The ensuing chaos would have resulted in the destruction of virtually everything. Galaxies would have spiraled into one another and disappeared into black holes where harmonics created the stars. Little did Kyle realize the tremendous responsibility that sat on his shoulders and his alone. Little did he realize that only he had the ability to restore the harmony of the universe. Little did he realize he almost destroyed the universe.
***
Kyle ran swiftly through the streets and alleyways. He ducked behind buildings and flitted in and out of doorways—anything to keep from being spotted by the drifters. He could hear them. The sound of the flapping wings was unmistakable.
His mind raced as he tried to understand what had happened. At the same time, he decided to accomplish two things. His first priority was to get Priti back. Without her, all could be lost: past, present and future. He wondered: would they all come together? Wasn’t the past simply a way of keeping track of events as they happened and compared them with something else—like the spinning of the earth? One rotation of the earth equaled twenty-four hours, give or take a second. It was so precise.
Then, there was the movement of the earth around the sun. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Every four years a day was added to compensate for slight differences: a leap year. All events that occurred during those movements, then, could be measured and recorded—history. Hence, the past.
But if that were true, then no one could actually go back in time. Yet, he had. It didn’t make sense to Kyle. It didn’t add up. Somehow, he thought, it had to do with the little bits of electro-magnetism inside of every particle making up everything. It had to do with strings. How ironic that a shoestring was playing such an important role in the outworking of the universe.
He thought back to the violins. What does music have to do with the universe? Somehow, it had to do with the harmonics: the music of the universe. The answer was on the tip of his tongue. It was so close he could taste it.
Kyle was slammed back to reality when he came upon a group of creatures in one of the alleyways. They moved like velociraptors, but they were much smaller. There were four of them. One of them had fresh blood dripping out of its mouth. Kyle had interrupted a kill. They turned and looked at him with intense curiosity.
On closer look, he realized they were bambiraptors, or at least a closely related species of raptor. The front claws were sharper, the teeth more jagged—or perhaps he just imagined that. These animals were wild and vicious looking. Then, too, he remembered the transformation his own dog, Toby, could accomplish when he was protecting a piece of meat. Toby’s ears would go back, the hair of his back would stand up; the mouth would curl revealing an impressive-looking set of teeth and canines and the result would be frightening. Yet, a strong scolding voice telling him to “leave it!” would erase the illusion and Toby would drop the meat and lower his head in submission. Somehow, Kyle didn’t think that was going to work here.
The little raptors began fanning out. Their heads were jerkily moving back and forth, up, and down. Kyle backed into a doorway. There was a box on the door with a large orange circle. He didn’t have a choice. He opened the flap of the box and started to stick his hand in. The creatures were hissing and drooling as they approached with their heads held low and mouth open—just like the much larger raptors had done.
The closest one made its move and lunged at Kyle’s throat with open mouth. Kyle closed his eyes. This was it—the end of the universe. Not just for him, but for possibly all life. He thrust his hand into the box.
***
“What if we set the harmonics to forty percent? Wouldn’t that work?” asked Teresa?
The old man shook his head. “No. No. That wouldn’t work either. Whatever we do, we have to do it soon. I believe the paradox has begun. I believe the boy has the answer. You must get him here to me as soon as possible. Tonight. The drifters are already circling every hour. I believe he knows. The changes have begun. It will only get worse. If the boy remains much longer…it will soon be too late. Are you sure he is okay? We can’t let anything happen to him. He’s…very curious you know,” he said with a wink.
“Yes. We certainly know that!” said Sonja laughing. Despite the situation they were in, her husband’s sense of humor always seemed to calm them down.
The laboratory was impressive, perhaps as much as the original now in flux. They had done everything they could while their fathers were with them, but now that they were gone, it was up to them to complete the work: Teresa, Sonja and the old man sitting at the computer console. He vaguely resembled Einstein with his head of disheveled gray hair.
“I think the drifters are getting suspicious of me. They have been flying overhead an awful lot lately. I’m sort of surprised they haven’t come in,” said the old man.
“Why do you think that is?” asked Teresa.
“Why what?”
“Why haven’t they come in here yet?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think they’re looking for ‘you know who.’”
Teresa and Sonja both looked at the old man with surprise.
“Yes, they know. Maybe not everything. You know their leader well enough. He’s not stupid. Not by a long shot. He…they are just consumed by their own greed. If they really understood, they would know better than to try and stop the boy. Their concept of the past and future is limited by what they see and what they can get out of it. Now, let me work out the equations myself. Go. Go and make darn sure that that boy and the raptor stay put until tonight. Do you both understand what to do?”
“Yes, my Lord,” said Teresa as she bowed before the old man.
“Now stop that! Ever since that little tyke arrived, you’ve been acting silly. Can’t you ever be serious?”
Now Sonja joined in the bowing as they backed out the door. The old man just ignored their odd behavior. “Kids! Little girls! That’s what they are. Bah…” He snickered at the absurdity of it all.
***
Teresa and Sonja headed for the apartment on foot. The cars were subject to searches and they didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves. The drifters ignored people who walked normally and stayed out in the open. Strange sounds and movements attracted the pterosaurs, too, alerting the drifters.
The women arrived at the apartment. Teresa scanned her palm and the two of them entered.
“What should we tell Kyle?” asked Sonja.
“He isn’t going to be fooled forever and I don’t know how long it’s going to take your husband to come up with a plan. Let’s just go up and tell him we’re working on it. He’s just going to have to stay…”
“Where is he?” asked Sonja as she raced around the apartment. “He is not here! Neither is Priti! We are in deep trouble, Teresa.”
“I know! We have to find them—now!”
The girls raced down the stairs. “Pretend we’re just out for a stroll. Don’t act upset. You know how those Terrors are. They’ll home in on us in a second.”
“What if they got them already?” asked Sonja.
“I
f anything happens to them, that’s it. We’d already be gone and we’re not. We’re still here, aren’t we?”
“I think we need to tell the professor. He will know what to do. We can look for them on the way back. If anyone stops us, we can tell them we have to work late tonight. They would like that.”
“Okay. But you walk on the other side—just in case. Maybe they’ll spot us. At least he knew enough not to go back in the apartment. The scanner was still operative. If he had gone back in, we wouldn’t have been able to get in, right?”
“Unless…that’s what they wanted us to think.”
“Great. Why do you always have to be the pessimist?”
“Because you are always so optimistic. Someone besides my dear husband has to look on the bright side. I just balance the two of you. That is all.”
They stopped talking at the sound of the beating wings high above the building tops.
***
Kyle yanked his hand back out of the box before the scan was complete. He remembered what the girls had said: “They’re looking for you.” He decided in that split second to take his chances with the raptors. He heard the screeching and opened his eyes. He was still alive. One of the creatures was right in front of him. He was looking at the back of its head. He thought that was very strange. The others were gone and it took him a moment to realize the animal in front of him was Priti. She still had part of the shoestring attached to her.
“Priti! Why…how…what on earth? You scared them off? That has to be a first. And here I always thought you were just an ancient chicken.”
Priti bobbed up and down and seemed pleased to have protected Kyle. He grabbed the shoestring and pulled it off her head. “If you’re going to run away, I don’t want you dragging this around. You could get caught and strangle yourself. Then we’d all die. Just try and stay with me, will you?”
Priti tipped her head as if trying to understand what Kyle was saying. “Come on. Let’s keep moving…and try not to attract the attention of the flying terrorists.” Kyle laughed at his own unintended pun. “Get it? Terror-ists? Pteror-saur?” Priti bobbed up and down and then became playful. “Why am I talking to you anyway? You can’t understand a thing I say. No one appreciates a good joke anymore. I guess everyone’s just too busy. They don’t have any time for jokes! Ha ha! Time! I kill myself!”
***
Not far from the apartment, Kyle came across a row of brick buildings. They looked quite modern compared to the apartments. Black smoke billowed out of tall chimneys that stood over a hundred feet. Each building was five stories high. He thought it was strange that there weren’t any windows.
The buildings appeared to go on for miles; each one was as long as a football field. Two buildings away, Kyle’s attention was piqued by the presence of one of the drifters. He was talking to an old man with frazzled gray hair that was yelling at him. The drifter had his disruptor aimed at the old man and appeared unfazed by the disrespectful attitude. The old man waved the drifter off as if he was of no consequence and walked back in the building slamming the door. The drifter pulled back on the reins of his pterosaur and they rose out of sight. Kyle decided to find out whatever he could and the old man seemed like a good place to start. He doubted the girls—women— would have returned from wherever they were.
***
Kyle knocked on the door as he looked around to make sure there weren’t any drifters circling nearby. Priti stayed close behind running up and grabbing his pant leg every few seconds. It was eerily quiet. The sun had gone behind some thick clouds and Kyle could hear the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance. He decided being inside was the best place for him right now and he hoped the wild-haired old man would let him in.
Kyle banged on the door loudly several times before the door opened and the old man came out.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Why don’t you use the DNA Detector like normal peo—” The old man stopped in mid-sentence and looked at Kyle with surprise. Then he looked at Priti. His face froze with his mouth hanging open. He couldn’t speak.
“I’m sorry if I surprised you, sir. You see, my friend here and I need to get inside or we’re going to get all wet,” said Kyle trying to understand the odd behavior as he pointed to the sky. “It’s going to rain…I think. I’m not really from around here.”
The man was still in shock. Kyle felt awkward wondering what he had done to startle the old man so. After what seemed like a half hour, but was really less than a minute, the old man shook his head as if he were trying the shake water out of his ears after swimming.
“Uh…okay. Come in.”
Kyle entered the building and looked down the long corridor. At the end was a staircase. The old man motioned for them to follow him. He moved quickly for an old man. Kyle was intrigued. The man had literally yelled at the drifter and he didn’t do anything. He wondered who the old man was and what kind of power he possessed to challenge a drifter. They didn’t look like they would take that kind of talk without some consequence.
The old man climbed the stairs in leaps and bounds. Kyle had trouble keeping up. He stopped at the door and looked at Kyle again. Kyle still thought he detected a look of disbelief. When the old man opened the door, it was Kyle’s turn to look shocked.
Chapter Thirty-One
“He is here and we must find!” The head of the Council was practically yelling at the small group of drifters. One of them stood up and faced the Commissioner.
“Where are you getting your information from? There is no sign he is here. We have been scouring the city day and night. I think you are misinformed.”
The Commissioner was a tall man; he wielded considerable power on the council. It was the Commissioner, as he called himself, who devised the device to control the Pterosaurs. Because of that, every drifter had the utmost respect for him. Until then, there was no dominant group—no police—no real laws. No one knew what the Commissioner’s name really was or even where he came from. He simply appeared out of nowhere.
However, it was the device, based on string theory that controlled the pterosaurs. No one but the Commissioner had any idea how it worked. The mysterious professor in the lab was the only other person in the world that could tune the device. It gave him some advantage over the Commissioner, but only a little. The Commissioner’s real concern was the return of the boy. He knew that if Kyle returned it would mean the end of the drifters—possibly the end of the universe. The Commissioner was determined to prevent that from happening.
“The pterosaur devices have been malfunctioning.”
“So?”
“There can only be one explanation. The boy has returned. I want him alive. Do you understand? This is imperative. And the dinosaur, too. They must be captured alive—or we may all cease to exist.”
The Commissioner hobbled out of the room. His old injury was acting up. A pterosaur got him in the leg. He would make the boy pay for the error.
***
The room was filled with computers. From one end clear to the other, banks of hard drives lined the shelves. Clear coiled lines ran up and down to the ceiling and the glowing green liquid pulsed with a metallic sound of a drumbeat. It was a low, bass sound. Kyle thought it was kind of catchy. A console contained three computer screens. It looked identical to the one in his father’s lab. He wondered what he had just stumbled onto. Now he recognized the buildings. They resembled the original laboratory.
“Who are you?” asked Kyle in shock.
The old man seemed to be confused—as if he hadn’t expected to see Kyle there. But then Kyle hadn’t expected to be there since it was totally by accident he was there. Or was it?
“I…I’m…sorry. I…uh, didn’t expect any visitors.” The old man glanced at Priti and his eyes seemed to flash recognition. But then it disappeared as quickly as it came. “How…where…I mean, what are you doing here?”
“Well, it’s kind of a long story, sir. I’m not exactly from around these parts.” Kyle smiled unco
mfortably. He didn’t know whether to trust the man although he found himself unusually drawn to him. “I’m afraid I got lost. How is it you have…all this equipment? It looks awfully familiar? Did you know my father? By the way, my name is…”
“Kyle Donavan. Yes. I know.”
Kyle’s jaw dropped.
“Let me show you something…young fellow.” The old man gestured to Kyle to follow him as he walked over to an elevator and punched in a code. Kyle’s old habit of keenly observing everything people did emerged and his jaw dropped yet again when the old man punched in the keys: S-O-N-J-A.
Am I in some sort of a parallel universe? Who is this guy? He looks familiar. I wonder if I’ve ever seen him before and now he’s just old. He’s not my dad…or Dr. Bashan. But he knows Sonja! What on earth is going on? The real surprise was at the top of the elevator. The door slid slowly opened with a loud creaking sound and there in the middle of the room, glowing brightly, was the time capsule.
***
Back downstairs in the computer lab the old man typed in a series of numbers and showed Kyle the complex programming of the harmonics. He typed so fast Kyle couldn’t even see his fingers as they blurred across the keyboard. The screen went blank and then up popped what looked like sheet music.
“Ever played an instrument…Kyle?” It seemed to Kyle the old man didn’t like to say his name. “Of course not. You liked to listen to…rap music. Isn’t that right?”
“How do you know these things about me? Am I supposed to know who you are? You look familiar. Are you my old science teacher?”
The old man laughed easily. “No. You can call me…Professor. Everyone does. Even my wife, Sonja calls me that.”
“Sonja? Is your…wife? Wow. This is a weird world you live in…Professor.”
“You have only scratched the surface, young fellow.” The old man laughed as if at some joke that only he understood. “You see, the harmonics really are music, Kyle. Look here,” said the professor as he pointed to the computer screen. “Notice how the notes are all tightly located on the scales.”
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