by Bryan Davis
“That didn’t do much.” I backed away from the desk and looked up. “But I guess we shouldn’t expect it to. It’s only five days, and it’s about the same time of night.”
Daryl squinted at the screen. “Here’s a selector in the corner that’s set to Optical Telescope. The other option is Radio Telescope.”
Clara flicked her thumb behind her. “Interfinity has a hookup to a radio telescope about ten miles away. That selector probably allows them to control it from here.”
“Let’s see what happens.” Daryl clicked on the radio telescope option. The mirror on the ceiling flashed, and the starry canopy changed to a frenzied jumble of tiny multicolored shapes — polygons, ribbons, ovals, and indistinct globules — each morphing from one shape to another. “Well, that looks interesting … whatever it is.”
I stared at the chaotic display. It was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic.
Daryl leaned back in her chair and looked up. “It’s probably a computer rendering of the radio noise from space. Some programmer translated it into a visual array.”
Clara shook her head. “But what good is it? It looks like a chimpanzee’s finger painting.”
“Maybe it’s loaded with information,” I said. “It just has to be decoded.”
Staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, Francesca breathed a quiet, “Aren’t the sounds amazing?”
“What sounds are you talking about?” I asked.
“Can’t you hear them? It’s like every shape up there is singing a note, but they aren’t in harmony.”
I looked at Daryl. “Is there a volume control?”
“Maybe this is it.” As Daryl adjusted a slider bar, thousands of dissonant musical notes poured from speakers embedded somewhere in the walls.
I covered my ears. “It’s like the worst orchestra in the world. Every musician’s on a different page, and Clara’s chimp is conducting.”
“I hear a melody,” Francesca said. “It’s mixed up inside the noise, but I hear it.”
“Do you recognize it?”
Francesca shook her head. “But I think I could play it.” Her pupils reflected the cacophony of colors above, just as Mom’s eyes had done.
I hustled to the case, flipped it open, and handed Francesca the violin. As she settled it under her chin and curled her fingers around the neck, her brow furrowed. “Yours is bigger than mine. I’ll have to adjust.”
She poised the bow above the strings, her eyes closed as she concentrated. Then, setting the bow hairs lightly on the A string, she played a long, quiet note, moving her fingers along the string to adjust the sound. She then shifted to the E string and did the same.
She stopped and sighed. “This is hard. The melody is fast and mixed in with the noise.”
“You can do it.” I patted her on the back. “Just keep trying.”
Francesca resumed playing notes, sometimes several in succession that kept to a melodic scheme. As the minutes ticked by, her connected phrases lengthened, and the notes blended together into a design that became more and more familiar.
I stared at the colors on the ceiling and whispered, “It’s Dvořák, from the New World Symphony.”
The shapes broke apart and seemed to bleed their pigments into each other, creating new forms, indistinct and miscolored — humanoids with knobby blue hands and spaghetti-thin green torsos.
As they blended, Francesca’s eyes brightened with the same white light that shone from the eyes of her adult namesake, yet not quite as brilliant and without the expanding beams.
I touched Francesca’s shoulder. “Can you play it louder?”
Without a word, she stepped away and, dipping her head and arms, began stroking her instrument with passion. Her fingers danced along the neck, while her bow flew back and forth in a hypnotic sway.
Heavenly music filled the room. Her eyes began to blaze. The colors sharpened, as if called to order by the musician’s bow. The shapes molded into real human forms, two men standing in a dimly lit room.
I tried to keep an eye on the scene above while at the same time watching my mother, in the guise of a youthful prodigy, play her part of this strange New World performance. She had become a generator of musical energy, a dynamo who could somehow feed on the cosmic sounds and pour out their vitality in a visible spectrum. Yet, her arms sagged a bit. Playing like this would soon drain her.
Above, the men in the mirror image sharpened to photo-realistic quality, moving about their scene in apparent real time.
Daryl pointed. “Dr. Gordon’s there.”
As if drawn by the music, Clara walked with a swaying rhythm to the center of the room. I joined her, mesmerized by the scene above, an exact copy of this chamber, yet populated by a different set of characters, including Dr. Gordon who stood next to the telescope in the middle of the room. He and Mictar, looking as pale as ever, seemed to be conversing in the Earth Blue world.
A bandage covered part of Dr. Gordon’s cheek. So there had to be two Dr. Gordons, one on Earth Blue who tried to kill Kelly and me, and one on Earth Red who showed up at the high school.
As the scene continued brightening, Mom came into view in the background. She sat in one of the rolling swivel chairs, her head erect and her chin firm, though her hands were bound behind her back.
Mictar’s thin, pale lips moved, but no voice emerged. Leaning toward Mom, he wrapped his spindly fingers around her throat, and his voice broke through the chaotic noise. “If you don’t tell me the secret of Quattro, I will feed on your eyes.”
She glared at him, saying nothing.
He shoved her backwards. She tipped in her chair and, unable to brace herself because of her bonds, toppled over. As she looked up at him, her expression still defiant, he pointed toward a wall. “Take her to her room.”
Mictar stalked away. Dr. Gordon untied Mom, helped her rise, and led her somewhere out of sight. The room in the reflection lay vacant.
I growled, “We have to get there.”
“A flash of light?” Kelly asked.
I waved a hand toward the wall. “Everyone look for light switches. Quick. Before Francesca gets too tired.”
Clara hurried toward one side of the room. Daryl ran to the other. I rushed to the desk and grabbed my mirror while Kelly stood in front of Francesca and spoke a mile a minute. “You’re amazing. Better than any rock star. I wish I had talent like yours. Just hang in there.”
Francesca grimaced but played on, her intonation staying true. I rejoined her and helped with the encouragement. “Just a few more notes. You can do it.”
“I found the switches,” Daryl called.
Lights blinked on from around the base of the perimeter. Trumpet-shaped track lights shot white beams toward the ceiling that gathered at the top of the dome. Each beam split into a hundred thin shafts of light that rebounded toward the floor, some piercing Kelly, Francesca, and me, while other shafts surrounded us in a laser-beam cage.
Francesca stopped playing. The ceiling reflection descended toward us, sliding down the laser pathways and along the perimeter wall. Within seconds, the scene from the other world spread over the trumpet-like fixtures and blocked their glow. Clara and Daryl faded along with the failing lights.
Soon, our surroundings took shape. We remained inside the observatory dome, but the telescope aimed in a different direction, only two laptop computers rested on the workstation table, and the tour group door stood wide open. The mirror above displayed the starry sky, darker purple than before, with more yellowish-white pinpoints.
I looked toward the light switches. Clara and Daryl were nowhere in sight. A motor hummed from the elevator. Above its door, the red numeral switched from a 2 to a 1. “Dr. Gordon must be taking Mom to a room downstairs. We have to follow him.”
Kelly stepped near the elevator call button. “Think it’s safe to go this way?”
“Can’t risk calling it. They might notice the signal.”
She nodded toward the tour door. “We could go that way, but if this
world is the same as ours, we’d need a code to get into the secure area.”
“I don’t know that code. I just caught the door before it closed.”
Francesca raised her violin bow. “I know the numbers. The guard couldn’t cover the pad because he was carrying me.”
“The code might not be the same in this world,” I said, “but it’s worth a try.”
The elevator motor kicked in with a low thud and began humming. The number above the door changed back to a 2.
“Let’s go.” I gave Kelly the mirror and repacked the violin and bow. Kelly leading the way, we raced through the open door and along the carpeted hall. After turning into another corridor and hustling to the end, she jerked open a door leading to a stairwell. Once we filed inside and the door swung closed, I pulled Kelly and Francesca into a huddle near the top step. “Let’s think for a minute.”
Kelly laid a hand on her chest. “Speaking of thinking, I think my heart’s kicking my lungs.”
I set the violin case down, leaned over the metal rail, and looked at the gap between the flights of stairs. “This place is familiar.”
“It should be.” Kelly took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “If you go down to the second floor, you’ll be next to the room where you climbed in the building.”
“So on the first floor it’ll come out near the secure area.” I turned to Francesca. “What’s the code?”
She closed her eyes and recited. “Nine, three, eight, zero.”
I whispered the numbers. Strange. The code on the door where they kept her and Clara was eight, four, seven, one. The two codes followed a pattern. “When we get to the first floor, I’ll sneak out by myself and try the numbers, while you watch from the stairwell. If they work, you two follow.”
After picking up the violin and descending the stairs with the mirror tucked at my side, I opened the hallway door a crack and peeked out. No one was around. I slipped into the hall and headed for the door to the secure area. When I passed the adjacent hallway that led to the rear of the observatory, a light flickered in that direction.
I looked back toward the stairs. Kelly’s eyes appeared through a tiny sliver in the doorway. Raising a finger, I mouthed, “Just a minute” and set the violin case down.
Running on the balls of my feet, I hurried to the exit door and looked out its square window. Well to the right, a light shone from a fixture hanging on the curved wall of the domed building. Since night had taken over the skies, not much else was visible.
Just as I was about to turn back, lights flashed outside. A small car drove into view, scuffing the sandy driveway as it skidded to a stop.
The driver jumped out — a tall, muscular guy wearing a tight gray sweatshirt. With his oversized hood pulled up, shadows covered his face, and billows of white puffed from within. Obviously it was a cold evening on Earth Blue. Maybe the freakish weather had invaded this world as well.
As the driver shuffled to the back of the car, the trunk popped open. He withdrew a square white box about the size of a small toaster oven, then leaned over and peered into the car’s window as if looking for something on the backseat.
He jerked his head around. Another set of lights flashed in his face. He raised a forearm to shield his eyes, then, ducking his head low, rushed toward the observatory.
A black Mustang convertible screeched into view and smacked into the side of the smaller car. The Mustang driver leaped out, carrying a shotgun at his hip.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I crouched in the corner next to the hinges. Since the hall was barely wider than the entryway, there was nowhere else to go.
The security pad beeped four times. When the lock disengaged, a barrage of shotgun blasts ripped into the metallic entrance, sounding like a thousand pebbles thrashing an aluminum garbage can. Something thudded against the door and pushed it open. The sweatshirt-clad man fell into the hallway, still holding the white box at his side.
Lying facedown across the threshold, his buckshot-riddled body propped the door. Blood spread across the back of his sweatshirt, connecting dozens of holes in a wash of muted scarlet.
I leaped up and looked outside. The attacker was reloading, his attention on the shotgun. I grabbed the victim’s wrists and pulled, but something caught. He wouldn’t budge.
Groaning, the man turned his head and looked up at me with bulging eyes. “Nathan?”
I dropped to my knees. “Mr. Clark? Tony Clark?”
Tony slid the box into my hands. “Clara sent this for your father. She said it might be his only hope.”
The gunman engaged a new shell with a loud snap and stalked toward us. Tony pushed against the floor, and, with my help, rose to his feet. Staggering in place, he shoved me. “Get the box to your father. I’ll hold him off.” He took a long stride out the door and slammed it shut.
Tony’s distinctive voice penetrated the metal barrier. “Back off, Jack!”
Like booming thunder, the shotgun replied with two volleys. More pellets rained on the door, followed by a thud and the scraping sound of Tony’s body sliding down the outer side.
I clutched my stomach but kept silent, not daring to breathe. I eased toward the door’s window and peeked through the glass. Tony lay motionless in front of the door, his chest a ragged mess of bloody, shredded cotton. Showing no hint of movement, he had to be dead. But I couldn’t leave him without checking.
The Mustang driver, his shotgun again at his hip, stalked toward the door. Although he also wore a hooded sweatshirt, light passed across his bearded face. He was the same driver from Earth Red who broke into the Clarks’ house. Or was he the Earth Blue copy?
I ducked into the corner and fixed my gaze on the bloodstained box in my hands. The doorknob rattled. I scrunched lower and looked up. The man pressed his face against the window, making his nose look pink and bulbous. With a grunt, he thrust his shoulder against the door, but it held firm.
Inching forward in a painful crouch, I held the box in one hand and kept the mirror in front with the other, allowing a view of the window while I crouched as low as possible.
The butt of a shotgun smashed through the glass, sending shards over me. The man extended his arm through the hole and stretched for the doorknob, but it was out of his reach.
When he withdrew his arm, I waited and listened. The mirror continued reflecting reality, nothing that would help me decide what to do. A cold draft descended from the shattered window, carrying with it the man’s low voice, grumbles peppered with obscenities. Seconds later, the shotgun’s clacking noise cut into the sounds.
I cringed. Would he try to shoot his way in? As I eyed the box, Tony’s words echoed. Clara sent this for your father. She said it might be his only hope. Taking a deep breath, I nodded. I couldn’t save Tony, but I could try to save Dad. It was now or never.
Tucking the mirror and holding the box, I lunged and ran down the hall.
“Hey!” the man shouted. “Wait!”
I shuddered. Would a shotgun blast follow the killer’s call? Just as I turned the corner toward the stairs and looked back, a swarm of pellets smashed into the wall. The gun’s echoing boom immediately followed.
Kelly and Francesca rushed from the stairwell. “Who’s doing all that shooting?” Kelly asked.
I showed the box to her. “Someone shot the guy who delivered this.” I couldn’t bear to tell her the victim’s identity. “We have to get out of here.”
Kelly picked up the violin case. “Let’s haul.”
Gesturing for the girls to stay close, I edged toward the exit corridor. “My guess is he’ll shoot the lock to try to break in. When I give the word, we’ll run to the secure area. Since he doesn’t know the codes, we should be safe in there.”
“Until he shoots through that door, too. And what if the code’s different in this world?”
“Then get ready for some unexpected ventilation.”
The shotgun boomed. I shouted, “Now!” We rushed across the exit hall and scrambled
down the additional twenty feet to the door leading to the secure area.
“I’ll watch the mirror,” I said, holding it up. “You punch in the code.”
Kelly gave Francesca the violin case and raised a hand to the keypad. “What were the numbers again?”
“Nine, three, eight, zero.” I braced the mirror in one hand and pressed the box against my opposite side. In the reflection, the area behind me was clear except for debris from the shotgun blast.
As she punched in the numbers, the pad beeped, but no disengaging sound followed. She pulled the door handle. “Still locked.”
Two people appeared in the mirror. A quick glance to the rear proved that they weren’t really there yet. “Try another code with the same pattern. Maybe seven, five, six, two.”
She entered the digits, then balled her fist. “I messed up.”
“Try again.”
“I hear footsteps,” Francesca said. “Like someone running.”
I checked the mirror. Two men carrying scoped rifles dashed toward us from the far end of the hall, though they weren’t visible yet in reality. “Guards are coming. They must have heard the gunshots.”
Francesca pointed. “There they are.”
At the end of the hall, a pair of guards careened around a corner and stormed our way. One shouted, “Put your hands up!”
“What do we do?” Kelly asked.
In the mirror, the guards crouched in fear. A distraction was coming. Probably the shotgun guy. I whispered to Kelly, “Just stay calm and be ready to press the buttons.”
Another gun blast sounded from the exit hallway. The guards halted just before the intersection and dropped to their haunches.
I yelled, “There’s a guy with a shotgun out there! We’ve been trying to get away from him!”
One of the guards touched the other on the shoulder. “Cover me, Dave.” Lowering his head, he charged toward the exit. The other guard stood and fired round after round toward the door, aiming high enough to miss his partner.
