Lost in Babylon

by Peter Lerangis

  I lifted my finger toward the one. Then I tapped out a pattern that resembled the shape of a seven—left to right across the top, then diagonally down to the left-hand corner.

  1, 2, 3, 5, and 7.

  With a dull click, the door swung open.

  Inside, embedded in the wall, was a deep rectangular hole that contained two wooden boxes. “Eureka,” I whispered.

  Cass opened one, to see a familiar glow—the flying Loculus. As he reached inside, it levitated to meet his fingers. “Good to see this again . . .”

  I opened the other box, which seemed to contain nothing. As I thrust my hand inside, my knuckles hit something solid. I grinned. “Two for two.”

  Attached to the wall, to the right of the safe, was a table containing a couple of sturdy sacks—big ones, which had obviously been used to carry the boxed Loculi here.

  I placed the flying Loculus, in its box, inside one sack.

  The other Loculus I would need to have in hand. Quietly I sidled to the doorway and put my ear against it. Silence.

  Looking at Cass, I mouthed Let’s go.

  As we turned back to the Loculus, the door beeped. I looked over my shoulder.

  The inner latch was turning downward, slowly. I reached up, pulling the lightbulb string. The light went out.

  And the door began to swing open.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  PUSH HARDER

  THE LIGHT BLINKED on. A man with thick stubble looked straight at me. He muttered something extremely nasty-sounding in another language.

  Then he looked away.

  Behind him, a woman wearing a Massa cap peered inside. Her eyes circled the closet.

  My back was jammed against the wall, my palm firmly on the Loculus. I held my breath. Cass was clutching my arm so tightly I wanted to scream. I wanted to remind him that invisibility depended on contact, not grip strength.

  The two began to argue. The woman reached up and shut the light. Slowly the door swung back.

  We waited for the click. Even then, neither of us dared take a breath for a few seconds. Until the footfalls had faded into the distance.

  “That was close,” Cass said. “I owe you, Jack.”

  “Stay alive,” I replied. “That will be the best payback. Now let’s get out of here. Hang on to my arm.”

  I held on to the invisibility Loculus, and Cass took the flying one. No one would be able to see us. I carefully thrust the handle down, pushed the door open, and stepped into the hallway.

  It felt great. Too great. You have no idea what your body feels like when you’re invisible. Solid but weightless. It’s the opposite of being underwater. There you have to adjust to the resistance. You push harder. Every motion is exaggerated. With invisibility, it’s the opposite. You feel like your arm will fling off with every swing, your feet will slip and thrust you into the air. You have to pull back. It makes you want to giggle.

  And I could hardly imagine a less giggle-worthy moment.

  I turned left. At the corner I peered around to see the exit. At the end of the long hallway, in front of the exit door where we’d seen Dimitrios minutes before, three burly men stood guard.

  Cass’s grip tightened on my arm. We lifted off the floor, only a few inches, to avoid having to make footsteps. I sucked in a lungful of the dry desert air that blew in through the open door. It felt liberating.

  Unfortunately the ceiling was too low for us to fly over the guards’ heads. So we hovered, waiting.

  The sound of a truck stopped the men’s conversation. Through the door I could see uniformed men piling out, rifles and ammo belts across their chests. We shrank against the walls as the small militia ran inside, shouting.

  I shivered. Cass stared wide-mouthed.

  The soldiers were fitted out for war. They were here to find us.

  As the guys spread out to the different hallways, the three guards turned back toward the open door. They were looking outside again, shoulder to shoulder.

  What do we do now? Cass mouthed.

  With my free hand, I reached for the pouch on my belt and mouthed back, Call MacGruber.

  By now, the container of ice cream was melted and gooey. I tossed it, and it landed about three feet behind us with a dull thud. It was totally visible, totally a mess. For good measure, I threw the bottle of vegetable oil after it.

  The guards turned. Their faces scrunched in bewilderment, and they began walking toward it curiously. Leaving the door. Heading directly in front of us.

  We backed away, flattening ourselves even more.

  One of the guards bumped against my shoulder. Solid. I nearly dropped the Loculus.

  He staggered back with a gasp. In his eyes I could see two and two coming together reluctantly. These guys must have been taught about us. About what we had found.

  The man called sharply to the others. All three reached into holsters, pulling out pistols.

  Two of them walked slowly toward us, their eyes unfocused but intent. The third moved to the door, blocking escape.

  The guard closest to us grinned. “We know you are there. Exactly where, you cannot get away. I will be proud to be the one to bring you in. So. You have to the count of three to appear, or I will shoot. One . . .”

  I looked at Cass. My fingers were sweaty and slippery on the Loculus. I wedged it under my arm.

  The guard poked me with his rifle butt and laughed. “Three!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  MUSTACHES EVERYWHERE

  I HEARD THE click of a safety catch. I wrapped my fingers around the pepper container, screwing off the top—and I tossed the contents.

  Moving fast, I wriggled out of the gun’s way. And I tossed the contents.

  “Yeeeeeaaaa-CHOO!”

  The guards and his ally sprang back. The other guard, the one at the door, faltered, just in time for me to throw another fistful of pepper.

  “Let’s go!” I shouted.

  We tore out of the building to a chorus of sneezing, and a new vocabulary of very bad words.

  We kept to the outer wall, staying in the shadows. Not far away, we sped by the soldiers’ truck. As I passed, I noticed a set of keys flung into the cup compartment. “Have you ever tried driving?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Cass piped up. “On the farm.”

  We jumped in. Cass put the truck in gear, and we lurched away in a cloud of foul odor.

  The streets of Nazlet el-Samman were a relief. They smelled of cinnamon and frying meat. We had ditched the truck just off the highway, far away from here, and jogged the rest of the way.

  “Police?” I asked whoever would listen. “Do you know where the police are?”

  “How about a girl, about our age?” Cass said. “Really smart?”

  We looked around desperately for cops and for Aly, but it was hard to see. The street was packed shoulder to shoulder. On the one hand, this might help shield us from the Massa, but on the other hand, we could barely move. I had to grab Cass’s arm to keep from being separated. Every hat looked like a Massa lambda cap to me. Every person looked like a Massa. I saw at least seven men who were dead ringers for Brother Dimitrios. Mustaches were everywhere.

  It was getting close to lunchtime and vendors stirred up food in great big pots. A kid in a striped T-shirt raced in and out of slow-moving tourists. “Hahahaha!” he cackled, easily evading a pursuer who must have been his younger brother. A girl walked purposefully by us, pulling two goats on tethers. Voices rang out loudly in all kinds of languages: “Over here . . . ella tho . . . kommen sie hier bitte . . . bienvenue . . . the best!”

  “Jack, I’m starving,” Cass said.

  “No,” I said. “Just no. We have to get out of here.”

  “This is fast food,” he said. “We can eat and run.”

  “No!”

  We wound our way past tables full of plastic pyramids in Day-Glo colors; arrays of T-shirts that said MY PARENTS TOOK ME TO EGYPT AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS DUMB T-SHIRT; and an artist with a beret who was painting a por
trait of a patiently smiling grandfather on a canvas labeled PYRAMID OF GEEZER.

  I pulled Cass into a narrow side street. Even in full sunlight, the alley was dark. An angry-looking chicken stood in a doorway, scolded us, and then lost interest and went back in.

  “What do we do now?” Cass asked.

  “I say we get away from this place,” I said. “The farther the better. They’ll come after us. They’ll see the truck and cover the whole area. We can stay invisible but that’s not going to help us in the long run. We’ll keep an eye out for a hardware store so we can wrench these iridium bracelets off, and hope the KI picks us up.”

  “What about calling home?” Cass asked.

  I thought about Aly’s disastrous phone conversation with her mom in Rhodes. But I knew the sound of Dad’s voice would be pretty amazing. It was tempting. “I’ll think about it.”

  Cass gazed back into the street. “It’s easier to think on a full stomach.”

  I rubbed my forehead. It ached. And not the weird, G7W kind of pain that meant I needed a treatment. It was pure hunger.

  I looked left and right. The alley was empty. No one watching. Quickly I placed the invisibility Loculus in the empty box, closed it, and put that into the empty sack. “Keep your eyes open,” I said.

  We walked out the alleyway and into the bustling street. In the shadows of the nearest building, a skinny cat and two skinnier kittens eyed us warily. I stepped on an errant chunk of pita bread and kicked it toward them. As they pounced, a fat guy with a thick mustache grinned at us from behind a long, hissing grill. “Bueno! Bon! Primo! Ausgezeichnet! Oraio! The best!”

  He held out a chunk of shish-kebab meat on a toothpick, which Cass scarfed right down. “Ohhhhh, he’s right,” Cass said with a blissful smile. “It’s amazing. I’ll have a full one, sir.”

  I pointed to a delicious-looking hunk of meat, roasting on a stick. “Whatever that is.”

  “Ahmed! Shish-kebab, shwarma!” the guy called out. His partner, a tall guy with a darker mustache and chiseled arms, doled out Cass’s dishes first. Then he cut five slices of the shwarma meat and laid them on a fluffy piece of pita bread with onions, peppers, and steaming rice.

  I could barely control my drool before biting in. “Ah, hungry boys!” the man said. “American dollars? Only six!” He smiled. “Okay, for you—only two-fifty!”

  Money.

  In the preparation for the time-rift, I hadn’t thought to bring any. “Um . . . Cass?”

  “I left home without my American Express card,” Cass said.

  I peered up at the food vendor. He was tending to another customer, a fat guy with an Indiana Jones hat, plaid shorts, white socks and sandals, and a family of four.

  Invisibility could come in very handy. I swung my bag around and pulled open the box.

  “Hahahahaha!” With a piercing laugh, the kid in the striped T-shirt sped past. He knocked my arm hard. The box toppled onto the street.

  “The Loculus!” Cass cried.

  I dove for the box, scooping it up off the pavement. I felt inside, praying the Loculus was still there.

  Nothing. I could hear the music. I knew it was around somewhere. But I couldn’t see it. “It’s gone,” I said.

  Cass was on his knees, feeling around for it. I dropped down to join him. People screamed in surprise as we pushed them away.

  “Hey!” the shish-kebab guy shouted.

  I turned. Ahmed, his partner, was catapulting over the counter. “You thief!” he said. “You pay!”

  Tourists were turning to stare. A gray-haired guy with an ice-cream cone snapped a photo. A little girl began to cry.

  “Stop them!” Ahmed shouted.

  No time to think. I sprinted into the crowd. I knocked over a basket, upsetting a snake charmer who tried to smack me with his oboe. As people gathered around to look, I tripped over a pair of baby goats who were lapping water from a puddle. They bahhed angrily as I tumbled onto the stones. I landed in front of a trio of break-dancers in flowing white garb. “Excuse me,” I said, ducking into an alleyway.

  My back to a dark wall, I caught my breath. I looked around frantically for Cass.

  Where was Cass?

  I stepped back toward the street. “Cass!” I called out. “Cass, where are you?”

  “You!” I spun around at the sound of the gruff voice.

  Ahmed was approaching from behind, his fists clenched.

  I ran back into the crowd. Ahmed’s partner was waiting, a grin on his face and his arms wide.

  The two baby goats stared up from the puddle and scolded me. I knelt down, scooped up one of them, and flung it toward the man.

  He looked startled. Instinctively he caught it. I swerved around his stand and into the thick of the crowd. I ducked low, threading my way through the people, hoping against hope I’d run into Cass.

  I ducked under an archway that led into a courtyard. Sprinting across to the other side, I came into a wider, less touristy street, with boxy buildings, a bus stop, and a gas station. “Cass?” I called out.

  A car screeched to a halt at the curb. The driver called out, “Taxi? Taxi?”

  “No!” I said.

  The cab door opened hard, as if kicked. I backed away, nearly falling to the pavement. I saw a mass of white fabric, a huge pair of sunglasses, and a beard. A red beard.

  A beefy hand clapped the back of my neck and shoved me into the backseat, headfirst.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  THE CHILLING

  “HAVE ONE. NEED the other.”

  I unfolded my twisted body from the floor of the taxi. I knew the voice. “Torquin?”

  My captor pulled a white hood from his bush of red curly hair. “Better if you sit,” he said.

  I stared at him in numb disbelief. “How—?”

  To my left, another voice chimed in. “He’s here because I got a hardware store guy to cut off my iridium bracelet.”

  I spun around. I’d been so stunned to see Torquin, I hadn’t noticed who was sitting with me in the backseat. Aly grinned. “You can hug me. It’s okay.”

  I threw my arms around her, squeezing her hard. “I was worried about you!”

  “You were?” Aly said.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed, pulling away. “Look, we can talk more later. Listen, Aly. Marco is lost to us. He’s with the Massa and I don’t think he’s coming back. Cass is somewhere back there, on the main drag. We got separated. Let me run back and see if I can find him.”

  “Massa coming,” Torquin said, reaching for the door. “Can’t let you go. Torquin find him.”

  In the distance I could hear sirens. I turned to see a police car screech to a halt beside a public bus. Out of the car walked a man in a police uniform, along with Brother Dimitrios.

  “Drive!” Torquin said.

  I sank out of sight. The taxi driver put the car in gear. “Englees?” he said. “Where we go?”

  Before anyone could answer, the door next to me flew open. I felt something smack against me, and I fell against Aly.

  As the door shut again, Cass materialized out of thin air on the seat next to me. “All present and accounted for,” he said, dropping two sacks onto the floor of the taxi. “Including Loculi.”

  Aly screamed. She reached across me toward Cass, and I felt myself scrunched up into a big hug sandwich. “Are you okay?” she said.

  “The shish-kebab gave me gas,” Cass said. “Otherwise, I’m gnileef doog.”

  “Airport,” Torquin snapped.

  I could see the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, like two white lanterns, as he slammed on the gas pedal.

  “Well, well, the mad bomber returns!” Fiddle called out as we stepped from the jet onto the KI tarmac.

  A woman with a shaved head ran toward us and wrapped me in a hug. It took me a moment to realize it was Nirvana. “Long time,” she said. “Longer than you know.”

  Professor Bhegad was walking toward the ladder with only the slightest limp. His tweed coat looked a lit
tle more ragged, his hair grayer and more sparse. “Where are the Loculi?” he called out.

  I stepped down the ladder, pulling the bags around to my front. “They’re in here, Professor,” I said.

  He snatched them away with a big grin. “Marvelous! Marvelous!”

  “Uh, we’re fine, too,” Aly said. “Thanks for asking.”

  Professor Bhegad set down the bags, then turned sheepishly toward us. He thrust his hand toward mine and I shook it. “Well, Jack, you don’t look a week older. Which makes perfect sense. Aly . . . Cass . . . so good to have you all back.”

  “We—we lost Marco,” I said softly. “He’s with the Massa.”

  Bhegad’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, well, I was afraid of this. We will deal with it. But let’s not dwell on the negative now. We have you, we have the Loculi. Only five to go.” He leaned down, investigating the contents of the bags. Then he pulled open the top box, the one with the invisible Loculus. “This second one has nothing in it. . . .”

  “Its power is invisibility,” I said.

  “Extraordinary . . .” he said, peering closer. “The boxes appear to be lined with iridium . . . it shields the Loculi from transmitting powers. How would they know that?”

  “They know a lot,” Aly said.

  Bhegad nodded. “And they will know more, now that they have Marco. We will have to act fast.” He wiped his brow and smiled wearily. “But first, a little celebration at the Comestibule. Everyone has missed you. Come. Your rooms are waiting. Take a shower, settle in, freeze up . . .”

  “The term is chill out, Professor,” Nirvana said.

  “Ah, well, impossible to keep up with the hep lingo,” Bhegad said, walking briskly toward campus. “Dinner begins at seven. A Seven Wonders theme meal. Colossal beef stew, pyramid flan, hanging garden salad, and such. So, my children, we will see you after your chilling.”

  I glanced and Aly and Cass.

  I wanted so badly to feel good about being back.

  I almost did.

  “What the heck is pyramid flan?” Cass asked, plopping down on my bed. His hair was still wet from the shower, his KI clothes crisp and bright white.