by Mark Frost
Franklin’s voice trembled with barely suppressed anger and his hands were shaking as he waved them around emphatically. Will had never seen him so wound up.
“Now you and I, we’re expected to learn from our mistakes, correct? Well, the norms of human behavior don’t apply to our ‘lords and masters.’ That was only the beginning of their missteps, Will. During our own human history, these fools have made countless blunders interfering with the affairs of men, thwarting our progress, holding us back from reaching our highest potential.
“But the worst mistake the Hierarchy ever made was their first one, and how badly they underestimated the Others they tried to so callously destroy. And soon we will finally make them pay for it.”
Will’s blood ran cold, but he kept his voice neutral. “I’m not sure I understand. Do you mean your friends aren’t actually trapped in—what do they call that place again?”
“The Never-Was? Oh, yes. They were trapped in there all right. Banished. Never to be seen again.”
“So how did they make contact with you?”
“In dreams, of course,” said Franklin, as if this was the most obvious answer in the world. “To begin with. Both Dr. Abelson and I experienced this, a slow filtering of ideas into our minds. But it took us a while—thick-skulled hominids that we are—to realize these remarkable creatures were reaching out to us through a language of symbols and images, not words—and that eventually led us to what they wanted us to find.”
“What was that?” asked Will.
“A more direct way of communicating,” said Franklin, grasping a pull string attached to the curtain. “Through the device they’d left behind so long ago specifically for that purpose. They’d designed it as a kind of beacon, like the black boxes in today’s commercial airplanes. One that emanated a faint signal that could only be perceived by individuals attuned to its peculiar frequency—the one that Ian Cornish had first sensed when he arrived and searched for down here in vain all those years. The one that Lemuel and Dr. Joe and I finally found.”
Franklin pulled the curtain, revealing a window looking into a small adjoining room, about the size of a closet. On an elevated platform sat the object.
It was the ancient brass astrolabe Will had once happened across in the basement of the castle. A larger version of the one Franklin had given him when he’d first revealed his identity—the one sitting on the desk in his bedroom—but an exact replica, as near as he could tell.
“Put those glasses of yours on,” said Franklin, placing a kindly hand on Will’s shoulder. “And then have another look at it.”
—
Jumping out of the shower, Nick dressed quickly, then grabbed the bag he’d packed with all the items on his checklist. He listened at his door, glancing at his watch. Counting down the seconds to seven minutes. He cracked open the door and peeked out.
Brooke was no longer at the table. Nick’s heart skipped a beat; he looked around and didn’t see her anywhere. The water bottle still stood on the table, half empty; that meant she’d drunk more than enough to do the job.
Nick cautiously crept through the living room and peeked into the kitchen. She wasn’t in there either. Then he noticed the door to Brooke’s room hung open a crack.
Nick moved silently across the room. As he was about to nudge the door open, he heard a whisper of movement behind him. Brooke lurched out of the shadows behind the fireplace, extending an outstretched hand at him. Her face twisted in fury and spite, almost unrecognizable.
Don’t let her touch you. That’s all they’d told him. That was all he needed to hear.
Nick vaulted into a backward somersault, landing on his feet on top of the sofa, then springing off again to the far side, putting the sofa between them.
“Wha’ did you do?” she screeched at him, her voice slurring.
“What?!”
Brooke staggered toward him, her motor skills visibly impaired, fighting desperately to stay upright, yelling even louder.
“Wha’ the hell did you do to me?”
She tripped and fell over the footstool in front of the sofa, then scrambled after him, pulling herself up onto the cushions.
“I didn’t do anything to you,” said Nick.
“Don’t lie to me!”
Everywhere Brooke touched, everything she touched, wilted and shrank, leeched of color, light, and whatever life or energy it once possessed—blanched, discolored, drained. As she yanked herself up to her feet again, rabid with fury, struggling to find her balance, Nick shuffled back behind the dining room table.
“I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about,” said Nick.
“Yesh you do!”
She lurched toward him again, grabbing on to the top of a dining room chair to keep from falling. As her fingernails dug into the veneer, a coarse vapor issued from under her hand, and the slat of wood collapsed inward, sending her tumbling toward the table. She landed with both hands on its surface, her fingernails dug in, and then she slipped backward toward the ground, leaving scorched, skidding nail marks and handprints behind.
Nick couldn’t see her for a moment. As a precaution, he took two running steps and parkoured around the wall behind him, flipping and landing in the center of the room.
He looked back but didn’t see her under the table where he’d just seen her go down. That strange black vapor rose from a variety of places, and the table and chairs looked as if a piano had fallen on them. Nick picked up the small shovel from the fireplace tool set.
“For crying out loud, Brooke,” said Nick. “You touch your mother with those hands?”
She rose up suddenly from behind the sofa and leaped at him again, hurling herself through the air between them with astonishing speed. As Nick somersaulted out of her path, he saw the front door fly open; someone entered and pointed their raised right hand at Brooke.
A bright red flower blossomed in the back of her left shoulder. She landed hard, scorching the carpet, then rolled, staggered halfway to standing, reached back, and pulled what had hit her from her shoulder.
A small dart.
She looked at it, uncomprehending, before dropping to her hands and knees and then face-planting on the floor. Dark, acrid vapor rose from the carpet all around the outlines of her body.
“Talk about mood swings,” said Nick.
Coach Ira Jericho stood in the doorway, loading another dart into the pistol in his hand.
“Check to see if she’s out,” said Jericho.
“No way, I’m not touching her,” said Nick, still wielding the shovel.
“What, she too tough for you, McLeish? Can’t be serious, little bitty thing like that,” said Jericho, walking toward her body.
“Little bitty thing? Dude, you didn’t see her go straight-up psycho. She’s like a hella honey badger.”
They both looked down at her, Nick a step behind Jericho, maintaining a safe distance. Head turned to the side, eyes rolled up in her head, Brooke’s back rose and fell regularly, deep breaths, totally out.
“Shouldn’t we tie her up or something?” asked Nick. “Check that. She’d just melt the rope.”
“She won’t be doing anything but drooling on the floor for a few hours.”
“What’d you hit her with?”
“Enough to tranq a moose,” said Jericho, looking at her closely.
Nick leaned in closer, peering at her delicate eyelashes and turned-up nose. “I’m just kinda glad I didn’t have to clock her with this shovel. I mean, no matter how mad evil she’s gone, she’s still sort of my friend, you know?”
Jericho stared at him. “Whatever you say, McLeish. Are you ready to roll?”
“Put me in, Coach.”
“Grab your gear. We don’t have much time.”
Nick grabbed his backpack and the one they’d packed for Will, then joined Jericho at the door.
“Guess I’ll have to work through all this emotional stress down the road,” said Nick, taking a last look back at Brooke as they hu
stled out into the hall.
—
Ajay took another bite of the ham and cheese sandwich the butler, Lemuel Clegg, had brought him and chomped on another handful of potato chips.
“I can’t quite put my finger on what it is,” said Ajay, chewing away, “but the sandwich is particularly delicious this evening.”
Clegg didn’t usually stay and watch him eat—in fact, he hadn’t done it since Ajay first started working on the files a month before.
Drat.
“Did you make this sandwich yourself, Mr. Clegg?”
Clegg just stared at him, arms folded, scowling, immune as always to any attempts at charm. The man was so consistently, aggressively antisocial; Will had advised Ajay that the only way to make him leave you alone was to keep talking to him.
“I’m thinking that you may have employed a different condiment this time? Perhaps some diced gherkin pickles or a strategically deployed slice of Japanese daikon?”
Clegg looked at his watch.
Why is he waiting? Does he suspect anything? Have I done something to give away the game?
“I understand your inscrutability perfectly,” said Ajay with an agreeable grin. “A master chef never gives away his secrets.”
Ajay snuck a look at his watch: 8:10.
If this lummox doesn’t clear out of here soon, I’m going to fall seriously behind schedule.
“I’m going to most likely be working quite late tonight,” said Ajay. “Mr. Elliot wants me to get through at least two more boxes. So I should probably get back to the task at hand.”
Clegg didn’t move. Ajay noticed a slight clenching of the muscles around Clegg’s eyes when he mentioned Mr. Elliot’s name.
Maybe he’s afraid of his boss. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the plate.
Then Ajay remembered something he’d read earlier in the day and put the pieces of a small puzzle together.
Wait till I tell Will about this one.
Ajay stuffed the rest of the sandwich—almost an entire half of it—into his mouth and chewed aggressively, then drained the last of his glass of lemonade until it leaked out the sides of his mouth before holding out the empty plate and glass toward Clegg.
“Thans agan fuh suth’a dewicious wepast.”
Clegg took the plate and headed for the stairs.
That was it, then. Old Sourpuss just didn’t want to make another trip all the way back up here for the crockery.
The pager in Ajay’s pocket chirped. He blanched, and his hand instinctively reached to switch it off.
Clegg stopped at the door and turned back to him. “What was that?”
Still chewing, Ajay took out the pager and looked at the message display. “Juth one of my annoying woommates I imagine—yes, it’s that knucklehead Nick. Wondering where I am.”
“That’s not the sound those pagers usually make,” said Clegg.
Ajay took a few steps toward him and swallowed hard, forcing down the rest of the sandwich. “If I may take you into my confidence, Mr. Clegg. I took the liberty of adding a specialized ring tone for when my closest friends are trying to reach me.”
He waited to see if Clegg was buying it. Unclear.
“I know that moderating school-issued equipment is not specifically allowed, of course, but I examined the Code of Conduct and couldn’t find anything that specifically forbids it either.”
“Let me see it.”
Clegg held out his hand. Ajay gave it to him, holding his breath, hoping that Nick didn’t page him back while he was looking at the screen. If he confiscated it now, a lot more than their whole mission would be compromised.
After a few moments of turning it around in his hands, Clegg gave it back. “Check in with security when you’re finished here. They’ll escort you to the landing for your ride back to the mainland.”
Clegg turned abruptly on his heel and walked out. Ajay waited until he heard the man’s footsteps clang all the way down the circular stairs to the bottom; then he turned on the pager to check Nick’s message.
On my way.
Ajay checked his watch, sucked in a deep breath, grabbed his knapsack, and headed for the back elevator. When he reached the foyer, he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror hanging on the wall and stopped.
“Ajay Janikowski,” said Ajay softly to his image. “I hope you are fully prepared to stare death in the face and, if necessary, spit in its eye.”
The answer to that, Ajay sadly noted, was far from conclusive.
—
Will slowly took out the dark glasses and put them on after he closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he was looking directly at the astrolabe.
The device had appeared inert without the benefit of his lenses, its orbit of overlapping brass loops and rings locked in static positions. Through the glasses, he saw that they were all revolving and rotating independently from one another, but in complex, synchronized patterns. Then a metallic stalk rose up from its center, one of the rings transitioning from a hoop of silver steel into the neck and lethal head of an enormous, metallic serpent. Hooded, like a cobra, with cold, jeweled ruby eyes.
Staring at him. He felt it instantly:
This thing is alive. It’s not just a machine; it’s one of them, a living device infused with some kind of consciousness from the Other Team.
Will met the thing’s eye. He instantly heard thoughts filter into his mind—but not words; rather they were whispers of images, dim and silvery at first, glowing out of the dark, then growing in strength and resolution. He closed his eyes and tried to tune in to what it was sending to him.
Images of the city they’d found, but not the crumbling ruins he’d seen below—this was a thriving community, full of foot traffic and trade; shops, businesses, even a glimpse of the huge cathedral-like building where they’d found the entrance to the passages below. Softly glowing white globes of light suspended in the air above illuminated the scenes like streetlamps.
The creatures inhabiting the city in the vision were all distinctly alien forms, corresponding to the skeletons they’d seen there but displayed here with the variety of size, shape, and coloring you’d expect to find on the streets of any human city. Some were elderly, others clearly children, playing in the streets. No signs of the disorder, violence, or butchery that the vast sacrificial boneyard they’d found beneath the cathedral seemed to suggest was central to their character.
This looked orderly. Socially organized. Prosperous. And the most unexpected word to describe it:
Civilized.
“What is it showing you, Will?” asked Franklin.
“Something I didn’t expect,” said Will.
The moment he spoke, the images faded from his mind, and he found himself eye to eye with the serpent again. But now he could detect a glimmer of life, or intelligence, in its cold bejeweled eye. It was assessing him, trying to penetrate his mind.
Will took the glasses off. He didn’t want to think or feel what this thing seemed to be trying to tell him.
We were a people.
He heard Franklin laugh at something again and looked back to see him leaning in toward Abelson, listening.
“Yes, he has a great deal to learn about our friends,” said Franklin. “As did we all once.”
Will closed his mind to that troubling doubt, and the trailing questions it raised, and turned back to his purpose with renewed resolve.
“So this thing is what you found down there,” said Will.
“That’s right,” said Franklin. “Hidden in the ruins, concealed from casual eyes. A living artifact that contains the essence of who they are, for whoever might find it. Once we made contact with it, mentally, the emanations slowly led us to its location.”
“So most of what you know about them, you learned from this thing?”
“It’s the heart of their gift,” said Franklin, holding the device in a mesmerized gaze. “Once we learned to align ourselves to it. This requires strict mental discipline; you have to sit with it, spe
nd time in its presence. Express your willingness to bond with it and it will slowly make itself known to you. You’ll learn all this for yourself, Will, soon enough.”
Will knew exactly what he meant already. Looking at the device, he felt its power even now, reaching out to him, seductive and warm, a pleasant, flattering feeling, like the sight of an old friend’s familiar face after a long separation.
“This enabled the Others, with whom we were about to make direct contact, a way to show us who they were and what they had to offer. Dr. Abelson broke through first. He proved particularly adept at amplifying that connection and so he subsequently learned more from them than any of us.”
Abelson nodded a few times, or it might have been a tremor, and the right side of his face twitched slightly. Will realized he might be trying to smile. He even raised his arm a quarter of an inch off the chair and gave Will a halfhearted thumbs-up.
“Why was that?” asked Will.
“Technologically, to this day, the Others remain worlds ahead of us, but they could plainly see that Dr. Joe was the leading scientist in our ranks. So our friends graced him with a series of concepts and ideas so advanced none of the rest of us could even comprehend them. But not Dr. Joe. He alone recognized them as world-changing inspirations. And utilizing the tools of the advanced labs we put together for him, the good doctor began to realize and transform these gifts into the wonders we’ve enjoyed ever since.”
“Aphotic technology,” said Will.
“Exactly right, Will.”
Will summoned up a dose of innocent, boyish enthusiasm. “I’d really like to see them. Could you show some of these things to me?”
A knowing look passed between Franklin and Dr. Abelson.
“I think we might be able to arrange that,” said Franklin, hiding a smile. “Come with me, son.”
Franklin patted Abelson on the arm and headed for the door. Will followed, stealing a glance back at the ancient basilisk of a man, still as a rock, watching him with that disturbing fixed eye.
