The Discovery Apartments

by A.S. Morrison

  Chapter 11

  Royden spent the next few hours staring at the television trying to comprehend everything that happened that day. It was beginning to be a daily chore for him to think back on everything that went on to understand it. His mother went to the store and came back and even started dinner before he felt like he really knew what he agreed to. Now that he was away from Flora he began to question whether or not he really wanted to do it. Sure it sounded alright at the time, but things tend to feel better when they are happening then when we really have to think about it later on. He would never agree to go back into the gremlin’s room or back into Pooly’s den. But that’s how things are sometimes. When they happen you have to get through it. Given the opportunity again nobody in their right mind would even consider going through it.

  Mrs. Doble and her son had spaghetti for dinner. They sat quietly at the table, each staring out the window. Royden watched the cars go by wondering if any one of those people could sense that there was something not quite right about his building. It stood tall and dark against the coastal sky, surely somebody noticed that nobody ever came in or out. Royden shook his head. It didn’t really matter.

  He sat around watching more television as the night grew late. His father worked late that night. He usually didn’t get home until after midnight on those days. Sometimes Royden waited, but not that night, he was much too tired. He went to bed around eleven.

  Sometime deep in the night the boy suddenly sat up. He blinked sleepily, looking around. Something must have woken him up. A noise maybe, he wasn’t sure.

  “Did you hear me?” Flora’s voice said.

  Royden groaned. “No, what happened?”

  “The person’s in the building. They’re in the basement, heading for the door. You have to get down there.”

  Royden begrudgingly pulled himself out of bed. He grabbed the robe from the back of his door. His parents got it for him for Christmas the year before, but since he wasn’t much of a robe person he never saw the point in wearing it. This was as good a time to try it out as any. He threw it on, tied it, and started for the door.

  His parents’ door was closed. He pulled his shoes on and snuck out quietly. He went to the elevator.

  “No, no, that is much too slow. Take the stairs.” Flora said.

  “Uhh.” Royden groaned loudly.

  He ran down the stairs, afraid that he might fall because of how tired he was. Somehow he made it down and started for the door to the outside.

  The air was crisp and cool. Royden glanced around and went to the main road. Nobody was in sight. No cars, no people.

  “Flora?” Royden called softly. No reply.

  Royden waited for a creepy shadowy figure to emerge from somewhere. He crossed his arms and bounced on his toes.

  Suddenly a man appeared and put his hand over Royden’s mouth.

  “Do you see it?”

  Royden struggled to get free.

  “Don’t you see it?” The man whispered in Royden’s ear.

  Royden shook his head.

  “Oh.” He let him go. “The name’s Millie.” He looked to be in his mid-twenties. He had short brown hair and a van dyke beard. “Is this a stable dimension?”

  “Um, I think.” Royden said. He wondered if this was the person Flora talked about.

  The man named Millie dropped to the ground and put his ear to the sidewalk as if listening for something. “Are you sure? I’m on the trail and it led me right here.”

  “Are there dimensions that aren’t stable?”

  Millie jumped up. “Of course there are. Tell me, what is the name of this one?”

  “Earth.” Royden said, suddenly not sure if that was the right name.

  “So I’m back home.” The man named Millie mused.

  “Have you been sneaking into the building here?” Royden asked shyly.

  “What? No, I’m a . . . actually it doesn’t matter why I’m here. What is your name?”

  “Royden.”

  “Royden Doble?! Why it’s fine to meet you.” Millie shook his hand excitedly. “But now’s not the time for this. Quick! Come with me.”

  “Wha—”

  Millie took a small cylindrical crystal out of his pocket and drew a circle in the air with it. In the space where he drew it a strange flat image appeared. It swam with every color imaginable.

  Royden stepped back and looked around. Surely somebody would see that.

  “Come on, Royden, I’ll explain when we get there.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  A car turned onto the street in the distance. Millie grabbed Royden and jumped into the circle. It wasn’t an image, but a portal.

  Royden fell onto dried leaves. He was in a forest. Millie wiped his hand across the face of the portal and it disappeared.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Royden yelled, standing up.

  “Shush.” Millie clapped his hand over Royden’s mouth again. “This is it, I’m sure of it.”

  Royden pulled the hand away from his mouth. “What’s it?”

  “I’m on the trail of an unstable dimension near Earth’s. It may be in trouble.”

  “What is an unstable dimension?”

  A buzzing filled the air. It grew loud very fast.

  “Get down!” Millie pushed Royden down. A huge explosion shook the ground and filled the air with debris. “Nope! Not the right dimension.” Millie drew another circle. This portal swam with colors as well. He grabbed Royden and threw him in and then jumped in himself. Several people in Gray appeared in the forest. Millie quickly wiped the portal away. “Let’s try something else.” He shook the crystal as if it might have something loose inside. “I swear it’s never done this before.”

  Royden looked around. They sat on a cliff overlooking a vast expanse of water. The sun was up. “Where are we now?”

  “No idea.” The strange man drew another circle. Intense heat radiated from it. “Nope.” He wiped it away and drew another. Water shot out and nearly pushed Royden right off the edge of the cliff. “Definitely not.” Millie wiped away another one.

  This continued for quite some time. Millie drew portals and stuck his head in. Evidently they all led to some awful looking places. He quickly wiped them away. Royden moved over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Waves lapped up against jagged rocks hundreds of feet below. The water stretched to infinity. He wondered if he was even on Earth anymore.

  “Aha!” Millie shouted.

  Millie took Royden and jumped into the portal. They looked down onto a large city with tall buildings. The sun set in the distance creating a beautiful sunset of every shade of red and orange imaginable.

  “Is this where you wanted to go?” Royden asked.

  “Who knows, but it doesn’t look deadly.” The man shrugged.

  Royden wanted very much to go back to bed and be rid of this bizarre man and his bizarre portal maker. But until he could get home he supposed he had to trust him. “Who did you say you were again?”

  “Hereward the Wake.”

  “What?”

  “No, I’m just joking. I’m Millie, and I can tell you more when we get there.”

  “Where?”

  “To where we are going.”

  They stood on a tall building. The sound of city life filled the air. Royden looked down to see the streets and jumped back. He expected a normal Earth city. Earth cities don’t have flying cars and large lizard creatures on the ground walking through the streets.

  “Where are we now?!”

  “You need to stop asking that.” Millie said calmly.

  Royden glowered at him. “Take me back.”

  “Yeah, I can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My crystal isn’t working right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s never done this before.”

  Alright.” Royden said, trying to sta
y calm. “Why don’t you tell me who you are and what I’m doing in this weird place.”

  “Hmm, not yet, let’s find a nicer place to talk.”

  “This is as good as any.” Royden said haughtily.

  “Not really. Oh, look.” Millie started over to a vehicle of some sort sitting on the roof. It looked like a car except it didn’t have tires. “Excuse me, sir.” Millie said to the person in the vehicle. “Can you take me and my friend someplace quiet to talk?” Evidently the man didn’t understand because Millie suddenly went into another language Royden had never heard before.

  A minute later Royden found himself flying through the streets of an unknown city in a trashy old taxi-like flying car. Millie found plenty to talk to the driver about. He seemed to be fluent in whatever language the driver spoke. Royden didn’t understand a thing that was said.

  The taxi flew out of the congested city and into a quieter area. The sun set and Royden couldn’t see where they were going. Several minutes later it came to a stop somewhere high in the air. Millie stepped out and Royden followed. The taxi flew away.

  They now stood on what looked like a giant floating dinner plate. It was too dark to see the ground or anything else. The plate began to move. Royden lost his balance and hit the floor on all fours, afraid the whole thing might tip.

  “It’s alright. We’re on an Observer.” Millie explained. He must have realized Royden didn’t have any clue what that was because he continued. “It flies through the air on a fixed path. It’s mainly used by tourists so they can get a good look at the dimension they traveled to. Of course we’re on one at night so we probably won’t see anything.” He dropped down and sat across the plate from Royden. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.” Royden said, finding it hard to get comfortable. He constantly felt like he might fly off.

  The Observer dropped several hundred feet and started off at a great speed near the ground. Small yet bright lights appeared to illuminate the path they traveled on. The lights rose high into the air and twisted around in the distance. They flew over a small river. Little huts could be seen on the edges of the light.

  “My name is Milton.” Millie said kindly. “It’s nice to meet you, Royden.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Royden shook Millie’s hand.

  “I’m an agent for the Interdimensional police. You see my job is to travel through dimensions and find people who are up to no good. I’m part of the Dimension Supervising Division so I mainly go and look for dimensions that need help. Big ones small ones, whatever.”

  “How do you go through dimensions?” Royden asked, suddenly finding this man very interesting.

  “We’ve been doing it. See I have this crystal that allows me to create portals to other dimensions. The multiverse is a very abstract thing. New worlds and whole universes are all around us. Most appear and disappear without anyone ever knowing they’re there.”

  “How do you know if one is in trouble?”

  Millie sighed long and deep. He glanced over the edge of the Observer as they flew over a small town. He smiled good-naturedly. “We have a machine at the DSD that allows us to monitor energy waves from hundreds of dimensions. The one I’m looking for—it’s been acting strange recently. The very dimension is in trouble, but we’re having a hard time locating it. It’s a very small dimension—one with only a few hundred individuals living in it. That’s why they sent me alone. Once I find it and figure out what’s wrong I can write a report and the DSD can deal with it from there. The only problem is I got in a fight with some strange man earlier and he seems to have messed up my crystal. I need to go and get it fixed, but I can feel that this dimension is so close. When one is sending off that kind of signal it means it’s in bad shape. I need to find it immediately.”

  Royden steadied himself as the Observer rose quickly into the air. “So someone sends you the message through this machine?”

  “No, the machine picks up information about the dimension itself. It starts acting up when it picks up odd energy changes.”

  “The dimension does it itself?”

  “Small ones can. Look, this one is a very tiny dimension. It’s got edges and stuff, something yours doesn’t. I don’t want to say it too soon because we aren’t entirely sure, but when this kind of energy gets picked up it sometimes means the dimension is dying.”

  “They can die?” Royden asked, suddenly fearful for his own dimension.

  “Sure can. But don’t you worry. You’re dimension is huge, it won’t die like this one. It’ll die over billions of years. This one being so small, the chances are greater that it might quit sustaining life.”

  “So what’s wrong with your crystal?”

  Millie pulled the crystal out of his pocket. “Like I said I got in a fight this morning with some weird guy while I was trying to find the dimension. Since then it hasn’t worked. I think I cracked it. If I could only find the DSD’s headquarters I might be able to get a new one. It won’t listen to what I want. It keeps taking me to weird places.”

  “Wait,” Royden said slowly. “Are there people after you?”

  Millie scrunched his face up nervously. “Maybe.”

  “And you thought it a good idea to bring me with you?”

  “I’ll get you home before anybody finds me.”

  “And why exactly did you bring me with you?” Royden asked.

  “I wanted meet you. The DSD is very interested in you. They keep up with the news Mr. Bringum gives them. You see you’re the first human to ever live in the Discovery Apartments.”

  “How does everyone know about that?”

  “Don’t worry, the DSD are good guys. We watch what happens so we can see if Earth is ready to be exposed to the secrets of interdimensional beings. You and your family are the first test subjects. But don’t look at that as a bad thing.”

  Royden felt really uncomfortable about that. He wanted to get away from the Discovery Apartments now more than ever. “Why me, why us?”

  Millie smirked. “When I was first introduced to the idea of other dimensions I wondered the same thing. Why me? A good friend of mine said something I’ll never forget. She said: ‘if only everyone else in the world could ask, why not me?’ This is a great privilege you have, Royden. Don’t waste it.”

  Royden shook his head. “I was almost killed the other day—twice. I think I’ve had enough.”

  Millie nodded in understanding. “Don’t fear the challenge Royden. You made it out of those situations so you could do something even greater. When you are dealing with other dimensions, at least in my experience, the rewards grow larger than the dangers.” He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “I understand though, it’s tough to be hit with all this information at once.”

  The plate came to a stop on a platform and they got off.

  “Let’s say we find me a new crystal and get you home.”