Leila Kent hurried away from them toward the tree line, but she stopped before she reached the forest. She turned around to face Traveler. She didn’t try to hide the fact that she was crying. As far as Victor One could tell, she didn’t try to hide the fact that she loved the man either.
“I want you to know,” she said, “that I did everything I could to stop this. I never wanted to do anything to hurt you, Traveler. That was the whole point from the beginning.”
But Traveler’s expression did not soften. He frowned coldly.
“God help that boy in there,” he said. “And if anything happens to him . . . God help us all.”
He turned, went back into the cottage, and shut the door.
Crying, Leila Kent hurried away through the woods.
8. PORTAL
RICK DIDN’T LIKE to admit it, but he was scared. Really scared. All those years on the football field—all those years with huge linemen rushing at him, charging to take him down, screaming to pound him into the turf—he’d never felt fear anything like this.
Swinging himself along on his crutches, he followed Miss Ferris down the white corridor. Dressed in a dark suit indistinguishable from the dark suit she’d been wearing the last time, she walked ahead in a brisk business-like march, her emotionless voice trailing back to him.
“Our tests show you should be able to stay in for an hour this first time,” she said. “We’ve implanted a time image in your palm so you’ll be able to know when the time is up. Do not, under any circumstances, stay one minute longer than the time allotted. Do you understand me?”
Rick nodded absently as he hobbled along. He was thinking about what Jonathan Mars had told him: If he overstayed his time in the Realm, his mind would “disintegrate” and he’d be left in a vegetative state. He didn’t need Miss Ferris to remind him to get out as quickly as possible.
“I said: Do you understand me?” Miss Ferris said with a cold look.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Rick, trying to keep his voice steady. “Believe me, I understand.”
“Good. And you know your mission.”
“I know it,” said Rick. “I’m supposed to scout the place out. Look for an outpost of some kind, a structure from which Kurodar might launch his next attack.”
“Look—but don’t stray too far,” Miss Ferris said—as she’d already told him half a dozen times before. “When you get there, you should see the portal point, the place where you can get in and out. Do not, under any circumstances, move too far away from that point.”
“Right, right, you said all that.”
“While we won’t be able to communicate with you, we will be able to follow your movements in real time on the monitors. We can map out any area you see. All we need you to do this first time is locate the outpost and get out.”
She reached the door. Paused there as Rick worked his crutches quickly, trying to catch up with her. As he approached, she pinned him with her cold, expressionless gaze. “Don’t go too far from the portal point,” she said yet again. “Am I clear?”
Rick was glad he was breathless from working the crutches. It hid the fear in his voice. “You’re clear, you’re clear,” he panted quickly. “You don’t have to say it over and over.”
She studied him for a moment, then she nodded—“Good!”—and pushed open the door.
They came into the Portal Room. Rick could feel the tension in the atmosphere. The people at their workstations glanced up at him with serious expressions as he hobbled past them. The nervousness he saw in their eyes made him even more nervous than he was.
But Miss Ferris didn’t seem to notice any of that. She simply marched across the room, past the flickering lights and graphs, past the machinery and monitors, until she was standing underneath that glass box embedded in the far wall. That glass box that looked to Rick very much like a coffin.
Juliet Seven was already there, standing beside the box with his tremendous rectangle arms crossed over his tremendous square chest. Miss Ferris stood on the other side, so that they framed the glass coffin between them. She waited until Rick reached her.
“All right,” said Miss Ferris, in that voice so frighteningly devoid of any feeling. She put out one hand. “Give me the crutches and get in.”
Someone in the room must have pressed a button then, because the glass lid of the coffin opened with a loud hiss. Rick felt his stomach turn. On top of everything else—like, the whole your-mind-might-disintegrate scenario—he didn’t much like tight spaces. He remembered how he’d had an MRI after his accident. They’d slid him into a metal tube. It was like being buried alive—and since the machine made a lot of noise, it was like being buried alive in a rock slide. The imaging process took fifteen minutes. When they’d pulled him out, his entire body was bathed in sweat. And that was after only fifteen minutes, and only for an MRI. This . . .
He took a long, deep breath to fight down the panic that was rising in him like a cold wind. He licked his lips, which were suddenly very dry.
There was a set of three metal steps built into the wall beside the box. Rick moved to the bottom step. Then he worked his crutches out from under his arms and handed them to Miss Ferris. He stood unsteadily a moment. He had to clench his fists to keep his hands from trembling. He looked at Juliet Seven.
“I’m gonna need a hand up here,” he said.
The blocky giant stepped forward and extended an arm roughly the size of an iron girder. Rick grabbed hold of it. It was hard and solid like a girder, too. Bracing himself on it, he climbed the steps until he was standing directly beside the glass coffin. He looked in at the metallic lining and the snaking wires. Then he looked back down at Miss Ferris, at her expressionless face.
“I looked up Brain-Computer Interface online,” he told her. “It was pretty primitive stuff. Guys wearing electric hats that let them type letters with their minds and so on. Nothing like this. You guys sure this is safe?”
She shook her head once briskly. “No, we’re not.”
Rick managed a pale laugh. “Thanks for the encouragement.”
“I’m not trying to encourage you,” she said.
“Well, in that case, you’re doing a terrific job.”
“If you’re worried about it, it’s not too late for you to change your mind,” she told him.
Something—some little touch of something in her voice—made Rick study her face more closely. Had he spotted a flash of feeling in those steely blue eyes of hers? Some sort of concern for him? Was she hoping he wouldn’t do this? Hoping he’d back out at the last minute?
Then he thought: No. He was kidding himself. Seeing something that wasn’t there. This woman was a total robot. She didn’t care what he did.
He let go of Juliet Seven’s arm and quickly grabbed hold of the edge of the coffin to keep himself upright. Grimacing at the pain in his legs, he turned and slowly lowered himself backward into the glass box. The metallic lining yielded to his body, letting him settle into the shape of himself. He lay there for a long second.
What happened next was very, very weird—and it did nothing to make him less afraid.
The box’s metallic lining seemed to come alive beneath him. With a crinkling noise, it began to fold around him, to mold itself to him. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt, and the lining wrapped itself tightly around his bare arms and pressed the rough fabric of his jeans firmly against his legs. But the lining got even tighter. It pressed into the sides of his face and curled over the top of his head. He felt like a fly that had landed on one of those Venus flytraps—as if the device were closing to devour him.
Within just a few seconds, the lining held him so tight that his arms, legs, and head were rendered immobile. It was an awful, claustrophobic feeling. He wanted to scream: Take me out of here! Then things got even worse. Rick gritted his teeth as he felt a stinging sensation in his scalp. It was as if the lining were sprouting needles that were injecting themselves into his skull. The pain made his claustrophobic panic ri
se even higher. He could do nothing but lie there, looking up helplessly, his breath coming rapidly, his heart hammering hard with fear.
Now the pitiless face of Miss Ferris appeared above him. She had climbed the stairs to stand beside the box. She was looking down at him.
“One hour,” she said—for the umpteenth time. “Stay close to the portal point. Look around for an outpost of some kind. Come back. Don’t be late.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Rick barely managed to squeeze out the words as the metallic lining seemed to grow even tighter around him. The prickling in his scalp grew even more painful.
Miss Ferris gave a brief nod. “Good luck.”
She touched the box’s lid—and Rick realized with a fresh gout of panic that she was about to close the box, to seal him inside the coffin.
What am I doing? he thought in a sudden rush. What have I gotten myself into?
Miss Ferris pressed the glass lid, and it slowly closed over him.
9. ANOTHER WORLD
AT FIRST, NOTHING happened. Rick just lay there in the glass box, held fast in the grip of the metallic lining like a caterpillar in a cocoon. He felt sweat beading on his cheeks. He heard his heart pounding, the sound of it filling his head. He saw the glass lid above him fogging with his breath, the Portal Room beyond the glass growing dim and unclear.
Oh man, he wanted out of this thing! He wanted out of here so bad! He knew he could not stand an hour of this, no way.
But then, all at once, something changed. There was a faint whirring sound, nothing more than what a fly might make buzzing by your ear. He couldn’t tell if the noise was coming from outside him or from within him. But the next thing he knew, he felt a faint vibration under his skin. His vision blurred, his body started to relax.
He waited—but nothing else happened. He stared up at the lid of the coffin. The lining continued to squeeze him, continued to hold him.
Then, with a soft jolt, he felt the weirdest thing. Something came loose inside him. There was no other way to describe it. It was as if some inner-Rick had broken away from the Rick-body that surrounded it. The buzzing noise grew distant. The vibrations stopped. He felt the glass lid, and the dim world beyond the glass lid—felt everything, in fact, except his own heartbeat—drawing away from him into some distant darkness. Or maybe it was him falling away from the world, falling and falling, down into deep nothingness.
And yet . . .
And yet, as reality flew further and further away above him—as the nothingness filled his vision—he began to see something in the center of the blackness: a gap, an opening, a cylinder of—what was it?—of light, of being.
In another moment, Rick understood what it was: it was a passageway.
The cylindrical passage hung there in the blackness above him. And Rick hung there, floating free inside his own body. Somehow, he began to understand, he had to will himself through that opening. He had to make the choice to go.
Rick did not know exactly how to pull that off—how to choose to enter the passage—any more than he knew exactly how to choose to lift his arm. He could just do it, that’s all. So with the darkness closing around him, he focused his mind, and willed himself into that spiraling passage of light . . .
There was a swift kiss of noise, barely a noise at all: pfft! He had the bizarre sensation that he was turning into liquid, slipping through the portal like water through a straw.
Then, all at once, his form congealed again. Rick found himself standing . . . somewhere . . .
. . . where?
He looked around him. The first thing he saw—the only thing he saw at first—was a strange purple shape floating impossibly in the air beside him, a glowing three-dimensional purple diamond about two feet high and a foot wide. He watched, fascinated, as the thing glowed and pulsed and turned slowly in midair.
That must be the portal point, he thought.
That was the way in—and the way out. He would have to keep that in sight at all times, just as Miss Ferris had said.
He felt there was more around him. He looked up.
“Oh my . . . WOW!” he said loudly.
He was standing on a little hill, surrounded by the strangest landscape he had ever seen. The color of it—it was wild! The hill was red—a scarlet red so bright it hurt his eyes. A gently undulating scarlet plain flowed down from his feet, and ran toward the horizon, ending in a forest of bright blue trees. Above the scarlet plain and the blue forest hung a low sky of the deepest, most beautiful yellow. Here and there the bright colors seemed to mingle in stirring cloud-like streaks of bright orange and green.
Stunned by the rainbow-like beauty of the place, Rick turned this way and that, gaping in amazement. It was as if he had stepped into a painting or a movie cartoon. He was so mesmerized by the red valley and the blue woods and the streaked yellow sky that it took a moment before something else amazing—really amazing—suddenly occurred to him.
He was standing up! He was! He was standing free. No crutches! No pain! Not even any weakness. He looked down at his legs. He was still dressed as he had been, in a black T-shirt and jeans. But his legs were straight now. They felt fine. More than fine. They felt strong!
Rick let out a laugh. This was incredible! In-crazy-credible! He felt so . . . so good! Better than he’d felt in ages, since the accident. He lifted one foot high and wiggled it in the air, then he set it back down and lifted the other. He hopped in a circle, laughing again, a high-pitched whoop of laughter this time. He began dancing around on the hilltop.
“Whoo-hoo!” he shouted. “Whoo-whoo-whoo-hoo!”
He tucked an invisible football beneath his arm and ran across the ridge, straight-arming imaginary blockers.
“Yaaaaah!” he screamed.
He spun around at the end and rushed back, running till he reached the floating purple diamond.
He shouted, “Touchdown!”
He spiked the invisible ball into the red, red earth. He lifted his face to that weirdly beautiful yellow sky. He lifted his hands in celebration and did a victory dance. He was healed! He could walk! He could run and jump and kick and . . .
What was that?
He stopped. Still panting from his celebration, he stood still. He peered into the distance, over the flowing red plain, toward the line of blue trees where the weird forest began. Had he seen something over there? A movement? He stood, staring. There was nothing.
Then, suddenly—yes!—there it was again. A movement down by the trees. Something—no—no, it was someone—a person!—a man—had stepped out of the forest, had edged out from under the blue leaves into the scarlet grass.
Rick could hardly believe it.
He wasn’t alone!
He squinted, trying to see the man better. The man was waving at him. Beckoning him. Inviting him to come down the hill, to join him by the woods.
Rick started to raise his hand in greeting to the far-off stranger—then he hesitated. Maybe he should be a little more careful. After all, who else could be in this place besides one of Kurodar’s agents? Maybe this dude was one of the bad guys.
But the man near the woods did not seem like an enemy. He kept waving at him, gesturing at him to come, to come down—almost as if he were welcoming him. Rick felt like an idiot just standing there. So, finally, he raised his hand and gave a small wave in return.
The guy just gestured all the more forcefully—beckoned all the more frantically: Come down! Come down!
What was he supposed to do now?
Miss Ferris’s voice rang in his mind:
Do not, under any circumstances, move too far away from that portal point.
Well, yes, but she hadn’t mentioned there would be other people here. Was he just supposed to ignore the guy?
He began to lower his hand. As he did, he noticed for the first time that there were numbers on it—bright white numbers glowing in the center of his palm. The numbers were moving; they were counting down:
58:17 . . . 58:16 . . . 58:15 . . .
We’ve implanted a time image in your palm so you’ll be able to know when the time is up, Miss Ferris had said.
Rick looked up from the numbers, back to the man beckoning in the distance. He wasn’t that far away. He had a whole hour, after all—fifty-eight minutes. That was plenty of time to go down there and talk to the guy, find out who he was, what he wanted, and get back here to the portal point. After all, he was supposed to look for an outpost, right? He couldn’t see any kind of outpost from where he was standing. Maybe this guy knew where it was. Wouldn’t Miss Ferris be glad if he found someone living here who could help him? Sure she would.
Rick considered for one more second. The sudden, wonderful strength coursing through his legs—coursing through his whole body—filled him with confidence and a sense of daring. He was Rick Dial again. He was Number 12 again. What was the point of having all this power back in his body, if he wasn’t going to use it?
“Oh, come on,” he said out loud, as if he were in a huddle, talking to his teammates. “Let’s do this.”
And with that, he started down the hill toward the beckoning man.
10. JEOPARDY
HE TRAVELED QUICKLY, practically running over the red terrain. Having his legs feel so strong and healthy again was such a pure pleasure that it sent fresh energy surging through him, and made him forget any misgivings he’d had about leaving the portal point behind or about the motives of the beckoning man. A sort of red fur or grass carpeted the reddish-brown earth underneath; it felt spongy and supportive beneath his feet like some of the Astroturf fields he’d played on. It was absolutely great to go jogging over it without the help of crutches.
He looked ahead. The beckoning man was still there, standing at the edge of the deep-blue tree line, waving his arms. As Rick drew closer, he laughed out loud to see the scarlet plain become orange and golden nearer the woods, dotted with bushes and flowers in an amazing array of pastels. It was so beautiful!
He could see the man more clearly now, too—and for the first time, he could see that there was something strange about him. He did not look quite solid somehow. In fact, his form seemed to shift and sparkle, as if he were a ghost made out of particles of light. Weird.
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