by Bryan Davis
While Daryl embraced Kelly again, Clara grasped Nathan’s arm and led him to the Camry, whispering, “We put him in the backseat, but I wanted to show you first.”
Nathan peered through the window. Tony’s body lay face up on the blood-soaked fabric, his sweatshirt ripped and still dripping red. Even though he had already seen this carnage, a gutwrenching pain stabbed his heart. He looked back at Kelly.
She turned his way, her bottom lip trembling. “Is it… Is it him?”
Before he could answer, she tore away from Daryl’s arms and rushed to the car, but he grabbed her before she could look. “Brace yourself. It’s really horrible.”
She jerked from his grip and pressed a palm against the window. As her hand smeared the glass, her voice squeaked, “Daddy?”
Clara laid her hands on Kelly’s shoulders. “He’s not —”
Her body stiffening, Kelly banged her fist on the glass and cried out, “Daddy!”
Clara slapped her palm over Kelly’s mouth. “Quiet!” Pulling her away from the window, she turned Kelly toward her, grasping her upper arm firmly. “He’s not your father,” she said, keeping one hand over Kelly’s lips. “He is Tony Clark, but he’s the Tony Clark in this dimension, not your s.”
As Kelly stared at Clara, her eyes grew big.
“Do you understand?” Clara asked.
With her mouth still covered, Kelly gave her a weak nod.
Clara slowly lifted her fingers and motioned for everyone to move close to the building where a dark shadow shrouded them. As they huddled, she spoke softly, her eyes constantly darting around. “Here is what we know, or at least, think we know. In this dimension, Nathan and Kelly are dead, and now Tony is, too, so it’s clear that whoever wanted that box will murder anyone who stands in his way. From what we gathered from Daryl Red and Clara Red, Nathan Red’s parents are also dead, but their counterparts are alive in this dimension, probably prisoners somewhere in the observatory. We knew enough about the Quattro mirror to realize that if Solomon had it, he could use it to escape. The idea was to get it to Nathan Red so he could open it with his mirror, and he’d get it to Solomon somehow.
“Nathan Blue had hidden the mirror and camera in a bus depot locker in Chicago, so, since we were already in town for Nathan’s funeral, we brought them to the observatory. Tony insisted on going to the door alone while Daryl and I hunkered down in the car, but, as you know, he didn’t make it. When the murderer went in, we dragged Tony’s body to the car and parked under the trees where no one could see us, but where we still had a view of the back door. Since Tony was already dead, there was no use rushing him to the hospital. We had caught a glimpse of you taking the box, so we decided to wait and see if you would come back out. When you did, we came out of hiding.”
“Why did Nathan Blue hide them in the box?” Nathan asked. “And how did he get them in there?”
“He decided the risk of the camera and mirror falling into the wrong hands was too great, so he put them in a metal box, and Tony welded the lid shut. Then, if anyone saw the box, they wouldn’t think anything was inside.”
“And if you needed to,” Nathan said, nodding slowly, “you could always break in again.”
“Exactly. So, since you know how to get into the box, and Solomon knows how to use the camera and the mirror, we hoped you could get it to him so he could escape or transport himself and Francesca out of there.”
“You mean the other me, right?” Francesca asked.
Clara gave Nathan a sharp stare. “Where are your manners, Nathan? You haven’t introduced us to this young lady yet.”
“Didn’t Daryl Red tell you about her?”
“She mentioned a girl but not who she is. She looks quite familiar.”
Nathan set a hand on Francesca’s shoulder. “This is Francesca, my mother from Earth Yellow. You probably already know that dimension’s quite a few years behind ours.”
“Then she’s not your mother,” Clara said. “She’s the future Nathan Yellow’s mother.”
“I know. It’s just easier this way.” He patted Francesca’s head. “Right, Mom?”
Francesca grinned and looked up at him. “Right, Son.”
Clara reached for Francesca’s hand. “My name is Clara. I’m pleased to meet you.”
Francesca smiled meekly. “Pleased to meet you, too.”
“We’d better get going.” Nathan slid his fingers around Kelly’s arm and gave her a light pull, but she didn’t budge. Her gaze was locked again on the car. “Kelly,” he said softly. “Are you all right?”
Her lips barely moving, Kelly whispered, “I just realized something.”
“What?”
She turned to him. “He’s a hero, isn’t he?”
“Definitely. He gave his life trying to help us. Even after he’d been shot once, he blocked the door to keep the shooter away from me.”
Her jaw suddenly tightening, Kelly turned away and pulled in her bottom lip.
Nathan winced. She was hurt that he hadn’t told her. He had kept an important secret from her, the very person he had promised to trust. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to protect you. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
She let out a deep sigh. “It’s okay. I understand. I haven’t exactly been Miss Calm and Collected.” She glanced at the three other females. “Do you think all people in this dimension are exactly the same as in ours?”
Nathan slid his hand from Kelly’s arm down to her fingers and interlaced them with his own. “I think they are. Clara and Daryl are just like they are at home, and it sounds like the other Nathan and Kelly were just like us.”
Her fingers tightened. “So maybe my father…” Her voice faded away.
“Really is a hero?” He gazed into her shadowed eyes. “I think your real father would have done exactly the same thing.”
She tightened her grip on his hand once more before pulling away. “Thanks. I know you really mean that.”
“Come on. We have to search the building without being seen by the nut job with the shotgun.”
Daryl ran ahead and pushed open the door. “What are we waiting for? I want to see the cool telescope room my new best friend told me about.”
Once inside, Kelly picked up the violin case while Nathan tucked both mirrors under his arm. “So on to the telescope room?” he asked.
Clara pointed toward the domed part of the building. “It’s the best place to find clues.”
“What if Mictar’s gang is there?”
“They’re not.” Daryl held up a wide-screen cell phone. “Portable email. Daryl Red’s keeping me up-to-date. She and Clara figured out how to monitor our dimension’s telescope room from their dimension, and it looks clear.”
Keeping a careful watch for the shotgun man, they skulked into the secure area and stopped to check the prisoner room again. Finding it still empty, they continued to the elevator.
“We’ll have to go in shifts,” Nathan said, as he punched six, six, five, three into the security pad and pushed the call button. Fortunately, the Earth Red code worked for this elevator, too. “Kelly and I will go first, then Clara, Daryl, and Francesca.”
When the door opened, Nathan and Kelly stepped inside. Once in the car, he bent over and spoke to Francesca. “Mom, please make sure these two stay quiet and out of sight. Okay?”
A wide grin stretched across her lovely face. “You got it, kiddo!”
He pushed the button for the third floor. As the door began to slide shut again, Daryl raised her cell phone and looked at the screen but disappeared from sight before she could tell them what it said.
When the car lurched upward, the camera dangling from Kelly’s neck swayed. Nathan turned to face the other door. “I wonder if she got a message from the other world.”
“Maybe.” Kelly turned with him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s so amazing,” she whispered. “My father was a hero.”
Nathan squeezed the mirrors against his side and smiled. As t
he elevator motor hummed along, a muffled call sounded from below. “He’s up there!”
Nathan pressed his hand against the wall. There was no place to hide. And the man would hear the elevator, so he’d know someone was coming.
Kelly backed into a corner, holding on to the violin case with both hands. “What do we do?”
He pulled out his mirrors, pressed them together as one, and angled them toward the door. In the image, the door opened, revealing the murderer with the shotgun aimed directly into the elevator car. The reflected Nathan leaped at him with a high leg kick, deflecting the gun just at it fired. The force of the blow knocked their attacker to the floor.
Kelly eyed the scene. “How are you going to do that if you’re watching the reflection?”
He extended the mirrors toward her. “You hold them.”
She set the violin case down and held the mirrors with a firm grip. “Like this?” she asked, setting them slightly to the side.
“That should work.” The car ground to a halt. “Get ready.”
She cringed. “How?”
“Pray real hard.”
“All I know is ‘Our Father.’”
“That’ll do.” He pointed at the elevator’s control panel, barely visible in the dim corner. The door slid to the side. Just as the man aimed the shotgun, Nathan leaped into a flying leg kick. His shoes struck the gun barrel, knocking its angle off kilter. A blast of orange erupted from the end, and a deafening crack ripped past Nathan’s ears. The force of the kick threw the man onto his back.
Nathan lunged and draped himself over the shooter’s body, grabbing the gun with both hands. The man offered little resistance as Nathan wrestled it away and leaped to his feet.
“Start talking.” Nathan demanded, lifting the shotgun to his shoulder. “Who are you?”
As dim moonlight from the ceiling mirror cast a glow over the man’s blood-covered face, he coughed and wheezed through his words. “Why… do you care… who I am?”
Kelly walked toward them, carrying the violin case. The elevator closed, and the motor restarted its quiet hum.
Nathan lowered the gun to his hip. “He’s half dead.”
She set the violin down but kept her fingers tight around the edge of the mirrors. “So he’s the one who killed my father?”
“Yeah. I hope I can get some information before he dies.”
The man coughed again, his breaths now gurgling as blood oozed from his nose and mouth. “Don’t let… Mictar have that mirror… whatever you do.”
“Why not? Why does he want it?”
“He needs it… to merge the dimensions. Only interfinity… will give him full control. Only that mirror… can finish the job… or stop his plan.”
“Why did you want it? What would you do with it?”
“Destroy it… so Mictar can’t use it.”
“Why are you trying to kill me?”
“Sacrifice is necessary… to save billions of lives.”
Nathan raised the shotgun to his shoulder again. His voice shook with rage as he cocked the hammer back. “That reason doesn’t fly. I’ve never been in your way.”
The man lifted three bloody fingers. “There are three mirrors… one surviving Nathan… and one yet to be born… Only you and your mother… have the power… to call on Quattro… so I…”
“So you went to Earth Yellow with Mictar and Gordon to kill my mother before I could be born, didn’t you? You took the burglar’s place so you could find Francesca and murder her. And you killed Mrs. Romano.”
His grin revealed a set of blood-covered teeth. “Smart boy.”
“But how? If you’re trying to stop Mictar, how can you use his mirrors to cross dimensions?”
The man’s eyes began to roll wildly. “Kidnap one… to get the secret… then…” He let out a long breath and closed his eyes.
Nathan stepped closer and focused on the man’s face. It had stopped twitching, and his jaw had slackened. He extended the butt of the shotgun toward Kelly. “If you’re not scared of guns, then cover me while I check him out.”
“Are you kidding?” She set the mirrors down, grabbed the gun, and raised the butt to her shoulder. “My father taught me everything a son should know — basketball, spark plugs, and shotguns.”
Nathan crouched and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s dead.” Rising again, he took the gun back from Kelly. “I guess we’ll leave his body for Mictar to clean up.”
The elevator motor stopped. While Kelly picked up the mirrors, Nathan watched the door slide open. Clara, Daryl, and Francesca squeezed through, Daryl hustling in front as she headed for the computer screens on the worktables.
Nathan stood between Francesca and the dead attacker. “Keep her away. She shouldn’t see this.”
Clara set her hand at the side of Francesca’s face and guided her toward Daryl, who was already busily tapping on a keyboard.
Pressing the mirrors against her side with one hand and carrying the violin case in the other, Kelly followed them, the camera still dangling at her chest. “I guess you must still be in contact with the other side.”
“Hot line to the great beyond.” Daryl pulled her cell phone from her belt and slid it onto the desk, making it spin slowly. “My twin told us about Nathan kicking that guy’s butt. Now I need to sync her up on our mirror so we can talk face-to-face.”
Nathan propped the gun on his shoulder and joined them. “Does Francesca have to play the music again?”
“No,” Daryl replied, her gaze riveted on the laptop screen. “Daryl Red found a music generator that deciphers and plays the radio telescope’s connecting feed. She’s showing me how — Yep.” She pointed at an icon in the lower left corner. “Here it is.”
As she adjusted the control, the mirror above changed from a starry sky to the mesmerizing array of colorful shapes they had seen before, each one vibrating and dancing to a cacophonous stream of musical notes played from speakers in the walls. Daryl’s fingers flew from keyboard to mouse and back again. Seconds later, the notes blended into a perfect harmony of violins playing a ghostly tremolo and a French horn adding a subtle, restful flavor.
“It’s Strauss’s ‘Blue Danube,’” Nathan said as he set the shot-gun on the floor. Good thing the gun hadn’t damaged the mirror. They’d be up the creek without a canoe or a paddle.
The shapes in the mirror broke apart and bled into each other, painting an aerial view of the telescope room floor. In the reflection, Clara seemed to be speaking, but no sound came through.
Daryl turned and waved at her likeness in the mirror above. “She’s got good taste in clothes. I love that top.”
Kelly smirked. “Maybe she’ll let you borrow it.”
Craning his neck, Nathan strained to listen. “Can anyone hear her?”
“I hear something,” Francesca said. “Something about the funeral.”
Daryl leaned close to the laptop screen. “Apparently Daryl Red hasn’t figured out how to turn the voice volume up while the music’s playing, so she’s typing out Clara’s words.” She pointed at the advancing letters on the screen and read them out loud, pausing as she waited for whole words to appear. “You have to get back to Earth Red in time for the funeral. It’s morning now, so the service is only a few hours away.”
Nathan touched Francesca’s shoulder. “Since Earth Yellow is catching up so fast in time, we have to get Francesca back, or her whole life will be messed up. She might never meet my father, and I’ll never be born there.”
Kelly set the mirrors on the desk. “Can we risk it? Your Earth Blue father said you had to be at the funeral on Earth Red. What if we get trapped on Earth Yellow or even just delayed?”
Clara looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe you should risk it. You can probably ruin one of Mictar’s goals.”
“What goal?” Nathan asked.
“If you time it right, you can go back to Earth Yellow and get the third mirror before Mictar does. He’s sure to go after it.”
“Goo
d thought!” He spun back to Kelly. “What year did your father buy the mirror from the guy in Scotland?”
“About fifteen years ago. Not long after I was born, I think.”
He stepped close to Daryl’s workstation. “At the rate Earth Yellow is catching up, when will it get to fifteen years ago?”
Daryl squinted at the screen. “Impossible to tell. Sometimes it zips along, and sometimes it’s just a little bit faster, but it still has about fourteen years to go. It’s nineteen seventy-nine there right now.”
“That raises an interesting question in my mind,” Clara said. “What will happen to Francesca? I don’t think she’s aging here at her Earth Yellow rate, or else her body cycles would be crazy. But will she suddenly age if she goes home, or will she be younger than she’s supposed to be?”
Nathan set his chin on his hand. “So if we don’t take her back now, we might ruin her life. If we do, I might miss the funeral. And with either choice, I have to stop looking for my Earth Blue parents. Both choices really stink.”
Kelly raised her hand. “I vote for Earth Yellow. If time is passing faster there than here, won’t Earth Red kind of slow down while we get Francesca home? I mean, we’ll have more time to get the job done, right?”
Nathan pointed at her. “She’s brilliant!”
Still hanging on to the violin case, Kelly dipped her knee in a mock curtsy. “I humbly accept your accurate assessment of my intelligence.”
Clara lifted her feet in turn. “I need some boots. The bovine manure is getting pretty deep in here.”
“I’ll adjust the settings,” Daryl called out. “Earth Yellow coming right up!”
Kelly gazed at the ceiling. “Where will we go in Earth Yellow? Did this observatory even exist thirty years ago?”
“Great question.” Nathan stood next to her and watched the mirror change. The chaotic rainbow of colors returned along with a new blend of dissonant noises. Soon, a harmony of notes emerged, and the scene above coalesced — a daytime view of a spring forest with windblown leaves plummeting to the ground, clouds racing overhead, and a squirrel scampering up a tree like a furry bullet.
He let out a low whistle. “That squirrel’s had too much coffee!”