Fractured Worlds (Book 1 of the Fractured Worlds Trilogy)

by Alan VanMeter

Mr. Fielder stepped into Millie Schotner’s office in a hurry, and immediately began to update her on their findings, but just as quickly shut up. Millie sat behind her desk wearing a small, but noticeable smile. This was a most unusual sight for him, as most of the time she would have a scowl, or the lesser leer on her face. She sat watching a video display showing the viewing lounge and seemed to be really enjoying the visage of the growing tensions amongst the parents.

  “They’re going to figure out that it is a replay loop pretty soon.” He offered. Ms. Schotner quickly looked up, and in that brief moment that their eyes made contact, he thought he could see a glimmer of respect, or at the very least; recognition he hoped.

  She broke the moment by asking sharply, “What’s the story with the teams?”

  He instantly continued with his update. “Teams one, three and five are safely out of the catacombs. No sign of teams four, six, and seven.”

  “What about team two Fielder?” Millie demanded harshly.

  “We’ve found them, or what’s left of them.” He handed her his data phone, and thumbed some pictures across the screen. These showed what appeared to be silvery reflective statues of the kids on team two in a tunnel of the catacombs.

  “I’ll be.” Millie breathed out. “They are frozen in time.”

  “We’ve had the robotics try to move one of them, but they won’t budge.” Fielder told.

  “Leave them.” She ordered. “We have other concerns.”

  “Yes Master. I have our people working on modifying the Purge device right now. We can hopefully send one of the remaining teams back in with it soon.” Fielder thought he was merely acknowledging her.

  “That will not be necessary Fielder.” Millie growled. “All we can do now is wait, and hope either team four, six or seven will pull it off.”

  “But Master! Our plan has obviously failed!”

  “Not yet it hasn’t Fielder, have hope!” She cackled.

  His bewilderment amused her, and she said; “Have a seat Fielder. Let’s watch the parents agony begin, while we wait.”

  He eagerly pulled up a chair so he could see her screen.

  “Here, look at this.” Millie said as she replayed the incident with Mr. Welsh that she’d just been watching. “They are getting restless.”

  Fielder nodded. “What’s next?”

  She leaned back into the deep chair thinking, and then a wry grin grew. “Let’s add to their paranoia some shall we?” She hit a button and barked, “Mr. Erickson!”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Came a timid response.

  “Pull the caterers out Mr. Erickson.” Millie said with eagerness.

  “Right away Ma’am.”

  Again she stretched back into the chair for a moment thinking aloud. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if we left one of the employees in the lounge with them?” Quickly she leaned up to scan the monitor.

  “My, my…” Fielder was genuinely amused, and he giggled. “Madam!”

  “There! That one!” she squealed with twisted delight. “Look. He even looks like a suckling pig.”

  Mr. Fielder was up out of his chair due to her excitement, and he looked to where she pointed on the screen. “Oh yes!” He laughed.

  “We’ll leave them the pig boy.” Her voice warmed at the thought. Again she leaned to the intercom, “Mr. Erickson, leave them the ham server.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Came the flat response.

  After a short silence Fielder asked, “Are you still going to make them vanish?”

  The old woman sneered at him, “Of course they must vanish.”

  This made Fielder smile. “Do I still get to watch?”

  She nodded, enjoying his disdain for the people.

  ----------

  Michael Welsh watched as one by one the Dreamland caterers left the lounge, seemingly inconspicuously; all but one that is. This prompted him to try to follow them, but when he reached the exit doors, he found them quite securely locked. Jackie was observing this and immediately also noticed several concerned faces in the crowd. Quickly several of the other fathers and mothers moved to join him by the doors. “Just what is going on here?” asked one man gruffly. Several others tried the doors themselves.

  “They’ve locked us in here.” Michael responded trying to sound calm.

  Two of the younger men started kicking at the heavy doors. When this didn’t have any effect, one man threw his shoulder into them, hurting himself a bit. The other men threw expletives at them.

  Michael could tell the doors weren’t going to budge short of a dynamite blast. “Let’s not get in an uproar!” He directed. “Let’s try to find another way out.” Everyone started searching every corner of the lounge, and bathrooms. Then a couple men started to harass the lone ham server. “Leave him alone!” Michael resounded. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?” One of the men grumbled.

  “They could’ve pulled him out of here, but they left him at our disposal.” Michael educated them.

  ----------

  Millie turned with disgust. “No! Don’t tell me they’re going to organize already. Where’s the panic? That big one is taking the fun right out of it.”

  “Are you going to do it to them now?” Fielder greedily enquired.

  She shook her withered head, “Not just yet. Perhaps we can still have some fun with them after all.”

  ----------

  Leena was by now reduced to sobbing into the radio’s microphone. It had been almost an hour since the boys had vanished, during which time the four girls had mostly screamed and cried; into the dark tunnels, into the radio, and to each other. Becky kept saying that it looked like they had fallen right through the floor. They approached near to the spot, and could see the footprints just stopped.

  “Maybe it’s quicksand.” Sarah shuddered.

  Penelope cried out, “What are we going to do?”

  Sarah shivered herself into a case of the hiccups. Becky tried to sooth these by rubbing her back, and this seemed to help calm the fit down.

  Leena looked to her friends, “We have got to do something.”

  “Let’s go back and get help.” Penny said weakly.

  “I’m not going back without them.” Leena stated as a matter of fact.

  Sarah piped up forcefully, “We are sticking together, no matter what.”

  All the girls nodded in agreement, and they understood that they were going after the boys.

  “Come here and everyone grab hands real hard.” Leena beckoned them. Then all four walked hand in hand up to the point where the boys’ footprints disappeared, and they hesitated.

  “We all jump forward on the count of three.” Leena instructed. “One…”

  Penny shook her head. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Two…”

  “Don’t think about it Penny, just jump!” Sarah said in such a commanding manner that Penny began to do just that.

  “Three.”

  All four girls jumped at the same time, and they fell….screaming. They tumbled as they dropped, and Leena felt it a weird dreamy experience. She couldn’t hear herself scream, and even though she could still feel two other little hands, she couldn’t hear them either. Then suddenly….

  SPLASH!

  She was underwater. It was totally dark, and the two other hands let go of hers, as she too needed to swim upwards. Leena surfaced with a gasp, and Sarah was right behind her, coughing and sputtering. Leena stroked over to her as the little girl started frantically thrashing about, crying out that she couldn’t swim. As Leena pulled her close she realized they could each float with perfect buoyancy.

  “It’s OK Sarah, these suits float.” She sputtered as she pushed the other girl away from her slightly. Sarah clawed for her hand, but quickly realized she wouldn’t sink. Splashing and the voices of the other two girls came to them from just a short distance.

  “Becky, Penny?” Leena
hollered, “Are you OK?”

  Both girls answered affirmatively, and they swam to join Leena and Sarah. By this time Leena’s eyes had adjusted enough for her to see a small spark of light off in the distance. She couldn’t tell if they were in the middle of the ocean at night, or whatever, but that small point of light out there was all they had to go by.

  Leena seriously told the others, “We have to swim for that light over there.” She pointed.

  “I can’t swim that far.” Penny cried, and Sarah shook her head strongly also.

  “We don’t have a choice!” Leena was incredulous. She couldn’t fathom what the two girls thought they were going to do in the middle of the jet black sea. Becky started taking off her pack, and then told the others to do the same. She had noticed that the knapsacks seemed buoyant also.

  “We’ll make a float for them to hold onto.” Becky told Leena.

  Leena thought of lashing the packs together, and pulling it with the line each pack contained. “You and I are the best swimmers Becky, we’ll pull them on your float.”

  “Yeah, if we get tired, we can just rest floating with them.” Becky added.

  They did need to rest as Becky had foreseen, every ten or fifteen minutes it seemed, but the quasi raft worked great, and that made Leena glad. She kept looking at the light source, trying to discern any detail, mostly if they were getting any closer. Finally the light seemed to grow bigger, meaning they were closing on it, and Leena kept seeing different images. It was almost as if she were watching a strange video, or having a vivid day dream, as the source of light seemed to move and change shapes. When they got even closer she could finally see some real details. The light was coming from outside a rocky, roughly circular entrance, like a cave entrance. They were in an underground sea, or lake; as the water didn’t taste salty. As the other girls were all resting, including Becky for the moment, she didn’t bother them with the insight.

  Sarah had become so immersed in the numbing emptiness of the whole experience. She closed her eyes and it seemed to her that she were in a beautiful empty room. It was so big you couldn’t even see the walls. She floated weightless in a dark void, the only light being her, or more correctly; her being. Occasionally a strange energy current would tug at, or prod her, but were these real currents? As she paid more attention to this, she felt several swishing currents cross the main one. These didn’t bother her, in fact she was even enjoying the strange sensations at first. Then in her mind the sea became light, and the walls far around her became lighted as well. The oval of light they approached was now black, and Sarah knew they were in a cavern, nearing the entrance. She was now looking down on them through her mind’s eye, and the girls were dark against the lighted ocean. Then she could see dark shapes swimming around them, and as she again felt one of the strange crossing currents of energy. It coincided perfectly with one of the dark shapes swimming by them. Sarah snapped back to reality so abruptly that she was startled by herself, and started floundering; coughing and sputtering water.

  “Something really scared her.” Penny said in alert.

  Even as the little one said this, a loud splash of water came from their right. The first thing Leena thought of was her brother. “Tristan!” she called out. Only Sarah’s coughing and gagging could be heard in response. After she caught her breath, Sarah sputtered; “Faster!”

  It was only a couple dozen yards to the shore, a small rocky strand. Leena saw the bright sunlit rocks dim for a second, and then get bright again as a cloud moved somewhere over head. “That’s what I saw moving.” She blurted. “We are almost there!”

  Just then Sarah, who couldn’t swim, stroked right past her at a rather brisk pace. “Get out!” she yelled. Becky swam right behind her shouting, “Go! Go!” There were several more loud splashes from behind them, and Leena took off, pulling Penny on the raft as fast as she could. Becky still held her line, and helped. Quickly they were half way on the shore, so Becky and Leena stood up and pulled the raft with all their might. Sarah was already out of the water, and climbing away fast. In a flash Penny was pulled from the raft and pushed up on shore.

  “Ahhhh!!” Leena screamed as something slithered across her ankle. She jumped out of the water, and all the girls were on shore.

  “Are you OK?” Becky managed with a tremble.

  “Something tried to grab me!” Leena shrieked.

  They all looked back to the water, and something caught their eyes. A shadow, and a movement in the gloomy waters, then it was gone. Sarah was already climbing the small incline to the outside, and the sunshine. The rest followed her out under a warm, beautiful sapphire blue sky; finding themselves at the base of a granite bluff, alongside a slight rolling green valley. It was a pretty sight; the grass was a particularly vivid green color, and a small babbling brook flowed down through the depression. As their eyes followed this, it ended in a large gentle pond with grass swaying right up to its’ bright blue edge. A willow like tree danced in the breeze by the edge of the pond, all alone, as bird song and insects buzzing rang from all around.

  “Oh! How beautiful!” Becky gasped.

  “It’s more than that.” Sarah beseeched, “It’s perfect.” No one argued with that.

  ----------

  The intercom buzzed on Millie Schotner’s desk. “You asked to be notified when the parents started making demands Ma’am.” Came Erickson’s monotone voice. She reached over and turned the video screen towards her.

  “Good, let’s see what they want.” She cooed.

  There on the screen was Michael Welsh motioning with his hands in a pleading manner, and he was saying; “Whatever it is you want, you have our full cooperation. Our children’s safety is our only issue.”

  Out of annoyance Millie immediately mimicked Michael. “Our children’s safety is our only issue.” She said in a twisted squeal. Then her voice became mean, and gravely, “Well they aren’t even on my agenda buster!” she flung with disgust, though nobody outside her office could hear her.

  Fielder saw an opportunity, “Maybe you could entice them.” He offered.

  “Maybe I could speed things up a bit.” She agreed.

  7: Gateway