It was too late. With a flash, a vertical slice of light appeared in the dead center of the room. Liam, Ant, and Madison staggered backward, and each pressed themselves into a corner of the room as the light spread outward and formed a disc about six feet in diameter, angled toward the door and tilted slightly forward. Madison let out a cry of exhilaration as the center of the disc sank inward and a tunnel appeared, swirling and flickering, jagged blue light arcing and zigzagging from one side to another.
As expected, though the wormhole was eerily silent, its suction was strong. Liam’s bed sheets rippled and billowed, and he left the safety of his corner and rushed to one side of the bed to tuck them in as firmly as he could while the wormhole tugged at his clothes and hair. The posters on his wall—mostly Lord of the Rings—flapped and tore loose, whipping noisily into the tunnel and spinning away in an instant, disappearing into the distance. Other items flew in too, though Liam didn’t have time to take note of them. His bedside lamp fell over and started rolling and wobbling. He leapt for it, and it hung in the air for a moment, pulling on its cord until it popped free and vanished into the wormhole as well.
He staggered back, his feet wanting to leave the floor. The suction was strong, and everything around it crashed and flapped noisily. Any moment now, his mom would be banging on the door demanding to know what was going on.
He glared at Madison. Why couldn’t she have warned him earlier? But she was grinning, her black hair whipping about as she jammed herself into the corner. In another corner, Ant seemed less amused, his eyes wide.
Liam, who was crawling on hands and knees across the floor while gripping the end of the bed, watched with chagrin as books started toppling off the nearest bookshelf. They fell but then seemed to bounce off the floor and into the wormhole in an angry flutter of pages, like a flock of startled birds.
After that, most of the noise died away. Liam climbed to his feet and staggered to the wall, pressing himself against it about halfway between his friends in the corners. He decided that a wormhole in his bedroom was a terrible idea. But worse was the prospect of aliens pouring through and traipsing about the place. What if they were dangerous?
Watching carefully, staring into the mouth of the swirling wormhole, he spotted a figure fast approaching. It was shiny, shaped like a man with no feet, its arms held rigidly to its sides, its face featureless. Just a second or two later, it burst out of the wormhole and into the room—a hovering robot that paused and turned with tiny blue lights flashing on its chest piece.
Liam would never understand the push and pull of a wormhole. Here he was, struggling to keep from being sucked in, and yet this robot had just been ejected! For a few seconds, it seemed unaffected by the suction, perhaps in an in-between state . . . but then it leaned forward, clearly fighting to avoid being pulled back in.
Most wormhole visitors came through and stepped well away. The robot had very little space to maneuver, so it simply held its ground as though running the wrong way on an escalator.
It focused on Liam, and something bleeped.
Ant whispered, “Watch out! You’ve got red on you!”
Looking down, Liam saw red light playing across his chest. The robot was scanning him. Before he had time to consider what this meant, the gleaming machine floated toward him, and he saw his own reflection in the smooth, rounded, mirrorlike surfaces of its chest and nondescript faceplate.
The robot gave him no chance to act. Its straight, powerful arms shot out and grabbed his own, and he yelped.
“Liam!” Madison shouted, her smile gone now.
Helplessly, he found himself lifted up and spun around as the robot swiveled and headed toward the wormhole. The silent suction yanked them in, and they rushed along the tunnel at breakneck speed.
Liam twisted around to see his bedroom already far in the distance. To his astonishment, the wormhole began collapsing in his wake. He’d often wondered what would happen if a person was caught unawares and the tunnel’s life abruptly ended. Presumably that person would be flung into space, halfway between two distance points. There, that person would perhaps have a few seconds to ruminate on life before freezing or asphyxiating a few billion light years from home.
Paralyzed with terror, he watched over the robot’s shiny shoulder as the end of the tunnel grew closer, the blackness of space widening at its center. The entire wormhole shimmered and flickered around him.
But then he and his captor shot out into a dull, metal-walled chamber with steel girders and gantries. Directly ahead, a massive window looked out onto a star-studded blackness. The robot released Liam even before they’d stopped moving, and he staggered and spun around just in time to see the wormhole flash and dissipate, leaving only spots of light and an eerie, empty silence.
Breathing hard and trembling, Liam watched the robot as it turned its back on him and moved away, floating easily toward an archway and disappearing through it. Its job done, it no longer cared about him.
Trying to ignore the fact that his personal belongings were strewn across the floor like litter from an upturned trash can, Liam looked around the fifty-foot chamber, taking note of the grid flooring and metal wall surfaces. He saw steel rafters overhead, several massive supports here and there, and numerous control panels laid out in front of the giant window.
A star-studded blackness, he thought with sudden excitement. He headed toward the impressive scene, his heart thumping. Was it deep space? Could he be on a spaceship? He’d been on one before, but he’d never got to look outside.
Stunned, he pressed his nose to the glass and looked down on the sharply curving horizon of Earth, bright and blue against the blackness above. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, awestruck.
“Ah, you’re here,” a voice said behind him.
Liam spun around and gaped.
Chapter 3
The man—if indeed he was a man—stood seven feet tall, more machine than flesh. Impossibly thin, almost skeletal, his legs and arms were a strange mix of ivory bones and metal rods, all held together with what looked like oily-black tendrils wrapped tightly through and around his frame.
He had no lower abdomen. Liam saw right through to where a thick, knobby spine connected the hips to the upper torso. The man’s broad chest featured a couple of red blinking lights and a small vent that let out wispy vapors. Two flexible tubes linked from the underside of his pronounced rib cage to his narrow hips. Another stretched up one side of his neck and plugged into his head.
His head, Liam thought with horror.
It looked like a human face had been grafted onto an artificial skull. While the back of the head was shiny and black, with dull-silver earpieces flattened against the sides, the face stood out pale and surreal, hairless and perfectly oval-shaped. Like someone slapped on a flattened lump of raw dough, Liam thought, his skin crawling.
Nevertheless, the man’s facial features were intact—eyes, nose, mouth, all completely normal. He looked like a sad, middle-aged gentleman with eyebrows that arched over clear, grey eyes.
“Welcome,” he said softly, his voice reverberating slightly, amplified by artificial means. “Don’t be alarmed by the way I look.”
“W-who are you?” Liam stammered.
The man dipped his head. “My name was once Stamos Mort, but nowadays I am known simply as the Ark Lord.” He lifted a long, thin arm and gestured around the room. “You are aboard my ship.”
For a second, Liam thought the man had said Dark Lord, and any number of fantasy and science fiction movies sprang to mind. But then it clicked. He’d been on this ship before. It was where the yellow wonderstorm had sprung from, leaked via a wormhole over his house. “The Ark,” he whispered.
The Ark Lord smiled and took a few long-reaching steps toward Liam, servos whining as he approached. “Come with me. I’ll explain everything on the way.”
He strode past Liam toward a circular doorway. The door was already open, and the Ark Lord ducked slightly as he passed throug
h. Bewildered, Liam hurried to catch up. He’d wanted answers, hadn’t he?
The Ark Lord said nothing for a moment, and his feet—bare bones and metal digits clanging on the grid flooring—echoed around the dingy, narrow corridor. Liam stared in morbid fascination at actual human ribs showing at the rear side of the upper torso. Black tendrils intertwined with the bones like an aggressive weed. A dull-black inner casing filled every available square inch of the rib cage.
“You can see that I have mastered cybernetic technology,” the Ark Lord said, twisting his head to speak to Liam. “The perfect blend of flesh and metal.”
Perfect? Liam thought doubtfully, running his eyes up the full length of the shiny, knobby spine. Evidently it was superior to the original human one, probably much stronger, but still . . . This hideous body was the Ark Lord’s idea of perfection?
“I’ve lived a long time, Liam,” the tall man went on, branching to the right into another endless corridor. “I retain a few human parts—my heart, my brain, and my face—but almost everything else has been modified or replaced.”
“You still have a heart? So blood is pumping through your body?”
“My heart is more symbolic than anything. I can feel its beat when I’m still, and it reminds me I’m alive and human. You can feel a heart, but you can’t feel a brain in the same way even though the brain is what makes a person who he is. Without a brain, I’d be a mindless robot with a few organic bits kept alive by a life support system.”
Liam couldn’t argue with the Ark Lord’s logic.
“And of course my face allows others to read expressions and assess my intent, to see my amusement, my anger, my sorrow, all those emotions that complete us. I don’t need the face. I would feel and think the same way without it. But it’s useful around others. When I’m wearing my hooded robe, people conveniently forget what’s underneath and see only the pale face of an earnest man.”
A massive door slid open a few yards ahead, and the Ark Lord strolled through without pause. To the left, a gigantic room stood behind a glass wall. A thick, yellow fog filled the room, though the fog appeared to have paused in time. Within the gloom, dozens of dark shapes lurked.
Liam suddenly recognized where he was. He’d been in a very similar room before, a temporary prisoner along with sixty-five otherworldly creatures. To be more precise, he’d arrived in an empty room from which sixty-five prisoners had been sucked out through a wormhole and dumped on his house. He’d watched as they’d all been captured and teleported back.
“Is this a prison?” he asked, suddenly fearful that he was about to be trapped and frozen himself. “Or a zoo?”
The Ark Lord stopped and turned to him. “Call it what you will. I make no excuses. I’ve painstakingly captured and trapped every single creature on the Ark, and I’m very proud of my work. Not many condone my methods, but none can argue that my unique fascination with the universe has culminated in a zoological treasure—an encyclopedia of life itself, if you will.”
Liam couldn’t help staring into the darkness of the Ark Lord’s mouth as the man talked. Was there a throat back there? Did the man eat? Surely not! Did he have a tongue? He had to in order to form the words . . . and yes, there it was, just visible behind his teeth. The face was fully formed and working, yet the sides and back of his head were artificial. Where did the flesh-and-blood throat end and the metal begin? What did the eyeballs connect to? Were they wired to the man’s brain, or was there some kind of integrated electronic system as well? How did the flesh of the face remain alive? Where did—
“Of course, my work is far from done,” the Ark Lord continued, interrupting Liam’s racing thoughts. “The universe is unimaginably huge, and there are numerous other realities to explore as well. I’ve barely scratched the surface with my meager efforts.”
Liam looked through the glass wall, trying to make out the nearest silhouetted figure, something hulking with long arms. “But why?”
The silence he received caused him to look up at the Ark Lord’s pale face. The man looked puzzled. “Did I not just explain why, young Liam? Weren’t you listening?”
“Well—”
“Never mind. Let’s concentrate on why you’re here and what I need from you. Are you paying attention?”
Liam nodded.
The Ark Lord gave a single, hearty clap. Up close like this, his hands were easily twice the size of Liam’s, bony fingers melded with shiny metal rods, all held together with the ugly tendrils that pervaded his entire body. Curiously, his fingertips were encased in sheaths of black, perhaps an extension of the tendrils but in a different form.
“You’ve witnessed your own future, Liam,” the Ark Lord said. “Your timeline is like a beacon. I spotted it as I passed through your solar system recently—last week to you—and the temptation was too great to resist. Though I have several of your kind in my small army already, one more can’t hurt. Another invincible warrior on the team!”
Confused, Liam blinked and tried to focus. “Wait, what? I’m not a warrior!”
“Oh, but you are. I could enlist an army of one hundred highly trained soldiers, and it would be a bloodbath on both sides. A small squad would be better, especially one that has already survived the mission.”
“What?”
“You saw yourself in the future, ergo you survived what is to come in the next few days. Do you understand?”
Liam stared with mounting apprehension. “And what exactly is to come?”
The Ark Lord grinned broadly, his teeth surprisingly white and even. They looked real, though. Did he brush and floss at night? It was hard to imagine.
“I’ll explain the mission soon. Right now I just need you to understand what you’ll be up against. I know for a fact you’ll survive, but that doesn’t mean you’ll complete the task to my satisfaction. Come with me.”
As he turned to stalk onward along the corridor, Liam held his ground. “Wait. Look, I didn’t sign up for any mission. I didn’t even ask to come here. Your robot grabbed me. You kidnapped me. What makes you think I’m going to help you with a dangerous mission?”
The Ark Lord paused, still facing forward. “I had hoped to persuade you rather than threaten you. I already regret this part of the conversation, and I hope we can move past it. Put simply, young Liam, you’ll help me because the consequences will be severe if you don’t.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Now the Ark Lord turned to him, first swiveling his upper body and then following through with his hips and legs. “A week ago, as a quick test of your capabilities in a dire situation, I opened up a rift in one of the containment units. That rift dumped a plethora of monsters onto the grounds of your Earthbound property.”
“You did that deliberately?” Liam gasped. “I knew they came from here, but I thought a wormhole had opened by accident.”
“No, not an accident. It was a spur-of-the-moment test.”
“But even your robots didn’t know what was going on!”
The Ark Lord smiled. “The experiment served as a test for them, too. What would they do in a real-life breach? I’m pleased to say they performed admirably and snatched back each and every last prisoner.”
“But you missed me,” Liam muttered.
“I wasn’t aiming for you. If you’d been snatched up accidentally during the confusion, then so be it. But you escaped and earned the right to spend the next week on Earth rather than here on my Ark while I waited to commence the mission. You passed the test, young Liam. You showed great courage in riding that gas-beast, and you fought well on the ground. Also, and more importantly, you strengthened my theory that you are indeed destined to live until a ripe old age. You are suitable for this mission.”
Liam stuck out his lip and said sullenly, “And if I don’t do as I’m told?”
“Then perhaps I’ll use your friend instead. Madison, I believe her name is. The time stream surrounds her too. Would you prefer that I put you back on Earth and take her instead?”
Liam ground his teeth with anger. "Leave her alone.”
"Perhaps I’ll dump another container full of subjects on your house and this time leave them there. What do you think about that?”
Liam knew he couldn’t risk another such occurrence. The only reason he and his friends had escaped with their lives was because the Ark’s robot prison guards had latched onto the escapees and teleported them back up one by one. Left alone, the outcome would be terrifying.
The Ark Lord was staring at him. As if reading Liam’s mind, a smile spread across his stuck-on face. “I see you’ve arrived at the most sensible conclusion. Come this way, Liam, and I’ll explain your mission.”
Chapter 4
The Ark Lord led Liam past a dozen similar containment cells, each thirty feet high and just as wide, deeper still from front to back. Faintly illuminated by hundreds of inset lights above, the cells were filled with dark, motionless fuzzy shapes trapped in the eerie yellow gloom. Some were pressed against the glass, and Liam stared in amazement at the strangest, most random creatures.
He saw a fat, sluglike alien with stubby arms and a hideous tail end instead of legs. The ugly creature wore the top half of a silver jumpsuit and a belt hung with weapons. It was poised in mid-leap as though it had attempted to smash its way through the glass before the thickening cloud had suspended its motion.
An alligator-sized, dark-brown furry lizard with six legs was stuck firmly to the glass in the next cell. It had to be three yards long from the tip of its pointed snout to the end of its three-pronged tail. Behind it, Liam made out the shape of a humanoid figure, slender and female, with pointed ears and long, black hair. She wore rags and plenty of tribal war paint. Her fierce, bright yellow eyes sent a shiver down Liam’s spine.
Something enormous loomed next door. It clung to the ceiling, easily the size of the room, flat and multi-legged. Below, Liam saw dozens of other shapes, all of them frozen, crouched low as if ducking away from the monstrous bug over their heads.
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