“I wish I could do something else. I hate to see someone suffering.”
“You could remove my shackles.”
“I wish I could, but I don’t have the key,” Lopez said.
“It’s hanging from a hook on the other side of that table.”
Lopez paused a moment. “How do you know?”
“I saw it all when they brought me in here.”
“You won’t try to get away if I take off your shackles?”
“You’ll have to trust me,” the prince said. “Besides, I’ll still be in this cage. I can’t get out of here.”
“Well, if it will make you more comfortable,” Lopez said as he crawled out from under the tarp and retrieved the key from its hook. It’s only for another day or so. No one can see under here anyway. What’s the harm in a little comfort? Lopez returned and slipped the key into the shackle on the prince’s right wrist. Then he did the same for the left one and both ankles too.
“You may call me Falling Star,” the prince said as he stretched his arms up over his head and yawned loudly. “That’s what my friends call me.”
“Am I your friend?”
“You are now,” Falling Star said as he indicated the shackles on the ground and the empty dinner plate. “What are those white things?”
“These?” Lopez asked as he held up his earbuds.
“I’ve never seen things like that. What do they do?”
“You listen to music with them,” Lopez explained as he lifted them up and put them into his ears. “See? Like this?”
“What are you listening to?”
“Morrissey.”
“I love Morrissey,” Falling Star said. “Which album? Can I listen too?”
“There’s another pair of earbuds in the desk. Let me go get them.”
Back under the tarp again, Lopez handed the second pair of earbuds to Falling Star, who put them into his ears. He had a hard time keeping his hair back to find his ears in the first place, but once he did, the earbuds went right in.
“It’s Your Arsenal,” Lopez said as he pressed Play.
Falling Star smiled as Morrissey’s slightly off-key crooning started in both ears. Lopez held the iPhone up between them so Falling Star could see the album cover. He began to dance to the music. Falling Star followed suit, waving his long arms and swaying his hips back and forth. Soon the two were rocking and bopping on either side of the cage bars. The song reached its crescendo as a huge gust of air swirled around them as the tarp was yanked off the cage. Lopez turned around and pulled out his earbuds. He stood staring at a very angry General Hesslop. Falling Star pulled his earbuds out as well.
“What is the meaning of this?” the general demanded, a blue vein rising on his forehead.
“I was just making sure he was okay,” Lopez said, fumbling for an excuse.
“Arrest this man!” General Hesslop ordered as two MPs grabbed Lopez by either arm and dragged him yelling from the airplane hangar.
“Let him go!” Falling Star shouted after them.
“Gag that creature,” the general directed the four men who waited behind him. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of him.”
A tranquilizer dart hit Falling Star, who howled from the impact. He clawed at the dart, desperately trying to remove it as the black blanket of sleep suddenly covered his eyes, and he was gone.
Fort Bragg Military Base, CA, the Present
5.
SOMEONE KNOCKED twice on James’s bedroom window. And then a third time. He looked at the clock: 5:00 a.m.
What the…?
James rolled over and pulled back the kakebuton comforter his mother brought back for him from Hokkaido, Japan. She’d had a featured showing of her new paintings at the Kitano Museum of Art. James could barely make out a person’s shadow against the pleated jute blinds from the streetlight outside.
It must be Paul.
“Alexa, turn on bedroom light.”
“Okay,” the robotic female voice answered.
James got out of bed and lifted a corner of the blind. Paul’s smiling face gazed in at him. James tugged the cord until the blinds revealed Paul wearing a tight-fitting bomber jacket and black jeans and standing on top of James’s mother’s favorite purple azalea. James pushed the window open.
“Were you asleep?” Paul asked in a hushed voice.
“Um, hello? It’s five in the morning?”
“I thought we were supposed to push that boulder down the hill into old man Beauchamp’s swimming pool this morning. You said we should do it nice and early when no one is up.”
“It’s nice and early all right,” James said, yawning. “I’ll let you in the side door.”
“No, just get dressed and meet me at the tree fort.”
“Okay,” James said groggily as he began to close the window and the blinds.
“And bring a flashlight!” Paul shouted over his shoulder as he ran off.
“Shhh! You’ll wake my mother!” James whispered.
JAMES FOUND Paul in their tree fort, sitting at the tiny card table. The fort stood in a lopsided hollow between five tall cypress trees at the bottom of a canyon behind Paul’s house. A large sheet of particleboard was placed over the top of the trees, making a roof. The evergreen cypresses made impenetrable walls, and a single cut into the foliage was the only entrance. It was completely secret and secluded. Inside were a couple of ratty lawn chairs, a stop sign someone ran over and James dragged down into the canyon, and a cardboard box half-full of empty wine bottles for Paul and James to shoot with Paul’s BB gun. Paul stood up when he saw the beam of James’s flashlight sweep into the entrance.
“The sun will be up in half an hour,” Paul said as he pulled up the waistband of his jeans. “We need to work fast.”
“That creep Beauchamp has it coming,” James added.
“I know. All we were doing was climbing up his stupid pine tree.”
“The way he screamed at us you’d think we’d committed murder or something,” James said and moved the flashlight beam around the tree fort.
“Well, I did have my BB gun with me.”
“So—that doesn’t mean anything.” James shined the flashlight at Paul.
“I’m just saying….”
“He’s still a total creep,” James said.
“I can’t wait to see what happens when he sees that boulder in his pool!”
“Let’s get going,” James replied. “And we need to be really quiet.”
“Hey, I’m Mr. Quiet,” Paul said deliberately loud.
“Yeah, I bet you win quiet contests all the time,” James said, smiling at Paul.
“All the time.”
The two teenagers walked along the dried-up runoff at the canyon bottom, over the silt, gravel, and polished stones, to Mr. Beauchamp’s house. In no time, they climbed up the steep canyon wall and stood facing down into Mr. Beauchamp’s backyard. The boulder was about two feet across, buried a quarter of the way in the embankment. James and Paul smiled at each other and then got behind the huge rock and shoved it with all their might. The boulder wouldn’t budge. Paul pushed James away and backed up a few paces and then ran at the boulder and gave it a flying, two-footed kick. It wobbled. Paul got up from where he landed in the ice plant and walked behind the boulder again. James joined him, and they both pushed it with all their strength. The huge stone tipped forward and then began its lopsided roll, galumphing its way down to the fancy kidney-shaped swimming pool below. The only sound they heard was the dried weeds being crushed beneath the huge boulder. When it reached the curled concrete lip of the pool, the boulder suddenly lost all its momentum and came to a stop.
James looked over at Paul in disbelief.
“Damn!” Paul said under his breath.
“Should we go down and push it all the way in?” James asked.
“I don’t want to get that close to his house. What if he heard the boulder rolling down?” Paul replied.
“I guess it’s weird enough
that the boulder is right there at the edge of the pool.”
“Yeah, he’ll still have to figure a way to get it out of his backyard.”
“Or he’ll have to hire someone to move it for him,” James said, grinning. “That will cost him some money.”
“Or he could keep it there as a decoration,” Paul added.
“It is kind of… pretty.”
As they both began to laugh, a cracking sound snapped through the air followed by a deep splash that echoed up at them. James and Paul looked down in time to see the lip of the pool break off and the boulder tumble in. At once, the lights in Mr. Beauchamp’s house came on. James and Paul scrambled to get back down into the canyon, knocking each other over as they ran. At the tree fort, they both collapsed on the dirt floor with hysterical laughter.
“Oh my God! That was too perfect!” Paul said as he rolled over onto his side to look at James.
“He’s going to be so pissed off.”
“I bet he’ll think it just came loose and rolled into the pool.”
“It’s the perfect crime!” James said triumphantly.
Paul climbed on top of James and pinned his hands to the floor. “And you were such a wimp. You couldn’t even move that boulder until I kicked it loose.”
James playfully pushed Paul on his back and then got on him and held his arms down with his knees.
“You’re so full of shit. Neither of us could move it by ourselves.”
“You’re such a weakling!” Paul teased. “Weakling! Sissy-Boy-Weakling!”
“Oh yeah? This sissy boy has got you pinned down pretty good, Mr. Muscles.”
Paul shifted beneath James, unseating him. He quickly got back on top of James, holding down both his wrists with his own hands and sitting across James’s hips. Paul held his face inches away from James’s. James looked up and for a moment believed that Paul was going to kiss him.
Weird. The way Paul looks at me sometimes. Like he likes me that way. Like he wants kisses and stuff. I wonder if he’s thinking that right now?
“What the hell are you two doing?” Paul’s father shouted as he ducked his head beneath the cypress branches and entered the tree fort. Paul rolled off James and stood up in two seconds.
“We’re just playing around,” he said quickly.
“At this time in the morning?” Paul’s father asked and looked angrily at Paul and then turned to James. “Go back up to the house, Paul. And you… you need to go home.”
“Yes, sir,” Paul said meekly and quickly exited the tree fort.
“I don’t want you two hanging around anymore.”
“What? Why?” James stood and brushed himself off.
“Keep away from my boy,” Paul’s father said and then turned and left.
James stood there, alone in the dark tree fort until he heard a familiar voice calling his name. It sounds like Lumen. Where is she?
“James, wake up!” Lumen said.
James rubbed his forehead and sat up from the floor. He had such a headache. It took him a few moments to shake the dream and come back to reality: Fort Bragg, Project Jedi, Dr. Albion, and shaggy Falling Star. “That was too weird!” he said to Lumen. “I was having this vivid dream about Paul.”
“That’s a nightmare!”
“No, it wasn’t,” James corrected her. “I was remembering a time before we got together. I’d forgotten what an asshole his father was.”
“Well, something made him turn out the way he did,” Lumen answered. “Paul certainly takes after his father.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” James agreed. “Paul was so much more fun back then. He was nicer.”
“Now he’s a megalomaniac like Dr. Albion.”
“Yeah, it’s terrible,” James continued. He rubbed his forehead again and then noticed the broken bunk. “What happened here?”
“I don’t know,” Lumen answered. “Maybe Paul did it as an act of sabotage.”
“That’s just typical. He’s really becoming a total asshole.”
“Um … he’s always been a total asshole,” Lumen said, raising an eyebrow.
Keira kneeled next to James. “Dr. Albion zapped us with that thing she carries around with her and it knocked you out,” Keira said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Kind of. Where’s Falling Star?”
“Who knows?” Lumen said. “But I bet he’s not far away, considering how much he likes you.”
James pulled the blanket off and stood up and opened the closet door. Nothing but white jumpsuits and shoes. No yetis.
“I have to tell you a rumor I heard in the lab this afternoon,” Keira said as she looked up at the camera in the corner of the room and then continued in a low whisper. “I think it has to do with us.”
“What is it?”
“They’re working on some kind of spaceship, like EBE’s. I guess they reverse engineered it. I heard one of the techies say they needed to install an arming hub in it. They must be making this ship for us to use somehow.”
“That’s crazy!” James said. “They’d never let us fly off the base!”
“Shhh!” Keira continued as she pointed to the camera above them. “Keep your voice down. Why else would they put an arming hub in it unless it was for us?”
“Or another one of the Star Children, maybe others from the Twelve Heroes?” James added quietly. “We don’t know who else they have prisoner here on this base or down below in the subterranean levels.”
“I didn’t think about that,” Lumen said in a whisper. “James could be right.”
“But still, they’re designing ships that we could fly. Maybe this is a good opportunity to tell Dr. Albion that we want to start working with Project Jedi. Maybe we can escape in one of their ships?” Keira asked hopefully.
“If they’re designed to be flown by us, they must have all sorts of fail-safes to stop us from escaping,” James said. “That’s how they design everything around here.”
“I know,” Keira said emphatically. “That’s why we should try to work closely with them on this. Maybe we can figure a way around their system from the inside.”
“That’s a good point,” Lumen said.
James thought about it for a moment. “But that means agreeing to whatever Dr. Albion wants us to do. It could mean we have to do horrible things to someone.”
“Or the experiments she wants to do to us,” Lumen said. “You can’t shake hands with the devil and then say you were only kidding.”
“I know,” Keira said. “But it’s a chance for us to escape. I think it’s worth it. They said the code name for the project is Intercept.”
“I wish we had access to the internet,” James said and glanced up at the camera and again lowered his voice. “Maybe we could find out if there are any conspiracy theories about it. Dr. Albion said they are always feeding real information mixed with misinformation to the public.”
The loudspeaker crackled to life above them. Dr. Albion’s voice began. “James, Keira, and Lumen report to lab facility 3B in sector Delta.”
“Now’s our chance to tell her,” Keira whispered.
“I think we should wait and find out a little more about this project before we commit to anything,” James replied as he threw the blue blanket on the pile of wood and canvas that used to be his bunk and started to walk to the doorway.
“I’m thinking the same thing,” Lumen said, joining him. “Although I think it’s a great idea to work with Albion and against her at the same time.”
“Okay, I’ll go with the majority,” Keira said a little glumly as she followed. “But we need to be ready to decide quickly when the right time comes.”
“Deal,” James said.
“Yeah, it’s a deal,” Lumen added. “Now let’s find out what Albion wants.”
“OH, JAMES, don’t give me that look,” Dr. Albion said. “It’s for your own protection.”
James struggled in the wire armature. His wrists and legs were strapped down, and multicolored cables crawled ove
r his body and were attached with suction cups to his wrists and his temples. A rubber gag wrapped around behind his ears and pressed his tongue in place to keep him from swallowing it.
“If you are going to be a transistor for us, we need to know how much energy you can manipulate before you burn out. You remember our Faraday cage from Paragon, don’t you, James? It should keep all the electricity in there with you and prevent it from shooting out and striking us.”
James shook the restraints and continued to glare at Dr. Albion.
“Let him out of there,” Lumen shouted from where she and Keira were both strapped into metal chairs. “Why are you doing this?”
Dr. Albion turned and smiled. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Ms. Kim, since you are so curious.” Dr. Albion closed and bolted the door of the Faraday cage and walked over to Lumen and Keira. “Your friend Keira here has the potential of creating an almost endless amount of energy for us, once we break her bond to that pesky tulpa.”
“What?” Keira gasped. “What are you going to do with Tenzing?”
“When we find him, our mutual acquaintance, Asmodeus, is going to help us release you from his connection. Apparently, it’s like splitting an atom—it will cause an unstable fission reaction. That’s where James comes in. He’s going to be our transistor and convert all the energy into electricity we can use. We’re just not sure if the process will kill him, or not.”
“That’s horrible,” Lumen said with deep concern on her face.
“You can’t do that,” Keira said, almost pleading.
“Of course, we can. We have Paul to heal him if anything goes wrong.”
“If he asks me nicely,” Paul said as he strolled over and tapped on the metal cage. “The magic word is ‘please,’ James. Remember that.”
James stared blankly at Paul, a look of sadness in his blue eyes.
“Naturally, Paul can’t do anything about the pain James will feel. Being electrocuted by 10 gigawatts is the kind of pain he won’t soon forget.”
“You’re insane,” Keira shouted.
“No, you will find I am completely sane, Ms. Darkfeather. You and Ms. Kim are only here to keep James from misbehaving. You’ll notice he’s not wearing his power-deadening cuffs. They’d permanently fuse to his body if we ran all that electricity through him. We removed them for this experiment. His powers are at full strength. But he knows that one false move and Paul or I will punish both of you.”
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