Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee

by J. Joseph Wright

  “Remember when I first showed you the Holoversarium and you pointed out a star system for me to zoom in on?”

  “Sure,” she studied the tiny cosmos as it encircled her. “It was over-over…hey! Where’d it go?”

  “Exactly,” Jack shook his head. “It’s gone now. Wiped out of existence.”

  “But you said that was probably just a glitch. That’s what it is, right?”

  She looked at Takota, then at Jack. They both frowned at her.

  “What? What is it?”

  “The galaxy. It was destroyed, consumed…”

  “Eaten,” Takota finished for Jack.

  “Eaten?” Ayita asked. “By what?”

  Amelia and Ayita both stood straight, taking one step back and inhaling deeply. At the same time they recited, “Essinis!”

  “Teresa was exactly right,” Jack said. “There is something out there. It’s massive and voracious, and it just ate this entire solar system for breakfast.”

  Amelia looked at Jack again.

  “But how do you know?”

  Jack had trouble speaking. His throat clenched up.

  “We were there,” Takota spoke for him once again. “We were in the galaxy when it was destroyed.”

  “You were there?” Ayita sounded shocked.

  “What? Jack, what’s he talking about? How could you two be there?”

  “The O/A,” Jack managed to say finally. “It brought us there.”

  “Without you telling it to?”

  “Yeah. It just dropped us right in the middle of a war. I met a girl, an Eteea warrior. She said she had a protector and that he was killed. And then…and then…” he deflated like a balloon. “It was horrible, Amelia.”

  “I hope you’re not talking about me,” yet another surprise visitor made Jack stand straight. This one wasn’t as welcome as the first. Argus Cole poked his head in from the hallway, a cheesy grin on his sickeningly handsome face. “I’m not intruding, am I?” he winked. “Jack’s mom said you guys’d be up here,” Argus’s eyes got immense when he noticed the Holoversarium. “What. Is. That?”

  Jack reacted immediately. One click and the hologram folded into a thin line, then retracted into the darkened crystal dome.

  “None of your business,” he snapped. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Jack!” Amelia put her hands on her hips.

  For a quick moment, Jack and Argus locked eyes, and in that shred of time, as they stared at each other, Jack’s blood ran cold. He got the strangest feeling from the kid, and couldn’t help but show his disgust with a squint and a sneer. Then he saw the look on Amelia’s face and backed down.

  “Sorry,” he said. “He startled me, that’s all.”

  Argus chuckled.

  “That’s okay. I’m the one who should be sorry for butting in like this,” he looked at Amelia. “I’ll just go, then.”

  “No, no!” she took his arm and led him to a chair. “Let’s check out what Jack has found.”

  “Hello there, little ones,” Argus said to Takota and Ayita.

  Takota stared at Jack. Jack knew what his protector was thinking. Deep inside, when he let everything else fade to nothing, he heard Takota’s voice, telling him to be careful. Then, strangely, and quite wonderfully, he heard another voice. It was Amelia, telling him to trust her. So he powered up the Holoversarium again, and zeroed on the void—the negative area, the supermassive black hole—which used to be a cloudy, purple galaxy.

  He spent the next half-hour explaining what he and Takota had experienced on the planet called La’oon. Then, after Argus asked him to, he expounded on the mechanics of the Holoversarium. For all his flaws, Jack had to admit the new boy did have a robust, even intelligent curiosity for science. He also had a healthy interest in the things he and the Tanakee went through weeks earlier, when they went up against Davos, and how they were able to defeat him. Jack tried to think nothing of it, as it seemed Amelia was able to do. Still, despite her ringing endorsement, something made him reluctant to share everything.

  He knew Amelia was disappointed. He saw it in her sideways glances. It didn’t matter. He just wasn’t ready to divulge every one of his innermost secrets to a total stranger, especially when that stranger’s name was Argus Cole.

  Jack’s mom invited them to all stay for dinner, but Amelia declined politely, saying she had to get home. Argus, being the syrupy gentleman he was, offered to walk her and Ayita the fifteen blocks.

  “Since I live at Tangled Trails too,” he smiled at Jack. It was the first time Jack actually wished he was living at that apartment complex again.

  TEN

  “BEN!”

  Jack jolted his head off the pillow to find Takota already sitting up.

  “Where’s BEN!”

  “BEN!”

  Immediately Jack recognized his mother, desperation in her tone. Then came the realization the other voice was Pud. Both Jack and Takota hurried down the hall to find his parents’ bedroom empty. Nobody in there at all. They raced downstairs. Still nobody.

  “BEN!”

  The screaming came from the garage. There they saw Pud, sifting through what once was Ben’s elaborate setup, now reduced to dust bunnies and empty racks. The big, transparent container holding the Quantum Foam—gone. The boson bath and the exoskin repair cubicles—gone. All control panels and holoscreens—gone. The place was wiped out.

  “Wha…what?” Jack stammered.

  “Your dad!” Liz crouched close to an upended desk. Out of the broken glass and the crumbled metal, she found a family portrait, Ben standing proudly over the rest of them. “He’s missing! Somebody kidnapped him, I just know it!”

  “Jack!” Takota pulled his pajama shirt. “Jack? Are you hearing this?”

  Jack failed to react right away. He was just coming out of shock, really. The thought of his father being taken hostage was almost too bizarre for words.

  Enola offered a suggestion.

  “Are we sure he’s not somewhere else? Like at the school. Maybe he moved his lab and forgot to tell us about it.”

  “No way,” Liz started pacing. “No. He never came to bed last night. And he’d never do something like that without telling me, or at least answer his cell phone. He’s not answering calls, and his car is here. His best walking shoes are still in the closet, and a half-eaten sandwich is still sitting on the counter…”

  “What? Oh, goodie!” Pud perked up. Cheyton elbowed him.

  “Pud!”

  “Well,” he shrugged. “Ben wouldn’t want it to go to waste, would he?”

  “Get serious,” Cheyton bristled. “Think of what this means. With Ben, the Nagas have access to his superior intellect. There’s no telling what he’ll be forced to invent.”

  The back gate opened and slammed shut. Takota took a fighting stance, so did Cheyton. Enola stood back and shielded Lily. They all took a breath of relief when they saw Ayita bounding around the house. Amelia was behind her, running fast.

  “Ben’s gone, isn’t he?” Amelia said breathlessly, shaking her head. “And I didn’t see it coming. Now I know what you guys feel like when Eteea lets you down. Too little, too late.”

  “We can’t get down on ourselves,” Jack lifted the O/A, its sparkling, inner turmoil of bizarre geometric shapes and patterns ramping up in activity. “I’ll get Dad. Everybody, look out!”

  His friends stood back and he pressed the machine’s solitary button. He felt the omnidimensional field, surge after surge after surge of Jack James duplicates fortifying him with ultimate power.

  Search for my dad! he shouted inside his mind, and instantly was swept away from his backyard. He appeared at the high school, where his dad worked as head of the science department. Dark and empty. No sign of Ben anywhere. With his dimensionally-enhanced vision he detected some latent prints, but they were days old. Some hair and, looking at the microscopic level, skin flakes, but, again, nothing fresh. All indications were he hadn’t been in the building since Friday,
well before his disappearance.

  Then he shifted to another of his dad’s favorite haunts—Salty Joe’s, the coffee shop near the harbor. The patrons were understandably shocked when he appeared out of nowhere, with the O/A providing a stunning light and sound show. Some got down on the floor and covered their heads. Most just stood and stared, looks of wide-eyed astonishment plastered on their faces.

  “Hey! It’s him!” a suited man shouted, patting a man in fishy overalls on the back. “It’s Jack James!”

  A small murmur grew to a rolling roar as the dozen or so customers surrounded him. Everybody wanted to shake his hand.

  “Listen, everyone,” he said impatiently. “Has anyone seen my dad?”

  “No,” the barista behind the counter handed a latte to a woman in plaid. “He doesn’t usually stop by on the weekends. Why? What’s happened?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” Jack closed his eyes and the O/A whipped and whistled violently. People backed off. Salty Joe’s and everyone inside spun in a whirling dervish, distorting and elongating until it all became a wispy haze. He was transported away again, and found himself in Winmart, stunning a woman and her three children in the juice section. Searching the whole store, he saw no sign of his dad. He went to the beach, a favorite spot of Ben’s. Only the windswept dunes and ragged shoreline and forbidding breakers. Standing in the sand, he concentrated, and all his instincts told him Ben was still alive. Somewhere. But where?

  He allowed himself to think the worst. Cheyton had said he was certain something bad had happened. And why not? Davos swore to return and destroy them. What if those plans included creating another O/A, this one with the programming to allow the Nagas to use it? Or what if they were using Ben as bait to lure the True Soul?

  If that’s what they wanted, it worked.

  He focused on the Nagas, on finding their hiding place and, just like that, he was there. Standing in the middle of a smoky, gray cavern the size of a football stadium, surrounded by masses and masses of undulating, slithering, hissing snakes, intertwined and writhing on the ground like they were locked in battle. The serpents near him reeled away when the O/A shocked them with its force field, and a group of them formed a dense cluster which, in turn, solidified into the form of a human woman. She pointed a sinewy finger at Jack while her long, serpentine hair danced and hissed and gnashed their terrible fangs.

  “Where is my father!” Jack demanded.

  The Nagas woman shouted, “It’s the True Soul! Get him!”

  A slipstream of light erupted next to him. Jack reeled away, worried one of the Nagas had penetrated the O/A’s shield. It hadn’t. It was a welcomed arrival.

  “Takota! Where’d you come from?”

  “I sensed you were in danger!” Takota scanned their surroundings, confronted by encroaching serpents, in the sky, on the ground, coming in waves. “What are you doing here? And, where’s here, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought about being in the middle of the Nagas Empire and, well, here I am!”

  “You gotta be more careful with that machine!” the little creature kept his back to Jack’s knees, spreading his arms and crouching, ready to take on all comers. Then, in an unexpected and dazzling burst, one Takota became two. Then another flash, and two became four. The process kept going, fast, until Jack saw so many Takotas it was impossible to count. And each of them went after the dark snakes, both airborne and slithering on the floor.

  Jack peered past the fight, down a great hall which seemed to go for miles. Still more slender flying things were coming at them, all with intent to devour Takota.

  “Come on!” Jack summoned the power of the O/A to transport him and his protector out of there, whether Takota was divided into countless copies or not. Somehow, and instantaneously, the process merged them all into one again. As they sped off, surrounded by the force field like an ethereal capsule, Takota stared at Jack with a perplexed scowl.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “This thing’s pretty powerful, remember?” Jack held the O/A higher as it ripped them through space, roaring at unfathomable speeds.

  “What about your dad?”

  “The Nagas don’t have him.”

  “How do you know?” Takota still looked bewildered.

  “I just do.”

  ELEVEN

  “HAS ANYBODY SEEN my daddy!” Lily shouted as soon as she got inside Winmart. “He’s gone and we can’t find him!”

  The cashiers each stopped what they were doing and presented her with sad faces. Then Liz walked in and they all left their posts.

  “Liz, is it true? Is Ben missing?”

  “Yes,” she tried not to cry. It was no use. Her mascara was already running, and her nose had stuffed up completely. “We’ve been to the police department, to file a-a missing person’s report,” she lost it on those last three words, sobbing out of control.

  “Come on, Mrs. James,” Amelia took her elbow and led her toward the employee break room.

  “Wait,” Al rushed from the upstairs office, keys jingling on his hip. “I heard you say Ben’s missing. Is there anything we can do?”

  Liz mustered the strength to speak, fighting her shivers and lack of breath. “We just came to find out if anyone knows anything.

  Al rubbed his chin, and his eyes narrowed. “Come here,” he led her to one of the cash registers. Extending from the counter, on a flexible stand, was a microphone. He tilted and pointed it at Liz’s mouth. “Go ahead.”

  She thanked him with her eyes, then pressed the button.

  “Hello, everybody. Can I please have your attention? This is Liz James.”

  People took notice. Shoppers stopped shopping. Voices fell hushed. Liz looked at her daughter, red eyes and puffy cheeks. Then she turned to Amelia, standing beside the Tanakee—Pud, Ayita, Enola and Cheyton. Words failed her.

  “Here,” Amelia took the mic. “Everyone, please listen. Ben James is missing!”

  “My daddy!” Lily screamed and the store buzzed with chatter.

  “We think he disappeared sometime last night, and we’re worried something terrible might have happened to him.”

  A woman pushing a shopping cart and trailing several children asked, “Your son has that miracle machine. Why doesn’t he just use it to find your husband? Heck, if I had that machine, I’d find me a new husband!”

  Several people laughed. Cheyton hopped to the counter and grabbed the microphone.

  “This is serious,” he said. “The same monsters that almost destroyed your town are behind this. They’re up to something, I know it.”

  “Please,” Enola took the mic. “If anyone knows where Ben is, please come forward. We need him back. Ben’s family needs him.”

  “I need him too,” Pud sniffled over the loudspeaker. “He’s my friend.”

  “It’ll be okay, Pud,” Enola rubbed his furry, orange-tinted back. “We’ll find him.”

  Liz detected commotion at the other end of the store. Murmurs. People moving quickly to clear a path. Someone was coming, someone determined and headstrong. When Liz saw the flowing, purple robe adorned with shiny letters and symbols, she knew help was on the way. It was Teresa Tree.

  “What’s this I hear?” Teresa made her way forward, nimble as a child. “Ben James is missing? This can’t be. This simply can’t be!”

  “But it is,” Lily ran and pressed against Teresa’s silken gown. “My daddy’s gone, Teresa. He’s been kiddy-napped!”

  “Where’s Jack and Takota?” she asked.

  “They went to look for him,” Liz responded. “But I’m getting the feeling they’re having a hard time.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to see what I can do,” she reached under her shawl and produced a thick, brown leather-bound book. Immediately, Liz felt a surge of relief. With Jack and Takota using the awesome power of the O/A, and with Teresa’s amazing gifts of magical storytelling, they’d get to the bottom of this. But before the silver-haired woman had the chanc
e to crack the book open, an annoyingly shrill declaration stopped her cold.

  “There they are! These are the people, and the things you’re looking for!”

  For a moment, Liz felt disorientated. It took Amelia and her sharp eye to see who it was.

  “Dillon Shane! What have you done this time?”

  The blonde kid blinked his clear blue eyes and flashed a devilish smile while leading a group of men in expensive suits. All wearing dark glasses and wires in their ears, they reminded Liz of the evil industrialist Archer Savage’s men, but they weren’t. They were too classy to be Savage employees.

  Without a word, the men filed through Winmart’s front entrance. The lead man, a tall, slender guy with no hair, marched up to Teresa and stole the book from her hand.

  “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “What are you doing!” Liz protested. “What’s the meaning of this!”

  “We’re from the government,” the bald one said without any emotion. “And we’re here to help,” he gestured to the Tanakee. “Get the creatures!”

  Liz knew Enola and Pud wanted to stay and protect the children. She could tell by the way they were eyeing the men. But the suited, sunglass-clad militia seemed too formidable. As the agents moved in, the Tanakee scattered. Liz screamed, “Don’t you dare touch those little guys!” and tried to do something about it. A man with strong hands grasped her arms, holding her in place. She could only watch as Enola, Cheyton, Ayita and Pud dashed in different directions, taking separate groups of agents with them.

  The Tanakee moved quickly, scaling tall stacks of packaged food products. From the tops of the aisles, they chucked cans of soda, bottles of baby formula, tins of sardines—anything they could find for their makeshift arsenal. And the more they threw, the messier the mess became. The agents had trouble staying upright, many slipping and slopping in the strained pea, seafood, milk and ketchup mixture.

  “Mommy!” Lily cried when a rather unsavory-looking fellow took hold of her.

  “Hey!” Liz was livid. “Leave my daughter alone!”