by James Gough
Will turned to Rizz, who had finished his leafy in-flight meal and was chewing absentmindedly on his fork the way some people chew on pencil erasers.
“Um, Agent Rizzuto?”
“Hey, call me Rizz, remember.” He pulled the mangled fork from his mouth.
“Oh, okay, Rizz? What were you saying back in the airport? You know, that Dr. Noctua bought Special Branch?”
“Yeah. Pretty crazy, huh? Imagine how much money it would take to run a branch of the FBI or CIA. Well, double it and you can guess what the Doc must drop on Special Branch.” Rizz chuckled and elbowed Will in the ribs. “Not like the old bird doesn’t have it, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s loaded—more money than a small country—owns Cloak factories across the world. And powerful, oh man! He might look like a gentle, eccentric doctor, but that little old owl has three doctorates, two medals of valor, two medical degrees, a law degree, speaks thirty-seven languages, and has been knighted in five countries. He is arguably the most influential and respected being on the planet. Good guy to have as a personal physician, huh?” Rizz nudged Will with his elbow.
Will craned his neck to see Dr. Noctua. Rich? Powerful? The Tuttles traveled in the most influential circles in New York. Will’s parents’ friends were nothing like the quirky owl-man snoring a few feet away.
Rizz cracked open an orange soda and took a bite out of the can. Will remembered the other question he wanted to ask. “What did you mean when you said you were all a bunch of screw-ups?”
Rizz snorted and sprayed soda across the crate of fine china in front of him. The other agents turned and looked at him. Dr. Noctua stirred but never woke up. It took Rizz a minute to gain composure. He wiped his mouth and spoke in a quiet voice.
“I said we were screw-ups because we are. Every agent in Special Branch is here ’cause ISPA wanted to get rid of us. For years Special Branch has been a joke. A team dedicated to Immunes when there were no Immunes. This is where they transferred agents that shouldn’t be near anything important. But now…” Rizz snorted. “Now us screw-ups have the most important assignment on earth. You! But don’t worry, kid, none of these agents ever messed up anything critical. We just don’t like playing by other people’s rules, or maybe we said the right thing to the wrong person. Think of us as the most talented team of misfits ever assembled.” He waved his hand and took a mock bow.
Will smiled. A team of misfits protecting an outcast—it seemed fitting. He was about to ask Rizz how he’d ended up in Special Branch, but the agent had put on headphones and was drumming on his knees, bobbing his head to the music. Whatever Rizz had done, Will was glad he was part of his team. Something about the ram-man put him at ease. He followed Rizz’s lead and slipped headphones over his ears, leaned back and let the plane carry him west.
12
Hard Earth
The airstrip was barely a dirt runway. A few rusty hangers and an old warehouse that reeked of manure made up the terminal. ‘Welcome to Wyoming’ was spray-painted on an old tractor near rows of delivery vans and dump trucks. The wind bit into Will’s skin the second he stepped off the plane. His parka was useless against the cold, thin air.
He hugged his backpack tight.
It was like standing on the surface of Mars. The land was folded and wrinkled, and from every seam scraggly scrub oak clawed toward the late afternoon sun. In the distance, weathered hills were so thick with pine trees that they created great black stains on the horizon. The sky was like nothing he had ever seen in New York. It went on forever. A pale, blue canvas stretching over the brown grasslands like an umbrella studded with jagged clouds. The former bubble-boy felt very exposed.
The Special Branch armored transport was disguised as an old Moo Valley milk truck. Rizz tucked his horns under a milkman’s hat and took the wheel. He drove like a New York cabbie, throwing gravel as he roared out of the parking lot, then swerving sharply to avoid tumbleweeds on the two-lane highway. Bottles of milk rolled from one side of the truck to the other. Cheese and yogurt collided with Will’s feet.
Will peered through one of the round windows in the center of the O’s in Moo Valley. On his seat made from wheels of cheddar, he shifted to get a better view of a herd of bison grazing on brown grass.
From behind the wheel Rizz eyed Will in the rearview mirror. “Kind of intimidating, huh, kid? You should have seen me when I was hauled out here for the first time. I was about ten, but that was before they put in this paved road. Mom brought me out to meet our extended family in Hidden Ridge. That’s a little po-dunk town about twenty miles from New Wik. It scared the goat out of me walkin’ out onto those plains for the first time. I’d never been out of Jersey before, and this prairie was something out of a stinkin’ Western horror flick. I felt so small, like a spec. My cousin Dean thought it would help me get used to the landscape if I had a chance to ‘commune with nature.’ So he led me on a hike up the cliffs that surround the town. It took me a while to get my footing, but it kind of comes naturally to my family. You know, mountain sheepchants and all.
“Pretty soon I was running across these canyon walls like I was jogging in the park back home. But no matter how fast I moved, my cousin Dean ran faster. He flew along the cliff walls like a dang Olympic sprinter. Made me jump over these cracks in the canyon that were a hundred feet deep. I about wet my pants.
“Anyway, Dean led me along ’til I was so turned around I didn’t know what way was up. Then he rounds a corner and I lose him. He was gone. There I was, the little city ramchant stuck on the side of that canyon, scared to death. I spent the whole night cringing from the sounds of the prairie and clinging to a sagebrush like it was a lifesaver. I thought I was a goner. Next morning, I start yelling for help, and Dean pops his head over the side of the cliff, laughing his horns off. I wanted to kill him, until I climbed to the top of the ridge and realized that I’d been cowering all night about fifty yards from the back door of Dean’s house. Everybody knew right where I was the whole time. My cousins still call me Cringe. Man, I hate that name.”
Will tried to bite back the smile but it wasn’t easy with Rizz wiggling his eyebrow in the rearview mirror. The humor seemed to unravel the knots in Will’s stomach. Sitting back, he glanced out the windshield. “Whoa, what is that?” A giant column of earth grew from the prairie like a soaring skyscraper of stone.
“Neps call it Devil’s Tower,” said Agent Manning’s booming voice from the back of the milk truck. “It’s enchant name is the Builder’s Basilica.”
“Can we go there?” Will asked.
“Not if you want to stay alive.”
The protection team exchanged nervous looks.
Rizz cleared he throat, “Manning meant to say, ‘Stay on time.’ Val’s a stickler for itineraries.”
“Nothing wrong with planning ahead,” Agent Manning said in a dry tone. “You could use a bit of preparation yourself, Rizzuto. You’re about to miss the turn.”
Rizz cranked the wheel and the milk truck squealed onto two tires. When it righted itself, they were barreling north on a neglected road covered in weeds. The Moo Valley truck rattled and bounced, but Rizz didn’t slow.
“Nice driving, Cringe,” smirked Agent Manning.
“Very funny, Bambi.” Rizz eyed Manning in the rearview mirror, then looked at Will. “Hey, kid, you know how deer are supposed to be sweet and docile? Don’t believe it.”
As they drove on, Will felt like he was being tossed on a giant ocean of grass. The truck kept lifting and falling while bouncing erratically. The motion and the pungent smell of cheese were about to cause Will to lose what little lunch he’d eaten when the truck came to an abrupt hault. They were stopped at a T in the road under a rusted old stop sign full of shotgun holes.
Across the intersection, a faded green board read “Warm Springs” with an arrow to the left and “Dry Creek” with an arrow to the right. Straight ahead, a dirt track was blocked by a sagging barbed wire gate over a cattle g
uard. “No Trespassing” was hand-painted on a peeling piece of plywood that hung on the gate at a clumsy angle. Next to the fence, a cowboy was restringing strands of barbed wire while his horse grazed on sagebrush. The dairy truck idled for a long time. Strange, since no cars were visible for miles in any direction.
“Um, what are we waiting for?” Will asked, wondering if Rizz might be lost.
“That.” Rizz pointed at the hand-painted sign that had changed to read, “All Clear, Please Proceed.” The cowboy and the horse came to crisp attention. As the milk truck rolled up to the gate, the sign flashed, “Stop.” The cowboy approached the driver’s window and tipped his hat. “Identification, please.”
Everyone reached for their IDs. The cowboy pulled out an old Bic lighter and held it up to each passport license. Instead of a flame, the lighter produced a red laser that swept the card, then beeped and flashed a green light. The cowboy leaned through the window and matched IDs with faces. He looked human—leathery and tan with a sweat-stained hat pulled tight over his ears and a reddish mustache. Will wondered if he was another mosquito until the cowboy saw Kaya in the passenger seat and gave her a smile, showing off a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth with protruding canines.
“Have a nice evening.” He tipped his hat again and nodded to the horse enchant, who pressed a wad of dried gum on the fence post, causing the gate to slide to one side. In front of them was a gnarled mud track that looked more rut than road. The hand-painted sign flickered, then read, “Proceed.”
“Hold on.” Rizz punched the gas. The truck bucked and launched dairy products into the air.
Will was thrown off his cheese seat and across the floor. The rest of the team sat perfectly balanced, swaying with the truck’s erratic motion.
“Interesting, isn’t it, Wilhelm?” Dr. Noctua helped Will up. “The road helps discourage curious Neps.”
“I bet it works.” Will grabbed a wall and stared at the muddy track that was becoming harder to see in the fading light.
“There’s a lot of this kind of camouflage around New Wik,” blurted Rizz. “You want to talk about hidden? I think Flores’s people must have designed the city.”
Agent Flores pursed his lips in his mirror. “I assure you that my people had nothing to do with the cheap parlor tricks used to conceal New Wik. Es una traviesa. If we’d been in charge, you wouldn’t even know it was there.”
Rizz shook his head. “Geez Flores, it was a joke. You know, ha ha?”
“Next time I suggest humor. I’ve heard it makes jokes funny,” Flores said with a dry sneer.
Rizz narrowed his eyes at the chameleon enchant.
“New Wik? Is that where we’re going?” asked Will.
“Not quite, kid. Our destination is a lot more secure, but I’m sure you’re gonna like it.” Rizz hit the gas, bouncing the milk truck around a bend in the road.
Will sat transfixed by the darkening landscape zooming past his round window. The plains looked broken. Fissures split the land and the entire earth was riddled with holes. Will pressed his face to the glass. Hundreds of rodents stood on their hind legs. Prairie dogs. He remembered the name from a travel guide to Yellowstone.
Will watched the alert little creatures standing at attention like a miniature army until a bright orange glow filled his vision. He’d seen plenty of sunsets from his window in the bubble, but never anything like what now consumed the horizon.
The sky looked like it was on fire. Violent oranges and reds changed into burning purple as the sun melted into the hills. After a few minutes of unbelievable beauty, the spectacle was over and nothing but a warm strip of pale yellow remained above the blackened horizon.
Will took a deep breath. The past twenty-four hours had been full of drama—exciting, but exhausting at the same time. Despite the clatter of the milk bottles, he closed his eyes and drifted off.
“There it is, Wilhelm.” Dr. Noctua, who had spent most of the journey napping and groggy, was bursting with energy as he shook Will out of his semi-consciousness. Outside Will’s window, the prairie had disappeared behind a haze of night. Will couldn’t see a thing. They were traveling without headlights, but Rizz was taking the corners just as fast as before.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” hooted Noctua, clicking his beak next to Will’s ear.
Even with the full moon, Will could only see lumpy, dark blue shapes against a background of darker blue. He strained to pull more detail out of the surroundings, but it was no use.
“I don’t see anything,” he mumbled.
There was silence. Dr. Noctua spoke. “Oh dear. I assumed you would have no trouble seeing through its protective Cloak.”
“No, I mean I can’t see anything. It’s dark. All I see is black.”
There was another beat of quiet. Then a snorting guffaw from Rizz filled the milk truck. “I guess you’re not the only one who’s learning something new, kid. Not one of us thought to ask you if you can see in the dark. Because you can see through cloak, I guess we all assumed that you can see at night. Oops.”
“Rizz, it’s not funny,” Kaya chastised. “Val, can you help Will with the…”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting them right now.” Agent Manning was next to Will’s elbow. “Here you go, Tuttle, try these.”
Something was pressed into Will’s hand—a pair of glasses. He opened them and slipped them on. Instantly, the world was so bright he had to squint. It was like someone had turned on a floodlight in the middle of the night, but the colors were much different. Everything glowed blue and green and purple—surreal, like an electric painting. Around him, the team shone with a warm, pinkish luminescence.
“Hey kid, welcome to the party,” said Rizz, his teeth shining in the rearview mirror. He wore a pair of glasses identical to Will’s. He tapped the lens. “Guess not all of us have Kaya’s night eyes. Frankly, I think she was just trying to pick on you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kaya gave Rizz a sideways glare. “How are we supposed to know he can’t see if he doesn’t say anything?”
When Kaya looked at Will, his insides flipped. Her eyes glowed turquoise in the night vision.
Noctua pressed his beak close to Will’s face, looking into one lens then the other. “Why don’t you take a moment to get used to the luminary glasses. I’ve heard they can be quite disorienting at first.”
Will blinked and looked around. Manning was also wearing night glasses. Noctua, Kaya, and Flores didn’t need them. Owl, cat, and chameleon—it made sense.
Will looked outside. They were traveling on the edge of a high plateau.
The sweeping valley below was ringed with a wall of purple mountains. A dense black forest dominated the south, and a vast mirrored lake covered the north. But neither compared to the enormous pyramid of lights that towered between them. Will squinted and rubbed his eyes. Windows? It couldn’t be. “What is that?”
“That’s our destination, kid,” said Rizz from the driver’s seat. “St. Grimm’s Hospital, your new home away from home.”
13
St. Grimm’s
“Another hospital?” Will sagged in his seat. He had traveled all this way just to end up where he always ended up.
“I think you’ll find St. Grimm’s is no ordinary hospital.” Dr. Noctua pointed at the gleaming pyramid.
Will leaned close to the window. Thousands of glowing windows were embedded in the side of a craggy mountain. There was no building, just a towering peak with windows. He took off his night glasses to rub his eyes, but as he did the world disappeared into total blackness. He put his glasses back on. The glowing lights reappeared.
“The light in the windows is on a lower wavelength than you can see without your glasses,” the doctor said.
“But I can’t see the building either.”
“That’s because there isn’t one. Well, there is, but it looks like a mountain— enchant engineering at its best. Only the windows and doors need Cloak protection, everything else blends in. The entire hosp
ital is the mountain.”
“The whole mountain?”
The stone peak came to a point like a gigantic anthill. Towers of rock surrounded the main mountain like castle turrets. Will craned his neck to see the highest windows. They had to be a hundred stories high.
Rizz approached the base of one of the towers at a reckless speed. Tree branches raked the windows and scrub brush grabbed at the tires. “Hold on,” he announced, pounding the gas as the Moo Valley truck pitched forward.
Will looked out the windshield just in time to see the road disappear into a gaping cave that hadn’t been there moments earlier. The truck was airborne before gravity intervened. All four tires landed at once on the cave’s downward sloping road. Stalagmites lined the floor. Rizz had to weave through them like pylons on an obstacle course. The truck banked high up the wall, nearly clipping one of the stalactites clinging to the ceiling.
The tunnel narrowed. It was a dead end. Rizz jerked the wheel to the right, then to the left. The truck whipped around and squeezed through a hidden gap in the stone.
There was light ahead.
Will stared up at an enormous, lit cavern.
A feathery hand rested on his shoulder. “Welcome to St. Grimm’s, Wilhelm.”
It reminded Will of the vast chamber at the heart of Grand Central Station, only this space was a hundred times larger. Rows of odd-looking pick-ups, horse trailers, and other bizarre forms of rural transportation were parked in neat lines among the stalagmites. Ahead of them, ten-story pillars were carved from a wall of red stone. The milk truck stopped in front of a thirty-foot oak door pressed into the solid rock. Will stepped out. He gaped up at the bus-sized stalactites high overhead and the pillars as wide as a house.
On the far side of the cavern, a hay truck flashed ambulance lights and squealed into the brightly lit emergency bay. A mob of white coats flowed toward the truck and opened the doors that were disguised as hay bales. From the fake hay, a stretcher the size of a station wagon was removed while its occupant mooed in pain. Someone barked orders. The mass of enchant doctors and nurses hauled the stretcher inside.