by Charlie Wood
“Yes,” she replied.
“And you understand that after this, your lives are never going to be the same, ever again? You are sacrificing something here. I told Tobin this when I first met him, and I’m telling you the same thing now. After this, if you make this choice, there is no going back to how your life was before. You are involving yourself in this, and you cannot un-involve yourself when it is done. This will be forever. Rigel, or the Daybreaker, will see you with us, and nothing for you will ever be the same again.”
“But we’ll be helping,” Jennifer said. “We’ll be helping Tobin, and we’ll be possibly helping to save the universe.”
“Yes,” Orion said. “I believe you will be.”
“Then I’m in,” Jennifer replied. “If we don’t help, if Rigel and Nova win, then our lives will be forever changed, anyway.”
“You’re willing to give up your normal life?” Orion asked. “You’re willing to sacrifice that?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said.
“If it means helping Tobin,” Chad replied, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Keplar laughed and turned to Orion. “I can’t believe you’re even considering this, O.”
Orion smiled. “Pack some things. Meet us back here in ten minutes. From this point forward, you do not do anything unless I tell you to do it.”
Jennifer hung up the phone and dashed upstairs. “I’ll get my jacket and call my mom and tell her I’m going out for the night.”
Chad headed for the door. “I’ll go get a change of pants ‘cuz I think I just crapped myself.”
“This is insane, you know that,” Keplar said to Orion. “I mean, this is something I would do, but this is not something you would ever do.”
“I know,” the old man replied. “But it might be our best shot. It is our best shot, as much as I hate to admit it. Jennifer is right—this is the only way we can hope to prove to the Daybreaker that not everything is what it seems.” He looked to Keplar with a smile. “Plus, were you about to tell her no?”
“No way,” Scatterbolt replied. “Did you see that look in her eye? Now I know how she always got Tobin to do his homework.”
“Yeah,” Keplar said, “and we better hope that translates into her not freaking out when she’s faced with a super-villain ready to destroy her.”
Orion shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. If there’s one thing I’m going to ensure, it’s that they are going to be safe. I’ve protected people my whole life, but never anyone as important as this. These two are now my number one priority, no matter what. Whatever I say with them, goes. Understand?”
“Definitely,” Scatterbolt replied.
Keplar nodded. “You got it.”
“Now let’s just hope Tobin forgives me when he finds out I let them come with us.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As they drove through the plains of Ruffalo Rock, Wakefield was manning the steering wheel of the jostling, open-air jeep, while Agent Everybody was sitting in the front next to him, inspecting a map. In the backseat, Tobin leaned out his window, trying to get a break from the stifling heat.
This sun-drenched, dry land was remarkably like Africa, Tobin thought. The wide open plains were covered in tan, soft dirt that whipped up in clouds behind them as they drove, and the landscape was spotted with sparse trees and leaf-less shrubs. Tall valleys were far off in the distance, and various, bizarre animal species roamed the land. Turning to his right, Tobin saw a pack of green, buffalo-like bremshaws migrating toward the valleys, with their long, skinny, hoofed legs dragging along the dusty ground. To his left, he saw a pair of black-and-purple, polka-dotted elephants, drinking from a watering hole. One of the elephants was smaller than the other, but that didn’t say much—the smaller one was still the size of two school buses, stacked on top of each other. As Tobin watched, the mother elephant sprayed the smaller one with its trunk and then turned the water on itself, washing off the pointed plates that ran down its back like a white picket fence.
“So, where are we going, Wakefield?” Tobin asked. “Orion wouldn’t tell me about what you’ve been doing out here.”
The balding, white-haired man kept his eyes on the road. “No, we’ve had to be very secretive about all this. We couldn’t risk anyone finding out what’s been going on here. The only people that really know are me and Orion.”
“Well, what is it? What’s so secretive that not even me and the others could know about it?”
Wakefield thought it over. “You know how Orion told you he found your dad a few months ago? A different version of your dad from a different timeline?”
“Yeah.”
Wakefield looked in the rear-view mirror. “I found him again, Tobin. I found your dad. He’s in Ruffalo Rock, right now. Waiting for you.”
Tobin sat in the backseat of the jeep. He stared ahead through the windshield, with his air caught in his lungs. He found he could not breathe.
“He’s been here in Ruffalo Rock for about a week now,” Wakefield continued. “I was finally able to track him down and convince him to come here and let me work with him, to get his brain straight again. His memory is better now, and getting better every day. With his help, I’ve been able to work on something that I believe is going to help us send the Daybreaker back where he belongs. And your dad has also been able to remember why he came here to our timeline.”
“He has?” Tobin asked, his voice tight and strained. “Why? Why did he come here?”
Wakefield smiled. “I’ll let him tell you that.”
An hour later, the group in the jeep reached a pair of massive, green grass-covered hills. In a valley in between the hills—where the two hillsides connected—there was a gigantic door, made out of towering, vertical tree stumps. Behind the wooden door, Tobin could see the tops of buildings—there was a protected city of thatched-roofed huts and brick buildings behind the door, reaching all the way to the valleys in the distance. On the outside of the enormous door, on either side of it, there were two stern-faced guards—but these weren’t any ordinary guards. The beings watching over the city were a leopard and an elephant, standing on their hind legs and wearing the armor of warriors. On their backs, they were brandishing round shields, and also long swords made out of shining, yellow diamond.
When Wakefield pulled the jeep up to the gate, the elephant guard recognized him.
“Visitors have arrived in Ruffalo Rock,” the elephant bellowed through his trunk. “Open the door and allow them inside.”
The wooden gate slowly opened up, and Wakefield drove his jeep into the city. Beyond the grassy hillsides and wooden door, the city of Ruffalo Rock was quite a sight. It was made up of thatched, straw huts and tall houses constructed of brick and cement, and past the houses, in the rear of the city, there was a gigantic stone castle, which was over twenty stories tall and as wide as a football stadium. The tan-colored fortress was adorned with flowing flags and golden turrets, and the streets in front of the structure were filled with some of the strangest, and most beautiful, creatures in Capricious—panthers, gorillas, buffalos, and zebras roamed through the town, along with regular human beings. The animals and humans all greeted each other with smiles, living in unison behind the hills.
But, to be honest, Tobin wasn’t paying any attention to the attractive brick buildings or unique species of Ruffalo Rock. As he sat up in his seat and peered over Wakefield’s shoulder, he was too preoccupied with what was about to happen. He could only think about who he was about to see, and who he was about to meet.
At the end of the city’s main street, Wakefield stopped the jeep, a few feet in front of the castle’s drawbridge.
“There he is,” Wakefield said with a smile. “The king of Ruffalo Rock’s current guest.”
Tobin looked out the windshield.
He saw his
father.
As Tobin stepped out of the jeep, he kept his eyes on the front entrance of Ruffalo Rock Castle. His father was there, standing in front of the wide, open door of the building, with his arms nervously behind his back. He looked exactly like all the pictures Tobin had always seen: dark, thick hair, slightly graying at the temples; deep, brown eyes; a slight five o’clock shadow on his face. And, he was smiling—a mischievous, crooked, let’s-get-in-some-trouble smile that Tobin had always heard so much about from his mother. She rarely spoke about Tobin’s father, but when she did, his smile was the thing she talked about the most.
At first, Tobin’s father only saw Wakefield step out of the vehicle and walk across the drawbridge toward him, but then, as he looked to his left, he saw Tobin—his son, standing at the side of the green jeep. His son, eighteen years old, nearly as tall as him, and only a few feet away. Tears welled up in Scott’s eyes, and as he brought his hand to his mouth, his smile widened across his face and he shook his head, stunned by the unbelievable, sudden sight of his grown, teenage son.
Unsure of what to do, Tobin stood there, in shock, until Wakefield walked toward the front of the castle. Tobin followed him.
“Hi, Scott,” Wakefield said, when they reached Tobin’s father. “This is Tobin. And Tobin, this is—”
“Hi, Tobin,” Scott said, stepping forward with a smile. “Hi, son. Hi, son.”
Tobin broke down. He collapsed, in tears, and wrapped his arms around his dad, falling against him. He held on as tight as he could, so overwhelmed that he could not speak. He only held on, and cried, with his fingers gripping the back of his dad’s shirt.
Tears streamed down Scott’s face. He held Tobin around the waist with one arm, and grabbed the back of Tobin’s head with the other, holding it against him.
“It’s okay,” Scott said through his tears. “It’s okay, son. I’m here. I’m here now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m here now. I’m sorry.”
Tobin was too young, when his dad left. He never knew what it felt like to be hugged by his dad.
Now, he knew.
“I’m here, son,” Scott said again. “I’m here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On a small island only a few miles off the shore of Fairfield, Rhode Island, Orion walked through the thick forest of oak trees surrounding the decommissioned Alton Hayes Naval Station. Behind him, the old man was being followed by Keplar, Scatterbolt, Chad, and Jennifer.
“You can really see the navy base all the way from up here?” Jennifer asked, walking around a hanging tree branch.
“Orion has really good eyesight,” Scatterbolt explained.
“And I also have these,” Orion added, “which doesn’t hurt.”
Orion held up a pair of binoculars to his eyes. From where he stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the island, he could look down and see the closed, gated entrance to the naval base.
“See anything out of the ordinary, O?” Keplar asked.
“Not yet—unless you count nobody being around as out of the ordinary. The only people I can see are two armed guards at the entrance. And something tells me they aren’t the normal guards who watch over this place.”
“They’re Rytonian,” the dog said.
“They must be, though they just appear to be normal humans. Whatever is going on here, it’s clearly going on behind closed doors, and very quietly. Which isn’t surprising.”
Orion turned to his left, pointing his binoculars downward at a small, empty parking lot, a few feet in front of the entrance.
“Jennifer, when this base isn’t closed, it’s open for tourists and other visitors, right?”
“Yeah, they do tours all the time. I used to go with my dad like every summer.”
“And when it’s open, where do you buy tickets? Right at the front gates?”
“Yeah, basically. Right outside the gates, at the end of the parking lot.”
“What do you wanna do?” Keplar asked. “You wanna send Jen and Chad down there, have them act like they are just looking to go on a tour? Then, after they are turned away, hopefully someone will spot them and report back to the Daybreaker that some kids were snooping around?”
“Possibly,” Orion said. “But it might be too dangerous. I don’t want to send them down there alone, in case the guards or Rigel recognizes them. What I want to do right now is go back to the museum and come up with a way to get—”
“Uh-oh,” Scatterbolt said, as his yellow eyes lit up.
The little robot turned around, facing the forest.
“What is it, Scatterbolt?” Orion asked.
The little robot blinked his eyes. “Something that was cloaking itself from my radar is no longer cloaking itself.”
Orion and the others turned around.
The group was now surrounded by an army of green-skinned Rytonian soldiers. The grim-faced, camouflaged, fatigue-wearing men and women quickly approached Orion, with their laser rifles raised and ready. Looking down, Chad saw the red dot of a laser scope on his chest.
The leader of the army—a grey-haired, green-skinned woman who was about fifty years old—stepped to the front of the soldiers.
“Nobody move,” she said to Orion and the others. “Drop your weapons.”
Keplar placed his plasma cannon on the ground, while Orion dropped his bow. The heroes, Jennifer, and Chad stood in front of the soldiers, with their hands held in the air.
Walking through Ruffalo Rock Castle with Wakefield, Agent Everybody, and his father, Tobin followed the king of Ruffalo Rock through the palace’s elaborately decorated hall. As if meeting his father wasn’t strange enough, now Tobin found himself speaking with King Ontombe—a seven-foot-tall, muscular, brown-and-grey feathered eagle, with green eyes, a curved beak, and talon-tipped hands and feet. The deep-voiced, very serious bird was wearing armor made out of chain mail and wielding one of Ruffalo Rock’s signature weapons: a diamond-bladed sword that glowed with a yellow, shining light.
“When we heard what was happening,” the king said, “and what Rigel had done on the other world, we knew immediately we would help. Here, we are safe—here, we can protect you from Rigel and the others. They would never dare and try to breach this kingdom.”
“Why is that?” Tobin asked.
“Because this land is guarded by me and the other animal warriors of Ruffalo Rock. We are the most powerful heroes in the galaxy. We have never been defeated, because no super-villain has ever dared challenge us. All the wrong-doers of Capricious know it would mean certain death to face the animals of Ruffalo Rock.”
Tobin looked to his father. “That oughta do it.”
Scott laughed.
“But we are a peaceful people,” the king continued. “And we are here to help you. We would do anything to help Orion and his friends.”
Wakefield turned to Tobin. “I came here, Tobin, because Orion and I knew the only way we could truly stop Rigel is if we sent the Daybreaker back to his own timeline. No matter what happens, that needs to be accomplished. So, I’ve been working here on reverse-engineering the Chrono-Key.”
“Which is possible,” Agent Everybody added, “because dear old dad over there brought his own with him.”
“So you have a Chrono-Key,” Tobin said, “but it’s not the Chrono-Key that Rigel used to bring the Daybreaker here.”
“No,” Agent Everybody said, “but this is.”
Agent Everybody opened his suitcase. Inside, protected by black foam, lay the Chrono-Key.
“You had that with you the entire time?” Tobin asked. “How’d you get that?”
Agent Everybody morphed into a green-skinned scientist. “My powers come in ultra-handy when something needs to get stolen. And don’t forget I lived behind the Dark Nebula’s walls for the last month and a half.”
&n
bsp; “And you were able to sneak in there and take Rigel’s Chrono-Key?”
“Sure was. Took a damn long time, and a damn lot of observation to see who was let into the floor where it was being held, but here it is. Some of my best work, if I do say so myself. The watch they have there now is a dummy, which hopefully they haven’t realized yet.”
“And,” Wakefield said, “since we have the real one, I can get to work on it and make sure it’s capable of sending the Daybreaker back where he came—through force, if necessary.” He reached in and took the Chrono-Key from Agent Everybody’s suitcase. “Since time is of the essence, to say the blurkoppin’ least, I’m gonna take this to the castle’s airplane hangar and start working on it. You all do whatever you wanna do.”
Agent Everybody stretched his arms over his head. “I know you all can’t tell by how terrific I look, but I’m in desperate need of a nap. Wake me if the world starts ending.”
“And I will go with Wakefield to help him with whatever materials he needs,” King Ontombe said. “You two make yourself at home.”
Within seconds, as the others departed through the doors around the castle’s main hall, Scott and Tobin were left alone.
“So,” Tobin said.
“So,” Scott replied.
They laughed.
“This is strange,” Scott said.
“Just a tad.”
“Wanna go for a walk?” Scott asked.
“Sure.”
Outside the castle, Tobin and his dad walked along the building’s side wall and through a wooden arch, leading to one of Ruffalo Rock’s beautiful rock gardens. They were surrounded by tropical plants of all colors—yellow, red, blue, purple, orange—and as they followed a garden walkway made out of tiny stones, Tobin’s father was carrying a blue duffle bag over his shoulder.