Parker raised his hand slowly to the keypad and then withdrew it quickly.
“Actually, maybe this isn’t really such a good idea,” he said.
We’re here now! said Emma on Effie. Think about Dad, Parker. Please.
“We can wait by the door,” offered Michael. “We’ll leave it open. If anything happens, you can just run out. Or we can come and help you.” He said the last part with little conviction.
Parker shook his head in resignation. “Fine,” he whispered. “I’ll do it. But don’t close the door.”
Michael nodded, and Parker reached out to punch in the numbers, but once more he stopped abruptly. He turned to Michael.
“Maybe I’ll take one of those shields.”
Holding the disappointingly small plastic shield in front of his chest, and with the rubber machete tucked into the back of his jeans, Parker entered the six-digit number that Michael held up for him to read.
Click.
Parker turned to Michael and Emma, who were also both holding their useless shields in front of them, and nodded.
“Good luck,” whispered Michael as he pulled down on the handle and swung the door open.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Upon entering Room 43, Parker found himself facing a small corridor that led out onto a room, of which all he could see was a desk piled high with books and a window on the back wall overlooking the green lawn. On his right was the open door of the bathroom. Parker, still standing in the doorway, leaned slightly forward and craned his neck to look inside. The bathroom was empty. Parker turned to face the window again and waited a moment but heard nothing. He took another step. Still nothing. Parker turned to look behind him, and Michael—his feet still very much on the other side of the door—motioned with his head for Parker to keep going.
Parker took a deep breath and started to walk forward, his fear deepening as each step took him farther away from the safety of the door.
The room began to open out in front of him, revealing a small table and a chest of drawers, but still no sign of him. Another step, and Parker reached the end of the tiny corridor. He paused and listened, but the only sound he could hear was the loud thumping of his own heart. Half hoping that Simon/Solomon wasn’t there after all, Parker took another deep breath and stepped into the room.
He was there.
For a moment—seconds possibly, though it felt longer—neither Parker nor the man said a word. They both stared at each other—Parker frozen midstep and the man, in a dark blue dressing gown, looking up from the armchair he was sitting in. Parker should have been the first to speak—after all, he was the one entering unannounced into the room—but he wasn’t capable of saying anything; fear had rendered him speechless.
On a positive note, the man wasn’t drooling. And he didn’t appear unduly tall. However, both of those things would have been less unsettling than what Parker found instead. The man was, far and away, the strangest looking person who Parker had ever set eyes on.
His skin—even his lips—were gray. Not gray as in pale and sickly looking—gray as in the color of an elephant. Unlike an elephant, however, the man’s skin did not appear to have a single wrinkle. It was as smooth as Parker’s own, smoother even, and yet, perhaps because of his full head of shocking white hair, the man appeared to be old. He also had no eyebrows, and from where Parker was standing, it looked like he had no eyelashes, either. Most disconcerting of all, however, were his eyes; the left eye was twice the size of the right and a brilliant blue, pierced by a tiny black dot at its center. The right eye was completely black. It was entirely mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time, and Parker might well have stood there all day had the man not suddenly opened his mouth and let out the most terrifying yell.
“Aaarggghhhhh! We’re under attack!”
In response, Parker let out an involuntary scream and half stumbled, half ran back into the corridor, where he tripped, jumped up, saw the same terrified looks on Emma’s and Michael’s faces, and then lunged forward in the direction of the door. And then he heard the man laughing.
Parker froze midrun.
“Kid! It was a joke! Come in.”
Parker and Michael locked stares, both wide-eyed and both clearly unsure what they should do next. They were, Parker realized, completely and utterly out of their depth. He would have run out, no question, if it hadn’t been for one thing—the man had an unmistakably English accent. It was coincidence enough to keep Parker listening.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes,” squeaked Parker.
“Come back—I don’t bite!”
All Parker heard was the word bite. He shook his head slowly at Michael and Emma and mouthed the words no way. Michael replied by holding up his hands as if to say, What choice have you got? and waved Parker forward. Easy for him to say, thought Parker as he turned stiffly around. With fear prickling every pore of his body, he stepped tentatively back into the room.
The man was still sitting in the armchair. He was now smiling.
“I thought the war had started,” said the man. His voice was not threatening. It might have even sounded friendly had Parker not been expecting the man to lunge forward in a sudden attack.
Parker’s eyes went down to where the man was looking and realized he was still holding the shield.
“Oh,” said Parker, suddenly realizing what the man meant. “This . . . It isn’t . . .” He felt himself turning red as he quickly hid the shield behind his back.
The man laughed again loudly, and his mouth opened to reveal a set of brilliant white teeth and a tongue the same gray hue as the rest of him.
“Good thinking,” said the man. “You don’t want to be walking into the room of a madman unprepared.”
Parker could tell the man was teasing him, but he was still too scared to find it amusing.
“So . . . I’m guessing you must be my new doctor.”
“Me? No! I’m only twelve,” said Parker, before realizing that the man was smiling again. “Oh.”
“Tough audience,” muttered the man with a mock frown. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here, or do I have to guess?”
“I . . . um . . . well . . . I don’t . . . Areyousolomongladstone?” blurted out Parker.
“Was that a word?”
Parker shook himself and tried again. “Are you Solomon Gladstone?”
At the mention of the name, the man pursed his lips and leaned forward in his armchair. His eyes, or rather his eye—the blue one—narrowed.
Parker’s grip tightened around the handle of his shield.
“How do you know my name?”
The answer was in the man’s question and, as Parker realized this, his face dropped.
“It’s you,” whispered Parker.
“It was the last time I checked.”
The man waited for Parker to look at him before continuing.
“I have to admit, I’m curious. It’s been a while since a child carrying a shield came in asking for me by a name nobody in this hospital even knows. Are you going to tell me what . . . what . . . what . . . what . . . Alberta!” shouted Solomon as his hand flew up in the air and slapped the back of his own head.
Parker leapt away terrified, and Solomon finished his question as if nothing in the slightest bit unusual had just happened.
“Is going on?”
“What?” whispered Parker. He’d lost track of what he was being asked sometime around the time Solomon had shouted out “Alberta” and smacked his own head for no good reason.
“It’s the way I unstick myself,” explained Solomon.
“What?” repeated Parker. He was aware of how inarticulate he sounded; he just couldn’t seem to do a thing about it.
“I get stuck on words sometimes—a side effect of my condition. Sounds like you might know what I mean. For some reason, a quick slap round the head and the word Alberta seem to get me back on track.”
“Is that where you’re from?” asked Parker in a quiet vo
ice.
“Never even been there. But Madagascar is a bit of a mouthful, and London just makes me think of rain.”
“Okay . . .” said Parker slowly. Clearly, the man was a complete basket case.
“Back to my question . . . Why are you here?”
“My dad told me to find you.”
For a moment Solomon said nothing.
“Your dad?” he asked finally.
Parker had a feeling by the way Solomon was looking at him that he might already have a suspicion as to who his dad might be.
“Yes, sir. Geoffrey Banks.”
Solomon’s smile had completely disappeared. He closed his blue eye and dropped his head. “What’s happened to him?”
“He’s been taken. To a place called SIX. He said you’d know.”
Solomon raised his hand slowly and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t look up.
“Do you know where that is?” asked Parker.
Solomon, still hunched over with his hand on his head, nodded slowly.
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
Solomon didn’t respond.
“Please help me. My sister and I need to find him.”
“How could this happen?” muttered Solomon. He seemed to be talking to himself.
“Mr. Gladstone, please. I just need to know where to go. You’re the only person who can help me.”
Parker waited until, at last, Solomon looked up.
“What do you know about SIX?”
Parker shook his head. “Nothing.” Anteater’s conspiracy ramblings were hardly worth mentioning.
“Then you’d better sit down,” said Solomon. He motioned to the sofa opposite him. “Your friends can join us too if they’d like.”
Parker’s head snapped around, and he caught a glimpse of Michael and Emma just before they ducked back into the corridor.
“Michael!” called Parker. “Come back.”
It was a few seconds before Michael and Emma reemerged, both looking sheepish.
“It’s okay,” mouthed Parker.
* * * * * *
“Let’s start with your names,” said Solomon. “I’m guessing that you’re Parker, and you must be the lovely Emma.”
Emma smiled and nodded.
“How do you know . . .” Parker stopped as he realized his father must have told him.
“You can lip-read?” asked Solomon.
Emma nodded.
“Do I need to speak slower?”
Emma shook her head. She didn’t seem as nervous from the sight of Solomon as Parker would have expected.
“And you are?” asked Solomon.
“Michael,” whispered Michael. “I’m just a friend.”
Solomon glanced up at the clock on the wall. “We have an hour before they come to take my lunch away. Can you stay an hour? Is there anyone waiting for you?”
“No,” replied Parker. “We’re here on our own. We can stay.”
“Good, because there’s a lot I have to tell you.”
“How do you know my dad, Mr. Gladstone?” asked Parker.
“Okay. That’s a good enough place to start. And call me Solomon, please. I taught your father and mother when they were at university.”
“Our mum?”
“Yes. Brilliant scientist. Your dad, too . . . but your mother was something else. Quite a team.”
“Do you know that she . . .”
Solomon tensed his jaw. “Yes. I know.”
Solomon turned to look out the window. He didn’t speak for a while, and Parker, Emma, and Michael—not knowing what else to do—sat in silence and waited. When Solomon finally turned back, Parker saw that his eyes were moist.
“I’m so sorry,” said Solomon. “It must have been so hard for you both.”
“It’s okay now. . . . Thank you,” said Parker, feeling slightly awkward. “When was the last time you saw them?”
“I saw your mother three years ago”—he took a deep breath before continuing—“just before her accident.”
“And Dad?”
Solomon’s lips pursed into a tight sad smile. “Last week.”
“Last week? But,” said Parker, “how?”
“You’re not the first to find out that it’s not that hard to get in here. I gave him the codes and he’d come visit me between checks.”
“But if you know the codes, why don’t you just leave?” asked Michael.
Solomon pointed to himself. “I can’t exactly go about unnoticed these days. I have everything I want . . . want . . . want . . . want . . . Alberta!”
Solomon slapped his head, and Michael leapt up off the sofa. He was stopped from running only by Parker reaching up and grabbing his T-shirt to pull him back.
“It’s okay,” whispered Parker. “It’s a stutter thing.”
Michael looked no less horrified, but he allowed Parker to pull him back down to the sofa.
“Sorry, did I scare you?”
Michael shook his head, still too terrified to speak.
“It takes a bit of getting used to,” said Solomon. He laughed. “I even scare myself sometimes. Now, where was I?”
“You were telling us why you don’t just leave.”
“Ah yes. I have everything I need here.”
“But are you actually—”
“Mad?”
Parker nodded.
“Depends on your definition of mad, I suppose. But, technically, no.”
“So why are you here?”
“Not by choice—at least, not originally. I said a few things some people didn’t like, and I was given two options. This was the better of the two.”
Parker could guess what the other was.
Emma tapped Parker’s shoulder. “Has he always looked like that?” she signed.
Parker grimaced but realized he had no choice but to translate. Also, he did actually want to know, himself. “She wants to know why you . . . um . . . look like you do? Were you born like that?”
Solomon chuckled. “No. I had an . . . Well, actually—it’s a long story. It will make sense after I explain everything. I’ll start with SIX. But first, I need to say something. I’m afraid what I’m going to tell you is going to upset you.”
Parker drew a sharp breath. “Is he dead?”
“No! No, sorry—I didn’t mean that. He’s not dead. I don’t know that for a fact, of course, but I’m almost certain he isn’t.”
Parker and Emma both sighed in relief.
“The thing is, I’m going to help you as much as I can. I promise. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to help you get to your father.”
“It’s okay,” said Parker. “You don’t have to come with us. Wherever he is, we’ll get there. We just need to know where to go.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that easy. But if there’s any way at all that I can get him back to you, I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
Parker nodded. “Thank you.”
“And now—SIX.” Solomon paused, as if searching for the right words. “I suppose there’s no easy way to say this. SIX—the place your father told you about—is the name of a planet.”
Michael gave a loud sigh. “Here we go again.”
Parker, though equally disappointed, turned and glowered at Michael. “Let him speak.”
“Again?” asked Solomon. “You’ve heard this before?”
“Yes,” said Parker. “We read it on a Web site.”
“Really? What did you read?”
Michael butted in. “That SIX is a planet. That all the money is going there instead of here, and that’s why there’s no money for anything. That it’s a place where the rich are going to escape to when Earth is finished.”
Solomon sat up straight and shook his head in surprise. “You already know it all?”
“Well, it’s obviously not true,” said Michael.
“Actually—hard as it might be to believe—it is all very true.”
Michael groaned. “Oh, come on! A planet? In wha
t galaxy, exactly?”
“Michael!” exclaimed Parker.
“This galaxy—the Milky Way. In the constellation Libra, about twenty-two light years away from Earth.”
“Hmm. And you get to it how?” Michael no longer looked terrified, just irritated.
“Ah. If you liked that, Michael,” said Solomon smiling, “you’re going to love this. You get there by teleportation.”
“Of course,” said Michael. “And how does that work? Oh wait—I think I know this already! You stand in a blue light and say, ‘Beam me up,’ and then you’re eating moon cheese with apes.”
Solomon looked thoroughly amused. Parker, however, was not finding it so funny.
“Michael, stop!”
Solomon laughed. “It’s okay. Really. It is quite a lot to take in. And the answer, Michael, is not a blue light. The method of teleportation devised by Avecto”—he looked at Parker and Emma—“the company your dad works for—is called avection. It works by analyzing matter as it breaks it down—”
“Not possible,” interrupted Michael.
“And then rebuilding it exactly on the other end.”
“Can’t happen.”
“The process is almost instantaneous.”
“Impossible.”
“Improbable,” corrected Solomon, “but most certainly not impossible.”
“And how do you know this?” asked Michael.
“Because I’ve been teleported myself.”
Michael rubbed his chin and nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “And—just out of curiosity—if you can do this, then why exactly haven’t you teleported yourself out of here?”
“Well, it’s not that simple.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “It is that simple. You haven’t done it, because it’s not true.”
“Michael!”
Parker grabbed Michael’s arm and dragged him up and over to the corridor.
“What are you doing?”
“The guy is a nut case, Parker! Out of his mind. A complete lunatic! Did you hear what he was saying?”
“I don’t care, Michael! I need to hear this out. Even if it’s not true . . .”
“Which it’s not.”
“I still need to hear it! Don’t you understand that?”
Michael shook his head. “What’s the point?”
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