by L. L. Mintie
“It’s only the free gates we seem to have a problem with!” He tramped off in a grumbling way, very disappointed he hadn’t made a sale.
They were left in the middle of the Constelluliary, wondering which door would take them to the rooms below. Many planets, star clusters, gas nebulas, and black holes swept by them, along with throngs of busy travelers.
Jeff checked out the flashing schedule above their heads.
“If only we could read that sign, it would tell us the free gates,” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead. His foreign language tutors had given up on him when all he ever wanted to learn how to say was: “cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake” in every country he visited. He could proudly order fast food in eleven languages.
Lizzy zeroed in on the wall of stars, which was much easier to decipher than the Brane directory.
“The only symbol I see that makes any sense is the constellation Cetus. See there?” She followed a funny shape with a roundish head and a kite-shaped tail along the wall. “In olden times Cetus meant ‘sea monster.’”
“Yeah, but if we pick the wrong one, what happens?” wondered Kai.
“Nothing. You heard—we can’t pass through without proper access codes and harmonized molecules,” Jeff said, mimicking Mr. Pavlini’s smarmy voice.
They kept close to the Cetus cluster as it swirled across the wall. Lizzy reached up and pushed her hand into the tail part, which slid easily through. When it moved low enough, they stepped into the Brane (holding their breaths and pinching their noses) and disappeared from the round room—as if slipping into an invisibility box. The people and noise spun away like party streamers from a popper, and for a fraction of a second it felt like their bodies were being “stretched” to the size of the universe itself. They instantly snapped back into a very dark room, similar to the rotunda of the Constelluliary, except totally empty, but for the maze of hallways and closed doors lining the circular room. The choices overwhelmed them at once.
“These could go a million different places,” Lizzy exhaled in frustration. “We’ll have to check every door!”
“No we won’t. That one has a blue glow coming from it, and I can hear noises coming from inside,” said Jeff, directing a small penlight beam at a door a short distance away.
They quietly tiptoed over to the door, which stood open a sliver, and squatted behind it, listening hard. Even before she came near to the opening, Lizzy could feel the suffering pain, but this time it wasn’t in her head. It was centered in her heart.
She squeezed her face into the open crack and saw the backs of two men at the far side of the room, leaning over a table and speaking in muffled tones. Something barely alive lay in front of them. One of the men turned around, and she could see his silhouette clearly.
At that moment, the pain from her heart plunked into her stomach like a heavy stone, and as it did, she let out a frightened, “Eeeep!”
Chapter 18
WHERE THE STAR KEYS LEAD
Lee poked the sleeping specimen with the sharp end of a scalpel and glanced nervously at the clock. He wondered how much longer they’d be working on this blob of sea pulp.
“Tell me, Dr. Krell … how long can a person survive the Dreaming Pits?” His nasally, high-pitched voice quivered a smidge more than normal. It’s probably too late to even bother.
“The longest was four days. After that, the victim begins to waste away from thirst. The dreams keep them happy for a time,” answered Dr. Krell, looking over his micro-lens glasses. “Hand me that syringe, please … then the pit will absorb them like a very hungry stomach, something akin to a Venus flytrap.”
Lee shuddered, not from any sympathy for the victims stuck in the Dreaming Pit, but for his own hide. It was his job to keep intruders away from the island, and if Krell knew he had failed, it might be him on the operating table being poked and prodded, instead of this poor little prisoner. The pits will simply digest them, he thought nastily, and that will be the end of Lizzy and her annoying friends. Dr. Krell will be none the wiser for it.
“Erm—what are we going to do with this one? He was caught snooping around the gate below—what a bothersome creature!” he sneered and gave it another hateful jab with the scalpel.
Dr. Krell looked strangely gleeful.
“I’ve been working on a time delay serum and wouldn’t mind another test subject,” he said exuberantly.
“Time delay? Do you mean—?”
“Yes!—during the day a harmless octopus, and by night, something very different.” He paused to contain his rapturous delight at the prospect of mangling yet another living thing. “I thought a fat eight-headed viper might do—one head to match each meddlesome arm. What do you think?”
“Brilliant!” Lee’s eyes twinkled with admiration. “Poetic justice for the octopus who can’t keep his tentacles out of our business. He will give intruders quite a scare!”
Both men snickered at the idea.
“The genius is he’ll have no knowledge either animal exists. Hmm—we’re almost done here—there is one last ingredient to add …”
Dr. Krell placed the final injections into the feeble patient and then took down a large jar from the shelf. It appeared to be empty on first glance. But he unscrewed the lid and tipped it, and several moving shadow-like disks slipped onto the animal, each disappearing under its thin skin.
Lee leaned in for a closer look. The disks were bouncy and boingy and looked like clear potato chips with a stringy edge.
“Where did those come from? I thought you already placed the codes—”
“Science on this planet is extremely limited. I need to use the resources from the Realms. These will do the trick quite nicely.”
Lee’s t-bone sideburns flapped wildly. It wasn’t like Dr. Krell to keep things from him.
“But what are they? I’ve never seen—”
“They are called the Maz. They bring chaos to order—scramblers, as they are also known. Once they break up the animal’s codes, the second animal will take over.”
Lee shifted uncomfortably and looked around the room. Was that a gasp? His super hearing and animal instincts came alive with a new presence nearby.
“Let’s finish up here and get back to the mainland. I don’t want the lab team to suspect anything, especially Mrs. Grape—if only she knew the wondrous things we’ve learned from her nosy son.” Dr. Krell chuckled darkly.
They lifted the unfortunate creature into a small tank. Lee watched coldly as it struggled to move.
“Good thing the altering process wiped Grape’s memory, or we’d have quite a problem keeping him under control.” He shivered again, remembering the right hook to his nose, a gift from Brandon after they trapped him on the island.
“Fortunate for us indeed! That’s the natural side effect of the transformation.”
A smug grin stretched across Dr. Krell’s face. Turning Brandon Grape into a bugbear was his crowning achievement, although an unstable one: when the bear became overcome with emotion, he momentarily turned back into a man. But there wasn’t much chance of that happening on an isolated island. His self-satisfied smile grew larger and a sudden tingling pfffviitt spun out from the side of his head.
Lee looked startled. “Oh—erm, sorry, sir … your—um … ear, sir,” he said, pointing the scalpel at Dr. Krell’s left side.
Dr. Krell lifted a hand to his ear, which sprang forward and dropped down to his shoulder, along with the blue-tinted spectacles that dangled by a sliver of lobe-skin. It was a very untidy thing to have occurred and caused a small embarrassment. His cheeks flushed.
“Ahem, oh yes—I need to get upstairs and take care of that—such a nuisance.” With that, he lifted the ear back to its proper place and pressed it against his head, reattaching it like a rubber costume accessory.
Finishing up, Lee turned out the lights, and both men stepped through the doorway. Kai, Jeff, and Lizzy scampered into a dark alcove and hid as the two men emerged from the room.
&nb
sp; Lee paused to search the darkness of the round hall, eyes aglow through two yellow slits. Then the door clicked shut behind them, and their footsteps faded down the hallway, leaving the three children nervously waiting in the shadows before breathing freely.
Kai started to chew her gum loudly. “Now’s our chance,” she smacked.
“Careful not to break your jaw,” snorted Jeff.
“Can’t help it, I chomp when I’m nervous.” She blew a massive bubble the size of her head. Lizzy put her hand over it before it could pop.
“Kai, get rid of that thing before you get us caught,” she hissed.
“I won’t blow any more bubbles, I promise.”
They slipped into the dimly lit room scattered with gurgling tanks and computer screens. The walls were a thick black basalt like the rest of the mountain, but much colder than the rooms above.
“We need to break into one of these computers and access the map of this place.”
Lizzy planted herself on a stool in front of the nearest laptop and opened up the screen. It lit up blue, with a single white rectangular box in the center. Her head began to pound again from being so close to more of Krell’s experiments gone awry—she guessed the Glimmruyn part of her could sense their suffering.
“I didn’t see a portal in the main rotunda, so I’m guessing there’s a way into the underground cavern from one of these rooms.” She began punching in various passwords from “Darwin” to “Blowing Prawn.”
“Ol’ Krell is hiding loads more in this mountain than a sea dragon. Look at all this stuff,” said Kai, walking from tank to tank.
Jeff looked over Lizzy’s shoulder.
“What do we need here?”
“A password.”
“Try e-v-i-l,” he spelled out.
“Seriously—or delusional,” added Kai.
Lizzy’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Nothing works … wait just a minute—” She typed in a name, and the computer screen changed over to a new page. “Unbelievable—his password was ‘Ophelia.’ Wonder how our friendly science teacher fits into all this.”
“Oh, I think we knew there was something different about Mrs. Gates all along … and that’s not because I got a D+ in her class,” said Jeff. He wandered over to the tank where he saw Lee place something just a few moments ago and tapped on the glass.
“You got a D+? That’s like saying you did poorly and were really good at it,” said Kai.
“Exactly.”
“And Krell needs to pick tougher passwords,” said Lizzy, “so far it’s been easy-peasy breaking in.”
She looked over all the files she could find on Moonfin, including the dragon’s location underground, and any useful information on the cage doors that held her. She discovered that Xili was right about there being a security chain restraining her.
“Ah, here is another thing I suspected. According to these plans, there’s a control center near her holding pond. In order to break her free, we have to use the computer down below—all the controls are there. The only problem: there isn’t anything here about how to do that.”
“Guess we’ll have our work cut out for us then,” said Kai, chewing her gum rabidly and blowing another huge bubble. Lizzy quickly swiveled around in her chair and swiftly popped it with a ballpoint pen, plastering it against Kai’s nose and eyebrows.
“Pfff! Sorry, I forgot.”
“We’ll have to move fast if we’re going to avoid being seen by Krell’s lab grunts,” added Jeff distractedly.
Lizzy continued to scan the files.
“Okay—it also says that after Dr. Krell clones Moonfin, he plans to control her by some microchip he implants into her head.” She let out a frustrated groan and put her face in her hands. “That’s just great … the way to unlock the gate or chain isn’t here …”
“Hey, come take a look at this,” said Jeff, still peering intently into the small tank.
“… it looks like the rest of her files are locked up tight. Let me see if I can crack one.” She tried to open it with every trick she knew—“No good. It keeps saying ‘file encrypted.’”
“It looks like he’s in lots of pain, poor little guy,” he said sympathetically.
Lizzy shut the laptop and followed Jeff’s light to the tank. She let out a cry and ran up to the glass—
“Iddo!”
For inside was a weak little octopus, looking sick and close to death.
“Flippin’ tentacles! Can’t this squid stay out of trouble?” blurted Kai.
Lizzy pressed her face and both hands next to his resting form. “Can you hear me, Iddo?” That feeling came flooding back—the one she first had the day at the aquarium when she was eight years old—that feeling of sad weeping.
Iddo tried to lift his bulbous head, but it fell back to the floor of the tank with a thud. His color, usually a bright orange, was milky white, and he looked very much aged to Lizzy.
“He doesn’t look like the octopus we saw before,” said Jeff. “How do you know it’s him?”
“Um—well, his markings are unique. See, there’s a bump here and a brown streak there … I just know it’s him.”
Pleading, she said again, “Iddo, please talk to me!”
He lifted a feeble tentacle and managed to lay it close to her. “Hello, Lizzy. How did you find me?” he said faintly.
“It’s a long story, but we came here to set Moonfin free,” she said speedily, feeling that time was of the essence. “Only, we don’t know how to do it. Oh Iddo! We’re going to get you out of here!” She looked around for a way to carry him.
“No, no, it’s too late for me. Dr. Krell has already done something inside me.” He waved his arms spasmodically about and struggled to form coherent words. Lizzy could feel the life draining out of him fast.
“You must do what you came here to do. I have the knowledge you need to lift the gate—I discovered that much during my watch.” He heaved a great breath. “Come closer, I will tell you….”
Lizzy listened carefully to his instructions but ignored the part about leaving him there.
“Hold on, Iddo.” She thrust her hands into the tank and carefully lifted him into her arms. “Octopi can live outside water for a bit. I’m not going to leave you here at the mercy of Dr. Gruesome.” She cradled him close to her heart, somehow knowing this would help keep him alive for a while. His sinewy white body began to glow lightly in coral hues.
They dashed back into the round room, Iddo feebly directing them to the underground caverns. Terrible feelings of mingled fury and horror filled Lizzy’s heart as they moved along the corridor. “How many will Dr. Krell destroy?” she rasped in despair, tears rimming her eyes.
Iddo could feel the rage growing within her. “Be careful, Lizzy, righteous anger can bring about good, but can easily turn into vengeance.” She didn’t listen to him. One way or the other, Dr. Krell was going to get his comeuppance.
He led them down the hallway to a rusty contraption—a dilapidated metal cage attached to rolling steel ropes over a grooved pulley. They climbed in and pushed the lowest button and a smoky motor sprang to life. Down they plummeted into the bowels of the mountain.
Iddo explained that the Brane did, in fact, travel directly to the underground, but they best not risk going that route since it was used mostly by the techs. This began a lively conversation between Lizzy and Iddo concerning the Brane and their mutual understandings of that mode of travel. There were several exchanges of “Oh!” and “You don’t say!” and “Astounding!” bandying between them, but Kai and Jeff didn’t understand a word of it, except the part when Lizzy said it felt like their bodies were being stretched like a rubber band as they went through it.
Speaking only through her thoughts now, she also told Iddo about her time with the Glimmruyn: about Notch and Scartale, the slaughter of the dolphins, and what they told her about being from the Nine Pillars. She also shared about what she didn’t see: The Deep.
“So now you know who you are.”
Iddo squirmed a little in her tightening grip. “Ouch! Loosen up, there!” he said in a muffled tone.
“Sorry!”
“And are you okay with all this?”
“I dunno—I guess I’m a little upset about it. I mean, it all makes sense: the headaches, being able to talk with you and the others. I feel, I—” She spit out a perplexed “uhh” and fell silent, not knowing how to describe her feelings—how she felt more out of place than she ever had before, and that her whole life with her family seemed different now, and that she didn’t know how to fit in with the Glimmruyn.
“I feel kinda …”
“Caught in the middle,” he streamed gently into her mind, and she looked down at him, surprised. “I can feel it coming from you. In the Deep, we can sense each other’s feelings and moods much easier than humans do.
That explained how Xili always knew what she was thinking, pondered Lizzy.
“And that’s another thing, I couldn’t even see this Deep you keep talking about.”
“Do not fret. I think it comes from losing your memories of the past. Perhaps, in time, they will return to you, and you will see more clearly.”
“Yeah, maybe—that’s what Xili said,” she said glumly.
They traveled several stories deep within the mountain before coming to a halt. The chains clanked, and the rackety carriage bumped to a stop with a loud screech! The doors slid open, and in the back of the jittering cage, three children and one floppy octopus stayed well-hidden, until all was clear before stepping onto the sand. Sunlight filtered through cracks etched in a rock cathedral over a vast, still sea, while lanterns along the wall cast an eerie glow over its glassy surface.
Jeff felt like a tiny ant along its massive shore.
“Wow,” he marveled, “I thought it was a small pond, not a huge sea like this. Where are we?”
“Not sure. It’s empty on this side of the sea, so this old elevator must be far away from the Brane port entrance that Krell and the techs use,” said Lizzy, soaking it all in. “I see light flooding in from those openings—the ocean must be on the other side of that wall.”