by C. W. Trisef
But not Lionel. In a word, he was two-faced—he led two different lives and served opposing masters; he was double-minded with split personalities. But Ret didn’t like to think of it in such negative and dishonorable ways, for he considered it Lionel’s greatest quality: his ability to be in something but not of it—to possess something but not be defined by it. It was due to his pursuit to emulate such rare characteristics why Ret so enjoyed associating with Lionel, and he was grateful that he had spent enough time with him already to know somewhat of the differences between the men behind the masks. He felt sorry for others who remained perplexed with regard to the character of “Dr. Z”: some would say he looked certainly kind but curiously unsettling; others, dark yet delightful; and the rest, though intensely intrigued and truly enticed by his enigmatic aura, would fail to quite put their finger on the man who was Lionel Zarbock.
But there was one thing that was certain: that hour, as the hot sun bore down on a prestigious physicist and a unique-looking schoolboy, royalty walked side-by-side with commonness—a major player in a minor league—the prince considering himself the pauper—and the mighty, the meek—while none of the drivers passing by could tell who was who.
“So now Mr. Coy is going to help Ana get in trouble at school so she’ll get sent to Stone’s office and see if the other chest is still in there,” Ret explained, having told Lionel everything up to the present. “Coy thinks there’s a clue in the chest that will tell us what’s next, and I hope he’s right.”
“Ret, I want to help you in whatever way I can,” Lionel announced, pledging his support. “I believe this is much bigger than any of us realizes.”
“So do I,” Ret agreed, “but I can’t stand how it’s taking so long. I mean, it took the whole school year to find just one element. We’ve been back from Sunken Earth for weeks now, and we don’t know anything about the next one.”
“Be patient, Ret,” said Lionel sympathetically. “You can’t force nature.”
“But you can,” Ret countered. “You do it all the time, in that nuclear reactor—forcing atoms to split like that.”
“Touché,” submitted Lionel, “you bring up a good point. Tell you what, I promise to make finding the next element one of my top priorities,” he smiled, “how does that sound?”
“Great,” Ret rejoiced.
“Here’s my card.” Lionel handed Ret a thick business card with his contact information. “Be sure to inform me whenever something happens, got it?” Ret understood. “Now, for starters, do you mind if I take a closer look at the Oracle?”
“Not at all,” said Ret, “please do.” They had just arrived at the Cooper home.
“I’ll wait out here while you go and get it.”
“Well, I don’t have it,” Ret informed. “Mr. Coy does.”
“Oh,” said Lionel, sounding a bit disappointed, “well that’s okay, maybe some other time—”
“No, no,” Ret insisted, desperate for some information, even if it was just speculation. “The Manor’s just across the creek. Coy won’t mind, especially if it’s me asking. Come on!”
With reluctance, Lionel followed Ret to the backyard, down the wooden dock, into the kayak, and across the small inlet of water that separated the two islands. It might have been Ret’s fastest time crossing Tybee Creek, so eager was he to learn what Lionel could deduce by studying the Oracle. Ret flew up the hillside, Lionel keeping pace, and approached the Manor’s main gate.
“Is that smoke?” Lionel asked, directing Ret’s attention to the west side of the Manor. They stopped and studied the broad but thin plumes of gray smoke, which quickly dissipated in the late-afternoon sea breeze.
“Come on,” Ret beckoned, “I hope no one’s in trouble.”
Still outside the gate, they followed the fenceline until they arrived at the source of the smoke: a large and well-defined swath of the Manor’s grounds was burning. Over the blackened bushes and charred dirt, Ret spied the figure of a man standing about a stone’s throw away.
“Mr. Coy,” Ret yelled to get the person’s attention, “is that you?”
The silhouette only had to get a few steps closer to confirm that it wasn’t Mr. Coy. In fact, reaching the gate, Ret had never seen this man before.
“No, I am Ishmael,” said the man, “chief ecologist and groundskeeper here at Coy Manor.” He was a middle-aged man, neither short nor tall, with olive skin and what sounded to Ret like an Arabic accent of sorts. “You must be Ret,” he assumed with a pleasant smile. “Miss Paige has told me much about you.” Ishmael seemed a gentleman, cordial and accommodating, nothing like his employer. “Mr. Coy should be nearby; would you like me to fetch him?”
“What exactly are you doing here?” Lionel inquired, referring to the controlled blaze.
“The biannual purge,” Ishmael explained. “We do one now, near the end of summer, and the other one just before spring.”
“But only in this part of the property?” Lionel pressed. The scientist in him demanded details.
“All of the plant species you see in this section are illegal in this country,” said Ishmael. “They are considered either to be invasive vegetation or to attract invasive insects—you know, weevils and locusts and such—delicacies in my country.” The thought resurrected Ret’s nausea from the power plant. “Mr. Coy obtained permission from the government on the basis that he would purge the specimens at least twice a year to control growth and eliminate pests.”
“Seems like a lot of work for some funny-looking plants,” Ret remarked. He was referring to a few dozen shrubs and trees that clearly had been purposely allowed to survive the inferno. They were covered in some sort of transparent semisolid—a clear goo that oozed with tremendously high viscosity.
“Ah, yes,” said Ishmael, “Coy cream. It’s a special substance that Mr. Coy created to act as a sort of fire retardant. We spray it on delicate plants that are most vulnerable to intense heat. It’s like applying multiple layers of water, which the flames slowly burn off, leaving the protected surface safe and cool.”
“Excellent use of polymers,” said Lionel, mentally studying the concept. Ret and Ishmael looked at each other, puzzled, and then shrugged their shoulders.
“Let me find Mr. Coy; you can compliment him in person,” Ishmael offered, walking away. “He’s manning the flamethrower—insists on being in charge of the fire; calls himself ‘the torch bearer.’ Be right back.”
“Tell him Lionel’s here and wants to see the Oracle,” Ret instructed anxiously, gripping the bars of the gate with both hands and sticking his head through as far as he could.
“Do they always make their guests wait on the other side of the fence?” Lionel asked, trying to get a grasp on the architectural hodgepodge that was Coy Manor.
“At least the grass is greener,” Ret joked, comparing the wild grass at their feet to the scorched lawn they could see through the fence.
They watched Ishmael trek across the grounds a little ways until he disappeared behind a large, burnt berm. Having found Mr. Coy, they must have been trying to talk over some loud thing, for Ret and Lionel could hear their entire conversation.
“Sir, there’s someone here to see you,” yelled Ishmael.
“Unless it’s the pizza delivery guy,” replied Coy, “tell ‘em to beat it!”
“It’s the Cooper boy, and some man named Lionel—”
“Lionel!” Coy shouted with fury. “What in the world is he doing here? Tell him to get off my island—now!” Ret winced.
“—and he wishes to see the Oracle,” Ishmael finished the message.
“Oh, he wants to see the Oracle, does he?” There was a sudden change in Mr. Coy’s tone of voice. Ret was hopeful. “Well, in that case,” then returning to his original miffed tone, “tell him to get off my island right now or I’ll come over there with my torch and burn his face off!”
“It’s alright, Ret,” Lionel sighed, “maybe some other time.” He left Ret’s side and started walking back the w
ay they came.
For several minutes, Ret maintained his post at the gate, determined to succeed. He hollered at Mr. Coy, though to no avail, and then pled with Ishmael when he returned to relay what Ret had already overheard.
“What’ve you got against Lionel?” Ret complained to Mr. Coy, but there was no reply. “We have no leads, Coy—none! Why can’t he just look at it?”
Though still starving—thirsting, longing—to know what the Oracle would have them do next, Ret trudged off. Concerned that Lionel was likely waiting for him, Ret hurried but was shocked when he got to the shore: the kayak was still there, untouched, but Lionel was nowhere in sight. Finding his departing footprints in the sand, Ret followed them until they disappeared at the water’s edge.
“He didn’t swim across the creek, did he?” Ret wondered in amazement. Had he not done so, choosing instead to take the kayak for himself, then Ret would have been the one compelled to swim across. “What a guy,” Ret grinned at Lionel’s selflessness. “No wonder Pauline loves him.”
Ret hoped to find Lionel on the other side of the creek but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t, for such a quick getaway most certainly meant he was needed elsewhere. Ret secured the kayak, walked up the dock, and entered the house through the backdoor.
“There you are, Ret,” Pauline greeted him cheerfully from the kitchen. “How was your day at the power plant?”
Exhausted in body and mind, Ret slumped into a chair. “It wasn’t really what I was expecting, I guess,” he said.
“I know what you mean,” she said, rinsing some greens. “I still remember when I went there decades ago on a fieldtrip with my middle school. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience, but I certainly learned a lot, although I can’t seem to remember anything besides the fact that we went—”
“Ret!” Ana interjected in epiphany. “Are you sunburned?”
Ret looked at Ana like she was crazy. She shot from her seat and gently pressed her fingers on Ret’s arm. Indeed, his normally pale and sunburn-resistant skin glowed with a bright, pink hue.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” said Ana.
“Just what exactly happened at the plant today, Ret?” Pauline asked with interest.
Replied Ret, “Let’s just say nuclear physics and I don’t mix.”
Little did he know.
Chapter 4
Back to School with a Bang
Nothing seems to put an end to summer better than the first day back to school. The recess transpired quite quickly for Ana and Paige, whose volleyball practices had consumed their last few weeks of it, but the time dragged on for Ret, agonizing every day over the lack of progress with the Oracle.
By and large, it was shaping up to be a painfully normal day. The ordinary, yellow bus came chugging down the Coopers’ street at the usual time, its driver wearing his patch clasped over the same eye as always. As he had many times before, Ret wondered yet again how a person with an eye patch could get a job as a school bus driver. Then, finding their typical seat, they commenced the standard route to school, frequently interrupted by all of the usual stops, before arriving at Tybee High, which hadn’t changed at all over the summer.
The only thing that felt out of the ordinary for Ret occurred when he spotted the power plant through his closed window on the bus. With his hand, he wiped away some of the condensation that had built up on his side of the glass, brought on by the humid air and body heat. Its domed containment structure rising above the tree line, the plant had never meant much to him before, but ever since his experience alongside the reactor with Lionel, the concrete monolith had taken on an unsettling meaning for Ret—like that feeling you get simply by looking at a food you once regurgitated.
Ret and Ana waited in line to retrieve their class schedules, then squeezed through the throngs of students in search of Paige.
“What class do you have first hour, Ret?” Paige asked as the two of them followed Ana to find their lockers.
“Trigonometry, with Mr. Jackson,” Ret answered, studying his schedule.
“Trigo-what?” said Ana.
“You’re taking trig as a sophomore?” Paige questioned with a mix of amazement and admiration.
“That’s what it says,” Ret said, consulting his schedule again to make sure he hadn’t misread it. “Is that good or something?”
“It’s great!” Ana cheered. “You can do my pre-algebra homework this year—yuck!” They had arrived at their lockers, three in a row. “I mean, why would I even want to take pre-algebra? Once I’m done with that, then it’s on to actual algebra.” With her textbooks piled in her arms, Ana moved to open her locker. “It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. A never-ending—”
Ana gasped and slammed her locker shut. Her books crashed to the ground. Ret and Paige looked at her with alarm. A look of utter terror had seized her face. With both hands, she maintained pressure on her closed locker door. Paige bent down to pick up Ana’s books amid curious glares from nearby students.
“Are you okay?” Ret asked Ana softly.
She mouthed her reply: “Bomb.”
“What?”
“There’s a bomb in my locker,” Ana whispered slowly through her teeth.
“Let me see,” Ret requested, somewhat disbelievingly.
Like peeking into the cage of a dangerous animal, Ret peered into Ana’s locker, with Paige trying to look over his shoulder. Ana may have exaggerated in calling it a bomb, but it certainly was an explosive of some kind.
“It’s not a bomb, Ana,” said Ret, employing a confident tone that ridiculed her hasty jump to conclusions. “It’s just a firecracker.”
“Seems a little big for a firecracker, don’t you think, Dr. Pyro?” she said doubtfully, calling Ret’s bluff.
“Okay, okay,” he admitted, “but it’s no taller than your average bottle rocket, though it is quite a bit wider. And look: you don’t have to light it—just pull this pin.” Ret nearly removed the firework from the locker to show them its features, but Ana shoved it back into its hiding place.
“What, do you want the whole world to see or something?” she protested, shutting her locker sharply. A few students with lockers in the vicinity gave the trio peculiar stares.
“Wait, look!” said Paige with eagerness. “I saw something.” With reluctance, Ana opened her locker just wide enough for their three heads to steal a glance inside. Paige pointed to the side of the unmarked firework, where a warning sticker read, “May cause serious injury or death.” Then, below the statement, someone had scribbled the words, “‘Bomb’ voyage!”
“That’s my dad’s handwriting,” Paige observed suspiciously, referring to the pun.
“Oh no,” said Ana with utter refusal. “There’s no way I’m going to set this thing off.”
“But Ana,” Ret pled, “remember when you said you’d get in trouble to see if the chest is still—”
“I said I’d get in trouble, not blow up the whole school,” she pointed out. “For all we know, this could be a stick of dynamite.” Her last word earned her some additional attention in the hallway, so she lowered her voice. “If you want to check on that chest so bad, then you can detonate Coy’s bomb.” The bell rang, signaling the start of the first class of the day, and Ana stormed off.
Throughout the day, Ret did all he could to wear down Ana’s resolve. On the back of each new syllabus he received, he wrote her a note and slipped it into her notebook when their paths crossed between classes. “It’s not a bomb,” he wrote on the syllabus for his English class. “It’s a harmless firework. Just light it outside. It’ll go straight up and explode.” Or, in between the grading matrix for his history class, he wrote, “Please, Ana! I need to know what’s inside that chest. Remember: ‘Cure the world’? It’s for the greater good.” By the end of the fifth hour, however, Ana had made no concessions, so Ret appealed to Paige in a note he gave her before the last class of the day began. “I need your help,” he wrote. “Can you convince her? Please?”
With Ret’s note in hand, Paige met Ana at their lockers to put their books away before heading out to volleyball. The firework stood in the back corner of Ana’s locker, hidden behind her pre-algebra textbook.
“You know, Ana,” said Paige, “I’m not encouraging you to get in trouble, but I think it would mean a lot to Ret if you—”
“Oh give it a rest, big P,” Ana sighed. “I was always going to set off the bomb. I just like to give Ret a run for his money so that he thinks he owes me.” Paige smiled at her best friend’s cleverness. “After this, he’ll be doing the dishes for months!” She grabbed the firework and concealed it in her bundle of volleyball clothes.
Once she had gotten dressed in her uniform in the girls’ locker room, however, Ana was encountering great difficulty in hiding such an awkward object.
“Quick, Paige,” bade Ana, “go and get me a ball or something so I can hide this thing.” Paige scurried over to where the volleyballs were kept, snuck one out, and had almost returned to Ana when someone confronted her.
“Those stay here,” barked Brittany Ashton, the volleyball team captain. “We’re doing conditioning today.” It was with considerable dismay that Paige and Ana accepted the news that Miss Carmen had selected Brittany as the new captain. Their first run-in with Brittany took place last year at the football game where Ret had first become aware of his powers and buried her in dirt. Yes, Brittany Ashton was the ticket-taker girl that night, and ever since that event, she seemed to harbor ill-will toward the three of them. In an unspoken sort of way, Brittany felt she could bully them out of prolonged blackmail since she was privy to Ret’s secret, about which she apparently hadn’t told anyone. For an upperclassman, she was certainly a person of low class.