11

by James Phelan

  ‘Ow!’ he moaned as he pulled himself up and blinked as the room came into focus. Where am I again?

  The grey wall decorated with two cheap modern art prints reminded him—the flight, the hotel in Berlin, his unhappy roommate … Alex spun around, banging his elbow on the bedside table next to him. ‘Oh man, are you kidding?’ He rubbed his arm, getting up carefully to avoid any more brushes with furniture.

  ‘So where’s my new friend gone, huh?’ he mused aloud. He checked in the adjoining bathroom but he was alone.

  He picked up the phone to order some breakfast.

  I need food … maybe some bacon … or ice-cream. Huh? Ice-cream? Ice-cream! It was in my dream! Alex hung up the phone.

  A deluge of images flashed through Alex’s head and he sat down heavily on the bed, trying to bring into focus the kaleidoscope of pictures that streamed before his eyes. Wait. Stop. What did I see?

  Alex took a deep breath, closed his eyes and sifted through the spiralling images. There were families all around. The sun was shining, kids laughing. It reminded Alex of Disney World, but the signs were different—the writing was different, it looked like German. There weren’t any rides, but walkways and exhibits. Enclosures, even.

  I’m in a zoo. A German zoo. OK, then what?

  There were crowds of people and … Stella?

  He’d followed her around the corner of a large brick building but it was a dead end. No-one was there. There was a locked steel door marked ACHTUNG!—POWER. He’d tried the handle and somehow had gotten in.

  It was dark but for the light coming through the half-closed door behind him. Ahead there were concrete stairs that led down, a grimy old light at the bottom. The murmuring of voices rose up to him. He’d followed them downstairs.

  In the hotel room, Alex’s eyes opened and he took a few deep breaths. It was scary just trying to remember what he’d dreamed. He felt elated and yet also fearful that he was now experiencing a true dream. And remembering it, this time.

  He forced his eyes closed once more to concentrate.

  Why is the zoo important? Is that where Sam is?

  At the base of the concrete stairs there had been a cross tunnel that led left and right. The voices came from the left. The concrete floor had felt wet and slippery underfoot.

  There had been an open door with light spilling out. He’d heard the voices, a woman’s and a man’s—at least, it was deep and low. But he was sure the female voice belonged to Stella. He’d leant in to listen but they’d stopped talking. Silence. Then footfalls—they’re coming out!

  Alex had jerked back fast and in the process he’d slipped over and landed on his back. The breath had been knocked out of him. Above him stood Stella.

  Behind her … behind her …

  Alex’s eyes flew open again. He grimaced with the effort to recollect the end of the dream. What had they been saying? Did I hear them in the original dream? Doesn’t matter, now I know where to go.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Phoebe said to Alex.

  ‘No doubt,’ Alex said.

  ‘And Stella and her team are headed there now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK, stay near your phone and I’ll see what I can find out and call you back.’

  ‘OK, thanks … Mum.’

  ‘Be safe, Alex.’

  He hung up and looked again at the note he’d just found taped to the back of the door—Stay here.

  ‘Stay here, my butt,’ Alex said, scrunching up the paper and tossing it on the Agent’s bed. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and left the room, headed downstairs, where he spoke to the receptionist to find out when his group had left—two hours ago.

  A bit of a head start, then … well, I’m not waiting around here to lose any more time.

  Alex had the concierge call him a cab and waited impatiently outside the hotel.

  If his mother called with different information, he’d change his plans. But right now he’d had a true dream and he trusted it.

  A cab promptly pulled up and Alex got in and promised the driver a generous tip if he could get him to the zoo in record time. The tires squealed as they pulled away into the Berlin traffic.

  28

  SAM

  Sam and Xavier wasted no time in telling Hans a fantastical tale about Xavier’s dream—a building in Madrid with a red sign outside, a room with a broken window and a box with something important inside. Once Xavier warmed up to his subject, his creative juices had really started to flow. Hans swept out of the room to investigate, leaving two German Guardians to watch them.

  Is he really falling for this? How are we going to get out of here before he works out we’re lying to him?

  ‘Why’d you sell us out?’ Sam asked the Guardian closest to him. ‘Why’d you turn?’ Here, finally, was his chance to find out why the Guardians had proven to be so disloyal.

  ‘He won’t tell you anything, Sam,’ Dr Dark said. ‘But it’s clear he favours country over cause.’

  ‘Or money,’ Xavier added.

  The Guardians remained silent.

  Sam looked down at his Stealth Suit. If only I could figure out how to change it into something tough or slippery, to give me just enough of an advantage.

  And he could hardly ask Dr Dark for help—even if he knew how to control the suit, the Guardians would be on him before he could blink.

  Maybe the Stealth Suit would react if I was under threat? Maybe if my survival was at stake, it’d change to help me? No—surely that would have happened a few times by now.

  The minutes crept by painfully slowly—it felt like hours to Sam, but Dr Dark looked as if he was calmly sitting in a waiting room for an appointment. I guess that’s where Xavier gets his super coolness from, huh?

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Sam whispered to them both, ‘before Hans works out what we’ve done.’

  A Guardian poked him hard with the tip of his gun. ‘No talking.’

  And so it went every time they tried to start up a conversation. The minutes turned into an hour, then two. Sam thought Xavier had fallen asleep when … he seemed to be signalling something with his eyes.

  The fireplace?

  Sam mouthed, ‘What?’

  But Xavier played it cool as a Guardian shifted positions closer to him.

  Sam saw a pile of logs next to the fire and a steel bucket holding packs of firelighters. Sam shuddered to think what Xavier was thinking of doing with it … I’m not good with fire, Xav, but before he could even second-guess him—

  Xavier was out of his chair and headed for the fire and the two Guardians sprang into action, rushing at him.

  Dr Dark was up in a flash and crash-tackling the closest one.

  The other drew his dart gun and fired at Xavier, the barbed needles spitting forth as quickly as he could pull the trigger, the shots hitting the stone hearth and zeroing in on Xavier as—

  Sam swept out a kick that floored the Guardian, taking him completely off guard. He leapt to his feet and sprang backwards as the Guardian reached for him. Sam punched his arm away then followed up with a cupped hand impacting against the Guardian’s jaw, hitting a nerve that instantly knocked him out.

  Sam swung round to take in the scene behind him.

  The second Guardian had given Dr Dark a bloodied nose and gotten to his feet, rushing at Xavier. A burst of fire erupted as Xavier pushed the logs off the fire out onto the rug-covered timber parquetry floor, then he tipped out a packet of firelighters.

  WHOOSH!

  The inferno was instant and immense. The Guardian raised his fist to Dr Dark.

  SMASH!

  Sam broke his chair across the meaty back of the Guardian. The huge hulk stopped in his tracks. He turned, his eyes and anger only for Sam now.

  Uh-oh!

  He staggered towards him, and as he neared—

  THWACK! THWACK!

  Two darts drilled into the guy’s chest.

  Dr Dark was lying on the ground, grasping the unconscious Guardian’s
weapon.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ he said, and then Sam ducked out of the way as the Guardian fell forwards and landed with an almighty crash.

  ‘That was pretty awesome, Xavier!’ Sam smiled to his friend.

  ‘Well, I was getting bored sitting around. Those guys were no fun,’ he grinned.

  ‘Too right! Let’s get out of here,’ Sam said, as Xavier helped his father to his feet.

  ‘How?’ Xavier asked.

  ‘Make for the car?’ Sam said as he dived across the desk to snatch up the rubbing of the Dream Stele. Hans is going to kick himself for leaving this in here. Sam allowed himself a malicious chuckle.

  ‘Sam’s right, we have to get to a car,’ Dr Dark said, running to the door and locking it.

  ‘What about the fire?’ Sam said, trying not to show his fear of the flames that were now licking across the floor.

  Loud banging hammered at the door and made them all jump.

  ‘They’ll deal with it,’ Dr Dark said, as the banging gave way to heavy ramming from the other side. ‘Quick, out the window!’

  In the garage they found Arnold dozing in the Mercedes, blissfully ignorant of the dramatic events of the last few hours. He nearly had a heart attack when Dr Dark yanked the passenger door open.

  ‘Arnold,’ Dr Dark said, ‘head east and make them chase you for as long as they can!’

  ‘Yes, boss!’ Not needing to be told any more, Arnold started the car, revved the engine and skidded down the sweeping driveway, gravel flying up behind.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Sam asked

  Dr Dark smiled. ‘We drive south.’

  Sam had thought just yesterday that he’d never be in such a fast car again. Turned out he was wrong—this time, they were driving even faster. Dr Dark had Hans’ Porsche 911 Turbo topped out at nearly three hundred kilometres per hour.

  ‘At least we know why the German Guardians were in your nightmare, Xav,’ Sam said with a scowl. ‘They’re working for Hans now.’

  ‘I’m taking you boys to the Academy,’ Dr Dark said. ‘We’ll take the next exit and then stick to the back roads. They’ll be watching the airports, expecting us to get out the fastest way.’

  ‘This is pretty fast,’ Sam said. He felt dizzy watching cars blur past the window.

  ‘But what if they work out where to go next before we do?’ Xavier said.

  ‘How could they do that?’ Dr Dark asked, puzzled.

  ‘Well, turns out it’s close to here,’ Xavier said.

  ‘It’s back in Berlin,’ Sam added.

  Dr Dark eased off the accelerator and then pulled the car over to the emergency lane of the autobahn before he took the turn-off ahead. Cars flashed by at warp speed. Ahead of them the road split. One road headed south, eventually to Switzerland and the safety of the Academy; the other westwards, to Berlin and to their dreamed future.

  ‘Tell me,’ Dr Dark said. ‘Tell me more about your nightmare.’

  ‘Well, first I thought I was in a jungle …’ Xavier recounted his dream, up to the appearance of Solaris and the fire. He hesitated, stopped short by the horror of his dream, the crushing feeling of emptiness, of losing his father in the inferno that Solaris had created.

  ‘Solaris really is here now. I saw him in Italy, two nights ago,’ Sam said. ‘I had to fight him.’

  ‘You fought him?’ Dr Dark said in amazement.

  ‘Yes.’ Sam winced at the memory.

  ‘And lived to tell the tale. What did he look like?’

  ‘Full mask, maybe some kind of advanced Stealth Suit,’ Sam said. ‘He’s tall, strong, quick. Shoots fire from his wrists and shows no mercy.’

  ‘But he’s certainly no incarnation of some unbeatable evil,’ Dr Dark said, almost as if he were trying to convince himself.

  Sam noticed something in the doctor’s demeanour.

  Is it fear?

  Sam said, ‘You’ve seen him, too, haven’t you?’

  Dr Dark grimaced. ‘No, but my childhood nightmares were plagued by a fearsome presence—the Professor too, and Jack, we later found out. It’s part of the curse of these dreams. The deeper you go into the dream world, the less you can control who steps out of the shadows.’

  He glanced at Sam and Xavier, who looked scared.

  ‘But it’s just a dream,’ Dr Dark reassured. ‘I don’t believe in some sinister bogeyman from ancient prophecies coming to life—here and now, in this day and age. It’s trickery, nothing more, someone out to spook you into making mistakes.’

  Sam thought back to the first time he thought he’d confronted Solaris in the subway station beneath the museum. He’d discovered upon unmasking him that it was Stella, the rogue Agent from the Enterprise. But that figure he’d met in Rome was certainly not her—it was, in every detail, how he’d dreamed Solaris to be.

  ‘So we have no choice,’ Dr Dark said, dropping the clutch and flooring the Porsche. ‘We must get to Berlin before anyone else—Hans and those traitorous German Guardians, Solaris, whoever. We must beat them to it.’

  Sam looked to Xavier as his father took the Porsche towards its top speed again. They both knew that there was another detail that they’d not shared—that Dr Dark had been killed by Solaris. There was a look in Xavier’s eyes that begged Sam not to bring up that fact just yet. Sam wordlessly agreed, but his gut told him that try as they might, being as careful and quick as they could, lives would be at risk that day.

  29

  SAM

  At the Berlin Zoo, the park had not long been open and throngs of people were queuing up to get through the gates.

  ‘I’m going to drive around the block and find a spot for us to wait. We’d be too vulnerable waiting in line,’ Dr Dark said.

  Sam and Xavier were silent. They’d been in the city for over an hour, during which time they’d refuelled the car and gotten some breakfast. Dr Dark had heard from Arnold that the diversion had not worked—after some ten minutes of being pursued, the three Porsche SUVs which had been on his tail had disappeared. Until he knew where they were, Sam could see that Dr Dark would be anxious.

  ‘I don’t like it …’ Dr Dark said. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

  They drove around the back of the zoo and then had to wait for a traffic light to change.

  Dr Dark drummed his fingers on the dashboard. Xavier looked ill and uneasy at the prospect of what might happen now that they were at the site of his dream.

  And Sam was looking out the windows of the car, alert, watching for—

  ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Across the road, on the left!’

  The three silver Porsche SUVs sat at the intersection. Their light turned green.

  ‘Hang on!’ Dr Dark floored the accelerator and the sports car flew off the mark, weaving an illegal path through the morning’s traffic.

  ‘How’d they find us?’ Xavier asked.

  Dr Dark shook his head.

  ‘There must be a tracking device somewhere on this car,’ Sam said.

  ‘Damn it!’ Dr Dark said. ‘Of course, you’re right.’

  He fell silent as he flew through an intersection against the traffic light. Behind them, a bus pulled out in front of their pursuers, and Sam was happy to see them stalled in a cloud of brake dust and tyre smoke.

  ‘OK, change of plans,’ Dr Dark said. ‘I’ll drop you two at the gate. Hide in the crowd and get in as fast as you can.’

  ‘No, Dad …’ Xavier began.

  ‘Blend in, stick to a tour group,’ Dr Dark carried on. ‘If it looks too dangerous, stay low and hide, don’t go taking stupid risks, got it?’

  ‘It’s better this way,’ Sam said, his hand on Xavier’s shoulder to get his attention, and his friend nodded. At least then that part of his nightmare can’t come true, right?

  Dr Dark said, ‘Call me when you’re out.’

  ‘But they might catch you,’ Xavier protested.

  Dr Dark smiled.

  ‘No. They won’t,’ he said, and Sam believed him. ‘I’ll lead the chase all ove
r town, and in that time you’ll get whatever it is you need. If it gets too dangerous for me, I’ll stop in front of a police station and run inside.’

  They pulled up to the zoo’s main entry gates once more.

  ‘Go!’ Dr Dark said. ‘And good luck!’

  Inside the zoo, Sam and Xavier attached themselves to a guided tour headed for the carnivore house.

  ‘Wow, nice zoo,’ Xavier said as he looked about the grounds as they walked in the middle of some fifty tourists. ‘Hey, so how come in the dream, it was like we were in the zoo from years ago, not today?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. My first dream was just as it happened in New York, and Gabriella’s dream, or what I saw of it, was here and now too,’ Sam said. ‘I checked on my notebook on the drive in and that factory hasn’t been in use since the Second World War. I guess our dreams aren’t restricted by time and space,’ Sam shrugged.

  ‘Cool …’ Xavier grinned. ‘Bits of the zoo still kind of look the same though. I guess some parts didn’t change during the war—hey look, in my dream, that’s where we went through.’ Xavier pointed to the carnivore house up ahead. ‘Inside, past the tiger enclosure, then down into the basement level, some kind of a nocturnal animal area, along a few old corridors—and the air duct—and then we end up in the underground factory, full of aircraft parts.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘You know they were World War Two aircraft parts?’ Xavier said. ‘I’m sure I saw some Messerschmitt Me 262s. They were the world’s first jet fighter aircraft—really mean machines.’

  ‘Is there anything you don’t know?’ Sam jibed.

  ‘I’m a bit of a nerd for model airplanes,’ Xavier admitted. ‘Dad too—he would have loved to see them. Hey, don’t go telling kids at school I build models, I have my cool image to maintain,’ he chuckled.

  ‘I don’t think you have to worry about our old school anymore,’ Sam replied. ‘Besides, no-one thought you were cool, just really rich and super smart and annoying.’

  ‘Annoying?’ Xavier said, pretending to be offended.

  ‘Little bit. Probably because you’re super rich and really smart,’ Sam laughed. ‘And a little annoying.’