Ignition (William Hawk Book 1)

by William Hawk

  “She’s smarter than that,” I said. “She probably put herself somewhere where she is safe. We’ll have to do the same.”

  A female voice called. “There you two are!”

  Arthur and I spun around. Julia had appeared on the crest of the ridge. She was out of breath and looking bedraggled. There were bits of grass and twigs stuck to her clothing.

  “Julia!” I said.

  I ran toward her and threw my arms around her. “We saw the deputies. I was worried about you.”

  “Oh my gosh,” she said, “I wanted to talk to them to find out about my dad, but Cy told me I couldn’t go.”

  That did seem like a conflict of interest. I could imagine that Julia didn’t take too kindly to being told that she couldn’t ask the deputies about her father.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I was freaking out, so Cy made me calm down. Then he took us down into a hiding place. It’s somewhere over there.” She gestured to the high forest above the crumbled Hall of Knowledge, an area I hadn’t ever been. Then she shook her head. “I can’t believe this stuff.”

  Arthur got impatient. “So what is it? A tree house or something?”

  “It’s a little underground room, kind of like a subterranean lair. He said that it used to be a place of worship. We stayed there for, like, two hours. We could hear the deputies stomping over the ground all around us. Then they left, and he suggested that I run up here to look for you.”

  I glanced at Arthur. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing that I was. “So the helmets are working,” I said, “and we need a place for me to lay down while I enter the spiritual realm.”

  “He collapsed the second that he turned it on,” said Arthur.

  “Are you okay?” said Julia, taking my hand.

  I nodded. “Of course. The helmet helped. But it’s weird how going there freezes up your body.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Kind of gray and empty. I expect that I’ll learn more as I explore. But now I know that I need to have a place for my body while I’m gone.”

  We all looked at each other. “Can Cy fit all of us in that subterranean room?”

  “He’s down there, waiting for us,” she replied.

  “Then let’s go together,” I said. “Each of you, grab a helmet. I’m still a little unsteady and need my hands free.”

  We moved slowly down the slope, attempting to stay behind shrubs and trees as much as possible. I didn’t know where the sheriff’s deputies were, and I was determined to stay out of their line of sight.

  Then we crossed the native graveyard. I flinched as we got there, but we had no trouble setting foot onto the land, or passing through it. Cy had been telling the truth when he said, after the confrontation with Little Horn, that his ancestors had left the place.

  “Now where?” asked Arthur.

  Julia pointed up the opposite slope. “It’s up there, between some bushes. Kind of hidden. It could be a hard climb if you are feeling tired, William.”

  We passed the ruins and, about five hundred yards later, turned to go up the slope. We cut through the boulders, the rocks, the short grasses, the shrubs, until we reached a level part of the forest. This was part of the reservation I hadn’t ever explored. I stopped to rest for a moment, turning to survey the valley, and my heart sank. The ruins of the Hall of Knowledge were below us now. The utter devastation that Roivas had caused was on clear display. There was nothing left. As we traversed the slope, I noticed fresh rocks on the slope. I felt a pang of sadness, remorse and even anger—I’d spent a lot of time in that room, drawing. I’d learned to love it, even if I hadn’t totally understood it.

  Then Julia pulled on my elbow. “We’re just about there. It’s between those two small trees, straight ahead. There’s a hatch on the ground.”

  I saw the two trees that she was indicating, and we headed over. They were spaced about twenty feet apart, and on the ground between the slim trunks was indeed a wooden hatch. It was fitted snugly inside a square of stones and blended into the ground.

  I leaned down and picked it up by the edge.

  When I pulled it away, the worried, creased face of Cy appeared beneath me. He was looking up at us, and he was holding a piece of wood in his hand like a club. As he recognized that it was us, his face softened and his grip on the wood weakened. “William, am I glad to see you again,” he said.

  “You’re going to be even happier when you see what we’ve got with us,” I said.

  “What do you have?”

  Arthur handed me a helmet, and I passed it down to Cy in the hole. He took the thing and looked at it. “It works?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I just went into the spiritual realm with it. Just for a few seconds.”

  He made a get-in-here motion with his hand. “Hurry, before they see you. I’ve got something to show you, too.”

  I went first and lowered myself into the hole. He dragged over a tall step for my feet to land on, and then I went all the way down to the dirt floor. While he helped Arthur and Julia, I looked around.

  The underground room was bigger than I’d thought. It was lit by a series of electric torches that had been placed in sconces on the walls around the room. A few chairs were scattered around. A single circle of stones beneath the hatch guarded some blackened embers, which meant that some fires had been made here. The floor and walls were made of hard-packed dirt, but the ceiling was wooden-beam construction, evidently to prevent a collapse. A small shrine against one wall stood empty except for a couple half-melted candles.

  Against the other wall stood a long wooden table. It looked handmade and sturdy enough to support a human.

  I hoped.

  Arthur and Julia had both landed inside by now, and Cy dragged the wooden hatch shut. Instantly the room felt damp, more claustrophobic.

  “What do you think?” he said, gesturing to the space. “My people have been seeking refuge here for generations. Mostly from the rain, but they tell me it was used to hide from enemies in the old days.”

  “We could’ve used it when Little Horn arrived,” said Julia.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered, not against him.”

  “I think it’s cozy,” said Arthur. “What do you think, William?”

  I shook my head. “Are you nuts? Anyway, I’m going to lay right there on that table and put on the helmet and enter the spiritual realm.”

  Cy nodded, in a way that told me he’d always known that this was how things had to go. “Good, but first I have got a few things to show you. Sit. You’re going to need all possible knowledge.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  We gathered around the table, and Cy poured a beverage from a box that he’d kept under a tarp in the corner. It was earthy and floral and sweet all at the same time.

  “What is this stuff?” said Arthur.

  “Earth extract,” explained the old native. “My grandmother showed me how to collect twenty-four different types of plants in this valley and how to crush them together. I was making it earlier today when Julia came and told me that the deputies were arriving.”

  Despite the warming liquid, I shuddered as I thought about the horrible events of the last couple days. “Do you think they’ve found the deputy’s body yet?”

  “Definitely,” said Cy. “They had dogs. But enough about those matters. We need to talk about the spiritual realm. Right, Julia?”

  She nodded, and I realized that there’d been conversations between the two of them that I hadn’t been privy to. She reached into a bag and produced drawings from the Hall of Knowledge and spread them out before us. They were dirty and stained and crinkled. I wasn’t surprised; after all, I’d crawled handcuffed through the tunnel with them, stood out in the pouring rain with them, been arrested with them, and faced down Roivas with them.

  Cy hummed to himself as his eyes scanned the pages. They were packed full of mostly indecipherable symbols. Indecipherable to me, at least. But I still didn’t know exactly ho
w to interpret them, not like Cy, so Arthur and Julia and I were more or less bystanders, waiting for the interpretation to be handed to us.

  “Look here,” he finally began. “The L.E. communicate with symbols because that’s how things are done in the spiritual realm. And this is a record of what they’re trying to tell us, and it is very serious in tone.”

  “So you mean there are no jokes?” Arthur asked, in what I guess was an attempt to crack a joke.

  Cy shook his head. “It’s really not that kind of place.”

  That shut Arthur up. He’d probably never considered his own mortality before.

  “William already knows that I’ve analyzed the previous patterns in the symbols, the ones that he drew. What I’ve done is compare those with yours, Julia.”

  He spread out two columns of papers. The ones on the left were the old ones that I’d drawn. The ones on the right were the new ones that Julia had drawn.

  “And I circled all the changes in red.”

  I leaned forward and saw that on the new column, there were several symbols circled in red, maybe twenty in all. “Some of them were minor changes, to civilizations that had already reached Final Ignition. Remember that the Hall of Knowledge is like a message board. Some of them were just giving updates.” He crossed out many of the symbols with a black pen. “But some weren’t in those columns. I found some in our civilization’s column.”

  His finger landed on a string of four symbols. All four were circled in red marker. I didn’t dare disregard the messages, not after the previous messages had pointed me so squarely to the flash drive buried in the cemetery.

  “What are they?” asked Arthur.

  “Come look for yourselves.”

  I crowded over the page with Arthur. Julia stayed nearby but didn’t try to see. She must’ve remembered them, or maybe she was thinking about her father.

  The four symbols were a circle of arrows pointing inward, a geodesic ball, and a spiral leading down to a disc.

  “That’s a fullerene,” said Arthur, pointing to the second one. “Sometimes we call them Buckyballs after the guy who discovered them, Buckminster Fuller. Well, some Germans discovered geodesic domes, but he perfected a practical kit. What does this mean?”

  I shook my head. “It’s impossible to know until you’re in the moment. Then you’ll know how to use them, if you’re lucky.”

  Cy looked at me. “And it’s up to you to notice them, my friend.”

  I stared hard at the four symbols. The circle of arrows pointing inward, the geodesic ball, the spiral, and the disc.

  “I got it,” I said.

  Julia was standing nearby. I noticed her moody facial expression and touched her arm. “What’s the problem?”

  She looked at me with hurt in her eyes. “I think those changed,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She pointed at the pages. “I mean, when I first sketched them, that’s what they looked like. But when I looked back a few minutes later, there was a fifth one.”

  “On that string of symbols?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did it look like?”

  She sighed, crossed her arms, thought about it for a while. “I can’t really remember.”

  “Try.”

  She shut her eyes and concentrated. I could see a vein throbbing on the side of her forehead.

  “No, I don’t remember.”

  That left me a little downcast. I nudged the edge of the table leg with my toe, and then shrugged. “Well, I’ll just do the best I can.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I really should’ve added it, but there was so much confusion. And I’m upset, you know?”

  “It’s okay, Julia. These symbols have already helped so much.”

  “William, it’s time,” said Cy.

  I lay on the table. The wooden slats were hard under my back, and my shoulder blades were pressing against the hard wood.

  “We should put something under you,” said Julia.

  “Do we have a blanket or a pad or something?” asked Arthur.

  Cy grunted. He turned and rummaged through the freestanding closet, then finally turned to a dusty tarp. “Only this. Nobody sleeps here.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “If you fold that up, it’ll be perfect under my upper back.”

  Julia dutifully folded it into squares, and I sat up while she laid it beneath me. Then I lay back down.

  “How’s that?”

  “Perfect.”

  Cy came over. “I don’t know how long this will take you. But I promise that we will take care of your body while you’re here.”

  I looked at him and the others. “Don’t touch the helmet, okay? Don’t pull me out. Just take care of my body, give me some water, and I’ll come back when I’m ready. Promise?”

  Arthur gulped and nodded. Julia did too, her eyes wide with fright.

  Then Cy spoke very deliberately. “You should know that there is a chance that you might … stay.”

  I felt every hair on my body stand on end. That thought had occurred to me too, but I didn’t want to bring it up. Stay. It sounded too much like death. Was it death? I realized I didn’t even know what “life and death” were anymore.

  Arthur cut in. “Wait, wait—if you die in the afterlife, what happens? I mean, is that even possible?”

  I was reminded of that old wives’ tale about having a dream that you’re falling, and if you hit the ground in the dream, it means you’ve died in real life. “I don’t know, Arthur.”

  Cy addressed all of us. “If you’re damaged in the spiritual realm, you may be damaged, period. It’s possible that your spirit could stay.”

  “So this could be a one-way trip?” asked Arthur.

  “Maybe. I don’t know because I haven’t been there. Sonny would’ve known more.” He grew sad and stepped away from the table for a moment.

  Arthur came over and offered his fist. “Hey, send me a message or something. If you can.”

  I gave his fist a bump. “I’ll try.”

  “And don’t take too long. Get this over with and come back. We have a life to live.” He tried to put on a happy grin, but I could see that he was nervous for me.

  I smiled. “Yeah, we do.”

  Arthur leaned over and gave me a hug. Then he stepped away, and Julia stepped forward. I was feeling as though I were watching my own funeral.

  “William, you have to come back,” she said. “Like, you’re really important—and I’m sorry that I didn’t see that before.”

  “I’m not that important.”

  “Yes, you are. I’ve seen it. Do your best against Roivas. Don’t blink. Don’t back down. Just demolish him!

  “I will,” I assured her, although I was anything but confident.

  She bent down and kissed me on the lips. It was a real kiss too, lingering, open-mouthed, not one of those peck-and-run type of kisses. I could feel her passion entering my body. I gave her a half-hearted smile.

  Then Cy stepped up, his thick, leathery hand outstretched. “I only had an idea of what might happen when I picked you up on the road that day. But I’m glad I did. I’m proud that we’ve helped each other in this fight. I’m proud to call you friend. And I’m proud to help you along whatever path the universe intends for you.”

  “Same here,” I croaked. It was exceptionally hard to hear him saying goodbye to me. How could someone mean so much to me in such a short time? I realized it had to do not only with who I was now, but what I’d learned about the human condition.

  “I’ll try to contact all of you,” I said.

  Arthur stepped forward with the helmet and placed it on my head. It fit snugly.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Yep.”

  His hand arrived at the side of my helmet. “Three, two…”

  “One,” I said.

  I felt him press the button, and that strange sound entered the helmet. The room disappeared, and I knew that I was hurtling toward the biggest c
hallenge of my life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In an instant, I find myself back in the gray field, the spiritual realm. I lift my hand to try and see it, to find if it is the same as the first time, when it was as though my hands weren’t there. They don’t seem to be. I look down and around and can’t see anything of my own body. There is nothing here except gray sludge that permeates everything. And above my eyes, the two blue lights of the helmet blink intermittently.

  Then I hear a strange thrumming.

  Whum, whum, whum, whum, whum…

  It is distant but strong, and I make my way toward it. The urge to move faster possesses me, but it feels as though I am encased in soft clay, or in an early video game with poor sensitivity to directed action.

  I move in the direction of the sound, ordering my nonexistent legs to move. It grows more insistent. Whum, whum, whum, whum, whum…

  Then, I see a vague greenish light coalescing ahead. I’ve seen that before; it is the same light that gathered on the ceiling of the Hall of Knowledge, kind of. It is diffused and curling and eerie, but it isn’t off-putting. It draws me in.

  I move beneath it and peer up. It seems to peer back at me, and then a tendril of green light snakes out and encircles my head, or at least where my head used to be. I can feel its strange presence.

  You are William who changes things.

  I change things?

  You’re a Change Agent.

  Yes, I am.

  The green smoke drifts away into the gray sludge, and soon I am alone again. It is a strange encounter. The smoke didn’t seem to tell me anything new, or to interact. It just wanted to verify my identity, but surely it knows who I am.

  I don’t stay alone for long—there is movement around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot strange dark lumps, forming and coming toward me, like an animal moving under a blanket. They are now around me, and I can see protuberances forming, what seems to be heads, limbs, even tails. It is grotesque—yet I can’t look away.

  One of the strange shapes draws alongside me. Immediately I feel a strong desire to injure, to damage something, anything. I don’t recognize these feelings. These aren’t my feelings. I am not normally an angry guy.