“Are you makin’ this stuff up as you go along?” Maya asks, splashing water onto my face. “I think you are!” Maya begins bobbing her head up and down in the water like some jocular baby dolphin.
“How do you know so much? Are you related to the little people?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I say quietly. “Besides, even if I wanted to tell you, the little people may be offended.”
I peer out at the horizon, seeing shimmering bluish florescent lights. “Did you know that the lights off the coast are magical?” I inquire, raising my eyebrows.
“Legend has it that if you can skip a stone thirty-nine times, you have to kiss the person next to you!”
Amused, Maya glances up at me. “You’re a liar!” She asserts, smiling rather mischievously. “Maybe I should just go home and let you play with all of your little people friends at the bottom of the ocean. Besides, no one can skip a stone thirty-nine times; it’s an impossibility! Look at it; did you know that each wave represents a crest, and the trough represents the height?”
“Really?” I say. “Did you go to, like, ocean school or something?”
“No, silly, my mother taught me that. After all, remember the ancient writer Hemingway; he refers to the ocean as a she—la mar! And a she has the right to change her mind.”
“Well that’s silly.” I say. “Does that mean that the ocean can change tides, making them higher and more treacherous whenever she wants?”
Maya stares at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course that’s what it means. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!” Maya giggles, but not like a little girl. She reminds me of a lady who simply knows what she wants.
I nod. “Watch this!” I say, demonstrating my number-one parlor trick. I pull a spoon out of our lunch bag, focusing all my attention toward the spoon, using my magical powers to bend it. Maya’s eyes remain intent on the shape of the utensil. Slowly the spoon begins to change shape until it appears like a cuddly little C.
Maya’s face remains impassive. “I’m not impressed. It’s just a trick!”
“Ah-ha!” I profess coyly. “You’ll never know! And I know something interesting about stone skipping. Scientific stone skipping began with one of my relatives, by the name of Seth Eisenstein, who used his technique to create bouncing bombs during World War IV. It’s a very complex procedure involving size, surface, friction, and texture, not to mention aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and something called SE spin. Strangely, Seth liked to attach his initials to just about everything.”
Maya squints in displeasure. “You’re just stalling!” she says, flashing her dimples. “Besides, that’s not completely accurate. The rock is the thing that is disturbing the tranquility of the lake.” Maya smiles adorably. “Hence, the waves radiate out from the stone. When the energy lessens, the lake goes back to its original state—calm.”
“So what are you trying to say?”
Maya smiles like El Diablo. “If I leave you, you’re going to stop rippling, but your lake will never go back to normal.”
I’m pretty sure the smile on my face returned to its normal frown.
“See! You’re back to normal again—grumpy and just weird.” I just stare at her.
“Don’t talk!” Maya says cunningly. “Besides, I want to know—are you afraid to meet the man in the cave? I mean, face-to-face. Doesn’t that scare you?”
All grows very silent. I gaze at the tide rushing in from the ocean. The whitecaps look like bubbly snowflakes on top of a mountain.
“Look at the sky, Michael! Look over there!”
“My God, the sky looks astonishing!”
“What’s happening, Michael?”
“Something incredible,” I whisper. “We’re witnessing a miracle of science.”
Maya walks toward the water, staring at the colorful red and yellow hues in the sky. “That’s not normal.” Maya appears spellbound, mesmerized by the portal in the sky. “What in the world?” Maya picks up a stone, closes her eyes, mouths a silent prayer, and then hurtles the tiny orb, placing incredible spin on the unsuspecting rock. Miraculously, it spins and shoots its way through the ocean’s waves.
“Thirty-nine times!” she exclaims, bouncing up and down on the seashore like a prophetic baby seagull on amphetamines.
“Now tell me, what is this miracle of science?”
“It’s a time portal,” I say matter-of-factly.
Maya’s eyes glow like two diamonds. “Yes, in the sky!”
Maya stands on the sand, pushing her feet into two pools of standing water, staring out at the sky, wondering, “Who goes through it?”
“There are hidden portals in Earth’s magnetic fields,” I utter. “When an electron-diffused region intersects—hence the X—with the solar wind, it creates something like a magnetic reconstruction.”
“In English, Romeo!” Maya requests sarcastically.
We both snicker.
“Here goes. There are two forces that converge to make a superhighway into the stars.”
“Are there aren’t any stoplights?” Maya snickers.
“No stop lights. As a matter of fact, once you hit the X-spot, it’s express lanes all the way!”
A big smile crosses Maya’s face. “For how long?”
“Ninety-three million miles! Then you’re home free for more of your mother’s homemade Mayan apple pie!”
Maya angrily crosses her arms. “You obviously don’t think I’m smart enough to get the straight answer!”
As I stare at her, her eyes look as if they’re going to leap out and strangle me if I don’t take her seriously.
“Well, the electrons act up, like little children on the playground. But instead of playing nicely, they begin to fight over who’s getting on the monkey bars first.”
“So they’re fighting?” Maya inquires.
“Sorta,” I respond. “They’re creating something called bow shock, which is created by sparking geomagnetic storms into bright polar auroras.”
“Why didn’t you say so!” Maya crinkles up her nose. “So it’s like the bus becomes a superpowered rocket into space, taking you ninety-three million miles in a matter of seconds, creating what’s called the boom tube effect!” Maya trudges out of both of her waterlogged sand holes. “My father told me, in case you’re interested.” She walks toward me, uncrossing her arms. “I just have one question for you, Michael Eisenstein, son of Benjamin Eisenstein and Monica Eisenstein of the great and powerful Eisenstein family.”
“Yes,” I say, “anything. I’ll be glad to answer anything.”
“I see,” Maya says curiously. “And you’ll answer me honestly—as in completely truthfully?”
I nod.
“No matter what happens in this life, will you spend your life trying to find me? I mean, if something terrible were to happen, would you come back to me?”
I stare at her blankly. “Of course, Maya. I will never leave you.”
CHAPTER 11
June 29, 2378
4:01 p.m.
Maya and I continued our trip toward the cave. Somehow we felt that we just had to find the intruder—the man in the cave. Who was he? Why was he giving us gifts?
All of a sudden, we see a commotion. Emergency vehicles are all over the place.
“I saw a plane go down!” Maya shouts. “What’s going on?”
“I saw it too!”
“You’ve got to be kidding. No way! What is that?”
I glance over at Maya. We hadn’t stopped holding hands since we left the cove.
“That plane was shot down!”
“No way!” Maya responds.
“The crash was like thunder over to the southeast, by Whitney’s Rocks,” I say.
Within a few minutes, we see local fishermen and boaters searching through the debris. Crash debris fi
ltered through the air like a smoky umbrella.
All of a sudden, a big, burly man with boots and a fat stogie in his mouth comes barreling toward us.
“Haven’t you seen our drone copters flying all over the place? This place is going to be evacuated soon! I can’t let two kids visit a cave. Are you nuts? They’ll take away my license!”
Maya’s body is gyrating like an out-of-control periscope. Her face looks dejected. “Our whole day is ruined,” she utters under her breath.
“What’s your name?” I say to the brusque man.
“None of your business!” he insists in a gruff voice. “But you can call me Bone.” A small smile slides onto his face, making him look like a deadly rattlesnake.
Maya chortles. “That’s an odd name, isn’t it?”
Bone, who is well over six foot four with a rugged, grizzled body, spits out, “They call me Bone because I used to be skinny when I was a kid. I used to get picked on. Thank God I had an older brother.
“Bone, huh. Well, Bone, how much money is it gonna take?” I say boldly, faking bravado.
Bone guffaws. “You’re kiddin’, smart boy like you. Hey, wait, I know who you are! You’re that Eisenstein kid, aren’t you?”
Maya tugs at my hand again.
“How’d you know that?”
Bone takes a puff from his fat cigar. “Well, for starters, your name is all over the news. Your father is Ben Eisenstein, isn’t he? If I were you, kid, I’d think about goin’ home.”
I shoot a quick glance toward the sky. Copters are all over the place.
“Yeah, so what of it? So what if my father is Benjamin Eisenstein?”
Bone shakes his head. “Listen, dithers, when a kid goes missing and his last name is Eisenstein, it’s news. You see all those copters? They’re looking for your sweet little ass—no offense, little lady. Besides, that cave is forbidden; the government isn’t lettin’ anyone in now.”
Bone spits out some dark fluid and then snarls and spits again. “I don’t have much use for the government—never have. Except for their money!” He shuffles his feet. “So it’s directions from here that you want?” Bone peers upward toward the sky. He runs his fingers through his long, crinkly hair. “You know the government rents my drones, don’t you?”
“Excuse me?” I say.
“You guys are innocents. They rent everything from my mibots, military robots, to my Arachnid drones. I don’t think they’d take kindly to me helping the likes of you two kids—especially kiddy Eisenstein over there!” Bone looks at Maya. “I believe you’re reported missing too. Are you that Mayan kid whose father is a scientist? I can’t help you kids. You guys need to go home.” Bone shakes his head. “The ETs are all over the place. You don’t want to be abducted, do you? That happens, ya know.”
“But I thought they were gone,” I utter. “Everyone knows the cone heads have taken off—you know, back to where they came from.”
“A few of those little dudes didn’t make it! They’ve been running loose around here, and some of them are dangerous—especially those scaly reptilians!”
I stare at Maya and then shrug. “Maybe he’s right.”
Maya shakes her head.
“What do you mean, ‘reptilians’?” I inquire.
“I mean reptilians, young man! I thought you were an Eisenstein! Doesn’t your dad tell you anything?” Bone appears extremely agitated, as if he himself were under attack. He spits again. “They could be anywhere. But if I had to guess, I’d say some of them are coming from the next galaxy over—Andromeda.”
“So those drones are yours?”
Bone glares up into the sky. “That’s my business! Well, let’s say it’s the business that serves as a front to my other business!”
“What’s that?”
Bone spits again. “Do you think I’d really tell you? Why don’t you ask your dad what he really does.”
Bone spits another disgusting blob onto the ground. “This world ain’t exactly the world you think it is, boy!”
I peer upward. The sky looks like an orange pomegranate. The DCs, drone cops, are all over the place. They’re probably taking pictures of us right now.
“Did you know that they found a few of these greenies hiding out by the water? Actually, a few of them are living in some of the underwater caves; yeah, they needed my help to get those little suckers out!”
“Really? How’d you do it?” I ask.
He smiles and spits like a llama. “You do not want to know, kid. Listen, I’ll tell you what.” Bone shakes his head. “I can’t believe I’m thinking about helping you two pathetic little kids.”
“We’re not pathetic,” I say in my best brave voice.
“Well, you’re not real bright either! Even if you are an I-zen-stine! So you two are a thing, right? Where are you headed?”
“Vanished Pirates Cove.”
We watch as the side of his mouth curls like a slithering lethal snake.
“You guys sure you want to trust me? All right, here it is; I’ll give it to you guys straight. You can’t be seen inside the cave—got it?” We nod like little puppets. “This guy you’re dealing with, the time traveler, is no dummy.”
“How did you know that he was a time traveler?” I say. “We didn’t tell you.”
Bone’s face crinkles up, causing him to look like a bewildered Yoda. “Because I wasn’t born yesterday. ’Sides, I think I know him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, no big deal. It’s only the outsiders that make a big fuss about that kind of stuff. Anyway,” Bone continues, “These time travelers are like the 007s of the universe. Trust me; we’ve done business. They move in; they move out. They’re in our dimension today and float into another one tomorrow. They’re more like James Kirk’s consultant. If you go to touch them, they’re gone.”
“How do they live?” Maya asks.
“Don’t be naive, young lady. They exist somewhere between the wind and the rain.”
“If I know these guys—and I do!—this secret gentleman, if you want to call him that, isn’t going to show up physically; trust me! I mean, like, the guy is a phantom! He lives between the lines. ‘Slippery’ doesn’t even begin to describe this TT; and, my friends Michael and Maya, if you think you eavesdropped on him the first time like two little stealthy spies, take my word for it—he knew you were there!”
“What?” I say incredulously. Bone laughs, shaking his head as though I’m the stupidest person he’s ever met.
“Moving on,” he says with a sneer, “this guy wants to see you, so that’s probably good. But from one pirate to another, our ship ain’t as big as his!”
“What does that mean?”
“It means ‘stealth’ is the word.”
We nod like little soldiers on a mission.
“You’re not physically going to be there; but one of my Arachnid drones will make the trip.”
“Who or what is an Arachnid drone?” I inquire.
“Well, mateys!” Bone guffaws. “I’m sending in two of my favorite drones: Arachnid I and Arachnid II. I call Arachnid II Lola; she’s Arachnid I’s sexy little mate! That’s right, my righteous little friends; two hairy, creepy, crawly spiders are going to do the work for you.”
It takes about an hour before Arachnid I and Arachnid II are ready. We watch Bone meticulously work, rewiring and tweaking his prized possessions. Arachnid I honestly looks exactly as you might expect. After all, he is the male lead—the creepy, crawly guy who’s going to find the proper location. Then he will communicate to Arachnid II, who will spin the web net while Arachnid I serves as a watchdog for the other creepy crawler.
Bone grimaces, placing his two prized possessions down. “I’m going to add a few things, such as the proper pressure sensors for flight altitude. Then we’ll add a little ultrasensor for flying precision be
fore we drop these bad boys into the cave.
“What about camera work?” I ask.
“Well, no problem, we just have to keep our little creepy, crawly buttercups vertical; as long as that’s accomplished, we can add a little FPS60, which measures speed and acute accuracy. Hope the bait is enough for our time traveler friend, and we’ll film the entire thing. Capiche?”
June 29, 2378
5:54 p.m.
Maya and I are able to observe the 007 Arachnids from the leisure of Bone’s living room. Actually, his living room consists of a bed and a plethora of technological equipment strewn throughout the place. Yes, they are obviously not your father’s, grandfather’s, or even great-grandfather’s drones. These particular electronic spychines look like people, insects, birds, and, in short, everything! Bone was not just your everyday drone man; he was a specialist in every sense of the word and a connoisseur of the unusual.
“I’m going to drop them through that rectangular hole, which is about seven and a half feet wide; it’s enough to swallow, most economy-sized Herring Gulls—flying cars. Ordinarily, as you know, you’d have to climb, wedge, and force yourself through those tinier holes leading to your destination.
Bone studies me. “Thanks for your clear description of the cave; that really helps!” Bone, alongside Maya and me, observes the activities of the cave. Bone’s laser-blue eyes look like tiny bugs searching for prey. The word “predator” seems to take on a whole new meaning. Bone navigates the two Arachnid drones as they maneuver through the small space.
“What’s that?” Maya screeches. “I didn’t see those the first time!”
“They’re what are called moo doos. Basically, they’re lifelike statues of some of the ET’s that have frequented the cave. Now I use the name for some of my drones.”
“Moo-doos?” I say, aghast, looking just a bit befuddled.
Bone glares at me, picking at his teeth with a small knife. I feel like I’m a small bug about to be lifted up into the air by one of his drones.
“These moo-doos are percipient as well—even supraliminal.”
“C’mon, Bone! In English!” I say.
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