by Kate O'Hearn
‘They don’t think they’re dumb at all.’ Steve pulled more items from the bags. ‘But you can bet the CRU ordered the papers to print that. I’m sure if anyone tried to challenge the story, they can expect a visit from a not so friendly CRU agent to set them straight. This is probably the best thing that could have happened for us. The public won’t be adding to the search. Especially now that Pegasus is …’ Her father paused and tried to think of the best possible words. Finally he said, ‘Now that he’s not white any more.’
In the bright daylight, Emily could see that their midnight dye job on Pegasus was awful. The stallion’s head and part of his neck and mane were black. But further down his front legs, a sharp, distinct line changed to brown. Then a bit further down his back, the colour changed to medium brown. At the end of the blanket, his exposed rump and tail were black again. He looked as strange now as he had when he was glowing white.
‘Let’s eat and then get moving again.’ Steve pulled out the rest of the food. ‘We’ve got a lot to do today and not a lot of time to do it.’
As expected, Pegasus was starving. The stallion hungrily went through three large boxes of sweet, sugary cereal and several bags of brown sugar and honey before he started to slow down.
Diana was much the same. Emily watched in amazement as she ate handfuls of the cereal from the box and washed it down with honey straight from the bottle.
‘This is delightful,’ Diana said with a mouth full of food. ‘What do you call it?’
‘Some like to call it breakfast,’ Steve chuckled. ‘But most of us call it garbage. There’s enough sugar in that cereal to keep a kid hyperactive all day.’
‘But it’s as close to ambrosia as we could get,’ Joel added.
‘It is very good,’ Diana agreed. ‘Different from ambrosia or nectar, but it will do nicely.’
After the cereal, Diana and Pegasus finished off two boxes of honey-glazed doughnuts.
Emily watched Diana wolfing down the food and thought she was going to be sick. Her father had brought a bagel for her, but she couldn’t eat it. She caught him watching her, but was grateful when he didn’t nag her to eat.
‘Your world has changed a great deal since I was last here,’ Diana said as she reached for the last doughnut. ‘It is not all bad after all.’
‘Well, we do have our good points,’ Steve said as he began cleaning Emily’s wounds and changing the bandages. Though he didn’t press Emily to eat her bagel, he made sure she took the painkillers. When he finished bandaging her leg, he sat back and shook his head. ‘We’ve got to get that looked at soon. It’s getting worse.’
Emily didn’t need her father to tell her that. She already knew it. And she suspected that Pegasus knew as well. The stallion kept looking back to check on her, whinnying softly.
‘Well, it’s almost seven,’ said Steve, checking his watch. ‘We’d better start making a move. The contractors will be back to work any minute. I don’t want them to find us here and see what we’ve done to their fence.’
‘Isn’t it too early for the other carriages to be out?’ Emily asked.
‘We don’t have much choice,’ said her father. ‘If we take our time heading uptown, maybe no one will notice.’
As the food was packed away and the stallion’s wings thoroughly covered, Emily’s father sat in the driver’s seat again. ‘You ready to go, Pegasus?’ Pegasus whinnied and started to move. ‘We’ve got to make it to the 59th Street Bridge.’
‘59th Street?’ Diana repeated. ‘Excuse me, Steve, but is that not where the CRU are concentrating their efforts to find us? You wish to go there?’
‘We don’t have much choice,’ he explained. ‘The bridge is the closest above-ground route off Manhattan,’ said Steve. He took up the reins. ‘We can’t take the tunnels or the ferries. Besides, with the Nirads rampaging through the city, I’m sure the CRU and military have their hands full. Hopefully, we can stay under their radar.’
He looked at the stallion. ‘All right, Pegasus, let’s get going,’ he said. ‘But nice and easy. We don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves.’
Pegasus nickered once and started to move.
20
Paelen was once again handcuffed to the bed. This time, there were cuffs on his ankles as well as his wrists.
The blow to the head had only stunned him for a few moments. But when he awoke and begged the men to help Pegasus, his pleas were ignored.
Agent J stood beside his bed, glaring at him. ‘I would suggest you reconsider speaking to us,’ he said. ‘I am authorized to use full force to get what I need from you. You have until dawn to decide. You will either tell me the truth, or I will use methods infinitely more unpleasant than you have ever known. The choice is yours.’
But Paelen already knew what he planned to do. He had no intentions of cooperating. His only thoughts now were to get to Pegasus and warn him.
When Agent J and his men had gone, Paelen concentrated on the problem at hand. Getting the cuffs off wouldn’t be difficult. The big problem was getting out of the facility. Agent J had claimed they had serpents’ eyes watching him. The fact that they caught him on the lower level proved Agent J’s words to be true. But was there anything watching him in here?
Paelen strained his eyes carefully studying every wall and every area of his room, searching for anything that might look like a serpent’s eye. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He was convinced the serpents’ eyes were only in the corridors. With that route blocked to him, he would have to find a different way out of the facility. Once again, he looked up to the air vent above his bed. That would be his escape. He felt certain there wouldn’t be any serpents’ eyes in there. Decision made, Paelen turned his attention to the handcuffs and reluctantly used his one Olympian skill.
It was incredibly painful. Starting with his right wrist, he folded his thumb in tightly and started to pull. Just like all the other times he had been chained in Olympus, Paelen was able to stretch out the bones in his hand until the metal of the cuff slid off. He repeated the process with his left hand.
With both hands free, Paelen sat up and reached for the cuffs on his ankles. He winced in pain as the bones in his feet stretched out until the cuffs simply slid away. When he was free, he returned his shape to normal with a sigh of relief.
Paelen pressed his ear to the door and heard voices. He counted at least three men posted outside his door. They were locked in a deep conversation, talking about something called football. With their attention diverted, they would never hear him go.
Paelen climbed on his bed. Standing on his pillows, his keen eyes scanned the air vent. It would be a tight fit, even for him. But if he stretched himself out long enough, he knew he could squeeze through.
There were only four screws holding the cover to the mount. He caught hold of one of the edges and started to apply pressure. It took very little effort to pull the vent cover away from the wall. He hid it under his pillow.
Paelen stole a quick look back to the door and then reached up. He pressed his palms firmly against the inner metal walls of the duct and hauled himself up to the vent.
As he had suspected, the entrance to the air duct was brutally tight. Paelen had to painfully stretch every bone in his body to slip through. It was only then he realized his ribs weren’t completely healed yet. As he moved, he felt sharp twinges of warning pain from the altered length of his ribcage.
Biting back the pain and wincing at every move, he entered the countless tunnels of ductwork. The ducts themselves were much larger than the entrance had been and he was able to return his body to its normal shape.
Crawling forward on his hands and knees, Paelen used every sense to listen for danger. When he reached a T-junction, he paused. To his left, he heard nothing. It was still very early in the morning and there weren’t many people in the facility yet. But to his right, he heard voices. Paelen recognized one of the voices. It was Agent J.
What he was saying wa
sn’t clear. But Paelen was certain he heard the word ‘Pegasus’. Agent J was talking about the stallion!
Paelen followed the voices, moving as quickly and quietly as he could. Moment by moment, the agent’s voice was getting louder. He approached a short tunnel and saw a light at the end shining through another vent. Through the vent, he heard Agent J speaking to two other men.
He approached the opening. Paelen discovered that if he moved his head just right, he could actually see through the louvred grill and down into the office.
Agent J was sitting at a large desk, his back to the vent. Paelen almost gasped aloud when he saw one of Mercury’s sandals sitting on the desk before him. Agent J was waving the second one in the air while he spoke. Paelen looked at the other men and saw the younger one he knew as Agent O sitting before the desk. The third man seated beside Agent O was unknown to him.
‘So, what do you think?’ Agent J asked.
Agent O shrugged. ‘I just don’t know. But there are too many coincidences for it not to be true. The kid’s test results and the way he sticks to the same story over and over again. Those sandals and that winged horse, Pegasus? What about those creatures in the city? I hate to admit it, but I’m beginning to believe him. I think we might actually be dealing with a bunch of Olympians and not the aliens we first thought.’
Agent J turned to the other man. ‘What about you, Agent T?’
‘I’m with Agent O,’ he said. ‘We’ve had hundreds of men out there combing all the boroughs for signs of a crashed or landed starship. We’ve contacted NORAD for satellite detection. There just aren’t any traces or sightings of anything coming in from space.’
Agent J cursed. ‘How the hell am I going to explain this?’ he demanded. ‘Command is obsessed with finding extra-terrestrials. More importantly, their technology. Look at all the weapons developed through findings from the Roswell incident! Not to mention the more recent captures. Alien technology is invaluable, and Command expects us to provide information!’
‘Calm down, sir,’ Agent O said. ‘You’ll give yourself a stroke!’
Agent J held up a warning finger. ‘Don’t tell me to calm down! We are the most powerful nation on the planet! Why? Because we have the biggest weapons developed from off-world technology. How will I explain that this kid and that flying horse aren’t from outside of Earth, but a bunch of old myths coming true? What’s next? Vampires? Werewolves? How about some sweet little fairies riding a unicorn!’
‘I know it’s hard to digest,’ said Agent O. ‘But we’d be foolish not to consider it a possibility.’
‘What about all the others?’ Agent J demanded. ‘Jupiter, Apollo, Cupid and all those other mythical characters. Are you suggesting they exist too? And if so, why haven’t we heard from them before now?’
Paelen watched Agent O shrug. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to keep a low profile,’ he said. ‘Stay hidden in our modern world. But the myths do say that Mercury travelled around in winged sandals. Look at what you’re holding. What do our scientists say about them?’
‘Nothing,’ Agent J spat furiously. ‘The materials are untraceable! They say these are real diamonds, rubies and sapphires sewn on to the sides. But the feathers on the wings aren’t from any known bird species on Earth. Neither is the leather. They just can’t tell us where they came from.’
‘So our kid could in fact be Mercury?’ Agent T asked.
Agent O nodded. ‘He claimed that was one of his names.’
Agent J snorted. ‘He also claimed to be Hercules, Jupiter and Paelen the Magnificent. I wouldn’t put much stock into what he’s told us so far.’
‘What about the bridle?’ Agent T asked.
‘Same as the sandals,’ Agent J answered sourly. ‘Untraceable materials. Yes, it’s real gold. But there’s a lot more mixed in with it. They found saliva on it too. The DNA doesn’t match any kind of known horse. In fact, it doesn’t match anything living on this planet. Just like the kid and that creature we have down on the slab.’
‘So it could belong to the real Pegasus?’ said Agent O.
Agent J sighed heavily, ‘Lord, I hope not. We’re here to find extra-terrestrials, not Olympians! But we won’t know for sure until they get here and we can test the stallion for ourselves.’
Paelen almost jumped from his skin. Had they found Pegasus?
‘When should that be?’ Agent O. asked.
He saw Agent J look at a small device on his wrist. ‘Based on their current movements, I would imagine we’ll have them captured and delivered here before noon today,’ he said.
‘How did you find them?’ Agent T asked. ‘Last I heard they were hidden in the park.’
‘They left the park hours ago,’ said Agent J. ‘We just brought in two guys from a livery on 50th. They called the police and claimed that four people with a winged stallion broke into their stables and stole a carriage. With that, it wasn’t too hard for us to locate the carriage and keep an eye on it.’
‘Four people?’ Agent O repeated. ‘There were only two kids in the photo with Pegasus. Who are the other two?’
‘The guys from the livery said one of them was a tall, super-strong woman the others called Diana. They said she carried a spear and beat them both senseless because of the way they treated their horses.’
Paelen had to cover his mouth to keep silent. Diana was in this world! If Pegasus ever told her about him stealing the bridle, he knew there would be no escaping her wrath. But to hear these people were going to bring Jupiter’s daughter to this facility with Pegasus was almost too much to bear.
‘The other adult with them is a New York City cop, Steve Jacobs. The girl from the picture is his thirteen-year-old daughter. What we don’t know is how or why they got involved. Nor do we know who the other kid is. He may be like our Mercury or he may be human. The owners of the stable said that the monsters arrived not long after they broke into the place. I’ve just seen the photos our guys took of the livery. Those creatures tore through the door like it was butter.’
‘What were they after?’ Agent O asked.
‘The stallion,’ Agent J said. ‘At least that’s what the guys said.’
‘What if they get to them before we do?’ Agent T asked.
‘They won’t,’ said Agent J confidently. ‘We’ve already got our people in position. Pegasus and the carriage are completely surrounded on all sides. They can’t make a move without us knowing it. We’ve got the 59th Street Bridge locked down and secure. We’re just waiting for our prey to enter the trap.’
Agent O shook his head. ‘Sounds a little risky to me. If we know where they are, why don’t we move in now and grab them. How can you be so certain they’ll try for the bridge?’
Agent J stood up. He yawned and stretched. ‘Because that’s what I’d do if I were them,’ he said. ‘Look, if we try to take them out in the open, there’s a chance that stallion will fly away. We need to get them where he can’t use his wings. The centre lanes of the bridge are perfect for that. The bridge itself will work as a giant cage.’
‘And you’re sure they are going to try to leave the city?’ Agent O checked.
Agent J nodded. ‘They have to get out of the city before those creatures find them again. That bridge is the closest route off Manhattan. They can’t afford to waste time heading further uptown to one of the other bridges. Besides, we’ve got those covered too. New York City is secure. There is no way off.’
He put down the sandal. ‘We’ve got a few hours left before we close the net. It’s been a long night. I’m going to go get some rest. If they arrive here early, make sure they are all separated. I want to talk to each of them alone. Especially the kids. I have a feeling that woman with them isn’t human. If she’s anything like our Mercury, she won’t talk. But I’m pretty certain the kids will.’
Agent T looked unconvinced. ‘If Mercury hasn’t talked, what makes you so sure about those kids?’
‘I’m sure because we know at least one of them is huma
n,’ said Agent J. ‘And unlike our strange alien or Olympian friend, I’m sure she will prove more susceptible to the persuasive powers of pain.’
Paelen listened in shock. They were planning to torture the human girl he’d seen in the picture with Pegasus. She was just a child! Yet they didn’t seem to care.
The men finally left the office, closing the door behind them. Paelen waited awhile to make sure they weren’t coming back. When he was certain, he reached forward and applied pressure to one side of the vent. The screws gave easily. But this time, Paelen was more careful. Instead of pushing the grate off completely, he only bent it a bit. When there was enough space, he winced in pain as he forced his bones to stretch out again.
Bit by bit, Paelen manipulated his body until he was able to pour himself into Agent J’s office. He landed softly on the floor. Without returning his body to its natural shape, he reached for Mercury’s sandals. Throwing them up into the vent, Paelen quickly climbed back in after them. He secured the vent again, caught hold of the sandals and returned to his normal shape. He quickly took the tunnels back to his own quarters.
Paelen left the sandals in the vent outside his room. With another painful shape change, he slid back into his room and replaced the cover. Once he was satisfied that everything looked normal, he lay back down on the bed. He put the cuffs back on his ankles and wrists and returned to his natural shape.
It had been his plan to escape and find Pegasus. But he knew that his chances of finding the stallion in this strange world were remote at best. Hearing Agent J talking about how they were about to capture Pegasus and Diana and deliver them both to the very same facility, Paelen knew what he had to do. Nothing.
He would suffer their torture and whatever else they planned to do to him. He would not fight them. He would not try to leave. He would wait until the others were here. Then, when the time was right, he would take Mercury’s sandals and help Pegasus and Dinna escape.