Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth

by Ned Rust

  “But what about the Tenets—they aren’t supposed to harm anybody, right?”

  “What, you don’t have any two-faced liars on Earth?” asked Oma.

  Patrick found himself wondering if Oma would get along with Lucie. Lucie was always saying presidents and everybody else in government were a bunch of lying murderers for letting wars happen and stuff like that.

  “Now,” said Skwurl, “let’s go—it’s not far from here but we want to get there before the sun comes up.”

  She turned and—despite her talk on staying close—sprinted into the trees. Oma obediently ran to catch up but Patrick undertook a more leisurely jog. He was enjoying his new super-vision. It was kind of like what Neil had in his high-tech FPS soldier games although the virtual-reality aspect of it was about ten times better.

  He especially couldn’t help marveling at the brilliant green sky. Some of the stars were brighter than streetlights, and the Milky Way was like a solid ribbon of radioactive waste in the sky.

  “Patrick, get to the tree line, quick!” said Skwurl’s voice in his ear.

  “Huh?” he said, looking back down just in time to see Oma disappear into the forest.

  “Hurry!”

  Patrick heard a distant rumbling and picked up his pace. The roar grew louder and light began to lick at the tops of the leafless trees ahead of him—and rapidly began to drain downward.

  He broke into a sprint and—deciding it was more important to be able to breathe than to see his surroundings in high definition—pulled down the smothering hood of his Morphsuit. It was like running through surf the way the grass and weeds slowed his steps and tugged at his feet—only it was worse than that because beaches were at least sandy and generally not littered with ankle-twisting rocks. And the closer he got to the trees, the longer the grass became, and soon he was stumbling into bushes that had to be gone around or—as they became more and more dense—plowed through.

  But there was no slowing down now. The light on the trees ahead was already at the lowest branches—and growing brighter—and the roar had become so deafening he barely could hear Skwurl’s shrill voice. “Lie down on the ground when you get to the trees, and stay still!”

  “Patrick!” came Oma’s terrified voice. “Do what she says!”

  He burst through another thorny tangle of shrubs. His skin-suit might be wonderful at many things, but protecting his skin from prickers was not one of them. He would have cried out in pain if he’d had the breath to do so.

  He tripped over a root and fell, brush flaying his face, hands splaying out across the mud, a fist-sized rock punching painfully into his chest.

  “Unnh,” he managed as he let go of what air remained in his lungs.

  “Patrick!?” came Oma’s hushed voice.

  “I—”

  “Line-of-sight in nine quints!” said Skwurl. “Stay where you are, stay absolutely still!”

  Patrick flattened his cheek to the cool moist ground and watched as the world grew brighter than if there had been a dozen suns in the sky.

  CHAPTER 49

  Hanging on the Line

  Having long since finished the Saki book (which was wonderful but far too short) he’d taken from the old man’s house, BunBun entered some of its lines into The Book of Commonplace’s “suggested entry” queue, and then proceeded to do his reading. Every day he read from The Commonplace—the central document of their movement, the so-far assembled total of the three worlds’ wit and wisdom—and just because he was on this crazy mission didn’t mean he was going to break the habit.

  He snorted as he came across a quote by somebody named Martha Washington:

  I’VE LEARNED FROM EXPERIENCE THAT THE GREATER PART OF OUR HAPPINESS OR MISERY DEPENDS ON OUR DISPOSITIONS AND NOT ON OUR CIRCUMSTANCES.

  “Clearly,” he muttered to himself, “Martha Washington was never sent on a crazy mission to an entire other sense-world and made to hide all by herself for almost two straight days without a shred of entertainment.”

  After making sure the little children had been safely returned (he observed the tearful reunion with Mrs. Tondorf-Schnittman from the clandestine safety of the woods), he’d had absolutely nothing to do but sit. He’d now made it through two entire nights without losing his sanity but he still had probably another half day of doing absolutely nothing before he was supposed to proceed on his mission to ring Earth’s alarm bells. My-Chale had been very explicit about this. He’d told BunBun there was a good chance he would receive a message on his binky, and needed him to stay near his arrival point. After that, then he was clear to go play Paul Revere and put his life in real jeopardy.

  For now, he supposed, at least he was safe. He’d deployed a decoy program (a digital ghost of his binky that leapt from cell phone tower to cell phone tower making Ith-protocol transmissions) to throw Rex’s killers off his trail.

  So far, it seemed, so good. Perhaps they really believed he’d headed east into the region the “Google Map” called “Connecticut.” By now his transcense trail had entirely decomposed so they’d be relying on standard electronic surveillance only. And doubtless they wouldn’t assume he’d have stayed put, spending the night behind the steering wheel of a golf cart parked inside a country-club storage shed, less than a quarter mile from where he’d first arrived, just … sitting.

  It was a good thing the Minder had given him a fluffy tail.

  CHAPTER 50

  Proving Ground

  Patrick stayed motionless—except for his furiously beating heart—for a couple minutes as the aircraft’s roar faded.

  “You can get up,” said Skwurl. “They’ve moved on.”

  Patrick rolled over and pulled his night-vision hood back over his face. Oma had run out of the woods and was now reaching down to help him up.

  “And this evening’s lesson,” she said, “is…”

  “Stay close?” said Patrick as he took her hand.

  “Think you two can remember that?” asked Skwurl’s voice.

  Patrick brushed at the leaves and mud all over his skin-suit. “Were they looking for us?”

  “Probably not for us in particular,” said Skwurl. “They would have been a bit more persistent in that case. No, I don’t think they expect we could have gotten so far so quickly—hopefully our decoys will have them looking in other directions. But that was definitely an active patrol. I’m guessing either we or some deer triggered a motion detector, or were spotted in a low-res sat scan.

  “Anyhow,” she continued, “we’ve lost at least a deuce now—we need to get going if we’re going to get there by sunrise.”

  Still not having any idea where “there” was, Patrick and Oma followed Skwurl up a steep forested slope to a level patch of ground. The woods stretched out ahead of them and, beyond, through the leafless, mossy oaks and maples, there was a glow—maybe the first traces of morning light—bleeding up into the sky.

  “What’s that smell?” Patrick panted—there was something like burning rubber on the breeze. And then there was a low rumbling.

  “And that noise?” asked Oma.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” said Skwurl.

  “What the—?” said Patrick.

  They had entered a grassy clearing. A large, red-roofed, dilapidated, tan brick building stood to one side. It was unlike any of the sleek modern buildings he’d so far seen here on Ith. It was really much more Earth-like—blocky, old-fashioned, the patterned bricks around its vaulted windows generally looking like they had been laid by hand, not machine. It reminded Patrick of the convent above the reservoir where the Griffins sometimes ice-skated in the winter.

  “What is this place? It looks pretty old,” said Patrick.

  “I think it was part of a college or something,” said Skwurl.

  “Wait,” said Patrick. “Didn’t they say it was fifty years ago that Rex arrived and this whole world was living in the Stone Age—”

  Skwurl exchanged a look with Oma. “We’ll talk about that later,” she said
cryptically. They jogged around a corner of the building and skirted a brick wall that had been painted with a small white spot inside a large black one.

  “What’s that?” said Patrick, stopping to get his breath back as much as because he was curious.

  “Yin wins,” said Oma.

  “What?”

  “You know Yin and Yang?”

  “Like that Chinese symbol thing?”

  “Buddhist,” explained Oma.

  “You know about Buddhism?” asked Patrick.

  “Yeah, I’ve been doing some extracurricular reading here and there,” Oma replied. “Anyhow, so this is what it looks like when Yin beats Yang’s butt.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s from The Book of Commonplace. That’s what that BCP thing is, and then the section and paragraph.”

  Patrick walked up close to the circle. The paint was fairly fresh. “Who made it?”

  “An agent. Skwurl, do you know who painted it?”

  “A pretty senior one,” said Skwurl.

  “Why do you say that?” Oma asked.

  Skwurl ignored the questions and kept on walking.

  “And what about the other graffiti I’ve seen?” asked Patrick. “What was the point of those messages?”

  “What others have you seen?” asked Oma.

  “He means the one I left on the bathroom mirror,” said Skwurl.

  “Something about how the Seer does well because she listens,” said Patrick. “But the Hearer didn’t listen, so he’s dead, right?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” said Skwurl.

  “So there was a Hearer?” asked Patrick. “And he was on Earth?”

  “Well, an important thing with that one is to know where it came from. I didn’t have time to write that part out.”

  “Where’d it come from?” asked Oma.

  “One of Rex’s communications experts,” said Skwurl. “An otherwise anonymous stooge named Franklin Shone.”

  “Why would you quote one of Rex’s people?” asked Patrick.

  “The Book of Commonplace recognizes all useful contributions. It doesn’t matter if you’re an evil warlord, a carpenter, or a friendless clerk. If it helps a reader understand the world, it goes in.”

  “And what about the message on the side of the school?” asked Patrick. “The one about not trusting people with two first names.”

  “I know about that one!” said Oma. “You see, last names are often so abstract, right? But first names are generally familiar. So if you have a first name as a last name, it most always seems recognizable to people. So basically Rex Abraham and all his henchmen always have a second name that can be a first name because they’ve discovered it makes them even a tiny degree more popular and recognizable than they would be otherwise.”

  “Rex sounds like a weird dude,” said Patrick.

  “You don’t know weird till you know Rex,” said Skwurl.

  “Wait,” said Patrick. “You’re talking about Rex like he’s alive? But the story about the girl and the vaccine—”

  “Didn’t she tell you not to believe every wikimentary you see?” said Oma.

  “So, but, where is he?” asked Patrick.

  “Umm, on Earth,” said Skwurl.

  “Wait,” said Patrick, stopping in his tracks. “He’s there right now?”

  “He’s been there all your life.”

  “But—” said Patrick, trying to figure out if that was remotely possible.

  “We’ll get into it later,” she said. “Here, we’re almost to the overlook.”

  Skwurl led them across the field to an old stone bench in the middle of a patch of bare rock. It was still too dark to see but he had the impression they were up pretty high.

  “Where are we—the top of a mountain?” asked Patrick, gesturing toward the darkness ahead of them. The brightening predawn sky began lower than where he’d have expected the horizon to be, and he had a sense of emptiness before, and below, them.

  “Cliffs, actually,” said Skwurl. “We’re above the Palisades.”

  “Wait—like the ones along the Hudson River?” asked Patrick.

  “That’s what people used to call it,” Oma replied.

  “What’s going on?” Patrick asked, not doing a very good job of disguising his uneasiness.

  “Watch right there,” said Skwurl.

  “Oh my God,” said Patrick as a cloud moved off the horizon and the predawn sky illuminated a broken, crooked, but instantly recognizable landscape. “But, they said—”

  CHAPTER 51

  Sibling Relations

  Monday morning the Twins got up at the crack of dawn.

  Being just four years old of course they had been less impacted by the traumas and dramas of the past two days. They were aware that their brother Patrick was missing but it wasn’t something keenly disturbing to them. The rest of their family had explained he was just on a trip and would be back.

  And as for their own brief disappearance Saturday morning (they’d been found by Laura Tondorf-Schnittman shortly before one o’clock on the golf course, not far from the ninth hole), there were no lingering aftereffects other than an obsession with a character named Dear Rabbit.

  Indeed, as Lucie—herself wakened early by a strange dream—came down from her room, she found them in the third floor hallway talking to Neil about the creature.

  “No,” Paul was correcting Neil, holding a plastic allosaurus in front of his older brother’s face. “THIS ONE is DEAR RABBIT.”

  “Mom and Dad banish you to Jurassic Park?” Lucie asked.

  “Nah,” said Neil, clearly a little embarrassed to be seen playing dinosaurs-and-mammoths with his youngest siblings. “Just seemed like, you know—”

  He broke off, entirely disconcerted that his big sister was smiling at him without a trace of sarcasm or irony. This was not the Lucie he was used to seeing first thing in the morning. He knew it was not right to think that Patrick’s disappearance was a good thing, but it sure was interesting how it seemed to be changing all the members of his family.

  Lucie sat down on the stair. Cassie backed up against her leg.

  “You think he ran away?” Neil asked his older sister.

  “He’s being Dear Rabbit!” the little girl said, pointing at the plastic allosaurus.

  “Ah,” said Lucie.

  “I don’t think he’s the sort of kid who would run away,” said Neil, answering his own question. “Now I might run away. In fact I was thinking of doing it next weekend. So I could go see that squid since there’s no way Mom and Dad would ever let me otherwise. But, Patrick?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lucie. “Whatever happened, clearly he’s capable of surprises. He’s always been a still-waters-run-deep kinda kid, you know?”

  “What am I, a puddle?”

  “Of Mountain Dew,” said Lucie.

  “Well, awl right then,” said Neil. “As long as we have that straight.”

  “Dear Rabbit buried a squirrel,” interrupted Paul.

  “A dinosaur buried a squirrel?” asked Lucie, smiling.

  “No, Dear Rabbit buried a squirrel,” said Cassie.

  “Ah,” said Lucie indulgently.

  “How big was it—this rabbit?” asked Neil, strangely serious all of a sudden.

  Lucie looked at her brother curiously. Maybe he just spent so little time with the kids that he didn’t understand the line between whimsy and downright weird.

  “Big!” said Cassie.

  “Like a big dog?” asked Neil.

  Both children nodded.

  “Holy crap,” said Neil. “It’s not Dear Rabbit, is it? It’s Deer Rabbit. Where’d you see it?!”

  “At Phoebe and Chloe’s pond,” said Paul.

  “The other morning when you guys went out on the golf course, right? And it had antlers like this?” he said, putting his fingers up on his forehead.

  “Neil, what are you doing?” asked Lucie.

  “I saw it, too,” he said.

 
“Neil, you shouldn’t mess with their minds like that—”

  “I’m not messing. I saw it. It’s why Dad and I had an accident on Saturday—it ran across the road—hopped across the road, actually—and we almost hit it! I knew I hadn’t gone crazy!”

  “Wait. Wait. What?”

  “I kid you not. It was like this big rabbit with antlers—like one of them whatchamacallits—jackalopes. Only big. Dad said it was a dog but he didn’t get a good look, he was too busy freaking out because I was trying to look up about the giant squid on his iPhone.”

  “And he smells like church,” said Cassie.

  Here Lucie sat up, remembering the smell of incense in the house the morning Patrick disappeared.

  “Where’d the Deer Rabbit go?” asked Neil.

  “To see the dinosaurs,” said Paul.

  “And mammoths,” said Cassie.

  “And you say he buried a squirrel at the golf course?”

  The twins nodded.

  “If we go there, can you show us where you saw him?” Neil stood.

  “Umm, we are not taking the Twins over to the golf course,” said Lucie.

  “Why not? It’s, like, not even seven yet. And Mom and Dad said yesterday we weren’t going to school today with Patrick still missing. Just like we didn’t have to go to church yesterday. Plus, Mom and Dad will appreciate it if we take the kids for a walk, get them out of their hair. Come on.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Patrick disappears and there’s a weird animal wandering around town? Don’t you think there might be a connection? Don’t you think we should at least check it out?”

  “But what will there be to see? If there is a big rabbit deer, it’s probably not even there anymore.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it left footprints? Maybe we can track it. Let’s bring your phone so we can take pictures, okay?”

  Lucie looked down at the kids.

  “You guys want to go look for the big rabbit?”

  “And dinosaurs!” said Paul.

  “And mammoths!” said Cassie.

  “And griffins!” said Paul.