The Acolytes of Crane Updated Edition

by Tew, J. D.

“Our last meeting? Aboard the Uriel. And I have not seen him since,” I say.

  The veteran guard jumps in. “He is telling the truth warden. The temporalysis didn’t collect any fabricated responses.”

  “Take the prisoner away,” the warden says.

  The entire detainment process repeats and reverses, ending with my entry into this cell—do I dare to call it home? I am sore from a guard carrying me, because my body is malnourished. There are fresh bruises on my ribs where I bounced against the shoulder of the guard as he brusquely marched with me in tow, as if I were a sack of potatoes.

  No shakedown this time I re-enter my vault.

  As I sink to the mat upon the floor, I reflect some more. I actually saw a birth certificate for a kid. It was probably the real deal. My kid. I am nineteen years old, and I have a kid. I never imagined it.

  Now inspired by how the Multiverse Council seemed to latch on to the true state of Zane’s Machiavellian empire of deceit, I play back my previous recording to find where to begin. I know it will be the most painful, most anguishing part of my story, and that I risk heart failure—in my weakened health—by forging ahead with my memories of that horrific day. That day, if I may adopt a quote, was ‘a date which will live in infamy.’

  My hands shaking, I start once the device powers up.

  Without warning, I break down, crying. My body wracks with sobs, as I heave from caustic memories flooding in and seizing my soul. Spasms snatch my body; it twists and contorts into grotesque poses.

  “Prisoner in state of emergency. Repeat, prisoner appears he is dying,” a voice rings out.

  I hack and heave some more.

  “Send in reinforcements,” the perturbed voice shouts out.

  I hug myself and shake my head vigorously. “No! I’m okay. Leave me alone!” They mustn’t find the hidden disk. I stand up in a show of bravado.

  There was silence.

  After keeping on my toes for another two minutes, I collect my resolve and clear my throat. It is very difficult to pour out the harrowing recollections, but I persist, speaking in a flat monotone, “My grandma and grandpa—” I wiped away tears, “—had come into my room after they heard banging noises during that altercation with Odion in my subconscious. They found me walking outside the house in my pajamas, but thankfully did not see Migalt. They appeared scared for me and were concerned I was losing my mind.”

  Putting me to bed, as if I were a child, they both gazed at me with fondness, and they said they loved me. They said they would talk to me about it in the morning.

  Tossing and turning, I kept tormenting myself. What did Odion mean by “research?” Did Odion mean the investigation Lincoln and I did on The Intervention? But we never left anything behind, no papers.

  I sat straight up in my bed, my eyes wide open in fear.

  The papers!

  Marvin’s papers in the basement. The ones he didn’t want me to see. What could Odion possibly want from them? But once my curiosity was triggered, I could not even consider shutting it off.

  I had to tiptoe past my sleeping grandparents, and check out the basement myself.

  There was a scuffling noise in the kitchen. The light was on. My beat pounded so hard I thought it would burst. Hopefully, it was just my grandpa, helping himself to a piece of late-night raisin toast.

  It was Travis. I froze as he turned his head and looked at me malevolently.

  He mocked me by using a sing-song voice, rocking his head from side to side. ‘Ted. The little turd from the Red Bricks. The flyboy, or should I say—freak-boy.’ He showed absolutely no fear. My hands balled into fists.

  ‘Finally, you show up, you coward,’ I snarled. ‘I’m sick and tired of waiting for you.’

  Travis spurted into a sudden and uncontrolled rage at being accused of cowardice. He screamed, pointing his finger at me. ‘You killed my best friend! Odion told me that you pushed him over the cliff!’

  ‘Odion’s been lying!’ I yelled back.

  Shouts of “Ted!” echoed out from across the hallway. My stomach sank as I realized my grandparents would be on their way—for the second time that night. And this was more dangerous this time—much more. Because this was happening at home, in real life.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Travis raged, unleashing his pent-up torment of the past two years. He’d waited so long for this day. ‘Odion told me about your necklace. It’s made you evil!’

  ‘That’s not true. The necklace does not do that,’ I said.

  Footsteps rang out near the kitchen.

  Travis’ face transformed into a revolting spectacle as he viciously squinted and grinned at once. ‘I’ve lost so much, Flyboy. Now it’s your turn!’

  The kitchen door burst open.

  I reached out, but it was too late. ‘NO, TRAVIS!’

  Travis swiveled and instantly extended his arm, fingers outstretched.

  Hollering so much that he shook the rafters with his booming voice, and angrily tensing every muscle in his body so much that he appeared ready to explode, Travis did the unthinkable.

  He had two bracelets on his wrists that were emitting a red light that turned the room a dull crimson. My grandpa, dressed in pajamas, hovered motionless with his head inches away from the kitchen ceiling.

  ‘Marv, dear Marv,’ Travis intoned in a nasty voice, ‘Odion sent me, and we know you have it.’

  My grandpa’s eyes widened as he gasped for breath.

  My grandma entered, rushing from behind with a phone in hand. She was in her usual purple patterned nightgown. Travis, too, used a laser beam to suspend her in the air, right beside Marvin.

  I leapt forward to punch Travis in the face, but he anticipated my move, and I, too, was suddenly suspended into the air, opposite my grandparents.

  ‘Ted!’ Laverne shrieked, holding out her arm, even as she attempted to gulp in precious oxygen. I instinctively caressed my throat, feeling once more the unseen clutches at my larynx.

  ‘Now, Marv,’ Travis spoke calmly, ‘Let’s make this easy. Your research, very nasty stuff. Where is it?’

  Despite his near-suffocation, my grandpa registered his shock. ‘Travis. Something’s happened to you!’

  ‘Where is it?’ Travis growled.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘The storm! Where are your papers?’

  My grandpa finally understood. He said defiantly, even as he pulled away at his collar, ‘You’ll never get it.’

  Proudly, I knew my grandpa would not divulge anything to him. He wasn’t just a veteran, but also a prisoner of war. He was tough as nails and had two bronze stars with a v-device to prove it.

  ‘Travis, it is me you want, let them go!’ I hoarsely yelled through a constricted throat.

  ‘That is where you are wrong, freak-boy. Marvin knows why I am here. Tell me where your research is and this will all end right now.’

  My grandpa held the hand of my grandma, even as they both struggled for their lives. He closed his eyes as if totally at peace, and whispered, ‘Never.’

  ‘So be it!’ Travis screamed. He gleefully collapsed both his arms at his side, and watched my grandparents as they fell to the floor, lifeless. I, too, collapsed onto the floor, but quickly sprang to my feet.

  Hot fury enveloped me and would not let go. I jumped off the bed and pulverized Travis in his abdomen with punches until I lay exhausted at his feet, gasping for air. I must have punched him fifty times. He was wearing a lightweight armor that was leathery, like the hide of a cow, but with scales.

  Travis was laughing at my pitiful attempt to crush him, and said, ‘You know why you can’t do anything? It is because you are not as driven as I am. I’m not the coward. You are.’

  I attempted taking him down, but he didn’t budge an inch—it was like tackling a parking meter. It was now time to bring out the heavy weapons.

  Firing up my lifters, I blasted into Travis, driving him through the main kitchen window with my X73-21’s—my power shoes. The window
shattered, gouging my forearm. The impact knocked Travis unconscious, and I carried his limp body. He was mine now. Grinning to myself, I ascended into the clouds to a dizzying altitude of around eight-thousand feet. My back strained as Travis’ massive frame tired out my arms.

  I felt nauseated. It was becoming difficult to take in air. I flew higher, and I felt light-headed at about twenty thousand feet. It was freezing, and the clouds surrounded me. I saw stars and then I blacked out. My plan was to drop Travis to his death. Travis must have come to and started to yell, because he woke me up. He was falling at a faster rate than I was, and the distance between us was diverging.

  We were both falling to our deaths. I was trying to maneuver with my shoes, but I could not see where I was going. Travis continued to fall and then in a flash I realized: Zane didn’t ask me to kill Travis.

  I wasn’t some rogue killer acting on impulse. I finally gained control and propelled myself toward the Earth. I drew closer to Travis. The space between the ground and our falling bodies was swiftly decreasing, and I was closing in on him. I needed to save him. His scream went to silence, as I finally stood behind him, and grabbed his jacket by the shoulders. Just when my thrusters on my X73-21’s were about to overheat, he and I jointly had significantly decelerated. Rooftops were appearing in view, and we were almost at a standstill.

  Travis sported a wicked smile as he looked up at me, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Ted.’

  Before I could reply, he shot out blasts from his electronic bracelets directly at my X73-21’s. Sparks flying, my super shoes went haywire, and all of a sudden, I was rocketing toward the woods behind my grandparents’ house.

  Out of control, I turned back to look at Travis. Glowing, he ported at the last second, and just like that, he was safely gone. I strained to deliver myself safely to the ground, but it was futile. My body bent against the pines behind my house and I scraped through them, as I ungracefully landed among the branches of the tree. I lay there for a moment, breathless.

  Moaning with pain, I flew up the back wooden steps of our deck. I ripped through the locked screen door, and barreled into the house.

  My grandparents lay lifeless on their sides at the entrance of my bedroom. Their bodies were corpses; cold, dead, and unfeeling. Desperately, I told myself they were just sleeping, that they would recover and come alive again. But their still-open eyes!—to my horror, they were blank and devoid of the souls who had been at one time, Marv and Laverne.

  I had lost my grandparents, whom I had loved so deeply. I had nothing, and the pain from the anxiety was closing in on me, suffocating and wringing out my heart. I had no one.

  Attempting resuscitation, I methodically pumped their chests and compressed air from my lungs into their mouths. No success. Shedding tears, lying on my back, exhausted—I felt failure. I had no father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother to have or hold. I rolled over and struck my fist against the ground repeatedly, sobbing and thrashing about.

  I hopped up to my knees. After I finished whimpering on the floor, I shook my grandparents, screaming their names, striking their chests again. I ran to the wall and drove my fist through the drywall. My knuckles were bleeding. I slouched down, sliding downward against it. I ran my fingers through my hair, and sheet-rock dust clumped onto my sweaty locks.

  I thought out loud to send the signal—Migalt! I am under attack at my house, and my grandparents are dead!

  It didn’t matter what I thought. No one answered. I slumped into an acute state of shock, shedding tears and feeling totally vanquished.

  Still no response. I presumed from Migalt’s abrupt retreat hours earlier that Zane and his army may have been under siege as well, as Odion had definitely sought out something after Migalt attacked him. My grandpa once told me that I should not worry about things that I cannot control, and instead focus on what I can—myself.

  Feeling extremely guilty about leaving the corpses upstairs, I resolutely rose to my feet and walked to the basement in search of clues to the imminent crisis. There was no time to lose. I stood before my grandfather’s workshop, furiously formulating possible explanations.

  What was Travis after? What did he want? More importantly, what did Odion want?

  A brilliant breakthrough popped up in my head.

  ‘Aha!’ I cried out.

  The metalons—were Dietons. My grandpa must have discovered them around the house, thanks to me. And he was just about to unlock the secrets to a power that Odion could not tolerate in a human.

  I hastily pulled out drawers in his studio, causing several sheets of diagrams and mathematical equations to flutter to the floor. I picked them up.

  As I stood up, my eyes captured a gleam of metal. Right by his experiments was a shiny pistol. Perhaps he expected evil to pay a visit.

  For a moment, I wondered what my grandfather wanted me to do. I had never used a gun in my life, except for pretense during laser tag. My anger clouded my judgment and I grasped the gun. It was heavy and frightening. I placed it down quickly, because my grandfather would never want me to touch something so powerful. To handle a gun, one must have respect and technical knowledge. I figured it was the papers he wanted me to grab.

  There was no way I could decipher these complex theorems and equations, so I grabbed what I could, and I scooted upstairs. I snatched a pen and a pad of paper from the dining room table, and sprinted outside to launch my body through the air.

  I was going to County Hearth, where that awesome skateboard-friendly parking lot lay, but I had a couple of stops to make along the way.

  First stop was Liam’s house. I didn’t want to show myself at Liam’s that early in the morning, because his dad was old-fashioned about keeping trespassers off his property. There were rumors that he slept with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Therefore, I ran up to the door, and stuck a note in. It read:

  Liam,

  I believe that there is a better path for you, a path with no limits. You have made your mark in this town as a protecter and a fighter. Please, join my team and me. We only want to do good for Earth. Please, come to the Hearth right now for your true destiny. I beg of you.

  Theodore

  I realized after writing it, I had misspelled some words. I was in a hurry, but I figured he would get the point. To ensure that Liam read it before his father did, I would call upon Migalt. But, for now, I was in a hurry, and I had left my mark, with very clear instructions. It was time to rush.

  I knew that I didn’t have time, and there was more begging to do.

  Next stop was Mariah Espinosa’s house. It was going to be a tough transition for her, but I had a powerful sense of confidence. Just before I arrived at her house, I telepathically sent a message to Migalt:

  Migalt, this is Theodore. I need you to bring Dan and Lincoln to County Hearth. Be there in twenty minutes.

  Migalt quickly returned over my nanocom, ‘Do I dare to assume you and your team are ready and should I notify Zane to prepare for extraction?’

  ‘Yes, this is the only way. I will be ready, just have them there. Also, have Nezatron track me and take whatever action he deems necessary to ensure my safety. I am standing in the bushes outside of a prospective team member’s house’

  Nezatron said, ‘I am on it, Theodore.’

  I threw pebbles at Mariah’s window. After about five bangs on the window, the white drapes fluttered back and forth, and there she stood, beautiful. She pushed open the window. Her face and silky white nightgown shimmered in the moonlight. I signaled for her to come outside.

  I had to read her lips. She asked, ‘Are you out of your mind?’ She angrily shut the window and flipped the light switch to ‘on.’ I stood behind the cypress bushes next to her porch and waited. She was eating up the clock.

  I began to worry whether Mariah was ever going to come along or not. Nonetheless, I had to wait as long as I could. The door creaked outward, and I didn’t wait to see if it was Mariah before I jumped between the bush and the porch. I inched my head up ov
er the top stair to look at her and almost startled her.

  ‘What are you doing at my house, Theodore? My dad would kill us both if he knew there was a boy standing outside.’

  ‘I am sorry. I just need you to come with me to County Hearth. I will explain everything when we get there.’ I sped my words by her, and yanked at her arm to run. To my surprise, she followed me, with no resistance—she had her reasons. We bolted down the street. The Hearth was about four hundred yards away, and she stopped.

  ‘You have to tell me now. I am not running any further.’

  ‘Listen, I need you to come with me. When Jack bullied you outside of the rink the other day, we didn’t think twice to help you, and I need you to do the same for me now. Please! Let’s go!’ I pleaded.

  She complied, and we ran. Once we arrived, there was no one else around. I kept glancing around, to her consternation. Where were the other boys? My heart sank as I wondered if my mission would ever lift off, and I would be stuck with an irate girl who had been my fantasy for so long. I might as well have written off my hopes for her forever.

  ‘Okay, what is this about? I must know, Theodore, or I will have to go home. Is this about you and me?’ she asked.

  ‘Mariah, what I am about to tell you will be difficult for you to believe, but you must trust me.’ I looked at my watch, ‘In about five minutes you will see things that will amaze you, maybe even frighten you, you will think your eyes are playing tricks on you, but you must believe me when I tell you, this is a dream. We are in a dream right now. I want you to come with me to a faraway place,’ I spoke irrationally and quickly.

  ‘If this is a dream, then why do my legs hurt from running so far?’

  ‘Okay, it isn’t a dream. What am I saying? I am sorry, but it will seem like one. This is difficult for me too. This guy Zane has asked me, of all people, to save the multiverse and I am begging you to stand by me in this fight. That is as simple as I can make it. I know it seems crazy, but this is what I live for now, it is our duty to go into space to fight this war. You must come with me. I have nothing now. They killed my grandparents!’

  ‘What! Your grandparents! This is crazy. Where are we going to go, Theodore, are we going to fly away in a spaceship and zip off into space? This is weird. Your grandparents are dead. How am I supposed to believe that? I am going to stay here just to show you that this is ridiculous. I will even agree to go with you. There, I said it. I will go with you,’ she said. She stood with arms crossed, waiting for something to happen.