2

by James Phelan

  “Yes,” the Professor said, then turned to the others. “Dr. Dark is going to meet you in Egypt with representatives of the Enterprise.”

  “Is Egypt safe?” Zara asked.

  “I heard there were riots there,” Maria said.

  “And that millions are having nightmares,” Zara added.

  “There is unrest everywhere,” the Professor said, his voice tinged with concern. “But I promise you, every precaution will be taken to make sure you are all safe,” he added.

  “Where will you be?” Poh asked.

  “I will join you,” the Professor said, “but I have something else to attend to first.”

  06

  ALEX

  Alex stood before a smooth stone wall. It was the size of the side of a house and blocked off the natural cave.

  Unlike the floor, this wall was not inscribed or carved at all. It was flat, straight and impossibly perfect, as though erected from a single slab of stone.

  Definitely not natural, then.

  And it was not that thick. Banging on it with a rock in his fist, it sounded as though it was a stone drum, and Alex could hear the reverberating echoes on the other side.

  “Maybe it’s not a wall at all …” His eyes traced the edges, where it met the floor and the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a door.”

  You must be delirious now. A door—this big?

  “A door with no handle,” Alex said to himself after inspecting every corner and seam, “makes it a wall. A flat, thin wall, somehow brought here and placed in this cave … but why?”

  He looked around the decorated chamber one last time.

  So maybe it’s an entrance to something—built a long, long time ago, when this land was habitable.

  Alex chuckled. Too impossible, surely?

  As Alex re-packed his backpack, remembering what he’d learned about Antarctica in geography class and from Ahmed—that it had once been part of a larger land mass and had broken off from Africa and Australia. But that was a long, long time ago.

  “Maybe a boat was marooned down here once,” Alex said, taking a final glance at the carvings. “Stuck, like me, and they made this place.”

  Dr. Kader would know.

  Alex swung his pack over his shoulders and pulled the straps tight, then zipped up his snowsuit and headed for where the daylight was creeping in the mouth of the cave.

  “That … will … do it.”

  Alex sat down to test his handiwork. On the exposed side of the mountain he’d stacked some blocks of snow and ice against the wind. It needed more height, but he hunkered down, too tired to do more work now.

  Alex pressed the emergency button on the GPS locator and hoped that it would work. He pulled out the flask that he’d tucked between his suit layers, sipping the snow that had melted from his body warmth. Only a few drops fell into his dry mouth. He shook it over his mouth, hoping for a little more, but there was none—it was still packed with snow from the last time he’d stopped and refilled it. The hike up the mountain had taken two hours and he’d drunk the last of his water in the ascent.

  He pulled the tin cup from his pack, crammed it full of snow and placed it over a chemical fire cube sitting on the metal stand.

  Alex looked around. He was on top of the first ridge of the mountainside that soared up next to the thermal valley, almost directly above the cavern he’d sheltered in. He could not see it for low-lying fog, but the sea was somewhere to the north, over the flat expanse of snow and ice. Behind him the mountains grew taller, rocky and craggy and frozen, impassable to an amateur with no climbing equipment.

  He sat, tapped the GPS unit, and rattled it next to his ear.

  “It’ll work. Has to work. They’ll find me.”

  It was cold and windy sitting there. He re-built the snow wall to be as high as his head, so the wind whipping along from the west wouldn’t cut into him, making him even colder. He fashioned a domed roof from smaller packed bricks of snow. He ate his last biscuit and checked what he had left. Two powdered soups, tea bags, a tube of sweetened milk, a small packet of crackers and a tin of sardines.

  Eurgh.

  Alex didn’t like sardines. He didn’t like any creature that you had to eat whole, like mussels or oysters, or bugs and insects for that matter.

  “But, if I’m still out here tomorrow,” he said, checking his tin cup full of snow over the broken chemical block that was now glowing hot, “I’ll eat them. Nibble the sides. Maybe.”

  He checked the radio again. There was nothing but static. He looked up at the mountain behind him.

  Maybe I should go higher, get better reception?

  It’ll have to be tomorrow … too tired … and it’s too windy.

  He checked the wall of his snow cave and hunkered down. He flexed his fingers and toes, then pulled the hood further down over his face. He already missed the warmth of the rock cave.

  Whoever built that place was way smarter than me.

  07

  SAM

  Outside by the plane, the Guardians and Jabari finished loading the Academy’s new plane.

  Technically, Sam thought, the aircraft wasn’t new.

  Nor was it, technically, the Academy’s.

  It was the aircraft that Sam had seen at Duke’s farmhouse back in Texas when Tobias had acquired it from Stella.

  Nice. Still, she’d taken it from the Enterprise, and what’s left of the Enterprise have sided with us, so I suppose it does belong to us after all.

  “You OK?” Lora asked Sam, noticing him lost in his thoughts.

  “Yeah, fine,” he said, pulling up his collar against the crisp morning air.

  Cold? This ain’t nothing—it’s going to be freezing soon.

  “Just thinking about this plane. About the last time I saw it … about Tobias.”

  “I know,” Lora said. “He would want this, Sam, you know that. He’d want you to go on, to see this through and finish it. He’d have loved to have been out here right now with you.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sam said, smiling.

  They watched the flight crew prepare the aircraft. The powerful motors hummed to life.

  Jabari gave a thumbs-up that everything was ready for takeoff.

  “You guys coming?” Eva asked them as she waited at the bottom of the aircraft’s stairs, Arianna and Gabriella already aboard.

  “C’mon, let’s roll,” Lora said, smiling and giving Sam a nudge toward the stairs.

  “OK,” Lora said, coming down the aisle to stand next to Sam. She produced a satellite phone. “I’ve got the Professor and Jedi on a secure communications link. We need to analyze your dream together and see what we can learn. We need to go over every detail so that we can stay ahead of the others.”

  Sam suddenly thought about what Lora was saying—every detail—and realized that, although he’d explained how there had been a “complication” with Alex, he hadn’t fully described the scene he remembered from his dream. A wave of shame rippled over him.

  It was only a dream. I can change things …

  “OK,” Sam said, taking a deep breath before speaking into the handset. “Hey, guys.”

  “Sam!” Jedi’s excited voice came over the phone’s speaker. “Dude, I think we should probably start with what you did to Alex … tell me everything.”

  The plans for their Antarctic voyage had been decided and gone over, and everyone was ready. They seemed to take the situation with Alex in their stride, not judging Sam for what he did in his dream.

  Sam looked out the window. The supersonic aircraft was getting them there in a hurry.

  We’ll be in Antarctica soon.

  Sam thought he could make out drift ice and icebergs floating in the dark sea.

  That’s an amazing sight. I really have been all over the world now.

  What an incredible ride.

  I wonder where it will all end?

  Lora came back from the cockpit and sat down in the empty seat beside Sam. “Another hour until we touch down. Remem
ber, where we’re landing, they don’t know the real reason why we’re there.”

  Sam could see her hesitate, as though there was something else she needed to share but was hanging onto it.

  “Lora?” he asked.

  She showed them her tablet computer.

  “The weather,” Lora said. “It’s going to get worse, and soon. We don’t have much time on the ground to find Alex.”

  “How long?” Sam asked.

  “Six hours, maybe a little more, at the most.”

  “And what will happen out there in six hours?” Eva asked.

  “We can’t be there,” Lora said. “It’s two polar vortexes converging to form a supercell. Half the continent will be in cyclonic blizzard conditions. Worst case, if we get caught out, we head for the closest station from Alex’s last known location. Here.” She tapped the map.

  “The Chilean station?” Eva said. “OK.”

  “So,” Sam said, “when we touch down, we have only six hours to find Alex and the Gear?”

  Lora nodded. Eva looked ill at the thought of what was to come. The other two girls were sleeping. The Guardians and Agents were huddled at the end of the cabin, busy checking over their equipment and weapons.

  Sam worried about Alex. If he had any locator device with him, he either hadn’t activated it or it wasn’t giving out enough of a signal.

  Sam pulled out his phone, uselessly typing a text message to Alex. He looked at it for a long time before slowly hitting the delete button over and over, erasing the message.

  Nope, it really is time for us to meet face to face.

  “How far away do you think Alex is?” Eva asked.

  Sam was silent, then he looked to her and Lora and saw that they expected him to know.

  “Oh, me?” he said, looking at a map of Antarctica. “Well, ah, he’s probably not far. I mean, I saw that mountain range in my dream, to the east. So near there?”

  “OK,” Lora said. “That’s a pretty big search area. It could take days to cover.”

  “But we don’t have days,” Sam said, distractedly. “We’ll find him. Unless he …”

  “What?” Eva said to him. “Unless he what?”

  “Sam?” Lora prompted.

  Sam looked up and saw that his two friends were looking at him, eyes wide.

  “Well?” Eva said.

  “Unless … you see, my worry is,” Sam began, pausing before carrying on, “well, how do you find a Dreamer if he doesn’t want to be found—because he’s not on our side anymore?”

  08

  XAVIER

  Xavier frowned.

  The Professor’s not coming? Where would he have to be that was more important than this?

  Xavier looked at his friends’ faces, wondering how they would cope in Egypt, if—no, when—things got complicated.

  “What if we’re not ready?” Maria asked, apparently having the same thought.

  “You will be,” the Professor replied. “All of you. Every dream you’ve ever had has prepared you for what will be coming.”

  Xavier looked at the floor.

  What if I’m not ready …?

  “You’ll be ready too, Xavier,” the Professor said. “Self-doubt is natural. Believe in yourself, in your part of the prophecy.”

  The students left in a tight group, talking quietly but animatedly, a spring and purpose in their step as they left to pack—but Xavier hung back.

  “Professor …”

  “Yes, Xavier?” The Professor looked up wearily from where he stood at his desk.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Xavier said, looking back down the hall and watching his friends depart. “I mean, I’ve had a dream—a dream I’ve had all week. It’s always the same but each time I see more and more. And it was, well … it was dangerous.”

  “And in these dreams you were in Egypt?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I know,” the Professor said. “It was the same in my dream too. But don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

  “Have you seen the end—right up to the Dream Gate?” Xavier asked, hope in his voice at the prospect of knowing the future.

  “No, I’ve only seen small glimpses, of us in Egypt, of the sun rising and setting. Of thirteen figures in the shadows, all coming together. After that, nothing.”

  “And you’re staying here?” Xavier’s eyes searched the Professor’s for some sign of apprehension, but he saw none. It made Xavier feel better, seeing that the Professor’s expression was certain.

  “For the moment. This is how it is destined to be, Xavier,” the Professor said. “Those here, those working with us, those working against us, we all have unique parts to play. Like gears in a machine, you might say.”

  “Even Solaris?” Xavier said. “He has a part to play?”

  “Even Solaris. Think of it as Yin and Yang, light and dark, day and night.”

  “Like dreams and nightmares,” Xavier said, “they’re both always there?”

  “That’s right,” the Professor said. “For Dreamers, nightmares are important too—they show us events that may happen and we can strive to prevent them, or at least prepare for them.”

  “So, they’re a blessing and a curse.”

  “Exactly!” the Professor said, smiling. “And for the rest of the world, the seven billion souls around the globe that sleep every night, their nightmares show them that there are ways to do things, ways to change. Perhaps even ways to prepare.”

  “So it’s the same for all of us.”

  “The whole world is connected by dreams. It is just that Dreamers are aware of it, at the front lines if you will, driving the dreamwave for the rest.”

  “We learned that in class,” Xavier said. “I remember learning about changing the endings of nightmares. How when we have recurring nightmares, we can change what happens—like, we can beat what’s terrifying us.”

  “That’s right. Have you tried it, with your own nightmares?”

  “Yes,” Xavier said. “I’ve come up with different endings. I’ve rehearsed them, awake and then just before I sleep, just like we were taught, to remind myself that I don’t have to have that ending, preparing should the nightmare occur again.”

  “How has it worked for you?”

  Xavier shook his head. “I’ve tried everything, but I can’t change it.”

  The Professor paused. “This is the dream of your father dying?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  Xavier nodded.

  “There’s still time, Xavier,” the Professor said. “There’s still time for another ending.”

  09

  SAM

  “Remember!” Lora said loudly to be heard over the engines as their aircraft turned in the air for the landing approach. “No one down there knows our real purpose, so keep to yourselves.”

  “It’s just a ‘rescue mission,’” Sam replied across the aisle with a thumbs-up. “Got it. And whatever we do, don’t mention the Gear that forms part of a machine that will lead to the Dream Gate and help us save the world.”

  Gabriella laughed, Arianna was tight-lipped. Sam wondered if the Russian was pleased to be back among so much snow. Outside Sam’s window, he saw what would be their base of operations: Crawley Station.

  It was doughnut-shaped, with a central structure in the middle and two outer rings, connected by corridors at each point of the compass. From the air it looked small, but, as they neared, it grew to be a complex that could easily house fifty researchers. There were some outer buildings too, domes poking up into the air, a large one next to the icy runway.

  Two figures were standing out in the cold, dressed in bright red snowsuits. They had orange burning flares in their hands, using them to direct the pilots. The jet touched down and they taxied to the largest of two cigar-shaped buildings, which looked like it served as an aircraft hangar. The engines died down as soon as the jet was inside.

  “Wow,” Sam said as he alighted the aircraft, walking down the fold-down stairs at the back of the jet
between the undercarriage, pulling his Stealth Suit up around his face as he moved. Like the rest of his friends, he also had a yellow snowsuit over the top. But the wind still shocked the senses, blowing snow and ice through the air as it blasted through the huge hangar doors.

  The aircraft’s engines had wound down and four station crew emerged from the hangar and went about running a fuel line. Sam figured that in this environment, there was no way a vehicle could stay idle for long and still be expected to work. The large building was full of equipment. Through an open door, Sam could just make out a helicopter, wrapped up against the cold, and several large red snowcats—boxy reinforced vans with thick tank treads instead of tires.

  Their jet would be taking off once it was refuelled, returning to collect them the next day.

  No way out until then. And a clock ticking to find Alex.

  “And don’t forget,” Lora said as they shuffled behind Jabari and the others toward the door of the main base, “stay close at all times.”

  Ahead, a huge yellow door, the outer airlock, hissed open as they neared.

  Sam checked his watch as they entered the base.

  Just under six hours to go …

  A greeting party had formed in the mess hall. All the station crew were dressed in the same red snowsuits. Twelve of them in total. A short man with red hair, a thick moustache and yellow-tinted glasses introduced himself as Dr. Roberts.

  Lora introduced everyone as hot drinks were handed out while preparations got underway for their rescue mission.

  “We’re ready to go when you are,” Dr. Roberts said finally, his voice deep but quiet.

  “Thank you, we will be ready in five minutes,” Lora said.

  “Do you have any idea where your missing friend might be?” Dr. Roberts asked.

  “We have his last known location,” Lora said. “He’s been stationary for some time.”

  “Hmm,” Dr. Roberts said. “Does he have a tracking device?”