“I tried. But when I saw that my sweet Charlotte was learning to open gates, I realized it would never end. My trying to live a normal life as a school nurse and healer was over. I returned here and helped Hugh with his work.”
“How could you? Not stopping him is one thing, but helping him?”
She took a drink and her jaw set. “You’re young. You believe change is possible, that nothing is inevitable. Destiny is something for storybook characters, and nothing is set in stone.”
She got up from the booth and pulled him along to the door. He struggled to keep his feet under him. She made him look outside. The busy spectacle of preparing for an invasion continued.
“This is all they know now,” she said. “They have no more connection to their loved ones. Their old lives have gone, forgotten with time. The notion that they would strike back at some saboteur isn’t even mentioned; that lie has run its course and paid its dividend. Each new world is but something to conquer for a few years and then it’s on to the next, a rote progression of survival.”
Brendan watched for a moment. “What if it wasn’t inevitable?”
“What do you mean?”
He hesitated. She didn’t know about the vault. Charlotte hadn’t told her.
“What if I could prove to you that letting the warlords come here was a choice, that it was possible for you and even Hugh to stop it all, that a world like your old one might still be accessible?”
She took his arm and shook him. “Start making sense.”
“Maybe it’s Hugh I need to be talking to. I was starting to think you’re really in charge here, but you’re just becoming another drunk.”
When her face clouded, he was certain she would strike him or throw him into the ceiling or do any of a dozen things to break his bones or end his life. Instead the grip on his arm relaxed.
“Explain yourself.”
“The headmaster’s machine is more than just a gate to my world. It accesses a vault where you can look into not just the next world but every world there could ever be. Your old world will be in there somewhere. You say this is all inevitable, but it’s not. This is one of countless worlds. Everything that’s happened here is a product of all the choices you and Hugh have made.”
Her eyes narrowed and she didn’t speak for a moment. Then she sighed. “I’d like to believe that. I want a world where Charlotte will be safe. Where I can care for her without fear that at any moment the warlords would come through and destroy everything. I just don’t believe you.”
“If I show it to you, you’ll have to believe it’s possible to not just keep going in this cycle. You can help put a stop to it.”
“Put a stop to what, slave?” Freyda asked.
Anak and Freyda were approaching the diner. Anak had a hand on the dark-haired woman’s shoulder for support.
“The boy here just revealed some information we’ll find useful,” Mimi said. “He says the machine I told you about does a lot more than just open a gate. It sounds like what you’ve suspected all along. We can open more than one at a time. We can also use their machine to open a door to a world where everything isn’t a complete wreck.”
“Is that so?” Anak said. “That might be a place I’ll want to see. A world like that might be somewhere we can get reeeally comfortable.”
22. Big Warlord on Campus
He tried his best to observe what he could about the warlords’ gate machine as Freyda hauled him back to the car wash. She didn’t allow him to linger as they moved between the stacked supplies and military hardware. The material the warlord army had brought over to Not-Earth so far was only the tip of the iceberg. It was staggering.
The booze Mimi had given him made him feel dizzy. He had a hard time not losing his footing. He faltered by the truck with the machine. Freyda wasn’t gentle as she yanked him by his arm through the gate and to the other side.
She returned him to the tent where he had found Mimi. Still sprawled on the cot, Charlotte continued to slumber. A pair of sentries had been posted outside, and the tent flap remained open so they could keep an eye on him.
Freyda plopped him down on a stool. She pulled a knife. “Do you need to be hobbled?”
Eyes wide, he just shook his head. She watched him for a moment before returning the blade to its sheath. She then exited the tent. One of the sentries worked a toothpick between his teeth while he watched Brendan.
“Charlotte?” Brendan said. She remained immobile on the cot. He knelt next to her. The sentries didn’t say anything, so he guessed moving about the tent was permissible. He shook her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered open but they were having a hard time focusing.
She tried to speak but the words weren’t forming. “Are you really there?” she finally whispered.
“Yeah, it’s me. Do you need water or anything?”
When she nodded, he took a bottle from a plastic-wrapped flat and had her sip some. Even raising her head was too much. She began coughing.
“The nurse gave you a sedative,” he whispered. “She took me to the upstream world and told me about the warlords. She’s given up. She’s with them for real.”
“I know,” Charlotte said weakly.
“I’m taking her to your father’s machine.”
A look of alarm creased her face. “You can’t give it to them.”
“This isn’t going to stop. They live in a world for a few years while Hugh or Anak or whatever you want to call him rebuilds another machine. My world is next down the line if they find the gate in the park. If I can show Nurse Dreyfus that it’s not the only way, that there’s a chance they can return to where they belong, maybe they’ll stop.”
She shook her head. “It won’t change anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve come too far.” She mustered her strength to keep speaking, even tried to prop herself up. She gripped his arm. “They’ve made too many choices over too many years. The world they knew would be too far gone to find. There would be an infinite number of gates between here and there.”
Brendan remembered the hall of mirrors when the vault had been activated. Even in the few minutes he and Tina had been inside, the hallway had stretched from their point of entry, revealing more worlds splitting off.
“You’ve never seen it,” he said. “How can you know?”
“My father had notes from other physicists. They’ve speculated on multiverse theory. I read everything I could. Many of the same works exist on your world. Each second breeds more splits. It’s logical.”
“Maybe for you. But I’m going to show her the machine, and you need to come with us. If there’s some way for her to get Hugh to see that his choices aren’t inevitable, maybe it will change his mind.”
“He won’t stop.”
“Then at the very least we’ll buy ourselves some time.”
***
An army Humvee and a pair of motorcycles pulled in front of the tent. Freyda appeared and hauled Brendan out without saying a word. She shoved him into the back of the Humvee. He caught sight of a porter giving him the eye while carting a load past the tents. It was Helen. She now wore her shirt tied around her waist, and she had on a bright tank top with a “Mojave Desert” logo printed on the front. A price tag was still attached to the side. Then he noticed a tattoo on her neck. Had she been discovered and marked? But something was wrong with the markings. The bottom of the tattoo ran in streaks of blue. She was sweating, and whatever makeup she had used to mark herself wouldn’t last.
Before he could even think of a way to signal her, she moved on with her wheelbarrow.
Some of the warlords were shouting. He turned to look and saw the one with the blue bandana named Les and the woman with the big blonde hair who had been shooting up the school. Brendan marveled that Les didn’t appear worse for wear after having been shot. So it had been with Torben. Even after being stabbed in the stomach by Lucille, the warlord kept on going. They were tough, and they healed quickly. Perhaps th
at was the case with Donnie.
“Simba, you and Les get out of here,” Rolf yelled.
Les looked like he wanted to go, tugging on Simba’s elbow, but Simba wasn’t backing down. She got closer to Rolf.
“They shot Les and stole his bike,” Simba shouted.
Rolf grabbed her by the hair. When Les moved to help, one of the sentries raised his rifle and pointed it at the man’s face. Les raised his hands. “We’re just having a conversation, Rolf. Come on.”
“A couple of slaves steal your bike, and you come to me with that?” Rolf asked. He grappled with the struggling woman and gripped her by the head. His thumbs were pressing into her eyes, and she started wailing. “Sort out your own problems. The boy is with Anak now. Pull yourselves together, or I’m sure there’s a couple of porters who would love the opportunity for advancement.”
Rolf let Simba go and shoved her away. Les put an arm around her shoulder and they scurried off towards the underpass. At least Helen hadn’t gone that way. She would have to watch out for them.
Anak limped to the vehicle and climbed into the front passenger seat. Rolf came around and began closing doors.
“Isn’t Nurse…Gundrun coming?” Brendan asked.
“She’s busy. How sweet that the two of you bonded. We’ll get along just fine without her.”
Brendan felt his stomach tighten. “What about Charlotte?”
“She’s with Gundrun.”
“I need her to help with the machine.”
Anak turned and put an elbow on the seat. “I was led to believe you’re the expert. If it’s Charlotte, what use are you? I understand someone else in my camp wants you. Granted, it’s just a grunt, somewhat new to the organization, but they have some rights. Are you able to help or not?”
“I can manage if I have to. It just will take time. It’s complicated.”
“Then maybe I can be of assistance. I’ve been known to have built a machine or two in my time.”
Rolf snickered as he started the Humvee. The engine rumbled to life.
“You have worlds to show me. And maybe, if you’re good, we can visit them together.”
***
“Maybe setting up shop here in the desert is a blessing in disguise,” Anak said. “If we hadn’t, we might never have met. You’ve got to admit it, though: getting all this material out here is a big pain when the roads are so torn up. This is a central point between our depots from the previous world.”
“So you can only open one gate at a time,” Brendan said.
“Aren’t you smart. Let’s see if you can deliver on this vault of yours Mimi mentioned.”
Brendan hadn’t thought military vehicles would have stereo systems installed in them, but this one did. Rolf put on some heavy metal music. The guitars were a blur of electric strumming, the lyrics might have been in Swedish, and the singer sounded just like Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.
When Anak buckled up, Brendan did the same. Then Rolf drove. The vehicle bounced over broken sections of road and was soon driving across desert. Rolf howled. When Anak’s laughs turned into a hacking cough, Rolf slowed down and looked over, but Anak motioned for him to continue driving. They smashed through a short wooden fence, and numerous shrubs fell beneath the vehicle’s tires. As they got closer to Dutchman Springs, Rolf slowed down. Then he pulled back up on the road and stopped. From under the seat he produced a large pair of binoculars and scanned the line of homes.
“It’s clear,” he shouted over the music.
They drove on. Nothing had changed in town. The army hadn’t arrived and set up shop. The California Highway Patrol didn’t have a tank or anything waiting for the warlords’ return. He wondered how bad the destruction was throughout the region. Surely word had gotten out. Unless the warlords were more than just a local gang. But how big could they really be, if Anak was truly the top dog? Brendan hadn’t seen anything to indicate otherwise.
A sense of dread filled him as they drove over the curb and through the landscaping of the school. He pointed in the direction of the admin building. If anyone was still around outside, they didn’t show themselves. He hoped the students and others in the gym would stay put. Rolf parked the Humvee. He removed a short black rifle from a rack between the seats.
“Fifth floor is where the machine is,” Brendan said.
“After you,” Anak said.
They crunched across the broken glass in the lobby. Rolf went to the elevator.
“Fifth floor,” Anak said. “Microwaves, hardware, and baby lingerie.”
Brendan said, “The power is out. We have to take the stairs. And we’ll need flashlights. Once we turn on the machine we might need to go down to the basement and check the generators.”
“I guess whoever built this machine of yours wanted to get his cardio in,” Anak said.
“The elevators were probably working then, boss,” Rolf said.
Anak gave him an are-you-an-idiot look and Rolf sheepishly went back to the vehicle for flashlights.
Anak was content to let Brendan turn it all on. He sat on the floor and leaned against the bookcase, appearing completely exhausted, yet his attention was fixed on what Brendan was doing.
“That little thing, is it?” Rolf asked. The man leaned in close. “Looks like a portable air conditioner.” Brendan could smell the man’s sweat. His breath stank.
“Let the kid work.”
Brendan made a show of opening the panels. Two large flashlights were placed around him, shining on the machine. All the cards and components were back in place. He didn’t touch any of the toggles.
“Unlike yours, it’s a small gate,” Brendan said. “It opens right about where you’re sitting.”
Anak got up and hovered over Brendan. “Opens to where?”
“Another Earth. If I turn it on, you can see for yourself.” If they stepped through, they would fall. He could close the gate before they would be able to recover. “Can I turn it on?”
Brendan reached for the switches. Anak grabbed his hand. He moved Brendan away and examined the machine. From a pocket he produced his own small flashlight. He opened everything Brendan had just closed. His glasses slid and he pushed them up the bridge of his nose.
Finally he said, “I’d be fibbing if I said I understand everything here. That might take a while. But this machine is but the half of it, maybe less. Where’s the actual programming come from? This is a motor without a steering wheel.”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. What else is in that basement?”
“Generators that were set up just for the machine. They survived the earthquake. The machine should turn on. If it doesn’t, there’s a breaker panel that needs to be checked.”
Anak rubbed his chin. “So if I hit these switches, a gate will open. No other adjustments need to be made.”
“That’s how it works.”
“I see.” From an inside pocket he took out a small roll of tools. Among the tiny screwdrivers and pliers was a multimeter.
Rolf chuckled. “Boss is a bit of a nerd.”
Anak began to examine the machine with the meter. “You’ve got juice here, kid. It should turn on without anything else happening, unless there’s a built-in safety delay of some sort, or a key. Judging by the fact the builder set it up in here with furniture around, I’m guessing it’s got to be stable. Assuming it works.”
“It works. It did, I swear.”
“Is this what you showed Donnie?”
Brendan hesitated. He had to assume Anak knew everything any of the other warlords might know. “Yes.”
“Where did you send him?”
“It connects to a world that’s in ruins. Maybe it’s one you’ve been to before. The school there is devastated, and there’s no people around.”
“And you ditched him there.”
When Brendan didn’t answer, Rolf gave him a nudge.
“I turned it off after we made it back,” Brendan said softly. “He was going to k
ill us.”
Finally Anak nodded. “That’s what he gets for exceeding his brief. We’ll file that under ‘reaps what he sows.’ But I’m not interested in seeing an old world. I hear you can show me something new.”
“The gate machine is here. It can be turned on. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t ever play Vegas. You can’t lie worth beans. Let’s just say a little bird told us, and she sang your praises and what you can do with this box. She might not even remember telling us.”
Brendan’s stomach sank. “What did you do to Charlotte?”
“Gundrun has a way of making people tell her things. I’ve never seen her take to anyone like that, though. I’m a little jealous, truth be told. But don’t worry. Your girlfriend is fine and will stay fine as long as she doesn’t piss her off.”
The nurse had a similar gift to Lucille’s; Brendan had suspected that already. Or had Charlotte voluntarily relayed everything Brendan had told her about the vault and the hall of mirrors beyond?
“But…if I reset it, it won’t be easy to connect to where Donnie is. It might not even be possible.”
“That’s what he gets for being outsmarted by a kid. Do it. Reset it.”
“That means going downstairs to the basement.” Brendan knew once there he could run, go anywhere. He could put the ring somewhere it would never be found. Anything would be better than giving Anak the key to the hall of mirrors. All worlds would be at his fingertips.
As if reading his thoughts, Anak said, “We know about the people in the gym. Rolf here has a box full of grenades. Do I need to get graphic? Besides, if you want to see your Charlotte again, you’ll not dillydally. Capiche?”
“It won’t take me long.”
***
The Supervillain High Boxed Set: Books One - Three of the Supervillain High Series Page 63