Rubic runs to the middle the room. Dogs yip and bark incessantly from some other room. “Allan!!!” He searches the makeshift laboratory. Rubic runs to the cooler behind the turbine pipes. He yanks the door open and peers inside. His panic overwhelms him. He runs into the cooler. “Allan! You in here?” He gets to the back wall. No Allan.
How long has it been? How much time do I have? Rubic, ignoring his injuries, bolts from the cooler and runs up the stairs taking two at a time. The metal catwalk along the lakeside of the wall goes under the large turbine pipes. At the far end is a door. He runs to it not concerned with his heaving breathing or time-bomb ticking heart.
The door is unlocked. Beyond the door are cages, lots of them. They line a tunnel that heads deep into the dam, imprisoning dogs, monkeys, rats, rabbits and birds. They’re all going nuts: barking, jumping, flapping and shrieking. “Allan! Are you in here?” Rubic almost leaves, but remembers Alice’s words. She said there is a way out, deep in the dam. It has to be here. He runs down the seemingly endless row of animal cages. Six or seven cages at the far end have toppled over; all but one is still occupied by noisy birds. One large cage lies open, its hinge broken and bent. Rubic expects to run into a wild, crazed dog or orangutan, but doesn’t.
Rubic follows a trail with his eyes—a trail of spilt cereal and birdseed that goes to an open drain on the floor at the end of the tunnel. The drain is four feet across and centered underneath three basketball-sized metal pipes coming out of the wall and turning down into the floor. Each pipe has a large red valve wheel attached to it. Rubic inspects the drain. A glint of light catches his eye. It’s a pin. He picks it up and cradles the pin in his palm. It’s the 50’s pin-up girl he'd fastened to Allan’s shirt. He was here, but escaped. “Allan! Are you down there? Please, say something!!” The drain leads into the heart of the dam. It’s dark and damp and it smells like the poison that covers the canyon below. It’s large enough for Allan’s body, but it must be a long way down. The darkness from the pipe seems to reach out as if it has fingers that can grab and take. Rubic remembers the pipe he passed on his way to the control house. It’s the same diameter and came from the same side of the dam. It has to be the same pipe. But if it isn’t, Allan might be trapped down there. How could he know? He’s got to think fast. This building is going to blow any second.
Rubic runs to the nearest cage and grabs it by the top handle. He drops it down the pipe and listens. It goes a long way down. After he hears it clatter at the bottom he hears the bird screech. Rubic drops all the birdcages down the tube, takes each rabbit and rat and dumps them down into the hole. He looks at the dog and monkey cages. They’re too big to pick up. He runs by each cage and opens the doors. When he turns he’s staring at growling dogs. The monkeys have already headed toward the drain. Rubic kicks an empty cage at the dogs. “Get! Get to the drain you flea bags.” The dogs back up. When the dogs get too close to the monkeys, the monkeys choose to leap into the drain. Rubic kicks the cage one more time forcing the dogs into the drain. They yip all the way to the bottom. “At least you’re not blown to bits.” Rubic yells. He steps over the cage and looks into the dark hole.
An explosion rocks the walls. Then another. Then another. Rubic turns to the door and sees a ball of fire. He closes his eyes and jumps into the darkness. The speed of his fall surprises him as his stomach threatens to leap out of his throat. “Too fast, too fast, too fast!” Rubic screams. He braces for an impact that will surely break something in his body.
#
Allan feels himself rolling and turning in the same way he rolled and turned in the flood. He can’t breathe or hear any sound.
Then his body hits gravel. Water washes over him. It’s that bitter chemical water. It’s nighttime and the moon is high overhead. One moon surrounded by familiar stars. He’s home. The night is cool and the crickets chirp loudly, all are oddly comforting because of their familiarity. He sees the dam stretch across the canyon and the control house built into the side of the mountain. And there’s a light. Allan remembers his ultimate goal—to get help for his trapped uncle. Maybe it’s not too late.
Clattering echoes down the pipe he just emerged from, rattling louder and louder until it stops. He looks into the dark, straining to see. A parrot bursts out of the pipe, flapping and screeching. It lands on Allan’s face and he falls back.
He hears another clanging in the pipe. Two wire cages burst out of the pipe and land on him. He hears more noise coming down the chute and rolls away from the opening. Two more bird cages. Allan sees them piling up and pulls the cages from the end of the pipe to allow more to tumble out. The cages are filled with parrots and crows and pigeons. Another cage breaks open and a bird goes flying away. Are these cages and animals from Lan Darr? Rabbits and rats fly out. They’re unhurt and they scatter.
Then comes screeching. Out fly a monkey and an orangutan. They land and run. Then out fly dogs. It’s like a water slide at a zoo.
As if being surrounded by wounded animals of all kinds isn’t weird enough, the control house explodes. Allan thinks he is far enough away not to be in danger so he watches. There is another explosion. The orange plume rises like a bubble under water, only it’s massive and hot. Allan flinches as a third explosion takes out the entire side of the control house.
A visible crack snakes its way up the side of the dam, and water shoots out. Now Allan is in danger. He’s going to be flooded out, again. His body races with adrenaline and he’s so afraid.
Snap. Crack.
More thuds come from pipe. A man flies out. The man lands in the gravel and rolls. When he comes to a stop his head pops up. Rubic! Tears burst from Allan’s eyes and he sobs in an expulsion of bound up emotion.
“Allan! My God!” Rubic leaps to his feet, slipping on the gravel. He scoops Allan up and hugs him hard. Allan coughs between sobs.
Snap. The crack in the dam widens. The spray of water turns into a roaring torrent. Rubic lifts Allan and follows the monkeys uphill.
“Rubic, the birds.” Allan screams.
Rubic turns to the pile of cages, rips open them all and then shakes them so the birds fly out the doors. He returns to Allan, picks him up and runs up the gravel slope.
They get to a steep hillside. Rubic, in his adrenaline-fueled panic, bad arm and all, pulls Allan over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and clambers up the slippery, pine needle-strewn incline.
A huge chunk of concrete collapses to the riverbed and causes a catastrophic failure in the structure. The entire dam ruptures and a million gallons of water flood the valley. It’s more water than the earlier flash flood, a lot more.
Rubic can’t go higher. Even the monkeys have stopped climbing. Rubic turns and slowly lets Allan slide from his shoulders. The water rushes below. They’re safe from its clutches.
Rubic gasps, trying to catch his breath. He turns and grabs Allan and hugs him. “Damn good timing.” Rubic sees Allan is still crying and lets himself cry also. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, really,” Allan says through sobs.
Rubic can hardly believe he’s sitting next to Allan, listening to his nephew. “You can speak!”
Allan wipes his nose on his t-shirt. “I’m fine, better now. I’m so tired and I’m shaky, but I feel okay.”
The orangutan makes a ‘hea hea’ sound and starts picking at its teeth. The black monkey paces on the ledge looking down at the destruction and contaminated lake water rushing by.
Rubic hugs Allan again. “Aw man, I was so worried. How in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks did you get here? Did some lady bring you up here? What did she do to you?”
Allan remembers Asantia, Lan Darr and the city of Dantia. He remembers Mizzi and his mechanical legs. He smiles when he thinks of Lithic Fury Baroon and he remembers Jibbawk.
“I went somewhere else for a while. Somewhere strange and far away.”
“I’ll bet,” Rubic states, realizing how much more exposure to the poison Allan must have had.
“We n
eed to get you to the hospital ASAP.” Rubic watches the water slowly lower as the lake spills down the mountainside. “But we’re gonna be stuck here for a while.”
Suddenly, a black helicopter whips up the night breeze. As it lowers, the chopping blades become audible. A man in an orange jacket rappels from the helicopter wearing night vision goggles. He lands on the ledge.
“Rubic?” he shouts over the whirring helicopter blades.
“Yeah. And this is Allan.”
“We’re gonna get you out of here. One at a time.”
“Allan first.”
The helicopter lowers a rescue bucket and they strap Allan in. Allan rises to the helicopter unable to take his eyes off Rubic who can’t keep his eyes off Allan.
#
Allan wakes up. He moans and looks around. His body is sore and his head throbs, but he still smiles. Rubic wakes also. “Hey kid,” he says. “I’m here.” Rubic has an IV in his arm and other wires connected to him monitoring his vitals. He gets off the bed and pulls his tall metal pole decorated with fluid bags along with him to Allan’s bedside. “You feeling better?”
“I feel tired,” Allan says then thinks. “But I’m good.”
“So fishing really worked to get you talking, huh?” Rubic laughs.
“Yeah, it was definitely the fishing,” Allan says sarcastically.
The nurse brings in two food trays filled with fish sticks, mashed potatoes, corn and Jell-O. They race to see who can slurp down the Jell-O first. Allan wins.
“So why did the dam blow up?” Allan asks.
“Don’t you know what was in there?” Rubic waits for an answer, but Allan’s face is blank and waiting. “You don’t, do you?”
Allan shrugs. “I was never in there.”
Rubic takes a deep breath. “It was an illegal laboratory. Some crazy lady named Alice ran it. She got away, unfortunately, but not before she triggered the explosives that she rigged all around the dam. She almost killed me, you and all those animals.”
“What was the lab for?”
“She was testing on those animals. But most of the lab was destroyed so no one knows exactly what was going on. She’s a loon, for sure, a real wacko. The whole canyon and river is a crime scene now. She’d poured some crazy waste into the lake. Must have done it for years. We’re being treated for exposure and heavy metal poisoning.” Rubic ruffles Allan’s hair. “I’m so proud of you for escaping. The police will want to interview you. You’re gonna have to try and remember something, anything that will help them.”
Allan shakes his head. “I really wasn’t in there.”
“But you came from the pipe, right? You escaped right before I got there?”
Allan’s eyes narrow as he accesses his memory. “Yeah, I did come through the pipe, but I was never inside the dam.” In his mind he was never in the dam. He’d gone to a faraway place and came back through a wormhole created by the pollen.
Tears come to Allan’s eyes. “I . . . saw Jibbawk. I fought it. It looked just like you said.”
“That was a scary story, kiddo. I’d heard something about Jibbawk years ago. It wasn’t real.”
“Yes, it was,” Allan mumbles.
Rubic looks away then shrugs. He isn’t going to argue with Allan. Who knows what he went through or how much poison he was exposed to. Rubic rummages through his personal belongings on the bedside table and picks out the 50’s pin-up girl. He hands it to Allan. “I think you dropped this.”
Allan’s face scrunches. It should have been in his pocket. “Thanks, I think.”
“Don’t worry about any of it. We’re safe now.”
Later that morning Allan finds himself at the hospital window looking at the people below. He watches a jogger cut through the parking lot. Rubic gets off his bed and joins Allan at the window. He puts his arm across Allan’s shoulder.
“So, you lookin’ at that jogger?” Rubic asks knowing the answer to his question.
“Yeah.”
“Does it still bother you? Are you hoping his legs break and he falls on his face?”
Allan shakes his head. “Nah, I was just thinking that I never liked running anyway. Not with my own legs.” He did like Mizzi’s mechanical legs. “And even though I can’t race, I can still swim.”
Rubic hugs Allan’s head. “You really are gonna be okay, aren’t you.”
“Yeah, I think I am.”
Rubic goes back to his bed and the doctor comes in. They talk quietly, probably about Allan, but he doesn’t care. He is just happy to be safe and eating real food and in his wheelchair again.
In time, Allan gazes wearily into the cloudless blue sky and wonders about Lan Darr. Was any of it real? Did he actually swim in Dantia’s canals? Or ride the shoulder of Lithic Fury Bink? Did he banish Jibbawk to some world ten thousand light years away? Or was it all in his mind? Was it the effect of a million poisons coursing through his body?
Asantia made a promise. When Allan turns eighteen, will he hear a knock on his window some night, open it up to the chilly air only to see Asantia sitting on the ledge holding handles connected to a cable tethered to a new, shiny airship? Will she take him off to one of a hundred crazy worlds where he’ll explore the outer reaches of the galaxy? Where he’ll be able to explore and see things others only dream of? Maybe, she’ll take him to visit his friend Mizzi and the Lithic Fury Bink and Lyllia of Meduna.
Allan thinks he can survive being stuck with a wheelchair, algebra, science projects, cranky teachers, two-faced people and any problem thrown at him long enough to find out. No, he knows he can.
The End.
No the story is not over! The story continues in Book 2 : Return to Lan Darr
Go to AndersonAtlas.com/heroes
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About the Author
Anderson Atlas is a graphic artist, illustrator, and writer who lives in southern Arizona with his son, daughter and wife. He loves to read, sail, hike and watch movies. When it comes to his own books, he writes and illustrates them himself, and he especially likes writing character driven stories with fun and unique twists. He has written The Lost Spells, Missing Sun, and 6th Horseman and is currently working on Killing Salvation (the sequel to 6th Horseman) and Return to Lan Darr, Heroes of Distant Planets Book 2.
Copyright 2015 Anderson Atlas
andersonatlas.com
Published by Synesthesia Books
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Surviving the Improbable Quest Page 14