“Under a microscope, that pollen would disappear and reappear like magic.” She looks at Laura, her eyes intense like they held back a growing pressure. “It was beautiful. I replicated some of the proteins and tried to mass-produce the effect with a hundred thousand combinations. I knew that if I did something right, I’d make something disappear.”
The puzzle snaps together in Laura’s mind. “You’re Alice.” Alice is the crazy woman who kidnapped Allan a year ago. It was her secret lab in the dam. She did all those experiments on the animals. And when she was about to get caught, she blew the dam up with Rubic inside.
Alice turns from Laura, hiding her face. “Yes, I am. Everyone thought I was a creep, a psycho, but I’m not. Yes, I poisoned the river, but those fish populations came back next season stronger than they ever had. The whole canyon rebounded!”
“You took Allan and put him in a cage.”
Alice spun to face Laura, “I did not! I never touched the boy! I didn’t even know what he looked like until I saw his picture in the newspaper.”
Laura could see the truth in Alice’s face and in the tone of her voice. She realizes that Allan was telling the truth the entire time. Every word that came out of his mouth was real. A warmth wraps around her heart, and the hair on her neck and scalp stands up and tingles. Oh, Allan! She looks at her mother. Mrs. Domley’s face is tight, confused about what she is hearing.
Alice gets up and kneels next to Laura. Laura nods and begins to cry. It’s not a sob full of fear, but of love.
Alice clasps her hands in front of her mouth as if praying. “You really do believe me, don’t you?” Tears stream down her face.
Laura nods. “Yes, I do. We’ll help you. Just untie me and my mother.”
Alice stands. Her eyes quiver. “Maybe. Not yet. I… have to keep control of this now. I need to put pressure on Allan. I was so close before I destroyed my lab. So close to finding out where my daughter went. When I read the news article that said I’d taken Allan, and I knew I didn’t, I knew he went somewhere. I need to find out where he went and how he got back from wherever he went. I need to know, Laura! Because that is where my daughter is and that is how I’ll get her back!” Her face gets red and swollen. She stands, backs up, and then ducks into her tent.
Laura tests the strength of the handcuffs. They’re as tight as they can be, pinching a little, and the braided hammock rope is tough and thick. It won’t be easy, if not impossible, to get free. Mrs. Domley shakes her head. “Just listen. Do whatever she says. This will be over soon.”
Alice comes out of the tent with a large radio in her hand. “I see your boyfriend has gotten himself lost again. The police are looking for him. You too. She holds up a police scanner. “Dispatch is on fire. We’ve got to go. In an hour everyone and their cousin will be up here looking for you.”
Alice looks at the yellow MINI Cooper. “You’ve got an awfully obnoxious paint job,” Alice mumbles. She clips the radio to her belt, leaving the volume turned up, and opens a box next to the tent. She pulls out a large camouflage net with squares all over it and tosses it over the Cooper along with handfuls of leaves and sticks. When she’s done, the vehicle is almost invisible.
“You’re going to lead me to Allan, and we’re going to find out how and where he went. He’s found the flower, I can feel it, and he’ll know how to activate that pollen.”
“And if he doesn’t know any more than you do?” Laura asks.
Alice shrugs. “Then you’re no use to me after all. Neither of you are. All that will be left is to clean up my mess by eliminating witnesses.” She looks at Laura then Mrs. Domley. “Sorry, but I can’t continue my work while hiding like this. Only you two, Allan, and Rubic have seen me, and that’ll have to change.”
Laura’s breath catches in her chest. Alice is as dangerous as Laura initially thought. She is as dangerous as any killer.
Chapter 10
The Really Creepy Tunnel
Allan turns his torso around and looks at the unfamiliar world. Lan Darr had been full of life and color. Okay, it was also full of danger and mystery, too. This place is entirely different: darker, grayer and harsh. Allan turns a complete circle. He’s on top of a large round hill. It’s one of many hills that surround the tall pointy volcano. The lava slowly leaks from the peak, drawing red veins down the steep slope of the mountain, and eventually finds the sea where it bursts into a constant cloud of steam. It’s a ways off so it doesn’t worry Allan. What worries him is that he feels utterly alone and he’s on the wrong world entirely. This world has a different color sky and a visible sun. That was the proof Allan hadn’t arrived on Lan Darr. Lan Darr’s sun could not be seen with the naked eye.
Allan covers his eyes as he shakes like a frightened Chihuahua. Stop being a chickenshit! he roars in his head. He’s got two flowers and food and water for a few days. He can explore this place. It might be fantastic.
After a few deep breaths, Allan looks up. There is a smokiness in the air, like the smell of a campfire. Can someone be camping nearby? Or is this how the whole world smells? He’s not on Earth anymore so even his best guess is probably far off the mark. He might not even be in the same solar system.
“I’ve made it! I’m somewhere else! This is all real. That means that what happened to me last year is real too!” His arms reach toward the sky, his fingers outstretched.
Dr. Brooks would say this is a delusion. She’d want Allan to try and debunk his senses, prove the hallucination so he would wake up. He looks around. This is no dream. But just in case, he’ll test his senses. Allan removes his trigger claw and scoops up some gray sand and pours it into his lap. His fingers touch the gritty substance and it twinkles. Upon further inspection he sees the sand is as clear as glass.
He picks out the largest of the clear grains of sand. It reflects the light when he turns it. The reflection is a prism. What if the sand specks are diamonds? Allan’s veins fill up with an electric energy. A handful of diamonds could make him rich, and a large one could make him famous. He laughs out loud and starts searching for another, larger clear rock.
Allan is excited, worried, amazed, and confused all at once. It’s a dizzy feeling, but welcome. He reaches with the claw and picks up a large stone as big as one of those jumbo bubblegum balls. It’s heavy and cold and covered in gray dust. Allan wipes it with his shirt, revealing a clear stone, as clear as glass and just as reflective. Allan hugs the stone like a pirate holding pearls. Oh, the place I’ve found!
This planet is real, and the Hubbu pollen is his ride through the cosmos. That means Lan Darr is just as real. It proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that Allan isn’t crazy.
Allan remembers the cruel note tapped to the van. If only his classmates could see him now. But wait! The pages of the kids’ book were also taped to the van. It illustrated so many of the creatures that lived on Lan Darr. Does it mean that the author, Adam Boldary, had gone to Lan Darr? Yes. Adam must have traveled by Hubbu, met the same strange aliens and creatures, and returned home to write about his experiences and draw the creatures into kids’ books. All the creatures in the Morty’s Travels books were real! It was Adam Boldary’s way of sharing the experiences and memories he made on other planets.
Allan couldn’t believe it; it seems too fantastical, too surreal. He shakes his head. But Adam Boldary wrote his books over fifty years ago. Could traveling by Hubbu pollen affect time? Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that planets with different gravity, or near gravity wells, experience the passage of time differently. Are the creatures on Lan Darr the same now as they were fifty years ago?
But where is Allan now? This planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth and there's liquid water. Whether it has intelligent beings is yet to be seen. Asantia said that different color Hubbu flowers are connected to different planets, so Allan must have gone to a new planet altogether.
He needs to gather evidence of this world and go back to show Laura. Maybe she’ll come with him next trip. He smiles. Ma
c might want to come also.
Allan tucks the large clear stone in his pocket and finds another clear stone and pockets it as well. They will be the first two souvenirs from another planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. He’ll clear his name at school and with Laura. Allan looks up to the gray-blue sky. Laura won’t think he’s an idiot anymore.
Allan tries to roll down the hill, but his wheelchair tires sink and stiffen. Allan yanks on his wheels as hard as he can, forcing them through the loose sand. It isn’t a problem, he has rolled through dirt and mud during hikes. The wide, all-terrain, Kevlar re-enforced tough-wheels and the electric motor will get him through anything. Other than water, of course. “Thank you, Rubic!” Allan blurts out. Rubic had spent a lot of money on this chair, and Allan spent a lot of time practicing and never feared going anywhere by himself. It helped him forget, sometimes, that he was handicapped at all.
Allan pushes a button on the side of the right armrest. The electric motor turns on, forcing the large wheels to turn. Allan builds up speed then turns the motor off. He continues downhill, passing larger and larger stones, some of which are quite clear and beautiful. He sees a reflected image of himself in some of the stones. He’s smiling ear to ear. Like Lewis and Clark, Columbus, Polynesians in canoes, Asians crossing the Bering Strait, he’s an explorer now. Exploring for all the humans on Earth, and it will change the course of history.
The farther down the hill he goes the larger the stones get. Some tower over his head. More and more of the stones are shiny black, like basalt. They have round edges from erosion and imbedded crystals freckling their smooth surface. They’re cool to the touch and more reflective than the clear stones.
Allan rolls himself around a stone as thick as a redwood tree trunk, only to be blocked in by other stones. The shadows down here are darker and colder, and Allan turns to backtrack.
The wind picks up, forcing Allan to dig his sweater out of his backpack. He is glad he thought ahead. His mother would be proud, if she were alive. Allan searches and finds a stone the size of a large egg and picks it up with his trigger claw. He dusts off the surface, revealing its clarity. He’ll give this one to Laura.
Allan goes back a ways then turns around another stone. It, too, is a dead end. As he turns, his eyes catch a glimpse of something flickering behind a smoky crystal that towers high into the sky. Allan rolls closer, realizing the dead end isn’t a dead end but an illusion. The reflective stones mask a large, dark tunnel. He sees the flicker in the dark again and nudges his chair closer. The flicker might be a light, possibly from a torch.
Allan pulls out his headlamp and straps it on his forehead. The light illuminates a rough-cut stairway that leads down.
Allan can’t turn back. Where there is light, there is hope. Where there are stairs and tunnels, there are intelligent beings. If he gets stuck or lost? He’s got the remaining Hubbu flowers in his pack. They should take him back home.
Allan pulls a lever on the side of his chair, extending the small back tracks to the ground.
Allan puts on his fingerless gloves, cracks his knuckles, and grips his wheels. He leans back in the chair. “Now or never,” he mumbles and rolls down the first step. Thankfully, the step is wide and the stairway not terribly steep. Dark stones line the stairwell and reflect his headlight beam like a hall of mirrors.
Allan bumps down the next step, and the next one. He descends into the tunnel and stops at what created the light. It’s a glowing stone. When Mizzi had built Allan’s mechanical legs back on Lan Darr, he’d used a stone that had some kind of power in it. It looked like the same strange stone. Same color, same energetic interior surrounded by foggy crystal. Allan thinks about pocketing the light so Mizzi can make him another pair of mechanical legs, but doesn’t. That would be stealing from whoever built these stairs and would not be a good first impression to make. “I come in peace, just ignore how I just stole your energy crystals,” Allan mutters with a smile. Maybe they’ll give him one as a gift. It could be a third souvenir and more of a convincing one.
Allan continues down the stairway as it descends deeper and deeper. He passes more glowing stones. The tunnel around him opens up to a cavern so huge the light doesn’t reach the other side.
The stairway continues from the cave wall and over brick archways that disappear into the darkness. Allan rolls to the edge of a platform and peers into the void. He hears noise. A ticking and a bang echo around like hypersonic ping-pong balls. Something breathes heavily near him; oh, it’s his own breath. His eyes water, forcing him to furiously blink. Be brave.
Allan looks back the way he came. Now is the time to turn back, if there ever is a time. He wants to go back, and the thought sits on his frontal cortex like a bully. The gloominess of the space is so threatening it could be his hollowed grave. A shadow moves, or he thinks it moves. Another sound disturbs the darkness. Is it cackling? Like a witch’s laugh? Or is it some kind of clapping? Maybe it’s the snapping of bones as some gargantuan creature devours its victim. The stale air tightens Allan’s lung passageways, and a full-fledged panic attack is about to envelop him. He wishes he’d brought a broadsword or a Taser or his pellet gun.
“Hello?” Allan calls out. The sound and echo of his own voice releases the tension building in his brain. “I come in peace.”
The answer to his statement is only a much softer echo of his voice, “I come in peace… come in peace… in peace.”
Allan listens. There is no further sound. If Lan Darr taught him anything, it was that he can handle a lot of pressure and push through the fear. He can choose to think how dangerous this place must be, because it is dark and shadowy, or he can think it is mysterious and worthy of discovery. He can sit here and panic, or man up. He can live an adventure or die trying.
Allan rolls to the stairs that continue over the deep and dark cavern. He shines his headlight on the stairs. It’s not as bright as he’d like, and he doesn’t have replacement batteries. Reluctantly, he turns and rolls back to the stairs leading up and uses his trigger claw to grab the lightstone sitting on a sconce on the wall. “I’m not stealing your light thingy, I’m borrowing it!”
“I’m borrowing it… borrowing it… borrowing it,” replies the cave.
Allan clicks off his headlamp to save battery power and tucks it in his pack. He moves forward, carefully, methodically. His fingers grip the push-ring on his chair so tightly he should be bending it out of shape. The crunching of sand under his wheels is loud and makes Allan feel insecure about his traction. Every time the track motor kicks on, he jumps. Sweat soaks his hair and his shirt.
It occurs to Allan that the manufacturers of his All-Terrain chair hadn’t tested it on other planets. The thought makes him smile, and he continues down the steps with care. The movement has a powerful effect on his brain. The momentum silences his chirping anxiety, giving his brain important balancing orders. Allan continues down the stairway that crosses the cavern.
The muscles in his arms tire, but that is the least of his worries. There are no walls on either side anymore, just an abyss. However, the stone’s light shines in all directions and is much brighter and more comforting. “I’m keeping this stone, finders keepers!”
“Finders keepers… finders keepers… keepers.”
“Your echo is annoying!” Allan yelps, feeling teased.
“Is annoying… annoying… annoying.”
“Stop it!” Allan gets agitated though he knows it’s ridiculous.
A moment after the last echo comes another sound, like the sound of flags snapping in the wind. A breeze brushes his cheek. Feeling exposed, he hurries down, clumping, clumping, clumping.
A dark, flying thing swoops over Allan’s head, close enough he can almost see the shape. It’s hairy and charcoal black.
Allan holds up his hands. “Ahh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to steal your light crystal.”
“Your light crystal… light crystal… crystal.”
Another whoosh races over his head, closer this t
ime.
A pebble pops out from under the small front wheel. The chair falls to the left, and Allan’s weight follows. He can’t stop his sidelong momentum. His chair tips.
Allan’s legs and hips are strapped to the chair, so when his body flies over the edge of the steps, his chair goes with him.
Allan screams as he falls into the dark. His eyes squeeze shut. Turning over and over as he falls, he’s helpless and bracing for impact. Every muscle fiber clenches, hardening his body. The back of his chair faces down like he’s an upturned turtle. Before he can rotate again, he hits water.
The splash sounds like a thousand cymbals crashing. The momentum pushes Allan and his chair below the surface. As the heavy wheelchair plunges downward, the frothy, turbulent water silences Allan’s screams. He can’t breathe. His lungs strain. This is it. Water floods his mouth, and a fuzzy pain overcomes his thoughts.
Suddenly, he is hoisted from the water by a strong muscular arm and carried through the air. Allan coughs up the salty water. Shivers roll through his shocked body. Water cascades off him.
A large flying creature holds Allan and his chair tightly pressed to a furry chest. The weight seems too much for the creature. Its flight erratic and strained.
Thank you, thank you, is all Allan can think.
After a few minutes, Allan is set on hard stone. Adrenaline and shock rule his body as he gasps for air and hugs himself hard. It isn’t the first time Allan has almost drowned, but that doesn’t make it any less disturbing.
The creature leaps away as though it doesn’t want to be seen. Allan pushes his dripping hair off his face and wipes water from his eyes. He hugs himself again.
Dozens of lightstones are uncovered, and they illuminate the cave. A dozen upside-down, black-winged creatures cling to the ceiling. They shuffle around like giant bats. Another lightstone is dropped into Allan’s lap. He snatches the light and holds it up.
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