by James Phelan
“It’s coming down!” Issey said.
Sam didn’t like it. Didn’t like all of this—the weather, the accident with Issey’s mom that changed their plans and he certainly didn’t like that the elevator was not where it was meant to be.
The weather and the accident that followed could not have been avoided.
But this could have. Either their friend forgot, or something came up.
“Maybe it was the weather!” Issey said, close enough into Sam’s ear to be heard over the crashing sound of the waves breaking against concrete and stone. “Maybe he had to go back up to check on something!”
“Yeah,” Sam replied. “Maybe.”
They didn’t have to wait long. Five minutes, to be exact. At the four-minute mark they could make out the bottom of the elevator as it slowly clinked its way down. About the size of a phone booth, it had a solid steel bottom panel, while the sides and door were like a chain-link fence.
When it got to the ground and set down, the electric motor stopped and the chain was silent in the wind.
Neither Issey nor Sam was in a rush to open the door because on the floor of the elevator was a helmet. A white safety helmet, like you’d see on a construction site.
And it was splattered with blood.
26
At the top, the elevator stopped, the metallic clink-clink-clink of the chains running through the huge toothed wheel ended with a dull thud.
Sam cringed as he looked around, expecting a grizzly find—perhaps a body … that of the island’s superintendent.
Instead, by the tight, bright beams of their flashlights against the dark, they found nothing but an open, rainswept courtyard, surrounded by concrete buildings that towered over them and shut out much of the wind.
Empty of life and devoid of a body.
Everything was quiet and still but for the squalls of rain and wind that lashed against the buildings.
“Maybe he just banged his head?” Sam said to Issey. “That’d explain the helmet. He might have slipped in this weather.”
Issey nodded, then pointed over to a set of double doors set into a squat concrete building. They were big, heavy steel doors and one was ajar.
Sam and Issey ran across the courtyard toward it.
Issey slipped over on the wet ground, his flashlight clattering across the concrete and rolling to a stop around a dark corner.
Sam helped his new friend to his feet, and together they made their way, slower this time, across the wet ground to retrieve the flashlight. As they neared, they could see its light shining down a tight alleyway between two tall buildings—
“Stop!” Sam whispered into Issey’s ear, grabbing onto his arm. They stood dead still.
“What is it?” Issey asked, spooked.
“There …” Sam shone his flashlight in front, into a corner where a shoe was visible.
“It’s just an old shoe,” Issey said. He went forward a few paces and picked up his flashlight.
The shoe twitched.
What the …?
Issey was frozen, stunned like a deer in the headlights.
Sam could see from his position that the shoe was attached to a leg. And that leg, to a body. It was moving, slowly. It was being dragged into the alley.
Dragged by …
“What is that?” Sam gasped. Their lights picked out a large, dark shape, hunched over the body. It was indistinguishable in the rain and from that distance. Then their flashlights picked out two shining spots.
A pair of eyes.
Huge, green-yellow and staring right back at them.
“Run!” Issey yelled, already passing Sam.
“I’m running!” Sam yelled, skidding on the ground as they threw themselves toward the double doors, squeezing inside and slamming the doors shut behind them—
BOOM!
The doors shook from a huge impact.
BOOM!
They backed away.
The air smelled of wet dog and bad breath.
Sam and Issey remained silent and still, and after a moment all seemed quiet. Sam pulled off his backpack, retrieving the dart pistol.
Whatever it was, it’s gone for now. But if it’s smart, it might be looking for another way in here.
The doors were hinged to open outwards, so ramming them from outside would not immediately threaten them. Examining the doors, Sam could see the steel was thick, perhaps built during the last war to be sturdy enough to withstand explosions.
“What is that out there?” Sam asked. “I thought you were joking about hearing noises on the island.”
“There was nothing like that here before—when I came. I can’t believe it. It was the beast you told me about from your nightmare! Here, in real life …” Issey said, and he started to hyperventilate.
“Calm down, Issey, it’ll be OK, yeah?” Sam said, shining his light around the corridors that peeled off left and right, long and dark. But at least they appeared to be alone.
We have to find the Gear and get off this island as quickly as we can.
“It … it was eating someone—”
“Issey, I need you to get it together,” Sam said. “Please, can you? You have to try. You need to focus right now, OK? Look at me. Focus, calm down. That’s it …”
Issey took a deep breath and nodded, then started to choke.
“Shh, it’s OK,” Sam said, his arm around Issey’s shoulders.
BANG!
“It’s going to get in here!” Issey cried.
“Those doors are strong,” Sam said. “Besides, it’s no monster or nightmare beast. I think it was a dog.”
There are no such things as monsters. The monsters we have to worry about are human.
“A dog?”
“OK, a big dog. But it had fur, it had a coat like a dog. And the eyes—and the smell.”
“A dog—eating a man?” Issey sounded unconvinced.
“Maybe it was trying to help him,” Sam said. “To try and wake him up.”
Is he buying this?
“And what does it want with us?”
“Maybe it’s the island guard dog and it sees us as intruders,” Sam said. “If he’s just doing his job, we have to do ours. We have to find that Gear.”
Issey wasn’t hearing Sam, and if he was he certainly wasn’t comprehending anything that he was saying.
“That wasn’t the superintendent,” Sam said.
“It wasn’t?” Issey said. “How do you know?”
“Because that person was in a uniform,” Sam said. “The uniform of Stella’s Agents. Which means that they’re here, already, they’re ahead of us.”
“But … how?”
“Honestly, I don’t know right now. I’m sure we could figure it out,” Sam said, “but this is not the time to do that. Right now your mom is down there in a boat, injured.” As Sam spoke, his tone was full of reason. “We have to work together, and fast, before anyone else gets hurt, OK?”
“OK.”
“Good. Now, where’s the Gear?” Sam said, his voice now trying to soothe and convince Issey to push on. “Where is it? Where do we need to go?”
“I …” Issey said, looking around, his expression blank. He looked down to the floor when he said to Sam in a quiet voice. “I know it is on the island. I saw it in a room, as part of something else, but I’m sorry, Sam—I’m not sure where to start looking.”
27
ALEX
“We all know that she’s somehow been tapping into dreams, right?” Alex said into his phone. “Stella, I mean. And we know now what she’s attempting to do next.”
“And what is that?” Lora asked, her voice crackling with static interference. Alex was making the call from just outside the heavy doors of Matrix’s secret lair, the first place he could find to get at least passable phone reception.
“It’s about the Dreamer Doors—she’s going to try to take it over,” Alex explained.
“Alex? Alex, you’re breaking up,” Lora replied. “Can … you
get to … video …?”
“Sorry?”
“Can you make a video call?” Lora repeated, this time coming through clear enough for Alex to make out her voice.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I’ll text you … details,” Lora said, hanging up.
Alex went back inside. They’d gagged Matrix so that he wouldn’t disturb them, and then gaffer-taped his office chair to a column. The three towering Tesla coils hummed with the energy coursing through them. Every now and then a thin blue line of electricity would crackle and spark between them. He could only imagine the scene in here when they were turned from standby to full operating power.
“How’d your phone call go?” Shiva asked.
“Terrible reception,” Alex said.
“It’s the coils, they’re only running at less than five per cent, but it’s enough to disrupt electronic signals and microwaves within a half-block radius.”
“Geez, no wonder Tesla never really got this thing fully operational,” Alex said, passing over his phone with the details of the video-call address. “Can you link us up to the Academy via video?”
“Yep, give me a sec,” Shiva said, setting up the program on Matrix’s laptop.
“Where’d they link into the power grid?” Alex asked, seeing the massive power cables snaking out of the room and down into the city works system. “City Hall, like we did?”
“Nope, that power wasn’t enough,” Shiva replied.
“They needed more?”
“They needed more, and a supply that was more resilient to the surges as each of the old coils kicked in.”
“So where’d they find that kind of power down here?” Alex asked.
“The New York Stock Exchange,” Shiva said.
“Oh, man.”
“OK, here, video-calling them now,” Shiva said. It took a few seconds and then the call was answered.
Lora’s face came up on the screen. Despite the electronic shielding case on the computer, the image on the screen was still like a slightly out of tune TV.
“OK, we see you,” Lora said.
“And we’re reading you,” Shiva replied.
“Hold on, we’re just patching in the Director out of Amsterdam.” Lora was seated next to the Professor, and she adjusted the camera so that Alex and Shiva could see better.
“Eva!” Alex said, seeing his friend sitting in on the call too, all the way over on the other side of the Atlantic.
“Hey, Alex!” Eva said. “How’re you doing?”
“Never been better,” he smiled. “Just dodging danger at every turn and doing my bit to save the world from evil. All in a day, right? How about you?”
“Oh, same as usual,” she said. “Still waiting for my awesome dream that they figure I’ll have any day now.”
“Yeah, gotta admit, I’m not holding my breath about me having my last 13 dream either. Could be a load of old baloney, if you ask me,” Alex said.
Do I really mean that? I hope that’s not true.
“Alex,” the Professor interrupted, “It’s wonderful to see you safe and sound. I hear there are some promising developments from the field.”
“Roger that, Professor, and you too, Director,” Alex said, seeing the screen now divided into three locations—he and Shiva in New York, the Academy in London, and the Enterprise contingent in Amsterdam. “We’ve been here in Manhattan, that is, Shiva and me—”
“I,” Eva said.
“Huh?” Alex said.
“It’s—”
“We understand,” the Director said. “Are you two OK?”
“We’re fine, now,” Alex replied. “Had a little run-in with our friends Stella and Matrix. It’s cool though, we handled it, pretty awesomely too if I may say so. Shiva?”
“I’d say so too,” Shiva chipped in. They could see the Director smiling.
He’s taking that as a win for the Enterprise. I guess I really am one of them now.
“It’s like we entered ‘Expert Mode,’ right?” Alex said, making a private joke with his friend. “I mean, the way you rode that motorcycle, and then we were like argh! and then we took out Matrix, like, whack! and then we had a few seconds, and Matrix was all, ‘Argh, I’m gonna die,’ and we got him to stop the bomb and—”
“And do you know what he was up to with the Tesla coils?” the Director asked.
“Well, yes, we think so, sir,” Alex replied, coughing and straightening up. “I—we believe he was planning on somehow interfering with the Four Corners Competition.”
“Really?” the Professor leaned in, concern etched on his face. “So, that’s their plan.”
“Looks like,” Alex replied. “And who knows how far they’ve gotten with it, or how they’re going to manipulate it.”
“Or why,” added Eva.
28
SAM
Taking the nearest flight of stairs, they arrived on the next level down where they came to a control room of sorts. It was a glass box that overlooked inky blackness that their flashlights could not penetrate. Sam figured it was some sort of underground storeroom, and that it was vast.
I guess here’s as good a place to start as anywhere. Maybe something will jog his memory.
“What was this place?”
“A government outpost,” Issey said, looking around the room for anything of use. “I’m not sure if it was military or civilian. It was one of those places that they could go to in the event of a war or catastrophe and live underground for a long time. On my school trip, they said there were provisions here for thousands of people to live out a nuclear winter, maybe even for a hundred years.”
“Great, another one of those places …”
“You’ve been somewhere like this before?”
“Yeah, once or twice,” Sam said, then he stopped at a wall and shone his light on a laminated poster. It was a schematic of the facility.
“Here,” Issey said, tapping the elevation plan. “This is us. The room we’re looking out over is the main living quarters. There’s an internal greenhouse, recreation areas, sleeping quarters all around it over three levels … and here, the storage areas branch off it on the western side, and they go down to sea level.”
“Does this help? Sam asked.
“Yes, I can see from this it’s in the storage area,” Issey said, walking away from the diagram and looking out the window at the seemingly infinite abyss of darkness. “I remember passing rooms filled with supplies in my dream.”
Sam looked at Issey’s face in the reflection in the glass.
He looks more certain now.
“We have to keep moving,” Sam said, opening a door to a balcony with a gangway stretching across the three-storey void. “Stella and her thugs are in here somewhere—they’ll be searching too, but only you know exactly where the Gear will be.”
I hope that’s true …
“Then I’ll lead,” Issey said, genuine confidence returning to his voice. He started off at a jog and then a flat-out run.
“Maybe we should be a bit quiet—OK, whatever,” Sam muttered as he broke into a run to keep up with the disappearing Issey.
The steel gantry rattled under their footfalls and the echoes reverberated through the concrete cavern.
Sam cringed at the sound but knew they had little choice—it would take too long to cross the expanse before them if they were stealthy. He imagined how they would look to anyone looking for the source of the commotion—two figures, easily spotted by their flashlights, charging through the darkness. It would seem like they were running through the air.
And if Stella is down here, she can probably hear us too.
And see us.
PING!
A dart ricocheted off the handrail just behind Sam.
Man, I hate it when I’m right!
More hit the underside of the bridge—Stella’s thugs were below them.
“Keep low!” Sam shouted, and they ran in a crouch. “And turn off your flashlight!”
Da
rkness fell all around them, cloaking them.
They continued on at a jog, Sam with his hand on Issey’s back as he ran straight ahead with his hands out in front of him.
Sam could hear whooshes through the air as the darts continued to fly their way, missing the bridge as their attackers fired blindly into the dark, their lights failing to reach them.
“We’re close!” Issey said.
PING!
Issey stopped abruptly, Sam crashing into his back.
“There’s a door,” Issey said, “but it’s locked.”
PING! PING!
Sam felt around the door itself. Like that at the other end of the gangway, it was made of timber.
“Stand back!” Sam said. He felt the handle again, made a mental picture in the dark of where his target was, then took a couple of paces back. He forced himself to concentrate and ignore the darts that continued to ping and whoosh around him. He approached the door and threw out his leg, his heel connecting with the wood next to the handle.
Not much happened other than Sam reverberating with the impact as his body absorbed as much of the blow as the door. He tried again, and again, and again, each time more frantically.
Come on!
And then—
CRACK!
The door splintered around the lock and another kick later—
SMASH!
The door flew open.
WHACK! WHACK!
Darts pounded into Sam’s backpack, one bouncing from his Stealth Suit arm.
“Let’s move!” Sam said, flicking on his flashlight as they entered.
The room was empty.
“This isn’t right,” Sam said. “The plans showed a passage leading down below the level in the main chamber, to the storage cells.”
“There’s nothing here but the door we came in through,” Issey said, looking around the small square room. “And this switch by the door.”
Sam inspected the switch—it seemed unusual, like a big industrial lever of some sort.
Then he looked at the floor. It wasn’t concrete, like the walls and the ceiling, it was a steel plate. Around the edges, it didn’t quite touch the walls. There was a shadow line, a gap, big enough to put his thumb in.