~*~
THREE
Kellen walked across a deep-tufted white rug in Aleeta Gentry’s home. The spacious living room was adorned with expensive lime-colored and orange sectionals, plush chairs, and an array of glass and ceramic statues and curios.
But the beautiful room was a mess. Scraps of paper with hand-written formulas and sketches were littered all over the glass coffee table, along with half-eaten donuts and dirty coffee mugs. Tennis shoes were kicked into a corner, and rumpled sweats were strewn in a pile across the couch.
Kellen reached into his pocket, took out a small box, and popped a gumdrop into his mouth. Allie never was the little let’s-make-brownies homemaker, he thought as he glanced around the room. Her head was always too full of algorithms, source codes and methodologies. Funny. Thinking about it now. That was what I loved about her and hated about her, too. I guess I wanted her to love me as much as she loved her research. But she never did.
“Aleeta,” he called out. “Where are you? It’s me. I’m here.”
Aleeta came into the living room. Her face was white as chalk, her big brown eyes shining with tears.
“Oh, thank God!” She rushed across the living room. She was wearing well-tailored tan slacks that showed off her long legs. And a bright, multi-colored silk blouse that clung to her svelte upper body. Her lustrous blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun.
“Dammit, Kel, what took you so long?”
“Nice to see you, too, Allie. Been quite a while.”
“Over a year,” she replied coldly.
There was a pregnant pause, as the two sized each other up..
Kellen broke the silence. “Well, what’s so damned urgent? Where are the kids?” He looked around the room. “Can we talk in here?”
Her manner softened a bit, and she reached out to take Kellen’s hands in hers. They felt cool and smooth. “Don’t worry, Kel. I took care of that a long time ago. I fixed all the monitors so the Government only sees and hears what I them to. So far as they’re concerned, I am a model citizen 24/7.”
Of course you did, Kellen thought. He shouldn’t have expected any less from the world’s foremost expert in holographic development. “OK, great. So what’s going on? Where are the kids?”
“They’ve disappeared. I thought they went to school. They got dressed and went to the corner to meet the abie to school, just like every morning. I was busy with some paperwork and I didn’t notice anything was wrong until the school called and said the kids never arrived.”
“Have you alerted the authorities?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, don’t. No damned Pro-techs. We’ll figure this out ourselves. Without any lawmen sticking their snoop-probes into this.”
Aleeta smiled. She wasn’t tearing her hair out, or weeping hysterically. It was one of the qualities he admired about her. Cold and analytical under fire. Being a dedicated scientist always made sense to her, but it had often driven him crazy.
“How could you let this happen, Allie?”
She stopped smiling. “What? Are you accusing me of being a bad parent? After all the bullshit you’ve put this family through.”
“Okay, okay. Point taken. Think. Where could they be?”
Aleeta slowly sat down on one of her plush sectionals. She rubbed her temples with her long, slender fingers. After a minute, she looked up at Kellen. Her eyes were wide with excitement. “Why didn’t I think of it before? We can ask the house. It knows and sees everything.”
Kellen was not convinced. “Yeah. And it’ll blab it all to the IPA.”
“No, Kel. I told you I’ve fixed things. The house doesn’t spy for the authorities anymore. It reports only to me.”
He plopped down next to her on the sofa. “Maybe all these years I underestimated you, Allie-IQ.”
She grimaced. “You know how much I hate that name. But right now, we have to find our kids.” She clapped her hands and a holographic image of a woman’s head and shoulders appeared in the air in front of her.
“What is it, mistress?” the image inquired in a metallic voice.
“I need to find Jace and Tress. Do you know where they are at this moment, House?”
There was a faint whirring sound in the background before the house spoke again.
“Your children are safe, mistress. They never left the premises.”
Aleeta sucked in her breath and jumped to her feet. “Of course! The kids have gone into my secret lab out back. I should have guessed.”
“What secret lab? What the hell have you been up to?”
“Come,” she replied, taking his arm. “I’ll show you.” She led him across the room to two large glass doors facing the back yard. The two stepped outside.
In the backyard, they walked across neatly trimmed grass. Above them, black storm clouds were gathering. The air was stifling and sticky hot. Off in the distance, there was an ominous clap of thunder. The darkening sky suddenly lit up, as if caught in the glare of a gigantic flashbulb. And a few raindrops began to fall.
“Hurry,” she warned. “No time to waste. That storm could mean big trouble.”
He followed behind his ex-wife. As they passed a shoulder-high hedge, he stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Right in front of him was an unbelievably bucolic scene. His two young children were playing and laughing in bright yellow sunlight, and dashing in and out of a sprinkler system.
“What the hell is going on?” he blurted out. He was standing there, as raindrops fell, while his missing kids cavorted a few yards away in dazzling sunshine.
“Don’t stop. Walk right through it. It’s another holograph I use to fool snooping Pro-tech cars on the ground, and surveillance drones in the sky. The image will switch over to a stormy day illusion in a moment. I can change the scene to whatever the real weather happens to be. So nobody ever gets their snoop probes in a knot.”
Kellen scratched his head. “Now that’s my Allie-IQ! Always thinking, and....” He stopped in mid-sentence when she threw him a dirty look.
The two of them stepped through the false illusion. It was a stormy scene now, shimmering a bit, as another thunder clap crashed. A lot closer this time. The rain came down harder now. They made a run for it toward a small shed.
Aleeta opened the creaking wood door and motioned for Kellen to enter. Once inside, she went to the center of the shed and leaned down. She pulled up a hidden trap door to reveal a narrow stairway leading down.
She started down the steps and he followed. Aleeta snapped on a light. “Close the trapdoor,” she instructed.
In the light from a bank of overhead fluorescents, he could make out a huge, fully equipped scientific lab. There were metal and wood-working lathes, grinding machines, and a wall filled with hand tools. Another wall was covered with schematics, sketches and hand-written equations and notes.
“Damn, woman,” he exclaimed. “You’ve been busy. How come I never knew about this place?”
“You never came around that often. I sort of borrowed some funds and equipment to erect this laboratory to my own specifications. It allowed me to develop new technology.”
“What kind of technology?”
Aleeta smiled. “I’ll show you.”
~*~
FOUR
Anton and Nikki cautiously approached the Gentry home. Nikki knocked and rang the bell. She tried the door and found it locked.
No reply.
Anton nodded, and his partner whipped out an electronic de-coder. It hummed over the lock and in a few short moments the door beeped and opened. They entered the house quietly.
As they walked into the living room, a robotic voice cried out.
“Intruder! Intruder! Warning. If you do not leave these premises immediately, a call will be placed to the authorities.”
Anton replied to the holographic image appearing in front of him. “We are from the IPA. Stand down, House. We have this situation well in hand.”
“Please identify yourse
lves. Badge numbers, if you please.”
Anton felt his blood pressure rising fast. He barked at the holographic image.
“Enough! Tell me where Miss Gentry and Kellen Marlowe are…NOW!”
“My apologies,” the house answered. “I cannot reveal such information to a total stranger without Miss Gentry’s authorization.”
Anton snatched Nikki’s firearm from her holster and fired a shot into the ceiling.
“Listen,” Anton cried out, “if you don’t give me what I ask for, I shall seek out your control panel and tear your wiring to shreds with my bare hands. And then I’ll burn this house down to the ground.”
There was a pause and a whirring sound. Then, the house solemnly answered Anton’s threat.
“Threat evaluation 96 percent probability. The house must not be burned down. Therefore, I will provide the information you request. Dr. Gentry and Mr. Marlowe are somewhere in the backyard. Have a nice day.”
The house holographic image clicked off and disappeared.
Anton and Nikki moved toward the doors leading to the veranda and backyard.
Kellen stood before a large rectangular chamber, about as wide as a garage door, in one corner of the secret lab. It was roughly ten feet high, and appeared to be long enough to accommodate a good-sized automobile. The face of the chamber was a giant video screen, shimmering slightly in the dim light.
“That’s my Optikan Three,” Aleeta explained, with pride in her voice. “The first two versions had anomalies I couldn’t solve. They drew too much energy from the grid. It would have raised suspicions. But the Opti-Three is a solar-powered chamber fabricated from my own design.”
Kellen stared at the scene playing on the screen. It reminded him of something. But he just couldn’t place it. Something from long ago.
“This looks strange. What have you been messing with?”
Aleeta came over to stand next to him. “It started out as a lark. I wrote some new code and created software programs to amuse the kids. I redesigned my basic program structure and made better use of my archival database.”
“What did that produce?”
“What you’re looking at. A machine capable of creating all manner of holographic images.”
Kellen stared at the huge video screen before him. “And what am I looking at right now?”
“I call it The Children’s Corner.”
He didn’t reply, but just kept staring at the shimmering glass screen.
“I’ve created a number of different visual sections in the chamber. Channels, if you will. They’re populated by different fictional characters according to genre. I installed historicals, romances, mysteries, westerns…all sorts of adventures, and a lot more.”
Kellen exploded. “Have you lost your mind? Fiction! I spend my waking hours condemning fiction books to annex furnaces. You know the Government has banned fiction in any form as subversive and dangerous.”
Aleeta’s voice stayed calm, but she shivered. “I only meant it as a harmless diversion. Nobody was supposed to know about it.”
“And when they do, what? I spent years on that prison ship – you want that? You’ll lose everything – this house, your job as a scientist...maybe even your kids and your life. Is it worth all that?”
Aleeta didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring down at her feet. She picked up a small red tennis shoe. She looked at the screen. The other sneaker was in the holo-image, lying in emerald-green grass beside a road apparently made of yellow bricks.
“It’s not possible,” she whispered under her breath.
“What?”
She took a small controller from her pocket.
‘I thought this Mega-Chan device was the only way to turn the chamber on and off. But Jace must have fiddled with the controls and managed to turn the chamber on himself. Don’t you see? The kids have gone through the Glass.”
A crack of thunder sounded from outside, louder than before even though they were now underground. She grabbed Kellen’s arm. “We’ve got to go in after them! This storm…without enough solar energy, the system could shut down, and we’ll lose them forever!”
A voice spoke from the shadowy stairway.
“Seems you’ve been up to no good, Aleeta.”
Anton and Nikki stepped out into the light. The young IPA Agent had her right hand on the butt of her sidearm.
“Well now, Allie,” Anton said quietly. “Aren’t you glad to see an old acquaintance?”
Kellen stared at him. “I remember you. You were on the prosecution team at my trial. The one that got me sent to that hell ship.” He made a move toward Anton, but Aleeta stepped in and blocked his way.
“Please, Kel. Don’t do anything rash.”
“Good advice. You should listen to your wife. Or should I say ex-wife.” Anton smirked at Kellen.
Aleeta whirled around to face the Director. “Are we under arrest, Anton?”
“Let’s just call it protective custody. Come along now, you two.”
Tears welled up in Aleeta’s eyes. “I can’t. I can’t go with you. My children are missing. They need me. I have to find them.”
“But of course you do,” Anton said in a soothing voice. “We have them. Down at IPA headquarters. They’re safe and waiting for you. Come on. I’ll take you to them.”
Aleeta stared at him. “You’re lying to me, Anton.”
“No. It’s true, my dear.”
“You’re a lying pig. And I’m not going anywhere with you.” Aleeta suddenly threw Tress’s red tennis shoe into Anton’s face with all of her might. The impact caught the agent by surprise. He stumbled back and crashed into Nikki. The two of them fell with a thud to the lab’s cement floor.
Aleeta grabbed Kellen and yanked him forward. “GO,” she yelled. “We have to go through the Glass, before it’s too late!”
They ran toward the shimmering Glass image and plunged headlong through it.
The next moment they were running down The Yellow Brick Road.
In the lab, Anton raised himself up on one knee. He saw Aleeta look back over her shoulder.
“Allie, don’t go!” Anton groaned. “Come back. I can fix everything.” But she disappeared around a bend in the road.
Nikki helped him to his feet and grabbed her communicator. “I’ll call this in!”
Anton straightened his tunic and slicked back his hair. “No, Rosetti. I’ll take charge of this personally.” He poked his hand through the Glass, then motioned to Nikki. They slipped through the image and began to run.
~*~
FIVE
Kellen stood panting with his hands on his hips. He could not catch his breath. Sitting behind a desk twelve hours a day had taken its toll on him.
“Don’t stop now,” Aleeta implored. “We have to catch up with the kids. And those two cops are probably right behind us.”
Kellen stared the strange landscape all around them. It was weird. Like a cartoon landscape. With purple trees and red grass. Clouds in the sky above were all colors of the rainbow. And the birds in the trees roared and croaked instead of chirping. It gave him the creeps.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked.
“Don’t you remember all those stories your mother and grandmother read to you as a boy? Before the Banning.” She gestured at the yellow bricks on the narrow road beneath their feet.
“You’re on your way to the Emerald City. To Oz. And this is – ”
“— the Yellow Brick Road,” Kellen exclaimed. He stared at the rolling fields up ahead, dotted with scarlet poppies, and shook his head. “This can’t be happening.”
“It’s happening, Kel. Believe me.”
“How do we find our kids and get out of here?”
Aleeta held up her Mega-Chan. “With this. I designed the system so a viewer or participant can go to any fictional sector instantly. Like changing channels on one of those old TV’s. I’ll scan the programs until I can pinpoint the exact location where the kids are.” She pressed some buttons.
The air around them shimmered like heat rising from a tarmac road. There was a jumble of unrecognizable images, then static. Aleeta kept punching buttons on the Mega-Chan but didn’t get the results she wanted. She bit her lip. “Damn it.”
Kellen saw her uncertainty and felt a surge of panic. Allie never lost her cool. If she couldn’t make her own program work maybe they were stuck.
“Didn’t you test that blasted controller before you let our kids play with it?”
“Of course I tested it,” she replied angrily. “And I didn’t let them play with it! In fact, they are forbidden access to the lab unless I’m there. But Jace obviously thought rules didn’t apply to him – like father, like son.”
Kellen opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again. Aleeta wasn’t even looking at him, her attention still focused on the Mega-Chan.
“The storm....” she muttered. “The electromagnetic charges are impacting the stabilizer in the holographic receiver...”
“Uh-huh. And the translation is – we’re screwed.”
He glanced down the road. “What now, Allie-IQ?”
“We keep on hoofing it. Let’s go.”
Aleeta led the way along the Yellow Brick Road. As they pressed forward, Kellen saw tiny figures engaged in all manner of activities along the way. And it was a population he was beginning to remember and recognize. It was the weird, almost-forgotten world of Kellen’s childhood. It didn’t exist, yet here it was -- all around him.
As they passed hamlet after hamlet, excited little Munchkins rushed out, eagerly shouting and waving. He saw the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe surrounded by a screeching brood of kiddies. There was Margery Daw, Georgie-Porgie, little Tommy Tucker, Peter Piper, Daffy-Down-Dilly, and even jolly old King Cole.
A little farther down the road, Jack and Jill were starting up that hill to fetch a pail of water. And high above them the Gingham Dog and Calico Cat sat in a wicker basket sailing toward a purple cloudbank.
“How can they all be alive?” Kellen asked.
BEYOND THE LOOKING-GLASS: Book One in the BEYOND Series Page 2