by Brandt Legg
We were all quiet, grasping for answers as to how we could stop that kind of evil. I watched the bubbles and realized they were a form of rain floating down from the ocean-sky.
“How can we stop all of this?” Dustin asked, exasperated.
“Nate, get Dustin up to speed on the powers you’ve already remembered.”
“I know more than you think,” Dustin said. “I don’t need Nate to play professor.”
Future Self gave me a concerned look. “There’s a lot to learn in this dimension. I’ll show you where to start. But mostly, we wait.”
“Wait?” we exclaimed in unison.
“All we can do is try to get the timing right. Because the moment you step back onto Shasta, you’ll be in a race against time.”
4
He led us to the first of the four lakes of Outin. The stars liquefied around the lake’s edge and flowed into it from all sides, creating a gold and silver sea of light surrounded by sparkling waterfalls, a virtually perfect circle, six or seven miles across and fittingly called Star Falls.
“You should swim in each of the four lakes every day. They affect us differently. This one helps conquer fear. The next one, Floral Lake is for nourishment; instead of eating and drinking, you swim.”
“No food here?”
“They don’t waste their time.”
“So there are people here? Where are they?”
“Remember, we only exist in our own imaginations,” Future Self said.
Dustin and I looked at each other and then back to Future Self.
“The beings who live here vibrate at a different frequency than we do. So you’ll only encounter them if they’re part of your experience or vice versa,” he said.
“No food, no people... ”
“No distractions,” Future Self finished.
“Some kind of spiritual boot camp?” Dustin said.
“The soul is powerful beyond your wildest imaginings. But to find the connections and see what is possible, you’ll need time... and Outin has a way of making time something entirely different than you’ve ever known.”
He left us at Floral Lake, promising to return. This one was nearly twice as big as Star Falls. The surface of its water, which was probably ninety square miles, was completely covered with millions of wildflowers—as if Monet’s palette had exploded. Upon closer inspection we discovered that these nearly stemless flowers were floating on a crystal clear, shallow body of water no more than ten feet deep. We stripped and dove in. It was bathwater-warm and velvety; the flowers closed in around us but parted easily as we swam.
Our hunger from before was instantly gone, and in its place was the feeling of having eaten the perfect meal. The water was more than nourishing—it was healing. I’d never felt healthier; I could hear better, see farther, and my arms and legs were lighter.
“Is this the freakin’ fountain of youth or what?” Dustin asked.
“Can you imagine if this was a spa back in our dimension? I mean anybody can get through the portal... What if someone discovered it and started advertising for visits to an interdimensional spa? They could charge a fortune for this treatment.”
It was impossible to know how long we were in the water. Time was a mystery in Outin because our cell phones didn’t work and there certainly weren’t any clocks or anyone to ask. As soon as we left the water, our bodies were dry. We dressed and started for the next lake. Future Self had given us a layout of the immediate area. The four lakes of Outin were arranged roughly like the leaves of a four-leaf clover. We would spend most of our time among them. There was a small structure, called the lodge, built entirely of black clay and stars, so that when you were lying inside on a cloud-like cot it was like camping under the night sky. Future Self had told us this was home during our stay. There were two small rooms and a tiny entrance hall that separated them, no doors or windows and no bathrooms; they weren’t needed. He said our packs would be safe. “Everything is safe here” were his exact words. The trees around us were home to more birds than seemed possible, the bright mixed hues of their feathers made them blend perfectly with the colored-globe “leaves.” They sang continuously, an extraordinarily beautiful sound that I imagined would be difficult to live without.
The skywaves started turning orange, which Future Self had told us meant the day was coming to an end. We were almost to Dreams Lake, the smallest of the four; its shape impossible to define since it was literally a sea of bubbles with even more bubbles rising several feet above it like fog. The water was almost too hot, but icy currents occasionally flowed through making it bearable. This lake’s purpose was to show us our dreams and fantasies. I was looking forward to seeing what was going on in the dark corners of my mind. Dustin was less enthusiastic, saying, “I already know what’s in my brain—chemical spills mixed with shattered pieces of funhouse mirror—it’s a mess.”
I lost him in the bubbles and realized in this water no swimming was required; it wasn’t even possible to dive below the surface. I floated, surrounded by images. A fantasy version of Amber, which seemed redundant, joined me. She was naked too, and we tumbled together in the water laughing, kissing, and then finished what we’d begun in San Francisco. It was a dream, so the sex was perfect. And because this lake was all about dreams and fantasies, Linh showed up next. She hid among the bubbles playfully. I chased and finally caught her in a kiss; it was the sweetest thing imaginable. Having kissed Amber in real life enough, I could tell the difference. Amber was sultry hot, leaving me burning in passion; Linh was a drop of dew. I breathed her in deeply, lavender. She smiled and whispered, saying beautiful things I couldn’t remember. I asked if she wanted to have sex, Linh nodded, but her soft words contradicted. “Let’s wait Nate. There’s time, a better time.” I didn’t know which one I really wanted. But that was second to the desperation I felt to somehow change the future and keep them alive.
The skywaves went from orange to brown. It was getting dark, and I reluctantly found my way out of the lake. I heard Dustin calling. We made it back to the lodge and fell asleep quickly. I woke up in the night terrified. I couldn’t shake the panic that Storch was going to succeed in killing the girls and all those innocent people at the mall. It had already happened in the future, so what chance did we really have to change that? Human life meant nothing to him. He and Lightyear had done so much damage to the world and to my family. Amber and Linh were next. A lump grew in my throat, and my palms were sweating. His terror just wasn’t going to end. I fidgeted with the gold box from my dad’s desk. There was something about it that gave me confidence. If I could just get it open, I just knew there was an answer inside. What did the inlaid jade pattern mean? There was a reason I found it with the list of nine names and pages of code, but what was it? My head was aching when the birds woke me again.
In the morning we found Rainbow Lake, which offered a glimpse into the future. From the surface to as far down as we could see, there were pockets and bands of bright Kool-Aid colored water—reds mixing with yellows, blending to orange, yellow overlapping blue turning green. What kept it from becoming one big stew of cloudy water?
I landed in between primary red and blue in a purple splash. Suddenly, I was at the Mall of America on a Friday night, months into the future, watching in horror as flames exploded to inferno. Just as Future Self had said, hundreds of teenagers who had escaped were caught in a hail of bullets. But I saw the real shooters, paramilitary types with cold hearts. How did Storch convince these guys that killing kids is okay? Their escape routes had been planned, backups ready. It was a precise operation, and the guns they left behind with our prints on them weren’t even the ones they used.
I met Dustin back on shore. “Did you see the mall attack?” I asked.
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t get to know everything, psychic-golden boy. Let’s just get to Star Falls and see what fun overcoming our fears is like.”
I left it alone.
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Star Falls had to be one of the most beautiful sights in this or any other dimension. But as soon as we were in the water, I was engulfed by terrors and tortures I thought would kill me, that I wished would kill me, things that rivaled my lifetime when I died at Dachau and surpassed it, horrors that I could never speak of—to anyone.
After the cruel nightmares of Star Falls and Rainbow Lake’s tragic future view, Floral Lake brought us back to life while the joy of Dreams Lake helped disperse the morning’s traumas. As the days passed I grew stronger, and Star Falls wasn’t quite as difficult to face.
For the next eight weeks we practiced our powers and rotated through the lakes. Future Self showed up one other time, and we argued with him about when we could leave. Dustin and I were so worried about what was happening in our world that we tried to find the way out even after being warned against it. We were trapped in Outin.
Before coming to Outin, I’d learned so much from Spencer and the other mystics about life and death, but the five great powers were the only things that had kept me alive. I wrote a list to help Dustin remember.
1. Gogen—(many forms) used in manipulating space and moving objects.
2. Vising—to transform energy and read people.
3. Timbal—deals with time, Outviews and prophecy.
4. Foush—for enhancing the senses, including Skyclimbing and Lusans (healing light orb).
5. Solteer—controls consciousness, such as putting people to sleep and making them see things.
All the natural soul abilities, which we thought so amazing, were part of the five great powers... and we hardly knew any of them yet. Teaching Dustin proved far more challenging than expected. It was the first time I realized how important being one of the seven was. He was good on the astral but mostly because our Aunt Rose, an astral projection expert, had spent a year and a half working with him. We both missed Rose; Dustin credited her with keeping him in touch with reality while locked up at Mountain View Psychiatric Hospital. Lightyear killing her took away our most trusted teacher... which was likely why Storch had ordered her murder.
Reading thoughts was Dustin’s strength, and he helped me develop my own abilities there. But he couldn’t create a Lusan no matter how many times he tried, and healing with hands eluded him. Moving things with Gogen frustrated him, and although he once got a small stone to wobble, nothing ever lifted off the ground. And Skyclimbing was no better. Solteer baffled him, planting a thought or vision in someone’s mind or putting someone to sleep he considered impossible, but he was making some progress on the various Vising disciplines, reading trees, rocks, me, and even notes I wrote him without his looking. And parts of Foush he could manage, seeing auras, color pops, shapeshifting animals, and Outviews but not nearly as often as I, and those were things he could do before Mountain View. I was interested to know if teaching others was going to be this hard or had he been irrevocably damaged by his time in the mental institution.
Star Falls’ torments were showing me that once you remember what your soul is capable of, only one thing can steal your powers—fear. I tried discussing this with Dustin because he was having great difficulty in those waters. It was possible his fears were slowing him down.
“Dustin, what are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know man. That hellish lake is like a stew of post-traumatic stress disorder, horrific deaths from past lives, Mountain View, bad drug trips, and all kinds of karmic payback. It’s not making me stronger; it’s breaking me.” We considered having him skip the Star Falls swims, but he wanted to continue. “I’ve got to do it. It’s like I can’t get my powers or find my purpose until I walk through the Valley of Death.”
I, on the other hand, was improving swiftly and now understood what Spencer had tried to tell me a month earlier, about learning too much at once without taking time to master any of it. And, just as the danger warning that made my body temperature rise and enhanced my hearing came to me without training, now I had a photographic memory. From then on, everything Dustin said was recorded in my head, and what I saw became part of me, ready for instant recall.
In between our time in the lakes and practicing, we took walks around the enchanted woods. I never lost the feeling that we were going to fall into the stars below. Occasionally we would step into what could only be described as a puddle, not much bigger than our feet. I don’t know how deep they were but when we dropped a rock into one, it fell through space and became too tiny to see anymore.
“How in the hell is all this time here, this endless waiting, going to help us stop the mall attack? Do you realize you and I have the power to actually make a difference? We could be heroes... “ Dustin said.
“I don’t care about being a hero. I just want Amber and Linh to live.”
“Don’t you mean all of them?”
I didn’t answer.
“What if you have to make a choice? A thousand dead at the mall... or saving your two girlfriends.”
“The universe isn’t cruel enough to force me to make that choice.”
“You forget.”
“What?”
“Earth is the cruelest place in the universe.”
“How do you know?”
He shot me a look. “I know. And you know I do. Up until a couple of months ago you’ve led a pampered life little brother, while I’ve been battling demons you know nothing about.”
“Stop getting so hung up on the past. We’re in the present together now and the future is frightening. Let’s worry about that.”
Perhaps the most interesting things we encountered in the fascinating world of Outin were the Windows. They appeared randomly and weren’t permanent. When we tried to return to one we liked, it wasn’t where we’d seen it before. Most were the size of a regular bedroom window, ripped into irregular shapes that peered into other times and other worlds, including our own.
We discovered the first one when Dustin noticed a torn section of contrasting ocean-sky ahead. Through it we could see a busy Manhattan street, the jumble of yellow cabs was a giveaway. It was probably the mid-seventies judging by the makes of the cars and a theater marquee that advertised All The President’s Men. I stuck my hand through and was pretty sure we could have crawled in but it seemed very likely there would be no way back.
Other Windows showed alien worlds, ranging from paradise to cruel wastelands. Most were versions of Earth. One Window showed my dad still alive at Dustin’s high school graduation, in that parallel universe Dustin never went to Mountain View. Another showed our parents divorcing years before my dad died, with us trading households on weekends. There was one where Dustin was drafted into the army to fight in the America-China war—a scary conflict we were losing as it entered its eighth year. The Windows were captivating, like watching alternative endings to a favorite movie, yet disturbing at the same time because somewhere this stuff was really happening.
It was a surprise when a portal appeared one morning on our way to Star Falls. As incredible as Outin had been, we were desperate to return to our world. We weren’t sure if Future Self sent the portal or if Outin somehow knew we were ready to leave, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t going to miss the opportunity to escape. I was suddenly flooded with fear and looked at Dustin.
“We can do this,” he said, with a nod.
“At least we know there are many futures out there, but most of them still wind up with the mall attack and the girls dying.”
“We have to try.”
“But, we may fail.” My voice trembled. “I’m afraid we’ll screw up and get everyone killed.”
“Remember what we’re capable of. We’re going to kick some ass!”
We stepped through the portal.
5
Monday, October 6
After Outin’s dreamscape, the first few steps on Shasta’s hard ground felt insulting.
“Nate, Dusty!” Crowd’s voice startled us, as if slapped from a vivid dream.
“Crowd, how’d you know we were com
ing out today?” He was the coolest and funniest of the mystics and had saved my life in San Francisco when Fitts pushed me off the cliff. Crowd was somehow gristly, hip, wise, laidback, and powerful all at the same time.
“Because you haven’t gone in yet. It’s the same day as when you went through the veil.”
“How can that be, we were there for like two months?” I asked.
“Time’s a funny thing... ”
“Hysterical,” Dustin said sarcastically.
“So what happened to the helicopter and the soldiers that were after us?”
“They’ll be here soon.”
“Are you kidding?” It wasn’t registering.
“Right now it’s about two hours before you went through. An Outin month is equivalent to about an hour in reverse time in our world.”
“That explains some of the ‘confusion’ I was dealing with before Mom sent me to the loony-bin,” Dustin said.
“You’re telling me we just turned back time?”
“Righto.”
“Then we could return to Outin and stay long enough to prevent Lightyear from killing Aunt Rose... or even my Dad... we can get them back! This is—”
“Slow down, Nate,” Crowd held up his hands. “It isn’t as simple as all that. They got Rose ten days ago, that’s 240 hours, which means you’d have to stay there for 240 months, that’s twenty years. I can’t even begin to do the math on your dad; he’s been dead four years. You’d have to stay in Outin for something like forever.”
“Two thousand nine hundred and twenty years,” I sighed.
Dustin gave me a look expressing awe and boredom at the same time.
“We need to get y’all out of here now, before the other ‘yous’ and the feds show up,” Crowd said firmly.
“Where?” Dustin asked.
“It’s your life,” Crowd said.
“Yeah, well, you’re the guide,” I said.
“If you’re asking... You are asking right?” He smiled.
I nodded.