by P. J. Hoover
Benjamin’s dad flushed and looked down to straighten his shirt collar. “Well, I guess that’s somewhat accurate.”
Benjamin crossed his arms. “You could have tried telepathy, right?”
“Are you kidding?” Jack said. “You could try listening. Of course I tried telepathy. But after a couple months, I gave up.”
“Maybe you were doing it wrong,” Benjamin said.
Jack didn’t acknowledge the implication. “Of course, I was able to talk with Heidi, but she has an exceptional telepathic mind. Which, I might add, you do not.”
“Speaking of which, we really should get going,” Benjamin’s dad said. “You boys don’t want to miss your lunch date.”
Benjamin groaned. “It’s just lunch, Dad.”
“Yeah, not a date,” Andy added, though Benjamin was pretty sure Andy wished it was.
Benjamin’s dad laughed. “Fine. You don’t want to miss your lunch appointment. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 3
Telegnostics Are Like Bloodhounds
Heidi, Iva, and Gary stood outside the Deimos Diner waiting. When Heidi spotted them, she ran over and gave Benjamin a hug. Which was a little weird. Sure, he’d missed her and all, but he’d missed Gary, too, and it’s not like he would have hugged Gary. Iva maybe. Or maybe not. Iva Marinina was just so pretty, it made Benjamin’s lungs feel like collapsing to even look at her sometimes.
But apparently the pretty thing didn’t seem to bother Andy. Benjamin looked over just in time to see Andy lean into a hug with Iva. It lasted a few seconds too long, which Heidi noticed also. She grinned at Benjamin but kept her mouth shut.
“We were wondering if you’d be able to get away.” Gary extended his hand to shake both Benjamin’s and Andy’s. Jack slapped Gary a very small high five before settling back down on Benjamin’s shoulder.
Andy laughed. “It was pretty touch and go there at the end, but luckily Benjamin’s dad cleared things up with Nathan.”
“Who’s Nathan?” Iva asked as they headed into the diner and found a table.
“This guy who works for my dad,” Benjamin said. “Apparently we work for him this week.”
“Really, really boring work.” Andy shuddered.
“But at least Ryan Jordan has been suffering with us.” Benjamin grabbed a menu and flipped it over. It lit up and started to talk, but before it got a full word out, he flipped it back over.
“Ryan is working there, too?” Iva flipped her own menu over and switched it to the vegetarian options. “In Virginia?”
Andy looked up when Iva asked about Ryan. Benjamin felt jealousy pound through the Alliance bond. Like Iva would ever be interested in Ryan Jordan. Or would she? Sometimes girls were just so hard to understand. Actually, they were always hard to understand.
“It turns out my dad works in Wondersky City.” Benjamin watched how Iva silenced her menu, and then he flipped his back over and did the same. At least now he could order.
“Really?” Heidi asked. “What does he do there?”
Of course Heidi would ask.
“I don’t know,” Benjamin said.
“You’ve worked there three days, and you don’t even know what he does?” Heidi asked.
“Two and a half days,” Benjamin said. “And we haven’t seen him that much.”
“I think he works for an information security company,” Andy said.
Benjamin narrowed his eyes. How had Andy come up with something like that? “You do?”
“Did you notice how uncomfortable he got when Jack asked him about monitored conversations?” Andy asked.
Benjamin thought for a moment. “That’s true.” He turned to his shoulder where Jack had appeared. “What kind of work, besides filing stacks and stacks of boring records, goes on in Wondersky City?”
“Are you kidding? Did you happen to notice how big the place was?” Jack put up his arms to elaborate which wasn’t saying much since they were only a few inches long. “Everything goes on there.”
“So you guys have been spending the week filing?” Heidi ordered dessert, and her menu disappeared.
“There’s this awful room full of records that need to be sorted,” Andy said.
“Actually, there are four rooms. We’ve only gotten to the first one so far.” And then Benjamin remembered it. The record. “There’s something you guys need to see, though.” And he pulled out the record and handed it over to Gary.
Gary studied it for under a second. “Ancient Lemurian.”
Andy laughed. “Yeah, even Benjamin and I figured out that much. But what does it say?”
“Besides my name,” Benjamin said.
“Your name’s on here?” Iva grabbed the plastic sheet from Gary’s hand.
Gary stared at her while she looked at the record. “You plan on translating it?” he asked.
Iva handed it back to Gary. “Maybe.”
“Yeah,” Andy said. “Once you learn Ancient Lemurian.”
Iva shot him a glare.
“So what’s it say?” Heidi pointed to it. “And what’s this weird symbol at the top?”
Gary shrugged. “I don’t know about the symbol—it just looks like a few hearts twisted into a paradoxical pattern. But the writing isn’t all that old.”
“So it’s not Ancient Lemurian?” Benjamin asked.
Gary shook his head. “It is. But the sentence structure and grammar look pretty modern as opposed to the ten thousand year old wording I would have expected.”
“Whatever.” Benjamin shifted in his seat. “Can you read it?”
Jack floated over. “I could have read it. You didn’t ask me.”
True. Of course Jack knew the forgotten language. “I didn’t want to say anything about it in front of my dad.”
“Why?” Heidi said. “Didn’t you ask him about all the stuff Helios told you last summer?”
“Sure,” Benjamin said. “I mean I told him part of it.”
Heidi eyed him. There she went reading his mind again.
“Fine,” he said. “I didn’t tell him anything. I asked him about my birth and all, and he and my mom told me about the whole adoption thing. But they didn’t know anything about my birth parents or any triplets or anything like that.”
“So you’ve found out nothing in the last year,” Iva said.
“Nothing?” Benjamin pointed to the record. “I found this, didn’t I?” Now seemed like a good time to divert the conversation. “Anyway…?” He motioned at Gary and the record.
Gary squinted and frowned.
“What?” Heidi said.
“Well, it’s talking about a hidden object,” Gary said. “But none of these names or places sounds familiar.” He moved his hand over the record and pressed on it. A holographic map appeared in the air above it.
Andy’s eyes grew huge. “Whoa.”
They crowded closer to Gary. “Whoa is right,” Heidi said. “It’s a map of Lemuria.”
Gary nodded. “Yeah, but where’s Mu?” He pointed to some strange letter that looked nothing short of an eyeball on its side. “And here it talks about Geros, the old capital city, and its Ruling Hall, but the capital of Lemuria hasn’t been there in millennia.”
“Not to mention the ruins of the old ruling hall there were torn down a thousand years ago,” Jack added. He floated over and took a giant sip from Benjamin’s drink, leaving only about an inch at the bottom.
Benjamin grabbed it away and finished the rest, shooting Jack a dirty look.
“So what about the hidden object?” Iva asked. “I can find it if we go there.” Which was true. Iva was so good at telegnosis, she could pick out which hallway Benjamin had walked down three week earlier just by sensing the vibes. Not to mention she could see into the future. So finding random objects never posed a problem.
“It says here to travel to the Ruling Hall in the capital city of Geros,” Gary said. “Sixteen floors underground, in a hidden chamber, we’ll find the object we need to continue our search.”
“Fine,” Iva said. “So we just go to this Geros place, look in the ruins, and get the object. Right?” She looked around.
Jack settled onto the table and burped. “Geros is a long way away.”
“So we use a teleporter,” Andy said.
But Jack shook his head. “Nope. There’s a problem. Geros is off limits.”
“Figures,” Andy said.
“And actually there’s another problem,” Benjamin said.
Heidi’s mouth dropped open.
He scowled at her. “Would you stop reading my mind?”
She shut her mouth. “Sorry. It’s just with you guys all around, the Alliance bond is a bit overwhelming.”
Which was true. The bond the Emerald Tablet had formed last year between the five of them seemed to have intensified five times over since last summer.
“What’s the problem?” Gary asked. “We just figure a way to get access and go.”
Benjamin sighed. “The problem is Ryan has a copy of this record, too.”
Andy laughed. “It’s not like he’ll be able to read it.”
“Ryan’s not an idiot,” Iva said. “He could get it translated.”
Andy’s face fell. “I guess that’s true. But why would he care?”
But Iva’s frown only increased. “What if he doesn’t care, but he gives it to someone who does?”
“Like who?” Andy said. “Mr. Burton’s dead. And I don’t see anyone else trying to kidnap Benjamin and get him to use the keys of Shambhala for their own diabolical purposes.”
“Except my birth dad.” Benjamin had been trying not to mention it, hoping maybe it would magically go away. But whether he liked it or not, his birth dad was still out there somewhere, trying to find Benjamin.
“He doesn’t know who you are,” Heidi said.
“But I don’t know who he is either,” Benjamin said. “And if he’s looking for me, then he’s bound to be looking for my two birth brothers also.”
“Which would explain why Ryan Jordan would care about copying the record,” Heidi said.
Gary stood up. “Ryan may be a worm, but you really think he’s working for the enemy?”
Jack shrugged. “Someone always has to be.”
“You know, there’s one thing I’ve been thinking about,” Iva said. “Something to help find your brothers.”
“What?” A weight lifted off Benjamin. Good thing she’d been thinking about ideas, because aside from the record, he had nothing.
Benjamin felt a solid mind block go up around all of them. He looked to his shoulder at Jack, and Jack smiled in return.
“We can talk without being overheard.” Jack directed his thoughts to them.
Iva smiled. “I was talking with Kyri last week on the telecom and she mentioned something.”
Andy glanced sideways at her. “You were talking to a teacher during break?”
Iva ignored him. “She mentioned some telegnostics can imprint samples of DNA in their minds and then search the earth looking for that specific DNA sequence.”
“You mean like bloodhounds?” At the mere mention of DNA, Gary’s eyes had bugged wide open.
Iva nodded her head. “She told me there are secret organizations that employ telegnostics for just this purpose.”
“Our teacher told you about secret organizations?” Andy’s mouth fell open.
It was pretty amazing. But then Iva was their telegnostic teacher’s pet.
“They employ telegnostics to find people?” Heidi twisted up her mouth. “Why?”
“All sorts of reasons,” Jack said. “Maybe they’re criminals, or spies working for Atlantis, or anything.”
“Even people looking for long lost relatives,” Benjamin said. “But there’s one big difference.”
“What?” Iva asked.
“You said they needed a sample of the DNA to imprint on their minds.” He blew out the breath he’d been holding. “We don’t have a sample of my brothers’ DNA.”
“No, we don’t.” Iva smiled. “But we have you.”
“I get it,” Gary said. “You’re willing to bet that Benjamin’s DNA is close enough to his brothers’ that we can use it to track them around the Earth.”
“Exactly!” Iva said. “Even if they aren’t identical, they are triplets.”
Benjamin couldn’t help being a little skeptical. “So, even if my DNA could be used to match up to the DNA we’re looking for, what do we do then? March up to the door of one of these secret organizations and ask them to help us locate my long lost brothers?”
“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting!” Iva shouted aloud, forgetting where she was. Telegens at some of the closer tables turned to look, but Iva ignored them. “If you’d let me finish, maybe you’ll understand.”
Benjamin sighed. Iva was just trying to help. “Go on.”
Iva crossed her arms and leaned on her elbows. “Some telegnostics can do this on their own. But for those who can’t, there’s a telemagnifier that can boost power.”
Gary snapped his fingers. “So you could use this telemagnifier and track the DNA signature?”
Iva nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“So what is it?” Andy asked. “And where do we get it?”
Iva smiled. “It’s called Peridot, and I’m thinking we need to pay Morpheus Midas a visit.”
CHAPTER 4
The Return of the Chess Set
They walked down Mu Way until they found the three dimensional sign with the floating silver cube. The door to the Silver Touch chimed when they walked in—which didn’t happen every time. The entry chime was about as reliable as the giant squid in Wondersky City. Sometimes they let go. Sometimes they didn’t.
Gary walked over to the center of the store and stopped dead in his tracks. “It’s back.” His eyes were the size of golf balls, and he almost drooled.
“What’s back?” Andy asked, already looking elsewhere.
“The chess set. The Ammolite chess set,” Gary said.
Iva ran over to join him. “Oh, it’s so beautiful.” Her hand went to the pendant she wore around her neck—an oval piece of Ammolite on a leather strap.
Benjamin walked over to join Iva and Gary. “I thought it got sold last year.”
“It did,” a voice said from the back of the store. “But the new owner decided it could stay here as long as we played a game once a week.”
They turned at the voice.
“Morpheus!” Heidi said.
Benjamin turned to see Gary staring in the direction of Morpheus’ voice with his mouth wide open. And then he saw what Gary was staring at. Actually who Gary was staring at.
“It’s him!” Gary said telepathically. “It’s the guy from the Bangkok Chess Open.”
“You’re right!” Iva said. “And also Fortune City.”
“Sheer coincidences I assure you,” the man standing next to Morpheus Midas replied, obviously reading their thoughts.
But based on all those coincidences, if anyone had asked Benjamin last year who he thought the person searching for the keys of Shambhala had been, this man would have been first on the list—way ahead of Mr. Burton, the real perpetrator.
“What are you doing here?” Gary looked like he was about to have a convulsion. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Morpheus.
The man rubbed his beard. “I’m playing chess on my chess set.”
“Your chess set?” Andy had come over to join his friends; even an amoeba could have sensed Gary’s annoyance through the Alliance bond.
“Of course—my chess set,” the man said. “I bought it last year after winning the Bangkok Chess Open.”
“Winning!” Gary said. “How can you say that? You were reading minds. That’s cheating. And if you cheat, you’re not technically a winner.”
The man slapped Morpheus on the back, causing Morpheus to lurch forward a couple steps. “It was only on Morpheus here that I had to
resort to telepathy. With humans, it’s a matter of superiority.”
“So you admit it. You cheated,” Gary said.
The man tried to hold his smile, but it was fading—big time. “If you consider telepathy with another telegen cheating, then, yes, I suppose I cheated.”
“Enough, enough,” Morpheus interrupted. “Kids, I want you to meet Walker Pan, the buyer of the Ammolite chess set. Walker and I have been playing chess since last summer.” He sighed. “It’s part of the arrangement to keep the chess set here.”
“So who wins?” Gary still eyed the man.
“We’re pretty close to even,” Walker said. “And, before you ask, I insist we use mind blocks.”
“You should’ve insisted on that last year when you cheated your way to winning the Open,” Gary said.
Walker’s smile returned. “Gary Goodweather, if I had to guess I’d say you don’t trust me.”
Gary narrowed his already narrow eyes. “How do you know my name?”
Walker laughed. “Because Morpheus told me all about you and your friends. In fact, he mentioned you’re a fairly decent chess player yourself.” He raised an inviting eyebrow. “Perhaps we can play sometime?”
“I haven’t mastered mind blocking like I’m sure you have.” But even as he said it, Gary’s scowl started to fade along with the annoyance in his mind.
“Perhaps one of your friends—say Benjamin Holt—could place a mind block for you.” Walker looked to Benjamin. “He has one around his mind even now.”
Benjamin wasn’t sure how to respond. He was sure Walker had been following them around last year. Like turning up around every corner was all coincidence. But the strange thing was that Benjamin hadn’t placed the mind shield at all. Jack had put the shield up around Benjamin as soon as they walked into the store, but Walker didn’t seem to know that. He’d assumed, for whatever reason, that Benjamin had placed the block. And now, once again, Benjamin saw just how important mind blocks could be. Benjamin sighed inwardly as he added it to the top of his list of things to improve at. Along with everything else.