The Navel of the World

by P. J. Hoover

  The image of Morpheus’ basement popped into Benjamin’s mind and apparently Andy’s, also.

  “I wonder if Morpheus has any in the trunk in his basement,” Andy asked.

  “You know I can time travel as much as I want, and I don’t need any telemagnifiers,” Jack said.

  “So do you ever do it?” Benjamin knew the answer. Really, nothing the Nogical did surprised him.

  “Sometimes,” Jack said.

  “So what kinds of things is time travel allowed for?” Andy asked.

  Images of dinosaurs and volcanoes and wars crossed over the screen. “Damage control,” Mr. Hermes said. “The Department of the Preservation of Time is responsible for acting on tips received to track down rogue time travelers from both Lemuria and Atlantis.”

  “Do you think I’ll be able to time travel?” Benjamin asked Jack.

  Jack smiled. “Definitely. And sometime you’ll have to try it.”

  “When?” Benjamin asked Jack.

  Jack closed his eyes and sat back for the rest of lecture. “Maybe sooner than you think. Or maybe later than you think. It’s all just a matter of time.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Benjamin’s Brother Might Be on Mars

  Magic Pan stood at the dining hall entrance Saturday morning greeting everyone who walked in. Aside from seeing him in homeroom, none of them had actually met Magic Pan. Sure, Benjamin was halfway convinced Magic’s dad was a traitor to Lemuria but decided not to mention that small detail. Better to say too little than too much.

  Gary extended his hand, and Magic Pan nearly pulled it off shaking it.

  “Would you care to make a bet, Gary?” Magic asked while they shook.

  Gary pulled back his hand. “What kind of bet?”

  “On who can get the menus working sooner, of course,” Magic said.

  “The menus are locked out,” Gary said. “They can’t be fixed.”

  Magic put a finger to his chin. “So you’re declaring me the winner already?”

  Gary laughed a totally non-funny laugh. “I’d hardly call that winning.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Magic said. “Even in school there are winners and losers. Much like chess.” And then Magic winked at Gary.

  Gary scowled. “If you cheat, it’s not winning.”

  Apparently Walker Pan had told his son about the chess game thing after all.

  “I’m not saying I disagree,” Magic said. “But, let’s just say, sometimes cheating is necessary to assume the winning position.”

  Gary’s scowl darkened a few shades. “What? Do you plan to cheat on fixing the menus?”

  Magic shrugged. “Cheating or not, the food lines have come to an end.”

  Andy licked his lips. “No way! That’s fantastic.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had about as much mush meat as I can stand,” Benjamin said. “And I sure won’t miss Leena.” He gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of the lunch lady.

  “Oh, she’ll still be around,” Heidi said. “Maybe not serving our food, but always around.”

  “So you’re not kidding, are you?” Andy asked.

  “Would I kid about a thing like this?” Magic said.

  “So how’d you pull it off?” Benjamin asked. “How did you get the menus back online?”

  Magic Pan smiled at them. “You may think of me as someone who can repair the impossible, obtain hard to find items, collect useful information. When you are in need, remember your Year Two Denarian friend—Magic Pan!”

  Magic stepped aside so they could go on to the dining hall. Benjamin saw Leena Teasag across the room closing down the food lines. Looking over at Heidi, he saw her engaged in a blocked, telepathic conversation with Leena. If Heidi ruined the menu system somehow, he’d find some way to teleport her to Antarctica and leave her there.

  Once they sat down, Iva threw the Peridot ring onto the table. “This thing sucks.”

  “So I guess you didn’t have any luck,” Andy said.

  Benjamin cringed, waiting for Iva to erupt like a volcano. But Andy was right; Benjamin kind of wanted to toss the ring across the room, also. How could she not have found anything?

  “No, no luck,” she said.

  “Maybe Benjamin’s brother is on Mars,” Gary said.

  Benjamin glared at him.

  “Well, it is possible,” Gary said. “Remember the base Lemuria has on Mars?”

  “So why didn’t this work?” Benjamin said. “Seriously, Iva, if you can’t find something this way, I don’t have any other ideas.”

  “You didn’t come up with the idea in the first place,” Iva said.

  “Maybe you missed something,” Andy said.

  “No, I didn’t miss anything,” she said.

  “You could’ve,” Andy said.

  “Look, I’m doing the best I can here. If I say I didn’t miss anything, then I didn’t miss anything,” she said.

  “Maybe their DNA is too different from mine to detect,” Benjamin said. It was the only way he thought he could tactfully say she’d missed something.

  “Maybe your brothers are dead, Benjamin.” Heidi’s voice was almost inaudible.

  And there is was; Heidi had said it. The thing he’d been afraid of ever since Iva’s lack of success. “I thought about that,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Iva said. “But if they were dead, their DNA signatures should still be strong enough, even after fourteen years; they would have shown up.” She sighed. “Maybe I did do something wrong.”

  This was just heading down the wrong path, fast. Time for a subject change. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” Benjamin said.

  Heidi smiled. “Good idea.”

  Benjamin frowned.

  “What?” Heidi said. “You’re broadcasting it like a beacon.”

  Benjamin threw up a mind block. “Fine. How’s this?”

  “Much better,” Heidi said.

  “And…” Andy said.

  Benjamin looked at Heidi. “Would you like to do the honors?”

  Heidi smirked but still sent out her thoughts. “Benjamin thinks we should time travel back to Geros in the past to get whatever object someone stole.”

  Gary’s eyes lit up. “Time travel.” And he looked like if he’d been able to go on the spot, he would have given up his left arm.

  “But how?” Iva asked.

  She was always so skeptical.

  Benjamin sighed. “I don’t know that yet. I only just came up with the time travel thing after lecture the other night.”

  “It’ll work,” Gary said.

  “How do you know?” Iva said.

  Benjamin leaned in. “Simple. We find a way to get a time travel telemagnifier and travel back a thousand years ago to before the ruins were torn down.”

  “So if we go back in time and get the object, does that mean whoever stole it recently won’t ever get it?” Andy asked.

  Benjamin looked at Andy and smiled. “Maybe they never got it in the first place. Maybe we got it first.”

  But Gary shook his head. “No, you guys heard Mr. Hermes the other night. It’s no guarantee.”

  Iva stood up. “It doesn’t matter. It’s the best idea we’ve had yet.”

  “Hey,” Benjamin said. “I had the idea.”

  “Sure,” she said. “But you haven’t figured out how to do it.”

  “And let me guess,” Andy said. “That’s where the rest of us come in.”

  But after checking around, it seemed getting a time travel telemagnifier was actually harder than Mr. Hermes had suggested. Impossible would have been a better word; they were available nowhere. Benjamin stewed about it all night but still came up empty.

  Along with an elective, all Year Two Denarians got assigned an enrichment activity, which for Benjamin and his friends turned out to be Archaeological Digs. On the morning of their first class, public teleporter access had been arranged, but Benjamin had a different idea. It was only after spending ten minutes convincing a skeptical Gary ever
ything would be fine that Benjamin finally teleported them all naturally.

  When they arrived on a sandy beach, relief poured into Gary’s face. “That’s it? That’s all there is to it?”

  “What did you think?” Benjamin asked. “You’d be able to feel pink, squishy brain or something?”

  Gary cleared his throat. “Fine. So it was no big deal. You’ve proven your point.”

  “And you’ve proven you can teleport us,” Iva said. “That’s terrific.”

  Heidi’s hair had turned pitch black, which all things considered, looked pretty good on her. “And really cool too!” she said. “Now we can go wherever we want.”

  “It’s the getting back through the dome part that’ll probably be tricky,” Benjamin said, remembering why Jack never teleported to see him during the past year.

  Iva turned away. “We can worry about that when the time comes.”

  They gathered around with the rest of the class. Their Arch Digs teacher, Sci Omega, had already started talking.

  “So you might notice we’re still in boring old Lemuria today.” His brilliant, blue eyes sparkled as he spoke. “But the history is rich here. Give it a few minutes, and you’ll feel the vibes.”

  “What is this place?” Gary looked around.

  They stood on a beach at the bottom of a bunch of cliffs. And really big cliffs, too—the sheer walls jutted into the sky. At the base of the cliffs stood large stone columns supporting elevated platforms, crumbling with age, and at the edge of the water sat enormous stone creatures with the heads of eagles and bodies of lizards. The creatures rested on their haunches, watching over the ocean, situated every so often, and went on, it looked like, forever.

  “A portal for one of the previous capital cities,” Sci Omega said. “Everyone who came to Lemuria had to pass through The Crags.”

  Iva cocked her head. “The Crags?”

  Sci Omega waved with an arm at the giant statues. “The guardians you see before you. The Crags watched over the beach, protecting the tunnels inside the cliffs from invaders.”

  “How many capital cities were there in the past?” Benjamin asked. The Crags now made three including Mu and Geros.

  Sci laughed. “A lot. But when it was here at The Crags, Lemuria was at war. Most people lived either in tunnels or underground.”

  “How many people lived in the tunnels?” Andy craned his head around to look at the platforms leading to openings in the cliff walls.

  “Hundreds of thousands,” Sci said. “They stretch underground for miles in all directions.”

  Gary shook his head. “That’s a lot.”

  Sci inclined his head.

  “So what are we supposed to do today?” Heidi asked.

  Benjamin smiled. For some reason it made him happy knowing Heidi couldn’t read everyone’s mind.

  “Explore,” Sci said. “No digging; no excavation. It’s prohibited in The Crags. Walk around. Listen to the stones. If you are quiet enough you can hear. The memories of hundreds of thousands of dead Lemurians are preserved here. But…” and here, his blue eyes pierced into each of them, “…don’t venture into the tunnels.” And the piercing look disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “Meet back here at two o’clock. I’ll be up there.” He pointed to one of the elevated platforms at the top of a large column and teleported away.

  They sat on top of a Crag’s head to eat lunch. Benjamin noticed Andy position himself next to Iva—he always did, but either she didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “So I know where your brothers are,” Iva said, catching Benjamin off guard.

  “What?”

  Iva looked down. “I figured it out last night.”

  And she’d waited until now to tell him? “Where?”

  “Well I don’t really know exactly where they are.”

  Andy stared at Iva. “What are you talking about?”

  But Heidi smiled at Iva. “Maybe just try to explain it.”

  “Good idea,” Benjamin said. “And then you can explain why we’re here right now rather than going to get them.”

  Iva sighed. “We can’t just go get them.”

  “Why?” Benjamin said. “Are they dead?”

  But Iva shook her head. “Oh, no. I mean, not really.” She paused. “Well, I guess kind of they are. At least I think so.”

  Benjamin stared at her.

  “They’re back in time,” Heidi said, and Benjamin turned to look at her, then back at Iva.

  Iva nodded. “Right. Based on all the scanning I’ve been doing for your DNA, it’s the only answer. Someone hid them back in time. I figured it out when you mentioned traveling back in time to Geros.”

  “What about forward in time?” Gary said.

  Iva shrugged. “Sure. Maybe they’re forward in time.”

  “In which case they aren’t dead,” Gary said. “They just wouldn’t exist.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Benjamin said. “Wherever they are, we just time travel and go get them. Right?”

  “Wrong,” Iva said.

  “Why not?” Benjamin asked. Why was Iva always so pessimistic?

  “Because if they did time travel, then we have no way of locating them,” Iva said. “I can only trace their DNA with the Peridot in the present.”

  “Oh come on, Iva,” Andy said. “There has to be some way.”

  “Even if we could locate them somehow, which we can’t, how would we get them?” Iva asked. “Who knows if we can even time travel at all?”

  “Jack thinks I’ll be able to,” Benjamin said. “And we can keep trying to find a temporal phasing telemagnifier. Maybe Nathan Nyx can get us one.”

  “You heard Mr. Hermes in lecture. You can’t get TPTs,” Iva said. “Let’s just face it—it would’ve been better if I hadn’t figured it out. We can’t find them, and we can’t retrieve them.”

  “I may be able to help you.”

  Five heads whipped around in the direction of the voice. There stood a girl just cresting the head of the large Crag. She had a white dress, olive skin, and long green hair braided into a million tiny braids. And though her eyes seemed to shift between colors, they looked green most of the time.

  Benjamin stood up. “What did you say?”

  “I said I may be able to help you.” She grinned and took a few steps closer to them.

  Iva glared at the girl. “How much of our conversation did you eavesdrop on?”

  “Enough to know you need help.” The girl flipped some of her green braids over her shoulder and smiled like she’d done nothing wrong.

  “You know it’s not polite to sneak up on people and listen in on conversations you have no right to listen in on,” Gary said.

  The girl scowled at them. “You guys are up on my Crag. And you didn’t have any shields up. How was I supposed to know the conversation was private?”

  Benjamin mentally smacked his head. Why hadn’t he placed a shield around them? When was he going to learn?

  “Your Crag?” Andy said. “What makes it your Crag?”

  She pulled at a green braid and twisted it. “I come up here all the time. And nobody else ever comes up here.” She laughed. “Nobody ever comes to this city. People are afraid of it—afraid of all the memories from the dead spirits. This place has lots of bad karma, what with the slaughter that happened.”

  Heidi’s eyes grew wide. “Slaughter?”

  “Look, we’re not here for a history lesson,” Gary said.

  Benjamin almost laughed out loud. When was Gary not up for a history lesson? When was Gary not up for any kind of lesson?

  “Who are you anyway?” Heidi said. Her hair was still black but ringlets were forming on the sides.

  “Yeah, and what makes you think you can help us?” Benjamin said.

  “I’m Aurora.” The girl’s green eyes flashed violet, then settled back on green. “You know—like Aurora Borealis. And I can help you because you have trouble with time.”

  Andy narrowed his eyes. “So what can you d
o about it?”

  Aurora walked closer and sat down. So Benjamin sat back down, also. He sensed a super-strong mind block being placed around all six of them.

  “I’m not a student like you guys,” Aurora said telepathically. “I live here in Lemuria.”

  “And…?” Andy said.

  “And my Dad is a special agent.”

  Andy’s face perked up. “A special agent doing what?”

  “He works on special assignments for the Department of the Preservation of Time.”

  “He time travels?” Benjamin said. His heart had started pounding as soon as she said time.

  “He’s a temporal phasing agent,” Aurora said. “He time travels all the time.”

  “Does he know how to locate telegens in the past or future?” Iva asked.

  “Of course,” Aurora said. “That’s what his job is all about. He goes mostly back in time to catch rogue time-traveling telegens. He’s supposed to do what he can to keep time from being changed.”

  “So how do they do it?” Iva asked. “How do they find people elsewhere in time?”

  “They use special devices,” Aurora said. “Devices that can track DNA and locate it anywhere in time.”

  Iva fiddled with her ring. “Like the Peridot can track anywhere on the Earth?”

  “Exactly,” Aurora said. “Except way more powerful. These aren’t the kind of telemagnifiers you can buy at any old store.”

  “Do you have one?” Iva asked.

  Aurora laughed. “No, I’ve never even seen one. But my dad has, and he’s told me all about them.”

  “So where do we get one?” Benjamin hoped his thoughts didn’t sound too eager.

  “You don’t get one,” Aurora said. “They’re huge. And there aren’t that many. No—chronolocational telemagnifiers don’t move from where they are.”