The Navel of the World

by P. J. Hoover

  Just when it sounded like it was going to explode, the light vanished and the sound silenced. Benjamin and Iva flew backward and landed across the room. Heidi rushed over to Iva, followed by Andy and Gary.

  “Are you okay?” Heidi asked, squatting down to her level.

  Iva remained on the ground, but Benjamin stood up and brushed himself off. He walked over to join his friends.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I think.” Iva tried to stand up, but quickly sat back down. “My legs are still a little wobbly.”

  Benjamin brushed off his pant legs. “I’m okay, too, in case anyone was worried.”

  Heidi rolled her eyes.

  “It felt like getting an electrical shock,” he added.

  “A pretty high powered electrical shock I’m willing to bet,” Gary said. “Did you see that thing? It looked like it was about to explode.”

  Andy squatted down next to Iva. His voice was gentle—actually gentle—when he spoke. “I know you’re shook up, but we need to get going.” He put out his hand for her to grab and helped her to her feet.

  “Did you get the information you needed?” a voice from near the doorway asked.

  All five heads turned to face the intruder. A tall figure stood shadowed in the dark doorway.

  “Oh, crap!” Andy said.

  But when the shape stepped closer, Benjamin immediately recognized it, and a weird mixture of relief and nausea washed through him. They’d been caught red-handed by one of the rulers of Lemuria, but at least it wasn’t somebody else.

  “Don’t worry, Andy,” Helios Deimos said. “Let’s just be thankful this chamber is soundproof. As you know, the chronolocational telemagnifier can make a lot of noise.”

  “CT,” Andy managed to say.

  Helios nodded. “Yes, it is a mouthful.”

  “How long have you been here?” Benjamin asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You looked occupied,” Helios said. “I’m happy to see you aren’t idling away your time practicing for school. So let me ask again. Did you get the information you needed?”

  Benjamin looked over at Iva, and she looked back. They both smiled. “Yeah, we got it,” he said.

  “Then let’s be going,” Helios said.

  When they filed out of the room, Helios reached down and unattached the infrared deflector. He held it up and looked at it. “Where did you manage to get one of these?” He handed it over to Benjamin. “No, don’t answer that; I probably don’t want to know. Andy, you researched this place pretty well. You got most of the critical information for a successful break in.”

  “Most of it?” Andy asked.

  “What’s not so easily accessible is the fact that any time the ‘CT’ comes to life for even the smallest amount of time, Selene and I are immediately notified,” Helios said.

  Andy groaned. “Figures.”

  Helios led them through a hallway at the back of the throne room until they came to a private teleporter. “Benjamin, I need you to stay back for a few minutes.”

  Benjamin looked at his friends. “I’ll meet up with you guys back at school.” And so, one at a time, Gary, Iva, Heidi, and Andy teleported away.

  “How have you been?” Helios asked Benjamin once everyone had gone.

  “Oh, pretty good I guess, considering everything that happened last summer,” Benjamin said. “Where is Selene, by the way?”

  Helios pursed his lips together. “Away on important business.”

  “Alone?” Benjamin asked.

  Helios nodded. “It’s why there are two rulers of Lemuria, instead of just one.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Benjamin said.

  “So do you need help with anything?” Helios said. “Keeping in mind the block placed on me though. I still can’t tell you any more about your siblings, though it looks like you are on the right track.”

  “Finally.” Benjamin shook his head. “You know, I was in Wondersky City over spring break doing this really horrible filing work. Why are so many things kept and filed anyway?”

  “Bureaucracy.” Helios sighed. “You were saying…”

  “Right,” Benjamin said. “We happened to stumble across a record with my name on it.”

  Helios raised an eyebrow. “What did it say?”

  So Benjamin explained the whole Ancient Lemurian thing and the old capital city of Geros. “But when we got there, it was gone.”

  Helios shook his head. “You should have come to me for access badges.”

  Benjamin laughed. “The thought crossed my mind—for a second.”

  “And?” Helios said.

  “And you’re just way too busy,” Benjamin said. “Not to mention how would I ever get in to talk to you? Walk in while you’re holding court and cut to the front of the line? Or call you on the telecom?”

  Helios actually laughed. “No, nothing like that. But we should do a couple of telepathy exercises before you leave, so your mind can easily identify and single out mine.” And then Helios looked Benjamin right in the eye. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Benjamin smiled. “I’m going to travel back in time to Geros to get whatever the secret object is.”

  “And then?” Helios asked. “What did the chronolocational telemagnifier tell you?”

  Benjamin sighed. “Not everything.”

  Helios raised an eyebrow. “Enough?”

  “Enough to find one of my brothers,” Benjamin said. “So I’ll travel back in time and find him.”

  “And the other one?” Helios said.

  “I don’t know,” Benjamin said. The CT had only shown him where one of his brothers was in time. There had only been one DNA signature matching his own. Which meant when it came to finding his other brother, he still had no clue. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge after I cross this one first.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Sunspots Control Light on Earth

  Benjamin teleported straight back to the dorms, hoping his head wouldn’t spin off with all that had happened. As if breaking into the Ruling Hall hadn’t been enough, Helios had caught them doing it. But apparently the night wasn’t over yet. Benjamin rounded the corner to his dorm room and found the hallway already occupied.

  Benjamin froze in place. “Magic?”

  “Hello, Benjamin.” Magic Pan smiled and walked toward him, and Benjamin had a weird urge to teleport away. Not like Magic couldn’t find him.

  “What are you doing here?” Benjamin said.

  Magic shrugged. “I came for the infrared deflector. What else?”

  Without thinking, Benjamin reached down into his pocket and found the small square. “I thought you gave it to me.”

  “I did,” Magic said. “But unless you give it back to me now, I’ll never be able to give it to you in the first place.”

  That seemed odd. Why would Magic need it now to give to Benjamin in the first place? And then it hit him—hit him like a giant chronolocational telemagnifier. And he knew he had to hand it over to Magic.

  “You time traveled to get it?” Benjamin said—not like it was really a question. There was no other explanation.

  Magic took the square from Benjamin’s hand. “I can’t reveal secrets of the trade. But just remember—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!”

  And then Benjamin found out he was not the only Year Two Denarian who could teleport, because, before Benjamin could say another word, Magic Pan teleported away.

  Heidi and Iva weren’t alone when the boys arrived at the Deimos Diner the next morning. In the booth sat Aurora, the girl they’d met at the Crags a week earlier. Except instead of green hair, today it was orange and her eyes matched yet again.

  “What in the world are you drinking?” Andy asked as he slid into the booth and positioned himself next to Iva. Iva’s drink was dark and thick and green and looked like something ogres might drink.

>   “It’s Amoeba Juice.” Jack teleported onto the table and stood next to the drink. “Packed with kumquats.” He licked his lips. “You don’t mind do you?” he asked Iva, though he didn’t wait for a reply. Putting his tiny lips to the straw, he started drinking and didn’t stop. The glass was as tall as he was and twice as wide, but before Benjamin knew it, the Amoeba-Kumquat Juice was gone.

  “How can you drink so much?” Benjamin asked.

  “Yeah, where do you put it?” Heidi said.

  “Hey, that was my drink,” Iva said and then shuddered. “But I was done with it anyway.”

  “I love Amoeba Juice,” Jack said. “But it’s getting harder and harder to find.”

  “We have barrels of it in the lava tube,” Aurora said.

  “The lava tube?” Gary asked.

  “Yeah,” Aurora said. “Lava tube. My dad and I live in one.”

  “How can you live in a lava tube?” Heidi said.

  “It’s big,” Aurora said. “Way more space than the two of us need.”

  “Where’s your mom?” Gary asked.

  “Gone,” Aurora said. “My dad says she ran off just after I was born.”

  “Wow, I’m sorry to hear that,” Iva said. “That must have been hard.”

  Aurora smiled. “I’m sure she had her reasons. I don’t let it drag me down.”

  Benjamin immediately thought of his birth mother, dying after giving birth to triplets. She’d been so heartbroken at having her three babies taken away that she’d given up living. And Aurora’s mother had run off? What would make someone do that?

  “Which volcano?” Heidi changed the subject. “Don’t you worry that it might erupt?”

  Aurora ordered another Amoeba Juice, this time with chipotle peppers. It appeared on the table red as blood and thick as sludge. Jack teleported in front of it and immediately started drinking it until Aurora yanked the straw away. “It’s up north in the Ring of Fire, and it’s not going to erupt for another three thousand years.”

  “How do you know?” Gary asked.

  Aurora took a giant sip of the drink. “You know. The time travel thing and all. We’ve actually gone forward and watched it erupt. Erupting volcanoes are my favorite thing to watch.” She paused. “Well, maybe my second favorite.”

  “What’s your favorite?” Andy asked.

  “Yeah, what could be cooler than watching a volcano erupt?” Gary asked.

  “Watching the Aurora Borealis from just outside our lava tube.”

  “The Northern Lights?” Benjamin said. “That’s right. If you live that far north, you can probably see them every night.”

  “Not every night,” Aurora replied. “It depends on sunspots and all.”

  “Sunspots?” Benjamin said.

  “Of course,” Gary said. “The more sunspots there are, the stronger the Aurora Borealis. They tend to follow an eleven year cycle.”

  Aurora crossed her arms. “So anyway, what’s up? I’m sure you guys had a reason for asking me to meet you.”

  Benjamin remembered to put up a mind block this time. Talking about sunspots was one thing. Talking about unauthorized time-traveling trips was another.

  “We plan to time travel,” Benjamin said in his mind.

  “Cool,” Aurora said. “Did you figure out when to?”

  Benjamin nodded his head. “We actually need to make a couple of trips.”

  “We need to go back about three thousand years,” Iva said.

  “That’s the second trip,” Benjamin said. “First we need to go back a thousand years.”

  Aurora didn’t even blink—or flinch when she took another sip of her drink. “Good. And just to clarify—none of you guys has ever time traveled, right?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “So you’ll want to do the thousand years back trip first—kind of as a test run,” Aurora said.

  “I thought telegens could only temporally phase once a year,” Gary said. “The chromosomes need time to realign, right? I read that in the DOPOT warnings.”

  Aurora laughed. “Not that long. They just say that to scare people.”

  “So how do TPTs work?” Gary asked. “It’s impossible to find information about them in the library.”

  “Then you’re going to the wrong libraries,” Aurora said. “Each TPT can transport a handful of telegens backward or forward in time. It’s a two-way trip. You keep it with you when you jump back, and then use it to move forward again whenever you’re ready. You know, time and all isn’t really an issue.” Aurora laughed at this.

  “Sounds perfect,” Benjamin said. “How do we get one?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s not that hard, but it can get complicated. Kronos is always trying to screw things up. He thinks it makes him and his job more valuable.” She consulted her heads-up display. “It’s probably too late to get one now. You’ll have to wait until next Saturday. Even though telegens aren’t supposed to time travel, and no one’s supposed to know about the TPTs, people do, and they get snatched up pretty fast.”

  “From where?” Andy asked.

  “Well it kind of works like this—in general,” Aurora said. “Each Saturday morning, Kronos goes around leaving TPTs at his places of worship around the Earth. Then, telegens come and collect them, time travel, create havoc on the timeline, and voilà, once again, Kronos is in business.”

  “So you’re saying that what we need to do is wake up early next Saturday, teleport to some temple of Kronos, and look for a TPT?” Gary said.

  “Exactly!” Aurora replied. “But you have to use it that day.”

  “Why Saturday?” Andy asked.

  “Because Saturn is another name for Kronos, and it’s Saturn’s Day—get it—Saturday—Saturn’s Day.” Aurora said.

  “Oh, yeah, got it,” Andy said.

  Which made about one thing Benjamin understood. At least he had a week to figure out what to do next.

  Using a ridiculously long game of Rock, Scissors, Paper, they decided Heidi and Gary would get to time travel with Benjamin for the first time. Sure, the game was unfair, but finding a random method among a bunch of mind readers all connected through the Alliance bond was pretty much impossible. So now all there was to do was wait.

  When Friday finally rolled around, Andy and Gary went to bed early. Benjamin plugged his ears to tune out their snoring, but he still couldn’t sleep. So he stepped out of the dorm room to practice telepathy.

  He could hear tons of people still up around the school, and pretty soon, he tried to zero in on some of them. First he decided on Ryan Jordan. Ryan was probably practicing telekinesis in private somewhere.

  Benjamin opened his mind to all the thoughts he could around the school and tried to single out Ryan. He found Jonathan Sheehan in their dorm room, but Ryan wasn’t there. He continued looking, but Ryan wasn’t in the school. Extending his mind a little more, he searched nearby.

  It wasn’t long before he found Ryan, perched on a roof of a nearby building. Though Ryan was pretending to be looking up at the night sky, there was only one thing on his mind—and surprisingly, it wasn’t Julie Macfarlane who sat next to him. It was Benjamin.

  Why was Ryan thinking about Benjamin? Did it have something to do with the record? But then Benjamin felt the mind block go up. Ryan had detected him which was so not good. Benjamin still had a long way to go. But how had Ryan detected the snooping so soon, unless he’d been working on telejamming also?

  Benjamin decided to check on someone else to see if the Alliance bond made eavesdropping easier. He scanned the school. Heidi was just getting back to her dorm. Where had she been all this time? Benjamin felt around in Heidi’s mind, making sure not to trigger any of her usual alarms. The regular blocks she always had in place were up, but there was something new. She was bubbling over. And she was thinking about that guy from her Empathy class, Josh. No way! Had Heidi been with Josh?

  Benjamin felt his heart speed up. He didn’t like the thought of Heidi on some sort of date, but why
should he care? Heidi was just one of his friends. But still—what was she doing wasting her time hanging out with Josh? She had way more important things to be doing. Things like trying to help Benjamin figure out where his brothers were.

  He’d definitely mention it tomorrow. See what she had to say about it.

  Heidi opened the door to her dorm room and stopped. She took in the situation for a moment then ran over to Iva’s bed where Iva was lying face down on her bed crying. Okay, this was getting way too personal, but Benjamin couldn’t drag himself away.

  “Iva! What’s wrong?” Heidi said.

  Iva only cried louder. She hid her face in her pillow, trying to muffle her sobs.

  “It’s okay,” Heidi said.

  “It’s not okay,” Iva managed to get out between sobs. “I had another dream.”

  Iva was having dreams? Why hadn’t she mentioned anything about them?

  “I can’t stand to even go to sleep anymore,” Iva cried. “And Jonathan’s there trying to eavesdrop on every dream I have.”

  Jonathan Sheehan was eavesdropping on Iva’s dreams?

  “You have to ignore him, Iva,” Heidi said. “He has nothing to do with any of this. He’s just trying to show off. And you have to ignore the dreams. They’re only dreams. Not real.”

  “But they are real,” Iva said. “I see it in the future.”

  “That’s only one possible future,” Heidi said.

  “But you die in every single dream. Every single dream! And Andy. And Benjamin. Horrible deaths.” Iva was now sobbing.

  “Iva,” Heidi said. “We’re not going to die. They’re only dreams. Nothing more.”

  Benjamin froze in place. Iva was having dreams about him dying? And dying a horrible death? Why hadn’t she said anything? And what about Gary? She hadn’t mentioned Gary dying a horrible death.

  “I’m so scared, Heidi,” Iva cried. “I don’t want to go through life without you guys.”

  “You’ll never be alone, Iva. And just because you see something in a dream doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Your mind is just focusing on the worst. Your dreams are not the future.”