The alarm began to howl, but only briefly until Trant turned it off.
“It’s working,” Trant announced though the speaker. He loved to use that microphone.
“Thank you, Trant. Your powers of observation are second to none.”
Yes, the alarm was working, and sensitive to the slightest trace of cardonite. Yet when he’d retested the children they’d come up negative.
What did it all mean?
He couldn’t get over the feeling there was something special about those kids, that he and all of Nocturnia might regret their arrival.
No, stop it. Do not go there.
He shook it off. That sort of irrational, unscientific thinking led only to confusion. Facts were what mattered. And he needed more of them.
Tran’s voice came over the speaker again. “Falzon’s office is on the line. He wants you in his chambers immediately. Says it’s an emergency.”
Dr. Manfred T. Koertig lifted his goggles and pulled off his gloves.
Now what?
21
Ryan couldn’t help it. He hurled.
He’d followed Simon down a stairway into a short underground hallway to a heavy steel door, guarded by a creature that looked like an overweight Chewbacca.
“A Wookie?” he’d said.
Simon looked at him. “What is that?”
Ryan gestured with his thumb towards the hairy biped sentry. “If you’ve never heard the name, then I guess he’s definitely not one.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a sasquatch before?”
Ryan stared as they approached. “You mean a bigfoot?”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
The sasquatch then passed them through into a bunker. It seemed crowded but Ryan’s attention was dominated by one occupant who had to be the rakshasa known as Falzon.
More than eight feet tall, he wore a tuniclike uniform that revealed his arms and legs, thick with ropy muscles and plated with shimmery, green-copper scales. The creature’s head looked like a deep-sea horror, a viperfish or something worse; it sloped down, neckless, to impossibly wide shoulders. His too-long arms ended in talons that made a velociraptor look as tame as a terrarium turtle.
And the smell… a vile mixture of decomposition and the Sargasso-sludge of a cruel sea. Sharp and pungent, it burned in Ryan’s nostrils like butane.
On no, he was gonna–
A combination of bile and partially digested soup erupted from him in a hot column – straight ahead, directly at the Uberall leader, until it arced downward to splatter just short of Falzon’s clawed feet. Ryan’s face felt hot and his eyes burned with acidlike tears. He weaved on his feet, suddenly dizzy and disoriented. As he fought to get his balance and keep down a surging panic, a single thought filled him.
I am so dead…
Staggering back, away from the monstrous creature that loomed over him, he waited for its lethal response.
But instead, the thing called Falzon threw back its hideous head and bellowed what Ryan guessed passed as his race’s version of uncontrolled laughter. And instantly, every other being in the room – vampire, werewolf, zombie, troll – joined in the merriment. A cacophony of barks and chortles and howls formed a chorus of nervous amusement.
Ryan remained stunned, scanning the roomful of monsters as a wave of total surreality crashed over him.
Finally, when their various forms of laughter faded into an uneasy silence, Falzon spoke in a voice that sounded slurry and darkly wet.
“Yesssss,” he hissed. “At least you did not soil your britchesss. Clean him up. We need to talk.”
Someone was suddenly wiping down his face with a damp towel and pushing him onto a stool at the center of the bunker. It faced a large thronelike chair on a platform. Ryan wiped his eyes, watching Falzon take his place in the big chair, high enough to allow him to look down on everyone else, even when seated.
Although his vomiting spell had passed, Ryan remained totally repulsed by Falzon’s smell. How could everybody else stand it? How could Simon be standing so near that stench?
Ryan heard a door open at the rear of the room and Falzon looked past him.
“Ah, the good doctor arrivesss,” he said.
Ryan turned and saw Dr. Koertig entering. He’d previously considered him ugly, hideous, but his bizarre aspect now seemed commonplace, hardly repellant at all.
“Tell me, Doctor…is it poss-ssible a human could be here among usss… without our knowing it?”
Koertig stiffened for an instant, then shook his head. “Not possible at all. I am the only one who can operate the gateway mechanism.”
Falzon tilted his massive head, stared the scientist down. “The only one?”
Koertig pulled half a cigarette from his white coat and lit it. He jetted a stream of smoke into the air and said, “Well, the only one alive. As you are well aware.”
“Yesssss.” Was that a smile? “I crushed his ssskull beneath my heel until his brains ran out his eyesss and earsss.”
“We know, we know…” Koertig muttered through a sigh.
The image made Ryan’s empty stomach contract with nausea. Not again. Please, not again.
“Ssso,” Falzon continued, staring at Dr. Koertig, “that leavesss only you.”
“And I say it’s impossible.”
Falzon gestured toward Ryan with a sweep of his terrible clawed hand. “What do you know about thisss human?”
Koertig seemed to notice Ryan for the first time. “Well, well, well. I was just thinking about you.”
Ryan did not like the avid interest in the scientist’s eyes.
“Why?” Falzon said. “Becaussse he ssset off the cardonite alarm when you brought him through?”
“Who told you that?”
Falzon leaned toward the pluriban, his bulbous eyes glistening with menace. “Doesss it matter?”
“No, no, of course not. But did whoever it was also tell you it was a false alarm?”
“They did. Ssso…?” Falzon said nothing more, waiting for Koertig to continue.
As Ryan sat in silence, he tried to make sense of what these two were talking about. He did remember him and Emma being singled out when they were pulled in from the tornado… but what did it mean?
“So I checked everything…several times,” said Koertig. “Nothing.”
“Better nothing than sssomething. If you are wrong–”
Simon spread his hands, opening his hairy palms upward. “Gentlebeings, there is no need to talk like this. We have the matter of this human’s brother in our midst, remember?”
And with that, Falzon turreted his great fearsome head to focus on Ryan. The creature’s baleful gaze terrified him, but he resolved to be strong.
“Who isss your brother?”
“He-he’s nobody…he’s a goofy guy in… in my world and–”
“And you told me he was here,” said Simon.
“Well, that’s not exactly right. I told you I saw somebody that looked like him, that’s all.” Ryan paused, then: “I was probably wrong. I mean, how could he get here if you guys didn’t go and get him, right?”
Falzon made a hissing sound as though allowing a great quantity of air to escape his bulk. A blowhole? Ryan didn’t want to think about that.
“That isss the point. If we did not bring him acrosss, then we want to know how he isss here… and more importantly… Who. He. Isss.”
Simon leaned forward. “What is your brother’s name?”
Ryan started to answer, his tongue readying a “T” – but at the last instant he switched from Telly to…
“Tommy.”
Why give them his real name? If he really was here, it would only help them find him.
“Tommy?” Falzon said, looking around at his advisors or minions or whatever they were. “Do we have a Tommy among usss?”
Ryan was relieved to see all baffled looks and shaking heads. He didn’t want to get some innocent named Tommy in trouble.
Simon said, �
��I suggest we line up all the male Ubers for inspection. This little human will tell us if he recognizes one of them.” A nasty grin spread over his face. “Or at least point out the one that reminds him of his brother.”
Falzon said, “Good idea. Lock him up till then.”
Ryan could not remember ever truly hating anyone in his short life, but that had just changed. He really, truly hated Master Simon.
22
After Dr. Manfred T. Koertig watched them take the boy away, he turned to Falzon and found the Rakshasa glaring at him.
“What?”
“How did hisss brother get here?”
“We have yet to establish that as a fact. I’ve got better things to do than waste my time formulating an explanation for something we don’t even know is true.”
But the question lingered. His suspicion that the portal had opened in his absence, maybe more than once…
Simon, standing to Falzon’s right, said, “In other words, you do not know.”
Simon…ever the sniveling sycophant.
“Oh, but I do. I have records of every human I’ve brought across, and not one of them is hiding in the Uberall ranks. If he’s here, he was not brought over by me.”
“Does anyone else have access to your equipment?” Simon said.
Again, a reference to the question that had been plaguing Manfred. But he maintained a tone of absolute confidence.
“It’s non-operational without my presence.” Time for a little payback. He glanced at Falzon, then back to Simon. “I did notice the boy moving rather stiffly, as if in pain. Did you injure him in some way?”
Simon paled. “No. Of course not. He’s completely fine.”
Falzon growled and waved a taloned hand. “Enough of thisss chatter.” He pointed to Manfred. “You. Take this ssstrange boy who sssetsss off cardonite alarmsss to your lab. Learn about him.”
“Learn? How much?”
“Everything.”
“Then I assume you don’t want him returned alive.”
“Of courssse I do! He can’t identify hisss brother if he’sss dead!”
“Well, then, I won’t be able to deliver ‘everything.’”
Really, dealing with a rakshasa was damnably frustrating.
23
Ryan was still fuming as a sasquatch escorted him down a too-familiar corridor. After being locked in the same cell he’d occupied just yesterday morning – seemed like so long ago! – he sat on the floor in a rear corner and fumed.
As much as he loathed Simon right now, he was more upset with himself. Because he’d allowed it to happen by lowering his guard for just a moment.
How could he have even let himself believe Simon had been genuinely concerned for him?
Maybe because that was something Ryan and his sister needed right about now – somebody who cared about them. With Mom and Dad out of reach, the chances of ever getting home pretty slim, and his brother among the missing, things couldn’t get much worse for him and Emma. He felt so alone.
Ryan looked up as the outer cell door clanged. He stiffened as he saw what appeared to be a squat diving suit floating down the through the entrance to the block. Then he noticed an Uber behind it supporting it on some kind of hand truck.
Ryan stared at the suit. Instead of the port-holed metal helmet that usually went with this old-fashioned sort of deep-sea diving gear, the suit was topped by a transparent dome – an empty dome. Was that for him?
No. The suit was rolled into the empty adjacent cell and placed facing the wall.
“You’re locking up an empty diving suit?”
The Uber jumped. Apparently he hadn’t noticed Ryan hunkered down in his corner. He turned and–
–Ryan knew that face! He’d seen it his whole life!
“Telly!” he shouted, leaping to his feet and rushing forward. “Telly, it’s you, it’s really you!”
And then, as soon as he said the words, Ryan felt a spike of fear in his gut. He couldn’t believe he’d just blurted out Telly’s name. If someone was listening anywhere nearby… he didn’t want to think about it.
The hand truck dropped from Telly’s fingers as he did a drop-jawed, bug-eyed stare worthy of a cartoon character.
“Ryan? It can’t be!” His voice less than a hoarse whisper. He looked around the cells, the corridor and seemed satisfied they were alone.
Ryan slammed against the bars between them and thrust his arms through. Looking half dazed, Telly took a cautious step forward and gripped Ryan’s forearms.
“This can’t be! It’s gotta be some kind of – holy, crap, it is you! You’re here! Ryan, what the hell are you doing here?”
The words tumbled out of Ryan. “Doctor Polonius the tornado a hole in the air and Doctor Koertig and Simon and Ergel and Falzon–”
“Wait-wait-wait!” Telly said. “Koertig brought you through?” He fingered Ryan’s slave bracelet. “Okay. That makes sense. But why you–?”
The clang of the outer door rang through the air.
Telly jumped back. “Someone’s coming!” he whispered. “We can’t know each other, Ryan. I’m going to get you out of here but we can’t let anyone know we’re related.”
Tell had raised his hands while they were talking and Ryan noticed with a shock that he had hair on his palms.
“Telly! Oh, my God, what–?”
Telly put a finger to his lips. “Shh! I’ll get you out!”
“But I’ve got to tell you–!”
“Here, what’s this?” said a zombie Uber to Telly as he entered. “What’re you doin’ here?”
Telly picked up the fallen hand truck. “Just delivering the Ethereal for safekeeping. How about you?”
The newcomer pointed to Ryan. “Takin’ him back up. Doctor Koertig wants to see him.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened. Me? Why?
“I’ve been working with Koertig,” Telly said quickly. “I’ll take him.”
The zombie shook his head. “This here snack’s important to Falzon, so I ain’t chancin’ with him. You follow your orders, I’ll follow mine.”
Ryan swallowed. Did he just call me a snack?
“Why’s he so important? He’s just a kid.”
The zombie grinned. “Nobody tells me nothin’, which is just the way I like it.” He unlocked Ryan’s door. “Come on, you. No trouble now.”
Ryan glanced at Telly as the door swung open. Should he run? But Telly gave a quick shake of his head.
No, probably useless. The area outside the cell area was crawling with Ubers. But Telly was the one who should be running. Ryan hadn’t had a chance to warn him about the lineup.
“I’ll walk with you,” Telly told the zombie. “I’m headed that way anyway.”
Great. Now, if Ryan could just figure a way to warn him. Hey, why not just come out and say it?
“Falzon’s planning to line everyone up so – ow!”
Ryan stumbled forward as the zombie gave him a hard slap across the back of his head.
“Shut it!”
“Hey, what’d you do – ow!”
Another clout.
“I said shut it!”
He raised his arm to deliver yet another shot but Tell grabbed it.
“Hey, easy there!”
The zombie turned on him. “You get your hands off me or I’ll–”
“Aren’t you the guy who just told me he was important to Falzon? You don’t want to go damaging the goods now, do you.”
The zombie lowered his arm. “I guess not.” He jabbed a finger at Ryan’s face. “But you shut it and keep it shut.”
Ryan had a feeling if he spoke again, Telly and the zombie would wind up trading punches – with Telly getting the worst of it. But he had to find a way to clue him in.
Before he could come up with anything, the zombie pushed him through a doorway into some sort of waiting room complete with a receptionist – okay, so she was a zombie – sitting behind a desk.
“Doc Koertig is coming for this human,” said th
e first zombie to the second. “He ain’t supposed to go nowheres with nobody else. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said in a gravelly voice.
He walked off leaving Telly looking helplessly at him. Ryan opened his mouth to say something but the receptionist cut him off by pointing to Telly.
“Ain’t you got nothin’ better to do than stand there and gawp? You act like you ain’t never seen a human before. Go on – get movin’.”
Telly gave Ryan an I’ll-be-back look and moved on with obvious reluctance.
Ryan wanted to run after him or, at the very least, scream for him to come back, but the receptionist pointed a menacing finger at him. Besides, he knew he couldn’t do anything to cause suspicion.
“You – move away from the door.”
Okay, Ryan thought, taking a deep, shuddering breath as he passed the receptionist’s desk. Emma was right. Telly’s here – but with hair on his palms. I mean, what’s up with that? But never mind that now. The important thing is he’s going to get me out. Then we can go get Emma and try to figure a way back home.
He looked around the reception area. It reminded him of a doctor’s waiting room, rows of chairs, and a TV in the corner. The television was the first one he’d seen in Nocturnia, and it surprised him to find electronic technology in this weird, steam-driven world. But following it along logically he knew that steam power could produce plenty of electric current.
Moving closer to it, he realized the set was a long way from what was considered state-of-the art back home. The image on the thick glass of its convex screen flashed and jittered – a combination of an aging cathode ray tube and sketchy aerial reception. It looked like a museum piece, but Ryan didn’t care because the station appeared to be tuned to some kind of news broadcast and he was hungry to learn about what was going on in his new world.
Onscreen, a lycan – the flash of a hairy palm confirmed that – sat behind a news desk emblazoned with a strange logo: N3 followed by the words Nocturnia News Network. He had longish gray hair in the style of Andrew Jackson. Behind him appeared a map of what looked like Australia, but was labeled New Necrotia Sur. Ryan noted a spare, primitive look to the broadcast – just one more thing about this parallel universe that both saddened and amused him.
Definitely Not Kansas (Nocturnia Book 1) Page 13