James Patterson: Dangerous Days of Daniel X

“What the -?” But it was too late. The pipe tilted downward, and I was sliding, then free-falling.

I didn’t have time to scream before I belly-flopped into a humongous, double-Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool.

I came to the surface, gasping.

This was totally amazing, like nothing I’d ever seen.

All around me, shafts of light streamed in through cathedral-sized windows of translucent glass.

The unchlorinated water was the cleanest I’d ever drunk, let alone swum in. I suddenly felt like I could run a marathon.

I floated on my back as I looked up at the soaring dome of the ceiling. Intricately drawn on it was what looked like this world’s largest Renaissance painting.

In the center of the mural, kids ran and played games involving complex and very colorful kites. The detail was extraordinary, like nothing I had ever seen on Earth, even at the Louvre and the Met.

I shook my head. I could have stayed there for weeks and weeks. If this kind of craftsmanship was evident in public pools, I wondered, what did they display in the museums?

Kulay spit a spray of water at me before hopping out the side like a little seal.

“Come on,” she said, giggling. “Take me, take me!”

“What? Aren’t we here?” I asked.

“ The pool? You haven’t seen anything yet,” Bem said. “The pool was just to clean ourselves up a bit.”

I FOLLOWED the two of them, dripping wet, down a gallery walled with strange but beautiful glass windows. At its arched end, I suddenly stopped.

Look out, ground, I thought, here comes my jaw!

It took me a second to process what I was seeing. Think of Central Park. Okay? Now imagine the universe’s biggest solarium built around it.

We’re talking trees, softly rolling grass hills, cobblestone strolling paths, ponds, beneath a sky of bright, startling blue.

“Hey, wait a second, Bem. This doesn’t make sense. Why wasn’t this destroyed like everything else?”

“The sky isn’t real. It’s a dome,” Bem said.

“My dad told me it’s made of a special glass that does something to light, lets it in but not out. Long ago, there was a war and the Children’s Park was bombed, so they made this new one indoors. Even the Outer Ones couldn’t find it. Even Ergent Seth couldn’t!”

“We’ve met,” I told Bem and left it at that.

What caught my eye next was a massive gray stone structure. I followed Bem and Kulay around a curving path and up its mystery steps. When I got to the top and saw what was beyond the front gates, I felt tears brim in my eyes.

All is not lost, said a voice in my head.

It was a zoo.

But not just any zoo. Inside the gates was a large viewing platform, and beyond it, on grassland fields to the left and right, were elephants!

AFRICAN ONES! Indian ones! Calves! Mothers! Herd upon herd of elephants. There were hundreds, maybe thousands. Definitely thousands.

I thought I was going to need a defibrillator when I saw what was rolling in the mud to my immediate left.

Trunk, check.

Ginormousears, check.

Woolly brown fur? Check!

Twenty feet away I had spotted a family of cute, short-trunked creatures.

They were mastodons! Had to be.

They were supposed to be extinct, but I guess that was just on Earth.

I stood there feeling electroshocked as a female approached. She was twice as big as the largest elephant I’d ever seen on Earth. Forty, maybe fifty thousand pounds.

Her head came above the ten-foot-high viewing platform. Her trunk was as thick as a telephone pole.

Then-she extended her trunk to me.

How do you do? she said in my mind. My name is Chordata.

For a second, I was unable to think straight, or breathe, actually.

I’d never communicated telepathically with an elephant before. I finally recovered a little and shook her trunk.

My name is … I started to say.

Daniel. Yes, I remember you from when you were a baby. You used to come here every day with your mother. We would communicate like this.

You’re the only two-leg I ever met who was able to. An elephant never forgets, you know. And never ever forgets a friend. I was very sad when you left. But happy now that you have come back. How are you doing, Daniel?

I’m pretty much blown away right this second, Chordata, I thought, smiling as I stared into her beautiful violet eyes. So this was why I loved elephants so much?

I see you’ve met those two little monkeys Bem and Kulay. Cute, aren’t they?

I nodded, then lost my breath as Chordata’s massive knee bowed-and she offered us her back.

Please, come with me and meet the others. You can trust me, Daniel. An elephant never betrays a friend.

Bem, Kulay, and I were all able to ride on her rolling ship of a back, with room to spare.

From all over the grassland, elephants started moving toward us. One of the mastodons trumpeted, and then from everywhere the others started joining in, a happy symphony of welcome.

Soon we were in a crush of them, shaking and high-fiving offered trunks. Feelings of euphoria almost knocked me into the tall blond grass as their life-affirming, warm presence soaked right through me.

“Wow! I never did this before!” Kulay shrieked ecstatically. She was vibrating up and down like a gum machine bouncy ball. “I’m the luckiest kid in the world! I’m the luckiest kid in the world!”

I ruffled her hair as more and more elephants paraded over, their trunks buzzing out note after brilliant note.

“No,” I said. “You’re the luckiest kid in two worlds. Here, and a place called Earth.”

I CAN DIE NOW, I thought, as we headed back into Undertown three hours later. The afternoon I’d just spent was worth getting gut-shot, I decided. Worth getting duped by Seth.

Not only was hanging with Chordata and the other elephants the coolest thing I’d ever done, it was pretty much the coolest thing anybody has ever done.

I would have gladly lived there like a wild elephant boy if Chordata hadn’t politely said it was time for the younger elephants to nap, and told me to come back tomorrow.

I was brought out of my reverie as an elderly woman standing on the porch of the shanty we were walking by suddenly leaned out and clutched my arm.

“You’re not from around here!” she said. “Who are you? Where do you hail from, boy?”

When I turned around, Bem and Kulay were running full speed down the alley.

“There was a rumor that an alien person escaped from Ergent Seth’s starship,” she said. “He sent you, didn’t he? Now he’s sending spies, is that it?”

“I’m not a spy,” I said.

“Like you wouldn’t lie to me if you were.”

I yanked back my arm, trying to break her steely grip. Suddenly she slapped me across the face.

Which was crazy, because the hand that she wasn’t clutching me with never moved from the porch railing.

The old lady had smacked me with her mind, I realized.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

Her head jerked as I mentally slapped her back. I felt a little bad, but I had to. I needed to get out of there in a hurry.

I was half a dozen steps down the alley where Bem and Kulay had run when I found myself stuck in place.

I couldn’t move.

THE OLD LADY came hobbling quickly down off the porch and caught up with me. I could feel energy crackling off her, holding me still. A terrible light filled her ancient blue eyes.