D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

“So, Saint Dane was not really chasing us?” Loor asked.

“Correct,” Aja answered. “He was part of the fantasy.”

“But now we’re in Zetlin World, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Aja answered with confidence. “Sorry for the detour.”

“Are you here with us, Aja?” Loor asked.

“No,” Aja answered. “I’m still in the core.”

Aja passed her hand through the drops of water, but her movement didn’t clear a path the way ours did. This was only an image of Aja. Loor walked up to her curiously, and tried to touch her. Her hand passed right through. Loor backed away quickly. I guess touching a ghost spooked her, so to speak.

“It’s okay,” I assured Loor. “Everything’s cool.”

“Pendragon, I want to find Zetlin and leave here quickly,” Loor said nervously.

“Yeah, me too. But I don’t know where to start,” I admitted.

“When Dr. Zetlin started his jump,” Aja said, “he didn’t want to be bothered. Ever. The last thing he wanted was to have people from Veelox entering his jump and disturbing him.”

“Which is exactly what we’re doing,” I offered.

“Yes, but the guy is a genius,” Aja continued. “He knew there might be an emergency where he needed to be contacted.”

“I think this qualifies,” I said.

Aja showed us a small, blue plastic box. It was about the size and shape of a floppy disk.

“Zetlin left one of these for every senior phader, in case of emergency,” Aja explained. “Entering Zetlin’s jump is difficult enough. Controlling it is a whole different challenge. These are the codes to do that.”

“So, what happens when you use them?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” was Aja’s quick reply. “Let’s find out.”

She held out the plastic case and snapped it open, revealing a thin silver square inside. Aja took out the square and examined it.

“Two sets of codes,” she announced.

“I don’t suppose either is the origin code?” I asked hopefully.

“I wish,” she replied. “I’ll try the first.”

She lifted her wrist controller and input a series of commands as she referred to the silver square. It must have been a complex code, because it took her several seconds to enter it. Then, with one final keystroke…

It began to rain.

The once suspended drops fell from the sky, soaking us. Thunder rumbled in the distance. “Look out!” somebody yelled.

Loor grabbed me and pulled me aside as a man driving a pedal vehicle sped by.

“Careful there, folks,” the guy called with a friendly wave. “The street gets busy.”

Yeah, no kidding. I looked down the block to see that the painting had reanimated. People splashed through puddles, rushing to get out of the rain. The lady and little girl caught up with the man. He took the girl by the hand and they hurried on their way. The white foggy mist was now moving too. It blew down the street, rolling quickly along with the storm.

“Fascinating!” was all Aja could say.

“Let’s get off the street,” I suggested, and the three of us ran to the sidewalk and under the protection of an overhang that covered the entrance to a building.

We stood there, watching Zetlin’s fantasy city come alive.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Here’s a genius guy who could live in any kind of paradise he could think of, and he chooses a gray, rainy city with black buildings? He may be smart, but he doesn’t have such a hot imagination.”

I then stepped in front of a guy who was about to enter the building we were using for shelter.

“Excuse me/’ I said. “Do you know Dr. Zetlin?”

The guy looked at me strangely, like I had three noses or something.

“What’s the joke?” he asked.

I looked to Aja. She shrugged.

“No joke,” I said. “Do you know where we can find Dr. Zetlin?”

The guy shook his head in confusion. “In the Barbican,” he answered. “Where else would he be?”

“Barbican,” I repeated. “Okay. Where’s the Barbican?”

The guy shook his head again, like I was being an idiot. He sniffed and continued on into the building without answering.

“I guess everybody around here is supposed to know where he is,” Aja said.

“Yeah, everybody but us,” I said. “What’s a Barbican?”

“Pendragon?” Loor said softly.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk, staring down the street with a dumbfounded expression.

“I do not know what a Barbican is, but if I were to wager, I would say that is it,” she said in awe.

Aja and I turned to see what she was pointing at. What we saw was about as incredible a sight as I could imagine.

The rain had stopped. The storm was moving through quickly and the foggy mist was blowing away. We could now see a long way down the wide street. The buildings on either side were different sizes and styles, but all were made of the same, shiny black material. As the fog lifted, more people were revealed. They were all dressed in the same dark green jumpsuit style, going about their business. It was an incredibly drab city. But what we saw at the end of the street was anything but drab.

It was another black building. Actually, it was more like a skyscraper. I’m guessing it must have been about eighty stories. It was way bigger than any of the other buildings on the street. But its size alone wasn’t what made it stand out. The breathtaking thing about it was that this huge building was floating on its side!

Actually, it wasn’t exactly floating. There was a massive, triangular brace that held it in the air. You know that big Gateway Arch thing in St. Louis on Second Earth? That’s what this brace looked like. Imagine that big arch with a huge, horizontal building attached to the top. That’s what we were faced with. It looked like a seesaw for a giant.

The three of us stood and stared at the impressive structure. Nobody knew what to say. It was Aja who moved first. Without a word, she began walking. It was like she was being drawn toward the bizarre building. I gave Loor a quick look and we followed. We walked along the sidewalk in a daze. I’d guess that by the time we got to it, we must have walked a mile.

As we stood under the monstrous structure, the clouds parted. Bright sun shone through and hit the side of the floating skyscraper, making its black skin sparkle.

Loor finally broke the silence, saying, “How are we to get inside?”

“Aja?” I said. “You said there were two codes?” “Yes,” she answered. “Try the second one.”

Aja shrugged, looked at the silver square, then input Zetlin’s second code into her wrist controller. After hitting the final key, she said, “That’s it.”

Nothing happened. I glanced back at the street, afraid that the second code would refreeze the fantasy. But the drab people continued to move, going wherever they were going.

I said, “Try it again-“

And that’s when it happened. At first we only heard the sound. It was a loud, grinding noise that hurt my ears. It sounded like giant pieces of metal were screeching against each other because, well, that’s what it was.

“It is moving!” Loor exclaimed.

We all looked up at the black building to see it was beginning to rotate. Like a monstrous Ferris wheel, the massive building slowly began to turn on its axis. I looked to the ground under the giant brace to see the outline of a huge square.

“It’s the footprint!” I shouted. “The building is righting itself!”

That’s exactly what was happening. The building was slowly rotating to vertical. The only trouble was, we were standing inside the giant square.

“Back off!” I shouted.

All three of us hurried back out of the danger zone. The screeching and grinding continued as one end of the building dropped nearer to the ground. It was incredible that something that big could actually move like that. But then again, this was the fantasy of a genius. I guess in Zetlin’s mind, it was possible.