“I will for sure. That energy beam’s pure Qi, not that I could tell Tzaki that.”
“Not yet, anyway.”
We giggled.
Ari and I spent a quiet Sunday evening, or at least, I did. He put in a couple of hours of push-ups and other forms of self-torture. We went to bed early, and a good thing, too. On
Monday morning, my cell phone chimed and woke me at 6:15, an hour that signaled bad news. I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and mumbled a hello.
“Nola? Thank God I reached you.”
The panic in Al Wong’s familiar voice brought my mind online fast.
“Al? What’s happened?”
“Sean’s disappeared and Michael with him. Eileen just phoned me to let me know they never came back last night. She’s damn near hysterical. So’s Sophie.” Al paused. I could hear him sucking in a deep breath. “So am I.”
I could guess. “They went off looking for Dad,” I said. “Didn’t they?”
“That’s what the note said.”
“What note? Look, can you start at the beginning? Like, please?”
“Okay.” Al paused again, and when he resumed, his voice sounded steadier. “Yesterday afternoon we went over to Eileen’s to have lunch with your mother. I know you and she don’t get along, but Sean does love her. So I figure I can put up with her now and then.”
“You’re a brave man.”
“Thanks. When Deirdre left, Michael and Sean went upstairs to get some CDs Sean was going to borrow. I didn’t think anything of it, but they must have planned this then. We went back to our place, but a couple of hours later, about six o’clock, I guess it was, Sean realized he’d left his wallet at Eileen’s, because he’d taken it out to lend Michael twenty bucks.” Al paused for another deep breath. “‘
Oh, shit,’
Sean says, and he sounded so damned innocent that I should have known he was lying. ‘
I must have left it in Mike’s room. I’ll just drive over and get it.
’”
“Without a driver’s license?” I said. “Doesn’t he keep that in his wallet?”
“That occurred to me, yeah, but way too late. So he went over and never came back. I called over there around nine in the evening. Eileen was shocked. They’d left at seven, told her that they were driving back to our place, Sean’s and mine, I mean.”
“Wait! Eileen didn’t have any kind of premonition—”
“No advance warning, but when I called, she felt that something really bad had happened.”
“A danger alert? That kind of thing?”
“Worse than that.”
“Crud.”
“Yeah, exactly.” Al paused again to steady his voice. “So first we did the ugly routine of calling the police, the hospitals, that kind of stuff to see if they’d been in an accident. We couldn’t find anything. Finally, she searched the house and found the note tacked up to the door of the first-floor storage room. I wanted to call you right then, but it was almost midnight, and so I figured we’d better wait.”
“Oh, yeah? I wish you’d called me right then. It’s been hours now.” I stopped myself from delivering an angry lecture about time stream scars and how fast they fade. Al was stressed enough without me barking at him. “Anyway, this note, what did it say? Can you tell me?”
“I’ve practically got it memorized.
Dear folks, sorry. We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want to argue about it.
”
“The little swine!” I said.
“Yeah,” Al said, “though swine is too nice a word. Anyway, they went on to say that you’d know what this all meant. They were going back to some place called Interchange because they’d been there a couple of times and found the gate that leads to your father’s location. They want to scout it out, according to the note.”
“Crud.” It took me a moment to go on. “Yeah, I do know what it means.”
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Very dangerous. When I get my hands on that little brat Michael, I—” I stopped because he was too big to spank, and there’s no use in making empty threats. “Well, I’ll chew him out but good.”
Al groaned for a comment. By this time Ari had woken up. He was watching me narrow-eyed. I mouthed, “I’ll explain in a minute,” in his general direction.
“Al?” I said. “Still there?”
“Oh, yeah,” Al said. “Is there anything you can do to get them back?”
“No, not at the moment.” At that point I woke up enough
to remember that I was talking on my cell phone—an unwise move. My end of the conversation was secure, but his wasn’t. “Look, I’ll call you right back. I have to switch phones. This one’s not as secure as the landline. You guys have a landline, too, right?”
“Yeah. For my elderly relatives.”
“Give me the number, and I’ll call you back on that in a couple of minutes.”
I took the chance to duck into the bathroom as well as put on my jeans and a pale gray Western-cut shirt before I called Al back. He answered on the first ring.
“Okay, look,” I said. “I’m not sure where they’ve gone and how they got there, but it wouldn’t matter if I did. I can’t use those gates. I can’t follow them. Al, do you understand the concept here? Like, they’re on another world than ours, something called a deviant world level?”
“Sean told about all that a couple of days ago.” Al’s voice hovered on the edge of tears. “I thought he was kidding. Making up an elaborate story, you know? With Michael like maybe they did when they were kids.”
“Unfortunately, he was telling you the cold truth.”
An awake and clothed Ari walked into the living room. “I’ll go start the coffee,” he said. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I can tell we’ll need coffee.”
For about ten minutes more I talked to Al. I did eventually manage to get him to understand about deviant worlds, gates, Michael’s abilities, and the reckless egos of teen boys with wild talents. During our talk, Al alternated between periods of calm and fits of anger-laced anxiety. He told me, just before we hung up, that he was going in to work anyway, for the distraction.
Ari had just handed me a mug of coffee when Aunt Eileen called, and I held the same conversation all over again. It ended the same way, too, with me admitting that there was nothing I could do at the moment.
“There’s no use in even trying to locate them psychically,” I finished up. “You remember, don’t you, the first time my miserable jerk of a brother went to Interchange?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”
“I tried to sense him and never could.”
“Well, maybe I’ll dream something useful. I’ll take a nap this afternoon. I have to tell your mother, and I’ll need a nap after that.”
Aunt Eileen hung up with a resigned sigh bordering on martyrdom. I did the same.
“I’ll kill him,” I said to Ari. “I will strangle him with my own two hands.”
“Michael or Sean?” Ari said.
“Whichever one I can grab first.” I had a swallow of coffee, which had turned cold. “You get to shoot the other one.”
“It’s a bargain. Seriously, though, let’s hope they can get back again.”
“Yeah.” The anger ebbed, and I felt like crying. I suppressed the urge. “Let’s hope. Damn it, I should have known something was wrong.” I paused to think about what I’d just said. “This is weird. When they went through the gate, I should have felt an overlap. I didn’t get any warning at all. Neither did Eileen.”
“Can Sean or Michael block that kind of thing?”
“I don’t know. That’s a good guess, though.” I leaked a few angry tears. “The little bastards!”
“The only thing I can think of to do,” Ari said, “is to bring Spare14 into this. He has access to other world-walkers, and if Michael’s broken a law or a regulation, maybe I can gain authorization to go after him.”
“You’re brilliant. It’s Monday, so maybe he’ll be in his office.”
When I called, that particular hope vaporized. Spare14 had left an automatic message on his telephone system. He was out of the office “for a few days,” he said, and would try to get back to everyone later in the week. I left a dispirited message and hung up.
“He’s probably gone to Interchange to meet Javert,” I said.
“Most likely,” Ari said. “I’m going to make you some breakfast, and you’re going to eat it.”
“No pickles!”
“There’s some of those frozen waffles left.”
I made a small retching noise. He got the point and allowed
me to have a couple of apples instead. I returned to the living room to avoid watching him eat the toaster waffles. He always dumped canned tuna on them. Right out of the can.
I spent a miserable day alternating between fits of worrying and doing research—the safe kind, that is, in books. Despite what I’d told Aunt Eileen, I couldn’t stop myself from running scans: LDRS, SM: Ps, SM: Ls, SAFs. Although I used every talent I could think of, I never picked up the slightest trace of Sean and Michael. All day, Ari kept moving from one window to another, all around the flat, to stare out and watch the street in front and the garage area in back. He was always armed.
Aunt Eileen called me late in the day. She’d given my mother the news.
“How did she take it?” I said.
“At first she tried to dismiss it. They’re just playing a joke, she says. April Fool’s, just late.” Eileen snorted in disgust. “I’m afraid I got just a wee bit angry. She began to listen, then.”
“Just began to, huh?”
“Well, you know how she is. It all elevatored, or whatever that word is they use for battles. Escalated, I mean. I ended up hanging up on her.” Eileen paused to sigh. “Then I really did need a nap.”
“Did you dream anything interesting?”
“Not really. Just one image of Sean wearing a necklace. I think it was a necklace. One of those modern things that are just smooth metal, like a narrow collar.”
“That’s odd.”
“Very. By the way, I called poor Al, just to see how he was holding up. He left work early, they told me, and he’s taking tomorrow off, a personal leave day. If the boys aren’t back by tomorrow morning, I’ll invite him over for lunch, and why don’t you and Ari come, too? Maybe if we all concentrate, they’ll hear us and come back.”
Highly unlikely, I thought, but I kept the thought to myself. I had nothing better to offer.
“Sure,” I said. “Around noon?”
“That will be fine, dear, yes. I’ll see you then.”
At sunset Ari brought out a pair of binoculars with night vision built in, or so he told me, and resumed his window trek. As the night darkened outside, I could see his reflection in the window glass—and that gave me an idea. Although the full chant-trance procedure had proved itself too dangerous to play around with, I had other lore to draw upon. All the research I’d done on magic over the years had just come in handy. I turned off my computer and got up.
“Ari,” I said, “I’m going to try to get some more information on the leopard women.”
“What? After what happened—”
“No, no, this is a safer method. I promise.”
He growled but said nothing more.
I fetched a piece of white printer paper and my crayons. Once I’d found a blue-violet that more or less matched the color I’d seen on the orbs and the apparition, I drew a large square on the paper and filled it in. I took the paper with me into the bedroom. I opened the closet door to reveal the full-length mirror I’d installed on the back. To make sure it didn’t move during the operation, I wedged it open with a shoe. I sat cross-legged on the bed and studied the square of color until I could see the blue-violet as a mental field.
Once again I chanted the proper syllables, but this time I looked into the mirror. My theory: seeing only a reflected image would break the direct connection between me and Miss Leopard-Thing, as I was thinking of her. Surprise—I was actually right. When images formed in the mirror, I felt none of the power that had troubled me so much the night before.
Unfortunately, the images had none of the power, either. They flickered and danced like shadows thrown by a fire. Still, by quieting my breathing and concentrating, I did manage to see in flashes, sometimes clear, sometimes jumbled. Later, I worked with my memory to put together the following like a quick-cut video:
Geographically the place looked the same as San Francisco, even though everything about the city, if you could call the strange sprawl a city, was different—lots of tall trees and tree houses. Rarely did I come across a building made of stone. The hills were heavily built up; the valleys
left to natural grass and live oaks. The similarity of the vegetation confirmed that I was seeing a deviant world level, not some utterly different planet.
When I focused on Miss Leopard-Thing, her image appeared. I saw her climbing down a rope ladder from a tree house. In her mouth she carried a canister or stick that glowed with a pale white light—their equivalent of a flashlight, I assumed. Once she reached the ground, she took it in one hand and held it up high to light the way down for another leopard person, a male, obviously, because the only thing he wore was a loose sleeveless tunic that came to his waist. Whoever these people were, their guys had similar equipment to ours. He pretended to bite the back of her neck, very gently, and put his arms around her waist. She opened her mouth and seemed to be laughing, though I could hear nothing. When he let her go, I got a clearer look at him. He seemed familiar—maybe the guy I’d seen on our steps? It was hard to be sure.
Hand in hand they walked down a path between trees. They came to a wooden shed. He opened the door, she held up the light stick, and I nearly gagged. Inside, hanging from big metal hooks, were body parts—whole legs minus the feet, arms minus the hands, chunks of what appeared to be torsos. Since they’d been skinned, I could only guess at which species they belonged to, one with arms and legs, obviously, either apes or other leopard people. Huge racks of ribs must have come from gorillas. I saw a headless body that looked like a skinned chimp—short legs, long torso. Its arms and hands lay on a chopping block nearby.
I felt the urge to vomit so strongly that the sensing process broke down. I got up and walked around the room to shake off the effects. I also ran a Conscious Evasion Procedure by tearing the paper with the blue-violet square into little shreds. Returning to the living room, where Ari was watching basketball on TV, brought me a sense of vast relief at the normality of the scene.