The Man From Taured (26 page)

In one world he was in a field with plants that sang to him. In another he found himself in a factory making robotic weaponry by men wearing some kind of protective armor. In another he was on top of a mountain with little oxygen, intense wind and a breathtaking view. He was in some kind of jungle with screaming natives who ran at him with primitive weapons in another. No matter how small the rift appeared, in each case the portal got bigger, reached out toward Noble and pulled him in.

When Noble popped back into his home dimension at about six o'clock local time, the air popping closed behind him, he was exhausted. He lay on the ground, bugs flying around his head, breathing hard. He looked up at Shaw and Dash and smiled.

"OK," Noble said. "I think I got this thing. I can sense Rifts now instead of just stumbling into them and I know how to open them, go through them and get back. Great. What do we do next?"

Shaw smiled. "I need to show you the spaces in between. It's time you meet more members of IDEA."

"Fine," Noble said, getting to his feet. "But when do we face off against Whitten?"

"That's where I come in," Dash said. "I'm going to head back to D.C. and find out everything I can about Gemini and the layout of the place. I need to find out where Whitten might be and how we can get in and out. In two days, we'll meet up and we'll take him on."

"Do we have time for that?" Noble asked.

"I think so," Shaw said. "We need the time to prepare. We need to have more than just you, me and Dash, too. We're going to have to bring more members of IDEA into this, Noble and doing that is going to weaken the barriers even more. It's a calculated risk, but we have to take it. Very soon, once those two realize what’s happening, there's going to be retaliation."

"Great," Noble replied, still lost in the high of using his abilities. "Let's get to the next phase as fast as we can. I feel like time is running out. I also can't shake the feeling that my wife and Eveline are in trouble."

They piled back into the van. Twenty minutes later, after driving at a blistering rate in the rapidly-dimming twilight, up and down the hills and around curves that made Noble's heart leap into his throat, they came back to the hotel. Minutes after that they were in Shaw's room.

"OK, time to get your uniform," Shaw said.

Shaw opened the closet and Noble saw the long coats, wide-brimmed hats and red-lensed goggles. Shaw pulled out one of the coats and slipped it on, placed the hat on his head and the goggles on the brim of that hat. Then he pulled the second set out and handed them to Noble.

"OK, put these on," Shaw commanded. "I've already contacted some of the other members of IDEA, so there are going to be more meeting us, some of them from other dimensions."

Noble didn't delay. He threw the coat over his shoulders and shot his arms through. The coat was so heavy that for a moment he nearly fell over and then there was an all over prickling sensation, like a thousand pins and needles, as if his entire body had fallen asleep. The nanobots pierced his skin with microscopic probes and the coat's sleeves grew shorter, the edge of the long coat shrank to just about mid-calf. It also grew lighter.

The hat came next. Once more there was that feeling of pins and needles and then the hat conformed to his head perfectly. Noble added the red goggles, placing them on the brim of the hat.

"OK," Noble whispered, "that was weird."

"I'm going to head over to my room at the hotel," Dash said. "I'm going to get to work finding out everything I can about Gemini."

Noble handed his phone to Dashiell. "Look, answer this if anyone calls," he said. "Do what you can for them. I don't know how long I'm going to be gone."

Dash left. Noble and Shaw stared at each other as if something dramatic was supposed to happen, as if a fanfare should sound and angels sing.

"You'll be able to breathe and we've added devices that will allow you to speak," Shaw said. "It's all connected via the goggles and the hat. Both create a force field that keep the oxygen flowing and transmit your words. It also translates for you, since not all of our members speak English."

"This day just keeps getting weirder," Noble whispered.

Shaw smiled and adjusted the device on his wrist. "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

He reached out and touched the screen on the device attached to Noble's wrist.

The world went white.

And the world stayed white. Although the whiteness began to twist and twirl and fold in on itself like fog or mist. Noble felt unsteady, at first, as if his feet were in thick mud, and then things came into focus. Shaw was next to him. All around him was the mist, and there were things moving inside of it. Shapes and shadows.

"This way," Shaw said, pointing.

They walked toward their left and some of the shapes began to take form. Noble was shocked. There were twenty of them, maybe more, men in the long coats, with red eyes and wide-brimmed hats. They were standing in a circle, as if waiting for them to arrive.

"Hello, everyone," Shaw said. "This is Noble Randle."

A burble of hellos and welcomes filled Noble's ears. He heard a number of names mentioned, various forms of greeting. Most of the members bowed to him. A few stepped forward to shake his hand. He saw human faces and faces that were covered with fur. He saw a face with mandibles and eyes like an insect. Some of the faces were hidden by metallic masks with red eyes, so he could not see what form or shape they took. It was dizzying.

"So, this is in between," Noble muttered.

"Indeed," said one of the figures to Noble's right. "My name is Orval Tirado. I am from Dimension 13. It is an older dimension. I have been fighting this fight for a long time now. Once you have entered the in-between worlds, once you have joined this fight, you are never the same."

"There's someone you should meet," Shaw said, tugging at Noble's arm. "He is our oldest member, the exact number of years he has been alive have been lost even to him. He’s from the oldest dimension next to that of the Void itself."

Shaw pulled Noble past the other men. The men held up hands, bowed, seemed a bit in awe of him. He nodded back, waving his hand lamely and feeling like he had been invited to the weirdest frat party ever.

"Why do they seem like they're treating me like royalty or something?" Noble said.

"Because you're rare, Noble," Shaw stopped. "This is Kolthrax. Kolthrax, as promised, here is Noble Randle."

They had stopped in front of a shadow that did not, at least yet, resemble anything. It was a mass, a lump, crumpled to the ground. Noble could make out a very tattered version of the coat that he was wearing. Then, just after Shaw spoke, the form began to move. There was a soft growling sound and the shape began to stand - and it just kept standing.

The being, Kolthrax, was tall - very tall. It just seemed to keep unfolding itself until it towered over Noble and Shaw by at least five feet. The wide-brimmed hat was worn and tattered. Kolthrax wore a full helmet, but the eyes were as red as everyone else's. Those eyes studied Noble, looking him up and down, and then nodded.

"Welcome, Noble Randle," Kolthrax said, his voice little more than a whisper and a whisper that had a strange vibrating sound to it, like a speaker that had blown out. "I have been alive for a long time now and I never thought I would see the likes of you."

He extended his hand, the arm insanely long and very thin. There were three fingers and a thumb at the end of that hand. Noble shook it, amazed at the strength of the grip. There was power emanating from this creature unlike anything that he had felt before.

"Why am I so special?" Noble asked.

"You're special because someone who is both a Rifter and a Rift-Healer has not existed on this, or any plane, for more than a thousand years," said Orval from behind them, startling Noble as he spoke. "You are one of the rarest things that any of us have seen. Kolthrax is the only one to remember the last one we had working here. Denvian Tolthradus, right, Kolthrax? From the fifth realm?"

Kolthrax nodded, his long coat and clothes rustling like leaves. "Indeed. Even then, the Void had never been as great a danger as it is now. I am from a dimension that was right next door to it. Sadly, my original home has been lost to the Void for many centuries. As was my family and most of my people. As for your home, for some reason, on we have not yet figured out, your dimension has the largest number of weak spots and allows for the greatest influence. He has taken advantage of that and corrupted Whitten. We have never had someone that was completely possessed by the Void as we have with Whitten. Never has Void had such a devoted acolyte."

"If you're the oldest, then you must know about this Void," Noble said. "What can you tell me about him or it? What is it?"

Kolthrax's shoulders heaved as if sighing. "There are many stories. I have heard them all. Some say that Void was one of the original architects of the multiverse. That he was there at the creation of it all, but betrayed the Light. There was a war and Void lost, ending up banished to his own realm in the center of the domains. He has thrashed there for centuries, trying to find his way out."

"Yes, of course. I've known that story. The same story of that of Lucifer," Noble said. "Is Void the devil?"

"There are devils for each culture, each dimension," Orval said. "We have similar tales. It is the one that pervades the entire multiverse. It is not the only one. The Void, however, is as close as we’ve ever come to seeing the Devil as you might know him."

"No," Kolthrax interjected. "There is another tale, and this is the one that I tend to believe. I believe that before there were dimensions there was only light and dark and that they fought from the start. You see it all the time when you look up into the night sky. Light versus dark is the oldest war in history. It
IS
history. Somewhere in that battle, the darkness was banished to that dimension and it leaks out, fights back, tries to get free, because darkness was here before there was light. Even your Bible says so, correct? Before there was light, there was a formless void. That is what we fight. We fight the oldest creature that has ever lived. That ever will be. It was here first."

Noble felt a sense of pure awe mixed with outright terror. The vastness of what Kolthrax was saying staggered him. This was bigger than him. Bigger than anything that had ever been.

"So, then, if there is a Void," Noble said, "then there is an opposite? There's a Light?"

Kolthrax nodded and there was a soft noise that Noble realized was this creature laughing. "Indeed, there is, Noble Randle. That is who we fight for."

Noble had about nine thousand more questions flash through his brain, but there was no time. If anything, there was less time than he had originally thought.

"How do we fight it?" Noble asked.

"The way we always have," a voice said to Noble's right.

Another figure stepped forward from the mist. Noble gasped in surprise and staggered backwards.

It was a coat, a pair of red goggles and a hat, but there was nothing holding them up. They floated in the air, in the shape of a human, but with nothing inside the coat. It reminded Noble of the Invisible Man.

"Ah," Shaw said, stepping forward, "Noble, this is Ezekiel."

"Wha -?" Noble asked. "B-but, you said he was dead."

"Indeed, I am," Ezekiel replied. "But the coat and uniform you wear is a computer, remember? It reads your biorhythms and records them. For all intents and purposes, the moment that you put on the IDEA uniform, your consciousness, was loaded into the uniform's systems. Your consciousness can live on inside that once the body has died. Yes, Noble, my body died quite some time ago, but my brain, my energy, my consciousness continues on."

Noble nodded as if this made sense. He knew that his jaw was hanging open. He stared into the red eyes, the strap of the goggles hugging air as if still wrapped around a skull.

"The only way I can continue, however," Ezekiel said, "is in the in-between. Only here can the systems continue my consciousness. It's not as bad as it seems. I can certainly visit any dimension I like, but I cannot cross over fully. I will not cross over until this threat is taken care of. I will not let myself leave this form until Whitten and his madness have stopped."

Noble extended his hand and Ezekiel shook it. Even though he now knew there was nothing within that glove, it felt as though there was a hand. A strong hand.

"OK, enough with the introductions," Shaw said. "I know that we all want to talk to Noble, but there will time for that later. He is a part of us now. At the moment, we have to deal with the problem of Dr. Whitten. He is a man who has become one with the Void. He is a true avatar of it, unlike, as Kolthrax said, anything that we have ever seen before."

"How do we stop him?" Noble asked. Time to shake off the awe and wonder. He had a wife, friends and relatives back in his home dimension that needed him now. "What do we do?"

"There is little that can be done," Kolthrax said. "Other than a direct assault on the Gemini labs. We have to do it. The problem, as I see it, is that the Gemini building has become the ultimate weak spot. The entire building is now a focus for that energy. Just getting to him will be difficult because there will be weak points all around that building and within it, all the way to the top. That is the reason he chose it for his experiments. Not only will he see us coming, but he has the best possible defensive position."

Noble shook his head. "No, there has to be a way. What if we can get a helicopter or something and fly in?"

Orval said: "That might be possible, but the energies that are being released there make it dangerous. The helicopter could end up vanishing into another dimension, or the machines in play could end up draining the energy from the copter and you'd crash."

"How many of those black-eyed children is he going to summon to stop us?" Shaw asked.

"It is not just the children now," Kolthrax said. "He has started to create avatars that look like adults. We have word that Void is starting to possess others, infected by Whitten. That may be what has been happening at Gemini. That may by why they have let him continue his experiments. Everyone within that organization may be within the Void’s thrall. If we let him continue the Void could infect and possess everyone else in the world. This entire planet could become black-eyed men, women, children and even animals."

Noble felt deflated. "How are we going to fend off everyone in the world?
How do we get to him with just me, Shaw and Dash? Don't tell me that the rest of Homeland is involved with this?"

"No," Shaw said, "but we are prepared to do something that will, in the short term, weaken the walls between dimensions. We can pull our members into our world to help with the fight."

Noble looked around at the men (creatures, beings) standing in the mist. There were dozens of them, but even if all of them were pulled into his dimension, would that be enough? How many of the black-eyed creatures could Void summon and control? Thousands? Millions? If he were now infecting people already there, turning them into avatars, the army just grew by millions across the globe.

"Do we have weapons?" Noble asked. "Do we have things that will help even the score when we're facing off against a thousand black-eyed children or adults?"

"Well, we have plenty of guns," Orval said. "Guns from your dimension and guns from other dimensions. Basically they will handle the black-eyed beings. It's Whitten and his possession by the Void that worries me."

"I can handle that," Shaw said, showing the rectangular device that looked like a remote control. "This will open up a portal and banish him to a pocket dimension. The walls of that dimension are strong, essentially creating a prison for him that will separate him from Void. More than likely once he is separated from Void, he will lose his consistency, aging rapidly to what he should be, probably even dying.

"We're condemning him and executing him?" Noble asked. "Sorry to sound archaic, but I was raised to be part of law enforcement. I still have a belief in due process."

Kolthrax made a noise that Noble recognized was his version of a laugh. "Exactly where would we try him? It is not like there is an inter-dimensional court that would try him before a jury of his peers. We have to neutralize the threat to multiple dimensions, Noble. Although Void has destroyed millions, there are untold billions still alive out there, and all of them are threatened."

Noble wondered if there was a light dimension. Was the light really God? If so, was God himself in trouble if the walls fell down? It was all too much to ask and discuss right now. He hoped he would have the chance to talk to Kolthrax after this whole event was over.

"OK, so, who's coming back with us?" Noble asked. "How soon do we need to make this happen?"

"The sooner the better," Orval replied. "I can almost feel the dimensional walls weakening. Whitten and Void are aware that we are planning something. The more we plan, the more time they have, and the more damage they do. We have to stop this."

"I guess I need to ask this," Noble said. "Why do you need me? I think I can guess, but I want to hear it out loud from one of you."

"You're the healer," Ezekiel said. "You are the one who can slip into the Rift that Whitten is creating and fix it. You are the one who has to stop the Void from entering your dimension."

"So, basically this entire thing hinges on me," Noble said, not a question, just a statement.

"Exactly," Shaw and Orval said at the same time.

Noble sighed. He closed his eyes, picturing his wife's face. All of this was for her, too.