John Gone (32 page)

Karen slammed her folder closed, crushing and
flattening the tulip between its pages. The noise jarred Felix to
attention.

“Listen to me, Felix,” she said, her eyes dry
and fixed upon him. “I cannot do this. You have to stop. We can’t
be friends, and we can’t be more. There are things at work that you
cannot understand. This is the last time you’ll see me. I’m
transferring labs. Good luck with the device.” She stood and
slipped the folder underneath her arm.

“Wait,” Felix exclaimed, slamming his legs
into the table as he raced to stand. “What do you mean, another
lab? Are you leaving the facility?”

“No,” she answered, walking to the exit and
refusing to look back as she spoke. “I’m just working with a
different scientist and project. It’s better this way. If you see
me in the hub, don’t say hello.”

“Karen,” Felix called to her against his
better judgment.

She paused briefly, standing still, looking
forward, allowing him a final sentence.

“Maybe someday,” he said, “when we both get
out of here, we’ll meet on the surface and things can be
different.”

“I doubt it,” she said quietly. And then, she
was gone.

John was running through a flowing field
beneath the sun. Tall varieties of grass lightly rubbed against the
skin on his legs left uncovered by the shorts he wore. He didn’t
remember waking or why he was running. The only thing John
understood was that he was on his way toward something. He shielded
his eyes from the sun and peered out in front of him. A hazy figure
jumped in the distance, waving him onward.

John removed his hand from his eyes,
revealing a purple sky halfway through sunset. He looked to his
right and saw Ronika there, running alongside him. She was wearing
a white dress, feminine in its lacey trim and collar.

He looked ahead for the figure in the
distance, and saw his mother. She was sitting on their couch with
its back turned from him. He tried to call out to her, but his
voice held no volume.

The sun had dropped from the sky now, and the
stars had appeared in force above him. The moon shone on his mother
like a spotlight through the darkness.

A sudden chill overtook him as he looked down
at hills of sand that had appeared beneath him. The sound of a
snake hissed from behind. He turned over his shoulder and saw the
Advocates running after him, their joints stiff like machines. He
panicked and ran on toward the couch in the distance, never getting
closer to it or his mother.

The Advocates were now just behind, moments
from catching him. The sky had turned blue, the faux blue of a
blueprint diagram made of paper. White lines intersected in
geometric patterns across its surface. The sky began floating down
toward the Earth on top of him. One of the Advocates’ hands reached
John’s shoulder.

Suddenly, he was lifted by something black
and metallic. It was Mouse, larger than the size of a person and
sprinting. He climbed on its shoulder and saw the Advocates losing
speed behind them. There was a voice calling his name. He couldn’t
tell where it was coming from. The world around him began to
fade.

“John! John, I can’t see anything,” Mouse
said. The voice was out of breath. “I got back home as soon as I
could. I’m sorry; I know I’m forty-five minutes late. I didn’t know
what else to do. John! John?”

There was no response. Mouse craned its head
around like an owl, trying to see anything other than the darkness
filling Ronika’s monitor at home. Mouse could feel the messenger
bag beneath it, as well as John’s body if it leaned forward and
reached, but still saw nothing. Ronika hurriedly slammed some
numbers and letters into her keyboard.

“I’m going to force open the optical sensors
so I can take in more light and see. John? John, why aren’t you
talking to me?” Mouse cried.

A minute later, Ronika’s few lines of
patchwork code were complete, and she rebooted Mouse’s software
with the new commands in place. The small light sensors in its eyes
widened immediately as she’d planned. The final effect was minimal,
but at least Mouse could now see what was close, even if it came
through pixilated.

Mouse left the messenger bag and began to
scale the mountain of John’s body, using its clamps and legs to
power closer and closer to his face. Soon, it arrived on the boy’s
shoulder and tugged on his ear. There was no response.

Mouse leaned to its side as far out as it
could, clamping to John’s collar for support. His eyes were closed
and his head was tilted down against his shoulder. No part of his
body was moving. Ronika thought she could hear his breath through
Mouse’s microphones, but the noise almost seemed to be coming from
elsewhere in the room like an echo.

Becoming more fearful with each second, Mouse
slid down John’s shirt and made its way to his watch, conveying the
sound of Ronika’s tears through its small, tinny speakers. It
looked down at the device; its glowing blue wires easily visible,
even in the darkness.

Mouse clamped onto the watch’s knob and
pulled. The small size of the knob made it difficult for the
robot’s clamps in the dark. Mouse lost its grip and fell onto its
back, barely avoiding tumbling from John to the ground.

It maneuvered onto its feet again and focused
on the watch’s knob. It pulled quickly, and the knob quietly
clicked into position. Dr. Kala’s hologram buzzed to life.

“I can’t see anything,” were his first
words.

“I know,” Mouse replied. “It’s dark.”

“I have infrared and heat-based vision
capabilities,” he explained. “The darkness doesn’t matter. The
watch is pointed at the ceiling.”

Mouse wedged itself underneath John’s arm and
lifted his hand toward his face so that Kala could better assess
the situation.

“Is he--” Mouse began.

“Dead?” Kala replied. “No, but you’re damn
lucky he isn’t. I told you this was dangerous. Why can’t I make you
people listen to me?”

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “Is he
just sleeping again?”

“Yes. When did you come online?”

“Just a minute ago.”

“I see. And he didn’t wake up again last
night after you turned me off?”

“No.”

“Then it seems likely that he’s still not
woken from yesterday.”

“You mean he jumped like this?”

“My statement would seem to imply that,
yes.”

“Can we wake him up?”

“Do you know how dangerous it is for someone
to jump unconsciously?”

Mouse dropped John’s arm and began to pull on
his fingers with its clamps. “We need to wake him up. John!”

“This is why I said to take him to my lab.
This wouldn’t have happened,” Kala continued.

Mouse was still pulling. “John, John! I need
you to wake up. John!”

“Stop blathering. He’ll be awake soon.”

“How do you know?”

“Simple mathematics. There’s a window of
error not knowing how far we currently are, but taking the average
jump distance and the time he’s been unconscious, I‘d say--”

“You’ve been keeping record of that?”

“The watch keeps record. It sends a
data-signal of certain values to a computer here. I’ll turn the
resting power usage down as well. Give him another few minutes. If
he’s ever going to wake up from this, it will be then.”

Mouse dropped John’s finger. “Where are we?”
it asked.

“I don’t know,” Kala replied.

“Do you hear breathing?”

“John’s?”

“No. Something else.”

The hologram and the robot remained quiet for
a moment, listening for sound.

“I do hear something,” Kala said quietly.
“You need to investigate.”

“Me?” Mouse asked incredulously.

“Well, I can’t very well do it, now can I?”
Kala replied.

Mouse latched onto the strap of John’s
messenger bag and used it to repel down his body to the polished
concrete floor below. It fell onto the wheels on its back and
slowly drove around the space, looking for any signs of where
they’d jumped or what else was sharing the room with them. It
wasn’t long before Mouse hit a wall and followed it to another.
Wherever they’d appeared was obviously small and confined.

Once at the other end of the room, Mouse saw
the shape of a man’s body standing and slouching against a corner,
only five feet from John. The robot froze and quickly considered
how easily this mysterious man could’ve heard its conversation with
Kala. If he had, he’d chosen to remain silent throughout.

“Hey,” John’s voice groaned from across the
room. “Ronika, you there?” He was awake and alive.

“There is no ‘Ronika’ here,” called a voice
smothered in a thick Russian accent. The sound had come from the
corner. John heard Mouse speeding across the floor from about the
same location and felt it crash into his foot a moment later.

“John!” Mouse called from below. “You’re
awake. Thank God. Lift me up.” The robot frantically tugged on his
pant leg. Slowly and foggily, John reached down to the small robot
and brought it back into his lap.

“My mother,” he said groggily. “She’s--“

“I know, John.”

“Oh, God, how could she be--“

“I know, John; I’m so sorry.”

“Where are we? Who spoke before?” John called
frantically into the darkness, fresh tears sliding into his open
mouth as he spoke. A deep Russian-sounding chuckle was all that
replied. John filled his lungs to capacity with a long breath and
exhaled it slowly. He was doing his best to calm down; there were
too many unknowns to fall apart now, and others were still counting
on him to survive.

“Where are we?” he asked Mouse quietly.
“Kala?”

“I’m here, Mr. Popielarski,” he answered.

“Is this your lab? I can’t see anything,”
John said.

“No, this is not my lab,” Kala said. “I’m
still just a small blue hologram. The girl one refused to input the
coordinates when you passed out.”

“So it’s true?” Mouse gasped. “You were going
there? You were going to let him win?”

“Well, give me the numbers now,” John said to
Kala. “I’ll put them in.”

“Sorry, Mr. Popielarski,” Kala replied dryly.
“It has to be an outward jump. You’ll need to wait another
twenty-three hours and eight minutes.”

“John, you don’t have to do that. There’s
still time. I can still figure something out,” Mouse protested.

John lifted Mouse in his hands and brought it
close to his face. He looked into the small open eyes beneath its
visor. “I believe you,” he said. “But if we don’t have something
before tomorrow, I have to go. It’s better than dying, Ronika, and
I’ve been the cause of too many deaths already. I’m not adding my
own or yours to the list if I can help it.” He lowered the robot
back down to his lap.

“Those weren’t your fault,” Mouse
squeaked.

“Now, let’s figure out where we are,” John
said. “We just have to get home this one last time. Kala,
ideas?”

“Only based on the obvious clue of the man’s
voice, but we could be anywhere, really. The U.S.S.R.? One of the
Slavic countries perhaps? Maybe you should ask that gentleman in
the corner.”

“Hello?” John called out to the room.

“Hello,” the man replied.

“Who are you?” John asked.

“That is an odd question coming from you,” he
answered back.

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re the one who’s entered my cage
without a key. This is solitary,” the man said, laughing viciously.
“You’re not allowed in here.”

“Solitary?” John asked quietly. “Does he
mean--”

“Jail. Prison. Yes,” Kala answered.

“I would ask where you come from,” the man
continued, “but I already know you aren’t human. Spirits, voices,
here to judge.”

“I don’t want to judge you,” John said.

“But you will,” the man said quietly. “I
heard them, the voices arguing around you. The woman and the man.
An angel and a demon. One in heaven, one in hell. Both on the
shoulder, arguing about who takes me. And who are you, then? I know
who you are; purgatory, the middle man. So which will you choose?
Who will you listen to, the angel or the demon?”

“I’m real,” John said. “Come here, touch my
arm to prove it.”

The man in the corner began a harsh laugh
that turned into a cough. Next, John heard the sound of what he
thought was the man sipping water loudly, followed by what he knew
to be the loud, alarming sound of a metal cup being thrown strongly
against the wall just next to his head. As he eyed the ground where
the cup had fallen he noticed that he was sitting on a small metal
prison toilet. He stood from it quickly and repositioned himself on
the ground a few feet away.

“Tricks,” the man said. “They will not work.
I know the stories. I touch you and I leave this place. I do not
want to go where you want to take me.”

“Can you at least tell me where we are?” John
asked.

“Earth. Realm of men. What, you lost?”

“Answer the question, pitiful human!” Kala
boomed.

“Kala,” John whispered to the watch.

“It was worth a try,” Kala defended.

John took a deep breath through his nose. The
room’s odor was putrescent. He moved his hand to the front of his
nostrils, hoping to defend them from the stench. He hadn’t noticed
the smell until now and briefly wondered how that had been
possible. Now that he was focused on it, the stink seemed to
strengthen by the minute, becoming more and more noisome the longer
he sat there breathing it in.

“Does it bother you, being locked in the dark
like this?” Ronika asked.

“I am half-blind, so, no, darkness does not
bother me,” the man said. “Even before I lost my sight twenty-eight
years ago, I was its friend. I have been seeing and hearing only
darkness since I can remember. It speaks to me.”