Nightmare’s Edge (11 page)
“To save the world?” Nathan strained to push out each word.
“Maybe he would!”
Nathan, Kelly, and Daryl slid closer to the roaring black tornado. Felicity hung sideways, her feet pointing toward the cyclone and her long dress flapping. “Save yourself!” she called. “Let me go!”
Nathan’s hand cramped. He couldn’t hold on much longer. “Can you take me to my father?” he yelled.
After hesitating for a second, she closed her sockets and cried out, “I’m not sure! But I have met him!” Her voice seemed to pass through Nathan’s body and into his ears. “If you come with me” — her sockets opened again, revealing a glimmer of light within — “I’ll explain everything there.”
Nathan rose to his feet, and, pulling Felicity against his chest, let his body slide toward the void.
Kelly grabbed a fistful of his sleeve and jerked him back. Her eyes flashing, she roared into his ear. “Listen to me! If you can’t fight this dream world, you’ll never find your father.” She pried his bandaged hand away from Felicity’s arm and pushed him toward Tony. The release made her stumble backwards and she fell into the rushing wind.
“Kelly!” Nathan lunged for her, but Tony held him back. As if swimming in a whirlpool, she fought against the cyclone, but it soon sucked her and Felicity into the black hole along with the remains of the dreamscape. Seconds later, everything vanished.
With only their candles lighting the area, Nathan fell to his seat. He couldn’t say a word. He could barely breathe. What had Kelly done? Why had she let herself be taken? Would she be safe? How would he ever find her again?
He scanned the area — dim, cool, and vague. No sign of anything except his fellow travelers.
A few paces away, Amber stood near Francesca, touching her arm as if checking for injury.
Daryl shook her head and pushed up to her hands and knees. “I think I just did the twist with the Tasmanian Devil!”
Tony set a hand under Nathan’s elbow and helped him rise. “You okay?”
“I think so.” Nathan blinked, trying to focus. His cheeks flamed. His stomach churned. Kelly had sacrificed herself once again, making sure he didn’t get sucked into that sandbox. Pivoting toward Amber, he spread out his arms. “Will she be all right?”
“I cannot be certain.” Amber glided toward him through the dimness, the glow of her candle lighting her way. “Dreams always end,” she said, her voice calm and soothing, “but I have never followed one into the mind of its creator.”
“So Kelly’s trapped in Frederick’s mind?” Nathan asked. “How could that be?”
Amber shook her head. “I suspect that Felicity was the second dreamer, and Kelly went with her, but I know not where. Felicity was a strange phenomenon. We supplicants can easily discern the vague profile that the phantoms carry, but Felicity never displayed it.”
Francesca took Amber’s hand. “I noticed, too. She didn’t fade at all.”
“Then perhaps she has taken Kelly to a place of safety. She indicated that Nathan could travel with her to find his father, so we have to trust that all is well.”
Nathan gritted his teeth. Yes, he had to trust — otherwise he’d go crazy. Maybe the Simons and Gordon would know where Kelly went.
“So where are we now?” Daryl asked. “Someone else’s dream?”
“No, but we are still in Earth Yellow’s dream world.” Amber swept her arm across the darkness. “It is an infinite universe with infinite horizons, and it abounds with countless visions of the night. If we were to walk in most directions, we would soon come upon another dream, but, for now, we are in an area void of the imaginations of mankind.”
“Most directions?” Francesca said. “Not all?”
“No, not all. One direction will take you to the barrier that separates the dream world from Sarah’s Womb. It is difficult to see it when you are actually within a dream, unless you know what you are looking for.”
Daryl’s gaze drifted across the expanse. “It’s like being on the holodeck in
Star Trek
.”
“So what do we do?” Nathan asked. “Now we have two people to look for.” He almost said “three people,” but with Kelly missing, searching for the new gifted one didn’t seem so important, no matter what Patar thought. They would have to find another way to the misty world.
“We have no choice but to return to the observatory.” Amber tilted her head as if listening to something in the air. “The music is dying away, so I have to take us back.”
A few seconds later, the darkness faded. Light filtered in, brighter with each passing second. Soon, the telescope room came into view, still dim and now without the sounds of two violins.
“They’re here,” someone called.
“I see only five.” The second voice was closer, deeper.
Nathan searched for the source. Solomon Yellow stood next to Francesca Red, his finger lifted in a counting pose. “Kelly is missing.”
“Nathan!” his mother called. “Where is she?”
Lights flashed on from the perimeter of the circular room. Nathan narrowed his eyes as he shuffled toward her, his legs weak and wobbly. “I don’t know.” He took in a deep breath before continuing. “She got sucked into a dark hole with a girl named Felicity, and I couldn’t follow her.”
“That’s terrible!” Francesca Red looked at Solomon. “Is there a way to find her?”
“Maybe.” Solomon picked up the empty candelabrum and reached for Nathan’s candle. “Does she still have her light?”
Nathan gave him the candle, still burning and now about three-quarters its original size. “I’m pretty sure she does.”
Solomon blew out the flame and showed Nathan the lower end. Something circular and dark was stuck to the bottom, like a thumbtack driven into the wax.
“A transmitter.” Solomon dug his fingernails around the circle and plucked it out. “As long as she hangs on to the candle, Dr. Gordon should be able to track her movements.”
“I have a signal,” Dr. Gordon called. “It’s weak, but it’s definitely hers.”
Solomon turned toward him. “Can you locate what realm she’s in?”
“The computer says the echo signature isn’t like any we’ve encountered, so I can’t determine its origin. But she seems to be moving, so I assume she is alive and well.”
A cold sweat dampened Nathan’s shirt as relief swept through his mind. “So if you can’t find her using the tracking device, can we go back and look for her?”
“That depends.” Solomon laid an arm over Nathan’s shoulders and led him toward a row of desks that abutted an outer wall. “Amber is capable of taking you back to the dream world, but even she would have no idea where in the dreamscape you would go.”
Nathan looked at Amber, raising his eyebrows in a questioning way.
“He is right,” she said. “If I am physically with a dreamer, I can easily find his or her dream, but if we jump in from a random place, we are more likely to enter a gap than anyone’s dream. It would be like jumping into the ocean, hoping to find a specific fish.”
“So,” Solomon continued, “it would be better to try to find the fish using its tracking device. And now that we’re not detecting any nearby dreams, Amber’s entry would likely be in one of the gaps she mentioned. We could wait for another dream to come close enough for the computers to pick it up, but unlike planetary orbits, intersections can’t be predicted. But be patient. I think we will be able to show you a new searching option in a minute.”
Nathan nodded. He didn’t really have much choice but to follow along. Now that Kelly was gone, their plans seemed to be falling apart. How could they get to the misty world without the Earth Blue mirror she’d been holding? That realm and its healing violin seemed farther away than ever.
Nathan and Solomon stopped near a desk where Dr. Simon Blue sat in a rolling swivel chair. Next to him, Simon Yellow sat facing an adjacent desk, while a man who looked like a younger, heftier version of Dr. Gordon attended a computer screen on a third desk.
Simon Blue spun toward Nathan and gave him a wide smile. “Upon meeting Dr. Gordon of this world, my counterpart and I were able to combine his technological knowledge with our experience studying the various cross-dimensional phenomena. We have also been in contact with the Earth Red Dr. Gordon through a digital channel that gives us clear transmission, and he added to our understanding, enabling us to deduce how every thing works.”
“Is Gordon Red okay?” Nathan asked. “Does he know how Clara’s doing?”
“They’re both doing well, considering the circumstances there. Clara wanted to join us, but we had to decline. We have been able to receive inanimate objects from Earth Red using the digital channels, but transporting humans is far too risky.”
Gordon Yellow pushed back, rose to his feet, and rolled his chair toward Francesca Red. “Please. Rest.”
The two Simons followed suit, offering their chairs to Francesca Yellow and Molly.
Dr. Malenkov strolled into the area, his violin now tucked at his side. “If you no longer need me,” he said, “I should go.”
Francesca Yellow ran to him and gave him a hug. “Is Mother well?”
“She has fallen ill.” He pushed her back gently and offered a weak smile. “I trust that God will heal her, but even if he chooses not to do so, she will merely fly to his arms and be healed there.”
“I will pray for her.” Francesca kissed his cheek. “And I’ll come to be with her as soon as I can.”
His smile withered. “I will tell her. She has longed to see you again.”
Nathan laid a hand on his back. “I’ll pray for her, too.”
“Thank you. The fervent prayers of a righteous man availeth much.” He turned and shuffled to the tourist entry, looking older than ever.
“Well,” Solomon Yellow said, clapping his hands. “Shall we get on with it?”
Nathan tried to keep from scowling. Didn’t Solomon Yellow have any sympathy? This version of his father was getting worse all the time.
Dr. Gordon handed Solomon a page of printed data. “The experiment worked perfectly. We captured the energy flow and imported its fingerprint. If we assume that the other dream worlds have the same format, we can shift our instruments to read and reproduce them, perhaps even in a holographic image.”
“Then our theory is correct?” Solomon asked.
Dr. Gordon pointed at him. “It was
your
theory. Let’s give credit where credit is due.”
“What theory?” Nathan asked. “And what does this have to do with finding Kelly? We can’t stand around and pat each other on the back while she’s stuck somewhere in the great beyond. And we still have to stop interfinity.”
Dr. Gordon eyed Nathan for a moment, his expression making him appear a bit annoyed, then returned his gaze to Solomon. “It will take a few minutes to align the telescopes and search for the signals. Perhaps you should take that time to explain the situation to Nathan.”
“Very well. I will start at the beginning.” Solomon reached for an iPod on Simon Blue’s desk and extended it to Nathan, letting the ear buds dangle. “Here is the key, perhaps literally in one sense of the word.”
“I’ve seen it before,” Nathan said. “It holds the music that opens dimensional portals.”
“True, but we added a very important piece that has a different function. Have a listen.” While Solomon slid his finger along the iPod’s wheel, Nathan caught the ear buds and inserted them. Within seconds, a violin played the simple melody of “Foundation’s Key”, but it was more than a rote recital. The violin sang with majestic fervor, a brilliant rendition that only one person in the world could have created.
Nathan looked at his mother. Obviously, she couldn’t have recorded it. She had been with him or in Mictar’s clutches the entire time. As the exquisite music continued, he turned to Francesca Yellow, now holding hands with Solomon. She gave Nathan a timid smile.
Returning the smile, Nathan nodded. Of course. That Francesca could play like this. No doubt about it.
Solomon turned off the iPod and retrieved the ear buds. “After many nights of experimenting, we learned that Francesca’s playing of that piece protects sleepers from dreaming about the future and blocks Mictar from entering their dreams. We think it somehow interferes with the open channels that the wounds created. How does it work?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“So what did you do?” Nathan asked. “Distribute it on the Internet?”
“It’s nineteen ninety three. The Internet isn’t nearly as widespread as it is in your world, and the circumstances we’ve lived with have delayed its progress, so we sold the recording the old-fashioned way — in WalMart.”
“So are the worlds still running in parallel? I mean, with all the disturbances we’ve caused, I guess nothing is really predictable, is it?”
Simon Blue took the iPod and laid it back on his desk. “You are correct. In fact, accurate next-day dreaming would likely have ceased on its own. Fortunately, when Solomon invented the cure, it was still a huge concern, so we sold hundreds of millions of copies and made a fortune.”
Nathan tried to hide a frown. Was this all a moneymaking venture? It couldn’t be. The man who eventually became his father couldn’t be just a greedy profiteer. Yet Gordon Blue was obviously in it for the money, even though Gordon Red wasn’t, so maybe . . .
Solomon laughed. “And nearly every penny went to finance this observatory.” He patted Nathan on the back. “Did you see that jalopy I was driving? You’d think I’d keep a few dollars to get a better car.”
“Yeah. I saw it.” Nathan lowered his head. Better to withhold judgment about Solomon. He obviously wasn’t a perfect gentleman, but he had some good qualities.
Simon Blue spread out his arms. “And as you will soon see, it is a vastly improved observatory from the ones you knew on the other Earths.” Nathan looked around. So far it didn’t seem much different. In fact, the laptop computers were bulkier, obviously an older technology, and the smaller screens forced them to feed the video signal to large stand-alone monitors. Those looked pretty sharp, though they were an old style, not the flat screens that would come out in a few years.
“Now here’s an interesting invention.” Simon Blue opened a drawer and pulled out a device that looked like a walkie-talkie with a video screen. “We call this an interworld audio receiver and transmitter unit. It’s so new, even Dr. Gordon on Earth Red doesn’t have one yet. The only three in existence are here in our lab.”
