Strike 3: The Returning Sunrise (5 page)

In the smoke and light, Tobin saw the Daybreaker, wearing his armor and sitting in the metal throne in the pyramid in Zanatopia.

“When you were ready, Rigel brought this second version of you back to the present and bestowed upon you the legendary title of the Daybreaker. Then, after teaching you more in the ways of your powers—well, the results of this can be seen on your home world now.”

The smoky image of the Daybreaker changed, morphing into the black-and-purple Dark Nebula surrounding
Boston
. Tobin watched the dome, dismayed and sick to his stomach.

“So it is me,” the boy said. “The Daybreaker is me. It’s not some illusion, or fake trick. It’s actually me.”

“Yes. A different you from a different timeline, but you nonetheless. Only one event in the Daybreaker’s life has been different from yours. One small difference has created all of this. Instead of being taken from Earth and trained by Orion, he was taken from Earth and trained by Rigel.”

Tobin stared at the Dark Nebula. “So Rigel found me instead of Orion, and this is what happened. This is what I turned into. I’m capable of doing all this.”

“Yes. And so much more.”

Tobin didn’t want to know the answer to his next question, but he knew he had to ask. “He—the Daybreaker—he has chosen to do all of this? Of his own free will? Rigel isn’t making him do this, or hypnotizing him or something?”

The Time Queen shook her head. “No. This is his choice. Because of what Rigel has told him about the universe, he has chosen to work with Rigel and the others. He is leading them in their conquest of Earth. This is how he—how
you
—has chosen to use his powers.”

Tobin was quiet, watching the smoke and light, with his hands clasped in front of him.

“Is this not the answer you were looking for?” the Time Queen asked.

“It’s what I was looking for. I was just hoping you’d be telling me something different.”

“I can only tell you what I know. And what I know is truth.”

Tobin nodded. “Thank you. I’m gonna go home now. I’ll be needing that diagram.”

Tobin reached forward and plucked the drawing of the Chrono-Key from the air. With his thoughts and the truth overwhelming him, he stood and walked back toward the rows of clocks, towards the exit of the shop. The Time Queen stayed seated.

“Oh, Tobin,” she said with a wide smile. “Would you like to know more? Would you like to know about your future?”

Tobin turned around, his eyes squinting.

“Like I said, the future is unclear,” the Time Queen said. “It’s always unclear, because there are infinite possibilities. It is impossible to be 100% sure. But I can tell you what I see most often when I look into your future.”        

Tobin thought it over. He shrugged. It couldn’t be any worse than what he had just heard. “Sure. Why not.”

The Time Queen closed her eyes and entered another trance, swaying side-to-side. “I see...a dead man, appearing as if risen from the grave. I see...a giant, walking the streets of the Earth. And I see you. You are alone...scared...and crying.”

Tobin stared at her, with his eyebrows raised. “Okay. Not exactly ‘you win the lottery and buy the Boston Celtics,’ but okay. Thanks. Thanks for that.”

Tobin turned toward the exit, more eager to leave than ever. Behind him, the Time Queen laughed.

“Oh, Tobin. My handsome, little Tobin. You really are so sweet. I didn’t think you would be so naive.”

Tobin turned around. “Come again?”

“I’ve been waiting over fifty years for this moment,” the Time Queen said. “Did you really think I would just let you leave?”

“Umm…” Tobin thought it over. “Yes?”

The Time Queen laughed again. “That diagram in your hand—that device. I need you to get it for me. What that watch allowed me to do, even from afar...for the first time, I could see clearly. If I held the Chrono-Key, if I could actually hold the device in my hand? Everything has been a jumble, since I was a little girl, but when I spoke to the Chrono-Key—it was like someone had lined everything up for me. Cleanly. Clearly. All the voices and images had been lifted. I had always hoped this is what would happen when you came to me. But I never thought it would ever be this beautiful. I never thought I would feel this...high from it.”

Tobin stepped toward the exit. “Okay, uh, you’re welcome, I guess. But I really should be going. Hope you keep feeling...high. Don’t go driving or anything.”

The Time Queen laughed, loud and hard, flinging her head back.

“Oh, Tobin. You know. You know I can’t let you leave. You’re my only hope of getting the Chrono-Key. Do you understand what I could do if I had that? What I could accomplish? You must stay with me. You must stay with me and help me get the Chrono-Key.”

Tobin looked for another exit. “No, actually. I don’t. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to make sure you never get your hands on the Chrono-Key, ever. I’m going to need it, I’m sure, for whatever happens next.”

“You will need it,” the Time Queen said. “But you won’t have it.” She reached toward one of her cuckoo clocks hanging on the wall. “You won’t have it because I will have it.”

Tobin stepped toward her. He grabbed his bo-staff from his back. “What are you doing? Listen, you need to stop before I—”

“Yes, stand right there,” the Time Queen said, with her hand on the cuckoo clock. “Right where I’ve been seeing you stand since I was ten years old.” She squinted. “Wait a minute. Not quite right.”

Tobin stepped forward, lighting his bo-staff with electricity.

“There you go,” the Time Queen said. As she used her finger to spin the hour hand on the face of the clock, the floor slid open underneath Tobin’s feet. Suddenly, he fell into the floor and disappeared from view.

The Time Queen let out a satisfied sigh. “Nothing quite like building a trap door and then having to wait forty-five years to use it. But boy, was it worth it.”

Tobin found himself careening down a twisting, turning, underground metal slide, underneath the Time Queen’s curio shop. The tube went nearly straight down, and Tobin could not stop or control his fall.

“Whooooooaaaaaaaaa!” he shouted, as he tried to brace his hands on the walls speeding by him. “Whoooooooooahh!”

Finally, the boy reached the end of the slide and
SPLASHED!
into an underground cavern. Getting to his feet and soaking wet, he stood in the knee-high water and looked toward the ceiling. High above him, he could see the hole he just fell through, but it was soon covered by a sliding door.

“Tobin?” the boy heard someone say. “Did you land okay?”

Tobin darted his eyes around the cavern. Up near the ceiling, there was a speaker built into the dirt wall. The Time Queen’s voice was coming from it.

“Are you in the water now?” she asked. “Okay, good. Good, I can see that you are. Now, you just be a good little boy and agree to help me get the Chrono-Key. Then, I will let you out of there, and we can all move on from this unfortunate incident and continue being friends again.”

Tobin sloshed through the water, running his hands along the walls and stomping his feet, listening for any hollow spots in the ground.

“No, that’s okay,” he said. “I think I’ll just look for a way out of here and go home. Thanks for the iced tea, though.”

The Time Queen laughed. “There is no way out, silly, I’ve made sure of that. And if you won’t get the Key for me, then I will have to kill you. It is one of the futures I’ve seen. Is that the road you want to go down?”

Tobin didn’t answer. He looked up and down the muddy walls and ceiling, searching for a door.

“Fine,” the Time Queen said. “Have it your way, then. It wasn’t the way I wanted. But now this future must be.”

Suddenly, there was a loud, metallic
KA-CHUNK!
in the wall in front of Tobin, and the water around him began to rise. Within seconds, it was up to his waist, and then, before he knew it, it was up to his chest. And still rising.

“I’ll be down to pick up your corpse in a few minutes,” the Time Queen said. “It was nice finally meeting you, Tobin.”

Then, with a
CLICK
, the speaker went silent, just as the water rose so high that it lifted Tobin off his feet. As he rose toward the ceiling, he tried to concentrate and keep treading water, but he was beginning to panic. Splashing in the water, swimming all around the cavern, he continued looking for a way out, but there wasn’t one.

The boy tried to think: what could he do? How could he use his powers to get himself out of this? Soon, he knew, there would be no space left in between him and the ceiling, and he would be forced underwater—with no air, and nowhere to go but down. He had to find a way out before then.

As the boy looked to the ceiling, searching for the trap door he fell through, he once again heard another
KA-CHUNK!
in the cavern, but this time it came from underneath him. Looking down through the murky water, the boy saw movement, coming from the far side of the cavern floor.

Something was underneath the water. It was moving, swimming toward him. After seeing more fluttering shapes, Tobin quickly realized there was now more than one thing in the cavern with him.  As he looked closer, the boy could see faint white figures, swimming under him, coming up from the floor. Taking a deep breath, Tobin went under, and opened his eyes.

There were now over a dozen skeleton-like creatures coming toward him, swimming up through the cavern in a line. Their bony, skinless bodies had the appearance of a man, but their heads were those of a piranha skull, with big, empty, dead eye-sockets and long jaws filled with snapping teeth. They had no muscles, fins or scales—only pure white bones and webbed, clawed hands. Using these hideous appendages, the piranha-men quickly swam in a group up toward Tobin, gnashing their jaws and thirsty for blood.

Tobin panicked, thrashing his arms and legs, praying he could somehow swim faster than the skeletons. He swam up to the top of the water, but when he got there, he found there was now only an inch in between him and the ceiling. With no other choice, the boy sucked in as much air as he could, ducked under the water, and prepared to swim away from the piranha-men.

Then he felt it. A hand grabbing at his leg. Looking down, he tried to kick at the white figure underneath him, but it was too difficult to fight back under the water. A searing burst of pain scorched across the boy’s thigh, and he screamed, bubbles bursting from his mouth. As he watched, the blood rose up from his leg, filled the water with a red cloud, and sent the piranhas erupting into a frenzy. They snapped their jaws on his legs and slashed at his arms, and as he yelled from the hideous pain, he swallowed a mouthful of water and began to cough. Soon, he felt the bony hands once again grabbing onto his legs, and this time the squad of piranha-men began pulling him down, deeper into the murky darkness. Even when he desperately tried to fire lightning blasts from his hands, the electricity simply fizzled out under the water, and only accomplished spreading faint light through the cavern.  

But then, just as Tobin’s mind began to drift away from lack of oxygen, he thought of something. Using all of his remaining strength, he broke free from the pack of piranhas and swam as fast as he could toward the cavern floor.

The piranhas had to have come from somewhere.

Reaching the dirt floor, Tobin looked around, straining his eyes to see through the muddy water. There was nothing there, however—just unending brown dirt and a few rocks sticking out of the walls. Worst of all, the boy could feel his lungs tightening; he was running out of air. Soon he would have to swim back to the top, but he doubted he even had the strength to do that, and even if he made it, there was likely no longer any air pockets between the water and ceiling. As he looked up to where he came from, trying to figure out his options, he suddenly saw the pack of white shapes coming toward him. The piranha-skeletons, every single one of them, were swimming down to the floor, with Tobin’s blood still streaming off their lips.

Tobin looked back to the ground. It was now or never. He swam downward as fast as he could, and began to fire his lightning blasts in every direction. With the bolts fizzling under the water, he darted his eyes around the walls, but he could see nothing, even with the light from his energy blasts, and the only sound he could hear was his lightning searing against the cavern floor, sporadically bouncing off something metal.

Wait a second.

Metal?

Tobin fired more lightning; yes, even through the water, it was the unmistakable sound of one of his lightning blasts hitting metal. Tobin looked in the sound’s direction, and he saw a rock sticking out of the wall, right where the wall connected to the ground. There were a few other rocks embedded in the cave wall in that area, but none as big as this one.

This was no ordinary rock.            

Knowing he only had seconds to work with—and fighting the terrible urge to gasp for air—Tobin swam down to the large rock. The piranha-men were nearly on him now, but he had to put them out of his mind. Reaching the rock, he hammered at it with his arms and legs, blasting it with lightning bursts. But, it would not budge, so finally he reached back and grabbed his bo-staff from his back. Using it like a crowbar, he jammed the weapon into the area where the rock was attached to the wall and sent a stream of lightning scorching down the staff. Summoning all of his strength, the boy then gripped the bo-staff with both hands and pulled back on it as hard as he could.

The power Tobin exerted in attempting his lightning-fueled crowbar was so fierce that he uncontrollably let out a scream, and in the process let out whatever remaining air he had left in his lungs. But, it did not matter; feeling a rushing sensation underneath him, Tobin looked down.  The rock was wiggling against the wall, and as Tobin gave it one more swift kick, it loosened itself and dropped to the ground. However, before Tobin could even celebrate with an underwater fist-pump, everything in the cavern—the water, the piranhas, Tobin—was sucked down into the hole behind the rock, and suddenly Tobin found himself falling down yet another underground-metal-death slide. This was where the piranhas had come from, all right—now Tobin just hoped this slide led somewhere better than the underground cavern.

Luckily for Tobin, it did; the slide traveled right out through the underside of the Time Queen’s island, and the boy soon found himself in the open air, falling at an incredible speed. Hitting the lake with a
SPLASH
, he swam up to the top and broke free of the water, gasping for air and thankful to see the night sky above him.       However, even though he had escaped, Tobin was well aware that everything else inside the cavern had also been sucked out into the tube. As he looked back to the underside of the island, every last one of the piranha-skeletons also came rushing out of the slide, before falling into the lake with Tobin, splashing one after the other. It only took a moment for the skeletons to smell Tobin’s blood in the water and reengage the chase for their prey, swimming madly in his direction.  

Tobin bobbed at the top of the water, trying to think of an escape. His brain was light-headed, and he knew his lungs could not take another swim underneath the surface. He half-heartedly attempted to swim towards the far-off shore, but his arms and legs were exhausted to the point of uselessness, and he could not manage to make it even ten feet from where he was. With blood pouring from the wounds on his arms and legs—leading the piranhas straight to him—he debated trying to reach the Time Queen’s island, where he could perhaps climb the underside up to safety, but deep down he knew he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have the strength. And he could never out-swim the piranhas, anyway.

Resigning himself to waiting until the piranhas reached him, he treaded water and reached for the bo-staff on his back. When the piranhas came near, he would light the weapon, and then give it his all, trying to fight them off. As useless as he knew it was, it was either that or give up. At least this way, he wouldn’t give up.

But then, with his eyesight going blurry and his lungs tearing at his chest, Tobin heard a roaring, burning sound above him. He was so disoriented and light-headed that he didn’t recognize the noise at first—it wasn’t until a beam of light shot down from the sky and illuminated the water around him that he realized the sound wasn’t coming from inside his own aching head. Arching his neck back and squinting, he shielded his eyes from the light and looked up.

A figure was descending from the sky, dangling on a long rope. As Tobin’s eyes adjusted to the blinding brightness, and as the figure grew closer, he could see who the person was: it was his friend, Keplar Costello, the six-and-a-half-foot-tall, beer-drinking, cowboy-hat-wearing Siberian husky. Looking past the dog, Tobin realized that the rope he was dangling from was attached to the open cargo bay of the silver sky-ship known as the Sky-Blade, which was hovering above them.

“You’re lucky,” the husky said, as he reached Tobin, “that our little robot friend can’t keep a secret for krandor.”

As Tobin grabbed onto Keplar’s arm, the dog pulled the boy against him, and they both rose up to the waiting cargo bay of the Sky-Blade. Nearly unconscious, Tobin looked down; far below him, in the water, he could see the swarm of piranha-men, splashing their arms and snapping their jaws in a fury, still trying to jump up at their escaping prey. To the right of the furious fish, on the shore of the island, Tobin spotted the Time Queen; she was standing outside her curio shop and staring up at the Sky-Blade.

“No!” she shouted, slamming her fists at her sides. “No! This wasn’t how it was supposed to end! This isn’t what I saw! I need the Chrono-Key, Tobin, please! Please! Bring it back to me! I need it! I need it!”

Smiling and closing his eyes, Tobin rose up through the open cargo bay door of the Sky-Blade, and it closed after him.