The Lonely Whelk (2 page)

Maxwell looked at his watch and
chuckled.

“
Now,” he said, “I only
have to wait one more day. Wait and it will be mine. All mine. Just
mine. Not his, but mine. At the end of today.”

He pulled a small box out from under the rug
and opened it slowly. Inside the box was a pencil – a yellow,
wooden pencil, with a graphite lead.

“
It will be mine,” he
whispered again, and curled up in his damp pillows to
wait.

The wind buffeted the trees and dragged at
Kaia’s sweatshirt as she stood in the middle of a large crowd,
which bumped and jostled in the middle of a public park. The Grand
Tyrtle Park, a local attraction which hosted exotic trees and
evening events, was located on the bank of the Tyrtle River.

The pronunciation of the Tyrtle River was a
point of much dissention among Pomegranate City residents; some
insisted it was pronounced “Tyre-tell” and others were determined
to call it “Turtle.” Currently, the park was hosting a play, due to
start in only a few minutes. Early morning shows were a new thing,
and Kaia felt that far too many people were attending. Didn’t they
ever need to sleep? In addition, they seemed to have grouped
themselves based on their pronunciation of the river’s name: people
on one side were wearing green and yellow scarves and sweaters; the
others were wearing black turtlenecks, most of which proclaimed
“TYRE-TEL” in large white letters. Kaia rolled her eyes.

In her hand, Kaia held a letter, postmarked
only two days previous, from the Globe Government Center. It read,
Meet me at the Bucket Factory. Alone.
There was no time or
address. It was signed,
John
.

So here she was, early in the morning,
responding to the cryptic note by standing alone in a large group
of people who cared far too much about pronunciations and were
watching an uninteresting and rather raunchy play. “Bailey and the
Bucket Factory” was about a poor boy who couldn’t afford to even
own a bucket.

She was hoping that the cryptic message from
John was not a prank, but instead about her application to be an
intern in the primary office at the Globe for the Interplanetary
Creation and Cooperation Committee. John, the gentleman in charge
of the internship, was notorious for playing games and testing
people. His tactics included knocks on the door in the middle of
the night, cryptic messages – sometimes written in invisible ink –
and phone calls which at first sounded like prank calls, but if you
took them seriously, could change your life.

She looked around. A group of gentlemen in
green jackets were laughing raucously at a joke; a family of five
sat on blankets staring at the still-empty stage; a wife was
pointing angrily at the lipstick stain on her husband’s shirt
collar. Kaia jumped as she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“
Hello there! I see you got
my message!” A thin gentleman in an unbuttoned charcoal Callahan
frock coat melted out of the crowd in front of her. He stood with
his hands clasped behind his back and a big grin on his face. “I
hate this show! How about you?”

“
Are you John?” asked Kaia
hesitantly, even though he looked as she expected.

“
I most certainly am!” He
bowed, and then looked at her, head tilted. “Would you like to be
my new intern?”

She took a deep breath and tried to swallow
the massive grin that threatened to explode from her face. “What
about my interview?” she managed to ask.

“
Oh you already had one.
Your last day of class, the oral exam for Professor Needneon – I
wrote those questions.” He grinned. “You scored perfectly. For me
anyway, I don’t know about in the actual class.”

“
I got an A.” She shook her
head, still trying not to appear too excited. “So you’re going to
just… just hire me on the spot?”

“
Well, I mean, unless you
object?” John turned and began to stride rapidly towards the
street. Kaia scurried to keep up.

“
Oh, no!” she exclaimed.
She was having trouble processing that her life’s dream was really
coming true. “It’s just that this is... well, unconventional isn’t
a problem... but, what if this is just a very elaborate prank and
you aren’t, you know… you?”

John came to a halt as they neared the edge
of the street and turned to look at her. “That is a valid concern,
I suppose. I do like pranks.” He nodded, and then began to recite:
“Kaia Elexene Mastiff: your father died before you were born and
your mother disappeared when you were two. You were raised in the
South Pier orphanage, schooled at the Elusion Plains College of
Advanced Technology and Science, and live in an apartment with your
roommate, Jasmin. Jasmin works for the Department of Public Works
as a marketing consultant and has a cat named Jezebel. You are 5
feet, 5 inches tall and weigh approximately 129.3 pounds. Your hair
is dyed a normal brown but naturally has blue stripes in it, and
you have been dating Cary Strand off and on for about fourteen
years, but you should break up with him because he’s a jerk.

“
You applied for this
position at the Globe six years ago and have been finishing your
schooling, desperately hoping to hear from our department. Your
essay was phenomenal and your writing skills are superb. Your math
is also excellent, by the way, although you seem to be a bit weak
in the poetry department. Also you are not good at music or art,
but that is irrelevant as your imagination seems to function
sufficiently.

“
After you applied, you
then arranged for someone, we won’t name names, to drop reminders
off at the various locations where I was likely to be. He was very
creative, and tried a number of things from writing your name in
graffiti on alley walls, to slipping notes under the doors at the
Globe, to—”

“
Okay, okay!” Kaia waved
her hands in the air and began turning pink. “I believe you.” She
looked both ways, and then at John. “Are we crossing the
street?”

He smiled as at that moment, a sleek, black,
extendible pomobile zoomed up in front of them, hovering nearly
three feet off the ground.

Kaia’s eyes widened, and John gestured
towards the door. It slid open with a hiss as the car lowered so
that it floated a bit closer to the ground. “After you.” He
gestured towards the vehicle politely.

Kaia stepped past John and carefully climbed
in.

“
It didn’t even wiggle,”
Kaia noted as she settled into the deep, dark, leather seats,
noticing too late that John had not yet entered the
vehicle.

“
It’s got Oliphant
shocks.”

Kaia gasped in surprise at the voice that
emanated from deeper within pomobile. A man sat in the opposite
corner of the darkened interior of the pomobile.

“
Quin Black,” the man said,
reaching forward to shake her hand.

“
That’s Quin.” John nodded
in agreement, climbing in and pulling the door shut behind him. “He
follows me around a lot.”

“
To protect you, you mean,”
Quin muttered. “When I’m in town, anyway. And bored.”

“
A bodyguard?” Kaia asked.
“Why?”

“
I’m good at being smarter
than people, that’s all,” said John.

“
A smarter ass,” Quin
muttered. “And congratulations on your new internship.”

“
Thanks!” Kaia let a little
bit of her grin peek through. “I’m looking forward to
it.”

John straightened his tie and slicked back
his hair as the pomobile rolled to a halt. “And here we are!” he
proclaimed. “To new adventures and a new, exciting internship!”

Kaia grinned as she followed him and Quin
down the sidewalk towards the Globe building. Boasting the shape of
a large sphere resting atop a high-rise building, it was the most
intimidating ball on a stick she had ever seen.

They stepped through the doors, walked past
the secretary, and entered the elevator. Every step was like a new
world. Kaia simply couldn’t believe her eyes.

It was huge. Enormous, in fact. They sat in
the elevator for nearly five minutes before the doors slid open. In
front of her lay a massive room – a lobby of sorts – with signs
pointing in myriad different directions. People of every shape,
size, and species scurried back and forth and plants upon plants
grew up every wall and down every hallway. One hallway even
appeared to have a carpet of grass.

She had seen the Globe from a distance, of
course, always stunning on a sunny day and a winner of many
architectural awards, but she had imagined the inside to be much
more reminiscent of an office building. At least it had offices –
she had gotten that part right. But the offices had massive windows
that looked out a hundred feet to the ground. The squeaky clean
glass made it seem as though you could step right through them and
fall to your certain death.

“
Why so many plants?” Kaia
ventured to ask they began to stride into this strange and
altogether wondrous building. Quin was following closely behind
her.

“
Extra oxygen increases
productivity. Also, if the rest of the planet went kablooey, we
would have enough high-oxygen producing plants to keep everyone
alive in this building indefinitely. Provided, of course, that we
took care of the plants. And that the reason the rest of the planet
went kablooey didn’t involve nuclear weapons or anything else that
would cause our building to fall over.”

“
Amazing.”

As they turned the next corner, Kaia’s jaw
dropped. A fish tank – inside the wall!

“
That’s the artistic
evolution of fish,” John said. Farther down the wall, she saw that
the real fish tank with real fish was replaced by a photograph. The
photograph of the little swimming critters then morphed into a
really realistic drawing, which turned into a cartoon. Past the
cartoon, some stick-figure fish swam happily.

“
It’s incredible!” Kaia
exclaimed.

“
I think so, too!” John
replied. “Wait until you see the observatory! But first – the
signatures. Follow me.”

He led her down a hallway that was painted
like the night sky. The lights were off, but tiny pinpricks of
light glowed in the walls and ceiling.

“
Those are actual
constellations, by the way,” John said. “They change given the
season.”

After a few more turns, John stopped in
front of a huge oak door. A large snail was carved towards the
bottom, sitting in front of a beach with waves crashing on the
shore. John knocked once. The door swung open.

“
John!” Mr. Drake boomed.
Already a tall and intimidating man, the bulging vein in his
massively over-sized neck only increased his daunting appearance.
“You cannot hide keys around the building! What were you thinking?
Who knows what kind of idiot found one of your blasted keys and can
get in and steal top secret secrets whenever the hell he wants to!
What do you have to say for yourself?”

Kaia cringed as his angry voice washed over
her.

“
What I have to say is...”
John bowed and gestured to Kaia. “Meet Kaia! Our new high profile
intern! She is extremely qualified and overjoyed to be working for
us!”

Mr. Drake turned his seething eyes towards
Kaia. She swallowed.

“
Welcome.”

Kaia forced a nervous smile across her
features as his scowl swept over her and back to John.

“
You don’t
have
to
be head of eight departments, you know!” he continued as his eyes
bored a hole into John’s skull. Kaia was amazed how John didn’t
even seem to flinch. It was as if he didn’t even notice how
terrifying the man was. “We have dozens of other
more-than-competent scientists that could do your jobs! What do you
have to say for yourself?”

Kaia looked back and forth between the two
men. She was nervous, but had no actual idea of what was going
on.

“
I will work it out with
Rock and Quin,” John said, carefully choosing his words. “Security
has not yet been compromised and we will discuss it in
full.”

“
Thank you,” Drake replied.
“I expect a full briefing by the end of the day tomorrow. Now,
young lady, you must understand how important it is to keep
secrets. I have here—” he turned and rummaged in his desk drawer”—a
confidentiality agreement, specifically designed for interns.” A
five-hundred-page document thundered down onto the desk in front of
him.

Kaia’s mouth opened.

“
Unfortunately,” said John,
stroking his tie, “you’ll have to read and sign this before I can
show you anything else.”

“
There’s a chair and table
over by the window,” Mr. Drake added. “Welcome to the
Globe.”

Holland opened her eyes and stretched. She
felt extremely rested. Almost too rested. Blinking her eyes a few
times to rid them of the tired fuzziness, she slowly sat up and
looked around. The boxes around her remained closed. She took a
deep breath and tried not to imagine the bodies sleeping there.

“
Hawkings?” she said in a
rough voice. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Hawkings?”

Her voice echoed in the tomb-like room.

She sat up slowly, stretched, and blinked.
Waking up wasn’t fun in normal circumstances, and it brought a
special kind of grouchy when one had been asleep for six hundred
years.

Fiddling around in the dim light, she
carefully removed the wires and tubes that were attached to various
parts of her body. Then she hit the red button. The box began to
hum as the sides folded down. She swung her legs over the edge and
looked at the floor cautiously. “I hope these legs can support my
weight,” she muttered under her breath.