The Sphere: A Journey In Time (24 page)

“Noah!” I yelled.

He hesitated and turned back to look at me, a scowl still on his face. “What?”

His anger disarmed me. I needed his support in this. “Please. We still have to deal with Doctor Lancing.”

Noah hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t be needed for this part of the plan either, but the desire to see the man who had made his life a living hell was too strong to resist. He also saw the fear in my face, and drew himself up to demonstrate his courage. He walked past us and continued on down the hall, leading the way. He stopped short as he rounded a corner and his eyes narrowed. The two of us hurried up to him to see what made him stop.

He stood there, at the end of the hall in front of the closed door to his office as though he had been waiting for us. He looked completely calm yet there was something in his eyes that I found unnerving. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly in a lopsided cross between a vicious smile and a deadly frown. "Adelaide MacDuff." His voice sounded ancient though he looked to be no more than twenty.

I froze. Though his voice betrayed no trace of a southern drawl, I recognized it, and him, from our conversation on the road. A chill crawled up my spine. He had known who I was, even back then. Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? I realized that was in the future, in a different timeline that no longer included me. This man would never have that chance.

Noah leaned towards me, a bit of smugness in his voice. "He's just a man, Addy."

Daphne moved forward to stand at my side. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, took a deep breath and walked forward slowly. "Doctor Lancing."

He stepped forward as well and we slowly started to cover the length of the hallway. "I knew you'd show up at some point."

My immature side wanted to respond with a chiding remark, but I knew better than to give anything away. I remained as silent as possible and tried to keep my breathing steady.

"It's like a drug, isn't it?” he asked. “The power of the sphere." I still said nothing. "It's how I got you all to obey. Best not ask too many questions, don't make too many waves? Heaven forbid you be denied access to your venerable sphere."

My fear abated slightly at his mocking tone. Now I was just getting annoyed. I felt a renewed confidence and answered his mocking with a slight eye roll. I shouldn't have given away my position. He re-adopted his silent stare and again I was unnerved. It seemed like he knew something I didn't. As though he already knew my plan and had a way to stop it.

We stopped a couple of feet away from each other. He was unarmed, but he gave off the air that he could kill me with a thought. Though he was not a large man, there was an impression of enormous power in his frame. I was struck immobile by my irrational fear and tried to calm my breath. I thought about Eliza, and the vision of her torturing Noah. I felt Daphne's presence at my back.

"Who's your little friend?" he asked.

I kept silent still.

His eyes ran over me and paused at my right hand. There was a moment of hesitation in his countenance, and I tried to cling to that. "What's in the box, Addy?"

I inwardly cringed at his use of my nickname. I raised the box with my right hand, opened the lid and glanced in, keeping the opening away from him so he couldn't see inside. My breathing accelerated, and the corners of my mouth crept up slightly. "Nothing," I breathed.

In an instant he cleared the distance between us and wrenched my wrist to turn the box around and see inside. His grip was wiry like that of an old man who has worked with his hands all his life, and the fingertips dug painfully into my forearm. He looked at the empty box and looked up into my face, confusion wracking his features.

His eyes widened and he let go of my wrist, but it was too late. Daphne released my shoulder and took a few steps back, keeping the lid to the box in her hands open and cradling it close to her, her thumb poised over the button. I dropped my empty box on the ground and looked around at the circle of people surrounding us. They had torches and were dressed in dark cloaks that hid their faces from us. “Sarah?” I called out. I stepped slightly away from Doctor Lancing and Daphne followed me. He whirled around, trying to figure out what was going on. I took advantage of his confusion to further increase the distance between us.

Sarah moved forward from her place in the circle and pulled her hood back down so I could see her face. She held up her left hand and gently waved a wrinkled piece of paper. I recognized it as the note I had tucked into the back of Noah’s journal. It crumpled slightly in her hand as her grip tightened in rage. “Is this the man?”

I responded in a raised voice so Doctor Lancing would be sure to hear me as well. "Delivered, as promised. This is the man who will deceive you and kill many of your people. Do with him as you like." I turned to grab Daphne’s hand and watched his face twist with rage as the torches closed in on us. He leapt forward to try and grab us, but landed in empty space.

Back in the hallway, Noah saw the pang of guilt on my face. "He may have just been a man, but he was a downright evil one." He walked down the hallway to rejoin Daphne and me, and patted me roughly on the back. “You did the right thing.” He was always quick to forgive me. “Now let’s fix this pigsty up so we can get back to work!”

Chapter 24

Noah started heading back to the entrance, toward the main living dome. “Wait a second, Noah?”

He stopped and turned to look at me again.

“There’s something else I want to check out, that was here when I was here in the future.” I half expected him to want to come with me again, but he nodded and continued back down the hall.

“I’ll see how the remaining folks are taking the news,” he said. Daphne glanced toward him and back at me.

“You can come if you want.” I had no idea what to expect, but I didn’t want to force her to go with Noah if she wasn’t comfortable with him. “Okay then,” I said, when she stared at me silently.

I led her through the door at the end of the hall, feeling a bit more confident now that I knew Doctor Lancing was out of the picture. The lights were already on, so nothing changed as we walked through the door. We went over to the dormitory first. Beds were untidy, as though they had recently been slept in and hastily made. There were a few more pictures of children still sitting on bedside desks. “What is this place?” Daphne asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Some sort of dormitory for children. Maybe the children they kidnapped to be programmers.”

Daphne shuddered beside me.

“And more.” I walked over to the picture of Eliza with the ball and looked at it again. I had thought it had been taken shortly after she had tossed it in the air, but now I knew, she was levitating it. I showed it to Daphne. “This girl---I met her in the future.”

Daphne took it in her hands. “How did you recognize her if she was so much older?”

“Well that’s the thing, she wasn’t older.” I let Daphne absorb the information. “Also, I’m pretty sure she’s levitating that ball in the picture.”

Daphne laughed once. Then quickly quieted and looked at the picture with trepidation. Her breathing accelerated. “Levitating?” She handed the picture back to me.

I nodded. “I don’t think time travel was the only abnormal thing going on around here.” I placed the picture back on the desk and turned to the door. “Come on, let’s see if she’s still here.”

Daphne didn’t move. “Adelaide.”

I turned back. “What is it?”

“I’m frightened.”

I smiled and thought of my own unnerved feelings from my last trip in here. “There’s nothing to be scared of,” I said, trying to reassure her. After all, I told myself, she’s just a young girl. “Come on.” I took Daphne’s hand and she let me lead her out of the room and back into the office. We walked over to the door to the hospital room when I turned back to her. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.”

“What’s in there?”

“I believe that girl in the picture is in there.”

Daphne shook her head and backed away, her eyes widening. “No. I don’t want to see her.”

“Okay. I’ll just be a few moments.” I tried to give her a courageous smile and opened the door. I quickly entered as I heard the soft beep of machinery and closed the door. Eliza was there. She looked exactly the same as I remembered. “This can’t be,” I whispered to her. I could see the cable coming out of the back of her head but kept my distance. My eyes fell once again on the helmet. I walked over to the chair and lifted the helmet out of it. I took a deep breath to try and steady my nerves and was about to place it on my head when I heard Daphne scream my name. “Daphne!” I yelled and let the helmet drop back into the chair.

My heart sped and I ran back to the door into Lancing’s office. My eyes scanned the room but I couldn’t see her anywhere. “Daphne!” I yelled again.

“Adelaide!” Her voice was coming from the hall.

I ran out into the hall. She stood at the end, torn on where to go. “It’s Noah!”

I sprinted to meet her and the two of us ran through the halls back towards the entrance. I heard Noah call my name along the way and called out to him, “Noah!”

We turned the last corner and saw him a few feet from the entrance, a gun in his hand, pointed at the doors. A group of about a dozen people were pressed around them, banging their hands on the glass. “Noah, what’s going on?” I asked as we approached his position.

“They’re not happy about this idea, Adelaide. They want in, and they want us out of here.” Thankfully the doors were holding, but if there was a librarian or a scout out there, they’d be able to get in.

I moved a little closer to the doors, “Listen,” I yelled to the crowd outside.

A fist slammed against the glass again and I jumped back in alarm. “Noah, put that gun away!”

“No way.”

“You’re not helping,” I hissed at him. “Please people, listen to me!”

“Come out here and we’ll listen,” one of the people yelled. The group echoed their agreement.

“Please, there’s no reason to be angry, we’re here to help you.”

“How do we know you’re not with them?” another man shouted.

“You have to trust us,” I pleaded.

“Yeah right!” More fists banged against the glass. Someone found a shovel and started banging that against the doors.

“Daphne,” I said, backing away. “Get back to Doctor Lancing’s office.” She turned and ran. “Noah?”

He backed away too, keeping the gun pointed at the group. “Maybe this was a bad idea, Adelaide.” He jumped as the shovel made contact again, and a crack formed from where it struck. “Run.”

I turned and yelled to him. I could hear his footsteps behind me and glanced behind to see him following me with the gun. As we ran past another guard I grabbed his gun as well. I had no intention of using it, but I didn’t want the other people to get their hands on it either. I heard the sound of glass shattering behind us but focused on taking the correct path back to Doctor Lancing’s office. I couldn’t even be sure if there were other guards from other parts of the lab, still alive and well armed. “Noah what do we do?” I asked as I ran.

“Just keep going, Addy!”

We turned the last corner. Daphne was standing in the doorway to the office, peering out from behind the door. She opened it wide as we approached and I saw her eyes fill with fear as she refocused behind us. I ran through, Noah just behind me and she slammed the door. Noah threw his weight up against it and scanned for some extra security measures. When the first bang hit the door he jumped back and re-aimed his gun. “Shit.”

Daphne was crying. I pulled her behind me and pointed my gun as well. “Adelaide,” she said to me, her voice broken.

“Wait a minute!” I said. I dropped the gun on the desk and ran past her, ignoring what she was trying to tell me. “I’ve got an idea, Noah.”

“You better make it quick, Addy!”

“Adelaide,” Daphne said again, urgency in her voice this time.

“Just one moment, Daphne!” I waved her off and ran into the hospital room again. I wasted no time in putting the helmet back on my head and sitting in the chair. I saw Daphne follow me into the room and gasp before my mind was assaulted.

I squeezed the arms of the chair and tried to focus the thoughts on the crowd outside the door, but the images I saw kept going back to Noah and Montgomery being tortured. I tried to focus on the office outside, but Doctor Lancing entered my vision, leering down at me, and I was suddenly very afraid. I lost my fight and my mind was all over the place. Places I didn’t recognize, someone’s home, other young children, an older man who cowered in a corner. A small bit of consciousness became aware that Daphne had grabbed my wrist. She was going to take us away somewhere. Yes, I thought! She’ll take us all out of here! As soon as my mind had registered it though, she let go again. I heard her say something to Noah. Noah was in the room. My body was rigid with pain. My head was pounding. Where did Daphne go?

Noah was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear it. As soon as I heard his voice the images in my head went back to those of him being tortured. Suddenly I could tell that he was on the floor, writhing in pain, and it was no longer just in my head. My arms would not move. Noah was pleading with me. I wasn’t the one hurting him, why was he pleading with me? “Noah!” I managed to yell. Focus, I yelled at myself. I turned my mind to Eliza, lying in the bed and I heard Noah stop yelling on the floor. My mind scanned the length of her body, and remembered what the back of her head looked like, the open skull and the claw digging into her brain.

My mind was suddenly freed. I wasted no time in taking the helmet back off. Noah was panting on the floor. “Noah!” I jumped off the chair and went to him on the floor, the sound of pounding on the door outside did not cease. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. What the hell happened, Adelaide?”

“I don’t know.” I looked around the room wildly. “Where’s Daphne?” I exclaimed.

“She left.” He shook his head as though trying to clear it and pressed a hand against his right temple. “She told me to wait here.”

“As if we could go anywhere.”

“She tried to take us somewhere, but she couldn’t feel you. She said it was like you weren’t here. What is that helmet, Addy?” He looked warily at it.

“Don’t worry about that now. We’ve got-” I was distracted by Daphne entering the room again.

She left the door open and beyond in the office I could see Jim standing at the desk. “Jim!” I called.

He held a hand up to silence me and pushed a button. I could hear a door unlock and a mass of feet pad into the room with him. I made to get up to defend him, but Daphne and Noah held me back. We could hear confused murmurs through the doorway before one voice spoke up above the rest.

“Jim! You’re Doctor Lancing?” I could hear gasps and more murmurs.

“No,” Jim said. “Doctor Lancing is dead. I killed him.”