Slam! Slam!
The quigs threw themselves at the basement door with a horrifying fury. They seemed even more out of control than before.
“They know we’re close,” Mark said. “They don’t want us to find it.”
Courtney saw something they hadn’t noticed before. A raggy curtain was hanging on the wall, covering it from ceiling to floor. Courtney pushed it aside to find another door. She quickly pulled it open and shouted for joy. Daylight flooded into the basement.
“Yes! It’s the way out! Mark, c’mon!”
Mark ignored her. He threw open the door to the workshop, but nothing was out of the ordinary.
“Mark, c’mon!” Courtney yelled.
Crunch!
The basement door was starting to splinter. A few more shots and it would come down… and so would the quigs. “Mark!” Courtney cried.
Mark wasn’t going to run. Not now. Not when they were so close. He was about to open the next door, the one that led to the root cellar, when he felt something strange. He looked down at his hand, then grimaced in pain.
“Ahhhhr
Courtney ran to him. “What’s the matter?” CRASH!
The wooden basement door gave way and clattered down the stairs. The quigs were on their way.
“It’s burning hot!” Mark yelled, and pulled off his ring.
Courtney turned to see the quigs had begun their final, fatal charge. “This is gonna hurt” was all she could say.
Mark threw the burning ring onto the floor. Instantly a high-pitched sound came from it. It wasn’t a painful sound; it was more like a jumble of high musical notes that were all being played at the same time.
Courtney grabbed Mark. Mark grabbed Courtney. The two turned to face the charging quigs to see…
They had stopped. The three beastly dogs, their yellow eyes still intensely focused, had stopped. They twisted their heads as if the strange sound were irritating them. A second later the three dogs turned and ran back up the stairs, tails between their legs, whining in fear.
Mark and Courtney looked back down to the ring to see that it was moving. It wasn’t growing though. It began to spin. It was slow at first, but picked up momentum until the ring was up on end, spinning so fast that it was nothing more than a blur. The high-pitched notes grew louder.
“Look!” Mark said, pointing at the door to the root cellar. Courtney looked to see the door was starting to rattle on its hinges.
“Something’s in there,” Courtney said in shock.
“Maybe,” Mark said. “Or m-maybe something’s coming.”
The rattling continued, then an intense light began to leak from around the edges of the door. Whatever was behind there, it was giving off a light so bright that Mark and Courtney had to squint, even though it was only coming from the crack around the edges. The strange sound from the ring grew even more intense. Now it was so loud it started to hurt. Mark and Courtney both had to cover their ears. The light from behind the door grew even brighter. The door shook furiously. Mark was ready for it to blow off its hinges.
It was then that the most incredible event of all occurred. As the ring continued to spin, a laser light shot from it, aimed at the wooden door. Mark and Courtney watched in awe as the intense white light hit the door at head level. Smoke rose from where the light hit the wood. The door was burning.
And then, like somebody pulled the plug on a lamp, everything stopped. Everything-the beam of light from the ring; the bright light from behind the door; the strange, piercing sound. And finally the ring itself stopped spinning. It rolled one last time, then came to a stop with a slight, metallic ping. It was over. All was back to normal.
All but one small thing.
“Oh, man,” Courtney said in awe.
Mark saw that she was looking at the door to the root cellar. At first, Mark wasn’t sure why she was so stunned, and then he saw it. It was on the door, right where the beam from the ring had hit it. There was no mistake. They had seen this once before and read about it many times over.
It was a star. The sign of a gate.
Mark reached down and picked up the ring. It was no longer glowing and was now cool enough to touch. It had done its job. Courtney walked over to the door and touched the blackened symbol.
“It’s still hot,” she said. She looked to Mark and asked, “Could it be?”
“Open the d-door,” Mark said. “My hand’s shaking.”
Courtney reached down and grabbed the door handle. “My hand’s shaking too,” she said.
Mark put his hand over Courtney’s and the two of them pulled the door open.
The room looked pretty much the same as it had when they searched it before. It was a large, empty space with a dirt floor and bits of dried weeds hanging from the beams of the ceiling. It was cool inside, just the way a subterranean root cellar should be. It was the exact same room that they had been in before, except for one small change. The rock that made up one whole wall of the cellar was gone.
Mark and Courtney stood together, staring, not breathing. Instead of a rock wall, they now looked into a craggy opening. It was unmistakable.
It was a flume.
Neither could speak. They both stood there, staring into the infinite tunnel. It was Mark who first broke the silence.
“D-Do you think m-maybe this means the time is right for us to be acolytes?”
Courtney stared into the tunnel a moment more, then started to laugh. “Yeah,” she said through the laughter. “I’d say this is a pretty good sign.”
Mark laughed too. The two laughed and hugged. Neither knew what the future held, but one thing was for certain: They were no longer just bystanders whose job it was to read Bobby’s mail. They were in the game now. For real.
Mark’s ring twitched.
“Uh-oh,” he said, and held his hand up.
“Now what?” Courtney exclaimed. “I don’t know if I can take any more fireworks.”
But this event was safe and familiar. The center stone of the ring started to glow. Mark took it off and placed it down on the dirt floor. This time the ring grew, opening up the portal to the territories. The familiar musical notes grew louder, bringing with them a special delivery. The sparkling light filled the underground room. For Mark and Courtney, it was like being held in a warm embrace. The lights flashed one final time, the notes fell silent, and the ring was once again back to its normal size.
Lying next to it was the silver projector that held Bobby’s next journal.
“Hobey-ho,” whispered Mark.
VEELOX
We were good to go.
Loor and I stood facing the three silver disks in the wall of the alpha jump cubicle, wearing our dark green one-piece suits. Loor had been through the prep routine. Her blood had been scanned and she was fitted with a silver control bracelet. I got my own control bracelet too, but after what had happened during my last jump, I wasn’t going to put a whole lot of faith in that thing.
Our safety was in the hands of Aja Killian. She had put the alpha grid that controlled Zetlin’s jump back online. She would now monitor our jump into Zetlin’s fantasy and yank us out if anything went wrong. At least, that was the plan. Once we were in Dr. Zetlin’s jump, the Reality Bug might have plans of its own.
“Any questions?” Aja asked us. She stood at the door of the jump cubicle.
“No,” Loor answered calmly.
What could Loor ask? This was a girl from a territory of primitive, tribal warriors. The idea of jumping into
