"I still can't believe you're wearing that shirt, Zack," Cody said with a hint of disgust after Zack took his jacket off and slung it over his shoulder. "We live in Boston for crying out loud."
"Yes, I'm aware of where we live. Can I help it that my favorite player happens to play for Miami? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I've told you that each and every time I wear this shirt and you bring it up. Like this morning, for instance. And then again after fifth period. "
Cody decided to not mention the fact that he wasn't Zack's favorite player before he took his talents to South Beach and got a ring. "Whatever. It's just wrong, that's all."
"And I don't care." Zack led the way from the elevator to the suite's door. "What smells so good, Mom?" Zack asked as he and Cody came into the suite. He left Cody to close the door and followed his nose directly into the kitchen and found his mother cleaning up the aftermath of a surprisingly successful baking experience.
"I'm making Arwin some cookies since he was nice enough to come up here and fix the garbage disposal before he left for his long weekend," she told her son as she pulled two racks of steaming cookies from the oven and set them atop the stove burners. Zack reached out to snatch one and she batted his hand away with a pot holder. "You can have one as soon as they cool," she said.
"You know, Mom, you could have just smiled at him and not have had to go through all the trouble of baking anything. I'm sure that memory would last longer than the cookies would."
"Maybe not, Cody," Zack laughed, "he might put them under glass and stare at them for years."
"Be nice, Zack. Arwin is a very sweet man. Slightly eccentric and rather weird, but still a sweet man." She gave Zack the look until he was chastised.
"Sorry, Mom. I know he is. It's just that...I don't know, he's like a little puppy hopping around your feet, hoping you'll pet him." Cody snickered at Zack's very likely unintentional innuendo.
"I'm not going to pet him in any way, shape, or form, thank you very much. This is just a little gift to thank him for going out of his way when he could have waited until Tuesday." Carey then shot Cody a look telling him that she also got the double meaning of Zack's words and did not approve.
"I bet he'll love it when you bring them down to him, Mom."
"I'm sure he would but I'm not going to. This took a lot longer than I thought it would and I have to run a few errands before I go on tonight, so you two are going to be my delivery boys."
"Do we at least get paid like delivery boys?" Zack asked hopefully.
"I'll pay you in cookies," she told him before letting her eyes run to the clock. "Actually, I'll give you each ten bucks to blow in the arcade if you also go to the bank for me and drop my tip money in our account. That'll save me a trip."
"Can we do that?" Cody asked as he eyed the cooling cookies.
"I don't see why not. I've had Maddie deposit my check a few times. I don't think they really care as long as they're taking money in and not giving it out. If they won't do it for some reason, I'll just take care of it tomorrow."
Carey pulled a plate from the cabinet and began piling the cookies on it, smiling to herself as Zack's face fell with each one that left the tray. When she had a sizable pile on the plate, she covered it with cling wrap. "You two can have the rest," she told them and they dove in.
She washed her hands and scurried to her purse and pulled out an envelop and a deposit slip. Carey quickly counted the pile of bills, pulled out two tens, and wrote on the slip before handing the lot to Cody.
"People actually gave you almost two hundred dollars to hear you sing?" he asked incredulously after looking at the slip.
"I know it's hard for you to believe, but yes, people do enjoy hearing me sing. Not everyone likes that crap stuff kids your age listen to."
"I think you mean rap, Mom."
"No, Zack, I meant crap," she grinned.
"How long have you been saving this money up, Mom? A year?" he shot back.
"Since Monday, thank you very much." Carey pulled a sticky note from the desk and scribbled a hasty note on it and stuck it to the wrapped cookies. "Okay boys, I've got to run. I'll be back at the usual time." She leaned down and kissed each of them on the top of their heads. "Love you, don't kill each other, do your homework, and please try to get to the bank before it closes."
"We'll get there," Cody promised. "After we take your love offering to Arwin first, of course."
"If he's not there can we eat the cookies?"
"He'll be there, Zack. He told me that he had some work to do on, I don't know, whatever he's working on and would be there until around six."
"Okay, Mom, we got it," Zack told her and Carey grabbed her coat from the hook and dashed out the door, flinging a blown kiss over her shoulder.
"You want to stop by the library with me on the way back from the bank, Zack?"
"Now why on earth would I want to do that?"
"Because I need to drop some books off and it's only two blocks away from the bank."
"Probably not."
"I'll just put them in the box outside. Will you walk with me?"
"Yeah, I guess," Zack finally said. "But no going inside. You spend too much time in there as it is."
"I'll use the drop box, I promise," Cody said, picking up his backpack from the edge of the couch and slipping his arms through the straps. "Whenever you're ready."
Moments later the twins were out the door, Cody carrying Carey's present and Zack with a handful of the leftovers in a paper towel. They waited at the elevator and Cody watched his brother eat two of them before taking one for himself. The doors opened and they stepped inside and Zack reached for the button to take them to the lobby.
"No, we do what Mom asked first, then we play games," Cody told him as he pushed the button to take them to the basement and Arwin's office.
"Oh come on, it won't take that long. We'll just play a few games and then do the rest of it."
"Nope. I know how you operate. We go to Arwin's and then to the bank and library, and then we go to the arcade."
"You are no fun at all," Zack said with a fake pout.
"Maybe not, but I have the money in my pocket so it really doesn't even matter." Zack rolled his eyes and took another bite from a cookie.
"Fine. Let's just make it quick. I want to be done before the tourists all get back here and clog the place up."
They made two stops before the elevator came to rest at the basement level. The doors dinged and they stepped out and wove their way through the carts of laundry and various supplies that kept the hotel running. They passed the giant laundry and caught a strong whiff of bleach and detergent before they rounded the corner and found the door labeled Maintenance Office.
They knocked on the door's jam before pushing their way inside into Arwin's domain. The room was longer than it was wide with walls of mismatched tools, boxes of parts stacked haphazardly, and dozens of partially completed projects littering every inch of available space. And junk. Lots of junk. Zack whistled as he took in the sight.
"I think it's gotten worse since the last time we were down here," he said softly.
"No kidding. I'd say it looks like a bomb went off in here but that would be disrespectful to bombs," Cody replied as he stepped around what appeared to be a two foot tall stack of ancient invoices.
"Hey Arwin," Zack called, "you in here somewhere? Maybe under something?" Zack ducked to look beneath a workbench and came up sneezing and with a dusty cobweb on his shoulder. "Maybe he left early."
"Maybe. Arwin?" Cody bellowed as he picked the web from his brother. "Should we take them to his house?"
"Do you remember how to get to his house? I don't."
"No, not really. I could put us in the neighborhood but that's it," Cody admitted. "We'll just leave them here. He'll find them in the morning."
"Or in six years," Zack said as he gestured around the room.
"Or then. We'll just put them on his desk. If we can find it, of course."
The twins began swimming through the mess and looking for anything that might possibly be a desk. Cody spotted a chair buried beneath a collection of coats and they angled in that direction. Cody stepped behind the chair and smoothed out the top of the coats and tried to settle the plate on top.
"I think I got it," he said, "we'll just ask Arwin if he found them the next time we-"
"Will you look at this?" Zack interrupted. Cody turned to see that Zack had wandered a few feet away and was picking through a pile of letters he'd found. He was holding up an empty envelop and waving it around.
"What?"
"When was the last time you saw a twenty-five cent stamp?"
"I'm pretty sure the answer is never," Cody told him. "Those are from before we were born. Heck, probably even before we were thought of."
"That's what I thought, too. How long has Arwin worked here?"
"I honestly have no idea. Judging by that, at least twenty years."
Zack skirted around the corner of what was possibly a table to another pile of assorted junk. Curiosity overtook him and he pulled back an oddly uncluttered sheet and uncovered a small box made of metal and dense black plastic. Wires and buttons covered one half of its surface and the rest was taken up by a darkened screen.
"What the heck is this?" Zack wondered as he looked it over. "Looks like Arwin is trying to beat Microsoft to the punch and make his own new Xbox."
"I doubt he's making a game console, Zack." Cody came over as Zack picked the box up for a better view.
"Wow, it's kinda heavy. This must be where the disc goes in," he said as he pressed a recessed button.
"Zack, I don't think you should-"
"Awesome," Zack whispered as the screen lit up with a jumble of rapidly cascading code. "It's like The Matrix."
"Maybe you should stop touching things and put it down already," Cody cautioned and took a step back.
"Nah, it's fine now. See? It stopped doing that scrolling thing." Cody peered over Zack's shoulder and saw that he was right.
"I still think you should put it down. Arwin's inventions have a bad habit of exploding."
"Fine, fine. But we're going to ask him what this thing is when we see him because it looks cool." Zack placed the box back on the table. "I'll turn it off and we'll...oh check it out! It's a touch screen like our phones." He ran a fingertip across the surface and the numbers flew by in a blur. Zack flicked his finger again and the display came to a stop and showed two blue buttons.
"Calibrate or Confirm, Cody? I say Confirm." Zack waggled his finger over the second button and playfully grinned at Cody.
"Don't you dare press either of them! You'll probably break it and it'll melt or something." He tried to grab Zack's hovering finger and pull it away from the screen but missed and hit his brother's wrist. The button's border highlighted and a smiley face appeared in the center.
A distant click echoed from inside the box a split second before a whirring sound filled the room. The box hummed and vibrated and sent the nearest pile of junk shaking off the table.
"What did you do?" Cody yelled over the din.
"You hit my hand!" Zack screeched back as the lights in the room brightened and dimmed irregularly before going out. Yellow bolts of electricity arced out of the box and zipped around them.
"Let go of it and let's get out of here!"
"I can't!"
The air around the twins became thick and the distinct smell of ozone filled the room. Every hair on their bodies stood on end and their skin felt too tight as a small point of light rose from the box, remaining connected to it by a razor-thin filament. It shimmered and spun, casting a fierce glow over everything. The point expanded until they both were standing inside of it.
Screams filled Cody's ears but he wasn't sure if they were his own or Zack's. He looked down at his hand and his eyes widened in terror when he realized he could see grass through it.
"Make it stop! I want to get out of here!" he shouted over the noise.
"I can't!" Zack repeated just before a thunderclap smashed their ears and everything went absolutely dark.
I've been bouncing this story idea around in my head for at least five years and finally started working on it late last year. It's been slow-going but after a gentle prodding from OwlHero I decided to go ahead and start it up instead of waiting until I had each plot point ironed out and every line written.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to give a shout out to my Louisville Cardinals for getting the #1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and wish them luck in bringing the title back to the 'ville. It's been a while!
Let me know what you think of the story.
Sol Invictus