General Bill Damon (retired) sat at his lonely dining table, toying with his fork and the remains of his family lunch. He put down his fork and lent back in his chair. He'd always been a busy man. His work demanded all his time, often the only sleep he got during operations was a quick ten minutes at his desk.
But now, retirement meant he had free time, time to sleep in a bed - and at night. He had no idea what to do with himself.
The phone rang, the shock almost sent him falling backwards in his chair. He recovered and answered the phone.
"Damon," he answered curtly, efficiently.
"How's retirement?" The voice was familiar to Bill, Frank his former right hand man.
"It's great, Frank. I have a lot of time to myself. I'm my own chief for once in my life."
"You're hating it, aren't you?"
"God yes, what am I supposed to do? Take up fishing?"
"I might have an answer for you there."
"All right... go ahead."
"The organisation's currently looking into some developments in theoretical physics. Have you heard of M-Theory or String Theory?"
Bill listened intently as Frank briefed him on how some wild theoretical physicists had managed to close the gap between theory and practical application.
XOXOXOXOXOX
Harry Dunart watched on a video monitor as his assistant prepared the experiment. Dunart was nervous, even though he'd replicated the results several times without fail in the past, this time he was being scrutinised by those who supplied his funding. He caught the scowling gaze of one of their number, a short man who appeared to be in his sixties with a look of disapproving impatience across his face.
"Not long now ladies and Gentlemen," Dunart assured the assembled military officials, "my assistant is initiating the transmission from the remote site."
His attention returned to the monitor, where his assistant was giving him a thumbs up, indicating that the link was established.
Dunart addressed those assembled, "What you're about to witness may not seem that remarkable. Indeed mankind has been sending messages via radio signals for around a century now," he slapped an open palm upon the video monitor.
"Here we can see an image of the remote site, transmitted to us via a secure radio link," he moved over to a rack of electronic gear.
"On the other hand, here we have an audio link to the remote site that has no physical, electro-magnetic or until now known connection," he held down a key on the apparatus,"Mister Watson, come here, I need you," he spoke into the microphone then released the key.
A voice came in reply, its timbre had a hauntingly strange echo to it, "Well Doctor Dunart, I could but it may take some time as I'm several thousand miles away." It was his assistant.
The joke was lost on those observing, they knew nothing of Alexander Graham Bell's accident that lead to the development of the telephone. All they knew was that they were witnessing the first device that could communicate instantly, across any distance. This was something of immense military value, a private communications channel that could not be jammed, overheard or which would not suffer from interference. It did this by sending its signals outside of our dimension.
They were pleased. The experiment was a complete success. The scowling gentleman was all feigned smiles as he crossed the floor of the lab to shake Dunart's hand.
"Well done Doctor, your funding is secure. How long until you can get this into production..." he was cut short by a strange noise followed by a young voice that came from the speakers.
"...Who are you?" A boy's voice, an Irish boy's voice.
"Is this some kind of joke Doctor?" The smile's temporary hold on the military man's face had been defeated by his scowl's counterstrike.
"I... I have no idea what that was," Dunart was visibly shaken as his mind raced with who or what that voice could be. He didn't fully understand the higher dimensions he was piercing. Could it be other researchers, aliens, ghosts!? At this point anything was possible.
"Doctor! I suggest you find out. If others are already using these channels then this project is no longer viable," he lied. What he meant was that if others were using it then it would be passed onto military surveillance to eavesdrop.
As if by some unspoken prompt the entire delegation moved to leave simultaneously. One of the other men passed a satellite phone to the scowl.
"Frank, we have a situation that needs looking into. Pull Damon out of retirement, this looks to be in his area of expertise." He ended the call and passed the phone back to his colleague.
XOXOXOXOXOX
Duke emerged from the shower towelling his short copper coloured hair and looked around, but Adam was no where to be seen. A feeling was rising with in him. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. There was a certain thrill associated with cheating death, with doing something slightly dangerous.
He pulled on some clean clothes and called to Adam with his mind.
'Here,' came Adam's reply.
Duke reached out for Adam's presence in the World until he was with him. They were on a beach, on the island in the South Pacific. Duke could see a pile of rusting metal behind a small canopy. Under the canopy was Adam's diving gear and other assorted tools. Adam himself, wearing only his board shorts, sat nearby on a large rock his arms wrapped about his legs, drawn up to his chest.
Duke sat next to his friend, placed a reassuring hand on Adam's shoulder, "Okay buddy, time to spill the beans. I know where we are, but what is all... this?" He gestured a wide arc with his hand indicating all the gear and debris. "What is it that you think you're doing down there?"
Adam looked up at Duke. He realised that he'd been a fool. He needn't have attempted this alone. If he'd told Duke his plans, Duke would be there by his side to help. Just as he had always been.
"I probably would have drowned down there," Adam started.
"Your point being?"
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
After a long pause, "It's still alive."
"What is?" Duke furrowed his brow and looked directly at Adam.
XOXOXOXOXOX
Frank fell back into his right hand man role within minutes. After all Bill was The General. Frank preferred that someone else made the big decisions. Besides, he got more sleep being second in charge.
Old times.
This is what he was good at. He'd arranged transport for Damon and had them both at the research facility early the next morning for a meeting with Doctor Dunart.
"Just what is it that you're doing here Doctor?" Bill was examining the rear of the Doctor's communication device.
At its centre was an enclosure consisting of a seemingly irregular tangle of metal forming a hyperboloid shape, inside which was suspended a clear plastic sphere which in turn contained tiny sensors and antennae. Many wires lead down from the base of the sphere darting off in all directions, before disappearing into the electronics of the rack.
Bill had a compulsion to fiddle with some of the parts, and would have if it wasn't for the small black and yellow sign warning of high energy and recommending not to touch.
"Pretty isn't it? It's the seemingly random shaped metal structure that does the actual work. All the electronics around it are simply there to monitor and inject the signals. The metal windings are tuned in a specific way that allows the entire structure to resonate with the higher dimensions."
"But what are we doing exactly? Put simply, we're exploring the higher dimensions, some people used to call it hyperspace. Right now we're shooting bits of matter, through these dimensions, back and forth from one place to another. Just microscopic particles of matter at this point, quite an improvement over photons. And because Heisenberg doesn't apply, that's let us piggyback a simple audio signal on them, a bit like Fessenden piggybacked an audio signal over the early Morse radio broadcasts," he laughed, "it's not like we're sending men to Mars or anything... yet. But one day... there's certainly the potential there."
Bill half smiled at Dunart and half furrowed his brow, "Let's just assume that I have no idea what you mean and start from there." This had been an issue with his work from the beginning. He often worked with people who had brilliant scientific minds. He on the other hand was, relatively speaking, an ignorant soldier.
"Right, okay," Dunart had spent most of his career as a lecturing researcher in various colleges and universities, so he was used to dumbing it down for the students, "we understand our world in three dimensions, yes?"
"You mean up, down, left and right, and so on?" Bill offered.
'Ten points that boy,' Dunart thought to himself sarcastically.
"Okay, we can move on the X, Y and Z axes. What if we take away the Z axis? Imagine that you were a being that exists only in the X and Y axes, a two dimensional character as it were." He moved over to a lab bench and placed a piece of paper on it. Then he spread a number of flat washers on the paper.
"Here we see our two dimensional beings all getting on with their lives in their flat world," he pushed the washers randomly about the page with his fingers.
"But what would happen if one of them, let's call him 'Bill', suddenly became aware of another dimension, the Z axis?" He picked up 'Bill' and held the washer above the page.
" 'Oh our respective gods', Bill's friends exclaim, 'where on Flat World has Bill disappeared to?' "
"Because, you see, as far as Bill's friends are concerned he has disappeared. For they can not perceive him in the third dimension," he placed 'Bill' back on the page a short distance from where he had first disappeared, "And now 'Bill' has reappeared. To his friends he disappeared from one place, and appeared in another. You can see what a sensation that would cause?"
Bill could.
XOXOXOXOXOX
'Cut there,' Duke thought at Adam as he indicated the last metal spoke that supported the Ship's core. Adam worked in the cramped underwater space cutting the soft metal with his hacksaw, taking the occasional breath from the regulator in his mouth. Duke patiently waited beside him in the dark water, also breathing through a regulator both of those connected to the small air tank. Despite the panic they felt, both struggled to keep their angst in the back of their minds. Their dangerously cobbled together air supply would have appalled any professional, or recreational, diver.
After several minutes of slow hacking he was through. The core fell sideways slightly. Duke reached out to steady it.
'NO! Don't touch it,' Adam warned. He knew first hand what making contact with the inner sphere meant.
'All right I got it,' Duke held the now free core by its twisted metal outer cage. He pushed it through the space between space along with himself and Adam. They stood on the beach above, gently placed the core on a flat rock and discarded the dive gear.
The outer metal cage which insulated the power within was like a tangled mess of flat wire. It had no regular structure, holes large enough to put a hand through coexisted with tight filigree-like structures. The whole thing had an organic feel, not so much engineered as grown, but as a whole it had a hyperbolic shape. The core itself was a tallow-white sphere suspended within the cage by several metal spokes that once connected to various parts in the Ship.
"Now what?" Duke asked Adam.
"I have no idea," was all Adam could offer at first, "we need to get it working again."
"How do we even know that it will work without the Ship?"
"I guess we don't. I just think that it will. That is I have a feeling that it will. We really need it to." What Adam meant was he had faith.
"So you understand ancient alien technology?" Duke asked rhetorically.
"No, and I'm sorry to say that I don't know somebody who does."
"Right," a look in Duke's eyes betrayed that his brain had just gone into gear, "But we might know somebody who knows somebody who does..."
XOXOXOXOXOX
Adam sat at Bill's lonely dining table. The Ship's vagrant core rested at its centre, looking like some post-modern centrepiece. Both he and Duke had sat around it on the beach for over an hour concentrating their thoughts on it. They listened intently for some tiny signal from it. They probed its form with their minds looking for something, anything to give them hope, but other than the surprisingly strong energy that was constantly being generated at its core, there was nothing.
Duke came down the stairs with a cordless phone to his ear. He dumped the phone on the table and sat opposite Adam, "He's not home and his cell phone is out of service," he held his hand up to the core and casually felt for signs of life.
"Where could he be that doesn't have cell coverage?"
Duke dropped his hand, "There's nothing here," he flashed Adam a mischievous grin, "there's one way we can find out where he is."
"What? Just go to him? That's a bit risky isn't it? He could be anywhere. Us suddenly appearing in a crowded shopping mall would be hard to explain away."
"Feel like living dangerously?" The mischievous grin grew wide on Duke's face.
"What's brought about this change of attitude?"
"I dunno, something you said a while back, about us not living the lives we were s'posed to. Back when we were kids, our life was a bit of a merry go round..."
"More like a roller coaster," Adam interrupted.
"Yeah okay, but help me out, there's a metaphor I'm trying to use here. Back, when we were kids, our life was like a merry go round. We had a shot at the brass ring, but we got off. I think we're getting a second chance here. I don't want to miss it this time."
Adam nodded, "Nice metaphor," he said slightly sarcastically. "But yeah I know what you mean. I had the same feeling. That's why I..." He indicated the core sitting on the table.
"So..?"
"Yeah. Let's do it."
XOXOXOXOXOX
Frank and Bill were driving back to their motel along a dark road after a long day of interviews at the research facility. A flash of light behind Frank startled him slightly, but he assumed it was just a flash of headlights from a car behind.
However a voice behind him couldn't be dismissed so easily.
"Frank? Dad I thought you were retired."
Frank failed to notice the approaching corner as he twisted to see who was suddenly behind him. The General's son and his friend were clearly sitting in the back of the Jeep where they clearly had not been sitting a moment ago.
"Um, Frank you might want to steer a tad to the right here," Bill suggested while pulling down on the wheel a little. Frank returned his attention to the road just in time to correct, over steer and re-correct before resuming a safe line down the road.
"General?" Frank was looking for some indication that he wasn't going crazy.
"Marm... ah Duke, you know better than... What are you? Fifteen again?"
"Sorry Dad I guess I wasn't thinking," Duke smirked at Adam and laughed.
Bill smiled at the reminder of Duke's teen years. He was always popping in and interrupting Bill's work. Then Bill would get angry and chase him off. Bill's attention returned to a still perplexed Frank.
"You know the boys. It's like this Frank, Duke and Adam... they have a unique talent."
"I'm listening," Frank prompted.
Adam supplied the answer, "We can disappear from one place and reappear in another. Been able to do it since we were kids."
"I see," was all Frank could manage as slowly, piece by piece, little unanswered mysteries from the past buried in the corners of his mind found answers.
"I'm amazed we managed to keep it from you," Duke pondered.
Frank slowed the Jeep and pulled into the motel's driveway.
"I think I need a drink."
XOXOXOXOXOX
Frank cradled a large scotch and ice in both hands as he sat on the bed in his motel room.
"So you're not some secret military experiment or something like that?"
"No," Adam turned his attention away from Duke who was in the process of raiding the mini bar, "we're totally natural."
"Yeah, no added chemicals," Duke quipped, "ugh cherry cola... I hate cherries," his head inside the refrigerator.
"We're just another in the long line of freaks that evolution pops out from time to time," Adam finished.
Frank looked at the glass in his hands, he hadn't touched a drop, he didn't drink scotch ordinarily. He swirled the ice clockwise in the glass, it made pleasant clinking noises.
"I always thought there was more to you two than just the General's boys, Frank admitted, "because you were often too deeply involved in some of our, how should I put it? More interesting investigations, than a couple of kids should have been. But it wasn't my place to ask questions. I just followed orders."
He swirled the glass again, and raised it to his lips, but put it back down before saying, "That sounded terribly clichéd, didn't it?"
Duke extracted himself from the mini-bar with a packet of peanuts and a can of soda. "Oh, no. Not at all," he said sarcastically and opened the packet.
"But.. how?.." Frank half asked.
"We don't really understand it completely ourselves. It's like a sixth sense. We just feel our way through..." Adam struggled for the words to explain what was second nature to him.
"It's kinda like going through a door from one room to another," Duke took over as he offered the peanuts to Adam, "except that the rooms aren't physically next to each other, and the doors are everywhere... anywhere we want them to be."
Bill interrupted, "Sorry Frank, but you can get up to speed later. What I need to know is, what was so urgent than couldn't wait for a phone call?"
"There's been a couple of... developments and we thought you might be able to help us," Adam answered, "first, we've discovered another one of us. A young boy in Ireland is in the early stages of developing his abilities."
Bill was amazed, "Well that's great! It's been years since... You said a couple of developments?"
"We've recovered part of the Ship. We think it's the part that used to... talk to us... help us," Adam answered again.
"But that thing was destroyed years ago, under a tonne of sand and seawater," Bill was doubly amazed.
"We thought so too, but I've been... excavating and we found the core. It still has power, but it's not working."
Duke took a swig from his soda can, "Dad, we were wondering if you knew any scientist types who could take a look at it and help us. Long shot I know, but it would need to be someone we could trust."
Frank swirled the ice anticlockwise for variety as he mulled over what he had heard. A connection between two facts formed in his mind. He put down the untouched drink and looked up at Bill.
"Did they say an Irish boy? What Dunart's working on - the voice on the device, that was supposed to be Irish," he pushed the glass aside, subconsciously saying that he was finished with it.
Duke indicated the scotch, "Are you going to finish that?"
"No I don't actually drink, I just like to hold it."
"Well in that case..." Duke poured some of the cola from his can into the glass and knocked back a mouthful, "Don't look so surprised Dad, Adam's the one who doesn't drink."
XOXOXOXOXOX
Adam watched as Bill examined the strange object rested upon his dinning room table. Adam gently pulled back Bill's arm before Bill touched the tallow-white centre.
"Yeah, don't touch that part. It has a hell of a kick to it. I found out the hard way that it still has power."
"It looks so much like the device," Bill observed, mostly to himself.
"What device?" Adam asked.
"They've pulled me out of retirement to investigate the source of a transmission picked up by a new communication device. I don't really understand it myself, but it somehow transmits signals through the higher dimensions, bypassing our space," Bill laughed, "through hyperspace like in those old sci-fi shows you watch Duke. The thing is, the core of that device looks remarkably similar to this... thing. Your Irish friend, was he using this or something like it recently?"
"Lorcan's been no where near it. He's been spending most of his time unconscious on a hospital bed," a though struck Duke, "we should check on him and see if he's okay."
"I'd like to meet Lorcan, is it? But I'd also like to get Dunart to look at this."
Adam looked worried, "Can we trust him?"
"Well I'm not sure exactly, but we don't have to tell him where it came from. The thing is, he and his team are the only people that have any hope of understanding it."
"So you think he can fix it?"
"I think so, yes."
Adam mulled things over in his mind. Getting the beacon working was important for all the others like them to follow. Without it they would be lost like the kids in Stewart's folder.
Adam came to a decision, "It's worth the risk."
XOXOXOXOXOX
He lay awake, vaguely aware that it was sometime in the middle of the night, the lights were dim and there was no sun streaming in through the window. The patronising nurse who continued to talk to him even though he had never responded to her, was on duty.
He was becoming more skilled at separating what most people saw as reality, from the nightmares his head produced. He could see Adam and Duke... somewhere, or was that sense? They seemed thousands of miles away, but within reach. It occurred to him that they might currently be residing somewhere in the uncharted depths of his fevered mind. Perhaps he could bring them to the surface so he'd have someone to talk with. Then suddenly, Duke was with him, in the corner of the room.
"Hello Duke," Lorcan greeted his imaginings, he decided that he may as well enjoy his madness. No sense worrying himself to death about it, the doctors could do all the worrying for him.
"Hey buddy, you're awake. That's great."
"And why wouldn't I be? I couldn't exactly think you up when I'm asleep now could I?"
"I... ah... What?"
"Never mind. I'm bored and I can't sleep. What shall we talk about?"
"I just came to see if you're okay. There's some things you should know..."
Duke was interrupted by a scream of fright from the doorway, he turned to see the nurse wide eyed and pointing at him with a shaking hand.
"K...k..korigan! Red haired korigan!" was all she could manage before she fainted into a messy heap on the floor. Panicked voices and footsteps closed in from a distance.
"Um... we can talk some other time," Duke said to a bemused Lorcan, "I think it's time for me to leave."
XOXOXOXOXOX
The next morning, Frank drove Bill back into the research establishment, with the alien device concealed under a blanket on the back seat.
Dunart greeted the two men and eyed the blanket-swathed package with suspicion and curiosity.
"Well General, here we are, but I still don't know why I'm here."
"I have something for you to look at, Doctor. But you must understand that, due to security, I can't tell you where it came from."
"I'll never get used to this 'need to know' life you military types lead." He lent toward Bill conspiratorially, "Between you and I, it's not really my cup of tea. Do you know what I was working on before the military made me an offer I couldn't refuse? No? I'll tell you. I was convinced that my discovery's best application was non-stick cookware."
Bill was taken aback, "What? How could something as mind blowing as all this possibly be applied to cooking?"
"Well you see, at the time I'd worked out how to shift objects just a little out of phase with our own reality. The upshot of this was that they would behave fairly much normally, except that other objects could not bond with them on a molecular level. Sit an out of phase frying pan on a hotplate and the thing would get hot. Break and egg on the surface and it would fry and then slide right off. Do you know how much money you can make from late night infomercials?"
"I see," said Bill, not really seeing at all, "Frank would you do the honours?"
Frank carefully unwrapped the device, neatly folded the blanket and laid it beside.
Dunart walked around it twice, he looked to Bill questioningly.
"Look familiar?" Bill asked rhetorically, "as far as 'need to know' goes, you don't need to know where it came from. Only that we believe it's probably the source of the phantom transmission and that we want your opinion of it."
"Right," Dunart placed a knuckle to his lips, "I'll get to it then."
XOXOXOXOXOX
"Where did you say we were again?" Bill knew that they were in Cork, but he found being pushed between the cracks of reality by Adam or Duke more than disconcerting at times, he just needed some reassurance.
"That's the place," Adam pointed out the building that contained Lorcan's ward, "How do you want to do this? We'd need to make sure that his room is empty before we popped in."
"I've got a better idea, "Bill said as he slipped his satellite phone from his jacket, "time to test the roaming on this phone plan."
Bill had contacts with clout. With just two calls he managed to pull the right strings to get them all into the institute legitimately and with Doctor Stewart as a guide.
Stewart ushered the three into the ward.
"This way gentlemen," he flashed a sly wink at Adam and Duke, "of course you two already know the way."
His mind had worked subconsciously to fit what he had witnessed into his understanding of the World. He'd decided that the two men were spies of some sort, and that they'd attempted to edit the video surveillance to remove evidence of their visit. But that they'd made a mistake and left a few seconds of themselves in the recording. He was certain that there was no other way to explain their vanishing.
Their sudden arrival with all the credentials and military authority from on high cemented his belief.
"What you secret service types want with a fifteen year old boy is beyond me. But there he is."
"Can we talk to him?" Bill asked the Doctor.
"Probably not, he seems to be unconscious again. He slips in and out of this, and even when he seems awake the nurses haven't been able to get much sense from him. Some of the nurses have commented that there is something strange about his presence, nothing I've been able to put my finger on. Poppycock I say, although one of the poor dears has had to take some leave. Muttering something about disappearing mythical creatures and appearing leather belts."
"Wait... you might to be in luck. He seems to be waking up..."
XOXOXOXOXOX
He woke. He was aware of several people around him. Two of them he knew but didn't know, Adam whose presence put him at ease and Duke. The doctor and a nurse he'd seen before and someone new. But still cutting across all that were the nightmares.
A jumble of portals were open to his senses, all where they should not be. It was as if he could see everywhere at once. The space about him was folded and warped impossibly. Distant places he knew seemed to be at his fingertips, but weren't. Everything was confusing.
Except Adam and Duke.
They were points of reference, fraternity. Somehow they were like channel markers that guide ships into safe harbour. Somehow, in all the flux his world of senses had become, Adam and Duke were the only things that were certain.
That was, until suddenly, he became aware of another point of reference. A bright beacon amongst a confusing sea of images. A light that gave order to chaos. He felt compelled to go to it. He thought it to be part of his madness and wondered if he should deny it, but he gave in and subconsciously willed himself to be with it.
XOXOXOXOXOX
"This seems to be the last one," Dunart mumbled to himself as he watched the computer that controlled a remarkable machine of his own creation. Its purpose was to measure and adjust the complex patterns of windings of his communications device so that they resonated with the higher dimensions. Its subject this time, however, was the core that Adam and Duke had retrieved from the Ship.
Many tiny computer controlled robotic arms pulled and pushed at the soft metal structure with virtually imperceivable movements. They were arrayed in a ring that surrounded the core like many brass legs of some steampunk imagined millipede. The ring itself slid up and down the core casting a ruby sheen across the core's surface. The ruby red of lasers which were the machine's eyes.
The computer squawked a short monophonic rendition of Dixie's Land indicating that the job was complete, the arms all retracted, and the ring descended to rest at the base.
He had decided that his next task would be to study any signals he could find emanating from the metal spokes that radiated from the central tallow-white sphere. If it was like his device, some would allow signals to be injected and others would allow received signals to be monitored.
He carefully removed the Ship's Core from the machine and placed it on a free lab bench. He thought at first that he was imagining things when it appeared that the core was glowing, but when he returned with electronic jumper leads and an oscilloscope, the core was emitting a lot of light.
"That shouldn't be..." was all he could say before a brilliant light flashed in his eyes. He stepped backward and raised his arms to cover his face. He looked on in shock as a figure appeared from nowhere two feet above his laboratory bench top before falling heavily onto it with a painful grunt.
The figure, flat on his back, groaned and lifted his head slightly until Dunart could see his face – the face of an angel. He raised himself up on his elbows and looked right at Dunart.
"Well that was a hell of a thing..." the angel said, with a heavy Irish accent, before laying back down and falling unconscious.
Dunart looked at the figure lying on his bench top and the device sitting next to him. It was still glowing a warm white light. He reached over to it and pinched a loop of the soft metal cage between his thumb and forefinger. He bent it slightly outwards, which he calculated was enough to detune it to the higher dimensions. - He did not understand what had happened here, but was sure that he didn't want it to continue happening.
The core's glow slowly diffused and it once again fell dark.
From a drawer he took a ball of red twine and a pair of scissors. He cut a short piece of the twine and tied it to the loop of metal he had bent out of shape for later reference.
His attention turned to the figure, who was wearing what seemed to be a hospital gown. The kind that barely hides its wearer's shame and affords brief views of their rear through its tie-closed back as they walk. Dunart could now see that his angel was a young male and apparently human.
Dunart reached out cautiously and checked for a pulse under the boy's chin, which he found - alive but sleeping. Putting two and two together lead Dunart to reason that this Irish voice was the same voice he had heard a few days earlier.
He reached for a nearby phone to summon some help.
XOXOXOXOXOX
Dunart looked as the three dimensional model of Lorcan's brain scan rotated on the video monitor. He cocked his head slightly as a pattern familiar to him appeared for a moment. Then he saw it a second time. Hidden amongst the irregular shapes that make up a brain he could see a structure. A structure that was only familiar to a handful of people on the planet. The same seemingly chaotic but mathematically precise pattern that made up the cage around his device laid over the structure of the boy's brain.
Lorcan walked unsteadily from the MRI, assisted by a technician. He had woken just as the scans were completed and assumed he was still in the hospital. Things seemed clearer to him now. The nightmare images were gone, up was up, down was down, but strangely he still had a sense of the other in the back of his mind.
The doctors must have cured him, he thought.
He sat on a chair at the edge of the room as the medical technicians explained their findings.
"...we can find nothing unusual in all our scans. He does show some signs of a little trauma consistent with a minor traffic accident. But as far as we can see he has a clean bill of health."
"So you gave me the cure then did you Doc?" Lorcan smiled sweetly from his isolated chair, "When will I be going home?"
The entire room's occupants turned to look at him. He noticed for the first time at least two men in military uniform, and realised that all the voices he had heard had been American. Things started to feel wrong to him.
His smile vanished, "Wha?" he half said, as if there was a joke he wasn't in on.
"Young man," one of the military types said, "you can consider yourself under arrest until such time as you tell us who you are, who you work for, and what you know."
"My name is Lorcan. I don't have a job, I go to school. I don't even deliver papers. I was in hospital, after an accident. What am I under arrest for? Who are you guys?"
Lorcan saw the open door and a chance, he sprung out of the chair energised by fear and bolted out the door. Out in the corridor he had two choices, he chose right. As he rounded a corner he ran directly into a short stocky man.
The man scowled at him, "You must be the young man of whom I've heard so much about. Well seeing as you're now up, we should show you to your room."
Short stocky and very strong, Lorcan struggled for a moment but the man had a firm grip. He frog marched Lorcan down two or three corridors and into a small cell, threw him to the floor and locked the door on his way back out.
Lorcan lay stunned, on the floor where he fell.
XOXOXOXOXOX
"Where would he have gone?" Bill sat at his dining room table, this time not alone.
Adam was half pacing behind Bill's chair flitting in and out of his periphery putting him on edge.
"Adam! Any ideas?" Bill stood to face him.
The exclamation snapped Adam from his funk. "I have no idea, we always used to go to the Ship the first time. It seemed to pull us to it."
"Yeah and because most of it was at the bottom of a lagoon, we'd end up in the water," Duke threw his hands upward for emphasis, "splash!"
"But with no Ship to guide him, what then?" Bill looked first to Duke then Adam.
"It'd be somewhere that he had a connection with, his home, a favourite place..."
"Somewhere that feels safe," Duke suggested.
"But not knowing much about our boy we can't even guess. The doctor at the hospital in Ireland gave me a copy of his files," Bill opened his briefcase, "his home address is in here, we can start there - Ballin...hassig?"
XOXOXOXOXOX
Mrs Molony absently put down the phone's handset to rest in its cradle.
First the accident, then nearly two weeks in hospital, then the mystery illness that left him uncommunicative and now the hospital had lost her son. She couldn't believe so much misfortune could happen to the same family. She was in shock. A strong cup of tea, that's what she needed.
She filled the kettle with water and turned it on to boil, as she took a teabag from a canister she started to sob but suppressed the emotion when she heard a knock at the door – Lorcan?
She opened the door to find a handsome middle aged man flanked by two younger men.
"Oh," she couldn't help looking slightly crestfallen, "can I help you?"
"Mrs Molony?" the older one inquired, she nodded, "We're here about your son. We think it's possible that he may come back here."
"I... er... I've only just heard myself. The hospital called me just now... come in please."
"I'm sorry, I assumed they would have informed you earlier."
Duke and Bill left Adam to comfort Lorcan's mother, while they investigated what she had told them was one of his favourite places – a nineteenth century folly nearby. They walked back up the short driveway of the country cottage, turned left as they had been directed and followed the hedgerow to a small thicket that obscured a shallow valley. They found a way through the fence and down through the dense vegetation until suddenly they came across a stone wall.
It was a rough copy of a grotesque Gothic-styled castle, complete with a two stage tower and an oriel that opened to the first story over a coach arch; but all in miniature. It stood roughly the same height as the trees around it which completely obscured it.
"I can see why Lorcan would like this place," the child in Duke was telling him that the folly was 'way cool.'
Bill found a door leading to a narrow staircase behind one side of the man-high coach arch. They climbed the stairs, their legs occasionally brushing against the limestone walls.
"Wow, T.A.R.D.I.S." Duke exclaimed at the large space when he emerged above the slate floor.
"Tar what?" asked Bill.
"Never mind, dad. I just mean it looks bigger on the inside than out," Duke looked out the small oriel but the only view it afforded him was of a tree within touching distance.
'He's not here either,' Duke thought at Adam, 'you should see this place, it's... way cool.'
A flash of light and a pop announced Adam's arrival.
"What now?" Adam asked as he looked around the large space.
Bill was looking through some things on a small alcove in the wall, obviously Lorcan's stash.
"Can't you guys get hold of him telepathically?" Bill had said one of the taboo words out loud.
Many years ago they had all agreed to use metaphor when talking out loud about their abilities. When they were teenagers they threw words like telepath, teleport and telekinesis around carelessly. These days they could never tell who might be listening.
"We can try," Adam turned to Duke.
Bill watched from what he decided was a safe distance, as both men held their hands out to each other, palms out, almost touching and closed their eyes in concentration.
XOXOXOXOXOX
He Woke.
The nightmares weren't there any more, but he could still sense them. Still somewhere in his mind, if he cared to reach out to them, were places where the universe seemed to fold in upon itself.
That was nothing compared to the nightmare reality was presenting to him now. He was cold, hungry and above all frightened. Although what he had been experiencing for the past few weeks was troubling, he was able, on some level, to enjoy it. He knew he was in safe hands, the doctors and nurses were there to look out for his welfare.
Here the doctors and the guards seemed to bare him actual malice. He only wished he knew what they thought he knew so he could tell them.
It occurred to him that all this might be his madness gone... mad... er. Perhaps he only imagined that he was locked in a small white cell, with nothing but a padded bench and an open toilet for furniture. It didn't make sense, he was just a kid, not some kind of terrorist.
He wasn't even sure how he got here.
He regretted giving into his madness, he should have fought against it. Now he was in deeper and he couldn't find reality at all. He knew the hospital and its nurses and doctors must be out there somewhere. He knew he was lying on a hospital bed, with starchy white sheets and the smell of disinfectant.
Adam and Duke were calling to him again, from somewhere deep in his mind.
He ignored them, and then put up a mental block against them.
He had to get better.
XOXOXOXOXOX
"It's no use. He's blocking us," Duke was the first to break the link.
"Did you get anything? Something that might give us a clue as to where he is," Bill moved closer to the others from his corner.
"No. Nothing useful except..." Adam considered what it was that he had sensed.
"White... and a toilet... that can't be right," Duke tried to complete Adam's sentence.
"Yeah, that's it! But what does that mean?"
"I have no idea I'm sure," Bill put his hand on Adam's shoulder, "we tried. Now we need another plan."
"There's only one thing that could help now, the Ship's core, but that's still not working. We'd be able to sense it if it was."
Bill reached into his jacket for his satellite phone and called called Dunart who explained that he should return as soon as possible, that he had had success with the core, and that he had a number of concerns that he couldn't express over the phone.
"We need to get back to the U.S. right away. We have our other plan."
XOXOXOXOXOX
Bill pulled the Jeep onto the side of the road where he'd left Adam and Duke. They stepped out from the shade of an old oak tree. Bill just smiled, pointed to the blanket wrapped package in the passenger seat beside him and told them to get in.
XOXOXOXOXOX
The folly's cold stone walls already felt somehow warmer with the Ship's core set on a box in the centre of the room.
"I think it's best that none of us are here when Lorcan comes in, we might freak him out, let's just let him find us in his own time," Adam suggested, "you guys head downstairs and I'll follow as soon as I get it going."
Adam checked over his shoulder to see the copper colour hair of his friend sink below the slate floor and disappear. He pinched the metal loop that had a short piece of red twine tied to it between his fingers and closed his eyes.
"Well Bill, let's see if Dunart got it right or not."
He concentrated on the core before him, feeling his way into it with his mind. He gently applied pressure to the soft metal and waited.
Nothing.
He pushed again, with the minutest force he could manage and waited.
Something.
He felt the return of an old friend.
Emotion welled up within him as old feelings of safety and paternity emanated from the core. Overcome he, with difficulty, stood and headed down the stairs to join Duke and Bill.
Duke was standing under a tree, with his back to his father, ashamed to reveal the tear streak down one of his cheeks. He gave Adam a look that communicated that he felt it also.
Adam walked up to his friend and they embraced. Adam half broke the hug and moved to one side of Duke to watch the folly. Bill smiled to himself as he saw 'his' two boys with their arms over each others' shoulders.
"I never thought about it before," Duke's voice broke a little with emotion.
"About what?"
"When the core died... went silent," he corrected himself, "I knew I missed its presence, but I never realised that it had guided us so much."
"Neither did I really. Duke there's been many of us breaking out, all over the World. I read about it in Doctor Stewart's files. At first I went back to the Ship because I had nothing better to do. You could almost say that I was just trying to dig up some nostalgia. But. When I read those files, I realised that without the core we would never have realised our abilities. We need it. Whoever left it knew that. They left it for us and people like us."
"So what about these others? Will they break out now?"
"I wish I knew."