Oracle--Solar Wind Page 22

  Now they could hear footsteps—large, heavy footsteps—of some creature coming towards them. Rising to their feet, the three frightened youth stared in shock as the mysterious being came into the light. Man or beast?—they couldn’t tell. Covered in white hair, it towered over them and lumbered toward them, the most terrifying look on its face. Then it charged.

  “Ah!” Ana screamed.

  Down in the ice cavern, Ret and Paige froze.

  “What was that?” Paige asked.

  “Sounded like a girl’s scream,” Ret said.

  “Ana,” Paige concluded with concern. “Should we go back?”

  “Nah,” Ret said coolly. “One of the penguins probably just licked her face or something.”

  With some hesitation, the two of them carried on. There was uneasiness in the air now, both of them listening for but hoping not to hear cries for help from their friends. Ret had to pull Paige along with a tad more effort now.

  The tunnel was getting wider and flatter. Ret moved his flame about like a firefly, trying to learn the growing extent of the cavern. It was unsettling now that they couldn’t see everything around them.

  Just then, Paige heard something rush by.

  “What was that?” she said with distress.

  “What was what?” Ret returned, trying to remain calm.

  The noise was heard again, this time by both of them.

  “That,” Paige pointed out. “Someone’s here.” They had stopped now, Paige clutching Ret’s hand.

  “Who’s there?” Ret called out, trying to sound confident. Off to the left, he saw the shadows stir. Ret quickly sent his flame over there. On the way, however, it was snuffed out by a cold and icy wind.

  “Maybe it’s just a bat or something,” Ret said with detectable uncertainty, assuming the flap of its wings had blown out the flame. But then, off to the right, he saw something moving—something big and white. This time, Ret sent several lights toward the spot, but again a blast of Antarctic air swallowed the flames whole.

  “Uh, I don’t think it’s a bat, Ret,” Paige told him shakily.

  With a fed up sigh, Ret threw his hands down at his sides to fill the entire room with fire. His flames had hardly been kindled, however, when the whole span of them was blown out by the same, frigid wind. Ret and Paige shivered as the cold draft rushed by them.

  “Ret…,” Paige quietly quivered, “what’s going on?”

  Without warning, the room went pitch black. The little light that had penetrated the glacier was dispelled in an instant. Ret thought that was odd, and it reminded him that he could control light. He summoned some of it back and produced a glowing orb in front of them.

  And there it was: the creature—standing right in front of them. Startled beyond belief, Ret and Paige fell to the ground. With terrible awe, they gazed open-mouthed at the frightening figure. It looked like a man but was much taller and thicker. As if wearing a full-body fur coat, he was covered in thick white hair from head to toe. His hands were massive, his feet even bigger, and each of his heavy breaths sent a moist cloud into the icy air. And yet, despite his haggard appearance, Ret thought he saw a twinkle in his eyes.

  “Who are you?” the white giant roared without the least bit of welcome, his thunderous voice echoing against the cavernous walls. Neither Ret nor Paige said anything, too scared to reply. Annoyed, the beastly man took a step forward and bellowed, “Answer me!”

  In self-defense, Ret raised a hand to conjure a fireball that he hoped would keep their antagonist at bay. Only a few sparks had shot from his fingertips, however, when the angry man lifted one of his large paws and sent a subzero wind at Ret.

  “Don’t you dare attack me!” he growled. The chilling blast extinguished Ret’s fire and froze him to the bone. His limbs fell stiff, his hair frosted over, and his skin was turning blue.

  “Please, stop it!” Paige begged desperately, wincing at Ret’s immobilized state.

  Finally, the man called back the air. With a desperate breath, Ret revived and fell on his hands and knees. For a few moments, his entire body experienced the pain of a brain freeze, that intense headache brought on by rapidly consuming cold food or drink. He felt Paige drape her arm across his back, trying to help. In time, the discomfort passed. Lesson learned.

  “Why have you come here?” the man asked without sympathy.

  “We come in the name of the Oracle, sir,” Ret answered with all the bravery he could muster.

  “Is that right?” the brute challenged with a defiant tone. With a sweep of his bulky arm, he lit up one side of the room. Ret and Paige gasped, for there were their three friends: Dusty sinking in a pit of sand, Ana tied to a stake with flames closing in, and Leo on his knees with his head positioned below a raised guillotine.

  Then, releasing the blade of the guillotine, the white monster said, “Prove it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  UN-EXPECTED HELP

  Thorne was whistling a happy tune as he returned to work after taking a lunch break. He stepped out of the elevator and approached the skull-shaped command center, removing his cap to let the neuroscope scan his brain and grant him access. The doors had scarcely opened when a student rushed to greet him.

  “Someone’s just flown off in your plane, sir!” the student informed him.

  “What?” Thorne asked in disbelief.

  They hurried to the computer. Thorne sat down and started reviewing recorded footage from one of the onsite cameras. Outraged, he watched Dusty sneak aboard the floatplane, assuming his son was up to more mischief. Then, with shock, he saw Paige and Ana join him. Seconds later, the plane passed out of that camera’s range of vision, so Thorne switched to another one nearby. He followed the plane into the creek where two more individuals boarded. Thorne zoomed in to see Ret and Leo. Then the plane took off.

  Thorne phoned Mr. Coy.

  “Coy, the kids are gone,” he flat-out said.

  “What?” Coy asked with concern.

  “Dusty, Ana, Paige, Ret, Leo—they all got in my plane and left,” Thorne explained.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just watched the surveillance video.”

  “Do you have any idea where they are going?” Coy pressed.

  “Not a clue.”

  “Get down to the hangar and prepare the jet for immediate departure,” came Coy’s orders. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Should we tell Pauline?”

  There was a long pause.

  With dread, Coy took one for the team and said, “I’ll tell her.” Then he hung up.

  Mr. Coy buzzed about his small private quarters in preparation for his impromptu trip. He was halfway out the front door when he stopped. A thought crossed his mind. He turned around and hurried to his closet where, tucked away in the corner, stood an old, stuffed mannequin. With a wheeled stand in place of a lower body, it was the kind a seamstress would use, leftover from when Helen sewed outfits for the family years ago. Now, it served as a necktie holder—and as a hiding place.

  Mr. Coy quickly spun the faceless dummy around. There was a long stitch down the middle of its back. Mr. Coy pried it open and reached into the stuffing. In the upper left-hand side, about where a living person’s heart would be, there should have been a hidden object, but it wasn’t there. With worry, he searched the rest of the abdomen but found nothing. His secret stash had been infiltrated. The Oracle was gone.

  Fortunately, the possibility of losing track of the Oracle was something Mr. Coy had anticipated. Not too long ago, he placed a tracking mechanism on the sphere, so tiny and clear that it was virtually impossible to see unless you knew where to look and, even then, were looking very hard. Mr. Coy turned his attention to the back of the mannequin’s head, where there was also a stitch in the fabric. He reached inside and pulled out a handheld electronic device. He extended the antennae and booted up the program. It was linked to the tracker and would tell him the exact location of the Oracle, anywhere in the world.

  “Than
ks, Manny,” he told the mannequin on his way out.

  Mr. Coy hastened across the Manor’s grounds toward the Cooper home. When he arrived at the front door, he paused and took a deep breath, as if he was about to deliver unwelcome news. Then he knocked.

  “Good afternoon, Ben,” Pauline greeted him cheerily.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Coy skipped the pleasantries.

  “Oh?” she replied, uncharacteristically calm.

  “The kids are gone,” Coy explained. “All five of them just took off in Thorne’s plane.”

  Mr. Coy braced for the meltdown. But there was no panic to be found in the woman’s face.

  “I know,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Baffled, Coy asked, “You know?”

  “Yes, the girls came and told me just before they left,” Pauline said. “We discussed it briefly, they told me who was going with them, and then I gave them my blessing.”

  “You…you…”

  “I trust them, Ben,” Pauline said tenderly.

  “So do I—”

  “Not Ret,” she pointed out.

  “Pauline,” Coy said in sober tones, “you would feel the same way if you had seen what I saw that day.”

  “Remind me again what you saw?”

  “I saw Ret,” Coy stated, bugged to have to review the details again, “fraternizing with the enemy.”

  “That’s what you saw with your eyes,” Pauline observed. “Now what did you see with your heart?”

  Mr. Coy paused at the distinction. He bowed his head.

  “It made my heart sick,” he admitted softly. “In my heart, I didn’t believe it.”

  “That’s the way I felt when I saw Jaret again for the first time,” Pauline related. “With my eyes, I saw a man who had forgotten me, but in my heart I knew that couldn’t be true. Now, we all know Lye played a trick on us, and he may have fooled my eyes, but he couldn’t fool my heart. So maybe this is another one of Lye’s tricks. I’m sure it will all make sense soon enough. In the meantime, I suggest you see with your heart.”

  Mr. Coy slowly nodded his head. Perhaps the old maid was right.

  “Have a safe trip, Ben,” Pauline concluded.

  “You mean you’re not coming with us?” Coy asked.

  “I can’t leave now,” she dismissed, as if the very thought was ridiculous. “I’ve got a cake in the oven.”

  “We won’t be leaving for a while yet,” Coy tried to buy her time.

  “No, no, you go on without me,” she reaffirmed, tightening her apron. “Give everyone my love, and tell them I’ll have a warm slice of red velvet cake ready when they get back.”

  “It’s a deal,” Coy said, closing the door.

  As Pauline returned to the kitchen, she grinned, knowing she purposely had not told Mr. Coy where the kids had gone. She peeked inside the oven, taking in the heat and aroma, and said, “Have fun freezing your buns off!”

  Mr. Coy hurried to the hangar, where Thorne was readying the jet.

  “Prepare for takeoff!” Coy announced as soon as he climbed aboard. He sat down next to Thorne in the cockpit, and, within minutes, they were in the air.

  “So where are we going?” Thorne asked as they meandered through the sky.

  “Wherever our kids are going,” Coy said.

  “And how do we know where that is?”

  “By looking at this.” Coy held out the tracking device. “Do you see that little dot?” He pointed at a speck on the screen. “That is where they are.”

  “You track your kid?” Thorne wondered, thinking the idea had merit.

  “No, but I track the Oracle, and I bet they have it with them.”

  “You’re always thinking ahead, aren’t you, Coy?” Thorne admired. “No wonder you ascended the naval ranks so quickly.”

  “Yes, well,” Coy blushed, quick to change the subject. “It looks like they’re heading south along the west coast of South America. Hmm, that’s strange…”

  “How so?”

  “We’ve traveled that route before,” Coy recalled.

  “Maybe they’re going somewhere else in South America,” Thorne postulated.

  “No, we’re done with that continent,” Coy said, though Thorne didn’t really understand what that meant. “Maybe they’re going to—” Coy’s voice trailed off in stunned realization.

  “Antarctica?” Thorne finished.

  Surprised, Coy said, “Well, it would make sense. There must have been a good reason why Lye was at the North Pole, but maybe that was only part of it. After all, there’s no land up at the North Pole, but there certainly is at the South Pole.”

  “I say we follow them,” Thorne suggested. “If we fly full-speed, we might be able to catch up to that little floatplane and head them off before they make it to Antarctica.”

  “I don’t want to stop them,” Coy overruled, remembering Pauline’s wise words about trust. “I just want to be close if they need help. Let’s take it slow and see what they do. I say we fly around the east coast of South America.”

  With a quizzical look, Thorne obliged with a prolonged “Okay.” Then, while adjusting their route, he asked, “So when are you going to bring me up to speed on all of this stuff?”

  “What stuff?” said Coy.

  “Oracle, elements, continents, scars, Lye—I’m picking up bits and pieces, but there are still a lot of blanks.”

  “Don’t worry,” Coy smiled, “we’ve got a long flight ahead of us,” then started from the beginning.

  The two fathers flew through the night, crossing into the Antarctic Circle by mid-morning. The international research stations were still celebrating their victory over the trespassing floatplane when a second unidentified aircraft appeared on their radar.

  “Blimey! Here comes another one,” cried a Brit at the United Kingdom’s Rothera research station. Then, turning to his superior, he asked, “Shall we let Amundsen-Scott handle this one, too?”

  “I say we take it directly to Mr. Zarbock,” replied the superior. “This is highly unusual.” Then, just moments later, he was heard radioing, “San Martin, this is Rothera. May we speak with Mr. Zarbock please?”

  The Argentine on the other end said, “Un momento, por favor.” Although the Englishman didn’t know what that meant, he only had to wait a few moments before Lionel came on the line.

  “This is Lionel,” he said, sounding as though the call had interrupted something important.

  “Rothera here, sir. We’ve picked up another unknown aircraft. What would you—”

  “Another one?” Lionel interjected. “Good grief. Thank you, Rothera. We’ll take it from here.” He promptly hung up.

  Suddenly, a voice with a thick Spanish accent was heard over the radio in Coy’s jet: “This is San Martin station. Please identify yourself.” Coy and Thorne exchanged confused stares.

  “Since when do Antarctic research stations demand identification?” Coy whispered to Thorne.

  “Maybe it’s just an extra cautious air traffic controller,” Thorne said.

  “Should we respond?” Coy asked quietly.

  Before Thorne could reply, the station repeated its command, followed by, “If you do not identify, military action may follow.”

  Now thoroughly vexed, Coy said, “Since when do Antarctic research stations have military capabilities?”

  “Something’s up,” Thorne warned. “We’d better cooperate.”

  “Sorry, San Martin,” Coy voiced back. “Captain Benjamin Coy speaking.”

  Down on the ground, Lionel’s eyes bulged to hear such a familiar name.

  “What’s he doing here?” Lionel mouthed to himself. Then, addressing the radioman, he advised, “Tell them to land immediately.”

  “Sí, señor.”

  With reluctance, Mr. Coy obeyed, promptly landing his aircraft at the given coordinates. Imagine his surprise when he saw who was standing on the rocky runway to greet them.

  “Lionel?!” Coy exclaimed. There had been n
o contact between the two of them since their heated disagreement at the Cooper home months ago when Lionel wouldn’t let Mr. Coy see the letter that had prompted Pauline to persuade Ishmael to take her to Waters Deep. Thorne immediately recognized Lionel from the United Nations meeting.

  “Welcome to Antarctica!” Lionel said with open arms.

  “Can it, worm,” Coy scoffed. “Don’t pretend to be our friend. We know how you ratted us out to the UN.”

  “I know it looks bad,” Lionel said, “but I did it for Ret’s own good.” Coy and Thorne stared at him intriguingly. “Please, just hear me out.” Starting to walk away, he bade the two men follow him inside the research station. When neither of them moved, he laughed, “You’re welcome to come inside my office—unless you want to freeze to death out here.” Somewhat unwillingly, the pair followed.

  “It was only a matter of time before the whole world found out about Ret,” Lionel began, sitting down behind a desk in a small room. “Please, sit,” he told his guests, who looked as though they would rather have remained standing. A man entered the room and set three steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the desk. “Gracias, Pedro.” Coy and Thorne looked at the drinks as if they were poison.

  “So you thought you’d do us a favor and cut to the chase?” Coy sneered.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, the entire globe is in commotion,” Lionel said. “The very continents are moving rapidly, for crying out loud. Ret has disrupted millions of lives, so I figured it might be helpful if I put an end to all the rumors.”

  “But you made Ret out to be the enemy,” Thorne jumped in, an eye-witness of Lionel’s UN address.

  “Forgive me, sir,” Lionel said to Thorne, “but I don’t believe we’ve met?”

  “Walter Thorne,” he introduced himself. “I was in attendance at the UN General Assembly meeting.”

  “And what is it you do for the UN?” Lionel asked.

  “Enough with the small talk,” Coy intruded. “How was your traitorous spiel for Ret’s own good?”

  Ever patient with Mr. Coy’s animosity, Lionel resumed, “By the time the Oracle is filled, it will have affected every human being on the planet, and already there are entire nations who are not very happy with Ret.” Then, pointing at Thorne, he said, “You were there at the meeting—the government leaders were furious.” It was a fact Thorne couldn’t deny. “There was already talk of a bounty for Ret. Can you imagine how impossible it would have been for you to travel the world in search of the remaining elements had I not stepped in? Sure, I may have vilified Ret, but I also halted the international effort to stop him. Don’t you see?” Lionel smiled, leaning back in his chair and raising his hands in victory. “I saved you a world of trouble! If it wasn’t for me, who knows what would have happened? Some rogue country may have tracked Ret down by now and blown up his house or something.”