Eighth Fire (10 page)

Jeremy said, “If you’re not going to order,
I need to go. We’ll talk after sunset.”

Mark said, “Thanks. It’s probably just as
hard for you as it is for the rest of us.”

Jeremy started walking off and said, “You
have no idea.”

He reached into Aaron’s Grasp and removed
the walkie-talkie ring. Using a pencil, he pushed the small letter
N on the crest. Nothing happened. He tried the C and the J. Still
nothing.
They must have forgotten about theirs too.

He put the ring on the index finger of his
left hand. He felt that wearing jewelry on his strong hand had the
potential to cause problems at a critical moment during combat. As
soon as the ring was on his finger he heard Nick saying, “He must
not be wearing it. Hello. Hello.”

Mark spoke into the ring. “Nick, you’re
right. I wasn’t wearing it. Where are you guys?”

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you that you have
to wear the ring; the sound is transmitted through your bones.
We’re at the far end of the mall. Are you in The Oasis?”

“Yeah, but I need to go to the library. Do
you know where it is?”

Jamal’s voice said, “It’s in the third level
of The Bookstore, in the back.”

Nick’s voice said, “We’ll meet you there and
you can tell us what’s going on.”

“See you there.”

The few people Mark saw on the way to The
Bookstore seemed to be happier than normal, especially after a long
test. They were all smiling or grinning when he looked their way,
but no one spoke.

The Bookstore was empty except for a clerk
sitting behind the counter reading a book. Mark couldn’t read the
title from where he was, but the author’s name was James Rollins,
written in large, white bold type on the front of the book. The
clerk glanced up when Mark passed by, chuckled and promptly went
back to reading.

The door to the library was exactly where
Jamal said it was. Mark walked in and was surprised to see LeOmi
there checking out a couple of books on kenjutsu, the Japanese
style of sword fighting.

LeOmi didn’t bother to look to see who had
come in much less notice when Mark walked passed her and over to
the aisles. He began looking for the section on geography and it
didn’t take long to find a few books dealing with the western
United States.

He took the books to a table, sat down and
thumbed through them. Nothing looked familiar. He pushed the books
aside and started to get up when he saw Nick, Chenoa and Jamal
round the corner. They all three burst out laughing.

Mark said, “What’s so funny?”

Chenoa said, “What happened to you?”

“I’m a natural rescuer. I had to go try to
rescue someone. It’s not funny.”

Nick said through stifled laughs, “Do all
natural rescuers have green ears?”

“Green ears?” He put a hand to his ear,
rubbed and then looked at his fingers. The green didn’t rub off.
“What are you talking about?”

Jamal chuckled, “You’ve got green ears.
Either somebody has tagged you or they’re getting a lot of points
for a practical joke.”

Chenoa said, “Good thing not many people are
around. What happened to you this morning? We’ve been looking for
you everywhere.”

“I had a headache, only it wasn’t a normal
one. Somebody thought they were about to die and I sensed it. So
did LeOmi, but she knew what was going on. I followed her and we
ended up underwater in The Wasteland trying to get a guy out of a
sub. When I got back, I was waiting for you guys to come back to
The Oasis and I just fell asleep.”

Nick nodded and said, “Slone. It had to be
Slone or his cronies.”

Chenoa said, “Tell us what you’re looking up
and we can do that while you go back to the dorm and do something
about those ears.”

Nick took off his cloak and handed it to
Mark. Mark hadn’t had a chance to get a new one yet. “Here, you can
use this to hide your ears.”

Mark shook his head and started to undo his
folded ponytail. “No thanks. I can just let my hair cover it.”

Jamal exclaimed, “Wait! I think we are
heading in the wrong direction with this. Think about it. If you
cover it up or try to wash it off, whoever did this will know they
got to you. Just leaving it alone won’t work either. You’ve got to
wear this like a prize.”

Nick said, “Yeah! It’s like the sports fans
that paint themselves in team colors. We could paint ourselves too.
Emerald Tribe team spirit!”

Chenoa went to Mark and looked at his ears.
“It just might work, especially if you start thinking of it that
way. Besides, from the looks of whatever they used, I don’t think
even Ajax could take it off.”

Mark said, “Sounds like a plan.”

He told the group about the dream and what
Mrs. Shadowitz had said about looking at pictures and seeing if
anyplace seemed familiar. Nick and Jamal went to the geography
section and started pulling books that dealt with the American
West.

Chenoa went to the history and arts sections
and pulled three books:
A Pictorial Survey of North American
Petro-glyphs
,
History of Canyonlands National Park
and
The Oral History of the Anasazi
; any one of which contained
all the information she believed he needed. She put the books on
the table next to the ones Mark had already looked through, pulled
out a chair and sat down. “What do you think all this means?”

“It can’t be good.” He pulled one of
Chenoa’s books toward him and started flipping through it. “Nothing
makes any sense. I know the thing Xocotli hid is the power source
for the sunstone and we need to figure out what the sunstone is all
about, but I don’t think I’m the one that’s supposed to find it; at
least that’s not the feel I get from the dream. The dream feels
more like I’m just supposed to know the power source was hidden and
how much Xocotli went through to hide it. That’s all.”

“Then why are you the only one having this
dream?”

“I never thought about it, and I don’t know
that I’m the only one having the dream.”

“Then why does Benrah want
you
to
destroy it?”

Mark turned a couple of more pages in the
book, stopping at the page with a picture of the Great Gallery. He
glanced at the picture and then at Chenoa. “I don’t know that’s
what Benrah wants me to destroy. I just know he wants me to destroy
something, and I’m only guessing this could be it.” The rock
paintings didn’t look familiar to him since he hadn’t seen them in
his dream. He turned the next page.

“You’re not going to destroy it, are
you?”

Mark looked at her like she had no clue what
he was going through. He brought his thoughts to the front of his
mind.
On one hand, Benrah wants it destroyed and that can’t be
good. It could be the one thing that could keep him from ruling the
world. On the other hand, if it isn’t destroyed, I know everything
I ever loved will be destroyed. That means you three too. You’re
like family to me. How can I choose? My only choice is not to find
it; let someone else do it.

Jamal and Nick put their stacks of books on
the table and sat down.

Jamal said, “Destiny doesn’t work that way.
If it’s your destiny to find it, you will find it. There’s no way
to avoid it.”

“That’s just it: I don’t know if it’s my
destiny to find it or not. Benrah said I will find something and
there’re at least two things wrong with that: you can’t trust
anything he says, and he didn’t say what it was I was supposed to
find. It could be anything.” Mark closed the book he was looking
through and pulled another one over.

Chenoa said, “It’s got to be the reason
you’re having this dream. I think Mrs. Shadowitz knows once you can
identify where the place in your dream is you’ll know if you’re
supposed to go there or not, and that’s why she told you to look
through the pictures.”

Nick said, “I think there’s a better way. We
know from what you told us, this warrior guy started from somewhere
in Mexico and went north into the western United States. He
probably had to cross the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo at some
point.”

Mark flipped another page. “He crossed a lot
of rivers until he got about half way to where he was going. Then
he just followed one going north.”

“That’s a good clue. Hold on.” Nick went
back to the shelves and returned with a map book. He opened it to
the section showing Mexico and the United States. “Okay. There
aren’t that many rivers that run north-south from Mexico. Was it
wide or narrow?”

“Wide, real wide.”

“Good. That narrows it down to: the Pecos,
the Rio Grande, and the Colorado. Mountains, were there any
mountains?”

“Yeah, lots of really big ones.”

“Okay, that rules out the Pecos. Forks in
the river, were there a lot or hardly any?”

“There were a lot.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. That only
leaves the Colorado. Did you go through the Grand Canyon?”

“I don’t know. We could have. There were a
lot of really tall, really steep places, but after that there was a
big lake. He traveled by canoe after that.”

“That’s it.” Nick pointed to the area on the
map. “Lake Powell. All right, after the lake, where did you
go?”

“Two days north, on foot, where two rivers
meet.”

“That’s the Colorado and the Green,
dead-center of Canyonlands National Park.”

Chenoa reached over and pulled out the book
on the Canyonlands from the stack and handed it to Mark. Nick
reached over, took the book from Mark and said, “He can’t recognize
pictures taken from the ground; everything he saw was from the air,
remember?” He thumbed through the book. “Nope, not a single aerial
photo.”

Chenoa said, “Where are we going to get
aerial photos?”

Nick answered, “The fastest place is the
Internet. Most of the map search-engines tie in with an aerial
photo database. Just a few clicks and presto, you’re there.”

Mark pushed the book in front of him toward
the center of the table, stood and asked, “Can you get the Internet
here?”

“Of course you can. Lee’s Coffee Shop is an
Internet café.” Nick reached into Aaron’s Grasp and pulled out a
handheld computer. “If all the stations are in use, we can use my
handheld. The screen is small, but it should be good enough to let
Mark confirm or deny this as the location. It’ll only take a few
minutes.”

Jamal said, “We should take care of our ears
first.”

Chenoa stood up and tugged Mark’s sleeve.
“Let’s go. We can get something for that on the way. We have to
figure out what Mark’s dream means and what he’s supposed to do
about it.”

The group cut through the center of the
mountain and was just emerging from the botanical gardens section,
approaching the picnic park on their way to the coffee shop when
Mark yawned. He stopped walking, stretched and said, “Boy, I can’t
believe how tired I am. The Wasteland must have zapped me more than
I realized. I’ve got to sit down and take a break.” He started
walking toward the nearest picnic table.

Chenoa yawned, “I’m tired too,” and followed
Mark.

Jamal and Nick looked at each other, yawned
and followed Chenoa.

Jamal said, “This isn’t right.” He stopped
where he was and sat down on the grass.

Nick sat beside Jamal. “Someone has to be
using…”

The foursome awoke seventeen minutes later,
each with the pinky finger of each hand stuck deep inside his or
her nostrils, making them all look like surprised mimes without the
face paint.

Mark tugged and tried twisting his fingers
but was unable to remove them. “YOW! What happened?”

Nick tugged his fingers. “Superglue. Someone
has to be using a sleep weapon on us as a practical joke.”

Chenoa said, “It has to be Slone or one of
his crew.”

Jamal rolled to his knees and stood. “It
could’ve been anyone. We need to get our fingers unstuck and the
best place to do that is the healing ward. Then we need to figure
out how to defend against this.”

Mark started walking back toward the
elevators and his companions joined him. Everyone’s voice sounded
like they had a severe cold.

Nick shrugged his shoulders. “I need to
figure out how it works first. If I had to guess right now, I’d say
it’s probably some kind of electronic gizmo; maybe something that
caused our brainwaves to resonate in the sleep frequencies. I’ll
need to get some instruments to check that.”

Mark asked, “What else could it be?”

Nick answered, “There are a lot of things
that can put a person to sleep, but everything falls into two
categories: chemical agents, or altering the brainwaves. I rule out
chemical agents because they’re just too hard to deliver without
leaving evidence. And we don’t have any evidence of what was used.
Hypnosis could have been used if we were given a post hypnotic
suggestion, but that’s not very reliable. That leaves altering our
brainwaves by some other means, and the best way to do that,
theoretically, is through electronics.”