Nikolas and Company: The Merman and The Moon Forgotten (2 page)

The finger-sized Roc turned its head
toward the red-eyed assailants and roared. It leapt into the foggy
wall.

Silence.

“Aiihh!” a monster cried.

“Raaishhh!” the Roc
responded.

Combative cries rang down the cliff
side.

Lir held out a hand. “The whip, good
man. The horses know what to do.”

Without a word, Yeri pushed the whip
into Lir’s hands. Lir held out the whip in his left, and the fiery
harpoon gun in his right. The merman closed his eyes.

“I could throw a shoe at
it.”

“Shh. I cannot hear them if you are
spea—”

The whip shot across Yeri’s
nose.

“Greeow!” the mist cried. Lir reeled in
a black mass with hundreds of red eyes. The harpoon tore through
its stomach, and the creature burst into filthy smoke as it tumbled
over the cliff, leaving an acrid smell in its wake.

“
What are they, sir?” Yeri
said. The monster had been so close Lir could have hugged it, yet
the fog hid its shape.

Lir looked ready to speak, but his
mouth stayed shut.

Red eyes appeared before them. Lir
cocked the whip. Suddenly another creature grabbed the cord from
behind and Lir was dragged to the back of the coach. At the last
moment he anchored himself into an exposed ribbing.

“Gaah!” Lir cried. His tail was being
shredded by the stony ground.

With the whip still in his hand, the
merman’s muscles exploded from neck to shoulder as he flung the
monster ahead of the stagecoach. Monstrous screams were cut short
by the solid end of a spruce tree.

Lir righted himself on the seat and
pointed to an outcropping. “Just beyond Constance Cove, that’s our
destination.”

“Lesterton’s Point sir?
But—”

“Trust me, Yeri.”

The horses swung right and
seaward.

“Sir. There is nothing here but ocean
below.”

“Ride hard, sir.”

“But the cliff?”

“Do not stop!”

The stagecoach leapt into the gut of
mist, leaving the ground behind. The horses’ forelegs reached out
for hope.

“Sweet Huron!” Yeri yelled.

A white archway sprung from the mist
and wheels slammed cobblestone. The stagecoach exploded through a
gate. Yeri could see a second gate, with something near heaven on
the other side of it. Before he could decide whether he had, in
fact, died and gone there, the stagecoach burst through an inner
plaza.

“Lower the gates. Both of them!” Lir
commanded.

Metal scrapped and slammed. Yeri
grabbed the reins until his knuckles ground together. The horses
stopped suddenly, panting out their run.

“Your faith in me is much appreciated,
Yeri.” Lir tried to catch his own breath. “Our fortress is mobile,
moving along the coastline at various points. Quite possible you’ve
never seen it docked at this port. But we have not escaped the
darkness, yet. Afraid we need our protector. We need the steward of
Huron, Nikolas Lyons.”

Two • The Voice

Sometime in the near
future…

Colorado City,
Colorado.

Oh, Steward Nikolas Lyons.
The Rones enter the city of Huron at the peril of us
all.

“What?” Nick’s face ripped from the
viewer. The shed was lined with antique motherboards, microwaves,
cappuccino machines, key-making machines. And none of them could
speak.

The Rones lie about their
true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us
all.

Nick dropped the
screwdriver. He heard a voice. More specifically, he heard a
woman’s
voice.

“I’m losing my mind.” Nick wiped the
blond hair from his face. “I can’t lose my mind. First, I have to
get off this planet, then I can lose my mind.”

Sure, in order to finish the machine,
Nick resorted to the Nick Lyons living-dead power formula: three
parts soda, two parts energy drink, six parts chocolate syrup,
chased down with Pepto-Bismol. But that wouldn’t cause
hallucinations . . . right?

The Rones lie about their
true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us
all.

Nick looked down to his feet. The voice
came from under the floorboards. “Ha, ha, Tim. Funny. I can hear
you under there.”

The Rones lie about their
true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us
all.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened
them again.

“I will not hear voices . . . I can’t
hear voices.” Nick had to give every ounce of his focus to the
machine.

For a moment, Nick wondered if it was,
in fact, his machine, the Prometheus 10,000, that was speaking to
him. Maybe it was picking up one of those old time radio signals?
He looked down to the scuba diving goggles, which served as a sort
of viewer into the Prometheus 10,000. The machine’s skin had been
stitched together from a theater spotlight, an unwary antique
television and three different game consoles. One could see lights
blinking deep within its belly while cables escaped from various
holes, only to be dragged back in. His brother, Tim, often referred
to it as the greatest abuse of technology. To Nick, it was the
machine that would get him off this rock.

Earth.

One must understand. Five
years ago Nick had been practically abducted from the Lunar Colony
by his
own
parents
and forced to move to Earth with its suburban globalization. Nick
remembered de-boarding the transworld shuttle at the Colorado
Spaceport. He walked through the rampway to Gate F10, clutching his
red backpack. The gate dumped out into a mash up of passengers and
shoppers, all clutching their respective possessions. But that
wasn’t what made Nick sick to his stomach. It was the mass lying on
the ground. At first he assumed someone had unknowingly dropped
their luggage, until he saw those brown eyes.

A teenage boy was
hemorrhaging.

From nowhere, an ambudrone flew past
Nick, announcing, “Geneva virus detected. Geneva virus detected.”
It then smothered the boy in quarantine jelly, leaving him there
like some dying cocoon. The shoppers, with their department store
bags and eyes in perfect balance, stepped over him, around him,
beside him. But their eyes never fell on him.

Nick dropped his backpack, tore through
the crowd, and kneeled down to the boy. He didn’t know it was the
Geneva virus at the time, all he knew was the boy needed help. Nick
screamed at the top of his lungs, “Help! Somebody help him!” The
course of shoppers slowed as they searched for the voice. When the
source was found, they glared at him, glowered at him, and a few
even shushed him, but no one helped him. Not knowing what to do
next, he reached out to the jelly. Suddenly there was a flash of
light and he lay ten feet from the boy, stiff as a
board.

The ambudrone had tazed him and now
floated over him in its white, orbish body, saying, “Please keep
your voice down. You are disturbing the shoppers.”

Looking up at the plastic
outline of the ambudrone, he had only one thought:
I need to get off this planet.

And Nick’s mind never changed on the
subject. He missed Moon.

He also missed the sun.

Like some global cataract, a
fog had covered the Earth for the last one hundred years. One
political party blamed it on their opponent’s unchecked consumerism
and continued burning of fossil fuels. The other party blamed it on
their political enemy’s CO
₂
pumps, which were placed all
across the globe to suck out the supposed overabundance of
CO
₂
and
balance the ecosystem. But it was now believed the pumps sucked out
too much carbon dioxide, sending the ecosystem into a tailspin.
Nick didn’t care who was to blame. He just wanted to go home, back
to Moon. Everything there was black and white. Everything there was
. . .

“Simple.” Nick blinked. “Now I’m
talking to myself. Just like Grand.”

So, when the philanthropist announced
that he would give out a million dollars to whomever could build an
effective solar transference machine and return solar radiation to
the planet’s surface, Nick had found his ticket home, literally.
All he had to do was build the machine, win the prize, and buy a
one-way transworld shuttle ticket back to the Trafalgar Lunar
outpost. Sector nine. Quadrant 4b. Easy.

Just like the movies.

Some might call Nick naïve, simple,
even an arrogant fourteen-year-old—they usually did. But Nick
didn’t care. He believed with all his heart this machine would
change everything. Speaking of, Nick needed to get his butt in gear
for his very first demonstration at two o’clock that
afternoon.

The Rones lie about their
true intent. They enter the city of Huron at the peril of us
all.

“Tim? Seriously. I’m gonna punch you in
the mouth if you don’t knock it off . . . Tim??”

Come to think of it, Nick hadn’t seen
his brother all afternoon. He walked to the window overlooking
Hiker’s Canyon, scanning for any signs of Tim. Hiker’s Canyon was a
large, open canyon surrounded by spruce trees. On one side were the
massive, newly built homes, and on the other a refugee camp filled
with shanties and dorms and teenagers. The Geneva virus, also known
as the genetic plague, swept through the planet nearly twenty years
ago. It attacked the nervous system, killing the adults, but
crippling the children. By the end of it all, the Geneva virus left
millions of children homeless. Local orphanages were unable to deal
with the demands, so every country formed their own intranational
refugee camp.

Nick couldn’t have felt
luckier.

Moving next to the refugee camp was
Nick’s saving grace. He couldn’t stand all the kids at the private
school. They were snobbish, preppie students. But refugee kids?
They knew how to have a good time. Tough as nails and wouldn’t say
no to anything.

Nick’s eyes drifted to the bottom of
Hiker’s Canyon. There lay a blond curly-headed boy, clutching his
stomach while trying to cough up a spleen or two.

“Oh boy.” Nick had found
Tim.

“You should know better, Tim.” Nick
bolted out the door. “Never go to the refugee camp by yourself.
Back off, Rocky!” Nick yelled to a six-foot-tall,
fourteen-year-old—well, girl, if he were to be categorical about
it. In a stroke of prophetic naming, her parents called her
“Rocky.” Shortly thereafter, they passed away from the virus. The
refugee kids ordained her with the full title, “Rocky, the
She-Bully.” With this knowledge, he made a quick, confident
assessment: Tim’s digestive system wouldn’t survive the
afternoon.

“Rocky!” Nick yelled again as he jumped
several steps and landed in packed dirt.

“I can—take—her, Nick.” Tim tried to
stand, but his legs were matchsticks. “Go away! I don’t need your
help.”

Rocky shoved him down.

“Leave him alone,” said
Nick.

“No, Nick—khaa—khaa!” Tim clutched his
pant legs. “You promised.”

“I can help.” Nick leaned around
Rocky.

“Go away! I
said
I don’t need your
help.”

Nothing could be further from the
truth. Nick had protected Tim from bullies since the Lunar Colony.
Their move to Earth hadn’t changed a thing.

“Look, everyone,” said Rocky. “Tim’s
big brother came to the rescue, again.”

“Little
brother?” Tim tried to stand up again. “I’m the
oldest.”

“By 28 minutes,” Nick said. “We’re
fraternal.”

Rocky’s porpoise neck swung around. Her
eyes critiqued Tim’s floppy physique, dust blond hair and sloping
brow. Even though Tim was fourteen, he wasn’t much taller than a
seventh grader. He even had small hands and slow reflexes, like
their dad.

Rocky’s eyebrow led the way back to
Nick. He was tall, stocky with large hands, more like their
grandfather, Grand.