“And what happened?”
“It worked fine. Karen is perfectly normal with no aftereffects, except for being a bit embarrassed.”
This part of the story sounded familiar, and Bonnie had a good idea why. “Embarrassed? Why?”
“We didn’t figure it out at first, because Derrick always wore cotton, but it seems that the translumination only affects certain organic substances. Karen was wearing something synthetic and came back dressed only in her cotton underwear.” Ashley laughed but stopped abruptly when Bonnie didn’t laugh with her. “Sorry; I guess it’s not really funny.”
Bonnie waved her hand. “It’s okay. I wasn’t thinking about that.” She felt better when she heard corroboration of Karen’s story. It meant that Ashley was really telling the truth. Maybe she wasn’t hiding anything after all, but there was something that still bothered her. “I was wondering why it’s dangerous. It sounds like everything’s working great.”
Ashley rose from the dome base and heaved a deep sigh. “There’s one part of the procedure that’s never been tried. Although Karen was able to perceive another entity in the candlestone, she was never able to make contact with it.” Ashley reached for one of Bonnie’s wings and held the outside edge in her hand. “We believe that with your dragon-like genetics, you would probably transluminate into a similar photo-dimension, a sort of light energy frequency that matches your mother’s, and you’ll be able to find her. But once you attach to her, we don’t know if you’ll be able to pull her out or if you’ll be drawn completely in and cut off from the outside world. It just hasn’t been tested.”
Bonnie peeked at her father through the corner of her eye. He was studying meter readings on the panel and scribbling notes in a spiral journal. She drew in a deep breath. “Where will my mother show up when I bring her out?”
Ashley released Bonnie’s wing and smiled. “When you bring her out? I like your attitude.” She led Bonnie to the third glass cylinder. “This is the recovery tube. We sometimes call it the restoration dome. When Derrick pulls you out, you’ll be attached to your mother in your dome. We told her that she’s supposed to go through another crystalline pipeline on the opposite side of Derrick’s, passing through a series of photo analyzers that will read her encoded light structure. You see, her encoding may be shifted or out of phase because it’s been so long since she was transluminated. She went inside in an agitated state, but after a while, her light energy settled down. It’s sort of like a reflection in a pond that gets disturbed by throwing in a rock. Eventually, the water settles down, and you can see the image again. All the parts of the messed up image are the same as the clear image, except that they’re scrambled. So, if slowing your mother’s tachions doesn’t create an auto-assimilation, I’ll have to use the computer to rephase her structure.”
Bonnie pressed her palms on her temples. “You’re making my brain explode.”
Ashley pulled Bonnie’s hands down and laughed. “It sounds worse than it is. I tested it with a rabbit by messing up her encoding and shifting her frequency phasing. Then, I passed her light through the analyzer. No problem. She came out a perfectly healthy bunny.” She tapped on the cylinder’s glass with her knuckles. “In short, a few seconds after you show up in your dome, you’ll see your mother in this restoration dome. We don’t know for sure what kind of condition she’ll be in, but we’re convinced that since we can communicate with her, she will be out of the coma, maybe even perfectly well. It could be that you’ll be in each other’s arms less than a minute later.”
Bonnie’s heart thumped in her chest like a dozen excited bongo drums. Could it really be true? Could all of this really work? Would she finally see her mother, who she thought had died months ago?
“We’re waiting for morning,” Ashley continued, “so Derrick will be wide awake and strong. Anchoring is a grueling job, and he gets exhausted after just a few minutes. But that’s okay, because we don’t want to go longer than a few minutes anyway. The light energy begins getting out of phase in about 250 seconds. We have to be sure to throw it into reverse before we hit that time mark.”
Bonnie put her hands on her temples again and closed her eyes.
Ashley’s tone softened. “Did I give you a headache?”
Bonnie smiled but kept her eyes closed. “No. I’m just praying.” She peeked under one eyelid. Ashley’s lips parted, and her eyes widened, as though with all of her great intelligence and learning, she beheld a sight she truly didn’t understand but wanted to learn more about.
Bonnie finished her prayer, opened her eyes, and took Ashley’s hand in hers. “I’ll do it.”
Ashley grinned from ear to ear and began talking in rapid-fire fashion as she led Bonnie back to the dorm. “That’s awesome! You need to get plenty of rest, and we’ll make sure the robe fits you better so it won’t drag the floor of the dome. But don’t worry; it won’t really matter anyway. It all gets changed into light. And translumination doesn’t hurt at all; at least that’s what they tell us. Derrick’s done it about twenty-five times, and Karen’s done it about a dozen or so.”
As they entered the hall, Bonnie started laughing.
Ashley stopped abruptly. “What’s so funny?”
Bonnie pulled a wing to the front and held the edge in her hand. “You act like you think I might be scared.”
Ashley’s dark eyebrows arched downward. “Aren’t you?”
Bonnie grinned and shook her head. “I’m excited, but I’m not scared. Not really.”
Ashley fussed with her keys as she unlocked their dorm room. “You must have a lot more faith than I do. I don’t think I’d be so calm.”
“Why? You’re the one who’s been propping me up, telling me why it’s all going to work.”
Ashley pushed the door open but blocked Bonnie from entering. “It’s not the technology.” She looked down the hall and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Have you forgotten? Devin’s in the candlestone, too.”
Bonnie’s throat grew a lump the size of a golf ball. In all the joy and excitement of hearing her mother’s voice, she really had forgotten about the dragon slayer. “But . . . but he’s on a different phase or something, isn’t he?”
Ashley motioned with her head for Bonnie to come inside, and she closed the door quietly. She sat on the bed under the Einstein poster and patted the space next to her. Bonnie joined her, her legs trembling as she sat down.
Ashley kept her tone low. “Devin has always communicated with us on the alpha frequency, and your mother’s always been on the beta. I think you’ll go in with your mother’s phase, and he probably won’t even know you’re there. But there’s one problem. Sometimes I search for him in his phase, and I can’t find him. I think something’s up. I don’t trust him.”
Chapter 10
Ashley had been asleep for more than an hour when Bonnie decided to make her move. The room was nearly dark, but enough light came from under the door to allow her to find her way around.
Bonnie slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the room toward the wall hook next to Ashley’s dresser where her keys dangled. She held up her nightgown’s skirt to keep its hem from sweeping the floor. Ashley had been so sweet earlier in the evening to help her cut and stitch holes for her wings in the silky soft material. While they worked, they had chatted about sewing and clothes, and giggled while they flipped through the pages of an old magazine and made fun of the badly outdated fashions.
Bonnie lifted the keys from the hook and tiptoed to the closet. She slipped her jeans from the hanger, slid a new pair of tennis shoes from the shelf, and gently turned the doorknob until the latch gave way. With a gentle tug, the door swung open a crack, but the rusty hinge squawked like a bad-tempered chicken. Bonnie spun her head toward Ashley’s bed.
Whew! Still sleeping.
Folding her wings in tightly, she squeezed through the gap and left the door unlatched. After pulling on her jeans under her gown, she crossed the hall to Karen’s door and gave it a couple of little taps. Less than two seconds later it flew open, and Karen appeared.
“You ready?” Bonnie whispered.
“Ready.” Karen showed no signs of sleepiness, her eyes shining brightly.
Bonnie bent down to slip her shoes over the socks she’d worn to bed. She tied the laces hurriedly and then headed for the hall exit, winding up the lower part of her gown and tucking it inside her jeans as she walked. She stopped at the door and searched through the keys while Karen looked on. “It was one of the brown ones,” Bonnie muttered, “but there’s a bunch of them.”
Karen pointed at a key with a rounded end. “I think it’s that one.”
Bonnie tried Karen’s choice, and the lock turned smoothly. She cracked the door and peeked out into the dark laboratory chamber. The lamp of the main control panel gleamed in the dark, but there was no sound, no movement. Bonnie opened the door fully and entered the chamber, waiting for Karen to follow before silently closing the door.
Bonnie hopped up to the lab platform and headed straight for the main control panel, hoping to find her father’s spiral-bound notebook.
Yes! There it is!
She picked it up, placed it under the lamp, and studied the last few pages, hoping to find a record of what she had seen for herself.
A strange array of numbers and letters filled most of the entry— characters that were hard to read, made with dark hasty strokes scratched across the paper without regard for the lines. Each number had a code letter next to it, but the cryptic message seemed indecipherable. Bonnie flipped back to earlier pages, scanning them for words she could understand. Finally, near the front of the notebook, she found something, a narrative penciled in more careful script. She read while Karen looked over her shoulder.
Seeing that dragon’s blood is the only real agent that can actually regenerate tissue, it has become clear through many trials that our triangle will only be successful in reversing Excalibur’s transluminating process if we supply the tachion engine with the receptors from the blood itself. The receptors seem impossible to synthetically produce, at least for this application. The lab rats were expendable. We can’t risk trying it on humans until we have successfully restored at least a rat, and, ideally, a higher order mammal upon which we can test memory restoration. Ashley believes that her synthetic receptors will eventually work. Time will tell if she is correct.
That was the end of the script. The next page contained just a series of numbers and labels, so Bonnie flipped the pages forward, looking for more text. After about a dozen pages of cryptic data, she found a series of block letters. They didn’t make real words, but they were separated into word-like letter strings. It started, “QRL AFXN NXC” and continued with similarly jumbled chains.
Karen whispered, “Does that stuff make any sense to you?”
“Maybe. Something about this looks very familiar.” Bonnie thought back to a time when she and her father traded coded messages, a game that allowed them to write to each other about her dragon characteristics without anyone else understanding, even if someone happened to read one of their notes. It had been more than a year since the last time she decrypted his code, and he might have come up with a new system, but she decided it was worth a try. She tore out a blank sheet from the back of the notebook and found a pen on the control board.
After a few minutes of work, she came up with a translation and whispered it to Karen. “Her idea has failed, but replacing the synthetic receptors with real ones in the presence of the candlestone has made the process work until now. I will have to let her know eventually, but as long as her grandfather improves, she won’t ask questions, and our investors will be happy. I can’t explain it to her yet. I also cannot tell her why the blood has been so readily available.” Bonnie looked up from the page. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Karen scratched her thick mane of red hair. “Well, they’ve mentioned putting receptors in my blood to see if they would work. I got the idea that it didn’t take for me, but I think it did take for Ashley’s grandfather. At least it did until recently.”
Bonnie closed the notebook and waved it toward Karen. “Well, I’m not sure how old this entry is, but it was something my dad obviously didn’t want Ashley to read.”
Karen raised her eyebrows and smiled. “So Ashley’s not the only one who’s keeping secrets, huh?”
Bonnie put her hand to her chin. “Apparently not.” She surveyed the cavernous room, looking for something—a new object, maybe another notebook, anything that might spark a new idea. She noted the banks of darkened fluorescent lights, several rows inset in drop ceiling panels. She wondered how high the true ceiling might be, but even if she were to walk to the cavern’s wall and look up, it would be too dark to tell with only a single desk lamp for light.
She scanned across the chamber to a door in the far corner and pointed toward it. “Is that the door to the monster’s cave?”
Karen nodded. “Yep. That’s the one.”
Bonnie laid the notebook where she found it and prowled toward the cave, but Karen didn’t budge.
Bonnie glanced over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Karen scrambled off the platform but slowed as she drew closer.
When Bonnie reached the door, she noticed a strange shadow on the exterior. She ran her hand over the surface and felt the outline of a horseshoe-shaped symbol scratched into the wood. “I guess that’s an omega, right?”
Karen tiptoed up to the door and angled her head to get a look. “Yeah. That’s what Ashley told me, an upper case omega.”
Bonnie pulled out the set of keys and tried several in the lock, each one failing. With only a few left, she turned to Karen. “Have you ever seen Ashley open this door?”
Karen shook her head. “No. I’ve only seen Doc go through.”
Bonnie tried the last of the keys. “Hmmm. The things that Ashley doesn’t know are piling up.” She put her ear to the door and listened.
“Hear anything?” Karen asked.
“Shhhh!”
Bonnie detected a faint murmur but couldn’t quite make it out. “It sounds like sawing wood,” she whispered, “and then it changes to more like a train rumbling, and then back to sawing again. It’s like an old man snoring and wheezing.”
“Sometimes it’s louder,” Karen added, “more like growling or even moaning. If it’s not a monster, I don’t want to guess what else it could be.”
Bonnie stepped back from the door and frowned. “Monster, schmonster, Karen. He’s just trying to scare you.”
“Scare me? Why would he want to do that?”
“To keep you girls in line, maybe?”
Karen took a quick breath and squared her shoulders. “No way! We don’t give him any trouble!”
Bonnie gestured toward the boys’ dorm hall. “Derrick, then?”
“Not a chance. He’s real quiet and shy.”
“Does Ashley ever say anything about the growling?”
Karen looked down and slowly shook her head. “Not that I can remember. If it’s fake, she just seems to play along.”
Bonnie pressed her lips together and squeezed one eye nearly closed. “Hmmm.” She then pushed on the door with her shoulder while turning the knob, but it didn’t budge. The sound of her grunt was followed by the wail of a faint siren. She stepped back, nearly stumbling. “Is that an alarm?”
Karen’s eyes darted around. “You must have tripped something. Sounds like it’s coming from the boys’ area.”
A sudden bump and click sounded nearby. The door to the boys’ dorm swung open. Bonnie led Karen into a dark corner and whispered in her ear. “Let’s wait here. Don’t make a sound.”
“Is somebody out there?” a male voice called.
“It’s your father,” Karen whispered.
Bonnie gave her a quick “Shhh!” and crouched, pulling Karen down with her. She watched her father walk by as he headed toward the light switches, one hand in his bathrobe pocket and the other reaching for the wall. Just as the fluorescent panels flashed on, Bonnie grabbed Karen around the waist and held one hand over her mouth before leaping into the air. She flew around and above the drop ceiling toward the upper reaches of the cavern, lugging Karen like a sack of wiggling cats. Finding a stable rafter, she perched there while her father checked behind panels and opened storage closets.
Bonnie felt Karen’s deep gasps against her hand, the rushing air blowing in and out through her nose. Karen’s feet seemed secure, and they supported her weight on the rafter. Bonnie whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry. I’ve done stuff like this before.” She slowly released her grasp.
Karen whispered coarsely, “That was so cool! Are you going to fly down, too?”
“Shhh!” Bonnie clutched a vertical beam with her right hand and Karen’s waist with her left arm. She took slow, shallow breaths of the warm, stale air, barely making a sound. Beads of sweat trickled from her brow and cheeks. Nothing moved. The rocky ceiling trapped the heat and exhaust from the laboratory equipment, and no outside vents brought fresh air into the chamber.
It took a few minutes for her father to satisfy himself that all was in order. He tested the door that had tripped the alarm, finding it securely locked. With a shrug, he flicked off the lights and disappeared behind the boys’ hallway door.
Bonnie whispered. “Let’s wait another minute. I want to make sure he’s not coming back.” The seconds seemed like hours. Their perspiration dripped, falling like hot, salty raindrops to the nearly invisible floor below. When Bonnie felt the sweaty wetness on Karen’s shirt, she decided it was time to move. She released the beam and clutched Karen with both arms. “Okay. Hold your breath.”
She leaped from the rafter, throwing her wings into a full canopy, flapping once to catch and hold the motionless air. The girls dropped to the floor, Bonnie trying to hit the concrete surface running. Karen’s feet tripped over themselves, and the two girls landed in a crumpled heap, rolling and grunting as their momentum carried them forward.
Bonnie jumped up and helped Karen to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Karen nodded, rubbing a sore spot on her elbow.
With her head tilted to one side, Bonnie listened, ready to fly again if necessary, but it seemed that no one had heard their spill. All was quiet.
Bonnie took Karen’s hand. “Let’s get back to our rooms. I don’t think we’ll learn much more tonight.” They crossed the cavern, passing through the main lab, and reentered the girls’ hall. Bonnie relocked the door and whispered to Karen as she led her back to her room. “I’ve figured out a few things but not everything. I need to talk to Ashley in the morning, and then maybe it’ll get clearer.” Bonnie pushed open Karen’s door and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Karen smiled, and the tracks of dusty sweat smearing her cheeks expanded. “Okay,” she whispered, and she turned to go into her room. At the last second she spun back around and grabbed Bonnie’s hand. Standing on tiptoes she kissed Bonnie tenderly on the cheek. As a tear formed in Karen’s eye, she said softly, “Thanks . . . For everything.” With that, she tiptoed in and closed the door.
Bonnie put two fingers on her cheek.
Thanks for what? What have I done for her?
She pulled the skirt of her nightgown out and slipped her shoes and jeans off, wadding them into a bundle, and then it dawned on her.
She thinks I was sneaking around for her, trying to figure out what they were doing to her, maybe find a way for her to get out. And why not? She’s trapped here like a human guinea pig in some bizarre experiment. She’s living a nightmare right before my eyes. She’s an imprisoned orphan in an underground cage.
Bonnie knew what it felt like— loneliness, hopelessness, despair. All this time, Bonnie had been thinking about finding her mother and not much else. Sure, the girls were important, but that’s not why she was skulking around for clues.
Bonnie’s lips trembled as she pictured Karen’s grimy face and sad, teary eyes. As the image morphed, tears crept into her own eyes, one already dripping down her cheek. She saw shackles on Karen’s wrists and neck, and Ashley holding a leash, smiling while leading Karen to the diver’s dome. Bonnie balled her hands into fists, her face heating up until she thought steam might spew out her ears. She threw open her door, and light from the hall poured into the room. Ashley sat up, bleary eyed and blinking at Bonnie. “What’s going on?”
Bonnie stalked in, closing her wings to get through and then opening them again in the middle of the room. She flung the keys and the wad of clothes on her bed and planted her fists on her hips, not knowing where to begin.
Ashley stared at her. “Are you okay? Are you sleepwalking or something?”
Bonnie pointed toward the hallway, passion erupting in her voice. “They’re human beings!” she cried. “Not stupid lab rats!”
Ashley jumped up and marched to the door, closing it with an authoritative click. “Shhh!” she warned while reaching for the light switch. “Do you want to wake the girls?”