He didn’t have a chance to regain his footing before another blasts sent him sprawling across the floor. His goose was, literally, being cooked. He could smell his fur burning as one bolt of lightning after another slammed into him in rapid succession.
There were times, when the body was subjected to horrors beyond imagination, the brain took a vacation and separated itself from what was happening to the body. This was what Caleb was experiencing right now. As his impending death weighed down heavily on his soul, he thought only of Dorothy and how he had let her down.
His body slammed into something hard right before his head came to rest on something soft. Strangely enough, there were no more bolts of lightning tossing him around like a rag doll. But, despite the nonstop pounding, he hadn’t been killed.
He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the red velvet seat inside the carriage. He tenderly lifted his head and inspected himself. His fur was singed in several places, but the burns were not severe. Instead of killing him, the multitude of lightning strikes had pushed him back into the carriage. The defenses of this room were not designed to kill anyone, only to keep them out.
But keep them out of what? He looked out of the carriage at the door on the other side of the electrified room. That was the same door Nero had easily gone through not five minutes before.
So this room was some kind of test. And since he wasn’t dead, it looked like Caleb was being given a second chance. A second chance that he wouldn’t squander like he had the first. He had to prove that he was worthy of the quest that Nero was going to send him on. He had to prove he had the strength, and the intelligence, to achieve the goal.
As had already been shown to him on his first attempt, he couldn’t conquer this room with strength alone. He had to use his smarts. This time he studied the room, looking for something he’d missed before.
How had Nero managed to get through this room unscathed? What had he done differently as he made his way to the other side?
And then he remembered what Nero had said right before leaving the carriage. He looked into the laboratory and saw the brass hand rail Nero clung to when he had moved through the room. Originally, Caleb had dismissed this simple action as the needs of an old man who had trouble walking and seemed to cling to everything around him as he moved about. This time, Nero had not clung to the brass railing only because of the damage to his body. It must’ve somehow protected him from the lightning. That railing must have grounded him and made him invisible to the electricity that crackled in the air.
Caleb cautiously reached a hand out to the railing that stretched all the way from the door on the other side of the room to the door of the carriage. The fur on his arm stood up as he reached out of the carriage. As soon as he touched the brass rail, his hair settled back down and he was not pummeled with bolts of electricity.
Keeping a hand firmly on the rail, he walked across the room and made it all the way to the door on the far side without incident.
The door opened just as he arrived and Nero stood in the threshold. “You took long enough.”
Caleb grimaced. “Was this a test?”
“Not really. I told you what to do as we are getting out of the carriage.” Nero disappeared through the door and Caleb hurried to follow him, glad to leave the lightning room behind.
The hallway beyond the door was short and opened quickly into a brightly lit room filled with plush chairs and a sofa along one wall.
Seated on the sofa, and looking expectantly at him, was Dorothy.
The room Nero had led him to was completely white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. Even the few overstuffed chairs and the one sofa along the far wall were white. No tables, no pictures, nothing. It was the strangest sensation to be in a room devoid of color. It made him feel strange to be dressed in the black and brown leather outfit that was common in the hybrid colony. Animals in the wild lived or died on whether they could blend in to their environment, but this new environment was one in which he could not hide. He had never felt more out of place.
Dorothy, dressed all in white herself, slowly stood up from the sofa. Caleb closed his eyes, fully expecting her to disappear when he reopened them. He opened them slowly and let out the breath he had been holding when he saw she was still there.
“Hello Caleb.”
He rushed over to her and they wrapped their arms around each other. He inhaled her scent and the months they had spent apart evaporated.
Nero hobbled across the room and paused at the opening to a side hallway. “I will leave you two alone… to discuss things.”
Caleb barely registered Nero had left as he hugged Dorothy. He’d spent months trying to find her and now, when they were finally together, he didn’t know what to say. But it didn’t matter. Words weren’t needed.
A bark echoed from the same hallway Nero had gone down. They both looked toward the sound, the clatter of claws scraping against polished floor tiles echoed off the walls. Whatever was coming down that hallway was running straight for them. Caleb released her and widened his stance, ready for anything to emerge from the hallway.
A large dog, big enough that it could have been a wolf, bounded into the room. It skidded to a stop on the smooth tile floor and locked eyes with Caleb. The dog’s black fur, speckled with gray, rose up on his back as he growled. Caleb let out an involuntary hiss.
Dorothy’s voice broke the tension in the room. “Who’s a good boy?”
The dog’s head whipped around and his tail began wagging ferociously as his paws slid on the smooth tiles while trying to run faster than the polished floor would allow. He leaped the remaining couple of feet through the air and tackled Dorothy back down to the couch, licking her face and making her laugh.
“Who’s a good boy? That’s right. Toto’s a good boy.”
Caleb resisted the urge to vomit as Toto… A dog!… slobbered all over her.
She continued to muss up the fur on Toto’s head while blowing in his face, causing him to lick her even more.
It was disgusting.
Caleb cleared his throat loudly.
She stopped fawning over Toto and they both looked over at Caleb. Toto emitted a deep growl.
Dorothy patted him on the back. “Easy there, boy.”
Emboldened by the approval of his master, Toto barked at Caleb.
Dorothy barked her command just as loudly. “Toto, sit!”
Toto flopped to the floor in utter compliance. Caleb’s keen sense of hearing detected the subsonic growl just under the dog’s breath.
Dorothy leaned back on the couch and lounged comfortably. “So, you’ve agreed to help?”
Caleb tore his eyes from Toto and looked at Dorothy. “I haven’t agreed to anything. In fact, I’m here to talk you out of it.”
She sat forward again. “You can’t talk me out of it. I made a deal with the Southern Marshal. If I do this, we get our freedom.”
“We can find another way. Now that we’re together…”
“I asked for you because I needed someone I could trust. Someone who would be there for me, no matter what happened.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Did Nero tell you what was at stake?”
“Of course he did. But there has to be another way. We can bring the box to you…”
“There’s not enough time for that. Nero explained everything and I agree with him. The only way to get this artifact before these Directors is for me to open the box where it is. The artifact inside is much smaller, and we can travel quicker without a heavy box.”
“I still don’t get why you have to be the one to open the box?”
“When my father built that box, he encoded it so that only our blood can trigger the lock. But he is too weak to travel.”
Caleb was about to reply when his brain shifted gears as to what Dorothy had just said.
“Your father? He’s here?”
Dorothy lowered her head and sat quietly with her eyes closed. Caleb took a step forward only to receive a deep growl from Toto that stopped him in his tracks.
“Dorothy?”
She lifted her head, a tear rolled down one cheek. “I’m sorry Caleb. I should’ve sent word to you sooner. The Southern Marshal tells me how much trouble you’ve been, trying to find me. In a way, you kept your promise. I have been at my father’s side every day since we came over the wall.”
He could feel the emotion emanating from Dorothy. Apparently, so could Toto. He stood on all fours and growled loudly. Dorothy sniffed quickly and wiped away the tears as she composed herself
“It’s okay Toto, he’s a friend. Sit.”
Toto obediently sat, but kept a wary eye on Caleb.
Dorothy took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I’m sorry I never contacted you. I hadn’t seen my father since I was a little girl, and I guess time got away from me.”
“It’s been months.”
“I know.”
“It would’ve taken you a minute to ask someone to…”
She stood up sharply. “I said I was sorry!” Toto was on his feet and growled fiercely. She placed a reassuring hand on Toto to quiet him down. “I see now it was a mistake to ask you to come with me. It was selfish of me to include you in my deal to free my father and I.”
“No, Dorothy. I didn’t know you found your father. It’s just that I’ve been so worried about you, not knowing whether you were alive or…”
He let his sentence trail off into silence. After a moment, she finished his sentence for him. “Dead?”
“I didn’t want to think that. I wouldn’t let myself think that.”
Neither of them spoke for several minutes, the silence stretching on for what seemed like forever. A thought suddenly occurred to Caleb.
“Are you sure it’s your father?”
She gave him a quizzical look. “I think I would know my father.”
“Nero made you think he had your father, remember that? But it was just an automaton made to look like him and programmed with your father’s memories.”
She shook her head. “No. Not this time. It’s definitely my father.”
“So, you made a deal with the Southern Marshal to be her little errand girl in exchange for our freedom?”
“I’d hoped you, of all people, would understand. My father only has a few years left, and I would like to give him the chance to see the world he missed out on before it’s too late.”
“Is that worth giving a weapon of indescribable power to the Southern Marshal?”
“I would pay any price to get my father out of this hellhole. It’s why I came in the first place. And not you, or anybody, is going to keep me from doing what I came here to do.”
Toto picked up on her intensity and began growling. This time he bared some teeth to reflect his utter dislike for Caleb. She stroked his head and he relaxed slightly.
“They promised me they would destroy it as soon as they stopped the threat to OZ.”
“Don’t you see? There will always be another threat. Another reason to keep a weapon like that around. The people with power always want more power. And now, Nero and the Southern Marshal are the two most powerful people in OZ, and they have joined forces. If you give them that weapon, they will use it to get more power.”
A new female voice echoed from the hallway that Nero had disappeared down earlier. “I’m going to stop you there.”
The Southern Marshal strode into the room.
“Whatever you think of me, I am more than satisfied to stay here in the Southern Territories. I have no designs on the rest of OZ, or the world for that matter. Nero informs me that should the Brahmastra fall into the Directors’ hands, the entire world, even OZ, will fall under their tyranny.
“Now, while I really don’t care much about the plight of humans, or the rest of the world for that matter, I do care about the little paradise I have carved out here in the Southern Territories. And anything that threatens that, must be dealt with, and dealt with swiftly. Nero and I both agree that this weapon is too powerful for anyone to have. We were able to set aside our differences and work together against this common threat to OZ. I had hoped that you would be able to do the same.”
Caleb looked from the Southern Marshal to Dorothy. They were both patiently waiting for his answer. He had no idea what to say. On the surface, her argument was sound. But he’d watched how power corrupted even the incorruptible.
The Southern Marshal and Dorothy exchanged a look before the Southern Marshal let out a sigh. “Let me give you some time to think about it. In the meantime, Dorothy and I have some final preparations before she leaves for the northern coast. There are only two exits to this room. If you choose to leave, my offer still stands to take you safely out of the Southern Territories. All you have to do is go out the way you came. There will be an airship waiting for you on the other side of the carriage tube. If you decide to help us, you can join us at the other end of that hallway.”
As the Southern Marshal swept out of the room, Dorothy walked up to Caleb, Toto staying glued to her side.
“I do hope you’ll change your mind.”
She kissed him on the cheek which elicited a subsonic growl from Toto. As they left the room, Toto glanced over his shoulder and bared his teeth with a final snarl. Caleb wasn’t sure if Toto’s dislike for him was an extension of how Dorothy really felt, or if it was a cat-dog thing.
They disappeared down the hallway, leaving Caleb at the center of the stark white room; alone with his thoughts.
His head swam from the deluge of new knowledge he had gained. Within the past twelve hours, he went from thinking he would never find Dorothy to the discovery that, not only was she alive, but she was working for the person who held her, and her father, prisoner.
He also didn’t know if he believed Nero’s claim that there was a threat to OZ. But Dorothy believed it. And apparently, the Southern Marshal believed it.
Was there even a threat to OZ? Or was Nero using his proven skills of deception to get his hands on the ultimate weapon? Caleb had been with Nero for his entire life and knew him as well as he knew himself.
But was he the same man who had raised Caleb to be a cold-blooded assassin, or had the fire changed more than Nero’s skin, and he really was doing everything in his power to protect OZ? The man he had met in the underground warehouse hours before did not remind him of the man who had trained him to kill, as a child.