Inspired by his daughter, cheered by Rick’s charge, amazed at the courage and power of Victor One, Professor Jameson had taken up the fight as well. He wasn’t exactly a warrior personality, but an old expression came into his mind—Needs must when the devil drives—which means, “When evil is on the march, you do what you have to do.” He did what he had to do. He glanced at Molly. He saw her battle strategy. He threw his own door open with all his might and smashed a charging Boar in its pink nose. The Boar went down, but the window cracked and a large section of glass, smooth on one side and blade-like on the other, fell into the professor’s lap. He picked the glass up with both hands and when a Harpy arced out of the air and came through the window at him, he jammed it into her shrieking face. Her claws scratched his arms painfully, but the glass destroyed her and she sparked and fell away.
Rick and Victor One were fighting side by side now. Rick felt himself filled with a weird furious superstrength, like Jonathan in the Bible when he attacked the Philistines single-handed or like Mega Man X when his charge meter is full. He was hacking through the mob of monsters as a scytheman carves through wheat. And V-One, who had gotten hold of a Boar sword himself now, was doing the same.
Cobras, Boars, and Harpies flew back and fell on every side of the two warriors. Monsters were lying all over the forest floor, purple lightning lancing through them as they twisted in their death throes before they disappeared. A final Boar came rushing toward Molly’s window, its sword point lowered to deliver a killing thrust. It never reached her. Rick let out an animal roar and brought his own blade down atop the creature’s head. Rick was so pumped with battle power that the edge of the sword cut all the way down to the Boar’s collarbone before the thing vanished from in front of him.
The fight was almost over now. Victor One was slashing a last Harpy out of the air. Professor Jameson had stepped out of the cab to wield his glass shard more freely. There was only one Cobra left on his side and with a not-very-loud but heartfelt cry of “Take that!” he cut it down.
Rick reached the driver’s door and pulled it open, and Molly poured out of it and into his arms. On the instant, the battle rage left his heart. He lowered the sword to his side and held her, glad beyond telling to feel her warm and alive. Until that moment, the fire of the fight had been burning so high in him he had not fully felt how frightened he was for her, how desperately he wanted to reach her. But he felt it now and held her close. His eyes looked past her and scanned the area. The monsters were gone. The battle was over. He let the sword fall from his hand. It dropped to the earth and vanished.
The battle in the compound was ending too. With a few final ragged volleys, the soldiers were killing off the last of the monsters there. Rick and Molly turned together, their arms around each other, and watched. A few final purple flashes and it was finished. The soldiers let up a brief cheer, their fists rising into the air. But the next second, they were racing over the frozen compound ground, picking up the wounded and carrying them toward the hospital barracks.
Professor Jameson came around the front of the truck to find his daughter. His always-disheveled self was even more disheveled than usual. His arms were running with blood from where the Harpy had scratched him. His shirt, stained with blood, was completely untucked. His slacks were filthy. He still held the glass shard he had used for a weapon in his hand. He said mildly, “Well, that was certainly . . .” Then he shook his head, unable to finish the sentence. The thick glass slipped from his fingers and fell to the forest floor.
Holding Molly, Rick turned to Victor One.
The bodyguard, pale and blood-soaked, was standing nearby under the trees. He swayed where he stood. He managed to show them a lopsided grin.
“I don’t know what those things were,” he said hoarsely. “But we kicked their butts back to fantasyland, that’s for sure.”
And with that, he collapsed to the ground.
Rick and Molly rushed to the fallen bodyguard and knelt beside him.
“Hold on, buddy, we’ll get you help,” Rick said.
But Victor One didn’t answer him. He never spoke another word. He looked up—at Molly first and then at Rick—and he smiled at them. Rick’s heart turned leaden and dropped inside him. He could see that V-One was leaving life behind.
Molly saw it too. Crying, she called out his name. She reached out and touched his face. Victor One went on smiling. He met Rick’s eyes. He moved his head. It was only the faintest gesture, but Rick knew exactly what he meant. He was telling him to take care of Molly: the girl they both loved.
Rick nodded. His throat felt so thick he could barely breathe. He wanted to speak but couldn’t. He wanted to tell Victor One that he would defend Molly with his life—with his whole life and for his whole life. He wanted to tell him that he understood why V-One was smiling, why he was calm. He wanted to tell him that he knew now what Victor One knew, what the Traveler knew. He knew there was no fear faith couldn’t conquer, not even this.
But there were no words for any of it. So Rick simply knelt there. A single tear spilled from his eye and ran down his cheek. Victor One tried to shake his head, to tell him there was no reason to cry, but he didn’t have the strength. And it wouldn’t have mattered. Rick’s tear would have fallen anyway. He was heartbroken to see Victor One go.
Another moment and then the terrible thing came. A shadow seemed to move diagonally across the bodyguard’s face. When the shadow had passed, Victor One was gone.
Molly moaned, “No,” and turned away and pressed herself against Rick’s chest. He held her there and she cried.
Rick held Molly and looked down at the body of Victor One. He hoped that Kurodar was still inside his mind. He hoped Kurodar could hear what he was thinking.
He was thinking: I’m coming for you, Kurodar. I’m coming for you.
He was going to destroy the Realm. There was no question in his mind. He was going to bring that weird and terrible universe down around Kurodar’s head. He was going to bury the terrorist in his own rotten blackness. He was going to avenge Victor One.
It was another few seconds before Rick became aware of the shouting from the compound. He looked up and saw Mars.
The commander was standing at the compound gate with his silver hair unkempt, his face pale, one shirttail hanging out of his pants. He was pointing at them—at Rick and Molly and Professor Jameson.
He was shouting, “Get them! Arrest them! Don’t let them get away!”
Already, a few of the soldiers were running out of the gate, running toward the truck, their rifles leveled.
24. HIGH TREASON
THE PRISONERS WERE brought into the underground conference room: Rick, Molly, and Professor Jameson all together, then the Traveler, blinking calmly behind his glasses and rubbing the place on his wrist where the handcuffs had been. The soldiers withdrew to guard the doors and the compound’s medics came in. They cleaned the scratches on Professor Jameson’s arms. They examined the bruise on Molly’s forehead. They cleaned the cuts and bruises that Rick hadn’t even realized he had sustained in the heat of the fight.
The conference room was a long room nearly filled by a long table. All along the wall were monitors and television and computer screens, all blank, all dark. Rick was standing at the head of the table. His father, the Traveler, was sitting in one of the swivel chairs positioned around the table’s side. Rick had told him about the death of Victor One. The Traveler, who had become close to his bodyguard, had only nodded once then sat down silently, gazing at nothing. Rick knew he was silently praying for his friend.
Molly and Professor Jameson were seated too. The professor held his daughter’s hand. She had stopped crying for Victor One now, but her face remained drawn and sorrowful.
When the medics were gone, the prisoners looked at one another.
Rick smiled sadly. “You should’ve seen him,” he said. “He must’ve killed fifty of those things all by himself.
”
“A hundred,” said Molly softly.
“With a piece of wood and his bare hands. He was a warrior.”
The Traveler nodded. “He was. He was a warrior through and through.”
Molly and Professor Jameson nodded too. They all fell silent again.
A few more moments passed, then the conference room door opened. Commander Mars came marching in with Miss Ferris marching right behind him.
Rick’s grief turned to a flash of rage at the sight of the man. For a second, he wanted to leap at him. He wanted to grab him by his lapels and scream in his face. He didn’t. The second passed. His anger faded as he looked at Mars.
Mars looked awful. If the commander had seemed panicked before, he now seemed to have passed beyond panic to pure despair. The craggy face was pale and slack, as if the rock of the man’s features had melted into something soft and putty-like. And his eyes—his eyes seemed distant, as if they were gazing on some scene of disaster that no one could see but him.
It was strange. Mars had been such a fierce and unyielding personality up till now. But it wasn’t half as strange as what Rick saw when he turned to look at Miss Ferris.
Was it possible? Was even the Great Robot Lady of Robot World affected in some way? Yes, she was. There could be no question about it this time. Though Miss Ferris managed to keep that absolutely blank look on her face, she couldn’t keep the fear out of her eyes. She couldn’t stop her cheeks from turning ashen gray.
In the midst of his sorrow and anger, Rick realized that something terrible must be happening. If even Miss Ferris was feeling an emotion—any emotion—then whatever was happening, it had to be really big and really bad.
Mars spoke. And instead of his usual bark, his usual bullying style of command, there was a tone in his voice now of . . . what was it?
Humility, Rick thought. Humility and fear. Somehow Mars seemed to have discovered he wasn’t as great as he thought he was.
“We have a situation on our hands,” he said, and then he coughed. And then he said hoarsely, “A situation.”
To Rick’s surprise—to everyone’s surprise—it was Molly who reacted first, reacted with a fury Rick had never seen in her. She let go of her father’s hand and shot out of her seat. Her eyes flashed as she leaned toward Mars.
“A situation!” she said. “The situation is that you’re a traitor.”
“Molly!” said Professor Jameson.
“Dad, he is!” she insisted, never taking her flaming stare off Mars. “Victor One found out about him. That’s why I was trying to smuggle him out of the camp. He found out that Mars used this entire project, the whole MindWar program, as a giant hack on America’s defense systems. He stole the plans for a weapon system and was going to sell it to the enemy.”
Rick slowly rose from his chair, staring at Mars, too, now. He could see by the look on the commander’s face that what Molly said was true. It all made sense. That Battle Station thing he had seen in Mars’s computer . . . That’s why it was there. Mars had stolen the specs and was planning to sell them to the Axis.
Rick looked at his dad. The Traveler’s reaction was subtle, but the son knew the father well. His dad’s face remained serene, but the eyes behind the round glasses lost their mild aspect and went flinty and hard. He stood up too. He faced Mars.
“You were selling American secrets,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an accusation. It was just a stated fact.
Mars couldn’t meet the Traveler’s eyes. He turned away. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, what was it like?” Molly blurted angrily.
Rick could see Mars was trying to pull himself together, trying to restore some semblance of his old authority and strength. It wasn’t working. His cheeks were growing slick with sweat. His voice was still soft and hoarse.
“I was blackmailed . . .,” he said, his voice barely rising above a murmur.
“They were going to pay him a billion dollars,” Molly said—and her voice sounded to Rick like steel clashing on steel.
Glancing at Mars, Rick could see that this was true as well. Mars—the great patriot!—had been going to sell a secret weapon for money.
“A billion dollars for the Battle Station specs,” said the Traveler mildly. “You’re a cheap date, Mars. They’re worth ten times that.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Mars said again, more forcefully this time. Rick couldn’t tell whether he was trying to convince them or himself. “I thought I had an inside source with the Axis Assembly.”
“Moros.” Molly spat out the name.
Mars nodded. “I thought I had everything under control. I thought Moros and I were trading information. He told me some things, I told him some . . .”
“Like the fact that I was working on the MindWar Project,” said the Traveler. “That’s why they drove that truck into Rick. To get to me. That’s why they broke into my house and held my son at gunpoint. That’s how they knew where to attack my car on the road.”
Mars nodded weakly, licking his dry lips. “By the time I realized Moros was double-crossing me, it was too late. I’d already committed treason. He started to blackmail me. I had to give him more and more information or he’d have had me arrested, put in prison. And finally . . .”
“Finally you struck a deal with him,” said the Traveler, his voice steady. “The Battle Station specs for the money.”
“So I could get away. It wasn’t the money, I just . . . I couldn’t stand the idea of going on trial . . . for treason . . . prison.” Rick was startled—everyone was startled—even Mars himself was startled—when tears came into the commander’s eyes. He dropped his chin on his chest. He raised his hand to his face. “It wasn’t the money . . .,” he said again.
There was silence in the room for a moment. Rick stood at the head of the conference table and looked at Mars—Mars with his head bowed, his hands to his eyes: a broken man.
Rick wanted to hate the guy. He felt he should have hated him. Mars’s corruption had cost Rick the strength of his legs, his football career. It had nearly gotten him and his family killed. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Mars, maybe Victor One would still be alive . . . Rick wanted to hate Mars and in the old days he would have. In the old days, he would have flown into a rage. But somehow, in the last few hours, those old days had ended. It was because of what had happened to him in the Realm. Because he had been into the very heart of the Realm’s darkness. Because he had seen the light—the living, conscious light of love—that shone beyond it, that saved him when nothing else could. That light . . . somehow it had gotten inside him. It had begun to wash the hatred out of him. The hatred, the anger . . . It just wasn’t there the way it used to be. Looking at Mars, Rick felt . . . Well, he felt a kind of pity for the man more than anything. Mars had been arrogant. Prideful. He had thought he could handle things alone. He had put his trust in himself. To use his mom’s phrase, he had trusted his own brain. Big mistake. Rick felt pity for him, and the pity made him strangely calm. Calm, like his dad always was.
“Why are you here?” Rick heard himself say. He was really curious. He really wanted to know. “You weren’t planning to confess like this. You were going to frame my dad so no one would suspect it was you. You must’ve been found out. They must be coming to arrest you.” Mars lifted his face to look at him, his eyes still damp. Rick could see by the fear in those eyes that he was right. “Why didn’t you run for it? Why are you still here?”
Mars straightened. He tried to put on the aspect of his former dignity. “I’m still a patriot,” he said.
Molly gave an angry snort of derisive laughter.
“I am!” Mars protested. “I panicked when Moros blackmailed me. I gave him the specs to the Battle Station, but the Axis is years—decades—away from acquiring the technology needed to build it. By the time they got one up and running, we’d have come up with something more powerful.
I never imagined . . .”
His voice trailed away. The room was silent.
“You never imagined what?” Molly snapped at him.
But Rick said nothing. The Traveler said nothing. They looked at each other. They had both already guessed the truth. The portal in Rick’s head . . . Kurodar’s hack of Mars’s computer . . .
“Kurodar has taken control of the Battle Station,” Rick said.
Mars answered nothing. He walked slowly, unsteadily, down the length of the long conference table until he was standing at the opposite end from Rick. There was a small black control panel there, with black switches in black plastic slots. He threw some of the switches. The monitors all along the wall lit up. On each big screen, there were animations of space . . . images of the sun . . . the earth . . . a depth of stars . . . And at the center of each screen was an animation of a satellite. Rick recognized it at once: it was the Battle Station, the space weapon he had seen on the specs in Mars’s computer. He felt fear spreading through him like a mushroom cloud.
“Kurodar followed my computer straight into our defense systems,” Mars said. “Straight into the controls of the weapon itself. Half an hour ago, the Pentagon alerted me . . .”
He stopped talking. His hand shook so hard he had to press it against his leg to still it. Everyone was looking at the massive floating space cannon turning around on the screen between earth and sun. Mars managed to reach for another switch in the panel, to draw it down. Next to each image of the station, a meter appeared, a long black bar that was only just beginning to fill with green light.
“He’s using the sun to charge the station now,” Mars said. “Within three hours, that bar will be full, the cannon will be operational.” Mars raised his haunted eyes and looked at one and then another and then another of them.
“When that happens,” he said, “Kurodar will be able to set the entire country on fire.”