I focused on a Karai Institute flag hanging in the tent:
Both Professor Bhegad and Torquin were sitting on folding chairs. Torquin was whittling a block of wood into something shapeless.
I smiled. I never thought I’d be so happy to see old Red Beard. “Wow,” I said. “You’re okay. We thought we lost you in the river.”
Torquin scowled. “Almost drowned. Was punished.” He violently hacked off about half the block of wood, which shot across the room. “Punishing Torquin, favorite KI pastime.”
“The true punishment was what your bodies went through,” Bhegad said. “You were gone for almost five months. You did not feel the aging effects in Babylon—but upon your return, G7W kicked in. In other words, your body clocks caught up. You all went far past your scheduled treatment times. I cannot emphasize how close you came to dying, young man. These treatments are temporary, and they do lose effectiveness over time. You are lucky we expanded our camp here to full emergency capacity—under the guise of an archaeological dig, of course. I used my status as a world-renowned archaeologist to get the proper permits.”
“Thank you,” I said.
From outside, I heard shouts. I tried to sit up, but my head throbbed. The morning sun was orange on the horizon, streaming through the door from the east.
A white-shirted scientist peeked inside. “Marco’s gone, sir.”
Torquin raced out the tent flap. Bhegad, too. He had been in a wheelchair the last time we’d seen him, and now he was walking on two feet.
I heard a snuffling sound and turned to my right. Aly and Cass were both on cots, eyes closed.
They were unconscious. Marco was missing. I felt flattened. Dazed.
When I closed my eyes, it was hard to open them. So I didn’t.
“Jack?” This time it was Aly’s voice that woke me up. She and Cass were both sitting up on their cots, looking groggy. “Hey. Afternoon.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Three o’clock,” Cass said. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Professor Bhegad told us he already spoke to you. Sounds like we dodged a tellub.”
“Do you have to do that all the time?” I said, clutching the side of my achy head.
“Bullet,” Cass said. “Sorry. The good news is they found Marco.”
“He ran off,” Aly said, shaking her head in disbelief. “He recovered from his treatment before the rest of us. Just before daybreak, he slipped out for a jog. Or so he says. He was gone for hours.”
A jog?
I was having a hard time computing this. My mind was still half in dreamland. Memories of our escape were flooding in—the Loculus, Kranag, the near-collapse of the Hanging Gardens . . .
“Actually, when he told us to jump into the Euphrates before him, I thought he might surprise us and stay in Babylon,” Aly went on. “That boy hates failure.”
“Well, he left the flying Loculus there,” I said.
“He tried to get it,” Aly said. “He told Professor Bhegad he started digging it up. But when the guards came after him, he had to jump in the river without it. Bhegad was furious.”
Cass shrugged. “Imagine how bad Marco must feel. Probably went on a hundred-mile jog to clear his head.”
I lay back, eyes closed. “Are all seven missions going to be like this?” I said. “I don’t know what’s harder, finding Loculi or dealing with Marco the Unpredictable. Ever since Rhodes, he’s been acting so strange, saying such weird stuff.”
Aly raised an eyebrow. “Since Rhodes? He’s been like that since the minute I met him.”
“I think you guys are being a little harsh,” Cass said.
I took a deep breath and shut my mouth. I needed to recover more fully. Then my mind wouldn’t be so negative.
I dozed on and off for awhile, and when my eyes flipped open for good, I was alone in the tent with Professor Bhegad, and it was growing dark outside. Bhegad was picking things up, tossing them into suitcases. “Feel well enough to fly, my boy?” he asked. “We’re going home to the island.”
“Now?” I sat up slowly. “I thought you’d want us to go back to Babylon.”
“We have been discussing what happened during your journey,” Bhegad said. “And by the way, I must applaud you, Jack, for your unusual discernment at a time of moral crisis. Your decision to leave the Loculus was wise and humane.”
“Really?” I said.
“We knew this mission would be hard,” he continued, sliding a laptop into his suitcase. “While you were gone, we tried to anticipate every possible scenario. We’ve had months. Brilliant minds can achieve great things in that time—nanotech engineers, geneticists, metallurgists, biophysicists.”
I couldn’t believe we were going back to Geek Island. This whole thing was just getting worse and worse. “Funeral directors, too?” I said. “Looks like we’ll need those at the rate we’re going.”
Bhegad leaned in close. “My boy, never forget: saving your lives is the Karai Institute’s raison d’être.”
“‘Reason for being,’” grunted Torquin from the far side of the tent. “French.”
“So we will not give up on you,” Bhegad said. “And believe me, you have not seen the last of Ancient Babylon. We will send you back, by hook or by crook.”
Something about that statement made my hair stand on end. Saving lives—was that really their motivation? Marco’s words came back to me. What if there is no cure? What if it’s all a sham? After those seven babies are returned? Bingo—thanks, guys, sayonara! Next stop, Nobel Prize.
If Bhegad was so casual about the lives of the Babylonians, how did he really feel about us?
“We can’t bring the Loculus back, Professor Bhegad,” I said. “We can’t kill thousands of people. Even if they’re in some kind of weird time limbo, they’re still people.”
Professor Bhegad smiled. “Yes, and I understand one of them became a bit of a sweetie to you.”
“She did not—who told you that?” I blurted out. My face burned.
Torquin snorted. “Little bird.”
Snapping a suitcase shut, Professor Bhegad headed for the tent flap. “Torquin, commence preparations for takeoff. Wheels up in half an hour. We keep a team here, because I expect to return before long. And this time, when you go to Babylon, Jack, you’ll be going with Shelley.”
He stepped briskly outside, shouting orders to other people.
“Wait!” I called out. “Who’s Shelley?”
Torquin plopped a full suitcase at my feet. “Not a sweetie,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PINEAPPLE AND GRASSHOPPER
“I HAVE BEEN dreaming of an elppaenip smoothie,” Cass said, as we burst through the dorm entrance into the bright tropical morning. He held up a small glass box, in which Leonard was lying on a bed of sand. “And a yummy reppohssarg for you?”
Sometimes, just sometimes, Backwardish just got on my nerves. “You know, Cass, maybe you can spell that stuff in your head, but it’s impossible to figure it out by hearing you say it!”
“Pineapple,” Aly said. “And grasshopper.”
“Thank you, I rest my esac,” Cass said.
“Ee-sack is not the right way to say case backward!” I said.
“You dootsrednu it,” Cass replied.
“Aghhhhh!” As I took off after him, Cass ran away, giggling.
Honestly, it felt pretty good being back in the lush lawns and air-conditioned comfort of the KI. We’d all had a day to chill, most of which was spent sleeping. We’d showered and been bandaged up. Bhegad’s intelligence committee had debriefed us on every detail of the visit. Even a team of “textile designers” had made patterns of our tunics and sandals.
Today Professor Bhegad was going to treat us to breakfast in his classroom at the House of Wenders and introduce us to Shelley.
“Maybe she’s a new Select,” Aly remarked.
“Freshly kidnapped,” Marco drawled.
“Well, it’ll be good to have another girl,?
?? Aly said.
“I had a friend named Shelley who was a guy,” Cass said, jogging back to us. “Sheldon.”
“Guy or girl, I don’t know how one more Select is going to make a difference in Babylon,” Marco said. He kicked a stone and it rocketed across the campus lawn.
“Easy, Pistol Feet,” Aly said. She smiled at Marco, but he didn’t notice.
Cass was trilling into the glass box. “Brrrrrr . . . brrrrrr . . .”
“What are you doing?” I said.
“It’s my lizard noise,” Cass said. “It comforts Leonard. He’s very sick. Barely moved since we got back.”
“He’s homesick,” Aly said. “You never should have brought him over from the other side.”
Brought him over from the other side.
I stopped short. “Guys. Wait a minute. How did that happen? How did Leonard come over from Babylon?”
Aly, Cass, and Marco turned. “Same way we did, Brother Jack,” Marco said.
“But Torquin wasn’t able to go through the portal—because he’s not a Select, and only Selects pass through. So why Leonard?” I began pacing across the walkway. “Okay . . . okay, we have to think about this before we see Professor Bhegad. This isn’t the first weird thing that’s happened with Leonard. Remember, when he fell into the Loculus pit, he didn’t disappear—only when Cass reached down to get him! And Cass disappeared, too. Both times—with the Loculus and in the river—Leonard was able to do what a Select did. Not by being a Select, but by being in physical contact with one!”
I stopped. The realization was epic. But the others were staring at me weirdly. “Uh, we kind of knew that,” Cass said. “Marco figured it out two days ago, back when we were in the water. When I pulled Leonard out of my tunic.”
“We talked about it while you were knocked out,” Aly said, “in the tent.”
I didn’t care that they knew. I was thinking about Daria. And the wardum. And the farmers and garden strollers and herdspeople. “This could be a game changer,” I said. “We can save the Babylonians. They don’t have to die. We can bring them through before we take the Loculus.”
“All of them?” Aly added. “Evacuate an entire city one by one—and bring them two thousand years into their future? Or . . . another present, that is the future?”
“Well, it’s worth thinking about . . .” I said, but the others were looking at me as if I were drooling purple slime. I fell into step as we approached the House of Wenders, a building with columns and wide steps that looked like a museum. The morning clouds had burned away, and Mount Onyx was clear in the distance, rising over the top of the building like a black-hooded sentry.
Professor Bhegad met us in the building’s grand lobby, leaning against the statue of the giant dinosaur that had been excavated on the island. “Good morning, cross-dimensional wayfarers,” he called out. “Punctuality is a harbinger of future success.”
“Listening to him is worse than Backwardish,” Marco muttered.
“Right this way,” Bhegad said, ushering us toward the elevator in the back. “If I seem a bit distracted, it is because I have had a restless sleep worrying about the possible discovery of the first Loculus by ancient Babylonians.”
“Yo, P. Beg, I told you, no one’s going to find it,” Marco said. “I barely had my hands in the dirt when I saw the guards coming.”
“Yes, well . . .” Bhegad sighed. “I am a teacher by trade, and I trust you will take this as a teachable moment. Honestly, there was no need to bring an already-secured Loculus into a parallel world. But—tempus fugit!—I cannot dwell on this. All will be right in the fullness of time. As you know, the last few months we have been working very hard. And I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”
We entered the elevator and the door slid shut. We sank downward so fast I thought my stomach would knock me in the jaw. It was my first time riding this thing, and I couldn’t help but notice that Ground Floor was at the top. Underneath it were ten buttons—ten floors going downward. Bhegad pressed SUBBASEMENT SEVEN.
“It’s an upside-down skyscraper,” Cass said. “A groundscraper.”
The door opened into a cavernous room. The air was biting cold. All around us was the low whir and hum of an air conditioner, and the rhythmic clanking of metal. Steam and liquids blasted through clear tubes overhead. Marco nearly tripped over a short, mushroom-shaped robot that whizzed and skittered along the floor. A bat, confused and disoriented, dive-bombed us and then disappeared into the elevator.
“Given the level of emergency, we haven’t had a chance to import the best equipment,” Professor Bhegad said. “Instead, we’ve worked with what we have. Sometimes the results are better that way.”
We followed Professor Bhegad past a busy workstation. White-clad KI workers with bloodshot eyes were clacking away at keyboards. They quickly waved before heading back to their calculations. The screens glowed with rotating AutoCAD diagrams, and on each desk was a steaming mug of coffee or tea.
Just beyond them, separated by a floor-to-ceiling wall of clear Plexiglas, was a gigantic machine. It looked as if it had been cobbled out of spare parts—I spotted a Jeep fender, a small jet engine, a window frame, sewer pipes, a table top, and about a hundred patches made from the backs of iPod cases. Facing us was a black-tinted window at about eye level.
We entered through a sliding door in the Plexiglas. The machine made a scraping noise and let off a puff of black steam, which rose up into a vacuum duct overhead.
I backed away, coughing.
“Boys and girls,” Professor Bhegad said. “Meet Shelley.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE LETHARGIC LIZARD
THE MACHINE BARKED a greeting halfway between a brack and a clonk.
“You lost me, Professor Bhegad,” Marco said.
“Wait. We’re supposed to go back to Babylon with this thing?” I said.
“Actually, this thing, as you say, is not Shelley,” Bhegad replied. “Shelley is what it makes.”
He pressed a button. A bright light went on behind the black-tinted window. We could see something in a small chamber inside the machine. I moved closer.
Floating in midair was a brownish-gold shard of metal. It was curved like a shield but jagged around the perimeter. Silver-gray wisps puffed into the chamber, clouds of tiny particles that swirled along the surface and then clung to the edges. Turning slowly, the shield seemed to be growing. Curving.
“When it’s finished, it will be a perfect sphere,” Bhegad said.
Aly’s eyes were the size of softballs. “You’re making a Loculus?”
“Not a Loculus,” Bhegad replied. “A Loculus casing. Something I have long thought about constructing. Using plans drafted long ago by Herman Wenders in his journals. People scoffed at the audacity of his schemes, but the man was a genius, far ahead of his time. The project moved to Priority One upon your return from Rhodes.”
“You never saw the Loculus,” Marco pointed out. “Neither did Bigfoot. He was in jail. How could you have analyzed the material?”
“Again, Wenders was our guide,” Bhegad said. “He had managed to find a piece of a Loculus—at least that was what he claimed. Our metallurgists have analyzed the shard, replicated it, and then treated it with a special alloy made of metal and carbon fiber, organic and inorganic polymers, and silicate derivatives. To give it flexibility and lightness.”
“Just stir and bake,” Aly said, staring into the black window, “and get instant empty Loculus shell.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Bhegad said. “You see, when the Loculi were together in the Heptakiklos, they acted as conduits for the Atlantean energy, which traveled from sphere to sphere. The great Qalani had constructed ingenious skins to allow the free energy flow. We believe we have done the same thing with Shelley. If you put that sphere within a foot or so of a real Loculus, its material will promote a transfer of contents.” The Professor’s eyes were wild with excitement. “You will be able to leave the real Loculus
there. When you bring Shelley back, it will contain what we need for the Heptakiklos!”
“But if this thing works,” I said, “and we steal away the energy, how will Babylon survive?”
“My research suggests that the Atlantean energy is like human blood—remove some and over time it will replicate to fill the vessel again,” Bhegad said. “All you need is a small threshold of transfer energy. We have configured Shelley to change color when that threshold is reached. After about an hour of exposure, it will become green and may be taken away. Over time, the energy will fill the entire shell.”
Marco was taking notes. That sight alone was nearly as shocking as this crazy scheme of Bhegad. “Cool, if it works,” Marco said. “A shell for the energy. Is that why you call it Shelley?”
Professor Bhegad smiled. “It is named after Mary Shelley. She wrote a little story about a scientist who created a living thing out of spare parts. Similar to what we’re doing.”
“It’s aliiiive,” Aly said.
“Pardon me?” Bhegad said.
“Frankenstein,” Aly replied.
Bhegad grinned. “Precisely.”
Cass set down Leonard’s glass enclosure beside the basketball court. We’d had a few hours since Bhegad’s demonstration. We’d eaten lunch, argued, and finally agreed to do recreation time. It had been more than twenty-four hours since we emerged from the Euphrates, and the lizard hadn’t perked up a bit. “I’m worried,” Cass said. “Professor Bhegad says Leonard hasn’t developed the immunities we have. Our air is full of germs that didn’t exist in Babylonian times.”
A fat dragonfly whizzed by Marco, who grabbed it in midair with quick reflexes that still astonished me. Cass took off the top screen and Marco dropped in the fly. It buzz-bombed the lethargic lizard, who looked up and then went back to sleep.
“Dang, that was almost juicy enough for me to eat,” Marco said. With a shrug, he began dribbling the basketball onto the court.
Cass sat with Aly and me on the asphalt, watching Marco shoot baskets. As usual he was making shots from a gazillion feet away. With his G7W talents pushed to max, he never missed. Even Serge, a KI computer whiz who had played on an Olympic basketball team, had never beaten Marco.