The twins were busy eating so Mei took the opportunity to talk to Frankie.
“You okay? You seem bummed.”
“I'm okay, I guess,” said Frankie with sigh in his voice. “I miss my mom. I thought we were getting close to finding her until we came to the end of that hall. I have this feeling they’re counting on me...us to help them. I don't want to let them down.”
“We won't let them down. I’m sure the door will be at the end of the other hall,” Mei said. The twins got up, having finished eating, and nodded in agreement. We're going to do this together, they all thought. Everyone smiled realizing they all had thought the same thing at the same time.
Jen and Jan were about to lead the group back to their safe house when they both remembered the hallway cobwebs. Frankie took the lead with the broom with Mei following and the twins, with ponchos in place in a distant third.
“We want to be sure to let the dust settle,” they had explained, peeking out of their ponchos.
Mei thought that the twin’s fear of dirt was a bit obsessive but she had to admit that by the time they reached the shimmering door she was wishing she had grabbed a poncho too.
The twins bolted through the shimmering door and burst back again into the cobwebbed hall, giggling and laughing.
“It sort of tickles you when you go through,” laughed Jan. She pushed one leg and one arm through to the other side. Jen put her arm and leg through too. They moved themselves as close as they could to each other.
“Look, now we are two headed twins” Jen said.
Everyone laughed out loud. Muffin thought it was the greatest and barked excitedly as he ran in circles under the twin’s legs. His bark would suddenly be cut off and just as abruptly be heard again as he came in and out of the shimmering door. The sound effects made everyone laugh even louder.
They all took turns making silly combinations of bodies, arms and legs which were just as funny from either side of the shimmering door. Once they were all on the same side they regrouped and headed to the end of the long main hall of the safe house, careful not to bump into the obstacle course of art and finery.
What with all the treasures she had first encountered, Mei had forgotten that there was a large mirror covering the entire end of the long hall. She motioned for Frankie to follow her and made her way carefully down the hall to the far end where the mirror hung. Frankie examined one side of the carved mirror frame while Mei took the other. Suddenly Frankie shouted out as his probing finger triggered a latch and the entire mirror began to loosen and swing forward. Mei and Frankie jumped back out of the way, amazed that such a large mirror could move so silently.
The hallway behind the mirror was even more amazing. It wasn't beautiful and ornate like Mei expected. Instead the hallway was, if anything, even more dingy than the long hallway from Frankie's safe house. Cobwebs covered the hallway from ceiling to floor and were thick with a layer of dust. There were no working lights in sight. The excitement of finding the new hall quickly faded with the fear that they would be facing another dead end on the other side of this hidden hallway.
Mei asked Jen for an extra broom and both twins ran off, up to the greenhouse, to fetch what they could find. They came back moments later with two brooms for Mei and Frankie. Each of the twins pulled the hoods of their ponchos up over their heads.
“These really do keep those creepy spider webs off of us,” explained Jan.
Frankie consulted NORA, RADAR and DITTO and they decided again, it was best to not have someone in the group place nodes until they checked things out.
The hidden hallway had very few lights that were working. Most of the bulbs were burned out leaving stretches of pitch black. Frankie used his small flashlight to guide the way, with everyone huddling close behind. Not far down the hallway loomed their second disappointment of the day. The light from Frankie's flashlight suddenly reflected off a damp, stone wall directly in front of them. It was another abrupt end to a hallway.
Mei grabbed the flashlight from Frankie hoping somehow what she was seeing would change if she held the light.
“This can't be blocked off too! There's got to be a door here!” shouted Mei angrily. She swung the flashlight beam across the stony wall, the ceiling and the floor when suddenly Frankie shouted out.
“Wait, shine the light on the floor, in the middle some where.” shouted Frankie excitedly.
Mei immediately swung the light back to illuminate the floor in front of her. There! She saw a reflection of light bounce back and trained the flashlight on that spot. Leaning closer she could see that there was a black cable coming out of the wall; to be exact, a power cord with a plug on the end. Next to the plug lay the top half of a crowbar. Mei could see that the plug had been pulled out of a small, dark outlet recessed in the wall.
“What do you think of this Frankie?” asked Mei.
“I think we should plug it in!” said Frankie excitedly.
Mei carefully picked up the plug, and inserted it into the outlet. A shimmering door appeared instantly, where the wall used to be.
“Oh wow! I didn't expect to find that here!” exclaimed Mei. “I am sure there wasn't a plug and outlet at the end of the last dead end. So why one here?” she asked as she turned to the group.
“I think it’s because the plug is only on one side of each shimmering door and we were on the wrong side when we got to the end of the last hallway.”
Mei agreed with him. She hoped that her admiring thoughts for him weren’t the cause of his blushing.
“Well let's see if this takes us to Mom and Dad,” said Jen and Jan at the same time. Without further thought of why they got it working, they all piled through the shimmering door, one after the other.
The hall on the other side was in complete darkness except where the flashlight beam fell. Mei was glad they had it with them. They found a bottom half of a crowbar on the floor in front of the door. Mei turned the flashlight beam up toward the ceiling and found what she was looking for; a row of light fixtures that ran along the ceiling. She wondered if the power was working at all in this hallway. She trained the beam of the flashlight around the hallway. There cobwebs were absent but there was still a fine layer of dust on the floor that appeared to have been disturbed recently.
“Do you mind being left in the dark for a minute?” Frankie asked. “I want to go back and get the extend-a-box cable I left in the twins hallway and attach a few wireless nodes so at least we can be in touch with the CC's.”
Jen and Jan looked hesitant but with a reassuring hugs from Mei Frankie was back in no time with the cable strung through the door and extra nodes in hand.
The group stayed together as they continued their way down the hall, creeping forward under the fading flashlight beam, when suddenly they heard a sob. Sitting on the floor of the pitch black hallway was a small boy. His knees were pulled up to his chest and he was crying and didn't even seem to notice the group.
"Um, are you okay?" asked Mei, not knowing what to say in a situation like this. She certainly hadn't expected to come across anyone in the hallway and had no idea who this boy was.
The boy slowly raised his head and Mei could sense a wave of guilt coming from him.
"H..How did y...you get in here," he stammered. ""I thought the door was turned off."
"We found the plug and when we plugged it in it turned back on," replied Mei.
"Well I'm sorry I unplugged it. I must have screwed up the hall lights too when I did it. They haven't been working since."
"How in the world did you unplug it if you are on this side? asked Frankie.
"I pushed a crowbar through the door and pushed the plug out. It cut the crowbar in half when the wall appeared. I only did it because my dad said he might have to leave and I didn't want him to. I've been here ever since. I was too scared of the dark to go down the hall any more. Boy is he going to be mad!"
The boy started crying again and buried his head back in his knees. Mei
knelt by the boy and tried to give him a reassuring hug.
"We'll help you get back to you father. Our parents are missing too. Come on. Take my hand."
Mei helped the boy to his feet.
"My name is Mei and this is Frankie and Jen and Jan," said Mei.
"My name is T...Timmy. Nice to meet you," the boy replied still not meeting Mei's eyes. Mei moved in front of the group with the flashlight and they slowly worked their way further down the hall. It was only a minute more of walking when they came upon a wall with what appeared to be a doorway. Mei was sure that the fourth greenhouse and safe house had to be on the other side of that door in the wall. She knocked on the wall, just as Frankie had done when they first met, what seemed like ages ago. She could hear voices approaching from the other side and could hear them suddenly get quiet.
“Don’t make a scare. Who's there?” said a female voice from behind the wall.
“Mom, is that you?!!” shouted Frankie. “Can you open the door? Mei, Jen and Jan and Timmy are with me too.”
Frankie heard his mother reply. “We lost power to the safe house and this door. We’ve tried prying it open but we need something more. Can you push the door from your side? I know it’s really thick. If you do it all together I’m sure it will un-stick.” said Frankie’s mom.
The twins, Mei and Frankie all pushed on the door as hard as they could. At first it felt like they were just pushing on a wall, when suddenly, the door moved. They concentrated their efforts on the side that was beginning to open until they saw fingers reaching through the crack to grab the door. With one last heave ho the door swung open the rest of the way and they all came spilling into the hallway on the other side. There stood Mei's dad, Frankie's mom, the twin's parents and Timmy's dad. They were all holding candles that illuminated their relieved, smiling faces with a flickering glow.
Mei and Frankie both ran forward to hug their parents while Jan and Jen's mom stood back, trying to get a better look at the girls with her candle.
“What on Earth are you wearing those for?!” exclaimed their mother.
“We put the ponchos on to keep the cobwebs off. We've been in the grossest halls you've ever seen!” answered the twins.
“It was a good thing they didn't let the dirt hold them back. They were a big help in finding you.” said Mei with conviction as she turned to face the twin's mom. I’m Mei, it’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you dear. I’m Scarlet.” said the twin’s mother. "And this is Fred my husband. Well I suppose you will wash up just fine. I became so worried about you when we couldn't get back.”
Scarlet was so happy to see them, she hugged them, dirty ponchos and all.
Timmy’s dad gave Timmy a big bear hug.
“I was so worried about you too Timmy. Where did you run off to? No sooner did you disappear than the power went off and I couldn’t go look for you.”
“I got stuck in the hall in the dark when the power went out.”
“Hopefully you learned your lesson and you won’t go wandering off like that again, young man!”
“Y…yes sir!”
“As Timmy mentioned, we somehow lost power. It happened right after we started the weather experiment last night.” Mei’s father said. “With the power out the transit door couldn't have been working. How did you get through?” he asked.
He was still amazed that Mei and the other children were here in front of them.
“Power is still working everywhere else. But the shimmering door wasn't working. The plug must have come loose on the other side,” said Mei, giving Timmy a wink. "We found the plug, plugged it back in, went through and that was where we found Timmy. He was in the hallway in the pitch dark.”
“Well I'm glad you are all safe and sound. I see you brought wireless nodes to place around. But I seem to recall, they don't work through a transit door,” said Frankie's mom as she tugged on the bag in Frankie's hand.
“We used extend-a-box cables through the doors and wireless nodes down the hallways. I've got all the CC's with us,” explained Frankie tapping on his wristband. “Linked through them is Larry, the talking spider, who is using the baby monitor in Mei’s greenhouse to stay in touch. Say Hi, Larry.”
“Hi, Larry,” said a small, sarcastic voice emanating from Frankie's wristband.
“We're all here too,” chimed in the CC's as everyone's wristbands spoke up.
“Your weather experiment was out of control for awhile. After we started connecting all of the computers it seems to have slowed down.”
“Well it looks like you all figured out quite a bit while we were stuck in here,” said Timmy's dad, looking at the group with admiration.
“There was one thing we couldn’t figure out until we got to the hallway behind us and that was that your power was out. Originally we tried to find the doorway to this last greenhouse from our safe house,” explained Mei to her dad, “But we came to a dead end instead. It wasn’t until we plugged in the shimmering doorway and entered this hallway, that we could see you didn't have power here. That explains why that last shimmer...er..the transit door wasn't working in the our hallway. It get its power from here and didn’t have power to run!”
“That's it exactly Mei. Excellent detective work!” exclaimed Mei’s father. We’ve been without power all day now. So what does the weather look like outside each of the greenhouses?” he asked.
“Boy you should see Dad!” replied Mei excitedly. “Everything was going bonkers at first. There is a lot of snow outside of our greenhouse and leaves falling outside of Frankie's and blazing dome-sun outside the twin's. It's slowed down some but the last we checked it hasn't stopped. What is going on Dad?” asked Mei, looking up at her father.
“We needed to hurry to finish our last test since we’ve left orbit even more ahead of schedule.”
Mei’s father acknowledged her questioning raised eyebrow and continued.
“We were trying a new test so we could finally have all four seasons under the domes,” explained Mei’s father. “We thought the experiment would have been completed before any of you got up this morning but no sooner did we flick the switch than the power went out. We didn't think that even that would have been such a big deal until we discovered that we couldn't get the hallway door to open from this side. They’ve always seemed so ancient and mechanical we never realized the doors have an electronic component, one that suddenly stopped working. Since the fuse box is in the hallway, we were stuck without a way to turn on the power or even turn off the experiment with out access to our computer. Luckily Frankie's mom thought ahead in case something did go wrong. She told us that she left instructions with RADAR to give to Frankie if she wasn’t back after a certain amount of time.”
Frankie's mom proudly ruffled Frankie's hair, making him blush. “I’m glad you were able to figure out my clues. I’ll bet if we work together we can have some more good news,” she said.
“We will need to get our computer powered up again and connected to the other three computers, running the experiment so they can talk with each other again. Then we can turn off the weather maker project,” said Fred, the twin’s father.
Frankie wormed his way out from under his mother's hand.
"So let's go find that fuse box"
“Sounds like a good idea to me," replied Mei's dad. “The last computer is around the corner. Once we get the power back on we'll be able to get it back online and wrap up the experiment.”
His candle flickered as he walked quickly towards the hallway door. The wavering light quickly disappeared as he stepped through.
Frankie followed close behind, flashlight in hand.
Mei got the CC's attention.
“The computers will need to be reconnected after we power up,”
“We will take care of it,” the CC's replied together and then there was silence from the wristbands.
The lights and electronics flickered on, a
ll throughout the safe house. The last greenhouse computer booted back up from power failure mode. Within a minute the CC’s were all chiming in. To Mei that minute seemed like an eternity.
“Sorry about the delay,” said Ditto. “We had to wait for Copycat, Timmy's CC, to connect and join us.”
“The weather experiment is successful. Now beginning shut down mode,” reported Copycat. “Internal communications are back online and processing power is at optimal.”
Mei’s dad sighed in relief.
“Let’s hear it for being able to enjoy all four seasons in our new home. We are on the first full seasons asteroidnet in the solar system.”
Everyone cheered together, yet no one had to open their mouth.
Mei and Frankie could sense their parents really grasping what their newfound gift was all about.
“We know about the Makers and how they helped us to sense each others thoughts,” said Frankie. “We’ve already met Roy and he explained quite a few things about our new home and our new gift,”
The parents looked at each other in astonishment. It was then that Roy appeared, in sparkling form on the other side of the room.
“I am glad you were able to reactivate the transit door and find Timmy. I regret I was not able to help in my holographic form,” said Roy to Mei, Frankie and the twins. "You are truly a remarkable and bright group of individuals.”
Roy’s image turned to address the adults. “With your permission we are ready to enter phase two of our flight plan."
Mei's father stepped forward and spoke for the whole group which now consisted of Jen, Jan, Frankie, Mei and Timmy and through the wristband link the CC’s Muffin, Maow, Poo, and Larry.
"I think we are as ready as we'll ever be Roy. Let's get out of here," he said, unable to hide his excitement as he turned back to the group. “We haven’t had a chance to share everything with you yet. While all this has been going on we've been moving out of the Ring at a pretty steady pace and now we are ready to accelerate and be on our way to a much safer distance from Earth. Last week we submitted our permit for departure from our parking orbit with the standard reason of local exploration to find a new parking spot. For the past day though, our asteroidnet has actually been maneuvering to blast away from the Ring,” said Mei’s father, looking around carefully at the reactions of Frankie, Mei, Timmy and the twins. Mei tapped her finger on the side of her head. Her father looked chagrinned as he realized he could feel their acceptance of the plan and moving away from the Ring.
“Once we all received the gift from the Makers, they intended for us to leave the Ring which they predict is sure to collapse in turmoil any day now,” he continued. “There is a mass exodus of people underway from Earth and the Ring was never meant for all those people. The Makers felt it was time to go. They promised that if we left now we could keep the gift they gave us and they would do everything they could to keep our asteroidnet a secret. We don’t think the Ring knows the real reason for us leaving and now we want to be sure they can't find us and force us to come back.”
“We didn’t know if we were under surveillance so I communicated the old fashioned way, on paper. Sure to keep the electronic spies away .” added Frankie’s mom.
"I kind of figured the asteroidnet had moved since none of the communications were working this morning,” said Mei. "But I didn't realize we’d be leaving the Ring completely. Not that that is a bad thing."
“Eventually we may try to reactivate external communications once we know we can bounce the signals to keep our location a secret. In the meantime you always have Larry to talk to," said Roy with a holographic grin.
“Larry's the best! Thanks Larry for all your help!” said Mei into her wristband
“No Problem Mei! Now can I get back to my fly-in-waiting?” came back Larry’s faint voice.
"Enjoy your dinner."
Mei’s father looked at each of them and said very softly, “We wanted to be sure we did everything we could to make this the safest and best place for you to grow up. The last key to leaving was to be sure that all of the seasons of nature could be duplicated under the domes. Something we all felt was important. The Makers left that to us to complete and thanks to all of you, we did it! We’re on our way in all kinds of weather” said Mei’s father, his eyes sparkling with pride.
Mei and Frankie beamed with their own sense of accomplishment.
“We’re sure Roy would have helped more if he could,” said Jan and Jen, suddenly feeling sorry for the hologram figure. Mei’s father nodded in agreement.
“We were afraid that someone from the outside would find out what we were doing and try to stop us. Roy has been indispensable helping us make this dream come true, even if he can’t always help out in physical form. The Makers were incredible builders and the most kindhearted souls. They’ve hidden a lot of secrets in this asteroidnet for all of us to find and use. You’ve already discovered secret hallways and special doorways, talking spiders and even a few thinking plants. Who knows what you might find next!” said Mei’s father, unable to contain the excitement in his voice.
“I think the best thing we discovered,” said Mei looking at Frankie and the twins “was new friends.” They all hugged each other in agreement.
There was a sense of excitement in the air between the five of them and between the adults. There was relief on both sides that everyone was safe and finally everyone knew what was going on.
Mei couldn’t believe it was earlier that same day that she had felt so scared and alone. She was so happy to have made new friends. Mei knew that these were the first real friends she ever had in her life. They had shared an adventure together and in an exciting way, they had even shared a few of their thoughts and feelings with each other too. It felt good to have them by her side. They would be able to experience, firsthand, all of the new seasons outside under the domes and Mei was sure that, together, they would find even more of the Maker’s hidden secrets in their new home. She couldn’t wait to start exploring!
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