Chapter Ten
Port Vesper was not quite a city, though still much larger than a town. Kendra quickly realized that it was, beyond anything, an amazing draw for tourists in whatever world Sabernatch had grown up in. At the center was an incredible X-shaped crossing of raised platforms where people could walk freely and enjoy any number of pleasures: small casinos, a myriad of restaurants, street vendors, arcades… and positioned at the center a tall and imposing building. Rotating incredibly around the ebony surface of the structure were the glittering words Sphere-O-Dyne. It was toward this very building that Sabernatch led her, a permanent grin fixed upon his face.
As they moved down the wide thoroughfare, it struck Kendra as odd that they were the only people in evidence. She knew this was all some sort of illusion (though the mechanics behind it baffled her) but the absence of people gave her the creeps. This place just screamed for a moving, pulsing crowd.
An intricate ramp of carved wood led up to the theater entrance; two wide doors were propped open, welcoming any and all passersby. Set in frames at either side of the entrance were identical posters for the film Sabernatch had described to her earlier. My Sweet Marie. The art was simple, yet fascinating: a splash of blue paint behind a randomly strewn deck of Tarot cards.
They passed over the threshold and stood in an open lobby. There were several paths created by velvet ropes and brass stanchions. The burgundy colored ropes begged to be touched and Kendra found it impossible not to run her hand along the elegant barrier as they walked toward an unmanned concession area.
Sabernatch flipped his coin over and over into the air, smiling madly. “Almost all the candy here is off world. Normally, you can’t buy off world food, but the Sphere-O-Dyne Company made some kind of agreement with the Atoth board years ago to—”
“Atoth?” Kendra asked, eyebrows furrowed at the strange word.
Sabernatch turned to look at her quizzically. “Atoth is my home planet. You should at least know that.”
His tone was childish and patronizing. He truly did believe he was a child again, though, so the attitude was a given.
Kendra was about to ask more about Atoth, but her guide stepped up to the counter and started grabbing candy from the display before them.
“You’re going to eat all of that?” she asked.
Ignoring her, he stuffed brightly colored wrapped items into the filthy pockets of his threadbare coat. Finally, his pockets bulging, Sabernatch turned and handed her a slightly crushed box. The logo was simple and straightforward, the stylized words Pop-Top-Taffy filled the entire panel in a gradient of bright, neon colors.
“Tell me you’ve had these before,” he said, holding his breath.
Kendra shook her head to the negative, staring at the container.
Shaking his head sadly, the ancient one said, “Then you haven’t lived.”
She took the box of candy, then looked up at a stack of cups sitting beside a drink fountain. She was shocked to see a few familiar brands like Diet Pepsi and Orange Crush. A few were odd variations, Mountain Dew Delight and Fanta Fantastique. A brand at the end caught her attention and she moved toward it, taking a plastic cup from the pile.
“Oh, you shouldn’t drink that one,” Sabernatch said in all seriousness.
Kendra was holding her cup under the dispenser for a brand called Cherry Ace. Something about the name intrigued her and she was, quite honestly, thirsty.
“Dad says that Cherry Ace is unconfirmed. You should never eat or drink unconfirmed brands.”
Again, before she could ask for clarification, he took off to the right in the direction of two double doors. Above them, a screen offered the words:
THEATER II – MY SWEET MARIE
FULL HOLO & EMERSION, AGGI 93!
Sabernatch pushed open the swinging doors and they entered a dark, sloping hall.
“What does AGGI 93 mean?” she asked, trying to keep up.
In that same superior tone, the old man said, “It’s the aggregation index. That’s how they know what kind of ending to show. My Sweet Marie has the highest AGGI of any movie. There’s a monitor that scans your eyes and tells the… oh, come on! You’ll see! I don’t want to miss the beginning!”
The dark hallway ended, opening to the left into a simply enormous theater. The seats were arranged not in straight rows, but arcs that surrounded 180 degrees of a deep, black pit in the center of the room.
The padded chairs hovered in the air with no apparent means of reaching them. Before she could ask how they would get there, two of the seats moved smoothly through the air and stopped on the floor before them. Smiling, Sabernatch leaped into one of the seats. Shrugging, Kendra took the other and felt her stomach flip as the chair rotated and flew back into place. There was no seatbelt and her initial fear was of tipping forward and falling to the floor below. There was a strange force, however, holding her in place. She could move her arms and body, but the moment she leaned forward a force pushed gently back.
As the rest of Port Vesper, the theater was empty except for them.
“Here it comes!” the creature squeaked excitedly. Kendra imagined he was smiling, but didn’t have the stomach to turn and confirm her suspicion.
Then came the sound. The same sound she’d heard in his bedroom, but louder. The hissing rose to a thunderous level and the tiny spheres of glass rose up before them, spinning like a controlled cyclone. Their seats moved forward, or perhaps the mist of spheres moved toward them, but the effect was the same. They were surrounded.
The hissing stopped, replaced by an unnerving silence. Then a deep, sonorous voice said, “She was only twelve when they traveled to the distant world of Omega Phan. Her father was a famous Trader with over twenty BlueHeart merit citations. They spent a relaxing week on this vacation world. Then something went horribly wrong.”
The darkness around them brightened. A middle-aged man and a twelve year-old girl spoke animatedly before the closed doors of an elevator. Several bags sat around them.
“Mommy will be so surprised!” she said.
The man nodded, though obvious sadness filled his features. “You’ll have three wonderful days with your mother, Marie.”
“Oh, Daddy, don’t be sad. I’ll be back.”
The elevator doors hushed open behind them, then all faded to black.
Kendra remembered the box of candy she was holding and absently pulled out a piece of taffy. Unwrapping it, she placed the sweet into her mouth. A second later, she choked, coughed and spit out a teaspoon worth of dry sand. Disgusted, she was about to shout at the thing beside her, but stopped.
The voice continued:
“She never reached her mother. Stepping through the transposition portal, a rare and horrible mistake was made, sending her over 750 light-years away to a non-indexed world.
“So begins her journey, spanning distant worlds and transcending time. A voyage that will span her entire life. Will she ever find her way home?
“Welcome, fellow traveler, to My Sweet Marie…”
The words My Sweet Marie filled the space before them, then melted away. Black transitioned into green, which further brightened to reveal a lush jungle. A hollowed out log bobbed in a slowly moving river. Inside the makeshift canoe sits the heroine of the story, Marie.
Kendra was in awe of everything around her. It felt as if she were really there. The three-dimensional presentation was flawless. The sounds of hidden birds filled her mind and the smell of vegetation and murky water completed the illusion.
To her left, she heard (though did not see) Sabernatch.
“You choose what happens by looking around and concentrating on things,” he said, a bit more patiently this time. “In a minute, she’s going to come to a split in the river. You can take either branch, or you can paddle to the shore. It takes the average of everyone watching. You can even—”
The sound of his voice broke off as the jungle world snapped off.
Darkness.
“What’s going on?” Kendra asked.
Sabernatch said nothing.
A large, rectangular window, about forty feet high snapped into view. Through this virtual window, they saw a city easily ten times larger than Port Vesper. In the foreground was a small park complete with crushed stone paths and carefully tended flowerbeds. Beyond the park was the skyline of the amazing city.
“Alhambra Minor,” Sabernatch gasped, the little boy gone.
Kendra was overwhelmed by its beauty, but felt uneasy hearing the man’s voice.
“Why? I don’t understand,” he said.
“This isn’t part of the movie?” Kendra asked.
He was silent for a moment, then said, “This looks real-time. A transmission.”
A figure appeared in the distance, entering the park at a low gate. He moved with deliberate speed and direction toward them.
“Who is that?” Kendra asked.
Sabernatch started whimpering.
“Ah… Apple… White…”
The figure was slightly blurred, but the closer it came, the more defined its outline became. Sabernatch stared shaking, thrashing his arms around. The chair, however, kept him in place, which made his panic all the more horrible.
“Ch-chair!” he shouted. “Chair! Down!”
At once, the chair containing him spiraled away from the large virtual screen and sailed down to the floor. When he reached the bottom, he tumbled out and quickly made for the lobby, screaming, “He killed my father!”
Looking back at the screen, Kendra was shocked to discover the figure now filling the screen. He stopped before whatever device was recording his image and smiled. His face was old, but not ancient. Not like Sabernatch. He seemed to be staring straight at her.
She wondered if he was waiting for her to say something. It was difficult to discern his height without anything nearby to compare him to. His clothing was plain, but well tailored. His long, grey hair was pulled back in a series of intricate clips. His eyes were ice blue and glinting. She had the strange feeling as if something powerful waited behind them, as if he wore contacts to contain it.
Finally, unnerved, she said, “Hello.”
The man smiled and Kendra knew at once this was person of great power. Just the person she was hoping for.
“You are Kendra Sable of Earth,” he said smoothly.
Eyes wide, she nodded.
“There is much we need to speak about, Kendra, but we cannot do it like this. I need you here with me.”
“Can’t I just step through… this?” she asked.
The man looked to his left and right, his smile faltering. “Unfortunately, no. I do have the means of bringing you to me, but you must first create some glass.”
Kendra frowned. Her first thought was of Gabrielle. Then of Oanu Nox. Those who had the innate ability to change sand into glass with their concentrated will. She had, of course, none of this power, which caused a slow rage to boil.
“Oh,” the man said, “Do not fear, dear woman. I have provided you with directions to a location out in that charming little desert of yours. You will need to be there in no less than an hour. All will become clear. Just check the little toy you took from Stitch.”
“Stitch?” she said without thinking.
“Yes,” he smiled. “Oh, you might want to cover your face.”
Kendra starting to form another question, but the screen collapsed to a hot, white line in the center of the projection. In a massive cascade, the tiny glass grains fell to the hollow bowl below.
Kendra sighed, then screamed as the theater, as well as the entire city of Port Vesper, exploded into a thick cloud of dusty sand. She tumbled unceremoniously fifteen feet into a rising dune. Sand began to cover her and she clawed madly upward until the fall of grit lessened, then stopped completely.
Coughing, her eyes burning red, tearing with irritation, Kendra heard the grey-haired man’s voice again in her head.
Oh, you might want to cover your face.“Thanks for the tip,” she said, coughing again.
Long minutes later, when she could finally stand, a soft chime came from her pocket. Retrieving the FlipOut, she found the screen glowing with a localized map. A pulsing green arrow pointed toward a blue dot in the center. As she turned, the arrow altered direction. She moved until it was again pointing directly at the dot.
Two soft chimes confirmed her direction.
She now had less than an hour to get there.
Sighing, her eyes still red and stinging, Kendra moved quickly into the wasteland.