To Wright A Wrong
Echoes from Else: Shockwave arrival imminent. No time for persuasion. Mustn’t permit memories to be re-written. Extraction from timescape is only remedy, abduction only practical method. Will address consequences later.
Theo glanced at her watch as she locked her bicycle to the pipe stand in the school parking lot. It was 8:30 A.M.. JM and Alex were not there. After about five minutes of pacing in front of the Principal’s office, she decided to use the time constructively and do laps. It was her fifth lap around the circular drive in front of the office when Alex’s silver-gray Lexus whizzed through the intersection and turned in. “About time,” she grumbled as the car pulled up in front of her.
Alex slipped gracefully from the passenger side, shut the door and waved. As her father drove off, she turned to Theo, her statuesque 5’7” frame posed as if all the cameras in the world were watching. “Guess what!” she announced, brushing her shoulder-length auburn hair back from her face. “I won the lead role in ‘Stage Door’. The first rehearsal is this morning at 10 A.M.”
“I hope you’re not late for that too,” Theo quipped, her eyes fixed on Alex’s bright red skirt and matching platform shoes.
“Be glad I’m here at all!” Alex glanced around. “Where’s JM?”
“You might have dressed down a couple of notches. It’s a rehearsal, not a Hollywood premiere!”
“It’s called style, Theo!” Alex gave Theo’s starched blue uniform a disrespectful once-over. “An alien concept to some people.”
Theo clamped her jaws shut, choosing ‘none of the above’ from the list of savory but unproductive responses seeking escape through her vocal chords.
“You really shouldn’t grit your teeth like that,” Alex warned. “Overdeveloped jaw muscles will make your face fat.” A devilish smile crossed her face. “Did it ever occur to you that you might be taking this tunnel thing a bit too seriously?”
Theo’s face burned like the inside of a furnace when someone turns up the thermostat. “Someone has to!” Then she caught herself. “You’d be smart to pocket those bracelets and rings you’re wearing,” she said. “You wouldn't want to get them all scratched up.”
“If I recall correctly, we agreed to look for the tunnel, not excavate it.”
Theo turned toward the rear of the schoolyard where the tunnel entrance lay buried, wondering why she had invited Alex and JM to join in the search. It would have been a lot simpler ….
“Behold!” Alex interrupted. “The human encyclopedia approaches!”
Theo turned to see JM across the intersection. His loose fitting camouflage Army surplus fatigues, cap and black leather combat boots mustered the image of an underage Army recruit who had never lifted anything heavier a pound. “Glad you could make it, Private!” she called out as he pedaled his bicycle across and dismounted.
“A stitch in time saves nine!” JM replied, oblivious to the critical tone of her characterization. He removed his black-rimmed glasses and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Spare us the clichés,” Alex said.
“I was up half the night surfing the Net for information on the tunnel,” JM continued, “and found an old survey of the property.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his backpack and handed it to Theo. “It should cut our search time in half.”
Theo looked at the topographical relief map of the area. She ran her finger across the map to the 25 foot drop-off which now marked the rear boundary of the school property. At the base of the cliff was a flood plain which ran along the edge of the now sediment-filled Miami-Erie Canal. Across the canal was an old toe road and beyond it, a shallow riverbed. She held the map out to JM, her finger pointing to the date printed in small letters in the lower right hand corner. “How can this help us? It was drawn in 1863.”
“At least it shows the location of the warehouse where you said the tunnel originated!” JM snatched the map back. “What did you expect? A highlighted trip ticket from Triple A?” He paused and raised an eyebrow. “You ought to be grateful. I have numerous other projects besides this one, you know.”
Theo rolled her eyes.
“Anyway,” JM continued, “the presence of a warehouse on the map lends some credibility to the existence of a tunnel. That’s more than one can conclude based on your tall tales and rumors.”
Theo glared at JM. “If my Grandfather said there was a tunnel, then there is a tunnel!”
“If you two are going to start an argument,” Alex interjected, “I’m out of here.”
Theo’s Grandfather’s words echoed in her ears. “You’re right,” Alex. She turned to JM. “Maybe the map will help. But let’s get going. Alex has to be at rehearsal at 10 and I’ve got to get to the flight school, so we’ve only got about an hour.”
Alex and JM smiled and Theo took note of their reaction.
Right again Grandpa, she thought as she led them across the athletic field, stopping at a break in the row of high bushes that lined the rear boundary. “Over here!” she called out, pulling aside some recently uprooted pine seedlings. The path down to the wooded flood plain below was steep, wet and rocky, the result of years of runoff from the athletic field.
Alex looked down at her red platform shoes and scowled. “You want us to climb down there?”
“You don’t see an escalator, do you?” Theo sidestepped her way down. “Hang on to the branches,” she called back. “The rocks are real slippery.”
The crisp, damp smell of decaying vegetation wafted through the shady woods at the base of the cliff. Theo took several deep breaths and surveyed the terrain while Alex and JM climbed down. The ground was littered with toppled brush and jagged chunks of shale, probably ripped from the cliff decades earlier by raging floodwaters. In the years since, vines had grown over the cliff face, obscuring any signs of a tunnel entrance. She could hardly wait to start pulling them away. “The entrance should be somewhere along that stretch of the cliff,” she said, holding the map and pointing due south.
A chilled gust of wind in the treetops sent a flurry of brightly colored leaves earthward. Alex frowned as she brushed several of them from her hair. “I think one of your bells needs tuning, Theo. It would take mining equipment to find a tunnel entrance in that mess.”
JM effortlessly peeled away a mat of vines. Beneath it were chunks of loose shale which he easily dislodged with a kick. “We won’t need much in the way of tools to move these.”
Alex gave her manicured nails a worried glance. “Have at it, JM,” she said. “I’ll keep watch for falling rocks.”
“We’ll all do our share!” Theo said, setting her backpack on the ground. Reaching inside, she removed a trowel which and held it out to Alex, handle first. “Use this,” she said. “I wouldn't be able to sleep nights if you were to scratch those delicate hands.”
Alex pulled her hand back. “You keep it, Theo. It’s so -- so you! Anyway, I see the perfect implement for my talents.” With the grace of a Ballerina, Alex reached down and snatched up the camera from the backpack. Quickly backing away, she pointed the lens at Theo. “What a grand shot for National Geographic!” she announced. “The world-renowned leader of the ill-fated lost tunnel expedition!” She imitated the camera’s clicking sounds from behind the viewfinder.
“I can see the caption already,” JM added, a mischievous grin on his face. “Theo Hathaway discoverer of the renowned ‘lost trowel’.”
“A punster and a movie star. Theo turned to Alex. Why do I feel like I’m in a re-run of Gilligan’s Island.” She snatched the camera from Alex’s hand. “I brought the camera to take pictures of the tunnel entrance -- if we ever get around to looking for it.”
“So sorry,” Alex raised her hand to her forehead and looked skyward. “Imagination is such a cross to bear,” she mocked, then added for dramatic effect: “But how could someone like you possibly understand?”
“We don’t need the camera anyway,” JM beamed as he pulled a gray wallet-shaped object from his field-jacket pocket and flipped it open. “I’ve got something much better.”
“What is it?” Theo asked as she moved closer to get a look.
“It’s TCOM’s latest. The Holopalm 500.” JM pointed the lens toward Alex and pressed a button. Instantly a holographic image of her popped up about 3 inches above the device’s surface screen.
Alex perked up. “Will it do close-ups?”
JM ignored the question. “It integrates 3-D video-cam, notebook, global positioning, voice recognition and wireless TV, phone, FAX and Internet. You can program it to start or stop any electrical device within its line of sight.”
Alex continued to stare at her holographic image, spellbound.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Theo said. “Where did you get it?”
“My Mother signed it out. She’s writing the technical manual for TCOM on spec.”
“And she let you take it!” Theo added in amazement.
“Not exactly.” JM raised an eyebrow. “But I’m sure she would want us to have every advantage in our search for the tunnel. And the holographic images automatically record measurements of the tunnel – even in the dark. It will save us a lot of time.”
Theo decided to let that one pass. “Well put it away for now. We have to find the tunnel first. Let’s see that old map of yours. Maybe it can help us narrow the search area. It’s for sure that we can’t cover this whole cliff in the little time that’s left.”
“Yes, I can’t be late for rehearsal,” Alex added as the holographic image of her evaporated.
JM spread the map on the ground between Alex and Theo. “The tunnel, if there is one, should be in direct line with the warehouse.”
“So where is that supposed to be?” Theo asked. “The warehouse is gone.”
JM nudged his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “I compared the warehouse location on this map with the plat map of the school property. The south wall of the warehouse was just north of the school. Its north wall sat just above us where the baseball diamond is now. If the tunnel exists, the entrance would lie between us and…”
“Forget the lecture,” Theo interrupted. “Just make your point.”
JM pointed to a large toppled pine tree about 200 yards south. “I’d say that would be the southernmost point worth searching.”
Alex frowned as she surveyed the debris-littered route to the fallen tree. “I think I’ll search here. Walking through all that will ruin my flats.”
“Fine,” Theo said thinking maybe JM would be the lesser of her problems. “JM, mark a starting point midway along the cliff and work back toward Miss Alex here. I’ll start from the far end and work back to your marker.” She grabbed her folding pick and sprinted in the opposite direction toward the fallen tree. She was almost there when a sharp crackling sound from behind stopped her in her tracks.
She spun around to see a pulsating blue orb suspended about 50 feet above JM’s head. Before she could react, thin threads of lightning, interconnected like some gigantic net, radiated outward in all directions. Her muscles tensed, then panic set in as the outer edges arced downward. “Run, Alex!” she shouted, but it was already too late. The damp forest floor sizzled as the lightning-ridden edges made contact to form what resembled in shape a gigantic dome. Instantly, the dome's walls turned an opaque milky-blue, blocking out the sight of everything outside.
Theo had been so focused on Alex and JM that she failed to notice that she too was trapped under the dome. The rushing sound from behind quickly rendered that a moot point. She tried to turn, but her feet just kicked up leaves. No traction. Like a butterfly caught in the swoop of a collector’s net, her body was swept forward toward JM. From the opposite direction she saw Alex hurtling at her, the opposite wall of the dome pressed to her back. It was as if someone had stretched a rubber band around the two of them and let go. And between them stood JM, wide-eyed, jaws open. She shut her eyes and braced for the collision. But there was nothing. Just Alex's piercing scream and a sudden sense of weightlessness.
She opened her eyes to an eerie blue luminescence. The three of them were floating inside a sphere that looked to be no more than eight feet in diameter. Too in shock to speak, and without thinking, Theo reached out and touched the inner surface. Her fingertips tingled mildly at first contact, but more critical to their situation, the wall felt springy, not unlike the surface of a balloon. The cliché “you can’t fight your way out of a paper bag” flashed across her mind, sending a shiver up her spine. Alex and JM were looking at her for reassurance she couldn't give. They were trapped, but in what? For what purpose?
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Copyright © 2005 David J. Carr