The Blueshifters (Blueshifter Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Hello!” He said with a slight accent Jack couldn't
place. “What can I help you with today? Are you looking for
something special?”

“Actually, yeah.” He was feeling a little nervous now
that it came to it. “I have a friend who had a box. A, uh, red
box. Says it can help you if you run into a lot of. . .problems in
your life?” He asked expectantly. The man gazed at him with a
question mark on his face. “You know, sort of like a magic
box?” He said quietly, feeling stupid.

“Problems? Red box? Magic?” The man laughed. “Sounds
like a very special fabled object to me. One not normally given
out.””Yeah well, I was just following up on some info she
gave me. That's all.” “Nope, sorry. I have a lot of cool
things in here, but magic boxes ain't one of them.”

“So,” Jack said, trying to sound casual and knowing he
was failing. He didn't care. He was here wasn't he? That was enough.
“How long have you been here?” At that, the man smiled
broadly, seemingly glad to talk about his business and his proud,
dusty little establishment.

“For quite some time. Twenty years to be exact. It started with
my father opening the shop in July, nineteen- eighty. Oh, take a look
around. See if there's anything you like. Anyway. . .” Jack
decided to do just that as the man chippered on about how his
business was first got off the ground by his grandfather. Jack turned
slightly to take a look at the antiques and object d'art around him,
some quite fascinating. Jack was looking for red. Anything red that
pinged his sixth sense. Nothing was coming up. In fact, he saw no red
objects on this floor of the shop at all. He tried to feel for
anything strange or off. He felt nothing as he slowly made his way
past aisle after aisle and table after table. At first he passed by a
music box that suddenly began playing, its top sprouting off the base
and a ballerina twirled around furiously. At first the music sounded
twanged and mauled, as if wound up to fast, then it slowed down. At
the same time, Jack thought he detected a sudden jump or buzzing in
the air, and for less than a split second the whole world had its
lights turned off. It was only a fraction of a moment and normally he
would have thought it an odd but passing experience of the
imagination. Not this time.

“. . .by that time my grandfather, who helped him get the place
off the ground passed away and then it came to him fully,” said
the shop owner. “Oh! What was that?” The man stumbled at
the fraction of energy surge and behind the counter Jack saw he had a
cane that he was propping himself up on. He tipped and fell over
against the counter.

“You alright?” Asked jack.

“Yes, I think. That felt like a large blip that time. The
lights went out and came back on. But never mind that. That happens
from time to time here. It's a very old house and the electrical
wiring is ancient. Makes it kinda finicky in this place.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. My grandma had a house like this.
Same kinda problems. Plumbing was old too,” Jack said.
Something's here. I can feel it. He thought. Whether the owner
himself was odd, Jack couldn't tell. He seemed and felt normal to
Jack's senses. And he saw no red on or about his person. No articles
of clothing, no aura. In fact, he couldn't read anything off the man
at all and that was a whole other kind of strange. But there was
something else now that Jack's senses were able to examine the
surroundings from inside. Something was off. That's it! It felt as if
he had entered a hideout. A place was cocooned away from the everyday
world for a specific reason. Jack's stomach dropped. Something was
hidden here. He couldn't tell if it was hidden from The Others or
from regular people. Jack found a small china saucer and brought it
up to the counter.

“Ah,” the man said appreciatively. “Nice choice.
For you mother?” He inquired.

Nosy aren't you? Jack just nodded and smiled and said nothing. The
man rang it up, wrapped it in tissue paper, then placed it carefully
in a brown paper bag and handed his purchase to him.

“Hope to see you again. I don't get too much business these
days. The recession and all.”

“Yeah well, you might see me again. My mom loves knick-knacks,”
said Jack. Oh yeah, I just might come again, except not when you
expect it.

. . .

Jack rode his bike back there again in the night. He parked the
motorbike two blocks down this time and walked softly toward the
little old house. The night was hot, but the cool air coming in made
it bearable. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see someone
jump out at him, like red shoes, for instance. He'd caught a glimpse
of a man yesterday with that red aura essence around him like a dirty
halo in the supermarket. His senses were getting stronger. He'd felt
ambivalent about it, but it was one weapon he had against the
bastards.

As he came closer to the house he slowed his pace. The windows were
closed shut tightly and all the curtains drawn. However, he detected
a dim light in a window on the left side of the house. Looking around
to make sure he wasn't seen, he slipped in beside the house. He could
certainly feel it now, whereas before it was like a lukewarm whisper.
There was a power source emanating from deep below this house. It was
like a hum of energy that he could feel rather than hear. The night
was silent except for the crickets and the occasional car rolling
down the street.

He got close to one of the windows hoping for some glimpse of
something he was not sure what he was looking for. A fleeting,
terrifying thought occurred to him of the blackish red car that
nearly ran him down a few months ago. Focus, man! He thought he
detected a shadow passing through a room in the back of the house.
Faintly he heard footsteps. He crept toward the back of the house and
toward the back door. He wanted to find something else to report back
and still wondered if the shop owner was lying to him. He crouched
down, beginning to wonder what he was looking for. He didn't have
long to wait. His senses detected a massive, burst of energy, a
disturbance that felt to him like an earthquake. It lasted maybe five
seconds, but it was enough to bowl him over to the ground. A sweat
broke out and he gasped for air. Jack stayed put, locked to the
ground, his heart hammering for what seemed like an eternity. The
last embers of sunset had disappeared and it was starry night now. He
looked up and heard the back door slowly opening. Though his bones
felt heavy he lunged up on his feet with all his power and stumbled
out of the backyard and down the street. He found his motorbike and
rode off.

He would have no answer for anyone about whether the red box came
from that place, but something was hidden there, something big! And
perhaps that old man really was a liar. Come to think of it, Jack
couldn't quite remember what the man looked like. It was like his
face disappeared from the memory like mists in the afternoon sun. No
matter how hard he tried to recall what the man looked like, his
features, nothing descriptive came to him. His senses pricked again
at this thought. That was strange. He'd at least make a note of that
once he got home.

But there was one thing he could remember about the place.

I wonder if I've found the Mother portal? I have to tell the
others what I've found!

Episode
10
– Lodestone

While
the others were off doing their own investigations, Trillion's own
comings and goings about as mysterious to them as their new found
powers, Dan and Mary decided to investigate his findings on the map.

Their
investigation took them into the desolate and lonely North Industrial
District, a place full of abandoned boxcars, long, low gray stone and
metal buildings built before the 1930's, potholes, wide tracts of
littered land and train tracks everywhere. In fact, half of it was
basically a railyard. Feral cats and dogs sometimes haunted the place
and the occasional warren of wild rabbits.

With
the exception of a few trailer trucks rolling in from the single main
road into the yard, it seemed quiet for miles on end.

“
So,
what are we looking for again?” Asked Mary fumbling with her
phone.

“
Something.
. .something big. You know like what we may have located on the map,
remember? A place emanating with a lot of power. Try to feel your way
around here if you can. I know that sounds all woo-woo and everything
but-”

“
I
know what you mean,” she smiled.

“
Good.”

“
When
are we going to meet with Trillion again?” She asked.

“
I
don't know. Soon, I hope.”
We
still need guidance,
he thought.

They
spread out across on of the old unused train tracks half-buried under
concrete. New working tracks had been laid down beside them. Mary
seemed especially jumpy, hopping at every shadow and kicked up
pebble.

“
What?”
Asked Dan.

“
I
just want to make sure no one is following us. Remember that dark red
car I told you guys about? Sometimes I would catch the car following
me down the street coming home from work.”

“
Oh
yeah. Jack said he'd seen it before too.”

“
Well,
I call whoever drives it The Watcher.” Dan recalled his
encounter with the hoodlums that threw him in the river. Were they
all connected with this Watcher? Did they work together or for
different, disparate parts of an organizational whole? No matter how,
they all worked against humankind. Dan and Mary walked for some ways,
sometimes investigating old train cars, abandoned truck trailers and
such. Besides finding a few holes and vagrants sleeping in them,
there was nothing else really they'd found. But the district was very
large, stretching all the way toward Swan Island to the Broadway
Bridge. A train was approaching from far off, a freight train. They
could hear the whistle wailing in the far distance.

“
My
legs are tired. I haven't done this much walking in years,”
said Mary after about an hour. The slipping whirl of the Max light
rail train sounded just outside the industrial district to the right.
From there were exits off to the highways.

“
Let's
rest a bit.” Dan was getting tired as well. So far they had no
luck. The dull roar of the light rail, cars going off the highway to
the freeway and just the general noise was tiring and taxing on the
sensitive mind. He went and sat on a large piece of log. Mary plopped
down beside him, catching her breath. Between that and the noise
coming from the road before them and the general noises of the rail
yard, he'd nearly missed it. But something was coming to him. He
could feel it like a low heart beat. At first Dan thought it was his
imagination.

“
Listen
to yourself carefully. Do not dismiss a single feeling until you have
examined it to the full and know it is mere minutiae.” Came the
voice of Trillion from a previous lesson. He closed his eyes and
strove to block out all mental noise. Then the layer of physical
noise receded until he could focus on the slow thrum. It was there,
scattered seemingly around this particular spot. Thud. Thud-thud.
Thud. Thud-
t
hud.
It was low, but it was there, and constant. He opened his eyes
finally to see Mary with a look of pure concentration on her face and
her hands to the ground as if feeling the power flowing from the
ground. Now that's an interesting way to examine it. He thought
appreciatively.

“
You
feel it too now?” He asked. She nodded. Then she took her hands
from the ground and wiped them together to get rid of the dirt.

“
You
were right. If there's a power source like the one in the bookstore,
it's here.”

“
I'd
say it's coming from the west, so we need to walk west of here,”
he said. They got up and set off west and the farther they traveled
the rail yard, the stronger and louder the power source became to
them. The highway noise was distant when they finally stopped. Dan
could feel the power underneath them surging like the heartbeat of
some mighty animal. They finally approached a long roll-like building
before them. It was a nondescript looking place with shaded windows,
some of them boarded up and a parking lot full of gravel. It was a
two-story building and on the outside it had a sign that said: Rocket
Ready Corp.