The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 (39 page)

Light

Abby took over the controls of the Bridge. Grandpa wasn’t in a position to lead anymore. Now it was up to them. She didn’t know what she would see when she moved the perspective beyond the door and into Muns’s room. And she didn’t know what the others in the room would do as soon as they could see it. Would they want to rush in and try to take on Muns’s armed guards? Was that suicide?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. A man. A soldier, with a giant barrel mounted on his arm, came into the basement room out of nowhere. He aimed at the Bridge. Abby turned to look down the barrel of a loaded cannon.

“Soldier!” Derick yelled, and pointed at the intruder.

The soldier flicked his finger, but before the barrel launched its small missile, Coach Adonavich lunged at him, knocking him to the side and causing the shot to fire off course. It slammed into the corner of the room and exploded, sending a thunderous boom echoing through the room. Several branches of the Bridge caught on fire, while others were blown clean off.

Muns must have used the keys and the spheres from his Bridge to send the soldier right into the basement. Muns wasn’t holding anything back.

Another soldier entered, and Mr. Trinhouse and Coach Horne immediately jumped into the fray. Derick and Carol both raised their shards of metal from the Bridge and waited for any others to surprise them. There was no telling where they would come in. With Muns using his Bridge for the invasion he could use any angle. They had to be ready for anything.

Abby moved the perspective from her Bridge to see Muns’s room. It was completely surreal. A small squad of soldiers was running in through Muns’s Bridge there and Abby could see them arriving where she was in the basement of Cragbridge Hall. It was like watching herself in a movie—a movie that was about to end in tragedy.

Abby had no idea what to do. She could cross over into Muns’s room, but most of those on her side were already in a life-and-death battle with armed soldiers. She could try to take on Muns’s armed guards herself and fight for the keys. Derick and Carol would follow her. But would that do any good? Would those attacking her Bridge take over first?

“Abby,” Grandpa choked out. He lifted up his cane. “The final . . . secret,” he whispered. “Put my cane . . .” His words failed, but he extended his cane and pressed his finger to the metal band. The outside covering of the cane sloughed off and Abby saw a wonder of mechanical pieces integrated and woven together. Grandpa pointed to the Bridge.

Abby heard another large shot crash into a wall.

“Keys, spheres, . . . your object, . . . and this,” he whispered.

What would happen? Abby already knew how to go into the past, the present, and the future. What else could possibly be left? Abby obeyed though, putting her heartstone in the Bridge. Immediately it rumbled. Then she brought the cane close to the console. A small circular hole twisted open, just enough room for Abby to slide in her grandfather’s cane all the way up to the handle. Apparently there was more to this cane than Abby thought.

The other side of the room did not fill with another scene. There were no great wars or figures from the past, no school or mansion from the present, no girl in trouble in the future. Everything was completely white. More than white. It was as if the other side of the basement of Cragbridge Hall were filled with light.

The sound of fighting once again demanded Abby’s attention. Coach Adonavich leaped high, kicking a soldier in the face and knocking him unconscious, but another fired his weapon. The athletic coach stumbled. She was shot again before Mr. Trinhouse stunned the soldier with the gun he had taken from a security bot. The coach fell to the ground.

“No!” Coach Horne thundered. The giant coach punched a soldier so hard he flew back several feet and slammed into another man with a gun. But two more attacked.

Carol had picked up Abby’s mother’s stun gun and was doing damage of her own. Derick was swinging his piece of metal, barely dodging soldier fire.

This was impossible. The Ash. Soldiers. They were outnumbered and outgunned. They couldn’t hope to last long. Plus an army of men was attacking above them to get inside the school. Muns had them trapped.

She only had one choice. “Derick, Carol,” Abby screamed, “into the light!” She grabbed Carol and pushed her in. She pulled Derick into the white just as another soldier fired.

The Last Secret

For a moment it was as though Abby had stepped into light itself. She had to hold her eyes closed for several seconds at a time, then blink over and over. She kept trying to focus on anything, to figure out where she was, and especially how it might help.

“This is crazy,” Carol said. “You pushed me into some light world. I can’t see a thing.”

“Where are we?” Derick asked.

Abby felt relieved to hear their voices. She couldn’t see them through the light. “I don’t know,” Abby admitted, shading her eyes from the light with her hands. “Grandpa said this was the last secret.”

She blinked a few more times and saw a couple of darker spots in the white. Then Abby heard a voice, a voice that brought comfort all at once. “Hello.” It was her grandpa. “And welcome to a place you probably never thought existed.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s the best way of putting it.”

Abby squinted as she looked around. Her eyes were getting used to the light and she could see some varying shades of color against the white background, but she still couldn’t focus. She saw an image of her grandfather, wearing his usual blazer and slacks, his cane by his side.

“If you have made it here,” he continued, “you already know my secrets of being able to pass into the past, and the present, and the future, but this is a space between. It is outside of time.” He spoke the last words slowly and deliberately. “That may take a moment to think about. But when you step back into the basement of Cragbridge Hall, it will be the exact moment when you left. No time will have passed, for you are not
in
time now. Everything that happens here is independent of any time.”

“I think he just hurt my brain,” Carol said.

Abby thought she understood, but wasn’t sure. Thankfully, her grandfather had more to say. “If you think of time like a street, normally we travel forward through the present toward the future. With the Bridge you can change directions and drive the other way—through the past. Or for the future, you can speed up down the road. You can also pull into a side street and explore another neighborhood in the present. But this . . . this is as if you simply park the car. You are not traveling anywhere.”

On a certain level it made some sense. If it was possible to travel into the past, and to different parts of the present, or even into the future, there could be a time or space between.

“I didn’t see this one coming,” Derick admitted. Abby could see him fairly clearly now. He still held the piece of the Bridge he had brought from the basement.

Abby took a deep breath. It felt wonderful. She was out of the stress, out of the barrage of bullets, away from the Ash, out of the last moments before Muns triumphed.

She sat down, safe for the moment.

“As you can see,” Grandpa said, his image gesturing toward the out-of-focus shapes behind him, “I’ve spent quite a bit of time here.” He grimaced and then laughed. “I guess
time
isn’t the best word to use to explain it, but . . . that doesn’t matter.” He slouched a moment. “It began when I had something I didn’t want to face. It could have been a presentation, or a heated debate, or,” he said, his voice dropping, “just feeling lonely after my wife passed.” He cleared his throat. “It has been a place where I could escape.” He pointed behind him. Now Abby recognized that the other splotches of color were inventions. There was a simulator, a metal shop machine for making lockets and keys, a Chair, parts of avatars, and more. A few chairs and tables surrounding the machines were covered with various parts and charts. It was like Grandpa had another lab entirely.

“You can bring anything here,” Grandpa explained, “and as long as it doesn’t need a connection to the outside world, it will work. I have brought many things, though I also had to bring a generator to power them.” His image paced back and forth. “This is how I was able to invent so much in one lifetime. I could come here. As long as I had the patience, I could work on inventions like the Chair, or the brain sync for the avatars. I had all the time I wanted. It was also how I was able to make all the lockets, the box, the cube, everything I’ve used to share secrets.” He coughed. “I could get more done than was humanly possible because I wasn’t tied to human time.”

Abby had always been amazed at how much her grandfather could do. Knowing about the space outside of time made her feel better. He’d still had to earn it, to work it all out, but he could do it without pressure or hurry. And he had more time than the average person, which allowed him to achieve more.

“This would be so awesome for homework,” Carol said, gesturing with her hands as usual. She carried something that Abby couldn’t quite make out. “Or to study before a test you have in five minutes. You could even take a nap and go in all refreshed and everything.”

Abby’s eyes became completely acclimated just in time to see that Carol still held a stun gun she had picked up in the basement, and it was pointed right at Abby.

“Carol,” Abby said calmly, “please don’t point that at me.”

“Oh,” Carol said, surprised. “Sorry about that. It would be terrible to accidentally shoot you now, but the bright side would be that we would have enough time to wait for you to wake up.”

“It’s still not something you want to go through,” Derick said, who had obviously experienced it.

The white wasn’t as brilliant anymore, but was just as clean and vivid. Abby began to pace, pushing experimentally against the white ground. It didn’t feel hard or soft; it was just there, just existing. There were no walls or ceiling or sky. It was simply more white—a place without anything.

“I think we have a lot more than homework or a test waiting for us when we go back,” Derick said.

“Yeah,” Abby agreed, taking a few more steps, “but at least we can take as long as we want to decide what we’re going to do.”

“True,” Carol said, setting down the stun gun to be extra careful. “Maybe we should do some yoga. You know, relax a little. Then we can figure out how to fix up that mess with clear minds.” Carol stretched her legs out, bent forward, and twisted her body.

Derick tilted his head, trying to make sense of Carol’s stretch. “That doesn’t look relaxing at all.”

Abby walked around the inventions. She tried to breathe deeply, tried to think it through. “Okay,” she said. “The first problem we have to face is that the basement is filled with soldiers who are trying to destroy the Bridge.”

“Second,” Derick said, “we have an army of soldiers attacking who will fight their way through Cragbridge Hall down to the Bridge to join the others. I don’t know if they’ll take prisoners or just shoot people. They were doing a number on the avatars.”

“Third,” Carol said, “I don’t think I can get up.” Her legs and arms were twisted together and her body was off-balance on the white ground.

“Please, Carol,” Abby said, looking down at her friend, “it’s not time to joke around.”

“Oh, I’m not joking,” Carol responded. “I’m totally stuck.” Abby walked over and lent her a hand.

“Third,” Derick picked up where they had left off, “Grandpa and Mom, and probably Dad, have the Ash.” There was a slight tremor in his voice. “They’ll die soon.”

“Fourth,” Abby said, continuing on, her voice determined, “I think Coach Adonavich may be dying too. She was shot several times.”

“Oh, I hate Muns,” Carol said. “I hate him more than pollution, bad movies, playground bullies, terrorists, people who leave a bunch of really insensitive comments on the web, thieves, raisin cookies when you really thought they were going to be chocolate chip, and people who kick puppies!” She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t even get it started. I hate him more than—”