The Three Furies (Erec Rex) (58 page)

482

Oscar's fists clenched. His eyes were red and tearing up. "What if you're killing someone who would later go on and kill
hundreds
of people? Ever think of it that way? I'm squashing one rat when it's too defenseless to fight back, who would otherwise go on to kill and kill and kill. And I'm giving up my own life for it. Ever think of that? No. None of you would, would you? You're all
selfish
. Of course you wouldn't understand this. And of course you would call what I'm doing
bad
, when really it's the most noble thing of all." Tears were streaming down his face, and he was mopping them up with his sleeve, embarrassed.

"You're giving up your own life?" Jack looked bewildered.

Erec said, "He's going back to a time before he was born. If you do that with the Time Bender, you can never come back again. He'll be stranded there."

"Don't do it, Oscar." Bethany stepped closer and tried to put a hand on him, but he moved away. "We want you here. You're our friend. We can help you."

Oscar snarled. "I've seen your help, and your 'friendship.' All you want to do is use me, laugh at me, and step on me. That's been clarified. Oh, yeah, and lie to me. That 'stealing my eye back' one was really great. Now, time for me to go, guys. Wish I could say it was nice knowing you."

"Where's Rosco?" Erec looked around. "Don't you think he would turn up here and stop you if he could read your mind?"

"I planned this for a day when he was in important meetings with Baskania, all the way in Jakarta, in Upper Earth. So it should take him a while to get back here, I'd think."

"Wouldn't he know your plans in advance, though?" Bethany asked.

Oscar shrugged. "He's not here, is he? So I'm not going to worry about it. Looks like it's his loss this time. His
total
loss. And everyone

483

else's gain. I've been practicing destroying things. And I bet he'll be no match for me when he was a kid."

"What about your mom, Oscar?" Jack looked distraught. "She'll be all alone."

"No, she won't. Don't you see? My father will be alive again. Rosco would never have killed him. That will be the best part of all this for me. I'm saving my father's life." He closed his eyes. "There's no reason for me to hang around here, anyway. I don't have anyone here, except the Shadow Prince. I'm sure I can find him when I go back in time. He'll be around then, too. Maybe I could even find my parents back then . . . but my father doesn't like me around anyway. They won't miss me."

Erec spoke slowly, as if this wasn't real. "You're actually going to
kill
Rosco."

"You learn quick, king of nothing. It's kind of funny, too. Because Rosco used to tell me that someday I was going to save his life. Ha, ha. Guess the joke's on him. Now get out of my way, all of you." Oscar opened the doors of the Time Bender and stepped inside. "My only regret is that what I'm doing is actually helping you three. I wish Baskania had gotten here by now, so I could see you all be done away with, but I guess he was too busy in Jakarta. Too bad for that."

Jack ran up to stop him, but Erec held him back. "We have to let him go."

Jack looked frantic. "We
can't
let him go back there! He'll be stuck forever. He could get into real trouble."

Nothing can stop Oscar. It's written in the fabric of time. So just help him.

"It's too late." Erec let Jack go, and Jack rushed forward to pull Oscar out of the Time Bender, but Oscar easily pushed him away.

"I need to go back twenty years, to Ricochet Street in Alypium. The house of Donald and Liza Kroc, parents of Bobby Kroc. That's

484

what Rosco used to go by when he was young, for some reason. Guess he changed it when he got that crazy crocodile face of his. Well, that's not going to happen now, is it? Good-bye to Rosco Kroc."

"No!"
Bethany shouted. "Oscar, don't do it. We really have your eye, okay? We are your friends. Stay with us!"

Erec could tell that her words were painful to Oscar. He shut his eyes tight as if to block what he so wanted to believe. "Just leave me alone. My decision is made. Take me to see Bobby Kroc, Homer. I'm ready for him."

"You're going to go kill a baby?" Bethany's eyes were wide.

"No, for your information," Oscar spat. "I'm above that. Remember--Homer said I was noble. I decided to make it fair and even. I'm going back to when Rosco was about my age. It will be a fight to the death, but I plan on winning it."

"The Time Bender cannot take you to a different place," Homer said. "Only a different time. So you will be here, in this room, twenty years earlier. If you were going back--or forward--to a time when you were alive, then you would be in your body as it looked at that time, and appear either younger or older than you are now. Your current body would stay here, in the Time Bender, awaiting your return. But because you are choosing to go back to a time before you were born, which is not recommended, you will stay in your current body and disappear into that time. Instead of watching you on the screen the whole time you are gone, we will only be able to see you for a while, and the picture will fade away."

Oscar stuck his chin out, trying to be brave. "I'm ready, Homer. Twenty years back."

"You will see three dials on the side wall. They will set the year, month, and day of your visit."

As Oscar was turning the dials, Jack dove at his feet. "I'm not letting you do it!"

485

Oscar kicked him away and shut the glass doors. He finished dialing, and a wind raced through the room. In moments, a small cyclone swirled around the Time Bender, whirling dust and pebbles around so fast that they could no longer see Oscar through the window.

"He's gone," Erec whispered. They all felt his loss immediately. The wind storm quieted down as fast as it started. As afraid as Erec was to look, he still did. The Novikov Time Bender was empty.

486

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR The Fate of Bobby Kroc

REC, BETHANY, AND Jack sat, frozen, in front of the screen attached to the side of the golden Time Bender. Nobody had spoken. In fact, it seemed like nobody had taken a breath.

They watched Oscar walk through the castle and out its front door. It was before Erec was born. Bethany's parents were still alive then, Erec was thinking, and his own mother was still living there as well.

487

The only familiar person Oscar ran into in the castle was Balthazar Ugry, the second of King Piter's AdviSeers, along with Bethany's mother, Ruth Cleary. Ugry gave Oscar a funny look, but maybe that was because he had not seen him there before and kids were not usually found roaming in the castle. Oscar hurried by Ugry and passed quickly out the door and into the heart of Alypium.

It was odd watching on the television screen, as if what they were seeing was not really happening. In an odd way it wasn't, Erec thought. They were watching now something that had occurred a long time ago. Yet, at the same time, it felt immediate, and was--from Oscar's perspective. He was walking down the streets with a fierce determination, as if he was afraid of losing his focus.

What would he do? Erec thought. Would he really kill Rosco? He was sure Bethany and Jack were wondering the same thing. Maybe Oscar would just fight him awhile, convince him to be different. If Oscar went back in time and befriended Rosco, he could have taught him to be a different person.

No, that would never happen, he realized. Oscar would not befriend the person who killed his father, as well as all those other people.

As they watched the screen, it occurred to Erec that Baskania had never shown up. He hadn't shown up the last time Oscar saw him near the Time Bender either. Was Rosco keeping the Time Bender a secret from Baskania?

The sun was shining in Alypium twenty years ago as Oscar turned the corner onto Ricochet Street. A few houses down, a boy sat in front of a tree, holding a remote control and a blue toy airplane on his lap. Next to him was a dog . . . yes, Erec was pretty sure it was a dog . . . with a face like a crocodile. One dog ear waggled from its scale-covered head. Next to the boy was a hideous-looking doll that also had a head full of green scales and nasty spiked teeth jutting

488

from its elongated mouth. The boy had a smug look on his face and was tossing his remote control into the air and catching it as Oscar approached him.

"What's your name?" Oscar asked the boy. Erec cringed, not wanting to hear the answer.

"Bobby Kroc." The boy shrugged. "What's it to you?"

"Only everything." Oscar strode up to him, bent down, and slugged Bobby in the face. "
That
is for my father."

Bobby Kroc jumped to his feet, remote control in his hand. "You're messing with the wrong guy, kid." He pointed his remote at Oscar. But before he could do anything with it, Oscar crooked all of his fingers toward him, like claws. Streams of white light flashed from Oscar's fingers. They struck Bobby, who jerked back into the air. He spun, flailing, and landed on the grass.

"Oh, no, you don't." Bobby sounded weak, but he was able to point his remote at Oscar. A green stream of light blasted toward Oscar, but Oscar darted out of the way. He bent his fingers again, shooting more light at Bobby.

"Ow! Ooohh." Bobby rolled around in pain. He managed to grab Oscar's ankles, pulling him to the ground. Then he dove on Oscar, punching. Oscar kicked him away, but Bobby sprang back, pinning his hands down.

"I've developed a specialty, kid. In honor of my last name. You mess with a Kroc, you become a croc." He pressed his remote control, murmured a word, and green light shot at Oscar, hitting him in the face.

"Ugh! Aaagh!" Oscar screamed in pain, hands over his face. The boy sat up, snickering and dusting himself off. Oscar rolled on the grass, rubbing his eyes and cheeks. Something green was growing on them. Scales.

Oscar sat up, panting, feeling his face changing. His nose began

489

to stick out in a funny way, growing into a snout.
"No!"

Then he stood, shrouded in fury. His head looked like the dog's did, like a crocodile. He screamed again with ferocious passion. "What have you done?
What have you done?
" He dove on Bobby, fists flying. In a minute, he had Bobby in a stranglehold. Oscar pointed his fingers at him. Crooked streaks of light crashed again and again into Bobby's face.

Bobby became weaker and soon his eyes closed. Oscar stood, shooting more and more rays into the boy, even after he lay completely still.

Oscar looked around fearfully. Nobody was on the street. He started dragging the boy's body away, but stopped, not sure what to do. He disappeared behind the tree--it looked like he might have thrown up. Then he pulled the boy's shirt and pants off and put them on himself. He pointed his fingers at the boy and said a word under his breath, and Bobby Kroc vanished.

Oscar collapsed under the tree, crying. The dog growled at him, but he took no notice. He kept touching his crocodile face, as if he could not believe what he felt.

Erec could not believe it either. What had happened?

"Oscar." Oscar said his own name softly into the ground. "Oscar. Oscar. Oscar. Oscar. OscarOscarOscarOscar . . ." He was shaking now, his voice weaker. "OscarOscaroscaroscaRoscaRoscaRoscaRosco. Rosco. Rosco. Rosco."

Bobby Kroc's parents walked outside and looked down in horror. "Bobby?" his mother said. "What have you done to your . . . face?"

"We'll fix it." His father sounded sickened. "I knew you weren't responsible enough to be an apprentice yet. Oh, no! Look at the dog! Get in there." He pointed toward the house, and Oscar slowly followed the dog inside.

The screen was fading as Oscar followed the Krocs into their

490

house. It was hazy and hard to hear, but the Kroc parents were arguing and Oscar was staring at the dog. It was hard to read his expression through his crocodile guise.

And then the screen went black.

The room fell silent. Erec, Jack, and Bethany continued to stare at the blank screen, afraid to look away as if it might make everything they had seen real. Erec didn't even want to think . . . although ideas kept creeping into his head. Ones that he didn't want to face.

Finally Bethany started bawling. Tears streamed down her face. Erec put an arm around her and bit his lip. It was all he could do to keep from crying with her. What he had just seen could not be true. It couldn't be . . .

Jack said, "He killed Rosco. So now Rosco never existed."

"No." Erec shook his head, wiping his eyes. "It doesn't work like that. We still remember Rosco. He walked with us to the Labor Society when I drew my first quest. If Oscar killed Rosco, then he would be gone from our minds. Once I went back in time, and something changed for that really nice guy, Olwen Cullwich. It had to do with the way he died. But once the past changed for him, all of those old memories evaporated." He sniffed.

Bethany shot a glance at Jack. "You know what happened. Come on."

More silence followed as the three pondered what they had seen.

Jack got up and kicked a wall. "
No!
I refuse to believe it. Oscar was my best friend." He started to hyperventilate. "That's it. I'm going back to get him!" He dove toward the Time Bender. "I can use it, can't I, Homer? My motive is pure--to save my friend."

"It is," Homer agreed. "You want to give your life up to save your friend."

"No!" Bethany grabbed Jack and pulled him back. "You can't! I know you'd do anything for him. But think about your parents, your