Time Spent (19 page)

Simon ran his tongue over his teeth, trying
to figure out how to explain it. "You're not here. There's a woman,
and some monkeys in cages. You're speaking through them."

"I followed you here from the base," the
chimp said.

"Oh God, you're right," the woman said,
looking around.

"This isn't me," finished the monkey.

Simon struggled but couldn't get free of the
straps. "Can you take these off me?"

The chimp extended an arm. "I can't reach
them."

"Use the woman standing here."

The woman frowned. "I don't know how to do
that."

"You just did!"

The monkey banged against its cage door. "I
don't know how!"

Simon let out an exasperated sound. "Look,
you fixed it so I can talk again, how did you do that?"

The chimp pondered.

"I could see where they hurt you," the woman
said.

"And I fixed it," finished the chimp.

"It's just neuroscience," said the
monkey.

The woman smiled. "I'm good at science."

I remember,
Simon thought bitterly.
"Can you fix the rest? Can you bring back my power?"

The chimp considered.

"I see it," said the monkey. "But this
is..."

"GOING TO HURT A LITTLE," finished all
three.

A bomb went off in Simon's skull. "Ahhhhh!!"
He writhed on the table, his arms and legs thrashing helplessly
against the straps.

Finally, the pain subsided. Simon's muscles
relaxed, but his breath came in ragged gasps.

"Are you all right?" asked the chimp.

Simon nodded. "I think so." He tried to
reach out with the invisible hand, grasp the first strap. The
material tugged upward. Simon concentrated.

Something happened then. It was as if a door
opened in his mind, and one hand after another poured out. Simon
could see them, a swarm of hands reaching out to do his bidding.
The invisible hands wrapped their fingers around all the straps at
once and gave a mighty pull, tearing them free. Simon leapt from
the table and gave a howl of triumph, the invisible hands beating
his chest.

"You did it," the woman said.

"Thanks to you." Simon looked around at all
of them. "How did you do that? Make even more of them?"

The chimp cocked its head. "I just fixed
what the doctors did."

"The rest was in you," the woman added.

Simon caught a look at himself in one of the
mirrors mounted on the wall. "Can you...make me human again?"

"Human?" the monkey asked.

"What do you mean?" asked the woman.

"Look at me!" Simon shouted. "I'm not human
anymore. Whatever happened on the school bus, it changed me!"

The woman peered closely. The chimp and
monkeys did the same.

"I don't see anything," the woman said,
finally.

"You're just...you," the chimp added.

"NO!" Simon brought the invisible hands down
on the table, breaking it in half. "This isn't me! Look at me! I
want to change back!"

The woman and animals just stared for a
time, saying nothing.

After a time, the woman spoke. "Then do
it."

Simon brought a fist up and hammered the
mirror, shattering it and splintering his reflection. "I
can't!"

There was no answer.

Finally, Simon turned away from the mirror.
"I'm getting out of here. I'm going home. Will you help me?"

"Of course," answered the chimp.

Simon grinned. "There's something we have to
do first."

______________________

The swirling lights held Simon, prevented
him from moving. His body seized.

Struggling against the dungeon chains, he
tried to pull them free of the stone, but it was useless.
Torchlight loomed in the darkness. Someone was coming.

His howls echoed through the forest. Simon
looked down on the city of wood, and the others there who named him
King. There was no bat, no baseball, but this was his home, and
everyone chanted his name.

"Simon," he heard Heather's voice call,
"It's happening again. It's happening againnnn!"

At the center of the aperture in the sky,
another light formed, this one blood red.

A figure stepped forth.

______________________

"What's this?"

Simon looked up. A very muscular kid had
walked up while he was waiting for the bus. Tommy, Simon thought
his name was. Next to him was a pimply-faced boy with greasy brown
hair.

"I asked you a question," Tommy whipped his
arm from behind his back. In his hand was a baseball bat. He
pointed the bat in the direction of the covered object next to
Simon. "What is that?"

"My science fair experiment." It had taken
Simon weeks to finish, almost right up to the deadline, but he had
finally done it.

"Ohh. What did you make, Science Guy?"

"I'm not a science guy." Simon stood up.
"Don't call me that."

Tommy laughed in the direction of his
friend, who gave a high-pitched titter.

"What did you make?" Tommy whipped off the
sheet covering the experiment. "SCIENCE GUY."

Simon gave the big kid a shove, knocking him
back. He was no scrawny kid to be pushed around. He didn't have
Tommy's muscular frame, but he was taller than either of the other
two and, as he had discovered, had powerful arms and shoulders.

The pimple-face kid rushed him, wrapping his
arms around Simon's waist and trying to knock him off his feet.
Simon twisted, throwing the kid past him and on to the ground. As
the kid scrambled to his feet, Simon wound up and brought one fist
forward, putting his shoulder behind it and driving it into the
kids jaw. The kid went down like a sack of flour.

He turned in time to see Tommy bring the
baseball bat down on the model train. The plastic splintered under
the impact, sending bits of debris into the street.

"How do you like that, Science Guy?" Tommy
raised the bat again.

Simon lifted his fists, but stopped,
transfixed.

Tommy brought the bat down again, knocking a
section of metal track from the board.

Simon's felt a thrill in his chest.

As Tommy brought the bat back up, a hand
closed on it. Simon wrested the bat from his grasp easily, twisting
it against the grip of Tommy's hands.

"Hey!" Tommy cried, as Simon lifted the bat
up in both hands.

To the kid's surprise, though, Simon didn't
aim the bat at him, but brought it down on the board with savage
force, blowing pieces of track and wire far and wide.

"What the..." Tommy looked on in
bewilderment.

Simon brought the bat down on the board
again, cracking it with abandon.

"RRRAAAHHHHHHH!" Simon howled as he lifted
the bat and hammered the board again.

Tommy gathered his friend up off the ground.
"Come on, let's get out of here."

Again and again, Simon swung the baseball
bat. Up, and down. Up, and down.

Pieces shattered and flew away. The
satisfying sounds of destruction filled his ears. Up, and down. Up,
and down. He smashed and smashed, and howled his rage.

He was free.

______________________

Invisible hands, dozens of them, reached from
Simon's mind to grasp the cage doors. There was resistance at
first, but he sent forth more and more hands until first one, then
another, then another of the doors bent and cracked under the
pressure.

The gorillas came out of their cages to join the
armada of chimps and monkeys Simon had already freed.

Simon turned and ran, the simian army following
behind.

People ran from all sides, some bearing tranquilizer
guns, but once Aaron was in their minds all they did was stop, drop
their arms and stare.

Once in the Gorilla Enclosure, Simon reached up with
his invisible hands and grappled the wall. A groaning sound of
metal filled the enclosure as bolts ripped free of their housings,
metal bent and twisted, and the entire wall was brought down. To
Simon's delight, children dropped their popcorn as their parents
scooped them up and ran.

Simon planted the top of the wall into the earth at
the bottom of the Enclosure with a crash and clambered up it. There
was now a direct climbing path to the top and escape.

"FREEDOM!" Simon howled, running for the top, every
gorilla, ape, and monkey following in his wake.

People screamed and ran as the armada of apes hit
the zoo walkways running and scattered in every direction.

Simon could barely contain his glee as he ran in the
direction of home.

The zoo breakout served as a fantastic distraction
for Simon's trek across town to his home. There seemed to be other
things happening in town, too, because several times patrol cars
drove right by without stopping.

Aaron was a help too. Whenever crowds gathered
around Simon, alarmed at what they perceived as an escaped gorilla,
Aaron entered their minds until Simon was past.

Finally, he arrived at his house. As he approached,
however, Simon saw a woman standing at his front door. He ducked
behind the bushes, watching.

"Mrs. Chu?" asked the woman. She was slender, brown
haired, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She might have been pretty
once, but she looked like life had worn her down, her face aged
prematurely and her cheeks sunken and hollow looking.

"Yes," his mother's voice said tersely.

"My name is Sarah McDonnell. Heather is my
daughter."

Simon's mother did not reply.

"I'm looking for her," Sarah said. "I can't find her
anywhere. There was some damage at my house, and she's..." She
choked up and couldn't speak for a moment. "She's gone. I thought
she might be here with Simon."

"Your daughter is not here," Mrs. Chu said, and
began to close the door.

"Wait! Is Simon here? Does he know where she
is."

And before the door slammed in Sarah’s face, he
heard his mother's voice say, "Simon doesn't live here
anymore."

Simon wandered for a time, lost, all the energy and
joy he had felt earlier vanished, spent. Aaron was with him, he
knew, for anyone who approached stopped and stared, slack jawed,
but said nothing.

Finally, a boy on a skateboard rode up and stopped
next to him. The boy stepped off the board and kicked it away,
letting it casually roll up against the curb.

"Simon, are you all right?" the boy asked. "I
thought you wanted to go home."

It was Aaron, of course. "You heard her. That's not
my home anymore."

The boy frowned. "I don't think I have a home
anymore. I think I'm dead, Simon."

Simon scratched his head. "I don't know. We could go
back to the base and find you and see?"

"She told me I'd have all the answers," the boy
said. "She said I'd finally know everything."

"Who told you that?"

"The lady on the bus."

"Lady? What lady?"

The boy pointed. "I think she's there."

Simon looked in the direction he pointed. A dark
cloud had gathered over the city, funneling down in one spot.

Simon's lips tightened. "This lady, she appeared to
you on the bus? She told you this?"

"Yes."

"All right then. Let's go!"

______________________

The strange figure stepped down as if
walking down a flight of stairs, only there were no stairs. Its
legs moved gracefully downward until it stood on the roof.

At first, Simon thought it was a woman, but
as she descended Simon beheld a strange sight: the woman became a
she-ape, a gorilla with deep red fur and burning red eyes.

The she-ape approached Simon. She looked at
him for a moment, as if considering what to do about him.

She leaned in close to him, and a gravelly
voice whispered in his ear. "LEAVE THIS PLACE. JOIN THE LOST, AND
YOU WILL FIND YOUR HOME."

Then she reached out a hand, and touched his
forehead.

Red light exploded in Simon's mind, and he
lost consciousness.

______________________

"I have to take them back. I have to take
them all back, or this could happen again."

Kevin's voice floated down to Simon from
somewhere, somewhere above and beyond. He opened his eyes, and saw
the others gathered on the rooftop. The wind had died down, but
there was the sound of sirens.

"No, wait," Mia said angrily, "you
can't take Amber away!"

"And Marcus!" Tyler said, putting
his hand around the caramel-skinned young man standing next to
him.

"She's not your Amber," Kevin
said. "She doesn't belong here. None of them do. They're from an
alternate reality, a second version of the bus that came through
the same rift we drove through."

"There's one more," Simon
said.

"Simon!" Heather leaned over him.
"You're awake!"

"Yeah," Simon scrabbled to his
feet, clutching his head. "I think so."

"What one more?" Kevin
asked.

"His name's Aaron. His body's back
at the base. In the lab where they operated on me, I
think."

"Okay, I'll get him
too."

"Take me with you," Simon
said.

"What?" Heather wrapped her arms
around his. "What do you mean?"

Simon looked into her eyes. "I
don't belong here. This isn't my home anymore. I think my home's
somewhere out there, where they come from."

"We have to go now." The other
kids from the alternate world gathered around Kevin. "If you're
coming, come on."

"Simon, don't go!" Tears were
slipping from Heather's cheeks.

"I have to. I can't stay here
anymore."

"What about your
parents?"

Simon looked down for a moment,
then back at her. "Tell them Simon doesn't live here anymore. Tell
them I'm free."