Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (28 page)

“Then I’ll go,” I said

At the exact same time, Marti said, “I can go look.”

“No!” all three adults said at once.

“What harm can it do?” Marti said. “How can it possibly get any worse than it already is?”

“While that’s true,” Agent Maynerd said, “you’re on probation.” He turned and began to walk back toward the glass room. We followed him, and he looked back at me. “And you don’t have any idea what you’re even doing.”

“I’ll go unofficially,” Marti said. “If anyone asks, it’ll be of my own free will and choice, independent of SOaP.”

Agent Maynerd pulled the door open and motioned for us to go in. “You’re not going.”

“I need a chance to redeem myself,” I said, pausing in the doorway. “I understand that I’m a complete newbie and that I’ve totally screwed all of this up. And I want a chance to fix it. You can’t expect us to just sit here and watch things happen. That would be stupid.”

Agent Maynerd shoved me through the door. “Oh, yes I can. The two of you are going to be kept out of anything relating to SOaP for a very,
very
long time.”

Marti followed me in, along with my parents. She continued to argue with Agent Maynerd, but I fell silent. I could see he wouldn’t relent. Marti and I had just made too many mistakes. Of course, that meant that we would just have to go without permission.

The real question was, how could we get away from Agent Maynerd long enough to zip out? And had Marti been to Dugway and made a receiving door there?

Miraculously, all these and other questions were answered after several minutes, when Agent Maynerd left the room. He locked the door behind him, so the four of us sat at the glass table, facing each other.

I wanted to do something, but had no idea what that something might be.

“Well,” Dad said. He looked around the group. “I guess we’d better get going.”

Chapter 50: We take matters into our own hands

I mean, we couldn’t just sit idly by. Right?

-David Van Bender

Yeah, now I know where Richie gets it.

-Elizabeth Van Bender

“Oh, no you don’t,” Mom said. “No—you don’t.”

I looked at Dad in disbelief. He sat across the table from me, looking thoughtful. A quiet wariness had slunk into my head—not to be confused with the weariness in my body.

“What do you mean,” I said, “by, ‘We’d better get going?’”

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “If we’re going to stop Nick, we should go. I’ve got a receiving door set up in Salt Lake City—close to Dugway.”

“Are you
insane
?” Mom said. “First you declare your sovereignty at Intersoc, and now you want to defy direct orders from SOaP? Have you gone crazy?”

I wondered the same thing. It seemed contrary to his nature to do something like this—I would have thought Mom would rebel against a secret, magical government agency long before him. I felt as clueless as I had back in my house, when they’d argued over whether or not to tell me why they kept me locked away.

Plus, what if Nick was telling the truth? I couldn’t shake the feeling because he’d been so insistent about it—but there was no way in Hades I would say that. Nobody would understand. It would only get me locked up, again—which would really be a shame.

Dad said, “I think we should do what SOaP can’t do. Someone should go to Dugway. SOaP doesn’t have the manpower. So, clearly, we should go.”

Mom frowned. Did I think we should go? If we did, I could lose my emotion. SOaP or my parents could confiscate it, and I would never see it again. Nick had repeatedly promised that he would give some of the brink back to me. And besides, did the world
really
hang in the balance? Was Nick
really
that dangerous? He was a crackpot rock star. Would he really detonate a nuke to make some magical lip gloss?

But at the same time, I wanted to go and get my emotion back because if my parents let me go with them, it would represent considerable loosening of their position from the beginning of the night. It seemed like as good a path to freedom as I’d ever seen.

Yet, if Nick
was
going to nuke the emotion, did I want to actually try to stop him? Going to where there might be an atomic detonation didn’t seem like a recipe for a long and happy life.

On the other hand, I’d caused this mess. I certainly couldn’t use my own mortality as an excuse to not try and fix the mistakes I’d made.

I would just have to trust my parents, Marti, and everyone else regarding Nick. It seemed the best way.

We needed to go to Dugway. And despite the danger, I would have to go along.

Marti started to speak, but I jabbed her in the ribs with my elbow. My parents needed to talk this one out. Dad needed to convince Mom. No one else could do it.

“And,” Mom said, “what will you do once you reach Dugway Proving Ground? How will you find Nick?”

“Richie can sense the emotion.”

“
If
it’s not being shielded. And if it’s not, and if you can find Savage, how will you get the emotion?”

Dad shrugged. “I’m not exactly helpless, you know. Back in the day I was as good as anyone at dueling.”

“It’s been half a decade—or more. And you lost last time.”

“That’s why you’re coming. To help me out.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed, but by the time her chuckle stopped, Dad had won. The twinkle in her eyes told me she liked the idea. Something appealed to her.

“The last time we did that,” she said, “we failed massively.”

“We’ll have Marti, too.” He winked at Marti. “She’s as capable as any other SOaP agent.”

“That’s right,” Marti said, sitting up a little taller in her chair. “I owned the last Agent’s Challenge.”

I felt a little out of my league. They all had something to offer. I could only sense the emotion.

Mom frowned and shook her head. “This is crazy, you know. Either it will end up as nothing, or we’ll all get baked to a crisp when the nuke goes off.”

Dad smiled and touched her cheek. “At least we’ll all go out together.”

Chapter 51: Another world all around me

The only thing better than seeing how someone reacts to zipping is seeing how they react to the spirit world.

-Marti Walker

“How will we get there?” I asked.

Dad pressed his face against the glass door and looked from side to side, making sure Agent Maynerd wasn’t coming back.

“By zipping,” Marti said. “How else?”

“We can do that?” I said. “The security in this place sucks.”

Mom shrugged. “Zipping is hard to stop.”

In the corner, Dad made a zip-door with red brink. All four of us held hands, and Dad went in first, followed by Mom, me, and Marti.

We came out into the corner of a hotel room where a man sat on the bed in his underwear, with a laptop on his lap. He stared at us with wide eyes, fingers frozen above his keys.

Dad smiled and nodded politely. “Sorry to interrupt. We’ll leave you alone.” He headed for the door.

The man’s jaw dropped, and his eyebrows moved together. “What the hell?”

I smiled and waved as I followed my parents. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Nice underwear.”

“We were never here,” Marti said. She waved her hands mysteriously. “Just pretend we were never here. That way, no one will think you’re insane.”

The man nodded, a look of absolute disbelief on his face. Out in the hallway, Dad led us to a flight of stairs, and we ascended them. In just a few minutes, we stepped out onto the roof, into a soft rain.

The city lights spread out below us and around us, along the nearby mountain foothills. In one direction, a domed building stood at least as high as us, up on a mountainside. We followed Dad away from the door. Our feet crunched in the gravel that covered the roof. I wiped rain off my face.

“How will we get to Dugway Proving Ground?” I said.

“We’ll harness some wind sprites,” Dad said.

Mom must’ve seen my confusion, because she gave me a patient smile. “It’s very complicated. Someday you’ll learn.”

I shrugged, and tried not to seem annoyed. “I’m a big boy now. You know. I’ve zipped a bunch of times. Why not tell me about it, now?”

“I’m not sure if you’re ready for it,” Mom said.

“It’s a little scary,” Marti said.

I rolled my eyes. “It can’t possibly be any scarier than your music.” I played a steel air guitar, and made a whiny sound.

Dad motioned for us to get back. “Give me a little room.”

We withdrew several paces, and Dad took out a vial of red brink. He unscrewed it and lifted it to his face, dipped a forefinger in, then drew the shape of an eye in front of his face—just like Marti had done in her fake bedroom. He gave it a tail to his forehead, where he drew a spiral. Raindrops sizzled as they hit the brink and evaporated.

Marti took out her own brink—she seemed to have an endless supply tucked away in her purse—and also began to draw an eye in front of her.

“I want one of those,” I said. “I want to see what you’re all talking about.”

“You’re sure about that?” Mom said.

Was she kidding?

“Of course! What’s the problem? I’ve seen plenty—I can’t imagine what else there is that would damage my sensitive brain.”

Mom shrugged. “Of everything we planned on teaching you someday, this was the last one.”

“Bring it on,” I said.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She came over to me, took out a vial of red brink, and poured it into her palm. With a few quick flicks, she drew an almond-shaped eye, and gave it a tail.

“Open your palm,” she ordered.

I obeyed. She extended the tail to my hand, and with her hand against mine drew a spiral.

“Why on my hand?” I said.

“So that you can close the eye if you want.” She jerked her head at Dad, behind her. “He likes to have his third eye open all the time. But this way, on your hand, you can close your third eye by making a fist.”

“Third eye? Is that like the evil eye? Can I shoot flames from my third eye?” I liked that idea.

“Nothing like that,” Mom said. “You can see things with your third eye.”

“Like what? Dead people?”

Marti came to my side. She had both eyes closed, but walked with the same confidence as if she had both eyes open.

“There’s a world of creatures,” she said. “Spirits that affect our world. They can only be seen with the third eye.”

“Sounds epic.”

Marti nodded. “Remember the hover carts? The floating swimming pool? All spirits. Remember the traps I created? Visible to a third eye.”

“Freaky.”

She grinned. “You still have a chance not to look.”

I wiped the rain from my face, rolled my eyes. “I can handle this.”

Mom put the lid back on the vial of her brink, and held it out to me.

“Put this in your pocket. Maybe you’ll be able to use it.”

Surprised that she would give me brink, I obeyed her, putting the vial in my pocket next to the metal cube Nick had given me. I still had my lighter in the other pocket. Mom took out her own lighter and paused with it unlit, right near the tail to my third eye.

“You’re sure you want to see?” she said.

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or the rain beginning to soak through my clothes, but I shivered at a chill along my spine.

“Okay—you’re right. I give up. I don’t want to see.” I rolled my eyes. “No—come on. You haven’t really told me why I might not want to.”

“You said it, yourself. It’s just a little freaky.”

“I can take it.”

She shrugged and lit the eye. The emblem blazed, and the flame spread down the brink tail and burned onto my hand. I nearly pulled away, fearing the flame, but found that although it was hot, it didn’t hurt. Once the spiral on my hand had caught fire, the flames transformed, lighting up like a firework. The eye followed the tail of brink down to my hand. Once it touched my flesh, all the brink dimmed to nothingness, and a third eye glowed black on my open palm.

My brain about exploded as I looked up from my open hand to my face, and saw the unseen world.

Chapter 52: My sensitive brain can’t handle it

Richie did better than most. He didn’t puke, faint, or try to throw himself off the building. Really, he’s one tough cookie.

-Marti Walker

In an instant, I became dizzy. The world spun. I could see my own face and my own eyeballs, which my brain had never seen before, except in a mirror. With my natural eyes I looked out over the edge of the hotel, into the city. Yet, at the same time, I could see my face from my hand.

I staggered to the side, reaching out for something to steady myself. My vision swung with the eyeball on my hand, and I fell flat on my butt.

The third eye on my hand gave another perspective to see things from. It was like super-duper 3D, and my brain couldn’t do that kind of fancy math.

Nuts. Just plain nuts.

Mom bent next to me on one side. “Close your hand. That will help.”

I balled my hand into a fist. That third perspective went dark and immediately my head turned back on. The dizziness left me.

“That,” I said, “is wrong. Just plain messed up.”

Marti knelt on my other side, her eyes still closed. But on her forehead she had an eye, glowing black. So did Mom. Spirit eyes.

“It’s easier,” Marti said, “if your third eye is on your forehead because the perspective isn’t as off, but then you can’t shut your third eye as easily.”

“We did warn you,” Mom said.

I shook my head. They had warned me, sure, but they hadn’t prepared me. “Maybe you were right—just maybe.”

Unwilling to loose to the complex calculations of a third eye, I raised my hand, fist out, and shut my natural eyes. The world went black until I opened my fist, and I saw everything, again.