Bridgeworlds: Deep Flux (24 page)

 

“Five.”
Omar bent over, “Thank you so much for sacrificing something
so valuable.”

 

Alora shook her head, “I did it for my Queen, not you.”

 

Omar shrugged, “All the same.”

 

Alora rolled her eyes, “Let’s go.”

 

They all stepped into the portal one by one.

When Omar reached the other side what he saw was even more
beautiful than the archway. He could see the center of Musterion which
was a ball of shifting light in the center of the spherical room he was in.
If he jumped and reached he could touch it but he dared not do it. He
was standing on one of many slender walkways and to either side of the
walkways were thousands of archways lining it… like holes one could
jump down into.

He looked all around him. The archways lined the floor the walls
and the ceiling. Omar could feel gravity pulling outwardly from the
spherical room; He could walk up the walls or on the ceiling if he
wanted. “There must be hundreds of thousands of them, how do you
know which one leads to earth?” asked Omar in wonder.

Alora gave Omar a toothy grin, “Because I marked it last time I
went through it.”

 

“You went through the portal to earth? You have been to earth
before?”

“I’m just an innocent kitty. Who would notice me?” Alora shed
her clothing and bent over on all fours giving Omar her cutest look and
said, “Meow.”

There are Katken on earth? How long? How many? Why haven’t
we figured this out?
“How many Katken are there on earth?” Omar
demanded.

Alora shrugged, “Several hundred I would guess. Earth is good
for Katken, we have the humans trained.”

 

Sasha let out a laugh at those words. “Indeed you do.”

 

“Shall we?” asked Alora.

 

Omar nodded, “Of course.”

Alora walked down the path until it intersected with another
path. The others followed. She led them to an archway that had scratch
marks all down the brick. Alora looked at them and smiled, and then she
jumped into the portal. Omar let Sasha go through next and then he
jumped in after her. They all landed in a section of tunnel. Omar could
see the end of it. It led to debris. There was ash and burned wood.

Alora began to move forward and Nekar stopped her. Omar
noticed that his hand was shaking and his eyes were wide. Nekar shook
his head. “Don’t go that way. We must go back.”

“We can’t said Alora,” she pointed behind them. The tunnel was
walled in behind them. “This is the way we are meant to go.”

Nekar turned back. Beads of sweat were forming on his
forehead. He had a resigned look on his face and then he closed his eyes
and prayed very quietly but Omar heard, “My Master, if it is possible, let
this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as Thou wilt.”

Nekar took a deep breath. “I am almost positive where and
when we are.”

 

Omar shook his head in confusion, “When?”

 

Nekar closed his eyes and said, “It is 1943 and we are in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.”

 

Omar cursed and asked, “How do you know?”

Nekar sighed, “This is the tunnel I left out of. I found loose flooring
in a small shack that they locked me and the others into. Then they set it on
fire. Look,” Nekar pointed down to ashen footprints on the brick in the
tunnel.”

He shook his head, “That was us.”
Omar reached to his teleportation device and tried teleporting
away. It made a beeping sound and said, “blown fuse”.
It must have
happened when I touched the light from the archway.

He felt Bogdan’s large hand on his shoulder. He turned to see
Bogdan shaking his head, “I told you we should have brought the
weapons.”

Nekar asked Bogdan for a pen and paper. He wrote a note on it
and folded it. Then he bent over to. “I need you to get this to the address
written on the letter. Can you do that for me? It is the Master’s business.”

Alora nodded. “I can pass as a stray cat here and I will likely get
out. My Queen follows the Master so I will do his bidding. I will not return
here. I will find another way into Musterion.”

“Wait!” yelled Omar. “Please, I need you to stay on earth and wait.
Wait until Jack Raven goes through the portal and give this to Tyree
Jackson.” Omar took the smaller unaltered teleportation device and gave it
to Alora. Alora put it around her wrist and though awkwardly it fit. Then she
gave Omar a sideways look, “What? You want me to wait here for six
decades? I like earth but not that much.”

“You said there are other Katken who have gone through
Musterion to get here. That means they have longevity of life. Please, just
find one you can trust and pass on the task. Tyree is smart and he will know
what to do.” Alora left climbing up the debris and out of the tunnel.

They waited there for a moment until they heard people yelling in
German, “Over here. As I told you I burned the building but there are no
bodies.” There was the sound of dozens of boots above.

Omar looked at Bogdan who had his hand gun.

“Look! There is a hole!” yelled one. They cleared the debris and as
a Nazi started to enter the tunnel Bogdan shot him in the head and said,
“Eight rounds left.”

“Bring explosives,” yelled one of them.

 

“We give up,” yelled Omar in German.

 

“Then throw your guns up through the hole,” said the predominant
voice in the crowd of soldiers.

 

Bogdan threw the gun up through the hole.

Another Nazi came down through the hole. He looked at Omar,
Bogdan, and Sasha. His eyes widened but he regained his composure
quickly. He said, “You, come with me.”

He climbed back up the hole and Bogdan followed. There was
screaming and yelling and gunfire. Omar heard a struggle and more gunfire.

 

“Don’t kill any more you idiot, Dr. Mengele will want them alive,”
said the leader.

Bogdan is dead. Dr. Mengele
? Omar knew his history. Dr.
Mengele was a sick man who had made advances in scientists by
dissecting twins as they were both killed. The crimes this man had
committed against humanity were too many to list. Dr. Mengele would
take them apart piece by piece to see what made them tick.

They walked towards the hole. Nekar stepped forward. He was not
shaking any more. He climbed out of the hole grabbing Bogdan’s leg to help
him up. That was a
bit disrespectful for the dead.

“The rest of you come out slowly,” yelled their leader. Omar
climbed through and they bound his wings as soon as they saw them. They
did the same to Sasha as she climbed out. The leader looked them over.

Then he said, “The doctor only needs one,” he lifted his pistol and
shot Sasha three times in the head. “He will want the gargoyle.” Then he
turned to the rest. “The story is the other two attacked us.”

Omar dropped to his knees with tears in his eyes and screamed at
the top of his lungs, “No! No Sasha, no!”

 

Nekar bent over and picked him up, “She is gone, now you must
live or her sacrifice means nothing.”

“Sacrifice? You idiot… she didn’t…” before Omar could finish the
butt of a gun hit him in the back of the head and he fell to the ground
unconscious.

Omar woke to find himself restrained on an operating table right
beside Nekar in the same state. The corpses of Bogdan and Sasha were also
on tables but not strapped in.

Doctor Mengele entered looking at Omar, “You are quite a
specimen. You speak German and American English.” He pulled up Omar’s
arm revealing his tattoo. “Yet you are marked as one of ours. But the funny
thing is that when I reference the number on your arm it belongs to an
Esther Metzger who escaped down the very tunnel you came out of. Do
you care to explain?”

Omar was silent.

“No? Well then there is the fact that I have already cut your skin
open and it regenerates too fast for me to observe what is inside of you.”
The doctor smiled. “I think if I could replicate that we could truly be a
superior race.”

The doctor cut Omar’s arm with a knife and put a vial under it. He
collected the blood until the wound healed right in front of their eyes. Then
the doctor corked the vial.

“What did you do?” asked Nekar.

 

“What did you do indeed?” asked the doctor. “I am going to inject
this into one of my little ones and see what it does,” he said,

 

“No!” cried Omar. “It’s a virus. You will start an epidemic.”

 

The doctor walked up to Omar and stood by his bed, “Really? And
you carry this virus.”

Omar saw Bogdan stand up from his bed. He got right behind the
doctor and tapped him on the shoulder. The doctor turned around and
Bogdan roared in his face. The doctor then laughed nervously and passed
out.

Bogdan went to swipe his claws at the doctor’s throat when Nekar
yelled, “No! Don’t kill him. You will alter this timeline and it will be another
dimension but not your own. All of the things Alora is orchestrating will be
for nothing.”

Bogdan stood up and nodded his head. Then he clawed away
Nekar and Omar’s straps. Omar approached Bogdan and said, “You were
dead,”

Nekar went to Sasha’s side and put his hands on her. He prayed
aloud, “Lord, if it be your will bring her back to us for your glory.”

 

Omar walked over to him and smacked his hand away, “Don’t you
touch her. She is dead.”

 

But then Omar heard Sasha call his name, “Omar…”

He turned and the wounds on her head were healing up and the
bullets had purged themselves out of her skull. He looked down at Sasha
and then back to Nekar. “How did you…”

Omar was interrupted with the back of Nekar’s hand across his
face. It hit hard. Nekar was very strong. “You are welcome, you prideful
idiot. But don’t thank me, thank Christ.”

Omar felt shame at his accusatory anger. He would not thank
Nekar or his God. He bent over and hugged Sasha as tight as he could with
tears in his eyes. “You are alive…. You are alive. I thought I lost you.”

“Is it true?” she asked.

 

Omar looked puzzled, “Is what true?”

 

She looked past Omar to Nekar. “Did your God heal me?”

 

Nekar nodded, “He is your God to weather you will admit it or not
he is your creator.”

 

She looked to Omar, “Tell me what happened. I remember being
shot.”

 

Omar nodded, “You were shot three times in the head and you
were very much dead. Nekar did something and you came back.”

 

“What did you see him do?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know.”
I won’t say it. It has to be a trick I don’t understand
but I won’t say that he prayed and she came back to life.

“Omar, you are a scientist, you know what you observed with your
eyes. What did you see?” she begged. “I need to hear it from you that way I
can trust it.”

Omar sighed, “He prayed alright, are you happy? He prayed. But it
was a trick.”

 

Nekar slapped him in the face again. “Stop lying.”

 

Omar turned and pointed at him, “Don’t you touch me again.”

 

Nekar shook his head.

Bogdan had tied up, blindfolded, and gagged the doctor. A soldier
walked in and before anyone could silence him he yelled out, “The
creatures are loose, the creatures are loose!”

Bogdan took him down after he had said that much but that was
enough. They all ran out of the lab and into a long hallway. Soldiers
crowded the hallway behind them shooting at them as they ran. Nekar
dropped to the back and pushed the others ahead.

“What are you doing?” asked Omar but when he looked at Nekar
he saw that he had been shot several times. As they ran down the hallway
Nekar was the only one they could really hit with their pistols because he
was behind them. He had put himself back there as a human shield.

Another bullet caught him in the side. He pushed them forward,
“Come on. You need to get out to the open air where you can fly away.”
Another bullet hit him in the shoulder.

Bogdan grabbed Nekar and picked him up. They finally made it to
the door and once they hit the open they flew up into the sky. They flew
over farm lands until they were far away from the camp.

They landed and went behind a barn. Bogdan set Nekar down.
“Thank you for saving my life,” he said. Nekar had bled too much while they
were running. His face was white. “I am a believer too,” said Bogdan. He
knelt over Bogdan and prayed, “Lord we thank you for Nekar, please heal
his wounds for the glory of your name.” Nothing happened.

Sasha put her hand over Nekar and said the same prayer. Bogdan
looked at her, “It only works with believers.”

 

She nodded, “I am now.”

Omar didn’t like the sound of that but he kept his mouth quiet.
Can’t they see? If their God exists he is abandoning Nekar in his moment of
need.

Nekar grabbed Omar’s arm and as if in response to Omar’s
thoughts he said, “Shall the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ I
am His to do with as he wills.”

Omar didn’t really feel up to arguing with a dying man.

Nekar tightened his grip on Omar’s arm. “I die, with my people. I
knew Esther Metzger… she was in the shack with us when I found the
tunnel to Musterion.”

Omar shook his head, “What does that have to do with me? Why
does that matter?”

“She is still on Soterion and alive… your grandmother. You see,
your mother was but a child but she escaped on earth after your
grandmother escaped to Musterion,” said Nekar. His eyes started to flutter.

Omar shook Nekar. Sasha scowled at him for that. “Nekar, how do
we get back to Musterion?”

Nekar then said, “It just occurred to me… the key… it’s the key.
Omar, Myles is going to bring you Misaki. Listen to her words. And…,” he
coughed. Nekar gently grabbed Omar’s hand. “… your dreams. On Soterion
they aren’t just dreams. They mean something. I see the fear in your eyes…
that is new. But fear, it’s the beginning…” Nekar trailed off. Omar gripped
his hand tighter. His eyes fluttered and he said, “Into your hands I commit
my spirit.” He took a long breath and then was still.