Bridgeworlds: Rise of the Magi (4 page)

As they came up to the spider, Omar stopped and began recording. The spider steadily closed the gap between them. “This is incredible! It looks like no species that I’ve seen on Earth.” Myles usually played the part of a cowardly con man but, in reality, he was no one to mess with. The way that Omar had blown him off just now, coupled with the stress of not knowing where he was or how he had gotten there was just too much for Myles. Myles got off the bike.

“So, that’s how it is, huh? You won't even listen to a word of what old Myles has to say!”

“It’s coming toward us.” Omar shushed Myles with a waving finger. “Try to be a little less enticing.”

That spider might eat them both for all Myles cared. He meant to have his apology. Omar couldn't just ignore him after Myles had shown him a way to beat the tunnel maze.

Omar started the bike up again. Myles grabbed him by the shoulder. “That spider is the least of your worries, Doc. I need to hear an apology from you, or we’re not going anywhere.”

The spider shot out a stream of web and caught Myles in the chest. The creature began reeling him in. Omar fell backward off the bike. “It’s got you!”

Myles didn’t even flinch, in part because he was still mad at Omar. Then his circus skills began to take over. Myles tilted his head a little to use his peripheral vision. He threw his arm out to the side, letting go of a hidden knife. Two more flew from nowhere, as far as Omar could tell. Myles was pleased to see that each knife had pierced a limb of the spider and stuck in the thick moss growing on the wall. The spider was now neatly pinned and going nowhere.

Myles cleared the webbing from his jacket, walked over to Omar, and pulled him up off the ground by his collar. “Now how about that apology?”

Omar flinched under Myles’ gaze. There was actually something dangerous, almost criminal about him. But the scientist in Omar won out over his fear. “I’m sorry…that was amazing. I can’t believe…I mean, how did you…?” Omar glanced at the spider. “Myles, we have to go now!”

“What’s wrong, Doc? Don’t you want to stick around and take samples? It’s not moving from that spot, I promise.”

Omar fumbled to put the camera away. “Myles! That’s a b-bbaby! We have to go! We have to go n-now, and we have to move fast.”

“What? A baby! Come on, that’s like the great-granddaddy!”

Omar glanced over Myles’ shoulder, and his jaw suddenly dropped. Myles turned around and saw a 15-foot-tall spider moving toward them, with baby spiders crawling all around it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Myles hopped on the back of Omar’s motorcycle. “Go! Go! Go! It’s closing in on us!”

The new spider was a nasty dark brown color with eyes all over its body and legs that ended in sharp points. It seemed to have a hard, shell-like skin with bits of fuzzy hair here and there. Omar gunned it and they took off.

Myles tossed a few knives at the larger spider and, though it shrieked when hit, it kept coming. The spider remained at a distance of about 30 yards from the motorcycle. Myles glanced at the speedometer. “You’re only going 40, man, gun it!”

“I can’t. Don’t you see these turns we’re taking? We’ll crash! Reach in my bags.”

Myles started rifling through the bags on the back of the bike. “Which one? You’ve got like six of them!”

"The green military duffle bag.”

“What am I looking for?”

“You’ll know when you—” began Omar when Myles cut him off.

“Dear God! What all have you got in here? Are you planning on starting a war? What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“Stop messing with the M-16 and grab that grenade with the radioactive symbol on it!”

“Radio-what?”

“It’s a
helio horasis apollumi
. Listen to me! That thing is activated by impact. I need you to hit the spider with the grenade. After you throw it, turn back around. And whatever you do, don’t look back! That grenade has stored photons from the sun. It’ll evaporate that spider and blind anyone watching!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice! It looks like I’m not the only one with a few cards up my sleeves.” Omar stopped the cycle. Myles pulled a grenade out of the bag and threw it at the giant spider. They squeezed their eyes shut, but still experienced the bright flash and mammoth crackling sound. When they finally turned around, only a vapor cloud hung where the giant spider had been. A stench of burned meat hung in the air, and the baby spiders scuttled blindly away.

Both men sat there for a minute in awareness of the new reality surrounding them. Very possibly they were in a world full of such unpleasant surprises. They might have come from vastly different places, but they were going to need each other if they wanted to survive.

Maybe it was time to get to know each other.

4

Introductions

Omar revved up the bike. Myles imagined the look on the don’s face when that goon showed up empty-handed.
How would he explain what happened?
Would he admit that Myles just disappeared into thin air? Or would he make something up -- say that Myles fell to his death somehow, but they couldn’t find the body. Myles couldn't help laughing as he imagined the scene.

Omar looked over his shoulder. “What’s so funny, Rags?”

“Well, Doc, it looks like you were right. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore. I was just thinking about the guys that I left behind in that other world. They’re not going to be happy that I got away.”

Omar decided that he had to know more about this fellow. He stopped the bike and turned around to look at Myles. “Myles, I’ve never seen someone make a knife just appear like that, and then throw it with such accuracy.”

“I imagine it shocked old itsy bitsy, too.”

Omar was not amused. “Myles, I’m a scientist and I deal in facts. Come on, how did you do that?”

"I’m an illusionist. It’s a trick of the eye. I’ve got pockets all through this outfit, and I’m fast with my hands. It helps with poker too.”

Omar shook his head. “I’ve seen illusionists. And I have a keen eye for detail. Normally, I can tell a trick of the eye when I see one, but you were amazing!”

“If you can see it, then it’s not really a trick, is it?”

This man is getting more interesting by the minute,
Omar thought to himself. “How did you learn to do that?”

“I ran away with the circus.”

That’s when Omar really laughed, but Myles didn’t find it that funny. Myles gave Omar a suspicious look. “Where in the world did you get that grenade? I mean, that’s probably some serious top-secret explosive material you’ve got in there.”

“I’m a scientist. I made it myself. I’ve worked with the US Army for a long time and a lot of my projects dealt with harnessing sunlight. Let me explain the Photon-gathering process and then -- ”

Myles yawned. “Spare me the details. Blah, blah, blah, kaboom!”

Omar started up the bike, but then leaned back and shouted, “Myles, have you noticed that it’s not pitch black in these tunnels, even though there’s no light source?”

"I can’t say that it crossed my mind, but now that you mention it, you’re right. What do you make of it?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.”

“Huh, some scientist you are.”

“All science takes time, Myles.”

“Maybe that’s why I never got into science. I was never patient. I’m much more of the impulsive type.”

Omar hit a large speed-bump-like up-thrust in the tunnel floor. There was no way to avoid it. He ran over another one a minute later. They passed a tunnel on the right and then three more bumps rose up in front of them. Myles grabbed Omar's shoulders and craned his neck to watch farther down the tunnel. Another entrance came up on the left. “Stop!”

Omar hit the brakes. “What is it?”

“Was that five bumps?”

“Yeah, why?”

Myles shot out his arm, “Turn left!”

“How do you know?”

“The first time the turns were one, two, and three. Next it was a four-way stop. So now the number is five, Doc. We’ve hit five bumps, so now we turn left.”

“Impressive.” Omar turned and went down the new tunnel.
Maybe Myles is two parts genius, but he is still definitely one part jester.

Unlike all the others, this tunnel had no curves. The light they had noticed earlier began to fade. Omar had to turn on his headlight. Omar skidded to a stop at a wall right in front of them. He turned the bike around, but now there was a wall behind them where they’d just come from. They were trapped!

Omar rubbed his temples. He could feel a headache coming on. This always happened when an obstacle stopped him. He hated obstacles. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Myles snorted. “Does anything in this place really make sense, Doc?” His risk-taking approach to life made challenges fun. He just needed to study it for a little while, like he did with the tunnels. He decided to take a rest and let the solution come to him. With no place else to go, both Omar and Myles sat down across from each other on the cold brick floor.

They sat there quietly for a minute as Myles flipped a coin back and forth between his fingers. “So, Doc, you’re still a stranger to me. What’s your story?”

“It’s a long one.”

Myles looked around. “Hey, it looks like we’ve got all the time in the world.”

Omar had to agree and laughed. “I don't know where to start. Ask me what you want to know.”

“Okay, let’s start with your name. Why are you called Omar? The magazine article that I read said your parents were Jews who immigrated to the United States from Israel. Omar isn’t exactly a Jewish name.”

“Good observation. In 1969 my mother went into labor on the streets of Jerusalem while my father was on the other side of the city. The only person there who knew what to do was a Palestinian man named Omar. He helped my mother through her labor and delivery while my father was coming. In appreciation, my father named me Omar, after him.”

Myles grinned. “Now see, I love a name with a story behind it. I think that’s a honorable thing for your father to do. But let’s get to the serious stuff. I was sitting here thinking, and I realized that I’ve got no clue what I’ve fallen into. But you, on the other hand, apparently came here on purpose. I think if we're going to be stuck together, I need to know as much as you know about this place.”

“Dimension,” Omar corrected him. “This isn’t just a place. It’s an entire dimension. But that’s only the beginning."

Omar told Myles about the teleportation project and finding the brick doorway in Germany with “I am the way…” inscribed on it in Greek. He explained his Doorway Theory. He honestly told him about their chances of returning home, and he even told Myles about the coma patients. Myles got up and started to pace the small area.

“I don’t mind the idea of not returning but I feel like I just stepped into something that’s way over my head. You have to admit that there’s something supernatural about this place.”

“I don’t believe in the supernatural, Myles. I only believe that there are things that haven’t been scientifically explained yet. Everything can be explained by science if we understand enough. It’s like Clarke’s Third Law states: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”

“That’s interesting. Can you scientifically explain walls that move by themselves and doors that take you to other dimensions?”

“Or,
Ragnar,
” Omar shot back, “can we explain knives that a man grabs out of thin air? It’s a trick, and I can’t wait to get to the bottom of it.”

But Myles wasn’t finished with his questions. “Okay, what about your obsession with this whole dimensional travel thing? Why did you even go through that portal? You said yourself that you may never get back again. Don’t you have family or loved ones to go home to?”

Omar shook his head and paused in thought for a second. Then he answered, “No. My parents are dead. My sister, Misaki, is one of the coma patients in the study. She has been in a coma since she was eight years old, and is well-cared for.”

Myles blinked at the thought of that and rested the back of his head against the cool tunnel wall. “Wow. That’s totally messed up.”

Impulsive as always, he started again. “Hold on. Did a Japanese woman help deliver your sister? You said you’re using coma patients in your project. Are you here because of your sister? Do you think she’s manifested here in some form of, like, dream projection of her consciousness?” Omar gaped at him, so Myles added, “I saw that in a horror movie.”

“That’s a lot of questions." Omar admitted. “My Jewish parents died. Good friends of my family in Philadelphia got custody of me. That young Japanese couple already had a daughter who was a year younger than me. Since my Jewish God had taken my parents, I forsook my Jewish heritage and adopted the Japanese culture of my new family with open arms.”

Myles burst out laughing. “It all sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke, Doc. You’re a Jew with an Arab name raised by a Japanese family? You have to admit that’s unusual.”

When Myles put it like that, it did sound funny. Fortunately, Omar had a sense of humor so he chuckled. These were things he rarely spoke of to anyone, but Omar felt that they might be spending a lot of time together so anything could be important to help them survive.

“Misaki was five years old when I became a part of their family, and Misaki quickly became the apple of my eye. In order to gain favor from my parents, I excelled rapidly in school, and of course they were impressed. I graduated high school at the age of nine while Misaki was finishing her junior year of high school at the age of eight.”

Myles couldn’t imagine someone loving school that much. “Wow! Talk about a family of geniuses!”

“But my sister was the only person who ever understood me, and she loved me much. On the day of my graduation, Misaki doubled over in agony so we rushed her to the hospital. By the time the doctor saw her in the emergency room she was screaming, it was so bad. I was frightened for her so I held her. I told her that everything was going to be okay.”

Myles nodded with understanding. “A lie, for sure, but obviously a nice one.”

Omar glared at Myles. “The doctor said that she was going to need an appendectomy. I still remember Misaki’s last words to me. She whispered, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not afraid.’ The surgery went well, until the surgeons were closing the incision. Misaki went into convulsions, and her temperature soared to 107.6. They finally were able to stop the convulsions and bring her temperature down, but by then Misaki had lapsed into a coma. She’s never regained consciousness in more than thirty-three years.

“However, a few days before I stepped through the portal, she abruptly awoke from her coma and, in terror, shouted something at me and then flat-lined. She almost died, but we stabilized her again, and I watched as she slipped back into a coma.”

Myles sat up in anticipation. “So, what did she say?”

Omar shook his head as he continued. “I couldn’t make sense of it. She spoke first in Japanese and then in Hebrew. She doesn’t even
know
Hebrew!”

At that, Myles leaned forward. “But what did she say?”

“I told her that everything was going to be okay. But…she said no.”

“That’s it? Did she say anything else?”

Omar sighed. “Yes. She said, ‘Come quick. Bring the gambler.’”

Myles stopped himself from saying anything aloud but his thoughts hammered in his head.
I’m a gambler. In fact, that’s what my friends call me!
He tapped his foot nervously while sorting this out. This had once been Myles’ “tell” in poker games, but he’d taught himself to hide it. At that moment, however, Myles didn’t realize what he was doing.

After a minute or two Myles cleared his throat. “Did she say anything else?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anymore, but his curiosity got the best of him.

“She also said, ‘Omar, she must get the sword to the carpenter,’ and then she went into convulsions. After we brought her back from flat-lining, she let out a scream that has haunted me ever since, and went back into her coma.”

Myles rubbed his head for a bit and stared at Omar. “It looks like you have a set of clues to go by. I’ll admit it’s not much, but it’s a start.”

Omar just nodded in agreement.

“That…that is a sad story.”

Omar nodded slightly, overwhelmed with the grief of these memories that he was sharing with a complete stranger. It was almost liberating to be able to talk about it. As the memories hung over him he wiped away a tear, hoping that Myles hadn’t noticed.

They were both quiet for a while, but then Omar took a deep breath. “I sat at my sister’s side for two solid years before I entered college. But I knew I had to keep achieving, keep learning, so Misaki would be proud of me, and so I could take care of her -- maybe even help her somehow. At the age of twenty-five, I found a way to harness solar energy to power military weaponry. That got me enough money to make sure my sister was properly cared for. I’ve worked on multiple projects for the military and the scientific community.

“Recently I was granted money by the government and several private investors to work on this top secret project. That was when I stumbled on inter-dimensional travel.”

Myles put his hands behind his head, leaned back against the wall again, and looked up at the ceiling. “You have quite a story, Doc. You really do.” Then, lowering his eyes again, he looked across at Omar. “So, do you think your sister’s here, in this dimension?”

Omar shook his head. “No, but I might be wrong. Something tells me I have to go a lot farther before I can find her. I mean, we don’t even know if there are any living creatures on this world besides us, giant spiders, and the moss growing on the walls.”

“Then who do you think built these tunnels?”

“Probably a people who moved on long ago.” After giving that some thought, Omar cleared his throat. “So tell me, Myles, do you have family back on Earth?”

“That would be an understatement. I don’t know if my parents are still alive, but I had siblings to spare when I left home.” He paused, looking down at the floor. “I really haven’t looked back since I left.”

“Why not?” To Omar family was everything. He’d been without a family for so long that Myles’ attitude just seemed wrong. “How could you just abandon your family?”

“I don’t think of it as abandoning them. We were in a small town where nothing ever happened. It was a boring life. When I was a teen, the mayor’s daughter, Julie, and I became close friends. We stayed up to all hours of the night talking on the phone about philosophy, religion, politics, and the idiotic social trappings of the teenage life in high school. To me, she was the world. She was not only extremely smart, but she was beautiful and kind.”

Omar thought briefly of Sasha. “You know, I have never understood women. I’ve stayed away from the ones I was attracted to. I find that attractive women only distract me or scare me.”

Myles slapped his hand on his knee. “You certainly have more self-control than I do, Doc. I tend to gravitate towards women that are the worst kind of trouble. I just can’t resist them.”