AT FIRST, NOTHING happened. Rick just lay there in the glass box, held fast in the grip of the metallic lining like a caterpillar in a cocoon. He felt sweat beading on his cheeks. He heard his heart pounding, the sound of it filling his head. He saw the glass lid above him fogging with his breath, the Portal Room beyond the glass growing dim and unclear.
Oh man, he wanted out of this thing! He wanted out of here so bad! He knew he could not stand an hour of this, no way.
But then, all at once, something changed. There was a faint whirring sound, nothing more than what a fly might make buzzing by your ear. He couldn’t tell if the noise was coming from outside him or from within him. But the next thing he knew, he felt a faint vibration under his skin. His vision blurred, his body started to relax.
He waited—but nothing else happened. He stared up at the lid of the coffin. The lining continued to squeeze him, continued to hold him.
Then, with a soft jolt, he felt the weirdest thing. Something came loose inside him. There was no other way to describe it. It was as if some inner-Rick had broken away from the Rick-body that surrounded it. The buzzing noise grew distant. The vibrations stopped. He felt the glass lid, and the dim world beyond the glass lid—felt everything, in fact, except his own heartbeat—drawing away from him into some distant darkness. Or maybe it was him falling away from the world, falling and falling, down into deep nothingness.
And yet . . .
And yet, as reality flew further and further away above him—as the nothingness filled his vision—he began to see something in the center of the blackness: a gap, an opening, a cylinder of—what was it?—of light, of being.
In another moment, Rick understood what it was: it was a passageway.
The cylindrical passage hung there in the blackness above him. And Rick hung there, floating free inside his own body. Somehow, he began to understand, he had to will himself through that opening. He had to make the choice to go.
Rick did not know exactly how to pull that off—how to choose to enter the passage—any more than he knew exactly how to choose to lift his arm. He could just do it, that’s all. So with the darkness closing around him, he focused his mind, and willed himself into that spiraling passage of light . . .
There was a swift kiss of noise, barely a noise at all: pfft! He had the bizarre sensation that he was turning into liquid, slipping through the portal like water through a straw.
Then, all at once, his form congealed again. Rick found himself standing . . . somewhere . . .
. . . where?
He looked around him. The first thing he saw—the only thing he saw at first—was a strange purple shape floating impossibly in the air beside him, a glowing three-dimensional purple diamond about two feet high and a foot wide. He watched, fascinated, as the thing glowed and pulsed and turned slowly in midair.
That must be the portal point, he thought.
That was the way in—and the way out. He would have to keep that in sight at all times, just as Miss Ferris had said.
He felt there was more around him. He looked up.
“Oh my . . . WOW!” he said loudly.
He was standing on a little hill, surrounded by the strangest landscape he had ever seen. The color of it—it was wild! The hill was red—a scarlet red so bright it hurt his eyes. A gently undulating scarlet plain flowed down from his feet, and ran toward the horizon, ending in a forest of bright blue trees. Above the scarlet plain and the blue forest hung a low sky of the deepest, most beautiful yellow. Here and there the bright colors seemed to mingle in stirring cloud-like streaks of bright orange and green.
Stunned by the rainbow-like beauty of the place, Rick turned this way and that, gaping in amazement. It was as if he had stepped into a painting or a movie cartoon. He was so mesmerized by the red valley and the blue woods and the streaked yellow sky that it took a moment before something else amazing—really amazing—suddenly occurred to him.
He was standing up! He was! He was standing free. No crutches! No pain! Not even any weakness. He looked down at his legs. He was still dressed as he had been, in a black T-shirt and jeans. But his legs were straight now. They felt fine. More than fine. They felt strong!
Rick let out a laugh. This was incredible! In-crazy-credible! He felt so . . . so good! Better than he’d felt in ages, since the accident. He lifted one foot high and wiggled it in the air, then he set it back down and lifted the other. He hopped in a circle, laughing again, a high-pitched whoop of laughter this time. He began dancing around on the hilltop.
“Whoo-hoo!” he shouted. “Whoo-whoo-whoo-hoo!”
He tucked an invisible football beneath his arm and ran across the ridge, straight-arming imaginary blockers.
“Yaaaaah!” he screamed.
He spun around at the end and rushed back, running till he reached the floating purple diamond.
He shouted, “Touchdown!”
He spiked the invisible ball into the red, red earth. He lifted his face to that weirdly beautiful yellow sky. He lifted his hands in celebration and did a victory dance. He was healed! He could walk! He could run and jump and kick and . . .
What was that?
He stopped. Still panting from his celebration, he stood still. He peered into the distance, over the flowing red plain, toward the line of blue trees where the weird forest began. Had he seen something over there? A movement? He stood, staring. There was nothing.
Then, suddenly—yes!—there it was again. A movement down by the trees. Something—no—no, it was someone—a person!—a man—had stepped out of the forest, had edged out from under the blue leaves into the scarlet grass.
Rick could hardly believe it.
He wasn’t alone!
He squinted, trying to see the man better. The man was waving at him. Beckoning him. Inviting him to come down the hill, to join him by the woods.
Rick started to raise his hand in greeting to the far-off stranger—then he hesitated. Maybe he should be a little more careful. After all, who else could be in this place besides one of Kurodar’s agents? Maybe this dude was one of the bad guys.
But the man near the woods did not seem like an enemy. He kept waving at him, gesturing at him to come, to come down—almost as if he were welcoming him. Rick felt like an idiot just standing there. So, finally, he raised his hand and gave a small wave in return.
The guy just gestured all the more forcefully—beckoned all the more frantically: Come down! Come down!
What was he supposed to do now?
Miss Ferris’s voice rang in his mind:
Do not, under any circumstances, move too far away from that portal point.
Well, yes, but she hadn’t mentioned there would be other people here. Was he just supposed to ignore the guy?
He began to lower his hand. As he did, he noticed for the first time that there were numbers on it—bright white numbers glowing in the center of his palm. The numbers were moving; they were counting down:
58:17 . . . 58:16 . . . 58:15 . . .
We’ve implanted a time image in your palm so you’ll be able to know when the time is up, Miss Ferris had said.
Rick looked up from the numbers, back to the man beckoning in the distance. He wasn’t that far away. He had a whole hour, after all—fifty-eight minutes. That was plenty of time to go down there and talk to the guy, find out who he was, what he wanted, and get back here to the portal point. After all, he was supposed to look for an outpost, right? He couldn’t see any kind of outpost from where he was standing. Maybe this guy knew where it was. Wouldn’t Miss Ferris be glad if he found someone living here who could help him? Sure she would.
Rick considered for one more second. The sudden, wonderful strength coursing through his legs—coursing through his whole body—filled him with confidence and a sense of daring. He was Rick Dial again. He was Number 12 again. What was the point of having all this power back in his body, if he wasn’t going to use it?
“Oh, come on,” he said out loud, as if he were in a huddle, talking to his teammates. “Let’s do this.”
And with that, he started down the hill toward the beckoning man.