THE LONG BLACK limousine traveled smoothly over the curling country lane. Forest stood close to the road on either side, the late autumn trees nearly empty, the stark branches lacing the air with the pale and sinking sun peeking through them.
The massive bodyguard Juliet Seven drove the big car. Miss Ferris sat beside him. The Dial family—Rick and his mom and Raider—sat in the backseat.
None of them spoke. Even Raider had finally fallen silent after jabbering like a squirrel for over two hours. His mother had her arm around him now, and he was leaning against her, half asleep. As for her, Mrs. Dial, she gazed out the window, staring into her own reflection on the tinted glass. Her face looked tired, but her eyes looked excited and bright.
Rick sat next to Raider, his crutches propped on the seat between them. He looked out his window, too—excited, too, in a quiet, satisfied way. He gazed out at the passing trees and at the sun gleaming and fading as it appeared and disappeared behind the branches. He was thinking . . . well, he was thinking a lot of things. So many memories and plans and hopes and worries were flitting through his brain that he could barely sort them out. They flashed on the screen of his mind like random scenes from a half-finished movie. Mariel. When would he see her again? The MindWar. His fight with Reza. His father. Jonathan Mars with a gun in his hand. Favian. His good-byes to Molly. Kurodar’s fortress exploding. His workouts with his training weights. Mariel . . . Would he get back to her in time . . . ?
It had been over a month since he had fought his way out of the nightmare that was the Realm. The first three days after his return were lost to his memory. Apparently, for most of that time he had lain insensible in a hospital bed in the MindWar compound. When he spoke at all, it was gibberish. He did not remember who he was. He did not remember where he had been. He was so weak and wounded that, at one point, the doctors almost despaired of his recovery.
But he did recover—not slowly either, but suddenly, all at once. Suddenly, he sat up in bed. His mother was sitting beside him.
“Mom?” he said.
She grabbed his hand with both of hers. Her eyes filled with tears. “You remember,” she said.
She made him lie down again. He gazed at her face. He did remember. Her. The Realm. Everything but the last few days. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“They thought you might die, so they brought me in. They told me everything.”
He nodded wearily. He was glad she knew. He hated keeping secrets from her. He was beginning to hate secrets altogether.
It seemed to him that the next week or so was one long argument. Mostly, he argued with Miss Ferris. He wanted to know about Mariel and Favian. Who were they? How had they gotten stuck in the Realm? How long did they have before their strength ran out and they died? He wanted to go back into the Realm to try to help them. He shouted at Miss Ferris.
“Tell me what you know!”
Miss Ferris would tell him nothing. She only said over and over that he could not return to the Realm—not yet. The energy pod she had given him would buy Mariel and Favian some time. In that time, they would try to find some way to rescue them. They would try. That was all she would say. The expression on her face barely changed when she said it.
Rick finally despaired of getting anything more out of her. He moved without pause into the next argument. He wanted to see his father. And not just that. He wanted his mom and Raider to see his father, too. He wanted the whole family reunited. The government had no right to keep them separated. He understood why they’d had to keep his work top secret. He understood why they’d had to hide him away from everyone and all forms of communication: to keep him out of the reach of Kurodar and the Realm. But no matter how important his work was, no matter how urgent it was to keep it secret, it was not right to separate a man from his family forever.
Miss Ferris did not change the expression on her face during this argument either, but Rick thought he saw some sympathy in her eyes this time.
One day, as Rick lay in the bed in his hospital room, the hologram of Jonathan Mars appeared. It stood glowing in the corner.
“I want you to understand,” Mars said. “We’ve won a battle, but the MindWar continues. Kurodar escaped the fortress. He’s going back before the Axis Assembly to ask for more money so he can stage a larger attack next time and with more security. If the Assembly agrees, if they give him the funding he wants, the danger will be even greater than before.”
“Yeah?” said Rick sharply. “So?”
“So if we agree to bring you to your father, you’ll have to stay with him. You’ll be in a compound we’ve built for him especially. The compound is designed to thwart the Realm. That means a lot of time there’ll be no Internet. No phone service. We can get you to school, but you’ll need a bodyguard. It won’t be much fun on date night.”
Rick shrugged. “You’ve had people watching us all this time anyway,” he said.
“That’s true,” said Mars. “I just want to make sure you understand what you’re asking.”
Rick considered him for a few seconds. “You know,” he said, “I saw what you did. When you pulled that gun on my dad, I saw that.”
Mars drew a breath. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You were ready to shoot him. Weren’t you? You were ready to kill him right then and there.”
Commander Mars nodded, his craggy face set as always in a frown. “I was. To protect his technology. To protect our country.”
“You’re a patriot,” said Rick.
“I am.”
“Well, good for you. But if you ever pull a gun on my father again, I will hunt you down. I will rip your arm off and then beat you to death with it. Do you believe me?”
Jonathan Mars did not answer for a long moment. Then he said, “Yes.”
“Good,” said Rick. Then he turned his face away and waited for the stupid hologram to vanish.
Soon after that, Rick went home. He talked things over with his mom and Raider. They all agreed. They wanted to be with Dad again. They wanted their family together. They would deal with the problems of living in the compound as they came up.
It took three more weeks for the powers that be in the MindWar Project to arrange the transfer. In the interim, Rick returned to his room. This time, however, he did not close the door and play video games. This time, he kept the door open. And he worked out. He worked his legs. He worked his arms. He worked his core. He worked with weights. A lot. Every day. For hours. It hurt. Also a lot. Sometimes it hurt so much Rick could hardly believe it. When it hurt that much, he would tell himself: Live in your spirit, Rick. Sometimes that helped. Sometimes it just went on hurting. But he kept working out. A lot.
When word came that the transfer to the compound had been approved, Rick drove over to Professor Jameson’s house. The Jamesons had a gazebo in their backyard. Rick and Molly went out there and sat together on one of the cushioned sofas. Molly was wearing a pink knit cap against the autumn cold and it looked great on her. Her pale cheeks were also pink, and also looked great. Rick found it painful to look at her, especially when her eyes teared up. He did not know how long he would be gone. He did not know when he would see her again.
He told her what he was allowed to tell her: his father had been doing secret work for the government; the story about him running off with another woman had been a lie. He told her that he and his mom and Raider were going to join his dad, but that he couldn’t tell her where or how long he would be gone.
“I’ll still be able to get e-mail sometimes,” he said.
“Great,” Molly said flatly. “Nothing I like better than e-mail. Especially when I’m writing to a guy who doesn’t write back. That’s the part that makes it really special.” She angrily knuckled a tear from the corner of one eye.
“I’ll write back,” Rick said.
“You better. You’re on crutches and I’m in great condition. If you ignore me again, I will bounce you around the room like a basketball.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Then they sat there awhile without saying anything. It was hard. Too hard, after a while. Rick said, “Well . . . ,” and he grabbed his crutches. He pushed himself up on his legs—his aching legs. He worked himself down the steps of the gazebo. When he reached the lawn, he turned in a small circle, working the crutches around, and looked back up at Molly where she still sat in her cute knit hat, knuckling away the tears.
“I’ll see you, Molly,” he said.
“Will you?” she asked him.
He said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
She nodded. “That’s an honest answer, at least. I hate those.”
“Me, too. But it’s all I got.”
She nodded. She smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile. Rick turned away and hobbled away from her across the lawn.
That had been four days ago.
Now, the limousine came around a slow bend in the road, and the compound became visible in the distance. It was a drab and unimpressive place: a large dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire around the top. Guard towers with soldiers in them. Soldiers at the front gate.
After the limo passed through the checkpoint, they could see the buildings. There were a lot of them. Barracks mostly. One line of single-story cabins like a country motel. And the central structure—a three-story edifice of concrete and glass that looked like it belonged in some suburban office park somewhere.
Miss Ferris turned around in the front seat and faced them. “You won’t be here too long,” she said, trying to sound reassuring but mostly sounding like her usual emotionless self. “When your father’s project is done, you can all go home.”
Rick nodded. “It’ll be fine,” he said.
“It’ll be fine,” his mother added.
“I think it’s cool!” said Raider.
The limousine pulled up in front of the central building. Looking out the window, Rick saw soldiers in uniform moving toward them. He turned in his seat. He looked at his mom. She looked at him and gave a small smile. Raider’s smile was enormous, gleaming. Still, none of them spoke.
Finally, Rick said, “Well, I guess we’re here.”
And for some reason, his mother laughed out loud. And Raider made a fist and said, “Yes!”
Soldiers opened the car doors. Rick’s mom and Raider got out on one side; Rick got out on the other, dragging his crutches after him. Miss Ferris and Juliet Seven got out and stood by the car.
Miss Ferris nodded at Rick with that blank expression of hers. Rick nodded back. He looked down as he worked his crutches under his arms.
And when he looked up, his father was there.
Lawrence Dial—the Traveler—had stepped out the front door of the central building. He was wearing a homey cardigan sweater over his button-down white shirt. His glasses were pushed up onto his balding head. He was blinking mildly into the light of the late sun, as if he had been indoors a long time and had to adjust his eyes to the light. And he was smiling brightly.
He came forward a few steps, but by then Raider was tearing across the lot to him. He hit his dad hard enough to drive him back half a step and wrapped his arms around his legs and held on fast.
Rick’s mom laughed as she followed after, but there were tears on her cheeks, too. And soon she was wrapped around her husband as well, holding on to him and rocking herself against him. Rick could see his father’s face over her shoulder. He could not remember the last time he had seen his father cry.
Rick watched his dad hugging his mom and Raider. Miss Ferris and Juliet Seven and all the soldiers were looking on, so Rick pressed his lips tightly together, trying to control his emotions—though some of the soldiers looked pretty tearful themselves.
Rick glanced over at Miss Ferris. She nodded at him and gave him something that might have been a small smile. Rick nodded back. He took his crutches out from under his arms. Standing unsteadily, he handed them to her. She took them—but for another moment, Rick held on to them, too.
Rick’s legs still hurt. Every day, all the time. But they were much stronger now than they had been. And, after all, it wasn’t that long a way.
Rick let his crutches go, and walked toward his father.