It had a pulse. Held against Alistair’s chest, the atlas throbbed, sending tiny vibrations through his ribs. It was a bit disconcerting. It was a bit comforting. This thing was a fortune-teller too, one of incalculable value.
“You gotta go. Pronto. Before Dot wakes up,” Chip said, grabbing Alistair by the shoulders and moving him to the door. But when Chip dialed the code, the door drew open and revealed Dot standing on the other side.
Hands on hips, she said, “Top of the morning.”
“Oh … hello,” Chip responded with a sigh.
When she spotted the book under Alistair’s arm, her reply was written all over her wince: You big dopes.
“You know I’m right,” Chip said. “This is his destiny.”
“There’s no such thing,” she said. “There are probabilities. You don’t know who Alistair really is. What he’s likely to do. We have to learn that first.”
Alistair was sick of them talking about him as if he weren’t there, and he saw little point in hiding the truth from them anymore. Their goals were ultimately the same. “If it’s not my destiny, then it’s my responsibility,” he said.
“What in the sam heck is that supposed to mean?” Dot asked.
“I came to Aquavania through Fiona Loomis’s portal,” Alistair explained. “I stumbled in here, like all swimmers apparently. But I’m pretty sure there was once a portal that was meant for me. I was six. My goldfish died. I buried it in the backyard. My friend Charlie slept over. That night, I heard a voice coming from the water in the goldfish bowl. The bowl disappeared and the water hung there. I ignored it. Charlie obviously didn’t. He used my portal.”
“Okay…” Chip mumbled. “So you’re saying there’s some swimmer named Charlie out there? So?”
“No,” Alistair said, easing open his hands, which had been clenched into fists. “I’m saying that Charlie is the Whisper, that I know the Whisper. I don’t know why he is, or how he is, but I know that he is. And I’m going to find him and stop him. It’s my responsibility.”
It felt good to get that off his chest, but only for a moment. The posture of disgust that possessed Dot’s body negated any sense of relief. “You had a portal?” she asked, her voice flirting with anger. “And the person who went through it became the Whisper? You’re sure of this?”
Dot’s fingers curled, just a little bit. Remembering her iron grip, Alistair stepped backward and asked, “Why should it matter who the portal was meant for?”
“Unfortunately, in this case, it kinda does,” Chip said through his teeth.
Dot tapped her fingers on her hip, along the jumpsuit’s white curlicues. She took a step, a slow one, a careful one, and with her eyes locked on Alistair she said, “You need to stay.” There was more than anger in her voice now, more than insistence. This wasn’t a conversation anymore.
Once again, the instinct to run was strong, but where would Alistair go? If he really was in a space station, then there probably weren’t lakes or ponds or obvious gateways. That’s when he remembered the atlas under his arm. Did he have the time to steal a glance, to scout out an exit?
As he opened it, Dot grabbed one of the white curlicues on her jumpsuit and peeled it off. Flicking her wrist, she snapped it like a whip, and it stretched out and wrapped around Alistair’s arms and chest. It had become a lasso, glowing, buzzing, and holding him tight.
“Don’t be foolish,” Dot said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You’re right.” Alistair grimaced as he struggled to free himself. “But I don’t know what you’re doing either.”
“Helping you,” Dot replied. “Don’t force me to take more drastic measures.”
All the while, Chip was standing to the side and mouthing something to Alistair. It looked like nine, eight, seven …
“I should be free to leave,” Alistair said. “I’m a swimmer.”
“That’s not all you are,” Dot said. “We have to run a few more tests.”
… one, zero went Chip’s mouth as he peeled off his racing stripe, balled it up, and bounced it off the floor. This time it didn’t ricochet around the room. It struck Dot’s lasso and cut it in half. The lasso fell limp, like a decapitated snake, and Alistair could move again.
“He’s a candidate, Chip!” Dot yelled. “We don’t know what he’s capable—”
“So you want to hard-boil his brain?” Chip barked back. “Because I know that’s what you’ll end up doing when all the data come in. And where will that get us?”
“It will keep us here. It will keep us safe.”
“No,” Chip replied. “It will keep the Whisper safe. I’m done looking. This kid will have to do!”
Like a linebacker, Chip lowered a shoulder and plowed into Alistair, picking him up and pushing him past Dot. Dot fell to the ground as the two boys crashed into the hallway. “Yellow polka-dot egg,” Chip whispered into Alistair’s ear. “Cow. Chicken. Goat. Goat. Pig. Rabbit.”
Then Chip let go of him and skittered on hands and knees back into the room, jumped up, and sealed the door behind him, leaving Alistair alone in the hall. Dot’s screams were muffled, but still audible. “Last straw, Chip! We’re done! He’s not worth it!”
At one end of the hallway was the gallery. At the other end, the unknown. With the atlas tucked under his arm, Alistair hustled into the unknown. Doors flanked him on both sides. They had porthole-style windows with columns of light blasting out of them. Alistair paused and pressed his face against the window on the first door. Behind it, little green men with antennae worked wrenches and screwdrivers on some elaborate bit of machinery. Alistair pushed on the door, but it didn’t move. There was a dial next to it, but he had no idea what the code was.
Yellow polka-dot egg?
Nothing resembling an egg was in sight. He moved on to the next door.
Behind this one there were three cages. In each cage there was an elephantine creature. They were elephantine because they looked like elephants, but they clearly weren’t elephants. They had three trunks instead of one and sprouting from their heads were enormous antlers, which they ran back and forth across the bars of the cage like prisoners rattling cups.
Yellow polka-dot egg?
Nothing. He moved on.
Another door, another strange scene. This room was filled with water. It was like looking into an aquarium. Except instead of fish, there were glowing neon discs that spun and swam and bounced off of one another like billiard balls.
Yellow polka-dot egg?
Chip’s words still made no sense, until Alistair had passed all the doors. Farther along, nested in the walls, were eggs as big as cars and colored as if for Easter. A blue egg with pink stripes. A solid green one. A tie-dyed egg. A black and white one. An egg with yellow polka dots.
He stopped. It was suddenly dead quiet. He considered knocking on this last egg, like knocking on a door, but he wasn’t sure if that might crack it. All Chip had said was yellow polka-dot egg and then a bunch of animals. What were the animals again?
Cow. Chicken. Goat. Goat. Pig. Rabbit.
Alistair said the words to himself over and over, like a phone number he wanted to remember. Though he had no idea why he needed to remember them. He’d found the egg, but there weren’t any animals around. He would have seen them. He would have heard them. He would have smelled them. The hallway was completely empty.
Except for Dot.
“Alistair! Don’t!”
She had gotten past Chip and through the door. Loose-limbed, she rushed toward Alistair like a traveler chasing down a departing train.
Screw it, eggs are meant to be cracked.
He made a fist.
He thrust it forward.
And … nothing.
Instead of breaking the shell, it went straight through it. The egg wasn’t solid; it was a hologram with a thin force field around it. Sticking his hand through the force field was like sticking his hand out of the open window of a speeding car. There was resistance, but not enough to hold him back.
Cow. Chicken. Goat. Goat. Pig. Rabbit.
Running, fighting, surrendering—all those options were off the table. The only thing Alistair could think to do was to step inside of the egg and hope his next move would become clear. So that’s what he did.
The force field pulled him in, held him up, and cradled him, suspended him in the air as if he were the yolk. There had been no seeing through the eggshell from the outside, but from the inside Alistair could now see out. Not clearly, but enough, like looking through a sheer curtain.
The egg had been hiding something. On a sleek metallic wall behind it, there was a control panel full of buttons. Some were marked with numbers, some with letters, some with pictures, including drawings of animals. A camel. A snake. A little monkey with big ears.
Cow.
He reached through the force field and pressed a button with a cow on it, and like an infant’s toy, it emitted a moooooo.
“Alistair! Chip was being foolish! You’re being foolish!” Dot’s voice was getting louder. She was getting closer.
Chicken.
He pressed a button with a chicken on it, and predictably, it responded with a bock, bock, bugock!
“You won’t survive out there,” came Dot’s voice, now less a scream and more an admonition. “You need to stay. You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll hurt others.”
Alistair refused to respond, wanting nothing less than to be convinced. His decision involved the buttons, whatever those buttons were.
Goat—neigh.
Goat—neigh.
Pig—oink.
“There’s something terribly wrong with you,” Dot pleaded. “There’s evil in you.”
Rabbit—whoosh!
It was instantaneous. Alistair—encased in an egg-shaped capsule, protected by the thin holographic force field—blasted off and out into the dark expanse of space.