The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(32)

His voice was so powerful and clear that my ears rang, and the shining aura around him caused my eyes to fill with tears.

“Then, just like that, he vanished. All that remained was darkness and then nothing, allowing my mind to recuperate immediately with great relief. No sound, nor light, nor thought existed within me—simply nothing. I was teleported again.”

That was a marathon, but it feels great. Pacing the entire time causes me to tire. Thirsty, I take a drink and lie down. My throat is sore, and as I swallow, there is a slight sting. While shutting my eyelids, my weak body pulls me into slumber.






8 THEODORE: A LEAF





“Slowly, I felt the weathered wet wood of a dock below my feet, as I was set into time and place, back to my present. I stood slightly off balance from the teleport, and my vision strained. I was now a changed person. On the outside, I looked like the teenager I used to be, but on the inside, I felt a raw new energy, about to be infused into a brand new consciousness, ready to defend Earth.”

I brought my flattened palms to just above my eyes, because the light was deluging my head with aches. My hands were about five inches from my face, and the Dietons, those speckled radiant white pixels that covered my body, rapidly evanesced.

I lowered my arms and looked up toward the sky, toward what must be Sephera. I knew I could not see it if I tried, but I was newly aware of its existence. While I stared upward, I witnessed what could be described as a giant re-run reel of my extraction from time and place by the spaceship Uriel.

It was as if I never had left the scene of the potential murder by Travis. I stood transfixed, watching the past.

Across the river at the mid-height of the cliff, my body double was frozen in space, and there Travis stood at the top, with his hands extended after pushing me. He almost fell from the cliff, following his rash actions. I was the young man across the river that my body double had observed when falling.

It was a weird feeling to observe an attempted murder of your past self. In that moment, I discovered my formidable opponent’s most apparent weakness. Travis had no control over his raging anger. He was so weak, so spent, that he nearly stumbled off the edge of the cliff. A leaf falling on top of him at the critical time could’ve knocked him off for good. I did notice, however, that he rapidly regained his strength after that brief setback. Something I definitely had to take note of for our inevitable rematch in the future.

In a wild rush of adrenaline, confident that Travis had not seen me, the ‘new’ Theodore Crane, I crossed the bridge back over to the other bank downstream, and dashed through the woods. I had to find the gas station, and I worried it could involve revealing my position to enemies, now that I knew more of their secrets. I really needed to call Winston, the cabby, before he gave up waiting for me and returned to Minneapolis.

As I ran through the woods, a miracle happened. The trees’ branches, as well as the brush, bent away from me. It was if a path free of the brush instantly appeared within a certain radius of my mad sprint. I could not explain it. I suspected it must be the Dietons—previously labeled by Lincoln and me as The Intervention.

I found the highway and paralleled it toward the town. The gas station was at the town’s entrance. I ran at full sprint, and a car pulled up next to me, slowing to my speed.

‘Hey! You need a ride?’ the woman asked. She was trying to yell over the passing cars from her station wagon window.

‘No, do you know how much further to the town?’ I asked.

Before she could answer, I ‘heard’ an audio hallucination in my mind: ‘One-point-two-six-miles.’ I knew the audio was from the robot aboard the Uriel. Apparently, there was no sound from the transmission, so the lady didn’t detect any of my private communication.

As if the woman driver observed nothing unusual, she told me the town was about a mile away. I figured it might only take minutes if I ran. I was afraid to tell her my destination, because I had an overwhelming feeling of distrust. Trazuline had told me that there was an evil smothering Earth, and that heightened my sensitivity toward strangers.

I ran. The carbon monoxide from the passing cars in my lungs and the accumulating lactic acid in my leg muscles weakened me, and I slowed to a stop. A familiar cab interrupted my exhausted breathing, and Winston yelled from the window, as traces of cigarette smoke billowed out past the top edge of the frame. ‘What the hell are ya doing? Com’ere, what are you doing?’ he asked again as I moved in closer to him.

‘Sir, I have to tell you, I lied. I only have one house in Ferndale, and my grandparents are going to be worried sick any minute now—if not already.’

‘What! Get your ass in this car now, you have some explaining to do, where the hell are your shoes?’ Winston asked.

Luckily, Winston stayed in town after I left for the cliffs. On the way out of town, I told Winston that I just wanted to continue my tradition of visiting Jason at the cliffs, and that I was willing to do anything to go there. He thought I was nuts, but he told me that I was a clever bastard and a great friend for what I did.

“It was quiet and tense in the car after our initial meeting and there was only room for reflection, with the presence of a daunting vanilla smell.”

I hear the automatic view box open, and one of the guards presses his face against it. He says, “Hey prisoner, what happened next? I mean, what did you think Zane wanted with you?”