4, p.6
4, page 6
‘Wow …’ Alex put it down, continuing his saunter around the room, looking over sketches and notes and maps. ‘Hans said something to me before, about power—power in the ground and that the pyramids are generators or conduits or something.’
‘Perhaps,’ Ahmed said. ‘Even I do not profess to know all the answers to the mysteries of the ancients. What I do know might not be of interest to you …’
‘Try me,’ Alex insisted.
But their conversation was abruptly cut short when an alarm began to shriek, reverberating around the entire ship.
18
SAM
Sam decided that the dockside at Siem Reap was one of the most chaotic places he had ever seen.
‘This makes dinnertime at the Academy look like a picnic,’ Sam joked to Tobias as they disembarked. The gangplank led them to a seething mass of humanity where they were surrounded immediately.
‘Just stay close,’ Tobias replied, trying to stick next to Sam in the crowd of thousands of tourists and locals crammed tight.
There were soldiers too, Sam saw. Lots of them, in trucks and milling about at the far edges of the docks and market.
‘Think that’s a usual sight?’ Sam asked.
‘No,’ Tobias said. ‘It’s because of the nightmares everyone’s having. There’s been plenty of trouble here, just like every other place around the world. Be careful.’
At the side of the river, hawkers for lodgings, porters and tuktuk drivers competed noisily for customers. In among them all, dozens of street children swarmed everywhere. They pushed in between Sam and Tobias, all with dirty faces and outstretched searching hands.
Sam gave what few dollars he had left in his wallet to the kids around him, creating an even more furious frenzy, and followed Tobias to a clear spot in the road, many of the kids still following them, begging with big smiles.
‘What do we do?’ Sam asked.
‘We find someone to drive us to Angkor Wat.’
‘I mean about them,’ Sam said, gesturing to those gathered behind him.
‘Right now, nothing,’ Tobias said. ‘Sorry, I know it’s hard. But the race is for the good of everyone and we have to keep our focus on that. This way.’
Tobias weaved through a crowd of tourists buying trinkets from stalls, and they came to a row of tuktuks with drivers standing by them. Sam looked back and the sight broke his heart.
‘Come on,’ Tobias said. ‘What you’re doing is for them too.’
Reluctantly Sam climbed into the seat next to him. The driver took off, throwing them back onto the hard vinyl seat.
Tobias took a new cell phone from his backpack, still in its box, and put it together.
‘Who are you calling?’ Sam asked.
‘The Academy.’
‘What about people tracing the call?’
‘It’s a brand new phone. We have to check in. Lora, the Professor, not to mention the rest of the last 13 … they’re going to be worried.’
‘I hate to say it, but let them worry,’ Sam said with a frown.
Tobias stopped himself from putting the battery into the phone. ‘You really don’t want me to contact them?’
‘Nope,’ Sam said. ‘Let’s just have one time when we can be sure that we haven’t been followed, that we haven’t been eavesdropped on. Let’s just find Poh, find the Gear and get home quick as we can.’
Tobias looked at the phone in his hands, then put all the pieces into his backpack.
‘Thanks,’ Sam said.
‘That’s OK,’ Tobias replied. ‘Besides, you make a lot of sense. See—you’re more ready for all this saving the world stuff than you think.’
Sam smiled and watched the road bump past them. He hoped that the others would understand.
19
EVA
‘This is where the tournament takes place,’ Lora said.
‘Just up here.’
Eva pressed her nose up against the glass of the mini-van, but could see nothing in the Turkish street that seemed like it might be the place until—
‘Is that an Egyptian obelisk?’ she asked.
Zara and Xavier moved around on the bench seat to get a look as they drove by.
‘Yes,’ Lora said. ‘The Obelisk of Theodosius, the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Tutmoses the Third.’
‘What’s it doing here?’ Eva asked.
‘The Roman emperor Theodosius had it transported here and put up at the Hippodrome,’ Lora said.
‘What’s a hippodrome?’ Zara asked.
‘A sports arena, for chariot races, that kind of thing,’ Eva replied.
‘Cool!’ Zara said.
‘That’s correct,’ Lora said as their van pulled up. ‘Back in its heyday, it was estimated that the Hippodrome stands could hold a hundred thousand spectators.’
‘That’s more than most sports stadiums today!’ Xavier said.
‘Uh-huh,’ Lora replied. ‘And we’re going underneath what’s left of it.’
The Dreamer Doors complex underneath the site of the Hippodrome was a maze of rooms and tunnels that would have once served as stables and storage areas for the sports and races going on above. Eva and her fellow Dreamers marvelled at the history around them.
‘Hey there!’ a familiar voice called out to them.
Eva turned to see that Jedi had set up his computer gear in a well-lit cavern adorned with an intricate mosaic-tiled floor. A dozen staffers busied around him, helping set up computers and running cables and wires in and out of the room.
‘Jedi, what are you doing here?’ Eva asked.
‘Running the show,’ he said. ‘Though don’t expect any insider tips, I’m just supplying the computer grunt.’
‘Nice,’ Xavier said, checking out the set-up.
‘They’re waiting for you,’ Jedi said to Lora, and she nodded and turned to the Dreamers.
‘This way, no time to lose.’
As they went past an outfitting station, Eva could see that the other teams were represented by the colours green, blue and yellow. Her team was red. All had the same type of Stealth Suits. All were hanging up, waiting for their contestants.
But surely one of those colours won’t get used. Not now.
A woman saw Eva’s tearful gaze and smiled knowingly. She slid the door closed as they walked on.
They were now in a long hall that had many rooms running off it, all filled with buzzing staff and students setting up for the tournament.
‘It looks like they’re getting ready for a long stay,’ Eva said.
‘They plan for the long-term scenario,’ Lora said. ‘We could be here for up to a week.’
‘A big operation, no?’ Zara said.
‘They’ve been setting up all month,’ Lora replied. ‘Our quarters are down there.’
Eva looked to where she was pointing, an offshoot from the hall lit up with red LED lighting along the floor.
‘And through here,’ Lora said, the three of them hustling to keep up, ‘is the tournament space.’
The wide double doors were open, revealing a round room with a domed roof. The centre was the size of a tennis court and divided into four segments with tiered seating for maybe a hundred people.
‘Hey,’ Eva said, ‘there are still four sectors laid out, are all four teams competing?’
‘Yes,’ a voice said. ‘Lora, good to see you.’
‘Hello, Zhang,’ Lora said. She turned to introduce the three Dreamers. ‘This is Zhang, the chairman of the Four Corners Competition.’
‘You competed against Lora and Sebastian,’ Eva said, recognising the name.
‘You know your Doors history,’ Zhang said with a smile. ‘And yes, I am pleased to say, the fourth quadrant have sent their back-up delegation. Ah, here they are now.’
Eva watched as three Dreamers from the fourth quadrant, representing the Dreamer Academy that encompassed Asia and Oceania, strode into the room. Dressed in blue, they were clearly all seniors, and they looked at the three newcomers with what could have been pity. Then she noticed another six students heading over—the other two teams, also now dressed in their green and yellow colours.
They look older and more experienced too. What have we gotten ourselves into?
The twelve of them all looked at one another, weighing up their competition.
Eva didn’t feel confident. Not even a tiny bit. But she didn’t show it.
20
SAM
‘The Angkor Wat temple was as tall as the Notre Dame church in Paris, and used as much stone as the great pyramid of Khufu,’ Tobias read from a tourist brochure as they left the outskirts of Siem Reap. ‘But it only took thirty-two years to build it. Big cathedrals in Europe would take three to four hundred years. And every surface is covered with exquisite carvings. They are the longest continuous sculptures in the world. The city of Angkor was the largest settlement in the pre-industrial world.’
‘You know, that really does sound amazing. But all I know is that we meet Poh at the temple at sunset,’ Sam said, looking up at the darkening afternoon sky.
‘Then we’d better hurry,’ Tobias replied, and asked their tuktuk driver to speed up. He put the travel guide back in the holder behind the driver.
The driver did his best to avoid the potholes on the side roads they drove on to the main temple. The main roads were apparently deemed too dangerous due to recent civil unrest.
But there are no soldiers on this road. Not one.
All they could see were a few scared-looking families, fleeing the place in some kind of exodus away from densely populated areas.
They went around a bend in the forest road and slowed.
‘What is it?’ Tobias asked.
The driver pointed ahead—it was a roadblock.
Four guys stood in the road, armed with machine guns and waving at them to stop. Even from a distance, Sam thought that none of the armed men looked like they’d slept in days.
‘Bandits, to rob us?’ Tobias asked the driver.
‘No,’ the driver replied over his shoulder. ‘They take you for big ransom later. This is trouble.’
Sam noticed that Tobias had pulled his dart gun from his belt and kept it concealed behind the cover of the driver’s seat.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Tobias said, readying his weapon.
‘And what can we do about it?’ Sam said. ‘It’s four armed guys against you and that peashooter.’
‘Sam,’ Tobias said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘When we stop, I want you to jump out. Have your Stealth Suit set to maximum shielding, then when they aim at you, go invisible. You got that?’
‘And you?’ Sam said, their ride almost at a complete stop on the bumpy road.
‘I’ll be the one doing all the shooting,’ Tobias said.
Sam jumped out as soon as the tuktuk driver brought them to a stop just ten metres in front of the gunmen.
He ran to the left.
The men shouted and a gunshot rang out.
He paused, looking their way.
Three of them aimed their weapons at him. The fourth was aimed up into the air—the shooter.
‘That only warning!’ the shooter shouted. ‘Stop now!’
Sam looked to Tobias at the same time he heard the now-familiar sound of the dart gun firing in quick succession.
Another gunshot rang out.
Sam fell backwards, feeling the force of the bullet as it struck him.
PFFT, PFFT.
‘Sam!’ Tobias said. His face appeared over Sam’s, replacing the sky. ‘Are you OK?’
Sam nodded, out of breath and unable to speak.
‘Come on,’ Tobias said, helping Sam to his feet. ‘You’ve just had the wind knocked out of you. We have to keep moving.’
As Tobias helped keep Sam upright as he got his breath back, they saw the bullet fall to the ground from where it had indented against Sam’s Stealth Suit.
‘That … was … close,’ Sam said, seeing the four bandits now unconscious on the forest track. Their driver stood stunned in the middle of the road.
‘Close as they get,’ Tobias said, taking Sam back to the road and loading him into the tuktuk. ‘Let’s roll.’
Outside Angkor Wat they stopped at a street market and picked up some supplies. They’d found out that sunset was another half an hour off and Sam relaxed a little.
‘What about weapons?’ Sam asked Tobias.
‘What about them?’
‘Can we get some?’ he asked. ‘I mean, looking at how spooked all these locals are, and the tourists looking like sleep-deprived zombies, there must be something here that we can buy.’
‘Let’s find out.’
Within five minutes they had purchased a real bounty, the sellers providing the goods from stashes hidden under the regular tourist gear. Sam bought a taser, Tobias a knife and they found several flares.
‘Thankfully the place is so spooked,’ Tobias said, ‘that we can pretty much buy anything to protect ourselves right now.’
‘The bazookas must be all sold out.’
‘Bazookas? Meh. I think a tank would have been a good buy.’
‘A tank, yeah, nice.’
Both of them now had a backpack full of food and water, new flashlights and batteries. Still dressed in their Stealth Suits, Sam had turned his into shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
‘Yikes,’ Tobias said, seeing Sam’s new outfit. ‘Reminds me of the hideous shirts that Jedi wears.’
‘I think I copied it from the memory of one he actually wore once,’ Sam said. He was lost in the thought for a moment, then looked up to the sky. ‘Come on, we’ve got one of the last 13 to meet.’
21
‘The Angkor Wat temple complex is the largest in the world,’ Tobias now read from his recently purchased guidebook. He looked up and added, ‘And it’s also aligned on a ley line.’
‘Huh?’ Sam said, not listening as he looked around in wonder. The temple itself was not the biggest in the world, Sam could tell without looking at a guidebook, but it had to be one of the most beautiful. It seemed to be on an island—the huge square patch of land it was built on was surrounded by a wide, square moat. On the island was the main temple building, set behind high walls, and the land outside the walls was covered with lush green trees. The ornately carved stone towers and outdoor galleries were striking against the trees and the water and the sky.
‘Like that dream chamber we were in in Japan,’ Tobias said, ‘Angkor is along one of the most powerful ley lines. There is what’s called a “great circle” that many ancient structures are built on, or at least are within one degree of.’
‘That’s, ah, spooky, I guess,’ Sam said, not wanting to seem uninterested. ‘So you’re saying there’s a hidden ring around the earth that conducts power through the planet?’
‘Is that so hard to accept?’ Tobias asked. ‘Sam, I’d think with all that you’ve learned these past few weeks, that the immense power of the earth would be the easiest idea to accept.’
‘Good point,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, it’s not as far-fetched as being connected through our dreams to the location of Gears scattered around the world, is it?’
‘And being connected to and finding other Dreamers,’ Tobias added.
‘Yeah. OK, so there are ley lines that run through the earth. And people have built on them. Why?’
‘That’s one of the questions that I think the Dream Gate will answer.’
‘Great. A little more pressure.’ Sam looked at the horizon and what was left of the sun. Far off, gunfire crackled. Not a random shot, not the single crack of a hunter’s rifle, but the rapid evil of assault rifles. People, fighting.
Sam was rattled. ‘More trouble—let’s hope it’s not coming this way.’
‘The world is in turmoil,’ Tobias said, pulling out the knife, hiding it in his right boot. ‘We can’t get complacent or be too careful.’
‘I know, but wow …’ Sam stood on the raised balcony of the outer gallery and looked out toward the entrance causeway over the moat. The tourists leaving the site for the day seemed oblivious to any threat.
Did they not hear it? That can’t be normal around here, surely?
Sam looked around, watching as the remains of the day slipped away in the red-orange sunset.
‘What do you think of when you see the sun?’ Tobias asked.
Sam was silent. He was watching that view. Lost in it.
‘Sam?’
‘Fire.’ Sam watched the burning ball of gas, so far away through the solar system, yet big enough and close enough to heat the earth. ‘I think of fire.’
‘And what does that mean to you—how does it make you feel?’
Sam snapped out of his reverie and looked at his teacher. ‘You’re asking how I feel about fire? About Seattle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fear. I’m still afraid of it. Probably always will be.’
They were silent for a while. Then Tobias spoke. ‘How often do you think about your friend, Bill?’
Sam looked to his teacher. He’d been in his life when he’d lost his best friend from school, Bill, in a house fire in Seattle. Sam and Bill had been alone in the house. They’d been trapped. It had been a freak accident but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Sam had thought of him almost every day since.
‘Often,’ Sam said, looking back in the direction of the setting sun. ‘And I think of that night every time I see fire.’
‘How do you feel when you see the fire of Solaris?’
‘Scared.’
‘And Solaris himself?’
‘Angry.’
‘Not scared?’
‘No. Not anymore. I’ve faced him already. I know he won’t kill me, because he needs me. He may beat me to the Gears, to the Machine and the Gate, and that makes me angry, but I’m not scared of him. As long as he needs me, I know I’ll be OK.’
‘But his fire …’
‘His fire? Yes, I’m afraid of the fire—who wouldn’t be? But I also know that he is controlling it, and because of that, I’m not as scared of it as I was when he was simply a nightmare from my dreams. And nothing scared me more than what really happened to my friend. How he must have felt.’
