Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee (23 page)

WHILE ALL WERE relieved to see the Nagas leave the Black Pyramid, and they were thankful both Ben and Takota were still alive, Jack, his family, and his friends knew they couldn’t celebrate quite yet. As the queen had said, the fiendish creatures had a wealth of information on the Children of the Blue Crystal, and it was only a matter of when, not if, an all-out attack would occur. 

“Jack, I think you should see this!” Pud stood at the computer control and pressed an icon, causing the largest screen to light up with a gigantic map of Earth. Jack recognized the view. It was from a geostationary satellite, and it showed the world in real-time. What he saw sent chills down his spine.

“Look!” Cheyton broke the frightened silence, pointing at a mass of menacing clouds which encompassed the globe. Like multiple storm fronts, many different waves of darkness descended from the sky, shrouding everything in bleakness beyond description.

Ben, groggy and holding his head, saw the screen as he climbed to his feet.

“What’s happening?”

“The Nagas!” Cheyton answered. “They’re after the Children!”

“Jack!” Ayita sat with Amelia. “Do something for her!”

Jack blinked to Amelia’s side and the O/A floated above her head. Her eyelids fluttered. Then she coughed and sat up, giving Jack the happiest look. She glanced at the screen and her smile disintegrated, leaving behind only desperation and fear.

“There has to be something we can do!” transfixed on the big screen, she got up and stumbled into Jack. He didn’t want to look, and when he did, it was worse than he’d imagined. Nagas everywhere. Descending upon cities and villages and remote mountain settlements. From sea to highland to sea again, they had the globe covered, and were zeroing in on their targets with precision and purpose.

“You have to connect with the other Children,” Teresa stood next to him. “Tell them what’s happening. Tell them to protect themselves.”

“Protect themselves?” Jack searched for sense in it all.  “How are they supposed to protect themselves from that?” he looked at the screen. Real-time graphic models pinpointed the Children’s locations in blue, flashing and rolling with data, pictures, geographical landmarks from countries all over the world.

“You can communicate with them?” Takota asked. Bravely, he showed no effects of Argus’s attack, though Jack knew he was in pain.

“Yes,” Jack said. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

“The Call.”

“Yeah, the Call,” Ayita agreed with Takota. She wouldn’t leave Enola’s side.

“What’s the Call?” Jack was confused.

“You know,” Takota told him. “You’ve used it before. Many times when you were in trouble. It’s the connection between the Children of the Blue Crystal and their Tanakee protectors.”

“So all we have to do is contact these children and tell them to call their protectors? Can it be that simple?” Jack glanced at the O/A as it hung in the air next to him, pondering on its power. It pulsed and chimed, sending a message of assurance. It was ready. He asked Amelia, “You wanna give it a try?”

“We have to,” she said.

“Jack!” Ben and Liz shouted in unison. “Hurry!”

Jack held Amelia’s hand and the O/A lit up with vivid purplish brilliance. He saw her body convulse, and when it was done, she stared at him like she’d just felt the biggest shock in her life.

“Ready?” he smiled. She forced a grin.

“Ready!”

Together they sent their minds across the globe, scanning to the far reaches, connecting with the other minds like theirs, sending a dispatch far and wide on the wavelengths of Eteea.

Without reading, Teresa began to speak.

“New friends, hear our voices. You are one of us. You are one of the chosen—the Children of the Blue Crystal. You have the gift, the knowledge of Eteea, and you must use that gift now. But be wary. Evil forces are on their way at this very moment—coming to harm you. However, you are not alone. You have a protector. Each of you has a protector. We ask that you call your protector now! Call for help and security…for your very life is at stake!”

Jack opened his eyes to find Amelia already looking at him. Everyone was looking at him. Teresa. His dad, mom, and sister. Enola, Cheyton, Ayita, and Pud. And Takota, who gave him the worst of the worried stares.

“Did it work?” Takota asked.

“Well?” said Pud. “Did it?”

“Wait,” Ayita shuddered. Her eyelids flickered. She almost fell backwards. Then Takota took a gigantic breath as if he were hit by a sudden gust of cold wind. Pud and Cheyton reacted the same way. Even Enola, as she lay on the floor writhing in pain. They all stared into space with the biggest, most delirious smiles.

“What is it?” Jack demanded. Then he felt something too.

“Can we pick up TV on this?” Amelia pointed to the computer controls.

“I think so,” Pud hit a series of keys on the command panel and the gigantic holographic screen split into many smaller displays, at least fifty of them, with shots of different television channels from all over the world. On most of them were live news feeds, reporters in the streets, pointing up to swarms of flying black serpents, which now had nearly the entire planet inundated. Jack went from screen to screen, watching and listening to the announcers as they detailed their distressed accounts. Mass exoduses at every turn. Refugees streaming from cities. Frantic people on the move. Chaos breaking out all over.

Jack felt a great emptiness in the pit of his stomach. The Nagas threatened the entire planet, and morale in the Black Pyramid hit rock bottom. But one television network had a different story to tell. Pud hooted and gestured wildly, making sure all eyes were on that particular video feed.

The reporter broke the news.

“Details are sketchy, but from what we’re being told, while the city seems to be under siege from these strange and menacing beings, reports are coming in about other sightings. These sightings happen to be…”
the reporter touched his ear and nodded.
“Yes, we just received confirmation, in shopping centers and grocery stores, and even in playrooms, we’re hearing stories of teddy bears coming to life,”
the reporter pressed his ear again and asked someone off camera.
“Is this right? Teddy bears?”
he shrugged and raised his brow.
“That’s correct, folks. As strange as it may seem, we’ve got a teddy bear epidemic, with stuffed animals coming alive and jumping off the shelves.”

“Look at this one!” Pud directed everyone’s attention to another newsfeed. Ben isolated the volume for that one.

“The teddy bears are everywhere, coming alive like real animals, and, believe it or not, they’re doing battle against these strange bat-like beings that have suddenly shown up in the skies above the city. Let’s go right now to some video we just got in of one of the skirmishes taking place.”

The shot cut to a dark, dusty scene in a suburban setting. Houses along a street lined with parked cars. A gray minivan honked and screeched to a halt when a Tanakee, one Jack had never seen before, landed in front of it, splitting the pavement into jagged chunks where it touched down. A swarm of shadowy serpents surrounded the minivan. In a split second, they had the vehicle’s large sliding door open and began dragging a little girl, kicking and screaming, outside to the street.

The Tanakee rose up and pounced on the attacking horde. As it flew through the air, it divided many times over, each duplicate finding a solitary snake to catch and bring to the ground. During the melee, amid terrible confusion and danger, a single Tanakee duplicate corralled the little girl and scuttled her off to safety.

“It’s working!” Amelia hugged Ayita while patting Pud’s head at the same time. Pud frowned and threw open his arms. He would accept nothing less than a hug as well. Amelia obliged willingly.

“Thank Eteea for the Tanakee!”

Jack felt his anxiety stripping away with each new scene of triumph. The news feeds from around the world all told the same story—miraculously, mysteriously, hundreds upon hundreds of teddy bears springing to life, frightening shoppers and store clerks and streaming into the streets to fight off the winged devils. From every corner of the Earth came the news. Remote, tiny republics. Sprawling suburbs. Quiet country hamlets. Densely populated cities. Everywhere Jack looked, he saw the same thing, Tanakee fending off Nagas and sending them into full aerial retreat.

Ben placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder, and his mother put her arm around him. He felt Amelia grab his hand and squeeze tight. He wanted to cry, then felt a tear fall down his cheek and realized he’d already started. Same with his mom. And his dad. All the humans cried. Not the Tanakee, though. Especially Cheyton. He watched proudly, nodding with his chest out and chin up.

“The Lost Tribes,” Ayita said. “They’ve finally found their homes. With the Children.”

“Thanks to Eteea,” Teresa sighed.

“Now what?” asked Ayita.

Jack knew the question was addressed to him, but had no real answer.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Now we have to take care of Enola,” Cheyton held his mate in his arms, cradling her like an infant. Upon Ben’s insistence, they rushed her to the infirmary. There, they found two people already. On one of the hospital beds lay the lab tech, Rory. She was unconscious but breathing, and Jack just knew she’d be okay. In another bed was Commander Klein, moaning and clutching his chest.

“Daddy!” Amelia rushed to his bedside. “You’re awake!”

“What-what happened?” he tried to get up. Ben forced him to lie back down.

“Take it easy, Commander. You got a pretty good shock to your system, there. It’s going to take some time to recover.”

“But-but Argus! He’s got to be stopped!”

“We did it,” Jack said. Takota gave the commander a nod. “We took care of it.”

“I have to make sure! I have to get this base secured!” the commander struggled with both Ben and his own daughter.

“DAD!” she made him listen. “Jack’s right. We took care of it.”

“
Jack
took care of it,” Takota confirmed. “He
is
the True Soul.”

The commander sighed.

“Look, Jack. I’m sorry for doubting you. It’s just that-that Argus had me convinced. I now know I was wrong,” his remorseful gaze traveled to Amelia. “And I’m sorry to you too. I guess I let my job take precedence over being your father,” his eyes dampened. Amelia sat on the bed and touched his arm lovingly.

The O/A followed Jack everywhere he went, suspended over his shoulder, buzzing in his ear. He figured it was time to power it down, and didn’t know exactly how to do it without pressing the button. As soon as he thought it, the O/A’s power source, the Gravitomiton, grew more and more quiet, and then, one by one, Jack’s dimensional duplicates returned to their prospective realms. With the omnidimensional field gone, Jack’s legs turned to rubber suddenly, and his arms became concrete. He would never get used to that. The total letdown of normalcy.

As the dimensional field dissipated, a strange and curious thing happened. To his, and everyone else’s amazement, the O/A faded and fizzled and shrank to a tiny point in the air, then popped into nonexistence.

“What the..?” Ben swished his arms through the empty space where the machine once had been. Pud jumped and did the same thing, his eyes wide.

“Jack! Your machine!” he cried. “It’s gone!”

“What happened?” Takota asked. “Did Argus steal it again somehow?”

“Uh, no,” Jack said. He concentrated, asking the O/A to return, and, with a crack and a sizzle, it did as he requested, floating above his shoulder. “See?”

“How are you doing that?” the commander had the biggest eyes of all.

“He’s the True Soul,” Amelia said. “That’s how.”

“In that case, I’m glad I was wrong,” he smiled. Then he scanned the security monitor on the sickbay wall, surveying the scenes as the last of the Nagas were being pushed back into their dark clouds, their thunderheads, their storm fronts high in the atmosphere. Then all was quiet, as stunned reporters and witnesses watched collectively for the tiny teddy bear-like creatures which, seconds earlier, were seemingly all over the place. Now they were gone, and with them every sign of the Nagas.

“The Children of the Blue Crystal,” the commander sounded stronger and stronger with each new breath. “We have to bring them here, so all the Eteeans can be together.”

“He’s right,” Jack said. “The Eteeans…we need to be together, all in one place. There’s a lot of work still left for us to do.”

“Whatever we do, we have to do it fast,” Cheyton said. “You’d better believe those Nagas will regroup and try something else, and probably soon.”

“That Nagas queen isn’t so tough,” Pud smacked his hand with his fist. “We can take care of her.”

“First thing’s first,” Ayita said. “First we have to take care of our injured. There are a lot of—” she turned to check on Enola. “Enola!”

The bed where Cheyton had put her was now unoccupied. Only a ruffled blanket remained where she once had been.

“Where is she!” Cheyton blinked out of sight and then back again, standing on the bed and sifting through the empty sheets. “Where did she go!” he blinked away again, this time resurfacing next to Amelia. “Do you see anything? Any visions? Anything?”