The Missing Link (10 page)

"A bullfrog?" The kids were all beaming.

"Yes, a bullfrog. Now frogs are interesting animals in that they're natural plasticators.
When they start out they live totally in water, and they look like this." Zack produced another sheet
of paper for the class. "When they look this way we call them pollywogs. Then they grow big and
plasticate into bullfrogs that can live in water and hop about on the land. They make a great sound
by swallowing air, sticking out their throats and swelling up their eyeballs. An action I shall now
demonstrate."

The kids gathered close, giggling and whispering. Zack squatted and sucked in a great
gulp of air. Then puffing out his cheeks and opening his eyes as wide as he could, he let loose with a
huge belching, "Brraaaaaaaaaap!"

The kids fell over themselves, howling with laughter.

"Zack!" Lilly looked aghast. "Apologize at once."

"Why?" He blinked innocently. "I'm plasticating."

Around them, the room erupted in a chorus of burps and belches as the kids tried to
become bullfrogs.

"Lookit, lookit, lookit me!" Jo-Jo called out. He was squatting on the floor with one
eyeball bulging, and was struggling gamely to inflate the other one.

Some of the kids were running around with bloated throats. Others were hopping about
on rubberized legs.

"Children, children!" Professor Startling called, trying to recapture her class's attention.
"A little order, please."

Zack's demonstration effectively ended that morning's formal plasticity lesson, though
the preschoolers continued to work enthusiastically on becoming bullfrogs for the remainder of the
class.

"That went extremely well," he said, as he and the girls made their way to their next
class.

"Ya think?" Lilly glared. "You're just begging to give Hotspot more ammunition to use
against us."

"Everything we do is ammunition against us. The man hates us for breathing the same
air as him. I'm not going to roll over and die just because he wants me to. Besides, Startling's on our
side. She said it herself. She's never had a more keen group of kids."

"Keep it down," Carole said. They had entered a corridor packed with seniors. As usual
most turned to stare, some with simple curiosity but others openly hostile. Carole pushed through
the crowd and turned into an open doorway. Zack and Lilly followed. The class was already full, so
they were forced to sit in the front row.

The room smelled musty. Every square inch of wall space was tacked with archaic maps
and charts. The many bookcases scattered about the room were stuffed full of dusty scrolls and
texts. Seated at his desk behind a mountain of loose parchment and looking very much like a
crumpled stack of paper himself, Professor Malamine had his nose buried deep in a scroll. He
seemed oblivious to the noise of the room.

Zack rolled his eyes as he slid into his chair. "What useless tidbit of fossilized fact is
Malamine going to choke us with today?"

As if finally realizing there was a class of students waiting for him, the professor rolled
up the parchment and set it aside.

"So class," he wheezed, "I believe last day we'd reached the epoch of dimensional
expansion. Does anyone wish to recap events for us?" He stood, and with his hands clasped behind
his back, looked around. The room quickly became silent. "Anyone? Anyone at all? No? Well
it--"

Carole raised her arm. "Excuse me, professor?"

"Yes, er...Ms. Sylphwood?" Professor Melamine seemed shocked that someone was
actually speaking to him.

"I've a question, not so much about the epoch of expansion, but more about the
transdimensional tunnels themselves. You never actually told us in which epoch they were
constructed or why we started traveling between dimensions in the first place. Did we invent them,
or did other beings show us how to make them?"

Students around Carole began to snicker.

"Your questions are valid, Miss Sylphwood. We assume that multitaskers created the
transdimensional tunnels in order to explore the different realms, but we really don't know for
certain. That is because we no longer know when or how the tunnels were established. Generations
ago there was a great fire which destroyed most of the community, and along with many other
buildings, the Hall of Records also burnt down."

"The Hall of Records?"

"The Hall of Records housed all important documents. It stood at the base of the
Celestial Nexus and contained material so ancient, that even at the time of the fire, much of its
information was recorded in forgotten languages. But those documents were the link to our past,
and when they were destroyed that link was totally severed. Nothing from those earlier times
remains, not even the precise location of the Hall of Records."

"Nothing at all?"

"I suppose its rough whereabouts might still be housed in the historical archives, but at
the most that would lead you to some foundation stones, if they haven't been pulled up long ago for
reconstruction purposes. No, the information is long gone, I'm afraid. Long gone. So if no other
questions, let's begin with the basic realms, those which are visited with regular frequency."

Zack met Carole and Lilly outside the school at lunchtime. "What was that Hall of
Records stuff all about?"

As they walked towards the playing field, Carole said, "Don't you find it strange that no
one knows how or when the transdimensional tunnels were set up?"

"Not really. It's not like we know how they built the pyramids or Stonehenge back on
Earth. Besides, Melamine's class is boring enough without going even farther back in time."

"But it's the tunnels that have defined multitaskers for thousands of years, and yet no
one seems to know anything about them. There's got to be something...maybe even buried amongst
the ruins. We should check it out."

Lilly pointed out a lush patch of grass that was well away from other lunching students.
"Here's a good spot."

Carole sat down, and took her lunch from her rucksack and placed it on the grass. "And
What about all this talk of Hotspot and his cronies wanting to shut down the tunnels? I thought
everyone wanted to be a leaper. Isn't that what the 'Dive of Destiny' is all about? What being a
multitasker is all about?"

"You've been hanging around professor Philamount, way too much Carole." Zack
reached into his pack for a sandwich.

"What do you mean?"

"Reality check. Most non-leapers don't care a fig about dimensional travel, and the rest
are super envious of leapers. Either way, you guys aren't exactly popular."

"Is that why some of the new grads don't want to try the dive?"

Lilly sighed. "Guess you haven't heard that one either. Hotspot has everyone so worried
Zack and I'll trigger another Conundrum, that the council won't even let us attend the
ceremony."

"That's ridiculous."

"As if we'd even want to go," Zack said. "It's bad enough being Seafeather's pet monkeys
at all of his special gatherings."

Carole took a bite of her sandwich. "The first time I met professor Philamount, he said
the entire community was trying to find me and the monobrain connector."

Zack snorted. "Hotspot wasn't exactly thrilled when you crashed his party last spring. Of
course bringing us and a herd of pigs along for the ride didn't improve his mood any."

"That's what I mean. People haven't been overly warm and friendly. So if not for us, do
you think the Conundrum would've ever ended?"

"I don't see how." Lilly said. "No connector and no way to find it."

Zack scratched his head. "Exactly where are you going with all this, Carole?"

"I'm thinking that both the Conundrum and the Great Fire affected leapers the most.
Made it tougher to continue transdimensional travel. And if the Conundrum was no accident, maybe
the fire wasn't. Maybe that's what this war is all about."

"But the fire was ages ago," Lilly said.

"The war's been going on for eons."

"It's not like I want to give Hotspot any brownie points," Zack said, "but Bad Bart
was
from Earth, and bringing him here did trigger the Conundrum."

Carole's jaw dropped open. "Oh, it's so obvious."

"What is?"

"If the Conundrum wasn't an accident, maybe Bart had nothing to do with it?"

"His kidnapping was a coincidence?"

"Or he was a decoy. And if Hotspot was involved, it would explain why he hates you
guys so much. Your being here could unmask the monobrain connection as a big fat lie."

"Except it was some grad students who nabbed Bart," Lilly said. "And they did it after
listening to Professor Seafeather."

"Maybe Hotspot was getting desperate. He could've found out what the students were
up to and rigged the connector to explode when they returned. Maybe he didn't think it would turn
out so bad. Or maybe he didn't care so long as he got rid of the Monobrain dimension once and for
all."

"That's a lot of maybes, Carole,"

"Yeah. I think it's time we found us some answers."

Zack grinned. "What've you got in mind?"

"Let's start with the Hall of Records after school. We can find out where the building
used to be and--"

A group of seniors walked past. Ferdinand Dalimar, the tallest of the group, stopped and
sniffed. "What's that strange smell?"

"I dunno," said Reginald Squim, his beefy sidekick. "Pigs?"

Dalimar tapped his chin, looking puzzled. "No, it's like something's burning."

Reginald sniffed theatrically. "You're right, Ferd, there's definitely something in the
air."

Other members of the group snickered.

"Got it! I know that smell. It's a monobrain overheating while trying to multitask."

A round of laughter followed.

"As I was saying, Zack," Carole spoke loudly, locking eyes with Dalimar, "when you
consider that you two leaped from a fluxing dimension using a damaged tunnel, while most kids
can't even handle Point Puke, it's no wonder they're jealous." She lay back on the grass and closed
her eyes.

Muttering angrily, the lanky Dalimar stormed off, with the rest of his group hurrying to
keep up.

"Sweet, Carole," Zack said. "Not going to win any popularity contests, though."

"Seems every dimension's got 'em. Must be some sort of universal law."

"Oh brother, here comes another one." Lilly was eying a girl approaching from across
the field.

Zack glanced over at the petite teen with short, black hair, and did a double take.

The girl smiled shyly. "Hi Carole. I'm in your Travel Troubles class. I wonder if I might
ask a favor?"

"Oh, yes I recognize you." Carole sat back up. "Amanda...?"

"Amanda Cleroux. I'm doing our latest assignment on the Monobrain Effect, and seeing
as you three are really the experts on the whole thing, I was hoping to ask a few questions?"

"Us?" Zack gaped.

"Don't know as we've any more to offer than what we already told professor Hotspot,"
Carole said. "His crew gave us quite the grilling."

"Not the sort of questions I've got. For starters, I want to know if others were as
successful at resisting the Monobrain Effect? You know back on the Monobrain world."

"Earth!" Lilly said. "Our planet's called Earth."

"What exactly do you mean by resisting?" Carole said.

"Were there other monobrains who didn't get sick? Or perhaps got better on their
own?"

"It's not an illness," Lilly said.

"You mean like some sort of natural immunity?" Zack said. "You're right, nobody asked
us that one. All they wanted to know was how bad it was."

"My point exactly." Amanda knelt uncertainly between Carole and Zack.

Lilly frowned. "I for one, totally disagree with the whole Monobrain Effect thing. It's an
attitude not an illness, and you don't cure yourself of an attitude by taking a pill. You learn a better
way."

"Still you must be immune to the effect, otherwise you wouldn't be here."

"We were just talking about-- Oww!" Zack rubbed his shin.

"Sorry. Foot slipped." Carole smiled. "Yes, we were just talking about how bad it must
have been here at the Hub."

"Oh, I'm more interested in what it was like for you three in the Monobrain realm. Were
there others like you?"

"Of course." Zack said. "Our grandfather was."

"A close relation? Hmm, it's possible you inherited the immunity from him. How about
others not related to you?"

"Hal wasn't related to Carole."

"Wonderful. And were any monobrains actually trying to treat the sickness?"

"It's not a sickness," Lilly said. "It's only a way of thinking. Just not a very good
one."

"Oh?" Amanda peered at Lilly as if noticing her for the first time.

"You counter it, by rising above it all. It's not such a big deal, you just do it."

Zack smirked. "Tell that to Hotspot."

"It's the truth, whether he believes it or not."

"In that case, why hasn't the Monobrain realm risen above it all?" Amanda said.

"Because they don't want to. Because they think they like things the way they are."

"So the Monobrain Effect also confuses people?"

"Yes, it does. Look how you people were affected."

"So perhaps it's a virus that affects our thoughts. Would it be a specific thought, I
wonder, or could any thought become infected?"

"Why does it have to be a virus? Why can't it just be a bad thought, like...like gossip or
something?"

"Maybe we are talking about a virus," Zack said, as if it was a completely new notion.
"Maybe we're talking about an energy virus. Put the wrong kind of energy into a thought and
'kapowie,' it turns viral."

"An energy virus?" Amanda said. "Tell me more. How do you think it feeds on thought?
What exactly would it--"

"I wish you'd all stop treating The Monobrain Effect like some sickness," Lilly said.

"But isn't it?"

"If you want to be cured, think better thoughts. What kind of disease is that?"