The Reality Bug (22 page)

The two cowboys rode us over to a wagon where they had two more horses hitched. While they saddled up the fresh horses, they explained that they were bringing in the herd for the winter, and often stayed up in the mountains for weeks at a time. That's why they had four horses. If one got hurt, they didn't want to have to go back into town to get a replacement. They said that they were nearly done for the season, so they wouldn't mind lending us these two. They told us to leave them with the blacksmith in town. They'd be down in a few days to pick them up.

Man, these guys were pretty trusting. But then again, this was Dr. Zetlin's fantasy. Maybe he only put trustworthy people into his jumps.

I had ridden horses a couple of times, at summer camp. So I was comfortable enough to mount up and trot along. But I wasn't sure about Loor. Did she know how to ride? The answer came when Loor jumped up on her horse like a pro, tugged the reigns, and got her horse to spin in a circle one way, then the other. Show-off. I should have known.

“Follow the worn trail down out of the pass,” the first cowboy explained. “It's pretty well traveled; you won't miss it. You should reach town before sunset.”

“Thank you,” Loor said.

“Yeah,” I added. “You really saved us.”

“Aw, heck,” the second cowboy said. “It's the least we could do for nearly getting you killed back there.”

After a few more thank-yous, Loor and I were on our way to town. It was an awesome ride. The slope was gentle, the air was warm, and the countryside was spectacular.

Loor didn't look half bad, either. Ever since I first met Loor, I had been trying to prove myself to her. She was an athlete and a warrior. I'd seen her battle guys twice her size and make them look bad. Next to her, I was a total weenie. But she wasn't all about muscle. Loor had a strong sense of right and wrong. She totally believed in the Travelers and our mission. Her mother died battling Saint Dane's evil, and I think that made her even more dedicated. But after all we'd been through, I didn't know how Loor felt about me. Yeah, she was on my side because we were both Travelers, and I know she respected me for some of the things I had done, but I think that's as far as it went. I thought of Loor as a good friend. I think she only thought of me as a teammate.

We had a long ride into Old Glenville, and there was a lot I wanted to talk to her about. I figured this was as good a time as any.

“When I was on First Earth,” I said to her, “things didn't go too well.”

“Saint Dane failed,” she said. “That is all that matters.”

“Did he?” I said. “We saved the territory, but no thanks to me.”

“And how did that make you feel?” she asked.

“Like I never want to let him get the better of me again,” I said. “And I won't.”

Loor looked at me and said, “I know you, Pendragon. Your heart is in the right place, but you have been unsure of yourself, and of our mission.”

I wanted to argue, but she was right.

“It sounds to me as if Saint Dane tried to take away your confidence, but instead made you more determined. If that is the case, he made a very bad mistake, for all he managed to do was bring you fully into the conflict. He will regret that.”

In that single moment, things became incredibly clear. I had been struggling with my failure. But now, Loor made me believe that my weakness at that critical moment on First Earth might actually have been the best thing that could have happened. Any doubt I had up to that point about wanting to battle Saint Dane was taken away. Uncle Press always said that this conflict was about more than a single battle. Heck, even Saint Dane said that. By facing my own weakness, maybe I was now ready for the long haul.

“I missed you, Loor,” I said. I wanted her to tell me she missed me, too.

She didn't. “I will always be there when you need me,” she said. “As I know you will be for me. That is our destiny.”

Okay, maybe not exactly a statement of undying friendship, but it was better than nothing. I guess.

We rode for a long time, mostly in silence. I was beginning to think those cowboys had pointed us in the wrong direction, when …

“Look!” Loor exclaimed, pointing ahead.

I looked to see the tops of buildings peeking up over some trees. This had to be Old Glenville.

“Last one there buys the sniggers,” I exclaimed.

“The what?” Loor said.

Too late. I kicked my horse into action and galloped toward town. Loor probably could have beaten me, but I had gotten such a head start that there was no way she could catch up. A few minutes later, I rode straight down the center street of Old Glenville.

It was a ghost town. I pulled up my horse and Loor stopped right beside me. The two of us sat there in the middle of the dirt street, looking around at the empty town.

Old Glenville was something right out of an old-time Western movie. There were two-story wooden buildings down either side of the main street, with wooden sidewalks and hitching posts in front. I saw painted signs on the stores that identified them as:
GENERAL STORE AND DRY GOODS; BARBER AND DENTIST; SHERIFF; TELEGRAPH OFFICE;
and even one that said:
CORONER.
At the end of the street was a church with a tall steeple that dwarfed the rest of the buildings. It was the perfect little frontier town. The only thing missing was people.

“Here we go again,” I said. “Just like Rubic City.”

I kicked my horse into gear and we walked slowly down the center of the street. I listened for any sign of life, but there was none.

“I'm surprised there's no tumbleweed blowing through,” I said.

“What is tumbleweed?” Loor asked.

As if on cue, a big piece of brown tumbleweed rolled past us. This was getting strange, in more ways than one. I guess I could believe that another territory was just like Earth, but this meant the territory of Veelox also had the same kind of history as Earth. This town of Old Glenville was exactly like a typical town from the Old West in America. Very strange.

“There,” Loor said. She pointed to a barnlike building that was off the main road.

There was a hand-painted sign leaning against a fence that said:
BLACKSMITH
.This was where we were supposed to leave the horses. We rode over to the barn, but didn't find a soul. Even stranger, all the tools of the trade were lying around. There were hammers and nails and coal and all the stuff you'd think a blacksmith used. The barn even had a few horses in stalls, but they were the only sign of life. This town looked like it had been recently abandoned.

We tied the horses to a hitching post near the barn. I was about to suggest that we start on one end of town and work our way down the street, searching each and every building, when we heard something strange.

“Music,” Loor said.

It was old-fashioned, honky-tonk piano music, which is the exact kind of music you'd expect to hear in a Western town.

“I'll bet you a dollar there's a saloon around here,” I said.

“What is a saloon?” Loor asked.

“I'll show you.”

Not that I had ever been in a saloon, but I had seen enough Western movies to know that's usually where the music was played. And since everything about this town smelled of the Old West, I had no doubt we'd find a saloon. So we took off walking back to the main street. The closer we got, the louder the music became. Sure enough, across the street I spotted a sign over a balcony that said in fancy gold letters:
OLD GLENVILLE SALOON.

We walked across the dusty street like a couple of gunslingers headed toward the O.K. Corral. The music was definitely coming from the saloon. As we got closer I saw a set of swinging doors in front. Classic Western. We got as far as the wooden sidewalk and were about to step up, when the piano suddenly stopped.

Loor and I did too.

We then heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor inside, as if someone were standing up. It was followed by the sound of footsteps walking across the floor, headed for the swinging doors, and us.

Loor and I didn't move. Whoever was inside, we were about to meet them. I really hoped it was Dr. Zetlin.

It wasn't.

When the swinging doors flew open, I saw something that made me question whether this was Dr. Zetlin's fantasy nightmare … or mine. Because standing in the door before us was Saint Dane.

He wore black from head to toe, like a gunfighter. On his hips were twin six-shooters. His gray mane of hair fell down to his shoulders, topped off with a black cowboy hat. The demon acted as if he were expecting us. He smiled a yellowtoothed grin, stared at us with those cold blue eyes, and said, “Looks like it's time to liven up this dead little town!”

“H
owdy, Pendragon!” Saint Dane exclaimed jovially while leaning against the hitching post. “I see you brought along your violent little girlfriend. What a nice surprise!”

This didn't compute. How could Saint Dane be in Dr. Zetlin's fantasy? This wasn't like before where he was a prerecorded hologram. This was him. For real. Or should I say, in fantasy. My brain locked.

“You seem surprised!” he laughed. “This can't be possible, yet here I am. It seems as though Aja's Reality Bug has completely scrambled Lifelight.”

Loor looked to me and said softly, “This is real, isn't it?”

“Real enough!” Saint Dane answered for me.

He pulled out one of his six-shooters, aimed it at the sky and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack sounded pretty real to me. A moment later four more cowboys with six-shooters appeared from the saloon. They moved quickly behind us, cutting off any chance we had of escape. These guys didn't look like the friendly cowpokes from the mountains either. The word that came to mind was, desperados.

“Since this is a fantasy,” Saint Dane continued, “let's have some fun.”

He stepped off the wooden walkway and strolled over to us with his thumb in his gun belt. He was enjoying this. We weren't.

“The man you're worried about?” he said. “I know where he is, and I'm going to give you the chance to rescue him.”

I shot a look at Loor. This had just gotten interesting.

“Rescue?” I asked.

“About a mile south of town is a dam. It's an immense structure. Holds back an extremely large lake. Without that dam, this town would be underwater. On top of the dam is a small, stone hut. That's where you'll find him.”

“That's it?” I asked. “Simple as that?”

Saint Dane laughed. “Pendragon, please, is it ever as simple as that?”

He pulled out a golden pocket watch and checked the time.

“Dynamite has been placed all over that dam, thanks to my associates here. In just about, oh, ten minutes, it's all going to explode and things around here are going to get very wet.”

My adrenaline spiked.

“So you're giving us ten minutes to get to the hut and get him out? Is that what you're saying?”

“With one small complication. I'll give you a two minute head start. After that I'm sending my associates here, to stop you. Won't that be exciting?”

Saint Dane leaned down and looked me square in the eye, saying, “You didn't have the strength to succeed on First Earth. How will you handle this little challenge?”

Without thinking, I reached forward and quickly grabbed one of Saint Dane's guns from its holster.

“Nicely done, Quick Draw,” he said, barely showing surprise. “Now what?”

I grabbed Loor's hand and started to run.

“Yahoo!” Saint Dane called after us.

If we had any chance of getting to that dam in ten minutes, we needed the horses.

“What is dynamite?” Loor asked as we ran.

“It's like tak,” I answered. “It'll destroy the dam.”

We made it to the blacksmith barn in a few seconds. I jammed the six-shooter into my belt and we started to untie the horses.

“Does it matter if this town is destroyed?” Loor asked. “It is not real.”

“It's not the town,” I answered quickly. “It's Zetlin. If something happens to him we'll never get the origin code and Lifelight will—”

Crack! Ping!

A bullet zinged off a metal bucket that was hanging near the barn door. It barely missed us.

“That wasn't two minutes!” I shouted.

Either the desperados didn't care, or they couldn't tell time, because I was answered with a series of gunshots.

“Inside!” Loor commanded.

We grabbed the bridles of the horses and ran them inside the barn. Loor quickly closed the big doors. We were safe, but trapped, and the clock was ticking.

“What do those noisemakers do?” Loor said while pointing to the gun I had jammed in my belt.

“It shoots out small pieces of metal. They're deadly. But it only fires six times and they have a lot more guns than we do. And to be honest, I've never even shot one before.”

More shots were fired from outside, shattering a window, making the horses whinny in fear.

“We gotta get outta here,” I said and ran to a door in the back of the barn. I opened it and was met with a gunshot that splintered wood just over my head. To use a cliché Western phrase, they had us surrounded. I ran back to Loor and shouted, “You're the soldier-in-training! What are we supposed to do?”

Loor wasn't panicking, I'm not surprised to say. She coolly looked around the barn, seeing what we had to use.

She then said calmly, “The animals. What did you call it before? Stampede?”

I could have kissed her. It was brilliant and insane. There were about a dozen horses in stalls, plus ours. If we could get them moving together out of the barn, we might be able to use them as shields. I was more than ready to give it a try.

“Get them together!” Loor commanded.

We ran to opposite sides of the barn, throwing open the stalls and yelling at the horses to get out. It was kind of scary. The horses were already nervous because of the gunshots. Having two crazy people running around waving their arms made them even more excited. This was dangerous. One quick horse kick to the head and it would all be over.