“Let’s make it nine.”
Uncle Carl touched something on the side of the scanner then handed it to Uncle Colin, who immediately raised it into the air above Eric. “If you’ll just hold still for a moment.”
A part of Eric wanted to refuse to cooperate, but if they could learn something that would help bring his mother home, then it was worth it. “I’m ready,” he said.
Uncle Colin slipped the helmet-like contraption onto Eric’s head and gave it a nice downward shove.
“Hey!” Eric said.
“Just need to make sure it’s on tight.”
“It’s definitely tight.”
Uncle Carl grabbed the loose wires and began plugging them into an input strip on the front of the workbench.
Uncle Colin, meanwhile, pulled a monitor down to eye level and ran a cable from the back of it to a rectangular device on the wall. He then turned both of them on.
“What’s all this for?” Maggie asked.
Uncle Colin turned quickly and looked around, trying to indentify who had spoken. When his eyes settled on Maggie, he said, “Ah, yes, the friend. Don’t worry. Your boyfriend will be fine.”
“Whoa,” both Maggie and Eric said at the same time.
“I’m not her boyfriend,” Eric said.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Maggie said.
“Okay. Friend of Eric, then,” Uncle Colin said. He flashed his teeth in another phony smile. “And please don’t wander off. You’ll be next.”
“Me?” Maggie said. “I am so not doing that!”
Uncle Colin looked confused by her refusal. “But you have to. You’ve been hanging out with your…friend here, have you not? It is possible, though unlikely, that some of his…” he paused for a moment, “…troubles have rubbed off on you.”
“You mean the Makers could be after her, too,” Eric said. He felt angry with himself for putting his friend in that kind of danger.
Uncle Colin’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “You know about the Makers?”
“A little.”
Uncle Colin was silent for a moment, then said, “As I’ve already mentioned, it’s highly unlikely she’s been affected, but it’s always best to check.”
“Set!” Uncle Carl yelled out.
Uncle Colin moved his hands over the helmet for a few seconds then said, “Set.”
“Should we stand back?” Maggie asked.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Uncle Colin said. “It’s completely harmless.”
Keira raised an eyebrow and took a step backward anyway. Seeing this, Maggie did the same.
“Do you feel anything unusual?” Uncle Colin asked Eric.
“You mean other than my head being crushed by your stupid helmet?”
“It’s not a helmet. It’s a scanner.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Should I be feeling something?”
“Of course not. We haven’t turned it on yet.”
“Then why did you ask—”
“Switching on now,” Uncle Carl announced.
Eric’s eyes moved nervously from side to side as he braced himself for whatever was about to happen. He tried to catch Maggie’s attention but she was avoiding his gaze.
The helmet began humming lightly then started to vibrate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it was just the opposite, like someone was massaging his scalp. He kind of liked it.
Suddenly something started going clack, clack, clack like a piece of paper caught in the spokes of a bicycle. Eric flinched.
“Please,” Uncle Carl said. “Hold still.”
Though the clacking noise continued, it did nothing to change the feel of the helmet — sorry, scanner — on his head. So Eric started to relax again.
“Are you getting anything?” Uncle Colin asked.
“Coming through now,” Uncle Carl replied.
Eric moved his eyes, trying to see what was going on, but Uncle Carl was too far to his right and all he could see was the man’s back.
“Thirty more seconds,” Uncle Carl said.
“Are you all right, Eric?” Uncle Colin asked.
“I guess so,” Eric said.
“Excellent. Excellent. Thirty seconds and we’ll be done.”
Eric tried to count down the seconds in his head, but all of a sudden he was having a hard time concentrating and kept having to start over. Then he couldn’t remember why he was counting in the first place. In fact, he couldn’t remember why he was sitting on this stool, or was even in this weird-looking room. And who were these strange people staring at him?
Where are you? A voice that wasn’t a voice said. It was pleasant, almost like a song. Eric Morrison, where are you?
“Right here,” he mumbled.
He waited for the voice to say something more. It was a nice voice, pleasant, like a massage for his ears to go with the one his scalp was getting.
Sleep, it finally said.
Yes. Sleep. That’s what he needed. Sleep. Just because it was the middle of the day didn’t mean he couldn’t take a nap. Naps were awesome. So what if he hadn’t taken one since he was five? Naps were perhaps the best things ever invented.
Sleep. I just want to—
Why was everything shaking all of a sudden? How was he supposed to sleep when it felt like he was in the middle of an earthquake? He just needed a nap. It didn’t have to be for long, just a little while. If the world would just cooperate, he could be in dreamland. He liked dreamland. Dreamland was where—
“Hurry! Hurry!”
The voice was far away, barely loud enough for him to hear. But he didn’t want to hear it even a little bit. He just wanted to sleep.
But both the talking and the shaking continued.
Somebody please stop the shaking!
“I think he said something.” This voice was closer and different from the first. “Eric, can you hear me?”
“Stop the shaking,” he mumbled.
“Don’t worry about him,” the first voice said, not so distant now. “Someone get the back door.”
Eric wondered why these people couldn’t leave him alone. He just needed to sleep and everything would be all right. Everything would be just fine.
There was a thud, then someone said, “Oomph,” and someone else said, “Sorry.”
“You’re going to have to hold him on your laps,” the first voice said.
Eric could feel his head move lower than his feet, then he was jostled around for several seconds, and finally seemed to be level again.
From somewhere not too far away — everything seemed to be getting closer now — came a loud roar. It was followed by a second roar, and a third, and a fourth, each adding to the other until it was one giant thunderous rumble.
“Shut the doors! Shut the doors!”
Metal slammed against metal. Car doors, or at least Eric was pretty sure they were car doors. Then there was another roar, but this one was nowhere near as loud as the others. This one sounded like…a car engine?
He felt motion again.
“I think we’ve gone beyond an MA813,” a fourth voice said. This one was older, with an accent, a man’s voice. Familiar. Actually, all the voices were familiar. All but the beautiful one that had told him to sleep.
“What’s an MA813?” A girl’s voice.
“We have a ranking system for attacks. MA813 is…uh…was the strongest we’ve ever recorded.”
There was more movement. Just leave me alone, Eric thought.
“Eric. Can you hear me?”
Someone grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
“Hey,” he said, trying to bat the person’s hands away. “Just let me sleep.”
“That’s not sleep you feeling,” the older man’s voice said. “It’s my fault. We kept you under the scanner longer than we should have.”