His skin prickled, and he swooned as a shooting pain tore through his skull.
Just as quickly as it came on, the pain was gone.
And he was standing over his body.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my—
A flash of green light, then pain, and he was back.
Phew! Back inside.
On the floor, holding his head. Relieved to be back, but just as certain that he’d just been given an opportunity to save the day—
—and blown it.
5.
Mount Shasta
Phoebe raced out of the control center and rushed down the hall. She thought she’d get there first, but there was already an alarm sounding. Guards raced ahead of her, guns drawn. They took their positions on either side of the door.
“Orlando!” Phoebe shouted, just as Temple and Diana rounded the corner. “I saw a flash back there of a gun. Someone firing at him.”
“He was in the room?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. Could barely breathe.
They reached the door together, and when Temple tried it and found it locked, he nodded to the larger guard, who promptly entered an override code on the keypad, then threw the door open.
Phoebe pushed inside, wriggling in ahead of the guards, just slipping past Temple’s reach as he tried to hold her back.
“Orlando!” Emotions raging as she ran inside, her heart nearly gave out as soon as she saw him on the ground, face down beside the empty chair.
“Phoebe, wait!” Temple called, desperation in his voice. Dimly Phoebe thought he was trying to save her from the worst, but it was too late.
“Damn it, Orlando, don’t you be dead, don’t die on me here.” She dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking. Touched his shoulder, squeezed it. Then, reached for a pulse.
“I’m sorry,” Temple whispered, even as his men spread out, searching the room.
“Sir!” one of them called. “A section of the wall here—it’s gone!”
Phoebe whimpered as she touched Orlando’s neck. Her fingers shook so badly she couldn’t tell if he had a pulse or not. Instead, she smoothed back his hair, leaned down and gave him a kiss. Works in the Disney movies, she thought. She bent down. Closed her eyes, heard scrambling feet, men rushing out the room through the newly-discovered exit. She caught a strange but familiar smelclass="underline" of a cavern underground and a fresh stream, clear and pure air.
Ready to feel his cold skin against her lips, instead she gasped as, with a grunt and a rush of motion, Orlando turned and sat up.
“Where’d they go!?”
Phoebe opened her eyes and as she grabbed Orlando’s shoulders she scanned his chest, looking for blood stains and bullet holes.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Now where’s the Dove?” Orlando stood up, taking great heaving breaths as his head whipped about in confusion. He caught sight of Temple, at the strange, arched doorway that had materialized at the side wall beside the view screen. The edges of the arch looked as though they’d been cauterized, blasted through the metal and concrete and seared right through the bedrock into the waiting tunnel.
Temple cleared his throat. “Good to see you still up and about, soldier. Now, before we go blundering in after the Dove, why don’t you tell us what happened here?
Orlando scratched his head, and only now noticed Phoebe gaping at him with a mix of relief and anger. “Wait, are those tears?”
“Shut up.” She wiped at her eyes. “Saw you get shot, so if you’re from Krypton you better start explaining.”
Orlando swallowed hard. “All right, but I’m not sure you’ll believe me.”
“You kidding?” Temple asked. “After what you guys have been through, what we’ve seen? About the only thing I don’t believe in is the Tooth Fairy. But even that, I remain open-minded about.”
“The Dove had me scanning Mars, looking for an end-around to the shield that’s blocking us up there around the Cydonia region.”
Phoebe looked closer at him. “And you got it, didn’t you?”
Orlando grinned sheepishly. “I got something. I questioned whether I could view someone or something else who knew what was up there. And I saw him.”
“The Tooth Fairy?”
“The Dove.”
“So he knew,” Temple said through gritted teeth, drawing the conclusion ahead of Orlando’s schedule. “Son of a bitch.”
“Knew, and apparently had been dealing with your friends behind the door.”
“What?!” Both Phoebe and Temple said it at once.
“Yeah,” Orlando said hurriedly, as he stepped over to the chair and picked up a Twinkie. “Breakfast of champions. Saw a wrapper in my vision, inside Mt. Shasta. I followed one of those glowing orb-UFO-like deals inside.”
“Foo fighters, we call ’em,” Temple said. “Track ’em sporadically, couple times a year they come out, but they never make contact, and before we can engage, they’re either gone or back in the mountain.”
Orlando nodded. “Anyway, I saw another one of these chairs. The Dove’s been down there, a special guest apparently. That’s when I came out of the vision, and that’s when he pulled a gun and shot me.”
“I knew it!” Phoebe said, and again looked at his undamaged chest. “You are from Krypton.”
“No, but apparently the Dove overestimated his allies.”
“What do you mean? And hurry,” Temple urged. “My men are itching to go after him, and I’m itching to see what’s down this tunnel.”
“He shot me,” Orlando said, “but I don’t know how to describe it except to say that time just stopped. The bullet hung in the air a foot from my chest. I couldn’t move, I was stuck in mid lunge for the Dove, and he was frozen with this crap-eating grin on his big face as he pulled the trigger. But then…”
“Then,” Phoebe whispered, “you saw one of them. The Custodians.”
“Yeah, them.” Orlando took a deep breath. “A bald guy with deep black eyes. Unnerving as hell. His head was huge, and at first I thought, holy crap it’s an alien. But he was tall, and wore a brown robe like some Franciscan monk. And he moved. Damn, did he move. Fast and jerky, like in one spot then the next without even taking a step. Like stop-motion film. I noticed the wall, disintegrated. And then this bald dude with big black eyes like I said, he was there. Staring into the Dove’s eyes and shaking his head sadly.”
“Then what?” Temple said, still trying to hurry him.
“Then…” Orlando closed his eyes and shuddered. “And this is why there’s no hurry looking for the Dove.”
“Oh God,” Phoebe whispered, and then she saw it too:
The Custodian, from behind. Standing between Orlando and the Dove. First, he plucks the bullet from the air and flicks it with one motion of his finger, sending it sputtering across the room. Then he turns and lays his large palm with its long spindly fingers on the Dove’s forehead, covering his eyes. “We gave you insights, opened your mind. Chose you to be the messenger, but instead you traded our secrets to the Great Enemy and worse, you sold out your own kind. And somehow you thought your actions beyond our sight?” The great bald head shook, and—from another shifting viewpoint—the almond-sized eyes turned even darker.
“All those things we would allow, as you are a pure spirit of free will. But we cannot allow the death of this one by your hands. So now we must act.”
The hand moved back and the fingers turned inward slowly, as if squeezing a grapefruit, and formed a fist. And the Dove shook, rose off the floor in an outline of fire, then… imploded. His body was rent to shreds, but all self-contained in a central implosion that swallowed up his entire exploding bulk.