Free The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" by J. D. Tew Page B

rapidly evaporated in contact with his body,
preventing me from identifying him. When the steam had wholly dissipated, the
being spoke:
    ‘Boy.
Don’t scream. I have only a few moments to explain why I am here. In one minute
and twenty-seven seconds, your dad will run out of that house in his silk
boxers. He will ask if you are okay, and if you were talking to someone. You
will say no. Everything that you hold dear is in jeopardy.’
    The
man briskly hovered towards me, his feet not touching the ground. His hair was
white; long; braided cleverly behind his head. A regal crown floated still
above him. He settled next to me, and said, ‘There are a few imperative things
that you must remember. My name is Zane, and I hold the key to saving this
beautiful rock you live upon. Listen carefully. Was there a boy whom you met
yesterday?’
    ‘Yes,’
I said, my voice tinged with awe. ‘His name is Theodore.’
    ‘Tomorrow
you will skateboard over to Theodore’s house to ask for him.’
    ‘Or
what?’
    ‘Or
on the sixty-ninth year of your life—after years of servitude to an alien race
known as the Dacturons—you will watch as the Earth you live on becomes a tomb
to five billion dead earthlings.’
    ‘This
is a joke. I am dreaming. Ha! That is it—I never got up. I didn’t listen to my
dad, and I fell back to sleep,’ I said, laughing and starting to walk away. I
was soon proven wrong.
    The
mysterious voice beckoned to me. ‘Lincoln, you must agree or the end is
inevitable for all of us and all the multiverse. You will pretend that this
meeting didn’t happen. You will tell no one of our encounter, and if you do,
you will never see or hear from me again. Moreover, the fate that I have presented
to you is real, and must be avoided at all costs. Do we have an understanding?’
    ‘I
guess. What are you?’ I asked.
    ‘I
am like you—one citizen of the universe preventing a future that is
unthinkable. An evil has risen, and his name is Odion. He is my evil brother.
We are both Omnians. He has intentions of destroying everything with his
Dacturon army.’
    ‘Can
you speak English, please?’
    He
ignored my plea. ‘There is one last thing before I go. There is a boy named
Travis who has already been visited by the Dacturons. He is the only remaining
link to Theodore after Jason’s death. They are using him for something that
Theodore has or knows about. We have not figured out what they are after, but I
need you to find out what it is, and keep Theodore away from Travis at all
costs. I must go!’
    Around
him, a whirl of matter, oblivious to me at the time, formed a type of portable
jet and in a bluish brilliance, he rocketed into the atmosphere from which he
had come crashing down earlier.
    ‘Lincoln,
are you okay? Were you talking to someone out here?’ my dad asked from the
deck, in his red silk boxers.
    I
rubbed my eyes and scratched my head, because the supreme being that stood
before me was real. I realized that if I believed this joker, I had a starring
role in the future that Zane foretold. I answered my dad by saying, ‘No.’
    “The
bus would arrive to deliver me to piano camp, but it would leave without me. I
would be bound to that crucial meeting with Theodore by my fear of the world’s
end and what a joke it has been. I am done! That is it!”
    No
one responds.
    I
realize that, once again, I have never hated anyone more than the warden of
this prison.
     

6
theodore: weird science
     
     
    “Open
request! Prisoner eight-six-seven-five. Guns are hot, requesting permission to
deliver the warden’s message—over,” the guard says.
    The
guard has the speaker on his communicator up loud enough for me to hear the
response: “Permission granted—over.”
    “Prisoner!
Assume the static position!”
    I
hear my vault opening. It sounds hydraulic and in need of maintenance.
    “Prisoner,
the warden wishes for me to relay this message—”
    The
veteran guard from a day ago shouts, “Get on with it