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Fitzhugh shouted from the back seat, his voice climbing an octave in panic: “Common sense dictates we stop, man! There’s a blazing inferno ahead of us! Are you trying to roast us like Sunday dinner?”
Steve held on to the steering wheel with one hand and reached down to grasp Barry with the other. "Hang on, everybody!" he screamed over his shoulder. "We're going through.
Betty called out, gripping the seat in front of her: “Fitzhugh might actually have a point—we should be ready to jump if—”
The cart rushed into the crackling wall of fire. Everyone gasped as the flames licked over their bodies---but they were cold!
In seconds, they had cleared the wall of flames----untouched, only frightened. Mark Wilson looked back and saw the flames cease, not die down gradually but all at once, instantly---like turning out a light. The tunnel was dark again, lit only by the cart's headlights.
"We made it," Dan said with wonder, "but how...?"
"There was no fire---no real fire anyway," Steve said. "It was all an illusion. It must be something generated by Mendez and the Underfolk. It's their defense system, apparently."
Valerie, her voice trembling slightly, asked, “Is that why it was so cold back there? Like… like the heat was being sucked away?”
"It wasn't there at all, Valerie. Either they can put the illusion right into our minds or create the illusion something like a mirage, something like we might really see."
Dan looked back over his shoulder. "Any more, do you think?"
Steve shook his head. "No telling. Also, no telling how powerful an illusion they can create, too.
Betty leaned forward, her brow furrowed with concern. "You mean anything might be an illusion?"
"I don't know," Steve replied, "but we'd better double-check and double-think every obstacle for a while. Like, if we saw the tunnel totally blocked and thought it to be an illusion and sailed right into the real thing, we could get hurt pretty bad. Maybe even killed."
"Nothing makes sense!" Fitzhugh groaned, throwing up his hands in exasperation.
Now a great clatter rang out ahead, and in the glare of the headlights everyone could see a huge black metal grid descend, sharpened spearpoints across its bottom. The grid blocked the tunnel from side to side, an apparently impenetrable barrier.
"Real or not real?" Dan asked in a shout.
"Not real!" Steve said, and gunned the motor some more.
The cart shot through the metal grid as if it were not there and Dan shot his captain a dazzling white-toothed grin.
"Attaboy! But what made you think it was phony?"
"Too neat a blockade---and nowhere in Metropolis were there barriers like that."
Moments later, the headlights revealed another awesome sight ahead, and both men blinked with surprise and disgust. The tunnel, twenty feet high, was filled with a gigantic rat! It waited for them, its eyes gleaming greedily, its feral nose twitching. The astronauts could see every hair in its dirty whiskers, the gray matted fur, and the dirty yellow teeth---revealed gruesomely as the monstrous creature opened its jaws.
"Hang on!" Steve shouted.
Valerie shuddered, hugging herself tightly. “I have a phobia about rats… I always have.”
Fitzhugh glanced around nervously and whimpered, “May I be excused to close my eyes?”
The cart plunged right into the mouth of the crouching rodent---and on through!
The enormous rat vanished even as they were passing through it---as if, once discovered, there was no reason for it to maintain the illusion.
Steve let out a yell of triumph and Dan grinned back over his shoulder at the empty tunnel.
When Steve looked ahead again, he saw a faint gleam. "Look! Light!"
It grew brighter, moment by moment, as if a cloud were lifting from the face of some sun.
"Real or not real?" Dan asked.
The seven castaways studied the hazy glow as they pumped the handles, and Steve said cautiously, "Uh.....Real."
Everyone aboard the cart exchanged uneasy glances, their faces pale and drawn in the flickering light from the smoldering torches. The strange silence pressing in on them seemed almost louder than the cacophony that had come before. Betty’s eyes moved from one face to the next—Valerie, Fitzhugh, Mark, then finally to Barry.
Her breath caught.
Barry was slumped forward slightly, his head resting limply against the side rail of the cart, the torchlight casting hollow shadows across his face. Betty shifted forward instinctively, crawling over the bench and gathering the boy gently into her arms. He was light, far too light, and still weak—but breathing.
“Oh Barry…” she whispered, brushing his hair back.
Just then, the electric cart gave a jolt, its motor sputtering as it began to roll again—slowly, uncertainly—almost as though stirred by the moment. The wheels crunched over ancient gravel and debris, but the path ahead held. The vehicle crept onward through the yawning darkness of the tunnel, carrying them and their unanswered questions deeper into the unknown.
Gasps echoed through the rattling cart as Barry’s body, limp in Betty’s arms, began to shimmer with a faint, eerie glow. It was like a heatwave rising from sunbaked asphalt—first subtle, then increasingly intense, until the air around him rippled with distortion. A silver haze formed across his skin, moving like liquid light, pulsing in rhythm with some unseen force.
Valerie leaned forward, her voice trembling. “Steve, look at him. His whole body—it's glowing. What is that?”
Mark Wilson’s face twisted in a mix of awe and alarm. “That’s not just light. That’s energy—he’s radiating it. He’s changing, or... or being changed!”
Fitzhugh clutched the edge of the cart, eyes bulging. “Heavens preserve us! Are we about to explode? Somebody—please—tell me what’s happening to the boy!”
Betty tightened her arms protectively around Barry’s frail form. “He’s phasing—his skin, it’s flickering like it’s not even there in places. I can feel him trembling, but it’s like holding smoke.”
Dan’s knuckles whitened as he stared, his voice grim. “It’s like he’s caught between two worlds. They did something to him—those things. Something that’s still happening.”
Steve, still gripping the controls but barely aware of the path ahead, turned his head. His voice was low but firm. “Everyone stay calm. Barry! Barry, can you hear me? What’s happening to you?”
The hum of the motor seemed to fade as every eye locked on the boy, who lay suspended between presence and absence—his body flickering like a failing signal, caught between now and some unknowable elsewhere.
The glow surrounding Barry intensified, the silver mist becoming a radiant haze, too bright to look at directly. The shimmering ripples across his skin became rapid flickers, like static fighting to maintain a signal. Betty held him tighter, but it was like embracing light itself—her hands passed through his shoulders, through his chest, until she clutched only empty air.
“No,” she gasped, her eyes brimming with tears. “Barry, please! Don’t go!”
Valerie reached across the cart, voice cracking. “You can’t leave us now! Barry—fight it! Stay with us!”
Dan’s shout cut across the rattling cart. “You’re strong, Barry! Hold on—just hold on!”
Mark leaned forward, reaching uselessly. “You’re not done here, kid! Don’t let them take you back!”
Fitzhugh, for once stripped of his sarcasm, cried out with desperation, “Don’t vanish, boy! Not like this—not again!”
Even Steve, knuckles clenched white around the wheel, turned slightly, voice hoarse with urgency. “Barry! We came for you—we found you! Don’t let them take that away from us!”
But the light grew blinding. For a heartbeat, Barry was nothing but a shape made of stars, a flickering constellation in the dim tunnel air—and then, as if a switch had been thrown, he was gone.
Not vanished.
Erased.
The space he had occupied fell into silence. Only the distant hum of the ancient motor and the faint rattle of the cart remained. The seat was empty. Betty’s arms were empty.
It was as though Barry Lockridge had never been there at all.
The hum of the motor faded as Steve gradually eased his foot off the accelerator. The battered electric cart, rattling from its ordeal, slowed to a weary crawl. Its wheels clattered over the cracked tunnel floor, then rolled to a shuddering stop. A last puff of dust rose from beneath it and settled like ash.
No one spoke. The silence was heavy, reverent.
They sat frozen in their seats, six instead of seven. Betty still held her arms half-folded, as if Barry might somehow return to them with the same mysterious shimmer that had taken him. Valerie stared blankly at the spot he had disappeared, her lips slightly parted. Dan’s hand rested on the side rail, his fingers slack with helplessness. Mark sat hunched, elbows on knees, chewing the inside of his cheek. Fitzhugh, unusually quiet, simply blinked forward as though trying to wake from a strange dream.
And Steve, both hands still gripping the steering column, breathed slowly, steadily—because if he let the grief rise, it might paralyze him.
There was an empty seat on the back row now, and no one could bear to look at it for long.31Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwcLJGz9vTC
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The white-robed men had swung a replacement unit into position, fastening it to the stub of the tall support, jury-rigging the wiring hastily. Other technicians were running a fast test, and the lights on the control panel for the miniature solar collector glowed green.31Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4RBwsMeE5s
One of the Underfolk ran awkwardly to the egg-shaped Chair of Power and called up to his leader. "Repairs complete, Mendez!"
Mendez didn't respond, but the panels which had lit up when the Chair was activated now flickered and faded out. Another set of lights blinked into brightness, ran through the color spectrum, then pulsed into a steady beat as the computers synchronized.
"Deactivate....." Mendez said in a weak voice.
The high-pitched whine died and Mendez shoved up the dome from his head. He looked drawn and weary as he climbed out of the egg, and two assistants had to help him.
The air nearby now suddenly shimmered, and Barry Lockridge materialized before them. He, too, looked wan, and his eyes were unseeing and blank.
Mendez went to him, his first steps tentative and halting, but then energy seemed to flow back into his body. His eyes searched the boy's face, then he spoke.
"Never leave us, Bar-ook."
Barry's lips moved but no sound came for a second or two; then he replied, "Never, Mendez." His voice was distant and without emotion or inflection.
Mendez nodded contentedly.
