UA7: Brothers in Spirit

 

Chapter 9 - The Legendary

"What can a couple of regular guys like us do that these guys can't do better without us?" Kole asked rhetorically into the air.

"You know, I never really got that hearing was an 'always on' thing. I somehow just assumed that your ears shut like your eyes do when you were asleep. I mean, I knew, but I didn't really know."

"Sorry Ry." Kole said repentantly as he sat on the edge of his bed and turned on the bedside lamp.

"That's fine. But where did that come from?" Ryvan asked in return. There was a chuckle under his words as he looked over from his bed.

"It's just bugging me." Kole said frankly.

"It shows." Ryvan said more seriously as he sat up.

"Doesn't it bother you?" Kole asked curiously as he turned.

"Yeah. But not as much as it bothers you, apparently."

"You seem so sure that there's a reason for us to be here, I just want to know what we should be focusing on so that we can do what we're supposed to do." Kole implored him to understand.

"Before you can get full-on obsessed over it, I need to go to the bathroom." Ryvan said simply.

Kole made a quick hand sign, then indicated the door on the back wall, opposite the entry door.

"It's okay. You can talk. I can hear you now." Ryvan said with a grin as he started toward the bathroom door.

"Yeah. Well, I could talk before. I just chose to sign. Now I'm choosing to again."

"You're weird." Ryvan said fondly, then continued on into the bathroom.

* * * * *

"Obie? What are you doing up so early?" Paul asked groggily.

"There I was, minding my own business, getting to sleep a little bit late for a change, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I felt someone watching me." Obie finished darkly.

"I wasn't looking at you. I've just been over here sleeping. I promise." Paul said defensively.

"No, not you. Your fish. He was staring at me. I could feel his glare from all the way across the room." Obie said accusingly, from the light of the aquarium.

"Yeah. That's kinda what he does. His name is Tipton." Paul said as he walked to the aquarium, opposite where Obie was crouched, staring at the underwater world.

"In some of the places that me and mom and Mike have lived, they had dogs or cats or some of the mousey things, hamsters and like that. One of mom's boyfriends even had a snake, which I thought was going to be a problem. But it turned out that the boyfriend was way creepier than the snake ever was. Bert was alright. I kinda felt sorry when Mom ditched the creep and Bert had to stay there with him. Anyway, I don't think I ever lived anywhere with fish before." Obie finished uncertainly.

"Fish are fun to watch and easy to take care of. Mostly you just feed them and keep an eye on how they're doing. As long as they seem happy, you kind of just leave them be." Paul explained distantly as the majority of his attention seemed to be floating with Tipton in the tank.

"I wonder if Alistair's friends think of us like that." Obie cautiously asked.

"Maybe, yeah. They just put us in our new tank and now they'll probably be watching us for a little bit to make sure that we're going to be alright. But eventually they're going to lose interest or move on to something more important." Paul said speculatively.

"And when that happens, we'd better be ready to stand on our own." Obie said seriously.

"Either that, or we need to be able to do something that's so entertaining or so useful that they can't possibly forget about us."

"Like what?"

"The mirrors in that room might let us look at other dimensions and maybe even visit them... somehow... that is, if the limbo portal door thing and the mirrors work anything like I'm hoping." Paul said frankly.

"I expect them to do something, but I really don't know what."

"I don't know either, but because of the way the mirror over the fireplace worked, I can think of a few things that I'd like to try. I don't really know if anything's going to work. The thing that gives me hope is the fact that they put the mirrors and the limbo door in a room by themselves. It's like them confirming that this is something that we should be focusing on and something that probably won't be a total waste of our time." Paul said seriously.

"If we can find a way to tune the mirrors to look at what we want to see, I'm going to try to find my brothers and see how they're doing." Obie said earnestly.

"Didn't Alistair say that you couldn't do that?" Paul cautiously asked.

"Yeah. But Alistair said a lot of things."

* * * * *

"Son of a BITCH!" Ronny cursed into the silence.

"What!? What's wrong?" Donny gasped as he bolted upright in his bed.

"Somehow this fucking thing got turned on again! I can't even get a good night of sleep because of it!" Ronny said angrily.

"Yeah. They'll do that sometimes." Donny unenthusiastically agreed.

"Now I see why guys treat their dick like it's a whole separate person. When I want to sleep, it wants to be awake. When I want to rest, it wants to play. I thought that it'd be there when I was ready to try it out and that I'd just ignore it the rest of the time. But instead, it's like an annoying little brother, always nagging at me, wanting my attention."

"Yep." Donny confirmed.

"I don't want to have to deal with this right now." Ronny grumbled.

Donny turned on his bedside lamp, then firmly said, "Ronny, look at me."

"Why?" Ronny asked with annoyance, but did as he was told.

Donny scooted out of his bed and stood wearing only his boxer shorts. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband and struck a pose.

"What are you doing?" Ronny asked anxiously.

"Just let me know when your boner goes down and I'll stop." Donny said simply.

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm good. It's completely gone now." Ronny assured him.

"I thought so. It's weird that after years of being chased by people who only care about my looks, all of a sudden I'm so revolting that I can act as your boner control." Donny said flippantly.

After a silence that seemed to go on a little too long, Ronny finally said, "Donny?"

"Yeah?"

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Thanks."

"Good morning."

"Good morning... You know what?"

"What?"

"We're still here. It wasn't a dream." Ronny said hesitantly.

"Actually, I'm as surprised about that as you are." Donny reluctantly admitted.

"I can't say that I'm sad about it. With everything that we've lost, I can't help but be happy about what I've gained." Ronny said honestly.

"All I really wanted was to finally have a place to call home, so I can't say that I'm disappointed by the way things turned out for me. I feel bad for some of the guys who've lost things that are important to them, but as for me, I'm in a good place."

"Obie finding his brother and then being whisked away the next minute is really a tough break for him." Ronny said sadly.

"I'm glad that he decided to stay. He's one of the ones who knows about the camp and the clan. The rest of us are new here and can only guess about what happened before we arrived." Donny said seriously.

"I've been at the camp for a while, over on the girls' side. Considering what notorious gossips the girls are, you'd think that they'd be right on top of everything going on at the camp. It turns out that they know surprisingly little. Even though they have lots of opportunities, they mostly stay to themselves." Ronny said frankly, then added more quietly, "I guess a lot of them need that."

"Makes sense." Donny said simply.

"Yeah, but even if they don't know about the day-to-day business of the camp, they still somehow always know when a cute guy shows up. I never really got to a place where I could hang out and chat with them about stuff like that. All they wanted to talk about was guys." Ronny said frankly.

"That sounds about right." Donny confirmed.

"But since our original purpose seems to be tied up in what happened before, I guess having people who know the history could be important. Or maybe not. From the way Alistair was talking at the end, our original purpose may not be valid anymore. If that's the case, Obie could have gone back to his brothers without causing any big problems for us."

"Maybe, but it seems to me that Obie is an important part of our group dynamic. If he weren't here, things would be a lot more difficult to achieve.

"I've noticed that he sometimes acts like a bridge to Paul. If it weren't for Obie interpreting and explaining Paul's quirky thought processes and obscure references, we might not have as much access to his insights." Ronny said speculatively.

"Yes. And despite his kooky round-about reasoning, Paul has come up with some interesting arguments that never would have occurred to me in a million years." Donny said seriously.

"He matter-of-factly talks about things that I can barely comprehend." Ronny quietly admitted.

"And if that's the case for Obie and Paul, then it's possible that the rest of us have roles to fulfill within the group that we were specifically chosen for that we just haven't stumbled across yet." Donny cautiously speculated.

"That sounds more like 'wishful thinking' than logical reasoning to me." Ronny said in a tone of warning.

"I said 'possible'." Donny said in his defense.

"I guess it's not categorically impossible. So, yeah."

"I'm going for a shower. I'll see you at breakfast." Donny said as he started to gather his things.

"Hang on. Just a sec... I'll go with you." Ronny nervously stammered.

"I'm not complaining, but just so you know, guys usually don't go to the bathroom in groups." Donny offered cautiously, obviously trying not to offend.

"I know. But you saying that reminded me that I need to shower too."

"Okay. But you won't be too grossed out if you catch a glimpse of me naked out of the corner of your eye, will you?"

"If that happens, I'll count it as 'boner control'." Ronny said playfully, then continued softly, and more seriously, "I'll try not to overreact about it. But the truth is, I was kinda hoping that if you're there with me that you can let me know if I'm doing something wrong and kinda help keep me from making too big a fool of myself in front of the others." Ronny said hopefully.

"I don't think you'll have a problem. Besides I'm sure the guys will understand if you do something unexpected. They know enough about what's going on with you not to tease you too much about it." Donny tried to assure him.

"I suspect that we may have different ideas of what 'too much' looks like, but either way, let's just go and get this over with."

* * * * *

"Good morning." Randolph said as Arlo exited their little half-bathroom.

"Um, yeah. Good morning. Sorry if my moving around woke you up." Arlo groggily responded as he padded back to his bed.

"No. It didn't bother me at all." Randolph hurried to assure him, then concernedly asked, "What's wrong? Didn't you sleep well?"

"Too well, I think." Arlo answered honestly as he turned on the lamp beside his computer.

At Randolph's inquisitive look, he clarified, "I slept so deeply that I don't think I moved a muscle the entire night. Now my whole body is stiff."

"Would you like to go back to bed for a while? It might make you feel better." Randolph cautiously asked.

"No. I'm up now. I just don't feel like I'm exactly ready to start the day. Maybe, if you wouldn't mind, we could take a few minutes to kind of ease into things this morning." Arlo hopefully suggested.

"I wouldn't mind at all, but it might be a little more comfortable if you'd come over to my side of the room so that we can talk face-to-face." Randolph helpfully suggested as he turned on the lamp beside his bed. The light was soft amber-tinted in a way that was reminiscent of candlelight.

"You could come over here, if you wanted." Arlo cautiously responded.

"No. Thank you for the offer, but I'd really rather not." Randolph said apologetically, then explained, "Your side of the bedroom brings back some memories that I would rather not revisit."

"It's not about your death, is it?" Arlo asked cautiously as he entered the more subdued lighting of Randolph's 'wood and leather' decor.

"No. I don't actually have many memories of that time in my life. I was quite ill and disoriented at the end." Randolph said distantly.

Arlo settled into a well-cushioned leather armchair facing the bed where Randolph was still reclined, snuggled in his blankets.

"Your side of the room reminds me of the teaching hospital that my uncle took me to visit when I was a small child. I can't attest to the veracity of my memory regarding the walking tour, but from what I recall, it was a nightmarish ordeal that was absolutely horrifying. By far, the worst part of the entire experience was the foul air that permeated everything in that place. It was suffocating and it felt like we were being steeped in it.

"Even though I have been unable to smell anything for well over a century, I can still remember the all encompassing stench of putrefaction insinuating itself into every fiber of my being while I was there. I can almost taste it, in the back of my throat, right now. That visit was the most horrible and disturbing thing I have ever been forced to endure." Randolph said distantly.

"Just so you know, I haven't noticed my side of the room smelling like anything at all." Arlo said quietly.

Randolph snapped out of his distant mental wandering at the statement, then hurried to say, "I didn't mean to suggest that it did. I was simply saying that the cold clinical aesthetic of your side of the room reminds me of that place and brings that horrible memory back to mind."

"Just make sure that you let me know if there are any weird smells or anything else that bothers you coming from my side of the room and I'll get rid of it if I can." Arlo said seriously.

"If such a thing happens, I promise that I will inform you." Randolph assured him.

"I know you said that this isn't how things really were back in your time, but your side of the room is really comfortable." Arlo said as he looked around.

"I'm glad you think so, although I'm curious as to why they would construct our dwellings so that your side of the room is uncomfortable for you." Randolph said speculatively.

"It's a little... clinical. But I think that my side of the room will be great if we've got something serious to investigate or research. It's well lit and free from distractions. It should be the perfect environment for getting lost in studying." Arlo said seriously.

"Yes. I admit that I can see it being well suited to that purpose." Randolph relented.

"Of course, If I wanted to curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book, I'd probably feel more comfortable doing that on your side of the room."

"You will be welcome to do so at any time. Perhaps we should make a point of doing that sometime soon."

"Yeah, maybe once we're a little bit more settled in. But for now, we should probably get dressed and check on what there is for breakfast." Arlo said as he forced himself out of the chair.

"Would I have time for a shower, first?" Randolph cautiously asked.

"That sounds like a good idea. Maybe a nice hot shower will help to loosen up my stiff muscles." Arlo said as he walked to his side of the room to gather some clothes for the coming day.

"Perhaps you're feeling stiff due to the bicycle riding yesterday." Randolph carefully suggested.

"That could very well be. I'm not used to that level of physical activity."

"This is odd." Randolph muttered as he gathered clothes.

"What's that?" Arlo asked curiously.

"These clothes. They're very different from yours, or from those of any of the others." Randolph said slowly as he explored.

"They're not the same as the clothes you wore yesterday?" Arlo asked as he continued to gather necessary items.

"No. Yesterday I wore dungarees and a decoratively adorned undershirt, much like the rest of you. The clothing I now have available to me is reminiscent of the clothing I wore in my former life. It's not like what you normally wear." Randolph said as he stood before his wardrobe to investigate his options.

"I guess since you didn't have any clothes of your own, someone must have decided to create something that you would probably be comfortable with." Arlo said speculatively.

"I would think that they would want to encourage me to integrate with the rest of the group by mimicking your style." Randolph said consideringly.

"Or, maybe they're encouraging you to develop your own style that's a blend of our modern style and what you're used to and comfortable with." Arlo suggested.

"How sure are you that they have a well thought out motive for everything that they've decided for us?"

"Do you think that they're making it up as they go along?" Arlo asked with surprise at the suggestion.

"I'm putting forth the supposition that they may be. I could see them recreating actual things from my former life, but the clothing and furnishings on my side of the room appear to be things from my time as seen from yours." Randolph quietly explained.

"How do you mean?"

"The desk looks like heavy hardwood, but I can lift the end of it with one hand. The clothing is light and airy, made from cloth that is far beyond the technology of my time." Randolph slowly reasoned.

"I guess it doesn't matter either way. We've got what we've got. I don't know if understanding the 'why' helps us at all." Arlo said frankly.

"Do you think that wearing a waistcoat might be too formal for daily wear?" Randolph hesitantly asked.

"It's hard to say. I don't know what we're going to be doing." Arlo said honestly, then continued, "But I think you should wear what you're comfortable with and then, if it turns out to be too much, there's nothing saying that you can't take some of it off when you need to."

"Yes. That sounds reasonable to me." Randolph finished with a smile.

"Good. Then let's hit the showers so that we can get to breakfast."

* * * * *

"How are you feeling today, Teddy?" Jason K asked when he noticed that Teddy's bedside lamp was turned on.

"Worried." Teddy said honestly.

"About what?" Jason K asked as he made his way to Teddy's side of the room.

"Ever since Alistair left I haven't had any visions about what's going to happen next." Teddy said anxiously.

"Are you afraid that you can't see the future anymore?" Jason K asked curiously.

"No. I know that I can if I want to. The thing is, knowing that it's there, I want to look at it and see what's going to happen next, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll get lost in tomorrow. I could lose today." Teddy said seriously.

"It won't start up on its own or hurt you if you don't start using it or anything like that, will it?" Jason K asked to verify.

"No, I don't think so." Teddy said uncertainly, then explained, "But I feel like if I don't try to look at the future, and then if stuff happens and someone gets hurt, it would be because I wasn't brave enough to listen to the warning that I was being given; in a way that'll make what happens next be partly my fault."

"Yeah. I guess that I can see what you mean." Jason K said gravely, then cautiously continued, "I can understand being afraid of getting stuck in something that you can't get out of. But if you got lost inside one of your vision thingies, would there be anything that I could do to help you come back?"

"Sometimes, you do... You did. I mean, I guess maybe that you could."

"Sometimes? Maybe? Do, did, could? How does that work?"

"I've seen in some of my far-away dreams that someone... I'm pretty sure it was you, helped me find my way back. But I've also seen that sometimes when I've gone too far, I'm more there than here, and no matter how hard you try, you can't get to me and make me hear you."

"What happens then?" Jason K cautiously asked.

"I sometimes get lost in what I'm feeling and forget about where I am or what I'm supposed to be doing. I make things worse." Teddy said frankly.

"So, what? Do you space out? Run away? What do you do when you get lost like that?" Jason K asked reasonably.

"I think it's different depending on what I'm feeling. Sometimes I might wander away or do something stupid that doesn't make sense in the universe that I'm actually in." Teddy said uneasily.

"I don't know what you mean. Can you tell me about a time when you did it, so I'll know what to look out for?" Jason K asked hopefully.

"Okay, yeah. There was this one time, I was at Camp Little Eagle, and someone brought this new guy over to meet everyone and as soon as I saw him, I knew that he was a monster who had either killed or was going to kill billions and billions of people... entire civilizations... entire worlds. The only thing I could think of in that moment was that I could save an uncountable number of lives if I killed him right then and there." Teddy said distantly.

"What did you do?" Jason K asked expectantly.

"I tried to kill him." Teddy responded simply.

"You did? Really?" Jason K asked with surprise.

"I tried. If the camp people hadn't pulled me off of him I might have been able to really hurt him." Teddy said honestly.

"Wait. You just got here in the last couple days, didn't you? I never heard anything about you attacking anyone like that." Jason K said suspiciously, then added, "If you'd done something like that, everyone in the camp would have heard about it."

"That wasn't me in this universe. That was me... or will be me, in another universe." Teddy said disjointedly.

"How sure are you that it isn't something that hasn't happened yet?" Jason K asked curiously.

"No. Not to me, anyway. Maybe it can still happen to another me in another universe, but there isn't a thing that goes from my past, through my present, and into that future. It's not for me." Teddy said with reasonable certainty.

"So you can see timelines that you aren't in, too?" Jason K slowly asked.

"Sometimes, yeah. They're like futures that maybe could be if we really tried and worked hard enough. Most of them tie back to me somehow. What I was seeing that time was a future in the place where I was, with people that I knew, that was just a little bit different from the world I'm used to... was used to, you know, back at the camp." Teddy said slowly, trying to put his understanding of the automatic process into words.

"So that guy you attacked, did you end up killing him?" Jason K asked curiously.

"No. It turned out that it wasn't him I was seeing anyway. It was another him. I think that later on the guy I attacked ended up being a hero." Teddy said a bit shyly.

"So the guy you met had an evil twin that you had a vision of?" Jason K cautiously asked.

"Yeah. That sometimes happens... a lot of times, actually. When you stop to think about it, it's kinda weird. Anyway, it's easy to figure it out when we have all the pieces laid out in front of us, like we do now. But when I was there, in the middle of everything, I felt like I was protecting everyone I'd ever loved from the most horrible monster that ever lived." Teddy said earnestly.

"So 'that' you wasn't you you but another you?" Jason K slowly reasoned.

"That's right. But in my vision of him, I felt what he felt and if that was me, I would've done exactly the same thing." Teddy said frankly.

"But you you didn't try to kill that guy, him you did, right?" Jason K asked slowly.

"Yeah. I guess." Teddy said uncertainly.

"That means that you don't have anything to feel bad about. You you are right here, right now and I'm here with you. If you ever want to try having a vision, I'll be here to remind you of which you, you really are." Jason K said assuringly.

"Maybe that's what him me needed; someone to watch his back and remind him that he's not really seeing everything he sees around him."

"How about we go get cleaned up before breakfast. I know that we don't have classes this morning, but we should probably still be ready to do things." Jason K happily suggested.

"I can't even guess what we're going to be doing today." Teddy said frankly.

"If you feel like taking a little peek to find out, I'll watch your back for you." Jason K cautiously suggested.

"I'm going to, but not yet. I think I'd rather go just a little bit longer not knowing what's going to happen next." Teddy said seriously.

After a long moment of consideration, Jason K finally said, "I never realized that there was anything special about having a tomorrow full of unknowns."

"I'll try to leave as many unknowns as I can, just to keep life interesting for us."

* * * * *

At the sounds of whispering, Dylan's eyes slowly opened.

"Shhh. I told you to be quiet. He's waking up now." Jinx said as quietly as he could.

"Who are you talking to?" Dylan asked as he sat up in his bed.

"I'm talking to Johnny. Can you see him?" Jinx asked hopefully

"I sure can. He really does light up against that black backdrop, doesn't he?" Dylan said with a slow smile creeping into his expression.

"Can you still shine your light?" Jinx asked hopefully.

"Yeah. I think so." Dylan answered cautiously as he brought forth some small measure of his personal light, causing Johnny to come into even sharper focus.

"Jinx and I have been trying things and he can see and hear me a lot better now." Johnny said in a slight, whispery voice.

Jinx rushed to add, "Yeah. When I saw him before all I saw was a foggy little blur, hanging in the air. I didn't even know that he was black."

"If you think about it, he really isn't black or anything else right now. I mean, he doesn't have skin, so he's really not one color or another. But as far as the ethnic heritage thing goes, that's really up to him to decide how important it is to him." Dylan said contemplatively.

"Like you being Asian?" Jinx asked uncertainly.

"Yeah. Ethnically, I'm Chinese, but it's not something that I ever really think about. For other people their heritage is a big deal; something to celebrate...or to mourn. It really isn't like that for me. Never has been." Dylan finished with a shrug.

"So what you're really saying is that we're all the same once our skin's been peeled off?" Jinx asked with a teasing glance in Johnny's direction.

"Yeah! That's it! We've figured out how to make everyone equal!" Johnny said playfully.

"We might want to think about that one a little more before we start spreading the word. People might get the wrong idea if they know it's someone dead who's saying it." Dylan said with a chuckle under his words.

After a long moment, Jinx got more serious as he hesitantly said, "Johnny was just telling me about weird things that started happening when we went to sleep."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Johnny was kind of hanging out here, watching over us while we were sleeping when he saw it. Something came out from under the bed. It grabbed a sock that was on the floor and ran away with it. He tried to use his light to follow it, but he wasn't fast enough. He couldn't tell where the thing went. From the way he was talking, I think it really scared him." Jinx finished in a whisper.

"If there's a computer keeping this base clean and ready for people to use, then it makes sense that it would have robots or drones or something like that to do the little cleaning jobs that would usually be done by some kind of cleaning staff." Dylan said speculatively.

"But does that mean that they only come out at night when no one can see them?" Jinx asked curiously.

"They'd probably get in our way if they tried to clean while we were busy making a mess." Dylan slowly reasoned.

"Do you think we'll still have to do dishes and laundry and all the other chores if we got a computer with robots to do it all for us?" Jinx cautiously asked.

"I think that sooner or later we're going to have to make a decision about that. On one side, we could refuse to let the computer help us and we could clean up after ourselves. Of course, as big as this place is, we might end up becoming full time janitors without any time to do anything else. On the other side, we could let the computer do everything for us so that we don't have to cook or clean or do laundry for ourselves at all anymore. Hell, maybe we could even fix it so that we don't even have to go to the bathroom, we can just get a robot to vacuum us out whenever we need it." Dylan finished with a pronounced scowl on his face.

"Maybe being a ghost isn't such a bad thing after all." Johnny hesitantly commented.

"My point is that we need to be grateful for whatever help the computer and robots can give us, but we should also do for ourselves. Us all working together to do the dishes last night was a perfect example of what we should be doing."

"Yeah. I know that's how it should be, but still, having little drones and robots around sounds like it could be fun." Jinx timidly admitted.

"Maybe, when we check this place out, you'll find the stuff you need to do a little robotics work. If you made some drones or robots of your own, then you could do whatever you want with them." Dylan said frankly.

"Do you really think I could?" Jinx asked in wonder at the suggestion.

"I don't know for sure. But this is a huge place and we haven't even scratched the surface of exploring it. We'll make sure to be on the lookout for maintenance closets and storerooms to see if they have a stash of robot parts somewhere to repair our little midnight helpers."

To Be Continued...