She pulled Bobby into the living room. The two sat on the couch, facing each other. Bobby looked around the room and smiled. “This house is exactly like I remember it. It’s good to know some things don’t change.” He pointed to the big computer screen and said, “Other than that bad boy. That’s a little high-tech for your dad, isn’t it?”
Courtney didn’t know how to answer. She was as clueless as Bobby.
Bobby spotted something else and said, “Hey! Who’s that? What happened to Winston?”
Sitting in the doorway was the cute black cat, staring at them. It stood up and said, “My name is Doogie.” With a flick of its tail, it turned and strutted off.
Bobby and Courtney sat staring at the animal for a good thirty seconds before Bobby said, “Now that’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Something’s happened, Bobby,” Courtney said nervously. “Something odd. I don’t even know how to explain it. That’s not our cat.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “And it talked. That’s like…not right.”
“That’s not the half of it,” Courtney said. “There’s so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin!”
“Where’s Mark?” Bobby asked. “Doesn’t he usually have the ring?”
Courtney wanted to cry, but didn’t want to show weakness in front of Bobby. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to get a grip.
“I guess that would be the other half of it,” she answered. “I don’t know where he is.”
Bobby looked at Courtney for a good long time. He finally said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like you’ve been through some stuff.”
Courtney chuckled at the understatement.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” she said calmly. “About Mark. About me. But first I want to know what happened on Quillan.”
Bobby nodded and said, “Read the pages. I don’t have the energy to explain it all. After that, we’ll talk.”
Courtney reached for the backpack and pulled out the envelope that had just arrived.
Bobby stood up and said, “Can I raid your fridge? Right now I’m dying for anything Second Earth.”
“Go for it,” Courtney said.
Bobby headed for the kitchen. Courtney watched him go. She was amazed at how powerful he looked. He wasn’t a huge guy or anything. He might have stood just under six feet, but all the training he had done had put a layer of muscle on him that couldn’t be missed.
“Bobby?” she called.
Bobby stopped and turned back to her.
“It’s a good thing you’re here,” she said.
Bobby nodded and continued on to the kitchen. Courtney curled her feet up under her on the couch, and read.
QUILLAN
It’s over. I’m alive.
Mark, Courtney, there’s no need to worry about me, at least as far as the Grand X goes. I survived, but I guess that’s obvious. The question now becomes, will Quillan? I’m going to get right to it and describe the events that happened to me from the time I decided to compete in the Grand X until now. When I’m done with this journal, I’m going to come home. I need to see familiar faces. Let me say that another way. I need to see the familiar faces of friends. There’s so much we need to talk about, not just about what’s happened here on Quillan, but about what the future might hold. For me, for you guys, for Second Earth, and for Halla.
When I told Nevva that I would enter the Grand X, I thought she would be all sorts of excited. She wasn’t. At least not at first. We stood on that street corner after having heard the taunts thrown at me by Challenger Green, and I gave her the news that I’d compete. Instead of being all happy and relieved, she gave me this odd look.
“What?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you want??”
“It is,” she said, but it sure didn’t sound like she meant it.
“Look, you made your case,” I said. “I know what you’re going for. On Second Earth a big game or race or fight can capture people’s imaginations. It’s like the whole world stops to watch and cheer. We have Super Bowls, World Series, prize fights, Kentucky Derbies, Olympics, NASCAR races, and tons more. People root like crazy, even though there really isn’t anything at stake for them. Some people make bets, sure, but mostly they just want their favorite to win because it’s fun to root. But here, people do have something at stake. Seeing Mr. Pop made that clear. If you guys can get the people behind me the way I’ve seen fans at home believe in their favorite team, then I think it can launch something big. It all comes down to the revivers taking advantage of the emotion that comes from my winning.”
Nevva still didn’t say anything. She looked troubled.
“This is weird,” I said. “I feel like I’m convincing you. This was your idea, remember?”
“Yes,” she said, shaking off whatever was bothering her. “You’re absolutely right. You’ve made the right choice. We have a lot of work to do. Let’s tell the others.”
She was back in hyperefficient mode, but I was left with an odd feeling. I knew I had made the right decision, but for that brief moment Nevva looked like she had second thoughts.
“Wait,” I said. “Something’s bugging you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that, I still have this image of Remudi falling from the Tato platform.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’ve been through a lot worse than anything Green boy can throw at me.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. Whatever doubts she had were gone. “This is the way it was meant to be.”
She walked down the street, headed for the underground. This time Nevva didn’t ask me to wear the hood over my head. I guess I had passed whatever test needed to be passed in order to be accepted by the revivers. She led me into a building, down an elevator, through some subterranean corridors, and generally on a twisting, confusing route that I don’t think I’d be able to tell anybody about even if I wanted to. We eventually found ourselves at a cement wall that looked as if a hole had been blasted through it.
“This is one of the entry points to the underground that the revivers opened up,” she explained.
I felt like I was entering an ancient tomb that had been unsealed by archeologists. Beyond the hole were more corridors that eventually led us through a steel door and into one of the underground malls. Waiting there for us was another electric-powered cart. Or maybe it was a tarz-powered cart. With Nevva at the wheel we drove another several minutes through the deserted malls until we found ourselves back at the department store that was the base of the revivers.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We prepare you” was Nevva’s answer.
It seemed like she had been planning this for a long time. There was no question she’d thought the whole thing through. That was Nevva. Her mind was like a computer, calculating every possibility and planning for every contingency. I guess you had to be organized like that in order to juggle three different lives.
The first phase of her plan was to prepare me for the Grand X. That meant a lot of things. For one, the revivers trained me. They worked me over pretty good, too. It wasn’t like the grueling training at Mooraj that Loor put me through, but it was tough. We worked on strength with weights, and agility. We did tons of cardio to build up my breathing and stamina. I ran for miles through the deserted malls beneath the city of Rune. I also did sprints. Many, many sprints. I was already in pretty good shape, but after the time I spent in the underground, I had to admit, I was rocking.
Nevva wasn’t there very much. She had to deal with her job as assistant to the trustees. Every few days she’d come to the underground with news about what was happening with them. The hunt for me was still on. They wanted me for the Grand X. Or maybe I should say. Saint Dane wanted me for the Grand X. He wouldn’t let them give up on me. I think he must have known all along that I would compete. I hated that he was right.
Tylee Magna reported back to me on how the word had gone out to revivers all over Quillan about the upcoming event. I was being talked about as a champion of the people. The buzz was building. Only time would tell if it would get big enough to have the effect the revivers wanted. It was a weird feeling to know that I was being promoted like this. Up until this point, everything I had done as a Traveler was pretty anonymous. That was about to change. Here on Quillan my face would be known to every person on the territory. You’d think I’d be intimidated by the whole thing. I wasn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I was so confident.