Into the Woods

1

"Why are we doing this again?" James Edwards looked at his friends. Riding in the Flying Fortress was tempered by the knowledge that they were spending time away from the Bierce.

"It's a punishment to go with the reports we wrote for Mr. Higgins." George Gary looked at him. "Besides we signed you up with Maus. You guys should do fine."

"Really?" Edwards screwed up his thin face. "Maus?"

"You could have signed up with Chuck if you hadn't waited until the last second." George adjusted his sunglasses. "Now he gets Suzy Q as a partner, and you get Maus Lowenstein. Those are the breaks."

"My suit needs me." Jay glared at him. "I almost have it working. All I need is a power source of some kind."

"Take a break, Jay." George shook his head. "You've been working on that thing forever. Three more days won't hurt it since you don't have anything you can use to power it anyway."

"I'm sure there's something I'm overlooking that I can use." Jay looked down at the deck. "I thought about using something like Uranium but I don't have a lot of shielding from something like that."

"Maybe being out in the woods will clear your brain, genius." George punched the smaller boy in the shoulder. "All of this clean air should do something for you."

"It'll give me hives." Jay shook his head again. At least he had charged his phone, and had it with him. He might be able to read on design work while they were stuck in the woods.

"There's more to life than work." George smiled at his friend. "Camping out can be an adventure as long as you keep your head, and don't do anything stupid."

"I would rather be home." Jay shifted on the camp seat. "When do you think we'll land?"

"Probably a few minutes." George smiled. He hated being in the air, but he could bear it if it kept Jay out of trouble.

"I don't think I have ever been camping." Jay looked at the other kids around him. "I think I would be a poor partner."

"Don't worry." George smiled. "Just stick with the rest of us, and we'll go in together just like we did with that weekend race."

"Maus will have to be included." Jay didn't know the other boy well enough to say anything to him, but felt that he couldn't just throw in his lot with his roommates without giving him a chance to hang out too.

"Don't worry." George nodded. "Let's see what happens when we hit the ground."

Flight Man brought the Flying Fortress to a stop and rotated the wings so he could drop the huge ship to the ground without problems. As soon as they were on the ground, he cut the engines and lowered the ramp at the back of the cargo area.

"Here we go." George stood. He looked around for his other friends. Will Whyte and Chuck Biro stood to his left. Suzy Q stood between them. She looked a little green.

"Where's Maus?" Jay swept his gaze back and forth. "We need to gather him up in our group before we get separated."

"Got him." George pointed by the ramp. "Hey, Maus! You're with us."

The boy looked over his shoulder. His expression said he was as happy to have Jay as a partner as they were to have him sitting in for the Kid. He walked like a bear back to where they were heading for the exit off the plane.

Whomever had named him Maus had a sense of humor since he resembled a bear cub rather than a mouse. Maybe they had thought he would stay small for the rest of his life.

That prediction had failed in a spectacular way.

"What's going on?" Maus's brown eyes took in the friends.

"We're going to set up so we can share supplies and stuff." George nodded at his roommates. "We want you in our circle so we can share a cabin with you."

"I don't think we're going to get a cabin." Maus shrugged. "I think we're getting tents."

"We can work with those too." George looked around. "Let's let everyone else get off the bus first before we do. That way we'll know if we have to run, or not."

"It should be a snap." Whyte smiled at them. "We should be in a safe zone free of predators."

"That's what they want you to think, buddy." Chuck worked his arm. He had been stabbed, and sometimes the arm hurt when he was standing still.

"It looks like we're last." George motioned to his friends. "Let's see what kind of disaster we're in."

"Now that everyone's here, let me talk to you before you get your supplies." Coach Higgins stood to one side, mustache covering his upper lip. He wore fatigues and boots to go with his cap.

"This is just a simple camping trip." Higgins looked over the crowd. "You're not expected to do anything but look out for yourselves. Do not go beyond the yellow cones. The woods have things out there that would love to eat you. The cones mark the edge of our work area. Tent halves, stakes, ropes will be handed out so you can set up your tents. Someone will come by to help you set up a cooking pit for later tonight. I think that's it."

Jay held up his hand. Everyone looked at him and stepped away. He looked around.

"What is it, Edwards?" Higgins smiled.

"Where are the bathrooms?" Edwards winced at the looks he got.

"There are no bathrooms." Higgins looked at the students. "You are going to have to look for a hole to use."

"You're kidding me." Edwards looked around again. "No bathrooms at all?"

"Not even a port-a-john." Higgins smiled at him. "Now line up with your partner so you can get your supplies."

George made sure that his group lined up behind everyone else. Maus fell in line stolidly. He probably didn't want to be stuck with a whiny Jay looking for an exit back to the school and having to watch the Flying Fortress take off and head for clear sky.

George adjusted his sunglasses as he watched the aircraft whip away. He smiled slightly. What could go wrong on a camping trip?

He decided that was the wrong question to ask. The question was could he and his friends handle anything that happened?

"No whining." George told the younger boy. "We'll dig you a latrine."

"That does not thrill me." Jay glared back at him.

"Camping is great." Chuck grinned at them. "We'll be almost roughing it."

"Hush." Suzy Q shook her head at him. "You're attracting too much attention."

"We're going to set up away from everyone else, Maus." George glanced at the boy. "We want to make a big tent we can share without causing too many problems with everyone else."

"I understand." Maus blinked as he looked around. "They won't let us wander far from the rest of the groups."

"We don't have to go far." George smiled. "We just want a place where no one else comes around to hang out with us instead of fixing their own tents."

"I understand." The bearish boy smiled. His teeth looked big to George.

The crew got their tent halves, rods, and ropes last. Mrs. Greevy handed each out, then checked them off a list.

Jay took a moment to look at her wide face, and short graying hair. He frowned at the fact the school nurse was on the trip with them.

"Something wrong, Jay?" She kept her voice neutral so only he could hear what she said.

"I was wondering if things were so dangerous we needed a medic." Jay really wanted to be at the Bierce instead of facing the unknown threat of animal life around the school.

"Don't worry." She smiled. "We haven't lost a student in ten years."

"That really makes me feel good." Jay's expression said the opposite of his words.

"Go have fun." Mrs. Greevy waved him away from the table with his burden. "Machinery is not the be-all of the world. Sometimes you have to deal with Mother Nature."

"I would like to leave Mother Nature to herself." Jay joined the others as they looked for a spot that didn't have campers on it.

"I think I see a spot." Biro headed for a clearing at the edge of the cone markers. No one else had set up that way yet. "Let's set up here."

"Let's bring it in a little." George didn't want to tempt fate like Chuck liked to do. "We don't want to be that close to the border."

2

"What do we need first, Jay?" George Gary watched for their classmates. He didn't want them horning in on the action. Higgins would not be pleased at them setting up a cabin in the campgrounds.

"A bathroom." Jay looked around. "Going in the woods is for bears."

"All right." Gary made a face. "We'll do that first."

"It needs to be away from us, George." Maus pointed at some bushes. "Maybe fifty feet."

"All right." Gary looked at the spot. "Let's put up a screen while we're at it."

"We can use the bushes for that." Will Whyte pulled out some chalk. "Maybe tie them together to help with the privacy screen."

"Sounds good." Gary drew a line to mark where he was standing. He paced off the space, then drew a line to mark where the hole should go. He blasted a hole in the ground with a flip of his sunglasses. "Latrine is dug."

"Let's see what I can do about a screen." Whyte wrote on a leaf. It expanded into a small wall. He wrote on more, working his way in a circle around the hole. The walls caused the bushes to bend toward the latrine hole, but that acted as additional camouflage for the new outdoor bathroom. He stood behind the wall and could barely see over it. "It will be hard to tell this is here from a distance."

"We should probably put in a seat to make things as comfortable as we can." Gary frowned. "Also a door of some kind."

"Probably a lock of some kind too." Whyte walked to the front of the water closet. "No one wants to be walked in on while they are doing their business."

"And we have Suzy with us." Gary nodded. "She especially won't like it. How do we do the door?"

"We'll take these leaves next to the opening and make panels out of them." Whyte wrote on the leaves and they expanded into what he wanted. "Then we mark out a section for a hinge-like soft section. Then we glue the leaves to the front of the stall."

He tested the door and smiled when it worked the way he thought it should.

"The lock should be a little easier to do." Whyte picked up a limb. He marked it with his chalk. "Cut this for me, Gary. This will be our lockbar."

George raised his sunglasses. A thin beam of mental energy sliced through the stick. He dropped the glasses over his eyes.

Whyte pulled a stem from a bush they hadn't used. He broke it in half and wrote on the stems. They stiffened into loops that he glued to the inside of the door. He wrote on the stick before sticking it through the loops. A small handle formed. He worked and tested the lock.

All they needed now was a roof and a seat. It would be almost like home. Too bad they hadn't thought about bringing toilet paper.

Whyte stepped out of the water closet. He walked away from it. He smiled. It was practically invisible.

"I just have to make a seat for it, and a roof." Whyte nodded at Gary. "We'll probably have to cut a tree down for the wood."

"We should cut a small one to avoid attention." Gary looked around. "Higgins is going to be on us about our proposed tent when he sees it. There's no telling what he would do if he finds a bathroom in place."

"We'll blame it on Edwards." Whyte smiled as he looked around for a tree they could use. "Let's cut this one down. I'll need you to cut it into planks."

"No problem." Gary raised his sunglasses.

Gary's beam sliced through the tree several times so he didn't have the whole trunk falling over at one point. He dug up the base with one shot. He smiled as he checked the size of it.

"We can use this for a seat." He made sure they could get it through the door. Several beam blasts trimmed it to fit, punched a hole through the center, and set it in a grove in the ground so it wouldn't move.

"Now for the roof." Gary looked at the trunk of the tree. It became several planks under his gaze.

"We'll have to set these on the top of the walls and glue them down." Whyte nodded at the workmanship. "How's your climbing?"

"Let's get Chuck." Gary looked at the top of their creation. "He's better at climbing than the both of us."

"Agreed." Whyte nodded. He wrote on one of the trees. A moon glowed on the wood. "That should make it easier for us to find this at night."

"Good idea." Gary smiled. "We don't want to lose our own bathroom."

"Exactly my thoughts." Whyte nodded. "Let's get Biro. Once we're done with this, we can set up our tents so Higgins will be happy."

"He'll never be happy." Gary humphed at the end of the sentence. "But we will be sitting in the lap of luxury compared to everybody else."

"That will definitely make Edwards happy." Whyte smiled at the irony. Their dormmate never seemed to be happy either.

Maybe that was common on their Earth where they had been fighting an alien growth for years.

"Hey, Chuck." Gary looked at the spread out tools on the ground. "We have a job for you."

"What you need?" Chuck stopped telling Maus some ridiculous story at the prospect of action.

"We need someone who can get on top of our bathroom and put some pieces in place for us." Gary smiled. "You're our best climber."

"Finally some action." Chuck rubbed his hands together. "Come on, Maus. Let's do this."

"Okay." Maus fell in beside the other boys. "Did you really meet the Visage?"

"Yeah." Gary nodded. "He saved our lives."

"He did kill all those shadow guys." Chuck acknowledged. "We just did all the hard work for him."

"This is where we put the bathroom." Whyte pointed at the pile of bushes that seemed to grow together. "We need to put these planks on top to cover everything in case of rain."

"Got it." Chuck pulled out his chain. He wrapped it around a low-lying limb and pulled himself up to it. He stepped off on the altered leaves. He whistled in appreciation. "This looks good. I'm impressed."

"Here come the boards, Chuck." Gary picked up the first one. "Try to angle them so the water will run off instead of collecting."

"Got it." Chuck took the first board. "How are we going to set them in place?"

"I didn't think of that." Whyte frowned. "We'll have to glue them in place."

"One of us will have to get up there to help Chuck." Gary looked for something he could climb on. "It'll have to be me. I'm the lightest. You'll have to make the glue to hold it together."

"Here, George." Maus picked Gary up and lifted him to the top of the wall. "Got something to stand on?"

"Yeah." Gary made sure of his footing. "Let's get this done. Higgins will be around any second. We don't want him finding this."

"Right." Whyte looked for something he could use for glue. "Don't get any of this on you. It will take an acid to get off."

"Right." Gary held the first board in place. Chuck made sure the bottom contacted the wall of the stall. Maus and Whyte went around the walls applying the glue. They were done with the roof in a few minutes.

"You would have to fall over this thing to find it." Chuck grinned. "Good job, men."

"Let's get our tent up." Gary looked at the moon. He gathered some limbs and pressed them into the ground with his blast. "We've burnt too much time on this. Higgins will be by and have something to say about our lagging."

The boys looked at the arrow in the ground and nodded. That should help find the thing in the dark.

They joined Edwards and Suzy Q by the layout of their tent halves. The two seemed to be consulting each other on what they could build with the nearby trees and bushes.

"How big a space do we want to use?" Whyte joined them as they hovered over Jay's phone. The three of them began to haggle quietly over what was feasible.

Gary checked his watch. He looked around. He spotted other small tents in the distance. They had to hurry this up.

"Five minutes, then we're putting up something." Gary looked at his watch. "We don't have a lot of time here."

The three of them looked at him with various expressions before Whyte nodded at the other two.

"We're going to try for a circle." Whyte looked at the space. "It has to be two times Maus plus five feet so we don't get in each other's space."

"So what do you need?" Gary looked at the rest of the camp. How much time did they have?

"We need the circle first, then holes for the stakes." Whyte gestured at the ground. "Then we put up the tents."

Gary raised his sunglasses and cleared the grass in a circle. He walked around the circle drilling small holes in the edges. He didn't know what they had planned, but Edwards and Whyte were great at what they did.

Suzy planted the stakes in the holes in a second. She wiped her hands together afterwards.

Whyte wrote on the circle of dirt. His formula turned it into a dry concrete stage. He nodded as the concrete wrapped around the stakes and held them in place.

"Place these two tent halves together, Maus." Whyte pointed at the two he wanted. "I'll stitch them together so we can use them for a roof."

"The space will still be short enough to make us duck down." Maus pulled the halves together edge to edge.

"I know." Whyte wrote on the tent halves with his chalk. They became a single stiff board when he was done. "I plan to make the poles longer when I get a chance."

The boys threw the altered halves on top of the stakes. It hung over the edges because it was a square over a round hole.

"Now we do the walls." Whyte looked at the four tent halves he had left. He might have to use leaves from the bushes if he couldn't make their plan work.

The group fitted the remaining tent halves around the outside of the circle. Alterations had to be done but by the end of it, they had an enclosed space to sleep in. The teachers hadn't provided blankets but Whyte was sure he could make some if forced.

"All we need now is a fire pit to cook over." Gary checked his watch. "I think we have done a good job."

"Good." Jay looked around. "Because I have to go."

"The bathroom is that way." Gary pointed at the moon on the tree.

3

Coach Higgins and Mrs. Greevy came by while the boys were talking about building the fire pit. The coach harumphed in his mustache when he saw the house they had built from their tent halves. Mrs. Greevy smiled, nodding quietly.

"You boys know you're going to have to tear this down when we leave Sunday night." Higgins crossed his arms as he looked at them.

"It won't take more than a few minutes, Mr. Higgins." Whyte smiled. "I assure you we thought of that when we came up with the design."

"Do you kids know how to make a fire pit?" Mrs. Greevy gestured at the front of the tent cabin.

"We think so." Gary had his hands in his pockets. "We didn't see any rocks to use for a border."

"You'll have to use fallen branches." Higgins pointed at the nearby trees. "Then you'll have to put smaller twigs inside of it and set them on fire. You don't want a big brush pile. An ember can set the campgrounds on fire if the wind blows it the wrong way."

"I think we can do that." Gary smiled. "Don't worry, Coach. We can handle this."

"Just stay inside the cones while you're looking for wood." Higgins gave him a look of disbelief. "We'll come by again with the steaks and potatoes for you to cook on the fire."

"We'll be ready to go." Gary smiled with the assurance.

"I'm a vegetarian." Suzy broke in. "I can't eat a steak."

"We'll bring you two potatoes then." Higgins frowned at her. "Any other problems?"

"I would like some salad at least." Suzy squinted at him. "Can you do that, please?"

"I'll see what I can do." Higgins looked the group over. They were auditing the class for the most part, so it wasn't like he could threaten to fail them if they got up to some shenanigans. "Is there anything else?"

"I would love a pillow." Chuck waved his hand for attention. "You know. Something with a lot of goose down and everything."

"I suggest you find a goose and pluck it then." Higgins shook his head. "Anything else with some serious issues?"

"We're good, Coach." Gary covered Biro's mouth before he could cause them trouble with his talking.

"That's great." Higgins shook his head as he moved on to inspect the next group's tent. "Goose pillows."

"Roughing it means no pillows, Chuck." Mrs. Greevy smiled at them. "Stay in the lines when you collect the wood. I'll make sure that we bring a salad for you, Suzy. Good job on the big tent."

She walked after the coach. Amusement traced her features as she caught up with him.

"All right." Gary let Biro go. "Let's get our cooking thing ready so we can get our steaks."

The boys spread out to collect the wood. They brought a big pile of broken limbs back to their tent. Gary cut them to the same size with his mental blast.

"We'll carve a dent out to put the wood in." Gary looked around. "Too bad we don't have rocks."

"We can get rocks." Whyte examined the sticks. "Then we can build a hearth to cook on."

"What's the plan, Stan?" Chuck crossed his arms. He wore a smile. "Can you get me a pillow too?"

"Maybe." Whyte frowned at him. "First, we need a cleared spot to build on."

Gary raised his sunglasses and cleared a circle in the grass with the blast. He stepped back to let Whyte have some room with his alchemy.

Whyte laid out a ring of sticks. He wrote on each of them with his chalk. They transformed into a ring of rock. He wrote on three more. They became iron rods that he laid over the rock. He smiled.

"Now we have a grill and a cook pit." Whyte nodded as he put his chalk away. "Let's get this fire started so we can have something to cook our food on when the Coach comes back."

"I can handle that." Suzy placed some twigs in the fire pit. She took two limbs and rubbed them together so fast her hands vanished. A spark ignited, and then expired while they watched. Then another was cast off. It landed on a leaf and took hold. A small fire spread on the fuel they had set.

Maus placed several limbs in the blaze to feed it. He sat back on his haunches. His stomach grumbled at him.

"I hope they hurry with those steaks." Maus rubbed his stomach. "I'm hungry as all get out."

"You might need to get two steaks from the sound of that." Chuck smiled.

"I hope so." Maus smiled at the thought.

Mrs. Greevy returned with a sled loaded with supplies as they fed fuel into the fire. She nodded at the ring designed to keep the flames in.

"Good job, boys." She gestured for Gary to come closer. "Here's your steaks and potatoes. Have a good time cooking them."

She handed him a cooler and two six packs of bottled water. He opened the top and counted seven small steaks and about five big potatoes. He closed the top.

"No plates?" Gary squinted at her from behind his sunglasses.

"Here you go." She handed him a stack of paper plates and packed plastic utensils. "Bury your trash when you're done."

"Mrs. Greevy?" Suzy took the cooler and opened it. "Only potatoes?"

"I'm sorry." Mrs. Greevy reached into her supplies and produced a Styrofoam carton. She handed it over. "We didn't bring any dressing. I'm sorry about that."

"Thank you." Suzy looked in the carton. "I can slice up a cooked potato to put in for taste."

"So you kids know how to cook?" She looked the students over. "I can come back and show you how when I get done handing out the supplies."

"I got it, Mrs. Greevy." Gary smiled. "My grandpa showed me how to do things when I was small."

"All right." Mrs. Greevy nodded. "I'll be back to let you know lights out. Tomorrow, we'll have a lot of things to do, so sleep will be important."

"No problem." Gary nodded at her. "Let's build up this fire. We're going to need a stick to put in the steaks to turn them. Then we can put the potatoes on and split them up between us."

Biro whittled a stake with his pocket knife in a couple of minutes as Gary placed the meat on the grill they had come up with to cover the fire. He handed it over when he was done with it.

Gary put the steaks and potatoes on the grill next to each other. He used the stake Chuck had carved for him to turn the food over as it cooked. Every once and a while he would poke the meat and check the inside.

When he was sure everything was cooked to his liking, he gestured for Suzy to bring her salad over. He pushed two hot potatoes in her carton.

"Thanks, George." She took her improvised tray and sat down next to the tent. She had a fork from the package Mrs. Greevy had left. She used that to dice her potatoes and mix them with her salad.

George divvied the rest up between himself and the boys. He stacked the food on a plate before he used his vision to cut the steaks into strips before handing them out. Then he sliced the potatoes the same way. He pushed the majority of pieces on the plates of the other boys and kept the remainder.

They had taken seats around the fire to eat. They looked like cowboys in the movies to Gary as he chewed on his steak. They passed out the bottles of water to drink with their meal.

"There's nothing to do." Jay Edwards looked up from his plate. "I don't get this nature stuff. What are we supposed to be learning from this?"

"How to work together, and overcome obstacles." Whyte picked delicately at his potato cubes. "I'm sure tomorrow will involve a lot of running around and other things."

"Excellent." Chuck dug into his steak with a grin. "That means we won't be worrying about anything but making the Coach chase us."

"I thought you guys were out of Gym." Maus alternated eating a piece of steak, then a piece of potato. "Why come out here when you can be at the castle?"

"Because you can get stale just hanging out." George shrugged as the fire reflected from his sunglasses. "It's good to get out of the place and do things."

"They locked me out of my lab." Jay frowned at George and Will. "I just need some way to power my project, then it's done."

"A weekend away from your baby won't kill you." Chuck shook his head. "You have another month before we do another field trip with the gym class. That should be enough time to fix whatever the problem is."

"Do you know anything about robotic movement systems?" Jay knew what the answer was before he asked the question. Chuck was taking a lot of physical classes, and few sciences if any. He knew as much about robots as any other doof on the street.

"Sure." Chuck finished his potatoes like a shark feasting. "They're gears that move rods that move other gears."

Jay opened his mouth and realized that Chuck had given exactly the answer he had not expected from him. And it was barely right, so he couldn't be told how wrong it was. He closed his mouth and shook his head.

"Don't worry, Edwards." Whyte smiled. "It will still be waiting on you when you get home."

"Unless the Kid decides to wear it and take it for a spin." Chuck grinned at the smaller boy.

"He wouldn't dare." Jay looked up in panic. "I have to get back to the Bierce."

"Stop." Gary put his empty plate down on the ground. "The armor is on its stand. It will stay there until we get back. Until we do that, let's camp and try to come up with an explanation for how come we are in a forest when there should be a city here."

"That's easy." Edwards grimaced. "Obviously we're in a parallel dimension from the Reagan Cities, Scarsdale, and my town. The land is bigger on the inside of the fence than what it looks like outside the fence."

"So we're not really on Earth?" Whyte frowned at the implications.

"If we are, it's not one of our Earths." Jay shrugged. "It's probably some kind of overlap created by whatever happened here in forty eight."

"It was a huge battle." Maus looked up at the sky. "Something tried to get loose but it failed."

"How do you know?" Gary squinted at the bigger boy, sipping on his water.

"My father told me about it." Maus focused on the group. "My grandfather told him. My grandfather was here when the battle happened. He said he had never seen so many magicians and monsters in the same place. In the end, they launched a hoard of demons at the thing to buy time so they could seal up the hole."

"Your grandfather a magician, Maus?" Gary sipped his water. They had figured the battle was what had happened despite the lack of details.

"A shaman." Maus nodded. "He taught my father, and my father taught me some of what he knows. My father hopes I will take over him when he is ready to step down."

"You don't sound happy about that." Chuck stacked his used plate on Gary's.

"It's a lot of responsibility." Maus shrugged. "You have to be ready to protect the people, even if you don't like them. I don't know if I want to do that."

"I totally understand that." Biro nodded. "My dad is a hero. He wants me to follow in his footsteps. I have been working on that."

"It looks like everyone has eaten." Suzy stood at the edge of their group. "The bonfires look good."

"I don't see Mrs. Greevy with blankets." George stood. He brushed off his pants. "We might need to make some."

"We can gather up some limbs with leaves and use them for blankets, but they won't be great unless I can change them into something approximating wool, or cotton." Whyte placed his dirty paper plate on the stack. He sipped at one of his bottles of water. "The tents will give us protection from high wind and rain."

"We might not need blankets if it stays like this." Maus waved his hand at the clear sky overhead.

"This is the Bierce." Gary shook his head. "Never think things won't change around and dump on you here."

"Good point." Maus nodded. "Let me go over and ask Mrs. Greevy for some blankets. She might have them."

"Go ahead." Gary looked at his group. "Chuck and I will go with you. Whyte and Suzy can guard the tent for us."

"That doesn't leave anything for me to do, George." Edwards frowned at his friend.

"You are our backup." George smiled. "If we don't come back, I expect you to rescue us."

"You're on your own then." Jay sat by the tent with a disgruntled look on his face.

4

Jay looked around him. His world had basically retreated from so much green. The Growth had seen to that. A lot of natural areas had been sucked dry by the alien spore.

At least they were growing part of the world back. It had taken decades, but it was working. The suits had become that Earth's last line of defense. Then they rolled the things back until only one big one was in existence.

Edwards wanted to get rid of that one too. The world had spent a lot of energy on killing the columns. So now it kept the last killer plant confined in a desert to limit its food options.

The key to eradicating the thing was a suit like no other. Edwards thought he had it. He just couldn't build a power system to get it moving.

It was just a statue until he got that battery for a heart so he could get it operating.

Once he did that, he expected his baby to chop alien plants down to size.

Jay decided a trip to the bathroom and some time looking things up on his phone in private should be okay. Maybe that would get him some inspiration. So far, he didn't have a clue about his power source.

Maybe Whyte could whip something up if he had a basic idea to present. The alchemy could allow for a power source that fueled itself.

He nodded at the glowing blue moon and opened the door. He realized they had failed to put a light in their out house. That was a serious problem. He would talk to George about it. A couple of blasts could punch holes through the roof so they had natural lighting from above.

He expected it to be a lot rougher. He conceded Whyte did good work. His chemistry skills and alchemy were a handy combination if you needed something done and done fast.

He paused with his hands on his belt. Was someone outside? He thought he was being paranoid. No one normal could see the outhouse. He was sure of that. It blended in except for the blue moon on the tree next to it.

"Maybe they could see the blue moon if they were looking for it." Edwards decided that arming the sonic app on his phone was the best thing to do in this situation.

Edwards decided that going off to the woods by himself was a bad idea. Sure, there was supposed to be protections in place. He didn't believe they worked as he listened to the trees around him.

His home Earth had suffered for years from carnivorous plant life. That didn't mean the Growth was on every Earth.

That didn't mean it wasn't either.

Something scratched at the walls of the outhouse. Edwards pointed the phone. If it tried to get in, he was going to activate the sonic and give everything with ultrasonic hearing within five hundred feet a wake up call.

Edwards turned as he tried to follow the sounds from outside. He faced the door. He realized that he hadn't thrown the lockbar. That was a bad move. He held up his hand. He was inches away from it.

He froze as he considered what he should do. Should he step closer to the door and throw the lockbar? Should he step away from the door in case whatever was outside tried to get in? Where was Chuck Biro when you needed him?

He decided to wait. Maybe the thing would go away on its own. It didn't seem to know how to work a door.

The oppressive feeling lifted. Jay waited, but it felt like he was on his own. He reached forward and threw the lockbar.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. He really felt like using the outhouse now.

Edwards completed his business and realized he would still have to use leaves which he didn't like. He decided to talk to Whyte about that. He also needed to wash his hands. They needed a water and soap dispenser to go with their outhouse.

He hated the woods. When could they go back to the castle? He wanted that more than anything right then.

Maybe he could build some kind of jet pack and fly back to the castle. Screw all this nature.

Concrete and steel were his nature. Greenery needed to be burned down.

He saw the campsite and walked into the fire's circle of light. He picked a canteen at random and washed his hands. He frowned at the thought that he had to spend two more days in the trees.

Maybe he could talk the Kid into picking him up and helping him back to the castle.

The others could watch after Maus after he was gone.

"What's up, Jay?" Suzy Q stopped picking at the grass to look at him.

"There was some kind of animal at the bathroom." Jay walked to the tent door. "I'm going to call the Kid and see if he can get me some kind of ride back to the castle."

"What do you mean some kind of animal?" Suzy stood. "There's not supposed to be anything dangerous anywhere in the campgrounds. We should tell Mr. Higgins."

"That I heard a noise?" Edwards shook his head. "He'll think I'm being crazy."

"Do you really think that?" Suzy placed her hands on her hips. "You know better, Jay. This could be a threat."

"What's going on?" Whyte appeared with a load of wood in his arms.

"Jay heard some kind of animal at the bathroom, and he doesn't want to let the teachers know about it." Suzy's hand vanished as she gestured during her sentence. "I'm trying to get him to go forward."

"What kind of animal?" Whyte put the wood down next to the ring around the fire pit they had built.

"I don't know." Jay realized the course of the conversation before it could be raised. "I'm not going back to check on what it was either."

"If it was harmless, there's no problem." Whyte smiled. "If it is dangerous, we should inform someone. We should at least check for tracks."

"You want to go look for this thing?" Edwards and Suzy sounded almost the same in their squeaking way.

"We have Gary and Biro." Whyte smiled at them. "We can handle a look around."

"So we have three opposing viewpoints here." Suzy looked at the two boys. "Are the both of you serious?"

"I doubt any normal animal can stand up to Gary's mental beams." Whyte nodded. "He can bend metal with them."

"I'm definitely not going back there with you." Jay held up his hands. "That's crazy talk."

"What about the others?" Suzy waved at the small city of tents around them. "Shouldn't they be warned?"

"Over a hypothetical animal that Edwards heard in an illegal outhouse when everyone knows he's scared of nature?" Whyte shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead."

"I'm not scared of nature." Edwards tried to frown at that assessment. "I just don't like it."

"This is what we're going to do." Suzy squinted at both of them. "We're going to tell someone, and at least warn the others. Then we're going to place a guard when the others come back. We're going to be responsible and hope that nothing got over the line. If something has, George can blast the crap out of it."

"Does Biro know he's dating a spitfire?" Whyte smiled.

"We're not dating, but if we were, he would take my side or feel the lash." Suzy looked them in the eyes. "Got me?"

The boys looked at each other. Edwards shrugged. The calculations for an extraction weren't that good at the moment anyway.

"I suppose I can guard the tent while you two look for a chaperone." Whyte smiled. "Go ahead."

"Let the others know." Suzy led the way from the tent. "We don't want to have something roaming around and not be ready for it."

"Aye, Captain." Whyte smiled as he placed a few logs on the fire.

Suzy led the way from the tent, gesturing for Edwards to follow her. She watched the fires as she moved through the trees. Edwards produced a light from his phone after walking into one too many.

"Whyte is right." Edwards played the light in front of them. "No one will believe I heard anything."

"That doesn't matter." Suzy shook her head. "We still have to make sure someone was warned so we can do what we need to do when we need to do it."

"What does that mean?" Edwards paused in confusion.

"If we have to take this thing, the authority was warned." Suzy kept going. "George tends to blast anything in his way."

Edwards thought of his friend as a pinpoint sniper. He searched his memory, and saw some times when George missed. They weren't pretty.

5

They found Mrs. Greevy after some looking. She smiled at the pair as she fixed her own place under a tree. She hadn't put up a tent, but had made a bed of blankets on a pad. It kept her off the ground and let her see that side of the camp if she woke up in the middle of the night.

Jay knew she was a vet from his Earth, that she had seen action against the Growth. He doubted anyone slept deeply after spending time fighting that alien menace.

"What can I do for you, kids?" Mrs. Greevy smiled as she looked up from her notebook.

"I heard an animal prowling around." Edwards put his phone away. "Suzy thought we should tell someone."

"Prowling around inside the line?" Mrs. Greevy put her notebook aside and stood. "Where?"

"A few yards from where we set up our tent." Edwards wished he had taken a photo of the ground now. "I didn't see what it was. It might have been something innocent."

"Let's take a look around before we write it off." Mrs. Greevy motioned for them to lead the way. "If there's anything there, we'll have to call someone to reassess the barrier."

"How dangerous are the animals?" Suzy headed across the woods to their tent. She noted that some of her classmates had done the same as they had and turned their tents into miniature cabins.

"Some are very dangerous." The nurse walked at the end of the small line. "That's why we only let the students come out under restrictions. We don't want to lose anyone to the wildlife."

"Is that how you lost the guy ten years ago?," asked Jay. "Some kind of animal attack?"

"We don't know what happened." Mrs. Greevy paused to debate what she could tell the two of them. She decided on the truth. "She bedded down with her friends. She never woke up. There was no medical reason for that."

"She went to sleep and never woke up?," Jay scratched his temple. He knew better than to doubt the nurse. Too many strange things had already happened at the Bierce for him not to cut a little slack for the unbelievable parts of the thing. "What happened to her?"

"We flew her back to the castle." Mrs. Greevy frowned at the memory. "She remained in a coma, and we didn't have any way to help her. She is still alive in the infirmary, just asleep."

"All this time?" Edwards hoped he was never in a situation where he lost years of his life while everything was the same in his mind.

"Yes." The nurse nodded. "We've had magicians come in where doctors couldn't do anything. They say her mind has been stolen. There's nothing there."

"A soul sucking monster." Jay rubbed his face. "I could have stayed in my lab, but no. I had to get some fresh air, walk on grass, eat my food over a hot fire."

"Just because someone was hurt, it doesn't mean the problem is still here." Suzy held back from slapping the smaller boy on the back of his head. "It doesn't always have to be a monster."

"It does." Jay shook his head. It was always the monster at the Bierce, and he felt like the thing had waited for another shot at another student. He didn't want to be the one stuck in a bed dreaming his life away because the thing had taken him.

"Where did you hear this animal, Jay?," asked Mrs. Greevy. They were a few feet from the tent-cabin. Whyte stood by the tent door. The other boys weren't in sight.

"I'll show you." Jay made some calculations. He started off at a tangent from the outhouse they had built.

He didn't want Mrs. Greevy stumbling over it while trying to help him.

The others would not like that he was getting an adult involved in their problems. They liked to handle things themselves. The authorities were for when all else failed.

He respected that, but it wasn't him. His world had suffered massive devastation. Everyone pulled their weight. Children were not allowed to go into danger if it was possible. Calling in someone who could handle the problem was his first choice.

He was glad Suzy took his side. She tended to quell things down to an acceptable noise level.

If nothing was found, he decided to be quiet about it. He didn't want the others to razz him the rest of the trip about imaginary animals. But he would keep his phone close in case he needed it.

A wave of sound tended to mess people up when they walked into it.

There was no telling what it would do to something with better hearing.

"I don't see any prints, Jay." Mrs. Greevy inspected the possible path of the intruder in the area that Jay had indicated. He realized that trying to keep the outhouse hidden had worked against him.

He weighed what he should do in the light of being called a scaredy cat. He decided keeping the bathroom was more important than letting Mrs. Greevy know it was there.

He was going to get some grief either way. He might as well keep the bathroom so he had some place to go in the middle of all this vegetation.

And it had already kept the beast out once. That meant it could work as protection if he needed it.

Why hadn't it broken in when it could have done so? That was a question that bothered Jay. He supposed he had misjudged its size from just listening to it.

"I don't see anything here, Jay." Mrs. Greevy looked nonplused. "Are you sure you heard something?"

"Yeah." Jay made a face. "It sounded big, but maybe I misjudged the size."

"Don't worry." Mrs. Greevy took one last look around. "I doubt whatever it was will come back. Animals just don't like people and avoid us."

"Some of them." Jay looked around. "I should have stayed home and worked on my thing."

"Don't worry." Mrs. Greevy patted his shoulder. "We'll keep an eye out in case it comes back. If we can catch it, we can figure out how it crossed the border line."

"Catching it is the last thing I want to do." Jay realized the others would feel the exact opposite. They would want to catch it before it drew attention to the primitive bathroom. And Biro liked chasing excitement too much to give up on a monster hunt.

He shouldn't have said anything about this at all.

"If you hear anything else, let one of the teachers know." Mrs. Greevy started back for her pad. "It's our job to protect you."

"Okay." Jay frowned at the scene. This close to the bathroom, there should be tracks in the grass unless the grass stood back up faster than he thought it should. "I swear it sounded huge."

"Don't worry." Mrs. Greevy smiled. "Anything that was here would have attacked, or fled with all of you kids around."

"I guess you're right." Jay nodded. He said the words but he didn't believe them. Biro's bad luck was operating. He could feel it.

"I'm heading back to my spot." The nurse started back to the majority of campfires. "If anything happens in the night, send up a flare. We'll come running."

"No tracks." Suzy glared at Jay.

"Of course not." Jay walked closer to the hidden outhouse. "Look at this."

"Look at what?" Suzy joined him. She frowned at what looked like a flower turned to ash. "Looks like a dead flower."

"What killed it?" Jay looked around. He didn't see any more dead plants. "I don't see a reason."

"You think maybe your animal did?" Suzy pulled a pen from her pocket. She pushed the flower to one side. It came apart under her touch.

"Maybe." Jay looked around. "Why one flower? Shouldn't there be a trail of them?"

"Not if the thing can fly," said Suzy. "This might be a temporary touchdown and takeoff spot for some reason."

"So we know it wasn't just my imagination." Jay looked around. "What do we do about it?"

"I don't know." Suzy rubbed her chin. "We should talk to the others and see what they know about monsters who leave strange footprints."

"They probably know less than we do." Jay took a picture of the ash with his phone. "Maybe Maus knows something that can help us."

"Let's head over to the tent and break the bad news." Suzy turned and headed away from the scene. "We're going to have to post a guard until we head back to the castle."

"I wonder if they found one of these spots for the student who fell asleep." Jay put his phone away. "I hate to think we have a monster behind our lines."

"Let's talk to the others." Suzy started back to the tent. "Maybe we can come up with something useful together."

"I doubt it."

6

The group convened around their campfire. Suzy told the boys what they had found out, and what they surmised. No one knew of anything with a death touch that attacked in people's dreams.

"You said they haven't been able to wake this girl up." Gary stared at the fire. "That seems strange with all the hoodoo we've seen so far."

"Maybe they don't want to wreck her brain." Biro shrugged at the looks that elicited. "I mean we don't know what happened to her. The problem could be there's nothing there to wake up."

"So something came in and snatched her brain?" Edwards looked at him. "Maybe you're right."

"It's a reasonable explanation." Whyte brushed back his hair. "How do we deal with this brain eating monster?"

"If it's real, we can look for it and fight it here." Gary frowned under his sunglasses. "If it's mental, none of us have the means. And if it's after Jay, he's as good as a sleeping beauty."

"I might be able to help." Maus pushed the smoke away from his face with a fan of his hand. "I don't have the skills of my dad, but I can at least look around in Jay's mind if he is attacked."

"So if that thing comes for him, you can fight it?" Chuck grinned. "It's not as good as if I was fighting it, but if you can grab this thing, we can show it around to the other kids."

"There might be some risk to Jay." Maus frowned at Chuck. "We might wreck his mind if we start fighting inside there."

"That's okay." Chuck waved the danger off. "If it fixes his personality, that will be a win-win."

"I'm not risking my brain." Jay stood back from the group. "I need it."

"You're a marked man, Jay." George shook his head. "If we don't do something, you're going to be brain dead in a hospital."

"We'll fight for you, Edwards." Will pushed back a lock of blond hair. "But there's going to be a risk. We all know that going into this."

Jay looked at Suzy Q. She looked at him back. He knew that he was being childish in some way. The risk of brain death was almost certain. His friends and Maus wanted to stop that from happening. But it was his decision to let them try.

She wanted him to be brave.

She didn't have to say it. She also didn't have to say she would be disappointed if he didn't want to stand up and fight this thing. He knew that just from the expression on her face.

The others also wanted him to fight, but not just because it was his brain at risk. They wanted him to fight so they could live up to their own codes of behavior.

Did he want to fight? It would be easy to ask the adults to help out. Did they know enough to do that? Could they do anything about it? What happened if they lost?

Could Maus protect his brain from the monster? Did he want to chance it?

He realized he didn't have a choice. The thing would come for him. It didn't matter if he tried to run away, or tried to fight. In the end, he was better off trying to fight it with the help of his friends. He had a chance that way.

"What do we do?" Edwards couldn't bring himself to be full of bonhomme like Biro. Chuck liked fighting. Beating a murdering fiend was number one on his list of things to do. Edwards wanted to be in his lab so he could get his armor and go home and do something to the infestation that was still trying to eat the planet.

"I need some things." Maus shrugged. "Then we have to set up our tent for the trap. After that, it's up to the brain eater if he is coming after you, or going after one of the other campers."

"Let's go ahead and get started." George stood. He adjusted his sunglasses. "It won't be long before the teachers come along to tell us lights out."

"Will, I need you to make some ingredients for me." Maus looked up at the sky. "George, I need you to draw a circle around the tent. Suzy and Chuck, I need you to find me some feathers if you can, and fresh twigs. They have to be bendable. Jay, I need you to wash your face."

"Excuse me?," said Jay.

"I need your face to be clean so I can apply the protection," said Maus. "I am going to see if I can make you a shield and a trap at the same time."

"Brain eating monsters check in, but they don't check out." Biro grinned. "I like this plan. I can't wait to see what happens."

"Let's get those twigs and feathers." Suzy grabbed Chuck's arm to lead him away.

Jay grabbed one of the water bottles and poured water in the palm of his hand. He rubbed it on his face. He dried off with his T-shirt.

The chemical signs of Whyte's alchemy buzzed as he went to work to produce what Maus wanted. The bigger boy nodded after he sniffed them. He scooped two of the piles up and entered the tent. He came out brushing empty hands together.

"You guys take this pile and pour it in the line that George drew around the tent." Maus pointed at a mix of yellow and green dust. He picked up the last pile. "This one is for Jay."

"What is that?" Jay pointed at that red dust in Maus's hand.

"This is the paint I am going to apply to complete our circle." Maus frowned. "Close your eyes and mouth. You don't want this inside of you."

"I don't want it on me either." Jay started to back up. "Is there something else we can do?"

"The only other way is to turn you into a sack." Maus made a zipping sound. "Don't be such a chicken. It doesn't hurt, and it's necessary."

"Give me science any day." Jay closed his eyes and mouth. Coolness crept across his skin. His face felt chilled after a few seconds of the treatment.

"All right." Maus nodded to himself. He brushed the dust off his hands. "You can open your eyes now."

"So what happens now?" Jay reached up to touch his face.

"Don't touch it." Maus shook his head, holding up his own hands to stop Edwards. "You'll ruin everything if you do that."

"Okay." Jay dropped his hands. "Calm down. I won't touch your precious face paint."

"All we need now is the feathers and twigs." Maus smiled. "This might work after all."

"Might work?" Jay's eyes widened. "What do you mean might work?"

"I have never done a spirit battle before." Maus shrugged. "This might turn out bad if things don't go our way."

"I'm out of here." Jay started toward the main group. "I'm heading back to the school and arming myself with some science."

"They won't send you back to the Bierce just on your word, Jay." George moved to block his friend. "Higgins will laugh your problem off."

"He's right, Edwards." Will came in from the other side. "Coach Higgins is from your world. They don't have any magic, or powers, there."

Jay paused. If they had told him some brain eater was going to eat his brain before he came to the Bierce, he would have called the police to have them carted away. The things they had done since then was more than enough to have opened his eyes to magic and mysticism.

He just hated it.

Give him a dynamo and a laser anytime over this weird mix of fear and shadowy menace.

"You better be better than what you're claiming." Jay glared at Maus. "First spirit battle. What a crock."

"We got your twigs." Biro burst into the clearing. "And they're bendable."

"Feathers?" Maus took the twigs and tested them. He nodded at the way they moved in his hands.

"I got some." Suzy appeared. "I hope they're what you need."

"It'll have to do." Maus took the feathers and twigs and wove them together in a circle with twine forming a web inside the circle. He ran his hand over the opening. He nodded in satisfaction. "All we have to do is hang this up and wait."

"I can glue it to the top of the opening." Whyte offered. "It won't take a second."

"Let's do that." George smiled. "Then we can get ready to beat this thing."

"What's next, and why is Jay wearing make-up?" Biro pointed at his friend's face.

"All we have to do is sleep." Maus's stomach growled. "I wish I had something to snack on."

"I'll get you something." Suzy vanished. She returned with cupcake packages. "I saw them when we talked to Mrs. Greevy."

"This is perfect." Maus took three and wolfed them down. "Thanks, Suzy."

"So all we have to do is sleep." Biro grinned. "How hard could that be? I do that all the time in class."

"Easy for you to say." Edwards frowned. He didn't think he would ever sleep again.

7

Jay Edwards froze when he found himself in the woods. Wasn't he sleeping? Was he sleepwalking? Why was everything darker than he expected? The strange stars of the Bierce should be lighting up the scene better than this.

He heard a howl in the distance. Howls meant wolves. He didn't like that. He didn't have his phone, and he doubted he could defend himself with his hands.

This was something George could handle. His eyebeams could rip a wolf apart in a second.

Jay decided that he had to move away from the howl. He had to hope that another animal attracted the wolf's attention while he tried to make his way back to the Bierce.

The castle had to be the safest place around. All he had to do was reach the gate. That would get him away from the woods.

The howl sounded closer. Edwards froze to listen. It sounded like the beast was closer. Was it tracking him?

It would figure if it was. He had bad luck, and this was just the most current example. Of course a dangerous predator would come right at him in the middle of a forest full of animals.

"Hey, Jay." Biro's voice drifted out of the air. "I'm with you. Turn to your left, and head down to the circle in the ground."

"Where are the others, Chuck?" Jay turned to follow the directions. "What's going on here?"

"We're here in your brain." Biro sounded unconcerned. "They're trying to find us. Until they do, we're on our own."

Another howl cut through the air. Jay looked over his shoulder. He thought he saw something white among the trees. He couldn't estimate the size of the thing, but it looked bigger than a wolf, or a dog.

"That's a big thing chasing us." Jay hurried away from the white phantom rushing to catch up with him.

"You might have to fight it on your own if the others don't show up." Biro's voice sounded way too unconcerned about that possibility.

"What do you mean fight it on my own?" Jay stumbled over a tree root. He staggered but kept his footing so he could go back to running for his life. "I can't fight that on my own."

"I don't know what to tell you," said Biro. "It looks like I'm just a ghost. I can't punch anything with my transparent hands."

"I knew I should have gone back to the castle." Jay paused to get his bearings. He saw a circle ahead. It glowed against the grass. "A portable particle thrower would work fine on this brain eating monster."

"How were you going to fight it in the real world, genius?" Biro made a clucking sound. "You would have never seen it coming."

"Baloney." Jay ran into the circle without breaking the outside line. He felt pressure as he paused to catch his breath.

"You know better, Jay." A figure in red and blue formed out of the glowing dust around Edwards. A horned mask concealed the man's identity. "Just like you know that armor of yours isn't going to work the way you want it until you figure some way to power a battery."

"Chuck?," said Edwards. "Is that you?"

"Yep." Chuck pulled out his chain. He swung it in a lazy circle. "I've got a mind body now. Let's see what it can do."

"That thing's huge, Chuck." Jay looked around. "You can't fight it on your own. We need the others."

"Someone has to fight it, Jay." Chuck smiled. "Someone always has to fight."

Chuck stepped outside the circle. He spun his chain at his side with a movement of his wrist as he waited for the beast to catch up.

"I think we should run away." Jay stepped out of the circle. Buildings covered with vines surrounded him. He shook his head. He had left his friend to his enemy's clutches. He should have foreseen that would happen.

Maybe there was something in one of these buildings he could use as a weapon. Chuck was right he should fight the thing chasing him if he could.

Anything would be better than the nothing he had right now.

He hoped Chuck was smart enough to get away from the thing if he couldn't beat it.

He doubted that. Chuck didn't run. He stood and fought until he was beaten. He would have gone down swinging against that thing.

The vines on the buildings reached for Jay. He frowned at the movement. Why would they do that? He noted masses breaking off and realized the plants weren't vines at all. They were the Growth.

He ran. He had to get to a shelter where the Growth wasn't present. There had to be some place the thing hadn't invaded. There had to be some place he could use until he woke up.

Then he realized he might never wake up. He might be trapped in his nightmare forever. How did he fight back against this?

He needed to arm himself, but how? He should have taken more classes about belief systems. He had seen them on the sign-up sheet. He should have tried one, instead of dismissing all of them as hokum. He felt like an idiot now.

He paused. The vines were circling toward him. There had to be a way to beat them. He was dreaming. He had to take control of the dream. That was the only way he was going to get out of this alive.

Where were the others? If Chuck was here, they had to be in his dream too. Where were they?

He decided it was time to make a call.

Jay pulled out his phone. He pushed the button for Will Whyte. Once he had the connection, he could think about the next step of his plan.

The best part was that it didn't matter if Will had a phone, or not. Jay called on his dream phone, so Whyte automatically had a phone to answer.

"Hello, Edwards." Whyte sounded amused to be answering a phone in a dream. "How are you making out?"

"I'm surrounded by killer plants." Jay looked over his shoulder. The masses of vines that had broken off had shaped themselves into hounds. They ran toward him. "I need an airdrop of some kind of weapon. Something that's good for killing plants. I need it now."

"I understand," said Whyte. "Keep the phone on so I can locate you."

"Better hurry." Jay started jogging away from the plant monsters. He knew the history of his home Earth. When the Growth arrived, it had built scouts and flying scavengers to feed it so it could grow out of control and kill anything living in its path.

Humanity had retreated for a time under the onslaught. Even the prototype suits weren't enough to stem the tide. New suits had been mass produced and sent out to kill as much of the stuff as the soldiers could. Eventually they had forced the Growth into a cordon where it couldn't grow anymore.

The cost had been dear. And every day the Growth kept trying to get out to finish the job.

Jay heard a plane overhead. He looked up. It looked like a cargo plane. He paused. What had Whyte done?

A box fell out of the back. It dropped on black parachutes with some kind of markings on them. Jay didn't recognize the insignia, but it didn't matter. Whyte had come through for him.

The box touched down and submerged under the chutes as they collapsed on top of it. Jay crawled under the cloth. He had to get the box open and see what was inside so he could face his enemy head on.

8

Jay grabbed the top of the crate with his hands. He noted that a lock with a thumbprint reader stuck out of one side of the lid. He pressed his thumb on the plastic and waited. The crate fell open to reveal the contents.

He smiled at the sturdy gray armor standing in place. He pulled open the chestplate and climbed inside. His helmet dropped down and lit up with a display worthy of the video games he had quickly mastered. This was exactly what he needed to fight off the dream monster.

He pushed the parachute cloth out of the way. Where was his enemy? He should be able to beat it easily now that he was armed.

The grass hounds ran at him. He selected the flamethrower option from his weapon pack. He fired into them. They burst into ash as he swept his arm back and forth.

Jay looked around. He knew the Growth had taken apart numerous suits in the real world. What would it do now that he was armed?

Massive vines swinging in the air answered that question. Small attackers weren't going to keep coming. Instead the entire massive force around him waved to let him know that it was forming a bigger beast to fall on him.

He had to get out of there. His suit should be tough, but he doubted it could take on something from the late night monster movies.

He armed missiles as he ran from the giant beast reaching for him. He released the munitions to chase after any targets it could read as he ran. He didn't check for impacts as he ran into a building to get away from the leafy claws after him.

He found himself on a beach. He paused to take in his surroundings. No buildings, no land predators. He was safe for the moment.

Whyte had come through for him. Where was the alchemist? Where was Chuck? Was he okay after what had happened in the forest? How did he stop this once and for all?

"Hello, Jay." Maus floated to the surface of the water. He was sitting with a campfire burning in front of him. His face had a lot more hair on it than it should, and his teeth were a lot longer. "You're going to have to turn and fight if you want to wake up."

"What do you mean?" Jay wondered how he was sitting and burning wood on water. He put it down to dream logic. "I just dumped some ammunition on some man-eating plants."

"But then you ran to here." Maus gestured for him to come closer. "Just step on the water. It will hold you if you believe it will."

Jay crossed the sand and trudged along the surface of the water to a spot across from Maus. He sat down the best he could in his armor. He crossed his arms as he waited for an explanation.

"You're going to have to go back to the forest and face the monster where it is strongest." Maus placed the palm of his hand on the water. A giant wolf covered in chains howled at something in the distance. Glass boxes with lights inside hung from the chains and rattled when the wolf moved. Some of the lights looked like they had faces to Jay. "We will help you."

"Where is Chuck?" Jay didn't see him in the scene.

"He's leading our friend on a chase." Maus smiled. "But only you can beat the thing. You're the one it marked as its prey. Only you can stand up to it if you're strong enough."

"I have to be brave." Edwards didn't like that. He was the most cowardly of the roommates and he knew it. He liked to call it pragmatism, but he knew he was scared of a lot of things. "I don't think I can do that."

"Anyone can be the fearless fool." Maus stood. He held a pole of animal faces in one hand. "Very few try."

"I don't think I want to be like Chuck." Jay thought about his friend. Biro was the only one willing to take on a teacher one on one. A lot of the other students knew better than to put their heads in a wood chipper. "Our definitions of exciting and fun are too different."

"You are going to have to try this once." Maus started walking. "We will help you."

Jay got to his feet. He started walking on the water after the bigger boy. He looked over his shoulder. The fire was gone. He turned to keep his eyes on Maus.

He didn't want to lose his guide now that he had found him.

A howl sounded from the water. Jay sank into the water. He kept walking after Maus. He didn't want to sink through the surface before he found out how to get of the fix he was in.

"Let's go this way." Maus pointed with his free hand. "We need to get the others together so we can use them to help us."

"How do I beat this thing?" Jay followed. He noted that Maus didn't leave footprints like he did.

"I don't know." Maus kept walking. "I asked, but all I could get back was bravery."

"That doesn't seem too specific to me." Jay noted the landmarks were changing as they walked. They were moving away from a beach to a desert.

"Spirits." Maus shrugged. "They don't like to say too much. It keeps the young from feeling they achieved anything."

"I disagree with that," said Jay.

"So do I," Maus huffed. "Recognize this place?"

"No." Jay looked around. "It looks like an area left after the Growth was done."

"I don't think so." Maus looked around. "Do you hear that?"

Jay turned in a circle. His suit picked up a wavefront from somewhere. He concentrated on it. It was a sound, a familiar sound.

"Let's go this way." Jay pointed. "I know that sound."

The two walked to a bowl in the desert. A beam bounced around inside the bowl, dimpling it with every hit. The dimples bounced out after a few seconds.

"George!" Jay made sure his suit made his voice heard. "It's me and Maus. We're here."

"I see you." George Gary stopped shooting to become visible. He wore a shirt with an eye on it, and a full hood over his face. "Hold on."

He fired into the bottom of the bowl. He flew out of the depression and landed lightly beside the other two boys.

"Where are the others?" Gary didn't pull his hood from his face. His eyes glowed underneath the cloth.

"We're looking for them." Jay smiled inside his helmet. George could blow a tank away with the power of his mind.

"I think we should head that way." Maus pointed. A set of clouds spun in place in the sky. "Either Susan, or Will, is there."

"All right." George started around the bowl. He cracked his knuckles as he walked.

"What if it's the monster?" Jay and Maus followed a little more slowly.

"Then you can be brave sooner than we thought," said Maus.

"Very funny." Jay grimaced inside his suit. Why did he dread any confrontation? His suit should be able to handle an overgrown hound dog.

The three boys shifted through the changing landscape. They found a set of stone pillars under the clouds spinning in the sky. The columns looked like giant steps to Jay.

"It's Suzy Q," said George. "All we have to do is get up there so we can talk to her."

"I think I got jet flight built into this suit." Jay saw the option as soon as he said it. "I'll carry you both up. That way we don't have to separate."

"Let's do it." George nodded. "We don't know how much time is passing in the real world. Higgins and Mrs. Greevy might be trying to wake us up right now."

"Go ahead, Jay." Maus held out a hand. "Let's see if we can get up there without problems."

Jay grabbed both of them and fired his jets. He flew up into the center of the clouds. He saw a track was on the top of the clouds. A blur ran on the concrete, spinning the whole thing like an oversized treadmill.

He didn't see any place to land but on the track. He didn't think that was a good idea.

"Hey, Suzy!" Jay used a megaphone built into his suit. "Can you stop so I can land?"

Suzy slowed down to a walk. The track slowed its spinning to match her pace. When she came to a stop, so did it.

She wore a tan running suit and goggles. A red lightning bolt rode down from her shoulder. Her hair remained in a pony tail swinging behind her.

"I can run as much as I want here." Suzy smiled. "I never run out of go power."

"All we need is Whyte and Chuck." George looked around at the track. "You're pretty fast on this thing."

"I know." Suzy smiled. "I can fly."

"I can get Will here." Jay smiled inside his helmet. "Then we can go get Chuck."

"You can get Whyte?" George frowned under his hood.

"I called him for the suit." Jay looked for an option for a phone. He smiled when he saw it. Time to see if Will could get to them instead of the other way around.

"Hello, Edwards." Whyte sounded cheerful on the phone. "What can I do for you?"

"Everybody but Chuck and you are with me at wherever this signal is coming from." Jay couldn't find a way to ping the other phone. "Can you pick us up?"

"I will be glad to, Edwards," said Whyte. "I have been able to do some things with my chalk I could never do in the real world."

"Everybody seems to have gotten a boost out of this." Jay grimaced. "It's the stuff of make believe."

"There will be a plane flying to where you are," said Whyte. "You might want to send up some kind of sign so I can find you easier."

Jay raised his arm and fired a flare into the sky. His visor blocked out the explosion of light.

"I see you," said Whyte. "I am on my way."

9

The plane descended out of the sky. It looked like a version of the Flying Fortress used to ferry them to the woods outside of the Bierce. It also looked like a drawing made of chalk.

"Imagination is great," said Maus. He held up his stick to move the wind from the landing around him.

"I'll say." Jay nodded in his helmet. "Let's get on board and find Chuck. Once we do that, we can figure out what we can do next."

Jay didn't plan to be brave. He planned to use the overwhelming force of his imaginary suit to blow up his enemy.

Then he could wake up from this nightmare and get the rest of the weekend over so he could get back to his lab.

Science was better than mumbo jumbo.

The door opened on the side of the plane. A ladder unfolded to the ground. Whyte smiled in the doorway.

"Come aboard." Whyte waved a hand. "Drawing is great here."

"It's the power of imagination." Maus started up the ladder first. "It does everything here."

Suzy and George boarded next. Suzy flickered and was up the ladder in a second. George followed at a slower pace.

Jay boarded last. He didn't like the way the ship tilted under his weight, but once he was inside, the floor felt normal to him. He looked around at the spacious cabin and was surprised to see a room out of a mansion house instead of a plane cabin.

"So how do we find Biro?" Whyte looked at the assembled group. "It's a big dream world out there."

"I'll call him." Jay knew that was the simplest way of getting things done. "Then we can go to wherever he is."

"Sounds good, Jay." George rubbed his masked temple. "Let's wrap this up and get back to our own dreams."

Jay commanded his suit to call Biro. He assumed there was a way to do that, but couldn't remember if Chuck carried a phone. The dream might compensate for that.

"What you want?" Chuck's voice drifted through the cabin. "Kind of busy here, Jay."

"We're coming to get you, Chuck." Jay pinged the other end of the call, smiling at the coordinates showing up on his map display. "Keep the line open so we can drop down on you."

"Got the others?" Chuck's chain whipped in the background.

"And we're picking you up next." Jay memorized the imaginary numbers. "Hold on."

"Don't worry." Chuck laughed. "I got this thing on the ropes."

"Better hurry, Will." George took a seat on the couch. "Things are never as bright as Chuck thinks they are."

"Noted." Whyte jogged into the cockpit area and sat down behind the wheel. He pulled a lever and the world shifted some. "We're there."

"The guns aren't doing anything to the beast." Whyte flipped a switch. "We're going to have to try to get close in to deal with it."

"That doesn't sound bad at all." Suzy rubbed her hands together. "What do we do?"

"Jay has to confront the thing with our help." Maus went to the door and pulled the lever to open it. "Please hold us steady, Will. We have to get off."

"Got it." Whyte flipped some more levers. "I'll try to lend air support."

"It's time, Jay." Maus stepped out of the door. He floated out of sight.

Suzy jumped after him, blinking through the doorway with her amazing speed.

George grabbed Jay's armored arm and pulled him to the door. He rapped on the helmet with the palm of his hand.

"I'll be right there with you." George normally would have adjusted his sunglasses but the hood didn't have any for him to push with his finger. "This will be easy. Now jump. I'll jump behind you."

"I'm not doing that." Edwards looked at him. "That's crazy talk."

George blasted him in the back. He fell through the doorway and headed for the ground. He triggered jets to right himself and break his fall. He landed as light as a feather.

George landed beside him. He absorbed the force of the fall with his eyebeam.

Jay opened his mouth to complain but noted the giant white wolf with the chains and boxes. The thing opened its mouth. He jumped across the ground with the assistance of his armor jets. A beam plowed through where he had been.

"Only you can beat this, Jay." Maus pointed his stick at the monster. Vicious spirit squirrels appeared and attacked.

Suzy Q struck at its legs. Her hands landed in a blur as she ran around the creature so it couldn't draw a bead on her.

George blasted with his eyebeam. He tried to apply the same amount of force he would have used to knock a tank over.

Beams of light sliced from the nose of Whyte's airship. The lances struck with little effect from what Jay saw.

Chuck was on the thing's back. He cracked his chain like a whip, slicing against the fur of the monster as he struggled to keep his balance.

Jay ordered his armor to unlock all of its weapons and fire all of them at the wolf. He didn't know what they would do, but the suit was his main offense. If he was the chosen one, it should do something.

Fire and smoke covered the animal like a dense fog. Jay smiled inside of his helmet. He had done it, just like Maus said he could. Give one to the spirits.

The beast came out of the fog. It opened its mouth and howled. George flew into a tree. Suzy slid into the ground, hands over her ears. The squirrels popped in puffs of smoke in front of the sound. The flying ship turned and drove into the ground. Maus stayed upright with the help of his stick. Chuck flew off the creature's back. He used his chain to swing to an easy landing. Jay hit the ground, armor warping around him. He groaned when he came to a stop.

The monster loomed over Jay. It grabbed him by the waist and started to bite down. The armor split under its teeth.

Jay felt panic. He was going to be eaten like a peanut M&M. He was going to be a brainless lump in the real world. His friends would try to explain things, but no one would believe them. He would be a light in a box chained to a fifteen-foot tall monster for the rest of his life.

"Courage, Jay," screamed Maus. "You need courage."

Jay's mind cleared. He didn't need courage. He needed his phone.

He slipped his arm out of his metal sleeve. He pulled his phone from his pocket. The other hand pushed on the chestplate. It opened slightly. He squeezed the phone through. He hit the button for the sonic gun.

The beam pulsed against the monster's skull. It opened its mouth, dropping Jay to the ground.

He fired again. The boxes blew apart. The lights inside fled from the scene, vanishing as they went. The monster howled against the pain.

"Shut up." Jay pushed the button again, blasting the thing into ash. "That's why I hate nature."

Epilogue

Jay Edwards examined his suit. He still hadn't figured out what he could use as a power source. The weekend had been blown on the stupid camping trip for the school. He wanted that time back.

He rubbed his face as he tried to think of what he could use. What was wrong with him? The rest of the suit had been a breeze to put together with the help of his friends. Why couldn't he figure out what he was doing wrong?

"Hey, Jay!" Chuck Biro called from upstairs. "They want you down in the infirmary."

"Why?" Jay pulled off his smock and dropped it on his empty suit.

"I'm not your secretary," Chuck called down. "Get a move on, lazy bones. You don't want Higgins looking for you."

"Hmph." Jay climbed out of the secret rooms, pausing in his dorm room. Chuck hung upside down from his bunk bed. He grinned at Jay, before going back to reading his comic book. Jay went to the ladder leading up to the dorm and climbed down to the floor. Sleeping space had been modified out of the room just like they had cut a hole in the column where their beds were and built down into the thing.

Facing the Queen of the Puddle afterwards had been a snap.

Jay walked the hall. The weekend had been days of hiking, finding their way back to camp, and learning to swim rapids. He was sore, grumpy, and not pleased to be dragged along by his roommates, Maus, and Suzy Q. When he tried to sit things out, they ganged up on him and carried him with them.

He did not enjoy being stuck in the sticks. Then his phone died on the second day, so he couldn't use it for anything.

The worse part was the sheet of ash around their tent. They found it after the first night. Maus said some things. Then they cleaned up the mess and buried it before the adults came by with breakfast.

The danger was past and they couldn't explain anything anyway.

Yeah, Mrs. Greevy. We killed that brain eating monster in our sleep.

He didn't see that going over too well.

Jay spotted Maus and some adult standing outside the infirmary. The adult was close enough in appearance to Maus to be a dad, or an older brother. He wore a suit that made Edwards think of a Western. He even had a tan cowboy hat in hand.

"Jay, this is my dad," said Maus. "Dad, this is the guy I told you about, Jay Edwards."

"Mr. Lowenstein?" Jay squinted. He didn't associate a German name with Indians, so it was making him wonder what was going on. He just didn't want to pull a Chuck, and ask out right.

"My father was adopted." Mr. Lowenstein smiled. "My son said you saved the day."

"I lucked out." Jay shrugged. "I thought I was going to die."

"But you didn't." Mr. Lowenstein smiled. "The spirits said they have never seen such a mess in their existences. They have decided to keep an eye on you to see what you will do next."

"What do you mean a mess?," Jay split his look between the Lowensteins. "I'm not a mess."

"But you are." Mr. Lowenstein turned serious. "You deny spirits and medicine, but you faced a dream with your vaunted imagination and killed it. Not many can claim that. The fact that you were the only one who could is incidental to what happened. In the face of death and defeat, you saved the day. That makes the spirits interested in you."

"I don't have time for spirits." Jay harrumphed again. "I have to get my stuff done."

The Lowensteins smiled at the assertion. The spirits did what they wanted. Mortals didn't get much say in the matter.

"Do you guys know why they sent for me?" Jay thought about just confronting Mrs. Greevy. He didn't think that was a good idea. He didn't want to take an old woman's fist to the face. The guys would heckle him about that until the end of the semester.

"Mrs. Greevy wanted you to meet someone." Maus stepped out of the way of the door.

"I know enough people." Jay stepped inside the infirmary. He looked around for Mrs. Greevy. Once he was done with this meeting, he could head back upstairs and go back to experimenting on finding an energy source for his suit.

"Jay?" Mrs. Greevy's voice came from behind a screen.

"Yep." Jay walked to the edge of the screen. He paused because he didn't want to interrupt something embarrassing to other people. He just wanted to find out what was going on and getting back to work.

"Hold on a second, Jay." Mrs. Greevy moved something heavy. "Come ahead."

A woman lay in the hospital bed. Tubes were hooked to her in the usual places. She smiled faintly at the boy. Black marks colored her face underneath her eyes. Her hair had been cut short to keep it out of the way when Mrs. Greevy, or her help, had to move her.

"This is James Edwards, dear." Mrs. Greevy waved him to the side of the bed. "Jay, this is Lorna Psykes."

"Pleased to meet you." Jay wondered what this was all about. He didn't know this lady, and didn't want to know her. He wanted to be back upstairs in his lab. "What's going on?"

"I owe you." Lorna gestured for him to come closer. "I repay."

"Owe me what?" Jay started to backpedal. He didn't need another weird person latching on to him.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him closer. Her other hand touched his forehead. He thought he heard someone say contact. Anger flared at the intrusion in his mind.

"Listen." Lorna Psykes's voice was in his ears and his brain. "Minor telepathic abilities. I know you freed me. Your friends were there, but you were the one that freed me. Will be here for a time until I get stronger. Want to give you something back. That's the Code."

"The Code?" Jay wondered what she was talking about. A book the size of a dictionary appeared in his mind. It flipped open, and rows of rules flew by. "I got that. The Code."

"I need to pay you back now, in case something happens and I never get stronger." Psykes pulled the schematics for his suit out of his mind. She reached in and altered some of the wiring, leading to a battery inside the chest piece. She indicated a place for a backup, and spare in case of trouble. She used Jay's mind to check the numbers. "Remember what I showed you."

"I have a good memory," said Jay. He checked the new drawings himself with her still in contact. "You were the girl who didn't wake up. How do you know what we did?"

"Was there." Psykes smiled in his brain. "Saw it."

"In the boxes of light." Jay made the connection with a nod. No wonder the monster had worn the chains and boxes. All of its previous victims were inside the glass cages.

"Very smart." Psykes started removing herself from his mind. "Have to sleep, recover. The world has changed. I needed to do this before anything else."

"Thank you." Jay found himself blinking in the real world. The woman in the bed snored as he tried to keep his balance. "That was something else."

"Everything okay, Jay?" Mrs. Greevy gestured for him to step into her office. He settled into a chair as she got him a cup of water. "You look confused."

"No." Jay shook his head. He took the paper cup and downed the water in one go. "I should have seen what I was doing wrong weeks ago. I'm a big idiot."

"Sometimes when you are too close to a problem, it's hard to see a solution." Mrs. Greevy took a seat behind her desk. "Do you want to talk about what happened out in the woods?"

"Camping is for idiots." Jay stood. "Thanks for the water, Mrs. Greevy. I have to get back to work before I forget what I was shown."

Jay walked out of the room, writing on his phone as he went.

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