Thought that one was a doozy, didn’t you? Whew!

Okay, I know that was a lot to cover, and trust me, I really did my best to shorten it! Okay, I could have left out some of the dialogue, but because this is a story, I needed to keep it interesting somehow! Also, it was a way to keep things engaging before I sum up the next boring bit.

We landed in an isolated airfield, where we disembarked and were greeted by some truckers. They stashed us, or more like squashed us, in the back of a cab for an oil truck. Three separate trucks left the airfield and all went in different directions. We were placed in the care of a particularly smelly and talkative wack job named Sulvie. At least, that is how I think you’re supposed to write his name…

Sulvie talked our ears off about the time he was nearly captured and butt probed by some aliens as he took us to some gas station, once again out in the middle of nowhere! And it was kind of chilly. He dropped us off in time to connect with a bus. And there we finally got a chance to get some real sleep. The Sphinx paid for us all in cash to avoid leaving credit or paper trail.

It was on this ride that I found out that Trick’s dad was away on an extended camping trip to avoid any run-ins with the Syndicate. Naomi’s mom was held up in the Bureau’s offices to make sure nobody got to her. They still feared for their extended family, but they trusted the chase and the Syndicate seemingly having spread themselves too thin, that they would continue to be safe.

We eventually made it to Cincinnati. Can you say humid!?

I mean, the place is beautifully green, and the people are nice despite the traffic. Even the houses are more picturesque than in Boulder, but this is not the kind of place I could see myself living for the rest of my life! I would melt like an ice cream cake! It felt like an inevitability for the first few hours that I would meet my end there.

How can you guys take this, I thought miserably. I saw the sweat glistening on their foreheads as we made our way into the safehouse, but none of the others seemed affected by it at all. So unfair!

The house Conturbatio brought us to was nice enough. It was a two story house with four bedrooms. It would accommodate all of us nicely. They had even stocked the place with some food and clothing. That was nice, even though the pants and shirt were a size too large for me.The Sphinx explained that these kinds of places were routinely seen to by families paid by the Seekers to maintain and make it look normal. The neighborhood just accepted it.

Something about that explanation made my skin crawl a little.

“Okay, we are all thoroughly exhausted from all of the traveling,” the Sphinx finally announced after we got settled. “We adults will sleep right now, which means that you teens will have to keep watch. It also means that you should sleep soundly tonight, which is exactly what we need!”

I was about to ask why that was, when Naomi got excited. “Does that mean that we will finally be given a chance to use it?”

“Yes, that is correct,” the Sphinx answered with a smile.

“I still don't approve,” Susan sniffed.

“Mom, you never approve of his ideas,” Trick complained.

“Because if we didn’t go along with his ideas, then we might not be in this mess,” she threw back.

“And then the world would be that much closer to its potential doom,” Stacy said flatly.

Susan raised her hands and said, “I know that I’m being the bad guy here, but somebody needs to try thinking straight. However, we are here now, and yes, it is time that we do something to get back at them.”

“I feel so out of the loop,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Then we’ll let you in on the loop,” the Sphinx replied.

From his pocket he withdrew a golden nail with some engravings. They were filled in with black. It looked a little like a railroad spike, just much smaller. And there were thin, golden wires wrapped around the head of the nail.

“This is what I got from Egypt,” the Sphinx said, his eyes growing distant. “This is an ancient device that allowed others to cross over to the Realms of Imagination in their sleep. It is very rare, and very powerful.”

He then shook himself and returned to the here and now. “Tonight, when you three go to sleep, we will wrap these wires around your wrists, while they are still connected to the nail. This nail will pierce the barriers separating our two universes and drag you into this other place. Your minds will form avatars for the Realms. It should work as if you were natural Crossovers.”

“It still sounds like something out of a comic book,” I muttered.

“It is what it is,” the Sphinx said with a shrug.

“I really hate that saying,” Naomi said with a growl.

“While we sleep,” Stacy instructed. “It will be important for you three to come up with a place where you want to go. The nail should allow you three to stick together, and you will at the beginning have a kind of lucid dreaming experience, as least that is what we understand. This means that you can select where you will go and what kind of form your avatars should take.”

“Very nifty,” Trick said with a grin, eying the nail. “This is going to be real fun!”

“It’s work,” his mother reminded him. “And it is our survival. So don’t do anything to screw it up! And keep an eye on Ruben here. He’s probably very important to all of this.”

“I’m flattered and all, but how do you figure that,” I asked, wiping the ever present sweat from my forehead. I must have looked like such a dweeb…

“From what little we’ve gathered, people with your abilities represent something of a club,” Conturbatio said dryly. “Lords and Knights look out for their own, and they especially look out for new Crossovers.”

“So we want to get in touch with an all powerful Lord. Sounds good to me,” I replied.

“Actually, we want to get word out to the Accursed. They will take immediate interest. We need to contact the Guardians. Chances are that they are our best bet for figuring out exactly what is going on and they will be the party most inclined to helping stop whatever is going on. My information says that nowadays they really abhor any notion of the realms and Reality meeting; they see it as too dangerous.”

“At least someone out there has their head screwed on straight,” Susan muttered under her breath.

“Got it,” Naomi said. “We’ll make a plan for tonight and what we are going to do to get the message out to these Guardians.”

“And we’ll be sure to have a back-up plan,” Trick promised.

“Excellent,” Conturbatio smiled. “Now, if we want everything to go off without a hitch, we should take a rest. Chances are that the Syndicate won’t know for at least 24 hours what we have done, but it is best to play it safe. There are some guns hidden here, I’ll quickly show you.”

The guns were hidden in a few cupboards throughout the house. Naomi and Trick stockpiled all of them for themselves. Naomi told me in no uncertain terms that she did not trust me with one, and that there was the possibility I might use them to get out of the house.

Honestly, she wasn’t wrong.

Once the agents had retired to their beds, Trick took me into the living room where he and Naomi had a notepad and some pens ready to go. When I asked what they were for, they explained that this was how they were going to draw up their plan for the night.

“I think we should start with the escape plan,” Trick offered, taking out some old paper, rolled up tightly.

“Wait a second! Are those your Dungeons and Dragons characters? Your character sheets, I mean?”

“Sure, go ahead and check them out,” Trick said with a smile, tossing the sheets to me.

They were heavier than I expected. I unrolled them and looked back at the drawing looking up back at me. There was Trick, shrouded as a thief, more muscular than he was in person. He was giving his signature wink. I saw the Cloak of Transition listed, along with many other items I did not recognize. Naomi made for a very cool, half orc-half elf paladin. That long mohawk really suited her.

Glancing up at Naomi as she was now, she had let her hair grow out more, and she had trimmed the mohawk back a little to make things look more proportional. It was a really nice hair style. Now if only she smiled more often. It is hard to convey with words just how often she scowls, and how she could probably erode a rock with a long enough of a stare…

In any case, it was incredible looking over their stats and items. This is what really began bringing the whole situation to life for me. I can’t even explain why; I’m not even that big of a fan of D&D, but holding something so tangible… It was like I was holding two lives in my hands, and I just knew then that this was all real.

And I wanted to run away screaming for my life!

Trick finally took the sheets back and explained, Should things get very hairy out there, we will use a portal to take all three of us back to the world of our characters. It migth not be the safest there, but Trickster and Ru-ah know their way around those parts, and we should be able to keep you safe there until we wake up.”

“You mean we can’t just wake up if things get bad?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” he answered, shaking his head.

“The portal will have to be something small and proper for us to carry, like a Portkey,” Naomi said matter-of-factly. “Otherwise it will just bog us down. But that is the simple part. We need to figure out how we can get to a place where we can connect with many different worlds and send out a message to anyone.”

“So long as it isn’t Tumblr. That place is a mess right now,” I said quickly.

I then paused.

“How do I know that!? That is so random!”

“And now all I can think about is Tumblr,” Trick laughed. “But you’re right, that is probably a bad idea. It is a black hole of the internet, after all!”

“No, it’s more than that,” I said slowly. “I just feel like it is a very dangerous place to go right now. Like it is very real, but also not a pace we should go if we hope to connect easily with a Guardian. But I just don’t get it!”

“It must be because you are a Dreamer,” Naomi suggested. “You can glimpse things in th Realms. Maybe you have seen a whole lot more than you have already written, but because you haven't written it out yet it is not easily remembered.”

“This is proving to be a thoroughly unhelpful power,” I moaned.

“Stop it, Ruben. We don’t need any of that,” Trick chided. “Let’s see what else you might know.”

They pestered me for a good while about different internet sites, possible worlds, strange ideas, and so on. I thought about it, and I could recall worlds left empty and desolate, like not just life, but also death had been sucked from them. A natural element of the Realms had also been done away with, another connection between worlds. I saw brilliant Stars. Stars with names of people, because they represented them. They were them!

I caught flashes of many other stories, but nothing really helpful. A red haired fox searching out his family. A sword getting out of a video game. A planet surrounded by rings. A dragon soaring between the Stars. And then, there it was!

“Guys,” I finally stammered, feeling like I was going to puke. Who knew that raking your brain could be such hard work!? “I think I know where we need to go.”

“Really,” Naomi scoffed.

I ignored her and began writing and drawing on the notepad. What unfolded before us, though a little sloppily, was a gas giant. A planet where trees grew up from the depths of the gas. Massive trees. Trees that became cities. This was a network area, a large trading post, and a place of pirates. I told them that here we could find all kinds of people who would be willing to make contact for us if we had enough money.

We would have to dream of all those Benjamins that night!

Both teens were a little wary of my plan, but it was surprisingly Naomi who conceded to it first. “It’s as good as anything. We should trust the Dreamer to some extent, otherwise none of this would be worth it. Also, I’m going to quickly check the perimeter of the house. You two finalize any further plans. We’ll get to memorizing them before we go to sleep.”

Sh yawned before giving Trick a peck on the lips. I yawned too. Couldn;t they be lovey-dovey somewhere else? This is why I did not want them to be a couple in my books! Oh sure, I had them flirt and everything, but that was to reel in the readers! Yes, I know that is a terrible thing for me to do, baiting my audience and all of that. But come on! Every author does it! And my way was much more tolerable than this!

And oh sure, you might think much of that one little peck. But that’s because you haven’t been around these characters like I have!

Luckily, Naomi was able to sound the all clear. We were not attacked, and we put together a pretty reasonable plan for getting in touch with the Guardians. When night finally rolled around, we were all good and exhausted. We pushed two beds together so that we would all have enough room to bunch up. The golden wire was stretched just long enough for all three of us to get connected.

You might be wondering why the adults did not join us. They said it was best to have all three up and ready to move us if there was any hint of trouble. We did not want to get caught unawares!

The wire cut into me a little, but that did not stop me from falling quickly asleep. It was just one of those nights where once you hit the sack you are out like a light! Or maybe it was the power of the nail. Who knows?

But what I do know is that when I opened my eyes again, I was speeding right for a massive, light blue gas giant.