Zones
Legacy Name: Zones

January

The old professor was reluctant to hire an assistant. Those rare few youths who were not intent on personal gain were sure to be clumsy oafs who could not distinguish a microscope from a microwave. He shuddered at the thought of years of work lost in an instant to a flailing elbow.

It was his housekeeper who decided the issue. She had learned quickly that the lab was off limits but she would not tolerate the smell of bad eggs and burnt hair. It was a wonder the professor hadn't brought the roof down on their heads.

One little beaker explosion in twenty years and Anna was threatening to quit if he didn't cooperate. She was a very good cook though, and one can grow very tired of instant soup.

The professor's mighty beard quivered at the sight of Ezekiel. The boy had purple streaks in his shaggy black hair. A silver hoop hung from his left ear and a lightning tattoo traveled the length of his neck to strike his collarbone. He grinned and stuck out a hand with nails painted black. "Glad to meet you, Prof. I'm Zee."

Z. The omega of the alphabet. A letter with finite uses. On a less refined man, the professor's grimace of distaste might have been called a sneer. "I do serious work here, young man. I will not tolerate fooling around in my lab nor constant breaks so you can play with some electric gadget."

Zee shrugged. "Not a problem." He blushed as he took in his surroundings. One square of that fancy gold-leaf navy wallpaper was probably worth the paint it had taken to paint his mom's entire house. "I don't own a phone."

Anna had mentioned the family was poor. When the professor named the wage he planned to offer, he expected even this ragamuffin to turn and walk away. Instead, Zee grabbed the mop leaning against one wall in the hall closet. "I can start today, if you like."

The professor led the way to the lab with a grunt of acceptance. Zee gaped at the fancy computer panels and beakers full of rainbow liquids.

"Touch only what you're told. There are a number of delicate experiments in progress and if you upset the results of even one, you'll be on the street before that mop handle hits the floor."

Zee did his work quietly, putting every dollar he earned into the family jar back home. His family had a real turkey for Christmas and his youngest sister was fitted with her first pair of shoes. Zee used those few dollars left over to buy little presents for the other four.

He returned to work on New Year's Day to find the professor in a marvelous mood. The old man even asked Anna to make cocoa for everybody though he wouldn't name the occasion. He tapped a few keys, whistling a tune left over from the holidays. Zee did not understand the symbols dancing across the screen. They were pretty in a way, like radioactive snowflakes. The professor looked up when Anna knocked at the door. There was no tray in her hands.

"There are some men at the door, sir. Police, I think."

The professor's grin turned to a scowl. "Another complaint by Miss Tibbins, no doubt. Once again I will irrefutably prove that she has no grounds to so persecute me!"

It was not the first time Zee had been left alone in the lab. He dipped his mop, attacking a spot where the professor had dribbled some coffee while reading a sheet of figures.

The computer voiced a series of loud clicks followed by a loud hum. What Zee had always mistook for a bizarre coat rack suddenly blazed with purple light that formed an arch. Little white sparkles danced on the surface.

He had never seen anything so beautiful. He wanted to reach out and touch the strange, shimmering gelatin but one month of working for a scientist had taught him some caution. He poked the portal with the end of his mop.

The goop raced up the handle, encasing his arm. His body was covered before he had time to scream. With a brilliant flash of light, he took flight.

Back in the lab, the clock of the Computer of Theoretical Space Travel clicked to noon as the coordinates of the first planet were captured on its screen.

February

Zee felt his way along on his hands and knees, shivering violently. A light sweater and jeans were plenty warm in a lab that maintained a constant temperature of 68 degrees. Out here they were valuable as a paper suit.

He tried to crawl forward, crying out as the ground beneath him creaked and crackled. He swiped at the tears already frozen to his face, tucking his numb hands beneath his armpits. He crawled blindly forward, hoping for some kind of cave, even a stunted tree he could lean against to get out of the wind.

The ground fell away suddenly. His arms flailed uselessly in an expanse of white with no beginning or end. He tried to scream but the cold air hurt his throat. He clamped his teeth together and shut his eyes, praying for the horrible dream to end.

He was waiting for Mom to tell him he'd been in bed far too long. Maggie and Callie would be arguing over who got the last bowl of cereal and the twins would be begging for a new soccer ball.

Zee heard no squeals or giggles and it was not the faces of his sisters that caught his eye as he awoke. He gave a cry of fright. He could deal with the fact that the uk-tuks were short but no human should have hair like a yak.

They proved to be a cheerful group, their owlish eyes easily selecting the unique pattern of a snowflake within a blizzard cloud. Many families had to donate spare furs to revive the hairless giant but none raised a complaint. Zee was not the first of his kind to visit.

He could not find a way to speak to them. When he tried to tell them his name, they brought him hunks of purple meat from a creature they called Zei. He could not even be sure if uk-tuks had individual names.

They taught him to sew a cloak and to hunt the beasts he thought of as white buffalo. Somehow his mop had survived the fall. He delighted the young ones by giving them each a strand from the head. The remaining strings were braided with small copper beads. They insisted he have matching beads for his hair, stroking the purple streaks with murmurs of admiration.

The portal appeared one day when he was having a lesson in basket weaving. The uk-tuk he had taken to calling Chief placed his mop in his hand and pointed at the circle of violet light, making it clear it was his time to leave. The children crooned a farewell song as he placed his palm against the surface and once again felt the sensation of flying.

March

The ground was a dark gray crust broken every so often by ribbons of orange. Zee was forced to take off his fur cloak as a blast of hot air sent him staggering backward. The portal closed with a snap.

At his back was a cave formed from slabs of brown stone. He could see no plants of any kind, nor was there a hint of water. He fumbled for the water skin at his belt, taking a greedy gulp before he realized the value of its contents.

He needed to find a water source. He put out one sneakered foot, letting it hover over the baked ground. Even through the thick rubber sole, the heat was almost unbearable. He snatched his foot back, freezing in place as something on the horizon moved.

The creature looked something like a cross between an ogre and a stegosaurus with bulky arms and great stone plates sticking out of its back. Glowing golden eyes focused on a molten stream. Thick stone fingers brought the liquid to cracked black lips. The creature's rumble of satisfaction made the surface of the planet shake.

A draft of cold air made Zee turn. He ran for the safety of the cave, gasping for breath as he listened for sounds of pursuit. The stone giant ignored him completely, moving on to sample another lava stream.

The rear of the cave was in total darkness. Zee nearly fell through a hole in the floor, finding the rope ladder by sheer luck. He climbed down and found himself in a chamber lit by thousands of luminous crystals which grew from the walls. The wooden supply crates in one corner were of greater interest.

The food rations were lacking in flavor, but they would keep him alive. He set aside his small water skin for a canteen filled with fresh, cold water. The spare clothes in one crate looked military but he could find no weapons of any kind. He spent the next week patiently plucking the strings from the mop head, rolling them into a ball of yarn that went into a canvas bag he'd found. A wooden staff wouldn't be much use in this volcanic world, but he felt better with it in his hand.

His next project was to pluck a few smaller crystals from the wall. He learned that they glowed brightest in the presence of other crystals. One that was separated went dark, lighting up again when placed amid his small collection.

Though the fur cloak was useless, he could not bear to leave it behind. The cloak became a liner for his bag when the portal once again appeared.

April

He had gone from a world with no vegetation to one that was overgrown. Massive trees were covered with thick green vines that were heavy with tropical flowers. Hummingbirds the size of his fist darted between the blossoms, drinking their fill.

His mouth began to water at the smell of fresh-baked apple pie. He reached out a hand to a cluster of golden berries, bringing them to his nose and inhaling. These were not nutritional pastes that tasted like cardboard. They were real berries that smelled like apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg. He placed one in his mouth, crushing it and sighing as the taste proved ten times better than the smell.

This world was so beautiful it was unreal. Zee placed his bag under his head for a pillow, watching the parrots that fluttered between the branches above. He closed his eyes with a smile.

The scene changed in an instant. The vines shriveled and died. Flashy flocks of birds rose into the air, screeching and tearing each other to pieces. Those that survived turned on Zee, tearing at his hair and pecking his exposed arms. He tried to stand, yelling in horror as a great ruby dragon erupted from the ground to singe his feet.

He did not know how long he remained trapped in the horrible dream. When he woke he was drenched with sweat and night had fallen. He sat with his unmarked arms wrapped around his knees, feeling his smooth skin and sobbing his relief.

Each berry bush he passed tempted him with the smell of some food he missed terribly. He had only packed thirty food tubes, figuring it took about a month for a new portal to appear. With no other food source he could trust, he was going through his supply much too fast.

It was on the day he cracked open his last tube that he came to a bush that smelled like liver and onions. To Zee, there was no combination of foods more repulsive. The offensive-smelling berries were wrinkly and unappealing. They were so out of place that Zee bent down to examine the bush.

Carved on the thorny trunk were three words: Safe to Eat.

The taste was even worse than the smell but Zee felt an instant burst of energy. He picked a handful of the nasty fruits, putting them in the now-useless tube. When the new portal opened, he flung himself at it with great relief.

May

Endless stretches of grassy hills were broken by the occasional bush hung heavy with blue fruits that looked like bananas. Zee was cautious at first, but these fruits caused no ill effects. He stood on top of a hill as clouds began to gather above. Being struck by lightning couldn't be much worse than what he'd already been through.

The rain was gentle on his skin. When the sun returned, his clothes dried. The heat was never intense enough to burn. He began to long for a herd of cattle or some wooly sheep but this planet did not seem to have any animal life. He did not even suffer the annoyance of insect bites. It was simply too peaceful.

He did find the grass surprisingly strong and wove a little herd of grass cows, taking only one along as he continued his journey.

June

Zee was nearly blinded by the reflection of sunlight on golden sand. The strip of beach he stood on was narrow, broken on one side by gorgeous blue water and on the other by enormous prehistoric trees with dark green fronds.

Strange shapes began to rise out of the water. He almost thought they were women until he noticed the slender tentacles that took the place of arms. Zee backed away, unleashing a sound halfway between a whimper and a moan.

“Do not be afraid, human child. I am Ea of the Eiyoua. My people have no desire to hurt you.”

It took an hour in the sun and the gift of a leaf piled with thick aqua fruits to convince him that she spoke the truth. Ea smiled as he took a bite.

“For us the sun is nourishing, but for you it will cause harm if you do not continue to eat the yoya fruit. If Professor was here, he could tell you why this is so.”

Zee gaped at her, blue juice dribbling down his chin. “The professor has been here?

Her smile widened. “You are one of his students. This is good. Often when a human finds a portal chain, it is by accident. He is one of few humans who explores the secrets of the universe because he wishes to.”

“I’m not his student. I just clean the floors in his lab. I’m not supposed to be here.”

Ea placed a tentacle tip against her cheek. “You must have been terribly frightened. To avoid the Moltens of Vaulkin and resist the poisonous fruits of Gardenia is difficult for even experienced Portal Walkers.”

“You…you know about the portals?”

“We were the first Walkers. We learned how to visit the vast stretches of the galaxy by observing the patterns of starlight.”

“Can you send me home?”

There was great regret in Ea’s soft voice. “Only Professor has ever found the secret to call the portal forces. We can sense when a portal appears and where it will lead, but not even First Islanders have the power to open portals at will.” She laughed lightly at his confused look. “Eat the rest of your yoya and I will tell you about my people.”

He took another bite of the sweet flesh that was better than the juiciest slice of watermelon.

“Our world is very large and mostly covered in water. Spread over the surface are twenty-six islands, each with six-hundred and seventy-six fruit trees tended by twenty-six Eiyoua. We take our names by the order from which we emerged from our parent star, from mighty Aa to humble Zz. You have come to us on Fifth Island, where the yoya tree grows. The glow of First Islanders would hurt your eyes and Aiyoa Fruit would burn your mouth. The Uyi Berries of Island Twenty-Six are delicious to Za’s people but could not give your body what it needs.”

Ea’s sisters cared for him as if he were a child. He tried to make them small gifts of those trinkets he’d acquired on his travels. On the night the next portal appeared, Ea gave him a string necklace on which items of each world he’d visited were hung. Her contribution was an aqua gem shaped like a star.

“Professor insisted that the key to getting home was an item from each world. This gem will light your way, should you stray to a dead planet. The blessing of the stars go with you, child of Earth.”

July

The trees were thick, stretching up to impossible heights. They grew in perfect rows, allowing square patches of sunlight through the otherwise unbroken canopy. Zee couldn’t help feeling like piece in some giant’s game of checkers as he stepped from one light square to the next.

The buzz of a rattle brought him to a halt. He scanned the ground with wide eyes. He didn’t want to think about the potency of venom from a space snake. He just wanted to get out of this creepy forest.

Motion in the brush caught his attention. The twitching nose of a rabbit poked free from a freshly dug warren. The sound of the snake grew louder yet the rabbit was completely unafraid.

“You’ll be a snake snack if you don’t watch out, bunny.”

The rabbit blinked and waddled forward, revealing the rattlesnake tail at its rear. It opened its mouth to reveal two impressive fangs.

Zee backed away, watching in horror as the rabbit-snake pounced on a sparrow-toad that launched itself from the surface of a nearby pond. Zee ran in the opposite direction, driven to greater speed as a troupe of parrot-monkeys glided down to taunt him. He had not come close to forgetting his hallucinations on Gardenia. He ran until his progress was halted by the shore of a large lake.

Three zebras with scorpion tails brayed at a pack of leopard-wolves with pointed ears and spotted coats. Zee silently thanked Ea for the sack of yoya fruits on his back. No level of thirst could convince him to approach that lake. He watched as one of the zebra hybrids was attacked by a swarm of gator-trout. The scorpion tail lashed out but for every fish killed, three more lunged up to take its place.

He crawled beneath a thorn bush to sleep, waking to a number of small cuts. The ground beneath his hands crackled. A thin carpet of silver leaves coated the ground. They almost looked like a blanket of snow.

He tied a silver leaf into the next open knot, wanting no part of these bizarre animals in contact with his skin.

The bigger animals seemed drawn to the lake so he moved deeper into the forest, living off the fruits he had collected. He had no goal in mind but to keep moving and to disturb no nests. A flock of lizard-geese hissed at the portal that sent them scurrying out of their grassy beds. They made very rude noises at Zee as he passed, settling again when the irritating purple light vanished.

August

Zee spent two weeks wandering steel corridors, staring without comprehension at control panels with many dials and flashing lights. There were words written in strange symbols he could not understand. He did find the occasional chamber with a pull-out bunk and a box of food concentrates. The tubes were labeled with pictures of their contents. He did not dare try these until the day he found a box with a picture of Earth taped to the side. Four very human names were written on the side of the box and at the bottom was a flat black screen.

The screen came to life at the touch of a fingertip. The face of a man in need of a shave appeared. An American flag was sewn onto the sleeve of his uniform.

“Is this thing on?”

Three phantom laughs echoed through the room. “Seriously, Solecki. How did you even make it through training?”

Solecki pulled a face and looked back at the camera. “This is Captain Michael Solecki of Team Alpha. Jones, Carlson, and the lovely Miss Everette are here with me in our little corner of the Ontergalactic Station. We just came from a meeting of seventy worlds, represented by members of the Universal Committee.”

The video cut to an image of a massive dome filled with thousands of tables. The occupants came in many shapes and sizes with twenty-six life forms at each table. Some required tanks of water while others were forced to kneel to avoid a nasty bump on the head. Some looked vaguely animal, others vaguely human, and some could not be described by human words without the aid of a stiff drink. Zee was shocked to see Ea seated with twenty-five of her sisters, each one with a different skin color. Her particular shade of pale blue was by far the prettiest in his opinion.

Solecki reappeared, grinning. “Almost two thousand life forms working to solve the mystery of wormholes, all claiming superior intelligence, and you can’t find two who agree on a single point. Mike Solecki of Alpha Team signing off this seventh day of August, 3030.”

Zee almost dropped the screen in his surprise. The portals seemed to appear about once a month. He had never considered he might be passing through space and time. Would it even be possible to get home?

He fast-forwarded through a few entries, coming to the final one at last. Solecki was sweating.

“There was a leak in the Quinuvo section. Only three made it to life capsules and we don’t know the extent of the radiation leak. It’s a full evacuation. I’m told it will be five thousand years before this planet’s fit for life.” Alarm bells sounded in the distance and the screen went dark.

Zee stared at the tube of half-eaten turkey paste in his hand, fighting the urge to be sick. The tube had been sealed, but what if this whole section was contaminated?

He returned to wandering the corridors, coming up against a number of thick steel doors that he feared to approach. Returning to Solecki’s chamber, he sorted through those few things the astronauts had left behind. Rolling around the bottom of the box was a small glass bead painted to look like Earth. He tied it in place. He could not be any more contaminated and it was Ea who had told him to fill the knots. The portal appeared over Carlson’s bunk, forcing him to crawl through.

September

Feathered faces crowded around the strange creature that crawled out of the sky, right into the center of their favorite bronze fountain. Zee shook water from his hair, biting back a laugh at the sight of the three-foot bird men with noses like long rubber tubes. They ran velvet-padded fingers over his clothes, his bag, and the mop handle he still carried. Their honking babble turned to excited hooting at the sight of the necklace. One plucked a bright green feather from his head, pointing to one of the open ties with an excited whistle.

“For me? Thanks.”

“Tanks! Tanks!” The creatures repeated the word over and over as Zee secured the feather. They took him by the hand, dragging him toward a building shaped like a giant egg.

They never left him alone. The noise of the city was overwhelming. Everything he did fascinated the bird men. Even when he screamed and waved his arms to frighten them off they merely copied his actions with excited chuckles of delight. He almost missed the solitude of the abandoned station and when the portal appeared he nearly left the mop handle behind in his haste to get away.

October

The greasy black mud clung to his sneakers with each step. A tiny drop was flung into the air to land on the back of his hand. It stung like an ant bite, leaving a small red mark. Fortunately, the goo had no effect on his shoes.

For the next twelve hours he saw nothing but stunted black trees coated with the nasty goo. He pinched his arms to stay awake and to keep himself moving.

The goo ended abruptly at the steps of an onyx mansion surrounded by a high iron fence. Zee stumbled through the open gate and onto the porch, shoving open the entry door without a thought for who might live there. The sofa in the sitting room was dusty but the cushions were soft and the ticking of the clock overhead soon put him to sleep.

He slept for hours, twitching uneasily as he dreamed of home. Maggie had forgotten to close the screen door again, letting in a swarm of flies. The girls stood behind Zee, screaming at him to kill those icky bugs. He swatted in vain with a broomstick, missing his mark every time.

He woke with a start as something hairy tickled his face. The fly was the size of a pony, bearing a fleshy creature with transparent eyes and pale flesh covered in purple splotches. Zee thrashed out with the broomstick, sending the pair back as he screamed.

He had gone to a haunted house once when his father was still alive. He clung to the reassuring hand of safety as a paper ghost on a string dropped from the ceiling. He wished for his father now as the room began to fill with hideous creatures, each one more grotesque than the last. They never quite came within reach of his mop handle. They stared at him with greedy eyes, well aware he had nowhere to go.

Something small and furry pressed against the palm of his hand. The mouse had hitched a ride in the pocket of another accidental traveler who did not have a stick filled with Eiyoua magic. The small creature dropped a small ruby into Zee’s palm, nudging the necklace and curling up on his lap protectively. The monsters growled at the sight of the stone chipped from the base of the forbidden mountain. It was back to a diet of sludge for them.

The portal appeared on the other side of the room, forcing Zee to run for it. He was relieved when his furry companion poked a twitching nose out of his pocket to explore their next destination.

November

Zee was convinced the castle they found themselves in was straight out of Jack and the Beanstalk. The flags on the walls could easily cover a three-story house and seven men could comfortably fit into one suit of armor. The food in the banquet hall could solve world hunger on at least three planets.

Zee ate his fill, enjoying dishes he had been craving for weeks, months, years. Time no longer meant anything. The mouse squeaked and ran from one plate to another. Here was a feast with no poison and no traps, a rodent paradise. They ate from a new plate every day, enjoying the enchantment that replaced whatever they ate. They never saw another living creature.

The portal appeared beside a giant chocolate cake. When Zee held out his hand, the mouse curled his slender tail around the stem of the cherry.

“Guess I can hardly blame you.” Zee felt no shame in crying over the loss of the mouse. The creature gave him one last whisker tickle and dropped in his hand a cheese rind nibbled into the shape of a crescent moon.

Zee took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.

December

The sun was very far away, a red ember in its final stage of life. The surface of the planet was hard and terribly cold. Small black stones littered the ground, causing Zee to stumble.

There was endless darkness in this place, much worse than lava streams, fever dreams, or monster schemes. Zee held onto the first stone his bruised fingers encountered, feeling the drops of blood that trickled down his hand. He clutched the stone as proof that there was something on this planet other than unbroken darkness.

He did not know how many days had passed when he thought of the necklace. He fumbled for the one remaining knot. His stiff fingers could not loosen the tie. He sank to the ground, putting his head between his knees and sobbing, losing the grip on the mop handle. He could hear it rolling briefly before it fell over the edge of a cliff. His one connection to his own time was now lost forever.

He took up the knot in his teeth, forcing it to obey his will despite the pain in his fingers. The native stone was so cold it was like clutching at fire but Ea had told him to take something from each world and he would complete the necklace.

The stone slipped in place reluctantly. The star-shaped jewel pendant blazed with white light that illuminated every crater and crevice. Steel fingers clamped Zee’s collar and he once again felt the sensation of flying.

He sat on the floor of the lab, shivering violently. He flinched away from the cold cloth that touched his face.

“I misjudged you, my boy. I thought of you as an omega when in truth you are a seeker of worlds.” The white cloth he held gradually turned black with the grime of a thousand years. “The computer was equipped with a recording device. In a sense, I was with you on every planet.”

Zee had still been prepared to believe this was all some crazy dream until the professor unclasped the necklace and held it up to the light.

“You have done in twelve hours what has taken me half a lifetime to accomplish. I am going to take you as my student, train you in the ways of space and time. Your family will never want for anything, my boy.”

The professor chuckled lightly as he realized Zee was already asleep.