The Magic Factory

Oliver checked his timetable and saw that it was completely grayed out, with no coordinates or ticking clock. For the first time since coming here, his every move was no longer predetermined. It left him feeling strangely unmoored.

With the announcement over, everyone filed out of the atrium and headed toward the F hall. Esther was now more or less back to normal, but Oliver hung closely by her side just in case. Everyone was silent and solemn as they clipped into a table.

The table rose and clicked into place. The food chutes moved into place, displaying a vast array of colorful foods. No one took anything. They were all too stunned. Finally, Simon broke the silence.

“I know I ought not admit this,” he said, “but I for one am rather scared.”

“Me too,” Hazel agreed with a nod.

“It was too close a call,” Ralph commented. “For people to penetrate the invisible wall. It makes me feel very unsafe. What if they come back?”

“Do you think the school is still in danger?” Simon asked.

“Professor Amethyst said he closed the rip,” Hazel reminded him.

“But he also said there was a spy!” Walter exclaimed.

Oliver listened to his friends discuss the situation, but remained very quiet. The attack had sent his mind reeling. As he looked at the faces of his friends, he could tell that everything had changed. The attack had stolen everyone’s innocence and sense of wonder, replacing it with heavy reality, with the weight of their collective missions. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Esther sat amongst them now as a new friend.

A girlfriend? Oliver wondered.

He didn’t know how to define their relationship but he was very glad to have her by his side.

The group of friends picked at their food. No one was hungry and barely a morsel had been eaten between them when the motorized arms came to collect their dishes. Then the table descended and everyone left the F hall.

They didn’t even need to say aloud where they were heading. They all made a beeline straight to the Z atrium. It was flashing white to allow the students to enter freely, as per Professor Amethyst’s instructions for them to get lots of sleep. Oliver was grateful. He was exhausted.

Ichiro was on duty, his usual smile replaced by a sort of heavy weariness. He showed each of them into their sleep pods without any joking quips.

Oliver attached his wires and monitors quickly. He couldn’t get to sleep soon enough. He wanted to put the terrors of the day out of his mind. So as soon as he was wired up, he pressed the white button and fell into a deep, instantaneous sleep.

*

Oliver found himself standing on the edge of a tall building. Though he’d never seen the School for Seers from the outside, he instinctively knew that that was where he was standing. He could see the shimmering bubble-like barrier of the protective shield arcing all around the building, encompassing the vast green fields of the school grounds that stretched on.

Just then, something in the distance caught Oliver’s eye. There was movement. Some kind of dark shape was bobbing on the horizon.

Oliver squinted and tried to decipher what he was seeing. The shape seemed to be bobbing, up then down, over and over. With a gasp, Oliver realized what he was looking at. An army. One hundred men strong. The strange movement was their perfect march.

Oliver gasped. The army was heading straight for the school!

As they drew closer he could make out more details. Their uniforms were a dusky khaki color, reminiscent of the uniforms worn by soldiers in World War Two. And they were maneuvering something along with them, some kind of weapon on a metal gurney with wheels. It looked like a rocket, with a strange egg-shaped body and wires protruding from it. Oliver recognized it instantly. The first atomic bomb. He’d seen its image in his inventors book.

The army reached the shimmering boundary of the school’s protective wall and stopped in one sudden, uniform motion. Oliver watched on in stunned silence as they began to adjust the bomb, angling it toward the wall.

“They’re going to blow up the school,” he stammered aloud.

Just then, a single figure broke from the line of soldiers. He walked up to the bomb, held his hand over the button, then paused and turned to look up at Oliver.

Oliver let out a desperate scream of realization. He knew that face all too well.

It was Lucas.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Oliver awoke with a gasp. The dream bounced around in his mind. Had it just been a dream? Or a premonition? Oliver’s dreams had guided him before, so why not this one?

Frantically, he mulled it over in his mind, trying to make sense of the idea that Lucas had been behind the attack on the school, that he was sending an army to finish the job. Why would he want to destroy the School for Seers? How did he even know about it in the first place? He wasn’t a guide like Armando, nor a Seer.

In a flash, Oliver remembered his conversation with Professor Amethyst in the sixth dimension. The headmaster had told him of rogue Seers who aided the most evil people in humanity. Could Lucas be one such person? Not just bad but… evil? Was that why he’d seen him leading an army?

Whatever the reason, Oliver knew he had to act. And fast. The visions he had when he closed his eyes at night were more than just dreams, they were premonitions. Armando’s death. The rainbow mantis shrimp. The universe was guiding him.

Suddenly, Oliver heard a voice ring out inside his mind. It was Ms. Belfry’s, telling him to always follow his dreams. Oliver wondered now if she’d meant literally, if there was something she knew about him.

Whether she did or not, her words coming to him in this moment seemed like a rallying cry, like another sign from the universe to guide him on his journey.

There was no time to waste. Oliver had to foil Lucas’s plan, stop him in his tracks in order to protect the school. He had to leave and return to the factory.

As he felt his pod moving beneath him, he tore off the monitors and wires, willing it to move faster, to free him quicker.

Finally, it clicked into place. The lid hissed open and Ichiro’s smiling face appeared above him.

“Hi, Oliver,” he began.

But Oliver was on his feet in an instant.

“Sorry, Ichiro! No time to explain!” he cried.

He hurried for the airlock. Inside, he went straight up to the locker, pulling out his freshly laundered clothes. He changed quickly in the changing room. As he hurried out, he slammed straight into Hazel.

“Oof!” she cried, stepping back. “Are you okay, Oliver? What’s the hurry?”

“I’m fine,” Oliver stammered, barely making eye contact. He gazed at the door, desperate for the white light to allow him to leave. “I just have to… I have things to do.”

He went to move past her, but Hazel took a step to block him. She fixed her concerned, gray eyes on him.

“Oliver, what’s wrong?” she said, more insistent this time.

Just then, Ralph emerged from the changing room. He took a second to survey Hazel and Oliver before him, then quirked his head to the side. “What’s going on, guys?”

Oliver’s mind was reeling too much to get his thoughts in order. “I have to stop him.”

Ralph and Hazel exchanged a confused glance.

“Stop who?” Ralph asked.

Oliver’s mind was frantic. He paced away from them only to find his route blocked by Walter, Simon, and Esther coming out from behind the changing curtains and into the main airlock.