Hamish X and the Hollow Mountain (16 page)

As he fell, he heard a sound. A voice called from far away. It was familiar.

“Hamish X. Wake up!”

The voice was getting closer.

“It's us! Y'all right!”

His fall was slowing.

“Mimi?” he murmured.

He was stopping now.

“
HAMISH X
! Wake up! Wake up now!” She was shaking him.

“Mimi! Stop shaking me! I'm awake already!”

Mimi's eyes went wide. “Hamish X? You know who I am? You remember me?”

“I remember you, Mimi. I remember Parveen.” He looked at Mrs. Francis and Mr. Kipling. “I remember you, too …”

He turned his head, cables and wires making the movement difficult. Lying on a table beside him, he saw the red-haired boy from the party. The boy's hair was plastered down with sweat and he looked pale but he smiled.

“Liam?”

“King Liam of Switzerland. Welcome, Hamish X.” The King's blue eyes closed. He was exhausted.

Hamish X suddenly remembered the woman with the brown hair. He had only caught a glimpse but he knew who she was. “Mother.”

Hamish X gulped against a swelling ache in his throat.

Parveen stepped close and took his friend's hand. “Are you all right, Hamish X?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I remember so much …” and he began to cry.

Mimi wrapped her arms around her friend and held him close to her as he began to sob.

One of the medical team members, a tall, thin girl, stepped up in front of Parveen. Her skin was a chocolate colour where it showed between her mask and her white cotton surgical cap. Her brown eyes were wide. “Your name … is Parveen.”

Parveen nodded. “Yes.”

The girl pulled off her mask and cap. A glossy ponytail fell over her shoulder. Her smile was bright. “Parveen! Don't you know me?”

“I … I …”

“I'm your sister, Noor.” And she crushed the little boy to her, lifting him from his feet with the ferocity of her embrace.

Mr. Candy and Mr. Sweet

Standing in the rain, Mr. Sweet and Mr. Candy looked around the ruined meadow, the brims of their sodden grey fedoras dripping.

Behind the two agents, the helicopter idled in the darkness as they surveyed the empty valley. Their goggles, misted with rain, scanned the surrounding mountains for a clue as to the whereabouts of their quarry.

The agents rarely showed irritation, but they were obviously annoyed. A rabbit hopped near Mr. Sweet's foot and he kicked it. The rabbit immediately vomited on the agent's shoe and fell comatose in the grass from terror.

“What silly creatures. When this world is ours, we shall eradicate all such useless beings, Mr. Candy.”

“First things first, Mr. Sweet. We must find our asset. The tracking device flared for only three point two seconds. Somehow, they managed to switch it off. Mother was unable to pinpoint the exact location but it was somewhere in the Alps.”

“They are not in Switzerland by accident, Mr. Candy.”

“They must have already made contact with the King. We must finish off the King once and for all.”

“We have the firepower to destroy the Hollow Mountain and the King. The only problem, Mr. Candy, is finding the
Hollow Mountain. How do you propose we do that?”

Mr. Candy tilted his head back. The moonlight glinted off the goggles covering his eyes. “We ask directions, Mr. Sweet.”

They climbed into the helicopter.

“Mother?” Mr. Candy spoke as they fastened their seatbelts.

“I'm listening.”

“Run a scan of all adoption data for the last fifty years. Focus on children who have inherited large sums of money upon reaching the age of majority.”

“Any geographical restrictions?” Mother asked.

“Central Europe only, for now. Keep it local.”

“Running.”

The rotors spun up as Mr. Sweet took the controls. Mr. Candy shook his head. “We've run the same search three thousand and forty-seven times. Why waste our time again?”

“Perhaps we'll be lucky this time,” Mr. Sweet said. “And the King of Switzerland won't.” He pulled back on the control stick and the aircraft lifted off into the grey dawn.

Part 3

GOOD AND BAD THINGS HAPPEN

Oh my! What a dramatic moment! Hamish X has returned to himself, only more so. At last he is able to remember the events of his past. Most of them anyway. Still, he is unable to remember clearly the one thing he wants to remember most: his mother.

Isn't that always the way with memory? The one thing you are racking your brain to recall is the one thing you can't quite seem to grasp. For me, it's where I put my favourite trousers. They are such beautiful trousers: thick corduroy with glittering gold piping down the outside of the leg. They are fastened by a polished, pure silver button in the front and the zipper is fashioned out of diamonds. In the sun, the zipper and button combined with the gold piping is quite a dazzling spectacle. If I am planning to wear them on a sunny day, I am required to report my intentions to the local traffic authorities as a safety precaution: the majesty of my glittering trousers ha s been known to cause traffic accidents and to dazzle pilots in low-flying aircraft. The pants were a gift from the Sultana of Benmurgui as a
reward for a particularly well-narrated story at her thirteenth birthday party.
⁴⁸

The point is, I put them down somewhere and I can't remember where. The more I try to remember, the more I can't quite seem to recall. Highly annoying. One might wonder how such a shining pair of trousers might be overlooked. Surely they'd be difficult to miss, which leads me to believe that perhaps they have been stolen by a rival narrator, jealous of my success and my clothing. Time will tell.

I digress. Let us return to the story. Weeks have passed and the former residents of Windcity are settling in to their new home. Everyone seems happy … everyone but Hamish X.

Chapter 13

He was lying on the steel table again, under the intense lights. He tried to get up but he found he couldn't move. Every muscle of his body was paralyzed. Fear twisted in his stomach, winding in his bowels like a cold snake.

Only his eyes were capable of moving. They darted back and forth, looking from one side to the other. In the darkness, outside the pool of light, he sensed that someone was watching. There was danger close by but he couldn't make himself move. He tried to scream but his throat was frozen shut.

“You are ours, Hamish X,” the voice of Mr. Sweet hissed from the darkness.

“You will be the key that opens the door.” Mr. Candy's flat tones echoed in the emptiness. “You will build a bridge to join the worlds.”

Out of the shadows the Grey Agents came, leaning over him, staring down with their black goggles reflecting his terror-stricken face.

“You are one of us,” they said together. Slowly, they reached up with their gloved hands and with a wet sucking sound, removed their goggles. Their eyes were terrible, moist and bulging. The most horrible thing was the colour of those eyes: golden, like his own.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Hamish X screamed, sitting up in his sweat-soaked bed to find himself in his quarters in the Hollow Mountain.

“Hamish X? Are you all right?”

A George raccoon sat on the floor next to the bed, reared up on its haunches, black eyes blinking.

“Nightmare, I guess.”

“Again? Should I schedule an appointment with medical?”

“No, no. I'm fine, thank you.”

Hamish X looked out the window. The artificial sunlight from the Daniel's Panels cast a glow of simulated morning over the Hollow Mountain. He heard children's voices calling to each other as they went about their business. They were making their way to the raccoon-taught schoolrooms or the workshops on the lower level, happy and content. Hamish X envied them.

“George?”

“I'm here, Hamish X.”

“What time is it?”

“It is currently eight oh seven and thirty-two seconds in our local time zone.”

“Seven minutes past eight would be enough.”

“Do you require breakfast?”

“Can I have some toast and some orange juice?”

“We have seventeen types of bread available. Rye, sour dough, cornbread, brown, seven-grain, white—”

“White. Just plain white toast and jam, please.”

“There are twenty-three types of jam. We have—”

“Strawberry.”

“I will prepare the toast and jam.”

The raccoon turned and waddled out the door. George the raccoon was assigned to take care of all Hamish X's personal needs. Hamish X couldn't quite get his head around the idea that all the raccoons were actually just one raccoon with an interconnected mind. Hamish X got out of bed.

Ten minutes later he was sitting at the small breakfast table in the kitchen. He had his own little apartment to live in. It wasn't very big but it was private. Mimi, Parveen, Mrs. Francis, and Mr. Kipling all had similar units along the same strip of terrace on the residential level. The breakfast room had a sliding door that was open to allow the fresh air in as Hamish X chewed on his toast.

Great Plumbers and Their Exploits
sat on the table by Hamish X's elbow. He hadn't opened it in days. Before he regained his memories he'd pored over the book with rabid intensity, certain that the pages held a clue to the location of his lost mother. But since King Liam had awakened his memories he'd lost the desire to read the book. Parveen believed that
Great Plumbers
was part of the ODA's plans, and that since Hamish X was now free
of their programming he was also free of his compulsion to read the boring book.

He laid a hand on the green leather cover, tracing the gold lettering with a fingertip. He felt a pang of loneliness. “How could I miss reading such a boring book?” he mumbled to himself.

“Are you addressing me?” The George raccoon roused itself from sleep mode at the sound of his voice. George had been standing silent and still against the wall as it always did, resting until required.

“Sorry, no. Just talking to myself.”

“Very well.” The George raccoon went back to sleep.

Hamish X looked at the name of the author of the book.
Professor Magnus Ballantyne-Stewart
. He found himself wondering who the man was, or if he even existed at all. Probably just a name the ODA agents made up to amuse themselves as an elaborate joke to play on Hamish X.

“George?”

The raccoon's eyes opened. “Yes, Hamish X, I'm listening.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Shall I list them alphabetically? Anthony Aaron is working in workshop 21 at workstation 7a. Andrea Aato is in the gardens in the park by the Hakon's Fountain. Fredirick Afalati is training in the gymnasium …”

“Not every single person in the Hollow Mountain!”

“You'll have to be more specific with your commands.”

Hamish X rolled his eyes. “All right. Where
specifically
is Mimi?”