In the next instant, two men in long black coats popped into the vibrating air. The Thetablender snapped with static electricity. CK had learned to read lips at a very early age, about the same time that she developed a photographic memory. She studied the men’s mouths.
Where are we?
Looks like her school.
Oh yeah, that’s the vibration we followed.
On the stage! That’s her! She led us right to her.
Grab her!
“No!” Pa shouted, holding his arms out wide to block the men from running onto the stage.
CK tried to scream as the three men scuffled, but she felt faint. She struggled to see who the men were, and caught a glimpse of large white letters on the back of one of the black coats: CACM. She tried to get up and fell back into her chair. She called out, “Pa,” but it was only a whisper. The room spun around her, reminding her very much of the poster of the Milky Way Galaxy that hung on the wall over her bed.
Butch looked from CK to Mrs. Plattapepper to the screaming kids and back to the monitor and CK, and then slumped in his own chair, struggling to keep his mind from spinning. The screen in the center pulsed and flashed as it tried to keep up with combining all of CK’s and Butch’s thoughts. The Thetablender whined and popped. The smell of hot circuits filled the air. The sound of the children cheering and Mrs. Plattapepper screaming reached the same vibration as the ThetaBlender and entrained with CK’s and Butch’s brain waves. The images on the screens began to swirl.
CK felt herself spinning. She couldn’t see anything but swirling colors. Butch whirled in colors too⎯red, violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, swirling and whirling and twirling. The colors on the screens began to vibrate faster. CK felt herself slipping into darkness. It was hard to breathe. All she could see was Butch flying through the same colors, heading for the same darkness. She heard herself scream. She knew it was at the same frequency as Butch’s scream, and the children’s screams, and Mrs. Plattapepper’s scream. CK reached out, grabbed Butch’s arm, and held on more tightly than she had ever held on to anything.