She clenched the bolt cutters she had just used to pop open the fence They weren’t much of a weapon not if the big workers in the green outfits she had seen go in the front door earlier turned up and grabbed her Or if he did Lisa shuddered But the bolt cutters were something solid to hold onto and that helped her hands stop trembling for now She hurried across the grounds not really sure where she was going The big building that was actually several buildings that flowed together was like multiple islands in an archipelago It reminded her of some evil knight’s fortress only made of steel and sheet metal instead of stone There were thick pipes that led down into the ground here and there as if they were sucking something out of the earth It was easy to imagine the pipes branching out below the surface into a vast snaking underground universe Who knew where it all ended Lisa looked around and spotted several strange little buildings various sheds for storage some kind of a pavilion with paint flaking and a ramshackle cupola on top Deserted They appeared that way but she could be wrong She had to remind herself that she had been wrong before For example she had believed she would get to ride Starshine during the fall break adventure and that her father would be waiting waiting at home The idea took root in her again the one that had not left her since her father had left to work the night shift and had not come home again What did they do to him Where is my father Her eyes burned as tears began to well up But she couldn’t fall apart now she couldn’t let herself think too much about her father She had to have faith that she would find him of course she would But first she had to find Starshine She needed him in order to accomplish the rest his warmth his strength At the same time there could be other possible leads here she thought Important pieces to the puzzle that could maybe her heart fluttered in her chest lead her to her father
She tried to shake off the grief growing inside of her and returned returned to scanning the large industrial area The complex stretched along the coast like a dark lava field of asphalt and concrete Smoke rose from the tall smokestacks sticking sticking up out of the ground here and there There was a string of doors lined up in front of her when she reached the first wing of the building but only one of the doors was ajar Finally an easy decision She pushed open the heavy metallic-green door It slid open with a creak like long fingernails on a chalkboard She winced at the sound and then she crept in Darkness She fumbled around feeling for a light switch running running her hand over cobwebs and wires She wondered to herself Didn’t anyone ever clean this place Apparently not She had expected a big industrial facility would be more orderly She took in the stuffy dusty air searching her scent memories hay dung warm horsey bodies Could she smell anything familiar any kind of trace of Starshine But what did she have to go on really Doubt welled up in her as she stood there in the darkness At best coming here was a long shot At worst No She didn’t want to think about that option Lisa sneezed and kept fumbling around until she found a light switch One bare bulb hanging from the ceiling crackled and then came on In the sickly greenish light she saw that she was in a storage room There were cardboard boxes order lists and big moving dollies with several boxes stacked on top of each other She crept through yet another door this time she avoided any creaking creaking noises and found herself in a long corridor It was quiet aside from the distant muffled sound of machines humming Mostly she wanted to just break into a run She wanted to keep moving investigate every nook and cranny of this enormous building
Each door each flight of stairs could bring her closer to Starshine If he was here of course She tried to convince herself not to be too hopeful This was only one of the places that Linda Alex and she had pinpointed as a potential hiding place for Dark Core You could hide a dinosaur in that place That’s what Alex had said about the industrial complex back when everything had just been dots on a map and not real life yet She had laughed back then in that slightly intermittent Alex way that Lisa had grown so fond of Lisa missed Alex’s laugh She missed her friends because they were her friends the best friends she had ever had The only friends she had ever had Alex Linda Anne And then Lisa had arrived new to their class and to the stable She had never dared to dream before that she could have a best friend let alone three best friends She had scarcely been on the island of Jorvik for a month Even so so much had already happened If she wrote everything down in a short story maybe for English class her teacher would probably accuse her of being unrealistic Or he just might praise her imagination There were so many unanswered questions but Lisa didn’t have time for them not now She forced herself to sneak farther into the building slowly but surely The hum was louder now than it had been in the storage room The air felt charged with electricity as if the atmosphere itself held a charge She heard the sound of heavy footsteps above her Lisa stopped holding her breath listening anxiously Then she heard something new that crept into the rhythm of the sounds along with the footsteps Something familiar Could it be No impossible
Then a loud piercing whinny echoed through the dark corridors corridors and Lisa no longer cared whether she was detected She ran ran ran toward the hope of Starshine Her cowboy boots echoed on the hard floor until she was no longer rushing forward She was stuck Something compact baggy and rough had hit her and stopped her legs which wanted to keep running It felt like her heart stopped too She had just enough time to see the DC logo on the green cloth before she collapsed Is this the right way Meteor Linda asked The first light of dawn was just barely visible The trees in Pine Hill Forest rose out of the dark cloak of night slowly greeting the day The whole world was gradually awakening still clinging leisurely leisurely to the cool silence of night One lone girl on her horse rode through the chilly morning forest The shadows that fell over her were dark blue Not even the birds were singing this early It would be easy to take a wrong turn and get lost riding in this silence Linda thought This was the sort of silence that belonged to thick drifts of fresh snowfall not an autumn autumn forest A muffled bundled-up silence Each time she opened her mouth to talk to her loyal horse who was walking along the scrubby forest trails she thought her voice sounded more uncertain uncertain more childish somehow Obviously she knew that Meteor could not answer her but he was the only one she could talk to now the only one who could make the horrible stifling silence go away even for a moment We should have stuck together Meteor all four of us just like Herman said I have such an awful feeling that something is going
