IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED

Obadiah Strange had promised a unique experience, and that’s just what his class had become. Instead of being tethered to their desks or reading archaic books, his students met in the SIM Chamber, a hyper-real holographic training room.

To the naked eye, the SIM Chamber was little more than a stark dome with iron grating for a floor. There were no paintings, wallpaper, knickknacks, or decor of any sort. However, once it was activated, the SIM Chamber could transform into anything from a lush rain forest to the dark side of the moon. There were no limits to the scenarios that the instructors at Iron Bridge could run.

“I’m curious,” Strange said from the observation platform inside the chamber. “Did anyone happen to read the front page of the Chronicle yesterday morning?”

Max caught Ernie looking at Yi and then Denton before turning back to Strange. Nobody said a word.

“I was fascinated to learn that our Agents of Justice have expanded their endeavors. Zombie extermination can be a nasty business.”

Natalia raised her hand.

“Yes, Miss Romanov?”

“I’m not sure they’re actually zombies,” she said.

“Is that so?” Strange asked with a cocked eyebrow. “And what makes you say that?”

“Well, zombies are driven by hunger for human brains, but… well, there were no fatalities.”

“So you did read the article?” Strange asked.

Natalia nodded.

“Any theories?”

“What if someone was controlling them?” Natalia asked. “You know, like puppets.”

“Interesting,” Strange said, scratching his beard. “There are, in fact, documented cases of changelings with the ability to control corpses, though never at this magnitude.”

“Like I said, it’s just a theory.”

Strange’s eyes lingered on Natalia before he turned his attention to the rest of the class. “Now then,” he said. “Today we’ll start our team exercises. I’ll need Max, Natalia, Yi, and Agent Thunderbolt to stay where you are. The rest of you can join me on the observation platform.”

“What about Sprig?” Max asked as the Bounder Faerie nuzzled against him.

“She’ll be part of the scenario as well,” Strange said. “The goal will be simple. All you need to do is open the box and bring the contents to me.”

“That’s it?” Yi asked.

Strange smiled, revealing his wooden teeth. “That’s it.”

As the rest of the class walked up a spiral staircase that led to the observation platform, the atmosphere shimmered. The SIM Chamber was gone and was replaced by a room that looked like an ancient temple.

Creeping vines covered the brick walls, and the floor was little more than compacted dirt and sand. There was a stream of light that came down from an opening in the ceiling, bathing a pedestal and the box it held in a golden glow.

“Hold on,” Max said, catching Yi’s shoulder before he could take a step.

Yi pulled away. “Hands off, Sumner. I’m not one of your Grey Griffin groupies,” he said as flames sparked in his eyes. Sprig morphed into a white tiger and started growling. Her ears were pinned back and her head was lowered.

“You realize the floor is covered with traps, right?” Max asked.

“So?” Yi said, setting his jaw.

“Look, I know you don’t like me, and that’s fine,” Max said. “But this isn’t a competition. Strange picked the four of us for a reason, so we’re going to have to work as a team. When it’s over, you can go back to hating me, but I don’t want my grade to suffer, and I’m pretty sure you don’t, either.”

Yi hesitated when Max extended his hand, but he shook it and said, “Fine, but you’re not in charge.”

Max resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he turned to Ernie. “It’s your call.”

Ernie frowned. It was as though he was trying to gauge whether Max was serious, but Max just stood there with Natalia and Yi waiting for Ernie’s instructions.

“Well,” Ernie said as he adjusted his goggles, “Natalia should probably check for traps in the faerie spectrum.”

Max nodded his approval, which appeared to put Ernie at ease. He looked around the room while Natalia pulled out her Phantasmoscope. “Yi, we could probably use a little more light,” Ernie said.

“No problem.” Yi’s arms burst into flames, pushing back the darkness.

“I’m not finding much of anything,” Natalia said. “There’s some trace around the box, but that’s it.”

“I could probably run fast enough to get there and back without triggering any traps, but something doesn’t seem right,” Ernie said, shuffling his feet.

After hearing a scraping sound, Ernie knelt down to rub the sand away. When he was done, he found a circular stone that was roughly the size of a car tire.

“I wonder if there’re more,” Natalia said.

Ernie remained on his hands and knees as he swept the sand away from a second stone. Then he found a third before he stopped. “It could be a path,” he said as he started to clear off a fourth stone.

Ernie slipped, putting his full weight on the stone. It started to sink, and then the ground started to rumble.

“That’s not good,” Ernie said.

The sand started to swirl before it fell away like water draining from a bathtub. “Get to the stones!” Ernie shouted.

Yi fell back. He was fighting against the sand, but it was sucking him under. Ernie knelt on a stone, which wasn’t a stone at all. As it rose out of the ground, like all the others, he saw that the stones were actually the tops of pillars that stood over twenty feet tall.

As Ernie reached for Yi, he had to pull his hand back. Yi’s entire body had erupted into fire. The more frightened he got, the higher the flames grew, and the sand around Yi started turning into glass.

Sprig morphed into a winged monkey with bright blue fur. Nearby, Max had latched onto one of the stone pillars. He was hanging over the pit of falling sand by his fingertips while Natalia scrambled to the top of a pillar a few feet away.

“Sprig!” Max called out as his fingers slipped. She pinned her wings back before diving. Then, as Max fell, she grabbed his wrists with her monkey hands, but Max was too heavy. Now, instead of Max falling to his death, they both were.

The spriggan morphed into a griffin with fur the color of honey. She beat her wings, fighting against gravity as she tried to fly to safety. It wasn’t working, but Sprig strained, her wings pounding as she started to climb. Then she flew to a pillar, where she dropped Max before morphing back into a winged monkey.

Max breathed heavily as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Thanks,” he said, patting Sprig on the head. She jumped in place, clapping her hands, and did a backflip.

Nearby, Yi had managed to scramble across the slick glass to join Ernie on his pillar. Natalia stood alone on another.

“Now what?” she asked.

Ernie turned to Max, his face a mask of confusion.

“It’s your call,” Max said, trying to reassure him.

There was a grinding sound before the entire room started to shake. Then the pillars started to drop. It was slow at first, but it didn’t take long before they picked up speed.

The ground trembled, and Yi fell. He screamed, and Ernie tried to reach for him, but it was too late. Yi was gone. “Somebody do something!” Ernie shouted.

“Go get the box,” Max said to his Bounder Faerie. Sprig nodded and took flight. The ceiling started to crumble. Some of the debris was large enough to crush the pillars, which crumbled under the weight.

Sprig zigged and zagged as she flew. Then, just as her fingertips touched the box, there was an explosion of light. The remaining pillars disintegrated into dust, sending Max, Natalia, and Ernie falling into the depths of the pit.

As the temple disappeared and the SIM Chamber came back into focus, Max was on his hands and knees. His breathing was shallow and his eyes wide as Sprig shuddered next to him.

“If I were grading you on effort, I might give you all passing grades,” Strange said. “However, effort isn’t enough. If this were a real expedition, we’d be attending your funerals tomorrow.”

He looked at his pocket watch before shaking his head. “I’d like to run the simulation again, but I’m afraid we don’t have time. I’ll expect a marked improvement tomorrow.”

The next two groups didn’t do much better than the first. Catalina’s Bounder imp ended up getting trapped in a hunter’s snare. He started screeching as he reached for Catalina, who was sobbing. Between the two of them, they attracted some kind of monster that looked like a panther with a serpent’s tail.

While the class wound down, Strange massaged his forehead. “We’re not as far along as I’d hoped, but there were some promising moments,” he said. Then he sighed. “Since we only have a few minutes, I believe Miss Romanov has something that she’d like to discuss. Is that correct?”

Natalia looked over to Brooke and then to Raven before taking a deep breath. “Have you ever heard of Walter Windham?”

“I knew him well,” Strange said. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that, well… I found some old articles that he had written on time travel, and I wanted to know what you thought about it.”

Strange frowned. He turned to Raven, who looked away. “You realize he wasn’t referring to time travel per se,” Strange finally said. “Rather, it involves traveling to an alternate reality.”

“Using a Paragon Engine, right?” Natalia asked.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Could a Paragon Engine open up a gateway to the Shadowlands?”

“It’s certainly an interesting thought,” Strange said. “You’re referring to Otto Von Strife, of course.”

Natalia nodded.

“I can tell you with confidence that Von Strife does not have the components required to build a Paragon Engine, if that’s where this is leading,” Strange said. “But we fear he may be close. In fact, the business of Paragon Engines is why this class was formed to begin with.”

“Do we get to jump through one?” Todd asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Strange said. “However, we’ve been given a mission of utmost importance. For our field test, we will be taking an expedition to find the Schrödinger Box.”

Strange paused, looking around the room as he waited for a reaction that didn’t come. “Am I to understand that none of you have heard of the Schrödinger Box?”

His question was met with silence.

“Very well.” Strange sighed. “The box is a critical component of any device that allows you to travel between worlds. Without it, you would be pulled into a million fragments the moment you stepped through the portal.”

“That’s wicked,” Ross said.

“Yeah,” Todd said. “Wicked awesome.”

Strange frowned, as though gauging the sincerity of the comment. “From this point forward everything we do in this class will be in preparation to procure that box. If Von Strife finds it before we do, all hope for mankind may be lost.”

The bell rang, but the students sat in their seats.

“Well?” Strange said. “What are you just sitting there for?”

“We want you to tell us more about the box,” Ross said. “Especially the part where it keeps you from being torn apart.”

There was a general murmur of agreement from the other students.

“It will have to wait until tomorrow,” Strange said. “Now get going before your parents blame me for keeping you here too long.”