Adam Brodie and the monster from the dark planet

Chapter One

Chapter One

Adam peered into a bright white light tinted with blue. It was eight years later and he was standing within a vast chamber, one so big its floor seemed to stretch into the distance and its walls were hidden by an atmospheric haze.

This was the main chamber of a star ship. He and his brother Jake had just been propelled at great speed into orbit around the earth inside a small projectile and that projectile, in turn, had been taken inside a much bigger vessel.

Much, much, much bigger.

Huge, vast, larger than anything Adam in his short life had experienced or even imagined.

The two brothers were approached by what looked like a blue skinned man wearing a grey tunic and black boots. There was a black belt around his waist. The figure was bald and on his forehead were four black numbers. He had yellow eyes with no irises or pupils.

"This is an android," said Jake. "They do all the work in the Nexus."

"A robot?" gasped Adam, his eyes wide.

The android said. "Ready for school?"

"And you can speak?" said Adam. "What else can you do?"

"I can take your luggage," offered the android.

Jake gestured to his brother. Adam, as if in a dream. handed his suitcases to the tall figure. Jake did the same. As a machine, the robot was immensely strong and the luggage was no weight at all for him. Turning, the robot strode away with the luggage and Adam watched as the tall grey figure eventually faded into the obscuring haze.

"Close your mouth, you're catching flies," said Jake.

"Where's he going?" said Adam.

"To stow our luggage in the cargo hold. I see friends."

As the older brother, Jake had been to the Nexus for two years and he had tried to explain to Adam what to expect. Adam hadn't believed a word of it, but he was starting to now.

The Nexus was a kind of school where cosmic champions of the multiverse trained. These were an elite corps who protected the multiverse from forces of chaos and the Nexus was the multiverse's beating heart.

Adam and his family lived in one universe which had one earth, but there were many universes with parallel earths and from these different versions of earth came different inhabitants. Some of these earths had alien life forms, others had beings of mythology, others of legend, other earths held Adam's earth's history, or earth's future. Other earths had superheroes and supervillains. Some of the parents on these worlds had sent their children to the Nexus to train as cosmic champions. Adam and Jake's father and mother were cosmic champions.

Jake walked away from his brother to his friends and left Adam alone in the stupendous chamber.

"Hang on."

Adam followed, trying to navigate a path through the throngs of strange creatures. Jake ignored him and approached a group of individuals that were slug like, and some had waving tentacles and others had six heads. These were Jake's friends? Then again Adam told himself Jake loved the Nexus and wanted to follow in their parent's footsteps and guard the multiverse. It wasn't what Adam wanted.

The chamber swarmed with monsters, creatures with shaggy coverings of fur, creatures with huge razor like teeth, creatures with no form at all and lay on the floor like shapeless blobs. Some flew in the air with great beating wings. Others floated in the air like giant jellyfish.

He saw children covered from head to toe in ice and others that seemed to be enveloped by fire. Were those creatures with pointed ears elves? Adam stopped and turned on the spot in a slow complete circle and saw the children of witches, clutching in their hands greasy Tarot cards and wax dolls sporting pins. He saw the children of Rapunzel, Guy Fawkes and harlequins with belled hats and the children of trolls and giants and children that looked like huge dormice wearing little dark suits and bowler hats, scampering about on their hind legs. He saw a turtle wearing an old style tweed suit, strolling about with a hat in one hand and swinging a cane in the other, nearly clipping Adam with it.

Adam stepped back quickly to avoid being struck and he collided with a body clothed in red and fringed with white fur.

"Careful!" she said. "Mind where you're going."

Turning, Adam beheld a young black girl wearing a red tunic, lined with white fur and shiny black boots and a black belt held in place by a silver coloured buckle. She had a white fur lined red hood.

"I know who you are!" said Adam. His eyes widened. "My father told me about Father Christmas and his daughter Brigitte."

Brigitte smiled. The two children were assailed with clicks and roars and twitters and cheeps and chatter and whines and squeals. Exotic smells wafted about the chamber, some sweet, some spicy, some rank, others pungent, others bitter and sharp and others heady. Every time Adam moved so did the variety and forms of the smells assaulting him. Adam wondered if any of these creatures would have twelve year old children on their menus.

Brigitte sensed his unease and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Yeah, I didn't know what to expect either. It's all a bit over the top. Your folk's champions?"

Adam nodded. "I'm Adam Brodie."

"That's right," said Brigitte. "You're Jake Brodie's brother."

Adam rolled his eyes.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Brigitte.

"Your dad is really Father Christmas?"

"Yes. On Christmas Eve my dad flies across the earth on a sleigh pulled by magic reindeer and gives away toys."

"And I suppose you all live at the North Pole?"

"No. Where'd did you hear that?"

Adam grinned. He suddenly felt his spirits rise. He had only been ten or twenty minutes into this mad world and he made a friend, no less than the daughter of Father Christmas himself. Things were definitely looking up.

"Your communicator necklaces."

The children turned and saw an android with plain metal loops held in his hands. The children took one loop each and the android moved away from them dispensing the necklaces to other students. Adam raised the necklace to his throat and the necklace vanished and appeared around his neck. The same happened with Brigitte. The children could now communicate with students who used languages other than English.

"Now you know what I'm saying," joked Brigitte.

"Still making no sense," Adam joked back. He was feeling better and better. Maybe this place he was heading to wouldn't be so bad after all.

Brigitte nudged him playfully with her elbow.

"Attention please," came a voice over the great hall holding the students. "We are about to enter the fourth dimension. Prepare yourselves."

"What's this going to be like?"

Adam had his answer. All of a sudden he felt as though his insides were inside out. His eyes wobbled in their sockets and his teeth rattled in his skull. His legs felt like jelly.

Then he had no body, or so it seemed. Adam's mind expanded, reaching out and touching and becoming one with the multiverse and he was staggered by a stupendous size. All at once he saw stars and ragged burning nebulae and hot space clouds and brilliant giant suns and black holes, and his vision zoomed across the multiverse so he saw all the way to its heart.

Adam had a sense of the Nexus and at its core something or someone waiting for him there. Adam saw a figure clad from head to foot in metal, with fiery eyes. A figure that hated him and didn't just want him dead, but erased from existence.