“I do,” Tanner said, as he tightened the piece of string he had fixed just below the wound at the top of his arm.

“Why?” Anna asked him.

“Because you and your brother are very special,” he said through gritted teeth, the wound still causing him pain.

“My brother?” Anna breathed. “What’s Zach got to do with this?”

“He’s one of us,” a peacekeeper called Nail said.

Tanner shot him a stern glance, and Nail dropped his head. Nail was handsome, Anna thought, even though he did have one of those goatee beards which made some guys look a bit pervy. His hair was a mass of black curls, and he had a white scar that ran from the corner of his right eye and down the length of his cheek which looked like a tear. He was probably the youngest of the group, and Anna guessed he was only a year older than her.

“My brother can’t be a peacekeeper,” Anna said, and then quickly added, “He’s geeky.”

“And what about you, Anna Black?” Wavia asked her.

“What about me?”

“Are you fit to be a Queen?”

“Say what?” Anna asked, confused.

“You have a reflection,” Tanner told her. “And she is the Queen of Endra.”

“Whoa!” Anna said, standing up. Crabsters or no Crabsters, Anna wanted to know what was going on. “What’s a reflection?”

“Your double,” Tanner started to explain.

Chapter Twenty-Three

As Anna Black sat with the peacekeepers on the shore of the Onyx Sea and listened to Tanner explain her and her brother’s importance, Zach was peering over Faraday’s shoulder. He looked into the black well of darkness beneath the stairs.

“I wonder what’s down there?” he whispered.

“There’s only one way of finding out,” Faraday said, stepping into the darkness.

“Dunno,” Zach shrugged as he followed him down into the pitch black.

The stairs creaked as Zach followed Faraday downwards. The air smelt musty as if no one had ventured below for some time. At the bottom of the stairs, there was only silence. It was cold and Zach shivered. It was so dark that he couldn’t even see Faraday standing in front of him. There was a ‘clicking’ sound, and suddenly the area beneath the farmhouse came dimly into view. Faraday had found a light switch and turned it on. A single light bulb hung from the wooden beams above them.

The room was oblong in shape. It looked like some kind of workshop. There were long workbenches along one wall, and housed neatly above them were rows and rows of odd-looking tools. The workbenches were covered in so many cogs and springs, it looked as if a giant grandfather clock had been blown apart, showering its intricate workings across the room. On the other side of the room was a row of tall glass cases. Faraday approached one of them and stared through the glass.

“This must have been the first ever mechanical man,” he said in his synthesized voice.

Zach approached the case and peered through the glass. Inside

stood a life-sized metal structure. It resembled the form of a human. Its head was smooth and circular but without facial features. The body was constructed from lengths of metal, held together by a series of pistons, cogs, and pulleys. It looked basic – old-fashioned, yet futuristic all at the same time. A maze of wires coiled and entwined around its elbow and knee joints, and as Zach circled the glass case, he could see a series of thick, black cords snaking up the machine’s metal chin and disappearing into the back of its head. There was a tag hanging from the wrist of the machine and it read: Prototype 1.

“So is this what you look like under that skin of yours?” Zach asked Faraday.

“Not exactly, this was just a prototype. By the look of it, its structure and internal organs were very crude,” Faraday said, stepping away from the display case and approaching another.

Zach followed him. “This must have been the second version - prototype two.”

The glass case was identical to the first, except for the design and look of the mechanical man encased inside. This model was covered in a rubbery-looking flesh that was pale yellow in colour. The machine was hairless, and its face consisted of two circular holes for eyes and a gash for a mouth. It looked creepy, unreal, and its dead eyes seemed to stare at Zach as if reading his mind.

Zach turned away and looked at Faraday. “It doesn’t even look real,” he said.

“Do I look real?” Faraday asked him.

“Like a real person, you mean?”

“I know I’m only a synthetic human being – but do I look real?” Faraday asked again.

Zach glanced up at the second prototype and met its vacant stare, then looked back at Faraday. “But these prototypes are not human beings - you’re not a human being - humans have a soul,” Zach told him.

Faraday looked back at the mechanical man standing in the glass case, then turned and walked away.

“Did I say something wrong?” Zach asked.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Faraday stood on the other side of the room and looked down at the workbench, his lanky arms hanging by his sides.

When the silence became unbearable, Zach said, “So what about prototype three?”

“I think I am it,” Faraday said without a hint of emotion in his voice.

“How can you be sure?” Zach asked.

Faraday held up a small black notebook that he had taken from amongst the cogs and springs on the workbench. Zach took the book from him and thumbed through the pages. His throat made a shallow wheezing sound as he stared down at the pages. The book contained the workings and designs of the mechanical men he had just seen. There were pictures of animals, vehicles, and planes. Beneath each drawing there were lines of scribbled equations.

“Whoa!” Zach whispered as a photograph fell from between the pages of the book. Zach plucked it up. In the picture stood Faraday and a man so tall, that he barely fit in the picture at all. But stranger than that, the man’s face was bright red, as were his hands. His skin was lumpy-looking and cracked. The pair stood in front of a range of mountains which were blood-red in colour.

“Who’s the dude you’re standing with?” Zach said, handing Faraday the picture.

“That’s not me,” Faraday said.

“It looks like you.”

“The other is one of the Boulders.”

“What’s a Boulder?”

“One of the rock people,” Faraday answered, and then quickly added, “His name is Tamrus Turanion.”

“So you know him then?” Zach asked.

“Never met him before.”

“So how do you know his name?” Zach asked. “And if you’ve never met him before, what are you doing in the picture...”

“His name is on the back,” Faraday said, holding up the picture for Zach to read.

Zach read the spidery handwriting aloud. “Tamrus Turanion and Doctor Der Cribbot.”

“So you look like Der Cribbot?” Zach gasped, taking the photo again in his hands and turning it over. “He designed you to look like him?”

“So it would appear,” Faraday said.

“But the likeness is uncanny,” Zach said, holding up the photo and comparing it with the mechanical man who stood before him.

“I thought you said I didn’t look real,” Faraday reminded him.

“I never said you didn’t look real,” Zach said, now wishing he could take back what he had said. He had never intended to hurt Faraday’s feelings. But did Faraday even have feelings? Zach doubted it. So changing the subject, he said, “So who are the Boulder people?”

“They live in the Craggy Canyon,” Faraday said, taking back the picture and the black notebook from Zach, and placing them into his pocket. “The Boulder people are made from the bright red rock of the canyon.”

“I’ve heard of them,” someone said, and both Zach and Faraday turned around to find Captain Bom standing at the bottom of the stairs. William stood behind him.

“I thought you were looking for food?” Zach asked Bom.

“There ain’t anything worth eating here,” Bom moaned.

“And I couldn’t sleep,” William said, brushing past Bom and joining Zach and Faraday by the workbench.

“So what do you know about these Boulder people?” Zach asked Bom.

“Only that they can’t be trusted,” he said. “They’d sell their own grandmothers if the price was right.”

“Cribbot obviously trusted one of them at least,” Faraday said.

“The man who snuck animals and human technology through the doorways to create this messed up place,” Bom grunted, eyeing the prototypes of the mechanical men in the glass cases. “I wouldn’t trust him either.”

“Well this Cribbot guy obviously isn’t at home,” William woofed. “Maybe he’s dead already?”

“Perhaps,” Zach said. “But unless we know for sure, we’re never going to figure out how to turn off these creatures he created. If we don’t do that, then we can’t get across the Outer-Rim and reach the volcano.”

“Maybe he is hiding out with these Boulder people?” William suggested.

“How far is the Craggy Canyon from here?” Zach asked Faraday.

“Not far, I think,” Faraday said. “But I’m not sure of the way.”

“How about using that buzz-buzz-thing to show us?” Bom suggested.

“I thought you said these Boulder people couldn’t be trusted?” Zach said.

“You’re going to go whatever I say,” Bom groaned from behind his wild beard. “You always do your own thing. And to think I survived The Battle of Neff only to be ordered around by some boy.”

“I’m not ordering anyone around,” Zach said. “But if you’ve got a better idea, then I’m all ears.”

Bom made a huffing noise, then skulked back up the stairs.

“What’s his problem?” Zach asked, looking back at William and Faraday.