The Fourth Dimension

Pedro:

  I was amazed to find out that Matt knew so much about the history of the machine. Of course, he was spending all of his time at the library searching the fantasy section. I have to give him credit though, many times I thought it would be hopeless finding the answer to the puzzle. A couple days later, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to the only person who I knew who might be able to help solve this mystery. The only problem was that I would have to travel back to the place of my childhood. Paramonga. If I went there again, and my old master or the police found me, that would put Matt’s whole family in danger, if they agreed to let Matt and I go of course. I would have to go back in a disguise. I talked to Matt about all of these problems. He said he had a couple of ideas.

  “Of course we could go. I could just tell my parents that we should go and visit whatever is cool there. If there is anything cool. Only you would really know.” Matt said.

  “There really is only one “cool” place. That is the old temple. That is also the destination that we need to get to to get help. How will I get a disguise good enough to fool the cops. That’s almost impossible.” I said.

  “We could just go to the downtown costume shop. They have some really convincing ones down there.” replied Matt.

  “Fine, we can check tomorrow after school.” I said.

  We agreed to meet there at 3 o’clock tomorrow. I knew that the mission we were about to start would occupy my mind completely tomorrow. That wouldn’t help with a bunch of tests coming up. I still need all of my focus to pull of what we were about to do.

  I finish the final test of the day right as the bell rings, happy to finally be ridded of the horrid tests. I headed home to grab a snack before I went to meet Matt. When I reached the counter, I found a note from Matt. He gave me the address and told me that he pretty much knew that I would come home for a snack. I now had to bring a bag and a mirror. He told me to make sure that I had a coin or two. Whoever this person was, he really loved collecting coins. I had a couple coins in my pocket. I grabbed an apple and headed to gather all of the stuff for us. I also took my bike to be more efficient and rode to the address he gave me. It wasn’t a shop like I expected, it was an old apartment building that had a mask and disguise sign on the front porch. I hesitantly knocked on the door, unsure if I should really be trusting a person who lived in these conditions. Well, I did at one point though. I waited for a couple seconds until a frail old man appeared in the doorway. I tried to look at him as I greeted him, but his eyes creeped me out. They were both different colors. One was yellow green, and one was blue. He apparently, but not surprisingly, was color blind. I walked in and saw Matt, calmly sitting on a chair that looked like it was about to break. On the opposite wall, there were hundreds of masks hanging on the wall. All of them different. I felt a little scared. It seemed like hundreds of dead people were staring at me.

  I gave Matt a look that I hope said,”Are you crazy!? This guy is a lunatic!”

  He just started to talk with a man. They were talking in French. I knew that because that was the only other language that Matt could speak fluently in. Eventually, they were pointing at me and intently staring, as if trying to figure out what was going on inside of me. He pulled about five masks off the wall, and talked to Matt, then called me over. He showed me a picture of myself and asked me to decide what face was the most different from the picture of me. I looked over all of the masks and chose the one with a fair complexion and blonde hair. I put it on and realized why I had brought the mirror. I looked at myself and barely recognized myself. I looked like a normal American boy. I heard Matt talking again, and the man nodded and went into another room. He returned with a normal set of clothes, and some skin formula that painted your skin a different color. He demonstrated it on the floor and a few seconds later, it turned into a bright skin color. I was amazed. Matt took the bag on my back and told me to get out my coins. I took out the nickels and the man’s eyes lit up with joy. He shook Matt’s and my hand with such vigor that I thought my hand would fall off. I just tried to smile while looking at him. I started to move toward the door and basically dragged Matt with me . I left the old building feeling relieved and happy. I was relieved to have an adequate costume to fool the Paramonga cops and happy to be out of sight of the man with two different eyes.

 

  When I finally got off the plane and stretched, I had to find a bathroom to make sure that none of my costume had come apart during the long nap here. Fortunately, all was fine. I walked confidently up to the police and handed them my passport. He eyed me for a moment, then waved me on. I waited for the others and we headed for the rental place. We picked up our car and drove to our hotel. Everyone was tired and we all fell asleep immediately even though it was still only noon in Peru. We all woke up around eight at night and went to go eat dinner. I enjoyed eating food of my own culture. I hadn’t had Peruvian food in over a year. WE were all tired again by the time we reached the hotel. I fell asleep thinking of what would happen tomorrow. The next day, I took the family to the old man’s house. I didn’t tell them about the man. I snuck inside the house and talked to the man about everything that had happened. He listened intently. He just told me one useful piece of advice.

  “Where the sun rises tomorrow, use the bird’s wings to fly.”

  I asked him what he meant and all he said was Germany and stop the uprising. I now knew we had to get to Germany, fast. It’s a good thing that Matt’s father owns a great business, he could get us anywhere in less than a day. I asked Matt if I could use his phone and he let me. I used a method that was taught to me when I was a burglar. I sent a blocked call and told his dad that he needed to be in Germany, by tomorrow. He told us to get ready to leave and truthfully, Chloe seemed really happy to be leaving. We left to go to the airport and got in his dad’s private jet. I slept the whole way. We arrived in Germany at about eight o’clock in the evening. We went to the place we stayed previously and slept until the sunset. I went outside and saw that the sun was rising right on top of the roof. I went to the top and dragged a sleepy Matt with me. I made sure to bring supplies this time. A couple boxes of matches, water bottles, and some food. When the sun was fully shining on us, I took out the machine, and punched in the number 1937. Once again, we saw the bright light and was sucked in. This time, we were standing in the middle of a battle field and all of a sudden, we heard yelling and we ran for the nearest hole. It was a trench. Fortunately, it was a British trench. They all looked confused and looked at their colonel for help. He just told them to focus and target the enemy. One of the soldiers brought us to a section in the trench and talked to us.

  “I saw the light over there. I know why you are here and what you did to get here.” he said.

  I was shocked and I looked at Matt. He was equally as mystified. I didn’t know what came over me, but right then, I just told him everything. The machine, the masks, and the old man. He didn't look shocked or anything. He just told us to follow him. We did. He led us through the nearby forest into a clearing. Up ahead was the most intimidating fortress I had ever seen. At once, I knew who was stationed in there even though no one had ever mentioned his name. Nemesis. I knew one more thing, he held the last key to ridding the world of the evil his ancestor started. I looked back for the soldier, but he was gone. I guess he had to go back to the fight. I had the idea to sneak in, but Matt was already walking towards the entrance, where guards were standing. I ran forward, but he just ran to the gate. I tried to stop him, but I stopped, because when I looked at his face it was pale and his eyes were all white. There were no pupils. I got scared and stopped. The guards saw him and they knocked him out. I dove into the bushes nearby and hid for a while. When I looked back, there were more guards at the gate and there was a tank there too. I had a flashback and remembered my old life in Paramonga. The brutal cops and the resistance forces. That’s when it hit me. The resistance forces! They could take down the guards and bust their way through. I rush back to the b
attle and found the soldier that took us the the fortress. I told him my plan and he conveyed it to the colonel. He told me a surprising piece of information that was a real shocker. The Nemesis character was also known as Adolf Hitler. Now I knew we were in trouble. Even though he would eventually lose the war, he had a huge army. No one force would be able to st0op it.

  “They aren't all at the fortress.” I pointed out. ”Some have to be fighting other places.

  He probably would only have a small force protecting him. If we gather nearby reinforcements, we could crush his guard. The colonel liked the idea and kept about ten men to keep fighting. Then it would look like we were still here. I ran to the nearby troops and gathered them. After an hour, we were stationed in front of the castle in the woods. We sent out two tanks and blasted the front gate guards away and the tank went into the moat. I let the tank blow the gate down letting a hole inside to the castle. The troops surged through and after about three hours, the report was that all of Hitler's troops were defeated. I was now happy. I had to go find Matt now. I snuck around to the main courtyard where a giant tower was standing. I took about one-hundred men with me and had another four-hundred waiting outside. It was time to go get Matt.