 
### The World of the Unknowns: The Discovery

### By Nadia Bethell

### Published by Nadia Bethell at Smashwords

### Copyright 2013 Nadia Bethell

### Cover Design by Paul Dean Coker

### Coastwise Communications

### dcoker@coastwisecommunications.com

Table of Contents

Preface.

Chapter 1. The discovery.

Chapter 2. Not quite a pleasant entry.

Chapter 3. John learns and speculates.

Chapter 4. John's flying lesson.

Chapter 5. Megan learns of consequences of flying.

Chapter 6. A temporary escape.

Chapter 7. Questions multiply.

Chapter 8. Traveling through the walls.

Chapter 9. What is freedom?

Chapter 10. Is there a way out?

Chapter 11. John is having fun.

Chapter 12. Books from Bradley's backpack.

Chapter 13. Bradley designs a trick for John.

Chapter 14. In front of a closed door.

Chapter 15. The door from the other side.

Chapter 16. What price are you willing to pay?

Chapter 17. Train is the way.

Chapter 18. Back with the family.

About the author.

Other books by this author.

Preview of the World of the Unknowns: The Rescue.

Acknowledgements.

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Preface.

"Mom, what are these notebooks?" I heard my daughter call out.

I sent her play in her room and sat down to work on my presentation for the conference. I didn't really feel like getting up and checking what those notebooks were. My computer was already on, the instructions for the presentation on the screen, and I was ready to emerge into my work.

But Rachel was already carrying in a large box with a black marker label "STORIES".

We moved into this house when my daughter was a toddler, in a rush, like all our moves were. The boxes were unloaded from the truck into the garage, and it took a few years to really settle down and organize. Boxes, for the content of which I felt no immediate use, were stored in the garage or on top shelves in the closets. This box, "STORIES", ended up in my daughter's closet, and this is where it was found five years later.

Rachel already opened the box to check what was in it, so when she put it on the table, we could very easily get to its content. When I was a kid, my hobby was to write stories, and I had quite a few of the notebooks written way back when my family lived in Russia. When my parents immigrated to America, I continued to write, at first in Russian, and then in English when I started to pick it up at school. Writing remained my hobby when I became an adult, but of course I had much less time for it when I got a full time job and had kids.

On the very top inside the box there was a notebook titled "The World of the Unknowns". This is what my daughter saw when she opened the box, and this title provoked her curiosity. I took the notebook out and flipped through the pages. The familiar story ran before my eyes.

"This is the story that I wrote after your Dad told me what happened to him and his friends when he was in school," I told Rachel, putting the notebook down onto my lap. "This is just the first notebook, there are many others. This story is quite amazing. If you like, we can read this story before bed," I suggested.

"Sure, sure!" Rachel jumped in excitement. "Can we start today? I can't wait to find out what these Unknowns are!"

"The Unknowns are very evil people who had created a very tyrannical society," I began, forgetting about my presentation. "But, I should say, they WERE evil. Because Dad and few other brave people, who went to their world, helped them to get back on track again. And, who knows, how many people from our world were rescued because of your Dad. But I am getting ahead of myself..." I stumbled, seeing the computer screen out of the corner of my eye.

"Mom, please, how did this happen?" Rachel pleaded.

I felt like I wanted to re-read the story myself and remember how it all happened. I checked my tomorrow's schedule and decided I would have enough time tomorrow to work on my presentation.

"Ok, we can start now, but of course, we won't be able to read it all," I said, standing up and moving to the couch. Rachel ran behind me.

"Let's call Brian!" she suggested and dragged her brother out of his bedroom where he was working on a project.

My kids sat down on the couch next to me, I opened the first notebook and started reading.

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### Chapter 1. The discovery.

It was a Monday in early May, when it was very desirable for Bradley that the weekend was longer so he could go back to the beach to keep watching the surfers practice for their competitions. The surf was pretty high yesterday, so he and his father had a blast watching the surfers, one of whom was actually Bradley's older brother Dustin. It was so much fun to watch how these guys battled with the waves and successfully rode them all the way to the beach. Too bad neither Huang Fu, nor John, Bradley's best friends, could make it! Bradley and his father spend some time body surfing and had fun doing that, too. Of course, there were also occasions when they would get into a 'washing machine', but that did not spoil it.

The beach was so inviting that Bradley felt like going to school was not at all appropriate. The feeling was so strong that he was willing to take the consequences should his parents find out he was not there. He felt like it was a waste of time, anyway, because they were preparing for the tests and rehearsing over and over again the material that he knew long time ago. Bradley's parents were very strict when it came to studies, though. They went out of their way to supervise the completion of all his assignments and even gave extra tasks to make sure he was at the top of his class. It was, of course, out of the question to miss school just because they had review. It was possible to go to the beach later in the day, after school. But by the time all the homework was done, it was too late to watch the surfers, just the sunset, which Bradley's mother and twin sister would enjoy, but was too boring for him. Oh, why was it not the Memorial Day weekend already!

It was particularly annoying that on work days Bradley's mother liked to get up early. She would fix breakfast for everyone and fellowship with her family before taking off for work. She demanded that all the kids got up as well, of which Bradley did not see the point. He personally could not participate in any kind of fellowship this early. She started at 8 a.m., and in Bradley's opinion there was no need to get up at six. Breakfast didn't have to be so sophisticated and take so long.

Bradley postponed getting out of bed under pretense of waiting for Dustin to finish up with his shower. The best would be if he could come up with a clever plan to miss school today without any ramifications. So Bradley was desperately thinking, while still in bed, but nothing came to his mind. Megan was still asleep. She hated getting up early as well and always slept till the last possible moment. Then she would jump out of bed and rush to the table without ever taking a shower. She actually did it in the evenings, which was not that bad at all, because it reduced competition for the bath in the morning.

After breakfast Bradley's mother left, followed by Dustin who had an early lesson today. In forty five minutes Bradley was ready to go. He and Megan had a math class together in the morning, but Megan was not quite done with her hair. Why couldn't girls just make it simpler! Bradley felt overwhelming frustration with his sister but realized that the real reason for his being upset was the lack of a plausible idea of how to avoid school. If he pretended to be sick, he would have to stay home all day instead of going to the beach. Moreover, there was really nobody to take him to the beach. How convenient would it be to have an older brother with a car to play a hooky with.

Bradley was stuck. Their father would usually wait for ten minutes for him, Megan and Dustin to get to school to make sure everything was Ok, and then he would leave for work himself. Bradley ran out of time to think of any idea, because their father prompted them to go. Since Megan was not quite ready, Bradley started off without her. It was not uncommon that she would get going later and run all the way to school.

Suddenly Bradley heard the sounds of fast steps behind him and thought it was Megan, but it was his friend John, who lived in the house right next to his.

"Hi! Great day, uh?" John said, slowing down and walking next to Bradley. "I was trying to tell my parents that I was sick so I could stay home, but they did not buy it."

Bradley objected, "I thought of that already. What good is that pretending to be sick? You would have to stay at home all day. I wish I could go to the beach. This sure isn't a kind of day to boil at school... and afterwards with the homework."

"Have you done the math assignment?" John inquired.

"Sure I have. And a bunch of additional problems that my parents made me do. You are lucky yours don't sit on top of you all the time like mine do. They keep telling me I'm the one who is lucky because I will learn well and be successful in the future."

Bradley's parents belonged to the category of people whose parents and parents' parents were well educated and raised to believe that if one studied hard, one would be very successful in life. His father studied hard, and the choice of his education proved to be just right. He obtained a Bachelor's degree in mathematics and then Master's in engineering and successfully landed a job with Boeing shortly after graduation.

Bradley's mother, on the other hand, even though she studied hard as well, could not decide for a long time what she wanted to do. Since her parents made sure she took all the hard classes in high school, it would have not been difficult for her to continue studying science. However, she decided that it would be much more fun if she obtained her Bachelor's in history of ancient civilizations. So she did, minoring in literature at the same time. She realized shortly after graduation that this field did not offer many well-paying as well as interesting jobs. She could become a teacher, but this was not appealing to her. She wanted to stay close to her family in California, especially that her boyfriend, future husband, already found a successful job and was not interested in moving. So she went back to school and followed her parents' advice to study sciences, choosing molecular biology to work in a research lab. Following graduation, she worked in academia for a few years to gain practical experience and then joined Allergan's Research and Development team.

Dustin, Bradley and Megan were raised to study hard, go to college and choose degrees that would allow them to find interesting, as well as well-paying jobs. Bradley had not decided just yet whether he liked this idea of being so narrowly directed into choosing what to study and how many hours per day to spend studying. But he heard stories of other adults complaining in their later years that their parents did not discipline them enough to study when they were kids, and they had to do it when they were grown-ups instead of making money. So Bradley went along, not that he had much choice, anyway.

"Of course, you and Huang Fu have been math stars from kindergarten!" John exclaimed, and Bradley noticed envy in his voice.

The boys crossed the bridge over a small river. There was a small playground to their right, passing which they cut corners to get to their class. Their class was in the last of the four rectangular wooden buildings, and to get to it, they had to walk through an open grassy area. Between the second and the third building there was a gap one building wide, through which Bradley and John usually passed to get to their entrance. But something was not right... This time, there was a fifth very similar wooden building right there in the middle, which was not there last Friday. When Bradley and John approached in amazement, they noticed that it looked more like a temporary structure and was smaller.

"What do you think this is?" asked John. "Why are they expanding the school at the end of the year?.."

"It's probably for the preparations for the end-of-the-year events, storage or something," Bradley suggested, remembering what the teacher told them last week. "I am more curious about how they could have built it so fast. Worked on it all weekend?.."

John suggested, "Let's see what's inside. Maybe there's gonna be a discoball."

But to Bradley that sounded too primitive, so he exclaimed, "Discoball?! I want to see lasers!"

The boys got closer. John was already pulling on the door, when Bradley heard the sound of footsteps and thought that this time it had to be Megan. And it was. She was hurrying along, blind to everything on her way.

"Hey, Megan, slow down!" Bradley shouted, surprised that she seemingly didn't see or maybe just didn't pay attention to an extra building. "Look what we found!"

"What's special about it?" Megan slowed down reluctantly. "We're late for class."

"Aren't you curious?" Bradley asked. "This wasn't here Friday. It will take just a few minutes to check it out, and then we will be right in." Bradley paused for a few seconds, thinking what might be interesting enough for Megan to incentivize her to peek inside the building and said, "I think there is going to be a ball, like in fairy tales, for the end-of-the-year celebration." Then he elbowed John, seeking confirmation, and whispered, "Right?"

"You guys think they're going to have armored suits and swords, don't you?" Megan teased the boys.

"Yeah, and fancy dresses maybe, like at the medieval fair last year for Dustin's celebration that we visited. Don't you want to take a peek?" prompted Bradley.

Megan slowly approached. At that point the door was already completely open, and all three of them went in. Out of the corner of his eye Bradley saw another late person running though the grassy area to the classroom. He thought he would for sure join them, but then forgot about him altogether. Inside, there were no windows, but despite that it was not dark. Neither Bradley, nor Megan or John noticed that the door behind them... closed by itself. In front of them there were four bags.

John rushed towards the one that was the closest to him, untied the rope and exclaimed, "Look here! Money! Lots of it!"

Bradley and Megan came closer and peeked over his shoulder. John started grabbing the money and stuffing it into his pockets, then took off his backpack, threw the books out and started filling it with money as well.

Bradley picked a coin and took a close look at it. "Wait," he said, carefully examining the coin on both sides, "It's not real money. At least, they are not dollars. Look closely."

John stopped. Bradley scrutinized a few more coins and concluded that they were indeed real but of some other country.

Suddenly a voice came out from an unknown direction and proclaimed, "Take as much as you will need. Then open the other three bags."

"As much as we will need?" Bradley shrugged his shoulders. "Will need for what? We're not going to any other country. We don't even know what country this money is for..."

"Well, does it matter? We can take it to the airport and exchange it. My dad travels a lot and changes money at the airport all the time," John interrupted impatiently. "It's always good to have money. We can figure it out later, and if we get to that country, it will be handy."

Having said that, John continued filling up his bag. Bradley stuffed his pockets but decided that he did not want to empty his schoolbag and lose books for some money he was not sure would ever be useful. He noticed that Megan was not very vigorous picking the coins either. She turned around ready to leave and go to class and started moving towards the door. Bradley and John were opening the other three bags when she shouted, "The door disappeared! This is some kind of funhouse!"

Bradley turned to her, but John did not hear. Bradley figured that John would be more interested in checking out the remaining bags than going to class. He knew that John had a wagon at home, and, if necessary, he would bring it here to load all the bags onto it to haul them away. Under normal circumstances, John was usually reluctant to play with his wagon publicly since they started junior high last fall, despite the fact that his dad helped him install an electric motor. Bradley played with this wagon himself a few times when John let him use it, and he was pretty sure that with a car battery it could do thirty miles an hour. Even though without a speedometer they could never test it precisely.

When John opened the other two bags, Bradley saw that they were full of feathers, not money. So John would not have to bring the wagon after all. Bradley joined Megan to look for the door in the wall where it used to be. He touched the wall all the way around, but did not feel any unevenness indicating the presence of the door. All of a sudden he heard John shout "Ouch!" as the rope of the fourth bag flew off with explosive force. The entire building was filled with feathers that came from the three bags. As Bradley was flying off into the air, he saw John grab his schoolbag with the money that he had on the floor.

When everything cleared, Bradley saw that he, Megan and John were flying in the air over a beautiful countryside. More precisely, since there was no wind and no sensation of gaining speed, it appeared that they were not flying but were suspended in the air, and the countryside was passing below them. Forests, fields and rivers, occasional villages, and forests and fields again, just as in old grandfather's clock with rotating pictures. Some of the money fell out of their pockets, but was still floating nearby. After some time a town floated underneath them, then more of the countryside, and then something different - a large city with something Bradley knew should have been impossible. It was not a building; it was like a tunnel slide at McDonald's playground, only a thousand times bigger. And it did not have any stairs leading to it. When the slide entrance came up to the children's level, the city stopped moving. The position of the tunnel was adjusted so it was right under their feet and the kids could reach the opening.

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Bradley whispered. "This is very suspicious. Of course I did not want to go to school today, but I did not expect anything of the kind."

To Bradley this tunnel reminded of a subway tunnel, even the worn out yellow caution line that they were about to cross over. But something else was not quite right. There did not seem to be anybody in control of this thing or insisting that they go down. Bradley was wondering how they were supposed to go down if they were suspended in the air and there appeared to be no gravity? They could reach the railing along the sides, but what good would that do? Past the railing there was a completely smooth surface. Bradley doubted that they could pull themselves along the outside of the structure since there were no ladders or hand holds. The hint came from coins that fell out of pockets and were still floating around. As few coins floated past the yellow line, Bradley saw strobes flash and a terribly loud horn sounded next to him. When the horn stopped sounding several seconds later, Bradley could still hear the clinkety-clink of the coins dropping down the slide.

While Bradley was still thinking of the implications, John exclaimed, "That's it, it's automatic, just cross that line, and down you go to the city! It's just as the escape slide that the astronauts have on the launch platforms. It takes them all the way underground in a blink. This is an adventure! We'll tour around a little bit, and then figure out how to get back. Maybe in this country we can use that money that we found."

It was just like John. Bradley did not expect anything else from his friend. Ready for an adventure! "Ok, I guess it's better than hanging in one place," he agreed and patted John on the shoulder. "You go first."

"You bet I will!" John exclaimed and moved to the side of the slide opposite of the horn. "Plug your ears." As John pulled himself past the threshold, the horn sounded and lights flashed, and Bradley heard his friend scream. He figured that John really enjoyed his ride, like a roller coaster. Bradley could not understand the reason for the horn, but it was simple enough to disconnect because of what looked like temporary wiring, badly installed just like Bradley used to do when he was six or seven. As he began to untwist the wire cap, Megan scolded him, "Don't, you'll break it or get shocked!"

But Bradley reasoned there was no electricity at that moment, since the horn did not sound until one crossed the line. Then Bradley pushed Megan, who hesitated, and dove in right after her.

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### Chapter 2. Not quite a pleasant entry.

When Megan was pushed down by Bradley, she got upset. Why do boys always do it this way? She was not quite ready to go and hurt herself a little bit when she hit the floor of the tube. If he gave her just a few seconds, she would have gone herself! The slide down the tube appeared to Megan similar to an enclosed slide on a playground, only it was much longer and steeper. As she was gaining speed, she was getting convinced that at the end she would not be able to land safely. As Megan expected, when she finally reached the end, she flew out of the tube onto the ground, more precisely the floor, since the tube actually ended inside of a building, and landed next to John. She was expecting Bradley to pile up on top of them any second, but to her surprise her brother managed to slow down and fell on the floor much closer to the tube than her.

Megan looked around and discovered that they landed in the middle of a huge room. In front of them there were rows and rows of chairs, on which other children were seated, and on the opposite side there was a big table, behind which only one chubby guy was sitting on a chair. But she did not see that guy at first. The children in front looked strange and all appeared to be the same age. It occurred to Megan that before their appearance there had been some discussion in the room, but everybody was very quiet now.

The voice behind suddenly called out, "Over here! Turn around, stand up and listen respectfully to the Chief of the Unknowns! Which is me! You are now in the Assembly Room of the Unknowns and have interrupted a very important meeting. Who are you and how did you get here?"

"As simple as this," John began, and Megan figured that he was probably the least scared of all at that point. He continued, "There was an extra wooden building on our school grounds that was not there before, we got in and then were taken up here."

"Simple indeed," the chubby chief stared directly at John and inquired, "And who allowed you to enter this building?"

Megan felt like if she was looked upon that way, she would freeze and not be able to say anything, but she heard John reply, "Well, nobody. There was not actually anybody to ask permission from. So everything was legitimate." John paused, and Megan expected the chief to ask more questions, but instead John went on the offensive, "And who are you? I mean, I've already gathered that you are the Chief of the Unknowns, but I am not sure we understand what that means."

"You will understand everything in due time," the chubby chief replied to John and then moved his gaze to Megan and Bradley. "Meanwhile, since you got here, we would have to make sure that you don't get out," he continued with all seriousness. "We are the UNKNOWNS, and nobody is supposed to find out about us."

When he said this, Megan got really scared. She swiftly glanced at the boys and noticed that John was still in a good mood. Even though John was known for his reckless behavior, right now the way he carried himself was encouraging to Megan. Maybe, it was not so bad after all. Some kids looked like they were playing a game, but they should have parents who would straighten all things out and help Megan and the boys to return home.

Her heart sank again when she heard the chief say, "You will be assigned to a mentor according to your character and will start lessons tomorrow!"

That sounded like they would be here for a long time and Megan did not like it at all. Where are the adults?! She looked around and her glance came upon John, who muttered, "Lessons?.." An expression on his face conveyed to Megan that he did not like the idea at all. "What lessons are we going to have?" he inquired loudly.

"Flying lessons, for one," said the chubby chief as-a-matter-of-factly. "And others. But they'll tell you everything tomorrow during the orientation. And now, let's see..."

He paused and acquired a thoughtful expression on his face. Megan heard John's excited whisper, "Flying lessons, wow! I wonder what we are going to fly? Airplane, helicopter? Either way I think this is great!"

But Megan was not excited at all. She doubted Bradley was much interested in the idea, either. She was sure Bradley would love to learn to fly an aircraft, but he would have enough reason to not expect that these kids could teach him that. Megan did not believe the whole thing and wanted to get back home and go to her regular school. She knew they were in double trouble because of missing school today and getting stuck in this place for nobody knows how long. And on top of that the boys were not even concerned about them being stuck here! She also did not like the attitude of the fat guy, even though he was a Chief of whatever. Everybody here appeared to be of the same age, so why did he think that he had so much authority over everyone else?! She felt particular discomfort and fear, when after his speech the Chief of the Unknowns started staring at the three of them, one at a time. When his eyes stopped on her, she froze. Something bad was in that look, though Megan could not tell why she had that thought.

The Chief did not look very long at her, though. He announced, "John is going to be assigned to the Adventurous, Bradley to the Tenacious and Megan to the Suspicious!"

As Megan saw three kids stand up from their seats in the audience, she heard John's surprised whisper, "How did he know our names?" She expected John to start explaining how cool he thought this was and why, but the three mentors promptly advanced towards her and the boys. The three Unknowns introduced themselves to their mentees and commanded them to follow their lead. The Tenacious opened the door of the Assembly Room, and they all found themselves on the street.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so even Megan cheered up a little bit. She was trying to practice finding something positive in anything that happened to her, and this was a good opportunity. After all, everything was not so bad at this point. They were all together, which was very important, and finally got away from this scary guy, who did not even tell them what his name was. Megan thought, "I should not really be afraid of him. After all, he is just a kid himself." She tried to convince herself that parents are out there somewhere and that the kids were probably playing a game, in which they had a chief, and an assembly room, and everything... It was probably just their school, like model United Nations where they all pretend to be ambassadors from different countries under the direction of their history teacher... But the uneasy feeling did not leave her completely: the way they got into this place was very strange, and it was still very unclear who these people were.

They were marching towards a group of buildings in the distance. Megan noticed that the boys started to take great interest in scrutinizing the surroundings. Even though Megan in the beginning was walking with her face to the ground, deep in thought about their troubles, eventually she started to look up, too. The city was somewhat strange because the streets were completely empty. There were no regular types of buildings, such as stores and houses, she would expect to see. The structures that she saw were very simple-shaped, resembling the one that they entered on their school grounds when their adventure started, only they were much bigger in size. Megan thought to herself how they looked like the towns of the old West during the Gold Rush with unpainted wooden planks, build on top of a much more modern foundation, but very old and cracking.

By the time Megan started breaking a sweat, and, dark-haired, wishing she had a hat, they finally approached a group of buildings, which she assumed was their destination. The Tenacious turned to the right and ordered Bradley to follow, but the Adventurous and the Suspicious kept going straight. Megan hesitated and started to slow down. She wanted to go together with her brother. When John resolutely followed the Tenacious and Bradley, Megan promptly ran after him as well.

"Hey, there!" their mentors called out from behind. "You are supposed to follow us."

"It's not right that we have to be separated," John shouted back without slowing down. "We are friends, and we will stay together. If you are our mentors, it doesn't mean you can boss us around like this; after all, you are the same age as us! Since you appear to know something I don't, I will gladly start learning it from you tomorrow, but meanwhile..."

But while he was making his speech, the Tenacious and Bradley suddenly disappeared. Megan screamed. While John was trying to check whether the Tenacious and Bradley took a left turn between the two buildings, the Suspicious caught up with Megan and ordered her to follow her. Megan hesitated, looking at John. Unlike him, she saw that the Tenacious and Bradley did not turn anywhere, they just disappeared, dissolved in the air.

"Be careful, John!" she shouted. "They simply disappeared!"

As she was saying this, she felt a little push into her back and was instantly transported to a small and well lit room with a bed against one wall. There was only one window very high up so she could not actually reach it and look out, and the scariest part was that the room had no door! Just like in that wooden structure on their school ground when they were opening those bags. Megan panicked and started running around the room, trying to feel the walls in order to find some kind of a hidden door, but there was nothing. Very quickly it became dark, or maybe not as quickly in reality, but Megan lost track of time. All of a sudden she felt very tired. "Strangely, I don't want to eat, even though we did not have lunch or dinner," she thought as she was getting into bed. The bed was very soft and comfortable, so Megan fell asleep as soon as she got under the blanket.

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### Chapter 3. John learns and speculates.

When Bradley, Megan and their mentors disappeared, the Adventurous and John were left on the street alone. John felt uneasy for the first time since this morning. While he enjoyed the adventure of finding a transportation device to this place and getting here, it was totally wrong that he and his friends were separated. John expected that they would freely go around and would have a chance to have some fun, but it was not working quite the way he wanted it to. He turned to the Adventurous and expressed his frustration. But the Adventurous had a stone expression on his face.

John got impatient. He remembered that his pockets and schoolbag were full of money and he really could have some fun spending it. Not to mention a tasty lunch. He had not had anything since early morning. Not that he felt real hunger, which he was actually surprised about, but having a tasty meal would be a fun thing to do. For starters. Then they could go play around; maybe there were some Carnivals or something of the sort with rides, not that he actually saw anything on the way here... Anyhow, if the Adventurous was not proposing anything, it could be because his parents were stingy and did not give him any allowance. But it would not be a problem for John, only if the Adventurous proposed anything. After all, his name was "The Adventurous", and in John's mind it should have meant something.

"Let's get going. Don't you have a place to eat around here?" John suggested since the Adventurous apparently did not intend to disappear.

"Are you hungry?" the Adventurous asked, surprise in his voice.

"What did you think?" John responded, pretending that he was really hungry. "I have not eaten since breakfast! And it was a very long time ago."

"Are you sure? You should not be hungry in this place. Maybe you are bored, and it only appears to you that you are hungry. That sometimes happens..." The Adventurous stumbled as if he was going to utter something he was not supposed to say. Then he moved on, "But I am pretty sure you won't be bored for long. Only today."

"Should not be hungry?" It was John's turn to be surprised. "What do you mean? I have not eaten all day!"

The Adventurous explained patiently, "Well, even if you feel this way, you won't anymore after a while. You'll get used to it. There are a lot of things to do here, trust me. It is just the first day when things are hidden from you."

John was so carried away by the conversation that he did not notice how they started to walk and where they were going. He wanted to get as much information from the Adventurous as he could. He asked inquisitively, looking straight at the Adventurous, "All right then. Tomorrow can we go on some rides?"

"It depends what you call 'rides'," the Adventurous responded elusively. "It is not impossible."

"Perfect!" John exclaimed. "Can't wait!"

They walked and walked, the conversation paused, so John looked around and realized that they have been walking for a while and he lost track of where he was relative to the place where his friends disappeared. "Where are we going?" he asked the Adventurous.

"I'm going to take you to the place where you will be living. An apartment, I believe you call it," the Adventurous responded and stopped talking again.

John started to get bored with this really long walk. He tried to involve the Adventurous into more conversations about what other attractions they had there and what kind of aircraft they were going to learn to fly. But the Adventurous was silent. Then John started to think and imagine his own stuff. After all, he was in an adventure that nobody he knew had before. It was like a Huckleberry Finn kind of adventure: spend a few weeks with these Unknowns, learn to fly and change their money into dollars before going home. John speculated that mom and dad would not mind such a long absence if he came back with money. Provided he did not spend it all, which he was sure he wouldn't.

Then he started thinking of scenarios how Bradley and Megan could have disappeared. His ideas included zero transportation or using some kind of invisible aircraft that was parked there on the sidewalk. John was not sure why the Adventurous did not do the same thing with him, but both models offered an explanation. For example, the Adventurous had not mastered zero transportation yet. He could possibly do it all by himself, but because he also had to carry John along, it did not work. If the others disappeared by means of an invisible vehicle, then it was possible that only two of these vehicles were available at that time and none were left for the Adventurous and John.

It started to get dark by the time they reached some place where the Adventurous finally entered a building and started walking upstairs. John was going to ask for food again but realized that he was still not hungry. However, he was getting really tired and would be ready for bed soon. He started to wonder what time it was.

"All right, we are here," the Adventurous said, waving his hand at a door in a long corridor.

He opened the door and invited John to come in. John peeked inside and looked at the Adventurous with doubt on his face. It was just a small room with nothing in it but a bed near a wall. An apartment?! Besides, John was expecting that he would be re-united with his friends and was very disappointed.

"There is nobody in this room," he told the Adventurous. "Are you sure it's the right place?"

"Nobody told you would not be alone," the Adventurous said and looked at John more sternly. "Now get in and don't waste time. Tomorrow is a big day."

"All right, I understand, but where are Bradley and Megan?" John insisted, making one step towards the door.

"They are not too far," the Adventurous gave him a reluctant hint. "Anyway, I talked too much. The other two did not get as much information from their mentors as you did from me. In a way, this is not fair to them. Get in and wait for me tomorrow."

"Fine. Good night," John said and stepped into the room.

The Adventurous left without saying a word. The door behind him closed, and John was left wondering what the Adventurous meant by saying that Bradley and Megan were not too far away. He sat on his bed and turned towards the door. It was not there! "Yeah, great!" John murmured to himself. "The same games as in that house! Just making me wonder how they do it!" John slowly approached the wall where the door was just a short while ago and banged on it with all his might. Somebody banged right back.

John shouted, "Hey there! What's going on? Adventurous, is that you?"

"Hi, John. It's me, Bradley."

John was very happy to hear that his friend was nearby. The Adventurous did not lie, after all, saying that his friends weren't too far. What was not clear was whether Bradley was never locked up in a door-less room or he managed to escape from his room somehow, so John asked, "Bradley?.. What are you doing there? Did you escape? The door in my room disappeared".

"No, I've been locked up in a room," John heard Bradley reply. "I just got in. And my door disappeared also."

John was intrigued by this phenomenon. When the Adventurous brought him to the room, they were standing in the middle of a long corridor, and now Bradley was saying that there was a room on the other side. "Was the door just where we stand right now?" John inquired.

"Exactly here, that's right," Bradley confirmed.

When he heard this, John even forgot the fact that they were trapped in these weird rooms, and the only thing he wanted was to find out how this worked. He shouted to Bradley, "Same with mine. Don't you find it fascinating?!" But since Bradley did not respond, John figured that his friend was not so excited. Bradley was known as a rather practical person who would think about the CONSEQUENCES.

John remembered how he was once rescued from a complete fiasco because Bradley remembered about his chores and actually did them. They played in his house when John's mom asked him to load the dishwasher to make sure they had clean dishes for dinner, but the boys were in the middle of a game, and John didn't want to do it. Then he decided that he would make a robotic arm that would perform this task for him in a much quicker way. This arm would pivot on a ninety degree angle and grab plates from the sink, then release them into the racks of the dishwasher. One thing John did not estimate correctly was the amount of time this project would require. He also omitted the fact that he did not have enough knowledge to perform all the necessary calculations. While Bradley was trying to remind him that they were running out of time, John just waved his hand and continued with his idea. Then Bradley quietly sneaked out and loaded the dishwasher. Which was great because, needless to say, John was not ready with the robot that day or ever, to tell the truth.

But that was different. That was a routine thing and would be a routine discipline should the dishes not get washed. And while John was enjoying himself for now, he understood his friend's concerns. True, it was not a given that they could leave any time they get tired of the Unknowns, with the way the situation was turning around. John felt like Bradley needed encouragement, so he shouted, "Come on, Bradley, cheer up. We are together, after all, and together we can solve all these mysteries. And find the way out," he added, realizing that he forgot the most important part.

"Where is Megan?" he heard Bradley ask instead of giving John any positive feedback.

But John didn't know. He hesitated with his response for some time. John knew how Bradley always held himself responsible for his sister and how painful it had to be to not know where she was. When they were much younger, a few of the neighborhood kids played hide-and-seek in John's back yard. Megan once hid so well that they could not find her and moved on while Bradley kept looking. It took him quite a while because Megan actually fell asleep in the bushes, but he did not give up.

This memory gave John an idea and he said to Bradley, "I'm pretty sure we'll find her. Just have to keep looking. Well, thinking first, then looking," he corrected himself.

John took pride in his ability to generate ideas. People told him that some of them were good while others were not so good, the one with the robotic arm, for example, but John simply could not hold himself from taking on some crazy projects. Besides, it was a good idea with poor execution. The Chief of the Unknowns in that respect was right to assign him to a mentor who was called "The Adventurous"; John had more expectations of that guy and hoped that he would remedy the situation the next day.

Meanwhile, John desperately needed an idea. Luckily, he had one which appeared to be quite reasonable. He proposed to Bradley, "Go around the room and bang on all the walls. I'll do the same thing. Maybe Megan is in the next room."

John started going around the room, banging on all walls, but Megan was not responding. John returned back to his starting point and called out to Bradley. "Nobody," he reported. "What about you?"

"The same," said Bradley, sadness in his voice.

But John right away produced an explanation, "I know what's going on. They put us into some kind of a boys' dormitory, and they probably have a separate building for girls. Don't worry. Tomorrow we all will be learning how to fly, and I'm pretty sure we'll all meet at some point. I doubt they have too many runways in this place. It looked pretty boring to me, but the Adventurous promised that it's just for the first day. Tomorrow we will be seeing lots of stuff."

Since the rooms did not have anything interesting in them except what looked like comfortable beds, John felt like calling it a day. In his mind, it was important to get well rested for the next day, because pilots have to be alert. And if they didn't see Megan, then they would have their wits about them to think of a way how to find her.

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### Chapter 4. John's flying lesson.

The next morning John woke up very early and felt like he was ready for action. He wondered when the flying class was scheduled for and regretted he did not ask the Adventurous for more details. John banged on the wall to Bradley's room, but for a long time he was not getting any response. Finally, Bradley shouted from his bed, "Hi John, is that you?"

"Of course it's me, let's get going!"

"Going where?" Bradley shouted back. "There are no doors! And because there is nothing to do anyway, I'm going to take advantage of it and sleep in."

John shrugged his shoulders, but did not say anything. True, there were no doors, but at least they could have started brainstorming the situation. Of course, he could also start on his own if Bradley wanted to sleep so much, but John's brain worked better when he had a sounding board. He knew this little shortcoming about himself of often having good ideas but poor implementation. John started pacing back and forth in his room, muttering to himself, but that did not last for very long. The ceiling opened and the head of the Adventurous appeared in the hole.

The Adventurous said, "Good morning! "Ready for the day?"

"Where is the door?" John asked the Adventurous instead of any kind of greeting.

"The goal is to teach you to get around without any doors. The next time you leave this room will be by means of flying. So it is in your own interest to learn to fly fast."

"Flying? I thought we were going to fly airplanes. If you're talking about flying in this room, then I don't know what you're talking about," John said, turning around and walking back to his bed.

In his mind, the Adventurous was behaving rudely by talking to him from the hole in the ceiling instead of generating a door and coming in. And on top of that, he made a crazy proposition to fly in this room. John sat down on his bed and turned his face away from the Adventurous.

The Adventurous did not seem to mind that John also behaved rudely and went on with his explanations, "Oh, that I will tell you. You are supposed to have the 'orientation', as the Chief likes to call it. So basically in our country everyone learns to fly. This is the first thing one learns before other lessons can begin. Passing the flying test is the prerequisite for starting on more sophisticated subjects. Remember how your friends disappeared out of sight yesterday? Well, there is a special skill that lets one do that, and you can learn that, too, after you master flying."

"Flying what?" John interrupted, still looking the other way.

"Nothing... Just flying. We can start now if you wish."

Only then did John turn his face to the Adventurous and saw that he stuck a long ladder into the hole in the ceiling. John wondered whether he brought it with him to begin with or produced it out thin air just now. The Adventurous lowered the ladder to the floor of the room, and John saw that it had a little board on top like the ones on the high dive at the swimming pools. The Adventurous jumped down through the hole in the ceiling and landed on that board.

"Watch me!" he shouted, excitement in his voice. "You do it this way: jump, straighten out your arms, balance, and arch your back a little bit..." And he jumped down. With his hands out, he slowly circled twice around the room as he was going down towards the floor. John froze in amazement.

"Now you try it," the Adventurous offered, landing next to John's bed where he was sitting.

"I don't think this kind of thing will work for me," John said cautiously, slowly recovering from his initial shock. "More likely, I will simply fall and hurt myself. Maybe, it's better to learn to fly airplanes after all?" He raised his head and looked straight at the Adventurous.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Why can't you try flying? As far as I understand based on what you told us yesterday about the way you got into this country to begin with, you have a great potential for flying. You were already somewhat flying on the way here before you reached the entry tube."

"That was not flying!" John objected vigorously. "We were just hanging in the air!"

"Well, was 'just hanging in the air' possible in your world?" the Adventurous inquired.

John admitted that of course it was not, but he was not in any control of the situation when it was happening yesterday. They just got into that wooden structure, opened the bags and were taken up into the air, nobody knows how. On the other hand, the Adventurous was suggesting that this time John was to actively commit an act of flying, and he was sure that gravity would pull him straight down.

"Come on, you simply have to try," the Adventurous prompted John going back to the ladder. "I'll show you again. Maybe you fall a couple times, but so what? As if you have never fallen doing other activities! It's not that far to fall, anyway."

"All right," John agreed, standing up from his bed. "I'll try. But for the first time I won't climb to the top of this ladder."

Since the Adventurous did not object, John felt encouraged and started climbing the ladder. He looked down every step to verify how far up he was and how far down he would be falling. Finally he stopped. He tried copying the Adventurous in all his gestures, preparing for the jump. Then he jumped, stuck out his hands and made a couple of bird-like motions. With that he hit the floor and landed awkwardly on his side.

"No way," he said, standing up. "I don't see how this is possible. All the laws of physics are against it. Of course, the same is true about the disappearances yesterday, but those did happen... I also have to admit, YOU did fly... Do you have different laws of physics in your land?"

For the first time John was frustrated for not having taken any science classes at school. He was avoiding them, thinking they would be too difficult and bring down his GPA. Anything he learned for his own projects was from his dad and had a very sporadic nature. But that stuff would be interesting and useful for situations like this. When he got back, John decided he would go to physics class, even if it meant getting a "C", to learn the subject systematically and to be able to understand better what was happening in this strange world.

The Adventurous avoided answering John's questions. John was not sure whether the Adventurous was hiding stuff from him on purpose or simply did not know the answers himself.

"Try again," the Adventurous commanded. "Don't tighten up and don't wave your arms."

John climbed the ladder again and jumped down. But this time he instinctively jumped with his feet down to have a more successful landing. Of course, he went straight down to the floor.

"Forget it," he said to the Adventurous. "Let's do something else. Don't you have any rides around town?"

"We do, but you have to learn to fly to get out of this room," the Adventurous reminded him. "I'll leave the ladder here so you can practice. I'll be back in the afternoon to check your progress and give further instruction."

"Practice?.." John sat down back on his bed.

The Adventurous left the room by flying up to the hole in the ceiling and getting out through it. Then he closed the hole. John ran up to the ladder and climbed it as fast as he could to follow the Adventurous into the hole to escape from the room, but the hole disappeared when he almost reached it. John touched the ceiling, but it had even surface as if no hole was there before. John climbed down the stairs without attempting to fly and sat down on his bed again. This whole idea of practicing flying THIS WAY appeared crazy. On top of that being able to fly was the prerequisite for getting out of this room, which was a disaster. He could not even trick them into taking him out under a pretense that he was hungry, because apparently they did not have to eat in this country. And it was true for him, too, because he was not hungry for the whole day already. The future appeared very boring to John at this point. He banged on the wall to Bradley's room.

"Hey, Bradley, what are you doing?" he shouted.

But there was no reply for very long time, and John kept banging on the wall and shouting until Bradley finally showed some signs of life.

"C'mon John, as long as we are not going to school today, let me just sleep in..."

"Still sleeping?!!! Get up, there are such amazing things happening! "John shouted impatiently.

"What things?" Bradley asked lazily. John heard some bangs and other noises, indicating that Bradley was getting out of bed. Then he heard Bradley's steps as he was approaching the wall. John was happy because he did not have to shout so loudly anymore. John told Bradley what happened to him in the morning.

"I have this ladder in my room, and I'm supposed to practice flying," he finished his story. "Hasn't anybody come to you yet to teach you how to fly? Yesterday they promised us that all of us will be learning that... I wonder."

"No, nobody came in yet," Bradley responded. John heard some noises from Bradley's room, and then Bradley reported, "Wait, here is the Tenacious."

"Ok, talk to you later. When he leaves, bang on the wall."

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### Chapter 5. Megan learns of consequences of flying.

Like Bradley, Megan woke up very late that morning. Because nobody banged on her walls, she actually slept even longer than Bradley. Similarly to what happened with the boys, shortly after she woke up the ceiling opened, and the Suspicious lowered down a ladder. She demonstrated to Megan how to fly and told her that she should be practicing and taking it seriously since without the capability to fly nobody really could get things done in this country. When the Suspicious left, Megan sat down on her bed and began to think. She did not try to fly even once.

Her first and the biggest concern was what her parents were doing back home after they kids got lost. She felt pain, thinking how her mom worried and Megan could not let her know where she was. Second, Megan felt uneasy sitting in this room all by herself and the boys being somewhere else where she could not talk to them. And third – how to get out of this place and get back?

After some time of desperate thinking Megan decided that the only way to get out was to learn to fly. An opportunity to get out of the country of the Unknowns might come up when she had access to other places besides this room. When she had this realization, she climbed the ladder and jumped down the same way the Suspicious showed her. Surprisingly, she did not fall down right away and even flew a little bit without descending at all, but then she lost her balance and started going down fast. She did not hurt herself, however, because even though she was going down, it was much slower than just by gravity. When she reached the floor, she sat there for a while pondering what just happened.

She did fly. It was very awkward, true, but it was happening. It was not like she fell right away or anything like that. So if she kept trying, it should be getting better and better every time. Megan climbed the ladder again and tried one more time. This time she was not so focused to reproduce the posture that the Suspicious showed her, so she went down right away, but again not so fast as to hurt herself. She tried several more times and realized that she could fly around the room and go down to the floor at her own will. Then Megan decided it was time to practice starting from the floor and going up to be able to reach the ceiling. She started jumping up and trying to assume a horizontal position but it did not work. She decided she would have to ask the Suspicious when she comes in the afternoon to check on her. Meanwhile, Megan started flying around by going from the top step of the ladder.

All of a sudden Megan saw that there was a hole in the floor. Without giving it a second thought, she went down and jumped into the hole. It was dark down there, so Megan could not see anything until her eyes adjusted to this low lighting. She saw a tunnel leading in both directions. She picked a direction and started going that way. "It's great we don't have to eat in this country," she thought to herself. "Otherwise I would not have dared leaving like this without any snacks or anything."

As she walked in the tunnel, Megan shortly realized that there were railroad tracks under her feet and got scared. What if a train came through? It would really be bad because there were no turns to hide from it if that happened. Megan even turned back because of being scared of such a possibility, but the hole, through which she came out, was gone. The only solution that Megan could think of was to keep going forward as fast as she could to get out of this tunnel before a train came through. Megan started to run. But the tunnel kept on going, Megan got tired, and there were no trains all this time. Eventually Megan stopped being afraid. Maybe, this was an old railroad that was not used anymore.

Megan kept walking and walked for quite a while until finally she ran into a dead end. "Great..." she muttered to herself. "All this work and all for nothing..." All of a sudden she heard voices behind the wall. She stopped moving and quietly stood by. She recognized the voices of the Suspicious and the Chief. There were others whom she did not know. They were not talking very loudly or maybe the wall was too thick, so Megan really had to stand still and put her ear to the wall in order to be able to hear.

"He is not even trying to fly!" one voice said in an indignant tone.

"Mine tried but gave up and suggested we did something else instead. I had to remind him that flying was the only way to get out of that room," said another.

"Mine did not fly either", the Suspicious chimed in.

"Bad, very bad," the Chief said, pausing, so Megan imagined he was giving his subordinates a stern look. "You didn't tell them that after they successfully pass the exam they would not be able to leave, did you?"

"Of course not!" the Suspicious exclaimed, sounding offended.

"Not at all," the other two said simultaneously.

Megan became petrified. So this was what was waiting for them! Being forced to learn to fly because there was no other way out of their rooms, and then they would not be able to leave! She felt an urge to turn around and run to find the boys to warn them to keep from flying at any cost, but she changed her mind and decided to keep listening for a little longer.

"How is the progress for you guys?" the Chief asked, letting Megan know that there were more Unknowns in the room.

Some other Unknowns started giving him their reports. According to them, their mentees were making good progress in whatever they were supposed to be doing. Some of them were also only at the stage of learning how to fly, but they were getting so good at it that the question now was about when to schedule their test. Others already studied other subjects, but Megan could not understand what they were. "So, there are many people in here who they captured!" she thought quickly. "And they don't know that they can't get out because they already passed their flying test! Or maybe they like it here? Maybe they learned to fly, saw things around this country and decided to stay voluntarily... Are they also kids?"

Megan had lots of questions, but the Unknowns started talking about something completely different. Some of the assignments and chores of their own. Megan was listening for that stuff inattentively, at the same time thinking about what she'd already learned. First of all, where were all these trapped people kept? Did they all live in rooms similar to hers and, because they could fly, could they come out when they wished? Or were they still being controlled by the Unknowns? When she, Bradley and John were walking towards the building where they were placed yesterday, she did not see a single person on the street. That made Megan think that they were inside somewhere most of the time. Because they did not have to eat, they did not have any grocery stores, this was now clear too.

The voices behind the door became harder to hear, and Megan realized that the Unknowns were walking towards the exit. Then the voices disappeared completely. Megan started to slowly walk back in the tunnel. All of a sudden she realized that she was very tired. She probably walked for three hours before she got all the way here plus all the flying in the morning... How did they sustain energy here if they didn't eat? Megan was not hungry in her stomach, but being tired was a problem. She wanted to try finding the boys before anything happened to her and she lost her chance to share with them what she'd heard. This tunnel with the dead end might have an exit on the other side, far beyond where her room was. If they found it, it could be an opportunity to get out.

Megan sighed and continued walking. She was not afraid of trains anymore because she saw this was a dead end, but walking on the railroad tracks was very tiring because it was not an even path. Finally Megan got so tired that she decided to take just a little rest. She lay down between two railroad ties, resting her head on the track. She tried to keep her mind occupied by the events of the day so she would not fall asleep, but it did not work. In about five minutes after she lay down, she was fast asleep. Megan had not realized that she spent much longer time walking back than she thought. She did not know that she past her room long ago, and it was actually very late evening when she stopped.

[back to top]

### Chapter 6. A temporary escape.

After the Tenacious left him, Bradley right away banged on the wall to John. He heard John's footsteps, then John said, excitement in his voice, "Good, finally, so how did it go?"

"Same thing. He tried to get me to fly, but I told him that it wasn't going to work and I wasn't going to hurt myself trying," Bradley responded.

"Very well," John agreed. "Now what? Any plan how to get out of here without this stupid thing?"

"Not yet... Too bad we are not actually learning to fly airplanes. That's what I thought yesterday when they said that we were going to learn to fly..."

John admitted that he was sure it would be some sort of aircraft, too. He added, "Anyhow, we need to get out of here. Let's think of a plan. For example, when the Adventurous and the Tenacious show up again in the afternoon, we trick them to come all the way down the ladder to demonstrate more precisely how it's done. Let's tell them we'll stay behind and mimic their movements exactly. Then we give them a hard shove to the ground, scramble up the ladder and close the hole in the ceiling."

"What if they're stronger than us?" Bradley asked, trying to foresee all the possible outcomes.

"It may be the case, but we have to try. Otherwise we are stuck here."

"All right, sounds like a plan," Bradley agreed, hearing the noise up above. "Here we go."

Bradley jumped away from the wall so that the Tenacious would not know that he was talking to John. He decided he would try to hide any information he could from these guys from now on.

The Tenacious came down by means of flying, landed next to Bradley and asked, "Well, well, how are things going? Any progress flying yet?"

Since the Tenacious came down voluntarily and Bradley did not have to make anything up to convince him to do it, he decided to proceed with the escape right away. He said, "Yeah, definitely. Watch."

He started to climb the ladder, but after the second step turned around, jumped on top of the Tenacious and started to fight. Before the Tenacious realized what was going on, he was lying on his back, and Bradley ran up the ladder and into the hole in the ceiling. When he jumped out, he saw a large room up there with windows and everything like in the normal world. At the same time John jumped out of the hole in the floor next to him. Bradley saw him right away and shouted, "Quickly, run, the Tenacious is following me!"

Bradley turned back to see how far the Tenacious was. He was sure that when he was jumping out of the room and closing the door in the ceiling, the Tenacious was getting up to his feet. He expected him to be right behind. To Bradley's surprise, not only he did not see the Tenacious, but there were no holes in the floor. In a brief time that Bradley could dedicate to scrutinizing the surroundings, he did not see any mechanisms that could control those doors. All of a sudden the floor opened in the place where Bradley's room was, and the Tenacious jumped out.

Bradley was about to pull John and start running, but realized that John was already ahead of him. He ran across the large room and was approaching an entrance to a corridor. Bradley followed his friend. Luckily, the corridor right away made several turns, so Bradley started to hope that they managed to get rid of their pursuit.

"Do you think we shook him off?" Bradley asked, slowing down.

"I hope so. Maybe, he decided to go back and check on the Adventurous. I knocked him down pretty hard," John responded, breathing hard from running. "If the Tenacious goes back to help the Adventurous, we'll have lots of time to get away."

"Do you think they help each other?" Bradley asked, doubt in his voice. "In my opinion they are just blindly serving their Chief and do only what they must to fulfill their orders. They don't look like ordinary kids to me at all. I was thinking about them last night before falling asleep, and I don't like them."

The boys tried to keep pace, not running anymore but walking fast. Their goal was to get as far away as they could and then start thinking about a way to find Megan and get out of this country altogether. After some time, however, Bradley became suspicious.

"John, I think we were here before," he said, gazing left and right to make sure.

"You may think so because all these corridors look alike," John objected. "I have another concern - where is the end of the building? I remember it being a building of a standard size when the Adventurous brought me here, but now we are walking, walking, and not getting to any exit!...By the way, was there anything strange about the way you got into this building in the first place?"

"Yes, of course," Bradley replied. "We were all walking together, then all of a sudden you guys were left behind and I found myself in my room. But then right away I heard your voice."

"Right away?!" John exclaimed, surprise in his voice. "After you disappeared, the Adventurous and I were walking for ages before we reached this house... Weird. I saw this building from the outside, and it was just an average size. And we are still walking. Something is wrong about this."

"I'm telling you, we are passing the same corridor over and over again," Bradley said, trying to sound as convincing as he could. "Use your logic."

All of a sudden they heard a noise in the side corridor, and Megan ran out of it and crashed into them. All three fell down to the floor.

"Megan! Great!" Bradley shouted happily. He expected the least to find Megan just like that. Bradley was prepared to spend quite a bit of time looking for her. "We just got rid of the Tenacious and were about to start looking for you!...Have you also successfully knocked out the Suspicious? Not a girls' style, but here you are."

Bradley noticed that his sister was troubled. Getting away from the Suspicious had to be a hard thing for her. Or maybe, something else was going on? Megan gave a little bit of explanation, "I'm so glad to see you guys, I have a lot to tell you. But let's get moving. The Suspicious is after me. I was so tired that I fell asleep and she found me. I'll tell you all the details later."

All three of them jumped on their feet and started running the other way.

"We have to be careful, though, not to run into the Tenacious," Bradley reminded the other two.

They took many different turns in the corridors, thinking that they were getting far away. Bradley had another swift idea to explain the unending corridors; maybe they were underground under the buildings. But he did not have a chance to share his thought with others, because they were running very fast for a long time and were getting short on breath. Bradley felt like if he did not stop running, he was going to die. But he saw the other two run and kept going. Finally, he decided to stop and noticed with relief that Megan and John were slowing down, too. No one was chasing them, so, in Bradley's opinion, they were safe. He stopped and plopped to the ground along the corridor wall. Megan and John followed his example.

They were breathing hard for a long time, then slowly recovered. Bradley looked around and was convinced that they were in the same corridor all this time. If he were right, there was no point in all this running and any further attempts to get away unless they came up with a completely new strategy. It would also be good to just rest and exchange all the information they gathered. Bradley turned to Megan and asked, "You had something to tell us, Megan. What was it?"

"Did they make you fly?" Megan asked the boys.

"Yes, they did. What a joke!" John laughed and briefly told the story how he and Bradley got out of their rooms.

Bradley did not like John's attitude. His friend was still not serious about what was going on. Bradley was about to reprimand him, but he noticed that Megan was about to speak. With very serious expression on her face, his sister said, "It's not a joke. It actually works. But we shouldn't do it, because as soon as we learn how to fly they'll make us take the test, after which we won't be able to get out of this country anymore."

Bradley felt a chill come down his spine and looked at John out of the corner of his eye. But John seemed not very worried still. "How do you know?" he asked blankly.

Megan told them her story. Bradley's worst fears were confirmed when Megan was done talking. He was about to pronounce the summary of his thoughts on the matter, but John spoke first.

"You COULD ACTUALLY FLY?" he asked suspiciously, but Bradley could clearly hear excitement in his voice. "How did you do it?"

Megan responded, shrugging her shoulders, "I don't know, but it worked. I just need to make sure now that the Suspicious doesn't find out that I've succeeded in it."

"Wow! If we were not in this narrow low corridor, I would ask you to demonstrate," John exclaimed impatiently.

"Come on, John, be serious," Bradley interrupted. "It's a good thing that we have not been able to fly. The longer we can't, the more time we have to get out of here! Don't you see that the Unknowns are evil? If flying is possible, they are apparently using it as a bait to trap people in their world."

"Of course, of course, I just find it very curious. Actually if it's possible I think I'm going to try again when the Adventurous is not looking. This is something worth experiencing," John replied, ignoring the seriousness of the situation.

Bradley did not say anything, even though he thought it was a bad idea. He could not be sure that the Unknowns did not have a mechanism to find out what one had been doing without having to watch that person. But Bradley recognized that John could not be reasoned with at that moment.

"Shall we go now?" asked John, getting to his feet.

Bradley reluctantly got up, too. If his theory about the maze were correct, it made no difference whatsoever to wait to be captured, sitting in one place or walking around. However, Megan escaped out of her room through the hole in the floor. What if they find one here? Then walking would be more useful.

"Why do you think that hole appeared in the floor in your room?" Bradley asked his sister.

But Megan didn't know. From what he'd already heard, Bradley saw no reason for an accessible exit to exist in any of their rooms, and Megan having hers would be some kind of malfunction in the systems of the Unknowns. But if it happened once, it could happen again.

The kids walked and walked, and it started to become really boring. The corridor simply refused to go straight and was turning and turning again and again, left and right, and so forth, so it became totally impossible to know whether they were making any progress. If there were no way out of here, what was the purpose of all these corridors? Refusing to believe that there was no purpose, Bradley kept hoping to run into the end of the maze and possibly out of the building or find a hole in the floor that would transport them to another level. All of a sudden he ran into someone after making a turn and realized that they were all grabbed by their mentors.

The Adventurous and the Suspicious had to have joined the Tenacious because they were all there, as if waiting for the kids to show up. This was a confirmation to Bradley that they were walking in some kind of a loop all this time. So he was not totally taken aback by this outcome but sadly noticed an expression of surprise on the faces of Megan and John. They were returned to their rooms. Although John and Bradley tried fighting back on their way, the Adventurous and the Tenacious were more prepared this time, and so the boys' attempts did not end up favorably. The Adventurous and the Tenacious opened the ceilings of their rooms and ordered them in.

"Keep practicing flying," they told them, closing the ceilings behind them.

Bradley went to sleep right away. After a day with so many activities, running and walking, he was really tired. He realized that it was not as much physical exercise that he had to do, but emotional wear down that made him tired the most. Learning from Megan that they would get stuck if they flew, with Megan already flying and John wanting to do it, Bradley felt responsible for his sister and friend. Moreover, he would have to be extra careful to avoid falling into this trap himself. Nothing could be done today, however, so Bradley decided that if he slept well, then he would have more strength tomorrow.

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### Chapter 7. Questions multiply.

As soon as John was reasonably sure that Bradley was asleep and the Adventurous would not show up till the next day, he decided that he would try flying. If Megan could do it, then he should be able to do it, too. Of course, without letting anyone know about it. John climbed the ladder half way, jumped and fell down like a rock. He tried over and over, but to no avail. He even started thinking that Megan made it all up, when on another try he assumed just a proper position, by accident, and flew around the room once. Encouraged, he kept trying until he could fly from the top step of the ladder and make several circles around the room before reaching the floor. Satisfied, John also went to bed.

Needless to say that tired after practicing flying for half the night, the next day John slept in. Shortly after he woke up, he was again visited by the Adventurous.

"How does this guy know when I wake up?" John felt uneasy at the thought. But he did not have time to finish it.

"Very well, very well!" the Adventurous exclaimed and landed next to John. "Next lesson. Now we are going to learn how to fly up from the floor. It is going to be difficult to show since you knocked me down so hard yesterday that I even lost my ability to fly for some time."

After the Adventurous said this, John immediately completed his thought. Of course, how stupid it was to learn to fly! They somehow saw when he was awake, and the same way they could see that he indeed successfully practiced yesterday. Since they knew he could do this, it was late to try to pretend that he couldn't!

"You know," he began, "today I'm not in the mood to do anything. I need some rest. Yesterday was a busy day."

To his surprise, the Adventurous did not press him.

"All right," he said, climbing up the ladder. "When you are ready, just start flying, and I will come in and give you the next lesson."

With that, he disappeared into the ceiling hole.

### ***

With Bradley it was a completely different story. He was the only one out of the three, who genuinely did not know how to fly. The Tenacious came in and started on a boring lecture about how important it was for Bradley to learn to fly, how many new capabilities would be opened for him when he did, and finally, how could he tolerate to be so far behind his sister and his friend! Bradley, who was listening to the entire talk nonchalantly, jumped up at the last words of the Tenacious. Had John broken down so quickly and learned how to fly in such a short time after they departed yesterday?! Bradley did not want to admit that he was aware of Megan's capability to fly, either.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed, clutching his fists. "Flying's impossible. You're making it up."

"Not at all," the Tenacious objected and waved his arm in the air. "Watch."

And the images of Megan and John flying appeared in front of Bradley's eyes.

"You're still making it up," he said in disbelief, frowning at the images. "For starters, I'm not seeing how these images are projected. From how this looks, they appear to be hallucinations. And if you have an ability to cause other people to hallucinate, you can make them see anything you want."

The Tenacious did not reply. He insisted that Bradley kept trying and that without flying he would be stuck in this room forever, and what good does that do to anyone? With that he left, and Bradley ran towards the wall connecting to John's room and banged on it.

"Have you indeed learned how to fly?" he demanded, his voice stern.

Bradley hoped that the Tenacious lied and John had not in reality fallen to that temptation. He had not heard a sound from John's room for a while, which made him worried. It appeared that John was not in the mood to talk. This could only mean that he indeed learned to fly and was now sorry that he'd blatantly ignored Bradley's diligent warnings yesterday.

"Yes, stupidly enough I have," he heard John finally. "But be careful. Today I realized that they have a way to detect anything you do. Have you noticed that they show up immediately after you wake up? I haven't thought about it before I started to fly, and they right away found out. I'm not sure whether they actually can hear us, too."

"You are right, I have not thought about that. The Tenacious showed me some images of you and Megan flying, but I didn't believe him. They were silent images in the air, not projected from any device. I don't trust what's going on here. Flying without an aircraft, projecting images without a projector... Can you understand that? I can't."

"Yeah, it's fishy," John agreed, but Bradley caught a glimpse of excitement in his voice. John continued, "But nevertheless, it's not impossible. Since I've actually tried flying, I believe that in this world they somehow can project without a projector, and we would probably learn that, too, after we have completed our flying prerequisite."

A big question mark appeared in Bradley's mind.

"But..." he started and did not finish. He was going to say that they should not and were not going to master flying and take the flying test, had John already forgotten? Or because he actually experienced it, he was hooked up on it and could not help himself but go all the way through? What if all of this were true? But Bradley held himself from speculating out loud. He was scared that everything they said between themselves was overheard by the Unknowns. Therefore, by articulating it he might let out the fact that he, Megan and John were aware of the danger of learning how to fly.

"Yes, of course," John replied, as if agreeing with Bradley's unfinished thought. But Bradley was not sure anymore whether John was on their side or was completely taken up by the idea of flying and anything he could supposedly learn after that. He did not know what the Adventurous told John in the morning. As if responding to his thoughts again, John said, "I'm resting today. The Adventurous didn't mind."

"Lucky you," Bradley continued on, creating an appearance of an innocent conversation for the Unknowns who were potentially eavesdropping. He hoped that they would take their conversation for simple sharing of the news of the day. "And the Tenacious spent so much time trying to convince me that I have to start flying! It was so boring."

On purpose or by accident, Bradley was not sure, but John played along, "Yeah, they can indeed be boring. I wonder who they actually are and how they all got here. Have you noticed when we first arrived in that assembly room they all appeared to be our age?"

Bradley agreed. That was another thing he himself was wondering about. Could it be true that this entire country had only people of this age and nobody else? From the beginning he was hoping to see some adults and ask for help to get back home. Or was it possible that they SAW only people of their own age? At this point he would believe anything. Of course, he would never admit this in front of the Tenacious, but he'd seen enough strange things to be able to accept existence of yet another strange thing.

"Of course I noticed they appear to be the same age," he replied to John. "This is yet another mystery of this place. I wish there were a way to get out and explore everything without having this restriction of flying... Come on, John, you always had ideas. Can you come up with one about this?" Saying that, Bradley was hoping to get his old friend John back, the one who would have ideas about getting out, not ideas how to utilize the skills of the Unknowns. He felt like it did not take much time at all for John to change. What would happen to Megan and himself if they were not careful? And how to help John when he was not seeing the problem?

But John sounded like a defeatist, "I think we have tried it already. But we ended up wandering around for ages in some dark corridors that led us back into the hands of the Unknowns. They are pretty tough about not showing us anything around here. We have seen the world outside of this building, but we are stuck inside in these corridors, and there is no apparent way out. I bet flying is truly the only way out of here."

Bradley could agree that there were too many strange things and too many questions that they needed answers for. But their discussions concluded by acknowledging the fact that unless they flew, there were no options to learn or be able to do anything else. And since they knew how dangerous it was to learn to fly, they were stuck. Bradley heard that John on the other side of the wall began to complain and to express his doubts that they would not be able to leave the country should they learn to fly. According to him, they should be getting much more freedom to move around. Bradley wished John did not talk about this at all. Had he just let the cat out of the bag for the Unknowns to hear? Bradley gave a couple of really loud bangs on the wall, hoping that John would understand his message and shut up. Apparently, the message came through, because John went silent.

Bradley returned to his bed. He had many other questions besides the ones he dared to discuss with John. Were they the only prisoners in this world, or were there other kids in rooms next to them, going through the same dilemmas and having the same questions? Or have they learned to fly, got freedom to move around this country but shut the way back to their homes? While Bradley was pondering these things in his room, Megan started to find some things out.

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### Chapter 8. Traveling through the walls.

Megan took another strategy when the next day the Suspicious showed up to teach her the next lesson. When she realized that the Suspicious knew about her yesterday's success, she pretended that she was eager to learn further and tried really hard, but anything she did would not work. It was comforting to Megan that the Suspicious appeared to not know about her escapade to listen in on the meeting the Unknowns had yesterday, where she found out about the consequences of passing the flying test. The Suspicious did not say a word about her escaping through the hole in the floor and the trouble she caused because of how long the Suspicious had to look for her. Finally, the Suspicious left her alone after suggesting that she kept trying and told her she would check on her later.

After the visit from the Suspicious, Megan started pacing back and forth in her room, thinking of a way out. She was alone, no one she knew in a room next to her to talk to and express her concerns. That made her think of everything herself. She tried to remember in detail what was happening yesterday and how she discovered the hole in the floor. Did it open because of something Megan did? Could she cause the hole to appear once again? Megan was so deep in her thoughts, pacing back and forth, that she was startled when she heard a voice right next to her, "Hi, who are you?"

Megan was surprised to see a girl of her age in front of her. At first she thought that the girl was one of the Unknowns and therefore should know who she was without asking these questions.

"Don't you know?" Megan asked rudely.

"How can I know?" the girl pushed back. "I've been sitting in this room for days and because I still don't believe in flying, I can't get out. Can YOU fly?"

"BELIEVE in flying?.." Megan murmured, catching one curious word in the girl's speech. This was something new, of which she had not thought of before. It was true that when she tried flying, she did not think anything of it, while her brother went very logically about it, seriously considering all the physical laws that would prevent one from doing so. And hence he could not fly. The way this girl put it was quite accurate.

Ignoring the girl's question, Megan asked, "How long have you been here?"

"I am not sure, may be two weeks or so..." the girl replied, staring at Megan with a glance full of hope.

"What is she hoping for, what does she want from me?" Megan thought, troubled. "She looks at me as if I'm somewhat special..."

Out loud she said, "Keep doing what you're doing. When you learn to fly, you will lose all hope of getting out of this country."

Megan was afraid to talk too much on the topic with someone she did not know. The girl might not be telling the truth and was indeed send to her by the Unknowns to spy on her or was an Unknown herself. This was quite probable because the girl appeared in front of Megan out of nowhere, probably using some tricks of the Unknowns. Suddenly realizing this, Megan asked, interrupting her previous thought, "...By the way, how did you get into my room?"

The girl's response was completely unexpected. "It was you who got into my room," she replied. "That's why I thought you were one of THEM. But because of what you just said, I know that you're not."

"I got into your room?.." Megan asked, stumbling. If that were the case, she did not notice how that happened. She simply paced back and forth from one wall to the other and was thinking about her situation. "Did you see how I got into your room?" she asked the girl to clarify.

"Of course I did," the girl replied. "You just appeared out of the wall, the same way the Suspicious does it."

"The Suspicious comes through the ceiling," Megan objected. "How could I come through the wall?" she inquired.

Suddenly a wild guess came into her mind. Was it possible that if one didn't give a weird phenomenon a thought, in this country it just happened? She was not thinking about flying, whether it was physically possible or not, just tried it; she likewise was not thinking anything about going through the walls. Apparently, when she ran into a wall in her deep thoughts, she went right through it.

This new ability was so useful for getting out of her room and, possibly, out of the building that Megan wanted to abandon the girl right away and start trying things out. She could go through walls to find the boys and teach them to do the same thing. Then they could all get to the meeting room of the Unknowns and find the tube, through which they came into this country, and try climbing out. Then they could fly back to the wooden structure where their journey started. But on the other hand, the girl Megan just met could share with her what she knew about the Unknowns and how many prisoners there were. Maybe Megan could teach her to go through the walls, too, and they could all escape together.

Megan asked, "So, tell me what you know about this place."

"I don't really know much at all," said the girl. "I was put into this room from the very beginning and was kept here ever since. Once in a while the Suspicious shows up and starts convincing me that I should learn to fly."

"How did you get here?" Megan asked.

And the girl told her the story, which was very similar to Megan's. She and two of her friends gathered at her friend's house and started playing in the back yard. Then one of her friends had an idea to go to the neighborhood playground in the park. The girl insisted they should tell their parents, but her friends said they were not going for a long time, so it would be Ok. When they got to the park, there was a weird wooden structure. It was all the way towards the back where the park bordered the community, which was separated from the park by a fence. The girls went there to check it out, then, of course, went in, and then the same thing happened to them as to Megan and the boys. There was one strange thing about it, though. When they were coming in, two other kids were coming out, and they told the girls that they did not see anything inside. The girls went in to double check, and as soon as all three entered, the door behind them disappeared, and they were ordered by a voice to open the bags. And then when they all got here, the Chief of the Unknowns assigned them all to so called 'mentors', and she was assigned to the Suspicious.

"Ok, so there are at least six of us here," Megan concluded. "Do you know about anyone else?"

But the girl gave her a negative answer.

"Have you seen your friends since you came here?" Megan inquired.

"No, I have not. And it's very sad. I miss them. And I feel really bad that we didn't warn our parents and that now they consider all of us lost".

"Cheer up, I have a plan," Megan said, making a decision. "The only thing you have to do is to try to get through this wall."

"Are you kidding? First flying, now going through walls... When will all this nonsense end?"

"When we get out of here. Meanwhile, we have to do it. And the way to do it is to not think about the impossibility of doing it. Watch."

Megan turned to the wall, preparing to go through. For a moment, a thought of doubt came into her head: what if she could do it only once, because she did not know she was doing it? At this time, if she tried it consciously, it might not work. But Megan tried to shoo the thought away. She resolutely stepped through the wall to her room, then returned back to the girl's.

"See, it works," she announced with relief. "I have come here with my brother and his friend, so we need to get them out, too. Hopefully we can also find your friends. Then we can go back to the meeting room of the Unknowns, out through the tube and fly back home."

"Sounds crazy, but I guess it's the only way," sighed the girl. "By the way, I'm Mary."

Megan introduced herself. She did not want to sit around in the rooms any longer. She was ready for action, so she told Mary, "Maybe we can find others while we go through walls, but we have to be very careful because, I assume, the Unknowns can do the same. Let's go."

Mary tried several times, but she could not do it. While she was trying, Megan heard noises and realized that the ceiling opened and the Suspicious was coming down.

"There's Suspicious, run!" she shouted at Mary.

To Megan's relief, that did the trick. Mary panicked, rushed towards the wall and went right through it. Megan followed. By mistake, they ran the opposite directions from Megan's room, so they found themselves in a different room with another person, but they did not have time. It was not a friend of Mary, so they kept going. Room after room they went, some of them were empty, in others they saw people, one at a time. Megan realized that there were very many people here, and she was wondering whether there was a way to get them all out. At some point she realized that the Suspicious was not following them anymore. Maybe she finally lost track of them, but maybe she went to get some help. Megan tried going through the floor to get out of this maze of rooms they were through, and it worked. Mary followed her. They found themselves in a long corridor similar to the one that Megan traveled in to go to the meeting room yesterday. They started walking in the corridor when suddenly they saw a bright red arrow saying "Exit".

"Exit?" Megan was puzzled. "What kind of exit? I mean, where are we going to exit to if we take this route?"

"I don't know," Mary replied, her spirit up despite her lack of knowledge. "Let's follow the arrow and find out."

"But what about everyone else?" Megan objected, slowing down with intention to go back. "Shouldn't we try finding them first?"

"We can first find the way out, then come back and find them. We'll already know where to go, so it'll be faster," Mary suggested.

"Ok, good idea," Megan agreed, changing her mind.

And the girls started walking along the corridor to see where it went and what kind of exit it led to.

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### Chapter 9. What is freedom?

John went back to bed and took a very long nap. This kind of behavior was very unusual for him, but he ran out of ideas. Several hours later he woke up, but there was nothing to do. He started fantasizing and fell back asleep. Or maybe it only seemed to him that he did, but in reality he started climbing the ladder in his room. At first he thought about flying to get the Adventurous to come in and give him another lesson, so he was not as bored anymore, but all of a sudden he had a better idea. Instead of jumping down the ladder to start flying, he reached the ceiling and tried to open up the hole.

John was not very tall and also a little overweight and clumsy, and he could not reach the ceiling very well even from the last step. But all of a sudden the ceiling gave in, producing a little crack. John pushed a little harder, and the crack grew, but John was not tall enough to open the ceiling all the way. He jumped and pushed at the same time but ended up in bed. "Was I sleeping?" he wondered to himself. "Had to be," he concluded. But the idea in his dream was not a bad one, so he started climbing the ladder to try to implement it in real life. He got all the way up, pushed on the ceiling, and again nothing was happening for a while. Then finally a small crack showed up. John jumped and found himself lying in his bed. "What's going on?" he wondered.

He looked around to see if there were any objects, with which he could prop the ceiling up or push on it so the crack opened further, but the room as always was empty, except for his bed. John scrutinized his bed and discovered that the legs would easily come off. He unscrewed a couple of them, so now his bed was standing on an angle with the head part up, and started climbing the ladder with a bed leg in each of his hands. He used one of them to prop the ceiling open a little bit so it would not slam shut right away, and then he used the other leg to keep pushing it up. Unfortunately, he did not take into account the fact that when the hole opened more, the first leg would fall back out, which it did and hit John painfully on the head. Then it dropped all the way down.

"Ouch!" John muttered and started going down the ladder to get it back, when the hole in the ceiling fully opened and the Adventurous peeked in.

"I see you are well rested and ready for action," he noted. "How about a flying lesson?"

"That's what I was about to do," said John, quickly making up a lie. "I was going to try jumping off the floor of the room above mine instead of the ladder, so I had more room to fly."

"Sure," said the Adventurous in disbelief. "How about a real flying lesson? There are not many of them left, after which you can work at your own convenience on mastering the maneuvers, then the test, and then you get full freedom of moving around."

"Sounds very promising," John said sarcastically. "The only thing I don't understand is why we have to learn to fly BEFORE getting freedom to move around? What difference does it make? Is there any harm in me getting out and wondering back and forth in the corridor we were stuck in before, without being able to fly?"

"Well, that's the point. You could not get anywhere beyond that corridor. If you call getting into that corridor and being stuck in it 'freedom', I feel bad for you."

"Ok, I'll accept this explanation for now. I admit that being stuck in the corridor isn't freedom; I was just hoping that next time around I won't get stuck... Anyway, what do you have to show me today?"

John decided to play along. Deep in his heart he was hoping that Megan was mistaken about flying being a trap. That had to be verified before at least he, personally, made his final decision to not fly. But in order to do that, he had to somehow be able to get out of this room. If it meant flying a little bit without the Adventurous knowing, so be it. Of course, making sure that the Adventurous did not know was another problem, but John hoped he could deal with it.

John noticed that the Adventurous cheered up when he said that he was interested in the lesson. He came down the ceiling and started showing John how to get into the air from the ground. John started making awkward attempts, but it did not work. Actually, John felt that his body was being pulled up into the air, and he had a tough time staying put, but he had to show the Adventurous that it was not working.

Finally, the Adventurous finished his explanations and demonstrations and said, "It looks like you make better progress in private. So I am going to leave you now. Practice, and tomorrow I will show you some tricks you can do to get around objects."

John nodded. When the Adventurous left, he waited a little while and then resumed his attempts to open the ceiling. If his room had some kind of camera, by means of which the Unknowns could see what he was doing, it was better to get out of the room without flying. Even though John could not wait to try it again.

The bed leg kept falling down, and all John's attempts were futile. On one of the more successful occasions he managed to hang onto the opening when he jumped, but then the leg fell out, and the ceiling closed on his hands. That was really uncool. John fell down, that is, he let go with his hands and found himself flying in the room. It worked so naturally as if he were able to fly all his life. He tried relaxing so that he would fall down, but it did not work. Only when he mentally focused on getting down did he manage to do it.

He collected the bed legs and was going to go back up the ladder, but his body just flew up on its own, and he found himself right below the ceiling. "Problem solved," he thought to himself. "I don't have to jump and pull myself up anymore, I can simply fly!" Because of his accident, the Unknowns probably already saw that he succeeded, so John figured he did not have to hide it any longer. What he could do at this point was to use this skill to get away.

He pushed on the ceiling, jumped out and rushed towards Bradley's room. But he could not find the place where the opening in his ceiling should have been. There was no latch to pull on or any indication that the door should be in any specific place. "It must be because Bradley doesn't know how to fly yet that they are not allowing him to get out," John decided. He went back down into his room and banged on the wall. He was eager to share with his friend what he discovered and to convince him that he should also learn to fly. Together they could find the way out of this world much faster. John would generate ideas, and Bradley would make assessments and think about their implementation strategies.

"Any ideas?" asked Bradley.

John started speaking fast, full of excitement, "Hey, listen, you can fly up to the hole in the ceiling, push it open and get out. I just did it."

"You said, FLY?"

"Yes, yes, this is a guaranteed way. You can get out this way. I tried all day, and it didn't work, but as soon as I realized that I don't have to push on the ceiling and pull myself up but simply fly, it all worked out just fine."

"So, you ARE flying?" repeated Bradley.

"Yes, but there is nothing wrong with this! I use it for my own purpose, which is to get out! Isn't it what we want? What's wrong with using their tools for our own purposes? Come on, Bradley, you just have to try and it'll work. It works so naturally for me now. I almost can't keep myself on the ground."

### ***

When Bradley heard a knock on the wall, he hoped that John had come to senses. Hearing John's excited chatter made Bradley really concerned. It sounded like John was really hooked up on flying, and he was no longer concerned with the fact that this promoted their permanent imprisonment in this country. "Is he not concerned or has he chosen not to believe?" Bradley wondered. It might be true that they would be able to freely move around (and by the way, who says so?), but what good was it to move around freely in a prison cell? What they were really losing was freedom of choice to stay in this country and keep flying if they wanted to, or go back to their world should that be their choice. And John was now so conditioned by this flying that he was even advertising it to others so passionately! And what about Megan? Has she also been addicted to flying by now and lost all her reason? Truly, sitting in this room with no action was not helping the situation, but getting out at the expense of losing true freedom seemed to Bradley much worse.

"I'm convinced that flying is impossible," he replied to John just to say something. He was not sure that at this point John would listen to his pleas to not fly in order to not get stuck in this country. Bradley was leaning towards the conviction that John no longer believed this anyway.

"It's possible, it's possible!" John shouted passionately. "I'm telling you, I just did it! I was even able to fly up there from the floor without having to use the ladder as a jumpstart".

"I am very proud of you," said Bradley sadly. "But I can't."

"All right, I'll be back when I figure out how to get to you," John replied. "Meanwhile, I'm going to try to find a way out of here. The Adventurous said that when I learn to fly, I'd get more freedom of movement, and the reason we got stuck in that corridor last time was because we didn't know how to fly. So I'm hoping I won't get stuck so badly this time."

"Yeah, the Adventurous said, and you believed," Bradley thought to himself, still feeling sad. "You have great intentions, but I'm afraid they will be crushed. I have to be the one who somehow finds the way out and gets everyone out of here before you guys pass your test!"

"Be careful," he said out loud.

"I will!" replied John. "I have to go now! See you later!"

Bradley expected to hear the sound of steps, but he didn't. "Of course, he flew up," Bradley remembered. He was left in his room, now without his friend next door to talk to, and desperately started thinking of a way out.

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### Chapter 10. Is there a way out?

Megan and Mary were running along the tunnel, and once in a while they noticed the same arrows with the word "Exit" on them. It seemed to Megan, similarly to what she experienced before, that they were traveling in this tunnel for the entire day. Mary started slowing down first, and Megan followed her, though reluctantly, remembering how she was found by the Suspicious last time she fell asleep in the tunnel. All of a sudden the corridor ended. The bright arrow was there at the end: "Exit from the land of the Unknowns. Open before 9 p.m.". There was no way beyond that point, so Megan concluded that it was past 9 p.m. already. She was happy, though, that they did confirm the exit existed and were now on a mission to find their friends and lead them out.

They started walking back because Megan refused to take rest near the exit. This place could be monitored by the Unknowns, and they would discover them right away. So she convinced Mary to tolerate it a little longer so that they could get some way back and find a nook in the tunnel to hide in. They had to walk a while before they found such a place. They slept in that nook for several hours when Megan felt Mary push her. Megan, of course, was not in any mood to move at all and was, in fact, quite surprised to see Mary up and ready to go. But she agreed with Mary that they should not be staying in one place for a long time.

Megan was getting more and more concerned about the boys. Of course she warned them not to fly, but she also knew that John could very well have tried and liked it and forgotten all her warnings. And then he would talk Bradley into doing the same thing! She was sure that Mary would be even more in a hurry to rescue her friends after learning from Megan that they would be trapped after the flying test. They'd been in this country for much longer, and they had plenty of opportunities to start flying if not to take the test already. Neither Megan nor Mary knew how long it took before the test was actually administered, but it seemed to Megan that after flying successfully for the first time, it would not take too long.

Megan had no idea where they began their journey. She asked Mary, but she didn't either. They did not mark the place, because they were in a hurry, running away from the Suspicious. After walking for a while, Megan decided that they should go through the ceiling one level up, back to the rooms, and start looking for their friends by going through the walls from one room to the next. Megan also wanted to talk to other people and ask some questions, especially if she could find anyone who had already taken the test. Did they truly have more freedom moving around the place, or were they more or less stuck in the same rooms? Megan saw many people in these rooms when they were running away from the Suspicious, they just did not have time to stop and talk to them.

"How are we going to get up to the ceiling?" asked Mary.

"I'll have to fly up and help you up as well," Megan responded. "I haven't actually tried doing this before, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be hard. As long as you start doing it, it becomes very easy."

At first Megan tried flying up from the floor herself, and it indeed went pretty smoothly. Then she picked up Mary and tried flying up. That did not work so well, but eventually she managed to lift Mary high enough for her to come through the ceiling into the room above. Megan followed her. They found themselves in a room that looked exactly like theirs, with nothing but a bed, but the room was empty. They started traveling from one room to the next until they finally got into one where there was a person. It was a girl, again the same age as Megan and Mary. When Megan and Mary entered her room, she got scared at first, and, like Mary, thought that they were the Unknowns.

"So now you are coming in pairs to try to convince me of this nonsense," she began.

"Hold on, we are not the Unknowns," said Megan. "We've been captured by them and now are trying to run away. I'm Megan, and she's Mary."

The girl introduced herself as Rachel. Megan asked Rachel to tell them her story. Her story was again very similar to Megan's and Mary's. It became apparent from her story that children could enter this world only when there were three of them.

"So, did you see anybody in the other rooms?" asked Rachel.

"Not now, but we did see quite a few people when we were running away from the Suspicious on our way out," Megan replied.

"So they must be out doing fun stuff, then," Rachel concluded.

"What stuff?"

"Well, I don't know... Whatever the Unknowns promise we would all do when we learn how to fly," Rachel shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, that..." Megan suddenly realized that the empty rooms were indeed inhabited by people who went along and learned to fly. It was them, who she really wanted to talk to now. But none of them were in their rooms. That was understandable since the rooms were very boring, and if anyone could help not being there during the day, one of course would get out.

"Do you want to learn how to fly?" Megan asked.

"They say it's a great experience," Rachel replied. "Those who have succeeded say that this is the coolest thing they've done in their life. So in that respect, yes, I would like to figure out how to do it."

"And from which respect would you not?" Megan asked, sensing that Rachel knew something, much more than Megan did.

"I just don't think it's possible for ME. Yes, I am convinced THEY can do it, but I believe I'm different in some way."

"Who – they?" Megan inquired, continuing her interrogation. Out of the corner of her eye, Megan noticed that Mary was getting impatient, but Megan was convinced that talking to Rachel was very important.

"My friends. They live right next to me, and they share with me what happens to them during the day and try to convince me to learn to fly and join them," Rachel replied.

"And they've never visited you here, have they?" Megan asked, somewhat surprised.

"Well, of course not. How could they?" Rachel was surprised in turn.

"Just like we did. You know, you can learn other things in this world besides flying. Going through the walls, for example. Mary learned it without even being able to fly, and those who can fly should definitely be able to do that. I bet this is one of the next subjects that the Unknowns teach to those who have passed the flying test."

"Apparently, my friends didn't learn that," Rachel replied. "And they didn't mention anything about it. They just keep telling me how great it is to be able to fly because they can now fly up to their ceiling, open it and come out. So you are saying there is another way?"

"Yes, I think you can learn that, too. You just have to not think about it when you try," Megan said and invited Rachel to join them.

Rachel agreed and tried to follow Megan and Mary when they passed onto the next room, but sure enough it did not work right away. She tried several times, still in vain, when suddenly Megan remembered how Mary was able to do it first time and shouted, "Rachel, run, they're coming through the ceiling!"

Rachel panicked and came right through the wall. Megan and Mary joined her.

"Possibly, only those who haven't taken the flying test can go through the walls, while those who have, lose this ability," Megan suggested when all three of them were out of Rachel's room. "Let's keep going. Based on how many rooms we've seen, it looks like many people live here. I doubt all of them took the flying test. Hopefully we'll find more people who would like to come back home. By the way, Rachel, would your friends like to go back?"

"No, they don't. They are very happy here. At least this is what they say."

"Have they mentioned whether they know anybody who passed the flying test and would still like to go home?" Megan asked.

"No, they didn't talk much about anybody else," Rachel replied.

Megan made a conclusion that everybody, or at least the majority of the people who passed the test, lost the capability to think clearly. They were hooked on flying to such an extent that they no longer wanted to return home. That reinforced Megan's conviction about the danger of flying. Rachel's information made her even more concerned about the boys and encouraged her to move faster and faster through the walls. Room after room, all empty, the girls kept going for quite a while. They were horrified to find out that there were so many people here who seemed to be satisfied with the state of affairs. As a second thought, Megan briefly noted to herself that they'd gone through many walls but never got out of the building, just kept seeing more and more of the same rooms. Though it was an interesting phenomenon on its own, Megan put it aside because it was not important at the moment.

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### Chapter 11. John is having fun.

John got out of the room by means of flying, just how the Adventurous had predicted. Of course, he did that before, without flying, but that time did not really count, because he had to spend his entire time running away from the Tenacious and did not really get anywhere. This time, when John appeared on the upper floor, he noticed that there was a door. He was pretty sure it was not there before when he and Bradley knocked out the Unknowns, otherwise why would they not use it and instead run in that dark corridor on the other side?

John walked towards the door and swung it open. He was outside of the building! That was not quite outside yet, because he found himself standing on a patio, and there were no stairs leading down. But that was not a problem for John at all, because now he could fly! He jumped off the patio and flew away from the building up over the city. At first he saw bunch of other buildings like the one he left, but after some time he noticed that he was flying over a park with patches of trees and open spaces where there were different attractions. And a bunch of kids were down below, too!

Spotting a place that had a roller coaster and water slides, John successfully landed in the middle. He looked around for a place where they were selling tickets. He still had the money in his pocket, and more in the bag in his room that he forgot he had. But now he remembered that unlike Bradley and Megan he took a lot of money, and now he could have lots of fun. He soon saw the booth, approached it and bought tickets. Yes, they were indeed sold for the money that he had in his pocket. John was surprised the booth was manned by another boy of his age, but not that much surprised, because he began to get used to it. If everybody in this world were the same age, he reasoned, it was natural that they would have common jobs like this since someone had to do them. John wondered whether there was a requirement to go to a regular school where they taught math and all that stuff, besides flying, because this was in the very end of his to-do list. He reasoned that they more likely didn't have such a school because everybody was the same age and, therefore, couldn't teach each other.

All day long John had fun. There were also some attractions where it was necessary to be able to fly, and John had the most fun riding those. One of them, for example, lifted John high up into the air and dropped off. Then John could free-fly for as long as he wanted and then gained control by regular flying to land. John went on that ride at least five times. Another one would speed up on a horizontal line and then project him out of the seat so that he would for quite a bit keep flying forward on inertia, and only then would have to use his ability to fly to safely get down.

John went home only when it became totally dark. The park was empty, and the last ride closed. John was thrown off of it and, instead of landing, flew home. With great difficulties did he find his patio, because there were many of them, and they all looked the same. Then he sneaked into the building, and right away saw the handle in the ceiling where his room was underneath. There was no corresponding handle for Bradley's room. John opened his ceiling door and flew down to his room. Immediately he started banging on Bradley's wall, and when Bradley replied, he told him all about what he did that day.

"...And then I went on this other ride that would throw you off in the air, and you could fall for a while until you decided to take control and start flying; I went on it many times! You should really learn to fly and join me a few days from now. Flying is not hard! When you succeed for the first time, it's a very smooth learning curve afterwards. Honestly, when I learned to fly upward, my body sort of started doing it by itself..."

John wanted Bradley to join him the next day, but he was sure it would take some time to convince Bradley. He took all these things way too seriously. Even if Megan were right, the skill of flying could also have positive sides. For one, it would give all of them an ability to escape from these rooms, and this was the first step for getting out of the World of the Unknowns. Secondly, John was not sure the World of the Unknowns was so bad that one had to escape from it. If he found out that after flying test he could learn more cool things, he might consider staying here. Either way, Bradley and Megan should take it easier. John kept talking for a while, but was not getting any positive feedback from Bradley. He almost decided to quit and go to bed, when Bradley suddenly agreed to start practicing the next day. John cheered up and went to bed happy.

In the middle of a very interesting dream about flying John heard several bangs on the wall and hastily jumped out of bed making a loud noise. He figured, Bradley was practicing flying and had some questions.

"It sounds like I woke you up, but this is very important", said Bradley. "What is in your backpack?"

"Money..." John responded, taken aback by the nature of the question.

"Are you sure? Can you check real quick?" Bradley insisted.

John got worried – why was Bradley in doubt? He returned to his bed and opened his backpack, which he stored deep under the bed next to the wall. Money was still there.

"It's still here," he reported. "Why? Is yours gone?"

"No, but I have weird things happening with the content of my backpack. I'll tell you later," Bradley said. "Besides money, is there anything else in your backpack?"

"No, just money," John responded. "What's happening? Is it safe to keep money there?"

"Probably..." Bradley said, uncertainty in his voice, as if he didn't want to be responsible should the money be gone the next day.

"Come on, what's going on? What is in YOUR backpack?" John asked, completely forgetting about Bradley's flying issues. Now he was more worried that he would lose the money and would no longer be able to pay for the rides.

"Books," replied Bradley. "But they are not the same as our school books I took to school that day. They are all about the world of the Unknowns. History, science, Quercutese, math..."

"What, what?.." interrupted John. He did not understand "Quercutese", but Bradley repeated, "You know, all the stuff about the world of the Unknowns".

"I got that part, but what did you say after that?"

"The subjects," explained Bradley, "History of the Unknowns, Science with their weird laws of physics where there is no time, Quercutese..."

The word sounded intriguing but did not make any sense to John. "Hold on, what is that?" he asked, interrupting Bradley.

"It's their language, but I'm not sure why they have a textbook on it. Is it not your impression that they speak English?"

"Of course they speak English," John agreed. "Hold on..." He thought for a while. He was so busy with rides that he did not have time to make acquaintances or pay attention to what languages people around him were speaking. However, he clearly remembered that some people spoke languages other than English. He did not give it any thought, because in America people also spoke different languages and it was nothing unusual. "You know what," he said to Bradley, "I heard other languages today in the park. I don't distinguish them very well, though. I thought they were just some of our common languages, like Spanish or Chinese..."

"Did you notice what kind of people were in the park?" asked Bradley. "Did they look like the Unknowns or like normal people?"

"Do you see any difference?" John asked, surprised. "To me they look totally alike".

"They look alike," Bradley agreed, "But they behave differently. Haven't you noticed?"

But John responded negatively. He honestly did not perceive anything different or strange about the kids in the park today. Everyone was happy about what they were doing and totally enjoyed themselves, but so did he. Given what they were doing, it was natural.

"Ok, thank you, John," Bradley said, finishing up with the conversation. "Time to go to sleep now."

"Hold on, you haven't told me yet, do you think it's safe to keep money in the backpack? Is there a chance it will turn into books?"

"I don't know," Bradley replied. "I wouldn't be completely sure it wouldn't happen, though I believe the chances of it happening are low since you still have the money," he said honestly. "However, if the money does convert into books, you will have fun reading them, so it's not a catastrophe."

"Speak for yourself," John said, hoping that Bradley was right and nothing would happen to the money since nothing had happened yet. "Good night."

Just in case, John decided not to keep the money in the backpack anymore. He stuffed the money under his mattress. This way, in his opinion, there would be room for books in the backpack should they appear, and the money would be safe. After that, he went to bed.

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### Chapter 12. Books from Bradley's backpack.

That morning, after John left to go flying around, Bradley was crushed. He was sad to find out that John learned to fly and had such a positive attitude about it. From Bradley's perspective, he lost his friend. If there were a way to bring him back, he surely wished he knew what it was. Losing John to flying also meant being stuck in the room all by himself. Bradley started remembering his other friends from school and from the neighborhood, and he realized that Huang Fu was the one whom he missed and truly needed at that moment.

Huang Fu was a serious kid, unlike John, and although they all played together, he always brought reason into their games. He was much respected in the neighborhood, and by many was perceived as a leader. If something needed to be organized, everyone turned to Huang Fu. It was not particularly surprising since his father was a project manager, and he probably learned this from him. Huang Fu was a pitcher on a baseball team, and that also contributed to his leadership skills. Like Bradley's parents, the parents of Huang Fu's were serious about his studies, and, like Bradley, he was on top of their class in many areas. Huang Fu and Bradley had an unofficial competition for grades. Bradley actually liked it because sometimes, if not for this competition, he would not study as hard as he did.

Pacing from one wall to the next, Bradley wished Huang Fu were here, with his logical mind. Much less reckless than John, he would be the best candidate to help Bradley think of a way to escape without learning how to fly. Bradley tried putting Huang Fu in his shoes. What would his friend do in this situation, left all alone in a room without doors? What DID Bradley have available? Ladder, bed,...and backpack! Of course, Huang Fu would consult with the literature. Bradley opened his backpack, doubtful whether he would find anything useful in it. As far as he remembered, that day he put only schoolbooks in his bag, though sometimes he brought other stuff to school, like his dad's engineering manual, to read it during breaks and show cool things from it to other boys.

Sure enough, only school books were in the backpack. History, science... Wait a minute! Bradley froze in surprise. On the book cover it read, "Quercutese". Bradley flipped through the pages. The book was written in English, but it clearly taught this other language, who knows who spoke it... All of a sudden Bradley was struck with the answer: this was the language of the Unknowns! They spoke English of course, but it was possible they used it only when communicating with foreigners. They probably spoke Quercutese when they were all by themselves. However, if Megan could eavesdrop and totally understand what they said, what was this Quercutese for?

Bradley opened the history book and did not recognize any of the pictures that he used to see on the first few pages. The book was also written in English, but when Bradley started to read it, he realized that it was completely different history, probably, of the Unknowns. The science book was also weird. As Bradley flipped through the headings of the chapters, it appeared to him that some of the physical laws in this world were different, and that allowed for such things as flight. Even though Bradley was not sure about that, he did admit that flying was indeed possible, but the problem came from the control of the whole process instituted by the Unknowns. If not for the laws they established for their country, this place would indeed be very enjoyable with all these possibilities that it offered. But Bradley has not learned enough just yet to be able to act on it. What he needed was the Unknowns' law book.

Bradley was frustrated with himself that he wasted so many days when he could have looked at these books on day one and learned so much by now. When John returned back from his rides and started sharing with Bradley the events of the day, Bradley did not really want to listen to him. He wished to get back to his reading. If he had to talk, he'd rather share with John what he'd learned already about the World of the Unknowns, but he was not sure whether John would listen to him, being so infatuated with flying. Bradley mumbled some incoherent responses and then decided that he could stop John's fountain of words by agreeing to fly and he said, "Ok, John, I will start practicing tomorrow. Now I would like to go to bed."

The trick worked, John said, "Great, keep me posted. When you are able to fly up from the floor, let me know right away. We'll go have fun together."

Bradley pretended to agree. He lay in bed and opened the history book again.

The history of the country was very long, going all the way back to the ancient society. In the beginning the development of society very much resembled how it all happened in Bradley's world. At first people lived as a community and were occupied by hunting and gathering, then there was a period when they had kings and noble people, then they did not like the kings any longer and established an elected government.

But then something happened. The book was very vague about it, as if the writer was restrained by rules of what he could include in the text and what not. Bradley had an impression that the transitional part of the book sounded very artificial. After that, the book went on describing the present state of society, where the main figure in the state was the Chief. Under the Chief not many things were happening, people lived happily and entertained themselves as much as they could without limitations. Bradley expected that the book would have another whole section on the history of this phase of the society, with the names of the Chiefs and years of their rule, but there was no such information. It was as if history had frozen, and for many years, on and on, there was only one Chief and no historical events. Bradley even started to think that all of this happened just recently, but the book dated the beginning of the current Chief's reign back two hundred fifty years. All of this was very confusing, and the only way Bradley could connect the dots was to assume that people in this world didn't age and were always twelve-thirteen years old.

"That would be cool actually," Bradley thought to himself and opened the science book to try to find an explanation why that would be possible. He skimmed the book for any mention of time control or anything of the kind, but there was no mention of time at all. In fact, everything indicated that time did not exist and objects were moving in space instantly or indefinitely long to get from one point to another. Bradley almost broke his brain, trying to understand it, and made a conclusion that as a person from an outside world he still perceived time while the Unknowns probably didn't. On top of that, his perception of time might have been inaccurate. On one occasion he thought things were happening instantaneously when he and the Tenacious were walking to this building on day one, while John told him that he and the Adventurous walked for a long time. On another occasion, when he and John first escaped, it seemed to him they were walking in that dark corridor for a very long time, but they were not getting out of the building so it ought to be that they were not gone for very long.

Bradley was getting curious whether the Unknowns actually slept. Maybe it was people like him, from his world, who had to sleep. They did not have to eat, for example, which would go well with the idea that they were actually frozen in some point in time at which they got into this country, but why did they have to sleep? "Wait a minute," thought Bradley, "something is wrong about this picture. All throughout history there is time; they have dates in the history book!" He threw aside the science book and opened the history book again. Yes, very clear, first king Quercutes ruled from 854 to 865... Bradley flipped the pages almost all the way to the very end of the book and suddenly froze at the realization that the time stopped when the first Chief of the Unknowns came into office.

What happened back then? Bradley read the chapter many times, but it still was not clear. Bradley realized that to answer this question what he really needed was a book on the history of science. What discoveries and inventions were made in this world and when. Knowing what they achieved in science at the time of the societal transition could help shed light on this mystery. Bradley rummaged through his school bag, but besides the history, science and Quercutese textbooks there were only notebooks.

Bradley set everything aside and lay in bed, staring into the ceiling. He realized that there was a much bigger question: why were all books about the Unknowns written in English? Did that mean that only people from English speaking countries got into this world? Or did it mean that the Unknowns had several versions of this book and provided them according to where one arrived from? "Hold on," Bradley caught himself, "They did not provide the books! The books were in my school bag! They just changed!" If that were the case, which it apparently was, then where did the books come from? Did the Tenacious somehow sneak them into his backpack while he was not looking? Or, perhaps, when he and John were on the run? Why did these particular ones correspond so well by subject to the books he brought with him? Or, even though Bradley admitted that this was a wild thought, did the text in the books change by itself when they got into this world?

Bradley felt like he really needed to talk to someone about this. John was out of the question. He even dumped his books out in the wooden structure and did not bring them into this world. Instead, he stuffed his backpack full of money. "Hold on," Bradley caught himself again, "But what does John have in his backpack now? Money or books?" With that thought bothering him, Bradley could not help himself from banging on John's wall despite the danger of being attacked by propositions to start flying right away. Bradley did not even think how late it was, and only when he heard a loud noise indicating John's getting out of bed, partially asleep, did he realize that he just woke his friend up.

To Bradley's surprise, John still had money in the backpack. That made Bradley's most probable hypothesis of the Unknowns putting the books in their backpacks unlikely. Then what? But John was so worried about losing the money that Bradley had tough time staying on track. Only when he mentioned "Quercutese" did John appear interested. Using his opportunity, Bradley inquired of John's opinion what languages he though the Unknowns spoke. But John didn't pay attention. He heard only English, may be some other Earth languages, not sure... From John's explanations about what kind of people he met in the park, Bradley concluded that those were the Unknowns. John described them as behaving happy, artificially happy, as Bradley would think, as if there was no care in the world, PRETENDING to be always content, self-assured... But Bradley did not share his thoughts with John. Wrapping up his conversation, Bradley was trying to connect all the dots to make sense of what he learned today, but realized that his brain needed rest. He tried to calm John concerning the money, about which he started to worry again, and called it a day.

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### Chapter 13. Bradley designs a trick for John.

As soon as Bradley fell asleep, he was pushed on the shoulder by someone. He opened his eyes and saw Megan and two other girls in front of him. Even though Bradley was extremely tired, he exclaimed, "Oh, Megan, I'm so glad to see you!" Then he sat up in bed and asked in amazement, "But how did you find me?"

Bradley was not surprised that Megan managed to get into his room; he assumed she did it by flying. But how did she know which room to enter? Megan told him about traveling through the walls, finding the exit and them coming back to get him, John and Mary's friends.

"During the day we didn't see anybody in any rooms, but as evening approached, people started to return back from wherever they were during the day. We stopped to talk to some of them. They all told us that they were very happy here and encouraged us to learn to fly," Megan concluded, plopping onto Bradley's bed. The other two girls, also very tired, asked Bradley and Megan to scoot over.

"Yes, this flying thing totally transforms you," Bradley agreed, moving to the very end of his bed and told them about John. "We need to find a way to drag him out, too. Otherwise he will get stuck".

"We better sleep first, at least a little bit," suggested Megan. Bradley liked this idea, but Mary protested.

"You guys are now united, and my friends are still nobody knows where," she said.

But Bradley found an argument, which he though should be convincing. He said, "When everybody goes about their fun business in the morning, it will be much easier to locate people who have not learned to fly yet and want to get out. If there is anybody in the room, it would likely be such a person."

To his relief, everybody agreed. They all stretched themselves on the floor and immediately went to sleep. In the morning they woke up because the Tenacious opened the ceiling and hovered around the room, intending to talk to Bradley. "Why is he here so early?" Bradley wondered, slowly opening his eyes. He had forgotten that he had guests in the room and was surprised that the Tenacious showed up before his awakening.

"What is going on here?" asked the Tenacious. "What a great company of no-learners! Get up now, all of you, and let's get you back to your rooms."

"Oh, yeah... He saw the girls here and showed up to bring order," concluded Bradley. To his surprise, the Tenacious was not inquiring anything regarding the means, by which the girls got in. By calling them all "no-learners" he acknowledged the fact that he did not know about Megan's flying capability. Bradley, however, did not like the tone of his voice, and his attitude was unacceptable. The Tenacious behaved like they were all in prison and had to obey orders.

Bradley figured that the Tenacious was greatly outnumbered and decided to stand their ground. He said, pointing to the girls, "You are not their boss, so knock it off."

"I'll call their boss in a minute, but it's not necessary, because right now you are in a building, which is supervised by me. So I'm in charge here."

"Fine, then," said Mary. "We are not going anywhere. What are you going to do?"

Bradley nodded and looked at the Tenacious with all seriousness, even though he thought to himself that it would not be a bad idea to get away. He was not sure, however, whether they should reveal to the Tenacious that the girls could go through walls.

The Tenacious looked back at Bradley, but the boy caught a glimpse of indecisiveness on his face. Clearly, the Tenacious did not expect this behavior. He ought to have been used to everybody learning to fly sooner or later. From the way the Tenacious looked, Bradley concluded that they were somehow outliers from the norm.

After a prolonged silence, the Tenacious said, "I'll call your supervisor."

To Bradley it appeared as a very favorable outcome. They could run away while the Tenacious was getting help. If he had some electronic device, then Megan could surprise him with her flying ability and pull him down to ground level so others could all jump him and prevent him from doing so.

"She will be here shortly," the Tenacious proclaimed without performing any action that would indicate that he'd called someone.

"Oh, is that so?" Bradley asked, winking at Megan and trying to get her to fly up and get the Tenacious. Megan did not move right away, and Bradley kept making faces, endangering the whole operation, because the Tenacious started looking at him in amazement. But then Megan got the hint and flew up. Bradley was hoping that she would knock the Tenacious down, and then as a group they could temporarily disable him on the ground to allow some time for escape before the other Unknown showed up.

But Bradley did not take into account that the Tenacious had much more superior flying skills than did Megan. He darted out of the way without being touched, Megan colliding with a thud into the ceiling. While she was falling to the floor, the Tenacious easily flew through the opening in the ceiling and could be heard laugh as it closed. Megan did not hit the ground as hard as Bradley expected a falling person might do. She said, "We'll see who has the last laugh. Bradley, it's time to go."

Rachel and Mary went through the wall, Bradley started to hesitate, but Megan gave him a push, so he went through before convincing himself that this would not work. Only on the other side of the wall he realized that he just did something from the category of technically impossible and something that he probably should not be doing. He had a feeling that if he used the laws and rules of this world, he would start becoming a part of it, and it would be much harder to go back. Another thing he absolutely had to have, and of course forgot all about during the commotion with the Tenacious, was his books.

"One very important thing," he proclaimed. "I have to go back to my room."

"Are you crazy, the Tenacious might peek back in, wondering why we're suddenly so quiet!" exclaimed Megan.

"Don't worry. He probably already left. That laugh of his told me that your trick isn't in their rule book and he wouldn't be expecting us to be gone. But I need the books."

And Bradley returned to his room before the girls had time to object or to ask the question, what books. Just in ten seconds he was back. He grabbed his schoolbag and turned around. As he expected, the Tenacious was not there.

"Let's go, everyone!" he exclaimed. "We have a bigger mission now. To find everyone who disagrees with the state of affairs and help them to get out."

"Are you sure we'll succeed in such a crowd?" Megan asked, doubt written all over her face. "The Unknowns will see us approach. Won't it be better to leave the World of the Unknowns quietly and then come back to get them?"

"There is no time. If they are pressured to learn to fly, they may be lost before we return," reasoned Bradley. "Let's go!"

They went through walls and saw mostly empty rooms. Finally they found Mary's friends. But there were no more people anywhere else.

"Is it possible that everyone else wanted to learn to fly and has been satisfied afterwards? Has not anyone regretted doing so?" Bradley was wondering. He could not believe what he was seeing. The phenomenon was so uniform, and the six of them were the only exceptions. There were hundreds and hundreds of rooms that they passed that day, and they were all empty.

"All right, time to go to the exit," said Bradley. "Let's go back, pick up John, I think he's back from his rides by now."

There was still some time. The kids did not have to go all the way back, because as they were going through the walls, they were going on a sort of circle. So on the way back they were hoping to cover a set of rooms that they had not visited before. As evening approached, it was of a concern that they would run into people who were now part of the World of the Unknowns, who would return back to their rooms. But the kids did not see anybody on the way back. John's room was empty, too, so Bradley suggested that they waited.

"We better don't tell him that we are going to go to the exit. I'm afraid, he won't join us if he finds out that we're planning to escape," Bradley said to the girls. "I'll tell him we're going to have fun exploring the World of the Unknowns by traveling through walls. You girls take us to the tunnel where you saw the exit signs, and then we'll all pretend that we're seeing them for the first time."

In about ten minutes the ceiling of the room opened, and John flew in. When John started expressing his amazement, Bradley announced, "See, learning to fly was not so hard, indeed. Now it's your turn to learn something different."

And Bradley went to his room through the wall. After several unsuccessful attempts John managed to repeat the maneuver and got through the wall into Bradley's room, too. All the girls followed.

"And now," announced Bradley solemnly again, "we're going to go have some fun. Are you in?"

John nodded in excitement. Bradley rejoiced deep in his heart that it was so easy to trick John by suggesting there was fun to be had.

John inquired, "And what are we going to do?"

"We're going to explore the World of the Unknowns by means of travel through the walls. We did it all day today, and it was a great fun."

All the girls introduced themselves to John. Megan and Mary took the lead to get everybody into the tunnel with the arrows pointing to the exit. Bradley was wondering whether he would be able to play his role all the way to the end and not allow John to guess what was truly going on.

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### Chapter 14. In front of a closed door.

With the new ability to go through walls, John became even more fascinated with the World of the Unknowns and decided it would be foolish to leave now. Today in the park he met a group of people, with whom he spent some time. He started developing new relationships here, new friends, and with all the capabilities this world offered, what could have been better? John had not given a single thought that he was totally disregarding the fact that back in his world he had a home and parents and friends, too. He was impatient to see something interesting as the group was passing one wall after another. When they got into the tunnel, John was afraid that it would be boring, just like in that long corridor that he and Bradley got into when they were trying to run away from the Unknowns.

All of a sudden this other girl, he already did not remember her name, exclaimed, "Look, what is this here?"

She and Megan were walking at the head of the procession. The rest of the group joined them, and John clearly saw the word "Exit" on an arrow glowing on the tunnel wall.

"Let's see where it goes," Bradley said.

"You are not going to go to the exit, are you?" asked John, disturbed by this idea.

He realized that he did not want to leave this place any longer. Not now, not any time in the future.

"Probably not," Bradley replied, John catching evasiveness in his voice. "But it's worth exploring, isn't it?"

Since John liked exploration, he could not resist the temptation to go look just with one eye what was there. So he said he was in. The group moved on, following the arrows with the word "Exit" on them. John was prepared at any moment, should the group decide to escape, to turn around and run the other way.

In the end of the tunnel the bright arrow read: "Exit from the land of the Unknowns. Open before 9 p.m.". Megan and the other girl (what's her name?), who again were leading the way, stopped, and a puzzled look appeared on their faces. "Must be disappointed that it's past 9 p.m. already," John figured. They turned to Bradley, and the girl (Mary?) was about to say something, but she was pushed by Megan. "What kind of secrets can they have?" John wondered.

"9 p.m.!" exclaimed Bradley. "What nonsense. I know full well that time does not apply here. The textbook is full of stuff about this." Bradley put down and opened his schoolbag. "I knew I had to take it for something. Let's figure this out."

Bradley pulled the science book out and began to read. John started getting impatient. Who cared why it said "before 9 p.m."! The point was that the door was clearly locked, and for John that was good enough reason to turn around and go back to his room. After all, the next day he expected to have even more fun in the company of very good friends he made today.

"Come on, guys, let's go back," John started to whine. "Tomorrow is a new exciting day, and we need to get some rest. I think we explored this enough already. The door is closed. We can come back next time before 9 p.m. and check what's there."

"That's the whole point; there is no "9 p.m." in this country. Or at least not supposed to be. And besides, how does this sign know who is standing in front of it? In other countries on Earth time may be displayed differently. "21:00", for instance. And in the world of the Unknowns it should not have any relevance at all. I bet if we figure this out, we can check it now, and any other time we come back, it would still read "Open before 9 p.m."."

John decided he would give Bradley some time. After all, there was no danger that he would solve the problem quickly and they would be getting back home. Bradley was flipping the science book from one chapter to the next, but seemingly could not find the answer. All other kids did not show any sign of impatience, which appeared very strange to John. After considering it for some time, he began to suspect that there was some conspiracy going on. He gazed at everyone in turn but could not really decide what was making him feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden. Since he had nothing else to do, he asked a few questions from the girls, but did not get satisfactory answers. Their reluctance to talk made John conclude that they did not know how to fly and all wanted to get out. "This is it!" John thought to himself, "That's the problem!" and exclaimed, addressing Bradley, "Come on, professor, let's go! You can study this in bed when we come back. I'm tired and want to get enough rest for tomorrow."

Bradley closed the book, stuffed it in his backpack and stood up, giving John a look of disapproval. But John did not care. He was happy they were finally going back. Walking through walls was fascinating in itself, but they did not get anywhere interesting, and that was disappointing.

"All right," Bradley sighed. "Could not figure it out yet." Then he changed the topic, "By the way, does anybody else have books in your rooms?"

"I do," said one of the girls.

"Have you read them?" asked Bradley.

John was now leading the way. Conversation about books did not interest him at all. He was quite ahead of the group and could barely hear what they were saying.

"Yes, a few times... Some of them were quite interesting."

John slowed down a bit.

"About what?" Bradley asked.

"Fun stories, adventures, travels... If we get back, I can grab them for you."

"No history of the land of the Unknowns? No Querqutese?" questioned Bradley.

"Why is this so important to him?" John wondered, picking up pace again. "He has his books, that will take a long time to read....Oh, why are they crawling so slowly?!"

"N-n-no... What did you say?.." asked the girl, John grinning, because he guessed that she was puzzled by Quercutese.

"Did you have any books when you got into the land of the Unknowns?" Bradley went on.

The girl replied, "Yes, I did. I had adventure books, stories. The ones I read in real world, though, were different from what I read here, but it didn't seem strange to me until now when you talked about it."

"Well, I had school textbooks, and they converted into school textbooks of this world," said Bradley. "I guess, yours converted into the adventure stories of this world. Very curious. Megan, you really should check out your bag and see if you have same books as I do. We had the same set of books on that day when we went to school."

"Come on guys, you are so boring!" John exclaimed, turning around. "Who's up to going with me flying tomorrow? You'll have much more fun this way!"

All of a sudden John froze in place forgetting what else he was going to say. At his left hand there was a large hall that he was sure was not there before when they travelled in this tunnel towards the exit. He looked at the crowd and mumbled, "E-h-h... By the way, are you guys sure we are going the right way?"

"What's wrong?" Bradley asked, looking around.

John pointed to the left, his finger trembling. "Don't you see? This large hall? Where are we?!"

"What hall?" gasped Bradley.

John got scared. "Am I the only one hallucinating?.." he asked in desperation. "Over there," he pointed again and asked, "Don't you see?"

He closed his eyes, opened them again, but the hall was still there. Then John pinched himself on the skin, hoping that he would wake up and everything would be straightened out. But nothing changed. He stared at the kids, as if prompting them to try to see the thing, when all of a sudden Megan exclaimed, "Yes, right there! I do see it! I didn't see it at first, and when John showed exactly where to look, I did. The wall parted, and a large hall emerged out of nowhere."

"Apparently, you are not the only one hallucinating," said one of the girls, whose name John also did not remember. The fact that Megan saw the hall made him feel better.

"Don't you see?" Megan asked, looking at everyone in the group. "A large hall and a door on the other side of it. Should we go check it out?"

"Hold on," interrupted Bradley. "We don't see anything. Only you and John see the hall. That begs the question - what do you have in common? The answer is – you both know how to fly."

John was slowly shaking off his shock. If before they did not find anything interesting, may be now, finally, there was something worth looking at. And Bradley was again overly cautious! On top of that Bradley was now admitting that he and the others, except for Megan, still did not know how to fly, and, therefore, they ought to have lied to him to get him out. Fine, if the exploration of this hall paid off, John was ready to forgive them.

"Come on, professor, why do you always have to find explanations for everything?" John complained. "I think Megan has a great idea, and we do indeed have to check it out. Bradley, lately you have been immersed too much into theory and don't have enough fun."

"And YOU lately have been immersed into too much fun and are refusing to think," Bradley pushed back. "However, if you both see the hall, I guess we should check it out, question is how, since the majority of us don't see it."

"You will have to follow me and John," suggested Megan. "We will go in, and you guys will have to go through the walls if this is what you see, in order to follow us."

"This may work," agreed Bradley. "Let's do it. Megan and John, you would have to move slowly so that we don't lose track of you."

John was happy. Finally they were doing something he wanted to do. He tried to hide the fact that he was so scared in the beginning. If seeing things nobody else saw was one of the capabilities of people who knew how to fly, it was totally acceptable to John. John and Megan started to slowly cross the hall towards the door on the other side. John was staring right in front of him but noticed that Megan was constantly checking back. He figured she was making sure that the rest of them, who did not see the hall, was not lost. John let her do the job, focusing his eyes on the door in front of them. That door was very intriguing to him. He expected it would open any moment.

John arrived at the door before Megan and scrutinized it in more detail. It was a massive iron door, completely flat, no decorations... What was troublesome to John, it was not clear how this door would open. John looked up, left and right, touched the surface but did not notice any handle, key hole or button. He turned back and saw that Megan was right behind him. The rest of the group was also very close. But apparently, they did not see him or Megan until the very last moment when Bradley almost crashed into him. Bradley looked over his shoulder and asked John and Megan, "What do you see over there?"

"It looks like an abandoned hall at a railroad station", said Megan.

John did not like another investigatory delay. The door was right there, but with no apparent way to get in.

"All right, guys, we already established that me and Megan see the hall and you don't, can we now move on?" whined John. "How do you think this door opens, those of you, who really like to think?" he inquired, staring at Bradley.

"I suppose, we could all go through as we usually go through the walls..." Bradley began.

Mary came closer to the door and put her ear against it.

"Hold on, there are some noises..." she whispered. "Don't you hear? We don't know what's out there, do we want to just cross the wall and get in danger?"

Now John heard some clinging noises like that of metal parts hitting against each other.

"I think there are some people out there. This is unexpected. I thought it was a late night by now," said Bradley. "We should go in quietly and maybe not all at once. I would suggest just a couple people go, who will then come back and tell everyone else what's there."

John, who could not wait to get in, offered that he and Megan went first. He started going through the wall next to the door but fell down to the floor in pain.

"What happened?" the girls rushed towards him.

John stood up, rubbing his forehead.

"I guess this is not a conventional wall through which we can go..." he muttered. "Anybody else wants to try?"

Mary carefully got close to the wall and tried going through it, but it did not work for her either.

"Any other ideas?" John turned again to Bradley. "Looks like we have to open this door somehow after all."

All of a sudden a loud bell sounded on the other side of the wall. Then repetitive shouts of command, noises of metal things falling and hitting other metal, more shouts...

"It sounds sinister," said Mary. "I have a bad feeling about whatever is going on over there."

"Why are girls always scared and expecting the worst?" asked John. "Maybe they have some more rides in there."

"You only think about rides..." started Megan.

But the door all of a sudden swung open, and several people quickly came out of it, crossed the hall and turned left, the direction of the supposed exit. They were in such a hurry that John was pretty sure they did not see a group of kids on the other side of the door. If they did see them, why would they leave the door open?

"Here is our chance!" John exclaimed, waiving at everyone else and inviting them to follow him. "Let's go!"

And before anybody else had time to utter any warning, he rushed through the door, leaving everybody else behind.

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### Chapter 15. The door from the other side.

Bradley shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess we all should go," he muttered in discontent. "I don't like this, but we have an opportunity here, and John is already in. I worry about him. After he learned to fly, he's not thinking anymore."

Bradley peeked around the door and slowly entered. John was nowhere to be seen. The girls followed Bradley with caution. At first Bradley did not see anything at all. It was semi-dark with a few lights here and there and no people anywhere in sight. It became very quiet, too. Smoke rose from the ground in a few places, and the ground was covered with pieces of metal of different shapes. Bradley called out for John, but got no response. They kept going along the wall, staring into the darkness trying to see John or anybody else, but to no avail. Suddenly, Mary ran into something that she did not see in the dark and hurt her arm.

"Ouch!" she muttered.

Everybody crowded around her. They stood next to some sort of machine, about human height, made of metal, but of such a shape that it was hard to guess what it was intended for.

"Is this what they are building here?" whispered Bradley. "What is it for?"

He walked all the way around it, but still could not guess. Some distance away he saw another such device and what appeared to be a person next to it. He came closer and found out it was John.

"John, I don't think it's safe to wander off alone like you did," Bradley rebuked him. "Who knew what we would find in this place?"

"But we didn't find anything dangerous," John pushed back. "Everything's just fine. They are building stuff, that's all."

"Stuff?!" Bradley exclaimed. "Do you have any idea what this stuff is for? And do you know WHO is building it? Why do you think those guys walked so hastily out of here and so negligently left the door open behind them that we could get in?"

Chills suddenly ran along Bradley's back. What if this was all set up on purpose to get them to enter this door? Trying to be calm, he suggested, "We should probably check whether that door is still open..."

Megan and Mary ran off but soon returned and reported that the door was locked.

"This is exactly what I was worried about," admitted Bradley. "They set some kind of a trap for us. The Tenacious didn't follow us in the morning, and we should have guessed that since we didn't have any trouble from the Unknowns all day, something was not right".

"What are we going to do?" asked Megan.

As much as Bradley did not like the idea of hanging around this suspicious place, he realized that it was likely the only chance they had to find out what was here. Even if they got back to the tunnel the next day, they might not see the hall again, and the chances that the door would be open were even slimmer. So Bradley suggested, "Since we are here, I would say we should still check this place out. Get away from the wall and see what's out there. John, you have to promise you'll stay with the group at all times."

"Why should I promise that?" John complained in his usual whiny manner. "I could get around on my own all this time while you guys were all cooped up in your rooms. Maybe I will fly and see how this all looks from up above. Megan, want to join?"

But Megan refused.

"Megan, maybe you should go with him this time," suggested Bradley. "Two pairs of eyes are better than one, and you can also help to keep him accountable."

"I don't think this is a good idea," protested Megan. "What if we run into Unknowns and they see me fly? Then they will know I can and will insist on me taking the test!"

"I think at this point this is irrelevant. But Ok, John, you can go by yourself, just please try not to take too long," decided Bradley.

John jumped up from excitement to begin his flight, but plopped back to the ground.

"It didn't work!" he exclaimed in disappointment. "Something is drastically wrong!"

He jumped again, this time more careful to prevent himself from falling down, but he could not fly up. Then he saw a metal box on the side of the road, ran to it, climbed on top and tried jumping off, but it did not work either. John came back to join the group.

"This is not right! I could fly all day today! I told you guys, I had to go to bed and get some rest; maybe this is the reason I can't fly anymore!"'

"Hold on, cool down," Bradley said sternly. "I think this is much more serious than this. What are those structures down the street?"

It was hard to see, but when his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of this place, Bradley could distinguish rectangular structures piling up on both sides of the street. The street appeared to be a long corridor between two rows of boxes. The others looked more carefully and confirmed to Bradley that they could see them, too.

"Do you think anybody could be living there?" whispered Mary.

Bradley made his decision. He said, "Everyone stay here, I will go check it out. We don't want to show up as a crowd in case somebody is there."

Having said that, Bradley went forward. All the rest hid themselves behind some metal boxes on the side of the road, one of which John used as a platform to attempt his last flight. Bradley was sure that John was still very upset that he could not fly, but happy that he quieted down. Maybe, he hoped everything would be Ok and his ability would come back to him.

Bradley was gone for a while. What he was discovering sent more chills down his back. He saw fences and guards pacing back and forth along the rectangular structures. It did not take very long for him to realize that this was a prison. One time he was almost seen by a guard, but just in time he hid himself in a trash can. Someone moved right next to him. Bradley was going to complain, but just as he was about to do it, he heard a hissing noise and thought better of it.

He heard someone whisper, "Quiet, let them pass."

A minute later the same whisper continued, "Now. We have to go now, otherwise they'll be back."

A boy of the same age as Bradley jumped out of the trash can and ran up the street to the area where the other kids were hiding. Bradley jumped out as well and followed him. He caught up and grabbed the boy by the sleeve.

"Who are you?" he asked hastily.

The boy introduced himself as Mike. He had been here for a while, and today at the end of the day before everyone was locked up he managed to run away and hide in the trash can. He told Bradley that this prison was intended for people who were not happy about flying so the happy ones didn't see them around.

They were approaching the group of kids, and Bradley saw John impatiently show out of his shelter. Bradley waved at Mike to follow him behind the metal boxes and summoned everyone. He introduced Mike and reported what he found.

"This is horrible!" exclaimed Mary. "And you think because we didn't want to learn to fly, they arranged it so that we would get to this place by ourselves and get stuck?!"

"I would not put it past them," replied Bradley. "It's very possible."

"But it's not fair!" interrupted John. "I was flying! I was going to take the test! And just because I happened to be with you, they put me here?!"

"Calm down," Bradley cut him off. "Don't be silly. The situation is much more serious. There are all these people here who want to go home but are stuck in these horrible conditions and are used as free labor for whatever the Unknowns need or want. We need to do something!"

"We need to get out of here!" said several girls simultaneously.

"That, too. But all these people need help. Mike will tell you more when we have a chance. Now we have to try to sleep. We don't know whether we can run away from here, and we have to be prepared to act in case they find us."

"If they find us, they'll put us to prison!" objected Mary. "We need to try to get out now!"

But Bradley started to see a much more global picture. He tried sharing his vision with others, "There are many people in prison already. I think they need to be encouraged to fight back against the Unknowns and then break out and use the exit that we found."

But Mary argued, "Break out? If we don't find out how to break out ahead of time, then how do you think we would break out when we are already in prison? We also don't know how and when the exit works. We need to get out now and get prepared better."

Bradley understood very well that the girls were scared. But he truly believed they would be more effective if they found a way to bring hope to all these people in prison by telling them about the existence of the exit. But as Bradley was about to make his convincing speech, he heard steps behind. He did not know how that happened, he had to be too carried away by the argument to notice, but, while debating, they started to raise their voices. Bradley could not forgive himself for this recklessness.

All the kids were grabbed by the Unknowns and carried along the street towards the rectangular sinister structures. It did not take very long before they were all locked up in one small prison cell. Bradley could not stop thinking that the Tenacious somehow took a part in their capture.

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### Chapter 16. What price are you willing to pay?

They spent all night in the building in the very end of the street. The Unknowns did not bother to separate them and even did not pay attention to the fact that Mike was also with them. Even though they were tired, they listened to Mike, who was telling them his story and the stories of many others who were locked up in prison. Some did not learn to fly in a timely manner, and others did learn to fly but then did something wrong and were taken here anyway. It turned out that those who knew how to fly lost this capability when they got here. In fact, not only flying, but whatever other skills they acquired in the World of the Unknowns were gone.

At this point in Mike's story John exclaimed, "But I didn't do anything wrong! I did learn to fly and was going to take the test!"

"You never know what Unknowns would qualify as wrong," Mike explained. "It always changes. Generally, it's wrong to sympathize with those who don't want to learn to fly or try to help them in any way. Another wrongdoing is being unhappy with anything this world has or any of its rules. The rules may change, but you have to be flexible and accept the new rules no matter how ridiculous they are and whether you truly like them or not. Other than that, the Unknowns can come up with any frivolous accusation if for any reason they don't like you, and put you here".

"This is horrible," said Megan. "I didn't like this place to begin with. Yes, flying may sound cool, but not at such a price."

"How bad can it be?" John objected. "Why would one be unhappy if there is so much fun to do?"

"Come on John, don't you see? Suppose you don't like a rule, for example that you can't take any rides on Fridays, and you express your disappointment, you get locked up in this place," Mary tried to explain.

But John could not reconcile with the fact that he was put in prison with this crowd. He believed that there was some misunderstanding about him that would get resolved. He told Mary, "You are saying this only because you have not experienced flying and you don't know how it feels."

"John, she is right," said Mike. "You have to take it seriously. This place is very dangerous. I've been here for quite a while and seen many different people. Some of them believe they are here by accident and that the Unknowns would let them out when they understand that a mistake was made, but, believe me, this never happens."

"How did he manage to read my thoughts?" John wondered and turned to Mike. "So you're saying we're stuck here for life?" he asked in disbelief. "You watch, tomorrow morning when they come to get us, I'll remind them that I've been already flying and planning to take the test, and they'll let me out of here."

"Don't count on this," replied Mike.

Only when the night was almost over, the kids went to sleep, and a couple hours later, the Unknowns came in and woke them up. It was a work day as usual, and the kids were ordered to go together with all the other prisoners to make parts for some device that was used to operate the rides.

While they were walking, John turned to a guard and told him, "By the way, I'm here by accident. I was flying and was supposed to be taking the flying test."

"I don't know anything about this," the guard responded with a stone face.

"Well, I just told you, so now you do. Can you tell it to your boss or whoever you need to tell it to, so I can be released and take the flying test?"

"I am not supposed to be talking to prisoners," replied the guard.

"This is useless," said Mike. "You are not going to get anywhere with them."

"All right, but I won't leave it as is!" exclaimed John. "I just have to tell it to the right person."

"You won't have access to any other people here except the prisoners and the guards," said Mike.

"You are too pessimistic," objected John. "You watch."

All day long they were making parts. John was trying to console himself with the fact that these parts were going to be used to build the rides that he would ride when this mess gets straightened out. John attempted to approach several other guards during the day, but they got very angry with him and sent him back to work. At the end of the day he was very tired. When everybody was locked up in the prison cells, he fell asleep and slept till the next morning when everything repeated just the same way as the previous day. Before falling asleep John's last thought was that Mike was possibly right. There seemed to be no way to tell anybody of importance that he had nothing to do with this bunch of rebels and that he wanted to go back and have a normal life.

Three days later, though, John encountered an opportunity. They were taken to the park to assemble a ride. At the end of the day, when they were counted and put into pairs to go back to their buildings, John found a chance to hide himself in the bushes. When everybody turned around the corner, John got out and tried to fly, but when that did not work, he simply started running towards the building where he used to live before this all happened. With great difficulties did he manage to climb up the wall to his balcony, though it was possible only because the wall was broken in places, providing hand holders. When John got in, he found the opening for his room and jumped down. He painfully hit himself on landing, but he did not care. He was back, and he knew that the next morning when the Adventurous gets in, he would be able to explain to him all the nonsense that had happened and to arrange for the flying test. John believed that taking that test would be a solution to all his troubles. He slept very well that night, firmly knowing that everything was going to be just fine from now on.

In the morning he woke up late, and sure enough, as soon as he sat up in his bed, the ceiling opened, and the Adventurous came flying down.

"Welcome back," he began. "Sorry to disappoint you, though, but I am supposed to take you back to work."

"To work?! But why?" objected John. "I thought we were right on track with the flying test and everything. What happened?"

"For one," replied the Adventurous, "you got yourself into a place that you were not supposed to be in. And secondly, you associated with the wrong kind of people."

"That was an accident!" John exclaimed in desperation. His last chance to straighten things out was slipping away. He had to convince the Adventurous that there was no fault of his and make him take his side. He went on, "Bradley offered me to go have some fun going through the walls, and when I discovered that it indeed worked, I could not refuse..."

"But you undoubtedly knew what kind of person Bradley was," objected the Adventurous. "You were well aware of his refusal to learn to fly and his attempts to get out of here."

"His refusal to fly, yes," admitted John. "But as to his attempts to get out, no, I didn't know anything about those."

"Suppose you're not lying. But, apart from that, you got yourself into enough trouble to be punished. Moreover, I am not the one to determine your guilt. It's as simple as this: if you're able to fly, then you have a chance to fix everything and come back, but if you lose this skill, you're at a point of no return. I see you somehow managed to get back here... But I am certain it was not by flying. So get ready to go back to work, and let's be done with this."

"I can learn to fly again! Just give me a chance! Some time! I promise I will!" exclaimed John.

"Sorry to say but you won't," said the Adventurous firmly. "Now let's get going."

"I am pretty sure you can roll this back. C'mon, what do you want?" asked John.

All of a sudden he had an idea that seemed brilliant to him. He jumped off the bed and pulled down the mattress. All the money he'd hidden there was still in place. He turned to the Adventurous.

"Want money? See, I have a lot. I can share. Just let me try again. I will diligently learn how to fly, and we can schedule for the test right now!"

"Well, I am not supposed to be doing this, you know..." began the Adventurous, but John saw that he started hesitating. The Adventurous paced back and forth across the room couple times. John was watching him with hope. The Adventurous turned around and looked at John sternly. He said, "You have to be aware that I have stuff on you, and you have to be very careful... Not to get caught again, you know... And, if I take your money, you would have to get employed to earn more if you want to have fun around here... If you don't mind..."

"Of course, of course!" John exclaimed in relief. "I will work for money, no problem! And have fun in the spare time... Everybody, in fact, does it this way."

"All right, then," said the Adventurous after a few seconds of silence, as if he still was thinking through the final agreement. "I take the money, you don't tell anybody about this. I get you a job, and then you start working, and we arrange for the flying test."

"Deal," John said without hesitation.

"All right," the Adventurous said, grabbing the money from John's bed. "Wait here until I arrange things. You will know if our arrangement worked when you discover that you are able to fly again. I'll shortly let you know where you are going to work."

John noticed that the Adventurous' pockets appeared to be bottomless. He kept stuffing his money into his pockets, and he was not running out of room. This money took as much as the entire schoolbag of John's, but the Adventurous managed to jam it into his two pockets. When he finished, he flew up to the ceiling, opened the ceiling door and was gone. John was hoping that some money would be left by the Adventurous' disability to carry all of it away, so he was really disappointed. But in the end, it was more important that he had a chance to fly again.

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### Chapter 17. Train is the way.

Bradley was trying to find opportunities to have a word here and there with other prisoners, but it almost never happened. Every time he got distracted, a guard would appear right in front of him and order him to get back to work. At the end of the day everybody was very tired, and when they returned to their building, they all fell asleep and slept till the next morning when everything repeated just the same way as the previous day. Bradley started to realize why nobody had raised a concern so far and tried to get others to act: there was simply no time, and when in the end of the day they were finally left to themselves, they would be simply very tired to do anything but sleep.

One day on the way to their prison, Bradley noticed the absence of John. Bradley was happy for him and hopeful that John would find a way back to them and show them how to escape. He was trying to be positive. If John found a way to sneak out, then maybe they would find it, too. Maybe, they had to escape one by one, not as a crowd, after all. The Unknowns might not notice for a while that a certain number of people were missing. And then who knows...

It was a real surprise to him when two days later John appeared at work in a role of a guard. Just like other guards, he was very diligent in keeping the work going and making sure not to talk to the prisoners. At first Bradley thought that this was John's trick to come to help them escape in a form of a guard. Bradley could not help but become bitter as he realized that John was taking his job seriously and was, in fact, on the Unknowns' side.

Day after day they were making parts, and it seemed to never end. Bradley's heart sank when day by day he saw his sister and the other girls wither, but he kept thinking about a way out. He tried to keep Megan's spirits up as much as he could. One day they were out, loading a train that was supposed to deliver parts the kids made to some other place where they were to be assembled into rides. It was a long cargo train, and it took them the entire day to load it. When the work was finally done and the train was about to leave and the guards gave the command to return back to the prison, Bradley suddenly had an idea. He grabbed Megan and ran towards the train, then under, and climbed into an open train car on the other side, helping Megan to get in. As soon as they were both in, they started hearing the calls of the guards who realized that they were missing, but they were safe, because the train departed.

Bradley was sad that he couldn't have helped other people, but at least he and Megan could have a chance to escape. If his idea worked.

"Where are we going?" asked Megan.

"I don't know," responded Bradley. "It's very possible that this train takes us to another prison place where these things are assembled, but I'm hoping that it won't stop there."

The train traveled all night long and arrived to its destination early morning of the next day. Bradley and Megan got out and hid under the train for the entire time it was unloading, which took almost the entire day again. Bradley was very happy for the fact that in this world they did not have to eat. At the end of the day the train was ready for departure. Because trains did not show up to their prison every day, Bradley was pretty confident that the train would not simply turn around and go back to the same place that it came from. When the train was ready to go, Bradley and Megan crawled back into the car, again not being noticed by anyone.

The train was gaining speed, faster and faster. Once in a while Bradley would stand in the car and peek out. He would see country side but not recognize any of the places they were passing. Generally, he could not tell one place from another because they all looked pretty similar. All of a sudden it became dark, and the noise from the poorly maintained tracks became so great that both Bradley and Megan fell to the floor, pressing hands against their ears. After a while, still holding hands next to his ears, Bradley stood up in the car and saw that they were in an unlit tunnel. An arrow flashed past him, and it had the word "Exit" written on it. Just at that moment the noise went away, and they only heard a rushing wind.

"Megan!" exclaimed Bradley. "Do you know where we are now? We're in the exit tunnel! I saw the signs."

"But trains never go into those tunnels," murmured Megan. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," responded Bradley. "I see them. As a matter of fact, there is another one."

The arrows with the sign "Exit" started appearing more and more often. Maybe the train was gaining yet more speed, or the arrows were spaced more frequently, which would not be noticed during walking but only during a fast train ride. Suddenly the tunnel ended, and Bradley was shocked to see that the train was only moving at a crawl inside an old abandoned train station. The engine was off, and Bradley could not even hear the sound of brakes, only soft whoosh of dust and light trash being pushed away. After a few minutes of thinking what to do next, Bradley decided that they should get out. The train was not going anywhere, and there was nobody outside, so presumably it would be safe to get out and explore. But as soon as they got out, they ran into another boy their age who was going along the train towards its end.

"C'mon, you scared us, who are you?" gasped Bradley.

"You scared me, too! Where did you come from?" asked the boy. "...I am James Andrews, by the way."

Bradley and Megan introduced themselves.

"We were on the train," Bradley explained. He looked around for a place to hide in case guards or other Unknowns showed up, but the train lights did not shine very far so he could not see well.

"Do you suppose IT worked?" James inquired.

"What worked?" Bradley and Megan asked simultaneously.

"The EXIT," responded James. "Do you know where we are?"

Bradley and Megan shrugged their shoulders.

"I assume we're back home. In America. Question is – where, but I think it worked. It HAD to work. I did very thorough calculations. I convinced them to hire me as the driver of this train on purpose, this particular shift and this particular rout, you know..."

"Wow, that's impressive!" exclaimed Bradley. "How long have you spent performing all these calculations?"

"It took me quite a bit of time. But, you know, I had to do it. Did not want to be stuck there forever... Just like you, I assume....How did you guess that you had to get on the train?"

"We didn't. We were desperate to get out, and one day we were loading a train, and I thought it was better to get on the train than continue the way we did..."

"Oh," James sounded disappointed. "Anyway, we should go now. We have to find the way home."

The train produced just enough light that the kids could look around. In the end of the platform they could recognize piles of rock generated by breaking off of the pieces of the wall. Behind the train there was the tunnel, from which they just emerged, and no way out. It was so dark that they could not see anything without a flashlight. It was just their luck that James had one in the pocket of his pants. They shone it on the wall at the other end of the platform and saw the same piles of broken wall. They hoped to see some stairs leading up to the ground level in either end of the platform, or possibly in the middle, but there were none.

"Are you sure we are in America? Looks like it could be a tunnel in the World of the Unknowns," Megan said.

"I told you, we have to be," James responded impatiently. "The question is – where. According to what I've been reading, we have to be somewhere in the south... One of the former slave states."

"You seem to know a whole lot," said Bradley. "Where did you learn all of this?"

"From the textbooks I had," responded James. "Didn't you have any?"

"We did, and I started to study them, but then we got to prison and I didn't have time..."

"But you could have kept thinking about what you have learned and do mental exercises. This is how I developed my ideas. Anyway, this is not important right now. The book that I read made it sound like the Unknowns started to use free labor from Earth more than one hundred fifty years ago. There were references to getting slaves from America during the time when slavery was established in the Southern states. In fact, when slave owners lost slaves and thought that they'd run away, in reality they were taken by the Unknowns. They used trains back then as a common means of transportation, but now since the technology became pretty much obsolete on Earth, they had to develop these other null-transportation based structures that would transport you to their world as soon as you get in."

"You are smart!" exclaimed Megan, admiration in her voice.

Bradley had to admit that everything James was saying sounded logical. He was very hopeful that James could also figure out how to get out of this station. But Bradley felt very competitive when he heard that James could develop so many ideas from the books, while he, Bradley, didn't. He said, "Hold on, we don't even know if this whole thing is correct. Maybe we are still in the world of the Unknowns."

Bradley felt also a little bit uneasy about James's name. He was pretty sure he heard it before, but at the same time he was confident he saw James first time in his life.

"The only way to convince you that we are back in America is to get out of here. One proof that we are no longer the land of the Unknowns would be to see a person who is older or younger than us."

"Have you figured that out, too, why everybody is of the same age there?" Megan asked with curiosity.

James explained, "It appears that they had some kind of time stop at some point, and everything froze...Not quite sure why they are all kids, though."

But James did not finish. He was interrupted by the sound of the departing train, and Bradley saw that the train started to roll back into the tunnel, from the direction that it came, all by itself.

"Are you sure there were no Unknowns on it?" Bradley asked. "Not that it matters anyway. If we are indeed in America, let them go back to their world on their own."

Since the train departed, the only source of light the kids had was James's flashlight. They started walking along the wall on the opposite side from the rails when Megan spotted a place where a part of the wall broke off and exposed an entrance to another tunnel. Bradley again started suspecting that they were, in fact, still in the World of the Unknowns, experiencing more of their tricks, but all of a sudden he felt a familiar but long forgotten feeling in his stomach.

"You know what?!" he exclaimed in excitement. "I think James is right! We are in America! I'm HUNGRY!!!"

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Chapter 18. Back with the family.

After initial excitement of being hungry that indicated they were home, Bradley got concerned. They did not know where in America they were, and James was suggesting it was one of the southern states. If he were right, then they were long ways from home. The tunnel ended very abruptly, probably because another section of a wall broke off and obstructed it. The kids ran into an old lamppost, partially buried by rubbish and pieces of broken wall. In desperation, the kids returned back to the train station and sat down near the tracks. Megan complained that she was very hungry and thirsty, and Bradley was sure that the same was true for James, even though he was not saying a word.

"Looks like this underground station suffered a wreckage of an earthquake," suggested Bradley.

"It may take us a while to get out, and there is no water!" Megan exclaimed, took the flashlight from the boys and went back to the end of the platform to check if there were any remnants of stairs. Bradley let her do it. If there were an earthquake, at least the beginning of a staircase might still be visible under the wreckage. If there were no staircase to begin with, maybe there was no earthquake... Bradley and James stayed put, using the method of Sherlock Holmes.

"So do you know more precisely what part of the country we could be in?" Bradley asked, getting more comfortable and putting his legs off the edge of the platform.

But James was not sure.

Bradley went on, "Well, one thing is clear, we are next to a railroad. Maybe, one of those that they used to get the slaves into the World of the Unknowns, if your theory is right. The lamppost at the end of the platform looked really old and might very well be from that era."

James did not respond, and Bradley concluded that he was agreeing with his statement. All of a sudden he remembered why James's name was familiar to him. Not long before they left for the World of the Unknowns, he watched a video on the history channel, the re-enactment of the Great Train Chase. A civil volunteer by the name of James Andrews fighting on the side of the Union hijacked the train called "The General" and created a lot of damages on the railroad track leading from Atlanta to Chattanooga to sabotage the confederate army. His team was captured, and he was tried in the military court and hanged as a spy.

"James, I think we may be in Atlanta," Bradley suggested, vividly remembering the video. "And by the way, is James Andrews from the Civil War your relative? Great-great-great-grandfather or something?"

"He actually did not have kids, as far as I know," James responded. "But yes, my family says we are related. Why?"

"I was just thinking about these railroads and remembered the Great Train Chase," Bradley said.

A light approached them, and Megan's voice said, "Guys, in the end of the tunnel there is a door in the ceiling! There is a small ladder leading up to it! We should check it out!"

James and Bradley stood up and followed Megan into the tunnel. Indeed, there was a ladder that they somehow missed before, probably because of piles of rocks covering the bottom two stairs. The ladder led to a door in the ceiling that appeared to be locked.

"Looks just like a door in the World of the Unknowns," Bradley began to doubt again. Then he said resolutely, "Ok, let's go!"

James climbed the ladder first and tried to open the door, but it was locked.

"Not opening," he reported.

Then it was Bradley's turn to try. After discovering that the door was indeed locked, which he hoped was not the case and James simply was not doing it right, Bradley started to bang on the door really loud. His reasoning was that since it was locked, someone should hear the noise and come unlock it. Indeed, after a while he heard footsteps, but the door did not open right away. The steps disappeared, then appeared again, as if someone on the other side also had difficulties opening this door. Finally, the door opened, and Bradley saw a face of an angry lady whose expression quickly changed from anger to surprise.

"How did you guys get in there?" the lady inquired. "This door has been locked for years. They say there used to be a storage room, but honestly, since I worked here I never remembered anyone using it....Several businesses changed, and nobody did," she added, helping Megan up as she was the last one to get out.

"Well, the walls are broken down there in places, and we got lost," mumbled Bradley. He heard that James and Megan spoke at the same time, also saying they were lost. Bradley wasn't sure the lady would believe them, but he didn't care at this point. What they needed the most was food and drink, and he was hoping the lady could help them out. They have not had anything for months!

Luckily for them, the business was a restaurant. The owner's son was there at that time, and the lady explained him the situation. While he was contacting the police, the kids had a meal. The lady served them in the back room of the restaurant, because the front had a bar with a bunch of men gathering there for drinks in the late afternoon. From the place where Bradley, Megan and James were sitting, that part of the restaurant was not seen. The room had only six tables and was decorated with bright yellow, orange and red paintings. The main impression Bradley got from these paintings was the Sun.

Bradley gobbled up his meal before anybody else and was staring around when the police arrived. It appeared that they knew exactly who Bradley, Megan and James were. They thanked the owner and the lady and escorted the kids outside the restaurant. They walked out into an ally, all decorated with the strings of red and blue flags. Bunch of people were gathering around, some loudly talking with each other but ignoring what was going on. The policemen and the kids walked up an elevated walkway towards the police car that was parked next to a bright blue train engine. The police car was also blue, with the words "Atlanta police" prominently written along its side. The blue train engine had "Underground Atlanta" written on it in several places. "So, we are in Atlanta," concluded Bradley, again in admiration and with envy to James's wits.

From a brief back and forth between the policemen, to his surprise Bradley gathered that both his and James's parents were all vacationing in the same place at the same time, and they lost them just earlier today. Bradley's heart sank. Instead of reuniting with parents who lost them several months ago and would be joyful to see their kids again, Bradley and Megan would have to deal with a supposed discipline problem. Bradley did not like this outcome at all. Tricks of the Unknowns!

"Wait, but we gone for a long time!" he heard James shout. "We were not lost today. I, in fact, was away from home for about half a year! You've got to listen to us – there is the tunnel underneath the restaurant, with old railroad tracks!"

"Yes, we know about the Underground," one of the policemen, who was sitting in the front right seat, said gloomily and gave out a sigh of exhaustion. "He ought to have had a busy day looking for us," Bradley concluded, but did not say anything out loud.

James continued, "Not the Underground. There is another secret tunnel out there. The passageway is half hidden under rubbish, and the old staircase leads up to the restaurant where you found us. This tunnel connects to a very evil place, called the World of the Unknowns."

"Sure," the policemen replied. "Kids like to tell these stories. There are no secret tunnels down there, and the train on display, you are not supposed to play on it!"

Bradley was going to intercede and try to prove to the policemen that what James was saying was true, but the police car rolled into an underground parking of a hotel. James was dropped off, and Bradley at the last moment realized that they needed to exchange emails, which they barely had time to do.

"Officer, we are not lying," Bradley began as they pulled out back onto the street. "There is another world out there."

"You kids always make things up to try to cover your bad behavior," responded the policeman, unwilling to hear any more of the story. Bradley opened his mouth to continue, but they pulled next to another hotel where his family was staying. Escorted out of the car and past the reception desk, Bradley was desperately thinking what to say to make his parents believe what truly happened to him and Megan.

"How did you manage to get lost during the tour?" asked their father angrily as soon as he saw them.

Bradley did not come up with any strategy, so he simply said the truth, "Dad, Mom, what tour? We have been gone for months!"

Megan said almost the same thing at the same time.

Bradley was desperately thinking, "Could time stop here same way as in the World of the Unknowns and only a few hours passed while we were gone? No, it would be spring then, and we would have to go to school tomorrow, and our parents would not be vacationing..." Something definitely was not right.

"What are you two talking about?" asked their father angrily again. "Wasn't it enough troubles for one trip already, not to mention the fact that you had to stay for the summer school and we could not take a longer vacation as we planned?"

"What troubles, what summer school?" Bradley murmured and looked at Megan. She shrugged her shoulders. Bradley turned to his parents. "Are you sure? We were not here for several months!"

"What are you going to make up next?" asked their father. "Well, now we are going for dinner, then to bed, and tomorrow we are going home."

"All right..." the only thing Bradley managed to say.

Out of the elevator, mom and dad resolutely marched towards the exit from the hotel and turned right. Dustin whined, "Why don't we have special last night dinner at that Legal place, as we originally planned?"

But the parents were not in any mood to explain. Bradley and Megan figured they cancelled the special dinner because of their supposed bad behavior. They ended up eating pizzas across the street. Dustin gave them an angry look.

During dinner Bradley tried to start an investigation about what was happening while they were gone, but his parents were not in the mood. What was worse, Dustin made fun of him and Megan, and their parents had to hush the conversation because he was getting obnoxiously loud. The dinner ended up in sinister silence. When they returned to the hotel, parents ordered them all to bed, including Dustin, who expressed frustration and scolded Bradley, "Why do I have to be punished along with you? I didn't do anything wrong!" Bradley opened his mouth to push back, but parents interfered and reminded everyone that the next day they would have to get up early to go to the airport.

Bradley waited for mom and dad to go to sleep so he could ask Dustin about what was going on. But by the time he was sure their parents were asleep, he heard Dustin was snoring, too. "So much for not wanting to go to bed!" Bradley thought in disappointment.

The family reunion did not go quite as Bradley thought it would. Something was not right. One discrepancy that Bradley noticed was that his parents did not mention anything about John being missing, too. If Bradley and Megan were the only ones who supposedly were lost only today, then were was John? Bradley was convinced that John was stuck as a guard in the World of the Unknowns. He was the guard on the last day when Bradley and Megan boarded the train to escape. Or was he? Bradley suddenly realized that he had not seen John for the last few days before he had his escape idea. Was it possible that John, too, ran away and was back home some days go? And was declared lost and found, just like he and Megan were today? Bradley could not wait to find out the news about John and even wanted to wake up Dustin and talk to him, anyway, but thought twice about it remembering how punchy his brother was when woken up in the middle of the night.

And, of course, summer school. What was that all about? How was it possible that he and Megan could have such bad performance as to stay for the summer school? There was only one month left before the end of the year, and their grades were very good. Again, Bradley almost got out of bed to ask Dustin what happened, but all of a sudden he felt such overpowering tiredness that before he had a minute to think any further, he fell asleep. What he and Megan found when the family got back home is a completely different story.

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### ###

### About the author.

Being a molecular biologist and interested in biology very early in my life, I also like to write fiction stories. Writing was my hobby as early as when I was seven years old. Even before then, I made up stories in my imagination that I did not write down. But later, many of those ideas were developed and put on paper. Immigrating to America, getting PhD and having children were those times when my story writing pretty much came to a halt, and when I resumed, I realized that I could probably re-use some of my old ideas and write the stories in English. The book you just read is one from the series of stories about the World of the Unknowns, whom I imagined when I was a child. It is, in fact, a fourth time the story was written, the first three versions being in Russian. As I was getting older, the characters and the story line changed, but the idea behind who the Unknowns were, always stayed the same. After coming to America, it took me some time to adjust and to learn the new culture and the differences in the mentality of the people of the two nations. I assume, since I did not grow up here, the way children act in my American version of the story may not be accurate, and I apologize if it is the case. However, I hope you enjoyed the story and are looking forward to reading other books of this series.

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### Other books by this author.

COMING SOON: The second book in the series, "The World of the Unknowns: The Rescue". <https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362568>. Available for pre-order.

Book summary: After escaping from the World of the Unknowns where they spent what they thought, more than two months, Bradley and Megan find out that they were not missed at home. What was worse, they somehow acquired a rotten reputation both at home and at school. While trying to regain the trust of their parents and teachers, Bradley and Megan figure out who acted on their part while they were gone and begin to design plans to go back to the World of the Unknowns to rescue their friend John and the other prisoners of the Unknowns. In this book, you will learn more about the Unknowns and follow Bradley and Megan on their important mission.

You can read preview the first two chapters of this book below.

The rest of the story about the Unknowns and the ultimate success that the kids have in helping them restore their World are in my head – and if you like the first two stories, I will be happy to write the next one, too!

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### Preview of the World of the Unknowns: The Rescue.

Chapter 1. The substitutes.

When Bradley heard noises around him in the morning, his first feeling was that he would have to get up and get ready for work in the prison factory of the Unknowns. He felt relief seeing his brother Dustin's smiley face instead of a sullen guard. He happily jumped out of bed. "We're back, back, back!" his soul sang.

"You can't imagine, Dustin, how glad I am to see YOU!" exclaimed Bradley. "Are we off to the airport now? I have lots of questions for you."

Dustin's smile changed into an expression of surprise, but Bradley ignored it. He suspected that Dustin was about to play a trick on him, but he did not care. It was better than the other alternative, should he not have escaped from the Unknowns. All these weeks of the same routine, making the parts for the rides, which the Unknowns had fun riding, working all day and falling to bed the minute they returned back to the prison cells. Bradley had a chill come down his spine at the mere recollection of what he and Megan were through after they stupidly entered the unidentified wooden building at the school ground, one sunny Monday morning before the start of class. The escape that he so longed for and expectations of happy reunion with the family. Instead, they were scolded for getting lost at a tour during a vacation, but still, still, he was back home in America!

"I already collected all your knickknacks and dumped them in the bag," Dustin reported, his face now showing disappointment with his brother being such a lazy bum that he had to do all the work for him. "It took me ten minutes to locate everything. You may want to double check."

"Bradley, Dustin!" Bradley heard his father call knocking at the door. "Let's go for breakfast!"

Realization of the seriousness of whatever happened back home while he and Megan were in the World of the Unknowns started to dawn on Bradley during breakfast. It was conveniently served in the hotel, so they did not have to make a special trip to a restaurant. Bradley noticed that he and Megan were carefully watched all the way down to the fourth floor where the breakfast lounge was. When the elevator door opened, his father stretched his arm as if to prevent Bradley from rushing in without waiting for people to come out. Then he put an iron grip on his shoulder when they entered the lounge, as if Bradley were going to storm in without waiting to be seated. Bradley started feeling uneasy. He wanted to talk to Dustin; his older brother should have known what was going on. But starting this conversation with their parents right there seemed inappropriate to Bradley.

Bradley and Megan ordered huge omelets and pancakes to be made, and then they went back for more stuff, such as fried potatoes with vegetables and yogurt. Bradley felt like he could eat everything that was served after not eating anything in the World of the Unknowns for such a long time. To his surprise, he discovered that his stomach was not bottomless nonetheless. Once in a while he received disapproving looks from his parents. But since he behaved more or less civilly, not counting his insatiable appetite, he was left alone. Nobody said anything about previous day events, and Bradley decided he would wait till better times, too.

Not much happened during the flight, either. He and Megan were sitting in one row with their father, and Dustin across the aisle with their mother. Their father sat in the aisle seat, as if to prevent them, kids, from running around. Since Bradley fell asleep late last night, he dozed off and woke up only when the flight attendant announced that they were preparing for landing.

In the car, on the way home from the airport, Bradley took the uncomfortable middle seat in the back. He was hoping he would get a chance to talk to Dustin if his father turned on music and would not pay attention to their conversation. His first intention was to ask Megan to sit there, because of the concern he had that Dustin would taunt him. But then he decided to initiate a conversation with his brother, which he intended to continue when they got home. The father turned on music when they got off the freeway and started driving the neighborhood streets.

Silent the entire time since they left the airport, Bradley began in a quiet voice addressing Dustin, "So what did you do yesterday in Atlanta?"

Bradley took an approach of a long conversation, which started from some completely unrelated topic.

"What did YOU think we were doing?" Dustin gave him a surprised look. "Waiting for you to be found, of course," he added. Then, changing his mind to be friendly, he went on, "Actually, Mom was hanging around the area where you were lost, there were some cool boutiques; and me and Dad went to Cyclorama. He wanted to see the _Texas_ , too, as you know."

"So you did go to see the _General_ , did you?" Bradley asked in excitement that was quenched by realization that he, in fact, missed both.

"Of course we did, you were there, too," Dustin raised his brow.

Bradley swallowed his objection, and went on with the conversation, "So how was the Cyclorama?"

"Pretty impressive. The canvas is huge, lots of soldier figures there, and they look like they are normal size, but, in fact, they are only half the height of an adult. The tour guide went over there and stood right next to one of them. But what I liked the most, was the video of the Great Train Chaise that I watched a couple of times while Dad was taking pictures of the _Texas_ from all sides and angles."

"What was so good about it?" Bradley inquired.

"Basically, they showed the entire story, as if interviewing the participants of the chase, James Andrews and William Fuller, after the event. They showed how the chase progressed from James Andrew breaking a few rails here and there, and then disconnecting the entire train car to send it rolling backward to slow down the pursuers. It culminated in them setting a car on fire and then disconnecting it from the locomotive, but Fuller managed to quench it. I think it may be historically inaccurate, but was sure impressive."

"Yeah, my escape with James Andrews yesterday was not so dramatic," Bradley began and promptly shut his mouth.

"What are you talking about?" Dustin turned towards him, concern written all over his face.

"Nothing..." Bradley said promptly.

The car entered the driveway, and, luckily for Bradley, the conversation ended. Bradley and Megan were told to carry their suitcases upstairs to their bedrooms. Bradley hoped that they would not be burdened with a bunch of chores that often was the case after a vacation, so that he and Megan could go over to their neighbor and friend John and see whether he was home. John entered the unidentified wooden structure at the school ground with them, and, to Bradley's knowledge, was stuck in the World of the Unknowns up to this day. Of course, since he switched sides, he presumably did not suffer as much, but she should not be at home.

When Bradley and Megan carried their suitcases upstairs and were about to go inside their bedrooms to unpack, Bradley slowed down and turned to Megan. He said, "I'm glad to be home finally. The conversation with Dustin in the car didn't go so well. I blew it in the end, as you might have heard. Now I'm hoping to get to John's and see if he's there. This may be a better chance to find out what's going on. I bet, John's missing, and we should tell his parents what happened."

He heard his father call from the living room, "Bradley, Megan, unpack your bags, wash your clothes and put all the stuff away. Then dinner and bed time."

Bradley was surprised that his father was ordering them to bed. It was only seven o'clock, and it was summer time and a Saturday!

"To bed? Why so early?" Bradley shouted. He slept on the plane and was now full of energy. His intentions to visit John might not become reality if their father put them to bed right away.

"So you can be on time for school on Monday, not like it was the week before vacation when you were late every single day," the father shouted back.

"We had to have totally messed up if he is so strict about this," Bradley thought. Oh, why, why, why did they have to go to summer school? Did they fail a bunch of classes in the end of the spring quarter? Maybe, teachers automatically entered bad grades because he and Megan missed so many classes?

Bradley pushed the suitcase into his room with his foot and looked down the staircase into the living room. "Is this because we missed classes in spring?" he asked his father.

"Yes, that, too, and overall very poor performance, as you may guess," his father responded.

"But we were not here!" Bradley exclaimed in frustration, unable to hold back the truth that he could not convey in a trustworthy manner.

"Tell your stories to somebody else," the father objected. "Start unpacking now."

Not that Bradley expected any other outcome from his burst, but he shrugged his shoulders in desperation and turned to Megan, who was standing right there all the time.

"Do you understand what's going on?" Bradley whispered so that he could not be heard by their parents downstairs. "All this talk about us being lost for only a few hours... Dustin said we were there to see the _General_. I didn't see it. Did you? Have you noticed Dad watched us like a hawk all day today? And now this... We know that we were not here, but if it weren't us, then who was it? Let's hurry and try to sneak out to John's out of the garage when we start laundry."

"What if John is there?" suggested Megan. "I mean, not John, but somebody else that everybody believes to be John."

Bradley thought about this already, and it was even more important to find out if that were the case. He and Megan unpacked their suitcases as fast as they'd never done before and were shortly running downstairs to the garage with the laundry baskets. Bradley noticed a surprised look on his father's face as he was passing through the living room.

"Did you see how he was looking at us this time? As if he were surprised to see us do what he told us to," Bradley said to Megan as the garage door closed behind them. "I'm convinced someone was acting here on our part, and we have to figure out, who!"

Megan and Bradley quickly loaded the machine, pushed the button and peeked out of the garage door into the kitchen. The parents weren't there.

"Lucky! They probably went to carry their stuff upstairs. Quick!" Bradley said, and he and Megan sneaked out of the house through the front door. They ran fast towards their neighbors' yard, crossed it and banged on the door. John's father appeared in the doorway, saw who it was and shouted, "You, again! How many times did I tell you not to come over anymore? John is not allowed to play with you!"

"Is he at least home?" began Bradley.

"He better be, otherwise he is in trouble," John's father growled. "Now you go home, too!"

"Are you sure that it is indeed John?" Bradley attempted to continue.

"Who else?!!!" John's father roared. "Now go, otherwise I will call your parents!"

Bradley's conviction of the substitutes was getting confirmed by the real data. John's parents thought John was at home, while Bradley and Megan were convinced he was still in the World of the Unknowns.

"One more quick question, was John lost in the past three months, even for a short period of time?" Bradley dared to ask John's father, even after the threat of his parents being called.

"No," John's father answered briefly and sternly stared at Bradley and Megan.

Bradley promptly turned around to prevent any further confrontation. He and Megan sneaked back into the house. In the living room their father was sitting down to read, and he said, "Very well, get ready for bed while laundry is running."

"Ok, Dad," said Bradley and Megan simultaneously.

They did not discuss it, but independently decided that given the current situation it would be wise to be obedient and respectful to all adults. This appeared to be the best strategy for them to remedy the situation. Whoever the substitutes were, after talking to John's father, it became absolutely clear they did exist. Apart from identifying these substitutes, the key was to behave even better than Bradley and Megan did before the World of the Unknowns adventure started.

### Chapter 2. Nearly suspended.

Monday morning Bradley and Megan had to go to summer school. Bradley was very sad about this. There was a very slight chance that there was something they'd not learned on their own already that was covered at school while they were gone. There was a lot of repetition in the end of the year that Bradley did not like. The person who replaced him had to be completely ignorant and not know a squat to get Bradley's grades so low! Another drawback was that the yearly US Open of Surfing competitions were about to start and Bradley was really frustrated that because of the Unknowns he was missing them entirely. Maybe he could talk dad into going there at least on Saturday, if there was not much homework... Dustin was going there with friends almost every day this week!

Because they went to bed early the previous day, even Megan got up on time, and they were walking to school together. The unidentified wooden structure, through which they got into the world of the Unknowns, was missing.

"The school must have broken it down," Bradley concluded. "It probably was an eye sore."

"Are you sure they even saw it?" doubted Megan. "Maybe only we did. Otherwise there would be many more kids who got entrapped by it and should have gone to the World of the Unknowns".

"How do you know they didn't?" objected Bradley. "There were plenty of kids there. Granted, we did not know anyone, but this could simply be by chance".

"I had an impression that they were all coming from all over the world", said Megan. "And maybe this structure moves itself around to different locations to entrap kids from different areas..."

"You are making it up", said Bradley unwilling to give Megan any more credit for figuring the Unknowns out.

"I am, but the entire story about being taken up by the Unknowns also sounds as a made-up story. Why not this?"

"Because we want the truth, not fascinating stories like Dad believes", Bradley replied.

They entered the school building and went to their classroom. There were a few other kids from their school as well as some they did not know. The teacher gave Bradley and Megan a surprised look, but they started to get used to it. They said "Hello" to the teacher and proceeded to sit down at their desks.

"Very well", said the teacher. "Let's begin. Everybody is here except for John, but I don't expect him to show up on time". And she looked towards Bradley and Megan again.

"Hinting that we were not on time before also", whispered Bradley to Megan.

She nodded. The summer school was not fun at all. All these other kids were here because they were truly behind and did not understand stuff, and it took a really long time to move forward from one task to the next. Bradley was getting bored. Finally, the teacher gave them an assignment that they had to do on their own, and Bradley finished it really fast. The teacher did not believe he was done and asked to look at his work. At this very moment the door swung open and John stormed in. He threw his schoolbag from the entrance to the end of the classroom and started wildly running around the desks. While passing by the teacher, he snatched Bradley's notebook from her hands and threw it out of the window. After that, he ran to his spot, sat down and froze.

"I see, I see, one of your well-planned tricks again!" the teacher exploded. "Bradley, here is a piece of paper and I would ask you to do the work again since I have no reason to believe you actually did it. John, you missed the theoretical part of the lesson and will have to read two paragraphs in your textbook before you can start with your assignment".

Bradley took a piece of paper from the teacher and started to re-create his work. At first he almost started to argue, but then thought better of it. He had no idea what happened in school and what those individuals whom everybody thought to be him and Megan manage to accomplish here on their behalf. The teacher did not expect Bradley to start doing the assignment and was very surprised to see that he was doing it. John, however, continued to sit there completely motionless.

"John, I told you to start reading your textbook", the teacher reminded him trying to not lose her composure.

But John did not move. Bradley expected the teacher to explode again and scold John, but to his surprise, she sat down at her desk. "It must be easier that John is just sitting in his place instead of doing something wild again and distracting everyone else", Bradley thought to himself, raising his eyebrow to look at the teacher without stopping to write. She was sitting there staring away from John.

When Bradley finished with the assignment, he went to the teacher and gave her the piece of paper. At the same moment John jumped up, ran with unfathomable speed to the teacher's desk and snatched Bradley's assignment right out of her hand. He made a little paper ball out of it and threw it right out the window. Then quickly returned to his desk and froze.

Bradley could not take it anymore. He followed John and started to punch him without looking where he was hitting. John started to fight back. A couple chairs were turned over, and desks were moved out of their places. The teacher called the principal. Bradley and John were taken out of the classroom, and had to sit in the principal's office until their parents arrived and picked them up. "This is not good", Bradley was thinking to himself as his father had a lengthy conversation with the principal. The conversation took some dangerous turns from which Bradley gathered that if this behavior continued, he would be suspended. "But it was not my fault!" Bradley thought in despair. "I did the assignment twice already, and this fellow, whoever he is, just would not leave me alone!" In the car on the way home his father told him he was on restriction for a week, dropped him at home and went back to work. In the evening, he said, they were going to have a very serious conversation.

Getting restriction for a week messed up Bradley's plans completely concerning talking his father into going to the surfing competition on Saturday. If before there was a slight chance of convincing his father that his behavior changed, now for sure his father would not go for it. When his dad left, Bradley went to check if Dustin was home. Luckily for Bradley, his brother was in his room working on a project.

"Dustin, please no jokes", Bradley raised his hand giving his brother a warning. "I need to talk to you seriously".

"Really?" Dustin asked sarcastically. "Do you wonder what happens when you get kicked out of school?"

"I asked you, Dustin. This is much more serious than that", continued Bradley. "Did you notice anything weird about us that started to happen, well, so to speak, all of a sudden? We did not change gradually, did we?"

Dustin didn't respond right away. Bradley was relieved when Dustin put aside his screwdriver and turned his chair around to face him. This indicated that Dustin admitted that the matter was serious.

"You are right", Dustin finally said out loud after a few minutes of silence during which Bradley was scared that his brother would change his mind. "One day the principal called from school and told Mom and Dad that you were out of control. Then you were out of control ever since".

"Do you believe it was us?" Bradley asked.

"Who else could it be? Don't be silly, Bradley. Better explain what went wrong with you".

"That's the thing, Dustin. These were not us. Remember I slipped a couple of weird phrases in the car on the way from the airport that made you think I was nuts?" and Bradley told him the story about the land of the Unknowns.

Bradley could not hope that Dustin would accept the whole story as truth right away. But he was expecting that his brother would not believe that Bradley actually had enough imagination to make it all up. When Bradley finished talking, Dustin appeared to be convinced that it was all true. He said to Bradley, "I agree, it was not like you at all. John, also. Especially if he is still back there. I can't believe that what happened in school today could actually happen to you and John".

"Thank you, Dustin. Can you help us to convince our parents?"

"I don't think I could", Dustin said doubtfully. "It seems to me that we need proof. I am not much older than you, you know", he added. "You know adults, they always tend to think that we, kids, make things up".

Bradley nodded. "The teacher today also didn't believe me. Hence the trouble. The supposed John took my assignment from the teacher twice and threw it out the window".

"All right, pal. I believe Megan is going to be back any moment now. Let me have a few minutes with her, all right?"

"You don't trust me still, do you?" asked Bradley.

"I do, I do", Dustin tried to convince him. "I just have a few questions for her".

At this moment Bradley heard the door bang downstairs and realized that Megan was back from school. Bradley left Dustin's room and went to his own; Dustin went downstairs to talk to Megan.

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### Acknowledgements.

This book would not be possible without the generous contribution of many people. First and foremost, I thank my family for their support and patience during the times when I was writing this book on the weekends. Thanks to my husband, Todd, my daughter, Marie, and my beta readers for giving me constructive feedback, based on which significant improvements to the book were made. I would like to thank my sister, Elena Kochetkova, for creating a draft of the cover design, and Paul Dean Coker for designing the cover professionally. Thanks to you, my dear reader, for taking your time to read this book. If you liked it, I hope you consider reading another book about the adventures of Bradley and Megan, "The World of the Unknowns: The Rescue".

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