CHAPTER FIVE
He was dreaming. A huge shadowy creature was dragging him down a tunnel, away from his prison cell… but the place beyond the tunnel was much worse. It was full of darkness and despair and he could hear Kevin calling to him, but when he shouted back, his cousin hadn’t heard him and had just continued to call and call, while he screamed and screamed….
CHAPTER SIX Justin followed the emperor into the new room. It was circular in shape and screens and consoles adorned the smooth walls. A low pitched hum filled the air. In the centre of the room were two jagged strips of metal, about two metres apart from each other, and pointing upwards. The tops of the two pieces curved inwards slightly so that they formed an archway. A few blue flashes of electricity buzzed between the two metal poles. Justin looked at the archway curiously.
Brian awoke screaming in terror. He gasped as eyes took in the site of his cell. It was actually a relief… anything was better than that dark world he had just been in.
He attempted to sit up but the whole cell spun crazily and all of his breath left him. He groaned and returned to lying upon the floor, shivering and sweating. He felt dizzy and nauseous and it was difficult to breathe properly. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the awful nightmare or because of the other needle he had been given.
Soon after Zator and Justin had left him, another man had entered the cell. He had pinned Brian to the wall and produced a needle from the pocket of his long, black coat. Brian had tried his hardest to kick the enemy away from him but his body had still been weak from Justin’s injection and so it had been only a small challenge for the man to jab him in the neck with the syringe. After that moment, Brian’s nightmare had taken over. He shuddered at the memory of it.
Trembling, he curled himself up into a ball. He wished that he could sleep again, this time without the dream. If he was asleep than he would not be able to feel the pain in his head, but he felt too cold and sick to fall asleep.
He wondered about the other Backstreet Boys. Were they looking for him? Or had N*Sync gotten to them already? Did they know how dangerous their rivals had become?
A shiver shook his aching body and he moaned slightly. He had never felt so scared in his life. What was Zator going to do with him?
“Guys, please hurry, please,” he whispered.
**************************
The bus drew up outside the new hotel. Reporters were waiting outside along with a hundred or more excited fans.
“Oh great this is all we need,” AJ mumbled. “I thought we were going to keep where we were staying a secret?”
“There’s gotta be a leak somewhere,” Kevin said.
“Alright, guys get your stuff. You’ll be staying here for a few days. Security will be tight though, I’m afraid, but that’s for the best,” Daniel, their security guard said.
The Backstreet Boys exchanged looks. Tight security meant that they would not be able to leave their hotel rooms without someone accompanying them. How were they ever going to get away long enough to help Brian?
The boys slowly grabbed their bags and belongings. Nick found his eyes drawn to Brian’s backpack, which had been left upon his bunk, and felt tears prick his eyes. What if Brian never came back?
“Nick,” AJ said, gently.
Nick shouldered his bag and followed his friends out of the bus. As soon as they were outside, cameras began flashing and reporters yelled for information.
“Is it true Brian Littrell has been kidnapped?”
“Do the police have any suspects?”
“How is this going to affect your careers?”
Nick felt like punching every single reporter. Couldn’t they see that they were upset about the whole situation and didn’t want to talk about it? Were they all so selfish that all they cared about was a good story?
The boys ignored every question that was thrown at them. Not that it mattered of course. By tomorrow morning the press would already have made up their own stories regarding Brian. Nick clenched his fists as he thought of some of the lies that would probably be in tomorrow’s papers.
The security guards led the Backstreet Boys away from the shouts and the screaming fans and into the quiet sanctuary of the hotel.
As they disappeared into the building, a lonely figure watched them carefully from an empty alley, away from all of the crowds.
The amount of people around and the security would make sneaking into the hotel difficult, but not impossible…
***********************
Justin followed the bulbous shaped droid down the long, winding corridor. Zator had asked for Justin to come and see him and had sent the huge robot to show him to his office.
The first time Justin had walked along the corridors of Zator’s ship he had been bursting with curiosity and excitement. Everything had been so sleek and futuristic.
Now the corridors were just monotonous and made Justin think about how trapped he was. The rusty red robots that wondered the ship, presumably performing some important purpose, no longer filled Justin with wonder but with fear. They could easily have snapped Justin’s neck in a second in their big claw like hands…
The droid guided Justin through a doorway and into a crowded room. There were at least a dozen consoles and hunched over them were Zator’s crew. Not one head looked up as Justin was led across the room. He wondered if all Zophacian ships were run as strictly as this one.
The droid excited through a doorway on the far side of the room and Justin followed obediently. On the other side of the door, a Zophacian was repairing a damaged panel upon the wall. The worker looked up at him for a brief second and Justin saw the fear and weariness in the alien’s face. Quickly, the worker returned to the panel but the look Justin had seen in his eyes unnerved him. Were all of Zator’s crew as devoid of hope as this one was?
At the end of the corridor the droid stopped outside of another doorway. It stood to one side and Justin assumed that this was were Zator was. He pushed the panel to open the door with a sweaty palm.
Why am I nervous? Zator’s a good guy and he’s my friend? It’s the Backstreet Boys who are evil, Justin told himself.
The door zipped open. Zator was waiting on the other side.
“Ah, Justin. Come in. I have something to show you.”
“That is what I wanted you to see, Justin,” Zator said, seeing the interested look upon the young man’s face. “These two metal strips form the ‘gateway’. At the moment, it is closed but if I transfer enough power to it then a portal will be opened.”
“Portal?” Justin asked blankly, not understanding more than a word of what Zator said.
“Watch.” Zator took Brian’s amulet from a nearby desk and carried it over to a console. There were six grooves upon the panel. Zator placed the amulet into the first of the grooves. It fit into place with a click. Immediately, the flashes of electricity between the sides of the gateway increased.
“With enough power I will be able to open a portal or a doorway to the Daori dimension, where the Backstreet Boys came from. If I send them back then they will never be able to escape from it.”
“But they escaped once,” Justin pointed out.
“Yes, it was my fault. I created a very powerful energy source and I was able to open a doorway to another dimension. Before I could stop them, five Daorians came through. They stole the amulets and then escaped to your planet. I tried to send them back, but my original energy source was destroyed. With the power of the amulets, though, I will be able to re-open the doorway and the Backstreet Boys will never trouble anyone again.”
“What’s their own dimension like?”
“It is an evil realm full of some of the most hideous beings you could ever imagine, even worse than the Daorians.”
Justin touched the amulet. “There are six grooves. Are there six amulets?”
“Yes. The Backstreet Boys had five of them and my daughter, Zanell,” he said, almost spitting the name. “has the sixth amulet. I need all of them to open the portal.”
“How are we going to get the other amulets?”
“I think it’s about time we contacted the Backstreet Boys to discuss that matter, don’t you?”
********************
AJ stared at the newspaper in front of him in disgust. As Nick had predicted, the press were making up their own sick little stories about what had happened to Brian. This one claimed that he had eloped with Kevin’s wife.
He screwed it up and threw it into the bin with the others. They really didn’t have a clue what was happening …
Nick paced up and down the hotel room. Every now and again he would gaze out of the window before blurting put an insane idea for a rescue attempt.
“I’ve got it!” he said, suddenly.
AJ sighed. Nick had thought every plan of his was brilliant and some of them may have been good but there was only one problem…
“Nick, I keep telling you it’s no use. What are we going to do? Ask NASA if we can borrow a spaceship?”
“Well at least I’m trying to think of something!” Nick snapped. “ Rather than sitting around like you guys!”
“Nick, that’s not fair! We’re all worried sick about Brian and you know it! How do you think Kevin feels? But at the moment we can’t do anything. We’re just gonna have to wait for Zator to contact us again.”
Nick sat down beside AJ with his head in his hands.
“It’s been three days, why hasn’t he been in touch? What if he’s killed-”
“Don’t talk like that! If he hurts Brian then he’ll have nothing to black mail us with! He won’t kill him because Brian is worth more alive than dead at the moment.” AJ said, begging that it was true.
AJ stood up and patted Nick’s shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll think of something, Nick. For now we just have to wait. Try not to get so worked up, that’s what Zator wants.”
Nick nodded. “I think I might try and get some sleep,” he said.
“Yeah, me too. I’ll be in my room if you need me,” AJ said.
Nick didn’t look up but he heard the click as AJ shut the door behind him. Slowly, he stood up and looked out of the window. “If only we had a spaceship,” he murmured.
“That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Nick spun around in shock to find himself face to face with a beautiful girl with dark red hair. Her bright blue eyes twinkled.
“Zanell!” Nick cried, throwing his arms around her.
Zanell smiled and returned his warm embrace.
“How’d you get in here? There’s a security guard just outside this room!”
“Easy,” Zanell replied, clasping her amulet with both hands. “The power inside the amulet helped me to sneak inside without being seen.”
“I missed you,” Nick said, clasping both of her hands.
“I missed you too, Nick, but we don’t have time for this,” she said, gently unclasping his hands from her own. “There’s more important things to be done.”
Before she could say any more. There was a knock at the door. Nick quickly looked for a place where Zanell could hide.
Unfortunately, the only place he could think of was his wardrobe. Frantically, he opened the door and pushed her inside.
“Nick!” she protested.
“Ssshh! Just stay in here until whoever it is has gone!” Nick whispered, shutting the door on her.
Then he calmed his excited nerves and opened the door. “Howie!” he said. “Where are the other guys?”
“In their rooms. Why?”
“Get them. We need to have a little talk.”
Howie looked confused but went to fetch Kevin and AJ. Nick smiled at his security guard beside the doorway.
“Something wrong?” the guard asked.
“No, I just need to talk to them.”
Howie returned with the Aj and Kevin. Nick ushered them into his room.
“What’s going on?” Kevin asked, as Nick locked the doors behind them
.
Nick didn’t answer. Instead he opened the doors to his wardrobe. A startled Zanell slowly stepped out.
“Zanell!” Howie said. “When did you arrive?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” she replied.
“And how long have you been hiding her in your wardrobe, Nick?” AJ asked.
Nick rolled his eyes.
“We don’t have time for this,” Zanell said. “Brian’s in mortal danger.”
“Yes, Zator kidnapped him,” Kevin said.
“I know, my contact aboard my father’s ship told me. Apparently, Zator is planning something terrible for Brian.”
“What?”
“I don’t know and neither does my contact but we have to rescue him quickly. I hid my ship nearby so we can use that to get to my father’s ship. But there’s another problem as well. My father has some spies on Earth, a band like yourselves.”
“What?! Who are they?” Nick said.
“It’s-”
There was a knock at the door.
“Guys,” said the voice of Nick’s security guard. “Justin Timberlake is here to see you.”