****
Liberty.
"What's going on?" Jake called up to her, but Hava was too focused on the glass doors in the torch to acknowledge him.
She reached up with her other hand and grasped the other loose panel so that she could both balance herself and open the doors. For a moment, she lost her balance and she heard Josh gasp, but she was able to right herself and turn her attention back to the inside of the torch. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and her heart was pounding so hard it seemed to tremble in the base of her throat.
The original electrical arcs placed inside the torch more than a century before were no longer there. Instead, she saw what looked like a ball of light emanating from the center. When she held her hand in front of it, however, there was no reflection of the light off of her skin and it did not seem to be pouring out of the torch as she would expect it would.
"Do you guys see any light coming out of the torch?" she asked, not looking back at them.
"No. That thing hasn't lit up in about 100 years."
"That's what I thought, too."
Hava adjusted her hands so that she grabbed the bottom edge of the torch and jumped, pulling herself up into the torch despite the shouts from Jake and Josh below. As soon as she straightened inside the torch she saw that what she saw as a ball of light seemed more like a faintly glowing orange disc that appeared to sink down in the middle like a whirlpool. She heard Josh and Jake scrambling up the sides of the metal base of the torch, but she was so enraptured by the disc that she didn't even turn to watch them drag themselves into the space with her.
"What the hell is that?" Josh asked when they had gotten inside.
Hava looked up at him.
"You don't know?"
"No. I didn't even know you could climb through the glass and get in here."
"I don't think anybody does," Jake said, flattening his hand on one of the glass panels and pulling it away to reveal a layer of dust, "It doesn't seem like anyone has been in here for a very long time."
"What do you think it could be?" Hava asked.
Without waiting for an answer, she reached forward. She intended to place her fingertips on the edge of the disc, but instead felt like someone had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her harshly into the whirlpool center of the glow.
Hava tried to resist the yanking feeling, reaching back to try to grasp anything that would allow her to stay in place. Her fingers brushed against Josh's hand and she heard his voice call her name, but it sounded like it was coming to her through water. Cold air rushed past her and a vibrant swirl of colors went past her eyes so quickly she couldn't see anything else.
She no longer felt the floor beneath her feet and suddenly it seemed like there were walls closing in on either side of her. In a matter of seconds, she felt herself hit the ground hard, pain shooting up through her knees as she made contact with a metal floor. She gasped for breath and tried to stand, but something hit her in the back, sending her forward so she sprawled on her belly across the floor with her face only inches from what looked like a pair of heavily studded black boots.
She heard a groan that sounded like Josh and she pushed back, forcing the weight on her back off her so that she could roll over. Josh and Jake lay on the floor, crumpled as if they hit the ground with the same hard intensity that she had and were trying to recover from the shock.
"Who are you?" a deep, growling voice demanded.
Hava turned her eyes sharply back to the studded boots and then let them travel up along tight black pants, a studded belt, and a chiseled, smooth body that made her bite down on her bottom lip despite the fear and confusion rolling through her.
"Who are you? Where did you come from?" the voice demanded again, louder and more aggressive this time.
The force behind the words had what she suspected was the opposite effect of what the speaker had intended, filling her with anger instead of fear. She climbed to her feet, ignoring the pain in her legs and hands, and lifted her face to confront the man. As she did, the breath caught in her throat and she took an involuntary step back.
Standing still and strong, the man appeared to be nearly a foot taller than Hava and carved out of marble. His body rippled with muscle and his stance told her that he was not frightened by their sudden appearance. What had startled her, though, was his face.
A black mask concealed his face, covering from the top of his head down to his neck with what looked like smooth, dark leather. The mask only closed over the front of his face and connected at the back of his head with a series of strings tied together. Hava could see a thick, dark ponytail running along the back of his neck and settled into the curve of his neck and shoulder.
"You aren't supposed to be here," the man snarled, "We are supposed to receive a transmission from 1776. How did you get here?"
His words swirled around her in a confusing cloud. She tried to sift through them, but she wasn't understanding what he was saying to her.
"What do you mean a transmission?" she asked.
"How did you get here?" he demanded again, his voice becoming angrier and more frantic each time he spoke.
"We climbed into the torch of the Statue of Liberty."
She felt dumb with the words coming out of her mouth, but it was the only explanation she could give him.
"That portal is not supposed to be open yet. How did you get through it?"
"Portal? I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't mean to go through anything."
"You have to go back."
Hava turned and saw her friends staring at the wall. Josh flattened his hand against it, but it didn't move.
"The wall is solid, Hava."
She turned back to the man and pointed behind her at the wall. The fear that she had forced away with her anger was creeping back and the look of the mask on the man's face was causing it to ripple down her neck and coil in the center of her chest.
"There's no door. How are we supposed to get back?"
The man suddenly took a long stride forward and Hava moved out of his way. He touched his hand to the wall in several places and then balled his fists and slammed them into the surface, letting out an angry sound as he did.
"The portal sealed itself. It's like it doesn't exist."
"How is that possible? We just came through it. It has to exist."
"That's not necessarily the case. That portal was not meant to open for another fifty years, which means that it didn't exist when you came through it and it seems to have ceased to exist again. The question is, though, whether it is just the portal that doesn't exist, or its vessel."