The Tower (31 page)

“It’s uncommon, but not unheard of, for people to gain more than one power at the same time. Three is admittedly quite rare, but Cindy told me you would never let Alia do this alone.”

I reflexively glanced at Alia, who was still quietly looking at me. I gave my sister a quick smile before turning back toward Mr. Baker, saying, “Cindy’s right. But is this finder really going to think that Alia and I are the same person?”

Cindy was the one who replied, “When you and Alia are in the same room, even I can’t tell your powers apart.”

I asked Mr. Baker, “How do you know your target Angel will even come? He might send someone else, like a berserker or something.”

“We believe he is the only finder in his settlement skilled enough to sense a child psionic, so he will have to come in person,” answered Mr. Baker. “As for the others, there are no controllers among them. Not one.”

I still didn’t like the idea of Alia and me being put in this house without any guard. I asked, “Why are your Knights hiding in a separate house?”

“Because we can’t put a hiding bubble over the one you’re in without hiding you as well.”

“But Cindy could give each Knight individual hiding protection,” I pointed out.

“True,” said Cindy, “but if you stand too close to a person who has his own hiding bubble, you end up hidden too. We don’t want to risk the Angels becoming suspicious if your power phases on and off.”

“Why do you need Alia?” I demanded. “Why can’t it just be me?”

“It could,” replied Mr. Baker, “but you are merely a telekinetic. Your, um, sister, is a healer. Pardon my bluntness, Adrian, but she is worth more than you.”

Healers, I already knew, were exceptionally rare among psionics. I didn’t mind Alia being “worth more” than me, but it still burned me a little to be called “merely a telekinetic.”

“You’re a healer, Mr. Baker,” I said, remembering hearing that when we first met. “Why can’t it be you in that house?”

“Again, it can. But for a mission of this importance, we really would prefer a child. You see, a child psionic gives off a unique signature that any adept finder could identify. For the Angels, a child would be worth far more in conversion, and a child would also be harder for the Angel finder to pinpoint.”

Mr. Baker gave me a few seconds to respond, and when I didn’t, he added, “Besides, we plan to intercept the Angels long before they reach your house. We’ll spring the trap outside of the town. All you and Alia have to do is live in the house for a few days and leave everything else to us.”

“That sounds almost too good to be true,” I said wryly.

“Ah, but it is true,” insisted Mr. Baker. “I give you my word on that.”

“And who’s going to be living with Alia and me while we’re out there?” I asked, running out of challenges to Mr. Baker’s plan.

“Father Parnell, for starters,” said Mr. Baker. “We want at least one adult there to pose as a parent and avoid local suspicion. But to guarantee your security, I am also planning to ask Terry once she gets back from school today.”

“And you’re sure that there are no controllers?” I asked.

Mr. Baker nodded. “Positive.”

I looked at my sister again. She hadn’t said anything during the entire conversation, and her expression was impossible to read. I wondered how much of this she really understood. I had underestimated her comprehension before, but still, this was a bit different. This wouldn’t be Alia’s first time to face danger, but never had she willingly walked into it.

I thought back to how Cindy had suggested that I not join the Guardians, and how I had answered that I owed them for my freedom. Was I going to go back on that promise, now that they actually needed me to do something mildly risky? And after all, how dangerous could it be, when Cindy herself had agreed to draft Alia into it?

I also thought about my first sister. If capturing this Angel finder could really lead the Guardians to killing Master Number Two, then there would be no one left to reconvert Cat when Larissa Divine finally died. Killing the younger master before she succeeded Queen Divine wasn’t the least bit fair, but it was no less fair than what had happened to my own family. If by Number Two’s death, my lost sister could be saved, then that was reason enough for me to join this mission. After all, I wasn’t being asked to directly kill anyone, and this wouldn’t be the first time I had helped others to kill.

“Are you satisfied now?” asked Mr. Baker, breaking into my thoughts.

I asked, “Is Ralph coming?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s one thing to be satisfied about,” I said dryly.

Mr. Baker laughed, and I slowly nodded, sighing as I said, “Alright, we’ll go. When is the Angel gathering?”

“Next week. We want to be set up in the next two days so that we’ll be ready when this Angel unit begins to move. That means we leave late tonight.”

After Mr. Baker left, Cindy spent most of the day in the living room powering her hiding bubble over New Haven. When I asked if it would be enough to last a whole week, she answered that it was highly unlikely, but that Mr. Baker had agreed to the temporary risk involved in letting New Haven’s shield down.

We told Terry about the mission as soon as she returned from school. It was hard to read her reaction. She seemed excited at finally being allowed on a real Guardian mission, but also disturbed about something, like she was at odds with some conflicting emotions. Perhaps she felt she was being patronized, being given a babysitting mission like this when she would rather have joined the Knights’ ambush team.

“Listen,” said Terry, “I want to sort some stuff out in my uncle’s place, so I’ll be gone for a while, okay?”

“Sure, Terry,” said Cindy. “But all you’re going to need is some clothes.”

“I like to be extra prepared,” answered Terry, leaving us to do our packing.

Terry didn’t return in time for dinner, and at around 7pm, Cindy asked me to go knock on Terry’s condo to see what was taking her so long. I got her room number, 0403, and took the elevator down to the fourth floor. I both knocked and rang the doorbell several times, but got no answer.

Guessing that Terry might have gone down to the dojo for some last minute training, I went looking for her there. The dojo was empty, so next I went to the shooting range. There was only one woman there, and when I asked her, she told me that she and Terry had come down the elevator together.

“So where’d she go?” I asked.

“To the dojo, I think,” the woman answered.

I returned to the dojo once more to double-check, but it was just as empty as it had been minutes ago. Starting to get worried, I headed back up to the fortieth floor. I was going to ask Cindy to telephone Terry’s condo, but when I arrived at the penthouse, I found Terry already back.

“Where were you?!” I demanded, my mounting frustration over this whole business making me even more cranky than usual.

Terry uncharacteristically ignored my tone and answered civilly, “Well, I did my packing, and then I went to the dojo to work out.”

“I was just in the dojo, Terry. You weren’t there.”

“Oh, you must have just missed me,” said Terry, shrugging. “I finished my workout with a jog around the block. I figured if we were going to be cooped up in some old house for a few days, I really wanted to stretch my legs a bit first.”

I continued staring at her, and she finally admitted in an exasperated tone, “If you
must
know, Adrian, I went to say goodbye to a few of my school friends. You never know how a mission is going to turn out, after all.”

“Oh, that’s very comforting,” I said sarcastically.

Terry smiled. “Still, this certainly beats hanging back and watching other people shipping off on missions, don’t you think?”

“I’d rather watch,” I replied, knowing it would irritate her.

“Oh, that’s right. Boring is fun for you,” said Terry, shaking her head. “You are so totally uncool it’s not even funny, Adrian.”

I didn’t really believe that boredom was fun, of course, but it sure beat times like this. Even so, I realized that by accepting this mission, I was finally paying back some of my debt to the Guardians, and that part of it felt right.

Once we finished our packing, I asked Terry what “extra preparations” she had brought from downstairs. It turned out to be a pair of pistols and a long cylindrical stick. The stick, made of smooth red oak, was about four and a half feet long and slid neatly into a wooden sheath. The sheath came with a leather strap so that it could be worn on a person’s back.

“Let me guess... a jo stick?” I asked, pulling the stick halfway out of its sheath and examining it.

Terry nodded as she took it back from me. “Want to see how to use it?”

“Only if it doesn’t involve knocking me on my back with it.”

“Then how can I show you?” said Terry, giggling.

Now that Terry was back from her last minute training and goodbyes, she was all bubbly with excitement. I knew my combat instructor had been bitterly disappointed when Mr. Baker had refused to let her join the attack on the Psionic Research Center. After a lifetime of training, this would be Terry’s first real mission, and it looked like she had decided not to be too angry about her assigned role as den mother, but to make the best of it. At the same time, I both wished that I did, and was glad that I didn’t, share her enthusiasm.

Mr. Baker came up with Mark at about 11pm to collect us. Waking Alia, we went down to the basement parking lot together, where a motorcade consisting of five sedans and two vans was waiting for us.

We were directed to one of the vans, and Mark drove, with Mr. Baker sitting beside him up front. Cindy rode with Terry in the middle seat, and Alia and I got the back. Our van was set in the middle of the motorcade so that Cindy could easily keep all of the cars hidden.

Alia was quickly falling back asleep, and as she leaned heavily against my side, I wondered how she really felt about all this. It occurred to me that, to the best of my knowledge, no one, not even Cindy, had bothered to ask my sister if she really was willing to go along with this plan. Considering that Alia, a non-Guardian, was being asked to risk her life for them, it seemed rather unfair, but perhaps Cindy was just trying to keep from needlessly worrying her. I also thought again about how suddenly everything could change. It was only late this morning that I had learned about this mission, and here we were, crammed into a motorcade, heading into the unknown. This wasn’t the first time that my life had taken an unexpected turn, but that didn’t make it any easier.

The van was still moving when I woke early the next morning. Groggily opening my eyes, I knew I had just left the dream I had months ago dubbed the Assembly Dream. It was slightly clearer than before. This time, I could almost make out the faces of the men who were arguing with Terry. At least one of them, I suspected, wasn’t a soldier from the PRC as I had originally thought. Rather, it appeared that he was the gray-haired peacemaker who had tried to kidnap Alia and me last summer, and he might have been the one who mentioned the “assembly.” There was something about “the Gifford boy” again, and also something about being “too young.” No, the bit about being too young must have been from my thoughts about Alia last night. There had also been a brilliant flash of light. Where had that come from?

Alia, noticing that I was awake, turned to me and said into my head,
“Did you have a nice Terry-dream?”

I grimaced. It was embarrassing enough that I frequently woke up screaming. Why did I have to talk in my sleep as well? Cindy and Terry were still fast asleep on the van’s middle seat, and I wondered whether either of them had heard me last night. I sincerely hoped not. I didn’t want to worry Cindy any more than I already did, and I couldn’t bear to let Terry hear me saying her name in my sleep.

By the time the sun had risen enough for the sky to be blue, we were driving through a residential area on the edge of a small town. The houses lining the road were nearly identical two-stories, but many of them looked old and dilapidated, their gardens unkempt and overgrown with weeds. I guessed that this neighborhood was once much prettier, but in recent years had declined into borderline slum. It was probably no big task for the Guardians to rent houses around here at short notice.

Our two houses turned out to be diagonally across the street from each other. The motorcade would have been much too conspicuous in this neighborhood, so with the exception of one sedan for each house, we left the vehicles in a nearby rental parking lot. From there, we walked in small groups to our new hideout. During a rest stop last night, for which I hadn’t been woken, Cindy had given each Knight personal hiding protection so that they didn’t have to walk like a pack of tourists.