A Question of Will (17 page)

He was still brooding when Angel entered the room, so mellowed at the thought of his family that he barely noticed her miraculous entry through the wall of the room. Whether it was his mental funk or the human mind’s rapid adaptability, he simply accepted the oddity and treated it as his new reality. Angel had the effect of brightening his mood, however, and his mild depression ceased as she walked toward him, smiling. Perhaps one day she’d tell him how she accomplished that feat.

“You’re sitting up!” she exclaimed. “I take it you’ve found your injuries are adequately healed?” She arched an eyebrow, combining that with a knowing smile.

He grinned sheepishly, finding it difficult to remain remorseful against her irrepressible cheer. “Consider this doubting Thomas an official convert. I’ll try to be somewhat less skeptical in the future.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because everything you learn from this point forward will test your skepticism like never before.” She pulled two chairs from around the other side of the table-like bed. They were a deep burgundy red, and appeared solid, with no cushioning visible. How had he missed them as he was standing up and walking around? The color alone should be noticeable in this room of nothing but white. He moved to one of the chairs and sat down, and Angel joined him.

He looked at her a bit more closely. Her hair was shoulder-length, a vibrant red that was shocking. Her face was round and cherubic, highlighted by friendly violet eyes that seemed to possess an eternal twinkle. Her skin was smooth and unlined. She was tall, nearly matching Will’s own six foot stature. She wore a deep green body suit that reminded him vaguely of those worn by ship crews on TV shows he’d watched as a child, shows about future missions into space. He glanced down at himself, and noticed that his attire was similar in style, though it was a bright white instead of the deep green Angel wore.

“Are you a witch?” he asked.

She blinked, startled. “What?”

“Are. You. A. Witch?”

She frowned. “What on earth would make you think that I’m a witch?” Then she burst out laughing. “Sorry for that, but your question is very amusing to me. I’m curious, though. Why do you ask if I’m a witch?”

His face reddened. “I’m not trying to offend you, trust me. All of you have done more for me than I deserve, or can ever repay. But it’s not just you, it’s Fil and...I don’t think I caught the other man’s name...?”

“Adam.”

“Right, Adam, too. All three of you. Everything I’ve seen and experienced, right since I was about to be killed by those men...it’s beyond my understanding how everything happened. I know I promised to keep an open mind, but I keep thinking about it, and I can’t explain
any
of it. The only explanation I can come up with is magic, and I don’t
believe
in magic.”

Angel grinned. “I thought you were going to keep an open mind? What if I
am
a witch?”

He smiled, unable to resist. “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”

Angel chuckled. “Neither, actually. I’m so accustomed to everything in our community that it’s difficult for me to see it from another perspective. I imagine many things seemed quite magical to you. Giving you a vial of liquid to drink that cured all of your injuries didn’t help matters, did it?”

“It would have been worse if steam was coming off of it, or I’d seen you stirring it up in a cauldron.”

She laughed. “Good point. But no, to answer your question, none of what you’ve seen is magic. There are a couple of things we’ve learned how to do — our group, that is — that are highly advanced. Our friends in the other group think it makes them almost a new species of superhuman. In fact...by any chance did they use the word
human
as a sort of put-down?”

He frowned. “I think so.”

Angel nodded. “To them, that’s exactly what it is. We are super humans, the Aliomenti, and everyone else is just human. We’re better, they’re lesser life forms. That type of attitude. If you call a Hunter a human, he’s likely to forget his vow not to kill you, because they perceive it as so great an insult.” She paused. “They didn’t think you were human though, did they? But they did think your wife was.”

He nodded. “They were really shocked about my having a son, too. Why is that?”

“The Aliomenti swear four Oaths before being admitted, before receiving the knowledge we’re going to share with you. I’ll tell you more about them later, but the fourth says that you will not have any children, and it’s tradition that new members undergo various routines to make sure the Oath can’t be violated.” She sighed. “The real reason most of them do it is because the penalty for violating that Oath...well, that’s why they stopped trying to capture you alive and openly tried to kill you.”

Will felt his jaw drop, and he stared at her in silence. “They
kill
you if you have a child?”

She nodded, somber. “There’s a story behind it, and as you learn more you’ll probably get an understanding of why the Oath was implemented, but...I agree, it’s quite a stupid rule.”

“My wife, my son...they were killed because of that Oath as well, weren’t they?”

Angel’s face turned grim. “You’re getting me off topic, but yes, a violation of one of the Oaths was the reason why they were targeted. To them, you violated the Oath against having children, and so you and your son had to die. To them, you violated the Oath against marrying a human woman, and so
she
had to die. Had they not discovered your son, they would merely have arrested and detained you for many decades.”

Will slammed a fist into his chair. “This is
stupid
! Four people are dead, and I was beaten and nearly killed, by a group that makes people swear an Oath not to get married and have children?”

Angel grasped his hand. “Mr. Stark, I agree with you. The Oaths have been horribly modified since they were first created, and those Elites who enforce them today do so out of a sense of fear and a desire to retain and enhance their own power in the world. That’s why our group was formed.”

Will stared at her intently. “You seek to destroy these people?”

“We seek to
change
them, and defend those they would harm. We do not seek to destroy. The vast majority of those who are part of the original group do not care for these methods, but are content with their own lives and do not wish to see that change, so they say nothing. They are cowards, not evil people. We actively recruit them to our point of view, and we have made a great deal of progress, but we are still greatly outnumbered, and the Hunters are extremely proficient at finding those we have converted to our way of thinking, and then returning them to their original group against their will.”

“How many have they caught?

“Our numbers are only as high as they are because we directly recruit humans to our side, and the Hunters don’t know who they are. As for Aliomenti who’ve switched to our side...well, they’ve gotten every single one they’ve gone after. Except one.”

Will looked at the floor. Him. They’d gotten everyone they’d ever gone after except for him. Or, more to the point, the man they
thought
they were attacking that night, a man with the same name.

He looked back at Angel. “Teach me. Tell me what I can do to fight those people, to stop them.”

Angel nodded. “Let me give you some basics. Our core organization began over a thousand years ago, started by a land baron who wanted to figure out why the serfs working his land were so often sick and died so young. He recruited a group of younger people from his land, and charged them with figuring this out. They went one step further, and figured out how to become quite healthy, avoiding most sicknesses, and generally being better able to live a longer, happier life, to grow as a person. They merged together a few Latin words that loosely translate as
personal growth
and coined the phrase Aliomenti.”

“And they’re still around a thousand years later. I think I’ve seen this on late night infomercials.”

Angel smiled. “Not quite the same thing. The land baron thanked them and tried to send them back to their farms, but they revolted, ran away, and made camp in the wilds of England. Over time, they developed many unique abilities, based around the ability to create and manipulate what we call Energy, and that helped them to become very rich and very powerful, and that wealth and power has grown to this very day.”

“Sounds intriguing. Where do we get to the part about killing children?”

Angel frowned. “Let’s just say that there were events in their history which caused huge devastation to the group, and they overreacted by banning anyone from engaging in the activities they thought were the root cause, through the Oaths. And yes, some of those events evolved around a marriage and a child, and the trauma that came from it nearly destroyed the entire group and all of the members.”

Will scowled. “Still, killing children? Banning people in love from getting married? Wouldn’t they have learned their lesson over time and figured out something new?”

Angel sighed. “Memories last a long time in this group.”

Will just shook his head. He couldn’t conceive of anything happening that could possibly justify such a response.

“Over time, members of the group began to rebel against the harsher aspects of the Oaths. They left the Aliomenti community, which over the years evolved into a massive series of hidden estates in some of the most beautiful lands on Earth, and they instead lived in small groups of isolated cells, bound together by a common mission. We would live in and around human communities, using our skills to influence them subtly. The idea was to help them develop the skills and technologies we had already developed, at a pace that was reasonable and safe, while avoiding the attention of the core group of Aliomenti. These people referred to themselves as the Alliance, and current members include the three people who brought you here. It’s tricky work, and we must be careful about revealing too much, too quickly. If we showed them everything we’re capable of immediately, they’d burn us at the stake if they could catch us.”

Will laughed. “I thought you said you weren’t a witch? What could you possibly show them that would cause that reaction?”

Angel smiled at him. “I’m not a witch.”

She vanished.

What the...? Where in the world did she go?

“I’m right behind you.”

He spun. But she was...

“...right in front of you and then I vanished. Yes. About ten percent of Aliomenti develop enough Energy to perform teleportation, and a smaller percentage can travel for long distances in that manner. I happen to be one of them.”

Will’s face was frozen in shock. She lied to me. She’s a witch. I’m getting turned into a toad for sure.

“Heavens no, you’d look dreadful as a toad. And I couldn’t do that anyway. As I said, I’m not a witch, and this isn’t magic. But do you understand now why we’re rather cautious about such displays of Energy manipulation around those who aren’t aware of our existence?”

Will couldn’t think. She could read his mind. He was completely terrified of her.

“I’ll take that as a yes. You don’t have to be terrified of me, though. The men you want to destroy or slow down can do this too, Mr. Stark. You’ll learn to do the same in time. But you must trust us, as difficult as it can be in the face of the unknown. Now, are you still mostly concerned about my walking through the wall?”

Suddenly, he could do nothing but laugh. He fell out of the chair and onto the clear floor, rolling around, laughing with such intensity that tears formed in his eyes. The absurdity of everything that was happening to him had finally burst forth. He finally finished a few moments later, but remained on the floor, unwilling — or possibly unable, he wasn’t sure which — to bother to climb back into the chair.

“Mr. Stark, as I’ve noted we use something called Energy. It is a force, something like fire, something like electricity, generated by the human body, within every human cell. The Aliomenti learn to sense and grow and control this Energy, sometimes to a phenomenal degree. It is what enables me to do things like read your thoughts and emotions, and even influence them. Do you notice that you’re calm around me? I send Energy to you with calming thoughts, and you feel that. My mind is able to hear thoughts and sense emotions from others. I’ve developed quite a bit of Energy capacity and creation capability over time, and that’s why I can teleport. And there’s another thing I can do.”

Will felt pleasant warmth surrounding him as he lay on the floor, listening to her speak. She was telling him it was science, the basic electrical signals the body used to fire synapses in its cells, but to a massively larger degree, enabling powers he’d only suspect to see in one who practiced magic. But magic didn’t exist. And this warmth...it was solidifying around him, surrounding him like a warm glove, and he was gently raised off the floor, rotated slowly in the air, and deposited back into his chair. The warmth left him.

“I can do that as well. And we can teach you to do the same, Mr. Stark. The Hunters can do these things. There are many other Aliomenti who would like to see our group eliminated, and those men and women can do these things as well. Will you allow us to help you achieve your potential?”