Kinetics: In Search of Willow (40 page)

"Be safe, Eugene. No
matter what you do, be safe."

"I know." I swallowed a lump in my
throat. I was in the lion's den now. I knew it was going to happen,
I knew what I was getting into, but now that I was here…

"How… how are Mom and Dad?"

"They're holding up
alright. Hey, whenever you see Wil—er your redheaded friend again,
let her know that her Mom's pregnant."

"Mrs. Patterson is
pregnant?"

"Yeah, three months. She's
gonna have a little brother or sister."

"Oh, man."

"Your mom and her have
been spending a lot of time together. I think the baby is the only
thing that's really keeping them sane since your disappearing
act."

I bit my lip and closed my eyes
against the heat building up in my tear ducts. "Tell her… tell her
I'm ok. Even if I'm not."

"I don't know."

"Please. Tell her I'm
okay."

"Alright. But your mom is
going to shoot me when she finds out I knew where you
went."

"Just don't tell Dad. I don't need him
sending out an army after me."

Nick laughed.
"Ok. But I can't promise that your mom won't tell
him."

"I know," I said, and gave my
goodbyes.

The other end clicked and Nick was
gone.

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry,
and placed the phone in the cradle.

I stepped back out into the hallway
where Ashwater was standing with his hands clasped behind his back
staring out one of the hallway windows. He looked over at me and
smiled. "Everything go well?"

I nodded and looked away hoping my
face didn't betray any of the anxiety I was feeling.

"Come. I will show you your room
assignment and then it will be time for Convocation." He patted my
shoulder and led me back out onto the base grounds toward the only
tall building in the base. He pointed at it. "That's the
dormitory."

Then he chuckled and smiled down at
me. "Jack insisted that I place you with him and Roy so that you
would have some familiar faces to help you out."

"Thanks… I guess." I adjusted the
glasses on my face and tried to memorize the route we were
walking.

"Not a problem, but don't let them
push you around too much." His grin widened. "Jack's got a lot of
passion and Roy is very stubborn, and with the two of them, it can
drive just about anyone up a wall."

Ashwater led me up four
levels of the dormitory and presented me with a key. The door that
he showed me was decorated with pictures of singers and video game
characters. Jack and Roy's names were written at the top in spray
painted stencil. Next to their names was a blue sticky note with
'
and Toshi'
 written on it.

I laughed at that and then opened the
door at Ashwater's insistence. He smiled, "I think my son is happy
to make more friends."

There was a bunk bed pushed up against
the wall near the door and a third, single bed to the right of a
window just past the bunks. A desk with a laptop sat in between the
bunks and the single bed. A couch sat in the middle of the room in
front of a TV.

"Homey," I commented.

Ashwater looked me up and down. "Did
you bring any luggage?"

I shook my head trying to not think of
the beacon buried under a bush.

"I'll see if we can arrange to get you
a couple changes of clothes from somewhere. Or we can make a trip
into town, if you like."

I nodded and looked around the room
awkwardly. I wasn't sure what to do here in a space that was
definitely not my own.

HARRY GLEESON

My first “scouting mission” was a
failure and so were the next three. But I learned a lot from them.
In between torture sessions that continued almost right after they
brought in Krino, I learned as much as I could.

Krino and I weren't the only prisoners
in the facility.

There were multiple rooms with people
in them, some were heavily sedated while others were locked up
tight in metal cells, glass cells, and interestingly enough cells
made like aquarium tanks. And it was quickly becoming clear what
the purpose of this place was.

On my third recon attempt I made it
out of my cell and into a conjoining hallway. It led to a place
with dozens of computer banks calculating parts of what looked like
the human genome. It was strange but when I saw a white dry erase
board with the words

POWERS ARE GENETICALLY
CONTROLLED?

NATURE vs
NURTURE?

I realized they were studying what
many had studied over the centuries: The origin of powers. But the
way in which they were going about it was brutal and inhumane. I
had to return to my cell when some of the guards and a couple
people in doctors coats walked through.

The fourth recon attempt got me almost
to an exterior exit and I was able the get the fact that I was in a
desert somewhere. I had gotten a small glimpse of the outside and
saw vast reaches of sagebrush.

My only problem up until now was that
I didn't have any source for my powers. They had long ago taken
away my Isiroan tech that allowed me to create illusions, so the
lack of water anywhere made it hard to really get far without
getting blindsided by some Alliance guard.

Krino seemed eternally amused by my
attempts. By the time I tried a fifth time to scout for information
he was rooting for me, gleefully shouting encouragement through the
cell much to my consternation.

I was caught on my sixth time out of
the cell. They dragged me back and sealed off the easiest way out
of the cell and recuffed my hands.

They might have wised up to some of my
tricks, but now I was planning something I hoped none of them could
really predict.

I had found multiple rooms, multiple
places with the ammunition I would need to really solidify my
escape, and the one place I needed to go was the room with the
aquarium tank where at least one other person was imprisoned in a
watery cage.

But I was also facing a problem. Along
with the cuffs, they had electrified the cage. One of my attempts
had involved cracking the lock on the cage with a piece of wood I
had broken off a drawer on a previous recon. I would have to wait
for the guards to take me away for my next shock treatment session.
So I waited.

Krino was watching me with interest
most of the time now. I had taken to ignoring him. I was more than
unsettled by the way he acted and talked. One of the guards, after
mentioning Krino's name, had whispered something about all the
blood on his hands. He had listed off the names he gave himself,
and I think they were names of people he had killed and planned to
kill. It was the only explanation.

"He won't hurt us, will
he?"

"Naw, man, he's safe right now.
Yoshida's the only one who can get him to do anything."

That was enough for me to make
assumptions. I hoped I was wrong, but I couldn't think of any
reason why someone that Yoshida controlled would not only be locked
up but was eventually targeting Isiroans.

His attention on me didn't waver until
the guards came again. But this time they came for Krino and not
me. He walked out with them and said loudly, “judge not according
to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment!” He laughed
maniacally the whole way out.

He returned a few hours later with a
stupid grin on his face. The guards looked even less happy to be
there than most days and were obviously relieved when Krino was
safely behind bars once again.

The guards left and Krino crouched in
front of the bars between us. "Fly, little bird." He grinned and
three water bottles rolled through the bars and came to a rest at
my feet.

CHAPTER 29

“
Waiting
is torture. Patience is difficult. But too hasty an action, if not
carefully thought out, will mar any future that waiting and
patience can nurture.”
~ Ashanti
Diawara. Only known descendant of Anyan in 1985.

EUGENE YOSHIDA

The crowd that had gathered in front
of the enormous projector screen was massive. It didn't seem
possible that so many people inhabited the base. "Do all these
people really live here?" I asked Jack who was standing next to me.
He found me in the dormitory just as it was getting dark and
dragged me around the dorm showing me the Cliff's Notes version of
the tour while we headed back out onto the grounds.

"Nope," Jack replied. "Laramie Base is
just a hub for our region so that when big announcements come down,
we get representatives from all over."

Some of the people sat in the grass on
blankets and others in fold out chairs. The feel in the air was one
of a big picnic or what you might see at a 4th of July fireworks
show. People were talking and laughing, relatively
carefree.

Roy appeared next to us with some lawn
chairs under his arm. "Jack, your lack of preparation is getting
predictable."

Jack waved his hand dismissively.
"It's not lack of preparation! It's freestyle
spontaneity."

"Whatever you call it, it's getting
annoying." Roy dropped the chairs in front of us made an unhappy
face at his friend.

Jack shrugged and reached down to hand
me a chair and then popped one open for himself. I sat down next to
Jack and half listened to Jack and Roy's bickering. In a way they
reminded me of the twins I went to school with back in Ohio. It was
a little comforting to know that there were people here my own age,
but at the same time it was even scarier. They treated this place
like a school. But Jake had said this was a place for them to train
their army. I felt like I was in a lion's den and the lion was
sleeping. It was only a matter of time before I was someone's
lunch.

That was only more reason to get what
I needed from this place and get out as soon as
possible.

Someone walked up in front of the
unlit screen and tapped a microphone. "Hello! My name is Patrice
Fabian. Welcome back for another exciting year of schooling! The
broadcast will begin in a few minutes, but in the meantime, I would
like to introduce you all to our teachers this year. Some are
familiar to you all and some are new. Please welcome our
faculty!"

A dozen or so men and women came up,
waved and bowed. I wasn't really paying attention to the names
called out so I almost missed hearing the name "Marcus
Grey."

The man the woman indicated was
standing off to the edge of the teachers with his arms crossed over
his chest. He had a bemused smile on his face as she talked about
him.

"Mr. Grey has lived in about fifteen
different nations since he was a child and has gathered some of the
best training around the globe. This will be his fourth year
teaching for us, and any of you taking his classes should feel
honored to have such a mind teaching you."

She moved on, but I was still focused
on Grey. There he was. The man who had taken Willow from me. The
image of that man would forever be branded to my memories, but this
man… this man wasn’t what I remembered exactly. His hair was
different, cut against his head with a splash of grey near his
forehead instead of in shaggy dreads. But it was unmistakably him,
with dark Asian eyes, with little crowsfeet at the corners and a
thin mouth. Other than the hair and the cleaned up clothing, this
man was one and the same.

The woman ushered the teachers aside
and Grey turned and left, weaving his way through the crowd. I
tried to follow him with my eyes but he was swallowed up by the
mass of people.

I was about to get up and follow him
when the screen flickered to life and a symbol that I now
recognized as the Isiroan seal appeared. Only a few seconds passed
before a woman's face appeared. She smiled and began to speak.
"Thank you all for attending the start this year's schooling and
training. My name is Amelie Delacroix. We have much in store for
you to learn and reflect upon. This begins only our thirtieth year
of the establishment of the centralized training schools, and we
have the honor of celebrating that anniversary with a new
face.