The Return of the Titans (17 page)

Justin lifted his chin to indicate the
fountain. The second lowest supporting pillar had a clock face on
all four sides.

“Cool,” Gerry said. “So,
my choice was a waste of time. Who wants to pick the direction to
our next adventure?”

Norm chuckled. “I will, if that's okay?”

They all agreed. “Okay then. The doorway to
the left of the arch to the Ocular room.”

“You got it, Normie. You
can lead.”

“It's Norm,
Gerald.”

Gerry rolled his eyes. “Fine, Norm. Lead on.
And watch that Gerald stuff.”

The group spent the next two hours poking
around Sanctuary. They did not find anything else as interesting as
the Arena room, but rather an assortment of small rooms used for
various things such as storage. They found a room with stones
heaped almost to the ceiling. An adult in the area told them that
they were the same light stones that were used in the various
fixtures throughout the complex.

Another room was being used to store bags
and bags of flour. Still another held hundreds of kegs of what,
when Gerry pried the top off of one, looked like clear oil.

Finally, tired of walking and not finding
anything of much interest, and getting close to the curfew set by
Mr. Fitzgerald, the boys slowly made their way back to their rooms.
They arrived with plenty of time to spare and Justin and Aaron
stopped into Norm and Gerry's room and played a couple of quick
games of Arena.

It turned out that Norm and Justin both had
a knack for the game. They also had a favorite avatar; Justin's was
the minotaur and Norm favored the harpy. Aaron and Gerry couldn't
settle on one favorite and kept trying different types. Norm
pointed out to Aaron, after soundly beating him twice in a row,
that if he couldn't stick to and get used to one avatar, he'd never
play consistently. It was then that Aaron announced a bit stiffly
that he was going to bed. Justin caught his eye and hurriedly
agreed, not wanting to hurt Aaron's feelings. They said good night
and left for their own room.

“So, quite a day, wasn't
it?” Justin asked, looking at Aaron cautiously. His friend still
looked a bit disgruntled at his loss to Norm, but Aaron managed a
weak smile.

“Yeah, it was. My feet are
tired.” He took off his shoes in the bedroom, stowed them under his
bed and walked into the bathroom with his toiletry bag. “What do
you think of this place now, Just?” he called out. Justin walked
into the bedroom and sat on his bed to remove his own
shoes.

“I think...I think we've
just scratched the surface, Aaron,” he replied Aaron stuck his head
out of the bathroom, his toothbrush in his mouth and looked at
Justin quizzically.

“What do you mean?” he
said in a garbled voice.

Justin shrugged. “I mean, if you can devote
a room as big as the one we saw to a game, that must mean this
place has a lot of space. Just how big is Sanctuary anyway?”

Looking thoughtful, Aaron ducked back into
the bathroom. Justin heard him gargle loudly, then a minute later
he came back into the bedroom and grabbed his pajamas from the
shelf beside his bed. As he began to change, Justin picked up his
own toiletry bag and went to brush his teeth and wash up. When he
returned, Aaron was lying on top of his bed staring at the
ceiling.

“I wonder why they want
us?” he said quietly.

Justin sat down on his own bed and looked
over at Aaron. “What?” he asked.

“These people, these
Guardians. Why are they doing this?” He turned his head and looked
at Justin. He looked more serious than Justin had seen him look
before. “Sure, they say we're the new Titans, but so what? What's
in it for them? What's it all about?”

Justin sighed and got into bed. “Good
questions, Aaron. I've been wondering myself. But I don't have the
answers. Not yet anyway.” Then he lay back and stared upwards. “But
before I tell them I'm staying, I intend to get some.”

Chapter 12

The next morning was decision day, or D-Day
as Justin thought of it. The kids were going to decide if they were
staying or going. Jonathon had roused them out of bed at seven
o'clock and told them that breakfast would be served in the Court
at eight.

So Justin and Aaron headed for the baths,
got cleaned up, went back to their room to dress and then left for
the Court at about five to eight. They ran into Norm and Gerry
again and the four entered the meeting room together.

The central tables had been set up again and
everyone was already serving themselves. The four teens grabbed
plates and loaded up on bacon and eggs, sausages, toast and jam and
then settled down at a table.

There was very little talk during breakfast.
Norm was plowing through his food as usual, Aaron and Gerry were
also focused on eating and Justin was still thinking about his
decision. Stay or go, he thought. Stay or go.

Yes, his mother wanted him to stay and he
did too. But was she really safe? And for how long? Aaron's words
kept repeating themselves in his head: why do they want us
here?

He barely touched his food and, while Norm
and Gerry were away from the table loading up on seconds or thirds,
Aaron looked over at Justin.

“What's wrong, Just? Don't
like the food?”

Justin shook his head. “No, the food's great
as usual.” He sat back and put down his fork. “I'm not sure what to
do, Aaron. It just keeps going round and round in my head. Stay or
go.” He stared at Aaron as if looking for answers in his face.
Aaron just shrugged.

“I'd like you to stay,
Justin,” he said quietly then reddened. “You're the first real
friend I've had in a long time and it won't be the same here
without you.” His expression became serious. “But if you think you
need to go, to be with your Mom, then I think you should do
it.”

“Thanks Aaron. It would be
a real adventure, staying here and learning and all that, wouldn't
it?” Aaron nodded vigorously. “But your question last night
bothered me.”

Norm and Gerry sat down again but neither
started eating as they noticed the intense looks on the other guy's
faces.

“My question?” Aaron
sounded puzzled. “What question?”

“You don't
remember?”

Aaron laughed lightly. “I was half asleep,
Justin. I don't even remember going to bed really.”

Justin looked at all three of them. “You
wondered why they wanted us to stay.”

“Oh, right. Well, yeah I
did. Still do.”

“Why?” Gerry spoke up.
“They told us why, Justin. To keep us safe.”

“Yeah, fine. But why do
they care?” Justin felt almost angry. “I mean, I doubt if they are
doing all this, putting themselves in danger, sacrificing
themselves,” Justin saw Wilson's face flash through his mind for a
moment, “fighting these enemies, whoever they are, just to be nice.
What's in it for them?”

And that, of course, was the question. Now
that Justin had said it out loud, he realized that it came down to
that one question. What was in it for them?

The others seemed to understand clearly for
the first time.

“Good point,” Gerry said
as he sat back on his chair. “What exactly is in it for them
anyway?”

The others seemed to be mulling it over. But
Justin had made up his mind.

“I want answers,” he said.
“And if I don't get them, I'm gone. That's it.”

“But, but Justin,” Norm
said, looking scared. “What about those people that attacked us? If
you go back now, alone, aren't you afraid that they might come
back?”

“Of course I am. But how
can I stay here if it's for the wrong reasons? What if we're not
these new Titans at all? For all we know, we could be some sort of
lab experiment, or something worse. What if these guys are actually
working with the bad guys? How would we know? All that other stuff
with our parents and our convenient rescues the other day, that
could all be bull, right?”

“Now that's a good point!”
a voice said from nearby. Justin looked over at a table next to
his. Several girls were sitting there, apparently listening and
Justin saw the girl named Denise that he had met the day before.
She spoke up again as she looked around at the others at her
table.

“What if Justin's right?
This place is amazing but it doesn't mean there's not something
else going on here. Something not quite as innocent as we've been
led to believe.”

The other girls started talking amongst
themselves and Denise gave Justin a little smile before she turned
back to talk to her friends.

“So we aren't the only
ones with doubts,” Aaron said as he watched the girls
talking.

“Good. Maybe if we all
start asking questions, we'll get some real answers.” Justin
watched as the debate at the next table spread to the table beside
it, and then the next. Within fifteen minutes, there seemed to be a
general discussion going around the room. Gerry got up and wandered
casually over to the central table and got some juice. When he
returned he gave Justin a small grin.

“Well, they're all talking
about it now. What the Guardians really want and whether they
should stay or go. I'm really surprised that it took this long to
get them interested.”

Justin shrugged. “I'm not. After all, I
think most of us were in shock when we arrived. And since then,
this place has been so distracting, it's easy to get side-tracked.
But now, since it's decision time, I guess reality had set in.”

What Justin began to find more interesting
wasn't the general hum of discussion in the room, but the reaction
of the adults to it. They had to know what was going on, he
thought. People were not keeping their voices down. In fact,
several groups were arguing quite loudly. But none of the Guardians
spoke up and in fact the only one that seemed to be watching the
teens intently was Mr. Fitzgerald. He had stopped reading his
papers and was slowly scanning the room, staring at a table for a
short time then looking to the next. Justin had the feeling that he
could hear everything that was being said.

Finally, the servers moved to pick up the
plates and take away the remains of breakfast and Mr. Fitzgerald
stood up. The room instantly became quiet and Justin could feel the
tension level rise as the man walked around to the front of his
desk.

He stared at them for a long moment. The
silence was absolute. Then he tilted his head slightly to one side
and smiled gently.

“You want to know the real
reason you are here, don't you?” he said.

No one answered but Justin could feel a
little shock run through him at the directness of the question.

“All right,” Mr.
Fitzgerald continued. “Here it is.” He folded his arms and leaned
against his desk. “There are two groups out in the world who want
you. One group works for a consortium of governments. They want you
alive, for now. They want your DNA, your abilities for themselves.
If they catch you, you will be treated as lab rats. Tested,
questioned, poked prodded and, I'm sorry to be blunt but I want to
be honest with you all, probably dissected.”

There was a long silence and then a general
uproar broke out. Some of the girls screamed, some of the younger
teens burst into tears and a few, like Benson and his cronies,
yelled out that Mr. Fitzgerald was just trying to scare them.

The man on the dais held up his hands and
after a moment, the teens settled down somewhat. Mr. Fitzgerald
looked directly at Benson.

“Of course I'm trying to
scare you,” he said. “But for the right reasons. Do you really
think that you can just leave here, waltz back into your old lives
and expect nothing to happen? You can't. Those days are in the
past. I'm concerned now with your future.” He leaned back again.
“Now the second group actually makes the government agents look
saintly compared to them. This group also consists of those like
you. Titans.”

Again the room became loud, but now it was
with exclamations of surprise.

“Yes, like you,” Mr.
Fitzgerald said. “And not like you. These Titans trace their
lineage back to the blood line of Hyperion. I know that all of you
presented yourselves to the portraits of the old Titan leaders.
None of you is of the blood of Hyperion or Theia. But their line
still exists and, somehow, their descendants were born a generation
before you all were. How they arranged that, I do not know. But
that means that they are twenty years older than you are. With
twenty years to learn to use their powers. With twenty years of
experience and maturity.”

“So what do they want?”
Benson spoke up loudly.

“They want what their
ancestors wanted, Mr. Benson. To rule this world, to dominate.” As
the room started to become loud again, Mr. Fitzgerald spoke up,
cutting through the noise. “And don't think that they can't achieve
their goals. As we speak, they are waking up old evils that were
sent to sleep five thousand years ago by their ancestors. Monsters
the like of which this world has not seen since Atlantis sank
beneath the waves. And they are developing weapons like those used
in the great battle long ago.”

He paused, looking around the room at each
of them in turn. Justin felt his look as if an electric current had
made a connection between the two of them.

“And this, my friends, is
why we want you. Because these rebel Titans can only be stopped by
those who enjoy the same powers, the same strengths. And that is
you. And the reason we want you to stay, at least for a time, is
because these descendants of Hyperion, these seeds of evil, will
kill you as soon as they find you. No questions asked. No mercy
given.” He stood up straighter and indicated the other adults lined
against the walls. “We here are all descended from humans who were
allied with the Titans long ago. We have kept our bloodlines intact
for millennium because we knew, one day, that you would be reborn.
It was our ancestors task to care for your ancestors long ago. And
we intend to continue to do so in the here and now.”