The Search for Artemis (The Chronicles of Landon Wicker) (15 page)

Wondering who else was up at this hour, Landon got out of the chair and placed
Alice in Wonderland
and Through the Looking-Glass
on the table. He briskly moved through the maze of bookshelves and stepped out onto the large rotunda, but the person was nowhere to be seen.

Shutting his eyes and concentrating, Landon sensed the person as they neared the bottom of the ramp; he moved over to the thick wooden railing and looked down only to see a figure bolt across the floor, heading toward the southern entrance to the Gymnasium.

“Wait!” he yelled down at them.

The mysterious figure froze in the middle of the ground level and looked up at him.

The person wore all black, carried a black messenger bag, and, to Landon’s surprise, was a girl. Her body and face were silhouetted in shadow, but Landon could see her tight ponytail and feminine shape. He knew she was staring directly into his eyes.

As if realizing she could be caught, the girl continued on her path, losing some of her stealth on the way. Landon heard her footsteps loudly on the hardwood and curiously pursued, darting down the ramp as fast as he could in hope of catching up.

“Wait! Where are you going? What are you doing?” Landon exclaimed as he reached the first floor of the Library and headed down the South Hall, but he received no response from the girl he pursued.

Landon fought to stay focused, relying on his abilities to guide him through the dark. He never tried using them while so actively engaging in something else.

When he reached the south entrance, Landon saw the gold door ajar and got a glimpse of his ninja friend as she disappeared behind it. He sprinted toward it and hurried out into the valley. Upon reaching the end of the portico, Landon found the girl standing with her back to him in the middle of the gravel path. She was looking up into the dark, moonless sky. What was she looking for?

“Who are you?” Landon asked.

“They didn’t tell me I’d have to deal with things like this.” A stern voice resounded in Landon’s head. Her voice was familiar, but Landon couldn’t place it. It was like hearing a friend speak over the telephone for the first time.

A bit surprised by her telepathic response, he replied, “Deal with what?”

She suddenly turned her head down from the sky and tensed her shoulders.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, still keeping her back turned to him.

“Why not?”

“Ugh, I don’t have time for this.” Her words echoed through Landon’s mind again, and then he felt his body jerk backwards, slide across the marble floor, and collide with the door.

Shocked, he stared down at his body. He was pinned to the golden entryway, unable to move.

“Hey! Let me go!”

She didn’t reply.

Landon deduced that this mystery girl was not just a fellow student of the Gymnasium, and he had inadvertently stumbled into a precarious situation. Thinking on all the movies and television shows he’d watched and books he’d read, he realized she must be a thief who’d just stolen something from his home. At once frightened and aware of the gravity of his lonely situation, he knew he needed to stop her.

He tried to concentrate, but couldn’t focus enough to access his abilities. He only managed to stare at her as she stood stoically on the gravel path.

“Come on!” Landon yelled, and unexpectedly, she turned and looked at him. Landon squinted to see her face, but the moonless night made it impossible to see anything save her figure against the mountainous backdrop.

Then her voice reentered Landon’s mind, “If only you knew what was going on here, you wouldn’t want to stop me.”

In the distance, Landon started to hear a
whop-whop
sound growing louder and louder overhead.

“What do you mean?” Landon pleaded. “Come on, let me go!”

“Haven’t you wondered what they’re training you for? Or what they’re hiding in the Restricted Tower?” she telepathically returned. Before Landon responded, the sound above grew to a deafening volume.

He watched the girl rise into the air, and a moment later, a helicopter came into view. As it flew toward the southern barrier of the valley, Landon’s body released from the door. He stood on the marble portico floor for a while, staring in amazement as the vehicle disappeared into the darkness of the night.

THE SECRET GARDEN

“So, how’s the eye?” Landon asked Riley as he sat down to breakfast the next morning.

Riley was across from him, and around his left eye was a softball-sized, purplish-black bruise. When Riley looked up, Landon wondered if he could even see out of it. His eyelid was almost swollen shut. Landon couldn’t help but laugh as Riley, unaware that Landon was staring at him, continuously drew his hand to his face and gently felt the area around his eye, noticeably wincing with every touch.

“Wonderful,” Riley replied sarcastically.

“Well, I think it’s a good look for you,” Katie Leigh interjected as she sat down beside Landon.

“Thanks,” Riley groaned.

“No, seriously,” she chuckled. “It makes you look macho. Almost like you spent yesterday doing something other than playing video games. Maybe something in the real world.”

“You’re one to talk. You spend all your time holed up in your room doing God knows what. Studying?” Riley asked with derision.

“Sadly for you, no. I’m
naturally
brilliant. I don’t need to study like some people.”

Although the comment was not directed toward him, Landon was slightly offended. He jumped in to stop the bickering.

“Anyway, I’m sorry about your eye,” Landon interrupted.

“Don’t worry about it. I know it was an accident,” Riley returned a few bites later. “But seriously, you’ve got to get better. I don’t know if I can take anything else flying at me.”

Landon looked down and fiddled with the eggs on his plate. “I hear you,” he replied.

“Well, you now have those private sessions with Dr. Brighton on Saturdays. Those should help, right?” Katie Leigh asked. Her tone was apologetic. She must have realized the callousness of her earlier words.

“I think that’s the idea,” barked Riley pointedly. “Why don’t you mind your own business for a change, you natural pain in the —”

Katie Leigh gasped before Riley could finish his insult. She looked as if she’d been stabbed by a dagger, but her expression quickly turned. She stood up from the table, holding tightly to the sides of her tray, and glared at Riley.

“Fine!” she exclaimed through a clenched jaw. “I don’t know why I put up with you. I hope your face stays like that forever, Quasimodo!”

Landon nearly choked on his bacon as he tried to hold back a burst of laughter.

“It’s a vast improvement from what you looked like before!” she fumed.

Katie Leigh stormed off down the aisle and made her way for the cafeteria’s exit. As she passed a trash can, she hurled her untouched plate of food into the bin before slamming the tray on the pile of empty ones.

They watched her leave, then Landon turned to Riley.

“Wow, that was . . . unexpected.”

“Whatever,” he returned. “Besides,” he added a little less confidently, “she’ll be back. Who’s she gonna talk to if not me?”

Landon and Riley finished their breakfast in silence. All the while, Landon couldn’t get his mind off the night before. The questions that roamed around in his head were driving him insane.

“Riley,” Landon started after finishing his glass of milk.

“What?”

“What do you think the Gymnasium is training us for?” Landon asked point blank. He intentionally didn’t tell Riley details of his encounter with the lucifugous thief the night before. Landon preferred to work things out on his own; however, if anyone knew about the inner workings of the Gymnasium, Riley was the one to ask. He’d made a reputation for himself as being the most socially informed student who somehow knew everything about everyone, whether that information was private or public.

“What do you mean?” Riley asked. “You had orientation. They’re ‘training us to control our abilities so we aren’t menaces to society.’” Riley had adopted his pompous professor voice.

“Yeah, that’s basically what they told me. It’s just . . . I was in the Library last night . . . and I started wondering, wha—”

“Hold on. What were you doing in the Library in the middle of the night?” Riley interrupted.

“Uh, that’s not important.” Landon quickly returned to the previous subject. “What about the Restricted Tower? Do you have any idea what’s in there?”

Riley answered, “Nope. It has been closed off to the students since before I got here. I’ve never even seen someone go in it. Not professors, scientists or anyone, but I heard once that they were doing all sorts of sick, sadistic experiments in there.”

“Really? What do you think they’re experimenting on?”

“Seriously, Landon? Come on, nothing bad is going on in there. The Restricted Tower is probably just some giant storage unit.”

“Then why is it restricted?” Landon asked plainly. “Is that really the time?” Landon added suddenly after getting a quick glance at the clock on the back wall of the cafeteria. “I’m supposed to be at Tactometry right now. I’m gonna be late. I’ll talk to you later.”

Landon got up and raced out of the cafeteria to his training session. If only he was permitted to skip it. Questions still consumed Landon’s brain, so he knew he’d have some difficulty concentrating during his lesson. He needed to know if there was more going on at this place that even Riley didn’t know.
What is in the Restricted Tower?

What had the girl stolen? She was carrying a messenger bag, so there must have been something in it, and Landon couldn’t imagine it was something she’d brought with her. Whatever it was, it had to be something small. She only carried the small bag.
Maybe she stole a file or something from the labs
.

Also, she was psychokinetic, like him, and a powerful one at that.
But she left
. Did that mean that there was somewhere else for people like them? Landon was under the impression that all the people with abilities like theirs were brought to the Gymnasium, so . . .
where was she going?

And the most looming question of all, the one that weighed most heavily on him: Who was the mysterious night bandit?

• • • • •

Professor Tzu, a short, middle-aged Asian man with greying hair and a round face, informed the students that their practice time would be spent outside in the valley, rather than the usual classroom.

The weather was quite amenable. The sun shined brightly over the Eastern ridge and felt warm on the skin, but the valley was cool and breezy, making it comfortable.

“All right, everyone,” Professor Tzu said, “I want you all to spread out. I’ve hidden a set of items on the grounds and hope you can find them before the day is up. This
will
require more than just sensing. As I have told you before, your abilities will develop a sort of haptic perception, which will allow you to discern objects based on how they feel, like when you hold something in your hands and can figure out what it is just by touching it.”

Landon wasn’t paying much attention. His mind still lingered on the events of the night before. As thoughts of the shadowed girl, the helicopter and the mysterious items hidden within the messenger bag swirled through his head, he gazed at the two small divots in the gravel where she had stood.

“You seem distracted.”

Landon jumped out of his head to find Celia standing beside him. Looking around, he noticed that the entire class had dispersed and was excitedly moving about the valley.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just trying to figure some things out.”

“Well, Tzu wants us to pair up and find everything on this list.” Celia held up a small sheet of paper with a list of miscellaneous items printed on it. “It’s kind of like a scavenger hunt.”

Landon looked at her.

“Come on then. We have to get going if we want to win this thing.” Celia grabbed hold of Landon’s hand and dragged him along as she made her way toward the lake.

Just as they reached the shore, Celia pulled Landon around so that he was standing in front of her, and she shoved the sheet of paper into his hand.

“Memorize the list.”

“Memorize it?” he asked. Celia was alarmingly forceful.

“Yeah.” Celia looked very serious when she said it.

Landon took the list and read over it a few times.

1. #2 wooden pencil

2. Screw

3. Earphones 

4. Shoe lace 

5. Blue marker 

6. Paper clip 

7. Penny 

8. ½ inch marble

9. Thimble

10. 2” match

11. Wire clipping

12. Green Army Man

13. Key

14. Jingle bell

15. Rubber band

16. Glass lens

17. Pocket watch

18. Contact lens

19. Zipper

20. Steel Ring

“Ugh, what is it with people and rings around here?” Landon mumbled to himself.

“So you ready?” Celia asked.

“Uh,” Landon replied. “I think so, but I have one question: How are we supposed to find all of this stuff in just one session if we have to search the entire valley?”

“Wow, you weren’t paying attention at all, were you? We all have a different sector of the valley and a different list of stuff to find. Our area is from that tree over there due north into the woods and due east until it hits the lake.” Celia pointed to a solitary pine tree growing between the Gymnasium and where they stood. “So we need to find all of our stuff before anyone else gets theirs for us to win.”