Arena (25 page)
“Partly. The transmission wasn’t very good—”
“I was afraid of that. I’d forgotten to program the ground shielding. The Watcher was on it before I’d even stopped transmitting. Then it was too dark to start again, and the next morning I couldn’t find you. I found the others halfway up that canyon, but you weren’t with them anymore. I had a feeling you wouldn’t be. . . . I mean,
I’d
have a hard time climbing that trail. But I was afraid they’d murdered you, or you’d fallen off a cliff or something. How in the world did you hook up with those people, anyway?”
“It’s a long story.”
Meg hooked the recalcitrant lock of black hair behind her ear again and grinned. “We’ve certainly got the time, girl.”
So Callie told her. She said nothing of her ill-considered attraction to Garth, but Meg was aghast all the same to learn how he had abandoned her. Thankfully she dismissed him with an unladylike word, then honed in on Pierce. “So. Is he cute?”
“Good grief, Meg!” Callie collapsed back on the sectional with a laugh. “Is that all you think about?”
“Is he?”
“He’s a friend.”
“You aren’t answering my question.”
“This is silly! No, he’s not ‘cute.’ He’s just an ordinary guy with a brown scraggly beard.”
And a gorgeous smile. And eyes the color of the
sky
.
“But you’ve got feelings for him.”
Callie grimaced. “He’s a
friend
, Meg. A plain, regular guy.”
With a
lot of problems. Change the subject
. “So what about you? How long have you been here?”
“About six weeks.”
To Callie’s chagrin, Meg had done everything by the book. Deposited in a small side canyon similar to Callie’s grotto, she’d accessed a car by means of the Auxiliary Supply Box glowing in the glass wall beside the Drop-Off sign and ridden all the way to the Gate. From the safety and comfort of her vehicle, she’d observed a pride of rock dragons sunning themselves on the cliffs, eaten a tasty box lunch, watched the eerie flight of a group of harries silhouetted on the skyline in late afternoon, and reached Manderia by evening.
“The whole temple thing was so
obviously
a trick. The TV screens, the robes—I just couldn’t buy it. So I backed up, and sure enough, the road forked.”
“But how did you know what to do when you got to the cliff?”
“Same way I knew about the car—Alex told me in the briefing. Though it
is
right there in the manual.” Meg’s tone was gently chiding.
Callie made a face. “Well, it’s sure not something that screams out at you. And I was pretty upset about it all, especially at the beginning— to think they’d kidnapped us like that!” She frowned at the end of her braid. “But that never bothered you, I guess.”
Meg drew her legs up, encircling them with her arms. “I didn’t think of it as kidnapping. We did walk in and sign up.”
“I signed up for a few hours of negotiating an obstacle course and solving some problems.” She gestured around. “This is . . . something else entirely.”
“True.” Meg rested her chin on one knee. The lock of hair had fallen free of her ear again, dangling now against her cheek as she gazed into the darkness beyond the window. “But I suppose I was looking for something more from the beginning. Romance. Adventure. Fulfillment.” She sighed. “I thought I wanted Alex, but I think I really wanted a new self.” She tilted her head to glance at Callie. “A new life.”
Callie kept silent, thinking her own reasons hadn’t been much different. And while she had expected a smaller course than the one she’d encountered, it wasn’t because they’d lied about it. She supposed it was the part about not being able to back out that had disturbed her the most. And yet they had warned her of that, too. . . . Odd howclear that had become.
“We intend this for your benefit, Callie.”
She believed that now. Completely. As if somehow she had entered Alex’s mind and had seen his true thoughts. Or maybe not Alex’s but . . . whoever she’d run into there at the Gate. The Benefactor?
“Anyway,” Meg said, releasing her legs and slouching back on the sectional, “I’m not sorry. I love it here. The scenery’s gorgeous. The food’s terrific. There’s all kinds of things to do.” She paused. “Helping someone find the Gate is pretty exciting.”
“And sometimes pretty frustrating, too, huh?” Callie grinned.
Meg shook her head soberly. “That’s been my one curse—worrying about you. When I discovered you’d left the road, I was frantic. If not for Mr. Chapman, I’d have gone crazy.” She faced Callie directly. “I was so afraid you were dead, or that the Guide would get here before you did. Then what would I do? I felt guilty enough as it was. When we finally spotted you in the temple at Mander I was ecstatic, but before I could figure out how to send a message you’d actually notice—the Tohvani run interference like you wouldn’t believe—you’d vanished again.”
“And the Tohvani are—?”
“The Watchers. The other side. The ones that don’t want us to get out.”
“And the side that does?”
“They’re the Aggillon. Actually, I think they were all Aggillon once, and there was a war.”
The men in white standing with the Watchers at the base of the cliff
, Callie thought.
Were they Aggillon?
“That’s what Alicia says anyway,” Meg went on. “Have you met her? White hair, kind of an addled look?”
Callie nodded.
“She knows a lot, but she won’t talk.” Meg flicked her fingers through her hair. “They say the Trogs put her through a fire curtain.”
The couch seemed to shift under Callie’s weight. “We’re not going to have to face Trogs and fire curtains again, are we?”
Meg shrugged. “It’s just a rumor. No one here knows much of anything. The real answers are all in the manual.”
“Which only the Guide can interpret.”
“Right. Anyway, Mr. C suggested I search along the river.” She smiled. “He was almost as caught up in it as I was! And he didn’t even know you. But that’s Mr. C. He is one impressive guy. Been everywhere you can imagine. And the jobs he’s held! Writer, fisherman, naturalist— he’s got degrees in astronomy, psychology, and physics, even dabbled in art. He knows just about everything, but he’s still really nice.”
“He reminds me of someone—”
“Dr. Haller from Algebra I, right?” Meg grinned.
“Well, yeah, now that you mention it. But I was thinking of someone else.”
She glanced through the palm fronds at Meg’s new friend. He and the others had settled together on the central U-shaped sectional, with Morgan and Rowena conspicuously off to themselves. Someone had apparently cracked a joke, because the group burst into laughter, even Whit, who was usually sober as a monk.
With his white hair and neatly trimmed beard, Mr. Chapman was easily the oldest of them. In fact, he was close to being one of the oldest people Callie had seen in the Arena. She wondered how he came to be here. Had he been seeking life’s answers, or was he one of those people who’d died and was getting a second chance? On the surface he looked as solid and satisfied as they came.
The laughter faded and Rowena began to talk, drawing everyone’s attention. She leaned forward in her chair to project across the gap separating her and Morgan from the others. Morgan nodded approvingly, but Wendell and Tuck frowned.
“Well,” Meg murmured, “looks like Morg’s won another convert.”
Callie stood. “I want to hear what they’re saying. Do you mind?”
They took up positions behind Whit and John. Rowena frowned at Callie but finished her speech without a break: “. . . see no reason to wait. Haven’t we wasted enough time? At this rate, when we get home no one’ll remember us.”
“You must’ve led an awfully shallow life, Row, if you’re worried about that,” John said, fingering the gold hoop in his ear.
She made a dismissive face. “You think you’ll just step back into things the way they were?”
“ ’Course not, but it’s been years for some of us! What’s another few weeks?”
“And you’re assuming time works the same way here as it does on Earth,” Mr. C pointed out. “Maybe it doesn’t.”
“You mean like a month here is equal to a day back home?” Rowena asked. “I wouldn’t count on it. And the fact it’s been five years is exactly the point.”
“How can you talk like this?” Callie burst out, exasperated. “I mean, what was the main lesson of the Outer Realm? Follow the manual’s instructions! We haven’t even been here a day and already you wanna go traipsing off without the Guide. Has it occurred to you the Exit may be right here?”
“This is a training facility. You heard him.” Rowena gestured at Tucker. “No doubt meant to prepare all the people who got into their little cars and motored straight to the Gate. Well, we’ve had our training, babe. Years of it. I don’t think we need any more.”
“Actually we haven’t even begun,” Pierce said.
Startled, Callie turned to find him standing behind the sectional to her left. He held a dark book in one hand, and his face wore a pinched expression that made her stomach tighten with sudden concern.
No one said anything, not even Rowena, until John broke the tension in his oblivious way. “Pierce buddy! You missed the grand tour. Not that we saw much of interest, since most everything was locked, but—”
“Those are armories and shooting ranges,” Pierce said.
His statement took John aback. “How would you know that, bud?” He glanced at the others, smiling indulgently. “I mean, you haven’t seen—”
“We’re going to have to be in prime shape, mentally and physically,” Pierce went on, ignoring him. “Because the Exit is at the middle of the Inner Realm in a Trog city called Splagnos. The route will have to be worked out from information in the manual along with direct guidance from our Benefactor.” He drew a deep breath and let it out. “It’s not going to be easy.”
By now Morgan was standing, Rowena beside him, all of them staring at Pierce.
Morgan said, “How do you know this?”
Pierce’s face was expressionless as his eyes flicked over the gathering. Callie looked again at the book in his hand, and understanding dawned. “He can read the manual,” she said softly, her voice clear in the silence. “He’s the Guide we’re supposed to wait for.”
There was a long moment as her words were digested, as everyone took hold of them and wrestled with them.
Then Rowena spat an expletive and sat down hard on her sectional.
“HE GAVE SOME . . . FOR THE EQUIPPING OF THE
SAINTS . . . [TO] BE TRANSFORMED BY THE
RENEWING OF [THEIR MINDS . . . TAKING] UP THE
FULL ARMOR OF GOD, THAT [THEY] MAY BE
ABLE TO RESIST IN THE EVIL DAY.”
EPHESIANS 4:11 – 12;
ROMANS 12:2; EPHESIANS 6:13
As Callie stepped from the chilly spring twilight into the main auditorium, the sudden warmth made her cheeks burn. Though the snow was melting and the days were getting longer, the evening air still had a bite. She flung back her hood and sidled down the crowded aisle toward her seat, people congratulating her as she passed.
“Hear you’re in the running for a medal on the short range,” Mr. C said. “Good work.”
Wendell said, “Did you
really
score a perfect 50 today?”
Callie smiled and nodded and moved on. It had been a good day. On the range and elsewhere. She had a chance for a bronze in the short-range shooting competition—if Morgan didn’t beat her out.
Gerry grabbed her arm and spoke in her ear, “Outstanding run on the O-course, today, Cal. I saw you go down the rappelling cliff.” He gave her a grin and a callused thumbs-up. “You looked like a pro.”
She grinned back at him. He’d been working with her on that cliff. Though her scores on the obstacle course would never win her any medals, today she had completed the hand-over-hand and cable slide in personal record time. Even more incredibly, she’d plunged off the cliff without the slightest hesitation.
“Callie!” Meg wriggled between two opposing backs and scampered down to her. She wore tight jeans and a yellow silk blouse, and her dark curls, held back by a yellow ribbon, bounced to her shoulders. She seized Callie by both arms. “Great job on the range, girl. I’m jealous. The most I’ve ever made is 26.”
“If you’d practice—”
“I don’t have your eye.” She leaned closer, the light fragrance of her perfume wafting on the warm air. “Don’t have your teacher, either. I assume he
is
going to announce the departure date tonight?”
“I have no idea. And he’s not just
my
teacher. He’d help you if you asked.”
Meg only smiled. “You going to the party?”
“No.”
“Have you been to the fair at all this spring?”
“Haven’t had time with this push we’ve been on to finish the map. And I have some HTS projects that—”
“You can’t transmit at night, Cal, and the map’s done. Come.”
Callie grimaced. “You know I hate that kind of stuff.”
“This isn’t one of your sister’s stuffy parties.” As Alicia and Ian pressed through, murmuring
excuse-me
s, they stepped apart, Meg talking all the while. “You’ll know everyone there. And it’s fun. There’s food, craftsmen, musicians—they’ve even put down a dance floor.”