Authors: Adrian Howell
I asked, “Then one of the Angel spies we haven’t caught yet has an elevator key?”
“It’s very possible,” said Cindy. “There’s a whole team of Knights down there right now searching for clues, but so far they haven’t found anything.”
“Are we still going to be able to use the dojo?” I asked.
“They’ll probably put a permanent guard down there from now on, but yes.”
Cindy paused, and I could tell from her expression that she hadn’t finished with the bad news.
“What is it?” I asked.
She explained, “Your tutor wasn’t sick today, Adrian. Neither was Alia’s. It turns out that yours was approached by some Angels a few days ago. They tried to get him to spy on us, probably to help the Angels get to me. He got away unharmed, but he’s really scared, and when Alia’s tutor heard his story, she decided she didn’t want to risk associating with us either.”
“So you have to find us more tutors?”
“You’re not going to get another tutor, Adrian,” said Cindy. “Under the circumstances, Mr. Baker thinks, and I agree, that for our own safety as much as for everyone else’s, we should limit our contact with the outside world as much as possible.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Are we going to be shut up in here?” I asked, remembering my frustration at not being able to leave Cindy’s house last year. The penthouse was a considerable improvement, but I had been looking forward to at least going swimming and cycling on the weekends.
“You’re not trapped here, Adrian,” said Cindy. “We’re all still free to go out. You have to promise me that you’ll be extra careful about talking to strangers, but aside from that, life will go on as usual. But we’re not going to invite people into our home, and I’m not sending you or Alia to a tutor outside until we can be sure that they won’t be in any danger working with you.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I asked, “So who’s going to teach us?”
“I am, as best I can,” answered Cindy. “I’m not working fulltime anymore, and the Guardians are paying our expenses, so I’ll be able to pay a bit more attention to your schooling than I did last year.”
That wasn’t so bad.
“So saddle up,” said Cindy. “We’re going shopping for textbooks.”
Cindy started tutoring Alia and me the very next morning. Alia was getting a mix of first and second grade, and I still had the rest of my seventh-grade stuff to complete. Cindy was obviously aiming high. By age, Alia would be a third grader from September, and I would be in the eighth grade. But as long as Alia couldn’t speak and I couldn’t balance my power, there was little chance of either of us going to a normal school in less than two months.
Cindy said, “We’ll do what we can and see where we get. Who knows, right?”
“Always the optimist,” I said, laughing.
After giving me reading, writing and math assignments according to the seventh-grade home-study curriculum guide we got with my textbooks, Cindy sat with Alia overseeing her school stuff and mouth-speaking. Alia dutifully worked on her reading and writing, but stubbornly refused to even mumble out loud. Cindy was as bad as I was at getting Alia to open her mouth. Alia simply hated it no matter how much Cindy pleaded.
An hour before noon, Cindy gave Alia a break and checked over my work. I had forgotten quite a lot, and my math was particularly abysmal, but Cindy patiently helped me through it.
The phone rang during lunch and I picked it up. It was Terry, telling me that the dojo was open again and that I should meet her at 3pm in the lobby for our warm-up jog. Fortunately, that was still hours away.
After lunch, Cindy suggested that I meditate for an hour before my combat training. “You still need to learn the difference between your psionic power and your body,” she told me.
“I know that!” I said, not quite as irritated by the reminder as I was at the fact that I had made absolutely no progress ever since I started meditating with Cindy last year.
“Calm yourself, Adrian,” said Cindy as we sat down on the living-room floor together. “It’ll come to you.”
We sat silently as Alia napped on the couch. Breathing slowly with my eyes closed, I tried my best to concentrate on discovering this elusive balance between my power and my body. But in the silence, my mind kept wandering back to Mr. Baker’s speech from the night before last. I still couldn’t get over how so few of his followers seemed enthusiastic about not having a master controller at the head of their faction.
“Can’t concentrate?” I heard Cindy ask. She must have sensed my lack of focus.
Keeping my eyes closed, I said quietly, “Cindy, there’s something I would have asked you, a long time ago, back when you first told me about master controllers...”
“You mean when we were on our way out to Mark’s place?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I would have asked you, but I guess I was a little afraid to know.”
“To know what, Adrian?”
I opened my eyes and found that Cindy was looking at me curiously. “About being converted,” I said uneasily. “What does it really feel like?”
“Oh,” said Cindy, “well, it’s not a feeling so much as an impulse.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You can learn to control your feelings, Adrian. Impulse is like breathing. You can’t simply choose not to.”
“Still, it’s got to feel like something,” I insisted.
“It’s like... Well, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea...” Cindy paused for a moment as if groping around for the right words. Then she said slowly, “It’s kind of like being in love, Adrian. It’s euphoric. It makes you want to do anything for your master. Betrayal is pure agony, especially if your conversion is still fresh. You just can’t do it. Betraying your master can break your heart and destroy your mind. But as long as you put your master first, all your other worries become trivial in comparison.”
“That sounds more like a drug than love,” I decided.
“Why?” Cindy asked innocently. “Have you ever taken drugs?”
“Of course not!” I replied, appalled. “You know how I feel about drugs!”
“Even legal ones,” laughed Cindy. Then she patted my head lightly, saying, “You’re a very good boy, Addy.”
I gave her an exasperated look.
“I suppose conversion is a little like a drug,” admitted Cindy. “But there’s no denying that serving a psionic master gives true meaning to a convert’s life.”
So that was why the Guardians were divided on the issue, and why so many still wanted to serve a queen. I pitied them. I couldn’t honestly say that I knew what it felt like to be addicted to drugs or conversion, but I was absolutely certain that even if our lives were a little less meaningful, it was still much better to be free.
“Do you miss it, Cindy?” I asked hesitantly. “Do you miss being a convert?”
“No,” she said flatly.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Why not?”
Cindy smiled. “Because my life already has meaning.”
I closed my eyes and focused again on my meditation. It was a little easier this time, but I still hadn’t a clue how to balance my power.
At precisely 3pm, I met Terry in the lobby. I wasn’t going to give her any excuse to scold my punctuality. I still couldn’t keep up with her jogging, but she shortened the distance considerably for me.
“We’ll work our way up, Adrian,” said Terry, smiling as I collapsed onto the sidewalk after “only” two whole miles.
Terry hadn’t mentioned anything from Sunday night, and I certainly wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened between us anyway. Had we really kissed?!
After fetching my sister from upstairs, the three of us made our way down to the subbasement together.
Stepping out of the elevator, I noticed that the entrance hall now contained a desk at which sat an armed security guard. He just glanced at us as we passed him. He had no destroyer powers I could sense, but he might have been a controller.
As we descended the steps to the dojo, Terry muttered irritably, “Guarding an empty barn.” Then she turned to me and asked, “Did you hear about the escape?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Did they find any clues?”
“Nothing,” said Terry. “They’re pretty sure someone let him out of his cell and then they got out through the secret escape tunnel. Stupidly enough, the entrance to the escape tunnel is actually inside one of the holding cells.”
Out of sheer curiosity, I asked, “Can I see the jail cell later?”
Terry shook her head. “We’re not here to solve a mystery, Adrian. Leave that to the Knights. Come on, let’s begin.”
We squared off on the mat, and Terry did keep her promise to slow down, but only a little. Still disappointed that I wasn’t a “natural athlete,” Terry continued to push my limits, but at least she was treating me like the novice that I was. There was a lot more repetition of basic moves. Punches, jabs and kicks. And more weight training. Terry knew that I couldn’t help telekinetically cheating from time to time when things got tough, but she didn’t comment.
Getting bored sitting by herself, Alia occasionally joined us on the mat. Terry even humored her by showing her a few simple moves. Ever since being tickled half to death by Terry, Alia had taken a cautious liking to her. While my sister didn’t crawl all over Terry like she did with Cindy and me, she accepted Terry as a good friend and someone who was at least as trustworthy as Mark Parnell. Alia’s presence in the dojo made the atmosphere a little easier for me, too.
By the end of the session, I decided that Terry wasn’t a half-bad instructor.
The rest of the week passed much like that Tuesday, with Cindy’s summer school in the mornings and Terry’s CQC in the afternoons. (I secretly hoped that Terry would be late for one of our sessions so I could make her eat her words about punctuality, but no such luck.) Depending on the day, a few Guardian Knights could be seen in the dojo working out on the machines or practicing combat moves. They usually ignored us, which was fine by me. Once, I even saw a member of the team that rescued me from the research center. Terry knew him as well, so we talked for a while and Terry agreed to show me how “real CQC” was done, squaring off with the burly man. Terry beat the seasoned Knight in straight matches, and I no longer felt any embarrassment losing to her. When the weekend came, Cindy made good on her promise that we weren’t restricted to the penthouse.
Alia and I took our bikes to the park Saturday morning, where Alia finally managed to pedal a few yards at a time without falling over. Now that she was good enough to practice without me hanging onto the back of her bicycle, I left her to it and cycled through the park at my own pace, occasionally using my telekinesis to push me along the asphalt cycling path. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to let Alia out of my sight, but in an open space like this park, she could telepathically call to me anytime. Besides, the park was well inside Guardian protection so I wasn’t too worried.
Zipping around a tight curve, I saw a stray Frisbee drift by. Without thinking, I used my telekinesis on it to guide it toward me, catching it in my right hand as I brought my bicycle to a stop. Four boys about my age came running up from beyond some bushes. I recognized two of them as kids of psionic families living in the same building as me, and assumed that the other two were from Guardian families as well.
“Great catch!” said one of the boys as I handed the Frisbee back to him. He didn’t seem to know that I was psionic, which wasn’t too surprising since few people gained their powers before they were adults.
“Hey, you want to play with us?” asked another boy.
“Sure!” I said, getting off my bicycle.
“Great, because James here really can’t catch,” laughed the boy.
The one called James scowled at him and then asked me, “So what’s your name?”
“I’m Adrian,” I answered, extending my right arm out, but he didn’t shake it.
“Adrian? You mean...” James looked at the other boys, and one of them nodded, muttering something that I couldn’t quite catch.
“Mean what?” I asked, puzzled by the sudden change in their attitudes.
“Adrian Gifford, right? You live at the top of New Haven One. I saw you on stage with that Mr. Baker guy.”
“Yeah...” I said. “So?”
“Sorry, man,” said James. “I’m not allowed to talk to you.”
“Me neither,” said another, taking a step back.