Kinetics: In Search of Willow (38 page)

With morning came the inevitable trek
across the open grass and concrete walkways to where I could see a
large group of people. Even from the vantage point of my hideaway,
I could see them milling around in the larger open area of the base
grounds. One problem to getting over there was the large open area
that spanned between here and there. The other was how I was
dressed. This Field Spy uniform was useful at night to help me hide
in the shadows, but during the day the black fabric stood out like
a flashing beacon in the daylight.

I unzipped the jacket and stuffed it
into a crook of roots. I was left with the pants and a plain white
T-shirt. I was looking a little less conspicuous, but I wasn't sure
if the Isiroans would recognize the make of the pants.

Laughter rang out from the crowd of
teenagers, and I took one last breath before pushing myself up out
of the bush. I rolled a story around in my head, trying to figure
out what to say if someone asked what I was doing.

I was looking around and I
got lost.

I was looking for the
restroom.

I was looking for my lost
pet rock.

Nothing else was coming to mind. My
creative skills weren't helping at all right now, and I didn't want
to let my mind fall into a state of absurdity. Pet rock.
Right.

I walked through the breezeway between
two of the Aztec buildings and paused at the line where the shadow
of the building next to me ended and the grass lit by the sun
began. None of the people wandering around the middle of the
grounds seemed to notice me. Instead they were focused on a man
talking to them. He was standing on the edge of a small fountain
speaking loudly without the use of a microphone or
megaphone.

I used that moment where everyone was
focused away from anything but the speaker and moved closer to the
edge of the crowd.

"And to close, I would like all of you
to follow Rosie," he pointed to a young woman standing next to him.
"And she will start the tour of the base. Danny will be counting
you as you go, so please line up in a single file." The crowd
started a line from Rosie, and I just inserted myself into the line
when my first chance came. As I passed Danny I saw him pressing his
thumb on a little clicking device for every person that passed him.
A counter. That worried me a little. If they had a specific count
of the people, then maybe I would be ratted out because they had
one extra person.

I kept my eyes open and alert as the
long line of people and I were shown the base and each building was
described in detail. Any moment now I expected to see the Isiroan
operatives heading my way to drag me into a cell. But it never
happened.

As we were passing a large building
that turned out to be a residence hall for the base occupants, the
group disbanded and I silently mingled among the other teens. All
of them were happy and excited and ready to learn about being in
the Isiroan army. These teens would one day be out on the literal
and figurative battlefields in a few years' time. None of them
seemed to be fully aware of the horror that would face them out
there.

I sucked in a breath of air and wormed
my way through the people toward the open grass. When the moment
looked right I walked toward the side of the residence hall. It was
shady here and much more quiet.

I had to get into one of those Aztec
buildings. That was one of the few ways that I could find Willow
that I was sure of.

"Excuse me?"

I looked up and there was a woman. Her
dark hair was lightly streaked with white near her left eye,
framing a lightly tinted cinnamon skin. She held herself evenly and
moved like she was a cloud as she walked over to me.

"Yeah?" I said, cautiously.

"Are you feeling unwell?" She sounded
very concerned, her mouth moving around the syllables with a
lilting accent I didn't quite recognize.

"No," I blinked a couple times in
surprise.

"You looked very lost. Are you
homesick then?"

I shook my head. "Just… you know,
getting used to things."

She smiled and nodded. "Don't worry.
Everything will be alright after you settle in. It must be very
confusing right now."

Yeah, "settle in." As in,
be indoctrinated.

"Mom, could you help me out over
here?" A dark skinned boy about my age with wild dreadlocks pushed
his way through the crowd and came to stand next to the woman he
had called 'mom.'

"Sure." She smiled at me then. "Take
care."

The boy stared at me for a longish
second and then pulled his mother away with him.

I nodded mutely and watched as they
walked away. I shook off the uncomfortable feeling that was rising
in my chest and pushed myself to my feet.

I skirted around the edges of the
buildings and made my way back to the Aztec buildings. I tried the
side door and was rewarded with it opening trouble-free. I glanced
around and, seeing no watchful eyes, I slipped inside.

Unfortunately, this building turned
out to not have any files whatsoever. It was actually a lab of some
kind. There was a glorified chemistry set bubbling with clear
liquids in one corner of the first room I looked in and lots of
random pieces of broken machinery.

Every room that followed was much like
the first with machines in various states of repair or disrepair
and chemicals taking up one whole wall.

I growled in frustration and had to
take a quick breather in one of the machinery rooms to calm myself
down.

What would Willow say?

Anger is not the
way.

Anger is only going to
cause hurt.

I breathed in and out slowly and
calmed myself.

Just move on to the next
one,
 I reasoned with
myself.

I checked my exit as I left the first
of the Aztec buildings and headed toward the next. I had to back
off though, because there was a small group of people crowded
around the entrance and were in a heated conversation. I leaned
against the edge of the building and waited, staring at the group,
silently willing them to go away.

"Hey, you lost?" A voice startled me
out of my stare. I whirled around to see the guy with dreadlocks
from earlier standing behind me. He grinned and pulled me away from
the door of the office building and led me back into the fray of
people. "This is hardly the time for sightseeing!"

"I wasn't..." I started to
speak.

"Hey, Roy! Found the last one!" he
called out. He dragged me all the way to where another dark skinned
guy, probably the same age as me and the kid with dreadlocks, was
jotting down notes on a clipboard. He looked up with a displeased
scowl and made a furious mark on his paper. The intricate crazy
swirls of his cornrows seemed to reflect his current
mood.

"Power?" the swirly-cornrows guy
asked.

"What?" I asked, taken
aback.

"Power. Power! What's your
power?"

"Uh…" I stuttered.

'Roy,' the other boy had called him,
deepened his frown. "Are you dumb or something?"

I glared at him. "No."

"Then answer the question so that I
can go home!"

I considered lying for a second, but
for all I knew they could test for that sort of thing.
"P-pyrokinesis."

"What's your level?"

"Level?"

Roy looked like he was about to blow a
gasket. "Proficiency level! What the hell? Have ya been living
under a rock? First ya late and then..." His already surfer dude
accent got thicker.

"Bro, chill." The kid with dreadlocks
grinned and patted his friend's shoulder.

"Jack." Roy's voice was
stern.

"Don't say my name that way. Are you
my mother?" 'Jack' scoffed and waved dismissively. "Give me that."
Jack grabbed the clipboard and grinned at me. "So, do you know your
level?"

I shook my head. Jack just shrugged
and jotted something down on the clipboard.

"What's your name?"

I considered lying again. It would be
more valid than hiding my power. Who knows if they already knew my
real name? If they got wind of my travel here, they might be on the
lookout for a Eugene Yoshida. "Ah, Toshi. Toshi Yamada." Yamada was
about as common a surname as Yoshida. They would have trouble
tracking down my family if they went looking.

Jack nodded and clicked the pen so
that the business end retracted. "It's kind of late but there's
still time to go for the testing."

"Testing?" I asked before I could stop
myself.

Jack nodded. "It's for people who
don't know their level. That way we can put you in appropriate
training."

"Oh, okay." I tried to smile but I
couldn't put any feeling into it.

Jack punched Roy companionably in the
shoulder and they led me toward one of the buildings that was
covered in panes of tinted glass. I didn't speak at all while they
bantered between each other.

So far they hadn't acted at all
suspicious of me. It appeared that my segue into the base would go
smoothly. However, I was somewhat uncertain about this testing
thing. What would they do once they found out I was effectively a
Vunjika?

I chewed on the inside of my lip and
examined everything around me inside the glass paned building.
Unlike the other buildings that I'd had a chance to enter, this one
didn't have tons of doors lining its halls and it didn't have odd
ball things spewing out of every room like the one with all the
electronics in it. Instead this one had pastel, peach colored walls
and soft lighting everywhere. Tall indoor plants decorated the
corners that flanked small, cushy chairs in the lobby area. Not
that there was much of a lobby. It was just a big seating area.
There was no receptionist to greet us, and the two guys led me into
a hallway that bisected the building and turned into a large room
with a high ceiling.

The room had nothing in it. The floor
was uncarpeted with the concrete base of the floor showing through.
The walls were painted an off-white, almost gray color. No natural
light breeched the walls into the room. There were no windows at
all. All illumination came from the harsh, strict field of
florescent lights adorning the ceiling. The air was light and cool,
contrasting with the hard lighting and it smelled of freshly fallen
rain.

The other two stopped in the center of
the room and faced me.

"Just a moment, Toshi." Jack said and
looked around the room with the gaze of a predator.

"What do you bet he went home
already?" Roy muttered and looked even more displeased with the
whole situation.

"Probably." Jack just smiled. "I have
an ideeeeea."

"Oh, heck no." Roy seemed to know
exactly what Jack's idea was and waved his hands back and forth in
front of himself. "No, no, no."

I was completely in the
dark.

"I've seen him do it thousands of
times." Jack insisted.

Roy's mouth was set in a
frown.

"I think not," a deep voice echoed in
the large room. All three of us turned to see a tanned man entering
the room from the hallway entrance. His long black hair was pulled
back into a ponytail and white streaks burst out from his hairline.
The thin lines on his face accentuated his harsh features. With his
long brown trench coat billowing around him, he was more vulture
than man as he zeroed in on us.

"Jack," the vulture man admonished him
with his voice. The voice still echoed about the room ominously,
but it was full of the warmth that his face didn't
convey.

"Hey, Dad," Jack grinned at the man
and poked my shoulder. "Was just trying to save you the trouble,
that's all."

"Mmm." Jack's father raised his
eyebrow and a small smile curled at the tip of his thin mouth
softening his features enormously.

I stepped out of the way while the
newcomer talked to his son and Roy.

Like his mother whom I'd met not that
long ago, Jack's father looked of Indian descent. His voice was
distinctly British sounding, unlike that of the woman I assumed was
his wife. Jack had neither of their accents but instead had more of
a casual northwestern American accent with a few odd nuances mixed
in.

"Mr. Ashwater, we jus' had this
slowpoke and we wasn't sure what..." Roy started to say, his surfer
accent was gone, replaced by a thick southern accent.

Vulture-man waved his hand and then
patted Roy on the shoulder. "I'll take it from here." He turned,
looked me up and down and asked, "What did they explain to you
about this place?"

"Er… something about testing," I
shrugged, not sure what else to say.

He nodded as if that was more than
enough. "My name is Kouric Ashwater. I am the director of this
facility."

"Toshi Yamada," I said.

He stepped a few paces backward and
tapped his foot firmly on the ground. A crack appeared in the
concrete near his foot and spread out like a growing spider web to
surround all four of us. I didn't see the pattern it was making
until the cracks opened up, and a large circular device bloomed
from the floor and settled into place around us.