Kinetics: In Search of Willow (39 page)

I couldn't understand what the device
was supposed to do and could only look to Ashwater for
instruction.

And all of a sudden it hit
me. 
Ashwater.
 I felt ice take a trip down my veins for a split
second. These Ashwaters were probably related to the man who had
been in the Alliance prisons with me. That's why the name was so
familiar.

"Now," said Ashwater, as he opened up
a control panel near his side of the device. "Stand in the middle
and demonstrate your powers for us."

Jack and Roy stepped out of the circle
made by the device and stood behind a sheet of glass that shielded
them from the inside of the circle. Ashwater was already behind a
sheet of glass from his spot next to the control panel.

I stared down at the dark circle under
my feet and tried to figure out what to do. Even if I wanted to use
my powers, I wouldn't be able to. I was a Vunjika.

Despite what Nick had said after my
escape from the Alliance headquarters in Ohio, I still didn't
believe that I'd used my powers like he had explained. The incident
with the man and the RV was another story. I wasn’t sure what was
going to pop up on their screens.

Ashwater made a noise, and I jerked my
head up to stare at him. He looked frustrated.

"Dad?" Jack joined his father at the
control panel.

"Something's the matter with this
thing. It's not even reading this young man as even being a
Kinetic." Ashwater pressed a few buttons and looked
confused.

I gulped.

"Maybe it's on the wrong setting?"
Jack supplied.

I hoped none of this could identify me
as someone from the Alliance. They would lock me up and then
interrogate me and find out I was from the Alliance. They would
probably kill me then, and I wouldn't ever be able to find
Willow.

I felt an intense pressure at the back
of my mind, and I absently rubbed the skin at the back of my neck
trying to massage the stress away. Heat flared out from my
fingertips, and I was just barely able to get my hand away from my
head. I didn't realize that I'd yelled out until I heard the
rebounding echo.

I collapsed to my knees.

"Oops," Jack looked
shocked.

"Jack, what did you do?" Ashwater
stared at his son, shocked and confused expressions swirling across
his face.

"I was just trying to see what his
power was," Jack said, bewildered.

I rubbed the heat out of my fingers by
pressing them to the cool skin of my forearms. A small tingling and
heaviness followed after the heat had passed, and my hands felt
like sandbags.

"He's a Vunjika!" Jack exclaimed. He
looked almost happy at the idea.

I felt the same pressure building at
the back of my mind again. But this time I knew what it was. "Get
out of my he..." I yelled, but just like before, fire sprawled out
of my fingers and I fell all the way to my feet.

I panicked and tried to crab-walk
backward away from the fire that was clinging to the concrete.
Every nerve in my body was molten fire.

The little flame went out, and I
leaned against the side of the device breathing with rasping
gasps.

"Not only that. He's afraid," Roy
said. He spoke up for the first time. His voice was incredulous. He
had been given a view of my face during the second outburst of
flame.

Roy laughed in disbelief.
"He's a Pyrokinetic who's afraid of 
fire
."

CHAPTER 28

“
At the end of the day, it
isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and
never have been before.”

~ Warsan Shire

I pushed myself up off the ground and
wiped away the layer of sweat that had built up on my forehead. Roy
was shaking with the effort of containing his laughter and was
pounding on Jack's shoulder. Jack was half smiling, but his eyes
were confused.

"How did you make it through the
review process as a Vunjika?" Ashwater frowned.

I looked away from them, absently
rubbing my hands on my pants. My heart pounded an increasingly
frantic beat into my ribcage. If I said that I didn't go through
any review process, they might kick me out. If I said that I did,
they wouldn't believe me and they would still kick me out. I knew I
was looking at them with a very frustrated expression.

A look of comprehension spread across
Jack's face and he pointed at me. "You're the one who was sneaking
around yesterday! I was wondering why I didn't remember seeing you
on the transit bus."

It was then that I had an idea. I
looked down at the ground and hunched my shoulders. "M-my parents
had me go through the review process and when I didn't make it…
they…" I closed my eyes in what I hoped looked shameful. "They
wouldn't let me come."

The three of them were quiet for a
moment, and then Ashwater cleared his throat and patted the two
other guys on the shoulders. "Why don't you two go and see what
your mother is making for dinner." The two nodded slowly and walked
away, glancing at me out of the corners of their eyes, Jack's with
comprehension and Roy's with animosity.

Ashwater crossed his arms across his
chest and stared down at me. His dark eyes revealed no emotions and
they studied me with great intensity. I looked away from his gaze
and stared down at the cold floor.

"It's okay to be a Vunjika. Your
journey is just going to be much harder than the rest of our
trainees," he finally said.

I nodded but didn't dare to look up. I
remembered Nick had said that most Kinetics had a tendency to see
people like myself as being disabled in some way. Being a Kinetic
but unable to use your powers is like having no limbs for
some.

"But, I'm confused. Our
machine should show that you are a Kinetic no matter what your
level of training." Ashwater walked over to the console of the
machine and began tapping at the
buttons.
"I apologize for my son. He gets overexcited sometimes about
people. I don't know what possessed him to use his powers on
you."

I didn't have anything to respond, so
I stayed quiet and watched Ashwater work. He was different than the
old man I had met in prison. He held himself upright and his chin
always pointed outward and never in. His expressions and his speech
were not nearly as random and incoherent as the elder Ashwater. I
would much prefer to be back in that cell than over here where I
didn't know what to expect out of any of these
strangers.

"I will have to talk to Vernon about
this," Ashwater muttered to himself, and continued staring at the
buttons and lights blinking on the console. "In the meantime, I
think that we should call it a night. This is a mystery for another
day." Ashwater flicked a switch and the whole machine geared
down.

"Wait here," he said to me, and
disappeared out the doorway.

I crossed my arms and glanced around
the cavernous room. The walls, despite their chilly and open
appearance, were closing in on me. A claustrophobic
cocoon.

When Ashwater returned to retrieve me
from the testing room, I was feeling a pounding headache starting
at a spot between my eyes. I rubbed at the spot and watched
Ashwater shuffle some paperwork on a nearby desk and glance at me
on occasion.

"I'm going to see about setting up a
training routine for you. It'll be a little different from everyone
else's, but I don't want you to feel secluded from all the others
because of it." He motioned for me to follow him and we walked out
of the room into the hallway where people were leaving offices and
other rooms with strange equipment inside.

"I won't," I said, hoping I sounded
like the kind of person they thought I was. "I just want to
train."

"I normally don't approve of children
running off on their own," Ashwater said, crossing his arms and
pressing his lips together. "But sometimes exceptions can be made.
You need to tell your parents where you are, though. I'll give you
access to the communications room and you can call
them."

"Ok," I said, but the thought of
actually calling my parents frightened me. They knew I was gone,
but surely they didn't know where. I could see my gruff father and
protective mother showing up on these Isiroan's doorstep demanding
my return. There had to be some way to get around it.

I followed him out into the bright
light of the day and saw hundreds of people converging on the
structure in the middle of the base. On one side some people were
constructing a huge projector screen.

Ashwater pointed to the screen as we
passed it. "When it gets dark enough we will be getting a broadcast
from Isiro himself. You're lucky to be here. Today is a once in a
lifetime event."

"What's happening?" I
asked.

"Isiro is announcing his new
host."

"Oh." I bit my lip because I knew who
it was going to be. Willow was his new host. Not if I had anything
to do with it. Then a thought occurred to me. "Where are they
broadcasting from?"

Ashwater shook his head. "It's a
secret even to me. Only four people know its location to protect
Isiro in his weakened state."

I quit asking questions after that
because we came to another building with a huge satellite dish on
top. Ashwater took me inside and pushed me into a room with about a
dozen screens along the wall showing only static and a couple
phones on a desk in the middle of the room.

"Use one of those phones. I'll be
outside." Ashwater closed the door behind me leaving me alone. I
looked down at the phone closest to my hand and reached for it. But
then I stopped myself. I couldn't really call them, could I? Dad
would probably try to send out people to come get me. Worse yet, he
might go to Jacob, but Jacob had told me not to contact the outside
world until I'd set off the beacon.

I picked the phone up and stared at
the numbers. Who could I call? Nick? He was the only other person
in on our plan. Nick was about as likely to talk to Jacob as Jacob
was about to become a ballerina. I felt my stomach twist and hoped
that there was a trash can around if I needed to hurl.

I dialed Nick's number into the phone
and waited for him to pick up. I just hoped that he wasn't out of
the country. It rang and rang and I was about to give up
when...

"Hello?"

"Ah… Nick, hey it's..."

"Eugene! Where have you
been, your phone's dead!"

"Yeah, sorry… ran into a bit of
trouble."

"What kind of trouble?
You've been out of contact a whole week!"

"Uh… Hey Nick, I just wanted to let
you know that I made it to Laramie. One of the guys here is letting
me use the phone to call you." I hoped he would get that I was
trying to avoid talking about the Isiroans like they were the
enemy. If there was one thing I had picked up from Nick or every
spy movie out there, it was that any phone can be
bugged.

"You did? That's great! Are you guys
staying safe? Wait… what do you mean 'one of the guys'?"

"Uhm, had a change of plans. Harry
was, ah… He didn't come with me. He's… gone Jacob." I hoped he
would remember that reference. My brother was notorious for playing
both sides of a conflict and then joining the side you least
expected him to. We called it "going Jacob" for the longest
time.

"What!?"

"Yeah, I didn't see it
coming."

"But he's not even a…Is
he?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure. Jake said he
found some stuff on..."

"Wait, wait. Jake? Jake's
there with you?"

"N-no, I'm on my own. But, uh… I got
here at the same time one of the training groups showed up. They
let me join them. I'm going to get trained." I tried to make it
sound happy, but my voice cracked and I shuddered.

"Trained?"
His end was silent for a moment, but I could hear
the gears working in his head. He was putting the pieces
together.