Kinetics: In Search of Willow (41 page)

"I would like to introduce the person
who will host our leader for the foreseeable future." The woman
stepped aside and the view zoomed out and there stood
Willow.

She was speaking but I wasn't hearing
the words anymore. Instead the crowd around me seemed to fade out,
and all I heard was a ringing in my ears. All I could see was her.
She was not the Willow that I remembered. Her formerly long hair
was cut close to her head and she wore an Isiroan style uniform.
The lapel was open and loose exposing her collarbone where I could
see the faint line of a silver necklace.

She smiled gracefully and nodded back
to the woman who took center stage again and continued to talk.
Willow stepped back and said something to the elderly man standing
next to her.

How could she be standing there so
calmly? What did they do to her? Somewhere in the back of my
memories I recalled something Miriam Lancaster had said when this
had all started. She had said that in a month Willow wouldn't be
Willow anymore. I tried to break down how much time had passed
since then, but it felt like so much time had passed since I had
naively believed began this journey. I watched her eyes when the
screen showed her, looking for some sign that she was still Willow,
or some sign that she was host to an alien mind. Something seemed
off about her, but her mannerisms were the same, the tilt of her
mouth in a smile was the same. I shuddered even though it was far
from cold out here.

I shook my head and tried to pay
attention to what was being said.

"In the coming days we will keep you
all updated via the ISTVN, and in the meantime please keep our
leader and his new host in your thoughts."

She lowered her head in a bow and the
screen faded back to the Isiroan seal.

Patrice Fabian stepped up again.
"Thank you all for coming once again. Now we have a showcase in
store for you all. Please welcome Gummy To and their dance
performance!"

Everyone started clapping as four
people dressed in black unitards stepped up on stage. They
introduced themselves and began a dance in time with some music.
They were all telekinesis users and had a dozen or so props on
stage that they moved around with their dance.

The celebration continued, but I broke
off from the group and said that I wasn't feeling too well. I
walked the length of the base, examining the plaques on the doors,
identifying different classrooms, offices, and places like the
communications building.

My head was all jumbled. Willow's time
was near, and if I didn't act fast, her brain would be some alien's
home. I headed back up to the dormitory, but the silence and the
lack of anything that I could claim as mine made me feel more like
a fish out of water.

I peered out the tinted window in the
room assigned to me. I could see the whole Isiroan base from four
stories up. The Convocation had ended and the mass of people began
disappearing. I pressed my forehead against the glass and watched
the last few people milling around disappear into the buildings. I
breathed out and the glass misted. I pushed away from the window
and turned to stare at the room for the hundredth time since I had
had come up from the Convocation speech.

It had all happened so fast. One
minute I was sneaking around and the next I was officially an
Isiroan trainee. My heart was still sprinting laps in my chest from
the shock of it all.

I looked away from the window and into
the room. The other two beds were the only problem, not because of
their presence but because of the people who occupied them. Jack
had insisted that I join him and Roy in their room in the base
dormitory. Despite the fact that Jack's father lived on the base in
an apartment with his wife, Jack had wanted to stay with his best
friend in the dormitory. They had been given a room with three beds
because at the time they had another friend with them, but
apparently he had ultimately been unable to join them at the
base.

I stretched out my stiff muscles and
left the room. The hallways in the building were very old fashioned
with an odd carpet-like wall covering printed with magnolia flowers
and dark mahogany baseboards. I walked along the hallway toward the
elevator, running my fingers along the scratchy
carpet-walls.

The elevator dinged softly as it
descended the four stories.

The lobby of the dormitory was quiet.
There was no welcome desk, only two elevators parallel to each
other flanking the glass-walled entrance way.

I stepped out and looked around. The
moon was high in the sky casting little light on the mountains in
the distance and reflecting off the few clouds that scrolled across
the stars.

Everyone who stayed on the base had
either long gone home or they were in their respective apartments
or dormitories. It was amazing to me that not even an hour ago the
place had been full to the brim with people, but now it was little
more than a ghost town. I wasn't sure where Jack and Roy had gone
after the celebration had died down, but for now I wasn't too
concerned with it. They weren't keeping an eye on me and that's all
that mattered.

There were still four buildings that I
had yet to look into, so I started with the nearest one and worked
my way through, one by one.

Of course it would be the
last building out of the lot that would have what I needed.
Apparently they didn't lock anything. One of the first doors that I
came across was labeled 
Records 
and opened with no
trouble at all. I pushed my way into the dusty room full of
bookshelves that were equally filled with boxes and other
unidentifiable computer equipment, quietly closing the door behind
me.

On the only desk in the
entire room were a small laptop and a few scattered discs. I picked
up one of the discs. Its label read '
Video
recording. IWR. March 17th
'

I sat down on the solitary chair in
front of the laptop and turned it on. The screen remained black but
a small line of text asked for a disc to be entered. I tapped my
finger lightly on the table then picked up the same disc and popped
it in.

Loading…

March 17th. Isiro's weekly
report. Feed only.

The screen blinked and the
face of an old haggard man appeared. He closed his eyes slowly and
then reopened them. 
"My friends, I
have great news for you. A new host has been
found."
 He paused as if listening to
something. 
"I know that many of you
feared the worst. But fear no more. While it is true that we have
been preparing for the worst in the event that a new
host would not be found, I have not stopped in my
search. The efforts of your comrades inside the Alliance ranks have
discovered a host who will bring a new vitality to our
union."
 He paused again and then
smiled reassuringly
. "Come summer the bond
will begin and you shall meet the new face who shall help lead this
battle to victory. I tell you now, though, this new host is not one
of us. For the second time in my life, I have had to delve into the
dangerous ranks of the dread Alliance."
 He frowned. 
"However,
like the last time, I have found a sympathetic soul. There is no
danger to us from this one, the same as when there was no danger
from the previous. My advisors, and you, my friends, hoped that we
would never have to face this kind of risk again, but sadly I have
begun to realize that with each passing generation of host, it is
becoming harder and harder to find compatible
persons."
 Pause. 
"With this
realization, and much deliberation I have come to a decision. It is
time, my friends, to step up our efforts to hold back the dread
Alliance and achieve that which has eluded us for so long. Time is
of the essence."

The video flickered out and the disc
ejected itself.

The old man was Isiro. That is, the
old man was Isiro's current host, and he was talking about Willow.
It had to be. The disc was labeled only a couple months
ago.

I looked around the dark room and
spotted a box labeled with the date from about a week ago. Flipping
through it, I came across a bright red disc with the words 'New
host's introduction.'

Within seconds it was in the laptop
and flickering to life on the screen.

The same old man was on the screen,
but looked about ten years older from the way he was holding
himself. He looked tired and worn down. Two men and a woman stood
behind him, their eyes watching him intensely, looking ready to
swoop in if he happened to fall.

But the thing that really captured my
attention as the camera frame zoomed out slowly was the red-headed
girl standing off to the left.

She stood stiffly. Her hair was still
long compared to how she looked in the announcement at Convocation.
A sheet of sweat covered her tension-marred forehead and her eyes
wavered between the old man and somewhere off camera.

I touched the screen and felt only the
cold, unyielding surface of the screen instead of the soft skin of
her face. It was ridiculous to expect anything else, and yet my
heart yearned for the gentle touches of her finger tips—the rare
way that she showed affection when she didn't feel like
rough-housing—and it yearned for the mockingly-smug smiles she gave
whenever she knew something I didn't.

I swallowed, trying to ease the lump
rising in my throat, and pushed the small laptop away. I buried my
head in my arms, breathing in and out slowly. Slowly, that little
part of my psyche that had been empty with her gone filled up a
little. But, it wasn't nearly enough to smother the rising ache
that took hold of my chest.

HARRY GLEESON

The cuffs on my hands kept me from
using my fingers to direct the water, but all I needed was to get
the water between the cuffs and my hands and I could freeze the
damn things off.

I fumbled with the cuffs and managed
to get one of the water bottles open with my teeth. I coaxed the
water out and let them fill the crevasses between the cuffs and my
hands. Once the content of one bottle was sloshing in the cuffs I
closed my eyes and concentrated. Molecules are funny things. The
speed at which they move determines if they are solid, a liquid, or
a gas. It's one of the things that any Aquakinetic worth his or her
weight in water had to know, because by knowing that, you knew
exactly how to change and affect the water you were using. The
water in my cuffs was cool, but not nearly as cool as I needed it
to be. I wiggled my fingers and started to pull the latent heat out
of the water, visualizing the molecules slowing down to a near
stop.

The water was turning to
ice.

And right before the water was
completely frozen, I clenched my fists and the icy water spiked
outwards, drilling holes through the metal. I heated the water up
and then froze it back into spikes again, turning the cuffs into
Swiss cheese with hundreds of holes. Eventually I got the clasps
that held the cuffs in place and they fell away. I shook my hands
free and stretched them to ease the cramping that had started
because of my power wielding.

I opened the other water bottles and
set them on the cell floor in front of me. The water would not be
enough to subdue the large amount of people between me and the
outside, but it would be enough to get me out of the cell and into
the tank room.

I looked at Krino who was sitting back
watching me with half lidded eyes. I nodded to him. I didn’t know
why he was helping me but at this point I’d rather not ask.
"Thanks, man."

I drew my hand upwards, drawing the
water out of the bottles and off the floor at the same time. I
struck the lock on the gate with the water and froze it. The
electrified bars crackled angrily.

I punched the lock, spiking the ice
through the lock. It slammed open and I was out. I rolled the
leftover water, whatever hadn't been turned to gas by the
electrified bars, around my arm like a gauntlet and sped out of the
room. Behind me Matthew Grey began to laugh. And I hoped that I
hadn't just signed my death warrant.

I sprinted through the halls slamming
bolts of water into any guard I saw. The tank room was not that far
away, but it felt like it took a whole hour to get through the
sudden mass of Alliance guards.

They were coming out of every room and
door like cockroaches, and an alarm began to scream around
me.

I punched past one guy who thought he
could come up beside me and turn the floor under my feet into
marbles. The Alter power was far too temporary to keep up with me.
An experienced Alter user could maintain a transformation for about
thirty minutes, but because I was moving he had to change the
location of the transformation to follow. I slipped past him and
used a small wave of water to scoop up the marbles under my feet
and catapult them into the guy's face.

He was soon followed by a trio who
were using their powers in tandem with each other to teleport one
from either side of me to create a slowly growing net of metal. The
two metal wielders and the one teleporter worked around me, but I
grabbed the nearest metal wielder and used a bit of my water to
lock her arm into a wall with a staple made of ice.