The Tower (7 page)

“Do you think there will be?” I asked.

“Well, the Angels want one, that’s for sure,” Mr. Baker said grimly.

“What do you mean?”

Mr. Baker looked at me in a surprised way, asking, “Hasn’t Cindy ever told you the history of the Guardian Angels?”

“No,” I answered, looking over at Cindy, who was too busy chewing to respond.

“We were once a united people, Adrian,” explained Mr. Baker. “Thousands of years ago, we were the Guardian Angels, numerous and powerful. We lived away from normal humans, except in times when we felt that they truly needed our help. Our greatest purpose was to guide and protect humanity from its own follies. In times of peace, however, we kept our paths from crossing.”

Guardians and Angels... Guardian Angels. I felt exceptionally stupid for not having realized the connection before, but I didn’t let it show.

Mr. Baker continued, his tone becoming grave, “But then, about seven hundred years ago, there was a schism – a divide in the ideals of our people. Some believed in keeping the old peace and keeping our worlds separate, while others increasingly looked upon humans as inferior, as a species to be dominated and ruled by psionics.”

“And they became the Angels?” I asked.

Mr. Baker laughed and said, “No, Adrian, they became the Guardians. The Angels tried to stop us from taking over the world.”

“Did I miss something?” I asked.

“No, but the story doesn’t end there, see?” said Mr. Baker. “The Guardians alone were not powerful enough to openly declare themselves the rulers of humanity, and so a secret war was waged as the Angels did all they could to keep our numbers down. But during the centuries that followed, the Angels started to agree with us. They started to believe, as the Guardians did, that humanity would be better off being ruled by psionics.”

“Then all you had to do was recombine your forces,” I pointed out.

“And that was exactly what we couldn’t do,” said Mr. Baker. “Too many years of hatred had passed. The only way we were going to see our forces combined was if one took control of the other. Neither side could reveal themselves to the world until the other side was defeated, and so things continued in a deadlock until Cindy’s husband killed our last master controller.”

Mr. Baker paused. I realized that my plate was starting to get cold.

Mr. Baker took a sip of wine before continuing, “When our minds finally became free of Diana Granados’s control, many of us decided that we no longer wished to subject humanity to the same control that we had forced upon ourselves for so many centuries. I guess we had finally learned something from ordinary humans, watching their societies slowly shifting from dictatorships to democracies in recent history.”

Mr. Baker paused again, frowning. He had stressed that “many” Guardians had changed their views. I wondered how many.

Correctly reading my expression, Mr. Baker said, “Not everyone wanted peace, Adrian, even among the Guardians. Even so, several of the larger breakaway Guardian factions, including my own, approached the Angels with a call for a truce. We told them that we had been wrong to think humanity would be better served with psionics in charge. We tried to convince them to give up their plans. We even offered to surrender and join them if they were willing to follow the old code of the original Guardian Angels.”

“But they didn’t listen?” I asked.

Mr. Baker nodded. “The Angels saw our call for peace as a sign of weakness. They said that the only reason we were asking for a truce now was because we could no longer hope to take over the human race ourselves.”

“But that’s not true!” I said, and then asked hesitantly, “Is it?”

Mr. Baker sighed. “As I said, not every Guardian believes that we are really better off the way we are now. Some would still prefer to have a master. Others believe that, even master-less, the Guardians should not only defeat the Angels but, in due course, dominate all of humanity.”

“But you don’t think that,” I said, hoping it was true.

“No, I don’t,” said Mr. Baker. “But that doesn’t necessarily make me right. I believe that freedom is a step in the right direction for us, but there’s no denying that the Angels, thanks to having a master controller, are far better organized and dedicated to their goals. Ultimately, the Angels may win, and ideology isn’t worth a whole lot when you are on the losing side.”

The phone rang. Cindy got up and disappeared into the living room to answer it. A moment later, I heard her call to Mr. Baker, “Travis, they got one.”

“In the block?” asked Mr. Baker.

“Yes,” replied Cindy.

“I’ll be right there,” said Mr. Baker, standing up. “Excuse my early departure, but duty calls.”

After Mr. Baker left, I asked Cindy, “What was that all about?”

“Ice cream,” announced Cindy as she passed out our vanilla ice-cream desserts.

“Cindy!” I said exasperatedly, and asked again, “What was that about?”

“An Angel spy, Adrian,” she told me quietly.

“What will they do with him?” I asked as I took my bowl and plastic spoon.

“They will extract as much information as they can.”

“With a delver?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“So, how does that work?” I asked.

Cindy looked at me sharply, and I put my hands up, saying, “I’m just curious.”

“Well,” Cindy said slowly as if carefully choosing her words, “the interrogator asks questions, and the delver reads the subject’s thoughts.”

“If the delver can read thoughts, why ask questions?”

“To entice thoughts, of course,” said Cindy. “I think you’re confusing thoughts with memories, Adrian. Thoughts are what you are thinking right this instant, and that’s what the delver can read. People always think the truth before they tell a lie.”

“Didn’t you once say there were psionics who could alter and implant memories?” I asked.

“Mind-writers,” said Cindy, nodding.

“Right,” I said. “Well, if mind-writers can alter memories, doesn’t that mean they can also read them?”

Cindy explained, “A mind-writer can only work with recent memories, Adrian. Even the best mind-writers can’t probe deeper than a few weeks into the past, and the older the memory, the longer it takes to locate. Mind-writers are sometimes used to get information out of people’s heads, but delvers are preferred because it’s easier to read current thoughts than to sift through memories.”

“But is it really that easy for a delver to read someone’s thoughts?” I asked.

Cindy chuckled. “It’s not easy to move something without touching it, Adrian. Every psionic can do things that are impossible. For a delver, it’s easy.”

I frowned. “I always thought that the brain was something a bit more special.”

“The human brain isn’t nearly as special as scientists and romantics would have you think,” replied Cindy. “In fact, the brain is no more complex than any other organ. It’s just complex in a different way. Believe me, Adrian, any delver worth his salt could hear your thoughts as plainly as you can hear Alia’s voice in your head.”

“But wouldn’t a good spy know how to block that?”

“Yes,” said Cindy. Only when I gave her a questioning look did she add reluctantly, “But there are ways to weaken people’s blocking ability, Adrian.”

I stared. “You mean they’ll torture him.”

Cindy gazed back at me for a few heartbeats before closing her eyes and nodding silently.

I shuddered, remembering my own brief time at the hands of the Wolf interrogator, as well as what they had done to Alia. I looked over at Alia, who was just finishing her ice cream, and was relieved that she hadn’t been listening to our conversation. I hadn’t even touched my ice cream yet, so I telekinetically slid my bowl over to her. Then I asked Cindy, “Why can’t a peacemaker like Ralph simply make the spy trusting enough to spill his guts voluntarily?”

“Because, Adrian, peacemaking can be blocked without the peacemaker knowing that he is being blocked, just like you did to Ralph back at my old house. A delver, on the other hand, knows when he is being blocked.”

“So they torture the spy until he stops blocking the delver?”

“That’s right,” said Cindy, her voice nearly emotionless.

“And then?” I asked stiffly. “What happens once we get our information?”

“The spy will be kept in confinement.”

“Confinement... You mean like prison?”

“We have a holding block in the gathering place below this building,” explained Cindy. “He will stay there until his conversion wears off. Once it does, we will try to persuade him to join us. If we can’t, we’ll let him go.”

“You once said that conversion could take years to wear off.”

“It can, Adrian.”

“So he could be locked up for years?”

“That’s right,” Cindy said in a near monotone.

I gave Cindy a disbelieving stare, and she said a little harshly, “This is what we do, Adrian. This is what the Guardians do. I hope you’re not having too many second thoughts about joining.”

“I’m not,” I said, though I didn’t know who I was trying to reassure.

“You know,” said Cindy, “this spy might even know something about your sister.”

I looked away, sighing heavily. “Please don’t play with me, Cindy.”

“You could at least ask Mr. Baker.”

“Mr. Baker has got more important things on his mind,” I said dryly, and Cindy didn’t reply.

Feeling confused and irritable, I went to bed a bit earlier than usual that night.

By Monday afternoon, Alia had pretty much abandoned any hope of keeping her P-46 tattoo, but she still gave Cindy and me resentful looks as Cindy got ready to take her to the removal shop.

“Are you sure you won’t change your mind, Adrian?” asked Cindy.

“I’m fine,” I answered, avoiding Alia’s eyes. I had decided that it would be safer if I didn’t go with them.

“We may be out for a while,” said Cindy. “They say one session only takes a minute or two, but we’re going to try using Alia’s healing to have all of her sessions today. I’ll have to take a peacemaker with me so the shop person doesn’t freak out when he sees Alia healing herself. And a mind-writer to adjust his memory after we finish. I really don’t want this thing taking a whole year.”

Alia said something to Cindy, who replied sternly, “For the last time, yes you are, Alia. Listen, on the way home, I’ll get you something much nicer than an ugly old tattoo, okay?”

It clearly wasn’t okay, but Cindy dragged Alia out of the penthouse anyway.

I spent the afternoon reading, meditating and looking down at the new arrivals still streaming into New Haven. Cindy and Alia were gone much longer than I expected, returning very close to dinnertime.

“How’d it go?” I asked when they got back.

“Well, we couldn’t use any anesthetics on her because it would interfere with her healing,” said Cindy, looking pityingly at Alia. “To be honest, it looked very painful. But Alia took it well.”

Alia looked unhappily up at Cindy once and then said into my head,
“It really hurt, Addy.”

“Did it come off?” I asked. “Here, let me see.”

I lifted her left sleeve and looked for the mark. It was completely gone.

“Wow,” I said, “you really did a year’s worth in a day.”

“It hurt a year’s worth too.”

Alia was no stranger to pain so I knew it must have been pretty bad. I gave her a quick pat on the back, saying, “Well, at least you won’t have to do it again.”

Alia spoke telepathically to Cindy, who replied, “Sure, you can show him now.”

“Show me what?” I asked.

Cindy looked at me apprehensively. “Promise you won’t get upset, Adrian?”

I narrowed my eyes at her and muttered, “I hate conversations that include that line.”

“Cindy bought this for me,”
said Alia, all smiles as she reached down the front of her shirt and pulled out a leather cord sporting a polished, dark green stone speckled with bits of red.