WILDly (16 page)

They waited for
me to dish up and then we all dived in. It was the brunch of my
life, from chicken livers to cocktail sausages, fried eggs and
tomatoes, even flapjacks. The table was quiet as we all dug into
it.

Alex stopped
eating and raised his glass of juice. “We should be celebrating,”
he announced in a formal fashion. He waited for us to finish and
pick up our glasses before he continued.

“We are
celebrating the triumph of round one...” he paused. “And we are
celebrating life.” Then he turned to me. “And earth.”

His gaze made
me uncomfortable, especially in the presence of Benjamin. I
couldn’t move.

Benjamin
rescued me.

“Yes, to
celebrate earth. But we also need to protect her. We need to decide
on the... attack strategy,” he flew off at a tangent, letting the
cat out of the bag in the process.

“We? Aren’t we
missing a few people, like say, Jupiter for instance? Or any of the
other planets? Lisa, maybe?” I asked. He caught me on the wrong
foot. It felt wrong, me in the decision chair.

“Between the
three of us, we have veto power. You are the most powerful amongst
us, Alex’s powers have the biggest reach and I have all the combat
knowledge that we might need. And, Valerie, don’t underestimate
yourself. Give yourself a chance before you give up,” Benjamin
said.

He talked right
to my heart. I had to learn to trust myself again, but it would
take time. I hesitated.

“I’ll listen.
But you guys know that I don’t have any experience with this...
kind of thing?”

“We know,”
Benjamin answered.

“Hold your
horses a bit, Bennie-boy. We need to get Valerie on the same page
first,” Alex intervened.

Benjamin moved
around in his seat. “If you must, but you need to make it short,
Alex. Valerie has studying to do,” Benjamin said.

“I know. I have
to study as well. But Valerie needs to know, this is life and
death. And not only for us around the table,” Alex said, more
serious than I had ever seen him before. “Let’s start at the very
beginning, at what Duncan did to you. Now, just like the earth
never sees the other side of the moon, it’s the same with his
powers. Only once you have physically seen the other side, the dark
side, is his spell broken. No one else can tell you about the other
side, you have to experience or see it for yourself. That was the
main reason why no one was allowed to tell you anything. Think
about it. Once you saw his other side, his spell was broken. Isn’t
that right?”

I thought about
it. If he had the power of manipulation, he could have forced me to
swallow the sleeping pill. And before that, I was prepared to do
anything for him. He even had me believing that Alex and Lisa, of
all people, were the baddies.

“The more I
think about it, the more it makes sense,” I answered Alex.

“You need to
understand that we don’t know everything about another ambassador’s
powers. The little we do know is deduced from the physical
properties of the sponsoring celestial body and previous encounters
with the ambassador. In Duncan’s case, his powers aren’t so much
physical but more on the spiritual side. I know a little about his
powers because he once pretended to be a friend of mine,” Alex said
sourly.

Benjamin
nodded, a strange expression on his face that I couldn’t
identify.

“But back to
the point. You grew up under your adopted father’s protection. But
the day that you left his house, you became my... responsibility,
for lack of a better word. That is why I waited for you in the
parking lot that first day, do you remember?”

I nodded. I did
remember, so well.

“Unfortunately,
I’m still a young ru... I’m still new at this. I can sense other
strong ambassadors by their gravity, as you can when I’m mad for
instance. You sense it in the form of a force, pulling on you.
Anyway, I made a mistake, a big mistake. I didn’t sense him, I
concentrated on the big guns. And I underestimated him. He
patiently waited for you, for a long time, and took the gap when it
presented itself.”

Alex took a sip
of his orange juice. I realised it couldn’t be easy admitting to a
mistake. He probably blamed himself for all of this.

“Fortunately, I
have another power, which basically saved you that day. I have the
ability to see everything on earth, everywhere the sun shines. I
have to think of a person and then concentrate on the mental image
I have of that person, so it only works on people who I’ve met
before. But it is limited in that it has an eight minute delay and
limited vision on rainy days. I saw what was happening, Valerie.
And it was almost too late. You can just imagine how mad I was.
Lisa had to calm me down, I could have exploded,” he said bitterly
and started glowing softly.

Suddenly the
eight minute mystery was solved. And the white glow in my room for
two weeks.

It was getting
more and more interesting, but also stranger by the second. It
didn’t sound like a story that I had played a part in. It sounded
like a movie that he had seen and was telling me about.

“But what was
he trying to do, Alex? Was he trying to steal my power? I don’t
understand.”

“We’ve figured
out this much. He tried to weaken you. You need to remember, your
link was brand new. He actually triggered you. And he also knew
that forcing power from you could weaken you enough to disturb the
balance.”

“And where
would that have brought him?”

“He wants to
destroy earth, Valerie. He’s jealous. Earth is world- or rather,
universe famous. He wants earth out of orbit, so that the moon can
take her orbit. Earth is the only one that is exactly the right
distance from the sun to be able to support life,” he said, glowing
brighter this time.

It really was
about life! I was famous? My heart galloped. I still couldn’t
believe it, it was too fantastical.

“This is really
about life, as you said the other day?”

“Yes, Valerie.
It’s the reason for all of this. We are all here to appreciate and
revere life on earth,” he said softly.

If someone had
told me all of this three months ago, I would have classified the
person as seriously disturbed. Now it wasn’t only a scene that I
had been playing in, I had the lead role!

My mouth fell
open. “This is big.”

Alex ignored my
comment. “Okay, now you understand the first attack. I stopped him
the first time. So the logical thing was to get me out of the way.
I saw that coming, which was why I ordered the Reds to keep an eye
out for you. But I underestimated Duncan again. He used a method to
weaken me that no one knew was possible. Luckily it was figured out
during the emergency meeting.”

“How did he do
it?” Benjamin asked. “I don’t know either.”

“He blocked my
link. Between any two bodies pulling on each other, there is a
‘neutral’ point, as is the case with celestial bodies having mass
and gravity. These points are called Lagrange points. Now in space,
there are five Lagrange points around any two bodies. Duncan slowly
weakened me by placing objects in the form of satellites on each of
the Lagrange points.”

“But why would
that weaken your link, Alex?” Benjamin asked.

“It seems to
disturb the balance between the sponsor and the ambassador, and
apparently it can nullify the link” he said heavily.

“No wonder you
were out cold!” Benjamin exclaimed.

“Then the
weather added to this dilemma, keeping me from any direct
sunlight.”

I remembered
his reference to the weather and his warning the day before he fell
into his coma. Now I understood why he had asked me, the night in
the cabin, to accept myself and get into a better mood.

“I’m so sorry,
Alex. If only I’d known...”

“I’m not
blaming, I’m explaining. Don’t be sorry. I know you would have
acted differently if you knew the truth.”

“And with you
out of the way, he came for me. Or rather waited for me,” I
realised.

“Yes, he waited
for you to come to the wrong conclusions.”

“And I fell
right into his trap. So predictable.” One thing was sure, Duncan
certainly was a master manipulator.

“Put that out
of your mind and concentrate on our strategy forward. I would like
to hear your opinion as well,” Alex urged.

But Duncan was
the
moon.
What powers could the
moon
have against the
sun
?

“But Alex, why
all this hassle? Why don’t you destroy him, if that is
possible?”

“It is
possible. But think about the order of the planets: Mercury, Venus
and then Earth and the moon. I would risk them all. And I’d
probably have to exceed the capacity of my connection.”

I considered
his words. Everything made sense now, but it was a lot to absorb
and my brain was boggling. I still had studying to do, but that
would be easy against this. Studying was mere facts, where this was
life-saving stuff, as Alex had said.

There was a lot
that I had to learn about this new world. And I realised that
studying for my test would also help me prepare for the new world
that
did
revolve around me.

“Anyone for
coffee?” Benjamin used the moment of silence. “I need to get up, I
don’t have a bum of steel,” he complained.

“Thank you,
Bennie-boy. Breakfast was great,” Alex said and bent backwards as
if trying to make space.

“Yes, thank you
Benjamin. It was delicious. And now I’ll make us all coffee, you
did everything else,” I offered.

Benjamin
glanced at me. “No, you won’t. You can open your present,” he said
with a grin.

“My present?”
Not having a clue as to the occasion or the intent, I frowned. He
disappeared into the passage. I turned to Alex with my frown still
in place.

“Your phone was
damaged during the transfer,” Alex said with a roll of his eyes,
spoiling Benjamin’s surprise.

I still didn’t
understand.

“It was in
Duncan’s apartment. He recognised it by the little green butterfly
on the string. He kept it in his pocket and forgot about it. It was
damaged by the flow of power when he held you while I healed
you.”

“But a phone is
too expensive! I can never accept it!”

“Oh, he doesn’t
even feel it. He’s a Red, remember? They are highly professional
and are also highly rewarded for their... services.”

Just then,
Benjamin walked in with a small, wrapped package in his hand and a
shy grin on his face.

“It’s a phone,”
he blurted out nervously as he handed me that package. “I broke
yours, sorry about that.”

Benjamin was on
the spot and I decided to accept it. There weren’t any ulterior
motives after all. I would have done the same if I had broken
someone else’s phone. That was if I was in a position to afford
it.

“Benjamin,
you’re the best!” I exclaimed. I felt like hugging him.

His smile
widened. “Sure. I’ve asked the store guy to program my and Alex’s
numbers, so that you can phone me whenever,” he answered.

Benjamin made
us all coffee and I opened the package. It was a fancy phone, a
business type Nokia, with way too many functions and buttons for a
mere varsity student.

“Thank you,
Benjamin.” I walked to him and hugged him under Alex’s staring
eyes.

“It’s my
pleasure,” Benjamin answered graciously.

“Now phone your
dad! He was worried when I talked to him yesterday,” Alex ordered.
“We can talk strategy afterwards.”

“No, I’ll
rather do that on our way back in the car. I still have studying to
do.”

Everyone took
in their seats around the table with coffee in hand.

Alex didn’t
wait to set the ball rolling. “Now that we all know what Duncan
wants to achieve, we can strategise our moves. We need to line up
our biggest guns and attack when he least expects it,” he said
sounding eager.

“Well, we need
to know what we’re up against and what we have available on our
side,” Benjamin commented.

“I agree. But
it’s not that easy. On our side we know what we have. The problem
is that we don’t know who he has on his side or what powers they
may have. I know for one that Lucas, Mars, is on his team from the
incident at the party, but I have no idea who else or anything
about their powers. If we know who, we could try to deduce it from
the physical properties of the celestial body, but it’s not always
that straight forward.”

“I remember
someone else with Duncan. His name is Gavin. Do you know him?” I
asked hopefully.

“Yes, I know
Gavin: he is not to be underestimated. He’s the closest brown
dwarf. But that’s all we know, then. And we shouldn’t leave a
possible traitor or two out of the equation. Basically, we don’t
and won’t know who or what we are up against.”

“Were fighting
blind,” Benjamin murmured.

“Valerie, we
need to awaken your powers. And quickly. In order to do that, I’m
going to do something dangerous.” Alex swallowed and looked at both
me and Benjamin with big eyes. “I am going to endanger Earth.”

“I’m going
to... fight?” I asked nervously, suddenly realising what the attack
strategy might involve. It made me so nervous that I had to stand
up. I looked around for something to do, and found the breakfast
dishes conveniently heaped. Benjamin protested, but I ignored him.
I couldn’t sit still for one second longer.

“Yes, you are
our biggest... uh... gun. We can’t win this without you,” Alex
said. “But it’s nothing like a bar fight, don’t worry. It’s like
you’ve seen at the party. Normal people can’t even see it,” Alex
explained, slightly amused.

“Is someone
going to die, Alex? Do I need to ... to kill people?” I asked,
worried.

“Only one, the
others we can manage,” he answered.

I stopped and
looked at Alex. “Do you want me to
kill
him? No matter what
he did to me, I can’t see myself killing another human being!” I
really hoped that I had understood him wrong.