Authors: Adrian Howell
I still woke up breathless from time to time, but it wasn’t as bad as before.
So I told myself that someday my world really would be still and silent, and that I would stop hearing the screams. And I believed it, too. Especially in the summertime, as I watched the sun slowly rise and felt its comforting warmth on my face, I believed it with all my heart.
But if you think that this is the end of my story, then you are dead wrong. Stories don’t actually end in real life. They just linger, or smolder on, until the next chapter. But as for how much of my story I’m going to share, well, I’ll write one more chapter and then I’m done. Read it and perhaps you’ll understand why.
Chapter 21: The Boy Who Came Home
The well-waxed silver sports sedan glinted in the sunlight as it came to a smooth stop in front of my vegetable garden where I had been plucking a few wayward weeds. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked up from my work as two women stepped out of the car’s rear doors.
The driver who had escorted the women into our settlement was a trusted member of my security team. I stood up and frowned at him through the windshield. It was part of my job here to know when psionics visited from other factions. No one had told me about this visit.
But I wasn’t too alarmed: I recognized one of the women. She was a high-ranking Guardian Knight, and my faction was on very good terms with the Guardians.
“Andy Kellogg, it’s been way too long,” said the Knight, coming up to me and extending her arm out.
“Hello, Susan,” I said, wiping my dirty fingers on my shirt before shaking her hand.
“Rabbit,” she corrected, reminding me of her Guardian call sign.
“Where?” I teased, looking around my garden.
Susan chuckled. Then she gestured to her partner, a muscular, blond-haired woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. “This is my associate, Vixen.”
“Good afternoon, Vixen,” I said as I shook the young Knight’s hand.
Vixen was a double-destroyer, combining formidable telekinetic and pyroid powers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kellogg,” she said politely. “May we come in?”
“Certainly,” I replied, escorting them into my air-conditioned living room. At least we could do away with the fake identities once we were indoors.
As I served them iced lemonade, the women exchanged a mysterious, knowing glance.
Then Susan grinned as she asked me, “You don’t recognize her at all, do you, Adrian?”
“I’ve been away for a while,” I reminded her.
Susan’s grin widened as she gestured to Vixen and explained, “This is Ms. Laila Land, who recently transferred into my Lancer unit.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a little awkward. “I’m sorry, Ms. Land, you were… uh… smaller when I last saw you.”
Laila Land laughed and then gave me a little bow. “I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Howell.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll deny it,” I assured her.
Then I turned to Susan again, saying, “I’m sorry you were sent all the way out here, but my answer is still no.”
It had been “no” all summer. After two decades of dedicated service, Ed Regis was finally retiring as Head of Council Security, and Alia had been begging me to take his place at her side. It was absurd. I hadn’t seen combat in more than four years.
“Adrian, please,” said Susan. “We are not here to–”
“I am not returning to New Haven,” I told her firmly. “You’d think that after all these years, they would have figured that out by now.”
Susan shook her head. “Ms. Gifford requests an audience with you on an entirely different matter.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “What?”
“We can’t tell you,” said Susan. Catching the look in my eyes, she added hastily, “Because we don’t know.”
“Our orders are simply to deliver you to New Haven, sir,” said Laila Land.
“First of all, please don’t call me ‘sir,’ Ms. Land,” I said. “Second, I don’t jump on the Guardians’ say-so.”
“We’ve already made our request to your settlement leader,” said Susan. “It is his order that you accompany us.”
“You talked to him directly?” I asked, annoyed. “I’m Head of Security here, Susan. Those kinds of requests have to be passed through me.”
“I know!” laughed Susan. “But you would have refused.”
I scowled at her. “When do we leave?”
“Now,” she said crisply. “You have fifteen minutes to pack. We have a flight to catch.”
“At least finish your drinks,” I said.
They took me to a small private airfield at the edge of town. I sat in the chartered helicopter feeling irate and uncomfortable. I didn’t like surprises and I hated mysteries, and being snatched away by a pair of Guardian Knights in broad daylight for reasons they themselves didn’t know stank of both.
We arrived in New Haven in the early evening of the next day.
I wasn’t actually under arrest or anything, but Susan and Laila insisted on escorting me through the NH-1 lobby security. They even wanted to come up the elevator to the penthouse with me, but I stopped them.
“No, Susan,” I said dryly. “You’ve already dragged me halfway across the country without knowing what for, so you might as well stay on need-to-know.”
“You’re probably right,” agreed Susan. “The way things are these days, the less you know, the longer you live.”
I shook hands with her and Laila once more before stepping into the elevator alone.
On the fortieth floor, two security guards stood sandwiching the front door to Alia Gifford’s penthouse. The guards recognized me and opened the door.
“Welcome back, Mr. Kellogg,” said one of the guards. “We’re under orders not to accompany you.”
Giving them a curt nod, I stepped into the penthouse living room.
The Guardian leader looked pretty much the same as I remembered her from our last meeting: a short, slender woman in her mid-thirties with long walnut-brown hair that almost reached the small of her back.
“Adrian Howell reporting in as ordered, Ms. Gifford,” I said as she rushed up to me and hugged me tightly.
“It’s so good to see you again, Adrian,”
Alia said happily into my head.
“I can tell,” I laughed, hugging her back a little before pulling myself free. I noticed the unicorn pendant around her neck and gave it a light telekinetic tug. “Are you still wearing that every day?”
“I like it,”
she said simply. Then she frowned.
“You haven’t been back here since Cindy’s funeral. That’s almost a year now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”
Alia led me into the kitchen, dragging her left leg a little as she always did. She hadn’t needed a cane since graduating high school, but she would probably never lose the limp.
Opening the refrigerator, Alia pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured two tall glasses for us. Neither of us drank coffee regularly. I carried the glasses as I followed Alia into the dining room. We sat together around the corner of her large oak table.
“My faction is getting bigger, Alia,” I insisted as I sipped my juice. “There’s just more work these days.”
“I’m not stupid, you know,”
Alia said in a sullen tone.
I grinned. “I would never dream of accusing the leader of a major psionic faction of being stupid.”
Alia didn’t smile.
“You used to come to New Haven four or five times a year back when Cindy was alive. And on our birthdays, too.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around more,” I said quietly.
“Is it really that painful for you to come see me?”
I looked away. “It’s not like that.”
“Yes it is,”
she contradicted.
“It’s always been that way with you. I knew exactly how you felt when you stuck me in that boarding school.”
I shook my head. “I thought you liked it there.”
“I did like it there! I had fun and I made friends and I learned so many things I needed to learn.”
Alia gave me a hurt look.
“But I still missed you. You never even came to visit me.”
I sighed. I knew how much Alia had missed me by the things she had written in her letters. And she was right: my visits to New Haven over the years had been mainly to see Cindy.
“It’s been more than twenty years, Adrian,”
Alia said gently.
“Don’t you think it’s time you let it heal?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this what you called me out here to say?”
“No.”
“Ed Regis, then?” I asked. “I’m not staying here, Alia.”
“No, Adrian, it’s not about Ed. I know you’re not coming back.”
We looked at each other for a moment. Alia silently sipped her orange juice.
“I’m sorry about not taking the job,” I said, “but this is your home, Alia, not mine.”
“I know,”
said Alia.
“Anyway, it’s okay. I’ve asked Ed to find his own replacement, and I think he has a few people he can trust with my life.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Alia’s sarcasm had grown subtle over the years.
“You look tired,” I said, noticing her slightly sunken eyes. “Job getting you down?”
“I’ve had better months,”
admitted Alia.
“The Angels are pushing much harder now that we don’t have Cindy’s protection here anymore. The Meridian and the Avalon Union are causing lots of trouble too.”
“The Avalon can’t be a major concern,” I said, happy to be on a less personal topic. “They haven’t had a unified offensive force since the Angels pounded the hell out of them four years ago.”
“They’re recovering,”
said Alia, who looked very conflicted about that news.
“And they’re feeding the God-slayers with enemy intelligence.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, surprised. “That’s not very sporting of them.”
Alia agreed.
“Slayers don’t care where the information comes from as long as it’s accurate. If the Avalon keep doing this, other factions might start doing it too.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And you?”
“Never ask a politician a question like that!”
said Alia, laughing nervously.
“You are going to do it, aren’t you?” I pressed.
After a moment’s hesitation, Alia nodded.
“We’re considering it.”
I gave her a wry smile and said, “Permission to speak freely, Ms. Gifford?”
“Always.”
“It was a mistake for you to accept this position,” I said carefully. “A member of the Council I’d understand, but not at its head. It’s not in your nature to fight, Alia. You care too much.”
“That’s why the Council can overrule my decisions,”
Alia said sadly.
“And they often do.”
“This war is going to get dirty again,” I said.
“Very dirty,”
agreed Alia.
“Are you up to it?”
“I will do what I have to.”
I grinned widely. “Then why don’t you stop dragging your feet and tell me why you had Laila Land of all people kidnap me in the middle of my gardening. You didn’t bring me all the way out here to scold me for not keeping in touch.”
Alia chuckled.
“Well, that was part of it. And I had a feeling Ms. Land would get a kick out of you, too.”
“You resent my peaceful lifestyle, don’t you?” I said jokingly.
“I envy it, Adrian, but I still had to get you here in person.”
“Then tell me why.”
Alia took a moment more to sigh, and then said slowly,
“I had you brought to me because I know you don’t want to live in New Haven, and I need someone on the outside that I can trust.”
“No more missions, Alia,” I said flatly.
I was about to stand up, but Alia stopped me, saying,
“This isn’t a mission, Adrian. It’s more important than that.”
She shook her head a little and added quietly,
“This one’s personal.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“We found it,”
Alia said with a frown.
“We finally found it and shut it down.”
“Found what?”
“Site-B.”
Alia and I had escaped the Psionic Research Center Site-A, an underground prison where the Wolves sent captured psionics to be experimented on. Site-A had been completely destroyed when we escaped, but we had later learned about the existence of a Site-B from Ed Regis’s database.
Alia explained that her Lancer Knights had stumbled across the government-run research center and shut it down permanently a little over three weeks ago.
“Site-B wasn’t just a research facility,”
said Alia.
“They weren’t just studying psionics there.”
I looked at her questioningly.
“It was a…”
Alia’s telepathic voice trailed off. She gulped once, and continued,
“It was a genetics lab, Adrian. They were making people there.”
“A soldier program?” I asked.
Alia nodded.
“Composite psionics. They were using the data collected from Site-A and B combined.”
“What did you do there? I mean, what did the Lancers do?”
“They destroyed it,”
said Alia, looking downcast.
“They destroyed the whole building, and the research data, and the experiments. Everything.”
I shook my head. “You’re hiding something.”
Alia stood up from the table.
“Come with me.”
She led me to our old bedroom. It had been refurnished and redecorated as a guestroom.
It was occupied too.
The guest, currently fast asleep and hovering two feet above his bed, was a very small, dark-haired boy.
“The youngest experiment,”
explained Alia, her eyes blinking furiously as she watched the boy hover.
“He’s only two years old. The Lancers couldn’t kill him, so they brought him back to New Haven and I took him in.”
“You’re just like Cindy, Alia,” I said, chuckling. “Looking for lost kids to save.”
“He’s not lost, Adrian,”
Alia whispered into my head.
“He’s home.”
I stared at her in astonishment.