Kinetics: In Search of Willow (18 page)

The fact that the Alliance wasn't
jumping into war over Willow's kidnapping was frustrating. The fact
that it was so clear that the Isiroans were in the wrong was even
more so.

We took the information on Grey's
journey across the state and made a detailed map. What little we
could gather from the reports, he had Willow and another woman with
him. The woman was likely extra help to watch over Willow,
according to Nick.

Harry was deep in thought, studying
the map. "Why St. Louis? You said this isn't a location terribly
important to either the Alliance or the Isiroans?"

Nick nodded. "Undoubtedly, Kinetics of
either side live there, but what possible use could a man like
Marcus Grey have with it? But Grey has been off the grid for some
time. Your guess would be as good as mine as to what's changed.
"

I plucked the small printout of
Willow's trek across the states with Marcus out of Harry's fingers.
"My question is, why here?" I pointed to the Alliance facility in
New Mexico. "You said it's Alliance, what's there that Grey
needed?"

Nick shook his head. "The only thing I
know about it is that it's a temporary housing for
first-gens."

"First-Gens? Those are…?" I
asked.

"First generation Kinetics. Means
their parents have no abilities or knowledge and their kids are
suddenly sprouting powers. Usually causes a pain in the neck for
the InfoCon. First-gen emergence is not a pretty job
responsibility."

"Maybe Grey came here to pick up some
new recruits?" I said.

"Unlikely. He was outrageously stupid
for attacking an Alliance member like Willow in the first place,
but that's because she's been pinned to be Isiro's next host. While
you can't completely discount the idea, it wouldn't have the same
payoff."

"So… What say we just follow this
path?" I traced my finger along the highlighted line that showed
their trek across the states.

"Their first stop was at this place
just outside of Columbus." Nick tapped the map.

"What's there?" Harry
asked.

"Nothing as far as I know. A
Non-Kinetic warehouse district." Nick shrugged, and then frowned.
"Unless…"

Nick scooted his chair back and pulled
a folder from one of his shelves. He flipped through the pages
quickly and then stopped on one page in particular.

"What is it?" Harry asked
me.

"I don't know." I shrugged.

"Aha!" Nick stood up and began pacing.
"It used to be the location of an Alliance research and development
group. It burned down about thirteen years ago."

"Why would they need to visit there?"
Harry stood and looked at the folder in Nick's hands.

"I'm not sure, but it's not far
away."

"I don't understand why we can't just
go straight to Laramie." I said.

Nick scratched at his chin. "I need
time to go through the information that we have been gathering on
him. Plus there is a reason he's taken Willow on this joyride. I
think you should take the opportunity to understand who it is that
you're going after. Grey isn't the kind of person to do things on a
whim. He's deliberate. And this deliberate journey is something
that you need to understand. Even I don't know why, and if I didn't
have serious responsibilities here, I would be going with you.
Plus, our people are still looking for you and they know the first
place you'll probably go is Laramie. They will be looking for
you."

"Gives them some time to cool their
heels." Harry laughed.

"Yeah, exactly." Nick smiled. "Smart
friend you have, Eugene."

"Heh." I frowned. Even though I was
getting Harry to help me, I still didn't know if he could be called
my friend.

"Anyway, I've got you two new IDs. As
long as you guys don't make any big scenes, you should be alright."
Nick handed over two fresh IDs. Our fakes said we were from
Florida.

***

“
What’s this?” Jacob
Yoshida looked down at a flash drive that one of his assistants
just placed on his desk.

“
Uhm, it’s about your
brother, sir.” The assistant was nervous around him and Jacob knew
it. He hadn’t gotten to this position in the Alliance by being nice
and most people below and even some above him treated him with a
healthy sense of fear and respect. That’s just the way he liked
it.

Jacob picked up the flash drive and
nodded to the assistant releasing him from having to stand next to
the desk anymore.

He twirled the drive in his fingers
wondering what his brother had done now that prompted someone to
send him a flashdrive over it. Eugene was not exactly the biggest
thing on anyone’s radar, so this was almost alarming.

The incident at Eugene’s school was
not anything the Alliance hadn’t dealt with before, a first
generation Kinetic manifesting powers was almost every day, nothing
the InfoCon couldn’t handle. But now that his brother was involved,
Jacob had taken the time to investigate the issue. Fairly standard
issue event, the girl in question was a little emotionally
unstable, but her psyche eval from the last time came back mostly
normal. Eugene’s friend Willow had really been the key player in
the whole mess. But now that she was in Isiro’s clutches and Eugene
was facing his decision to train or be permanently removed from
Kinetic society, he shouldn’t have been a trouble.

Jacob took one look around the office,
where a few people worked on computers, but most were at a table in
the center of the room working on a layout. His direct supervisor
and mentor, the War Chief Heilbronner, was seated at his desk
falling asleep to cat videos on the internet.

Jacob shook his head and then with one
smooth move pushed the drive into the port on the side of his
laptop.

There was one file on the drive. Jacob
clicked on it and watched a video compilation of his brother’s
actions from the past few days.

He had broken into the Alliance
facility where their father worked, and at first Jacob didn’t know
why this was interesting but then--

His brother produced fire. A known
Vunjika manifested his powers brilliantly.

Eugene had spent time in one of the
brigs but not before…

Then he saw Eugene run.

Jacob smiled.

***

We piled into Nick's car the next
afternoon. While Nick couldn’t go with us out of state, he could at
the very least take us to the first stop on Grey’s
journey.

The warehouse district was mostly
empty, so when we got to the burned out husk that was once an
Alliance facility, it was about as eerie as the beginning of a
horror movie. Sounds of traffic on the freeway echoed from the
distance, but the area around the gutted building was hushed. The
few trees that surrounded the area wavered in the light winds but
didn't bring a single sound with them.

We stepped out of Nick's car and onto
charred remains.

It had been burned. What was left of
the facility lay in scraps and shambles. We walked the perimeter of
the large warehouse, not so much looking for a way in as we were
gauging the place. At our feet small plants were erupting from the
cracks in the pavement. Fallen leaves and branches covered a layer
of charred wood, brick and other bits of building. A few of the
concrete walls still stood high, casting long shadows across the
debris.

"It used to be a research facility?" I
asked as we hopped over fallen steel beams.

"What were they researching?" Harry
asked.

"Tech. I think this was the primary
facility for backward engineering of Isiroan tech." Nick
supplied.

"Why haven't they done anything with
this land?" Harry asked Nick. "I assume they still own
it."

"I'm not entirely sure." Nick shrugged
and leaned down to pick up a stick off the ground.

I walked into what was left of the
structure and looked at what Willow would have seen when she was
here. Why did Marcus Grey bring her here? What about this building
was so important?

"Why did it burn down?" I asked
aloud.

Nick used the stick to poke at piles
of dirt and grass. "Thirteen years ago there was a battle here. It
was one of the last before we made a temporary truce with the
Isiroans. Now that I think about it, the reason that Alliance don't
want to come back here is that our leader at the time, Chief
Reddinger, was killed here. A lot of Alliance people loved him.
I've been told that what he did during his term was the single most
reason why we aren't still fighting the Isiroans daily. But when
the battle happened, it took down the whole place and killed a
dozen scientists in the process."

We found traces of other people having
been here with empty beer cans scattered in a corner and graffiti
on the remaining walls. But none of it could explain why Grey had
brought Willow here.

We stepped out into a large open area
with no ceiling and exposed to the sky where a large tree had burst
up from the center of the concrete flooring. Chunks of the floor
were ripped up and surrounded the tree trunk in concentric
circles.

Harry touched the trunk. "Are you sure
this place was burned down thirteen years ago? This tree… it's too
big."

Nick pursed his lips. "It's probably a
tree created by a florakinetic."

"A 
flower
kinetic?" I asked and stepped on top of a large chunk of
concrete to look over the whole area.

"No, 
flora
. It means plants in general. Florakinetics can create and
grow all types of plants." Nick shook his head at me. "I can see
that I need to get you a book on Kinetic powers."

"Sure." I said absently,
my attention was caught by one of the walls where there was an eye
and the words: 
"The Eye Knows. The
Mind Sees"
 spray painted onto the
surface.

"Anyway, is there anything else here?"
Nick asked, looking around.

"I guess not." I said. "I don't
understand why Marcus Grey brought Willow here. What's there to
see?"

"I'll do a little digging and see if I
can find any more information about the place." Nick said, pushing
concrete chunks around with his foot.

We waited around a little more. There
was literally nothing for us here that helped. I was more than a
little sad. I felt strange here, like part of me had been here
before, but going through all my memories I couldn't find anything
that tied back to this place. I wanted to leave, and I said as much
to Nick.

Harry on the other hand seemed
morbidly fascinated with every detail of the place. His face was a
constant mask of wonder and awe.

The return to Nick's home was quiet.
Tomorrow Harry and I would be leaving Ohio to follow the track of
Marcus Grey and Willow across the states.

Harry left for home and promised to
return bright and early after spending one more night with his dad.
He had told his dad that he was leaving to go to a Math Camp of all
things, and apparently his dad was more than okay with
that.

I was sitting in the living room half
watching some movie about a Roman gladiator when Nick came in with
a huge smile.

"One more thing to take care of before
you leave." he said. Nick reached into back pocket and pulled out a
pair of scissors. Then without warning he grabbed a thick lock of
my hair and chopped it off.

I scooted sideways on the couch and
cried out. "What the hell!"

"Hah, been wanting to do that for
months!" He laughed.

I hopped off the couch and ran for the
bathroom to look at my destroyed hair. It was all lopsided now, one
half reaching my shoulders and the other frayed and cropped close
to my ear.

"We have to change your appearance."
Nick said from behind me, taking another hand full of hair and
snipping it in half.

"What? Why?" I turned around and
frowned at him.

Nick gave me a sour look. "Your face
is all over the news."

"Oh." I hadn't thought about that
yet.

"Eugene, trust me." He smirked. "I
won't harm that pretty head of yours. I'll make you look like a
rock star."

"I don't want to look like a rock
star." I muttered, but let him do his work.

By the time he was finished, Nick had
chopped my six-inch-long hair down to about one. Nick swept away
the cut hairs from the back of my neck and told me to look at
myself in the bathroom mirror. I did look different without the
hair covering my face, but it felt weird. I touched the back of my
head and ran my fingers through the prickly hair.

"Here." He pressed a pair of glasses
into my hands when I turned to talk to him.

"I don't need glasses." I said looking
up at him.

"You do now." Nick crossed his arms,
waiting for me.

I shrugged and slipped the glasses
onto my face. I looked in the mirror. I didn't look the same. The
short hair and the glasses didn't make me look like a rock star but
made me look like-- I wasn't sure. That wasn't Eugene Yoshida in
the mirror. I didn't know that person one bit. I didn't know my own
self.