The Search for Artemis (The Chronicles of Landon Wicker) (35 page)

He decided to put his pirate bandana on his head and then placed his plastic sword next to him and turned on the reading light beside his bed. Lying on his lap, the book sat open to the page they had last read. Throughout the past hour he tried a number of times to decipher the meaning of the random letters and spaces on the page but garnered no success in figuring anything out. His mom had taught him his ABCs, but he had no idea how they worked to make words. He just stared at the page, hoping the story would flow into his brain. Eventually, he resigned himself to waiting until the next day to find out anything else. He gazed at the fan on his ceiling, watching the blades whirl around and around, hoping to fall asleep.

All the while, Landon heard the low mumbling of his parents in the living room. They were arguing again, but Landon couldn’t understand anything they were saying. It happened so often that it had almost become a necessary drone for him to fall asleep, like the sound of crashing waves on the beach or of rain as it hits the window pane.

He didn’t understand what caused the bickering and fighting between his parents. His mother always separated him from it, either putting him in his room when possible, or having him put headphones on and listen to music while he played on the floor. As Landon began to drift off to sleep, his mother burst through the door and his father’s loud voice blasted into the room. She shut the door, and with a faint click, locked it. Her body was pressed against it, her chest heaving as she audibly breathed in and out. Her eyes were shut. Mr. Wicker could still be heard screaming from the living room, and when something heavy crashed into the door, her entire body constricted.

“Mom?” Landon was now sitting straight up in the bed with his bandana still on and his pirate sword ready in hand. “Mom? You ’kay?”

Landon’s mother opened her eyes. When she saw Landon sitting there, her tense face relaxed. On occasion she came into his room after she’d put him to bed, but this was the first time he’d ever asked about her with concern. “Oh, Landon, yes, everything is fine,” she said in a mellow tone. She walked over to the bed and sat down beside Landon. Feeling the vibrations of his mother’s shaking body, he looked up at her.

After a few deep breaths, Mrs. Wicker turned over toward Landon, who still carried his plastic pirate sword at the ready. “Whoa, stand down young, dread pirate Lanny. All’s well on the home front.” As she spoke, she took the sword from Landon and placed it on top of the sheets. “Now, what are you still doing awake my little man? I think I put you to bed at least an hour ago, and here you are as if I hadn’t even tucked you in yet.”

“I can’t sleep.” Landon gave a little shove to the book still sitting on his lap. “I wanna know what happens to Jim and Long John Silver.”

“Ah, so that’s it,” Mrs. Wicker replied. “We did end right in the middle of everything today, didn’t we? Well, since I barged in on you like this and you are awake, I don’t see any harm in reading a bit more.”

Landon grabbed the book from his lap and handed it to his mother. She took it and slid under the covers next to him. Feeling the familiar warmth of her body against his, Landon nuzzled right up to her side.

“Are you sick, momma?” Landon asked. She felt warmer than usual.

“No, I’m fine, just a little worked up is all. I’ll be right back to normal in no time, especially after we’ve taken a journey on the high seas of the Caribbean.”

For the next hour Mrs. Wicker read to Landon. He stared at the words in the book, getting lost in the story that Mrs. Wicker read from its pages. As she read, he imagined himself alongside Jim Hawkins, fighting off pirates on the
Hispaniola
, searching for Captain Flint’s long buried treasure and leaving the mutinous pirates marooned on
Treasure Island
as he sailed away with Trelawney and his loyal men.

“Momma,” Landon interrupted his mother mid-sentence. “Why does Jim keep going back to the bad man?”

Sitting there beside him, his mother leaned forward and closed the book. She softly touched Landon on the cheek. “That’s a great question, honey. Why do you think he goes back to Long John Silver?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because he doesn’t seem all bad, I guess.”

Mrs. Wicker smiled and looked at Landon, her little boy, endearingly. “I’m constantly surprised at how perceptive you are. Never lose that, okay? Always keep your eyes open and ask questions. You’ll hear this often, but it’s true—never judge a book by its cover. You have to dig deep and look within to discover what’s hidden inside.”

Landon looked at her, confused, as he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Landon, it’s like
Treasure Island
,” Mrs. Wicker continued. “This book has been through a lot. It survived a fire. The cover is torn and tattered. If we took it at face value, we’d assume it was garbage and just throw it away, but then we would’ve missed the adventure that sends our imagination to the wondrous places hidden inside. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Books are good?” Landon eagerly replied.

“Yes.” Mrs. Wicker laughed. “Books are good. That’s exactly right. Books are good.”

Mrs. Wicker got out of the bed and went around to Landon’s side. She tucked him into his sheets, kissed him on the forehead and said, “Goodnight, my little man. I love you so very much.” Giving her son one last longing glance, she pulled away from the bed, but just as her fingers slipped from Landon’s cheeks, she stopped. She tilted her head to the side and had a strange glint in her eyes, a wondrous one as if she’d just come to some profound realization. “You know, you’re going to do great things some day. I can see it. Amazing, unbelievable things,” she said. “But remember, greatness never comes without struggles, so if you ever feel lost, need guidance or just a place to get away from it all, look to the books.” She pulled away from Landon as tears welled up in her eyes and silently made her way to the door.

Once she’d reached it, she apprehensively unlocked the door and turned the handle. With a delicate flip of the light switch, she shut off the reading lamp on Landon’s bedside table and walked out into the living room. As she shut the door, Landon heard his father say coarsely, “There you are!”

When Landon woke up, he had no idea what time it was. He knew he’d been out for a while because his muscles felt limp and he was groggy—not the result of a thirty-minute power nap.

As he stood up, he closed his eyes and held on to the lingering image of his mother that he’d just seen in his dream. He wished he could relive that memory over and over again and feel as if she was still there, but he knew that was impossible. Heading out of the Library, Landon searched for a clock; he needed to find out how much time was left until his first mission started. He had a duty to complete, a duty where he would be asked to do amazing and unbelievable things on which he couldn’t renege.

He soon discovered that it was already 7:30; he’d somehow slept for over six hours. In a way he was glad he’d been out for so long. It meant he wasn’t spending his time brooding, but it also meant he needed to head straight to the Olympic Tower and begin suiting up for the mission. He no longer had time for dinner because in less than two hours he would be in the air headed to Metis Labs.

Entering the locker room, Landon found Cortland and the Crane twins already there pulling on their full-body, all-black tactical uniforms. Landon made his way straight for his station without saying anything. Upon opening the locker door, Landon found his own tactical uniform, complete with a pair of black shoes and a small box with his standard-issue communication link earpiece resting atop his typical change of clothes. A twinge of excitement coursed through him, elevating his pulse.
This is really happening
, he thought.
I’m now part of the team.

Setting the comm. link aside, he pulled the shoes off the top. He was surprised how light they were. They had thin, flexible soles; the tops were made of a durable black material, and black laces ran up the center but disappeared into the side of the shoe. Landon knew that once he put them on, they would automatically tighten and adjust to fit perfectly—another Pallas Corporation technology. They probably weighed under an ounce. Setting them on the bench behind him, he figured they were similar to what an acrobat or tightrope walker would wear.

The suits were even more interesting. He had learned all about them during his training. They were made of a fabric developed by the Pallas Corporation that used a carbon fiber that regulated body heat and was also more durable than Kevlar. The suit was bulletproof, and on the left breast, in black rubber, the Pantheon eagle was attached. Many times he’d seen the uniform on his other teammates, but he’d never touched one, so he was surprised to find that the fabric seemed soft and comfortable. He’d always figured it would be some coarse cloth that was stiff like canvas and itchier than wool on a warm day.

Excitedly, Landon laid the suit over the bench and started to undress, shedding each layer until he was in only his underwear. He then grabbed the suit and started to look for the zipper, fastener or whatever would open it up for him to don it. He scoured every inch, but couldn’t find anything of the sort.

“It took me an hour to figure it out,” Cortland chimed in and then began to laugh as he watched a half-naked Landon develop a panicked look on his face as he searched the suit for an answer. “The engineers think it’s funny. They tell you all about the things in training but never mention how you’re supposed to put ’em on.”

“Well? What’s the secret?” Landon asked.

“There’s a little button,” he answered, “inside the left wrist, just past the cuff. It deactivates the nano-zipper.”

Landon put his hand into the left sleeve of the suit and felt around the cuff. After a second of searching, he noticed a tiny dot that was slightly raised and made of a different material. Using his thumb as a support on the outside of the fabric, he pressed the button. Suddenly, the back of the suit from the neckline to the tailbone began to divide in a perfect line. It was like the seam on the side of a t-shirt getting ripped apart, but it happened without assistance.

Landon looked at it in wonder. Apparently the suit had more tricks than he realized.

“How does that work?” he asked.

“The nano-zipper? I have no idea how they did it, but how they explained it to me was that each thread has a clasp that attaches to its pair on the other half of the zipper, so it becomes a single piece of fabric again.” As he spoke, Cortland sat down on the wooden bench and made himself comfortable. “There’s some kind of practical reason for having it, but I can’t remember what it is.”

Using the bench as a support, Landon threaded his legs into the now available leg holes of the suit, and after taking a moment to shift and adjust the bottom half, he maneuvered the front up to his chest and slid his arms into the sleeves. With another press of the button in the left wrist of the suit, the nano-zipper reengaged and sealed him into his tactical uniform. It took him a while to feel normal in it. It wasn’t that he was self-conscious, but more so that he had never worn anything that tight in his life. The suit was made to serve as a second-skin, so it conformed to his body and molded itself around every contour of his physique.

Sitting on the bench, he slipped on the shoes, and when he stood up, he could feel the internal technologies activate as the laces and insoles calibrated and adjusted to his feet. Energized by the experience of suiting up for the first time, Landon bounced around in place and swung his arms up and down and back and forth while raising his knees up to his chest. Like a swimmer before diving into the pool, he was doing a little ballistic stretching to loosen up, but moments later the excitement wore off. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared pensively at the floor.

“Just hit you, huh?” Cortland asked in reaction to Landon’s sudden shift in mood. He stood up and walked over to Landon. Giving him an encouraging brotherly shove, he continued, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s not like we’re going to run into Artemis or anything.”

Landon’s head shot up and turned to look Cortland dead in the eye. “What did you say?” he asked earnestly.

“That you’ve got nothing to worry about. This is a routine—”

“No,” Landon interrupted. “About Artemis. Who is that?” Landon’s mind raced, but he fought to maintain his composure. He’d been searching for an opportunity to ask someone in the Pantheon about her, but he’d never expected someone else to breach the subject for him. Now that it was on the table, he needed to find out what Cortland knew.
Could he know the identity of Artemis? After all this time, could it have been that easy?

“You don’t know?” he asked. Landon could see the excitement building in Cortland’s eyes. He leaned in closer and explained, “She’s the Pantheon’s top threat. This whole last year she keeps popping up and sabotaging our missions. She keeps to the shadows, moving undetected, waiting for her opportunity to strike. She’s a master of the spy game.” Cortland spoke about her with utmost reverence. “She even broken into the Gymnasium last fall and stole some top secret project the scientists were working on.”

As Cortland talked, Landon’s mind reeled. The thief, the girl who he’d chased through the halls in the middle of the night and who’d pinned him to the door, was Artemis. He knew they were connected. Even then, he could feel it in his gut, but now he knew for certain that they were one and the same.

“But who is she?” Landon pried. “You’ve identified her right?”

“Ha, I wish,” Cortland replied laughingly. “We’ve been trying to track her down and get anything we can on her for months.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” he said. “She’s like a ghost. I think the higher ups are really starting to worry about her.”