

The Gifted

By Aaron K. Redshaw

The Gifted

Aaron K. Redshaw

Copyright © 2013 by Aaron K. Redshaw

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

#### Dedication: To Christine who has always believed in me, and to David and Andrew for whom I wrote this book.

# Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Things start with a bang

Chapter 2: I awake in a strange place

Chapter 3: Others like me

Chapter 4: Tricksters

Chapter 5: We've been drafted

Chapter 6: When things fly at night

Chapter 7: Our mission explained

Chapter 8: I hit a brick wall

Chapter 9: What we discover

Chapter 10: Incognito

Chapter 11: Our first day

Chapter 12: A tempting offer

Chapter 13: Things learned

Chapter 14: Too much at once!

Chapter 15: Our secret weapon

Chapter 16: A way out

Chapter 17: Under the island

Chapter 18: The dragon

Chapter 19: The great battle

Chapter 20: I completely lose control

Chapter 21: The end of the battle

Chapter 22: A bad kind of surprise

Chapter 23: Fire with fire

Chapter 24: Things revealed

Chapter 25: Finding the bomb

Chapter 26: Twelve million

Chapter 27: A desperate plan

Chapter 28: The part I missed

Chapter 29: Back among friends

Chapter 30: Enemy inside

Chapter 31: Saying goodbye

Chapter 32: A new beginning

A note from the author

Acknowledgements

More titles by this author

About the Author

# Chapter 1: Things start with a bang

I was reviewing fractions in Mr. Hoang's class the day my school got bombed. The explosion rattled my teeth and blew papers all over my 5th grade classroom. Mr. Hoang was on the floor with the rest of the students, hiding under his desk.

"What was that?" I said. I was already looking out through the small rectangular window in the top of the door, the only one standing. Immediately I saw what was up. A huge smoking hole had been blown clean through the wall on the other side of the hallway. It was right below where our school Bible verse says, "The LORD protects those of childlike faith-Psalm 116:6."

"Cool!" I said, but no one was listening. Everyone else in the room was hiding under their desks or on the floor. Out the window, through a haze of dust, three men and one who might have been a woman, stumbling through the hole in the wall. They were wearing helmets and black vests. Each had a weapon, a gun of some sort on their hip. The man in front was taller than the rest. He appeared grim and determined, and it looked like his nose was bent a little to the right. He stepped over the debris and moved toward me.

Seeing me through the glass in the door, he made eye contact and smiled. That's what I remembered; his smile that didn't look like it fit there on his face with his broken nose. He came with the others, tromping over pieces of brick and plaster, and then grabbed the doorknob. I could tell he was having trouble with it. It must have been jammed from the explosion. I backed away from the door as he yanked hard and with a loud crack, it flew open. He took one step in the doorway, grabbed something from his back pocket and hit me over the head with it. Hard.

I said, "mmmfffffpphhh," and hit the floor.

### ***

I awoke, and almost instantly was in a panic! I was in total darkness and my head hurt terribly. There was a buzzing sound, like electric machinery coming from another room. It was a comforting sound I thought. One that I have always associated with electric heaters or clothes dryers; good to sleep by. But my heart was pounding too fast to sleep.

There was a loud conversation going on outside the room. It sounded like a man and a woman. I stood up and walked toward the voices with my hands stretched out in front of me. When I got to the wall, I felt around with my hands, and listened. Finally I put my ear to what must have been the door. "I don't understand," said a woman.

Then a man's voice, "I'm just telling you it is true. He's one of those special kids, so watch yourself."

"And how am I to do that?" said the woman.

"You should go in with a determined mind," he said, "Especially when you come within proximity of the boy. Anything you do should be preplanned so he can't affect you."

There was a pause, steps were getting closer. I stumbled away from the door quickly so no one would know I was listening. When I had moved back a few steps, I tripped and fell down. I stayed there as I saw someone with a flashlight enter. I closed my eyes, trying to pretend I was sleeping, which was hard because I was breathing so fast. I tried to take deeper, slower breaths.

"Ah, so you have been awake already I see. This is not where we first laid you." The woman had some sort of accent I couldn't place. She kept her distance, "I can feel your pull from over here, but I was sent only to give you this message. You will get food twice today and then tomorrow you will be sent off the mainland. You have a new life waiting for you there."

She took a couple of steps toward me. Then she was quiet for a few seconds. "But you are bleeding." _I am?_ I thought. "They should have told a medic. How are you to be turned if you are treated this way?" With another pause, I heard the fading sound of footsteps and the close of a door. She locked a deadbolt from the other side.

I was left on the floor, concrete by the feel of it, in an unknown place and I had no way out. And, evidently, I was bleeding. I'm not much of a crier, but I'll admit, I cried for a few minutes then. Eventually I got tired of crying, and hearing the humming of the machines; I was lulled to sleep.

### ***

The next thing I remember is that Abraham Lincoln was selling burritos from a small white cart to blue alien children, when the burrito cart blew up in a cloud of smoke and fire.

I was startled awake. It was no dream! There was a bright light in the room now and a huge gaping hole in the wall. What was it with explosions these days? Cinder blocks were scattered in pieces all over the floor and there was a lot of dust and smoke. A man in camouflage who looked like he should have been a professional wrestler stalked into the room. Upon seeing me he took out a two-way radio, and with a smile said, "Yes, I have him. See you at the base."

He turned to me, took a couple of steps closer, and said to himself, "Yup, just like they said." Then to me, "Hi, I'm your ride. We call it a rescue mission. Let's go."

He reached behind me and put on handcuffs. "We don't want you to go anywhere though." He smiled, and this smile did not look like it belonged in his straight jawed face either, but it looked more genuine than the last guy. I stood up and he put one thick arm behind me and pushed me out toward the hole in the wall. I stumbled over the debris the best I could.

I heard the noise of yelling and running outside, but I couldn't see anything because the light was blinding. I closed my eyes and let him lead me out. Once we got past the rubble, he grabbed me like I was a sack of flour and carried me over his shoulder.

His pace quickened, and since my stomach was against his shoulder, I felt sick, but my thoughts of pain were distracted when I heard a helicopter ahead of us. I had never seen a helicopter up close and always wanted to. I sure hoped this really was a rescue. I was excited and scared at the same time. He opened the door of the helicopter and put me on a seat. "I'll see you on the other side," he said and then gave that unnatural looking smile again.

I could feel the helicopter lift off as I saw him run the other way. We lifted up higher and I saw that we had been in some warehouse right in the middle of my town! The voice of a man behind me said, "Hello," and then I felt a prick on my neck. Everything became dark again.

# Chapter 2: I awake in a strange place

When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the inside of a helicopter, but was surprised to find I was lying in bed, staring up at a white ceiling. It was entirely too quiet, except for the ticking of a clock, which, as I turned my head read 8:05. Was that am or pm? The room was well-lit but cold, and there were some other unoccupied beds beside mine.

I have been in a hospital before. When I was eight, I fell out of a tree and broke my arm while playing with my younger brother. A shriveled old man had been walking past the playground and saw me. Immediately he ran over, lifted me in his arms, and carried me twelve blocks to the hospital and checked me in. The man was 86 years old and had chronic back pain. Once the nurses took me away the man acted confused and wondered aloud why he had done it.

As I lie there remembering this, I heard footsteps and someone opened the door. It was a lady with dark skin and a mouth that looked like it was made to smile. "I see you are back with us now," she smiled, speaking with a soft voice and a thick Indian accent. "Did you know you talk in your sleep? You were saying something about Abraham Lincoln and Mexican food. Anyway, I thought that might mean you were hungry, so I brought you some food. Do you like Mexican?"

"I do, thank you," I said. "Where am I?"

"All of that you will learn soon, but no need to worry, you are safe," she said.

"This food isn't going to put me to sleep, is it?" I said.

"No, it won't. They put you out to keep you safe, and to keep hidden this place. I can feel quite a pull when I come near. Well, that's what they said to expect. I had better leave now before it gets harder. Have a nice meal." She put a bottle of water next to a tray of food and walked out.

Feel a pull? What did that mean?

I opened up the lid and saw Spanish rice and beans with corn tortillas. I ate my meal and I found myself hungrier than expected. As I ate, I thought about my parents and my brother. I already missed them.

About an hour later that same nurse opened the door just a crack and said, "There is someone here to see you."

A medium height, stocky man entered. He had a wide face and reminded me of a neighbor I had back home. He might have been Mexican. "Andy," he said, "I see you are awake and have eaten. Good." He was clearly born in the U.S. as he had no accent whatever, but spoke with a deep voice like you'd expect from a pro football player. He stepped closer, "Oh yeah, you've got it! I wonder if you even know." It was weird the way people kept talking about me like this. Didn't he realize I was right in front of him?

"Do you even know what I'm talking about?" he said.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought. The people who got you gave you quite a lump on your head. We checked you out to make sure everything was okay." I reached up and felt a bandage on my head.

"Do you feel like you can walk yet?"

"I don't know." I started to sit up. "I haven't tried."

"Why don't you try it now, but go slowly."

I got up from the bed and put my feet on the smooth, gray cement floor. I felt the cold on my feet as I slowly stood up. I was a little dizzy at first, but after a few seconds felt better. "Yup," I said. "I think I can walk."

"Good, because in twenty minutes you are scheduled for an important meeting. You may want to change out of that hospital gown though if you don't want the other kids to laugh at you. Your clothes are in the bathroom." He pointed to a room in the corner near the door. "Oh, and here," he said as he held out a pair of gray slippers. "It seems your shoes didn't make the trip." And then he left.

There was something odd in the way he looked, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I put on the gray slippers and went into the bathroom to relieve myself. Coming out again I took a look at the room, then walked to the door and found it locked. "That's weird," I said aloud. With nothing else to do I went over to the window to see where I was. Clearly I was on the second floor. There was grass a story below and a bird that flew from behind the building, across a lawn, over to some trees in the distance. I felt the glass and it was cold even though it was still fall and sunny. Staring outside, thinking about my parents, soon I saw another bird fly over to that same set of trees.

I wondered what was going on at school. I must have missed some school by now. I remembered the hole blown through the wall. That must have made it more interesting for a while. How would they repair it? Would all the students try to ignore this gaping hole right across from Mr. Hoang's class? I could almost picture the men working and kids walking past a smoking hole the size of a minivan. I wished I was there because it was familiar and safe. Another bird flew by, again from behind the building, over to that same place in that same faraway tree.

I snapped out of it. That was impossible! Each time it looked exactly the same. How could it fly from behind the hospital again and again? I watched for a couple more minutes and saw it again. What was going on here?

At that moment the squat man re-entered the room. "Yeah, I see you like the view. Don't look too carefully though or you might get a shock."

"I already have," I said. "Where are we?"

"Well, as Dorothy would say, 'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.'"

# Chapter 3: Others like me

"If you want to know more, come with me." He walked out the door and I followed.

He led me down a long, and I mean long, hallway. It stretched beyond my vision and curved to the right. At first the walls were smooth and white like the room I had just left, but then they change into square tiles, still white. I could hear the clip-clap of his polished black shoes which echoed down the hallway. I was actually getting tired and my mind began drifting off when I saw the hallway end in a rock wall ahead of us. How could that be? I thought we were on the second or third floor. I could feel the floor slant downward slightly as if we were plunging into the earth.

He must have guessed at my confusion because he said, "Don't worry. I can see you're trying to make sense of it. You'll put it all together soon enough. At least the important parts."

He took the remaining steps up to the rock and didn't even slow down, walking right into it. "Probably should close your eyes the first time."

"Huh?" I said trying to follow him, putting my arms out in front of me to keep from hitting my face on the rock. As I did this, I hit. . .nothing. My hands were inside the rock and I felt nothing.

"Come on," he said. "You'll get used to it."

We kept moving forward, but I couldn't see anything except the rock that seemed to surround me. His voice near said, "The lab monkeys enjoy this show. A waste of time and money if you ask me. Now you should put out your hands here for the wall you can't see." I had never put them down. My fingertips collided with a smooth surface.

There were beeping noises like someone was dialing a cell phone and then in the middle of the rock I saw a door slide open. Suddenly in front of me was a spacious room with a few kids and a couple of adults who sat or stood around a long rectangular table. It was some kind of conference room. I stepped inside behind my guide and recognized the man who had carried me on his shoulder. He had a bandage on the side of his head, but it was a small one and when I came in he smiled.

"It's you!" I said.

"Yes," said my rescuer. "I just wanted to see you before I left. I'm glad things worked out for you."

"Thanks," I said. Without another word he shook my hand and walked out the door. I guess he had other things to do.

Turning to face the group, I saw a thin, young, black man sitting across the table. When he looked my way, he smiled.

"Doctor Denay, I'll leave him in your hands," said the man who had walked me there.

"Yes, General Garcia. Thank you," he said, adjusting his glasses.

The door closed as the general left and I sat down. "Hey, what's your name?" said a boy in a green Hawaiian shirt who shook my hand. Before I could open my mouth a girl about my height with long brown hair said, "What happened to your head? Are you okay?"

I got ready to speak, but then the doctor said, "Yes, well, I dare say you can all feel it, so let's get to it."

By this time, I was getting annoyed. "Why does everyone keep talking about me that way?"

The doctor cleared his throat. "Andy," he said, "you have lived a bit of a privileged life, haven't you?" He drew out his words slowly as he spoke.

"Huh?" I said. "What do you mean?" I could feel the frustration rising in me.

He continued. "When a stranger approaches you on the street, Andy, do they usually smile at you, or ignore you?"

The question seemed absurd. "Well, they'd smile. Isn't that what people do? That's just being polite."

"Han?" asked the Doctor.

A thin Asian boy with glasses said in a quiet voice, "Yes?"

"How would you answer that?"

Han adjusted his glasses, looking uncomfortable. "Ignore me mostly," he said, barely above a whisper.

"Guido?" said the doctor. "How would you respond?"

Guido put on a baseball cap, and suddenly I noticed him. How could I have missed him? He had on that loud Hawaiian shirt which looked fitting with his mocha skin, and he was probably a good nine inches shorter than me. "Are you kidding doc?" he said. "This kid's got all the luck. Me, I get ignored every time."

"Yes," said Dr. Denay. "Well, I suppose you are a bit of an exception there. Still, Tracy? What about you?"

"I might get ignored, unless he was a cute boy and I smiled first," she said while twirling strands of hair around her finger. "I guess it really just depends if I smiled first. But mostly, if I don't know them or anything, they just ignore me."

"What's all this about?" I said.

The doctor took off his glasses and set them on the table, "For most people, a pedestrian who passed them on the street would not even make eye contact, walking by without a word or a smile. When someone passes you on the street, however, I would bet they virtually always smile. That is because of your extraordinary gift."

"Gift," I was confused at this and a bit mad at this treatment. "What do you mean by gift?"

"You see," he said in calm smooth tones, "you are one of the few, the very few it turns out, who have such a gift. I would expect that you receive an unusual amount of help from others. Even, perhaps, from strangers?"

In my mind I saw the bent over old man. Not knowing why, I felt myself becoming angry even more. "Well, people help people," I said. "People are nice!"

"Not that nice," he said. "Or that often. Those people were not just being good Samaritans; they could hardly help themselves, because of your gift."

I sat quietly, trying not to explode in front of this stranger.

"I can see this has upset you, and I'm sure you are quite nice Andy, but not that nice. Anyone who comes within your field would be affected and would feel compelled to offer help, to give kindness, to do whatever they could to make you pleased with them. It is the way you emit to those around you. It is your gift. People _like_ you, even sometimes when they don't want to." He smiled.

"I'm going to give Andy a while to chew on that," he said. "We all know it took awhile for each of you to come to grips with your particular gifts." The other three nodded and some made sounds of agreement. The doctor took off his glasses and chewed on the earpiece, "To make Andy feel more comfortable, why don't the rest of you share what you have learned about your gifts."

Tracy jumped to her feet, "Can I go first?"

"Yes, Tracy," he said. "That would be fine."

"Well," the exuberant girl went on, "I'm a heat gatherer, or concentrator or something like that. I've known about my gift for a little while now. Last year, when I got really mad at my big sister, I set her mattress on fire. Mom thought it was some mistake of us playing with matches or something. But I knew what I'd done. For a while after that I was afraid to use it, but then I started to experiment again and, well, I got into some more trouble before I learned that I could control it. Before that, whenever I'd lose my temper, well, watch out is all I can say! It was a lot of fun for me, but one day a neighbor dog bit me and I let him have it. I kind of felt sorry for it whenever I saw the bandages on him though. Do tails grow back?"

The doctor cleared his throat. "I don't think so. Thank you Tracy." She nodded, smiled, and sat down.

"Can I go next?" I heard someone say. I say I heard it, but I didn't see anyone at first. He touched my back and then there he was, right next to me. How was that possible?

"Sorry, I had to do that, 'cause you wouldn't have noticed me otherwise," he said.

"All right, Guido, go ahead," said the doctor.

"Yeah, so I am not a quiet person really," he said. "I should be hard to miss, but I always noticed in school I had a hard time making friends."

"A hard time?" said Dr. Denay.

"Okay, I didn't have any," he said. "It was like I wasn't there. No one ever paid any attention to me. I mean, one time at home, just to be silly, I came downstairs for breakfast and my mom was in the kitchen and my dad was at the table and I sat down like I usually do, except I was only wearing my underwear. They never even said anything. Not even when I opened the door to go to school. Just before I walked out, I pretended I had forgotten something and I went upstairs to put on some pants and a shirt."

"Guido," said the doctor, "has the gift of unobtrusiveness."

"The what?" I said.

"Like Un-noticeability," said Guido. "And there's no doubt about that, I'm a clothing optional kind of guy. I could probably tap-dance naked on a table while you all ate dinner and you wouldn't even know I was there."

"Gross!" said Tracy again. "You're weird."

"Let's not call him weird, Tracy," said the doctor. "Setting fire to things at will is not entirely normal, is it?"

"I guess not," she said.

"Han, why don't you go next," said the doctor.

The kid behind me said in a low, quiet tone, "Hi, I'm Han."

"Yeah, Han, so what's your gift?" said Guido clearly curious.

Han adjusted his glasses and without even looking up, said, "I like to make Origami."

"That's not anything special," said Tracy. "Anyone can fold paper."

"What Han is referring to," said the doctor, "is that when he makes something out of paper, he can infuse energies into that paper, that to all observers might look like. . .how do I say this?"

"They come to life," said Han looking up now.

"Wow," said Tracy. "Wow, that is _so_ cool!"

Dr. Denay motioned to us with his hands, "These gifts you have are so exceedingly rare that you are the first to be found in the U.S. In fact, your existence has only been documented within the last few weeks. We're assembling a list of kids, which right now is very short."

The doctor pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I am here to help you begin the adjustment to your remarkable abilities, although my services are mostly for this introduction. If, however, you would like to talk further, I will be on the base. You may have noticed the high security getting in here. That is for you. Who knows what would happen if others got ahold of you kids."

"For now, you will remain here. Each of you were in danger of being kidnapped and two of you were rescued, so you will not be able to go back home for awhile. They are still after you. Anyway, just know that in this place, you are safe."

"You mean we have to sleep here?" said Guido. "What about our parents?"

At the mention of the word parents, Tracy jerked back in her seat as though she had been hit with something.

Dr. Denay didn't seem to notice "They should be safe, since your kidnappers were only after you."

Tracy jumped to her feet, "Safe! Safe? You call that safe?" She banged her fists on the table, her hair flung over her eyes, and she ran out of the room. When I looked at where her fists hit the table, I could see a wet smear shining on the surface.

# Chapter 4: Tricksters

Dr. Denay paused for a few seconds like a boxer between rounds. He took three deep breaths and looked tired as he stared down at the table, contemplating something.

His gaze came back to us. "It's getting kind of late and I'm sure you're tired. You each have rooms to the left down the hallway; through the door marked with a 'D.' Have a good night's sleep."

We stood and began to leave. As we reached the door, Dr. Denay said, "As I said, I will be available if you need me, but tomorrow they have you scheduled to begin training."

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I was too tired to ask. After what happened with Tracy, I no longer felt angry. Whatever she was keeping inside, it was much stronger than what I felt.

Han, Guido and I walked down the hallway to our rooms. At first we walked quietly because of all that had happened with Tracy. Then Guido, even though I didn't notice him, said, "I wonder what happened to her?"

"I don't know," I said.

I turned to Han. "So strangers don't smile when they pass you?"

"No," he said.

I thought of the general and now I knew what seemed odd about the way he looked. He never smiled.

"And they don't offer to help carry your books or help you in other ways either I suppose?"

"No," said Han. "Never." We came to the door marked with a "D" like we were told. I pressed a button on the right and it slid open to a large, circular room with several doors around the perimeter. The middle of the room went down three steps and at the bottom was a large table with chairs.

"But why?" I continued. "Why do people do it for me?"

Somebody pushed me from behind into the room. I stumbled down the steps. "Because," said Guido, "it's your gift! Aren't you listening! _Everyone_ notices you, wants to help you, smiles and everything! Everyone _ignores_ me. Seems I got the bad end of the deal, if you ask me. I just wish I knew about it before I got here."

I wasn't sure where he was except for the second he pushed me. Then, there he was! Afterward, I could only hear his voice which was harsh and bitter, but didn't notice him anymore. Everyone was mad today, but now I wasn't. Now, I was too tired for anger. "There must be something good about going unnoticed though," I said. "You won't get bullied at school. Teachers won't call on you when you don't know the answer."

"How about this, Guido," said Tracy as she entered from one of the rooms. Her eyes were still red, but no tears. "You can pull pranks on anyone you want and no one will even know you were there. Now that would be cool!" She smiled.

"I'm not much of a prankster," said Guido. "I just want to be noticed."

"So you like pranks?" I asked Tracy. "I think I'm going to keep my door locked with you two around. Guido can go anywhere unnoticed, and Tracy actually wants to."

At this Tracy looked excited. "Hey Guido, imagine what we could do if we were together!"

"Yeah," I laughed, "like I said, I'm locking my door tonight."

I took a look at the doors on the outside of the room. Tracy saw me. "These are imprint doors. At least that's what they told me to call them when I first got here a couple of weeks ago. The first time you touch the door it will memorize your touch and then only you can open it. This is mine here," and she pointed to the far door to the right.

We each walked up to a different door and touched it. After my door made a series of whirring noises, it opened. "I'm going to bed," I said and stepped into a fairly large room with a double bed against the far wall, a bathroom door, and a desk in the middle with a computer. The door closed behind me. There were books already on the shelves with titles such as, _The Art of War_ , _How to Disable a Man Easily Without Weapons_ , and _Military Aircraft You Should Know_. Then on a smaller shelf by the bed were other books. These were all religious. There was the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Teachings of the Dalai Lama, and a couple of Bibles. Just my luck, no books on sports anywhere.

I remembered the verse above the new hole in our school wall. I thought I'd look it up. It was Psalm 116:6. My parents sent me to that school, and they would talk about the Bible a lot, but I never really read it on my own. When I found the verse, I read it: "The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me." Whoa! I had never seen the last part of that verse before. Facing death? I hoped I was not going to face death. I had always been taken care of and never really had much to fear before, but this was all new to me. That night after reading that verse I prayed to God. I got on my knees like I had seen in a picture somewhere and prayed that God would keep me safe. I didn't know about this training thing, but for some reason it scared me. After the prayer I felt a little better.

As soon as I put away the Bible, the computer monitor turned on above my desk. A man on the screen with red hair and freckles said, "Andy, you don't know me yet, but I'm going to be your personal trainer. There are a lot of things to learn while you're here and I can help you through it. You will meet me at the lecture hall tomorrow morning at 8am. I will see you there." The computer screen went blank.

I saw a clock on the wall that read just after 10. That was pretty late for me, so finding some pajamas in a drawer under my bed, I got dressed and climbed in. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

# Chapter 5: We've been drafted

The next morning I took a shower in my little bathroom and got dressed. I didn't know what kind of training to expect so I dressed in sweats and a t-shirt I found in some drawers. I stepped out of my room at 7:45 and saw that Han and Tracy were already waiting.

A bowl of fruit lay on the table. "Breakfast?" I said.

"Yes," said Tracy. I grabbed a few grapes and plopped them in my mouth. Tracy threw away her banana peel and Han had a pile peach pits on a napkin.

Han gave a big smile. "Good morning!"

"I hope you slept well," said Tracy, also smiling. "Can we walk with you?" I was reminded of why they were smiling. It's not like they had a choice. I did not feel like smiling back.

"Sure," I said. "Where's Guido."

"Right here," I heard a voice say as I tripped over something and fell. The something being Guido. I almost choked on a grape. "You're right Tracy, it is fun!" said Guido.

Lying there on the floor, Guido reached out a hand, just as Tracy and Han came toward me. "Can I give you a hand?" they both said at the same time.

I exhaled loudly. "It's my gift, isn't it," I said.

"I guess so," said Tracy. "Are you telling me you don't want us to be nice to you anymore? 'Cause I can give you a punch in the face if that will make you feel better."

"No, no, Tracy. That's okay. Hey, let's see your gift. Fire sounds cool."

"Hot," she said. "You mean fire sounds hot. Okay, I'll demonstrate, but we have to hurry. Somebody turn off the lights!"

"No prob," said Guido and it was immediately dark.

"Just wait a minute," she spoke quieter now. "I kind of have to get warmed up."

"Warmed up, that's funny," said Han, like he'd read it out of a dictionary.

It was quiet and dark, but we waited. "Now look," she said.

At first I didn't see anything, but I could smell smoke. "Tracy," I said. "What are you doing? Is this safe?"

"Just getting warmed up," she said. "Keep your eyes open."

Suddenly a piece of paper ignited into flames, outlining her hand. "Cool trick," said Guido. "Why couldn't I get that gift?"

She looked kind of creepy in the fire light. "Yeah, but it's more fun when it's someone's socks. When they're wearing them." She sounded scary when she said this.

"Locks on the doors and both eyes open," I said. "I suggest we all watch out for Miss Pyro over there. And maybe we should all buy fireproof socks while we're at it."

We walked out into the hallway. Upon entering the conference room from the other night, a number of adults who had been talking to one another turned to us and smiled.

"You're so weird!" said Tracy, and stepped away from me like I was a vampire.

"Huh?" I said.

Guido slapped me too hard on the back. "He enters a room and everyone loses their brains. That can't be natural. And he didn't figure all that out until just last night?"

I felt hurt. How could I be friends with these kids? Did I even want them to be friends?

I said that everyone in the room smiled when I entered, but that's not completely true. A couple, as if remembering something, stopped mid-smile and put a severe look on their faces. But not the man I had seen on the screen the night before. His smile was broad and genuine, with one tooth missing in the middle bottom row of teeth.

"Now that everyone is here, we can get started," said the general.

We sat down around the table, adults on one side and kids on the other. "My name is General Garcia. I am the commanding officer here. Each of you is here because we rescued you, and because you have gifts, that until recently we had no idea existed except in story books."

"And now that we've rescued you, we are going to use you. We want to know what your kidnappers are up to, and you can help us find out."

"What if we don't want to go?" blurted out Tracy.

"I might remind you that one block of your town was decimated as they searched for you. If not for us, you would already be in their clutches?"

Tracy shut her mouth and looked pale.

"Now each of you has been assigned a personal trainer. I was told they introduced themselves to you through your computer systems last night. Good. Please find your trainer and do what they tell you." Then General Garcia turned away from us and collected his papers.

I walked over to the man I had seen on the screen from the night before. He had red hair, a straight jaw, and was all lean muscle. He smiled at me, holding out his hand as I shook it. "My name is Greg and I will be your personal trainer. Follow me."

That was it. He didn't tell me anymore about himself, how he began working here or even what we were really training to do. He took large strides out of the room. I followed closely behind, feeling like a puppy on a leash.

Once in the hallway, he picked up his pace to a jog. "Follow me!"

"Right," I said to myself. Then louder, "On my way" I ran to catch up.

We ran for a few minutes until it was hard for me to breathe. My side ached and I felt like I was going to get sick. Then he slowed to a quick walk. I caught up to him and he immediately broke into another run. How long was this hallway anyway? It stretched on forever, and always curving to the left. "When do we get there?" I asked, panting like a dog.

"Get there?" he said. "We've been there the whole time." He stopped and walked again.

I wanted to ask him another question but I couldn't decide whether to talk or to breathe. I chose to breathe.

"My job is to get you in shape. We don't know what you might face out there, but one thing is certain: The better shape you are in, the better your odds of survival."

"Survival?" I said, feeling a pang of worry.

"Did I say survival?" he said. "I meant success." And then his pace picked up again. I tried to follow, but my lungs were burning, finally slowing down because of the pain.

Now I am not a lazy, couch-potato, video game playing bum. I like sports and play basketball and soccer every year. When I get into high school I might even go out for football. I like exercise. But I have to admit I must have been a bit out of shape. This guy was killing me!

Finally, when I thought I might puke my guts out, he stopped. "How did that feel?" he said with a smile.

At first I tried to talk but all I could do was wheeze and cough, breathing heavily. "Is this in order to prepare us for torture?" I said between gulps of air.

"Oh no," he said with a smile. "This is what we call a warm-up. Let's hit the gym." Was this guy for real?

He took me to a room filled with weight machines and free weights. "Okay," he said, "Let me see you take your shirt off." I took off my shirt, embarrassed. I thought of gym class, skins verses shirts. "Just as I suspected," he said. "When I get done with you, where that flat chest is now, you will have a slab of muscle you could bounce a nickel off."

"Great," I said "that's been a lifelong goal of mine. Bouncing nickels off my chest will really come in handy back at school."

He stopped and gave me a hard stare. "You know you are doing this so there will be a school to come back to. Remember what they did to it the first time?" I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "Think about that when you get tired."

Greg sat me down at a bench press machine and I did twelve reps, rested and then another twelve. Afterwards I did arm curls, and then tricep extensions. If you don't know what any of these are, let me just say we did a lot of arm exercises. Just lifting my arms was hard afterwards.

We went from one form of exercise to another until Greg declared that it was lunch time. I followed him to the lunch area where we saw the other kids. Greg sat with the trainers at one table and I went to the food line. This cafeteria was a lot like the one at school, but everything was healthy. There were cooked vegetables, a selection of fruit, some chicken, and burritos. Not a bag of chips in sight! The soda machines didn't have soda, only water and juice. I got a burrito and some apple juice and sat down with the other kids.

"That was great!" said Tracy with a smile on her face. Was it me or was she really happy?

"You're kidding," I said. "Why? Do you like pain?"

"What do you mean? I just loved the tour, and the underground gardens are beautiful. My personal trainer is so nice. I'm so glad I'm here. Did you guys have fun? What did you do?"

"Pain," was all I said.

"Weights," said Han. "I hurt."

"Me too," said Guido. "It hurts just to sit. Or to breathe. Running, then jogging, then running again. Then weights."

"That's what you guys did?" Tracy said.

"I guess your trainer has other ideas for you," I said.

We didn't talk a whole lot. The boys were too tired, so we let Tracy do all the talking. She was good at it.

### ***

After lunch, Greg got me and we continued to train, but this time it wasn't physical. Greg had me walk into a room full of furniture or other items, look at it for 30 seconds, and then walk back out. "So what did you see?" He asked, "Describe it all."

"Well," I said. "I saw some chairs, a bed, a couch and some pots and pans." I've always had a pretty good memory.

"What color was the third chair on the right?" he said. "How many chairs were there? How many pots and pans? Which pot seemed to be made from a different company?"

"Huh?" I said.

"I want you to remember everything, and in perfect detail. Sometimes a detail might mean the difference between life and death."

"Death?" I said, feeling panic rise again in my chest.

"Did I say death? I meant victory," he said.

"Are you trying to scare me?" I said. "Because it's working."

Then he looked at me and laughed. "No reason to be scared. What you're doing, it's nothing really. And besides, where's your sense of adventure?"

That last thing he said scared me most of all. It was like he had practiced what to say, and said it. How much of what we had been told was true? This was when I first suspected something.

There were other rooms to memorize. In fact we did that for the rest of the day until dinner. I got better, but I could tell it was not nearly good enough for Greg.

When I saw the others again, Guido was lying on the floor of the cafeteria. I wouldn't have found him except I tripped over him on the way to the table. When I asked him if he wanted to eat, he just said, "Need. . .more. . .power." I laughed. But he still wasn't moving. I helped him up and got his food for him.

As we all ate, I asked Tracy, "So, how was your training this time?"

"Ouch," she said. "This time we lifted weights and ran," she stared into space and her eyes looked tired, "the whole time." I couldn't help it, I smiled.

"How about you, Han?" I asked.

"Ran," he said. "A lot."

That night we went to bed early. No one talked in the common room by our bedrooms. We just said goodnight and went to our rooms. None of us could walk without pain.

# Chapter 6: When things fly at night

The next day was much like the first, and so was the next, and the next. Over time it got easier. Of course I was sore at the beginning. I could hardly even walk on the second day, but by a week and a half, the running felt good and the memory exercises were getting easier. Greg started having me do more than just memorize things, now I had to figure out what it meant. For instance, I would walk into a room for 20 seconds and when I came back out, he would ask me questions about what was in it, such as, "So, was it a room for a man or a woman? How old do you think they were? Was it a smoker? Do they have kids? What was their hobby?" Things like that. He taught me how to read the signs for these kinds of things.

Later he taught me some Tae Kwon Do, Jujitsu, Aikido, and other ways to disable an opponent. One day we were resting after a particularly brutal practice session. "Do you know the best strategy when you realize you might get in a fight?" he said.

"Kick 'em in the nuts?" I answered.

"That works too, but what I was going to say, was don't be there when it happens. Why do you think we spend so much time running?" He gave his smile with the missing tooth, and for some reason, it scared me.

I learned a little about basic weapons. I fired my first gun, which I had no idea could be so loud, or hurt your hand so much. I learned the right way to hold a knife and how to sharpen it. I even learned how to throw it a little.

For a few days he taught me how to scuba dive. It turns out they had a whole area with a deep pool and a lot of scuba supplies. He taught me how to put on a wet suit and how to use all the gear.

One day he brought me to this huge garage, bigger than a football field, with only one old car in it. "Get in," he said. I walked over to the passenger side and got in. Then he came over to my side, opened the door again and said, "Get out."

"But you just told me to get in," I said.

"You misunderstood me," he pulled out a set of keys and jingled them.

"But I'm only ten!" I said. "I'm not legal to drive."

"What if I said there's a guy with a gun after you and you have the choice between driving or dying?"

"I'd probably scream, 'ahhh, I'm going to die, where are the keys?'"

It was not easy learning to drive. It was an old Toyota, before they were all electric. It took a several days to begin feeling more comfortable behind the wheel. Even then I thought I was unsafe. About a week later when I came to the garage there was a different car waiting for us. "What happened?" I said. "You didn't like the old one?"

He only said two words, "Stick shift."

"Oh," I said. I got behind the wheel. This took days and days to get used to. It was a good thing I was a little tall for my age or else I couldn't have even reached the pedals.

### ***

During this time I picked up chess. It was Guido who first got me into it. He had a chess set in his room and brought it out to play. "Do you play chess?" he asked.

"A little," I said. "But I haven't played for a while. My mom and I did it for a while, but I got bored of it."

"Bored of chess?" said Guido. "I don't think that's possible. Let's play."

"Okay." He got out the wooden pieces and we set them up on the board. I was brown and he was white. I moved my pawns out slowly, careful, to protect my king. He, on the other hand, started moving all over the place, getting his main players out in the open so they could fight. Each move I did was in fear that he would get my king. He was more focused on the attack.

After about half an hour I had taken his queen and both rooks, and his king was exposed.

"Your king is right in the open," I said. "Aren't you afraid I'll get it?"

Guido laughed. "Andy, if I was always afraid, I'd never accomplish anything!" In a surprise attack from two bishops and a knight, he put me in checkmate. The game was over.

I was shocked, "Wow! I didn't see that coming!"

"Sometimes," he said, "you have to take the big risks to get the big reward."

After that, we played almost every day.

One night when we had all finished our training, all of us kids got together outside our rooms. We had grown close in our time together. We sat on the steps that led to our rooms. "So Guido, what do you miss most about being gone from home?" I asked.

"My little brother," he said. I did not see Guido when he spoke, but I was able to tune in on his voice. "My little brother used to drive me crazy, running around, always loud, and taking my things without asking. But once I left, I missed him most."

"I have a little brother," I said. "They do that, but I still like him."

"I guess so," said Guido. "What about you?"

"I think I miss my Mom. I used to get frustrated at her sometimes, with all the rules and making me do my homework, but I knew she loved me and I miss her. What about you Tracy?"

Too late I remembered. Tracy was already up and halfway to her room.

"I'm so stupid," I said.

"You've got that right," said Guido.

Han just sat quietly, looking at his hands.

For a minute, no one said anything. Han started cleaning his glasses. Guido tapped my arm. "We haven't seen Han's gift yet."

"That's right!" I said, glad to change the topic. "You've been kind of a mystery, Han. Show us what you can do."

Han put his glasses back on and looked at us as a smile grew on his face. "It takes paper," he said.

"I have some in my room," I said, running into my room and getting out a notebook. I tore out a sheet and went back out. "Here you go!"

Han still had a smile on his face. He took the paper carefully in his hand and examined it. I don't know what he was looking at, but then he started to fold. His folds were large at first, but then at times intricate and complex. Sometimes he would unfold something and then refold it in other ways. Once, when he had unfolded it, he gathered parts of the paper and pressed them together like an accordion and smiled. "This is called a squash fold," he said. When he was finally done he had made a perfect paper pterodactyl.

"Wow," Tracy said, "Now what?" We turned around and Tracy was standing behind us.

"Magic," he said. He set the pterodactyl down as if it were standing up and put his index finger on it. I felt a buzz.

Usually when I try to explain this, people say that I must have meant that I heard a buzz. But that's not it, I couldn't hear anything. I felt a buzz just beyond my hearing. The paper pterodactyl quivered for a second and then it started to flap its wings as it lifted off and flew around the room. It was beautiful and kind of scary at the same time. I stood there with my mouth open in awe.

"The first time," said Han in his quiet way, "I thought it really was magic. I didn't know how it had happened. Later I thought it must be my imagination and that it meant I was losing my mind. This scared me, so I kept it a secret. Every time I would do it, I thought my mind was playing tricks. I expected them to take me away to an asylum."

"You're not crazy," said Tracy. "You just have a gift. And it's a wonderful gift."

"Yeah, that's really cool," said Guido, who I didn't notice in the room until he brushed by me. "If I had a gift like that I'll bet people would notice me more."

"And it requires skill," I said. "Not just natural talent or a gift you're born with. You had to learn to do origami." Han smiled at me when I said this. People do that.

I yawned. "I think I need some sleep."

"Me too," said Guido and Tracy almost together.

"Okay, goodnight everyone," said Han. He walked into his room and closed the door.

"Hey, don't you want. . ." said Tracy. But he was already gone.

That night we went to bed while the paper pterodactyl flew endlessly around the room.

# Chapter 7: Our mission explained

The next morning General Garcia did not smile when I entered the room. He never did.

We sat down in chairs around the table. "You are now ready to hear about your mission," he said. "You already know why you were chosen. The four of you were kidnapped, or nearly kidnapped, and the people responsible are still out there. They know where you live, so your objective is to get information so we can find out what all this is about and put a stop to it."

"Psst," I said into thin air, "What's objective mean?"

The air said back, "It's the thing you're trying to do."

"Got it," I said. "Thanks, Guido."

"You are going to board a jet and be flown to this location," he said, and he pulled down a map and pointed to a place in the middle of the ocean. "There is a small island here named Nandu in the southern Pacific Ocean." He pointed to nothing you could see in the ocean. "The whole island is six square miles in size, and is mostly uninhabited.

"Psst," I said, "What's uninhabited?"

"It means almost no one lives there." Guido again.

"You will be dropped off here," he said pointing at some place in the ocean. "You have all been instructed in scuba diving I hear. You will swim undetected through an underground cavern where you will come up in an area with guards just outside their facility."

Like a shot, I raised my hand like I was in class. "Yes, Andy?" he said, looking annoyed.

"What are we going to do about the guards?" I asked.

"I was going to come to that," he said. Turning to face no one in particular he said, "I hear Guido is in the room. Am I right?"

"That's right, General," said Guido from somewhere behind me again.

"Guido, while the others stay hidden underwater I want you to strip down to your skivvies and sneak past them."

"My what?" asked Guido.

"Your underwear," said General Garcia. "Your wet suit can keep you from getting stung or scraped, but once you get out it will make it hard to walk undetected if you're dripping water. Since you will only be wearing underwear under the wetsuit, you can keep those on if you dry off completely after getting out of the water."

"You're kidding," said Guido. "Remember, there's a girl here!"

The general continued, "After you take out the guards. . ."

"Take out the what?" said Guido. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"You have been trained in various forms of combat, have you not?"

"Yes, but I didn't know I was going to be using them!"

"Well then," said the general, "this will be good real-life practice for you—something to get you into the mood of the thing. Doesn't every boy dream of adventures like this?"

"Sure," said Guido. "But most of us want it to stay in our dreams, where it's safe!"

The general continued as if he hadn't heard Guido. "Once you have disabled the guards, you can go back for everyone else. Then you can change into the clothes you brought with you and sneak into the facility together."

"You will all follow that corridor to the end where there is a ladder. This may be some kind of an escape exit they use in case of emergencies. You will go up the ladder and through a trapdoor. Our knowledge ends there. We are not sure what you will find after that, but your goal is to act like new recruits. Our information tells us that they have quite a lot of kids your age there, and not a lot of organization, so just blend in the best that you can. Since you all have these gifts, they will assume you belong there, and probably wouldn't even mind if you didn't, as long as you have gifts. Just don't do anything that will draw attention to yourselves."

"You will have to use your wits and be careful. Use the gifts you have been given when you need to. Guido can go virtually unseen. Andy could walk up to his greatest enemy and his enemy would buy him a cheeseburger and watch him eat it with a smile on his face. Tracy, you have been working on a diversionary tactic, I've heard. How is it coming?"

"I think I've got it down," she said. "It gets tricky with the gunpowder, but I seem to have it under control now."

"Gunpowder!" I yell as I imagine her blowing up everything in sight.

"Just kidding," laughed Tracy. "But yes, General, I'm ready.

The general ignored me. "And Han, you can fold paper."

"How's that supposed to help?" I asked.

"You'd be surprised," said the general.

"Now you must prepare to leave. You will meet in 20 minutes in the hangar. This is what you've been training for, so you should be good to go."

"Yeah, great to go," said Guido, "to our deaths.

"Did you think we were sending you out by yourselves?" said the general. "I want you to meet someone." From the back of the room a mountain of a man stood up and walked forward. He was enormous. He must have stood at around six and a half feet tall and had the general shape of a gorilla, only without all the hair and fleas. When he moved, it looked like his muscles were planning to break out of his shirt at any moment. "This," said the general, "is Brock.

"Nice to meet you," said Brock in a deep, smooth voice.

"Okay, now I feel better," said Guido from near my right ear.

Han looked awed, "Can I get your autograph?"

"Maybe later," said Brock.

Tracy spoke up, "Okay, he's big, but what can he do?"

Brock smiled. "I'm fluent in eight languages, am a master in six forms of martial arts, and I have this!" Brock pulled out a long steel pipe. Looking closer, I saw that it was a gun. "Maybe you know the Smith & Wesson .50 Caliber Magnum is the largest handgun on the planet. Some call it 'the King of Handguns.'"

"Is that what that is?" said Guido.

"No," said Brock with another smile, "this would eat a .50 caliber for breakfast. This is a .65 caliber. The guy who invented it tested it only once. Blew his thumb clean off. Luckily he had it sewn back on. He promptly threw it away and I kindly volunteered to take out the trash that night. You'll sleep safer knowing this is under my pillow." He kissed his gun and smiled.

"We'll take him," said Guido.

# Chapter 8: I hit a brick wall

We walked back to our rooms without talking. When you know you may not live much longer, what can you say? "Hi, nice knowing you. I sure hope we don't all get shot today!"

On our way to the hangar, the general came up alongside me, and in a stern voice said, "follow me." I followed, feeling like I was in trouble with the principal.

He took me out to a small office down the hall. I thought maybe it was his, but didn't want to ask.

He turned to me once I closed the door. "Now, let me explain some things to you before you go and get everyone killed. Brock is the leader here. Your gift means nothing other than it's a way to get you accepted by the other gifted kids. I know you are used to people looking to you for advice. You are used to being the leader, but that's because people _feel_ you can lead. That's your gift, but you are no leader. Try that on this mission and you will likely get people killed. Hear that, killed! Now you have no training in leadership, you do not know combat tactics or even how to negotiate. You are in essence, useless on this mission except to do what Brock tells you to do. Do you understand?"

I felt numb, like I was detached from my body. "Yes, sir," I said. "M-may I leave now?" I didn't know what else to say.

"Yes," he said. "The others will be getting suited up so you can join them."

"Thank you," I said. I left and walked toward the hangar where the others waited for me. I felt awkward, like I had lost connection with my body.

### ***

When I got to the hangar, I saw the others standing next to some lockers. They were talking and putting on their wetsuits. I found a locker with my name on it and started getting ready.

"You alright?" asked Han.

"Sure," I said.

I could tell he was worried. I wanted to hide. "Are you sure?" he said.

"Yeah, you look like someone stepped on your kitten," said Guido.

"I said I'm fine!" I yelled. Everyone stopped talking.

"Just asking," he said. He moved away from me.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" said Tracy.

"Didn't you hear?" said Guido. "He's fine. Let's leave him alone."

"Okay," said Tracy. "I hear you."

Once we were suited up and ready, we walked outside the hangar and found our transportation.

The plane was a Rickshaw V-68. Nicknamed "Wyvern". It had been experimental. I read about it in that book in my room. It was sleek, black, and beautiful, but at the time, I didn't care. Inside, it was a tight fit. I sat down and put on my harness. I could hear what people were saying, but it was like I was hearing it from a long ways away. I couldn't seem to focus.

"Sorry about the squeeze everyone," said the pilot. "This plane has been modified a little to make it possible to transport you all. Usually it only fits four, but we're trying to accommodate all five. . ." Brock crouched down while turning sideways in order to move past the pilot. "Make that five and a half of you."

"Funny," said Brock, who wasn't laughing. Neither was I.

Once we squeezed together and strapped in, I heard Guido ask the pilot, "How fast does this plane go?"

"We should pass Mach 3 without much difficulty," he said. I just stared across the plane to the opposite wall. What was wrong with me?

"Anything in case of missiles?" asked Han.

"No worries there," said the pilot. "This thing outruns them. Since its deployment, the Wyvern has never been shot down."

"Good to hear," said Guido. "How long ago was this plane first deployed?"

"Last week," said the pilot.

"Great!" Guido said, "So we're guinea pigs. We're gonna die!"

"Once we get in the air," said the pilot, "I will have to turn on the inertial dampers. I just want to warn you that it might make you feel pretty weird when that happens, but it's better than being crushed by the acceleration. People respond differently to it, so I can't tell you exactly what will happen. At worst, you'll feel sick."

And with that we were in the air. He was right about the inertial dampers. It felt really weird. Kind of like when my brother and I spun around in circles until we fell down. We would spin until we felt like barfing, then fall down and get back up and try to walk. The plane was like that for me. Only add to that being punched in the stomach. Tracy actually had to grab a plastic bag and throw up. It made me feel sick too, but I didn't throw up. After that, I closed my eyes. I imagined I was back home.

The trip took a couple of hours. The others talked, especially Tracy who didn't seem to stop talking except for when she barfed. I think the others were pretty nervous, so they were much quieter. Later, Tracy and Guido got talking and kept at it for the rest of the trip. No one bothered me.

I think I fell asleep for a few minutes. Of all the strange places to take a nap. Just then, someone hit my arm and I heard the pilot. "We're going to lower our altitude so we can skim just above the water. You should get ready." We put on our scuba tanks and fins.

"This is where you get out," he said a few minutes later. "Ready to jump?"

"What?" I said. "This is a V-68. V is for vertical landing, right? Can't it stop?"

"Not this time," he said. "No place to land and I need to get out of this airspace before we get shot down. I'm sorry you weren't briefed on this."

A door opened at the side of the plane and the sound of rushing air was loud.

Water was speeding by and I saw a seagull go by like a bullet. "Are you nuts?" I yelled. I would either be killed or crippled for life!

The plane slowed down more, but it was still going fast. My heart started to beat faster. I was about to jump out of a moving plane!

"Jump facing forward with your arms tucked!" yelled Brock. We all nodded.

Before anything else was said, Tracy grabbed my arm, turned to me and yelled with a smile, "Well, no time like the present!" She took two steps and jumped out. That girl was crazy! I didn't want to look more afraid than a girl, so I jumped after her.

As I fell I think I saw Han jump after me right before I hit a brick wall with my face!

# Chapter 9: What we discover

Well, maybe I didn't really hit a brick wall, but it felt like it. I was convinced I was dead. There was a bright light and voices. I thought I must be in heaven until I heard the others calling my name. "You okay, Andy?" I opened my eyes. I knew the voice belonged to Guido but I still couldn't locate him until he touched my arm. It was always weird when he did that. It's like he just came out of nowhere, but at the same time I know he was always there.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to find the rest of me," I said. "Anybody seen my brain?"

"Now you sound like yourself," said Guido.

I could see Brock swimming past us, big as a tanker. "Now let's get going," he said in his deep voice. "We can't stay out in the open for long. We might get spotted."

Just before we started to follow him, I heard Guido. "Brock, what would have happened if we jumped so our backs hit the water instead?"

"I was thinking of doing that as well," said Tracy. "Maybe the tanks would have cushioned the fall."

Brock answered, "Maybe your tanks would have ripped your arms out of their sockets. Or better yet, your head."

"There's a fun thought," I said. We all started following Brock.

It took maybe twenty minutes of steady swimming before we approached land. There was an enormous building not far from shore and I wondered if that was where we were going to be if all this went well.

Brock motioned with two fingers that he wanted all of us to follow him and then he dove under the water. I shrugged and followed. Brock was diving deep, which scared me. The water got a lot colder and darker as we dove. The practice tank never prepared me for this! Brock headed toward a rock face and disappeared into it. I could only guess there must be a cave. Still unable to see it, I followed him anyway.

Darkness surrounded me for half a minute until I saw light above us. I thought about swimming for it, but remembered that we were diving so no one up top would see us.

We swam on and it got dark again. Before I had time to get fully scared, Brock took out a glow stick and broke it. We all followed suit. Behind Brock was Tracy, then Guido and Han, and me at the end.

We swam for a while this way and I wondered how far under the island we were traveling. I was impressed with the size of this cave. A wall skirted my left side, but the right was empty blackness.

Something bumped me from behind. _How could that be_ , I thought? I was the last one. I felt it again. It felt like someone hitting me with their fist. I turned and looked behind and in the eerie light of the glow stick I saw a great white shark grinning at me, its long teeth shining in the dark. I screamed. Have you ever tried to scream underwater? It comes out something like "bebub bb b barbbb." The shark nudged my feet with its nose and kept following me. I tried to scream again and swam as fast as I could, but the shark just followed close at my feet.

That's when it hit me. I knew what this shark was doing. I didn't need to fear for my life. My gift was causing the shark to like me. Not for dinner, but to want to be around me. To play with me perhaps. I often had this effect on neighborhood dogs. At that moment I was more thankful for my gift than I have ever been in my life. I said a silent prayer of thanks, glad that I could be the shark's friend instead of his lunch. He never went after the others, but was content to stay at my heels for the rest of the journey until we came to a brightly lit area where it turned and left me. This was where we stopped.

Brock gave a signal for all of us to stay in one place. I realized this was where Guido was supposed to do his stuff. I felt something brush by me and for just an instant I saw Guido swimming to the top wearing nothing but his underwear. They were white boxers with a red waistband. I turned away, embarrassed for him. But when I turned back I couldn't find him anymore. Weird how that happened, he might as well be invisible.

We waited for a long time. There was nothing to do but tread water just below the surface. We couldn't really talk to each other so I played a few rounds of roshambo with Tracy while Brock just shook his head. After a long while I saw a hand reach down through the water and touch my head. "It's Guido," I said, which came out like "brib bribbbo." We came up out of the water and saw him smiling at us.

Guido was wearing the top part of one of the guard's uniforms. It was very loose on him, but at least we didn't see his chonies. "It took you long enough," said Brock.

"How did you do it?" I asked.

"I came out of the water easily enough and no one saw me," he said. "Then I slowly crept to the top up there where I saw two guards. They were carrying M16's, so I took my time. But when I got there, I just froze. I stood there just watching these guys with their guns. Did I mention they had M16's? Then I wondered how I could do it without getting killed. Since there were two of them I figured that if I hit one over the head with a rock or something, then the other would see where I was. What I finally did was wait until one had walked over close to the edge over there where the rock slopes downward. Then I pushed him so the other one would think he had just stumbled and fell. When his friend looked after him, I took a large rock and I hit him sideways over the head with it, the way I was taught." I saw the rock and there was some blood and hair stuck to it. "That was it for him, for now."

"I grabbed his large, metal flashlight, and when the other guy climbed back up, I was waiting for him. I clubbed him hard."

"Good job," said Brock.

Brock was carrying our clothes in a small watertight bag. First Tracy changed out of her wetsuit and we turned around. Then the guys changed. Now we had on regular clothes.

"This way," said Brock and we followed him. Ahead we could see the beginning of a tunnel of rock but it was a quick dead end. We walked to the end of the tunnel and took a rusted metal ladder attached to the wall.

We climbed up, coming out in a cavern so large I could barely see the top. It reminded me of a cave I once took a tour of back home: tan colored stone with stalactites making the whole thing feel ominous. There were lights here and there along the wall, which made it eerie.

We all stood huddled together. "Okay, let's quietly and carefully explore this cave," said Brock. Since lights were placed far apart, it was difficult to see very far. Eventually we found the cave to be mostly bare except for some tall steel lockers along one side. On each one was a lock.

"There must be a reason for these locks," he said. "It makes me want to get into them all the more. Does anyone have a way to get into these?" Then looking at us thoughtfully he said, "Tracy, can you heat up one of these enough to melt the lock off?"

"I've never tried something like that," she said. "It would take a lot of heat."

"Give it a shot," said Brock.

"Okay." She walked up to the first cabinet and closed her eyes furling her brow. We all remained silent. After a couple of minutes, which seemed like forever, there was a smell like someone's car brakes burning up. Black smoke drifted up from the lock and now there was a dark red glow to it, which grew to a lighter red. The lock melted off and fell apart.

"Wow," said Brock. He looked shocked. "Do you know the melting point of carbide steel? I didn't think you could do it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Brock" said Tracy.

"Good work," he said.

I elbowed Han. "She's even scary to Brock," I said.

Tracy looked at me angrily and I shut up so I didn't get punched in the mouth.

Brock opened the locker. "Jackpot," he said. There before us was an arsenal of guns, mostly M16's, lined up along two rows with boxes of ammo just beneath. "Now why would they need all these?" said Brock. He took out his own massive gun, I think he just liked to hold it, and looked back in the locker. "Let's go," he said, closing the cabinet and we followed him.

We walked further along the wall of the cavern and found a door on one side. It was hidden from view by a shelf of rock unless you came from a certain angle. The door was unlocked, so Brock opened it. We came out in a hallway that led to several flights of cement stairs, which in turn led to a brick tunnel. Brock looked both ways and whispered, "all clear." As we walked on, the tunnel had other hallways that split off of it, but always to the right. We kept to the main tunnel until we came to a branch on the right where we could hear machinery. We took that one. The sound got louder and louder the farther we went. Eventually it sounded quite clearly like the machinery was coming through a door on the left. Brock tried to open it, but it was locked. Then he pulled out a knife from one of his many pockets and inserted the blade between the door jamb and the door. Immediately the door creaked open and we crept inside. The room was loud and busy. It was also stiflingly hot. Machines that were painted yellow were working in a long line: an assembly line. It reminded me of a car manufacturing plant, but these were no cars.

"What is this all for?" Tracy yelled above the noise.

"I'm not sure," yelled Brock. "But it appears to be completely automated." As we walked along the assembly line we saw the progress of what was being built. It was Han who first said, "Robots!"

"What?" I said.

"He's right," yelled Tracy. Up ahead I could see the machines were attaching arms to a central hub and then later some kind of round part that could only be a head. Then came the legs. Only they didn't attach just two, but four. "Maybe they walk like spiders," said Tracy loudly. "Creepy!" She sounded excited.

Brock made a sour mouth. "I don't like spiders," he said.

Brock surveyed the room. "We never saw this coming," he yelled above the noise. "It was just supposed to be a training facility for kids. Nothing about guns or robots."

We went to the far end of the factory until we came to a door which led to the hallway again. We walked a bit further until we heard someone coming, so we took the first room on the left. Brock quickly opened the door and peered through before we all followed him. It might have been a place where training or teaching happened because it was huge and there were chairs all in rows. We were on a second floor balcony so we could see down into the room. Red emergency lights ran along the walls. A sudden voice broke out. "I told you I felt something up here."

Four men with guns trained on us stood along the back wall. The lights came on and a man with a thick mustache stood forward. "So you did. Very good work." He had a gun to Brock's head and three other men had similar weapons trained on us. A boy, maybe my age, was standing against the wall behind them. "Why don't you come with us," said the man with the mustache. It was not a request.

They took us back out the door we had come through and down some different tunnels, the whole time keeping the gun pointed at Brock. When we came to a small, well-lit room, there were several other men standing by a desk. A red-haired man whose face was scratched up with large purplish bruises on both cheeks whispered something to another, who until that moment had his head down and was carefully reading papers at his desk. When he looked up, I recognized him at once. His nose was bent to the right: the guy who had kidnapped me from school. He had a grim smile that looked forced, but I knew he couldn't help it. "Check him for weapons, and check the kids too."

They searched Brock first. "Now what's this?" One of the men pulled out Brock's gun. He gave it to the man with the messed-up nose. "This might be fun on the firing range." I looked over to Brock and I could tell he was trying not to smile. The wrestler at the desk yelled at one of his men. "Put handcuffs on him and take him to a cell!"

"Yes sir," and they led him away. Brock seemed to accept his fate. Now we were all alone with no adult help. I knew what that meant; we were no longer going home. No leader, no rescue. A dread came over me. The man who checked me for weapons smiled as he did so, probably not even sure why. It was like being in a dream. "Nothing here," he said.

The leader with the nose turned to another one of his men. "Show these kids a place they can rest for the night. Tomorrow they'll train with the others. They should comply once Abe has seen them."

"Yes sir," he said. "Come with me." He had a gun on us so we followed. Tracy had her eyes closed as we were led by the man with the gun down another set of corridors. As we came around one corner I could see a small wisp of smoke coming off the gun. "Aiieee," yelled the man. He dropped the gun and tried to grab me, thinking I would escape, but then all those hours of Tae Kwon Do started an automatic response because without even thinking I kicked him in the side with a round house and as he doubled over, reaching for his ribs, I axe-kicked him on his left shoulder, driving him to the ground. It was weird, it was so automatic it was like I was watching myself do it.

"Great," said Guido. "Now what?"

Everyone was looking at me. They always looked at me. I thought this was a bad time to point out my lack of leadership skills, so I yelled, "Run!"

We ran through the corridors, everyone following me. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. "If we can find him, let's rescue Brock," I said.

"I thought we were supposed to integrate into the school to find out what's going on," Guido said from my right somewhere. "Shouldn't we do that first?" He was right. That was our mission.

"Good idea," I said. And everyone believed me.

We took a left, coming to a door. "In that case," said Tracy, "We need to find the rest of the students."

I opened the door and led the way through. Then I took a step back in surprise. "I think we did." In front of us was a group of about thirty students, staring at us and grinning.

# Chapter 10: Incognito

"Hi," I said, walking up to one of the students. I put out my hand, acting much more confident than I felt.

"We were waiting for you," said a boy who spoke with authority. He shook my hand.

"Good to hear," I said. I smiled back trying to hide my confusion.

"Abe," he said with a smile. "My name is Abe." He was a few inches taller than me, with dark brown hair, and his smile looked genuine. "It's good to finally see you. We have already made preparations for your stay. In fact, if you like, I'll show you the rooms we've picked out for you." I looked at Han and Tracy, who both looked as confused as I felt, and we followed.

"In case you were wondering about how we knew you were coming," said Abe, "one of the students has the power to sense the approach of others. He can feel when they are near and some of their characteristics. All he knew is that you were young like us and were heading our way, so I figured you were more students and had a place made ready for you. We get new ones all the time." He turned around and smiled an honest, disarming smile.

As he led us, the walls changed from brick to wood paneling with round dim lights attached to the sides of the hallway. "What are your names?" asked Abe.

"Tracy," said Tracy. "And this is Andy," I waved. "And Han."

I thought Guido must be hiding. "What about the fourth?" asked Abe. I was told there were four."

"Guido," said Guido, "right here."

Abe looked startled for a second, but never lost his cool. "Your gift! Invisibility?"

"Un-noticeability," said Guido.

"Interesting," he said. We passed a couple of boys our age along the hallway. "I hope you like it here." As we neared the end of one hall, he pointed to a room on the right, "The guys can sleep in here." Then he pointed to a door on the left. "And Tracy, you can sleep here," he said. "There are bathrooms down the hallway on the right. If you have any questions, feel free to ask anyone. Most of the kids are friendly. Unfortunately, you missed dinner, but breakfast will be at 8 in the morning."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," he said and walked back down the hallway.

After he left I turned to the others, "Let's get some sleep and talk in the morning. I don't know what's going on, but this feels weird. It's like a dream or something." Everyone agreed.

### ***

The next morning I awoke, climbed down from the top bunk, and put on a sweatshirt. I found that I was the earliest riser. There was light coming from outside and it looked to be a sunny day. When I walked over to the window I saw the ocean in the distance and even a beach with large rocks here or there. I couldn't see it at night, so there must have been no lights. This was actually a beautiful place. Through the window I could see part of the brick building jutting outward on the left. There was only one floor above ground, but I couldn't tell how large it was.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hi," said Guido.

"Uh! Don't do that to me! You're going to give someone a heart attack!"

"Sorry. Hey, what happened last night?" he said. "How could that kid do that to us?"

"Do what?" I said.

"You didn't feel it?" he said. "No, probably you wouldn't. Well, you've got some competition, my friend. He's kind of like you, you know."

Han stirred from his bed and came over to where I was. "Is Guido with you?"

"Yeah," I said. Then I turned to Guido. "What do you mean he's like me?"

"You mean Abe?" said Han. "You felt it too?"

"Hey, Abe is the nicest guy we've seen so far. Can't you just let it be?"

"Han, I don't think he can tell because of his gift" said Guido. "Anyway, we've learned to resist it and he hasn't. In fact, maybe we're the only ones in this place who know how to resist."

"Yes," said Han.

"Would someone tell me what's going on?" I said. I was feeling the anger build up again.

"Andy," said Guido, "you have this ability to be naturally popular and everyone wants you to be the leader of any group. It's your gift. Only you are so used to it that you don't even notice it. Also, you have never encountered someone else with that kind of gift so you don't know what it feels like. It's hard to resist, and it took me awhile to start trusting my own feelings again."

"Weird, but I guess I get it," I said. "So?"

"So," said Guido, "I think Abe is like that. Only it feels different than yours, and it's a lot stronger. With him, I feel overwhelmed with a desire to believe in and trust him. This makes me not want to trust him."

I was getting more upset and I didn't even know why, "But what if he really is honest and truthful and just happens to have this gift? It doesn't mean he's a bad guy. He can't do anything about the gift he has!"

"It depends how he uses it," said Han.

We were interrupted by a knock at the door. Han opened it and Tracy smiled at us. "Are you guys talking about Abe?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. "It seems they don't trust him."

"Really?" she said. "I think he was great! He didn't even know us and he gave us a place to stay. He was so friendly and has the greatest smile!"

"Smile?" said Han.

"I think it's a girl thing," said Guido.

"Okay, so you trust him?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, "What's not to trust?"

"That's what I think," I said. Then I whispered in Guido's ear, "But I think Tracy likes Abe."

"Hey, what are you guys whispering about?" she said. But before we could say anything there was another knock at the door. Guido opened it.

A skinny boy with long dark hair said, "Seven o'clock. It's time for our morning run."

"Run?" Tracy said.

"We do it every morning," he said. "It keeps us in shape. By the way, you won't need that sweatshirt."

"Okay!" I took it off and we followed.

# Chapter 11: Our first day

He led us outside where a large group of kids were gathered in front of the school. The sun was just rising over the ocean but it was already very warm. Kids were warming up, stretching, doing jumping jacks and push-ups on the beach. When we got there, Abe stood up from a deep stretch. "Let's begin!" he said and started to jog along the flat terrain. We followed.

"It's hot out here," said Han who ran next to me, a little out of breath. "The tropics."

It certainly was. We got to see a bit more of the island having run around much of it. A lot of the shore was rocky and covered by white lichen. In some spots there were sandy beaches, and I felt it would be nice to be in the water there. As I looked to my left, I saw an area much like a park with short, scraggly grass.

After perhaps 20 minutes, we came upon a small harbor for ships. Most of these looked small, like private boats, but as we passed I saw two men loading guns onto one of them.

We ran in a long loop for perhaps half an hour and if it had not been for our training, I'm sure I would have not been able to keep up. The heat became unbearable as we jogged a couple more miles before returning back to the main brick building. For some reason, the heat made the run seem harder.

Fortunately, it was much cooler inside. We showered and got ready for breakfast which was eaten in a large, well-lit dining room. Besides the fluorescent lights, windows were lined up on one side, bringing in sunshine and a view of a long grassy slope. At breakfast we had oatmeal and fruit, very healthy.

We huddled together but didn't talk much when we ate. All of us were still tired from our run. Tracy, usually the talkative one, just picked at her food silently. When we had finished we didn't know what was next, so we watched those around us hoping for some clue. When we saw others cleaning up, we did the same. Afterwards we noticed that students went in one of two directions: some left the room on the north side and some on the south side. We didn't know what to make of this.

"I don't get it," Guido said. "Is it a boy-girl thing?"

"No," said Tracy, "See, there are girls going both ways."

"Well then what do we do?" said Guido again.

"Confused?" said a friendly voice. It was Abe. "I'm sure you are. A decision will need to be made at this juncture. On the north are the Mixed Arts kids. In the south are Focused Arts. Each of these has advantages, but you cannot be in both, so choose carefully."

"What's the difference?" asked Tracy.

Abe gave her a bright smile. "Focused means you focus on your specific ability. There, you will learn proven techniques that will greatly enhance the use of your power."

"The Mixed Arts kids are a sharing group. If you go with them you will lose some of your own ability, but you will also gain parts of other people's abilities. It is a phenomenal thing!"

"I didn't even know that was possible!" I said.

He smiled. "We have learned some things here that I don't think have been discovered anywhere else," he said. "Stick around and I think you'll be impressed."

I looked at the others. "Can we think about this?" Tracy asked.

"Sure, but remember, once you chose you must stay on that path. That's the rule. Stay here until you decide, then chose a direction. And don't worry, you will still see each other back in your rooms and at meals."

"Thanks," said Tracy with a big smile on her face. And then Abe turned his face toward me with a look of confusion, and paused as if thinking about something. After a moment, he smiled again and turned towards Focused Arts and walked off.

"Which way?" asked Han.

"Let's not split up," I said.

"I agree," said Han.

"As much as I want to agree with you," said Tracy, "I really think if we stay together, we won't learn as much. We should try both types and then report on what we learned. If we ever get out of here, we'll have more information."

"Good point," said Guido. "So how should we divide?" Everyone was looking at me. Then as if realizing what they were doing, they all looked away.

"Well," Tracy said. " _I_ would like to learn other gifts, even if it means losing some of my own."

"I'm in the same camp," said Guido.

"Han, you want to go with me?" I said.

"Okay," said Han, barely above a whisper.

"Great," I said, "we'll meet back here for dinner to talk."

We split up. Tracy and Guido went north and Han and I went south.

Once we walked through the south entrance, Han and I entered a hallway that led straight for a little while with a couple of small rooms on both sides. Each room had a blue mat on the floor, like in a training dojo. We followed everyone else to the end of the hallway where it finally opened out onto a large auditorium. This was the auditorium where we had been captured on the balcony, but no one was using the balcony now. We could see a bunch of kids already assembled inside. They were sitting in chairs and some had notebooks out.

Dozens of rows went downward in steps toward a stage at the bottom. Someone was standing on the stage. "That looks like Abe," I said.

"I think so," whispered Han.

"Shhhh," said a kid sitting in front of us. We found some chairs at the back and sat down.

Abe was already talking, ". . .and remember that at this academy you are the weapons of choice. If you were to encounter a situation, and you knew that you had a power that would be useful, you are the expert on your own ability. I don't have to direct you. You are more powerful than you realize on your own."

Han whispered, "I can feel it from here."

"What?" I asked.

"His gift," said Han.

Abe kept talking. "You should know that we trust you completely." He gave a warm smile. I felt that he really did trust me and I felt privileged. "That's one thing this place is built on, trust. You trust me and I trust you, because it's only together that we can change the world!" I felt like maybe I could make a difference in the world. "So practice hard. Be the expert in your field. No two people have yet been found to possess the same exact powers. That means you're special. Duplication is what Mixed Arts students are good at, but you are my black belts in your art. Be the best you can be in order to crush the enemy. We have powers which place us above others, so let's use them to rule!"

Students clapped and he walked off of the stage while a girl, who looked a little older, came up front. She was tall and had a large dark braid running down her back. I didn't feel the same confidence I did from Abe, but she was pretty and smiled nicely. She spoke with a low voice for a girl. "Get together with your trainers and spend some time on the basics before you move on to specialized training. Trainers, your goal is that someday those you train will become trainers as well. Today's focus will be confusion to the enemy. Have a good session, and remember: Power to conquer!"

Everyone yelled back, "Power to conquer!" She walked off the stage and we all got up to leave.

Han and I just looked at each other and stood up. "Hey, Abe sent me to get Andy," said a boy about my age and height. "I will be your trainer." He looked surprisingly muscular for his age.

"That's me!" I tried to act more confident than I felt and shook his hand. "What about Han here?"

"That would be my job," came the voice of a girl. When I turned to see her I was surprised at how pretty she was and how short.

I could tell Han was a bit embarrassed. "Sorry about that," I whispered to Han. He just nodded back.

"Follow me," said the boy. "I already got a training room checked out for us."

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem," he said, "My name is Derek."

"Hi Derek." He led me through the hall and down a series of turns so that by the time we found our training room I was totally lost.

"Here we are," he said. "Room 54."

We stepped inside to a small rectangular room. The floor had a blue mat on the ground, like the rooms I saw on the way in, and on it, to one side, I saw a strange collection of objects lined up along the wall: a punching bag, a unicycle, a set of dice in a clear box, a stack of notebooks, some pens and crayons, a small stack of books, a jar of pickles, two bowling balls, two pillows, a double-bladed axe, a cheap guitar, a large flashlight, some Legos, and a small, broken laptop.

Derek turned to me and smiled. "Two targets today: focus and confusing the enemy. Since you're new, we'll probably spend most of the time on focus. What have you got?"

"I've only got me," I said.

"Right," he said, "but how can you improve on the power that already comes naturally?"

"Improve?" I asked.

"Yes. The whole point of this practice is to focus your power. Have you learned how to do that?"

I looked at him, confused. "You can do that?'

"Okay, I see we're starting from scratch here," he said. "They should have brought you through the basic training module first, but I'll give you the highlights."

"I can't take you through all five disciplines of course, but I can tell you a little. This power you have originates in your brain. In order to focus it, you must have control over your thoughts. You have to focus on your goal, ignoring all else."

"Okay," I said. "What do I do?"

"I can tell your gift influences a person's emotions because I can feel it, but I don't know the details." If he just knew about that smile of his. "How about you focus that on your target and then make it bigger than life in your mind. This is like using your imagination, but stronger. It just means you think about what you want to do and concentrate on it.

"Okay," I said. "I'll try."

"To begin, imagine what it is you want to accomplish."

Since all I could do was get people to like me or help me, I focused on getting Derek to pat me on the back. It felt silly, but I did it. I tried to focus, imagining him taking steps over to me to pat me on the back. I saw him doing this in my mind. I was surprised when at that moment I felt a solid pat on my back a few times. It somehow didn't feel right that I was manipulating this guy. "Hey, I'm sure you can do it if you try," he said.

"I just did," I said.

"Really? Was that your goal, to get me to pat you on the back?"

"That was it," I said.

"Wow," he said. "I thought I came up with that on my own. I just felt like giving you a pat on the back. If I knew better, and was trying to resist, I would have been able to. If, however, I didn't know you had such a power at all, I would have been putty in your hands. Now let's keep working on this. Pick another thing, and try not to embarrass me too much."

This went on for a couple more hours and I got him to give me a handshake, pick up something I dropped, and even give me a backrub. I still wasn't sure I felt right about what I was doing though. After that, we went to lunch.

At lunch I sat with Han and we talked about what had happened. "Let me guess," I said. "Did he talk about focusing?"

"Yes, that's it," he said.

"Did you learn anything about their plans?" I asked Han.

"No, not yet," he said.

"We still don't have anything on their intentions," I said. "Or why they're kidnapping kids. That's what we came for. Did you hear that thing about power to conquer?"

"Yeah, scary," he said.

"And what happened to the others?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Han.

Just then I saw Abe walking towards our table. "Hey, since you are the new guys, I wanted you to know that after lunch everyone from both sides meet in the main auditorium where the Focused Arts kids meet. It's our lecture time."

"Great," I said with a groan, "lecture time."

After eating, we cleared our table and headed toward the auditorium again. We saw Tracy and Guido sitting halfway down the room and sat next to them. "What happened to you guys?" I asked.

"We'll tell you later," said Tracy. "I want to hear this."

The students got quiet as a portly man in a white lab coat stood up front and began to speak. "I would like to present to you some recent groundbreaking research from our labs," he said. "You have heard much about our research into the phenomenon you call powers. As far as we know, no other countries have learned as much or delved as deeply into understanding these powers. In fact, most have yet to discover them!" He seemed excited by this. "What you possess is so rare, that there may be small countries that don't even have a single child with your abilities. And always around the age of ten! This, we cannot figure out."

He paused for a second, as if he forgot what he was talking about. Then continued, "This has made discovery very difficult because not everyone who has these abilities want others to know about it. For instance, in Tanzania. . ." I began to tune him out. He just got started and I was already bored. And tired. I closed my eyes and nodded off.

I was elbowed sometime later by Tracy. "Listen," she whispered.

"Now let me tell you about one of our newest theories," the man went on excitedly. "We do see increased brain activity in those who have these powers, so we always knew it had to do with the brain. And for some reason, these powers only show up in children from the ages of nine through twelve. But why this is the case has always puzzled us, so that we imagined that once a boy can shave, he shaves his abilities away, right down the drain they go. Makes us want to check our drains."

He stopped again, realizing he had somehow gotten off topic. Then he remembered himself again. "But new studies have shown a common trend that at first confused us, but now may make sense. You see, each of the children, prior to showing these new powers, got sick for an extended period. The symptoms were usually like a flu and lasted for about two weeks. Once over that sickness, each of these children found that they gradually had these new abilities."

"It is now our new theory that these two are linked and that the powers might be triggered by a virus. It is true that there are thousands of undocumented viruses floating around out there, yet to be discovered. . ." I nodded off again.

This is how the talk went and it continued with pictures and videos, seemingly forever. Guido woke me up later and I heard people talking and shuffling out of the room. "We have free time until dinner," said the voice of Guido.

"You want to do some exploring?" I said.

"I don't think so," said Guido. "You don't want to do that here."

"Why not?" I said.

"That's what Tracy and I did during lunch and it's not safe." Guido looked worried. "We found a whole section of this building that's off limits to kids. Tracy waited while I snuck myself in as far as I dared. No one may notice me by looking, but if someone had bumped into me, all bets are off!"

"Get to the point, Guido!" said Tracy, impatiently.

"It was a whole military compound. While kids are being trained here, adults are training for combat over there. They were practicing with guns and heavy artillery. Not firing anything really heavy at the time or we would have heard them over here. I'm not sure what the general thought he was sending us to, but there's more going on here than they told us. More than they probably even know themselves!"

Now I was interested. "Can you show me where you found it?" I asked.

"Sure, but don't let anyone catch you there. I'm not sure what they would do, but it can't be good."

Tracy chimed in. "Come on, Guido. It'll be fun!"

# Chapter 12: A tempting offer

Once out of the room, Han and I followed Guido and Tracy. We made sure no one saw us leave, then we headed down some hallways until we came to a door labeled "LTF-Keep Out!"

"I wonder what that means," I said.

"I wondered that too," said Guido from somewhere ahead of me. "I found out and it scared me so bad I came right back out."

"Okay," I said. "What is it?"

"Lethal Training Facility," he said. "It's where they train with all kinds of weapons for killing. These guys are playing for keeps!"

"Oooh," said Tracy, "that just means they have the best toys!" Tracy approached the door and tried the handle. "Locked," she said.

"Of course it is," said Guido. "It was locked for me too, remember?"

"Then how did you get in?" I asked.

I heard a laugh. "I waited until someone came out and then waved at the guy as I walked inside. He didn't see a thing."

"You're so lucky," said Tracy. "I wish I had that gift."

"Hey, you could have lit him up like a torch," said Guido. "Mine is downright boring compared to yours."

"Okay guys," I said. "It looks like there is no way inside unless your name's Guido, so let's give it up."

"Oh, can't we just take a peek?" asked Tracy.

"Too risky," I said. "If I heard right, we were sent to gather information _without_ getting killed. I distinctly remember that being important."

"I'm with him," said Guido.

"Me too," said Han.

I turned to leave and Tracy gave up and followed us.

### ***

When we got back to the cafeteria it was mostly empty. I walked up to some kid I didn't know and tapped him on the shoulder. "Where is everyone? Isn't it dinner yet?"

"Not yet, they're at Conditioning and Sports," he said, like I was dumber than rock. He pointed to the south section, so we headed that way. Following the noise, we found a hallway to the right that led to an enormous gym. I say gym, but it was probably as large as five gyms put together. There was a ropes course, an obstacle course, and a weight lifting area on one side of the room. On the other there were various sports going on. I saw basketball, soccer, and what looked to be capture the flag, all happening at once. All of these had one thing in common. They were used to condition and train the kids. There were no video games, bean bag chairs, or vending machines. This place was a training facility from beginning to end.

"Oh well," I said. "What do you want to do?"

At that moment someone blew a loud whistle and everyone dropped what they were doing and headed for the doors. I asked one of the kids what was going on. "Dinner!" he said as if I was a few marbles short of a full collection.

We followed them.

### ***

Dinner was mostly uneventful. I ate rice, fish, and some kind of cooked leafy greens while trying to piece together what we had learned so far. As it turns out, we hadn't learned much. We were trapped on this island with no way to communicate with the base we came from. We were here to get information about what they were planning, but we didn't know much of anything yet.

Most of us were tired, so we only talked a little. Afterwards we learned that we were given free time, but most of the kids went back to Conditioning and Sports. These guys had no life. Didn't they play like normal kids?

### ***

We headed back to our rooms and talked. Tracy said she wanted to hang out with some of the girls and see if she could find out anything more.

Meanwhile, I played a game of chess in our room with Guido, who borrowed a small chessboard from one of the kids, while Han worked on some origami.

Guido was about to take my king for the second time, "You've got to take some chances if you are going to win," he said. "Stop trying to play it safe! You can't win that way."

"Yeah, I know," I said. There was a knock at the door of our room.

I opened it and saw Abe. "Andy," he said. "Can I speak with you for a moment?"

"Sure," I said. Han looked up at me and then went back to his folding.

I stepped out with Abe and we walked along the corridor. Kids were mostly in their rooms now, so it was quiet and empty. Abe began speaking in his smooth tone of voice. "It took me awhile to recognize it, but now I know. Andy, you are a leader. A leader is someone who has power over other people. When he speaks, they obey. You have that kind of gift. A gift you should use." Now we were at the cafeteria in dim light. We kept walking, silent for a moment.

"Here's what I am proposing," he said. "Come be a part of our leadership here at the facility, and you and I can double our influence. I do pretty well on my own, I won't lie about that." We were in some hallway now I didn't recognize, having taken a few turns. "But we could be almost unstoppable if the two of us joined our powers together. People would flock to follow us, whether they wanted to or not. That's the beauty of the power we each have." He turned the switch of a light and I saw that we were on the stage of the auditorium where I had seen Abe speak earlier. "I'm offering all of this to you!" He motioned toward the imaginary audience. There must have been enough chairs for a thousand. "I can teach you what I know so that people will hang on each word you say. So, what do you think?"

"Can I think about it?" I said.

Abe looked disappointed. "Sure," he said, "but not too long." He paused and looked intently at me for a moment, and then turned and left the stage, heading back the way we had come.

Once he had gone, I looked out over the seats in the auditorium and imagined everyone hanging on my words. I imagined a crowd of people who would do anything I wanted them to do. I thought of the respect I would get, the cheers and applause. I thought of how I could disprove the general's words.

Then another thought came to me. It was a story I had heard when I was at school. The teacher often told Bible stories and there was one about when Jesus had been taken to the top of some tall building or something. Satan showed him the whole world and told him that if he just bowed down to him, he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. All he had to do was bow to Satan and he would get all that.

I didn't remember all the specifics of the story, but I remembered Jesus didn't go for it because it wouldn't be right. Because it would mean bowing to what was evil. I thought how power was great, but what would I be sacrificing for it?

I turned off the lights and headed back down the hallway. Eventually I got back to my room where my roommates were asleep. I sat up and thought about it some more until I was too tired to think. And that's the way I fell asleep.

# Chapter 13: Things learned

The next morning we had our jog and breakfast. While I ate, I mostly thought of two things: what the general had said about me not being a leader, and the offer Abe had made the night before.

"Did you know they have a live dragon?" said Tracy with excitement at breakfast.

"What?" I said, snapping out of it. "You're kidding."

"Yup, you're right, I am," she said. "But I did learn some things."

"Like what?" I said.

"Some of the girls were talking about it last night. It turns out these gifts, or powers, as they call them, can do more than we ever believed."

"What do you mean?" Han asked quietly.

"You know about magnetic resonance theory?" said Tracy.

"No," I said. "What's that?"

"If you'd been paying attention to the lecture yesterday instead of sleeping you would have known. The idea is that these gifts work a lot like magnets and iron. When you get two people working these gifts close to each other, they start to swap abilities. If I stay in the same room trying to set things on fire, while Guido is focusing on being unnoticed, I start to get his gift and he gets some of mine. But we both have to be using them at the same time. If only one of us uses our gift, it doesn't work. That's the main idea behind Mixed Arts."

"Wow!" I said. "Maybe we should all be over there."

"I don't think so," she said, "There's a downside."

"What is it?" I asked."

"They don't just add on top of each other. In order to make room for some of my gift, Guido has to lose some of his. To gain one you have to lose the other."

"So what's the advantage?" I said. "If you spread yourself thin enough you won't have much of anything."

"It seems people usually only pick up a few gifts at most."

"What happens if you have similar gifts already?" I asked.

"Well, skin-to-skin contact magnifies it, but even without that, yours would get even more powerful," she said.

_More power_ , I thought. _More like Abe._

### ***

Once breakfast was over, Tracy and Guido left together. I looked at Han and said, "Well, let's see what's next."

"Okay," said Han.

We followed the other kids back into the main lecture hall again. This time we both sat with Derek since his trainer was a girl.

I was able to find Derek near the middle of the room so I sat next to him, while Han was next to me. Derek was talking to someone. He introduced me, "Andy, hi. This is Mick."

"Hi, Mick," I said. "This is Han." Han shook his hand.

Mick's eyes were so dark they looked black. And they were sunk into his head with big dark bushy eyebrows. He reminded me of a Neanderthal caveman, but when he shook my hand, he smiled. I almost felt sorry for him, he probably didn't even like to smile, but people almost have no choice when they meet me.

"So what's your trick!" said Mick.

"Oh, he makes people like him," said Derek. "It's an influencing gift."

"A what?" I said.

"One of the main categories," he said as if I should have known this already. "We'll talk about it another time."

"Okay," I said. "What about you, Mick?"

"Oh, just this," he said. And then his skin grew scaly and dark green, and gills grew out of the side of his head. I almost jumped out of my seat.

"How do you like it?" he said.

"What _are_ you?" He was creeping me out!

"Same guy," said Mick. "I just make you see what I want you to see. You like it?"

"Sure, but you could give a guy nightmares," I said.

He smiled, "Well, that's the idea. For the enemy."

Before I had a chance to ask any questions about who the enemy was, Abe came out on stage. Derek and Mick stopped talking and turned their full attention to Abe as if in a trance.

Abe lifted both hands in greeting as if embracing us all, "My friends, today let's talk about one of the powers you may not see very often." A young boy came out onto the stage. He looked nervous.

"I want Paul here to show you something," said Abe. Abe backed away as Paul reached to the ground and lifted up a heavy looking barbell that I hadn't noticed before. He raised it above his head, which I could tell was a bit of an effort for him. Then he let go. The weight stayed in the air. He then reached out his hand and spun it around and it just floated there, spinning wildly."

Abe walked back up front, "What Paul has done here is not use some force to levitate the weight, but he has changed the atoms themselves so that they are as light as air. Now watch this!"

Paul closed his eyes for concentration and the floating weight turned colors from black to light brown with streaks in it. It immediately crashed to the ground and a part of it splintered off.

Abe chuckled, "What did you change it to now?"

"Wood," he said in a shaky high voice. "I made it a light kind of wood, like balsa wood. I just imagined it."

Everyone applauded like we were watching a magician. Paul left the stage, glad to be out of the limelight. Abe raised his hands again to calm the crowd. "Isn't it amazing? So many of us have such remarkable abilities. And just think of the order we could bring when we conquer our enemies."

Everyone clapped enthusiastically. I looked over to Mick and saw that he was clapping so hard his hands were red. He looked completely into it. So did the others.

Then I looked at Abe and I knew. He really was like me, only more powerful, and evil.

### ***

Later I had another session with Derek. "Okay, let's get on with our lesson. It's tricky what you are about to learn, but it can be very helpful. So far you worked on focusing. That was a good start, but there is a lot more to learn and especially practice. For instance, fear is also a great motivator. Most people think of fear as a bad thing, but for our purposes it can really be helpful. If you are afraid for your life, for instance, you will use whatever is within your power to save yourself. Now your power does not allow you to levitate off a burning building or to be bulletproof, but if something came to fight you, and you used your power out of a great fear, your power would be much greater. For instance. . ."

In through the open door walked a tiger. An actual tiger! Its eyes reflecting hunger as it stared at me like a piece of meat and growled. I almost peed my pants. The tiger crouched down as if it was about to attack, but then before it even left the ground, something changed about the animal. Its eyes grew sleepy, it stood up straighter, and I heard it purr like a hundred pound kitten as it walked over to me and rubbed against my leg.

"That's what I mean," Derek was smiling. "I knew you would be able to do it."

"Are you nuts?" I said. "He almost ate me for lunch!"

"No," said Derek. "I didn't think he would do that or I wouldn't have taken the risk."

"Whose risk?" I shouted. "He wanted to eat me!"

"But you stopped it using the fear and your power," said Derek. "You did very well."

For the rest of that morning Derek had me try focusing my gift on the tiger, because even though it was not attacking me, I never felt comfortable with him in the room. That fear remained.

### ***

At lunch it was just Han and I. "What happened to the other two?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, just above a whisper.

"You don't think Tracy talked Guido into getting her into that training facility, do you?" I said.

"I hope not," said Han. "But possibly. I think he likes her."

"Hmm, I think you're right," I said.

There was an awkward pause for a couple of minutes as I ate some vegetable stew with more rice. "So, learn anything new lately?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Care to expand on that?" I said.

He laughed, "That's what my mother says when she's trying to get me to talk."

"Is your whole family this talkative?" I asked.

"My mother and two sisters never stop talking. My dad and I have given up trying to compete. Not that we'd want to anyway."

This was the most I had ever heard him talk.

"I miss them," he said.

"Yeah, I miss my family too," I said. We didn't talk too much after that.

Once lunch was over we both cleared our table and headed toward the lecture hall.

### ***

This time the presenter was a military man. He wore glasses and looked a lot like my fourth grade teacher. Once students got quiet, he began speaking.

"Our Superior, Pandemonium Inducing, Destructive, Exoskeletal Robots are nearly ready." A picture flashed up on the screen in front. It was a picture of one of the robots we had seen being built on the assembly line. "S.P.I.D.E.R. for short," he continued. "They are all-terrain ready, combat optimal, and hyper-intelligent. But let me go into the details of how we got these. A little computer science, engineering, and a lot of money, thanks to a sizable donation, made it all possible. But let's go into the history. Here is one of our first prototype models." As the next picture was displayed I felt something bump my arm, "Hey, it's me," he said. It was Guido.

"Where were you?" I asked.

Tracy sat down on the other side of him. "Exploring the place some more." She had a bright smile on her face. "I'll tell you more later," she said.

As I looked up front I saw that this lecture was going all the way back into the beginnings of robotic technology, something that was going to put me to sleep. And thankfully, it did.

### ***

Afterwards it was free time, which meant Conditioning and Sports.

I found a small three-on-three basketball game already in progress. "Can I join?" I asked.

"Sure," one of the kids said with a smile. "Why don't you join our team?" This was probably my gift at work again. "My name's Tran."

"I'm Andy," I said.

"Okay," he said. "You're taller than most of us, but we're playing with as few rules as possible, so powers are allowed. If you've got it, use it. Are you in?"

"Sure," I said. He introduced me to the other player on our team, Jorge (pronounced Hor-hey). We got the ball first, so Jorge took it to the top of the key. He bounced it a few times and then threw it to me. I was a bit rusty on basketball, so I held it for a second, trying to think. Suddenly the ball started screaming, "What's wrong with you, put me in the basket!" I looked down and I could see a big smiling face on the ball. I almost dropped it, but Jorge said, "Hey, it's okay. It's just me!"

I started dribbling the ball, but didn't get far when a girl with long brown pigtails from the other team flew from the side and snatched the ball out of my hand. Without even touching the ground, she bounced the ball once and then flew over everyone's heads and dunked the ball. Two points for their team.

Now they got the ball at the top. The boy who had it dribbled up to me. I waved my arms to block any shots or passes, so he opened his mouth and breathed fire in my face, freaking me out completely, and dribbled on past me. A second later, he had scored two more points.

How was I going to figure this game out? It was crazy. The girl on their team had the ball again at the top. This time she passed it to the fire breathing guy as the ball yelled, "What's wrong with you, give the ball back!" He ignored this and passed it to the girl who was already soaring above the rest of us toward the hoop. He passed it to her and she threw it down into the hoop scoring another two points. Now it was six to zero. I still hadn't seen their tall guy do anything.

They had the ball again at the top and this time the tall guy took it. I went to guard him, but he just kept dribbling, not going anywhere. I felt a pat on my shoulder and it was the tall guy standing behind me handing me the ball.

"Dude, they just scored," said Tran.

"But he didn't even move," I said.

"Yeah, that's Larry," he said. "He can make any of your memories replay themselves in your head. Once you saw him dribble the ball, you kept seeing that memory play over and over in your head while he walked right on by."

"But that's crazy!" I said.

"Hey, welcome to the club," he said. "Whatever you've got, you'd better start using it."

Again, the girl had the ball at the top and Tran was guarding her. He reached out and lightly brushed her arm. When he did, she misdribbled the ball and he grabbed it. Looking over his shoulder he threw it to Jorge, who caught it. The ball suddenly broke into applause, like a crowd of a thousand. When he threw it to me, the ball became a face again and said, "Two points, two points!" like some cheerleader. I dribbled closer to the hoop, but then I started remembering eating oatmeal as a baby. All I could see was my mom trying to get the spoon into my mouth. It must have been a memory replay. I closed my eyes and I heard Tran say next to me, give me the ball. I handed it to him and I was in the present again. Tran shot the ball as I blocked his defender, making two points. At this, the backboard started to dance. Was this for real?

Now Tran had the ball at the top of the key. He dribbled it, and then passed it to me. I dribbled, planted my foot, pivoted around the flame thrower, and shot, making it in. Two more points.

We had it at the top of the key again. So far I had not tried using my gift, but now I had an idea. I dribbled the ball, but then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl swooping toward me again. I focused my gift, and as she came near, she suddenly stopped and then smiled. I dribbled forward and passed it to Jorge, while I cut toward the basket. He saw me and passed it back, while the ball was yelling, "Hooray for our side!" I grabbed the ball, about to make the shot when a rerun of Bugs Bunny started playing in my head. I was so close I closed my eyes and shot. When I opened them, Tran said, "Great job, Andy!" You made it! He patted me on the shoulder and my arm went immediately numb. "Sorry about that," he said. "I forgot about my power."

I looked up at the hoop and it was dancing again, and the ball was shouting. The boy behind me was breathing fire while the girl was flying in circles. "This is nuts!" I said to Tran.

"Yeah," he said. "It does take some getting used to. But if we practice, we'll do better at taking down the U.S. when we get a chance."

That was it! That was the plan. Finally someone spilled the beans. I had to tell the others. "I'm really tired. Mind if I quit?" I said.

"Well, okay," said Tran. "See you later?"

"Sure," I said, hoping I wouldn't.

### ***

Afterward we had dinner. Once everyone got their food and sat down we put our heads together. "Guys," I whispered. "They're planning to take on the U.S."

"What?" said Guido too loudly. Then quietly, "What?"

I whispered. "I heard a guy say they planned to take down the U.S."

"But that's impossible," said Tracy. "This little island couldn't take down the fifth ranked superpower. Look how small it is."

"Well, that's what I heard," I said.

"I'm sure they could do some damage," said Guido. "They sure have a lot of weapons."

"Yeah," said Tracy. "But compared to the United States?"

"Tracy," said Guido. "Tell them what we did earlier today."

"Oh, yeah. Well I got Guido to get us both into the Lethal Training Facility. First he checked to make sure it was clear, and then he kept the door open just a crack when one of the men left. When we got in there I was shocked at how much military they have, and how many weapons. Not that it could take on the U.S., but still it was quite impressive."

"But tell them what we did," said Guido.

"We found a communications booth," she said. "Then we tried to use one of their radios."

"Did you radio the general?" I asked.

"No, we don't know how to run that kind of equipment. I picked up a phone one of the guys left behind and called base on that. They say they will send someone out here to pick us up at the beach."

"That's great," I said, "because this is really getting scary. I want out."

"Me too," said Tracy and Guido together.

"Me too," said Han.

Just past my friends, I saw the girl I had played in basketball, with her dark braids, eating her broccoli and staring at me. It made me feel uncomfortable.

Just beyond her table, two men in camouflage with M16's walked in from the hallway, looked around the room for a few seconds, and then left.

"Yeah," I said. "There's definitely something going on here."

I didn't say anything about the guards to the others because I didn't want to scare them even more, so I kept it to myself. And I didn't want to mention the girl because I would get teased. I looked up again and she was still staring.

We finished the rest of our dinner slowly and the clock on the wall said 7:15.

"Look at the time," I said. "I didn't know it was that late."

"It feels late to me," said Guido. "I'm wiped out. I'll see you guys in the morning." He got up to leave.

"Me too," said Tracy, who followed Guido.

"Yup, I think something is going on between those two," I said. Han just nodded.

Han and I decided to call it a night too. When we got back to our room, Guido was already snoring. Great. Han just got in bed and closed his eyes. It took me awhile longer because it was so early and due to the snoring, but finally, the exhaustion was too much and I found my way back to dreamland.

This time, I dreamed of tigers with guns.

# Chapter 14: Too much at once!

The next morning I got up early and took a look out the window. The sky was blue with a few wispy clouds and the tops of waves could be seen in the distance. A dark blur flashed by my window and paused. It was a small, tan colored, curly-haired dog. Perhaps it was a poodle of some sort. It sat panting under my window, looking up at me, wagging its tail. I opened my window. A gush of warm air hit me in the face as I reached out my hand to pet the dog. I focused for a few seconds on having this animal like me just as I had the tiger the day before. Soon I felt the roughness of a small tongue licking my hand.

I heard the voices of men from around the corner outside. "I think he went this way!"

"How do you know?" another man said.

"Because I saw a _blur_ this way."

I didn't want to get in trouble so I closed the window. As soon as I did, I saw two men running around the corner after the dog. The dog, who had been panting at my window a second before, was gone. I don't mean he ran away. He disappeared. I saw a tan colored blur race across the rocks in the distance. I felt like I was in a dream.

As I was thinking about this, I heard Han stir in the bed to my left and get up. Then Guido did the same. They came over to me and Guido asked, "What's going on? You look confused."

"I am," I said. "I think there are things going on here that we don't know anything about yet. There's more to discover here. And report when we get rescued."

"Okay," said Guido, who I couldn't see but heard. "You're the boss." It almost hurt when he said that. I remembered the general's voice, _You are no leader_. But if I went with Abe, I'd be going against everything I believe. I don't want be a leader because no one has a choice. I don't want people to follow me because they have to.

For the next few minutes I was quiet as we got dressed. We got our customary knock at the door. "Good morning!" said the voice from the same kid as yesterday. "This morning we're going to run around the backside of the island."

I was again surprised at the heat in this part of the world. Everyone was warming up as usual. Abe came out and told everyone to follow him, and we did. It was a good run, but at one point we came to a large enclosure I had never seen before. A fence, standing higher than my head, went in a giant square around. . .something. It was made of boards with metal poles, so I couldn't see inside. As we passed I could hear growls, sniffling, and clawing. I could also hear men talking.

I thought of this for a while, and then it was Han who said "Look back."

I did, and following me was the pigtailed girl.

Afterwards, we showered and got ready for breakfast, which I had with the others. I didn't see the girl at breakfast, and I felt energized in a way only exercise can bring. This morning for breakfast we had a bowl full of cut up fruit and nuts with a little yogurt. It was good, and I went back for seconds. People chatted here and there at other tables, and we mostly talked about people we knew back home. I asked Han more questions about his family and he gave me a little more than he did earlier. Guido and Tracy were having their own conversation. We ended breakfast and headed off our separate ways again.

### ***

In the lecture hall I sat next to Han and saw Abe move to the front. "Good morning everyone," he said.

I looked around the room and saw people in rapt attention as he spoke. What would it be like to have that kind of power over people? To not have anyone question you, but _know_ you are the leader? But then again, I was questioning, wasn't I?

Abe raised his voice in smooth commanding tones, "We get students from all over the world at this training facility. Some come because they have heard of our fame and want to be a part of our effort. Some we get from. . .other sources." Students laughed at this.

Han and I looked at each other realizing he must have meant the kidnappings and a shock of realization hit me: He was making a joke of the kidnappings. How could I even consider being a part of this? Kidnapping kids? And then I remembered something I had memorized in school. It was from the Bible and it just started playing in my head like I was hearing it read aloud:

"In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called 'friends of the people.' But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant."

This time, I believed it. I didn't want to take power or fame by force. I didn't want to be a leader because no one could resist me. I wanted to do what was really best for others. I wanted to _really_ lead; not what Abe was doing.

Abe continued, "Whatever the source, we are glad to have new students regularly who add their abilities to our arsenal. And speaking of arsenal, our engineering department tells me their first battalion of robotic warriors has just been completed and is out for testing!" The crowd applauded around us. Han and I didn't know what to do, so we clapped along. Abe went on, "This is a great event for us since these will be a big part of the plan. It is great to see progress."

"And now, everyone, to your training. I would like you to work on the focus of pain today. So let's get with our trainers. Don't get too zealous and permanently damage yourself, but do your best."

This caught my attention. I looked at Han and said, "Pain?"

"For focus, I guess," said Han.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" I said.

"Apparently pain," he said.

This training worried me. Once in our training room, my instructor, Derek said, "There are five paths to using your gift. First is to focus. You did that yesterday. Second is to cut out all distractions. That's kind of related to focus. Third is to use fear to drive you, and we practiced that too. Fourth is to use drugs to help you focus. We mostly avoid this because those drugs also kill you eventually or you might not be able to stop using them. But the fifth path is pain, and it works very well."

After saying this he took out a whip from behind his back and I cringed. As he raised the whip, two kids ran past our room. Then three more. Derek put down the whip and yelled out in the hallway, "What's going on?"

A kid with short blonde hair said, "They caught someone."

"What?" I said.

"Follow me," said Derek.

I followed, glad to avoid any pain. We ran through dark, cold passages until we arrived at another larger auditorium. Derek walked toward the front, while I stayed in the back. Everyone was talking loudly as a light focused on the stage. Up front was Abe, and next to him, tied to a chair was Tracy with an empty chair next to her. Whenever I looked away from the chair back to Tracy I could see that someone was in the other chair. Someone wearing a Hawaiian shirt—Guido.

Abe motioned for everyone to quiet down. "We have recently captured two spies. Something that has not happened since this training facility began. We recorded these two on camera yesterday in our Communications Office. They were calling the U.S. for a rescue. Imagine that! Our enemy! As if someone who had the privilege of coming to this training facility would ever want to leave!" There was some laughter.

"Tonight we will have the first execution we have yet had at this facility. I hope you understand the seriousness of this. If it was ever in doubt before, remember, we are at war, and we will prevail!" There was applause from the crowd. This time I couldn't bring myself to join in.

Abe held up his hands and the applause died down. "The execution will be in the lower dungeon so that it will not disturb you. At least you will not have to worry about traitors among you. Power to conquer!"

Then the whole room shouted again and again, "Power to conquer! Power to conquer! Power to conquer! Power to conquer!"

Then it faded and students began talking excitedly about this discovery of traitors. My heart sank. What should I do? When they had called yesterday there was a video camera recording them. It was all my fault.

Just then Han ran in behind me and whispered in my ear, "Did you hear?"

"Yeah," I whispered back, not wanting a reminder. "They caught Tracy and Guido."

"They did?"

"Isn't that what you were going to tell me?"

"No," he said, "Brock just escaped!"

# Chapter 15: Our secret weapon

"Where did you hear that?" I asked.

"I overheard some boys. One of the boy's father is a guard and came home talking about it. They chased Brock to the ocean. They thought he drowned; he didn't."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because Brock won three ribbons in swimming for the U.S. team. I recognized him from the feed I watched as a boy. I saw him get those ribbons. It would take a hurricane to drown him."

"Do you think he left us?" I said.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe he just hid."

"I hope he's okay."

Han looked at the stage where Tracy and the mostly empty chair that must have been Guido were sitting. "What's going on with them?"

"Captured," I said. "They are to be executed tonight." He looked up worried. "Which means we are planning to break in, rescue them, and escape today."

"Do you have a plan?" said Han.

"Unfortunately, I do," I said.

"Is it a good one?"

"I have no idea. I'm not as confident as I used to be."

"Confidence is overrated," said Han. "You go, I'll follow."

Han followed me out of the room and through a series of corridors. When we got to an outer door, he asked, "Where are we going? We can't leave them."

"I'm not leaving anyone," I said. "We need reinforcements. We need a diversion."

"How about guns? Does your diversion involve guns?"

"No," I said. "But it involves a dog."

### ***

Once we found an exit that led outside, I began to jog. It was terribly hot and muggy out today.

"Didn't we already do this?" he said.

"Yup," I said. "And it was very enlightening."

Han was breathing kind of hard, "Okay."

We came upon the same enclosure we had come upon earlier that day. We walked around one side almost all the way before we found a way inside. There was a large steel gate, but it was locked. "What do we do now?" he said.

"We wait."

We could hear people inside at times, so it was only a few minutes before we heard the door open. When it did, we stood in front of it. "Hi," I said, using my influence as much as I could focus, "Can we see the animals?" I said this with a smile.

"Well," said the man holding a gun in both hands, "we're not supposed to let anyone in here. But since you are a part of the school, I guess it's okay," he smiled back. "Just this once."

"Thanks," I said. We walked inside the gate.

The place was a wonder. Some animals were in cages and some were roaming free. There was a walkway down the middle with enclosures on both sides. The tiger I had seen the other day was pacing back and forth in the open. I heard some loud birds and even saw a dolphin tank, and the place stank of animals. In one corner I saw the dog I had petted earlier in a cage. I said to Han, "Now why would a tiger walk free, but a small harmless dog be put in a cage?"

"Maybe he has rabies," said Han.

"They shoot dogs with rabies," I said.

Although the cage was shut, I saw that it was not locked. I opened the cage door and out came our dog wagging his tail and whimpering. He licked my hand and I pet him a few times. In a tan blur, he was gone down the pathway, then, _zip_ , he was under my hand again as if he hadn't gone anywhere.

"How did he do that?" said Han.

"Maybe he has a gift, like us."

"Hey, kids!" we heard someone else yell in our direction. "You can't be here. You want me to report you!" My effect on them had worn off or they were new guards.

"Gotta go!" I said.

Han and I raced toward the closed door, but as we neared it, two other men approached from the left and blocked it. They had M16's and wore angry expressions. I heard our dog running beside us panting and leaping like he was playing a game. Han and I slowed down, putting our hands up. We knew we were beat. Our dog, on the other hand, didn't even slow down, but blurred out of existence. Both men dove out of the way as a terribly loud, cracking noise deafened us. The dog ran through the door like it wasn't even there, leaving a hole a little bigger than the dog. Once through, he panted like he wanted us to follow. We crawled through as fast as we could, and the dog happily licked my face. As we continued to run, I heard the guards yelling for us to stop, but didn't pursue us further.

"A gifted dog," said Han between breaths.

"Very," I said.

We ran on toward the building, going inside the first entrance we found. "How do we get to the dungeon?" I said.

"I can only guess," said Han. "Dungeons are usually under castles in books and we've been through much of this floor, so let's look for stairs going down."

"Sounds like a plan," I said. We ran along one of the corridors with the dog next to us. There was a loud sound of talking and feet shuffling ahead, so we hid in an open training room. "It must be lunch!" I whispered, "The rooms are empty."

We moved from there until we had passed the lunch area and began looking for stairs. I had no idea where I was going. We had walked for several minutes when we entered a dimly lit area, so we had to slow down. "How will we know where the dungeon is?" I said.

"It says dungeon over the door," said Han.

"How do you know that?" I said.

"Lot's of experience with dungeons," said Han.

"Really?"

Han smiled and pointed above my head. Turning around I saw in the dim light a sign above a door that said, "Dungeon."

"You tell jokes," I said. "I didn't know you had it in you."

"Only when they're funny," he said.

The stairs were made of stone which slowly spiraled down to the left and were mostly shrouded in darkness. Occasionally a fluorescent light was stationed along the wall but it got pretty dark before the next light. A heavy steel door stood at the bottom. Our new dog was panting and following us the whole way. He would zip forward like a blur and then back like a blur. He didn't ever seem to get tired. One time he came too near me as he ran past and tore a piece off the side of my pants. "Ah," I said. "Watch it."

The small dog whimpered, panted and looked up while wagging his tail.

"Han?" I said before we opened the door. I leaned down and instantly the dog was under my hand. I stroked him a few times. "We have to give this little guy a name."

"Hayasa," said Han.

"Gazuntite."

"What?"

"You sneezed," I said.

He looked confused. "No, his name should be Hayasa."

"What's that mean?"

"It's the Japanese word for speed," said Han.

"Good name. What do you think Hayasa?" He panted happily at my side.

I turned to Han. "Han, I just realized I've been trying to lead again. I'm not really a leader though. The general made sure I knew that before we left."

"Andy," said Han. "I trust you. Everything is good so far."

"But I don't really know what I'm doing. I have no training."

"Hey, we're in a place we've never been, surrounded by kids with gifts no one has ever heard of. I will follow you."

I didn't know how to argue with this. "Okay," I said and straightened up. "Here we go."

I opened the door, which squeaked as it opened, and paused, noticing how quiet it was. I remembered Abe mentioning this would be the first executions. Maybe they didn't usually have prisoners either. But then I remembered that they did have Brock recently. Maybe there were others down here too. We stopped for a few seconds and listened. Just the sound of soft paws racing back and forth as Hayasa scurried here and there.

### ***

I heard someone talking, a girl's voice. Walking cautiously in that direction, I noticed the dark, dingy looking stonework of the walls. It looked very old. I thought, _How could this place be that old?_ _I thought the school was relatively new._

As we neared the sound, the talking stopped. It was dead silent, but we crept nearer to where I now saw was the door to a cell. At the top of the door was a small window with bars. I whispered, "Tracy?"

"It's them!" she said excitedly.

"Tracy," I said. "Is Guido with you?"

"He's right here!" she said, "We've just been talking about what to do."

"Great," I said. "Now if we can only get you out of there!" The door looked to be made of solid steel. Impossible to break down.

A loud bang rang out! I hit the floor, thankful they missed with their first bullet. Looking up, I saw a dog-sized hole in front of me through the door and Tracy was petting Hayasa. It occurred to me that Hayasa had again run right through a door. I was liking our new dog more and more.

"Okay," I said. "Problem solved. I hope no one heard that."

Tracy and Guido crawled through the door, careful to keep away from the sharp jagged pieces of metal that stuck out here and there. "Some dog," said Tracy.

"Yeah," I said. "Some dog."

"Where can I get me one of those?" said Guido.

"Now what do we do?" Tracy asked me. Of course, they always asked me.

"Let's go back the way we came." Everyone followed me back to the stairs when I realized maybe they shouldn't be following me. Maybe I was endangering them. When we got to the door of the stairs I heard people running down on the other side.

I started to panic. "There's another door over there!" said Tracy. "But I don't know where it goes."

"Away from them!" I yelled as we raced down the hall and opened the door. Inside was another good-sized room. When I opened the door at first I couldn't see because it was so bright.

"What's all this light for?" I said.

"The better to shoot you with," said a commanding voice. It was the voice of Abe. "We have been waiting for you." As soon as I could see, it was clear there were about a dozen men and all of them with guns.

"I'm having a bad day," I said. "I want to go back to bed."

# Chapter 16: A way out

I had no heart to fight. They led us back through the hall, up the stairs and down another corridor. I felt like giving up, walking alongside the soldiers when I smelled smoke. Then I saw it curl up one of the soldier's legs. Several of the men with guns started looking around, confused. The soldier's pant leg caught fire, soon the same thing happened to another guy near him. Both dropped to the ground trying to smother the fire by rolling around. Soon eight men began to dance around, trying to put out their pants as they caught on fire while others tried to help their comrades.

"Run!" said Tracy. She led the way as we ran for the far door at the end of the hall. When we got through the door, we saw that we had entered part of the robotic assembly area again. This time instead of coming out on the balcony, we were on the ground level. The noise was horrendous. A series of conveyors moved quickly in front of us.

Everyone paused and looked at me. I didn't lecture them about not being able to lead. "This would be a good room to hide," I yelled. "Any ideas?"

"How about that?" said Guido. He found an equipment closet that was mostly empty. There was only one machine part inside, square with knobs all over it. I had no idea what it did.

"We can all fit," said Tracy.

We followed her inside and I wondered where Hayasa was, so I reached down my hand and instantly he was there. I gave him a pat on the head while crouching. Han closed the large metal door, and we waited silently, still breathing hard.

Soldiers came running through the door outside. I could smell the smoke. "They could have run or they might have hidden," said Abe. "You and you, search this room. The rest of us will move on."

"But that girl just sizzled the pants off of me!" whined a voice.

"Go," said Abe. "You'll have to get new pants later."

"In my boxers?"

"Yes, just go."

"Oh, alright," he said. "Let's go Joe!"

"I'm going back to the training facility," said Abe. "The next session is about to start."

That meant only two men would be searching for us. But I remembered, they had guns. An advantage we didn't have.

We could hear the two men moving equipment around. Even over the sound of the machinery, they were talking loudly. "Can you believe it Roy! Three kids escaped! And did you see the hole in that door? How did they do that?"

I thought about this. There were four of us. Why. . .

"It's me," I heard a voice whisper. Guido touched my shoulder and I could see him in the shadows. "They don't know I'm with you. Maybe this gift isn't so bad after all."

"If they get us," I whispered, "you have to get out. Get away and tell the general what we've found."

"Okay, but I'll bring someone back for you," he said.

"Sure thing," I said, knowing if we got caught, we'd probably be dead.

Again we listened to the two men outside. "Sizzled my pants right off me," said Roy. "The burns will probably take weeks to heal! It hurts to even walk."

"Just be careful that she doesn't sizzle more than that," said Joe.

"These kids creep me out," said Roy. "Everyone with these crazy powers."

"Yeah, but we have guns," said Joe. "We'll get them. Then we'll lock them up. Or maybe we'll shoot them and say it was by mistake."

"Hey, that's an idea," said Roy. "One good turn deserves another, right?"

Their voices were getting louder. I heard them open up a locker nearby and slam it closed again.

"No one can pants me and get away with it," said Roy. "Shooting them would be justice."

"Yeah, I was just kidding Roy," said Joe. "You don't want to shoot them. Let Abe take care of them."

"Yeah, but. Well, you're probably right," said Roy. "Anyway, I can't do it here. I don't have any good place to put the bodies. Unless one of these lockers would work."

"Hey, there's an idea," said Joe. "A _bad_ idea. Do you want to get yourself killed? You know what they do around here for disobeying orders?"

"Right," said Roy. "Hey, Let's look over here."

"Okay Roy," said Joe. We heard our locker door squeak on its hinges as an orange light entered slowly. "Hello, hello!" he said. He had his gun trained on us. We couldn't see him too well since the light was behind him, but I could smell the smoke from his burned pants and we saw that they were just tatters.

"Hey Joe, I found them!" he yelled.

Joe came up to the locker next to Roy. "Great, Roy. I'll just call the boss." Joe reached for his radio.

"Hey, what's that over there?" yelled Roy.

Joe turned to look and as he did we heard _Thump! Clang!_ as Joe was hit on the head with Roy's gun. "Yeah, Joe, nothing personal, but I have a score to settle here."

Turning back to us, he said, "Now don't you move. And if I feel any heat on any part of my body, I'm going to start shooting people. You understand?"

We were quiet. A sense of dread crept over my whole body. I saw in his eyes he looked more than ready to open fire, and at his feet lay Joe.

"I said, do you understand?" he shouted louder.

"Yes," we all responded.

Roy smiled. Seeing him in the orange light with the conveyors behind him was eerie.

"Now that I have your attention, I think you guys are about to get dead. I'll tell them you were trying to overpower me and I shot you before you escaped. Joe wouldn't understand it, but no one frizzles my pants and embarrasses me like that. I'll shoot each and every one of you, but first off I'll begin with the girl because I think she did it to me. She's the only one I saw with her eyes closed, concentrating."

"Okay girl, come forward unless you want your friends killed first." Tracy took a trembling step forward.

He brought up the gun and leveled it at her head, almost touching it. We braced ourselves for the shot and heard a loud bang. But it didn't sound quite right; not loud enough. I opened my eyes and there lay Roy crumpled on the ground and a bloody spot was forming under his head. A dented oil can lay next to his body, now leaking as well. "What?" I said.

"It's me," said the familiar voice of Guido. "Nobody ever notices me, and I think I'm starting to like that fact. Sorry, it took me awhile to find a weapon."

"Thank you," said Tracy with tears in her eyes. "Where are you?"

"Right here," he said next to Tracy.

She gave him a big bear hug. She held him so long I started to get embarrassed.

"Must. . .breathe." he said.

"Oh, sorry," said Tracy, letting go.

"Thanks," said Guido. "Now we need to get out of here before Roy comes back."

Everyone was looking at me again. I started feeling upset about this. Who did they think I was? "Ask Guido this time! I didn't save you guys." I knew this wasn't the right place to lose my temper, but I was sick and tired of others expecting me to have the answers.

"Really," I said louder, "ask him!"

Tracy looked at me as if she was going to say something but then changed her mind. "Okay, Guido, where do we go?" she asked.

"How about the way we came in," he said. "They won't expect it because they've already been there." They all nodded their heads. "Let's go," he said. Guido was smart. Probably smarter than me anyways.

We took off through the door and beyond the next room with Hayasa running alongside us. We went back down to the dungeon area, and ran down one of the corridors. The rooms were dimly lit again. Running down the hallway, I was surprised at how quiet everything was, with no buzz of machinery, and no one in any of the training rooms. We came to a left turn in the tunnel and it suddenly got very dark. You could see a few feet and then nothing. "Tracy?" I said.

"Sure thing, I was already thinking about this. Han, do you have any paper? I need an airplane."

Han smiled, "Would you like a Flying Fish, Sabertooth, Paper Crane. . ."

"Anything," she said. "Anything quick!"

"In that case," he pulled out a ready made paper crane out of his back pocket. "I just happen to have this on hand. "He breathed on it and I heard the rustle of paper, but it was too dark to see much. Suddenly the back end caught on fire, and it began flapping its wings quickly. This looked more like magic than anything I had ever seen; like in the books you read. Hayasa barked as it flew forward, and we had to run alongside it to keep up. The corridor, now well illuminated, was long and kept sloping downward, but the crane flew steady as it burned. Hayasa ran under it, staring up and barking, and making short leaps from time to time.

"Shhh, quiet boy," I said to Hayasa as we ran. "We don't know who may be around." He seemed to understand and whined back at me.

The back half of the crane was gone now, and the flapping was getting more frantic. We came to a right corner and the crane actually turned right, like it was alive. With us running along the corridor it began to flap more erratically as it burned down, dying to a flicker by the end of the next stretch. Another right turn and then fluorescent lights began to show up on the walls. The crane burned out in a spray of ash.

"Now that was cool," said Guido.

"Yes it was," said Tracy. "Thanks Han."

Han smiled, "like magic."

The corridor sloped downward more steeply as we approached an iron door. It was unlocked, but it was so rusted it took all four of us to push it open. Once on the other side, we found we were in a large cavern which no longer felt like the school, but like a great underground cave. Like its own world.

A dull red glow revealed walls that were made of rock, and I could tell the floor fell away after a few steps so I walked forward cautiously as the others waited for their eyes to adjust. I peered over the edge to the left. "Yup," I said.

"Lava?" said Han.

"Yup," I said.

"Is the drop far?" asked Tracy.

"Yup," I said.

"Are we in trouble?" asked Guido.

"Yup," I said.

Turning back to face them, I saw something I had missed when we first came in. The door we had entered through, and left ajar, was covered from top to bottom with dark scratches. I don't mean like the scratches of little animals, I mean marks that gouged the metal deeply. Only something with huge, sharp claws and a lot of strength could have done that. I debated whether I should tell my friends, but decided it would not be especially helpful.

I faked a smile, "Well, let's see where it goes?" I said. The others followed as I stayed to the right, on the path before us. No one noticed the marks on the door behind them.

# Chapter 17: Under the island

I didn't know where we were going, but I had to act confident for the others. I was so tired I don't think I was thinking too clearly either.

"Go ahead," Guido said from somewhere on my left, "We'll follow."

There was a wide bridge ahead of us, so someone had been down here. It was made of stone like everything else. "How can this be underneath the school? It had to be made by someone," I said. "It seems unreal, like in a dream."

"Or a nightmare," said Tracy. "Is there anything that will burn around here?"

"If you're thinking to make a torch, I don't think you'll find any wood around here," I said. "This place is all rock and dirt and lava. Where are we trying to go?"

"Out the back way," said Tracy.

"There's a back way?" said Guido.

"There might be," said Tracy.

On this side of the bridge we saw a walkway that quickly sloped downward. There was no lava here, so it was darker.

"Tracy," I said. "Anything to burn here?"

"Didn't I just ask you that?" she said.

"Wait!" said Guido. "Look way over there!"

In the distance we could barely distinguish a faint glow. "I wonder what that's all about," I said. "I don't see any lava."

We walked slowly in the dark, taking each step carefully, until we got to where it was a bit brighter, but the source of the light was still far off around a corner and the color was more white than red.

I broke the silence in a whisper, "There may be guards down here. If there is electric light, there must be people."

"Good point," whispered Han.

I felt something at my feet. It was Hayasa. He seemed to be agitated by something. "Shhh, boy." I whispered. "It's okay."

Once around a corner, we saw a series of lights along the wall. Han and Tracy were near me on the right. "Guido?" I said.

I heard his voice from the other side of the corner. "Coming," he said, "just checking something out."

We moved on faster now with more light. This part was man-made with fluorescent lights along the walls again, and the rock had clearly been carved out by tools. We picked up the pace quietly, watchful in case we ran into a guard.

It was long and straight and stretched out a long ways. As we walked, Hayasa seemed to get even more agitated. Now he was zipping back and forth and hopping up and down. "What's wrong with your dog?" whispered Guido.

"I don't know," I replied.

Tracy whispered, "You know dogs have really good noses, right? They can smell things we can't."

We walked another hundred yards of straight, narrow cave when suddenly it ended. At the end was another large metal door. This was identical to the earlier one, but locked. "How are we going to get out of here?" said Tracy a little louder.

"Well, what do we have with us?" I asked.

Tracy spoke up, "We have a fire bringer, a guy no one knows is around most of the time, an origami master, and someone who makes people like him. "

"And one dog," I said.

"Who can run through walls and is faster than lightening," said Guido.

We all turned to Hayasa. He was jumping up and down. "Hey, Hayasa. Boy, can you get through that door? Can you?" I took him back a few yards from the door.

He jumped up and down excitedly. "Sure you can. You can do that, can't you?" He wagged his tail and whined. Then before I knew it he streaked off toward the door. He bounced off with a loud clanging noise. He whined a few times, then he got this determined look on his little face and backed up a lot further past me. His paws scratched the rock as he spun out before getting traction. He charged the door again and went through it like a piece of cheese. Cheese never made that much noise though. A hole was torn through the door with shreds of metal and slivers of wood. Some of the edges were actually smoking.

"I love that dog!" said Guido.

"So do I," I said.

We crouched down, and each of us, careful not to get our clothes torn by the sharp bits or hot pieces, crawled through the hole. As we did so, I was shocked.

It was Han who first said, "A dog can do this?" The door was nearly a foot thick and was made of two panels of inch thick steel filled with a wooden core. It would have taken a blow torch and several hours work to get through what Hayasa got through in a second.

"How can this even be?" I said quietly as we all crawled through. The path continued, but now there was a deep pit to the left. The hole didn't bother me, but coming out of it was the head of something impossible. It was red and had glowing eyes and I couldn't even believe what I was seeing when Guido said, "Holy cow! It's a dragon!"

# Chapter 18: The dragon

It was a dragon. Something totally impossible. They didn't exist. They were only for kid's stories and fantasy novels. I couldn't decide whether to run or scream or pee my pants. I saw Hayasa running around excitedly and the dragon, because there could be no doubt that's what it was, was licking our dog. Both seemed to be having fun.

At that, I calmed down and decided I didn't have to pee my pants after all.

"I must be in a dream," said Tracy. "This can't even be happening. A dragon? After all I went through, I run into a live dragon?"

"Huh?" Han and I said together.

She continued as though we weren't even there, "I used to love dragons. I had posters of them all over my walls in my bedroom. But then my mom had this big talk with me. She said that dragons were only make-believe. She said they were no more real than the Easter Bunny." Tracy had tears in her eyes now.

Guido spoke up, "You saying the Easter Bunny's not real?" I just stared at the dragon, but it wasn't moving.

Ignoring Guido, she continued, "I used to draw pictures of dragons all over my notebook in school and the teacher would get mad at me because she said I seemed to be losing touch with reality. I remember even my Dad had to come into it and he explained to me that dragons were only in kids stories. That I should focus on what's real. He even tried to get me into horses because he said at least they were real."

"I used to believe in the Great Pumpkin," said Guido, "until Mom said Charlie Brown was just a drawing. I was devastated, I can tell you. I wanted to be Snoopy when I grew up."

"Oh, very funny!" said Tracy. I could tell she was mad, but I was still zoned out, staring at this massive red head, smoke curling out its nostrils, while the rest of him was still hidden in a deep cavern below.

I finally snapped out of it, "All I want to know is this," I said. "Is it a magic dragon?"

"I suppose that depends on what you mean by magic," the dragon said in a low but pleasant voice.

"It talks?" said Tracy. "Not only are they real, but they talk? You've got to be kidding me! It took me two years to get over my dragon craze, and now I'm standing in front of a talking dragon?"

Turning toward the dragon I said, "What do you mean by it depends?"

"Well," said the dragon in a low, but melodious voice, "I can do magic after a fashion. I am talking to you, for instance. And if you will notice, my lips are not moving."

"Holy Cow!" said Guido for the second time, "It's a telepathic dragon!"

"So, do you have any other tricks you can do?" I said.

"That depends on what you mean by tricks," he said.

"You couldn't just answer a question?" I said. "No, you have to give a question for a question. What is it with you?"

"Do I?" said the dragon.

"Aaarrrg! You're doing it again!" I said. "Okay, we get that you're a dragon. But where's your gold?"

"Ah," he said, "Now we get to the crux of the issue. Do you think I have gold?"

"Another question!" I said. "What is it with this guy?"

"Ever heard of the Sphinx?" said Guido.

"Huh?" I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Some mythical thing," said Tracy.

"I read about it in a book of legends and myths," said Guido. He was touching my shoulder this time so I noticed him. "The Sphinx only spoke in riddles. Only the one who could answer his riddles could conquer him. Otherwise the Sphinx ate him."

"I don't like the getting eaten part," said Han.

"Neither do I," I said.

I spoke up louder to the dragon, "Do we have to answer a riddle to get by you?"

"No," he said without moving his lips. "But you must answer a question. Each of you must answer one question and it must be the truth or I will end your life. If you know about dragons, you know that I could kill you before you took two steps. But this is the way the game is to be played."

"And what happens if we don't want to play," I said.

"Then you are as good as dead."

"What happens if only one of us gets it wrong?" said Guido.

"Then that one alone loses his or her life," said the dragon.

"Great!" said Tracy. "Sounds like fun! Let's go."

Han and I exchanged glances, shocked at Tracy's change. A minute ago she was crying and now she wanted to play a game of questions to the death with a dragon. And she was totally fine with this?

She smiled excitedly, "I'll go first."

Without moving his lips or changing his expression, the dragon said, "What is your greatest fear?"

She paused for just a moment and then answered, "That's an easy one. My greatest fear is that this is not real. That this is a dream and dragons really are imaginary."

"Good," said the dragon. "You have passed and may live."

Guido, seeing how easy it was for her, said, "Okay, my turn."

The dragon closed his eyes for a few seconds and then said, "What do you carry with you everywhere?"

"Huh?" said Guido.

"Tell him," I said. "It's an easy one. Just tell him what you carry."

Guido turned pale and silent. Then he said much quieter than I ever heard him talk, "But I can't. I've never told anyone. How could he know?"

"Guido," said Tracy, "he's going to eat you if you don't tell him!"

"Not eat," said the dragon, "incinerate."

"Well then, that's much better. Guido, you've got to tell him _now!_ " she yelled.

"It's a bell," Guido said."

The dragon said, "Your answer is honest and true."

"A bell?" I asked.

"It's the way my mom knew where to find me. When I got home from school I had to wear a bell on a string around my ankle so she knew where I was! I felt like such a nobody that even my own mom didn't know I was there even if I was right in front of her."

"It's your gift, Guido!" I said. "It's not that she didn't love you. She just couldn't find you, like with us."

"I know," he said, "But I couldn't get over the fact that she must not have loved me very much if she couldn't find me."

"That's just not the way it is, Guido," Tracy said. "I'm sure she loved you. Did she ever pick you up when you hurt yourself as a little kid?"

"Yes," he said.

"Did she ever kiss you goodnight?" Tracy said.

"Yes," said Guido.

"Did she ever tell you she loved you?" she said.

"Yes," said Guido.

"Then she loved you," Tracy said. "She loved you completely!"

Guido was crying quietly, but I think it was a good thing this time.

Han spoke up, "My turn."

The dragon looked up at the ceiling of rock and then said without moving his lips, "What is the one thing you wish you could change about yourself?"

Han said nothing for a few seconds and then said, "Easy. I wish I was not so quiet. Others love loud people. They get heard. They go to parties and have fun and are never left out. I'd want to be like them."

"That is correct," said the dragon.

I could tell it was hard for him to answer, but he did well. I wondered what heart-wrenching question would be asked of me. Would he ask about my past? About the time I was captured and how lonely I felt? Would he ask me about my worst nightmare or my most embarrassing moment?

"I'm ready," I said. "Give me your question."

The dragon closed his eyes in concentration. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"What!" I said. "You ask everyone else questions that at least they knew the answers to, but then you ask me a question I don't even know?" I threw down my pack.

"What was that?" he said.

"I can't even see your hands! I don't know!" I threw up my hands in anger, but also in fear of the fire that was coming.

"Are you certain of your answer?" he said.

"Answer?" I said. Then I thought about it. I had said that I don't know. Could that possibly be the answer?

"Yes," I said. "I don't know. How could I?"

He paused for a moment and looked at me as though looking through me into my very heart. Then he said, "You have answered wisely and truly. Keep this answer close at hand for the things ahead. You are free to go."

On the far side of the dragon was an entrance to another tunnel where light could be seen. We walked around the neck of the dragon and, just before we entered, Tracy said, "You said you were a magical dragon. What did you mean by that?"

"Because I am impossible, and yet I am," he said and this time he had a smile on his face.

Tracy walked through the tunnel entrance along with us.

This tunnel was still rock, but lined with gems that sparkled in colors of green, red, blue, and purple. We all knew these were precious gems, but we didn't try to pry any lose. We were still thinking about what had just happened. I could not get the voice of the dragon out of my head.

Eventually we came to a place where we saw a brighter light. This time the light was not red, but looked more natural. We walked faster.

The dim light got brighter and it looked like there was fog at the end of the tunnel ahead. A minute later we could see out the mouth of the cave and there was sky and ocean and a warm breeze rushed up to meet us. We were at the edge of the island; the very place we wanted to go. We were free!

We came out upon a rocky slope. "What do we do now?" asked Tracy.

I laughed. "I don't know," I said. Then I sat down with my feet hanging out over the rocks below, confused and tired. I sat looking at the beauty of the ocean and took a deep breath. An evening fog was coming off the ocean and sunlight was beaming down in patches. We had spent all day on the run. As I admired the view, the others sat down and rested with me.

# Chapter 19: The great battle

Guido was the first one to break the silence, "What's that down there?"

Out in the ocean I saw something long and black under the surface. At first glance I imagined it must be a whale because of its size, but it didn't look quite right. There was no tail and it was not moving as I would expect. Then I realized I was looking at the top of a submarine. It must have been bigger than a football field. It surfaced and through a hatch in the top came Brock. He was alive! He waved to us and I could tell he was smiling.

"He made it!" said Guido.

"They got our message!" yelled Tracy.

We began to rapidly climb down the slope. There were large tan boulders for a little while which ended in white sand. When we finally did get to the bottom, Brock came out to meet us. He stood on the shore in a tight green shirt that looked like he could rip it if he just flexed, and he was still smiling.

"Hey kids," he said as we got closer. "You didn't think I'd leave you, did you?"

"Thanks Brock," I said.

"But how did you get help?" asked Tracy.

"You called for a rescue, didn't you?" he said.

Speaking into an almost invisible headset he was wearing, he yelled, "Okay, men. Set it up!" Men prepared equipment all up and down the beach, getting it from the sub and putting it together quickly and efficiently.

"I hate to break it to you," said Brock "but we're not home yet. We brought the war to you."

"War?" asked Guido, who must have been somewhere behind me.

"The description in your message made it clear we needed to take action soon. I'd say get in, but I'm not sure it's any safer in there than out here. And who wants to be trapped in a metal tube under water?"

I was bone tired and just wanted to lay down and take a nap.

"Okay, what can I do?" said Guido.

"Glad you asked, Guido," said Brock. "The thing is, you are our secret weapon."

"How's that?" he asked.

"You are virtually invisible," said Brock. "That means no one will see you if you sneak up on them. If you see a problem, you take it out. Kind of like a sniper, but without the high powered gun."

"Any chance I can get a gun?"

"That would take away your advantage," said Brock. "They'd see you for sure."

"Okay, big guy," said Guido. "Secret weapon, that's me."

"Tracy," said Brock. "Do you have that whole fire thing mastered?"

"Better," she said. "What do you. . ."

And that was when the planes came. "Incoming!" yelled Brock into his headset. So much for our reunion.

Three explosions happened almost immediately on my left and machine gun fire whizzed by also on my left. Brock was shouting orders, which I couldn't hear because of the noise of the bombs and fire. I found that I had dropped to my knees with the first explosions, but Brock grabbed me by the arm and lifted me up.

He tried to yell something to me as he pointed to a long black metal tube, but I couldn't hear. There was a loud ringing in my ears, punctuated by more explosions.

Brock put a meter long rocket in my hands and pointed to a box of them behind him. It was a bazooka and ammo. I'd seen them in old movies. More explosions, two, just in front of us. It scared me to death! At first I closed my eyes, but then felt Brock shake me. He pointed again to the rockets. The one in my hand had fallen to the ground.

I looked up just in time to see that there were already dozens of robots, scurrying like giant spiders with heads suspended above their legs, running down the slope and they were firing guns. Bullets hit all around me. How could I still be alive?

Then one exploded in front of us. I had barely seen the streak of the rocket that must have come from Brock. He was already reaching back and grabbing another out of the box, and I did nothing.

A plane buzzed lower over our heads and more machine gun fire, but much of it seemed aimed at the sub and those just getting out.

Two men fell off the sub, hit, and splashed into the water which turned red where they landed.

Behind the robots, enemy soldiers were charging down the bank. Then more and more until there were probably well over a hundred. They fired and ran like mad men.

How could I still be alive?

Three soldiers who charged us had their pants instantly combust and they dropped to the ground and rolled in any sand or dirt they could find. I didn't even know where Tracy was.

Another explosion behind me too close to the box, and now I couldn't close my eyes. Now I had to see what was going to happen!

Brock launched another rocket that blew up one spider robot, which in turn blew up the one next to it. Soldiers ran on past it and now an enormous explosion to our right erupted and sand and water sprayed down on us.

How am I alive in all this? I thought.

Looking to my right I could see two men down, probably dead, while another was moving slowly, rocking back and forth. Then even closer to me than those men (how could I have missed it?) Han was kneeling and making paper airplanes, with four or five already circling overhead on their own, and as he looked up, his face wore an expression of perfect calm. Like he does this every day.

He finished making another plane and sent it up with the rest and then pointed his finger, like a wizard in old books, and the planes all zoomed off in the sky.

In front of me again Brock was firing another rocket. This one hit one robot that was almost directly in front of us, and smashed it back to hit another before both exploded. Now there were fewer robots on the beach, but they were upon us, and I knew I was dead.

I could see Brock shouting orders through his headset and reloading, but I still couldn't hear anything except ringing in my ears and explosions. And I thought more of Han and his perfect calm.

A robot came toward us from the right and towered over me. This was it.

I prepared myself to die and realized I didn't know how. Something slammed into the top section of the robot, knocking its head sideways. It tried to correct itself but as it did, it was hit again and again. Finally its spindly neck was permanently bent. As I watched, its head bent toward me and I could see a paper airplane repeatedly smashing into its head. But how could that be? It was only paper.

As the robot crashed to the ground a few feet away from me I heard more shots high above and I looked up and saw the jets in some sort of dogfight, but what they were fighting seemed invisible. A jet had fire coming out from one engine and then it just exploded. A parachute was falling from the plane.

Now there were only two more robots further down the beach on my right, and soldiers were peppering them with machine gun fire.

Enemy soldiers were now fighting many of our men hand to hand or with guns at close range. One ran up to us from my left, but Brock was too busy reloading the bazooka. I prepared to defend myself or die and as I finally stood to my feet, the man just crumpled to the ground in front of me. Something touched me on my shoulder and I jerked around to fight, but it was Guido. In his right hand was a bloody big rock. He smiled and then ran on.

I looked ahead at Brock who was sweating and breathing hard. He was grabbing his right shoulder and his shirt had a bloody patch running down his back.

Then I heard two explosions above me and saw two more planes in flames going down. One crashed into the hill in front of us, but when I saw this I was amazed at how few soldiers were left on the enemy's side. There were no robots, and no planes overhead.

Three more soldiers who were fighting with our men had their pants catch on fire and they dropped to the ground.

Further to my left an enemy soldier just fell to the ground for no apparent reason, and then another and then another. Guido.

And then it was over. We were the only ones left, a lot fewer than we'd hoped, but we won. And I had done nothing. I looked over and there was Han, still on his knees, smiling.

# Chapter 20: I completely lose control

Brock gave orders on his radio while the men got their gear together and were already marching out and up to the top of the hill. As I was climbing up a rock, Brock came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, "Hey, don't let the past push you. Ignore what happened and start over." I could barely hear him above the ringing in my ears.

We crested the hill with the sun before us on the horizon. I was thinking about what Brock said when I saw in front of us a large army of animals and students who were waiting at the top. I looked up at Han and he looked at me, "These must be the animals we saw earlier," I said. "Where's Hayasa?"

Before I realized what I was seeing, a streak of barking fur raced past me. He yelped and in general disturbed many of the animals faced against us. Animals tend to get scared easily, and these were no different. Hayasa caused such a disturbance that many of those controlling the animals were trying desperately to calm them down. Hayasa raced around and around them, kicking up dust and dirt as he ran.

A loud roar went up from their army. At the center, a boy with dark hair and a stern expression was riding on the back of the tiger that had entered my training room earlier. It was Derek. The tiger had no fear of Hayasa and had no fear of us. I wondered if he had the kind of gift Hayasa had. If so, we were in trouble.

But now I figured out Derek's gift; he was able to control animals. That's why Derek was never concerned with having a tiger in our practice room.

Derek yelled and those who had control of their animals ran toward us screaming. A boy was riding an Elephant. The elephant ran right through our soldiers and our weapons like running through a grass field, men falling left and right. Then it disappeared for a few seconds and reappeared. An invisible elephant? Two eagles flying close together lifted up a man next to me and carried him off. I ducked and ran for cover.

Our men opened fire. Animals fell wounded or dead all around me. It was a slaughter! They might have been fast or invisible at times or have other strange gifts, but they were not bulletproof. It was kind of sad in a way, but if we didn't fight them they were out to kill us, and some of our men were still dead before the end.

There were two who were not such an easy target: Derek and the tiger. Together they seemed bulletproof. Nothing we threw at them made a difference. Anyone who got near them were trampled or run over. Derek was riding on some kind of saddle. Then I thought of something. If we could unlatch the saddle so it fell off, then _he_ would fall off. We could do this. I knew we could.

I found Tracy. I told her of my idea and she nodded. Most of the battlefield was quieting down except Derek and the tiger. As the tiger came near us to pounce again, I saw Tracy close her eyes. But before she could finish, the tiger charged her, knocking her down. It stood over her with its teeth near her throat. Without a thought in my head, I screamed and ran at the tiger. _Not my friends!_ I felt the anger I had felt earlier and it was unleashed.

Derek and the tiger turned toward me, surprised. I knew I didn't have any weapon, I had no combat experience, and now I was going up against a bulletproof tiger, but I didn't care. I didn't care about any of it because I was mad. I ran screaming like a crazy person. As I did so, the tiger got off of Tracy and turned toward me.

"Noooo!" I was clearly out of control. "I'm gonna feed you to my dog!" I screamed. The anger had built up and now I couldn't control it and I was going to get myself killed. I was just a few steps away when I realized something, I was about to die. And I remembered Han. I wished I felt the same calm. At least I will have saved one person.

Tracy was starting to sit up. I took the last two running leaps and then something weird happened. Derek, who had been on top of the tiger just fell off the other side. I crashed into the side of the tiger, who ignored me. I bounced off, but not like you would bounce off a soft animal. Because of this animal's gift, he did not feel soft but like iron. When I hit the side of the tiger it was like hitting a tank. It seemed to happen in slow motion. First my arm crumpled beneath me, then my right knee hit it and bounced back, but because of my momentum I kept going. My shoulder and chest hit at the same time as the side of my face. I was lucky that I had been turning sideways with my head or I would have broken my nose. When my face hit the side, the pain finally registered.

I actually heard a crack as I hit. I hoped this was not my skull. I remember something odd here, I was falling back to the ground and I was probably already going unconscious. I could see the blue of the sky with some wisps of fog and I could tell I was falling. I thought I might hit my head again on the ground but I could not do anything to stop it. The odd thing I noticed was that the tiger came over to me and I could feel his breath on my face. He did not roar, but he smiled, if a tiger can smile. Then he just panted and as he looked at my face, he drooled on me. It was really quite gross, but it was better than being eaten.

A moment later he began to lick my face.

Soon after, I could see Tracy's shoe and her jeans. She said, "There, there," but she was not saying it to me. I think she was petting the tiger. With a tiger licking my face and Tracy petting the tiger and saying "there, there," I lost consciousness.

# Chapter 21: The end of the battle

I was out for a few minutes. I don't even know what happened. One moment I was hitting the side of the tiger with my body and the next I was sitting down on a rock drinking tea and mumbling something about _SpongeBob_ while Tracy was standing next to me. She didn't say anything but just looked at me like I was some rare fish, and then she grabbed me in a bear hug. For a minute I couldn't breathe. I wondered if I was going to pass out. I thought, oh great, I survive a fight with a tiger just long enough to be killed by my friend.

Then she let go and walked away like it didn't happen. I do not understand girls.

I looked around and saw the battlefield. Dead and wounded animals and people scattered all over the plain. But no one was fighting anymore. I asked about this and the man nearest to me said, "For some, once the trainers were dead or at least wounded, the animals just went back to being animals. They lost any desire to attack."

"What about the tiger?" I asked.

"He's still around, but no longer dangerous."

"But how did Derek just fall off?" I asked. "I don't get it. What happened?"

"You mean the guy on the tiger?" he asked. I nodded.

"Didn't you see the smoke?" said Han. He was walking up to me. "The saddle strap just burned away and the saddle with the boy fell off." Then I understood. While I was distracting the tiger, Tracy had used her gift to burn away the saddle strap.

"But what about Derek?" I said.

"I saw him hit the ground and get up," said Han. "He ran toward the empty cages and two eagles flew by. He reached up his hands and they carried him off."

"He can do that?" I said. I didn't have long to contemplate this, because I heard Brock yell out somewhere in the field, "Okay men, it's show time!" He talked into his radio again, giving more orders.

Show time? I thought we were done here.

Across the field we saw the students coming out, almost in a kind of "V" formation. It's strange to say now, but I was almost excited. Even knowing I might be about to die, I wanted to see what they could do. Like I said earlier, I'm curious.

Guido whispered from somewhere to my left, "It's the Mixed Arts group." Then the students all took hands and I heard a sound like the roar of a raging wind. "Uh oh," said Guido.

"We're in _so_ much trouble," said Tracy. There was a slight breeze from the ocean at first. It was playful, like on a nice visit to the beach. But then it grew. Small rocks started to roll and sand was cast into the air. Then I could see the gun of the man next to me fly out of his hand and over the heads of the others. I put both my arms around the nearest tree. I felt something small hit me and something cold was on my neck. Then I realized there was snow or ice in the wind. But it must have been 85 degrees out here!

A minute later and all the men were down on their faces trying to keep from being blown away. I was concerned for Guido since he was the lightest of us all. "Guido," I said. "Where are you?"

But I didn't have time to get an answer and he probably wouldn't have heard me anyway. The ice was freezing along with the heavy arctic wind. I was shivering and holding on as tight as I could. I knew I couldn't hold on too long like this.

I turned to see the students responsible for this, but they were not affected at all. It was the strangest thing, but even their hair was not messed up by the wind, as if the wind had no affect on them.

Finally, the wind died down and we all breathed heavily.

### ***

We stood up, not sure what would happen next. The kids who had been holding hands collapsed, tired out by the effort of creating the blizzard. Behind them something else was stirring.

More fog had arisen now, hiding the sun, and it was hard to see anything distant. There appeared faint outlines of a group of men coming toward us. I figured it must be an army, but as they got nearer something didn't look right. Finally, I noticed, they were not adults at all, they were more kids. These were the kids we had trained with. They were the Focused Arts kids.

Before I even had time to contemplate this I heard one voice above everything. They were near enough that we could see them and no one fired on them because they were just kids and were not even armed.

Abe stepped out of the evening fog, and I felt a warm comforting feeling. "Welcome everyone!" he said. It was strange, because I really did feel welcome. "Why do you come to fight us? What was it we have ever done that would bring you here with weapons?" I looked around and saw the blood and I felt ashamed.

Abe looked with eyes of tenderness, "You are all friends, not enemies. Why should we fight further? It was not a battle you could win anyway. The powers that lay in this school far outweigh anything your military could bring to bear." I knew what he was saying was true.

Then as he saw me, he said, "I see you even have some with you who have been among us. You can ask them, they did not suffer at our hands. Indeed, we gave them our own food and trained them with the best instruction. We treated them like family. Why should we fight now?"

Why were we fighting now? Abe was the one leader who always made sense. He was right. Abe continued, "Put down your weapons and come with me. Let's go inside and rest. Let's eat and talk. Then we can see how we might work together against any misunderstanding."

Our men put down their weapons, for what else could they do? I looked at Brock and he looked at me and I could see he had given up the fight. He believed Abe too. Who wouldn't? Abe was the wisest of us.

Abe led the way and all of us, soldiers, kids, and even a few animals, followed him to the entrance of their place. I could feel it heating up again outside as we walked through the opening passageway, and into the main cafeteria where we had eaten many times before. Abe said, "There is food here and rest for everyone. Tend to your wounded and eat."

We sat down and food was brought to us. It was good, hot food. Porridge, warm bread, steaming vegetables, all brought with friendly faces. I had almost forgotten we had missed lunch and dinner that day.

Some, who were more desperate for rest than food, lay along the walls of the cafeteria, sleeping or just taking a rest before coming to eat. Abe watched over us and we all knew the fighting was over.

More men came in and laid down their guns and there was a large bin brought out where they could put their weapons so they would not get lost or get in the way of eating.

It all felt like a big mistake. Why did this army come? Were we ever mistreated? Was there any reason why we should have even felt the need to infiltrate this place? Why couldn't we just talk things out?

I had eaten and was getting sleepy. A group of students from the school stood around the perimeter. They were holding hands. It all seemed so natural somehow. So comfortable. I didn't really want to fight sleep, so I closed my eyes.

# Chapter 22: A bad kind of surprise

When I awoke I didn't even open my eyes at first. I no longer felt the warmth I had earlier. I no longer felt the compassion and the peace. Instead I felt a hard coldness from a stone floor. I opened my eyes and above me was a gray ceiling. That could not be the cafeteria ceiling. The cafeteria was white and smooth and high. This ceiling was dark and gray and much lower. I stared at a damp section of the ceiling. I had seen this place before. Then I remembered that this was like the cell where Tracy and Guido were kept.

But that could only mean one thing! I had been put in their dungeon. I looked around the room. I was not alone. Brock was with me, nursing his shoulder, some blood staining his shirt. Maybe twenty men were with us. Some were still sleeping, and some were just now waking up.

"What happened?" I said.

Brock was sitting against the nearest wall, "They happened."

"What?" I said.

"You don't happen to know the gift that guy who did all the talking has, do you?" he said.

"Let's see," I said. "Something about. . ." My head was foggy and it was hard to think. "Wait, I have it now," I said. "No, wait, I don't."

Brock said, "How do people normally act around that guy?"

"Well, let me think," I said. "The first time I saw him I remember thinking how nice he was and what a natural leader. Everything he said made me feel so comfortable and made so much sense. He's just the kind of guy people want to follow."

"Yes," said Brock.

"Wait a minute, Brock," I said. "I remember now, his gift is kind of like mine. Guido was the first of us to recognize it."

"Messes with your head," said Guido from next to me. He touched my shoulder and I could locate him now. "I can't believe even _I_ fell for it."

"Yeah, I thought so," said Brock.

But why did we fall asleep?" I asked.

"Mixed Arts," said Guido.

"What's Mixed Arts," said Brock.

"But how could they. . ." I said.

Guido broke in, "Remember how Mixed Arts kids can pool their gifts together and make it a lot stronger? Notice how everyone got tired at the same time?"

"That was a gift?" I said.

"Did you notice anyone holding hands?" said Guido.

"That's right!" I said. "I did, but didn't think anything of it."

"Kind of weird," said Brock. "A bunch of kids holding hands."

"Yeah," said Guido, "but that's how they increase their power. Skin contact, remember? But why didn't we think it was weird at the time?"

"Because Abe was in the room," I said. "It all seemed like the most sensible thing in the world. Just like anything Abe says or does."

"If we had had time to debrief," said Brock "we could have learned some of this from you before we encountered them."

"Too late now," I said.

"Yes," said Brock, "too late."

I looked around the room at the other soldiers. Most of them were just sitting quietly with a few talking. Some, had given up hope; I could see it on their faces. But then I saw someone checking the bars in the window, against the blackness outside. Another guy by his legs was writing something on a beat up piece of paper by the light of a small bulb overhead. Han sat in the corner on the opposite wall. I walked over. "Han, I wanted to talk to you."

"Andy, you're awake."

"I have a question that's been bugging me. No, I have two questions. I saw you at the beginning of the fight. Explosions and gunfire were all over the place. I thought I was dead at least twice, but you looked totally calm. I don't get it?"

"Andy," he said. "When I was young I used to be afraid of death. It happens to everyone. I would lay awake at night thinking about it. Then a couple of years ago a friend of the family visited us. My dad had known him for a long time and they talked. I played in my room and my mother was in the kitchen. An hour later my dad comes into my room and he has tears in his eyes. Dad never cries, so I wondered what happened. Dad said that he had just met Jesus. I didn't know what that meant, so Dad explained it to me. That night my whole family believed in Jesus to save us from our sins. One thing I noticed after that, I was never afraid of death again."

I didn't know how to think about this. I went to a Christian school, but I never had anything happen to me like what he was talking about.

"Is that something you want too?" asked Han.

"I. . .I don't know," I said. "I'll think about it." I got up and walked back to where Brock and Tracy were sitting on the floor. I sat down.

Everyone was pretty quiet. It gave me time to think. Some of the most religious people at our school didn't look all that happy. And some of them were not even nice to my friends. I didn't want to be unhappy and mean. I didn't want to be like them.

But then I thought of the janitor who had a hard, dirty job but he sang worship songs and always seemed happy. And Mrs. Jensen was really nice and she was really involved in her church.

I remembered my other question. Going back to the corner I said, "Han, I forgot to ask you my other question."

"Okay."

"I saw one of your paper planes smashing one of those spider robots. How could paper do that?"

He looked up and smiled, "Magic."

"No, really," I said.

"It's just a part of my gift. Paper tears easily because it is thin. Imagine if the paper could hit something perfectly straight on. It would be as thick as a block of wood. In your case, I used that plane like a hammer."

"So, could you break us out of here?" I asked.

"Not that way. Anyway, I'm out of paper."

"What about him?" I asked.

Han noticed where I was pointing. The guy writing on the messed up paper kept on scribbling. We walked over to him. "What are you writing?" I asked.

"It's a letter I was going to send my family, but I don't know how I'll ever be able to send it," he said.

"Would you mind giving it to us if it could possibly help us break out of here?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "Don't know how much good it will do, but here you go." He handed it to me and I gave it to Han.

Han took off his glasses first and cleaned them on his shirt. Then he unfolded the paper, straightened it out on the floor and began to fold it. The soldier and I watched. "Origami," he said. "I used to be able to do a paper crane once."

Han just kept folding. He did this quietly, expertly. He was creasing, and then folding. Sometimes he would unfold something and then fold it again to make it do something different. This went on for a few minutes; what he was making looked very complex. When he was done he had a perfect origami man.

"If I spent more time," he said, "I could make him more realistic, but this will have to do."

He set the man down and then breathed on it. The man stood up taller and then stretched as though awaking from a nap. "They all do that," said Han. "I don't know why."

The soldier looked shocked, "Captain," he said. "You've got to see this!"

Brock came over. Han whispered something to the paper man I didn't quite hear. I did hear the word "hurt" though. This had me intrigued.

"Right," said Brock. "It's his gift. Interesting, but not useful." He sat back down.

The paper man strolled up to the door and started climbing the wall next to it. Since the wall was made of rough-hewn bricks, it was like he was mountain climbing up a steep cliff. Once he got high enough, he jumped over to the barred window in the door, stood up and waved to us. Then he turned and jumped off, outside the door.

This whole thing was so weird to me. "He'll be back," said Han calmly, like he did this all the time.

We waited.

I turned back to Han, "How did you learn to do origami?"

"When I was four," he said, "I had a grandma who would make paper cranes. This is a common custom for Japanese people."

"So you're Japanese?" I said.

"Korean," he said.

"Huh? Then why did you get into origami?"

"It was cool," he said. And that seemed to answer it for him.

"What else can you do with paper?"

"Many things," he said. "With more imagination, more things."

"Well the planes were helpful in the battle."

"Yes," said Han, "and cool."

We heard a sound at the door and it creaked open. Han walked up to the door, picked up his little paper man and took a set of keys from him. "Good job," said Han.

"What?" said Brock.

"We're free!" shouted Tracy, and I heard several more of the soldiers start talking a lot louder.

"Shhh," said Brock. "We're not free yet. They might hear us. But great job, Han."

"Thanks."

Everyone carefully and quietly evacuated the cell. As soon as we all got outside, we opened other cells for more of our men. One held Hayasa, who was chained as well. When we opened it and unlocked his chains, he came at me and knocked me to the ground with such force it was good I was next to Han, who caught me.

From there we tried to be quiet, but something was bothering me. "What happened to the guards?" I asked Han quietly. "Weren't there any guards?"

As we got everyone out and we reached the end of the hallway, I peered through the opening in the top of another door. No one there. We used the keys to open it. As soon as we did, I heard muffled sounds. Then I saw them, three men. One was hog-tied and on the floor, one tied to a chair, and a third was tied to the bars of a holding cell. The guy in the chair had a bloody nose and as soon as he saw us he looked scared, but when he saw our paper man, he tried to scream in terror. The gag made that impossible. Han patted the head of his paper man, "Good boy."

"He did this?" said Brock.

"Yes," said Han.

"Note to self," said Brock. "Don't underestimate these kids."

Han walked toward one of the desks and reached into the paper wastebasket and took out paper, carefully folding it and putting it in his back pocket.

"Cool trick," said Guido to Han from somewhere nearby.

"Found them," said one of the soldiers. He had opened a closet door and in it was a pile of military packs. Each man put one on his back.

As we passed the guards, I heard footsteps coming quickly from in front of us. A man with a square shaped head and buzz cut rushed into the room carrying a gun. He aimed it at us. The gun was huge, it looked just like. . .

"Hey, that's mine," said Brock.

The man smiled. "Why don't you give it to me?" said Brock.

"Oh, I'll give it to you," said the man. Brock took a step back and the guy with the gun aimed and I saw a curious thing. Brock was trying not to smile. I recognized that because people had been trying not to smile around me a lot lately.

"You asked for it," said the man, and fired. It was terribly loud. I heard "Ahhh!" as the man screamed and the ringing in my ears grew louder simultaneously. The gun was on the ground and he was holding a bloody hand. Brock quickly picked up the gun, "Shoots a bit to the right, doesn't it? Oh, and you'd better get that sewn on as soon as possible." Then we all followed him out of the room while the man remained behind, holding his hand. The ringing in my ears stayed with me for a long time.

We opened another door that went out into the main dungeon area. I had been here before. One of the men motioned to a way out and said, "How about this way?" This was the way that led to the dragon.

"You don't want to go that way," I said. "Trust me."

"Got it," Brock said. "Then we go this way."

The other way was out through the school. Oh well, what else could we do? Anyway, now we were an army and not just a few kids against the whole compound.

After going down the first corridor, Brock said, "Which way?"

"We'll just have to take our chances," I said.

I looked at Han. He whispered something to the paper man. They both smiled. I didn't even know paper could smile!

When we got outside the next door we heard some talking. Han pointed and the little guy stepped boldly out.

It was amazing! First, one of two boys said, "What's that?" Then I saw the little guy jump in the air and do some Korean Jiu Jitsu or something and knock the spit out of this guy. I mean I actually saw spit fly from his mouth as he hit the ground. Then the next boy said, "Whoa, I'm gonna get you." He came at the little guy, but when he tried to step on him the little one was too fast. As the boy stomped, the little paper man climbed quick as a whip up his leg and did some kind of over the back flip. He grabbed one of the kid's ears and pulled. The boy hit the ground grabbing his ear. Then the little guy grabbed the boy's shirt, ripped it off with one yank, and tied him up right in front of us. It must have lasted no more than ten seconds.

"Pretty good," said Brock. "That was Gendai Jujutsu. Overall, I'd have to rate him a nine out of ten. Good form though."

I had no idea what Brock was talking about. We were already on our way. "What is our goal?" I said. "What are we trying to do?"

"First," said Brock, holding up one finger, "find our way out of this place. Second," he held up a second finger, "report their plans to our base. You do know their plans, don't you?"

"Not specifics," I said. "They never told us much except that they had plans, and they are enemies of the United States. Maybe they were suspicious of us." A feeling of failure crept over me.

"Okay," said Brock. "In that case, we have a new goal," said Brock. "One, find out their plans. If we can find specific plans written out, that would be best. Two, find our way out of here. I prefer alive."

"I like that last idea," I heard Guido say from somewhere behind me. "Especially the alive part."

"Do you have any idea where plans might be hidden?" said Brock. "Maybe a set of offices somewhere?"

"I never saw anything like that," I said. "How about you, Han?"

"Not me," said Han.

"Not me," said Guido.

"Where's Tracy," I yelled.

"Back here," I heard her yell from the behind the men.

She stepped forward. "Have you seen any offices?" I asked.

"No, but I think I know where they are," she said. "The boy that was training me said he worked in an office cleaning up at night. When he left to go to his job, he would walk down the corridor on the back side of the compound. I know, because I followed him once."

"Can you get us there?" asked Brock.

"Yes, once I know where we are," she said. "We need to get upstairs into the main school though."

"Great," I said. "So much for a quiet getaway. Students will be everywhere!"

"It is night though," said Guido, "and we have paper ninja here."

"And Hayasa," said Tracy.

"Oh yeah," said Brock. "And this!" He pulled out his gun again that looked like it weighed as much as me. "But I won't use it on anyone unless they fire first." Then he pretended to open an invisible door, "Tracy, lead the way."

# Chapter 23: Fire with fire

We were already at the base of the stairs that led up to the main school. The problem was going to be getting past all those kids. Each of them with gifts of their own and each of them trained to attack. We all walked up the stairs of the dungeon. Hayasa was panting at my side and running up and down the stairs, whizzing by in a blur. The little paper man walked quickly in front of us, our body guard, even though he was only about seven inches tall. Brock and Tracy were in front, and Han and I were behind them and I have no idea where Guido was. Behind us were the soldiers, some of whom were wounded, but all able to walk.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, we came to a door. Brock opened it cautiously and stepped through. The coast was clear, no one around. We all came through, just as two boys entered from another room. We were in a large room, and these boys took one look at us and assumed a fighting stance.

"Here we go," said Brock.

"Here they are, Sam!" said one of the boys. "Let's practice what we've learned."

The other boy lifted up his hands and we heard a noise like a loud wind. Then we felt it as it came out of nowhere. It blew the paper guy away and many of us fell over. Brock was big enough that he was able to stay up, but he couldn't walk forward. There were soldiers sliding on their backs to the back wall, unable to get up. Then Hayasa ran around the outside of the room in a blur, came up behind him and bit him on the rear. "Aaahhh! Get him off me!"

The other kid ignored his friend and clapped his hands dramatically. Out from his hands came snakes. They looked the size and shape of cobras. Flying from his hands, they started to slither toward us.

"Ohhh, snakes," said Brock. "I can do this."

At first I thought he was joking, but then I saw him trembling and he was sweating. One of the soldiers said, "I think these are poisonous." We backed away to the wall. Some men, who were still lying down from the wind, were now getting up and moving toward the corner as well.

"How do we get rid of snakes?" I asked.

"On the farm," said Han, "people shoot snakes with shot guns."

"Not here," said Brock. "The ricochet would kill us." He turned his head, "Tracy, torch 'em."

"Sure thing," she said. In seconds, the ground was littered with flaming, sizzling snake meat.

The boy laughed and said, "There's plenty more where that came from!" But at that moment our paper ninja came running up from wherever he'd blown to, jogged up the kid's chest, and punched him in the nose. Blood began to gush. He cried out and ran out the door. Hayasa let go of the other boy, who followed his friend out of the room.

"We may have more after us soon," said Brock. "You can bet they'll tell others."

We checked the men, but there were no injuries. We all headed toward the door. We didn't even get that far. Soon, two boys and a girl showed up. They looked ready for a fight as well. Good practice for them, I guess.

One boy closed his eyes and I felt a sudden fear. This was not just like being afraid of the dark. This was fear of horrible things happening to me. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of dying, afraid of spiders, afraid of being lost, afraid of losing my family, and afraid of bubble gum getting stuck in my hair all at once! It made no sense. I knew it was this boy. Many of the men started to tremble when he did this.

I remembered a Bible verse I had to memorize in school which said, "Fear not, for I am with you." I often thought of this when I felt scared or lonely. And who is bigger than God? I focused on this verse, saying it over and over. When I opened my eyes, everyone else was crouching down in fear. I straightened up, still feeling fear, but knowing it was a lie. I walked over to the boy in spite of what I felt, reached down and grabbed his ankles out from under him. He crashed to the ground. Then I grabbed a couple of dead, burnt snakes that were lying next to him and I tied his hands and ankles so he could not get up. Kind of gross, but it worked.

The second boy looked at me, shocked. Then he closed his eyes. The room got cold. Really cold. I could see my breath, but this didn't really stop me. It was a neat trick though. I looked for other scraps of snakes, but couldn't find any. Before I even got a chance, I heard a "thunk" sound. Brock, no longer afraid since I took care of the first boy, had walked up to the second boy and clubbed him on the head with his fist. The boy toppled to the ground like a load of laundry. "I don't think he'll be doing that again anytime soon," he said.

The girl who was left surprised us when she opened up her mouth and out came a deafening siren sound. Then she turned and ran away.

"Uh oh," I said. "I guess that means we can expect others soon."

"Then let's get moving," said Brock.

Brock picked up the pace to a jog, and all the men followed him, including the injured. It reminded me of the days back at the training facility when our trainer would get us jogging daily. I missed those days, mostly because I wasn't scared for my life back then.

We ran out of the room and into the hallway, following Brock, who was taking cues from Tracy. It did not take long, though, before we encountered more kids. One came in and immediately closed his eyes in concentration, but our dog, Hayasa, streaked up to him, ran right up his body, and bit him on the nose. He yelled a muffled yell while the Hayasa was still hanging on to his nose. I almost laughed. When Hayasa finally let go of him, the paper man ripped the kid's shirt off, tore it into strips, and tied him up.

Brock said, "When we go fast, they don't have enough time to focus. Let's keep up the speed!"

For the next two boys we saw, Hayasa, who was the fastest of us, distract them. Then the paper man took care of one and Brock took care of the other. Things were going smoothly so far.

"Where do we go?" said Brock.

"We still have a long ways," said Tracy. "Go up ahead, then to the right."

When we turned, we saw a group of kids, both boys and girls. They looked like they were waiting for us. Many of them already had their eyes closed. This was bad, very bad.

I heard a couple of our men in back yell simultaneously, "Aggh!" and fall to the ground. One yelled loudly to another, "Do you see that?"

"I see it," said the other.

"How could they get that Elephant in here?" He sounded scared. But they were staring at a blank wall! Hallucinations.

Several of our men began to talk in other languages and could not understand each other. A few soldiers started to fight each other for no apparent reason. It was complete mayhem!

How could we fight against all this? I felt an uncontrollable itching on my stomach. It was so overpowering I dropped to the ground and started scratching my stomach. I couldn't believe that I was going to die because I couldn't control an itch!

As we were all helplessly being affected in one way or another, I heard an "Ouch!" from one of our tormentors. "Thud," he hit the ground. While scratching wildly, I heard another kid fall. One by one, each of the kids fell to the ground for no reason I could see. My itching stopped in an instant. Once they were all down, I heard Guido yell up ahead, "Come On, let's go! Hurry!" He had saved us. While we were under their power, Guido went totally unnoticed. Our enemies couldn't affect what they didn't know was there.

"Our stealth hit man," said Brock. "Good job, Guido. Okay men, let's get moving!"

We all got up. There were a few bloody noses and other injuries, mostly from the men who had been fighting each other. They apologized and shook hands. We were off again.

Jogging down the hallway again, we came to a place where the floor fell away. Hayasa came near the edge and backed away, his tongue hanging out. One moment there was a floor and the next it was a bottomless pit.

"What?" I said. "How could this be?"

"I guess it was something built for emergencies like this," said Brock. "Is there another way over?" he asked.

"None I know of," said Tracy.

"Somehow we have to get to the other side," Brock shouted. "I'm currently taking ideas from any of you. It's probably 30 feet to the other side. There's no floor but we have the walls and ceiling."

"But I've never seen this before," I said.

"You were only here a few days," said Brock. "Did you expect them to tell you all their secrets?"

"I guess not," I said.

"I'll give it a shot Captain," said a tall lanky soldier. "I do a bit of climbing back home."

He tried getting finger holds on the bricks, but there just wasn't enough to grab ahold of. "If I had my climbing equipment I could do it," he said. "But freestyle, there's no way."

"Paper guy could make it," said Han. Then he had the paper man climb up the wall and over to the other side. He was safely on the ground. But no one else could follow.

The climber said, "We need handholds."

"Oh," said Brock. "Right. Do you mean like this?" He pulled out his gun and I immediately covered my ears with my hands. "This might ricochet a bit down the hall." He pulled the trigger repeatedly.

I remember one time when I was in the mountains with a few friends and we saw a tree hit by lightening. It was only a few feet away from us and the sound was so loud I thought I was dead. This sound was like that. The sound drove my eardrums through my skull. Again and again.

The bullets were so big that they blew big chunks out of the wall. There seemed to be no ricochet. Some bullets went all the way through so we could see daylight. Hayasa whined in pain.

When Brock was done, there were hand and footholds all the way to the other side, but Brock had to reload twice to do it. Our experienced climber went first. He got safely to the other side, showing us the right way to do it as he went.

As soon as he reached the other side, I thought I heard a sound like muffled laughter from far down the hall, though it was hard to tell with so much ringing in my ears.

"Did you hear that?" I asked. But no one else responded. Maybe it was my imagination.

Next, other soldiers went across. It took a while, but eventually all of us got over the drop-off. The last man took Hayasa and strapped him to his back before climbing. Hayasa whined, but didn't resist. Once he got to the other side, I thought I heard the sound of retreating steps.

"One of the soldiers said, "Look!" We all turned around, and the bottomless hole was gone.

"What happened?" said Brock.

"I don't know," I said.

We all followed Brock. He was the kind of leader we needed. A man of action who knew how to fight and would do what it took to get us to where we needed to go. I was glad to not have the responsibility of all these men.

"Up ahead take another right," said Tracy.

We went right and were surprised by a blaze of fire in front of us from one side of the hallway to the other. The fire reached to the ceiling and left no safe place to cross. "They must have lit it when they knew we were coming," said Brock. "What is it, a gas fire or something?"

Hayasa was running up to the fire, barking and then running back. He did this repeatedly.

"Do we have any flame resistant clothes?" I said.

"Nothing like that," said Brock. "We just didn't come prepared for anything like this. This is the strangest military campaign." He shook his head. "Give me bullets and grenades any day."

"So what do we do?" asked Tracy.

"Well," said Brock, "it must have limited fuel. I don't see anything feeding it."

"What do we do?" I said.

"In that case, we wait," said Brock. "It will eventually run out of fuel and burn out. And be prepared for any kids who come from behind."

We all sat down and just waited. No one else came to fight us and all we could hear was the crackle of fire and the smell of smoke. After a few minutes I heard stifled laughter again. A thought occurred to me.

I walked over to Tracy. "I think I've got it!"

"I hope it's not catching" said Tracy.

"Can you create a fire, much like this one?" I asked.

"I don't know. Not as intense, but I could make a fire that's similar."

"Great," I said. "Put it right where that one is."

Tracy furled her brow, "But there's one already there."

"Can you trust me in this?"

"Okay." She closed her eyes and concentrated.

I could see no difference, but then, "Ouch! Ahhh!" A boy who had not been there a second ago ran away from us down the hall, his pants smoking.

"That's our fire!" I shouted. "Get him!"

Immediately the fire before us disappeared and Brock took off like a bullet before anyone else even moved. He tackled the kid to the ground knocking him unconscious as he did so. Brock was no lightweight.

Tracy spoke up, "The fire was imaginary, wasn't it? He was hiding in it."

I laughed, "Sometimes, Tracy, you've got to fight fire with fire."

# Chapter 24: Things revealed

We walked up to Brock who wasn't even breathing hard. "That was our bottomless pit too, I'll bet," said Guido.

"What a waste of ammo," said Brock. "Those bullets are special made. So now we have to remember, we can't believe everything we see."

Suddenly we heard the roar of a large beast that sent a shiver up my spine. On the other end of the hallway was a boy in the process of turning into a beast.

"Jeremy," said Tracy. "I know him. And yes, this is real." Hayasa started barking up a storm.

"How many guys did you get to know, anyway?" said Guido.

Tracy turned red, but didn't reply.

"Great," said Brock. "Just what we needed." Brock, pulled out his gun. "Well, there's one way I know to stop a charging animal."

"No!" yelled Tracy. "Please don't kill him!"

"I won't kill him," said Brock. "I'll just maim him a little. Maybe give him a permanent limp."

"In that case, fire away!" said Tracy.

Brock fired at the beast, but it bounced off.

"Not good," said Guido.

The animal, which looked like a cross between a bull and a goat, was stamping its feet as though it was about to charge. "Prepare for retreat, men!"

"I don't think we can run from it either," said Tracy.

"Ideas?" said Brock.

Guido spoke up, "What are all animals afraid of?"

"Fire!" yelled Tracy. "Han, do you have any more paper?"

Han smiled again and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out three folded sheets of paper. "Airplanes," Tracy said, in a panic.

Han commenced folding so fast I could hardly see his fingers. "Impressive," said Brock.

Then Tracy said, "And a man."

While Han was working on it, the bull-goat started charging. "To the walls!" shouted Brock as it approached. Everyone lunged against the walls at the last second. But the bull-goat turned its head just after Brock shouted and slashed at Brock with its horns. "Aach!" yelled Brock, and the bull rushed on by. Once it passed, Hayasa ran up the animal's back and was now seated just behind its head and was panting excitedly. He did this for a moment, and then zipped back off the animal's back and came back to join us.

Brock was bleeding through his shirt about belly button height. I must have looked concerned, "I'm okay," he said trying to smile at me.

Han knelt back down, working on his paper man, like the first, except smaller. "I think he's after me," said Brock. "Everyone else to the walls!" Brock stood his ground in the middle of the passageway while the bull-goat charged from the opposite direction.

Everyone else flattened themselves against the walls. As the bull lowered its horns to attack, Brock leaped in the air. The bull-goat lifted up its horns at the last second, but Brock was already behind its head, coming down almost on the tail of the beast while it rushed on by.

Han finished the paper man. Tracy shouted, "Okay, everything goes to the bull!"

Han breathed on the planes and threw them. Then he breathed on the new paper man and the new and the old one starting running toward the bull.

The bull-goat looked confused. Tracy closed her eyes and both planes ignited. Hayasa gave a yelp and now the bull-goat's eyes got large and it turned the other way, but just stood there, staring at the planes, unmoving.

Tracy closed her eyes again and the heads of the two paper men caught fire. At this, the bull creature began a slow canter, but as they got closer it started to run in earnest, with the paper fires following behind.

"Men!" Brock yelled, "Follow that fire!"

All of us began to run. Because we were following the fires, and the bull was running from them, it looked like we were chasing the bull. Tracy said, "This way!" She entered through a door on the right and we followed behind. The last we saw of the bull, it was snorting and running as fast as it could away from us and the flaming paper men.

Once we got through the door, we saw cubicles and small work spaces. The office. "Click!" We heard the cocking of the hammer of an ancient gun. A man in a military uniform held the gun leveled at Brock's head. Then several things at once happened. First Hayasa was the last to come through the door and he came as a blur. The man, startled, said, "What?" Brock dropped to the ground, simultaneously pulling out his much larger gun, and pointed it at the man's chest. Brock's gun looked like a canon compared to that of the other man. The man dropped his gun and ran out of the room through the other door. Brock let him go.

Hayasa was happily panting and looking at us. I gave him a pat on the head and said, "Good boy!"

"That settles that then," said Brock. He put the gun away and stood up. "Now where do we look?"

"I have no idea," said Tracy.

"Okay, men," said Brock. "I know we're soldiers, not paper pushers, but let's see what we can find."

"What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Something important," said Brock.

"Right," said Guido. "That really settles it. I thought you were going to say something enigmatic, big guy."

Besides the desks, there were filing cabinets in several of the cubicles. Every desk had a computer. They looked old.

"Kids, why don't you see if you can get anything off of these computers," Brock said.

"No problem," I said. I took Hayasa with me to a computer and turned it on. Everything was fine until I got to a password screen. "These are old," I said. "They still use passwords."

Meanwhile the other men and Guido were checking the filing cabinets. This lasted a few minutes, and everyone was silent. I kept expecting some enemy to barge in with guns or powers.

"Interesting," said Brock.

"What is it, Brock?" Tracy said.

"Well, it's not my best side." He showed us a file that had his name on it. It had a picture of him and several pages of notes. "It looks like they've been spying on us. Here they have where I grew up, what I did at the facility and even how long I worked out each night. They even have marked down how often I used the bathroom. Tuesday I must have been dehydrated. Any luck there with the computers?"

"Not yet," I said.

"Not here," said Tracy.

"No," said Han.

We kept trying computers and they kept going through files. One of the soldiers said, "Hey, check this out!"

He held up a file and showed Brock. "Interesting," said Brock. Then he brought it over to me. It was a file with my face on it. Then they brought out one for Tracy and then Han. The only one who didn't have a file was Guido. No surprise there. They probably didn't know he existed.

We got back to work. Another couple minutes went by and no one came to stop us. Hayasa had just laid down at my feet when Han said, "Got it."

"What is it?" said Brock.

"I got in," said, Han. "They used an easy password."

"What was it?" said Brock.

"Password," said Han.

I laughed. "Of course. I wonder if that will work on mine." I gave it a try, no luck.

"Give me a minute," said Han. "I'll tell you when I find anything."

"You do that," said Brock.

"More files with faces we all know," said a man from the back. "They must have a lot of spies back home."

"Or one really good one," said Brock.

"Another soldier spoke up, "Huh? Wait, that's impossible. No, I get it. Brock, you have to see this."

Brock approached the man, "McGregor, what it is?"

"Check this out," he said.

Brock checked out the open folder and nodded his head. Then he said, "Hard to believe, but I guess it makes sense."

"Okay men, things have changed," said Brock. "We have a traitor, and evidently a spy."

"Who is it?" said some men at once.

"It's the general," said Brock. It was an email to Abe from General Garcia, giving the location of Tracy and her discovered ability. He showed me, but didn't show Tracy. "This is not good," said Brock.

"What are we going to do?" said one of the other men.

"One thing at a time," said Brock. "We only do one thing at a time."

There were more pictures of men from the facility in the files. Many of the men found pictures of each other. Something about finding a folder with your face on it makes you worry more.

For a few minutes we all pondered these things quietly, the only sound coming from filing cabinet drawers opening and closing. Tracy and I finished trying all the computers and found that we could not get into any of them. We went over to the filing cabinets and started working on those.

"Brock?" said Han quietly. He waved him over.

Several of us headed over to where Han was, but Han yelled, "No, just Brock!" This was shocking, because Han never yelled. We left him alone.

Brock stepped over to Han. "What is it? Is that what I think it is? Show me the next screen."

Everyone was dead silent in the room listening. "This is trouble," said Brock. "Where did they put it?"

No one answered, since no one knew what he was talking about.

Brock stood up and stretched. "It's been a tough day," he said. "You've all done very well and we've covered a lot in one day. You should all be very pleased. By the way, I hope you all have good life insurance."

What was he talking about?

He continued, "It is a beautiful island though, isn't it? And we saw some of the craziest things. I mean, that bull thing was tremendous, wasn't it?"

What was up with Brock? I heard a couple of soldiers whispering to each other.

Then one of the men spoke up, "What is it, Captain?"

One of the younger men said, "Captain?" He sounded worried.

Brock took a deep breath and sighed, "Well, gentlemen. On this island somewhere. . ." He stopped talking as if he couldn't get the words out. He just stared into space.

"Yes Captain?" said the young man in a high voice.

"We. . .we." Then he shook his head twice, looked up to the sky, and hit his forehead with an audible "whap." Then, standing up straighter, he announced, "Gentlemen, we've got a nuke."

# Chapter 25: Finding the bomb

"What's a nuke," I asked.

Guido touched my arm. "You ever see an old movie where a plane drops a bomb?

"Yeah," I said.

"Imagine a bomb that can wipe out a whole city; just that one bomb!"

"Whoa," I said.

"Yeah," said Guido, "whoa."

"How are we going to stop it?" said one of the men. "The nuke, how are we going to stop it?"

Brock was staring at the wall unblinking. "Stop it," he said, not even looking at the speaker. "Stop a nuke."

I spoke up, "Does the file on the computer say anything about it?"

"I don't know," he said. "I have no idea. I have no idea about any of this." Brock just stared into space.

"We can take it," said another man. "Come on, we can do it!"

"There's something else you should know," said Brock. "Han, tell them the name of the folder where you found that document."

"It was in a folder called Operation Nuke America," said Han. "The nuclear weapon is named _The New York Special_."

"They're gonna get New York?" some guy with a high voice said in the crowd.

"Can't we shoot it out of the sky?" I said. "We have weapons for that, don't we?"

The soldier closest to Brock said, "But Captain, our anti-nuke weapons have been decommissioned for years. No one has a nuke program anymore."

"That's right," said Brock.

"You mean they have a nuke that we can't stop?" I said.

"That's right," said Brock. "All nuke programs were shut down as part of U.N. Peace Initiative 151. You only hear about them in history books and by those who worked with them. So, you know what we're going to do?" he said.

"What?" said one of the men.

"Take out that nuke," said Brock. "But I don't expect we'll survive this one."

Silence.

"D-do you know where?" Tracy said in a small voice.

"Somewhere underground," said Brock. "It has to be somewhere underground. Have you seen anything underneath this training facility?"

"Yes," I said. "I was hoping not to go back there. There is lava and a dragon and it's horrible what the dragon says."

"Ahhhhh!" said Brock, "Anyone know what that meant?"

"Yeah," said Tracy. "Follow me."

Tracy led the way and as she did so I realized why she was leading again. She had the best sense of direction of all of us. I had been there too, but I didn't remember how we got there. Tracy was a natural with directions. Maybe that's what leadership is, finding the right person for the job, even if they don't know it yet.

We ran through the corridors again, this time with no one stopping us. Hayasa ran next to me, just like a normal dog for a while and then zoomed ahead and came back in a streak.

I had wondered what happened to our enemies, but then again, we had hurt or tied up a number of them so maybe they were scared to face us now. I hoped that was the case anyway.

Tracy ran ahead making right and left turns until we were right back at the dungeon where we started. This time she went down the same sloping hallway we had gone down earlier. We came to the door with the scratches on the other side. Once through, a soldier said, "What happened to this door?" He was staring at the scratches.

"When did that get there?" asked Guido from somewhere to my left.

"It was always there," I said trying to avoid eye contact. "I didn't want to scare you, so, I didn't mention it."

"Great," said Tracy. "Anything else you failed to mention?"

"Not that I can think of," I said. "Let's go, we've got a nuke to catch."

"We're nuts!" said Guido."

"Evidently," I said.

### ***

We followed the same path we had in our earlier adventures. The only difference was that this time we knew what we were up against. When we got to the part of the tunnel that was dark, a few soldiers took out flashlights. That made it easier.

At one point Tracy said, "Brock, can I talk with Andy, Guido, and Han for a minute before going on?"

"Talk away," he said. "But be quick, I don't know when we might be pursued again."

Tracy took us aside and whispered, "Okay, so far this is the way we went, but up ahead is the dragon. We know that after the dragon, the path only leads out through the mountain, so that cannot be the way. There must be another way."

"If there is, we never saw it," I said. "There was only the path we took."

"Not quite, Andy?" said Guido. "I took a different path at first but you didn't notice me do it. Look behind you."

We turned around and saw a section where we could not clearly see the wall. This was because there was no wall. "It was there all the time," said Guido. "I saw it as we ran past the first time, but we were running out of light and so I didn't say anything."

"Good going, Guido," I said.

"Sometimes being practically invisible has advantages," he said. "I tend to see things others just pass by."

We motioned for the soldiers and Brock to follow us and we all walked down the new tunnel. It was dark, so men with flashlights came to the front.

This went on for some ways. Eventually, the walls, which had been solid rock, turned to cement. "I hope that means we're headed in the right direction," said Tracy.

"Me too," said Brock.

After a few minutes the tunnel got brighter. There were fluorescent lights up ahead like the other parts of the cave we had seen before. Suddenly, the cave stopped. At the end there was just a cement wall. There seemed to be no way through.

"Well," said Tracy, "it looks solid enough. Maybe we have to go back!"

"Wait a minute," said Brock. "Why would they spend the extra effort to put lights all the way through this part of the tunnel if all it did was come to a dead end? That doesn't make sense." He rubbed his chin. "No, there must be something here, something hidden, and we have to find it. Everyone search for a way in. There must be a knob, or hidden lever—something."

All the men started feeling around the wall. This went on for several minutes until it seemed that we must have felt every part of the walls and even the lower parts of the ceiling. Then we started checking the floor. We couldn't find anything.

"I don't know," I said. "It doesn't look like there is anything here."

"How about at the beginning of this tunnel?" said Tracy. "Maybe there's something there."

"Okay," said Brock. "We'll give it a try."

We all headed back through the tunnel until it became stone again, and then back to the beginning of that branch of tunnel. "Okay," said Tracy, "let's check here."

So we did. We looked high and low. We checked for levers and knobs. We looked for trip wires and special places to step that might open a door. Finally we ran out of ideas.

"Okay, men. Break!" said Brock. We were all frustrated and tired. We sat down. I had forgotten how tired I had been. We must have run miles since our jailbreak.

Hayasa laid down and panted quietly at my feet.

Some men brought out snacks. Military rations. "Here, want some?" said a man with a boyish face next to me. "My name's Harry," he said. "Don't name any kids after me though. I got teased a lot growing up." I laughed.

He offered me something in the shape of a brick. I didn't know what it was, but I was hungry. It was heavy and a bit sticky. I tried a bite and it was good and sweet, and a bit chewy. "Thanks, Harry," I said. "This is good!"

"Fruitcake, military style," he said. "Most people don't like it, but for me, it's one of my favorites."

"So how long have you been in the service?" I asked.

"About four years," he said. "I'm almost done with active duty though. If I get through this alive, I'll probably give it up."

"What's your plan after that?" I said.

"I think I'll go into teaching," he said. "I like the idea of a teaching life. I have kids of my own and I like to teach them. I'm especially good at math."

Guido interrupted, "If you were to hide a lever or switch in a tunnel like this, where would you hide it?"

"That's what we've been trying to figure out the whole time," I said. I was upset and tired. I stroked Hayasa, more of a comfort to me than to him.

Harry was silently eating something out of a bag.

Guido started up again, "You would put it someplace you could find it, but no obvious place. You don't want anyone else in unless they belong."

"Right," said Han. "But where?" After a pause, Han said again, "Where things don't all look the same."

Then Han and I looked at each other, "Where rock meets cement!" he said.

At this, everyone stirred. Brock came over to me and said, "What's going on?"

"Brock," I said, "We have an idea, but let's not get everyone's hopes up. Can I borrow a flashlight?"

"Sure," he said. He handed me his flashlight.

Just the four of us, plus Hayasa, who was jogging like any other dog now, walked down the tunnel. We left everyone else to rest.

Once we got to the place where the rock ended and the cement began, we stopped. There was a clear division between the two materials. We looked at the place where the two met and it was obvious. There was a lever right there at shoulder height. It was the color of the rock, so it was not easy to see unless you were looking right at it, but now it was obvious. Tracy reached for the lever and pulled it.

At once the floor gave way and we fell. There was no time to think, we just panicked. We screamed and screamed. And we still fell. Finally, there was a gentle slope that slowed us down and we finally slid to a stop. We looked at each other and then Tracy screamed again even though we were stopped. We covered our ears. Then her scream turned into a laugh. "Can we do that again?" she said.

"You must like roller coasters," said Guido.

"Love them!" said Tracy.

Clearly there was no way back up but the slide, it had been too steep. Lights ran along the walls ahead of us and the tunnel kept going on like that for some distance. "Let's see where it goes," said Tracy. She got up, dusted herself off (there was a lot of dust) and began to walk down the tunnel. We followed. Here, the tunnel was smooth and kept going on as far as I could see.

Rather than fluorescents, these lights were LED's and they looked much newer. Eventually we came to a door without a door knob. On the right side was a number pad. "It looks like we need a code," Tracy said.

Han stepped to the front "Let's try the obvious first." He typed in 11111. After the fifth 1 the light on the pad turned green and the door slid open.

I laughed, "So much for high security."

"How many people do you really think come down here who don't belong here?" said Tracy. "This is clearly the back way."

Through the door was a large well-lit room. It was completely empty except for a giant troll. "Troll!" I yelled.

"How do you know?" yelled Tracy.

I pointed to a large yellow sign on the wall that said, "Beware of Troll."

"Oh," she said. "Ahhh, it's a troll!" We jumped back through the door so we were out of reach.

We took another look. It was pink with brown lumps all over its body like rocks. Its ears were like those of a bat, it had a large nose, and I couldn't see any eyes. Oh yeah, and it was about eighteen feet tall, your regular garden variety troll.

Tracy and Han yelled. Guido yelled from somewhere on my right. Then the troll yelled. It's yell was so loud it hurt my ears. Something like the roar of a tiger, but deeper and somehow "rockier." If a mountain could yell, it would be this yell.

We all stood still. Since it didn't have eyes, maybe it wouldn't be able to find us. It sniffed the air like a dog and then moved so its head was near the door.

There was another door across the room, and for some reason it was slid only partially open between the floor and ceiling. "Door," I whispered, pointing. While the troll had turned its head away from the door for a second, Tracy crept silently into the room and started moving toward the other door. "Tracy!" I tried to whisper loudly, "You're going to get killed!"

We watched as she walked quietly, making sure her steps were silent. The troll did not seem to notice. In a few more seconds she ducked through the other open door. I could see her jeans and shoes, standing just inside.

Guido tapped my shoulder, "My turn," he said. We let him go until we figured he must have made it to the other side. Next Han went. He was especially quiet and made it without incident.

Last of all, I went. I took my time, moving along the edge of the room. As I was halfway across the room, Tracy said, "Ow!" Then remembering, she said, "oops! Sorry!"

The troll turned toward the door and was there before I could get through myself. He was blocking my way. I backed away to the other side. I wasn't sure what to do. I finally ended up back where I started.

Hayasa was still there waiting for me, so I put my hand on his head, feeling his curly fur. "What are we going to do, boy?" I said. Hayasa wagged his tail while I stroked his head, and then sped off into the room and began barking at the troll. The troll turned, trying to reach for the dog, but Hayasa was far too quick for him. In fact, the troll was quite slow. Once the troll lunged at Hayasa I saw my chance. The door was completely unblocked. I ran through the room and toward the other door. As I reached the other side I yelled back, "Hayasa, come here boy!" Before I'd taken my next step he was beside me. I almost stepped on him.

I was immediately met by a man in a white lab coat. He had a gun and a moustache, only the moustache didn't bother me. "You will have to be eliminated. This is a secret facility. To see it means death." The others already had their hands handcuffed behind their backs.

I tried to use my gift, but the man just laughed. Even with a smile, he said, "No you don't. I can feel your influence, but it changes nothing. If you try to use your gifts against me, I start shooting."

At gunpoint they marched us to the back of the room and through another door. This door had a code as well. Unfortunately I could not see what numbers he punched. He took us through and moustache man said, "We are a bit busy at the time, but someone will execute you after lunch, so relax and enjoy yourselves until then."

Han was silent, but did not look worried. How did he do that? Tracy had tears in her eyes. I sat down feeling nothing, thinking nothing. Maybe I was too tired. I wanted to scratch my nose, but couldn't reach it.

We all sat in silence, and I prayed.

After a couple of minutes I called out, "Guido?" There was no response. "Guido?" I said again.

"Tracy," I said. "What happened to Guido?"

"Shhh," she said. "Act sad." She said this as another tear slid down her face. She deserved an Oscar! I continued to sit and stare, but inwardly I was listening for signs of Guido.

We heard and saw nothing. "Maybe he's going for help," I said.

That was possible. I tried praying for Guido, like Han was probably doing.

After about fifteen minutes a short man came in with a gun. He did not speak and he did not smile. A hat that looked too big was covering his head and most of his face. As he came near, he looked up. It was Guido! "Guido, how did you do it?"

"I had to knock each guy out. I used a big rock from the troll room. Do you know how hard it is to knock someone out with a rock? It takes practice, but I'm getting used to it."

"But we can see you," said Tracy.

"New clothes. I got them from one of the men. A bit big on me though. In a couple of minutes you'll stop noticing me again." He produced a key and unlocked our handcuffs.

Tracy rubbed her wrists, "Those things hurt," she said.

As we moved out of the room, all five scientists were tied up with white strips of cloth and were lying on the ground. All of them were gagged and unconscious.

"Where'd you get the cloth?" asked Tracy.

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask," said Guido. Then he whispered to me, "I tore up my underwear. It was the only cloth I could tear easily enough." I laughed.

"What was that, Guido?" asked Tracy.

"Never mind," I said aloud. "Guido's a smart guy and he just saved our lives. Let's leave it at that."

All of us looked at the room we were in. It was full of computers, but no nuclear warhead. On the largest screen was a diagram of the bomb and it said, "Armed!" in bold red letters.

"Not good," I said. Under that it read, "The New York Special."

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Let's go get ourselves a nuke," said Guido, who was no longer wearing underwear.

# Chapter 26: Twelve million

The room we were in had entirely too many exits. We checked them all. One, of course, led to the room with the troll. Now I knew why the door was only halfway open. And then there was the cell we just came from. There were five storage closets with equipment we could not identify. Tracy found a refrigerator in a lunchroom that had cold pizza. I was hungry, but would feel guilty if I let New York get blown up because I had a craving for pepperoni.

We had to walk around tied up scientists as we looked for the right door. We found a janitor's closet, a bathroom, which Guido and I used, and a door which led to another tunnel. This we saved for last. After every door was checked, we entered the tunnel. It was a large one, maybe thirty feet high and fifteen feet wide. This might have been so they could move heavy equipment through it. If that was true, then maybe this was where the nuclear warhead was.

The tunnel was long and winding. There were more LED lights along the sides and it looked very well maintained. Even the stone floor looked swept clean. I could imagine giants in here, since it was so large. Maybe a three headed hydra or something.

"If we were not trying to save the world," I said, "I would love exploring this place. It's like the coolest cave ever!" When I shouted this I heard my voice come back in an echo.

The cave ended at a door that went almost from the ceiling to the floor and from one wall to the other. A number pad was positioned on the right hand side.

"I'll try my lucky number," said Han. He typed in 11111 and nothing happened.

"It was worth a try," said Tracy.

"Any other obvious numbers?" I asked.

"Well," said Han. "I could try the others that follow." He tried 22222, 33333, 44444, 55555, 66666, 77777, 88888, 99999, and 00000. None of these worked. Then he tried 12345 and that didn't work. "Maybe we should use letters. Can anyone think of a good keyword?"

"How about 'world domination'?" asked Guido. "Or 'nuke New York'?"

"Too long," said Han. "Look, this is the same make as the keypad from before. The screen has just enough space for five numbers or letters."

In my mind, I searched through what I had seen, using what I had learned back at our training. I tried to remember everything we had seen back in the computer area, picturing every detail. There had been no signs on the walls and no papers posted next to any of the computers. One desk had a picture of a woman, probably in her 30's, and she was pretty for someone so old. She was probably a scientist's wife, so that could be important. Underneath the picture was a name, but I couldn't quite picture it. I wondered. "I have an idea, I'll be right back." I raced back to the computer area.

Back in the room again, I saw some of the scientists conscious now and struggling, but without getting free. I quickly found the desk with the picture of the woman, and under it was the name Chris. Probably short for Christine.

It occurred to me then that these men had families. That was an odd thought. They were just people, even if they were planning to end the lives of everyone on the east coast. I didn't know how I felt about that. These men were choosing to kill millions, but yet some of them probably had kids at home that they loved. That made me feel weird inside. It felt wrong somehow. Like their families deserved better. How can someone who's kind to their kids, go to work and plan to kill so many families, including children, who might have played with their own kids?

Chris. Five letters. Maybe that was it!

I raced back to where my friends were and saw them staring up toward a high spot on the wall. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Oh," said Tracy. "Guido said he saw a small gap at the top of the door. He said he wanted to try climbing up the wall. I thought it was a bit crazy, but he really wanted to try it."

"But how can you tell where he is?" I asked.

"Well," said Tracy. "Remember when he wears something new you can see him for a couple of minutes? Well," she blushed, "I gave him my bracelet." There had to be something going on between these two. Did they like each other?

I looked up the wall about twenty feet and there was the bracelet, and if I looked closely enough, I could see an arm attached. "Be careful, Guido," said Tracy.

At that moment Guido missed his next handhold and he fell. This was quite a fall. Guido tried to land on his feet, but only one leg got under him. When he fell, all his weight was on that leg. He hit the ground hard. "Argh!" he yelled.

"No, no-no-no!" said Tracy.

"You okay?" I asked. A dumb question, it was obvious he wasn't okay.

"My leg!" shouted Guido. He rolled up his pant leg and it was turning black all over. There was also a bloody scrape on the shin.

"What do we do?" asked Tracy.

"Got the code?" Guido said. "Go without me. Too important."

"Okay," I said.

"All right," said Han.

"Ooohhh!" said Tracy. "We'll come back for you!"

She was such a girl. I guess I hadn't noticed it before.

I went back to the keypad and I told Han my guess. He used the letters and spelled the name "Chris." The light turned green and the huge door slowly creaked open from the side. It worked! It sounded like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"We're in!" I said.

"Good guess," said Han.

We looked up into blinding lights. For a moment we couldn't see anything because they were so bright. But then we stared up, up, up to the tallest cavern yet.

And there was the nuke.

# Chapter 27: A desperate plan

You know when you watch a movie and there is a bomb about to go off. There is always a scene when somebody has to choose between cutting the red wire or the blue wire and if he cuts one it means the bomb will go off and if he cuts the other it means it will be disarmed. Well that does not come in anywhere here, in case you wanted to know. We knew nothing of wires and we had nothing on us for cutting.

Staring at the ceiling, I was overwhelmed by the size of this cavern. But then I realized I was wrong. It wasn't a cavern at all. It was a missile silo. The only reason I knew that was because I heard Han say, "Hey, It's a missile silo! We found it!"

"Yes," I said. "We found it." It was colossal. And out of the blue, I realized I had no idea what we were doing here.

"Now what?" said Han.

"Now we do what we do best," Tracy said. "We destroy things."

"Is that what we do best?" I said.

"It is this time," she said.

Suddenly it was as if my brain had finally engaged and in a surge of confidence I said, "Of course we do!"

I noticed a set of stairs as part of a scaffolding on the left side of the missile. They were rusted but solid looking. The missile too was rusted with mismatched panels. Some were not even cut evenly and did not fit correctly. "We need to climb to the top," said Han.

"How do you know that?" asked Tracy.

"From an old movie," he said.

Tracy looked at me, "I trust him," I said.

We all started the climb up the scaffold of stairs. That is all except Guido. He had limped into the room and now rested against a wall in front of the stairs, petting Hayasa. I could see him already getting hard to spot.

There must have been about a hundred stairs! It was a good thing we had been running and working out before we left the training facility. Still, my legs were getting rubbery from the long day.

We got to the top of the warhead and I could reach out and touch it. We were maybe fifty feet in the air. There were panels on it, and everything looked welded or riveted, but I could get my fingers under one piece because there was a gap.

"We can't get into this," I said. "We might as well go back down."

"What about with a crowbar?" yelled Guido.

"Even with a crowbar, we aren't that strong," I said.

"Then what are we going to do?" asked Tracy. "Maybe we should go back and see if one of the men from our group knows something about disarming one of these. It's over our heads."

"Good idea," I said. I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Let's go back and get them. Why did we ever expect to do this on our own anyway? We're just kids!"

We came down the stairs, tired and resigned that we could do no more. We got to the bottom and Guido, I'm assuming from somewhere against the wall, said, "What's the plan?"

"This is a job for the adults," I said.

"Then we're done with our part?" he said.

"I think so," I said. "Han, can you come with me to find them?"

"Yes," he said.

"Tracy, can you stay with Guido," I said. "I don't want to leave him here injured by himself."

"Sure," she said.

Han and I headed back through the huge tunnel. We didn't hurry because we had no need to. The tiredness was starting to catch up to me. My legs were sore and now I was getting a headache.

"How do you like this adventure?" I asked Han.

"Too much for me," he said. "I like quiet nights reading or surfing the Internet for origami ideas."

"I understand," I said. "I like going out with friends sometimes. I also do sports after school."

"Which ones?" he asked.

"I like basketball and soccer mostly. I tried baseball once, but didn't like it so much. Too much waiting around. Do you play sports?"

"No," said Han, "not really. I tried the swimming team once and did pretty good, but I only did it because my friend was doing it. I never tried it again. What I really like," said Han, "is origami. I search for different designed online and then try them out. Once I found out I could breathe life into them I liked it even more. I would make a couple of dinosaurs and watch them fight."

"Cool," I said. "I wish my gift was like that!"

"You have the gift God gave you and I have the gift God gave me," said Han.

"I guess so," I said.

We were coming to the door where the scientists were tied up again. Once we entered, we were surprised to find that several were up on their feet and many of them were trying to get free. One had a little knife attached to a set of keys and was trying to get the blade out behind his back.

But the thing that Han and I noticed mostly was that one, who was at a computer, had his back turned so his tied hands were over the keys. He seemed to be typing something. When he saw us he turned around and pretended that he had been doing nothing. Then we all heard a voice coming from the computer say, "Please hit enter to confirm launch."

Han and I looked at each other and both of us started running toward the man. But he was quick. He fell on his knees just as we reached him and hit enter with his nose. He hit it so hard, his nose started to bleed. Even through the blood he smiled. "Too late now," he said.

"Five minutes, zero seconds," said the male computer voice.

"What do you mean, too late?" I said. "Turn it off!"

Another scientist who had his gag off, said, "That's a one way switch. We couldn't turn it off even if we wanted to."

Han and I looked at each other. Without saying a word we both ran back to the missile. About half a minute later we were standing in front of it again.

"Tracy!" I yelled. "Let's get up the stairs; we need to break into that warhead! It's preparing to launch!"

We all ran to the top of the stairs. In front of us was the top of the missile. "Can you heat that enough to melt through?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Now's a good time to find out. We have about four and a half minutes before this launches and twelve million people die!

She closed her eyes to focus. Han and I tried to stay quiet, but that was hard to do when I was practically jumping out of my skin with anxiety. After about half a minute, she said, "Any difference?"

"Not yet," I said. Then losing patience I walked up to the panel in front of us put my hand on it. It was nice and warm, but not hot. "Why can't you do it? You melted the lock!"

"I think the heat is dissipating. Too much metal in one place. The lock was small."

"Great," I said. "Han, can you get one of your planes through that?"

"Think of a block of wood smashing the side. That's all you'd get."

"Ahhh!" I yelled. I was hyperventilating now. "What do we do?" I pounded my fist on the metal hull.

"You guys okay?" yelled Guido from below.

"New York's going to get nuked and we're the only ones who can stop it!" I screamed.

"Calm down," said Han. "You sure a crowbar won't work?"

I shot back, "Look at that plate of metal, it's too thick. No one is strong enough to. . ."

Then it hit me. Perhaps the dumbest idea I have ever had in my life. "I've got it!" I said.

"What are you thinking?" said Han, looking a little scared.

"Chess! We have to get the king. We can't play safe anymore!"

"What's that mean?"

"Wild and whacky things!" I yelled. "This time we're playing to win!"

I laughed, half crazed as I took off down the stairs with Han just behind me. I headed down the hallway and came upon the scientists, still trying to break their bonds. I ignored them and ran on. There he was. The troll was trying to scratch his back against the far wall. I pressed the button that opened the door all the way, but I could tell it was still going to be too small. The troll kept scratching his back.

"Aren't you afraid of the troll?" asked Han.

"Not this time," I said.

I closed my eyes and focused on the troll, trying to make him like me, to follow me. I was afraid, so I used that fear to concentrate harder. Then I opened my eyes. The troll had stopped his scratching and paused as if lost in thought. Then he went back to scratching. Since he didn't have eyes, it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

"It's not working," I said. "It's not working. We need. . .Ah!" I ran over to the refrigerator and grabbed the leftover pizza. "You're going to eat pizza?" said Han.

I ran over to the other door and said, "He has a huge nose for a reason, right? And we need a monster right now!"

I ran back to the troll. I held the pizza box up and waved it at him. The troll sniffed and then turned toward us. Then he started to move. He tried to come out to where we were. The only problem with this is that the door was too small. Even if he squeezed he couldn't get his shoulders through.

Meanwhile the scientists, seeing what was going on, ran into the prison cell for safety. One yelled, "They're letting Billy in here. He'll destroy everything!"

"I sure hope so," I said.

I held the pizza out of his reach and then he got mad. He made a loud roaring sound again and started pulling on the doorway. At first he was only able to tear away small pieces off the wall by reaching through the door and yanking hard on the wall. But then he really got into the spirit of things and started ripping larger chunks. I guessed this took about a minute and a half but it felt like forever. We still had about 3 ½ minutes left. Once Billy was starting to squeeze his shoulders through, I said to Han, "We'd better get moving."

"Behind you," yelled Han. As we ran, we heard the sound of crashing equipment. Billy must have been coming through the room with the computers.

We ran toward the missile silo. The tunnel was enormous, so I knew Billy could follow us here. When I got to the silo I shouted out. "Get out of the way or help me smear this pizza all over the missile! Troll coming through!"

"Are you nuts?" yelled Tracy.

"Today-yes!" I yelled. I ran up the stairs toward the top of the missile with Han just behind me.

By the time I got to the top, Billy was already at the bottom. Tracy, and presumably Guido, had moved away from the door so they wouldn't get trampled on. I opened the box of pizza and started smearing it over the cone of the missile. I heard the troll underneath me let out one of those deafening roars again.

Once Han got to the top of the stairs, he too started smearing pizza all over the cone. There was a gap between two panels, so I wedged a piece in there. Then I wedged in a second. The troll sniffed again and started to climb the stairs. Only he couldn't fit, so he climbed the outside of the scaffolding.

"Do you know how to get down?" said Han.

"I have no idea," I said. "Let's just save New York."

"This will blow up, you know," said Han.

"I know," I said. "It probably will. But you know what that means?" I yelled. "We saved New York!"

Now Billy was close enough that I could see his bat ears pointing toward us. His head was raised and I could see inside his nose, and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. Did you know that troll buggers are blue?

Billy was almost up to us now. "Han!" I yelled, "Climb down the opposite side of the scaffolding!"

"Already there," he said.

I took the last piece of pizza and slapped it on the hull of the missile and it stuck. The whole thing looked so gross it made me not want to eat pizza for a month!

Just as Billy got to the top I stepped over the outside of the railing away from him and jumped.

Now I don't remember if I'd mentioned this, but the missile was probably at least fifty feet off the ground. I don't really know why I did this, but having a monster tear me to pieces scared me more than the jump. On the way down I tried to grab a hold of a piece of scaffolding, like some superhero or something. But this was not a comic book and I was no caped crusader. I missed, and kept falling until I landed on both legs. For a split second I thought, _This is good, I landed on my feet._ Then I heard a loud popping sound and I realized it was me.

I didn't bother to look down. Instead I was fixated on looking up at Billy. He was licking the missile. Then he tried pulling off panels. He must have smelled the pieces I shoved in there. He yanked and then I heard a creaking sound and then the sound of grinding metal. One of the panels came loose. Once that first one was off, he started ripping off other panels. He grabbed a piece of pizza from inside and a bunch of wires at the same time and yanked.

I wonder if he found this entertaining, because he then leaped onto the missile and really went nuts. "Go Billy!" I cheered.

Han, who had still been climbing down the scaffolding stood next to me and yelled, "Yeah, go Billy!"

Tracy, who was already next to me, but I hadn't noticed her, said, "Billy, Billy he's our man, if he can't do it no one can!" like she was some cheerleader or something. We were acting like little kids! And we were going to die.

"You know," I said. "At any moment that thing is going to go off. Then there will be a big flash and a loud noise, but we won't hear it, because we'll be vaporized."

"I like bright lights," said Tracy.

"Yeah," said Guido "pretty."

Then we heard the sound of pounding feet. A group of soldiers came rushing in through the door. These were our guys, and now they had guns. One of the men looked up, "Eeeiiieeaahhh! What's wrong with you? He'll kill us all!" He yelled, "Get that thing off of there before I have a heart attack. He's going to blow us all to smithereens!"

"Wasn't that the plan?" Guido said to me.

"That was the idea," I said.

Our soldiers took out their guns.

"Don't shoot him!" said Tracy.

One of the men threw a canteen at Billy who turned to face us. He started climbing down.

"Food!" I yelled. "You have to use food to lure him down. He's probably already eaten what he can off the ship anyway."

Men started opening their packs and taking out rations as fast as they could. "He's welcome to it," said one of the men. "I'm sick of this stuff." He pulled out a packet and opened it. It could have been meatloaf or beef bourguignon for all I knew, but I could smell it, and so would Billy.

Billy started climbing down faster. "Now where are you going to lead him?" I asked.

"I don't know. Into the other room," said one of the men. "Let's get him into the other room."

Meanwhile the man who had yelled had already climbed the stairs halfway to the top. He was taking the stairs two at a time.

Other soldiers held open their packs and I saw all kinds of food, from corn to sausages to cereal bars. Billy got to the bottom and started following the men as they ran to the other room. As they ran by, I started to feel light-headed. Numbness began to creep over my body.

The only one left was the man on the stairs. He reached the top and was examining the wires inside and shouted down to us, "It's a miracle he didn't blow us to kingdom come! In all of his tearing and ripping, he missed the main chamber!"

I would love to tell you what happened next. I'd love to tell you about how the nuke was disarmed and we saved the eastern seaboard. But I can't. I had passed out.

# Chapter 28: The part I missed

When I awoke, I was on a stretcher. I don't know how they got one there since I had never seen medical supplies, let alone something as big as a stretcher. I looked up and one of the men carrying me smiled. My effect again, I suppose.

"Did he disarm it?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "We won't be blowing up in a cloud of uranium today. We left some men there to guard it. By the way, you should know that you almost gave our resident scientist a heart attack when you had that troll up there. When we got it out of the way and saw what was left of the missile, the troll had taken apart everything needed to get access to the uranium without anything disturbed that would have blown us up. It's a bit of a miracle, really.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm believing in those lately.

"How's Billy?" I asked.

"Who?"

I heard Tracy's voice, "Billy's okay. I made sure they didn't hurt him. I think our scientists want to study him though."

"Great," I said. I lay down my head and in a couple of minutes passed out again.

### ***

When I opened my eyes later, a howling wind was blowing on my face. I was on the floor of the cave and the men were all crouched down talking in loud whispers. I listened. "Look at all those trolls. How are we going to get through to the other side without shooting our way out?" said one man.

A different voice said, "Remember the other troll? We can use food."

The first voice, "There are too many of them. They would crush us or eat us or whatever they do."

"What else would work?" a new voice.

"Have you tried fire?" I blurted out. "They might be drawn to it or afraid of it."

A commanding voice, "Hey, sedate that kid. Now!"

I immediately felt the pressure of a needle in my leg, but couldn't feel any pain.

There was a pause, and then one of the men said, "You know, that's an idea. We haven't thought of fire."

"How are we going to get a fire started? It's too windy down here," said one of the men.

"Tracy," I said. I was starting to feel the effects of the injection hit me hard.

"Yes?" she must have been close by.

"Can you m-make f-f-ffffllllthhhhh?" I said.

"fire, right!" she said.

Just before I started to dream, I heard, "I have some extra shirts you can light. That ought to work!"

I think I heard some troll sounds for a few seconds and then I didn't hear anything. I was dreaming.

### ***

Later again, "Okay, men. You go around back and come from those rocks. If you can get a clear shot, then tranq them."

I slowly opened up my eyes and we were outside again. Looking around I saw snakes and pieces of snakes on the ground. I knew we were dealing with the gifted kids again. Brock came over to me and said, "Is there any advice you can give me about these guys? You were with them a lot longer than I was."

The only thing I could think to say was, "If Abe, the leader, comes out. You have to plug your ears."

"Right," said Brock. "We'll pull an Odysseus."

"Huh?" I said.

"Greek Mythology, freshmen year," he said. "Wax in the ears. Thanks." Then he took out some earplugs and put them in. He motioned for his men to do the same. He went away and I was still lying on the stretcher on the ground. I heard yells and some guns and eventually, I tuned most of it out. I don't really know what they put in me, but it made me really tired. Even with all the noise, I kept falling asleep.

I guessed this went on for a few hours because when I first opened my eyes, the sun was just above me and when I closed them it was already far to my right. It was a pretty day, actually. There were a few wisps of clouds above me and they were painted red and orange by the sunset, and somehow green got in there. I'm not sure how much the drugs were affecting me. I said aloud, amidst all the shouting and gunfire, "Thank you God for my life and that, at least for now, I'm still alive." Then I fell back to sleep.

Like I said, a lot of this was uneventful for me. I didn't see everything so I can't tell you all the details. I had always felt that I was in control of my destiny, but I realized then that I really had no control over my future. I couldn't even walk! It was clear now that my life was not in my own hands. I thanked God again and lost track of what was going on.

# Chapter 29: Back among friends

I must have missed all the action, because when I awoke again I was in a hospital bed. In fact, seeing the room again felt like déjà vu. They had put me in the same room where I started, and I was again by myself. I realized there was no more ringing in my ears and I lay there relaxing, hearing myself breathe. Then I heard the flush of a toilet and turned my head. Guido limped out of the bathroom wearing one of his customary Hawaiian shirts. "Hello, roommate."

"Hey," I said, "I can see you."

"New clothes," he said. "I wanted a change."

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Feeling better," he said with a smile. "I'm only going to lay around here another couple of days and then they say I can start walking more. They've started having me walk some now. They call it therapy, but it hurts like my leg's on fire. Something for you to look forward to probably."

"Great," I said.

"Did you know they had to do surgery on you twice?"

"Really?" I said. "I didn't even know about it."

"They kept you out the whole time. They said your knees were torn up pretty bad. I don't think you should jump from a troll in a pizza rage at fifty feet again. It's bad for the health."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

He smiled at me again. My gift in action.

"What happened to everyone?" I asked.

"Well, Han comes around a couple of times a day to see how we are doing, and Tracy comes in probably six or seven times a day."

I could have made fun of him then and there, but I didn't really feel like it. Good teasing grounds for later.

"Does anyone know what happened to Hayasa?"

"Oh yeah," he said, "he's on his walk right now."

"Someone's able to take him for a walk?" I said.

"Well," said Guido, "actually, Hayasa kind of takes the guy for a run. He likes to fetch, but he's so fast you never have a chance to rest your arm."

I heard footsteps outside the door and someone walked in. "Hi, Guido," she said. I thought it might be Tracy, but I couldn't tell.

"Is that you, Tracy?"

"It's me!" she said. "Can't you tell?"

I thought I was looking where she was, but I couldn't be sure until she put her hand on my arm.

"She doesn't know yet," said Guido. "I haven't had the heart to tell her."

"Tell me what?" said Tracy. She smiled at me.

"Tracy," I said, "When you came in, I wasn't sure where you were."

There was a silent pause for a second, "So that's what's going on!" she said. "I just thought people were ignoring me these days."

"She's been here with me quite a bit lately," said Guido with a shy smile.

"That's okay," said Tracy. "But if we're getting each other's gifts, can you make heat?"

Guido laughed, "You bet I tried, once I figured out what was happening. So far I can only make things a little warmer, but I can't make fire yet. I'll get it though."

"Guido," said Tracy, "have you told him about our zoo?"

"Zoo?" I said.

"It's not really a zoo," said Tracy, "but remember all those animals we fought with gifts? Ones like Hayasa?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, they found more," she continued. "And the scientists were fascinated, so they built this kind of zoo where they can study them."

I heard heavy footsteps and Brock came in. "How are you soldiers doing?" he asked.

"Okay," said Guido, "but look who's awake!"

"Andy," said Brock, "nice to see you in the land of the living. How do you feel?"

"I'm alright," I said, "But I still can't feel my legs."

"Right," he said. "At this point that's a good thing. Otherwise you would probably be screaming. If what they gave you wears off too soon, let them know and they'll give you something for it. They said you'll be able to stand in about four more weeks. Longer before you can walk. You'll have to take it really slow though."

"Hey Brock," I said. "Whatever happened when you were fighting the gifted kids at the end?"

"Your tip was very helpful," he said, "Almost right after we had plugs in our ears Abe came out and tried to sweet talk us again. You should have seen the look on his face when it didn't work! Finally one of our guys shot him with a tranquilizer. Now he's in a special kind of juvy for gifted kids."

"So he's locked up?" I said.

"Right," he said. "He and some of the other kids. Most of them snapped out of it once they had more distance from Abe, but some were really committed to this thing."

### ***

It was over two months before I was able to walk. Just as promised, they started physical therapy which was very painful. The good thing was that I was able to get out of bed, something I had wanted to do for a long time.

It was January when I got here and it was now mid-March. Other than reading books, chess was one thing I could do while lying in bed. Guido and I played at least once a day. I was only able to stand for about an hour a day so far, but that was expected to change.

One day while playing a game, I asked, "Hey Guido. I remember when we were on the island we discovered that we had a spy here at the facility. It was the general, right?"

"That's right," he said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"He was gone before we got back," said Guido. "We don't know where to, but the hunt is on."

About a week later, after I finally beat him for the first time that week, he asked me to take a walk with him. I got up and wrote down the time on a whiteboard so I could log how long I had walked; something they made me do.

We walked down to the end of the hallway and then turned left and walked some more until we came to a door that said, "Underground Garden." Guido, who I could locate, only because he was holding my elbow, said, "Let's take a look."

"Okay," I said.

We stepped through the door and onto a balcony. Below we could see an enormous garden, and I could smell a mixture of flowers, vegetables, and wet dirt. This place was huge, with grow lights everywhere, stretching out before us. No one was there, and it was really quite beautiful. Guido turned to me and looked serious. "Listen," he said, "I'm your friend. I don't know if you believe that sometimes because maybe you think every time anyone acts nice to you it's because of your gift. But you're wrong!"

"Huh?" I said.

But he just kept on going like he had rehearsed this or something. He sounded kind of mad. "Sure, we can feel your gift, but we're your friends because we like you. Really! And we wouldn't care if you looked and smelled like a troll. We'd still be your friends. Got it?" He yelled this last part, like it had been building up in him for a while.

I paused for a few seconds, not sure what to say, "Uhhhh, I think so," I said quietly. And then I started crying. I really didn't even know why, but I couldn't help it. It felt good, but it was also embarrassing. When I turned to the door, I saw Tracy and Han were there also and they were smiling. And I decided that this time, I believed their smiles.

# Chapter 30: Enemy inside

Early one morning, before most of the facility was awake or had come to work yet, I was looking out of our fake window again. It was too early for sunshine, but I still saw the bird that flew over to the same tree over and over, and I knew it was just a screen, but it was still beautiful. I knew that we were far underground, but didn't know where. I guess the military like their secrets.

As I lay there by myself I thought I heard a high pitched screeching sound. At first it was very faint and I wondered if my ears were ringing again from all the gunshots I had heard on the island, but then it got louder. I heard a grinding noise on top of it now. I wondered what was going on. The room started to vibrate a little and that's when I started to worry. The wall, where the image of the lawn and trees were projected, started to crack, and then dust fell through the cracks. I tried to back away.

Rolling off my bed, I landed on the ground just as a giant set of metal teeth came through the wall. When it broke all the way through, I saw it was some kind giant machine made to burrow through rock and dirt. Once through, a metallic bubble on top opened up and out stepped the general, our betrayer. He had a small square remote in his hand. Once he saw me, he paused as though distracted for a moment.

I lay on the ground, starting to get up when he pressed a button on the remote and a side compartment in the machine opened up. Then the strangest thing happened. Out hopped this toad! Only it wasn't an ordinary sized toad. This toad was a burnt brown color and probably a foot and a half high and three feet wide and for some reason, smoke was coming from its back.

It lashed out its tongue at me which wrapped around my legs. As soon as it did this, I felt hot, searing pain. I screamed and the toad let go with its tongue. I had been wearing sweatpants, but now they were burned off in strips and red blisters were underneath.

"That's for taking away our island facility," said General Garcia. "Now it's crawling with military! Why couldn't you give in to Abe like you were supposed to? But you're not worth my trouble. Not this time. I've got a list to find." He pressed a different button and another compartment of the ship opened up. This time two robots hopped out. These were not like the ones we fought earlier. They were boxy and small. They flanked the general, one on each side, as he left my room at a quick pace. The toad hopped just behind him.

I stood, stunned for a few seconds, then I remembered that there was a way for me to call the nurse by pressing a button on the wall near my bed. I walked to it, but my legs felt like fire. I pressed the button and waited. Within twenty seconds, a nurse came in, "What can I do for you?" She took a look at the hole in the wall and my legs, "What happened?"

"First thing's first," I said. "General Garcia is here and he says he's looking for a list."

"Oh no," she said. She grabbed a radio she had on her hip, "Captain. . .I mean General, Garcia is here and he's after a list. Does he mean the list of gifted kids from Research?"

Brock's voice came back, "Right. On my way." The nurse looked worried and rushed from the room.

This struck a chord with me. That's how they got me. That's how Tracy was almost taken and her family killed. The general had been sending information about kids from the list we were making. If they had the whole list, they could kidnap more kids!

The nurse had just walked out when the thought came to me that Research was just down the hall from where I was, but even if Brock was on base, it would probably take him several minutes to get here.

I knew what I had to do. I ran to the machine and grabbed what I needed. Then I ran like a wildman out of the room and down the hallway. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I could barely feel the throbbing in my unsteady legs. The general was an expert in martial arts and I had only taken beginning classes in combat, but somehow he had to be stopped, and I was closer than anyone else.

I heard a tearing of metal around the corner and then an alarm went off. It was very loud. When I rounded the corner, I saw the research facility. The door to the lab had been torn through, probably by the robots.

When I got there the only lights were red emergency lights from the alarm. I stepped inside. Computers and various experiments lay scattered all over the room on tables and desks. I had never been here.

The emergency lights revealed the general was leaning over a computer desk, yanking open the top drawer. He pulled out a small USB drive. "That's the one," he said. His robots and toad were standing behind him.

I tried to run toward him, but fell on the way. My legs were too weak and felt like lava. I stood back up. "You think you can stop me?" he said with a mocking tone. He walked toward me, and on the way past, kicked me in the ribs, doubling me over, and as I fell, he struck me with an uppercut in the face.

I heard him walking away from me. I could not let him leave with that list! I used the table nearest me to pull myself up. It took me a few seconds before I could get onto my feet. Once I did, I saw the general running away with a robot on each side and the toad still behind him.

I hobbled over to the entrance, now with blood dripping from my chin. I knew kids would be kidnapped or even die if I didn't stop him.

The general was running down to a "T" in the hall not far away and took the turn. I ran in spite of the pain, and by the time I got there, he was already down the other hallway. I ran a bit further and just before he entered my room, I yelled, "Hey, Garcia!"

He stopped and turned around. Then he sneered. "So you think you're going to save the day? Didn't I tell you you're no leader? You have no training, no real skill, and no head for strategy. Why, in the grand scheme of things, you're nothing!" He turned and walked with his frog and his two robots into the room where his digging machine rested. In great pain, I ran to the doorway. As I did, I saw Brock coming like a train from the far end of the hall.

Standing in the doorway I peered in at the general who was leaning over his machine. A confused look came over his face. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a set of keys, jiggling them. "Looking for these?"

"What?" He turned, taking quick angry steps toward me. I stayed in the hallway and backed up against the wall. "You give me those right now you little. . ." The general took one step into the hallway and Brock hit him with a flying tackle. He hit him so hard I thought I heard the crunch of bones. So hard the general didn't even fight back after that. He had been knocked unconscious.

As Brock got up, two other men came with handcuffs and guns, but neither of us stayed to see what was going to happen. Brock and I started walking down the hallway. He put his arm around me like my dad used to do. "Andy, now that was thinking on your feet."

"Thanks," I said. "But if you don't mind, I'd like to get off my feet for a while. My legs are killing me!"

"Of course." He led me to another room with a bed. One without a gaping hole in the wall.

"So I've heard you play chess," he said. "A good game for strategy."

"Yeah," I said. "Guido got me started."

"I've been known to play a game or two," said Brock, smiling.

"Let's play sometime," I said.

"Yes, let's do that," he said.

# Chapter 31: Saying goodbye

Once I was back in bed, I was treated for second degree burns on both legs, some bruised ribs, and some facial cuts. After a few sleepless nights, the pain in my legs subsided, though the ribs took longer, and I was able to go back to daily exercise. Two weeks later I was jogging half a mile with little pain and at the end of the third week, I could jog two.

Some of the skin on my leg peeled off and itched, but at least it didn't hurt anymore.

Brock visited me at least once a week to play chess, and I saw Han, Tracy, and Guido sometimes too. Tracy often talked about the animals in the zoo. I guess she was a real animal lover.

One day Guido and Tracy came to visit. I was having kind of a hard time finding either of them unless I concentrated on their voices. Shared gifts.

"Hey, want to see something?" asked Guido.

"Sure," I said.

He held up a piece of paper in his hand the size and shape of a bookmark. Suddenly it burst into flames. He smiled.

"That's great!" I said. "Now I'll need to watch my back with you as well."

A nurse came into the room and announced, "Andy, you are being released. If you like, we can have your things moved to your room in the compound."

"That would be great," I said. "Thanks."

I got up from the chair I was sitting in and walked out of the room with my friends.

### ***

Over the next couple of days we talked a lot more together. Han was excited about showing us some new origami animals he had created and Guido was always practicing with fire. For Tracy, her new gift came naturally and without effort.

One night, just after dinner, a messenger came to our common room, knowing that's where we would be, and told us we were being shipped home in the morning.

Tracy's voice sounded small, "But what if you don't have a home?"

The man stammered, "Yes. . .well. You will hear more about that in the morning, I suppose." He turned and left.

That night I didn't sleep much because I couldn't get over the excitement and the anxiety of going back home. This time in my dream a troll appeared with Abe Lincoln and the burritos were especially good.

### ***

We all packed up quietly the following morning. Afterwards we stood out in the hallway waiting for a golf cart to come get us.

The cart arrived, driven by Brock and one other man we didn't know. They drove us to the upper entrance to the facility.

"Hi son," said Dad. He and Mom gave me a bear hug, along with my brother who almost never hugged me before. He was stronger now, and taller. I had to wipe tears from my eyes.

For the next few minutes we all introduced our families to each other. I could see Guido since he put on a fresh shirt, Hawaiian, of course. His dad was there, dressed in a polo shirt and he smiled a lot.

Han introduced me to his mother and one of his sisters. He said his dad and other sister couldn't make it. They were all quite talkative, which was a surprise to me. At the same time, they had that slow, calm way of talking like Han.

I turned to Tracy who tried to act happy, but I know it must have hurt that she didn't have any family there. I didn't really know what to say to her. I gave her a hug and now she had tears in her eyes, and she couldn't stop crying. Then Guido came over and she hugged him and cried even harder. I stepped away, not really sure what to do.

"Excuse me, Tracy?" it was Brock who stepped up. "Tracy, we have an offer. You know, the training facility on the island was unlike anything we have ever seen. We've had some recent meetings." Tracy looked up confused. "We would like to start something here, not really military training, but so kids can learn to cope with these gifts, and learn to use them."

"What?" Tracy said.

"We are asking you to stay here. To help the other kids. The list is getting bigger every day. This place is my home, will you make it yours?"

She stared at the floor for a minute. I could tell she was thinking. "Sure," she said, looking unsure. Then she smiled with more confidence, "I'd like that."

After that we all said our goodbye's and dispersed.

# Chapter 32: A new beginning

Once home, I was told I needed to go back to school. It was April and I had missed most of the year. The government made up some reason for why I was gone so long and everyone seemed to believe them. I appreciated school more now than I used to and was actually glad to be back. I had some catching up to do, so I was busy right until the end.

That summer was one of the warmest we had had for years. The hills turned brown except near the ocean. I did a lot of swimming in a neighborhood pool and played with old friends. But most of all, I did things with my younger brother.

My dad and I played catch a lot and sometimes we would get together with enough friends to play an actual baseball game. Of course, I was always picked as the team captain, but often I asked that someone else be captain.

I played chess with my mom a lot, and now found that I could beat her more often than not. All that practice with Guido and Brock had really paid off.

I didn't see the other kids from the facility, but I got email or letters from them. Once I got an invitation for a birthday party for Guido. The invitation had a picture of him with a birthday hat. I saw him in the picture, but only when I looked carefully.

I wasn't able to go to the party because he lived in South Carolina and I lived in California, a distance of over 2,800 miles. One time I calculated that if I drove, it would take me over 43 hours, and if I walked it would take about 900 hours. I decided to send him a gift in the mail instead.

I also got mail from Han. He said he was doing a lot of reading and swimming this summer. His family had just come back from a trip to Korea to visit relatives. It was weird, he said, but also cool seeing Korea for the first time. He said the people there were a lot like him, but also totally different. I'm sure that made sense to him.

I got emails from Tracy a little more often. She was doing well at the training facility and said so far she had a chance to see the island twice. I could tell she was excited about it, but she could not tell me what she saw because it was top secret and she could go to prison just for telling anyone.

She also said that she had been learning a lot and that some exciting things were going to happen soon, but that I would find out about it a little later. I wondered what that meant.

Han lived the closest to me. He lived in Los Angeles, whereas I lived up by Santa Cruz. One time he came out to visit me. I figured my small town was quiet compared to what Han was used to.

His mom and sisters were talkative, as I said before, but his dad was more quiet like him. He showed me some cool origami books he had checked out from the library and one book he had just bought. My brother and I hung out with him and he taught us how to make different things out of paper. My favorite was the paper balloon that we could actually blow up!

He and his family stayed for a week, and I learned a lot of origami from him. I also taught him something I had learned about smiling. Han did not smile often, so I said that smiling took fewer muscles than frowning. I also said that it is a fact that if you smile at someone, usually they will smile back. Even without my gift, that works. Then like goofs we walked out to the sidewalk and as people we didn't know walked by, we smiled at them to see how many would smile back. My brother had a piece of paper and he wrote down how many smiled and how many did not. We were very scientific about it. We found about nine out of ten people would smile. I had to hide behind a tree while they did this so that I did not affect the results with my gift.

Once Han and his family left, I felt kind of lonely. That may seem funny, because I had my family, but I also missed Han, Guido, and Tracy. I even missed Brock.

### ***

About a week later I was outside our house trying to climb a big oak tree, when my mom called my name. My brother, who was a better climber, was already at the top of the tree, so I waited until he was down safely before we went inside.

"There's a call for you," my mom said.

I picked up the phone. "Hey Andy!" said the voice of a girl I recognized. It was Tracy. "I'm so excited! You're going to get a surprise soon. I can't wait to see you!"

"Huh?" I said.

"See you later," she said and hung up.

"What was that about?" asked my mom. "She certainly is an excitable girl."

"Yes," I said. "That would be Tracy. Only watch your back if you're ever around her."

A little later, our family sat down to eat dinner. We pray before our meals, so right after we were done praying, and before I had eaten any spaghetti, I heard something really loud and rumbling outside. It was deafening!

I dropped my fork and ran outside with my brother right behind me. There, right outside my door, parked next to the family van, was an MQ-27 Hummingbird Rescue helicopter. The rotors were loud and swept over the roof of our van and almost hit the side of our house.

My brother stayed behind, but I advanced forward as the door opened. The smiling face of Tracy greeted me, and next to her was Brock! "We have a job for you," he said. "And we need your help."

"Hi, Andy," I heard Han say. I looked in the back seats and saw Han and a faint glimmer of Guido.

"You ready for an adventure?" said Guido.

"What do you have in mind?" I said.

"How about saving the world," said Brock. "Or something like that. We already talked to your parents, so now you get to decide."

I turned back to Mom and Dad, who nodded their heads and waved goodbye. "So where do we go from here?" I said.

"It's a surprise," said Brock with a smile.

# A note from the author

If you have enjoyed reading _The Gifted_ , please consider leaving a review. As an independently published author, the best way for my books to succeed is through reviews from readers like you.

If you want to keep up with my current projects, find out what I'm up to, or get free extras, sign up for my newsletter at aaronkredshaw.com. Also, feel free to email me at akredshaw@gmail.com to say hi.

# Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my beta readers, Michelle, Emilie, and Susan for going beyond my wildest expectations. Your advice and remarks were immensely helpful.

Thanks to Doc, who encouraged me to publish; New Hope Church where I serve; Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and Mary Robinette Kowal for the insights and encouragement in their podcast _Writing Excuses_ , as well as Hugh Howey who wrote many helpful blogs about the triumphs and hard work of self-publishing.

# More titles by this author

## Assault from Space (The Gifted Series Book 2)

Han, Tracy, Andy, and Guido have been called upon again because of their special gifts. This time the threat comes from a space station that has control of a weapon that can destroy any city at the press of a button, and the city up next is Han's home. They race the clock as they hurl through space to try to stop this weapon and those who control it.

## The Last Place to Stand

Her name is X213 and she lives in a society where technological advancement is the highest form of achievement of man, and the highest purpose of man is to further the development of technology, making us more than human. But the technology she has worked so hard to improve is killing her.

His name is Samuel and he has rejected the world of the Technophiles, even at the cost of losing his own family. But Samuel is not one to sit idly by. His mission is to help rescue those trapped in their world where man meets machine. And then he meets X213.

# About the Author

Aaron K. Redshaw grew up in Scottsburg, Oregon but decided one day to take a hint from the geese. He now lives in Scotts Valley, California where he can work on his tan and admire other people's surfboards. He enjoys the company of his beautiful wife, his two gifted children, and one dusty beast of a car.

