Fervor (5 page)

When they finally could make out the giant domed roof of the structure that they were looking for, a thrill ran through Sam, one that he purposefully shared with Sarah. He even went so far as to attempt to project the image that he was seeing to her, despite being completely unpractised with being her eyes. She told him that it was a little bit fuzzy, but for the most part quite good. Francis seemed a little uneasy at this interaction, unsettled at the pair’s apparent familiarity, despite the fact that Sam and Sarah had barely spoken over the last few days. He offered Sarah a clearer view of the Hub from his own perspective, and suggested that the Littles try to help him locate Fiona and Nathan through the connection before reaching the actual physical location of the Hub.

Allowing their minds to drift through the connection there, while calling out for their two missing Connected Bigs in the chaos, was not as simple as Francis made it out to be. With the large grouping of children in the immediate area, the connection was thick with thoughts, emotions, and overall confusion. Sarah got nowhere in the pandemonium, and eventually retreated back to what she felt was a safer place, clinging to Francis in both body and mind, but Sam was feeling more adventurous and less insecure than his Fixer companion. He pushed into the middle of the crowd calling out for Fiona and Nathan. He was fairly sure that if he could touch their minds, he could start making use of his talent, and then he would be able to find them with little trouble.

As they neared the huge building, Sam’s efforts finally paid off when his thoughts brushed Nathan’s ever so slightly. The younger boy was not so sure if Nathan was aware of him, but he latched on like glue, his instinctive desire to find the other boy kicking in instantaneously. Reaching the large double doorway in the entry lounge, he ran into the next crowd beyond, disappearing from view and leaving Francis and Sarah wading in behind him.

“
Nathan! Nathan!”
Sam called through the loud cacophony that was the connection within the Hub, vaguely reminiscent of the completely disorienting sensation of everyone screaming at once when he had first awoken.

Sam pushed past all of the other minds that huddled in his way. He was feeling dizzy, like he was losing himself in the constant thrum that surrounded him in his head. His heart pounded as he paused, now starting to wonder if there was a physical threat to being in the middle of the throng. People pushed and shoved, many of them searching for someone the same way that he was. Subject to a particularly severe jostle, the small boy suddenly found himself on his knees and in serious jeopardy of being trampled underfoot. That was when a meaty hand settled on his shoulder and pulled him back onto his feet. The same hand then grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him off to one side.

Sam looked the boy who had intervened on his behalf in the eye. He was more than half again as tall as the younger boy, and from all appearances, twice as broad. His eyes were a smoky blue colour, his nose slightly crooked and when he smiled one side of his face lifted a little higher than the other. His square-jawed head was topped with coarse, brown hair that stuck up in various places, as unruly as Sam’s was, only thicker and darker.

“
You were looking for me, little buddy?”

Sam noted that the larger boy had made no attempt to speak to him with his mouth as well as his thoughts, unlike the majority of the people that milled about them. Nathan had already become accustomed to using the connection as his primary method of communication. That seemed a little surprising to Sam, because this Big, while having a push that offered slightly more force than Francis, nowhere near matched Sarah in his potential for power.

Sam felt something warm trickle across his arm and glanced down to see a rather jagged cut on the hand that gripped him, an open one that was dripping blood. He raised his eyes to the other boy’s again.

“
Nathan? Francis said we needed to find you and Fiona, so I had to look. What did you do to your hand? We should get you back to Sarah. She can fix that, you know.”
Sam insisted.

The larger boy gazed at both his hands nonchalantly, and then realized exactly what it was that Sam was referring to. He looked at the cut and frowned.

“
When did I do that?”
he muttered, more so to himself than to Sam. The smaller boy regarded him with bewilderment.

“
I can’t feel it,”
Nathan explained.
“Just like this one.”
He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a blistered burn on his forearm that was oozing a clear liquid.
“Or this one.”
He rolled up his other sleeve to expose a deep gash lined with a newly forming layer of pus.
“I tried to get a hover going, and I almost had it, too. Then it started to overheat, and, well…”

Sam contemplated the situation as he led his newest companion back to Sarah and Francis. He was sure that it was not just a coincidence – there was a pattern. Sarah was missing her sight, Sam his hearing, and it was clear now that what Nathan had lost was his sense of touch. As they reached the other members of their “house-family” as Francis had put it, and Sarah began to fix Nathan. Sam eyed the Teller warily.

“
So what are you missing then? Taste or smell? You have it pretty easy, don’t you, compared to us. What, did they decide that a Teller was too valuable to lose a sense that really mattered?”
Sam pushed accusingly. “
Why did they do this to us? You know, don’t you?”

“
Smell
,
”
Francis admitted, his eyes downcast, and his thoughts and expression filled with that customary melancholy
. “But it’s not what you think. You have it backwards. I don’t need to be as strong as you do. Neither does Fiona.”
He braced himself mentally, shaking off the guilt that Sam had thrown his way and refocused his attention to the things he was supposed to be dealing with at the moment.
“Nathan will be fine. You’ve only accomplished half of what you need to do here. Go find Fiona.”

Sam gritted his teeth and wished that he were the same size as the blond boy so that he could slug him at that moment, without fear of repercussion, but he doubted he could resist the urge to look for the older girl long enough to make physical contact anyway. His mind immediately returned to the clustering of thoughts within the Hub.

Sam was beginning to understand why it had been simple to find Sarah at the start, and why Nathan had been easiest to find of the two that he had been searching for there at the Hub. The Bigs had weaker links to the connection, with Nathan being the strongest so far. Having that in mind, the small boy directed his thoughts towards something vaguer, something flimsier than what he had found when his mind touched on his other companions.

“
Fiona!”
he called through the connection, but this time he was hunting for something much different, and having a better idea of what it was that he was looking for made his task that much easier. Unlike Nathan’s presence, which had been almost as solid as Sam’s own, Fiona’s was more like a shadow in the mix, weaker and less substantial. She did not reach out for him in return until he was almost on top of her.

“
I’m here,”
she finally responded, as Sam clambered his way through the obstacle course of gathered minds. He prodded at the faint link that he found there and then latched on to it with equal enthusiasm as he had to Nathan. She was not working her way through the crowd the way the broadly-built boy had been, and Sam had the better sense to skirt the shifting throng this time, not wanting to face the danger of being trampled again.

Once they had made that connection, Sam felt a little more desperate to physically find the older girl than he had Sarah or Nathan. Fiona was not just sad or fearful – she was absolutely heart-sick, like someone had stolen everything from her and had given her very little in return. He had a feeling that she had been rather affixed to the life that she had been living. She had been happy with her family; she was one of the more popular children at school. She had been very satisfied with the way that things were, and he did not feel like she had gained anything truly positive from this change, so hers seemed like an unrewarded sacrifice.

Sam finally arrived beside her and grabbed her hand before she could drift away from him again. He noticed the skin was exceptionally soft and her nails carefully trimmed and filed, not like any of the others. It brought a twinge of loss to his heart, reminding him a little of Maria.

“
Here,”
he said letting his mind push at hers fairly firmly
. “I’m here. I’m Sam. Let me take you back to the others.”

The pretty girl turned to look at him, her expression morose. She was as robust as Sarah was waif-like. Her rounded cheeks were slightly freckled with a rosy glow, and the skin of her face looked as soft and flawless as her hands had been. Her hair hung in long chestnut waves over her shoulders and her eyes were a warm brown with a hint of green at their centres. She was shorter than Nathan, but about the same height as Francis, so a little on the tall side for a girl, Sam would guess. That was assuming that she was about the same age as the other two Bigs.

“
What’s going on here, Sam? It doesn’t make any sense. Martha was gone, and she never came back. Then my brothers told me that I had to come here, and as soon as we made it here they left me. They told me that someone else would come looking for me. They must have meant you.”

Sam noted that she was not really trying to communicate with him through the connection. Her mouth moved, as her eyes flashed with panic, but the words that he picked up in her mind were merely an echo of what she has trying to tell him with her physical voice, which he could not hear. She was not making any effort to push at him at all. She was resistant to everything that was happening, still in denial and unwilling to accept the changes.

“
Let me take you back to Francis. I think he’ll be able to offer you more than I can. He can help you sort it out,”
Sam offered.

He was more than happy to burden Francis with this responsibility. Sarah and Nathan had been so much more accepting of their situation, despite being as distressed by it as Sam was. Fiona had had several days to let go of the notion that things could go back to what she considered to be normal and adapt to her new circumstances, but she had not. Sam would eventually discover that this was part and parcel with her being a Keeper.

The crowd in the Hub was thinning a little now. The house-families were gathering their members, as dictated by their Tellers, and moving off to one side in small groups. Sam led Fiona back to his own companions and noticed that there was another boy there, almost as tall as Nathan, with black hair and plain brown eyes. The look that this new boy gave Sam was a little menacing, but it was not nearly as unsettling as the other unusual detail about this boy. When Sam reached out to greet him through the connection, the stranger was not there.

While this large boy seemed to direct his attention towards Sam, Francis and Nathan were much more interested in Sam’s newest find. Both of the Bigs extended a quiet thought to welcome Fiona, and Sarah, prompted by their responses, followed suit.

“
Ah,”
Francis remarked with a subtle smile, speaking with his mouth as well as his mind in order to include Royce in the conversation.
“This must be our Keeper, Fiona. Sam, this is our Control, Royce. Get to know one another, because these people are your family now. There are no more minders and no more teachers, and from now on, we’ll have to rely on one another.”
His gaze specifically settled on Royce and Nathan.

“
Remember that the next time you are tempted to mistreat any of those that you’ll be living with. I am Francis, your Teller. Welcome, all of you, to the Gathering.”

The Gathering

Now that all of the children that had come to the Hub had settled into organized chaos, the Tellers began directing their groups to various points in the communal hall. As was to be expected, there was no resistance to their commands except for in the case of a couple of the Controls, since those Bigs were not subject to the Tellers’ special influence.