Kinetics (11 page)

I knew, however, that I could eventually
call this place home.

I made my way over to a building that
extruded from the base of the tallest mountain.  There was a sign that said
Eastcroft
Observatory. 
There were no lights on in the windows, and the doors were
locked.

I wondered if they still used the
telescopes or if they just used the satellite dish.  I turned to walk away from
the building but was startled by Silence standing behind me.  I refrained from
screaming but pushed him, "You jerk."

"I'm sorry." He said taking a
step back.

"What are you doing?" I tucked
my hands into my jean pockets.

"I have night watch and I spotted
you leaving your house." he held out a jacket.

"So you thought you would follow me
and catch me helpless." I took the jacket and put it on. 

"No, I was going to talk to you,
but I wasn't sure if you were still upset with me from what happened this
morning.”

"No, I'm not upset." I started
to walk back towards town, "I'm extremely frustrated."

"Are you interested in the
observatory?" he remained planted in front of the doors where he had startled
me. 

"I was just wondering if it's still
being used." I looked up at the mountain.

"Not since Fade left.  She was the
only one that cared about it.  Well I did but I don't know anything about space
observing."

"Do you know if it uses a
reflecting telescope?" I had had an interest in astronomy for a while a
few years back.

"It uses the kind you can look into
the sky with." he grinned from ear to ear.

"Point taken." I turned again
to walk away but he stopped me.

"Do you want to go up and take a
look?"

I stood there for a moment thinking
about going up to the top of a mountain.  I did want to see what the town
looked like from up there.

"Well?"

"I don't know.  How long does it
take to get to the top?"

"About seven minutes."

"Are we allowed?"

"Yeah, we just have to be
careful."

He used a key to unlock the door and
held it for me, smiling.

"Alright." I walked into the
building. 

We walked through the dark lobby, old
florescent lights lit up as we walked through the room but most were blown.  There
was dust everywhere and the computers on the receptions desk looked at least
ten years old.  There was a bank of four elevators at the end of a hall.

Silence pressed the button on the wall
between the doors.  A set of doors opened and he stepped in holding the door
open for me again.  This elevator car was a little different than any I had
seen before.  Instead of just an open room there were seats around the walls
that had harnesses mounted to the back of them.

"How do we get up so fast?"

"I don't know how it works."
He said honestly.

I sat down, and Silence did the same. 
We both strapped the harnesses across our shoulders.  He pressed the red button
on the armrest of his seat. 

I felt a humming in the floor, and all
of a sudden the elevator rocketed upward.

"How fast are we going?"

"Around nineteen, twenty miles per
hour."

"It seems much faster than
that." The car shook like the plane had every time we had hit turbulence. 

"It's fast enough."

~//~

The landing at the top of the mountain
was in pretty rough shape.  The damage that I had seen from the plane was
nothing compared to up close view of the dilapidated buildings.  There were two
communication dishes, one of which was embedded in the ground below where it had
once stood. 

"What happened up here?"

"Not sure it was like this when I
got here and they have never put any money into fixing the place.  Plus Sam
doesn't want the repair to bring us any undue attention." he showed me
through to the observation deck.

There were at least twenty computers in
the room.  All of which were lined up so that one person could wheel to them
all.

He took me out to the telescopes.  There
were six of them perfectly lined up in two rows of three.  We walked into one
of the domes and I checked out the telescope. 

It had about a ninety inch mirror that
really needed to be cleaned but the rest of the telescope seemed to be in good
condition. 

"What do you think?" Silence
asked with his hands in his pockets.

"I would like to see what these
things can see." I wiped the filth off with my finger measuring about an
eighth of an inch thick.

"I wouldn't know where to
start." he said.

"Well if all these mirrors are this
dirty we won't be able to, but if Fade kept her images on the computers then
I'm sure we could find something."

We went back into the control room and I
started to boot up the computers.  It was a slow process; the computers were
older.  They had an operating system that I had never seen before and had to
assume was custom designed for the observatory.

"She spent most of her time in
front of this computer." he pointed to the computer with the biggest
screen.

I sat down in front of the station, it
booted right up, not asking for any kind of password.  The desktop was
relatively empty but there was a single icon.  I clicked on it opening a
program that started with a splash screen.  It said
Eastcroft Observatory.
The
Eastcroft had a mark through it, and
Fade's
was written next to it.

"She had a good sense of humor,
didn't she?"

"Yeah." he said face low,
"Look Grace I didn't mean to upset you earlier out on the field."

"What?"

"When I grabbed you, I didn't mean
to hurt you or anything."

"Don't worry about that.  I overreacted."

"Thanks."

I looked into his eyes.  The same color eyes
that we all had, so blue they were glowing. 

I cleared my throat and looked back to
the computer screen.  There were a few icons inside of the program, one marked
targeting, one marked notes, and one marked imagery along with one marked
settings.  I clicked on the one marked imagery.

Hard Drive Error: No Files Found

"Well that sucks." I said.

"Sorry about that, the computers
have been sitting for a long time." He looked down at his watch. 
"Crap, we need to get going, the sun's going to be up soon, and we need to
get you home."

"Do you mind if I come up here and
work on getting the telescopes working?"

"I don't mind but you'll have to
ask Sam if he is alright with it."

"I thought it was ok if we were up
here." I shut down the computers.

"Well I may have fibbed a little.  Sam
prefers that we ask first."

"Hmm, that is a good way to start
off a relationship." I got up from the desk chair. 

"I figured it would be a good first
date." He didn’t miss a beat.

I stammered for a second, "I
umm."

"Don't worry about it I'm just
joking, Grace" he grinned again. 

I slept that morning.  I got the best
sleep that I had for a very long time.  When I woke I was in a great mood.  I
got out of bed, grabbed a stack of clean clothes, and hit the shower.  I didn’t
have to fight anyone, they were all out of the house already.

I walked out of the bathroom putting my
hair up when I almost collided with Silence in the kitchen doorway.  I took a
few steps back and let go of my hair.

“What are you doing here?”

I walked past him and searched for a
clean bowl but there wasn't one to be found.  Every dish in the house was
stacked in the sink.

“Vanish is out at the field with
everybody today, all they really need for now is a glorified babysitter.” He
joined me next to the sink and dried as I washed.

“Ok, but why are you here?”  I rubbed my
stomach as it growled loudly.

“Sam gave me that for you.” He nodded
towards an envelope on the counter. 

I opened it up. It was stuffed full of
cash, all of it hundreds.

“How much is here.” My mouth hung half
open; I had never seen that much money at one time before.

“Ten.” He said.

“For everyone?”

“Nope, just for you.  It's to get you
started, you know get what you want.  It’s a government re-establishment fund
that Sam developed.  He found some non appropriated money or something, I don’t
know.”

I took a breath and sighed in disbelief. 
I just looked at the money.

“Come on I’ll take you into the city.”
He smiled

“What city?”

“Denver, we usually go around there when
we need to go shopping for anything that is not dime store stuff.”

“What about the others?” I asked my
mouth watering; I still had not eaten anything.

“Sam is going to take them later.”

“What if I want to go with them?”

“You can if you want.  I figured you'd
want some space given your midnight stroll last night.” He seemed kind of hurt
that I was considering not going with him. 

I thought for a moment.  The money was
burning in my hand, and I wanted some clothes from this decade.  Things started
to jump into my head, like a new laptop, I had never had a new laptop.  Just
government issued refurbished stuff.

“Can we stop off and see the others
before we leave?”

“Sure, no problem.” he said, "Are you
hungry?"

"So very hungry!"

We got into Silence’s car, it was a nice
sports car, I had never seen anything like it before in my life, when he turned
the key there was no noise.  We left the house and headed for the field where
the others were practicing. 

I looked over at Silence as he drove,
eyes on the road, “Ok, I have to know, what is your real name?”

“I don’t know.” An over menacing grin
stretched across his face, “I wonder if I can trust you?”

“Can you trust me?” I was outraged at
his distrust. “I’m not the one who sneaks up on people in the middle of the
night.”

“Point taken.” He said but went no further.

“Well?” I prodded.

“My name is Ryder Alexander.  I wouldn’t
be surprised if you wanted to continue to call me Silence.”

“Ryder, huh, I like it.  I would have
pegged you for a Curtis.”

“I don’t really like it.” He stopped
before he turned into the dirt road that led to the field.  When I got out I
could see why.  His car was so low that it wouldn’t have made it over the
curb. 

I could see several explosions, energy
blasts, and other things that were signs of the fight going on.  We walked down
the dirt road, and when the others saw us they stopped what they were doing,
and met us at the tent.

“Hey, Grace.” Ronnie waved.

“Hey, guys.”

Vanish looked like death, she had black
bags under her eyes, and the look of stress on her face.  She leaned on Hothead
who didn’t seem to mind.

“How do you feel today?” Rachel asked.

“Fine.” I said, “But more importantly
how do you feel Vanish?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me.  I feel great
now, I know I look like hell, but looks can be deceiving.” Vanish smiled.

“I was going to take Grace into the city
so that she can get do some shopping.” Silence smiled.  It seemed like he was
specifically trying to get a rise out of Ronnie. 

“Unless you guys would rather me stay
here and hang out.” I said.  I wanted to go into the city with Silence, I liked
hanging out with him, but I didn’t want anyone to think that I was ditching
them.

“You go on ahead.” Kenny patted me on
the shoulder, “Don't worry we’ll be just fine here.  When you get better I’ll
take you on myself.” He joked. 

“Yeah, I’ll fill you in later on what’s
going on.” Ronnie slid Silence a dark look, but he didn't say anything.

We said goodbye and left the practice
field.  The others didn’t take long to get back to blowing stuff up.  I could
only imagine how much fun it was and what I was missing. 

We got into Silence’s car and headed out
of town.  The small town was bustling with plenty of activity; it reminded me
of the last town that we had lived in, Greencrest.  We actually passed a few
cars as we drove through the downtown area. 

“What do you think so far?” Silence
asked, “I mean I know you haven’t been here that long, but I’m sure that you
have some kind of feel.”

“I really like this place, everyone
seems to be nice. I actually feel accepted here.” I kept my attention on the
scenery outside of the car.