The Search for Artemis (The Chronicles of Landon Wicker) (11 page)

“Seriously, can I have this?” Riley asked again, holding the jacket up prominently for Landon to see.

“Sure,” Landon said, distracted.

His eyes were solely trained on the pants; he couldn’t figure out why he didn’t notice them earlier. He walked over, picked up the pair of worn jeans and pulled them toward him. A note fell to the floor. Riley quickly grabbed it and handed it back to Landon, who opened it up and read it.

Landon,

I hope you like your new space. I know you didn’t come with much, so I have taken the liberty to acquire all the necessary items to make your stay here as comfortable as possible.

You will notice that I have stocked your drawers and closet with an assortment of clothing and shoes that I hope you find to your liking. I used Dr. Marquez’s measurements to determine your size, so everything should fit. I found you some nice linens and put together a modest set of personal hygiene products. I also managed to get you a new laptop and a set of all the appropriate reading materials that you’ll need for your studies.

And if you’re reading this, it means you noticed I was able to rescue your old jeans from the incinerator. It was a perilous mission, but I returned victorious.

I told you I’d take care of everything.

Welcome to your new home,

        - Sofia

“You okay?” Riley asked while Landon read over the note a second time.

“Ye . . . Yeah, everything’s fine,” Landon replied. “I can’t believe all this is happening.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. Give it a few days and it’ll feel just like home,” Riley said. “Anyways, I’ll leave you to get used to your new place. The community bathrooms with showers are down the hall to the right. And I’m heading to the Rec Center on the second floor for a while if you feel like joining, but if not, I guess I will see you tomorrow at breakfast? Eight o’clock, sound good? Afterwards, you can come with me to Telekinetics. I kind of feel responsible for making sure you don’t get lost on your first day of training.”

“Yeah,” Landon replied. “Eight o’clock. I’ll be there.”

Riley grabbed the door handle and closed the door on his way out, leaving Landon alone in his new residence.

Landon stood in the same spot for a while, taking in his new surroundings. Eventually, he put the jeans on the dresser and spent the next half hour making the bed and going through all of his new stuff, mentally cataloguing what he had and where it was. Everything seemed normal, except the laptop. There was no power cord or even an input for the charger cable. Landon turned it over in his hands multiple times, trying to figure out how it worked.
How does this thing stay on?
he wondered.
What is it, solar powered or something?
If it was, he’d have a problem . . . no windows.

Landon plopped down onto the bed, physically and mentally exhausted from the day.
Is this really happening? How can a place like this even exist?
he thought as he stared at the white ceiling.
What wardrobe did I walk through, because this place is a whole other world?
As Landon contemplated everything he’d gone through in the past two days, he slowly began to accept that the Gymnasium was his new home. All of a sudden, he felt himself choking up and his eyes getting watery as the reality of his mother’s death resurfaced in his mind.
If they knew I was a psychokinetic, why didn’t they get me earlier? Why couldn’t they train me before everything happened?

GREAT
EXPECTATIONS

Landon woke at 7:15 in the morning, feeling completely unrested. He wasn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, but he was certain it had been early. But throughout the night, images of Landon’s mother and his apocratusis flashed through his dreams, startling him awake over and over again. He had killed his parents, and he couldn’t shake that fact from his mind, no matter how much he wanted.

As Landon moved about the room and got his things together to take a shower down the hall, he realized he had yet to meet his roommate. Landon expected some shaky introduction and awkward tension to occur the night before when Brock came in, but he never did, and every time he woke up, he looked over to Brock’s bed, worried he might have woken him too, but Brock was never there. Landon found it strange that on his first night in this foreign place, his roommate was missing in action.

After getting ready but before leaving for breakfast, Landon stood in the middle of his room, staring at the floor, mentally searching for anything he’d forgotten, but he soon realized he had no idea what to expect on his first day of training, and he didn’t have a clue what, if anything, he needed. He left the room still a bit anxious and headed to the cafeteria to meet Riley.

Landon’s heart fluttered in his chest when the smell of bacon and warm maple syrup floated down the hall and into his nose. He couldn’t wait to eat his favorite meal of the day, but the moment he walked through the door, he realized he wasn’t going to enjoy his morning. As the door closed behind him, everyone’s gaze in the cafeteria turned to him. He tried not to pay attention, keeping his eyes on the floor and lankily moving to the back of the breakfast line, but before he even got a single pancake on his plate, Riley was sprinting over to him.

“Landon! Why didn’t you tell me?” Riley blurted out. “Quick, come with me. You have to tell us everything.”

Landon was yanked out of the line and was dragged behind Riley as he made his way to a large group of people circled around a small section of a table.

“Riley? What are you talking about?”

Riley never responded. He just continued to hold Landon by the arm and pull him closer and closer to the crowd.

“All right, guys, I got him!” Riley yelled as they reached the group.

The crowd divided, revealing a small section of available bench, and Riley plopped Landon onto it.

“Okay, Landon, we have to know. . . . Is this really you?”

Riley grabbed a sheet of paper from off the table behind Landon and placed it in front of him, but it took Landon a moment to focus. The number of people surrounding him made him claustrophobic, and he couldn’t figure out anything he had done to warrant such an exuberant audience.

Landon honed in on the sheet of paper, attempting to discern what was on it amid the distracting bombardment of inquiring and affirmative voices. He realized, once he’d gathered himself, that it was a poorly-printed photograph—but it wasn’t any random photograph. It was a photo of him crouched down in the middle of the street wearing his dirty yellow shirt and grimy old jeans with a fully occupied city bus floating ten feet overhead. If he squinted, he could see the scared, screaming faces of people through the bus’ tinted glass.

“Where did you get this?” Landon asked, freaked out and blindsided. His pulse raced as he erratically searched the faces around him, hoping for someone to answer.

“So this is you?”

Landon recognized Katie Leigh’s voice, but he couldn’t find her anywhere around him. Before he could answer, the crowd roared with another deafening phase of incomprehensible curiosities. Still reeling, Landon sat on the bench with his forehead pressed into his hands, wondering how he didn’t realize one of the tourists at the museum had captured a snapshot of him that day. But now, he was having a crisis of conscience. He had hoped not to draw any extra attention to himself, to live in the background as he figured this whole psychokinesis thing out, and this photo of him was obviously enough to insight a near riot. He feared he might have already given himself away by his reaction moments earlier, and he could hardly guess what might happen if he affirmed his identity outright.

“Come on, Landon. . . . Tell us. Is that you in the picture? Was that your debut?” Riley egged on.

“Yeah, is it you?” someone hidden in the crowd screamed.

“Seriously, stop stalling and tell us already,” an unknown girl yelled from behind him.

The berating questions and forceful commands continued incessantly for what Landon thought was a lifetime. He was made. There was no denying he was the one in the picture, and unable to withstand the pressures of the mob any longer, he begrudgingly nodded. It was a small gesture, but served as more than enough to confirm the crowd’s suspicions. Instantly, the entire group erupted in a cacophony of conversations, but no one spoke directly to Landon. They became too engrossed in their own speculations surrounding Landon to even contemplate interrogating him further.

Even so, Landon breathed heavily and sweat dripped down the side of his face. He nervously played with his hands and neurotically wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve, trying to block out the oppressive weight of the crowd closing in around him.

He searched for a break in the mass of bodies, but there was no exit in sight. He was like the ring-bearer on Weathertop, dark riders closing in, but just as all hope of getting away seemed lost, a mysterious ranger appeared.

Without as much as a word, the man grabbed Landon by the forearm and led him out of the riotous crowd, dragging him like luggage when rushing to catch a flight.

“Wait. What’s going on?” Landon asked as he struggled to remain on his feet. “I didn’t do anything. I swear I don’t know where that picture came from.”

His rescuer, or kidnapper, was noticeably older than the students. He had a tall and lean, but muscular, build, like a soccer player, and wavy dark hair that wisped behind him. It looked just long enough for a ponytail.

It wasn’t until he pulled Landon well away from the cafeteria that he spoke. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. I’m Dr. Aldous Brighton. I teach Telekinetics here. I’m sorry for the forceful removal, but I could see they were getting a bit out of control and thought you needed to get away. You’ve managed to make quite an impression on your first official day at the Gymnasium.” 

“Thanks.” Landon let out a sigh of relief. “I guess my hope to go unnoticed is totally shot.”

“You could say that.” Dr. Brighton smirked. “Anyways, I believe your first training session is with me in just about a half hour, . . . and I was heading over to the training room. You can join me if you want. I can’t imagine you wanting to rejoin the vultures back there.”

Landon looked back for a brief moment before replying, “I think I’ll come with you.”

“Sounds good,” Dr. Brighton said as he motioned for Landon to walk beside him.

Landon hoped that since he left the cafeteria and was being escorted by a professor that the attention would cease, but the journey from the cafeteria to the training room provided no respite. Every bystander’s gaze remained fixed on him as they whispered with their companion. Some of them had the courage to walk straight up to him and tell him how excited they were to hear about what he would do in his first training session and that they never would have guessed from his appearance that he’d be capable of such lifting ability. One somewhat attractive girl even came up and simply whispered her dormitory room number in his ear and left, skipping flirtatiously down the hallway.

As the girl turned the corner, Dr. Brighton laughed to himself when he saw Landon’s perplexed expression.

“Sorry about all of this. Not many get to capture moments like the one you had in the street on camera. It has turned you into somewhat of a celebrity overnight. The whole Gymnasium has been talking about it all morning.”

“How did they even get that picture though?” Landon asked.

“I’d imagine Katie Leigh found it online,” Dr. Brighton answered. “Students aren’t supposed have access the Internet. It’s just a precaution. I hope you understand that we can’t run the risk of a student accidentally giving the location of the Gymnasium away by harmlessly chatting and posting to websites. But Katie’s got a knack for bypassing the permissions. What you did when that photo was taken is quite impressive, you know?”

“But I don’t even know how I did that,” Landon returned. “I still don’t know how any of this works.”

“Don’t worry. ‘Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength, which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.’ Marcus Aurelius.” Dr. Brighton turned toward Landon only to see a confused, blank expression. “You’ll be able to feel it,” he continued. “You have unbelievable potential; you just have to find it.”

“You are all that is holding you back from your full potential,” Landon recited while trying to deepen his voice to sound like Dr. Wells.
But how can I meet my potential if I don’t even know what I’m looking for
.

“Please tell me I’m not sounding like him,” Dr. Brighton said, sounding genuinely concerned.

Landon turned to him to find Dr. Brighton smiling. Landon couldn’t help but smile back.
I think I’m going to like this class,
Landon thought.

The two walked silently for the remainder of their trip to the training room. Right outside the door, Dr. Brighton turned to Landon and grabbed him by the shoulders, crouching down to look him directly in the eyes. His sudden severity caught Landon off-guard. He felt an off-putting wave of heat surge through is body.

“Landon, I know what you went through before Sofia brought you here. . . . And I can imagine that you are probably a bit overwhelmed and still somewhat confused,” Dr. Brighton said. Landon’s mouth suddenly became very dry. “This place can really help you if you let it. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of. Just do your best and the rest will come with time. You have to remember, you aren’t alone here.”