The Tower (14 page)

It was almost impossible to hear Terry with Alia laughing aloud and telepathically screaming into my head at the same time. I decided that now was as good a time as any to restart Alia’s mouth-speaking lessons, so I said, “You know, Alia, Terry might stop if you ask her nicely with your mouth.”

“Addy, please!”

“Just say ‘stop’, Ali,” I told her. “Say, ‘Stop, please, Terry.’”

“Sop!” Alia shrieked between giggles. “Sop! Pea! Airy!”

“Sop?” asked Terry, still tickling her.

“Sop! Pea! Sop! Airy!”

“That’s close enough, Terry,” I said.

It was a pretty good “Stop, please, Terry” for Alia, and besides, by now it looked like my sister was in some danger of passing out. Terry finally stopped and got off of her, and Alia lay limp on the floor, panting heavily with her eyes closed.

“Well, Ms. Gifford, it was nice seeing you again,” said Terry, shaking Cindy’s hand.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come over for dinner later?” asked Cindy.

“I’m sorry, but maybe another night,” replied Terry. “I don’t know when Uncle Charles will get the green light, but I’m sure it’ll be soon, and I promised I’d help him fix up the truck. It’ll probably take a long time, and I couldn’t come here all greasy.”

“Well, think about my other offer too, okay?” said Cindy.

“I will,” said Terry. “Thank you, Ms. Gifford. I’ll see you all at the party tomorrow.”

“We’ll see you there,” said Cindy.

At the door, Terry nodded curtly to me, and then called back to my sister, “Ali? You still alive?”

Alia didn’t get up, but lifted her head a bit, smiled weakly at Terry and put her right thumb up.

Terry chuckled, shaking her head as she said to me, “She’s way too cute to be your sister, Adrian.”

Giving Alia a little wave, Terry left the penthouse.

As I rounded on Cindy, she quickly put her hands up in defense and said, “Hey, it was a chance meeting, Adrian. It’s not like I went looking for her.”

“So what were you talking about all day?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“You, of course. Terry wanted to know everything about you.”

“You hypocrite!” I said exasperatedly to Cindy as I helped Alia to her feet. “Whatever happened to, ‘Ask her yourself when you get to know her better’?”

“Well, Terry is your combat instructor,” Cindy said with a shrug. “She wanted to know what kind of person she was training. I think she just wanted to find out how to motivate you.”

“And you told her what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“You name it, she told it,”
said Alia, grinning widely.

“Everything?” I asked weakly.

“Well, almost,” said Cindy. “I didn’t tell her that you used to wear a dress. Wait a minute... maybe I did.”

I gaped at her, horrified. “Cindy!”

“Terry was mostly interested in your personality, Adrian. Who you are. And she wanted to know how you fought her grandfather at my house. I also told her pretty much everything that you told me about your time at the research center, and we talked about the rescue mission too. She knew about your rescue, of course, but wasn’t allowed to join the team because of her age. I think she just wanted to know what she had missed.”

“And what’s this offer you made her?” I asked.

“Oh, well, that’s our little secret for the moment,” said Cindy. “If she takes me up on it, you’ll find out.”

I tried for several more minutes to pry Cindy’s little secret from her, but was unsuccessful, so I turned to my sister instead. But whatever Cindy’s offer was, Alia hadn’t heard it either, having arrived home after it was made. I’d just have to ask Terry at the party tomorrow.

As for Terry’s unexpected visit today, I decided that I wasn’t too upset with Cindy for talking behind my back. After all, it did make some sense for a teacher to know about the student. Of course, I would have preferred it if I could have chosen which parts of my past were made known to her, but if Terry had decided to spend half a day talking to Cindy about me, then she was serious about giving me combat training, and wasn’t just using me as a training dummy.

Chapter 5: The Greatest Gathering

More than three hundred families. Nearly seven hundred psionics. Over one thousand Guardians. Such was the turnout at the Welcome to New Haven party that began at about 7pm Sunday night. It was, as Mr. Baker had said, the greatest gathering in psionic history, but all I could think of was how I was going to talk to Terry. She already knew every embarrassing detail of my life, which made planning out a friendly conversation next to impossible.

Earlier that day, Cindy took us to a formalwear shop, picking out a frilly white party dress for Alia and a dark suit and dress shoes for me.

“Why do we need to be all fancy tonight?” I asked, irritated at how difficult it was to move about in the two-button jacket and matching dress slacks. Fashion-wise, it beat the girly clothes I usually wore, but the suit was both tedious and too hot to wear on a summer evening.

“Because, Adrian,” said Cindy, looking me over and smiling, “you and Alia are coming with me on stage.”

“Stage?” I asked in surprise.

Cindy nodded. “We’re being introduced. Or rather, I am, and you with me.”

I said, “I’ve noticed you’ve been going to a lot of meetings these last two weeks.”

“There’s a question in there, right?” said Cindy. “We talk about a lot of things.”

“For example?”

“Today’s security, for one.”

I raised my eyebrows questioningly.

Cindy looked worriedly into my eyes, saying, “Adrian, listen close, okay? When we get up on stage, I want you to take your sister and stand away from me.”

“Why?”

“Because if anyone is going to get shot at tonight, it’ll be me or Mr. Baker, but that doesn’t mean the bullets won’t miss.”

I stared at her, wondering for a moment if she was serious, and then asked quietly, “Do you really think there’s going to be an attack?”

“We’re not sure,” said Cindy. “We only got one Angel spy so far, and that’s not enough. There should have been more.”

Cindy would say no more about it, but it was already enough to make me look around apprehensively as we left the sanctuary of New Haven One.

It was just over a mile walk to the party. The gathering was simply too large to be held in NH-1’s subbasement. The Guardians had instead reserved a magnificent party and banquet hall for the occasion. As we approached the three-story L-shaped building, I saw that a large grassy field adjacent to the hall had been lined with marquee tents and lawn tables, and several catering squads were setting up a giant outdoor buffet. Cindy told me that in order for everyone to hear Mr. Baker’s speech, inside the hall would be standing room only.

The Guardians didn’t seem to be making much effort to keep their presence a secret tonight. An event this big was sure to draw attention from the surrounding public. Even if the Slayers, Wolves, Angels and other psionic factions stayed clear of New Haven, the normal people living in the neighborhood were sure to think something was up. Whatever ties Mr. Baker’s Guardians had with the local government and media were about to be put to the test.

Though using psionics in public was strictly forbidden even within New Haven, I wasn’t too surprised to see a pair of fire-breathing street performers who weren’t bothering to put anything in their mouths before blowing flames into the night sky. As I watched the pyroids, another Guardian joined in, creating gusts of wind that made the pyroids’ flames flicker and dance around overhead. He was a windmaster, though probably not even close to Ralph’s level.

“Show-offs,” Cindy said darkly. “We really don’t need their kind here.”

Mr. Baker came striding up to us. “Cindy! I’m glad you’re here. Where is your escort?”

“I asked them to stay clear of us, Travis,” snapped Cindy, gesturing toward the security detail of dark-suited Guardian Knights standing about thirty yards away.

For a moment, the Guardian leader looked flustered by Cindy’s unusually harsh tone, but he quickly recovered and shook his head, saying, “Not on a night like this, Cindy. They’re here to protect you and your family. Please don’t forget that.”

Then he noticed the fire show and said exasperatedly to Cindy, “Oh my! This won’t do! Creating New Haven sounded like our best option until a month ago, but now that it’s becoming a reality, I’m beginning to wonder. So many of us living in close proximity, and now everyone gathered together for this party. It’s insane. I just hope there aren’t any serious injuries tonight.”

“You’d better go stop them,” said Cindy.

“Oh, I will,” said Mr. Baker. “And you will please go inside.”

“I’ll see you backstage, Travis.”

“We’re never doing this again,” said Mr. Baker, grinning weakly before trotting off to reprimand the pyroids and windmaster.

I found it a little funny that the great leader of New Haven was running his own errands. Perhaps the Guardian presence here wasn’t all that strong after all.

Cindy led Alia and me into the building through a back door flanked by two sentries. The banquet hall, though a mile from NH-1, was still inside Cindy’s hiding bubble, so I couldn’t tell if the sentries were destroyers or even psionic at all until I passed right between them. They were both powerful telekinetics, and I wondered if they might even be able to fly like me. Even so, both were armed with pistols holstered at their sides.

A few minutes later, Mr. Baker met us in a dressing room accompanied by his wife, who he introduced to Alia and me. Though we shook hands, in all honesty, I don’t even remember her name, to say nothing of what she looked like. I was too nervous about what was about to take place.

Mr. Baker led us to the left wing of the stage. Peeking around the curtain, I caught a glimpse of the enormous crowd standing in the party hall, restlessly waiting for us. Even with standing room only, the hall was completely packed. I swallowed hard.

A stage bell buzzed loudly. As the crowd became hushed, Mr. Baker walked out onto the stage alone. I couldn’t see him from where I was standing, but a moment later I heard his voice amplified by the giant speakers set throughout the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! I am Travis Baker. Many of you I have already met in person, but many more I have yet to shake hands with. You have gathered here from across this country and far beyond, and it is my privilege tonight to welcome you to our new life together.”

I instantly tuned out his voice, looking at Cindy and wondering how she was feeling. What was it like to be seconds away from stepping in front of a potential firing squad? How dangerous was this, really? I couldn’t imagine Cindy allowing Alia to be here tonight if the danger was all that great. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but remember her words to me earlier today: “Stand away from me.” And where was Mr. Baker’s wife? We had left her in the dressing room. Why wasn’t she on stage with the Guardian leader? As Mr. Baker continued to speak to the crowd, I was feeling increasingly uneasy about all of this.

I heard some clapping in between the pauses in Mr. Baker’s speech, and I heard him say, “In these difficult times, we are unified not by control but by freedom, and in freedom we stand stronger than ever before.”

There was only scattered applause. I thought back to how Cindy and Mr. Baker had told me that not everyone believed the Guardians were better off without a master controller. Did these people really prefer being told who to be loyal to?

Mr. Baker was saying something else now, which drew loud laughter from the crowd. I wondered what I had missed, but then he said, “And now, I would like to introduce to you a woman of extraordinary powers. A long-lost Guardian who has returned to us at our greatest need. She is my good friend, and the reason you can’t sense yours. May I introduce the Heart of New Haven, Cynthia Gifford!”

“That’s us,” Cindy whispered tersely. “Remember what I told you. And don’t forget to smile.”

Cindy stepped out onto the stage. I followed, grabbing Alia’s reluctant hand and pulling her along. My sister may have overcome her fear of strangers, but being on stage in front of a thousand people was a knee-wobbling experience for me too.