The Tower (19 page)

“Why not?” I demanded, trying not to be angry.

James looked at me uncomfortably. “Well, my parents told me not to. They said it’s dangerous to be around you.”

“Oh, right,” I said, remembering what had happened to our tutors.

“We’re sorry. Really,” said another boy, and he sounded like he meant it, but I didn’t care. These boys had nothing to be sorry for.

“It’s okay,” I said, shrugging as I got back on my bicycle. “I have to be getting back anyway.”

I found my sister still riding around in circles on the grass and, ignoring her protests, I took her home early.

Over lunch, I told Cindy what happened.

“I’m sorry, Adrian,” said Cindy, gently squeezing my shoulders from behind.

“Yeah,” I said quietly, staring down at my plate. “Everyone’s always sorry.”

“This is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Cindy!” I said angrily. “You’re the one protecting this city. How could they treat us like some kind of disease!?”

Cindy replied in her all-too-familiar calm, “You can’t blame parents for wanting their children to be safe.”

After we ate, I took Alia to the pool, where, now that I was tuned into it, I noticed that there was almost always at least one person in the crowd looking at us, pointing or whispering. Some of the swimmers even left the pool soon after they saw us.

I ignored them all, concentrating on improving Alia’s swimming. I had no desire to beg for anyone’s friendship, but there was no way I was going to stay clear of public places just so that gutless, ungrateful Guardians could feel nice and safe. I knew there were non-Guardians mixed into the crowd too, which meant that the pool wouldn’t become totally empty just because Alia and I arrived, but I had a feeling the pool management would see some loss of profit this summer.

When I returned with Alia to the penthouse that evening, the first thing I noticed was that our living room had been invaded by a squadron of spare furniture. A desk, a low table, chairs, a dresser and a cabinet were blocking most of the walking space between the entrance and the rooms beyond.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re home, Adrian,” said Cindy. “Those deliverymen are so unhelpful. They just left all this right here. Help me move this stuff to the guestroom.”

“Why,” I asked, carefully levitating the wooden desk through the door to the guestroom, “are we even bothering to complete this room if we’re supposed to limit our contact with the outside world?”

“Well, you never know,” Cindy said with a little shrug.

I was pretty sure Cindy was hiding something, but by the time we finished setting up the guestroom and sat down for dinner, I was too exhausted to care.

I must have cared about something though, because I had a half-dream, half-nightmare that night. I could barely recall it in the morning, but I felt sure it was about those boys I met in the park. One of them had said, “He’s the Gifford boy.” I did my best not to act too grumpy about it during Sunday’s breakfast, but I’m sure Cindy noticed anyway.

Monday came all too soon, and we were back to home summer school. But when I made my way down to the dojo with Terry and Alia that afternoon, I was in for yet another unpleasant surprise.

“What is this?” I asked as I looked down at the gym mats. Terry had apparently come down here before our jog to make a big circle on the mat using white tape. It looked like...

“A sumo ring?” I asked in amusement, wondering for a split second if it really was one.

Terry laughed. “I don’t do sumo. This is for your power balance training. I can’t train you to fight well if you can’t help relying on your psionics. So, from today, we’re going to train your balance too.”

I fixed her with a dubious stare. “And this circle is going to help me learn to balance my power?”

“It might,” said Terry. “Meditation isn’t getting you anywhere, is it?”

“Cindy keeps telling me to have faith.”

“Well, Ms. Gifford may know more than me about psionics, but she doesn’t really understand you, Adrian.”

“And you think you do?” I asked, my skepticism rising a notch higher.

Terry nodded. “I understand you well enough to know that you’ll never learn balance through meditation.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re not like Ms. Gifford, Adrian,” said Terry. “You’re a fighter.”

I shook my head. “I thought we already agreed that I’m no fighter.”

“No, I just said you’re not a natural athlete.”

“But I don’t even like fighting, Terry,” I said firmly. “In fact, I hate it. You’ve been training me for more than a week so you should already know that by now.”

“I never accused you of liking to fight, Adrian,” said Terry. “But that doesn’t change what you are.”

I thought about that for a moment, but it made no sense.

Terry continued, “Meditation might be the closest road to power balance for someone like Ms. Gifford, or even Alia. But with you, we’re going to need a different approach.”

“Okay... so what’s this different approach?” I asked.

In reply, Terry reached into her shoulder bag, pulled out something small and white, and tossed it to me. Catching the plastic object in my right hand, I instantly recognized it as a military-issue psionic control band.

Control bands were thick, plastic bracelets that snapped onto your wrists and could be used to drain your psionic power by pressing metal rods up against your skin. They doubled as torture devices, capable of sending jarring jolts of electricity through your body. I knew this from firsthand experience, and, never having expected to see one of these horrible bracelets again, I nearly dropped it in surprise. I guessed Terry must have gotten it from her Uncle Charles.

“What, exactly, am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, gingerly holding the control band at arm’s length.

“Put it on, of course,” said Terry, suppressing a smile. “Considering your abysmal power balance, I figured it was high time to try a little shock treatment.”

I shot her an angry look. “That is not funny, Terry!”

“Not literally, of course,” laughed Terry. “Go ahead and put it on and I’ll show you.”

“No way!” I shouted, shaking my head.

“Oh, come on,” Terry said in an overly sweet and innocent tone, “don’t you trust me?”

“No,” I said dryly.

Terry dropped the sweet tone in favor of her usual blunt manner. “Don’t make me force you, Adrian. And don’t worry. Not only do you need bands on both wrists for the incapacitate feature, but that band isn’t charged enough to do more than extend its rods. Hurry up and put it on so I can explain what we’re going to do.”

“Oh, I’m going to regret this,” I muttered, but I obediently snapped the bracelet onto my left wrist. Having been designed for adults, the control band was a little loose on me, but still tight enough not to slip off.

“I’ve fixed that band so only one of the rods comes out,” said Terry as she pulled the control band’s little white remote control out of her pocket and pressed a few buttons. An instant later, I felt dizzy as the metal rod extended, draining both my psionic power as well as much of my physical strength.

“By shock treatment,” explained Terry, “I mean that we are going to force you to stop relying on your power. One rod shouldn’t drain you so much that you can’t walk, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, though I was already swaying a bit.

“Good. Because if you want to take that bracelet off, you’ll have to get this remote.”

I gaped at her, finally realizing the setup.

“Terry, I can’t keep up with you even when I’m not drained,” I said exasperatedly. “How am I supposed to catch you like this?”

“Not me, Adrian. That would be much too unfair for you,” said Terry, tossing the remote control to Alia. “Catch her.”

Terry then said to my sister, “Alia, you have to stay inside the circle. If Adrian can catch you, the circle gets bigger. Ready?”

Alia nodded and stood in the center of the taped circle.

As soon as I stepped into the circle, I lunged forward to grab the remote. But my hands grasped air as Alia took a quick step back, and I fell flat on my face. I stood and tried again, knowing that the longer this took, the weaker I would get. Being squared off with my eight-year-old sister wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as the fact that I couldn’t even touch her. Alia kept well ahead of me.

“Come on, Adrian! You can do better than that,” taunted Terry, watching from the side.

“Yeah, Addy, you can do better!”
Alia laughed, deliberately coming closer.

I gave her a furious look and tried to grab her long hair, but soon found myself facedown on the mat again. I managed to stand up for only a second before I dropped back onto my knees. Breathing heavily from overexertion, I said, “Alia, just come here. Please.”

I heard Terry sigh and say, “Okay, I guess your sister wins round one. Push the R button, Alia.”

The metal rod retracted back into the bracelet.

Painfully getting to my feet, I said, “Terry, this isn’t working.”

Terry raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t working? Why not?”

“I can’t catch her.”

“Not yet, you can’t. But you will. Take a break, and we’ll go again in a minute.”

We went another five rounds, and Alia won them all. When my sister finally pushed the button that snapped the control band off of my wrist, I could barely move. I felt as if I had run ten miles without stopping.

“I can teach you the combat moves, Adrian,” said Terry, pulling me to my feet, “but your bodybuilding isn’t going anywhere fast until you can keep your psionics from butting in. I’m still going to teach you CQC, but tag with Alia is going to be a regular part of the program from now on.”

“That was fun!”
said Alia, all smiles as she handed the remote control back to Terry.

“Fun for you, maybe,” I muttered crossly, realizing that I still had Terry’s CQC lesson before me.

Later that evening, as I was taking my bath and wondering if I would survive another of Terry and Alia’s training sessions, I couldn’t help noticing how much longer it was taking for the pain in my muscles to recede. I wondered if this was what it meant to separate my psionic power from my body, or if I was just more worn out than usual from Terry’s CQC training.

Terry was nonnegotiable, so for the rest of the week and onwards, my CQC sessions started with drained bouts against Alia.

“But this is going nowhere, Terry,” I said on the last day of July. The circle hadn’t grown, and never leaving it, Alia easily avoided my clumsy hands as I tottered around after her. Having learned a few tricks from Terry, my sister had even managed to knock me off my feet once.

Giving up the chase, I sat down on the mat and said heavily to Terry, “The only difference between this method and meditation is that I don’t end up black and blue after sitting for two hours with Cindy.”

“Have faith, Adrian,” replied Terry. “Sometimes you can’t see how close you are to achieving something simply because you’re too close to it.”

I let out a loud huff. “Please stop talking like a fortune cookie, Terry.”

“Stay with me on this,” said Terry, taking the remote control back from Alia. “Think about it. The pain you experience here is real. Alia tells me you sometimes still feel stiff in the mornings. There’s a reason for that. Your body is starting to relearn how to take care of itself. It’s not relying on your powers as much as it used to.”

Terry pushed the button to retract the control rod. As my strength returned, I carefully stood up, and Terry continued, “It’s not like you don’t have muscles, Adrian. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to stand even with your psionic power. Well, actually, since you’re telekinetic, maybe you could, but that’s not the point. The first stage of lacking power balance is like lacking willpower. You need to learn how to will your muscles to move without having your psionic power help you motivate them. If you don’t learn this, eventually your muscles will deteriorate, as will your organs. And if that happens, you will eventually die.”

“I know,” I said irritably. “Cindy told me last year.”

Terry pressed the button to extend the control rod again. “This is where your power ends, Adrian,” – I nearly fell down, but she quickly retracted the rod – “and this is where it begins.”