Radiant (19 page)

"
Carter?" she asked. "What is
that
?"

"
The Grand Canyon," he said. "Or part of it."

Mary hardly blinked. Then, she laughed. "
That's, like, thousands of miles away. This is some kind of a screen or something, right? It's just a projection on the floor." Though how he got it up onto the roof was beyond her. She walked forward and reached down to touch the screen.

"No wait
!" Carter shouted.

Mary's fingers didn't meet a screen. They met no
thing, and she lost her balance and fell.

"AAAAYYYYYEEEEE!" she screamed, hurling towards a
ledge of sharp rocks below.

The weird elevator feeling and time stopping came back. The next thing she knew, Mary was in Carter's arms
. They were sitting on the rocky ground back at the top.

She didn't stop screaming
. "OMIGAWD! WHAT WAS THAT?"

"Mary
," Carter tried.

"OMIGAWD! OMIGAWD! OMIGAWD!"

"Mary! Please!" Carter said. "You're not falling anymore. I've got you."

Mary stopped screaming,
but only because she needed to breathe. She looked at Carter before jumping up and scrambled behind the large rock. She peered out at him suspiciously.

Carter remained where he was.

"W-w-where are we really?" she demanded, her voice trembling.

Carter folded his hands in front of him. "Arizona. This really is the Grand Canyon. The Northern Rim."

Mary glanced at the chasm before looking at him again. "How did we get here?"

"
We translated," he said.

She wrinkled her brow.

"I mean, I translated," he said. "But I brought you with me."

Mary's brain was sti
ll trying to focus. "Like, you just beamed us over here or something?"

"Sort of," he said.
"You remember in Physics class learning about space, time, and matter? And that matter is mass over energy?"

"
Yeah," she said, though she only vaguely remembered that.

"
Matter is energized mass moving through space and time," he explained. "So everything we call 'matter' is really just different frequencies of energy existing in space and time. Your body, the clothes you're wearing, the air you're breathing, the sound of my voice—it's all energy existing at different frequencies. Does that make sense?"

"I
-I guess." Mary felt a bit like they were sitting in class now.

"
Energy is all around you, even if you can't see, hear, or touch it," he continued. "Sometimes you see its manifestations. Other times, you don't. But it's always there. Energy animates your body. It's what makes you uniquely you. It's what separates you from an inanimate object. Translation is a 'shift' in the three dimensions. By translating, we move through space without time. We were on the roof, and now we're here. No passage of time. Make sense?"

"
No," she said. "But that doesn't matter. How come you can do this?"

"
What is matter again?" he asked.

"STOP IT WITH THE PHYSICS CRAP AND JUST ANSWER ME!" Mary
cried.

"
Sorry," he said. "Matter is mass over energy. Just like translation is without time, I was energy without mass. I…I don't normally have a physical body."

Mary didn't say anything for a moment. Then, in a low voice, she said, "You're not Carter. Are you?"

He shook his head.

"Who are you?" she asked. "
What
are you?"

"It's
difficult for me to explain. I'm trying to find the correct words." He looked up as the stars began to appear in the sky. "I like to watch the Earth whenever I can. Whenever I don't have to do something else. I like watching humans the most. I watch what they did and how they did it. I watch how they laugh when they are happy or cry when they are sad. Nothing was the same. There are similar reactions, but from person to person, each joy, each sorrow, each pain, it's different with each one. People deal with their emotions in such different ways.

"
I was always curious. Sometimes I would come down to the surface for a little while to be around humans. I was always invisible, of course. I could feel the energy of the emotions more intensely when I was closer. Still, though I saw the 'what' and the 'how' of their feelings and actions, I never understood the 'why.'

"Then, about seven
Earth years ago, I was tracking pieces of a comet as they fell towards the planet. They were going to create a 'meteor shower,' as humans called them. I had noticed over the ages, people stopped looking at the sky as much. Still, a few came out to watch. I had to concentrate on my task, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to hazard a glance towards the Earth."

He
took his eyes from the stars and fixed them on Mary. "That's when I saw her. A child with the most enchanting energy I had ever seen. She had a small telescope, and she stood on the roof of a building with her mother and grandmother. There was a look in her eyes. It was wonderful. Magical. Completely unavoidable. I knew she was watching the meteor shower. But I wanted to think that she was watching me."

Mary
remembered that day. It was her tenth birthday, when Mom gave her the telescope. She had been so excited about it that she took it straight up to the roof to try it out. As a bonus, the meteor shower happened.

"
I started visiting the surface more often," he said. "I stayed invisible and kept my distance, but I watched the child. I watched how her energy made her grow. I watched her live. I still had tasks, but whenever I could, I watched her. My favorite times were when she would come to the roof by herself. I wanted to think that she came up to visit me, like I came down to visit her." He paused. "I was watching her on the roof one evening. She fell asleep, like she did many times before. I normally stayed at a distance. But then the temperature dropped unexpectedly, and she started to shiver. I had never watched a human shiver before, so I moved closer to observe and she stopped shivering. It was my energy that had warmed her. So, I moved closer, until I was next to her for the first time. That was the closest I had ever let myself come. And as my energy warmed her, hers intoxicated me. I didn't want to leave. I wished the night would never end so that I could remain that close.

"
But then the morning came. She had overslept and was late for school. I watched how she hurried and I followed her as she ran. When she came near the school, she wasn't paying attention. There was a bus. She ran in front of it."

Mary could hear the
scream of the tires and the crash in her memory. Her side was completely healed, but she felt the bruises again.

"
I didn't have human emotions before," he continued. "But if I had, the closest one I think I experienced was fear. I knew it would be too late. I was about to see that beautiful energy destroyed. But I couldn't just let that happen. Then I saw the red car. It had just enough mass to shield her, and it was simple for me to push it in the way of the bus. So I did."

The fiery red car flashed in Mary's mind. She also remembered Carter's body inside.

"I had been so preoccupied with one human's energy that I hadn't noticed the other one inside the red car," he said. "It was fading so quickly, like a flame at the end of a match. I had to do something. So I committed one of the highest violations of my kind. I entered his body uninvited. So, here I am. Keeping him alive as he recovers."

Mary
said nothing. She couldn't believe it. He
really
was possessed. She had already kinda figured that, but it was completely different now that he was actually telling her.

C
autiously, she stepped out from behind the rock. Mary took a couple steps toward him and sat on her knees about two yards away from him. "Are you…you know…like what the boy at the hospital said? Are you an angel?"

"
My kind has been called angels before," he said. "And demons. And vengeful spirits. And helpful spirits. And ghosts. And gods. It just depends on whom you're talking to. It also depends on which ones you're talking about."

"
Your kind?" she asked. "There are more of you?"

"
Yes."

"
Where?"

"
Everywhere. All the time. And invisible to humans. We don't have a human word for what we are. I guess the best way to explain us is that we're shepherds of the invisible energy behind many phenomena that humans experience."

For some reason, Mary thought back to the weird poster in Lakshana's waiting room. "Like radiants."

"What?" he asked.

"You're energy," she
said. "Like radiant energy. You're a radiant."

"I've not heard of that before," he said. "But it makes sense.
"

"Are the others like you?" she asked.

"Some," he said. "But there are different ones. We have different tasks."

"
Tasks?"

He nodded towards the sky
. "There are objects always coming towards the Earth. Mostly pieces of rock, dust, and ice. The Earth has many 'shields' to keep it all from just smashing into it, like the gas giants, the asteroid belt, the moon. The greatest shield is the sun. But some still gets by. I'm responsible for those. If anything looks like it will endanger humans, then it's my task to burn it."

"
Like a meteor?" she asked. "Falling through the atmosphere? That's
you
doing that?"

He nodded.

"Cool job," she said. "Is that why you're, you know, hot? Because you burn things?"

He nodded again
. "I'm trying to control it. It's not a very easy thing to do."

Considering that he hadn
't spontaneously combusted yet, he seemed to be doing it pretty well. "And the black clothes?"

He looked down at the black sweater he was wearing.
"It helps absorb some of the heat."

"
I see," she said. "So, if radiants are everywhere, like you say, does that mean you see absolutely everything?"

"Not absolutely," he said
. "But a lot."

Creepy, Mary thought.
"Do you have a name?"

"
I have a…designation," he said. "But it's not pronounceable in human words."

"
Not even something that sounds similar?"

"
I'll answer to whatever you want to call me by."

For some reason, the first thing that came to Mary's mind was "Pinocchio." That wouldn't do.
"I want you to tell me what I can call you."

He thought for a moment.
Then he said, "You can call me…Phos."

"
Phos?" she asked. "Like 'photo'?"

He nodded.

"Phos," Mary repeated. "So, if you're in Carter's body, where is he?"

"
He's here," he said. "Sorta."

"
Sorta
?"

"
He's recovering," he explained. "He almost died in that crash, but he's doing better."

"
Does that mean he knows everything that's been going on since?" she asked.

"
Sorta." Phos grinned. "He doesn't necessarily approve of some of the things I've been doing. But it's for his good."

It was the first time Mary
had seen him smile in days. It made her smile as well. "Sounds like you two are friends now."

"
Hardly. He doesn't appreciate that I have to constantly raid his store of memories." He grimaced. "I can't say it's been pleasurable on my part either. It's like going through the closet of a really disgusting roommate."

Mary laughed.

Phos laughed as well. "Any more questions?"

Mary relaxed a bit and sat with her legs crossed.
"How old are you?"

"
I don't have an age," he said.

"
Really?"

He nodded.
"My existence isn't measured in years or seasons. Not like yours."

"
What is it measured in?"

"
It isn't measured in anything. I just
am
."

"
I still don't understand," she said.

"
It's all right," he said. "Humans aren't supposed to."

"
But I want to."

"
But you're not supposed to," he repeated. "You don't have the capacity for it."

She wrinkled her brow.

"Sorry, that came out wrong," he said. "What I mean is that you aren't even supposed to know we exist. Therefore, how can you completely understand something if you're not supposed to know it's there?"