Rogue (Exceptional) (6 page)

       “How far is your
town
?” Sabine asked.

       From what Max described to them of his home last night, it sounded like a mixture of the homes in the settlements along with some of the larger buildings from the City.  Ally couldn’t really fathom what it looked like, with two thousand Ordinarys occupying the streets, so instead she would just have to wait until they arrived.

       “We should get there early afternoon.  It is straight west of here, so we won’t come in contact with the Guard outpost at all.”

       Max was leading them on a thin trail through the woods, picking his way through the trees as if he had the way memorized.  Ally couldn’t keep her eyes off him; the way he would balance on tree roots waiting for them to catch up, or how he would sometimes jump up and swing from a low hanging branch.  He seemed carefree as they moved along, and when he thought no one was looking, Ally could see the rough exterior break away, revealing a young boy beneath.  Maybe she had been wrong about his age, and Max was closer to hers than she originally thought.

       They traveled through the morning with ease, for the most part remaining silent.  Every now and then Stosh would ask Max a question about his town, and get a standard answer in return.  After the first hour of the trip, Cody decided that Max was his new hero, and was now hopping beside him, trying to keep up. Ally brought up the rear of the group, along with Willow, who had so far avoided any sickness for the day.

      “So, do you really trust him?” Willow asked.

       Ally thought before answering. “Right now, I trust him more than I trust the Exceptionals.  I’m not sure how much that counts, though.”

       “It counts enough,” Willow said. “For now.”

        They heard the town before they saw it.  Ally was the first to pick up the sound of machines running in the distance, and the faint giggles of children.  They were stepping through thick brush, pushing various branches out of their face, and then all of a sudden the town was in front of them.  The path opened up into a wide street; homes decorating either side.  The street continued on into the town, and Ally could make out the top of taller buildings several blocks down.  She guessed that more houses sat behind this row.  If this town were anything like the City, they would be placed in a grid-like formation.

       “Welcome to Champaign,” Max said.

       “Champ-aign?” Sabine repeated each syllable.

       “That’s what it was called in the Old World, and it stuck,” he explained.

       This particular street was deserted, except for a few young children playing with a ball, but as they got closer to the center of town; they ran across older male and female Ordinarys.  Max and the group were ignored at first.  A man used a hammer to fix a broken windowpane, an older woman carried a basket of clothes toward a small laundry shop, and a couple sat on an old bench caught in an intimate embrace.  But it didn’t take long for others to notice Ally and the others.

       At first, they seemed interested—possibly excited— that new Ordinarys had found their way into town.  She could hear the questions they bounced off Max, who was a good ten feet in front of her.

       “New recruits?”

       “Where did you find this bunch?”

       “This is the biggest bunch we’ve had in months, right?”

       “Does your Uncle know about this?”

       It wasn’t until they took in Ally that their interest turned to fear, and their questions turned to accusations.

       “How could you bring one of
them
here?”

       “Do you realize what
she
is?”

       “You’ve endangered us all.”

       The younger Ordinarys seemed to mix their fear with excitement.

       “Is she from the City?”

       “I wonder what she can do.”

Ally rolled her violet eyes in exaggeration, hoping all the complainers noticed.

       They finally stopped in front of a large, square building in the center of town.  A large crowd gathered on either side of, and behind their group.  Ally felt claustrophobic, and she fought the tingle that was stretching into her hands.  She didn’t plan on using her abilities against these people unless they threatened her life, or one of her friends’ lives.  She couldn’t begin to image the amount of guilt she would feel for murdering not just a handful of Ordinarys, but a whole town.

       A gray haired man stepped out of the front door, obviously curious about the large group of people gathered in front of his office.  She assumed that was what this building was, like the offices that Aden had, because it was too large to be just a home.

       “What’s going on, Max? Why is the entire town hanging out on my doorstep?” The man was tall and lean, like Max, and he was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. 
Jeans!
Ally hadn’t seen jeans in the entirety of her life, and didn’t think many others from the settlements and City had either.  She had seen them on the men and women in the movies she had watched at Luke’s, and figured they were a lost luxury.

       As she looked around, she noticed that all the other Ordinarys from the town were dressed in similar styles. Jeans, plain shirts, dresses, colorful prints, and so on. She had been so focused on their reactions when they stepped into town that she hadn’t noticed their appearance.

       “Well Uncle Heath…” Max started. It was the first time Ally heard him sound nervous.  Even when he had discovered her identity in the woods, he had just seemed angry. “I’ve brought some stragglers in from the woods.”

       This man, who Max had called Uncle Heath, peered around Max. “Nice size group. That still doesn’t explain the crowd.”

       A woman yelled from the crowd, “He’s brought one of
them
. We’re all in danger!”

       “Oh shut it Lucy,” Max snapped.

       Uncle Heath’s nostrils flared. “What does Lucy mean ‘one of
them
,’ Max?”

       Max turned around and motioned for Ally to step to the front of the group.  His expression said
please do this before I make you
, and even though Ally knew he couldn’t really follow through, she appeased him.  It wasn’t until she was standing by his side, looking up at Uncle Heath, that the gray haired man frowned.

       “I see,” he said, not seeming particularly bothered, or even impressed, by her presence.  “Come inside.”

       “All of us?” Ally asked.

       The crowd recoiled, and she could have sworn she heard hissing. What did these people expect from her? Did they want her to pick them up one by one and toss them around? Or maybe stomp them into the ground? Maybe they hadn’t thought she could even form coherent sentences.

       “Just you,” Uncle Heath said pointedly at Max. “And
her
.” His gaze shifted to Ally.  “The others can go with Mark to be processed.”

       “No way,” Stosh said at he stepped up beside Ally. “I’m going with my sister.”

       Heath’s mouth hung open for a few seconds before he recomposed himself. “This girl is your sister?”

       Stosh nodded.

       “He comes too,” Heath said.

       “I’m not going anywhere without Stosh,” Sabine whimpered in the background.  She seemed to be talking to herself, but Heath heard her.

       He threw his arms up in the air. “Fine. All of you, in my office now.”

       “I don’t mind staying here,” Willow said from the back but Stosh silenced her with a wave of his hand.

       “Man, this guy might be just about as bossy as the Guards,” Cody said quietly behind Ally.

       When she let out a small laugh, she could feel Max boring a hole into the side of her head with his glare.

       Max led the way into the building in front of them, which smelled damp and musty.  They entered into a large foyer with a desk off to the right where a short Ordinary girl sat.  A long, hall full of doors stretched in front of them, lit by lights on the wall.  That meant that this town had electricity, even though they were off the City’s radar.  Heath motioned for them to follow and led them into the first door on the right, which turned out to be an office.  It looked like a closet compared to the office Aden had held in the City, but Ally could tell the Ordinary man took pride in it.

       Books were stacked neatly on a bookshelf against the wall, and Ally resisted the urge to step over to them and run her fingers along the binding.  Were the settlements the only places void of them? Uncle Heath’s desk was “L” shaped and held several stacks of paper, a few more books, and what Ally recognized as a computer. There were standing frames on his desk with pictures of people in them.  Luke’s family had some framed artwork on the wall in their home, but never pictures of real people.  Ally studied one from across the room, which was simple with her Exceptional eyesight, and thought she recognized a much younger Max.

       “I don’t have enough seats for all of you, but if we can move through this meeting without interruptions, we won’t be in here for long.” Heath motioned to the four chairs crammed along the wall before he took a seat behind his desk.

       Willow automatically received a chair, as well as Cody and Sabine.  Ally and Stosh argued for a full thirty seconds about who should sit before Max shoved Ally down into the chair.  She stared at him in stunned silence but he had already turned to lean against the wall, his hands tucked into his pockets.

       “Are you here to spy on us?” Heath leaned forward in his chair, his forearms resting on the desk.

       So he was going to get right to it, it seemed.

       “No,” Ally responded.  “We left the City on our own about a month ago.”

       “You escaped the City?” Heath seemed interested now, leaning forward even more. “How?”

       “Is that really important right now?” Ally asked. “We aren’t here to hurt you, we just want to get to the southern City.  We have some friends headed there.  Maybe you’ve seen them?”

       Heath held up his hand to stop her. “I think you’ll find that I’m going to have a lot of questions to ask you, and I’m going to need the majority of them answered.  If you want to stay in this town, we’ll need your cooperation.  You saw how the others out there acted.  Having one of
your
kind around is going to unsettle them. I should send you out the door and on your way, let you fend for yourself in the Wilderness.”

       “
My
kind?” Ally laughed.  Had she been this put off by Exceptionals when she was an Ordinary? No, definitely not.  “I used to be one of
your
kind not too long ago, and I don’t remember being this arrogant. Maybe we
should
leave.”

       Both Heath and Max appeared shocked at this information, as they should be.  Ally could see Max move nervously beside her but it was Heath’s expression she was watching.  His eyes grew wide and the color drained from his face.

       “You what?”

       “Didn’t you hear her?” Stosh leaned forward.

       Heath brought his hands up and rubbed them along his cheeks. “That isn’t possible.”

       “Oh, but it is.” Ally smirked. “And I can tell you how.”

       “Are you contagious?” Max asked from beside her.

       Ally raised an eyebrow at him. “No. No one has been contagious in over a century.”

       “You said there were others?” Heath asked.

       “Yes. Have you seen them?” It was Stosh who asked the question.

       “A large group passed north a few weeks back.  They were doing the same as you, passing through our town and headed south.  We helped them cross through the Guard outpost in small groups, but a half dozen of them chose to stay behind.”

       Ally jumped up. “Where are they? Can we speak to them?”

       “In time,” Heath said. “First, we’ll need you to go to processing. If you are staying that is.”

       They were definitely going to stay. Ally needed to speak with the others, and soon. She resisted the urge to use her abilities to burst their way out of the building and through the crowd, but she knew that wouldn’t go over well.

       “Processing?” Willow asked, looking particularly green at the moment.

       Max pushed away from the wall. “We hold you overnight to make sure you aren’t contaminated in any way.  The doctors run some tests and ask some question; simple things.”

       Ally could feel her pulse racing. 
Doctors? Tests?
  This was all starting to feel familiar.  She could hear a quickening heartbeat beside her.  Willow.

       “Is it necessary?” Willow croaked.

       Understanding flashed across Heath’s face. “You two were placed in the ORC, weren’t you?”

       Now it was Ally’s turned to be surprised. “How did you…?”