The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" (19 page)

I hack and heave some more.

“Send in reinforcements,” the
perturbed voice shouts out.

I hug myself and shake my head
vigorously. “No! I’m okay. Leave me alone!”
They mustn’t find the hidden
disk
. I stand up in a show of bravado.

There was silence.

After keeping on my toes for
another two minutes, I collect my resolve and clear my throat. It is very difficult
to pour out the harrowing recollections, but I persist, speaking in a flat
monotone, “My grandma and grandpa—” I wiped away tears, “—had come into my room
after they heard banging noises during that altercation with Odion in my
subconscious. They found me walking outside the house in my pajamas, but
thankfully did not see Migalt. They appeared scared for me and were concerned I
was losing my mind.”

Putting me to bed, as if I were a
child, they both gazed at me with fondness, and they said they loved me. They
said they would talk to me about it in the morning.

Tossing and turning, I kept
tormenting myself. What did Odion mean by “research?” Did Odion mean the
investigation Lincoln and I did on
The Intervention
? But we never left
anything behind, no papers.

I sat straight up in my bed, my
eyes wide open in fear.

The papers!

Marvin’s papers in the basement.
The ones he didn’t want me to see. What could Odion possibly want from them?
But once my curiosity was triggered, I could not even consider shutting it off.

I had to tiptoe past my sleeping
grandparents, and check out the basement myself.

There was a scuffling noise in
the kitchen. The light was on. My beat pounded so hard I thought it would
burst. Hopefully, it was just my grandpa, helping himself to a piece of
late-night raisin toast.

It was Travis. I froze as he
turned his head and looked at me malevolently.

He mocked me by using a sing-song
voice, rocking his head from side to side. ‘Ted. The little turd from the Red
Bricks. The flyboy, or should I say—freak-boy.’ He showed absolutely no fear.
My hands balled into fists.

 ‘Finally, you show up, you
coward,’ I snarled. ‘I’m sick and tired of waiting for you.’

Travis spurted into a sudden and
uncontrolled rage at being accused of cowardice. He screamed, pointing his
finger at me. ‘You killed my best friend! Odion told me that you pushed him
over the cliff!’

‘Odion’s been lying!’ I yelled
back.

Shouts of “Ted!” echoed out from
across the hallway. My stomach sank as I realized my grandparents would be on
their way—for the second time that night. And this was more dangerous this
time—much more. Because this was happening at home, in real life.

‘Oh yeah?’ Travis raged,
unleashing his pent-up torment of the past two years. He’d waited so long for
this day. ‘Odion told me about your necklace. It’s made you evil!’

‘That’s not true. The necklace
does not do that,’ I said.

Footsteps rang out near the
kitchen.

Travis’ face transformed into a
revolting spectacle as he viciously squinted and grinned at once. ‘I’ve lost so
much, Flyboy. Now it’s your turn!’

The kitchen door burst open.

I reached out, but it was too
late. ‘NO, TRAVIS!’

Travis swiveled and instantly
extended his arm, fingers outstretched.

Hollering so much that he shook
the rafters with his booming voice, and angrily tensing every muscle in his
body so much that he appeared ready to explode, Travis did the unthinkable.

He had two bracelets on his
wrists that were emitting a red light that turned the room a dull crimson. My
grandpa, dressed in pajamas, hovered motionless with his head inches away from
the kitchen ceiling.

‘Marv, dear Marv,’ Travis intoned
in a nasty voice, ‘Odion sent me, and we know you have it.’

My grandpa’s eyes widened as he
gasped for breath.

My grandma entered, rushing from
behind with a phone in hand. She was in her usual purple patterned nightgown. 
Travis, too, used a laser beam to suspend her in the air, right beside Marvin.

I leapt forward to punch Travis
in the face, but he anticipated my move, and I, too, was suddenly suspended
into the air, opposite my grandparents.

‘Ted!’ Laverne shrieked, holding
out her arm, even as she attempted to gulp in precious oxygen. I instinctively
caressed my throat, feeling once more the unseen clutches at my larynx.

‘Now, Marv,’ Travis spoke calmly,
‘Let’s make this easy. Your research, very nasty stuff. Where is it?’

Despite his near-suffocation, my
grandpa registered his shock. ‘Travis. Something’s happened to you!’

‘Where is it?’ Travis growled.

‘I have no idea what you’re
talking about!’

‘The storm! Where are your
papers?’

My grandpa finally understood. He
said defiantly, even as he pulled away at his collar, ‘You’ll never get it.’

Proudly, I knew my grandpa would
not divulge anything to him. He wasn’t just a veteran, but also a prisoner of
war. He was tough as nails and had two bronze stars with a v-device to prove
it.

‘Travis, it is me you want, let
them go!’ I hoarsely yelled through a constricted throat.

‘That is where you are wrong, freak-boy.
Marvin knows why I am here. Tell me where your research is and this will all
end right now.’

My grandpa held the hand of my
grandma, even as they both struggled for their lives. He closed his eyes as if
totally at peace, and whispered, ‘Never.’

‘So be it!’ Travis screamed. He
gleefully collapsed both his arms at his side, and watched my grandparents as
they fell to the floor, lifeless. I, too, collapsed onto the floor, but quickly
sprang to my feet.

Hot fury enveloped me and would
not let go. I jumped off the bed and pulverized Travis in his abdomen with
punches until I lay exhausted at his feet, gasping for air. I must have punched
him fifty times. He was wearing a lightweight armor that was leathery, like the
hide of a cow, but with scales.

Travis was laughing at my pitiful
attempt to crush him, and said, ‘You know why you can’t do anything? It is
because you are not as driven as I am. I’m not the coward. You are.’

I attempted taking him down, but
he didn’t budge an inch—it was like tackling a parking meter. It was now time
to bring out the heavy weapons.

 Firing up my lifters, I blasted
into Travis, driving him through the main kitchen window with my X73-21’s—my
power shoes. The window shattered, gouging my forearm. The impact knocked
Travis unconscious, and I carried his limp body. He was mine now. Grinning to
myself, I ascended into the clouds to a dizzying altitude of around
eight-thousand feet. My back strained as Travis’ massive frame tired out my
arms.

I felt nauseated. It was becoming
difficult to take in air. I flew higher, and I felt light-headed at about
twenty thousand feet. It was freezing, and the clouds surrounded me. I saw
stars and then I blacked out. My plan was to drop Travis to his death. Travis
must have come to and started to yell, because he woke me up. He was falling at
a faster rate than I was, and the distance between us was diverging.

We were both falling to our
deaths. I was trying to maneuver with my shoes, but I could not see where I was
going. Travis continued to fall and then in a flash I realized: Zane didn’t ask
me to kill Travis.

I wasn’t some rogue killer acting
on impulse. I finally gained control and propelled myself toward the Earth. I
drew closer to Travis. The space between the ground and our falling bodies was
swiftly decreasing, and I was closing in on him. I needed to save him. His
scream went to silence, as I finally stood behind him, and grabbed his jacket
by the shoulders. Just when my thrusters on my X73-21’s were about to overheat,
he and I jointly had significantly decelerated. Rooftops were appearing in view,
and we were almost at a standstill.

Travis sported a wicked smile as
he looked up at me, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Ted.’

Before I could reply, he shot out
blasts from his electronic bracelets directly at my X73-21’s. Sparks flying, my
super shoes went haywire, and all of a sudden, I was rocketing toward the woods
behind my grandparents’ house. 

Out of control, I turned back to
look at Travis. Glowing, he ported at the last second, and just like that, he
was safely gone. I strained to deliver myself safely to the ground, but it was
futile. My body bent against the pines behind my house and I scraped through them,
as I ungracefully landed among the branches of the tree. I lay there for a
moment, breathless.

Moaning with pain, I flew up the
back wooden steps of our deck. I ripped through the locked screen door, and
barreled into the house.

My grandparents lay lifeless on
their sides at the entrance of my bedroom. Their bodies were corpses; cold,
dead, and unfeeling. Desperately, I told myself they were just sleeping, that
they would recover and come alive again. But their still-open eyes!—to my
horror, they were blank and devoid of the souls who had been at one time, Marv
and Laverne.

I had lost my grandparents, whom
I had loved so deeply. I had nothing, and the pain from the anxiety was closing
in on me, suffocating and wringing out my heart. I had no one.

Attempting resuscitation, I
methodically pumped their chests and compressed air from my lungs into their
mouths. No success. Shedding tears, lying on my back, exhausted—I felt failure.
I had no father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother to have or hold. I rolled
over and struck my fist against the ground repeatedly, sobbing and thrashing
about.

I hopped up to my knees. After I
finished whimpering on the floor, I shook my grandparents, screaming their
names, striking their chests again. I ran to the wall and drove my fist through
the drywall. My knuckles were bleeding. I slouched down, sliding downward
against it. I ran my fingers through my hair, and sheet-rock dust clumped onto
my sweaty locks.

I thought out loud to send the
signal—
Migalt! I am under attack at my house, and my grandparents are dead!

It didn’t matter what I thought.
No one answered. I slumped into an acute state of shock, shedding tears and
feeling totally vanquished.

Still no response. I presumed
from Migalt’s abrupt retreat hours earlier that Zane and his army may have been
under siege as well, as Odion had definitely sought out something after Migalt
attacked him. My grandpa once told me that I should not worry about things that
I cannot control, and instead focus on what I can—myself.

Feeling extremely guilty about
leaving the corpses upstairs, I resolutely rose to my feet and walked to the
basement in search of clues to the imminent crisis. There was no time to lose.
I stood before my grandfather’s workshop, furiously formulating possible
explanations.

What was Travis after? What did
he want? More importantly, what did Odion want?

A brilliant breakthrough popped
up in my head.

‘Aha!’ I cried out.

The metalons—were Dietons. My
grandpa must have discovered them around the house, thanks to me. And he was
just about to unlock the secrets to a power that Odion could not tolerate in a
human. 

I hastily pulled out drawers in
his studio, causing several sheets of diagrams and mathematical equations to
flutter to the floor. I picked them up.

As I stood up, my eyes captured a
gleam of metal. Right by his experiments was a shiny pistol. Perhaps he
expected evil to pay a visit.

For a moment, I wondered what my
grandfather wanted me to do. I had never used a gun in my life, except for
pretense during laser tag. My anger clouded my judgment and I grasped the gun.
It was heavy and frightening. I placed it down quickly, because my grandfather
would never want me to touch something so powerful. To handle a gun, one must
have respect and technical knowledge. I figured it was the papers he wanted me
to grab.

There was no way I could decipher
these complex theorems and equations, so I grabbed what I could, and I scooted
upstairs. I snatched a pen and a pad of paper from the dining room table, and
sprinted outside to launch my body through the air.

I was going to County Hearth,
where that awesome skateboard-friendly parking lot lay, but I had a couple of
stops to make along the way. 

First stop was Liam’s house. I
didn’t want to show myself at Liam’s that early in the morning, because his dad
was old-fashioned about keeping trespassers off his property. There were rumors
that he slept with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Therefore, I ran up to the door, and
stuck a note in. It read:

Liam,

I believe that there is a better
path for you, a path with no limits. You have made your mark in this town as a
protecter and a fighter. Please, join my team and me. We only want to do good
for Earth. Please, come to the Hearth right now for your true destiny. I beg of
you.

Theodore