The Energy Crusades (24 page)

"No," he answered quietly.

"Are you going to go?"

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

He sighed and touched his hand to his necklace. "I came to see if you wanted to do something together. You know I wouldn
'
t go to the Social, Kaia. I never have before and I wouldn
'
t now."

"You haven
'
t?" Little butterflies danced in my stomach.

"No."

If I were a better person, his admission wouldn
'
t have made me so happy. Ajax should have some fun; he certainly deserved it. I pushed away my gloomy mood and smiled brightly. If he wanted to be with me, the least I could do was not be so glum.

"Yes, I want to do something with you. Let
'
s go have some fun. Do you mind if I shower first?"

He stood up and held out his hand to me, helping me to my feet. He grabbed his backpack from the ground next to him, slinging it over his shoulder as we left the court. "No, I don
'
t mind," he answered. He walked with me back into the building and up the stairs to the locker rooms. I hesitated before entering, knowing I needed help undoing my suit, and unsure if I really wanted Ajax to be the one to help me.

"Will you get Coach Renier for me?" I asked him, my nervousness showing as I tried to wipe my hands on my armor. I didn
'
t think I needed to have Ajax see me pull off my sweaty, smelly suit.

"I
'
ll help you, Kaia. I don
'
t think we have many secrets left between us do we?"

We didn
'
t, not really. We slept in the same room every night and knew what the other looked like half-dressed quite well by that time. But tonight, Ajax was wearing regular clothes and looked gorgeous, while I was sweaty and disheveled, and probably didn
'
t smell nearly as sweet as he did. I tried to think of a reason why he couldn
'
t help me — anything to not have him follow me into the locker room — but he looked so calm and cool about it, I couldn
'
t come up with a reasonable excuse. I went in and he followed me closely.

"I have clothes on under here, don
'
t worry," I told him weakly, trying to be light despite feeling heavy.

"Of course you do," he answered, putting a hand on my shoulder. I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Well, what if I didn
'
t?" I teased, "What would you do then?"

"If you didn
'
t, then you wouldn
'
t be the girl I know, now would you?"

He had a point. He was always one step ahead of me. I couldn
'
t even tease him properly.

Ajax guided me back to my locker and opened it. Inside, there was regular clothing hanging up next to my energy suit. A cold rush of emotion washed through me, like a bucket of ice water pouring through my veins.

"Who put this in here?" I asked, my insides numb. The clothes were mine; I recognized them, but I couldn
'
t understand why they were there.

"I did," he answered. "I went to your house and got them. If the Students aren
'
t wearing their energy suits, then neither are you."

I put my head against the locker and closed my eyes, fighting off the angry feelings rising in my throat. I didn
'
t need to give in to anger. I deserved to wear regular clothes, too; Ajax was right. I didn
'
t need to sulk and feel slighted because of the freedoms the Students were given at Universities. If Atticus were here, instead of Ajax, it would have been easier to lose control and lash out, but I cared too much about Ajax to let him see me fall apart. I took several deep breaths and stilled my mind while Ajax remained quiet beside me. Eventually, I felt him start to undo the clasps at the sides of my virtual tennis suit. I stood up straight and let him undo them, then held my arms out in front of me while he pulled the top half of the suit off my body. Next, he extracted the regular clothes from my locker, and placed my used suit inside. While he plugged in my suit, I bent over and undid the armor around my legs and stepped out of it. Once again, I stood in front of Ajax in only my underclothes.

He picked my arm up by the cuff and let his thumb trail around the leather. For a moment, we leaned toward each other as if to embrace, but I pulled away, too self-conscious about having just finished a long match.

"Wait for me in the hall, okay?" I asked him, worried he could hear the way my heart beat loudly inside my chest. I wanted nothing more but to lean into him, to feel his arms around me, to feel him kiss me even, but I also felt ugly and unworthy, sure he wouldn
'
t want to do any of those things.

I left him by my locker and walked toward the showers, unable to control my feelings. Some of them leaked from my skin, but I kept walking away, hoping Ajax wouldn
'
t notice. Before I reached the showers, I felt a bit of his feelings too. They brushed against my skin for just a moment and I stopped in my tracks. Did he have feelings for me too? I couldn
'
t quite get a hold on them; he drew them back too swiftly. I spun around, hoping to meet his eyes. He glanced at me briefly as he made his way toward the door.

I
'
m
an
U
nviable
, he insisted inside my head.

Then
so
am
I
, I answered, because whatever was different about Ajax was also different about me. I couldn
'
t just turn off my feelings because of it.

I let all of those thoughts fall away as I stepped into the shower and let the water run hot, just for a few minutes, unconcerned about the luxury of it. I
'
d earned it, certainly. As I washed my body, I tried to wash away my feelings for Ajax. He was my friend, the best friend I had, and I wanted to respect him. If all I could hope for from him was friendship, then I needed to accept it.

Once showered, I re-braided my wet (but clean!) hair, and walked back into the locker room to dress. Ajax had brought a short white skirt and tank top from my house. I put the clothes on and they didn
'
t feel much different than my sports bra and compression shorts, but at least I wasn
'
t wearing my energy suit. Alone in the room, I sat on the bench in front of my locker and let my thoughts run free. It felt good to be in regular clothes and I liked the way the white material contrasted against my olive skin. All I ever wore was the color black, and the crisp brightness of the whites brightened my mood and helped quell some of the dreary thoughts.

I walked to the full length mirrors near the showers and took a good, long look at myself. Having spent the majority of my life covering up, it was nice to actually see my reflection. The white color of my clothing made my eyes stand out in a way I hadn
'
t seen before. Against my black energy suit, they weren
'
t quite as startling, but against the white, the purple color appeared luminescent and my eyes were illuminated in a whole new way.

I gave in to darker thoughts and wondered if I was an Athlete or a slave for the Reformation, if the Resistance was the enemy or not. I wondered why my eyes were such a strange color, and why it even mattered, and if I had anything to fear from the Commander. What would he do with me if he found out there really was something different about my genes? Who could I trust? Who was Jason Paris?

I had a lot of questions, but no answers and the girl in the mirror didn
'
t have the answers either. Somebody did, though. Was it my coach? Professor Baal? Again, the girl in the mirror wasn
'
t sure. I turned away from my reflection and headed out of the locker room making sure my feelings were tightly bound. Ajax stood waiting for me, leaning against the wall with his backpack at his feet, watching intently as I came out. My heart caught in my throat and I almost lost control of the already tenuous hold I had on my feelings. His eyes traveled over me with an expression I could not read, and then he reached out a hand to pull my braid loose. He let the hair tie fall to the floor.

"No braids tonight," he told me, letting none of his emotions show. My hair unraveled around my head.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him. It felt odd having my hair unbound, but nice too as it fell around my shoulders and spilled down my back. When we were small children, Ajax used to pull my hair free the same way, and then I would chase him and try to tug at his hair. I reached out now to straighten his necklace but he took me by the wrist again, stopping me before I touched him.

"Can you guess what I want to do?" he asked, holding onto my cuff.

"Go see that building?" I answered, knowing it had been on both of our minds. We
'
d talked about it at night, lying next to each other in the dark. We
'
d seen the building before; it stirred a vague memory from both of our childhoods. We estimated it to be a few hundred kilometers up the coast, a distance easily traveled on our transporters. I
'
d been up and down the coast many times as a child and while traveling with the Tennis Academy, and I knew I had seen the building at some time. We
'
d also seen it on one of Derek
'
s monitors and we wanted to know what it was.

"Well, that
'
s one of the things I want to do," he answered, but didn
'
t volunteer any other options.

We headed out together into the night, side by side. Ajax took our transporters from his pack and we flung them open. Before hopping on, we used Ajax
'
s mailbox to record our travel, a necessity since we didn
'
t have our energy suits on. If we were caught riding on transporters without recording the energy use, we would definitely be sentenced to ride in the Energy Fields, something I did not want to do again. Once that bit of business was complete, we flew across the campus in a roundabout way, staying behind the buildings and avoiding transporter lanes or other Students. My skirt was pretty form fitting, but I still had to hold it down with one hand as we flew. It wasn
'
t the best outfit to go transporting in, but it sure did feel luxurious to have the wind whistle all around me.

We circled around the Weapons Room and stopped at the line of Virtual Guards on the southern end of campus. They gave us no trouble crossing and we flew over the cliffs and down toward the beach as they bowed and bowed and bowed, showing me respect. Ajax hovered for a moment down on the sands below the campus.

The ocean roared to our left while the cliffs and caves framed us in on the right. It was fully dark and millions of stars twinkled in the skies above us, but it was cold down by the water and I shivered in the little clothing I had on. Ajax pulled a hooded sweatshirt from his pack and held it out to me.

"No," I shook my head. "I
'
d rather be cold." Despite the briskness of the air, I loved having my limbs free. I had the rest of my life to cover them up. Ajax smiled and reached out to try and ruffle my hair, but I caught him by the wrist, as he always did to me. His arm was cool to the touch in the ocean air.

"Shall we hug the coast all the way up?" he questioned, drawing his arm back gently. I nodded and he flew ahead of me.

We followed the shore as we flew, but if we thought our nighttime excursion would go unnoticed, we were wrong. After a time, I noticed the cave dwellers. They stood at the mouths of the caves all along our route, wherever there were caves. When we passed long stretches where the shore ran next to the grid, no caves in sight, I
'
d convince myself I had imagined them. But then we
'
d be flying next to cliffs again and there they
'
d be, lining the mouths of the caves. The eerie fluorescence of their skin cast a ghostly glow around them, making it obvious why they were called the ghosts in the caves.

Ajax, I called to him.

I
know,
I
see
them.

Stop. I eased my transporter to a complete stop and hopped off of it. Ajax did the same.

"What do they want?" I asked him.

"Let
'
s keep going," he answered, but I didn
'
t want to keep going, not yet.

I looked toward the cave dwellers and tried to feel around for their energy. Mostly, I felt hope.

Strange. I thought about all I had seen in the caves and how the cave dweller helped us by throwing me the bag during the faulty exercise in the Weapons Room. I didn
'
t fear the cave dwellers, but had been led to believe that I should. Instead, I feared only the Commander. For the first time I had this wild thought: I might be able to walk away from my life. I could walk toward the people in the caves and live peacefully among them. I wouldn
'
t have to wear an energy suit or push my body beyond all reasonable limits. I could live without the responsibilities and expectations that came with being an Athlete. I would be safe from the Commander.

I met Ajax
'
s eyes and stared at his face for a long time. He remained quiet. I would lose Ajax and my family forever, unless…