The Energy Crusades (6 page)

"Thank you, Professor," I bowed to her. She touched me on the shoulder.

"Go to sleep now. Go with Ajax. Remember your promise." I looked up at her. She knew I had promised to obey Ajax. If I wasn
'
t going to let her take the images from my head, she was going to hold me to them. "I won
'
t see you tomorrow; you
'
ll train with Ajax on the common lawns." She looked at her son. "Goodnight, Ajax. You can take her. I will clean up."

"Goodnight, Mother." He waited at the door but I hesitated a moment. I didn
'
t want to leave her.

"Professor?" I wanted the answer to my question. How did he feel? She graced me with a smile and pulled me close.

"Go to sleep," she whispered in my ear before releasing me. She did not give me the answer I wanted. I bowed to her and followed Ajax out of the lab. Night had fallen over the campus and there were no Students hustling from place to place.

"What was that all about?" Ajax asked as we walked toward the dorms.

"What do you mean?" I answered, being evasive. When he wanted some information from me, he was willing to talk, but I wasn
'
t about to tell him what I
'
d promised his mother. I could see the curiosity on his face. He wanted to ask more, to talk about it, but he
'
d already put a wedge between us by denying our former friendship and he knew better than to ask the question again. We continued our walk in silence.

Outside my bedroom door, he leaned against the frame and looked down at me. Dark circles framed his eyes and I thought he must be exhausted.

"What did you promise her?" he asked, running a hand through his unkempt hair. In the darkened hallway, his eyes were gray. They were the same eyes I remembered from my childhood and the color could change depending on his mood. When he was happy, when we were running all over this University and around our grid, they would be a stunning blue. When his mood was darker, they would turn gray. He used to tell me my eyes would do the same; turn from lavender, to deep purple, depending on my mood. It was another peculiarity we had in common, along with the ability to speak without words. What happened to those little children? Why couldn
'
t he remember ever being my friend? There was the strangest sensation in my stomach.

"Goodnight, Ajax." I wasn
'
t going to answer his question. He pushed himself away from the doorframe and stood up straight, reaching a hand for the door right next to mine.

"I
'
ll see you in the morning okay? We
'
ll go to the lawns after breakfast. No tennis."

"Okay. Goodnight." I waited for him to enter his room but he hesitated. It looked like he wanted to say something else, but all he said was, "Goodnight, Kaia."

I opened my own door quietly, puzzling over my experience with Professor Baal. During my time with her in the lab she
'
d demonstrated capabilities more common in Descenders. What did it mean? It was something I wanted to sit and ponder over, but I was weary and found my concentration elusive. Tory slept peacefully and I tiptoed around the room in the dark, hoping I too would collapse into bed and fall into a restful sleep.

I peeled off my energy suit and noticed my mother had brought my belongings from home, as Professor Baal promised. There were extra blankets and pillows for my bed, a few spare energy suits, all of my underclothes and pajamas, and toiletries for the bathroom. My suits were hung neatly in the closet and the other things stacked orderly in the drawers. She
'
d brought my extra shoes, for both running and tennis, and many other personal belongings, including photographs, and my medals from tennis.

I knew her intention was to make me feel more at home, but being surrounded by familiar things in an unfamiliar place had the opposite effect. Alone and homesick, I couldn
'
t even pick up my mailbox to reach her. The solitude settled around me and the silent room felt eerie with only the sounds of my movements and the rhythmic breathing of my slumbering roommate.

I crawled into bed and hugged the blankets around me, settling in for what I knew would be a restless night. Sleep was too often a stranger and I rarely slept well. My dreams were peppered with images flashing rapidly through my brain, like someone else's memories I couldn
'
t keep from seeing. Always, always, there was the white haired lady, a reclusive figure I could never quite catch up to. She
'
d been in my dreams as long as I could remember, dreams as vivid as nightmares, but much less ominous and I was never sure if the white figure was benevolent or not. She held my dreams captive and made my nights restless with an urgency to find her, but she slipped away, never allowing the gap between us to close.

The deserted campus below my windows held my attention until my head fell back onto my pillow, and my eyes closed in a fitful sleep.

Tory

"Kaia…Kaia!" Someone was gently shaking me awake. I sat up quickly, pulling myself out of an uneasy slumber. My surroundings were utterly unfamiliar and I was disoriented. Where was I?

"Are you okay?"

I focused on the girl hovering over me. Though her hair was long and blonde, she was not my roommate, Alize.

"You were dreaming," the girl continued in a frightened whisper. In a rush, all of the events of the past day came flooding back. I was not at the Tennis Academy in the Delphinus Grid, I was home, or at least I was back in the Orion Grid, at the University. The girl before me was my new roommate, Tory Keevah.

"Did I wake you?" I asked. My tongue felt thick as my dreams lingered in my memory. Outside my window the light had just begun to change. The sun would be creeping over the horizon soon, pushing the dull gray dawn into a brilliant blue morning. Now, however, the grayish light of the pre-dawn hour hovered bleakly over the campus.

"You were tossing and turning," Tory continued, "talking in your sleep." Her gaze was intense, and I could feel her studying my face.

"I
'
m sorry," was my weary reply. "I
'
m a bit of a restless sleeper." Her face relaxed but she continued to study my face, drawing a hand toward it as if to touch me.

"Your eyes…they
'
re beautiful," she whispered. My own hand flew to my face. No solar glasses. Had I left them in the food lab? I remembered Professor Baal asked me to remove them, but I couldn
'
t recall grabbing them when I left the lab with Ajax. It didn
'
t matter. Without looking, I knew I had several pairs stacked neatly in one of my drawers. My mother would not have forgotten to bring my supply, but Coach Renier couldn
'
t expect me to sleep with them, and I wasn
'
t going to hide from my own roommate. It would have been much simpler if I had gotten back to the room in time to warn Tory about my sleepless nights and odd color eyes.

"Thank you," I answered, gesturing for her to take a seat on my bed. I scooted over a bit so she had room to sit cross-legged in front of me. "Do you want to talk or can you fall back asleep?"

"Talk," she answered with a firm shake of her head. She pulled a pillow toward her and settled it across her lap then continued to stare at me silently. Her eyes were full of intelligence and curiosity, and I could sense no feeling of unease in her.

"Okay," I answered, "Tell me about Tory then." We smiled at each other. I knew she wanted to know about me, but I wanted to know about her. How did a girl, a little thing like her, get chosen to be on the most prestigious Crusade team on the planet? It was a curiosity I wanted to unravel and we sat in silence for several moments, each sizing the other one up.

"Okay," she conceded, "I
'
m Tory Keevah. I come from the Aquila Grid, and I am the youngest of nine children. We are a family of horticulturists."

"So you
'
re an elite horticulturist?" I raised an eyebrow at her. She chuckled at my joke and some of her hesitation receded.

"The Aquila Grid is in the middle of the continent," she continued her story, "There are many flatlands, and also forests. An extensive animal population once thrived there. Crusaders have made great strides in coaxing the animal population back to life, but first the land had to be made safe, right?" I nodded and she went on.

"I
'
ve always had an affinity with animals. I feel drawn to them. I can sense them." Her cheeks colored at this admission and she lowered her eyes. "Do I sound ridiculous?"

"Not at all," I answered, fascinated by her candor. "Can you sense people the same way?"

She shook her head. "No, not even close. I have four brothers and four sisters, and their energy has always been one big jumble to me. Our house is a bit chaotic and there
'
s never a chance for alone time. Just to find some peace and quiet, I started to slip out after our evening meal to go and sit in the fields far from the house, all by myself. I knew the grasses would conceal me, and I could be alone for as long as I wanted. I would sit there for hours, and then one day, I realized it wasn
'
t even quiet out there. I could hear the animals. I could tell where they were and if they were watching me. I could sense if they were frightened or hungry. I know it sounds unbelievable," she added, lowering her eyes again, too sheepish to continue. She had no idea who she was talking to.

"It doesn
'
t sound unbelievable, it sounds amazing," I encouraged her. "I can sense people in much the same way." My confession was a surprise, even to me, but if I wanted her to trust me, I needed to trust her.

"You mean you can read my mind? Like a Descender?" She widened her eyes, alarmed by the prospect.

"No," I laughed, "No. I can
'
t read minds, and neither can they. It
'
s more like what you can sense about the animals. I can often tell how a person is feeling. I can read their energy, not their mind."

"Can you sense what I
'
m feeling now?" she asked, curious. I could sense she was skeptical.

"Yes," I admitted. "You want to confide in me, but you aren
'
t sure if you can trust me. Also, you
'
re not sure if you believe me."

Her cheeks flushed again, but she laughed easily. "Okay, I believe you. How did you learn to do it?"

"I don
'
t know," I shrugged. "Part of it is, I
'
m a trained Athlete and we work extensively on controlling our minds and emotions. But truthfully, I think I
'
ve always had the ability."

"Can all Athletes do it?" She looked shocked at the notion.

"No," I answered quietly, "But I think they could. I think any human could. We have the ability, we just need to learn how to master it. We
'
re getting there." She stayed silent for several moments processing our conversation. Perhaps she understood my capabilities were extraordinary compared to other humans, but she alluded to some interesting ones in herself. "How did you learn to do it?" I questioned.

She shrugged and thought about her answer before speaking. "It wasn
'
t something I was trying to do. At University, they teach us to try and quiet our minds and listen. But it isn
'
t easy. It
'
s difficult for me to quiet my mind in the midst of so much noise. But when I went out to the fields, I was searching for quiet and realized the Descenders were right. When you learned to still your mind, you could hear everything a whole lot better. I simply learned how to clear my mind and listen to what was going on around me. And maybe because I love animals so dearly, and have worked with them since I could walk, I felt more in tune with their feelings than with human feelings."

"Somebody must have figured out what you could do," I prompted her to continue.

"Yes," she answered, nodding her head in agreement. "My brother, Tim. He
'
s my closest sibling. When he noticed I was missing night after night, he started to follow me. He watched me and saw how the animals came to me. They would sit all around me, even the dangerous ones, and I could be with them, pet them, hold the ones who would let me. Tim kept my secret, except he told my brother Tobias. Tobias is several years older, and he also trained with Professor Baal. He
'
s on Danu now, with the other Crusaders who
'
ve graduated." I sat up a little straighter as her story came to the part where she ended up with me at the University.

"Tim didn
'
t exactly know what was happening with me, but he knew it was special and knew I would jump at the chance to leave the Aquila Grid. I've never been outside Aquila in my life. So Tim told Tobias.”

“
One night, I was sitting in the middle of the field with a bobcat at my feet. She was purring contentedly and I was drifting off myself. It was a beautiful evening and my cat was nice and warm next to me. I think I had just about fallen asleep when I felt the cat
'
s body tense, and I was startled awake. Professor Baal was standing over me right in the middle of the field. She scared the heck out of me!"

"You didn
'
t sense her coming?" It was a shame she couldn
'
t sense human energy. Perhaps she could learn.

"Not at all. I only knew something was amiss because of the cat. And even the cat didn
'
t sense her until she was upon us. Professor Baal walked right up to us and somehow her presence went undetected."

Yes, I thought to myself, Professor Baal had some pretty amazing capabilities. "What did she say?" I asked.

"First she asked if anyone besides Tim or Tobias knew about my gift. Then she asked if I would like to come to the Orion Grid and train with the Athlete, Kaia Robi."

"She said that?" I was completely taken aback. "Why would she think you would want to do that?"

"Are you crazy? Of course I would want to train with you! To even be considered to join the same team as an Athlete is a huge accomplishment, right? Every child waiting to start their Crusade would probably kill to be in my shoes right now."

"Really?" My voice sounded small compared to her huge expectations.

"C
'
mon Kaia, we all grow up wanting to be Athletes. There
'
s something unique about you and it shows. I
'
ve always been curious about you, wondered what you
'
re like. And now, here I am. And I know your eyes are purple."

I didn
'
t say anything. I sat thinking about what she said as I stared out the window. The sun still hadn
'
t crested the horizon, but any minute night would fade into day. "Yes, my eyes are purple, and I can sense human emotions. You can sense animals and we
'
re on the same Crusade team. We
'
re the only girls. We have to stick together, Tory. I
'
ll protect you and you protect me."

"We
'
ll stick together," she agreed, "We
'
ll keep each other
'
s secrets."

She would be my friend and I would be hers. A friend at the University was something I could definitely use and Tory
'
s sincerity made me believe she would be loyal, as would I. Our eccentricities helped us to bond and
I
looked forward to cultivating a new friendship.

After our talk, her eyes began to droop and her chin fell to her chest. Once I assured her I would be fine, she settled into her bed while I dressed quickly and stepped out into the hall, leaving her to sleep.