The Tower (9 page)

“Are we going to be hounded to the pool by those destroyers?” I asked.

“No. They’re only for me. But you should be careful of anyone who approaches you. Don’t talk to strangers. There are Guardian Knights patrolling the streets night and day. If you get into any kind of trouble, just shout for help and they’ll come.”

I looked at her uncomfortably. “Is it really that dangerous outside?”

“No, and yes,” said Cindy. “It’s no secret that you’re living with me, so you will be a more likely target than other people. Stay in populated areas. No shortcuts through back alleys. Oh, and just remember that there are non-Guardians living in this neighborhood too, so don’t do anything impossible in public.”

“I’ll be careful. Do we already have swimsuits as well?” I asked, dreading the answer. There was no telling what Cindy might have picked out for me.

“No, you’ll have to buy your suits on your way over. There’s a shop diagonally across the street from the pool,” she answered, and I hid my sigh of relief.

Handing me some cash, Cindy smiled and said, “Here’s your first salary, bodyguard. Try not to spend it all on junk food.”

I grinned. “Does this mean I’m getting a regular allowance now?”

“Not a lot, since you live here, but enough to have some fun, I hope. Make sure you share it with Alia when she needs it.”

“Of course,” I promised.

“Oh, and be sure to choose something dark for her, okay?” said Cindy.

I gave her a disbelieving stare. Considering Cindy’s taste in clothing for Alia and me, “dark” was the one adjective I never expected to hear.

“You know,” added Cindy, “to hide the scars on her back.”

“Oh, right,” I laughed, finally understanding.

Alia’s back was covered with scars upon scars crisscrossing every which way, some made by knives, others most likely from a leather whip. She was probably the child of a psionic family, but we may never know because when she was an infant, she had been abducted by a pair of religious fanatics who tortured her for years to “cure” her of her telepathic abnormality. Alia never spoke of that part of her life, and I was afraid to ask.

“And don’t forget your Band-Aid,” said Cindy.

“I won’t,” I said. “Who are you meeting with?”

“Mr. Baker.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Is it about me again?”

“Not entirely,” said Cindy, laughing. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

After lunch, I took Alia down the elevator and through the entrance lobby of New Haven One. As we exited the building and stepped onto the sidewalk for the very first time without adult supervision, I looked around cautiously, still feeling a little uneasy about being outside.

But as I took Alia’s hand and started walking down the sidewalk, I quickly got over my nervousness. I knew that there was nothing to be afraid of as long as we stayed out in the open.

Arriving at the clothing store, I helped Alia pick out a deep red one-piece swimsuit that covered enough of her back to hide her scarred skin. I also bought a pair of dark blue swimming trunks for myself. Then we headed across the street to the pool.

The large recreational pool was complete with a hotdog stand and tables along the side. Changing into my swimming trunks in the locker room, I slapped an extra-large waterproof Band-Aid over my P-47 tattoo, and met Alia at the poolside.

“You made sure nobody saw your back when you were changing?” I asked.

“Of course,”
answered Alia, frowning.
“I’m not dumb, you know.”

The summer holidays had just started, and there were a few families and quite a few children here, some of them about my age. I watched them both longingly and apprehensively. On the one hand, I would have been delighted to make a few friends, but I was afraid that Alia, with her newfound bravery around strangers, might accidentally speak telepathically to someone. There was no way to know which of these children were residents of New Haven.

Alia tugged on my arm.
“Come on, Addy. Teach me how to swim already!”

There was a round kiddie pool next to the main one, but we weren’t going to use that. We had borrowed a pair of arm floats for Alia, and once she had them on properly, I took her into the shallow end of the main pool. I could tell that the lifeguard was watching us closely as I taught Alia to paddle, but fortunately, he didn’t try to help. I didn’t want anyone approaching us and discovering that Alia could do anything “impossible.”

Alia loved the water. She quickly learned how to stay afloat on her back as well as dog paddle, albeit very clumsily. Before we went home that day, I forced her to go to the kiddie pool by herself so I could swim a few laps around the big pool alone.

Cindy asked over dinner, “So how was your day?”

“Great!” I said. “I feel like I’m living a normal life again. You know, before any of this happened... before I turned psionic.”

“That’s wonderful, Adrian,” said Cindy, and it took a moment before I realized what I had implied.

“Cindy, I didn’t mean...”

“I know.” Cindy smiled. “I’m happy for you.”

Leaving our PRC-acquired habits behind us, Alia and I went out to the pool almost every day that week. Alia soon discarded the floats, and though I frequently had to telekinetically keep her from sinking, she was improving day by day. Before and after our swims, we also explored the neighborhood of New Haven on foot, discovering a large park only minutes from NH-1. We never got as far as the river, though. It turned out to be much farther than it looked from our window.

July had only just begun, but the summer was well underway. The weather remained sunny all that week, and Alia and I continued to enjoy our newfound freedoms. Even with Cindy’s warning, I was happy that we didn’t merit a destroyer escort like she had. The days were much too bright and warm to be worrying about Angel spies anyway. My “salary” was mostly spent on pool admittance fees and lunches out. There wasn’t nearly enough money left to buy the kind of clothes I would have preferred over Cindy’s choices, so I settled for a pair of sunglasses instead.

My first heavy sunburn really hurt, and Alia, who had spent the greater part of her life indoors, had it even worse than me. Alia could heal sunburn just like she could regular burns, but we were blackened from head to toe. New Haven’s littlest psionic was completely worn out by the time she finished running her healing hands over every scorched inch of our bodies. From then on, we practically bathed in sun-block lotion before going out.

Pretty much incapable of holding a grudge, Alia had long since put her upsets with Cindy and me behind her. Nevertheless I made sure to continue giving her lots of attention, and Cindy was considerate enough not to harass me about restarting Alia’s mouth-speaking lessons.

All in all, it was wonderful to be living a normal life again. As always, thoughts of Cat and how she might be suffering in the hands of the Angels gnawed on my conscience from time to time, but at least I felt some comfort in the belief that the Guardians would eventually lead me to her.

And yet, despite the sharp upturn that my daily life had taken, I still had nightmares every single night: the berserker, Ralph, Dr. Denman, Nightmare, you name it. In fact, my nightmares since leaving the Psionic Research Center were even worse than when I had been living there. In a strange way, that made some sense. My life underground had been a continuous waking nightmare, so sleeping didn’t make things all that much worse. But now that I was safe and sound, dreams were the one place I was still vulnerable. Cindy often pestered me about getting Mr. Koontz’s help, but I stubbornly refused. I decided that, at least for myself, freedom had to include freedom from psionic and drug-induced control.

Whenever I woke in a cold sweat (which happened at least once a night), I sat by the window in the bedroom, looking up at the stars until I was calm enough to lie down again. If I woke screaming and consequently woke Alia, she would always sit silently by my side. Alia was strange that way: When I was her age, I couldn’t sit silently if my life depended on it, but Alia could be silent for hours when she wanted to be. We would sit together quietly looking out the window until one of us yawned. Usually it was Alia, but by the time I tucked her back into her bed, I too was sleepy enough to brave another bad dream.

And not even the worst of my nightmares could keep me in a foul mood once the sun rose. Despite my shaky nights, I was having the time of my life. Freedom was truly divine.

The week passed quickly. Too quickly, in fact, as is often the case when you’re having fun. The following Monday and Tuesday were rainy, but by then I didn’t mind being stuck indoors for a little while. Cindy was out of the penthouse for most of both days. Alia and I spent our time chasing each other around the house, throwing darts in the game room, exploring the home library, and tending the plants in the greenhouse while listening to the soft pattering of raindrops against the wide windowpanes.

“If it’s sunny tomorrow, I want to take Alia to the pool again,” I told Cindy over dinner Tuesday night.

“Well, yes...” Cindy said slowly, “I suppose you could go tomorrow.”

“What’s the matter?”

Cindy gave me an apologetic look. “I know you’re enjoying a well-deserved vacation, Adrian, but Mr. Baker has already picked your combat instructor, and he insists that you start your training as soon as possible.”

“Oh, right,” I said with a sigh. “Combat training.”

“And, of course, I’ve already found you and Alia your tutors for your academics as well.”

I groaned. “Oh, this gets better and better.”

Cindy smiled. “Well, here’s some good news, Adrian. Your assigned combat instructor is only a year older than you. Well, a year and a bit.”

“You’re kidding?!” I said, wide-eyed. “What’s his name?”

“Terry Henderson.”

“Terry, huh? And he’s fourteen years old?”

“Fifteen, but just turned. You’ll catch up quickly.”

“Is he any good?” I asked, remembering how Mr. Baker had said that my combat instructor would be about my age. I couldn’t believe anyone that young could make a passable instructor.

“Pretty good, I think,” said Cindy. “It’s Terry’s first time as a combat instructor, but Mr. Baker says he has every confidence.”

“Well, it’ll be my first time learning from a combat instructor.”

Cindy grinned. “Maybe you’ll be good friends.”

“Maybe,” I said brightly. Alia was as good a sidekick as they came, but it would be wonderful to have a friend closer to my own age for a change.

I asked, “Have you met him already?”

“Sure I have, months ago,” said Cindy. “Terry is a member of Mr. Baker’s Guardian group.”

“I don’t remember anyone fifteen years old on the bus,” I said.

“Well, Terry wasn’t part of the actual rescue mission.”

“What’s he like?”

“Why spoil the surprise?” said Cindy. “The two of you will meet tomorrow over dinner.”

“You invited him over?”

Cindy nodded. “Best way to get you two acquainted.”

“Fair enough,” I agreed. “And what about my, uh... other tutor?”

“That starts from next Monday.”

I frowned, and Cindy said, “It’s just a couple of hours in the mornings. Think of it as summer school. We’ll ask Terry to start your training from next week too, in the afternoons.”

School stuff in the mornings, combat training in the afternoons, and somewhere in between, I had to learn power balance and teach Alia how to mouth-speak. Mr. Baker was right: I was going to be kept busy.

The next day was still a bit cloudy, but the rain had stopped so I took Alia out to the pool right after breakfast. I wanted as much out-time as I could get before my vacation was terminated by combat and academics. Alia could already manage a pretty decent breaststroke. She would still kick up a storm and thrash about whenever she started to lose control, but at least she wasn’t getting too much water up her nose anymore.

For lunch, we had hotdogs and snow cones from the poolside stand. Alia, who knew perfectly well how to read time, nevertheless counted the seconds during our one-hour wait by repeatedly asking me,
“Is it time yet?”
and I decided that I would have to redouble my efforts in learning to block her telepathy from my head.

As I led Alia back into the pool, I noticed that the lifeguard was still watching over us. I wondered if perhaps he was one of the Guardian Knights patrolling our neighborhood.