Chaos (The Realmwalker Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter 14

I give Sam
directions to a local ice-skating rink that opens early on Saturdays. They have a bunch of comfortable booths around the rink and a huge snack bar where we can grab some lunch. I figure it’s a cool place for us to sit and talk and escape the heat.

“So are we really going to the concert tonight?” I ask. I wasn’t sure if that was just some cover story.

“Oh, hell yes!” Ember says enthusiastically.

“Thanks guys! I’ve never been to a concert before.”

“Are you serious?” Ember looks scandalized.

“Well, not unless you count piano recitals when I was younger,” I say, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Um. No,” Ember says lamely. “I don’t count piano recitals.” She laughs. “Man we’re going to have SO much fun! We’re lucky such a good band happened to be in town this weekend.”

“So how long can you guys stay?” I ask. “Sam, you’ve got to work eventually, right? And you still have school for another week, don’t you?” I ask Ember.

“I have to be back at work Monday by ten A.M.” Sam says.

“Yeah, I’ll have to fly home tomorrow,” Ember says with a scowl. “One more week. Just one more week,” she chants.

We pull into the parking lot of the ice rink and get out of the truck. Before we head inside, Sam digs around behind his seat for a small black messenger bag.

The rink has only been open a half an hour, so there are only a couple of families around. We sit in one of the many empty booths, and Sam carefully empties the contents of his bag onto the tabletop. Out comes an array of small electronic devices. Among these, I recognize a couple of the latest smartphones and five watches, each a unique style. Sam slides me one of the phones.

“Here’s your new phone, courtesy of the Walker account. Everyone’s preprogrammed in. Make sure you have this phone on you at all times. Here.” He pushes the watches closer to me. “Choose one of these.”

I look at all the watches. Two are obviously men’s watches, and one looks sporty and could be worn by either a girl or a guy. From the two remaining girls’ watches, I choose the one with the brown leather band. It’s stylish and looks more like a cool bracelet than a watch.

“I’ll take this one. So is it like a cool spy gadget? Is there a micro-camera in here or knock-out mist?” I tease. Sam reaches across the table and puts the watch on my left wrist.

“It’s cool, but not THAT cool,” Ember laughs. “It works as a pager. It’s a way for us to alert you if we can’t get you on your phone. Green alert means your presence in Chaos is requested but not necessary, in case you can’t get away at the moment. Yellow, you need to come to Chaos as soon as you can. Red alert, drop whatever you’re doing and get your ass to Chaos pronto!”

“It also displays three time zones: one for our L.A. base, one for where you live, and one for our London base,” says Sam.

“What do you mean ‘base’?” I ask, thrilled that I’m finally getting answers.

Sam explains it to me. “We have two bases Earth-side. Each Realmwalker has the option to live wherever they please or to move to one of the bases. Having a base on each half of the world helps us make sure there are Walkers inside Chaos at all times. When it’s night in England, it’s day in California. Get it?”

“Yeah, that makes total sense. Does everyone live at a base?”

Sam answers, “No, not everyone. Ben, Mel, and Timothy live at the London base right now. Lang-hao sort of bounces back and forth between the two, depending on where his job takes him. Crank and I are the only ones at the L.A. house right now.”

Ember pipes up, “Not for long though! As soon as I graduate, I am so there. I’ve already been accepted to UCLA and everything!”

“That’s awesome, Ember! It must be fun living with friends like that,” I say dreamily. “I’m surprised Crank is in L.A. He’s really young, right?” I ask Sam.

“Yeah, he’s fifteen. As soon as he came to Chaos and learned about the L.A. base, he moved his mother and him up from Paraguay,” he tells me.

“It was so sweet!” Ember croons. “It was always her dream to come to America. He bought her a beachside bungalow and a scarlet macaw named Big Red.”

“Whoa! How did he manage that?” Having a grandmother in Glendale, I know how expensive real estate can be out there. Especially oceanfront.

“Here’s a really cool part about being a Realmwalker,” Ember says, rubbing her hands together a little maniacally. “All of the cool things we learn in Chaos usually help us here in our daily lives. For example, we call Ben ‘The Wizard’ because he’s been able to really expand his knowledge. He is really, really smart. Like Einstein smart! He uses his smarts Earth-side and has all of his earnings from his inventions deposited right into the Walker account.”

“Wow, that’s really generous of him. So everyone lives off his money?” Somehow this doesn’t really seem fair to me.

“No, it’s not like that at all,” Ember says, shaking her head. “See, imagine decades, centuries even, of Realmwalkers using their talents to earn huge sums of money. Some invested and some left the majority of their fortune to the Walker account in their wills. After a while, it really adds up. And don’t feel bad about using the money. We all end up paying it back eventually. Before The Wizard made any money, he borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his research.”

“Hundreds of thousands?” I exclaim, perhaps a little too loudly. Embarrassed, I look around to make sure no one’s looking at us weird. “How much money is in this Walker account?” I ask in awe.

“More than you could spend in your lifetime,” she says casually.

I stare into space. I’m aware my slack-jawed expression must look stupid, but I can’t wrap my mind around it. All that money? And I have access to it?

“Which brings us,” Sam says as he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, “to this.” He takes out a plastic card and hands it to me. I turn it around in my hand. It looks like a debit card. There’s no name on it, just a series of numbers.

“This is only a temporary card. It has a three-thousand-dollar limit per day, so try not to go over that. This will have to hold you over until one with your name on it comes in the mail. There are no limits on that one. The PIN is thirteen forty-eight.”

I stare at the card in my hand. It feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. I can vaguely hear Ember in the background telling me about the significance of the PIN and how it’s the year of the earliest record they have of a Realmwalker.

I’m thinking about what this money could mean. My dad’s pension is all we’ve had for a source of income for the last four years. When the money started to run out and things were getting tight, Mom took a part-time job at the post office. Now Jana’s in college and my mom is under-qualified for any decent-paying job. We’ve been living with the fear of poverty looming over us. And now this? Unlimited funds, in the palm of my hand.

“Hey, Addy. Are you with us?” Ember snaps me out of my trance. I blink and a couple tears escape my eyes. I still can’t seem to look away from the card I’m holding.

“Ember, let’s give her a minute. Besides, I’m hungry again. Let’s see what they have here.” Sam gets up and motions for Ember to follow. I’m grateful for the minute alone, but all I can think of is I don’t deserve this money. I haven’t done anything to earn it. These people, these Realmwalkers risk their lives every night. They deserve it, not me.

But to be able to relieve my mom’s stress? That’s so tempting. I wonder if this means I’ll have to tell her. Maybe I can come up with some way to get her the money she needs without her finding out where it came from.

I glance around the rink and watch people skating. A father’s teaching his son to skate by pushing an upside-down bucket around. A couple holds hands as they skate, and it makes me think of Mel and Ben holding hands last night. I smile at the memory. I wonder if any of the other Walkers are in a relationship. All of a sudden an enormous tray of nachos is plopped down in front of me.

“Hope you’re hungry!” Ember says. My stomach growls as I stare at the food.

“How can I be starving already? We had a huge breakfast and it isn’t even lunch time yet,” I ask, a little embarrassed by my appetite.

“Get used to it,” Sam says. “We need to keep our bodies fueled. We burn a lot of calories in Chaos. Dig in.”

After a minute or two of munching on nachos, I try to continue our previous conversation as politely as I can while still eating.

“So, about this Walker account. Would I someday be able to help my mom and sister out?” I ask the two of them.

“Someday?” Ember says and gives me a weird look. “Why wait?”

I set the card down and slide it away from me. “I haven’t done anything to earn this yet. Maybe someday, when I’ve contributed enough or risked my neck enough to deserve it.”

Sam slides it back in front of me. “Trust us. You’ll definitely earn it, so stop worrying. Honestly, Adelaide, you could spend a million dollars and no one would even blink.”

I choke on a nacho and have to cough a few times before I manage to speak. “That’s an obscene amount of money. I can’t imagine ever needing to spend that much,” I say adamantly.

“Of course you don’t NEED to. No one NEEDS to spend a million dollars,” Ember tells me. “Relax, Addy. Have some fun! You need to remember something. The Realmwalkers’ unofficial motto,” she pauses dramatically, “we work hard, we play hard!” I shake my head in disbelief. “Come on, spoil yourself. The first thing I did when my card came in? I went and bought myself my own car.”

“How did you explain that to your parents?” I ask her.

“Oh, I told my mom about Chaos. It’s not a big deal. She doesn’t care about anything,” she says off-handedly. No matter how nonchalant she says it, I can still feel pain in her words. I move the conversation along to help get her mind off it.

“So, how would I be able to help her? I mean, it’s not like I can drop a huge amount of money on her lap. She’ll probably think I robbed a bank.”

Sam nods. “That’s why we have ‘The Walker Foundation.’ It’s for the Walkers who choose not to tell their families about their double lives. We set up this foundation that makes donations for whatever reason we can think up. For you, it will be easy—a donation to the surviving family members of a fallen officer.”

“Oooo, we should get on that,” Ember says around a mouth full of nachos.

“I bet there are a lot of people out there who think this Walker guy is pretty wealthy,” I say as an afterthought. Ember and Sam chuckle a little.

“
Forbes Magazine
has been trying to hunt down the allusive Mr. Walker for ages,” Ember tells me.

“Thanks guys. I can’t tell you what a relief it will be to have my mom taken care of. She’s done a lot for me and Jana.” I can imagine her face when she gets the donation. I can’t wait for that moment.

We finish the nachos and Sam goes to get us some drinks.

“So let’s see. What else should you know?” Ember taps her fingers on the tabletop while she thinks.

“I was hoping to learn a little more about the other Walkers, if that’s okay,” I suggest.

“Oh yeah, that’s right! Okay, where should we start?” she asks me as Sam gets back with the drinks. I grab a water bottle and think about the Walkers.

“Why not start with the last person to enter Chaos, besides me, and then work backwards?”

“That’s a good idea,” Sam says.

“So that would be … Timothy! Oh! This is great!” Ember starts laughing hysterically.

Sam shakes his head and looks annoyed. I decide to rescue him. “It’s all right. I’ve already heard this story. Mel and Crank told me all about how Timothy used to sleep in the nude.” As I say it, I find it harder to keep a straight face than I thought it would be. Ember’s still laughing though she’s struggling to get control of herself. “So he’s from Scotland?”

“Yes,” says Sam. “Timothy Fairweather is twenty-nine years old. He answered the call about ten months ago. Timothy’s an expert marksman. While he prefers guns, his precision applies to any type of projectile. He’s good with a bow and arrow, a crossbow, and throwing knives as well. He’s also our weapons specialist. He can build and upgrade any piece of weaponry you can imagine, literally. If you can think it up, he can build it.”

“Oh, so that explains why he was strapped with all those guns last night.” I picture the tall, orange-haired man with a friendly smile. “Yeah, I didn’t recognize any of those weapons.”

Ember’s calmed down enough to contribute. “He’s also working on making us some armor. It’s still in the works, but I’ve seen his prototypes and they’re amazing.”

“Right now, Earth-side, he has a few contracts with some weapons manufacturers. He helps upgrade models of weapons that soldiers use in the field.”

Ember looks serious now. “He could be making millions outfitting the world’s armies with new and advanced weapons if he chose. Once I asked him why he doesn’t, and he quoted Robert Openheimer after he invented the atomic bomb. ‘I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ He says he doesn’t want to give them too much destructive power and then be responsible for the misuse of it.”

“Wow,” I say. I let that sink in. I guess Realmwalkers can have a bigger influence on the world than I’d ever imagined. It’s a good thing that most of the Walkers seem to be really good people.

“Next is Oscar Torres,” Ember says, “or, as we tenderly call him, Crank.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“Oscar,” Sam says, “is our resident mechanic. He builds and maintains our vehicles. He collaborates with Timothy on the weapons and defense systems on each vehicle.”

“So he made all of those Big-Bikes? He knows how to make them fly?” I ask in awe.

“Yep. And he’s not only a mechanical genius,” Ember brags. “He can also control and manipulate water.”

“Oh, that’s right! I saw him do that last night.” I picture him pulling water from the fire hydrant.

“Before Crank, came Kira Sato,” Sam goes on. “Kira’s nineteen and from Japan.” I think of the sweet girl with dimples and long, perfect hair. “Kira uses a katana when she fights, but she doesn’t really need to. She’s a mixed martial arts world champion.”

“I thought she looked like she was in really good shape,” I say. I remember her fighting in Chaos. She moved so fast I could hardly follow her movements with my eyes. “What’s her ability?” I ask Sam.