The Gifted (15 page)

“What about him?” I asked.

Han noticed where I was pointing. The guy
writing on the messed up paper kept on scribbling. We walked over
to him. “What are you writing?” I asked.

“It’s a letter I was going to send my family,
but I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to send it,” he said.

“Would you mind giving it to us if it could
possibly help us break out of here?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Don’t know how much good it
will do, but here you go.” He handed it to me and I gave it to
Han.

Han took off his glasses first and cleaned
them on his shirt. Then he unfolded the paper, straightened it out
on the floor and began to fold it. The soldier and I watched.
“Origami,” he said. “I used to be able to do a paper crane
once.”

Han just kept folding. He did this quietly,
expertly. He was creasing, and then folding. Sometimes he would
unfold something and then fold it again to make it do something
different. This went on for a few minutes; what he was making
looked very complex. When he was done he had a perfect origami
man.

“If I spent more time,” he said, “I could
make him more realistic, but this will have to do.”

He set the man down and then breathed on it.
The man stood up taller and then stretched as though awaking from a
nap. “They all do that,” said Han. “I don’t know why.”

The soldier looked shocked, “Captain,” he
said. “You’ve got to see this!”

Brock came over. Han whispered something to
the paper man I didn’t quite hear. I did hear the word “hurt”
though. This had me intrigued.

“Right,” said Brock. “It’s his gift.
Interesting, but not useful.” He sat back down.

The paper man strolled up to the door and
started climbing the wall next to it. Since the wall was made of
rough-hewn bricks, it was like he was mountain climbing up a steep
cliff. Once he got high enough, he jumped over to the barred window
in the door, stood up and waved to us. Then he turned and jumped
off, outside the door.

This whole thing was so weird to me. “He’ll
be back,” said Han calmly, like he did this all the time.

We waited.

I turned back to Han, “How did you learn to
do origami?”

“When I was four,” he said, “I had a grandma
who would make paper cranes. This is a common custom for Japanese
people.”

“So you’re Japanese?” I said.

“Korean,” he said.

“Huh? Then why did you get into origami?”

“It was cool,” he said. And that seemed to
answer it for him.

“What else can you do with paper?”

“Many things,” he said. “With more
imagination, more things.”

“Well the planes were helpful in the
battle.”

“Yes,” said Han, “and cool.”

We heard a sound at the door and it creaked
open. Han walked up to the door, picked up his little paper man and
took a set of keys from him. “Good job,” said Han.

“What?” said Brock.

“We’re free!” shouted Tracy, and I heard
several more of the soldiers start talking a lot louder.

“Shhh,” said Brock. “We’re not free yet. They
might hear us. But great job, Han.”

“Thanks.”

Everyone carefully and quietly evacuated the
cell. As soon as we all got outside, we opened other cells for more
of our men. One held Hayasa, who was chained as well. When we
opened it and unlocked his chains, he came at me and knocked me to
the ground with such force it was good I was next to Han, who
caught me.

From there we tried to be quiet, but
something was bothering me. “What happened to the guards?” I asked
Han quietly. “Weren’t there any guards?”

As we got everyone out and we reached the end
of the hallway, I peered through the opening in the top of another
door. No one there. We used the keys to open it. As soon as we did,
I heard muffled sounds. Then I saw them, three men. One was
hog-tied and on the floor, one tied to a chair, and a third was
tied to the bars of a holding cell. The guy in the chair had a
bloody nose and as soon as he saw us he looked scared, but when he
saw our paper man, he tried to scream in terror. The gag made that
impossible. Han patted the head of his paper man, “Good boy.”

“He did this?” said Brock.

“Yes,” said Han.

“Note to self,” said Brock. “Don’t
underestimate these kids.”

Han walked toward one of the desks and
reached into the paper wastebasket and took out paper, carefully
folding it and putting it in his back pocket.

“Cool trick,” said Guido to Han from
somewhere nearby.

“Found them,” said one of the soldiers. He
had opened a closet door and in it was a pile of military packs.
Each man put one on his back.

As we passed the guards, I heard footsteps
coming quickly from in front of us. A man with a square shaped head
and buzz cut rushed into the room carrying a gun. He aimed it at
us. The gun was huge, it looked just like. . .

“Hey, that’s mine,” said Brock.

The man smiled. “Why don’t you give it to
me?” said Brock.

“Oh, I’ll give it to you,” said the man.
Brock took a step back and the guy with the gun aimed and I saw a
curious thing. Brock was trying not to smile. I recognized that
because people had been trying not to smile around me a lot
lately.

“You asked for it,” said the man, and fired.
It was terribly loud. I heard “Ahhh!” as the man screamed and the
ringing in my ears grew louder simultaneously. The gun was on the
ground and he was holding a bloody hand. Brock quickly picked up
the gun, “Shoots a bit to the right, doesn’t it? Oh, and you’d
better get that sewn on as soon as possible.” Then we all followed
him out of the room while the man remained behind, holding his
hand. The ringing in my ears stayed with me for a long time.

We opened another door that went out into the
main dungeon area. I had been here before. One of the men motioned
to a way out and said, “How about this way?” This was the way that
led to the dragon.

“You don’t want to go that way,” I said.
“Trust me.”

“Got it,” Brock said. “Then we go this
way.”

The other way was out through the school. Oh
well, what else could we do? Anyway, now we were an army and not
just a few kids against the whole compound.

After going down the first corridor, Brock
said, “Which way?”

“We’ll just have to take our chances,” I
said.

I looked at Han. He whispered something to
the paper man. They both smiled. I didn’t even know paper could
smile!

When we got outside the next door we heard
some talking. Han pointed and the little guy stepped boldly
out.

It was amazing! First, one of two boys said,
“What’s that?” Then I saw the little guy jump in the air and do
some Korean Jiu Jitsu or something and knock the spit out of this
guy. I mean I actually saw spit fly from his mouth as he hit the
ground. Then the next boy said, “Whoa, I’m gonna get you.” He came
at the little guy, but when he tried to step on him the little one
was too fast. As the boy stomped, the little paper man climbed
quick as a whip up his leg and did some kind of over the back flip.
He grabbed one of the kid’s ears and pulled. The boy hit the ground
grabbing his ear. Then the little guy grabbed the boy’s shirt,
ripped it off with one yank, and tied him up right in front of us.
It must have lasted no more than ten seconds.

“Pretty good,” said Brock. “That was Gendai
Jujutsu. Overall, I’d have to rate him a nine out of ten. Good form
though.”

I had no idea what Brock was talking about.
We were already on our way. “What is our goal?” I said. “What are
we trying to do?”

“First,” said Brock, holding up one finger,
“find our way out of this place. Second,” he held up a second
finger, “report their plans to our base. You do know their plans,
don’t you?”

“Not specifics,” I said. “They never told us
much except that they had plans, and they are enemies of the United
States. Maybe they were suspicious of us.” A feeling of failure
crept over me.

“Okay,” said Brock. “In that case, we have a
new goal,” said Brock. “One, find out their plans. If we can find
specific plans written out, that would be best. Two, find our way
out of here. I prefer alive.”

“I like that last idea,” I heard Guido say
from somewhere behind me. “Especially the alive part.”

“Do you have any idea where plans might be
hidden?” said Brock. “Maybe a set of offices somewhere?”

“I never saw anything like that,” I said.
“How about you, Han?”

“Not me,” said Han.

“Not me,” said Guido.

“Where’s Tracy,” I yelled.

“Back here,” I heard her yell from the behind
the men.

She stepped forward. “Have you seen any
offices?” I asked.

“No, but I think I know where they are,” she
said. “The boy that was training me said he worked in an office
cleaning up at night. When he left to go to his job, he would walk
down the corridor on the back side of the compound. I know, because
I followed him once.”

“Can you get us there?” asked Brock.

“Yes, once I know where we are,” she said.
“We need to get upstairs into the main school though.”

“Great,” I said. “So much for a quiet
getaway. Students will be everywhere!”

“It is night though,” said Guido, “and we
have paper ninja here.”

“And Hayasa,” said Tracy.

“Oh yeah,” said Brock. “And this!” He pulled
out his gun again that looked like it weighed as much as me. “But I
won’t use it on anyone unless they fire first.” Then he pretended
to open an invisible door, “Tracy, lead the way.”

We were already at the base of the stairs
that led up to the main school. The problem was going to be getting
past all those kids. Each of them with gifts of their own and each
of them trained to attack. We all walked up the stairs of the
dungeon. Hayasa was panting at my side and running up and down the
stairs, whizzing by in a blur. The little paper man walked quickly
in front of us, our body guard, even though he was only about seven
inches tall. Brock and Tracy were in front, and Han and I were
behind them and I have no idea where Guido was. Behind us were the
soldiers, some of whom were wounded, but all able to walk.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, we came
to a door. Brock opened it cautiously and stepped through. The
coast was clear, no one around. We all came through, just as two
boys entered from another room. We were in a large room, and these
boys took one look at us and assumed a fighting stance.

“Here we go,” said Brock.

“Here they are, Sam!” said one of the boys.
“Let’s practice what we’ve learned.”

The other boy lifted up his hands and we
heard a noise like a loud wind. Then we felt it as it came out of
nowhere. It blew the paper guy away and many of us fell over. Brock
was big enough that he was able to stay up, but he couldn’t walk
forward. There were soldiers sliding on their backs to the back
wall, unable to get up. Then Hayasa ran around the outside of the
room in a blur, came up behind him and bit him on the rear.
“Aaahhh! Get him off me!”

The other kid ignored his friend and clapped
his hands dramatically. Out from his hands came snakes. They looked
the size and shape of cobras. Flying from his hands, they started
to slither toward us.

“Ohhh, snakes,” said Brock. “I can do
this.”

At first I thought he was joking, but then I
saw him trembling and he was sweating. One of the soldiers said, “I
think these are poisonous.” We backed away to the wall. Some men,
who were still lying down from the wind, were now getting up and
moving toward the corner as well.

“How do we get rid of snakes?” I asked.

“On the farm,” said Han, “people shoot snakes
with shot guns.”

“Not here,” said Brock. “The ricochet would
kill us.” He turned his head, “Tracy, torch ‘em.”

“Sure thing,” she said. In seconds, the
ground was littered with flaming, sizzling snake meat.

The boy laughed and said, “There’s plenty
more where that came from!” But at that moment our paper ninja came
running up from wherever he’d blown to, jogged up the kid’s chest,
and punched him in the nose. Blood began to gush. He cried out and
ran out the door. Hayasa let go of the other boy, who followed his
friend out of the room.

“We may have more after us soon,” said Brock.
“You can bet they’ll tell others.”

We checked the men, but there were no
injuries. We all headed toward the door. We didn’t even get that
far. Soon, two boys and a girl showed up. They looked ready for a
fight as well. Good practice for them, I guess.

One boy closed his eyes and I felt a sudden
fear. This was not just like being afraid of the dark. This was
fear of horrible things happening to me. I was afraid of
everything. I was afraid of dying, afraid of spiders, afraid of
being lost, afraid of losing my family, and afraid of bubble gum
getting stuck in my hair all at once! It made no sense. I knew it
was this boy. Many of the men started to tremble when he did
this.

I remembered a Bible verse I had to memorize
in school which said, “Fear not, for I am with you.” I often
thought of this when I felt scared or lonely. And who is bigger
than God? I focused on this verse, saying it over and over. When I
opened my eyes, everyone else was crouching down in fear. I
straightened up, still feeling fear, but knowing it was a lie. I
walked over to the boy in spite of what I felt, reached down and
grabbed his ankles out from under him. He crashed to the ground.
Then I grabbed a couple of dead, burnt snakes that were lying next
to him and I tied his hands and ankles so he could not get up. Kind
of gross, but it worked.

The second boy looked at me, shocked. Then he
closed his eyes. The room got cold. Really cold. I could see my
breath, but this didn’t really stop me. It was a neat trick though.
I looked for other scraps of snakes, but couldn’t find any. Before
I even got a chance, I heard a “thunk” sound. Brock, no longer
afraid since I took care of the first boy, had walked up to the
second boy and clubbed him on the head with his fist. The boy
toppled to the ground like a load of laundry. “I don’t think he’ll
be doing that again anytime soon,” he said.