The Gifted (8 page)

I was elbowed sometime later by Tracy.
“Listen,” she whispered.

“Now let me tell you about one of our newest
theories,” the man went on excitedly. “We do see increased brain
activity in those who have these powers, so we always knew it had
to do with the brain. And for some reason, these powers only show
up in children from the ages of nine through twelve. But why this
is the case has always puzzled us, so that we imagined that once a
boy can shave, he shaves his abilities away, right down the drain
they go. Makes us want to check our drains.”

He stopped again, realizing he had somehow
gotten off topic. Then he remembered himself again. “But new
studies have shown a common trend that at first confused us, but
now may make sense. You see, each of the children, prior to showing
these new powers, got sick for an extended period. The symptoms
were usually like a flu and lasted for about two weeks. Once over
that sickness, each of these children found that they gradually had
these new abilities.”

“It is now our new theory that these two are
linked and that the powers might be triggered by a virus. It is
true that there are thousands of undocumented viruses floating
around out there, yet to be discovered. . .” I nodded off
again.

This is how the talk went and it continued
with pictures and videos, seemingly forever. Guido woke me up later
and I heard people talking and shuffling out of the room. “We have
free time until dinner,” said the voice of Guido.

“You want to do some exploring?” I said.

“I don’t think so,” said Guido. “You don’t
want to do that here.”

“Why not?” I said.

“That’s what Tracy and I did during lunch and
it’s not safe.” Guido looked worried. “We found a whole section of
this building that’s off limits to kids. Tracy waited while I snuck
myself in as far as I dared. No one may notice me by looking, but
if someone had bumped into me, all bets are off!”

“Get to the point, Guido!” said Tracy,
impatiently.

“It was a whole military compound. While kids
are being trained here, adults are training for combat over there.
They were practicing with guns and heavy artillery. Not firing
anything really heavy at the time or we would have heard them over
here. I’m not sure what the general thought he was sending us to,
but there’s more going on here than they told us. More than they
probably even know themselves!”

Now I was interested. “Can you show me where
you found it?” I asked.

“Sure, but don’t let anyone catch you there.
I’m not sure what they would do, but it can’t be good.”

Tracy chimed in. “Come on, Guido. It’ll be
fun!”

Once out of the room, Han and I followed
Guido and Tracy. We made sure no one saw us leave, then we headed
down some hallways until we came to a door labeled “LTF-Keep
Out!”

“I wonder what that means,” I said.

“I wondered that too,” said Guido from
somewhere ahead of me. “I found out and it scared me so bad I came
right back out.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

“Lethal Training Facility,” he said. “It’s
where they train with all kinds of weapons for killing. These guys
are playing for keeps!”

“Oooh,” said Tracy, “that just means they
have the best toys!” Tracy approached the door and tried the
handle. “Locked,” she said.

“Of course it is,” said Guido. “It was locked
for me too, remember?”

“Then how did you get in?” I asked.

I heard a laugh. “I waited until someone came
out and then waved at the guy as I walked inside. He didn’t see a
thing.”

“You’re so lucky,” said Tracy. “I wish I had
that gift.”

“Hey, you could have lit him up like a
torch,” said Guido. “Mine is downright boring compared to
yours.”

“Okay guys,” I said. “It looks like there is
no way inside unless your name’s Guido, so let’s give it up.”

“Oh, can’t we just take a peek?” asked
Tracy.

“Too risky,” I said. “If I heard right, we
were sent to gather information
without
getting killed. I
distinctly remember that being important.”

“I’m with him,” said Guido.

“Me too,” said Han.

I turned to leave and Tracy gave up and
followed us.

When we got back to the cafeteria it was
mostly empty. I walked up to some kid I didn’t know and tapped him
on the shoulder. “Where is everyone? Isn’t it dinner yet?”

“Not yet, they’re at Conditioning and
Sports,” he said, like I was dumber than rock. He pointed to the
south section, so we headed that way. Following the noise, we found
a hallway to the right that led to an enormous gym. I say gym, but
it was probably as large as five gyms put together. There was a
ropes course, an obstacle course, and a weight lifting area on one
side of the room. On the other there were various sports going on.
I saw basketball, soccer, and what looked to be capture the flag,
all happening at once. All of these had one thing in common. They
were used to condition and train the kids. There were no video
games, bean bag chairs, or vending machines. This place was a
training facility from beginning to end.

“Oh well,” I said. “What do you want to
do?”

At that moment someone blew a loud whistle
and everyone dropped what they were doing and headed for the doors.
I asked one of the kids what was going on. “Dinner!” he said as if
I was a few marbles short of a full collection.

We followed them.

Dinner was mostly uneventful. I ate rice,
fish, and some kind of cooked leafy greens while trying to piece
together what we had learned so far. As it turns out, we hadn’t
learned much. We were trapped on this island with no way to
communicate with the base we came from. We were here to get
information about what they were planning, but we didn’t know much
of anything yet.

Most of us were tired, so we only talked a
little. Afterwards we learned that we were given free time, but
most of the kids went back to Conditioning and Sports. These guys
had no life. Didn’t they play like normal kids?

We headed back to our rooms and talked. Tracy
said she wanted to hang out with some of the girls and see if she
could find out anything more.

Meanwhile, I played a game of chess in our
room with Guido, who borrowed a small chessboard from one of the
kids, while Han worked on some origami.

Guido was about to take my king for the
second time, “You’ve got to take some chances if you are going to
win,” he said. “Stop trying to play it safe! You can’t win that
way.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. There was a knock at
the door of our room.

I opened it and saw Abe. “Andy,” he said.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?”

“Sure,” I said. Han looked up at me and then
went back to his folding.

I stepped out with Abe and we walked along
the corridor. Kids were mostly in their rooms now, so it was quiet
and empty. Abe began speaking in his smooth tone of voice. “It took
me awhile to recognize it, but now I know. Andy, you are a leader.
A leader is someone who has power over other people. When he
speaks, they obey. You have that kind of gift. A gift you should
use.” Now we were at the cafeteria in dim light. We kept walking,
silent for a moment.

“Here’s what I am proposing,” he said. “Come
be a part of our leadership here at the facility, and you and I can
double our influence. I do pretty well on my own, I won’t lie about
that.” We were in some hallway now I didn’t recognize, having taken
a few turns. “But we could be almost unstoppable if the two of us
joined our powers together. People would flock to follow us,
whether they wanted to or not. That’s the beauty of the power we
each have.” He turned the switch of a light and I saw that we were
on the stage of the auditorium where I had seen Abe speak earlier.
“I’m offering all of this to you!” He motioned toward the imaginary
audience. There must have been enough chairs for a thousand. “I can
teach you what I know so that people will hang on each word you
say. So, what do you think?”

“Can I think about it?” I said.

Abe looked disappointed. “Sure,” he said,
“but not too long.” He paused and looked intently at me for a
moment, and then turned and left the stage, heading back the way we
had come.

Once he had gone, I looked out over the seats
in the auditorium and imagined everyone hanging on my words. I
imagined a crowd of people who would do anything I wanted them to
do. I thought of the respect I would get, the cheers and applause.
I thought of how I could disprove the general’s words.

Then another thought came to me. It was a
story I had heard when I was at school. The teacher often told
Bible stories and there was one about when Jesus had been taken to
the top of some tall building or something. Satan showed him the
whole world and told him that if he just bowed down to him, he
would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. All he had to do
was bow to Satan and he would get all that.

I didn’t remember all the specifics of the
story, but I remembered Jesus didn’t go for it because it wouldn’t
be right. Because it would mean bowing to what was evil. I thought
how power was great, but what would I be sacrificing for it?

I turned off the lights and headed back down
the hallway. Eventually I got back to my room where my roommates
were asleep. I sat up and thought about it some more until I was
too tired to think. And that’s the way I fell asleep.

The next morning we had our jog and
breakfast. While I ate, I mostly thought of two things: what the
general had said about me not being a leader, and the offer Abe had
made the night before.

“Did you know they have a live dragon?” said
Tracy with excitement at breakfast.

“What?” I said, snapping out of it. “You're
kidding.”

“Yup, you're right, I am,” she said. “But I
did learn some things.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Some of the girls were talking about it last
night. It turns out these gifts, or powers, as they call them, can
do more than we ever believed.”

“What do you mean?” Han asked quietly.

“You know about magnetic resonance theory?”
said Tracy.

“No,” I said. “What’s that?”

“If you’d been paying attention to the
lecture yesterday instead of sleeping you would have known. The
idea is that these gifts work a lot like magnets and iron. When you
get two people working these gifts close to each other, they start
to swap abilities. If I stay in the same room trying to set things
on fire, while Guido is focusing on being unnoticed, I start to get
his gift and he gets some of mine. But we both have to be using
them at the same time. If only one of us uses our gift, it doesn’t
work. That’s the main idea behind Mixed Arts.”

“Wow!” I said. “Maybe we should all be over
there.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, “There’s a
downside.”

“What is it?” I asked.”

“They don’t just add on top of each other. In
order to make room for some of my gift, Guido has to lose some of
his. To gain one you have to lose the other.”

“So what's the advantage?” I said. “If you
spread yourself thin enough you won't have much of anything.”

“It seems people usually only pick up a few
gifts at most.”

“What happens if you have similar gifts
already?” I asked.

“Well, skin-to-skin contact magnifies it, but
even without that, yours would get even more powerful,” she
said.

More power
, I thought.
More like
Abe.

Once breakfast was over, Tracy and Guido left
together. I looked at Han and said, “Well, let’s see what’s
next.”

“Okay,” said Han.

We followed the other kids back into the main
lecture hall again. This time we both sat with Derek since his
trainer was a girl.

I was able to find Derek near the middle of
the room so I sat next to him, while Han was next to me. Derek was
talking to someone. He introduced me, “Andy, hi. This is Mick.”

“Hi, Mick,” I said. “This is Han.” Han shook
his hand.

Mick’s eyes were so dark they looked black.
And they were sunk into his head with big dark bushy eyebrows. He
reminded me of a Neanderthal caveman, but when he shook my hand, he
smiled. I almost felt sorry for him, he probably didn’t even like
to smile, but people almost have no choice when they meet me.

“So what’s your trick!” said Mick.

“Oh, he makes people like him,” said Derek.
“It’s an influencing gift.”

“A what?” I said.

“One of the main categories,” he said as if I
should have known this already. “We’ll talk about it another
time.”

“Okay,” I said. “What about you, Mick?”

“Oh, just this,” he said. And then his skin
grew scaly and dark green, and gills grew out of the side of his
head. I almost jumped out of my seat.

“How do you like it?” he said.

“What
are
you?” He was creeping me
out!

“Same guy,” said Mick. “I just make you see
what I want you to see. You like it?”

“Sure, but you could give a guy nightmares,”
I said.

He smiled, “Well, that’s the idea. For the
enemy.”

Before I had a chance to ask any questions
about who the enemy was, Abe came out on stage. Derek and Mick
stopped talking and turned their full attention to Abe as if in a
trance.

Abe lifted both hands in greeting as if
embracing us all, “My friends, today let’s talk about one of the
powers you may not see very often.” A young boy came out onto the
stage. He looked nervous.

“I want Paul here to show you something,”
said Abe. Abe backed away as Paul reached to the ground and lifted
up a heavy looking barbell that I hadn’t noticed before. He raised
it above his head, which I could tell was a bit of an effort for
him. Then he let go. The weight stayed in the air. He then reached
out his hand and spun it around and it just floated there, spinning
wildly.”