It thrashed and wailed out in anger, and I just kept on flying until we reached a good height. When we did, I just stopped pulling us up, and we fell back toward the ground. The Gorlo took the lead, and I ripped one hand out of the plating– which was disgusting, by the way; lots of goo and liquids under than armor.
Anyway, with my free hand, I tried to intensify the effect of gravity around it’s body, and pull up its head with my other hand, all at once.
And uh… it worked, I would argue a little too well. I ripped its head clean off, and the body smashed into the ocean. I had to shake to all hell just to get my hand free of it’s massive skull, and then that crashed into the water too. I took a deep breath, and saw some clapping coming from the scientists by the bay. Bell just watched proudly, and Bentley marched back inside. Number one fan, right there.
“Anyway…” I sighed, looking back over to Ox. “What were you saying?”
“Malek,” Ox continued. “He created the Wanderer.”
“He– what?” I said, taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Many, many years prior, Malek had decided to create a title which would give the life so beneath him a chance to grow. An opportunity for one to become more than what they were, and perhaps reach his level of excellence. Ox was the first to receive this title, without any forewarning, and his species were plagued with it for centuries following.”
“Wait, so… this isn’t some kind of honor-bound galactic occupation?” I asked. “You mean it’s like a curse?”
“It was,” Ox said. “The title is, in itself, what baits these challengers. Malek wanted the Wanderer to have trials by fire, as it were, to grow at an increased pace. He requires some kind of an end to his desperate loneliness that he thought to meddle with life as it stood on the planet of our people, and in turn, we made it as honorable a title as possible. Challengers even not afflicted by the lure of our title saw us as a threat.”
“Like a bouncer?” I asked. Ox just stared at me, confused. “Like, I don’t know… Like a bodyguard?”
“Yes, from a certain perspective,” he agreed. “And in time, those creatures in the galaxy who had no means to protect themselves looked to the Wanderer as a savior of sorts; a guardian. Hence, the mantra of the Wanderer was born: defender of good, protector of the weak, and guardian to life itself.”
“Oh…” I said. “Well, that’s… kind of a downer, really. So none of you could stop Malek, but you still helped save millions of other species anyway? Why?”
“Jason, when you have the ability to help those who cannot help themselves– especially from threats such as these– it is a disservice to them, and to yourself, with the gifts you have, not to do so,” Ox said. Wow, maybe he really should go into therapy.
“Okay, so is the Wanderer a curse or a gift, then?” I asked. “I feel like you keep flip-flopping.”
“It was not something we asked for,” Ox said, “but after 1,641 incarnations, we have learned to give it more worth than Malek deems worthy. Perhaps, Jason, you ought to do the same.”
And then, I guess to be dramatic, Ox disappeared. I was alone, out in the middle of the ocean.
I got a text, from Alannah.
“Hey,” she said. “Where are you?” I guess the suit let me just know these things, which was… kind of awesome, honestly.
I took a deep breath, and shook my head. Thinking my response would probably work if I could read them through my mind, right?
“Challenger, in the city,” I said. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, don’t be sorry.”
“Okay, sorry…”
“Lol. Hey, can we talk? Like, in a little bit?”
So, as I’m sure you can imagine, my insides were screaming a mix of both yes and no, and they were being really loud. At the same time, if Malek now had this weird tie to me, and he just found me at my friend’s house to prove it, being around them meant I was putting the people I loved in danger if I stuck around like that anymore.
It was really poor timing, but I didn’t really have another choice. I couldn’t afford to let them get hurt… they were all I had.
Granted, I was also sort of chickening out and not talking to Alannah, when she really deserved some kind of explanation for whatever kind of scene I’d made back in Alex’s driveway, but… I was scared. Like, terrified, actually.
“Maybe, idk. USB keeping me for training. Bentley’s being a real dickhead :” I texted back. Brain-texting emojis like that were a whole mental process, I don’t even want to get into it.
“K. Just let me know when you’re free.”
“Yeah…” I sighed, taking back off toward the U.S.B. “I’ll do that…”
“You want to what?” Bentley asked, leant against the wall in Bell’s office.
“I just want to stay here for a little while,” I repeated. “Not forever. I just need a place to lay low. Somewhere safe.”
“Why, Jason?” Bell asked. “What’s going on?”
“I…” I tried.
I didn’t want to get into the whole Malek business with them, it’d only get them worried. I hated to admit it, but I was starting to really care about these guys too, I didn’t want to have to worry about protecting them. The less they knew, the better.
“I just can’t handle everything back home, right now, and I’m trying not to start stealing again,” I said. “Look, I’m growing a lot here anyway, right? And you’ve got plenty of other patients in here full-time.”
“Those ‘patients’ aren’t sixteen year old boys,” Bell said. “Who go to high school.”
“Tell them I took a mental vacation. Death in the family; Great Uncle Vinny had one too many and keeled over, now I need to plan his funeral all on my own.”
“Why don’t you just suck it up and go to school, kid?” Bentley pushed. “Nobody likes high school, some people are just better at pretending they do than others.”
“I’m guessing you got picked on a lot there, huh?” I asked. “Big boy Bentley, they call you?” Bentley scowled at me, and Bell waved him off.
“Give us a minute, Bentley,” he said.
“Little prick…” Bentley muttered, stepping outside. I blew him a quick little kiss, and he flipped me off before he closed the door. We had fun, I think.
I turned back to face Bell, as he stood out of his chair, and sat back down on the table.
“What’s going on, Jason?” he asked. “Really? You’ve been on a several week– month, really– clean streak without stealing anything. I know you well enough to understand you’re not dealing with withdrawals from that lifestyle.”
I took a second, trying to weigh out what was best to say. I really didn’t like lying to people, but I just wanted to move on, not have the weight of the world thrust on my shoulders every two seconds, and worry about keeping everyone I knew and then some safe.
“I just…” I said. “I’ve got a… bully, situation. He’s smarter than me, stronger than me, and he won’t leave me alone. And…And I could handle him picking on me all he wants, but he’s threatening to hurt the people I love. If I stay there, it’s only going to get worse. I don’t even really know that I can stay here, because he might want to hurt you guys too, and… I don’t know, I just– I guess I’m kinda starting to care about you guys too, you know? A little.” Bell chuckled a little, and nodded.
“I care about you too, Jason. Bentley does, he’s just too proud to admit it; he wouldn’t push you so hard with his drones if he didn’t think you couldn’t take it,” he said. “But… if this ‘bully’ really can get to anyone you care about, I think you just need to confront him, right?”
“I wish I could, but… I don’t know how. My emotions give me a leg up, but… it makes me dangerous. I can’t control myself as well, and someone could get hurt if I did something stupid.”
“Well, have you thought of going somewhere just for you? Somewhere you can’t reach us, as we can’t reach you? You could train there, think, try to get a grip on things w
ithout having to worry about us all getting in the way,” Bell suggested. It wasn’t a bad idea, really, but only one thing came to mind, and I wasn’t totally sure how I’d make it work.
“Well, I mean… I guess there’s one place I could try,” I said. Bell nodded.
“Alright, well wherever it is, try it. And when you want, you can come back here, and I promise you, we’ll do everything in our power to keep you out of harm’s way. I’ll even send some people to your hometown to keep an eye on your friends; nothing too intrusive, just general local surveillance, that kind of thing. That sound good?”
“Yeah, yeah I guess that’s…” I stumbled. I really wasn’t used to adults being this nice to me. “That’d be really great. I… thanks– thank you, Bell.” He smiled, and put a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re welcome, Jason,” he said. “I get that this must not be easy, and I appreciate that you’re trying your best here; you’re a lot more mature for a sixteen year old than you give yourself credit for.”
“For a sixteen year old,” I repeated, smirking a little. “But not for an adult.”
“Eh, you’re on par with Bentley; take that as you will.”
“I thought I was more mature than most teenage girls,” I said. We laughed a little, and after a quick goodbye, I made my way out and up to the skies. I had to give this whole private sanctuary thing a try, and the sooner the better.
I focused as best I could on my flight, and as I burst through the atmosphere, and farther, and farther, and farther, eventually– and I know this sounds crazy– I reached it. The moon. My private little zen-den.
Yeah, I know. Pretty awesome.
10
Two Sides
Alex called, I let it go to voicemail. Julia called, I let it ring. Sam even called, and I just let it go. Alannah never called though– I mean, neither had will, but you know what I mean.
I spent most of the next day and a half on the moon. You’d think it would get pretty boring pretty quick– after all, it’s just a big rock with literally nothing on it– but I’d done a lot of thinking; which, for me, actually meant a bit of training as well. And all the while, I refused to answer my phone; call it cowardice if you want, I guess in a way it was, but for more than one reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to them.
Ox and I spent a lot of time trying to understand my powers better. Yes, they were spurred on by emotions, but I needed to get a strong enough grasp on them that I could just call them on whenever I needed. A lot of that had to do with focusing, whether it be on my task or the powers themself. It wasn’t easy what with the A.D.D. and all, but having thousands of pros helping my through it was actually pretty comforting.
More than that, we talked a lot about what the Wanderers had done for so many years. I know I already had most of their memories locked up inside my head, but it was like a catalogue of lifetimes I had to sweep through; it was a lot easier to just hear someone talk it out to me.
They varied in how they carried the mantle– Lanteeyns were typically very stoic, but the Wanderers especially tried their hardest to keep said feelings in check– some only returned home when they knew their time was up. It was a big old question mark on whether or not a Wanderer could survive after giving the title away, since most of them did it at either an old age or after a serious loss in battle. So like, if I ever tried to give it away, perfectly healthy, it might still kill me anyway and make me dissipate into nothingness.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t totally sold on the whole “intergalactic superhero” card anymore than the local superhero. If the baddies came to me, then we’d have some words, but otherwise I didn’t really want to patrol the stars for the rest of my life. I hardly had a life here, but what I did have I didn’t want to lose.
The Lanteeyns reengineered the title from being this God awful “you’re it” curse to a burden to bear, but one that came with responsibility and respect. Most of the Milky Way knew how the Wanderer was, if they were advanced enough to know about other intelligent life. Almost all of intelligent life, however, knew about the weavers.
Ironically, Ox and the others did not. Not all that much, anyway. None of them had ever met a weaver other than Malek, and all they knew was they were incredibly old, there were six of them, and Malek was the youngest– and he was alone. Other civilizations didn’t know much else, but they’d heard all kinds of stories of grandeur that made them out to be the founders of the universe, hence “weavers.”
Some species saw them as gods, other saw them as crazy tyrannical maniacs with a tendency to try and lord over their planets and people. Weavers were kind of nuts, basically.
At the moment, I was trying to improve my ground-to-air transitions during a fight, and how to maneuver in lower gravity a little more smoothly. Not super easy, but I mean, I was getting there.
“So Ox,” I said, flipping backward into the air, and trying to land back on the ground quickly. “Your people never got married, right?”
“That is correct,” Ox said. “We were a cohesive species. All for one, if you will.”
“Right, so like, everyone was family, right?” I said. I kicked myself forward, propelling through the air, and stomped back down on the moon. The ground? Moon-ground? “Like, everybody had somebody, because everybody had everybody?”
“What is your point, Jason?” Ox asked. “This is awfully confusing.”
“I don’t know, I just… you guys never really knew what it was like to be all alone then, right? You never had a moment of being an outcast, or a loner or… whatever.”
“Not at first, no. Once we were made into Wanderers, however, that could quite quickly change,” Ox said. “Being away from those you love is made all that much harder when there are many of them. Perhaps there is a certain benefit to having smaller numbers than we have.”
“Quality over quantity,” I said. Ox nodded. “Yeah, maybe…” My leg started buzzing, and I looked over to Ox, standing still for a second.
“Will,” he said.
“Again…?” I muttered. That was like, the fourth time one of them had called me today alone. It was surprising enough that the suit boosted my signal all the way to the freaking moon; why my friends were all calling me so much was just the baffled cherry on top of this confusion sunday.
I answered, despite the fact that I didn’t really want to, and he was already muttering away.
“Jason, Jason come on… pick up, pick up, pick up, pick–”
“I picked up, Will,” I said.
“Jason!” he shouted. “Where are you man? Sam says you haven’t been home all day.”
“I’m not, I’m– I’m out, with… friends,” I said, looking over at Ox. He didn’t react; playing it cool, total chill friend thing to do.
“Friends?” Will repeated. “Jase, I mean, not to be a dick or anything, but… What friends? I mean, other than us.”
“Just, some guy I met, you know, at my job thing,” I said. My “job thing” was the excuse I used to explain why I went to the U.S.B. every day after school. Said it was somewhere just a town or so over, which I mean, wasn’t a complete lie. “We’re just… chilling.”
“Alright… well why weren’t you at school today? I hate to rag on your new friend, but if he’s making you skip dude…”
“Look, Will, I’m alive, alright? I just… I can’t talk dude.”
“Okay well listen, Alannah’s been wondering about you a lot, man,” Will stressed. Great… “She hasn’t really talked to Sam all that much ‘cause she thinks he made you run after you said you liked her, but Sam said that’s not what happened.”
“Awesome…” I sighed. “Did she like, you know– did she say anything about either of us? Like, you know?”
“Not to us, but I’m pretty sure she told Julia something,” Will said. “I’ve been trying to get it out of her all day, dude, but she won’t budge. Some kinda nonsense about the ‘girl code.’ I think she liked once of you, though, because she’s acting mad weird about it–
like, quiet and embarrassed and stuff; you know Alannah, she’s never like that.”
“No, I guess not…” I trailed off.
“When are you gonna be home, Jason?” Will asked after a hefty little spell of silence. “I know things were weird man, but don’t…don’t skimp out on us like this, man. I don’t know what I’d do without you– how am I supposed to deal with Alex if you’re not there to back me up, you know?” I chuckled a little, and felt my eyes starting to well up a little in my helmet.
“I…I know buddy, I…” I tried to say. I hated this so much. I hated that this was happening, that Malek was making me throw all the people in my life away, and for what? So he could a little less alone? “I’ll be back soon, I…I promise.”
I shook my head, clenching my eyes shut for saying something so stupid. I tried my damndest not to make promises I couldn’t keep, especially to the gang.
“Alright pal, if you say so,” Will said. “Listen though, Jase, Sam really didn’t mean what he said, you know what I mean? He’s just sort of–”
My phone started doing that weird half-buzz thing in the middle of the call– you know that buzzing? It’s so annoying. I was getting another call, and I looked over to Ox.
“Alannah is calling you,” he said. That was a real pants-ruiner right there. That sounded a lot grosser than I mean– I got nervous, let’s just leave it at that, yeah?
“Uh, Will, I’ve gotta go,” I stammered.
“I– okay… you good?”
“Yeah, just… Alannah’s calling.”
“Oh, dude! Hang up already–! I’m hanging up, goodbye!” And then Will hung up. Grade-A friend material, right there.
I answered the phone, and just sort of sat in the silence of neither one of us knowing what to say in the moment.
“Jason?” Alannah eventually said.
“Ana, hey,” I said. “W-What’s up? What’s good?” What’s good? Jesus…
The Wanderer (Book 1): The Wanderer Page 13