“Where else is she going to stay? She literally knows no one else on the planet.”
“Just check her into a hotel or something. Plus, I hear they’re fixing up a place for her at League HQ.”
“Come on, Electra. Only a handful of super teens have ever stayed at the League full-time. And with her limited experience with Earth culture, I can’t just stick her in a hotel – even a resort. I promised to look after her.”
“Yeah,” Electra scoffed disdainfully. “Dressed like she was a moment ago, I imagine you’re doing a lot of looking – and not just after.”
I bit my tongue to avoid blurting out my instinctive response, which was to deny what was being implied. Electra’s last statement was bait, and any denial on my part would lead to her asking a question along the lines of, “So you’re saying you’re not attracted to her?” Having already been painfully hooked by that lure several times in the past few weeks, I wasn’t falling for it again.
“Look,” I said calmly, “in addition to everything else, Myshtal is a guest in my family’s home. Even if I was willing, they wouldn’t let me stick her away out of sight, any more than they’d let me do it to you if your positions were reversed. And in case you forgot, her great-great-grandmother rules an interstellar empire, and Myshtal is her favorite. You don’t think the queen’s having her watched? Having me watched?”
“There wouldn’t be any watching if you hadn’t gotten yourself into this mess,” she stated stonily. “Did you even try to say ‘No’ to this shotgun wedding?”
“We’ve been over this before. This was the deal I had to make to get home. Or would you prefer that I be stuck on Caeles for decades like my grandmother?”
“What I would prefer–”
“Shhh!” I hissed, putting a finger to her lips. She immediately went quiet.
I looked around warily. Just as Electra had begun speaking, I had picked up an emotional spike from nearby – a mix of excitement and elation mingled with trepidation. Somebody was watching us. Acting on instinct, I stepped protectively in front of my girlfriend.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“We’ve got eyes on us,” I answered over my shoulder.
“How many?”
“Just one, I think.”
At the same time that I answered, I felt the hairs on my arm rising as the air became ionized. Electra was gearing up to use her power.
“Where?” she asked, trying to step from behind me.
“Not sure,” I said, thrusting an arm back to make sure she stayed to my rear. “But give me a sec. I’ll find them.”
I began reaching out empathically. For me, the uptick in emotional activity had been almost like a verbal shout, giving me a pretty good idea of where the person was.
The embassy sat on several acres, with nicely-manicured lawns and a number of good-sized trees. It was behind one of these – a thick, towering oak near the gated entrance – that I pinpointed our voyeur.
I telescoped my vision and then cycled through the light spectrum until I could see almost as well as in daylight.
“Got him,” I said. “One guy, lurking behind a tree at ten o’clock, peeking around it every few seconds.”
“I got him, too,” Electra declared. It was a subtle reminder of the fact that her power allowed her to detect people by their bioelectric fields. “Does he seem dangerous?”
“I’m not picking up that kind of vibe from him, but he’s holding something in his hand,” I said, noting that our watcher had a tight grip on an object of some sort.
“Gun?”
I watched for a second, then let out a sigh of relief. “No – a digital camera with a telephoto lens.”
Electra let out a disgusted sigh as she stepped from behind me. “Paparazzi.”
I took a few steps forward and shouted, “Hey, you! By the tree! What are you doing?!”
The reaction was immediate: the fellow behind the tree took off, running towards a brick wall that framed the embassy grounds near the front gate. I gave Electra a telepathic heads-up, then teleported us.
We popped up a few feet behind our late-night visitor, who slipped a camera strap over his neck as he ran and then leaped for the brick wall, which was about nine feet tall. As he pulled himself up, Electra raised her hand, and I noticed that it was filled with a small, pulsing electrical charge.
Emotionally, I could sense that she was still fired up about our argument, and – although she’d shown excellent control over her powers of late – I was a little worried that she might accidentally fry this guy. Nevertheless, despite obviously wanting to take her frustration out on someone, Electra mentally agreed to stand down.
I turned my attention back to our friend with the camera, who had just pulled himself up high enough to kick a leg up to the top of the wall. He was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t even notice us behind him (not that he would have expected us to close the distance that fast).
I phased the brick wall, making it insubstantial. With nothing solid supporting him, our visitor fell to the ground, landing on his back with a solid thud that knocked the wind out of him. As he began to cough, I telekinetically grabbed his ankle and pulled him farther inside the embassy grounds before making the wall solid again.
I teleported his camera, which had been attached to the strap around his neck, into my hand. Photography wasn’t my forte, but from what I could tell it was a high-end model and had probably cost a pretty penny.
Taking his camera seemed to galvanize our visitor in some way, as he seemed to tap an inner reserve of sorts and struggle to his feet.
“Who are you?” I asked as soon as he stood up.
“Just a photographer,” he said, sidestepping my question. As I looked him over, I noticed that he was young – early twenties at most. Dressed in corduroy pants and a fleece jacket, he was maybe an inch shy of six feet in height, with a slender build and sandy hair that was just a tad bit long.
“A photographer,” I repeated, sounding skeptical. “What are you doing here?”
I sensed nervousness and anxiety coming from him, but he managed to answer in an even tone, saying, “Just hoping to get a picture of the princess.”
I raised an eyebrow at this. “Indigo?”
“Yeah,” he answered with a nod.
“Word on the street says she’s staying at Alpha League Headquarters,” I said. That was indeed the rumor, but one which we ourselves had started in order to have some privacy. “That being the case, why are you here?”
“There’s an army of photographers over at League HQ,” he replied. “They’re entrenched around the place like they’re conducting a siege. If Indigo takes one step outside, there’s going to be a million pics of her posted across the internet in minutes.”
“So shouldn’t you be over there trying to make it a million-and-one?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s the rare pics that are valuable – the ones that are unique in some way. I realized that if everyone had a photo of Indigo, then they wouldn’t be worth as much. But if I could bring something to the table that others didn’t have, my work would have added value. So I did a little research into her past and found out that this was Indigo’s embassy back in the day.”
I kept my face impassive as he spoke, but had to admit to being impressed. The records weren’t exactly sealed but they weren’t that straightforward either; thus, tracing everything back was a notable bit of detective work.
“So you came here on a hunch that Indigo might show up,” I surmised as he finished speaking.
He shook his head. “No, I was honestly just hoping to get a few shots of the place that I could sell to anybody who might be interested in her backstory. It was just dumb luck that I was here when your girlfriend” – he nodded towards Electra – “pulled up.”
“My girlfriend?” I repeated, frowning. He seemed harmless, but I really didn’t like the notion of this guy knowing anything about
me or Electra.
The fellow held up his hands defensively. “Hey, dude, it’s just an expression. She could be your sister for all I know.”
I didn’t immediately answer. Instead, I took a moment to flip through the pictures he’d taken. The most recent ones were of me and Electra, but mostly her – about a half-dozen shots that actually looked very nice, despite the lack of adequate illumination. However, they also brought to mind that this guy might be some kind of crazed stalker (although I hadn’t picked up that kind of vibe from him).
“It’s not what you think,” he said, almost reading my mind. He turned to my girlfriend. “I didn’t recognize you initially, but I did after you got out of the car. You’re Electra, right?”
On her part, Electra didn’t say anything; she merely looked at me.
“Fry his camera, babe,” I said, holding the camera out to her. A white ball of electricity immediately began to form in Electra’s hand.
“No!” the guy screeched, almost in a panic. “Please, don’t!”
Neither Electra nor I said anything, but I felt raw, unrestrained anxiety rolling off the guy in waves.
“Please,” he continued, pleading. “Don’t destroy it. I’m freelance, alright? I’m not on salary anywhere. I take pictures and try to sell them to interested parties – newspapers, social media, what have you. But I’m not like paparazzi. I wasn’t trying to peek into your windows, sneak into your house, or anything like that in order to get shots.”
“But you are willing to trespass,” I declared.
“I admit it,” he said. “I slipped inside when the gate opened to let Electra in, but it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.”
“Right,” Electra muttered sarcastically. “That’s what they all say.”
“Look,” the guy implored, “I’m just trying to earn enough to make my next tuition payment at the university. Taking pics is how I pay the bills. So you can take the chip out and destroy it if you want, or even wipe the hard drive clean. If you want to call the cops, I’ll make a full confession to trespassing, illegal entry – whatever you want. But I’m begging you, don’t destroy the camera. It’s all I’ve got, and I can’t afford another.”
While he’d been speaking, I’d had my empathic abilities turned up to the max; from what I could discern, he was being completely sincere. More specifically, his plea brought to mind something I’d learned once in history class.
Back in the Old West, they used to hang horse thieves. It wasn’t because horses were that valuable in and of themselves, but because the animals were used for everything from wrangling to farming. Thus, when you stole a man’s horse, you often took away his livelihood. You robbed him of the ability to earn a living, thereby making him destitute.
Our visitor’s plea for his camera left me with much the same impression. Moreover, I developed a mental picture of what had likely happened earlier: after recognizing Electra, the guy had probably gotten excited about the money he could make from her picture (which had resulted in the emotional spike I’d detected). In short, I didn’t really think this fellow was a stalker.
Mentally, I gave him a quick rundown of what had happened, resulting in a short telepathic conversation that also included Indigo.
When we finished, I turned to our visitor, who had a deer-in-the-headlights look about him as he waited to hear the verdict regarding his camera.
“What’s your name?” I asked, wondering if he’d try to dodge the question like before.
He gulped, and then seemed to struggle to find his voice for a second before finally stating, “It’s Matt. Matthew Kroner.”
I smiled. “Well, Matthew Kroner, today’s your lucky day.”
Chapter 10
I woke up the next morning not of my own volition, but due to someone psychically tapping on my mental shields. It was the telepathic equivalent of someone nudging me awake.
I mentally acknowledged that I was awake and promised to be down momentarily. I then grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and checked the time. I groaned softly; it was still early.
In addition to noticing the time on my phone, I also saw that I had received a text roughly fifteen minutes earlier. It was from Smokey’s girlfriend Sarah and said, “Have you talked to him yet?”
I stood up and stretched, contemplating Sarah’s message as I did so. I hadn’t talk to her in a while, so presumably her message was meant for someone else. (It wouldn’t have been the first time that I received a text meant for another person, and probably wouldn’t be the last.) After dwelling on it for a moment – and remembering Smokey’s question about bringing a guest – I assumed it was meant for him. My guess is that Sarah was trying to reach her boyfriend and had inadvertently texted me instead.
Shifting into super speed, I then raced through my normal morning routine and got dressed. After looking in the bathroom mirror to make sure I was presentable, I went back to normal speed before heading down to the breakfast area.
Only my grandparents were present when I arrived, sitting in their usual spot at the table with a newspaper between them.
“Come take a look at this, boy,” Gramps said, excitedly waving me over.
“What is it?” I asked as I walked towards them.
Instead of responding, Indigo tapped the newspaper laying on the table. Taking a good look, I saw that the front page had a large color photograph of my grandparents. The background was obscured so that you couldn’t tell where the picture had been taken, but it showed Gramps and Indigo staring lovingly into each other’s eyes. It was a beautiful photo, effortlessly capturing the depth of emotion between the subjects in it, and I smiled as I noticed who was credited with the snapshot in the caption below the image: Matthew Kroner.
In brief, after hearing Kroner’s plea, we had decided not to destroy his camera. Even more, my grandparents had come outside and essentially posed for him, giving him a photographic exclusive. (It was literally a money shot, since I assume he sold it for a nice chunk of change.)
“It’s a nice pic,” I stated truthfully, “although I’m not that surprised since Kroner seemed like a decent photographer.”
Indigo laughed. “Oh Sxibbo, that’s not the surprise.”
My eyebrows went up, but before I could say anything, Myshtal entered the room wearing a cooking apron and carrying a plate of toast in one hand and a plate of cooked bacon in the other. She was followed by my mother, who carried a bowl of scrambled eggs.
“What’s this?” I asked as Myshtal set both plates on the table.
“Myshtal made breakfast for us,” Mom said.
“Oh, wow,” I uttered, as this really was unexpected. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“So says the guy who rarely cooks his own meals,” my grandfather chimed in.
“That’s not true,” I countered. “I make my own meals all the time.”
“Cereal and sandwiches don’t count as cooking,” Indigo interjected.
“Fine,” I said testily. “I’ll fry my cereal in the skillet next time before I eat it.”
That got a chuckle out of everyone as we sat down to eat, with me thinking that this was a nice gesture on Myshtal’s part. It was a fairly basic breakfast and clearly wasn’t a test of her culinary skills, but considering the fact that she had probably never prepared a meal before, I was suitably impressed.
“This is great,” I said to Myshtal as I took a bite of toast.
“Thanks,” Myshtal replied. “I wish I could take all the credit, but I did have help.” She tilted her head towards my mother.
“You’re being too generous,” Mom said between bites of bacon. “All I really did was season the eggs.”
“Well, my compliments to both chefs,” Gramps
said, to which Mom and Myshtal both muttered their thanks.
From that point, the breakfast conversation shifted mostly to generic topics, but with a focus on the gala to occur that night. There was a general question about my friends being invited, but no one asked specifically about Electra attending. Our relationship was obviously in an odd place, but – despite the tense conversation we’d had outside the embassy – we had ended the night on something of a high note. Dealing with Kroner’s unexpected appearance had given us something else to focus on, and watching my grandparents pose for him had reminded us of just how much we cared for each other. In short, after Kroner had gotten his photo and departed – and my grandparents had retired for the night (for the second time) – Electra and I had parted with a kiss as opposed to heated words.
Thinking of her now (and the fact that I’d be seeing her at the upcoming shindig) made me mindful of everything I had to do today. With my chore list now in the forefront of my brain, I quickly finished up breakfast and excused myself. Then – after promising that I wouldn’t be late for the night’s festivities – I ran upstairs, grabbed a jacket from my closet, and teleported.
Chapter 11
I popped up on a paved but mostly deserted two-lane road that could be accurately described as being in the middle of nowhere. The immediate surroundings were primarily featureless, frost-covered plains, although mountains were visible off in the distance. A cruel, wintry wind blew in from behind me, mussing my hair. Raising my body temperature to combat the obvious cold, I focused on the one notable feature of the landscape – a guard shack in the middle of the road about a thousand feet away – and began walking towards it.
I approached at a pace that was probably on par with power walking: too slow to be jogging or running, but too fast to be construed as my normal stride. This was basically to give the guards in the shack adequate notice of my presence. Telescoping my vision, I saw them through the window of the building – a couple of guys in matching uniforms that at first resembled military fatigues, but which didn’t have name tags or identify a branch of service. Noting my approach, one of them spoke hastily into a handheld radio, and then they both checked their weapons – each carried a service pistol – before putting on overcoats. Afterwards, they simply watched me, plainly waiting until I got close enough to merit them coming outside.
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