Grounded

by G. P. Ching

  He takes a deep breath and smiles. “Wonderful. We’ll take some blood and tissue samples after we finish here.”

  A muffled squeak bubbles up my throat. Blood and tissue. I think back to Dr. Konrad’s assessment. Will it hurt? Will I have to take off my clothes? I’m afraid to ask.

  Maxwell’s eyes lock on my face. “It won’t take long and afterward, Korwin can show you around Stuart Manor.”

  Korwin nods. “Sure.” But he doesn’t look sure. Behind his smile are the telltale signs of worry.

  I stand to clear the table, lifting my bowl and reaching for Korwin’s. Gently, he places his hand on my wrist. “You don’t have to do that here. Jameson will get it.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t feel right. Not after he made the food.”

  Jameson sweeps to my side, seemingly out of thin air, and lifts the bowls from my fingers. “Please.”

  I allow the man to take the dishes, noticing the way he smiles like it’s his honor and duty to serve. He’d fit in perfectly in Hemlock Hollow.

  “Okay,” I say weakly.

  Maxwell stands. “Good. Let’s get started.”

  The size and complexity of Maxwell’s examination room makes my stomach clench. But he takes my blood so gently I hardly feel it, and the tissue sample comes from the inside of my cheek. I don’t even have to change my clothes.

  He explains what he’s doing as he mounts the tissue on a glass slide and transfers my blood to a test tube. He feeds both into a machine attached to a computer.

  “Let’s take a look,” Maxwell says, donning a pair of thick black glasses.

  The viewer is red, with octagonal shapes that bubble and dance. Sparks of light ignite between them when they collide. My blood is beautiful, filled with shadows and light, life and mystery. Without thinking, I touch the screen. The cells grow beneath my fingers and I retract my hand, hoping I didn’t damage his device.

  Maxwell laughs. “It’s touch-sensitive,” he says. He places his fingers on the screen and the cells grow larger. When he removes them they shrink again. “It magnifies the cells so you can see them better.”

  I nod. I try it a few times, fascinated by all the moving parts within my blood. “So, can you tell by looking at this what is different about me?”

  His dark eyebrows sink over his glasses. “You’ve never seen a normal cell?”

  Too embarrassed to answer, I glance at the floor. In fact, we did touch on the basics of biology in school but I hated it and rarely paid full attention. He keys something into the corner of the screen.

  “Here are normal human erythrocytes, er, red blood cells. These are my cells.” He points to the left side of the viewer.

  Red and round, the chubby disks float in their sector of the monitor. No blue sparks light up the edges. The cells have no corners. Next to the jittery ricochet of my cells, the human ones seem positively fat and lazy.

  All of the air is sucked from the room. I take shallow breaths but my pulse races anyway. I compare the two screens in confusion, my brain buzzing uselessly. My power is not just a miracle. I’m different. My cells are different. I have so many questions I don’t know where to start. If these are “human cells,” does that mean I am not human? Am I some new species? Homoelectrokenis?

  “How did this happen?” I ask once I’ve caught my breath. “Was it the radiation from the Outlands?”

  Maxwell raises an eyebrow and tips his head. “Here are Korwin’s cells.”

  He types another code into the screen, and more cells pop up. These look the same as mine. “Your cells are identical to Korwin’s, but the DNA analysis shows you aren’t related. When Korwin was left with me, there was a note that explained everything we know about Operation Source Code. It said there was only one child—Korwin.”

  My breath is shaky. I lean forward, fingertips hovering over the monitor’s display of cells.

  “I don’t know how you became a Spark, Lydia. I wouldn’t think radiation could do this to a human cell but…I don’t know. I don’t know how a girl who’s born and raised in an Amish community comes to have electrokinetic abilities.” He throws his pen down on his desk and rubs one hand over his lips.

  “Maybe it is a miracle,” I whisper toward the monitor.

  Maxwell spreads his hands and shakes his head. “Is it a miracle to be what you are?”

  I don’t answer, but inside I wonder. Maybe it is.

  11

  “Let’s start with the training room.” Korwin leads me from the lab into a maze of corridors. He’s giving me the tour of the Stuarts’ facilities. I’m hopeful that it will get my mind off the image of the sharp edges of my supercharged cells. We start in a gym as big as our hay barn, maybe bigger. A section of odd machines lines one wall across from a thick mat and rack of weapons.

  “What are those machines?”

  “What? The cardio equipment?”

  “Cardio equipment.” I think back to my book but can’t remember anything that looked like this.

  “Wait. Are you serious? You’ve never seen a Holotread?”

  I step onto the mat and press a button on the console. The belt makes an odd sound and jolts backward. I trip to the floor.

  “Easy.” Korwin steadies my shoulder. His mouth forms a tight grin, like he’s trying not to laugh. “Here, let me show you.” He stops the Holotread and climbs onto the one next to it. “Step on up,” he says, slapping the console.

  I get back on the strange machine and fold my hands in front of me.

  “Here, start slowly. One is the slowest and twenty is the fastest.” He punches a one on his keypad and starts walking forward. I do the same and quickly grow accustomed to the feel of the machine shifting beneath my feet.

  “I use it to exercise. I can’t go outside anymore because they know about me, so I have a training program to stay strong.”

  I smile. “This makes you strong? Walking without going anywhere?” My silver slippers fall rhythmically on the belt. “I run faster catching our chickens.”

  “Oh ho ho! That sounds like a challenge. Let’s add a scenario.” He punches a code into the keyboard and suddenly I’m walking on a path through a forest.

  “How?” I reach for an oak tree and my hand passes right through. I trip.

  “Careful. It’s a hologram. You have to keep your feet on the treadmill.”

  “I understand.” I center myself on the revolving belt.

  “Take it up to five.” He pokes his console.

  I grin and press the five on my keypad. The belt speeds up, and I break into a light jog. It feels good.

  “How are you doing?” Korwin asks. With longer legs, he’s able to keep up at a fast walk.

  “Piece of cake,” I say. The expression is considered prideful in Hemlock Hollow, but given the circumstances, I indulge my will. As Jeremiah says, when in the English world, act English.

  Korwin laughs and hands me a long plastic rod from the front of my treadmill. He unhooks his own and punches another code into the keyboard. “Don’t let them hit you.”

  “Don’t let what hit me?” He doesn’t have to answer. A spiky ball sails toward my head. I use the rod to slap it away. The hologram responds to my swing, and a blue number one pops up in the corner of my vision.

  “Good! Faster.” He punches ten into my keypad. I lurch back, laughing, and have to run to stay on the platform. I reach over and punch the same number into his, sending him sprinting forward. We fall into a rhythm, running side by side.

  A barrage of spiky balls attacks me. I swat at them without breaking my stride. My head knows they can’t hurt me, that they’ll pass through me like the tree did, but I can’t stop my heart from pounding. It seems so real. I fight like my life depends on it.

  “How fast can you go?” I ask.

  “Right now, we’re running ten miles per hour. Most people can’t keep this up very long, but being a Spark gives me more energy and endurance. I usually run an hour at fifteen.”

  I punch fifteen into the keypad and spri
nt forward, pumping my arms to keep up. Korwin does the same. The scenery changes and the forest is no longer filled with spiky balls but men with guns.

  “Hit away the bullets,” he says.

  We have guns in Hemlock Hollow, but they are only used for hunting and look different from the ones in the hologram. The bullet is small and fast. I miss, and it passes through my belly. A red number one appears next to the blue forty-three in the corner of my screen. I’ve missed one and hit forty-three.

  “Aw. Come on, kid. You can do this. Focus!” Korwin says.

  The way he calls me kid sounds condescending. I want to put him in his place so badly it makes my chest ache. I close my eyes and for a second I’m running through the fields of Hemlock Hollow, touching the prairie grass. My whole body buzzes with energy. The silver slippers I wear can’t keep up; my toes threaten to rip through the material. Without missing a step, I kick them off, my bare feet landing on the belt with surety. I open my eyes in time to whack a bullet before it hits my head.

  “Bam! Nice work!”

  I look at his score. Sixty-eight blue. Mine is forty-four.

  “Let’s go faster,” I say. I feel strong, like I can do anything. I up my speed to twenty, as fast as the machine will go. At this speed, my arms and legs move like pistons. I whale on bullet after bullet. Sixty, seventy, seventy-five. My blue numbers grow and I’m running faster than I’ve ever run. If I had wings, I would fly.

  “Lydia…” Korwin slaps the red button on his console and stops running. He stares at me, wide-eyed.

  My arm passes in front of my face on its way to intercept a bullet and I notice why he’s staring. I am glowing like a star, neon blue, a light so bright it shines through my dress. It startles me enough to lose my footing. I fly off the back of the Holotread into the wall behind me.

  “Are you okay?” Korwin jumps off his machine and runs to my side. Gently, he rubs his palm over the back of my hair, where my head connected with the wall.

  Stunned, I blink at him a few times. Nothing hurts, so I sit up. I’m not glowing anymore, but I’m not injured. “I’m okay.” I stand, smooth my dress, and slip my shoes back on.

  “You are full of surprises,” Korwin says.

  “It would seem so,” I whisper, staring at my outstretched hands. I wish I could see into my cells without the microscope. I wish I understood how this was happening. But my own body is a mystery to me, a puzzle where none of the pieces fit. At least, not yet.

  Korwin offers to continue the tour of the compound. Although I’m exhausted from the day and my experience with the Holotread, I tacitly agree. As he reaches for my hand to lead me down the hallway, tiny bolts of electricity touch me before he does. I allow his fingers to slip into mine, enjoying the tingle against my palm. I don’t even register where he’s taking me. I’m too distracted by the heat that runs from our coupled hands up my arm to where it makes my scalp prickle.

  I’ve held hands with boys before and with Jeremiah almost every day for the last year, but this is different. Korwin’s hand makes every cell in my body perk to attention. My stomach flutters and hovers, like I’m jumping from the haymow or diving into the river. I can smell him, too. His scent is familiar, like the air after a thunderstorm.

  All of this comes to me naturally, without effort or decision. It just is. My body, my senses, are fascinated by Korwin, from the shift of his muscles under his tunic, to the tone of his voice, to the protective way he keeps one eye on me. I wonder if my touch does the same thing to him as it does to me. He doesn’t seem as affected, but then his skin is darker than mine, harder to see a blush.

  The cream-colored walls give way to glass panels and what’s inside takes my breath away. There is an underground garden, as sculpted and colorful as any I’ve seen above ground. We step from the hall onto a cobblestone walkway. For a moment, I think we’re outside, and I lift my face to check. I have to squint, but there is a ceiling high above us made to look like the sky. The dim blue and purple aura gives the illusion of twilight.

  “Does it imitate the sky outside?” I ask.

  Korwin nods. “Even the rain. The lights are ultraviolet. Artificial sun. You can get a tan in here during the day.”

  I find the thought of Korwin having to settle for fake sun depressing and try to focus on the positive. “I can’t even name all the plants and shrubs.”

  “That’s because they’re from all over the world. We have perfect growing conditions.”

  He leads me into a labyrinth of tall green hedges that wall us in. Besides our footsteps on stone, I notice other sounds that add to the feel of the outdoors. “You have birds!” A goldfinch rests on the hedge near our heads.

  “A few,” he says.

  The rush of falling water greets us as, hand in hand, we turn another corner. Korwin leads me from the maze of trees into an opening I assume is the center of the labyrinth. The source of the sound is a fountain, a marble sculpture of a woman pouring water from a jar into a pool at her feet. The water babbles and splashes a soothing symphony.

  “I could stay here all day,” Korwin says into my ear. His breath warms my cheek. Have I leaned into his shoulder, or has he stepped against my back?

  “It’s so peaceful,” I say, enjoying his closeness.

  There’s a long pause while I sink into Korwin’s slow breaths. “My dad will want to do more tests tomorrow, to compare your abilities as a Spark to mine.”

  “Will the tests hurt?”

  “If you’re like me, Lydia, it won’t hurt to use your power. It’ll hurt to stop. The hard part is the control. It’s like today on the Holotread. You tapped into your spark. If I hadn’t interrupted you, you’d probably still be running.”

  It’s true. When I’d been in the thick of it, I didn’t feel tired. I felt invincible. I swallow hard. Invincible is a deceitful, dangerous feeling.

  From behind me, Korwin’s hands rub the outside of my shoulders. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. How could you not? As far as I know, Dad has no expectations, he just wants to see what you can do.” His smile flashes in my peripheral vision.

  Maybe it’s the way my shoulders relax at his touch or the fact I internally quiver at the contact, but our closeness triggers my sense of propriety and I force myself to take a step away, toward the fountain.

  He clears his throat and rubs his chest as if my distance is making him uncomfortable. I can’t say I understand why, but I feel it too, a stark emptiness at the heart of me.

  “You must be exhausted,” he says.

  The goldfinch flits overhead and my eyes feel heavy just watching it fly. I’m relieved when Korwin takes my hand and leads me back to my room.

  12

  “Just relax, Lydia. This isn’t going to hurt a bit.” Maxwell connects wires he calls electrodes to my head, chest, and limbs. We’re back in his lab and this time I’m sitting on a padded examination table next to a machine with a dozen different gauges and blinking lights.

  “I’ll try,” I say.

  “Did you sleep well last night?” He adjusts his glasses on his nose before continuing his application of wires to my skin.

  “I think so.” In truth, I woke not knowing where I was from a deathlike sleep. I might still be sleeping had Jameson not roused me for the noon meal. “In all my life, I’ve never slept so long or so soundly.”

  “You’re in the inception period. Korwin experienced something similar.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “You mentioned last night that he became a Spark at fifteen. So, he wasn’t always able to throw lightning bolts from his hands?”

  Maxwell smiles. “No. Before his inception, we had the note but no proof it was true. Everything about him appeared…average.”

  “How did it happen…for Korwin?” I wonder if Korwin’s change was as dramatic as mine.

  “Struck by lightning,” he says. He states it clinically, without a hint of emotion. “Korwin went through a period of intense pain afterward, followed by an exponential increase in electrokinetic abi
lity over the following several weeks.”

  I roll my lips together. I’m familiar with the intense pain. “So, the lightning helped him change into what he is. Do you think I might have been normal without the lamp?”

  He laughs. “Who is normal? If you are asking if you might not have become electrokinetic if you’d never left the preservation, the answer is, I don’t know. It’s possible. The DNA analysis shows that you and Korwin have the same gene, latent for both of you as children. We don’t completely understand how it works. Would it have eventually triggered the change whether or not you were exposed to electricity? I’m not sure. In your case, it just as well could have been lightning.”

  The sheer randomness of it all overwhelms me. Could I have escaped this fate by staying in Hemlock Hollow, or was my change divine providence? My faith tells me both. I was called to be this way so that I could save Korwin.

  Maxwell adjusts his glasses again and flips a switch. The screen on the machine flashes numbers and letters, then graphs.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It means, I’m surprised the Greens weren’t harder on you. The voltage you’re putting off is almost as high as Korwin’s.”

  “You can tell all that from this gibberish?” I squint at the display, completely at a loss.

  “The miracle of modern science.” He bends over to adjust the placement of an electrode on my foot and his glasses fall off.

  “Seems the miracle hasn’t extended to your vision,” I say, laughing. “Don’t the Englishers have a way to fix what’s wrong with your eyes?”

  He straightens, glasses firmly in place, and frowns at me. “In fact they do, but curing my specific condition requires a period of several days without vision and my current responsibilities make that impossible.”

  “You mean, because you’re a scientist and a politician?” Korwin said he led the opposing political party to the Green Republic. I am not learned about how the Englishers’ political system works, but I figure it must be a pretty demanding job.