The Prince's Trap

by Griffith, P. D.

  “But at least you didn’t get injured for nothing,” Cortland added as Landon touched and examined his injury. For a second the words didn’t register, but once he realized what Cortland had said, he disregarded his back and focused on the conversation.

  “What do you mean?” Landon asked with genuine curiosity in his voice. “I thought you said it was ruined?”

  “Yeah, I thought it was, but on my way here to check up on you, I saw an engineer from the Forge carrying the box with all the atomizer bits in it. He was telling another guy that he could reverse-engineer the thing from all the parts. Sounded like it was going to take a while, but the guy seemed pretty confident.”

  “Wow! That was lucky,” Landon said as he returned to his locker and continued to change out of his uniform. He figured he stood a better chance of not giving away his noticeable disappointment if he didn’t look directly at Cortland.

  “Definitely,” Cortland replied. “And I wanted to say thanks for helping us back there. I know Brock told you to wait in the Chariot, but I don’t think we would have gotten out of there in one piece had you not disobeyed him. Maybe he won’t be too hard on you about it.”

  “I won’t be holding my breath,” Landon said as he shut his locker. “You can’t forget that after I got shot, he’s the one who rescued me.”

  Landon and Cortland left the locker room and headed for the exit of the Olympic Tower.

  “But that’s the name of the game, isn’t it? You have to assess the situation and adapt, right?” Cortland gave Landon a quick pat on the shoulder.

  “I guess, but did he really have to be the one who grabbed me? You know I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still pretty green.” Cortland attempted to console Landon as they walked through the Palaestra, the Pantheon’s high-tech personal training room located in the sub-levels of the Olympic Tower, to the lift. “And I bet he was probably more freaked out than anything, what with Joshua’s messed-up ankle and this being only Brock’s third mission in charge.”

  “Oh yeah, how is Joshua? I didn’t even ask him when we were in the air.” Cortland’s reminder of the Crane twin’s injury caused Landon’s guilt to resurface.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He managed to walk off the Chariot without any help so it can’t be that bad. He’ll probably sport a limp for a week or so, but you know he’ll try to milk it for everything it’s worth. Those guys love their attention.”

  Landon chuckled to himself as he imagined Joshua exaggerating his limp when he walked through the cafeteria, basking in the sympathies of all the girls trying to make sure he was all right.

  Since Landon’s recruitment, the Crane twins had opened up to him, even with Brock’s disapproval. They proved to be much more than a pair of lackeys; they could be quite humorous and extremely loyal, and Landon almost fell over when he learned that they were the sons of a pastor from the South. He just couldn’t imagine what kind of church would produce a pair of brothers like them.

  “Temple.” With Cortland’s command, the lift began to ascend from the Palaestra.

  Lost in their own heads, Landon and Cortland remained silent while the lift passed through the ceiling and emerged into the Temple—the activity center of Pantheon operations. Numerous analysts diligently worked on their computers, while the monitors that enveloped the giant room scrolled through news reports, surveillance footage, and traffic cameras, meticulously collecting information and scanning for any activity of interest from which the Pantheon would base their next mission.

  The first time Landon entered the Olympic Tower, Alexandre Verne, the head of technological development for the Pantheon and the director of the Forge, told him about the monitoring system. A.R.G.O.S., he called it. It wasn’t until later that he remembered the myth his mother had told him when he was a child. Argos, the hundred-eyed monster that always kept one eye open, was the guardian of the goddess Hera. Looking at the activity on the monitors made Landon smile at the appropriateness of the name.

  They managed to get through the Temple without being stopped, and before they knew it, they arrived at the door of the Olympic Tower. Passing through the steel door would immediately transport them back into the normal life of a teenager—well, as normal as it could be when home was a secret training facility filled with adolescents possessing psychokinetic abilities.

  As they approached the heavy door, it began to open automatically, which caught them off guard. They usually needed to activate it first for it to start opening up. It pivoted on its hinges. Light streamed through the doorway from the hall, making their exit shine brightly against the dimly lit Temple. It beckoned them toward their regular, non-Pantheon training. But once the door had completely opened, Landon noticed someone standing in the entryway.

  Tall and thin, with a slender pair of glasses resting securely on his nose, his ebony skin shimmered in the firelight of the hallway. He started into the Olympic Tower with a sense of purpose, taking long, determined strides and paying no mind to Landon or Cortland, who both stared wonderingly at the new arrival.

  “Wash?” Cortland asked. He looked at the man like a long-lost friend he was seeing for the first time in years, but received no reply from him. The man looked to be about Brock’s age, pushing twenty at the oldest, but severe and serious. “Washington, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  The man stopped abruptly beside Landon and turned his head to look directly at Cortland. He only moved his head, which swiveled on his neck like that of a well-oiled robot. The severity of his expression caused the hairs on the back of Landon’s neck to stand on end.

  “Business,” the man replied sternly before turning his attention to Landon and giving him a long, hard stare.

  Suddenly, Landon could feel this pressure closing in around him and an odd sensation of imbalance, like he was walking on the deck of a boat at sea. Landon shook the feeling off, blocking it from his mind, and gave the stranger a peculiar glare. Landon saw the man’s eyebrow rise derisively before he turned away and continued toward his destination.

  “Who is that?” Landon asked in a whisper once he thought the man was out of earshot.

  “That’s Washington, Washington Sykes,” Cortland said with confidence. “He used to go by Achilles. He and I were recruited at the same time. Hector and Achilles, you know? Never mind how the myth goes, he was my best friend here.” Cortland sounded more disheartened as he spoke. “He acted like he didn’t even know me.”

  “Why’d he leave?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, he wasn’t really cut out for what the Pantheon’s needs. His abilities were a bit too specialized.”

  They walked by countless giant stone pillars that extended six stories high to the rafters. Walking down these hallways was like walking through an ancient Grecian temple, and from the Olympic Tower where Landon and Cortland were coming from, they could travel to any of the other three towers located in the corners of the large facility—the Student Tower in the northeast, which housed the dormitories, the cafeteria, the Rec Center, as well as some study rooms and lounges; the Administrative Tower, containing faculty rooms and offices, labs, tutoring areas, and the medical center, in the southeast; and the Library in the southwest that, aside from a massive collection of books, housed study rooms and training areas for the general student body. The main hallways also led to the Atrium, a circular space, which was roofed by a humongous glass dome and was wreathed in pillars with a large oak tree growing in its center. If it weren’t for the many enclosed staircases throughout the facility, traveling around the facility from tower to tower would take someone quite a long time.

  “Really? So what happened?” Landon probed as they strolled through the massive hallways of the Gymnasium.

  “One day, he just left. The last thing he said to me was that he was leaving the Pantheon to becom
e a Sentry. And before you ask, because I know you’re going to, I still have no idea what that is. As best I can guess, they’re some kind of internal security force or something.” Cortland sounded like he didn’t really want to talk about it anymore. The odd interaction between the two of them had obviously messed with his head, drawing up latent emotions or painful memories, long hidden deep in his subconscious.

  Noticing this, Landon elected not to ask Cortland what he meant by ‘his abilities were a bit too specialized’ even though it was burning him up inside. Could this Washington Sykes do something like Peregrine? he wondered as they walked down the main northern hallway toward the dormitories. Or maybe Celia?

  “Ugh, I’m exhausted,” Landon said through a yawn as they reached the staircase that would lead up to their respective rooms. “Do we seriously have to go to training in a few hours?”

  “We have been going like mad lately, huh?” Cortland replied, catching a yawn of his own and noticeably trying to forget his encounter with his old friend minutes earlier.

  “Is this just how active duty is?” Landon asked. “Does it ever slow down?”

  “Eh, we’ve been a bit busier than usual lately, but it’s bound to slow down in a few weeks, what with the Qualifiers coming up.”

  “Qualifiers?”

  “They’re like the summer tryouts for the Pantheon, just like the First Frost Frenzy is the winter’s.”

  “The First Frost Frenzy was a tryout?” Landon asked, shocked.

  “Yeah,” Cortland said, a bit surprised by Landon’s ignorance. “And you made the cut, my brother, but the Pantheon is only ever eight members. That’s how it’s always been . . . I wonder if they’ll change that this year. Or maybe not even have Qualifiers since the Pantheon’s already all full-up.” Cortland paused for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. “Anyways, have fun in Tactometry. I get the pleasure of having one of my tutoring sessions this morning. Snore. . . . And seriously get some rest. It’ll help you heal faster.”

  He broke away from Landon and continued off toward his dorm room on the third floor.

  • • • • •

  Room 498 was empty when Landon entered. Brock was still nowhere to be seen, which made Landon happy. He was too tired and exhausted to deal with the imminent verbal bashing from his ever-so-friendly roommate.

  Landon sat down on the edge of the mattress on the far side of the bed, staring off into space. He then stood up, went over to his dresser, and pulled open the top drawer. Digging down to the bottom, shoving his clean clothes out of the way, he grabbed an old pair of jeans and yanked them free.

  He hadn’t worn them since the day he came to the Gymnasium, and they’d had a permanent home at the bottom of his top drawer for nearly a year. They were much more than just a pair of jeans to him.

  He never took his eyes off them as he blindly walked back to his bed and sat down on the mattress. They were faded from excessive use, and the fabric felt soft and supple in his hands. Holding them just above his lap, he brushed his thumb across a brown stain, which had faded dramatically after being washed twice. When he was on the lam, the spot was hard and crunchy, rough to the touch, like sandpaper. He never had time or opportunity to scrub out the stain when he spent those weeks as a runaway as he was trying to figure out what was happening to him while his abilities manifested, running from mysterious men in black suits who followed him into parks and down alleys, and praying he was not to blame for the disaster he awoke to in his apartment that caused him to run away in the first place. Now the stain was just like the rest of the fabric, with only the discoloration as a reminder.

  He fought back a lump in his throat as he thought about his mother. He tried to picture her face, but without a single photo, that seemed to get harder with every passing day. The stain from her blood served now as the only remaining piece of her he had left. He hated that the one thing he had of her was also a reminder of the worst night of his life—the night he accidentally murdered his parents.

  Landon still had the nightmare on occasion. He’d fight tirelessly to free his mother from a burning white fire, only to be consumed by the flames. And since his synaptic sync with Celia, he also got flashes of her parents’ murder, too. He’d awake feeling the pain of her loss after seeing the bodies of her mother and father lying lifelessly on the snow-covered sidewalk, blood soaking the ice around them, and the face of Dr. Brighton illuminated by the light of the toy store window as he strolled, unaffected, from the crime scene.

  The weight of his situation flooded back into Landon’s mind, wondering if his mother would approve of his decision to help Celia, or if she’d think the risk was too great. Would she think her son capable of handling a double life? Would she think it was Landon’s place to get involved in things that seemed so much greater than him?

  “People almost died today, Mom,” he said aloud as he continued to rub the stain with his thumb. “It was my fault, too. And it was all for nothing. I tried to destroy it, to do what I was told, but it just wasn’t enough. Somehow they can repair it.”

  “So things didn’t go exactly according to plan, I take it.”

  Landon fumbled his jeans and nearly fell off his bed when he heard Celia’s voice behind him. She casually leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. Her thick, dark-brown hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves with the ends pinned between her arms and chest.

  “Why must you always do that?” Landon asked, perturbed. “What if someone saw you? People might start talking if they saw you passing through walls and coming into my room. It’s an unnecessary risk.” Landon spoke with conviction. “And how long have you been standing there anyways?” he added as he picked the jeans off the ground and started to refold them carefully.

  “Not too long,” she replied coolly, as she pushed herself off the wall with her shoulder and strutted over to Landon’s bed. Once she sat down, her expression became more serious. “So tell me everything. What happened?”

  Landon huffed as he looked into the eager eyes of Celia—or should he say Artemis. All she ever wanted now was information and to talk business. Where was the Celia he used to know? Where was the girl who snuck around with him, joking and stealing food from the kitchens on Christmas while everyone else banqueted in the cafeteria? Where was the girl who got him to laugh after everything seemed bleak? Where was the girl who made him forget, sometimes for just an instant, the sadness he felt over the loss of his parents? She was the one he had no secrets with, the one he sought solace from when the pressures of the Pantheon became too much; she was his friend.

  But after the Metis Labs mission, when he learned who she really was, that Celia disappeared, leaving only Artemis in her place. And like her namesake, Celia had become all-consumed by her sense of duty and her vengeful wrath. Hell-bent on taking down the Pallas Corporation and putting an end to Dr. Brighton, she conversed with Landon in a direct and focused way, and only ever about what he uncovered and what he needed to do next to provide her with more information. It was like a general and a private; no matter his input, Celia would do what she wanted, and somehow always convinced him to do what she wanted, too.

  With as much brevity as possible, Landon apprised her of the events that had transpired during the mission and his conversation with Cortland. He really wasn’t in the mood to talk. Celia could just as easily read the information from his mind if he let her in, but he had been trying to keep her out of his head. It seemed like the only private place he had lately.

  “Well, it’s not a total loss,” Celia started after Landon finished talking. “At least you’ve bought us some time to figure out why they wanted the atomizer in the first place.” Celia turned and began to talk to herself. “Now, it would have been better if it had never made it here, but that can’t be helped now. Ugh, what are they planning?” She turned back to Landon. “I know it’s something big. I can feel it.”
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  Landon remained silent. He tried to pay attention, but his fatigue worsened with every passing minute.

  “But these Qualifiers.” Celia talked softly to herself again. “We might be able to use these to our advantage somehow.” Celia tapped her fingers sequentially on her thigh, pinky to index finger, in rapid succession, lost in thought. Then, without a moment’s warning, she bolted to her feet and turned to Landon. She had a crazed look in her grey eyes that made them look stormier than usual, like a raging tempest was brewing within her head. “Yes, don’t you see, Landon! This is exactly the opportunity we’ve been looking for.”

  Landon didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “The Qualifiers! They’re the perfect opportunity for me to get recruited into the Pantheon!” She paused and then continued her thought, but that brief respite was enough to calm her down a bit. She continued more slowly, “If I can win the Qualifiers, the Pallas Corporation would have no choice but to put me on the Pantheon. And then we’d have two on the inside. You—and me. Right now, you have open access, but I have to sneak around. Imagine what we could accomplish if we were both in there!”

  “But Cortland said he wasn’t even sure they’d recruit someone this year—the Pantheon is only ever eight.”

  “But if someone were to get injured? . . .” Celia’s voice trailed off at the end as she lingered on the thought.

  “Wait, now you want to hurt people?” Landon couldn’t hold back. It was the one thing he could not rightly do in his service to Celia. He’d sabotage mission after mission but only if it didn’t threaten his team. “I never agreed to that! You said yourself that they don’t know who they’re really working for. It’s not right to punish them when they are already being lied to!”