The Gifted Ones: A Reader

by Maria Elizabeth Romana

  The Asian boy chimed in, “But he’s the one who suggested it. He’s looking for a new natural preservative. He said if we could perfect this, we could be millionaires like him.”

  Angel sighed heavily and looked at Ellie. “This is what I get for sneaking into his kitchen.” Then she grinned and rubbed her hand through the first boy’s curly hair, releasing a cloud of purple dust. “Ellie, this is Spencer. Spence, Ellie.”

  The curly-headed boy stuttered out a clumsy greeting, “Uh, oh, um, hi. Miss, uh, I mean, Ellie.”

  Meanwhile, the Asian boy had replaced his goggles with a pair of wire-framed glasses that sat a bit lopsided on his face. He blinked a couple times, allowing his eyes to adjust to the thick lenses, then gave Ellie a big grin. “And I’m Feng. Hajimi Feng, boy genius. You can call me Haj. Or Feng. Or whatever you like. Just call me.” He pulled off a latex glove and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips.

  Fighting the urge to scream and run, Ellie threw Angel a mortified look. Angel was clearly trying not to laugh as she reeled the young Romeo back in. “Ah, ok, boys, now get back in there and get that lab cleaned up. Go!” She shooed the young men back inside and closed the door behind them.

  The two women started walking again, with Angel shaking her head. “Sorry about that, Ellie. Ever since that kid Haji got here, those two have been wreaking havoc on this place. I have to admit, they come up with some great stuff together, but they’re still boys.”

  “So, they’re Gifted Ones, too?”

  “Oh yeah. Haji’s some kind of science whiz kid, and Spence is what we call an Inventor. He’s got this vision—like he can just dream up stuff no one ever thought of before…and then just figure out how to build it, at least with a little help from some of the other brainiacs around here.”

  “That sounds really cool.” Ellie shook her head. “I just can’t imagine what Gift I could possibly have. I guess it’s still a little hard for me to believe I even have one.”

  Angel stopped and took her by the shoulders. “You do, Ellie. Trust me, you do. Just give it time. It will find you.”

  Before Ellie had a chance to doubt her, a voice called out from the far end of the hall, “Angel, Ellie, where’ve you been? I’ve been looking everywhere.” It was Joe, and he was walking quickly and beckoning. “C’mon, we’ve got a briefing in 180 with Rishi.”

  Angel started moving down the hall towards him, but looking back, said impatiently, “Well, let’s go, chica.” Then she grinned. “Now you’ll see how we really roll.”

  # # #

  “Hey, Aunt Grace, check this out—we’re in Alaska. Arctic Circle. Look, Polar Bears!”

  Angel couldn’t help smiling watching Ellie play with the controls in 180. It hadn’t been that long since Angel herself had first delighted in operating the control panel of everyone’s favorite virtual reality arena. The room was called 180, due to its being a half-circle with projected scenery along the curved wall, and computerized imagery and props as needed, along with full-scale sounds, smells, and sensations to complete the atmosphere.

  Grace pulled the door closed behind her. “Brrr, Ellie, it’s really cold in here. Could we please relocate to Mexico or the Caribbean? I’m not really dressed for snowshoeing.”

  Joe spoke up, “Thanks for joining us, Grace. I need both of you here for this.” He stepped up to the control panel and gently shooed Ellie out of the way. “Time to get down to business, El.”

  “Can I do more later? I want to go to Europe and maybe Africa. Omigosh—can we travel back in time with this thing? Elizabethan England? That would totally help me with my school work.”

  “Yes, yes, honey. You can try it out all you want, as long as someone’s not using it for their research or whatever.” Joe tapped on a small screen and punched a few buttons, and in a moment, the frozen tundra was replaced with a colorfully designed sitting room whose windows overlooked a sparkling city at night. A thick marble slab slid out from the center of the curved wall, extending the table in the virtual sitting room into a real table in 180.

  Angel grabbed some office-type chairs from a corner closet and rolled them up to the table. While she and Joe and Grace were seating themselves, Ellie remained standing, inspecting the scene on the wall. “Is this a real place? Where is it?” She rose up on her toes for a better view out the virtual windows. “It looks like there’s an ocean or something. And the buildings look like…Miami?”

  Joe smiled. “I see you have an eye for architecture, Ellie. But wrong side of the globe. It’s Mumbai, the capital of India. We’re overlooking Marine Drive. It runs along an enormous bay, similar to South Beach, and yes, with lots of Art Deco buildings.”

  Still staring at the images, Ellie spoke wistfully as she dropped herself into one of the chairs, “Man, I’d love to go there someday. I mean, either place—Miami or Mumbai. I’ve hardly been anywhere.”

  Angel wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. Apparently, they weren’t kidding when they said Grace had been hiding Ellie from the world since her sister’s death. She turned to Joe. “Hey, maybe Ellie could join us—”

  “Joseph, my friend, I am here now. Sorry if I kept you waiting.” All eyes turned toward the screen as Rishi Takoor settled himself into a comfortable chair, with the lights of Mumbai as his backdrop. His dark skin, dark eyes, and mop of graying black hair were offset by a white collared shirt adorned with intricate thread patterns in green, blue, and gold. She had yet to meet him in person, but Angel never tired of screen chats with the brainy Indian, as he was not only intelligent, but fun-loving and flirtatious, as well. Rishi held up a tablet. “I have the list now.”

  Joe nodded. “Great. Thanks, Rishi. Just give me a sec.” He turned toward Ellie, who was seated next to him. “Ellie, we need your help. Yours and Grace’s. What happened the other night with your friend Aiden—”

  Ellie held up a hand. “Not my friend. So-o-o not my friend.”

  Joe smiled. “Okay, your acquaintance.” Then he was serious again. “Ellie, that was no accident, and those weren’t just some random street thugs that happened along.”

  Now Ellie looked serious. “Yeah, I know. You guys said something about that last night, but I don’t get it—what did Aiden have to do with those creepy guys who attacked Aunt Grace?”

  “Everything, I’m afraid. The whole thing was a set-up. I mean, from the very beginning. Aiden enrolled in your school and befriended Nathan in order to get to you.”

  “But why? Because of this Gifted gene thing? I don’t believe it. I mean, how would he know I had it? I didn’t even know I had it. And I’m certainly not some super-scientist or super-Defender person like Angel. What good would I be to anyone?”

  Angel scratched her head, trying to think of a polite way to respond, since neither Joe nor Grace seemed willing to say what they were all thinking. “Uh, Ellie, remember that stuff we were talking about last night? About how if two Gifted people have a baby together, they’re more likely to have a Gifted child, and if there’s a double-gene involved, it’s guaranteed?”

  Ellie shrugged. “Yeah, I remember.” For a moment, her face was just blank, but then her eyes widened. “Whoa. Wait a minute. Are you saying somebody wants to use me to mother the Master Race or something?”

  Grace threw an angry look at Angel, then grabbed Ellie’s hand. “No, no, no, honey. Nobody’s saying that at all. The truth is, we don’t know what they wanted. We don’t know anything for sure.” She looked at Joe, then toward the screen. “Do we, guys?”

  Rishi responded, “I am afraid your aunt is correct, Elodie. I have tried to find out anything I can about this boy Aiden, but he is a ghost.”

  Ellie shook her head and waved her hands vehemently. “Okay, now you’re going too far. First this crazy gene thing, and now you want me to believe in ghosts?”

  Joe spoke up. His tone was assertive and intended to end the speculation, “Ellie, sweetheart, listen to me. This is not some silly horror movie. This is real life, and we’re dead serious. Rishi on
ly meant that Aiden Orcutt is not his real name, and he wasn’t at St. Augustine’s to earn a high school diploma. We don’t know who he is, where he came from, or how he knew about you, but he did, and we need to find out how, and not just because he tried to hurt you and Grace, but because, apparently, whoever he’s working with or for has some kind of inside track to our Council—what you might call a mole, or a leak. Someone knew that Grace had called us that night, and they also knew about the hotel and the plane.”

  “Wait, what?” Angel hadn’t heard of this mole business previously, and Joe always told her everything. She was his right-hand as far as security was concerned. “Why haven’t I heard about this? Joe?” She jumped up from her seat, slamming her hands on the table, feeling a wave of heat rising through her torso. “Did you think it was me?” she demanded.

  Rishi cut in, “Mishti, calm down. No one doubts your loyalty. It was my fault. I told him he should speak to no one until I could backtrack on the patterns. We thought there might be a bug in someone’s phone or on the plane or even in a shoe. I had to check before anything else got out.”

  Joe turned to Angel. His voice was even and calming, “Angel, please sit back down. You’re not helping.” He inclined his head slightly back in Ellie’s and Grace’s direction.

  Oh yeah. Right. Kind of lost it there for a moment. Angel chastised herself for missing her morning meditation due to showing Ellie around. Of all people, no one knew as well as Angel how important it was for a Defender to keep their emotions under control, to stay focused and grounded. She sat back down and lowered her voice, “Sorry, Joe. You caught me off-guard.”

  He nodded. “Understood. And just for the record, we swept everything—including yesterday’s outfit.” He waved a hand toward Angel’s black leather combo. “There were no bugs.”

  She smoothed the front of her black shirt and said with a pout, “Of course not.”

  “Anyway…” Joe redirected everyone’s attention toward the screen. “Rishi has a list of Council members and other closely related parties who’ve traveled to Atlanta in the last couple years for any reason. I really don’t believe any of these people would intentionally betray us, but perhaps they were unwittingly part of something—”

  “Wait, Uncle Joe…what’s the Council?”

  “I’ll take this one,” volunteered Grace. “The Council is a group of Gifted Ones from around the world who meet semi-regularly to discuss issues of interest to all the Gifted. They debate the relative importance or danger of various research projects, whether to let an identified Gifted person know they have the gene, and figure out ways to help Gifted Ones, like they did with my family—”

  Angel interrupted, “And with mine. After I took down the scary dude in the street that day, the Council sent Joe to find me. They figured I was worth saving.”

  “They were right,” Joe said, then he motioned to Rishi to continue.

  Rishi tapped on his tablet, then raised a hand in the air. He flicked open his fingers, and a three-dimensional image of a chubby, elderly man appeared, seemingly floating in the air in front of them and spinning slowly, like a model on a pedestal.

  Joe narrated, “This is Donat Maisonet, a French physicist. He was one of the people who was in D.C. with Angel and I the other night, when we got the call. He could’ve theoretically overheard us talking or…” Joe shook his head, indicating his doubt. “I suppose had us followed.” He looked at Grace and Ellie. “Have either of you ever heard of him before today, or seen him somewhere?”

  Grace shook her head, and Ellie shrugged her shoulders. “Can’t say I’d remember if I did.”

  “Okay, good. Next.” He nodded toward Rishi to show the next one, and on it went. In each case, neither Grace nor Ellie expressed any knowledge of the person…until the last.

  As Rishi flicked open his hand one more time, an image of a large, muscular man flashed before them. His jet-black hair was slightly unkempt, longer than it should have been, and the ends were curling up in the back. He wore black jeans and a black t-shirt that was just snug enough to accentuate every ripple and bulge across his broad shoulders and well-developed torso. At the site of him, Angel felt herself fighting for self-control again. “Joe! Seriously?” she demanded.

  He raised his hand without looking in her direction. “Yes, Angel, seriously. It’s just a question.” He looked at Grace. “Anything?”

  Once again, she shook her head. “Nope. Never saw him before.” Then she grinned. “And I’m quite sure I would remember him if I had…mmm, mmm, mmm.”

  Joe rolled his eyes and then motioned toward Rishi to close the image.

  “Wait!” Ellie grabbed Joe’s arm, apparently transfixed on the handsome physique.

  “You recognize him?” Joe asked.

  “I…no…maybe. I’m not sure. There’s something familiar…” Ellie tipped her head to the left and then to the right.

  “Well, of course there is!” Angel snapped, opening both hands toward the image. “It’s Rique! My brother. You saw his picture in my room last night.”

  “Oh, sure, now I see it.” Ellie relaxed her shoulders, then took another long look as the image spun again to the backside. “He definitely grew up…and out. I mean, uh, you know…” She held her hands in a way that was supposed to represent broad shoulders.

  Angel started laughing. “Yeah, I know. He’s pretty popular with the ladies up in D.C.”

  Ellie propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands, still staring at the screen. “I’ll bet.”

  Then Angel turned her attention back toward Joe and Rishi. “And he may not be a member of this organization, but he would never do anything to hurt any of us. You know that, Joe. He’s helped us several times, and he would do it again. He’s constantly working to make himself a better Defender and a better person.”

  Joe again motioned for Rishi to close the image, then looked directly at Angel. “Angel, he’s a big boy now. He doesn’t need you to protect him. And for the record, I have complete faith in Rique. I wouldn’t have invited him to join us—more than once, I might add—if I didn’t.” Joe consulted his tablet. “But he did drive to Atlanta six months ago and stayed for three days, so he was on the list. That’s all there is to it.”

  Joe addressed the group again, “I knew it was unlikely that Ellie and Grace had seen any of these people; we just had to verify it.” He looked at Rishi. “So you found nothing anywhere to give us a clue about this kid Aiden?”

  Rishi was shaking his head. “I tell you, Joe, nothing. Within hours, every trace of him disappeared from cyberspace. Somebody really knew what they were doing. Most impressive. Almost as good as me.”

  Joe wrinkled up his forehead and thought for a moment. “Ellie, honey, I know your brain was scrambled, but do you remember anything that Aiden said or did that seemed really strange? Just take a minute, think about it.”

  Ellie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She looked like she was trying really hard to remember, but then started shaking her head. “No, Joe, it was all just normal teenager chit-chat…” Her voice trailed off.

  Grace grasped Ellie’s hands. “What, honey? There was something, wasn’t there? Tell us, even if it seems silly or unimportant.”

  Ellie opened her eyes. “Well, there was this one thing. It’s probably nothing, but he said something about my eyes.” She turned to look at Joe. “He said I have my father’s eyes. But I don’t. Why would he say that?”

  Chapter Eight: Jump Seat

  Her father’s eyes. Hmph. Joe was still cogitating on that one three days later. First, the guy drugs Ellie with God knows what, and then he makes a crack like that. As if the little creep knew anything about Ellie’s father. Joe was looking forward to the day they tracked down that Aiden kid, so he could kill him with his bare hands.

  Oh, okay, he wasn’t going to kill the kid. Just make him wish he were dead.

  Joe rolled his head around on his neck, attempting to loosen the taut muscles, and kept walking
the path toward the main livestock barn. He looked skyward, hoping to clear out those ugly thoughts with some brilliant April sunshine. There was still a chill in the air and enough breeze to keep him moving, but even the fresh smell of a springtime afternoon wasn’t going to take it all away. Between learning he had some kind of weak link in his organizational structure, and then, almost losing Ellie and Grace to unknown forces from the “dark side” of the Gifted gene pool…well, he’d had about all the stress he could handle this week, and now there was just a little more. Nothing quite so dramatic brewing up in D.C. this time, but enough to require a visit in person, and that meant convincing Grace to go along.

  Although she’d been at the farm only a few days, Grace had already become a fixture in the barns and fields, plying her veterinary skills with the animals and experiments that Dr. Bianco’s departure had left in the lurch. When Joe couldn’t find her in the farmhouse, he knew just where to look.

  Before he even reached the big barn building, he spotted her through one of the windows. Unaware that she was being observed, Grace labored aggressively, brushing down one of the Belties who was feeding from a trough. Joe paused for a moment. Watching her through the fuzzy glass, in her jeans and casual shirt, muddy sneakers, and hair in a pony tail, he could feel the years melting away. He thought of a day, nearly twenty years before, when he’d taken both Lucy and Grace to the State Fair. Lucy, the dainty and delicate intellectual, was awkward and uncomfortable around the big, smelly animals, while her baby sister boldly approached them and marveled at their majesty. Who knew that fascination would become her career?

  He turned away from the window and walked the rest of the way to the side door of the barn. He took a few steps inside but stopped when he heard their voices laughing together. Doo was with her now, and they were sharing a moment over something the cow had done. Joe felt immediately uneasy, superfluous, and oddly intrusive. He shifted his direction, intending to retreat.

  “Joe, come here!” Grace called out to him, her voice light and playful. “You have to see this crazy cow eating this seaweed. She actually likes it. Apparently, she’s got a more sophisticated palate than I have.”