The Gifted

by Aaron K. Redshaw

  A kid with short blonde hair said, “They caught someone.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Follow me,” said Derek.

  I followed, glad to avoid any pain. We ran through dark, cold passages until we arrived at another larger auditorium. Derek walked toward the front, while I stayed in the back. Everyone was talking loudly as a light focused on the stage. Up front was Abe, and next to him, tied to a chair was Tracy with an empty chair next to her. Whenever I looked away from the chair back to Tracy I could see that someone was in the other chair. Someone wearing a Hawaiian shirt—Guido.

  Abe motioned for everyone to quiet down. “We have recently captured two spies. Something that has not happened since this training facility began. We recorded these two on camera yesterday in our Communications Office. They were calling the U.S. for a rescue. Imagine that! Our enemy! As if someone who had the privilege of coming to this training facility would ever want to leave!” There was some laughter.

  “Tonight we will have the first execution we have yet had at this facility. I hope you understand the seriousness of this. If it was ever in doubt before, remember, we are at war, and we will prevail!” There was applause from the crowd. This time I couldn’t bring myself to join in.

  Abe held up his hands and the applause died down. “The execution will be in the lower dungeon so that it will not disturb you. At least you will not have to worry about traitors among you. Power to conquer!”

  Then the whole room shouted again and again, “Power to conquer! Power to conquer! Power to conquer! Power to conquer!”

  Then it faded and students began talking excitedly about this discovery of traitors. My heart sank. What should I do? When they had called yesterday there was a video camera recording them. It was all my fault.

  Just then Han ran in behind me and whispered in my ear, “Did you hear?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered back, not wanting a reminder. “They caught Tracy and Guido.”

  “They did?”

  “Isn't that what you were going to tell me?”

  “No,” he said, “Brock just escaped!”

  Chapter 15: Our secret weapon

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked.

  “I overheard some boys. One of the boy’s father is a guard and came home talking about it. They chased Brock to the ocean. They thought he drowned; he didn’t.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because Brock won three ribbons in swimming for the U.S. team. I recognized him from the feed I watched as a boy. I saw him get those ribbons. It would take a hurricane to drown him.”

  “Do you think he left us?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe he just hid.”

  “I hope he’s okay.”

  Han looked at the stage where Tracy and the mostly empty chair that must have been Guido were sitting. “What's going on with them?”

  “Captured,” I said. “They are to be executed tonight.” He looked up worried. “Which means we are planning to break in, rescue them, and escape today.”

  “Do you have a plan?” said Han.

  “Unfortunately, I do,” I said.

  “Is it a good one?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not as confident as I used to be.”

  “Confidence is overrated,” said Han. “You go, I’ll follow.”

  Han followed me out of the room and through a series of corridors. When we got to an outer door, he asked, “Where are we going? We can't leave them.”

  “I'm not leaving anyone,” I said. “We need reinforcements. We need a diversion.”

  “How about guns? Does your diversion involve guns?”

  “No,” I said. “But it involves a dog.”

  ***

  Once we found an exit that led outside, I began to jog. It was terribly hot and muggy out today.

  “Didn't we already do this?” he said.

  “Yup,” I said. “And it was very enlightening.”

  Han was breathing kind of hard, “Okay.”

  We came upon the same enclosure we had come upon earlier that day. We walked around one side almost all the way before we found a way inside. There was a large steel gate, but it was locked. “What do we do now?” he said.

  “We wait.”

  We could hear people inside at times, so it was only a few minutes before we heard the door open. When it did, we stood in front of it. “Hi,” I said, using my influence as much as I could focus, “Can we see the animals?” I said this with a smile.

  “Well,” said the man holding a gun in both hands, “we're not supposed to let anyone in here. But since you are a part of the school, I guess it's okay,” he smiled back. “Just this once.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We walked inside the gate.

  The place was a wonder. Some animals were in cages and some were roaming free. There was a walkway down the middle with enclosures on both sides. The tiger I had seen the other day was pacing back and forth in the open. I heard some loud birds and even saw a dolphin tank, and the place stank of animals. In one corner I saw the dog I had petted earlier in a cage. I said to Han, “Now why would a tiger walk free, but a small harmless dog be put in a cage?”

  “Maybe he has rabies,” said Han.

  “They shoot dogs with rabies,” I said.

  Although the cage was shut, I saw that it was not locked. I opened the cage door and out came our dog wagging his tail and whimpering. He licked my hand and I pet him a few times. In a tan blur, he was gone down the pathway, then, zip, he was under my hand again as if he hadn't gone anywhere.

  “How did he do that?” said Han.

  “Maybe he has a gift, like us.”

  “Hey, kids!” we heard someone else yell in our direction. “You can't be here. You want me to report you!” My effect on them had worn off or they were new guards.

  “Gotta go!” I said.

  Han and I raced toward the closed door, but as we neared it, two other men approached from the left and blocked it. They had M16’s and wore angry expressions. I heard our dog running beside us panting and leaping like he was playing a game. Han and I slowed down, putting our hands up. We knew we were beat. Our dog, on the other hand, didn’t even slow down, but blurred out of existence. Both men dove out of the way as a terribly loud, cracking noise deafened us. The dog ran through the door like it wasn’t even there, leaving a hole a little bigger than the dog. Once through, he panted like he wanted us to follow. We crawled through as fast as we could, and the dog happily licked my face. As we continued to run, I heard the guards yelling for us to stop, but didn’t pursue us further.

  “A gifted dog,” said Han between breaths.

  “Very,” I said.

  We ran on toward the building, going inside the first entrance we found. “How do we get to the dungeon?” I said.

  “I can only guess,” said Han. “Dungeons are usually under castles in books and we’ve been through much of this floor, so let's look for stairs going down.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. We ran along one of the corridors with the dog next to us. There was a loud sound of talking and feet shuffling ahead, so we hid in an open training room. “It must be lunch!” I whispered, “The rooms are empty.”

  We moved from there until we had passed the lunch area and began looking for stairs. I had no idea where I was going. We had walked for several minutes when we entered a dimly lit area, so we had to slow down. “How will we know where the dungeon is?” I said.

  “It says dungeon over the door,” said Han.

  “How do you know that?” I said.

  “Lot’s of experience with dungeons,” said Han.

  “Really?”

  Han smiled and pointed above my head. Turning around I saw in the dim light a sign above a door that said, “Dungeon.”

  “You tell jokes,” I said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Only when they’re funny,” he said.

  The stairs were made of stone which
slowly spiraled down to the left and were mostly shrouded in darkness. Occasionally a fluorescent light was stationed along the wall but it got pretty dark before the next light. A heavy steel door stood at the bottom. Our new dog was panting and following us the whole way. He would zip forward like a blur and then back like a blur. He didn’t ever seem to get tired. One time he came too near me as he ran past and tore a piece off the side of my pants. “Ah,” I said. “Watch it.”

  The small dog whimpered, panted and looked up while wagging his tail.

  “Han?” I said before we opened the door. I leaned down and instantly the dog was under my hand. I stroked him a few times. “We have to give this little guy a name.”

  “Hayasa,” said Han.

  “Gazuntite.”

  “What?”

  “You sneezed,” I said.

  He looked confused. “No, his name should be Hayasa.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It's the Japanese word for speed,” said Han.

  “Good name. What do you think Hayasa?” He panted happily at my side.

  I turned to Han. “Han, I just realized I’ve been trying to lead again. I’m not really a leader though. The general made sure I knew that before we left.”

  “Andy,” said Han. “I trust you. Everything is good so far.”

  “But I don’t really know what I’m doing. I have no training.”

  “Hey, we’re in a place we’ve never been, surrounded by kids with gifts no one has ever heard of. I will follow you.”

  I didn’t know how to argue with this. “Okay,” I said and straightened up. “Here we go.”

  I opened the door, which squeaked as it opened, and paused, noticing how quiet it was. I remembered Abe mentioning this would be the first executions. Maybe they didn't usually have prisoners either. But then I remembered that they did have Brock recently. Maybe there were others down here too. We stopped for a few seconds and listened. Just the sound of soft paws racing back and forth as Hayasa scurried here and there.

  ***

  I heard someone talking, a girl’s voice. Walking cautiously in that direction, I noticed the dark, dingy looking stonework of the walls. It looked very old. I thought, How could this place be that old? I thought the school was relatively new.

  As we neared the sound, the talking stopped. It was dead silent, but we crept nearer to where I now saw was the door to a cell. At the top of the door was a small window with bars. I whispered, “Tracy?”

  “It's them!” she said excitedly.

  “Tracy,” I said. “Is Guido with you?”

  “He's right here!” she said, “We’ve just been talking about what to do.”

  “Great,” I said. “Now if we can only get you out of there!” The door looked to be made of solid steel. Impossible to break down.

  A loud bang rang out! I hit the floor, thankful they missed with their first bullet. Looking up, I saw a dog-sized hole in front of me through the door and Tracy was petting Hayasa. It occurred to me that Hayasa had again run right through a door. I was liking our new dog more and more.

  “Okay,” I said. “Problem solved. I hope no one heard that.”

  Tracy and Guido crawled through the door, careful to keep away from the sharp jagged pieces of metal that stuck out here and there. “Some dog,” said Tracy.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Some dog.”

  “Where can I get me one of those?” said Guido.

  “Now what do we do?” Tracy asked me. Of course, they always asked me.

  “Let's go back the way we came.” Everyone followed me back to the stairs when I realized maybe they shouldn’t be following me. Maybe I was endangering them. When we got to the door of the stairs I heard people running down on the other side.

  I started to panic. “There’s another door over there!” said Tracy. “But I don’t know where it goes.”

  “Away from them!” I yelled as we raced down the hall and opened the door. Inside was another good-sized room. When I opened the door at first I couldn't see because it was so bright.

  “What's all this light for?” I said.

  “The better to shoot you with,” said a commanding voice. It was the voice of Abe. “We have been waiting for you.” As soon as I could see, it was clear there were about a dozen men and all of them with guns.

  “I'm having a bad day,” I said. “I want to go back to bed.”

  Chapter 16: A way out

  I had no heart to fight. They led us back through the hall, up the stairs and down another corridor. I felt like giving up, walking alongside the soldiers when I smelled smoke. Then I saw it curl up one of the soldier’s legs. Several of the men with guns started looking around, confused. The soldier’s pant leg caught fire, soon the same thing happened to another guy near him. Both dropped to the ground trying to smother the fire by rolling around. Soon eight men began to dance around, trying to put out their pants as they caught on fire while others tried to help their comrades.

  “Run!” said Tracy. She led the way as we ran for the far door at the end of the hall. When we got through the door, we saw that we had entered part of the robotic assembly area again. This time instead of coming out on the balcony, we were on the ground level. The noise was horrendous. A series of conveyors moved quickly in front of us.

  Everyone paused and looked at me. I didn’t lecture them about not being able to lead. “This would be a good room to hide,” I yelled. “Any ideas?”

  “How about that?” said Guido. He found an equipment closet that was mostly empty. There was only one machine part inside, square with knobs all over it. I had no idea what it did.

  “We can all fit,” said Tracy.

  We followed her inside and I wondered where Hayasa was, so I reached down my hand and instantly he was there. I gave him a pat on the head while crouching. Han closed the large metal door, and we waited silently, still breathing hard.

  Soldiers came running through the door outside. I could smell the smoke. “They could have run or they might have hidden,” said Abe. “You and you, search this room. The rest of us will move on.”

  “But that girl just sizzled the pants off of me!” whined a voice.

  “Go,” said Abe. “You'll have to get new pants later.”

  “In my boxers?”

  “Yes, just go.”

  “Oh, alright,” he said. “Let's go Joe!”

  “I’m going back to the training facility,” said Abe. “The next session is about to start.”

  That meant only two men would be searching for us. But I remembered, they had guns. An advantage we didn't have.

  We could hear the two men moving equipment around. Even over the sound of the machinery, they were talking loudly. “Can you believe it Roy! Three kids escaped! And did you see the hole in that door? How did they do that?”

  I thought about this. There were four of us. Why. . .

  “It's me,” I heard a voice whisper. Guido touched my shoulder and I could see him in the shadows. “They don't know I'm with you. Maybe this gift isn’t so bad after all.”

  “If they get us,” I whispered, “you have to get out. Get away and tell the general what we've found.”

  “Okay, but I'll bring someone back for you,” he said.

  “Sure thing,” I said, knowing if we got caught, we’d probably be dead.

  Again we listened to the two men outside. “Sizzled my pants right off me,” said Roy. “The burns will probably take weeks to heal! It hurts to even walk.”

  “Just be careful that she doesn't sizzle more than that,” said Joe.

  “These kids creep me out,” said Roy. “Everyone with these crazy powers.”

  “Yeah, but we have guns,” said Joe. “We'll get them. Then we'll lock them up. Or maybe we'll shoot them and say it was by mistake.”

  “Hey, that's an idea,” said Roy. “One good turn deserves another, right?”

  Their voices were getting louder. I heard them open up a locker nearby and slam it closed again. r />
  “No one can pants me and get away with it,” said Roy. “Shooting them would be justice.”

  “Yeah, I was just kidding Roy,” said Joe. “You don’t want to shoot them. Let Abe take care of them.”

  “Yeah, but. Well, you’re probably right,” said Roy. “Anyway, I can't do it here. I don't have any good place to put the bodies. Unless one of these lockers would work.”

  “Hey, there's an idea,” said Joe. “A bad idea. Do you want to get yourself killed? You know what they do around here for disobeying orders?”

  “Right,” said Roy. “Hey, Let's look over here.”

  “Okay Roy,” said Joe. We heard our locker door squeak on its hinges as an orange light entered slowly. “Hello, hello!” he said. He had his gun trained on us. We couldn’t see him too well since the light was behind him, but I could smell the smoke from his burned pants and we saw that they were just tatters.

  “Hey Joe, I found them!” he yelled.

  Joe came up to the locker next to Roy. “Great, Roy. I’ll just call the boss.” Joe reached for his radio.

  “Hey, what’s that over there?” yelled Roy.

  Joe turned to look and as he did we heard Thump! Clang! as Joe was hit on the head with Roy’s gun. “Yeah, Joe, nothing personal, but I have a score to settle here.”

  Turning back to us, he said, “Now don't you move. And if I feel any heat on any part of my body, I'm going to start shooting people. You understand?”

  We were quiet. A sense of dread crept over my whole body. I saw in his eyes he looked more than ready to open fire, and at his feet lay Joe.

  “I said, do you understand?” he shouted louder.

  “Yes,” we all responded.

  Roy smiled. Seeing him in the orange light with the conveyors behind him was eerie.

  “Now that I have your attention, I think you guys are about to get dead. I'll tell them you were trying to overpower me and I shot you before you escaped. Joe wouldn't understand it, but no one frizzles my pants and embarrasses me like that. I'll shoot each and every one of you, but first off I'll begin with the girl because I think she did it to me. She’s the only one I saw with her eyes closed, concentrating.”

  “Okay girl, come forward unless you want your friends killed first.” Tracy took a trembling step forward.

  He brought up the gun and leveled it at her head, almost touching it. We braced ourselves for the shot and heard a loud bang. But it didn’t sound quite right; not loud enough. I opened my eyes and there lay Roy crumpled on the ground and a bloody spot was forming under his head. A dented oil can lay next to his body, now leaking as well. “What?” I said.