by Corey Tate
“Sit down, Scott,” Nick ordered. “This is going to be a lot to wrap your head around.”
Scott sat back down slowly, still warily watching Claire.
Claire widened her eyes, and Scott felt a sharp ping in his forehead. He closed his eyes and quickly recovered from the pain.
When he opened his eyes again, he knew instantly why he had been having the dreams back on Earth. If anyone needed help, it was this planet—or at least these people.
Claire’s legs and neck were covered with bruises, and her left pointer finger and thumb looked broken.
Sam still had a large bandage on her left leg and shoulder from where she had been shot on the cruise ship. She also had some new cuts on her arms and legs, probably from sparring with Claire.
Scott couldn’t believe it. He’d thought Sam had made a full recovery, but it had just been Claire the whole time, messing with his mind for “his own safety.”
Seth. He was hiding behind Claire, looking extremely nervous.
“Seth, step forward,” Claire ordered him, reading Scott’s mind.
Seth stepped in front of Claire.
“Scott, you now see everything as it really is, except for Seth. Prepare yourself. It will be a bit of a shock,” Claire warned.
He felt another ping in his forehead. Scott blinked the dizziness away from his eyes and focused on Seth again.
The boy standing in front of him was not Seth. It was Charlie.
“Charlie! You’re . . . you’re what? You’re Armadronian?”
Charlie gave a sheepish grin as Scott stared, open mouthed.
“So what happened was . . . I jumped into the water after I saw a couple Conjurers go in after you. I had no idea that you were a Mediator, or why Sam was there. I just knew something was up.”
There was silence for several heartbeats. They could hear the shouts and sounds of training going on in the distance.
“So tell me, Charlie. Seth. Whoever you are,” Scott finally said angrily. “How did you get to Earth if this is your home? And why did you go to school with me and become my friend?”
“Scott, I didn’t go to school just to—”
“Or was that just another big coincidence in my happy-go-lucky life?” Scott crossed his arms.
“It wasn’t a coincidence, Scott. I—”
“You what?”
“Okay, Scott. You want answers, you got ’em,” Seth said, stepping into the challenge. “I am a full Armadronian. I lived on this planet until I was thirteen years old. Shortly after my thirteenth birthday, both my parents died in front of me. I was mad at the world and wanted a way out. I was secretly planning to commit suicide the next time Nick, Claire, Sam, and I went on a search-and-rescue mission together. Turns out, I found a better alternative. We found this eleven-year-old kid on the mission who could generate wormholes.”
“Wormholes?” Scott repeated. “You can’t come up with anything more original than that?”
Seth ignored him. “One night, he and I sneaked out of the Cavern, and I sort of bullied him into making a wormhole to get me to Earth, even though he’d never done it before. When I jumped inside, I heard a shout, and the wormhole started to close behind me. I turned around before it closed and saw the kid get taken away. Before I could catch a glimpse of who had taken him, I was whisked off.”
“Okay,” Scott said, shaking his head. “But that doesn’t explain why you went to school with me, why you became my friend, and how you got the McEntlys to be your parents on Earth. And it doesn’t explain why you lied to me. Me. Your best friend.”
“What happened”—Seth took a deep breath, then continued—“when I emerged from the other end of the wormhole will explain a lot. The end of the wormhole was right in their living room. The McEntlys. Right between their couch and the TV. By a stroke of luck, they were watching TV at the time. They freaked out, turned off the TV and ran behind the couch to watch. I saw all this through my end of the wormhole.”
Scott wasn’t convinced.
“When I came out,” Charlie continued, “it started to close slowly behind me. I remembered what Thaught had told us about Armadron. He’d always said we don’t have real power, that the planet was the source of our power, we’re just the antennas. Once the wormhole closed, I figured that I wouldn’t be able to use my curse anymore. So I ran over to the couple and used my electricity to reform their synapses. Their new memories would tell them that I was an orphaned kid living on the streets, and that they wanted to adopt me. After I fixed the wife’s memories and finished with the husband’s, I lost my curse. I turned around to look at the wormhole and saw that it was closed. Then I noticed there was an envelope on the carpet next where the opening had just been.”
Charlie stopped talking.
“Go on,” Scott prompted.
“So,” Charlie continued, “as I had arranged, the McEntlys gave me the good news that I was going to be adopted. In the meantime, I went up to a room they told me I could sleep in that night, taking the envelope with me. When I got upstairs and opened the envelope, I found a piece of paper that had two instructions: one, find Scott Faranger and protect him with your life, and two, if I protected you, there would be a time when I would need to follow you back home. I could tell from the handwriting that the note was from Thaught. Apparently, he’d figured out that I was gonna take the portal, but he didn’t stop me. He used me. He didn’t want anyone else to know, though. He doesn’t trust anyone. Ever.
“There was only one thing to do,” Seth went on. “I had to find you and befriend you. Luckily, it wasn’t that hard. Turns out, you’re a pretty likeable guy.”
Scott smiled before he could stop himself.
“So I went to school, and my new parents paid for everything I needed. Almost immediately, I found you and we became best friends, Step Brothers-style. After a while, I got a visit in the dream-realm from Artam telling me to go with you on the cruise. He said that you and my team would need me in the battle to come. That’s it.”
There was silence for a long time. Enough time for things to feel awkward.
Scott tried to say something, but his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat.
“I feel like I don’t know you anymore, man.” He shook his head glumly. “I mean . . . all of these secrets. You’re like . . . I don’t know you,” Scott repeated.
“Au contraire. Yes, you do,” Charlie insisted. “I didn’t develop a fake personality on Earth. This is who I am. You saw the real deal. You and I were best friends then, so why can’t we be best friends now?”
“Because you lied to me,” Scott said quietly. “Over and over again.”
“Yeah, but I was just waiting for the right time to tell you the truth, dude. I know you the best out of anyone on this planet. We’re bros,” Seth finished weakly and let the idea hang in the air.
The two sat there for over a minute.
Nick coughed and shuffled his feet, and Claire slapped him in the chest, reminding everyone that others were present for this personal conversation.
“Let’s give them a minute,” Claire said as she practically dragged Nick away, while Sam followed them wordlessly.
The three of them walked off, leaving the two former friends alone.
Seth looked to Scott for approval, but Scott was looking at the floor with a dead, meaningless stare.
“I understand, Scott. It looks like I only became your friend to get myself back home. Well, it was like that at first, because I was homesick as hell, but then I just didn’t care anymore about Armadron. I had a good life on Earth. You and I became best friends. We did cool stuff. We went to parties, played on the soccer team, hit on girls, watched movies. Jared sort of became my little brother, too. Bro, we’ve hopped fences together. Remember that dumb lemonade stand we ran all summer that made zero money? Your family took me snowboarding for my first time. And we always had each other’s backs. In my book, all that meant something.” Seth almost whispered the last sentence.
Scott st
ood up. Seth followed suit.
“What’s your name?” Scott asked, still avoiding eye contact.
“What?” Seth was confused.
“What’s your name?” he repeated, this time looking Seth right in the eye. “They call you Seth. Is that it?”
Seth hesitated for a moment, then replied, “It’s Seth. Yeah.”
Scott held out his hand to shake.
“Hi, Seth. I’m Scott Faranger. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Oh, have you now?” Seth grinned, blinking away a few tears as he shook Scott’s hand. “What have you heard?”
“Actually, Rick the Brick was just having a wonderful conversation with me about you,” Scott said with a smirk.
They both laughed at that one.
“You know what?” Seth mused aloud.
“What?”
“Nick would beat the ever-livin’-crap out of Brick.”
“Agreed.” Scott laughed imagining the grudge match.
After a brief pause, Scott broke the silence.
“Why’d you change your name to Charlie?” Scott asked.
“I was a kid. Seemed like a fun idea at the time.” Seth grinned. “YOLO.”
“You’re still a kid.”
“Not on this planet.” Seth winked.
They both laughed again and then hugged it out.
Dropping the embrace, the two friends stepped back and looked at each other, and something in Scott’s mind finally settled.
“All right, let’s do this,” Scott said, nodding. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Wait . . . what? Just like that?”
“Yup. Just like that. We’ve got five days, right? Until the Gateway reverses?”
“So you’re all in?”
“You guys need to teach me what I need to know, and I’ll learn what I can. Like you’ve all been saying,” Scott stared at him, unwavering.
Seth grabbed him by the shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s what I’m talking about, Faranger.”
He released Scott and turned around.
“Hey guys!” Seth called everyone over. “Let’s go!”
Nick, Claire, and Sam appeared almost immediately—they hadn’t gone far—and Scott spoke to them once they were all in a circle.
“I’ve read books about kids my age getting superpowers, traveling to other worlds, to other dimensions—and whining about it. I never understood it. I always thought that if I got a choice, I’d choose the superpowers and say good-bye to my family. But when it really happened—like, really happened—it’s a tougher choice than you’d think, and I didn’t want to be here. But I am here. And now I know what I have to do, what I was maybe even born to do. I’m going to do all that I can to save this planet with you guys so that I can get back to my mom and my brother. I’m done talking about the past. I’m done feeling sorry for myself. I could have stayed on Earth if I really wanted to, even if I probably would have gotten shot.”
Nick chuckled at that, and it was Sam’s turn to glare at him.
“I made a choice, and I’m sticking by that choice,” Scott continued, ignoring Nick. “This isn’t a time for talking anymore, it’s a time for action.”
Everyone looked at him in amazement.
Nick brought his hands together, trying to start a sarcastic slow-clap.
Seth Accelerated just his hands and eyes. He rubbed his hands in his own hair and pointed at Nick.
A thin, white bolt of lightning shot toward the middle of Nick’s close-cropped black hair. The hair collected the charge and poofed, making Nick look like he had a mohawk.
Nick looked up at his hair with a frown, and Sam giggled.
Scott’s stomach grumbled.
Everyone laughed. Seth was holding his gut and almost falling over, tears streaming down his face. Even Claire was doubled over with laughter. Once they all finally stopped laughing, it was Sam’s turn to address the group.
“Let’s go get some food!”
Knowledge Is Living
They’d been walking for about half an hour when Scott spotted a boy totally immersed in blue fire. It seemed as if the intense flame had no effect on him, which was probably the case. Scott averted his eyes quickly, as the boy didn’t appear to be wearing any clothes, almost as if the fire had become his clothes.
Farther ahead Scott saw six kids, four boys and two girls, who each looked to be about nine years old. They were all wearing ragged clothes and no shoes. He looked down at what he was wearing in contrast. He then looked around at Sam, Seth, Nick, and Claire.
“Are clothes hard to get here? How come we get decent clothes but those kids don’t? And what does the symbol mean?”
For the first time since Claire had lifted the protective filter on his eyes and mind, Scott took a good look at everyone’s clothing. They were each wearing some form of sleeveless or short-sleeved shirt and black, tan, or white shorts. Each of their shirts had a strange symbol that looked like a severely curved line with two circles at each end. The line was cut in the middle by a turned hourglass. They also each wore black shoes that seemed to be made from some form of enhanced rubber.
“We are all wearing the same symbol because it means we are Icranu. Protectors of this barbaric world,” Claire explained. “As for the clothes, they are not hard to come by if you know the right people with the right curses.”
Scott nodded and resumed looking at the six children moving up ahead. The children were playing a game of keep-away from the child in the center. The boy in the center was helplessly trying to get the ball as the five other children kicked it around him. He noticed a few things about the game. For one, the ball was made entirely of ice and black dirt. Secondly, one of the boys on the outside would kick the ball toward the boy in the center, but when the boy in the center would dive for the ball, the boy on the outside would twitch his hand and the ball would change its path toward another person on the outside. Thirdly, one of the girls on the outside would close her eyes if the ball got too close to the boy in the center, and the boy in the center would move very slowly. It looked like he moved in slow motion or like he was stuck in Jell-O.
Scott smiled. These games were probably normal for Armadronians, just like soccer was normal for humans. He was about to turn away and suggest that they keep heading toward some food when the boy in the center made a move. He stretched his hand out toward the ball, and red, pulsating lightning shot out of his fingers. The ball burst into fragments, and ice rained everywhere. The boy cheered.
One of the boys on the outside was not so happy.
“You cheated!” he screamed.
“No I didn’t!” the boy argued.
“Yes, you diiiiiid!” the boy on the outside of the circle bellowed back.
His voice sounded much louder and more amplified than a normal voice. The boy in the center was thrown off his feet and landed on the dirt five feet away on his head.
“Jon, stop it!” one of the girls cried in vain.
Jon looked over at the girl but acted as if he hadn’t heard her. He waited for the boy with the slightly bleeding forehead to pick himself up.
“Not so hot now, huh, Andrew?” Jon mocked.
Jon went to clap his hands together, but he never got that far: his hands stopped just before they touched, and they seemed to move on their own accord. They intertwined behind his back, and he fell to his knees. He was staring down open mouthed at his body.
“That’s quite enough, Jon,” Claire told him.
Claire was standing right next to the boy when Seth, Nick, Sam, and Scott were all still about thirty feet away. Scott couldn’t believe it.
“How did she do that?” he asked Seth.
“Claire either made us all forget that she moved over there, or she tricked our minds into not seeing her,” Seth explained. “Or something.”
“Wow,” Scott said, breathless.
“But I didn’t start it!” Jon argued with Claire.
“You were sure going to finish it, tho
ugh,” she said, glaring at him.
The boy lowered his head.
“Andrew, will you please come over here,” Claire said, more as an order, not a question.
Andrew slowly made his way over to them.
Seth, Sam, and Nick watched in silence. Scott looked at each one of them in turn.
This is amazing, he thought.
—No, Scott, Claire answered his thought, it’s normal.
“Jon, apologize,” Claire commanded out loud.
“Sorry,” Jon mumbled.
“Not good enough. Look Andrew in the eye and apologize,” she ordered.
Jon lifted his head and sighed. “I’m sorry for hitting you with a sound wave, and I’m sorry for calling you a cheater.”
“It’s okay.” Andrew shrugged.
“Now go on and see a plant grower,” Claire told the kids. “You all look tired, like you could use something quick to eat.”
With that, the kids dispersed, and Claire walked back to the group.
“Why aren’t any of their parents around? Do they just let their kids roam free?” Scott asked as Claire neared them. “They’re nuts.”
“No, Scott,” Sam answered. “Remember? Most adults don’t live to be that old with Terminus running the show. We grow up on our own usually from around age twelve.”
“No way. That’s crazy,” Scott huffed. “You mean you get your own food and your own clothing when you’re that young? And fend for yourself? With Terminus on the loose and abducting people?”
“Yes,” Nick answered dryly. “Now do you want to eat, or not?”
Scott’s stomach chose that moment to grumble again.
“It’s like that thing has a mind of its own,” Sam joked.
Nick started walking again, and everyone followed behind him.
“Do you guys know what all the curses are?” Scott questioned.
“No,” Sam told him. “Just the most well-known. There are hundreds more.”
“Hundreds?”
“Yeah,” Sam explained. “More than eighty percent that we encounter are low-level, though.”
“Low-level?” Scott repeated.
“Yeah,” Seth interjected, “like having a faster metabolism, way better hearing, shapeshifting into one thing, having camouflage, resistance to temperature spikes, growing horns, or some other weird stuff, blah blah blah.”