Destination Unknown (Lumen Academy Book 1)

by Penelope Wright

  His eyes widen and he whacks his hand on the tabletop. “Old India, for the love of god! I could never Jump that far on my own. Your power is unholy. And if you can’t figure out how to control it, it’s also extremely dangerous.”

  “Okay,” I say, holding up my hands to soothe him. “I’ve never accidentally Jumped before. I just won’t meditate again, ever, and it should be fine. The Watchers can all calm down and leave me alone, and I’ll go back to being a factory gray, one with a newfound love of Indian food and a healthy respect for tigers.”

  “No. It doesn’t work that way. Once you’ve entered the in-between, it will call you back. You’ll slip in and out, mostly by accident. And with your power…who knows where you’ll end up?”

  “I don’t feel any different, though. This whole conversation, I’ve been trying to find that power within me, like you say I have, and I can’t.”

  An alarmed look hijacks Mars’s features. “Don’t!”

  “Too late, I already did, and there’s nothing there. And also, seriously, I’m a really cautious person. I won’t let it happen accidentally.”

  “Listen to me very carefully. Until you learn to control your abilities, you won’t be able to help it. Mona entered your mind and awoke your talent with a mix of sounds and probing. You’ve been lucky so far that you haven’t triggered an accidental Jump. Your ability is not going to go back to sleep.”

  Mona entered your mind… I flash back to my thoughts about John, and how in my mind, I made him burst into a million pieces and flutter away, no longer a constant evil presence in my brain cells. I hear Mona’s voice in my head, telling me how powerful I am, giving me confidence. “Well, I guess that wasn’t completely one hundred percent bad,” I say.

  Mars raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t speak, so I go on. “Okay, so I won’t ever get another sound bath again. I won’t go near Mona’s studio. Problem solved.”

  He takes the last bite of his food and sets his spoon down. “Problem not solved. Now that your power’s been activated, you don’t need a mind probe to make it happen. All you need is the right mix of tones and sounds, and you’ll be off like a rocket. And with your range, you could wind up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You’re in danger until you learn the different tones, how to produce them, and how to navigate the in-between.”

  “So even if those Watchers totally gave up on me…”

  “You’d still be a danger to yourself. But once you learn to control your talent, well…”

  He trails off and I have to prompt him. “Well what?”

  “You could be very powerful in our order.”

  I go quiet for a long time while I absorb his words. This could be a really good thing. Yeah, it’s scary now, but what if I do have a power? What if I don’t have to go back to life as a factor gray? I think about everything that’s happened. Teleportation, Watchers, The Citadel, Cancelers, Mars gobbling rocks left and right. And the last thing he said: “You could be very powerful in our order.” That sentence bounces around in my head, ricocheting off the walls of my brain until suddenly something clicks into place in my mind with an almost audible thud.

  I take a sharp breath in. “Those Watcher people didn’t send a Canceler after me, Mars.”

  He raises his eyebrows and takes a sip from his bottle of beer, his eyes encouraging me to go on.

  “If I could be very powerful in your order, who would I displace?”

  Mars’s mouth drops open.

  I smile grimly and point at him with my pewter spoon. “That’s who sent the Canceler.”

  14

  Heidi

  Mars apparently has a tremendous amount of chit credits on his plastic charge card because he has no problem paying for a long ride in a stuffy cab all the way to the Trivandrum International Airport. Once inside, he leads us away from never-ending lines of people dragging heavy suitcases, waiting to speak to a few disheveled-looking attendants. Instead, his flexible plastic credit card allows him to have a long chat with a pleasant-looking woman at a private desk. I hang back. I’m still dressed in gray, but Mars used his hyper-color to change his clothing to a vibrant indigo hue that demands respect. People probably think I’m his valet or his concubine. Maybe both.

  Whatever he says, it seems to be an easy process. No one demands proof of my identity or my permission to travel, which is good, because I have neither. Mars’s credit card, I assume, erases the need for answers to those questions. When the ticketing agent hands over two boarding passes, I enter into a mild state of panic. I’ve never flown in an airplane.

  We walk through a detector like the ones set up at the entrance to every factory I’ve ever worked in, but this one is deserted but for us and the one uniformed attendant, and we breeze past and into the main terminal.

  He leads me over to the far corner of a burnished wood counter, then he tracks down the server. When he returns, he has two beverages, paid for, I assume, with his plastic card full of credits.

  Mars hands me a glass of water with ice cubes and I take a sip. I gasp, spraying a fine mist of burning liquid out of my mouth before I get myself under control.

  “Not much of a drinker, huh?”

  “What, are you a mind reader too?” I ask, my throat tight. “Is this alcohol?”

  Mars chuckles and nods, taking a small sip of his own drink. He doesn’t grimace or choke like I did. I take another small sip. It still burns, but now that it’s not a surprise, I handle it better. I’ve never had alcohol before. Grays aren’t allowed to.

  Mars gets a serious expression on his face. “It’s just a good idea for you to dull your senses with alcohol while you’re flying. It makes it less likely that you’ll accidentally slide into the in-between while in midair.”

  “You seriously think I could do that? Go into that in-between by mistake?”

  “If you hear the right combination of tones, yes.”

  “Then two more, please,” I say, raising the index and middle finger of my right hand in the air in a V and shaking my nearly empty glass with my left.

  “I don’t actually like vodka tonics that much,” Mars says.

  “Well, that’s good, because they’re both for me.”

  Mars rolls his eyes and motions to the server. “Another whiskey sour, please.”

  I drain the rest of my drink, set it down, and twist my fingers together on top of the table. “Why can’t we just teleport home?” I ask.

  “I told you already; I don’t have your range.”

  “Then use my power, the way you got us from The Citadel to Old India in the first place.”

  Mars picks up a ballpoint pen he’s been using to doodle on a notepad and he stabs it down, leaving a dark blue blot on the page. “No. You don’t understand how that works. Yes, I took your power, but it should have never transported us this far. I can’t control our destination when I’m traveling under someone else’s power. It’s called a blind Jump, and it should have taken us no more than a mile. How we crossed the Indian Ocean is a mystery.”

  “So if you drew my power again, but this time you took even more of it, maybe we’d end up back in Region One?”

  “I am absolutely not going to do that; it’s way too dangerous. Why are you insisting on the idea?”

  The server sets two vodka tonics on the table. I pick one up and take a gulp.

  “Heidi, I asked you a question and I want to know the answer,” Mars says quietly.

  I glare at my drink, stick my finger in it, swirl around the ice cubes, then suck the alcohol off my finger. I feel the buzz of alcohol starting to smooth away my inhibitions. “I’m scared of flying,” I grumble.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Yeah, but I’m too astonished to believe my ears.”

  “What’s so surprising about it? I’m a factory gray. I spend my life firmly planted on the ground, not in a tube whizzing through the sky. The idea is terrifying.”

  “I just…well, after everything we’ve been thro
ugh today, I didn’t see you as the type to be scared of anything.”

  I blink several times rapidly, feeling my eyes go watery. “That might be the nicest compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life.”

  Our server comes over, bends at the waist, and murmurs into Mars’s ear. He smiles. “It’s time to board.”

  I shudder. “Wedged in with a bunch of strangers, putting my life into some random pilot’s hands? I hate everything about that idea.”

  “Probably because of your abilities. You want to do it yourself and hate giving up control. If it helps, I got us first class. Less wedging.”

  I cock my head and the whole room tilts. I slide sideways in my chair until my elbow hits the armrest.

  “You really don’t drink much, do you?” Mars takes my elbow and helps me stand. The ground seems to shift underneath me, but I’m not slipping into any sort of misty in-between place; I’m just trashed. I lean on Mars hard as he leads me down a gangway toward the scariest thing I’ve ever done.

  Easing out of sleep slowly, I pull the blanket more snugly under my chin and wriggle down a little deeper in the recliner. I must have fallen asleep in the common room after my shift. How did I score the recliner? It’s never unoccupied. And who was nice enough to tuck a blanket around me?

  I stretch, rub my eyes open, and sit bolt upright.

  “Nice nap?” Mars says from the seat next to me.

  My hands fly to the leather armrests on either side of me and my head darts every which way, looking around. Mars and I are seated side by side. There’s a little window with the shade drawn next to me. Other passengers sit in rows behind ours, and across a narrow hallway to the left of us. Faintly, I hear the drone of what I think is an engine. “Oh my god,” I whisper. “Are we… flying?”

  Mars smiles, a tight upcurving of his lips. “Indeed.”

  I pat my right armrest a couple of times, as if I half-expect it to poof out of existence, but it remains solid and buttery soft under my touch. “Um…wow. It’s…not what I expected.”

  “You passed out just before takeoff,” Mars says, his grin morphing into a laugh. “Do you remember anything before that?”

  I wrinkle my brow. “Walking down a ramp.” I picture the nubby gray flooring. “With carpet.”

  “That’s it?”

  I shrug and nod slightly.

  “Well, that’s probably for the best.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Um…” Mars looks around, not meeting my eyes. “You got hot.”

  I jerk the blanket off me and look down at my gray tunic. Which is on backward. “Oh no.”

  “I promise I didn’t look, but I can’t speak for the other passengers.”

  I drop my face into my hands. “Oh god.” Now when I glance around through scissored fingers, I feel as though everyone is staring at me. No, leering at me. “I’m not one of those grays,” I say in the tiniest voice I can muster.

  Mars takes one of my hands and folds it in his own. I manage to look him in the eye, where a serious expression has taken over. “I know you’re not. I’m sorry I let you drink as much as I did.”

  “I did it to myself.”

  “Yeah, but I knew better. And I’m sorry. I won’t let that happen again.”

  A small part of me warms. It feels nice to imagine someone wanting to protect me in any way. I finger the soft blanket in my lap. It’s so luxurious.

  “How do you feel?” Mars asks.

  I lift my hand from the blanket, touch my forehead, and wince slightly. “My head has felt better,” I admit.

  He presses a button on the side of his seat and almost immediately an attendant is there, asking what Mars would like.

  “Coconut water,” he replies, then he holds up his fingers in a V. “Two.”

  The attendant glides away and returns moments later. He hands Mars both beverages, letting Mars decide whether one is for me or not. I suppose it makes sense. I’m obviously a gray, here to serve Mars as much, or more, than this attendant is. Why would he assume I get one of these?

  Mars nods his thanks at the man, and he glides back to wherever he came from. Mars hands me one of the little rectangular cardboard boxes. “Drink this,” he says, handing me one. “You’ll feel better pretty quick.”

  I unscrew the cap on the spout and take a drink. “Thanks. Seems like I’m always dehydrated around you.” I take another sip and pull my legs up so I’m sitting cross-legged in the soft recliner. I keep my voice low so the other passengers can’t eavesdrop. “I just…I’ve always been terrified by the idea of getting on a plane, let alone lifting into the air. I love the idea of inter-region travel, but flying sounded terrifying. As a gray” – I wave my hand at the tunic I still have on backward – “I didn’t figure it was ever a fear I’d have to face.”

  Mars sits quietly for a moment, then he takes my empty coconut water box from me and hands me the other one. “It’s coming up on lunchtime. I’ll ask our attendant if they have any sliced turkey sandwiches.”

  I turn my head toward my closed window shade. I blink rapidly because for some dumb reason, I have tears prickling at the inside corners of my eyes.

  When my eyes no longer have that stinging sensation, I turn back to him. He reaches into the side pocket of his seat, pulls out a blanket of his own, fluffs it and settles it over his legs. “I’m glad you’re flying with me for your first time. Farther back in the plane, behind those drapes, it’s admittedly not this magnificent.”

  “How did you get us these seats so fast? How many chits do you have on that plastic card, anyway?”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s no limit.”

  My eyes pop open extra wide at that statement. “Wow, must be nice being a billionaire. Are all you hyper-color guys so well-funded?”

  Mars rolls his eyes. “It’s not my card; it belongs to our order.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s someone in ‘our order’ that put out the hit on me. Don’t you think they’ll check your card for purchases?”

  Mars nods. “I assume they will, yes. But we don’t know that it’s someone in our order who’s after you. It’s just as likely that it’s the Watchers.”

  I shake my head. I disagree, but whoever I’m running from, at least I seem to be ahead of them for now. “So if they can track you with your card, why are you using it?”

  Mars puts his hand over mine, where I’ve gripped the armrest so hard, I might have permanently dented the leather. “I didn’t have the reserves to Jump us any farther than a couple of city blocks. This flight goes to Region One, with a layover in Old Japan. We’ll disembark there and return home in a series of small Jumps using a northern route. If anyone is waiting for us at the airport in Region One, they’ll be sorely disappointed.”

  “What’s to stop them from just Jumping into this plane right now?”

  “A tiny target like this at thirty thousand feet, going six hundred miles per hour? Impossible. No one could do it.”

  “I wasn’t aware Jumpers had limitations like that.”

  Mars gives me a thin smile. “We don’t advertise our constraints to those outside the order.”

  Those outside the order. Mars so easily accepts me as one of them just because I teleported once by accident. Are the rest of them going to embrace me so willingly? Life has not led me to draw the conclusion that anything will ever be easy for me, but still, when Mars says things like “our order” instead of “my order,” I feel that warm glow in my belly all over again. “So, you have constraints, but money isn’t one of them. A limitless credit card?” I say, my breath catching at the ludicrousness of the idea. “What does your order do, teleport into the central reserve whenever they need to pay down the balance?”

  “Bank robbery? They’d never be so crass. No, they accumulate their wealth legally. It’s all aboveboard.” He raises his eyebrow. “Though some of their legal activities can definitely be classified as sketchy.”

  “Ooh, tell me more.”

  “Nope,” Mars says
cheerfully. “You’ll need to learn those sordid details on your own.”

  I sigh. “It’ll take me a while. I’m sure I’ve missed a shift at the bobbin factory. There’s going to be a mess to clean up over that one.”

  Marston’s face sobers rapidly. “You can’t go back to your work assignment, Heidi. Not now.”

  “But I have to finish the quarter. I have quotas. You have no idea what kind of trouble I’ll get into if I don’t meet my numbers.”

  Mars snorts. “We’ll smooth it out for you.”

  “Is that on the list of sketchy activities?”

  “We have highly placed strings we can pull. Your factory assignment and your quotas are literally the least of your worries at this point.”

  “To think that I walked into that meditation studio worried about my relationship issues, and now I’m halfway around the world and talking about never going back to my work assignment.”

  Marston’s smile tips oddly on his face and the look in his eyes ices over. He turns his head so that he’s facing straight forward. “Relationship? I didn’t realize you were seeing someone.”

  I sit up a little straighter and squirm my legs under the blanket. “I’m not. I got my heart broken. Which I’ve got to say, that has not been bothering me since about ten minutes into my meditation. Either I’ve got bigger problems, or that thing really worked.” I smile at Mars’s profile to try to lighten the mood.

  But there’s an invisible wall between us now, and my quick assurances don’t seem to do anything to tear it down. The pleasurable warmth from Mars that I’d so quickly grown accustomed to is gone. I wonder briefly if I’m still allowed to call him ‘Mars,’ or if I should shift back to ‘Marston.’ I shiver and the hairs rise on my arms. I think I’ll avoid calling him anything at all.

  The flight attendant appears from somewhere behind us and quickly sets up a tray in front of each of us. He sets a covered plate down on each folding table.

  Mars doesn’t even say thank you this time. He just takes the silver cover off his plate and sets it grumpily to the side. He pokes his sandwich with a fork and then slices it in half, corner to corner, with a dull knife.