Portal - BK 1

by Imogen Rose

  I exploded, “No, it’s not!” I shouted angrily. “You are responsible for this! If it wasn’t for you messing about we would all still be in Princeton!”

  “That is somewhat true, maybe for you anyway. I wouldn’t still be there and neither would Ella,” said Mom.

  I got up and stomped about angrily picking up a chair and throwing it against the wall. Kellan came over and grabbed me. He held me tightly until I calmed down slightly. Was there any point continuing with my questions? Did I really need answers when they were obviously ludicrous? Or did I just need to cut to the chase and demand that this be put right and I be transported back to Dad?

  Just then, something hit me – didn’t Mom say that Dad lived in Leeds? Couldn’t this mean that I could still stay here with Kellan and also contact my dad in Leeds, and not have to go through the portal? The portal, I shivered at the thought. Was it even safe, reliable? What if I ended up with the dinosaurs!

  I sat down and thought about this. This would still mean giving up on my school, my friends, my whole life. However, if I went back I would never see Ella or Kellan again. I also loved having Harry as my older brother. That was something else I needed to clarify. Harry was another mystery that needed explaining. I needed time to think.

  “I’m exhausted and I need time to think. Can we continue with this conversation another time?” I asked.

  Larry looked at me and shrugged, “Well, unfortunately, we have another complicating issue.”

  I felt my stomach churn and I felt faint. Kellan moved his chair closer to mine and grabbed my hand.

  “Another issue?” I asked fearfully.

  Larry looked concerned but continued: “The portal is time sensitive, it’s normally open for a limited period during October. It was set to close on Halloween. However, someone has tampered with it resulting in energy levels that are too low to keep it open. We can’t keep it open any longer, it’s not reliable, it will close tonight.”

  I closed my eyes, was he really telling me that I had to make a decision now? That was so beyond unfair, intolerable. I looked over at Mom.

  “You can’t be serious, you can’t expect me to make a decision now?”

  Mom replied quietly, “You don’t have to make a decision now. In fact, you shouldn’t. I have no control over the portal closing but it will open again next October. We can program it to open up so you won’t have lost any time with Dillard. But you’ll have to stay here for a year if you decide not to go through right now. Think about it Arizona, what do you have to lose? Stay and think about this situation for a year and then decide.”

  No way, I thought! A whole year in this situation, I shook my head.

  “No, if I’m being forced to make a decision now, then I am going through. But, how? Tell me what to do,” I shouted defiantly with tears streaming down my face. My body shook, I felt so agitated that I was struggling to maintain even a little control.

  I could feel Kellan’s grip around my hand tighten to a vice.

  “Shrimp, I’ll never see you again….”

  “Kellan, I need to go back.”

  “You don’t, stay.” He let go of my hand when Larry got up and beckoned me to follow him.

  “You’re sure?” asked Mom falteringly. I nodded as I followed Larry towards the metal doors. Larry stopped by the computer and entered a code, which opened the doors just wide enough for us to enter. Larry went through first and waited for me on the other side.

  Mom, Rupert and Kellan followed closely behind. Mom grabbed hold of me and turned me around. “Are you sure Arizona, think about it. Don’t do this just because you’re angry with me.”

  I could see Kellan sitting with his head in his hands.

  “I have to, Mom.”

  “You don’t. You don’t lose anything by staying here a year.”

  “What if you can’t reset the portal in a year? You said someone had tampered with it?”

  Mom looked at me thoughtfully, “More reason for you not to go through right now. Let Larry and me work on this and figure out what’s going on. I promise you that you won’t lose any time. I know you are angry, but try to think about this logically.”

  My mind was exploding. I couldn’t stay here another year, could I? It would be intolerable.

  “Don’t go, Arizona,” I heard Kellan whisper.

  I looked over Mom’s shoulder at Kellan. He looked beat. I had never seen him look so despondent. His eyes were blood shot. My heart felt a sharp pain cut through it.

  He was my life – how could I leave him? I ran over and launched myself at him. I pushed my face so hard into his chest trying to climb into his heart and hide there. I clung on to him; I knew I had to find a way to do both. I wanted to go through but I needed Kellan with me. He couldn’t give up his life here though, it would be asking too much. My head felt dizzy from all these thoughts. I needed time to think. Time to figure out a way to do both. Yes… time….

  I could not allow myself to make a rash decision just because I was angry. There was too much at stake. Mom had assured me that I had nothing to lose, but could she be trusted, even a little bit? The sensible thing to do would be to…. Kellan interrupted my thoughts.

  “Shrimp, stay with me.”

  I looked up at him, into his eyes and nodded.

  EPILOGUE

  Dr. Sen pursed his lips into an angry line and eyed his wife furiously. Erica Sen tried to ignore him. She closed her eyes hoping to void her mind in order to regain the calm that she needed in order to function. She couldn’t shake off his negative vibes. He was becoming a pest, she was not equipped to deal with this turmoil. She would have to let the Elders deal with him. They were not going to be happy. They had, after all, warned her that his basic human instincts could be a problem.

  The Elders had afforded him the gift of transdimensional travel, but he was not a true wanderer. All she wanted to do was what all other wanderers did, travel and learn. Her core nature was that of calm. She wasn’t cut out for scheming and hair-brained plots. She hadn’t thought her husband interested in those either when she had fallen in love with him, but she had been wrong. He was proving himself more and more ambitious every day. Ambition and wanderer spirit couldn’t be reconciled. His angst was killing her spirit.

  “Erica, are you listening to me?” Raj Sen demanded in anger.

  “These people, the Darley family need to be taken down. As does that arrogant Larry Fox. You can run the portal! You can show me how. We could be famous and rich!”

  Erica looked at her pathetic excuse for a husband in despair.

  “Raj, we don’t need a portal. I have enabled both you and Simla to be able to wander. It was a gift from the Elders.”

  He looked at her with exasperation. “Maybe, but it’s a sorry gift! I have no control. I can’t travel on my own. I need you to transport me. And you refuse to take me where I want to go.”

  “Raj, I’m here only to learn. You know that I have been assigned to Olivia. We move with her until I’m reassigned. Then we get to go on another adventure, Isn’t it exciting? We get to experience so many incredible wonders,” Erica pleaded hopefully.

  “Neither Simla nor I want to travel again. We are happy here. This is where we have decided to settle and make our future. One more thing Erica, we don’t really need you in our corner. Simla and I used your computer at Ames to access the October Project. I am fairly sure I can control it.”

  Erica froze. He had involved her daughter? She had no qualms about asking the Elders to deal with him, but her daughter, that was different. Erica closed her eyes again trying to regain equilibrium.

  Imogen Rose’s new Portal Chronicles continues with…..

  available summer 2010

  Imogen Rose was born in a small town in Sweden and moved to London in her twenties. After obtaining a PhD in immunology from Imperial College, she moved with her family to New Jersey, where she has been based for the past ten years. Storytelling is her real passion and she is excited to be publishing her f
irst work of fiction.

  Please visit imogenrose.com for more information.

  An excerpt from

  Hush Money

  A Talent Chronicles Novel

  Susan Bischoff

  www.susan-bischoff.com

  Chapter 1

  Joss

  I already knew it had happened again.

  Not like I’m psychic, not really, but you don’t have to have any special mental Talent to see the signs…if you’re paying attention.

  Stacy Scarpelli had had her hand in the air for, like, five minutes. Eventually she was doing that thing where you lean one elbow on the desk, and your other elbow in your hand, like you’re going to collapse from the exhaustion of trying to get the teacher’s attention. But the teacher was paying attention. She was paying a lot of attention to checking off names on the role; or supposedly taking role but totally not looking at that whole side of the room where Stacy was flinging her hand limply about on her wrist.

  And leave it to Stacy to be so wrapped up in Stacy that she didn’t notice how quiet it was this morning in first period English, and how everyone just kind of sat there. The whispering would start later, as the shock wore off. Later, people would be saying how long they’d suspected and how much they’d never really liked Krista anyway. But just then we were all looking around at each other and wondering who else was keeping secrets and who would be the next one to disappear.

  Ms. Carter looked up and set her pencil down very carefully on her desk, lining it up precisely next to her planner, and finally raised her eyes to Stacy.

  “Yes, Stacy?”

  “You assigned me Krista to be my partner for the project. And it’s not like I wanted to leave it to the last minute, but she was always later later later, you know? And finally I said we gotta get together this weekend, and we were supposed to meet on Saturday morning before my tennis lesson? So I waited and waited for her, but she didn’t show up, and I had to get to my lesson, right? And then I called her house after, but no one answered. No one answered all weekend, and now she’s not even here today, and I don’t know if she did any work at all on it. I did some, but I was kind of waiting to find out what she had, you know, compare notes, because there was no point in us doing the same thing, right? But I couldn’t cause she wouldn’t answer her phone and then I didn’t know what to do, and I was going nuts all weekend trying to get ahold of her­­—”

  “Ok, Stacy. See me after class and we’ll work something out.”

  “I mean, I don’t think I should be penalized because she was too busy to work on the project. Which she probably didn’t anyway, which is probably why she didn’t show up Saturday and dodged my calls all weekend, and she’s probably ditching school today so—“

  “She’s not ditching; she’s just gone.”

  All eyes slid toward Dylan. He sat sideways in his chair, the back of his leather jacket against the chalkboard along the side wall, long legs stretched out in front of him, his expression unreadable.

  In the seat behind him, Marco tipped back in his chair. “NIAC hauled her off.” His voice was laced with the kind of satisfaction over other people’s tragedies that made me think about his chair tipping too far and his skull bouncing off the linoleum.

  Ms. Carter glanced nervously around the room. I felt bad for her. How’s a teacher supposed to handle this subject? Encourage open discussion? Answer questions? Should we all share our feelings about the fact that we were never going to see Krista Pace again? It just seemed to me that the faculty probably knew about it earlier. Hell, the National Institutes for Ability Control probably sent out some kind of official letter to the school, wouldn’t you think? Our regular teacher should have been there for support and guidance instead of leaving the poor student-teacher to the wolves. But then, what would Mr. Krause have done differently?

  “[cough]Freak![cough]”

  “Shut up, Marco.” Dylan continued to bounce his pencil’s eraser on the desk and examine his boot-tops.

  “Why, did you and freak-girl have something goin’ on? Need a new date for Homecoming now that NIAC’s locked her up?”

  Enquiring minds want to know. My mind was particularly interested, unfortunately.

  “Thanks, but you’re not my type,” Dylan sneered back at his friend.

  “Ok, people, that’s enough,” Ms. Carter finally gathered the courage to enter the conversation. “The topic of Krista Pace is off-limits in this class. If you have questions regarding her disap— If you have questions, you may take them to Assistant Principal Sims—on your own time. Meanwhile, I believe we have some oral presentations to hear today. Stacy, you can see me after class about your project. Who wants to go first?”

  Personally, I think the school system is pretty messed up. I mean, if Krista had been hit by a bus or if she’d died of some terminal disease she’d been bravely fighting in secret for years, there’d be announcements, a moment of silence over the PA, maybe a memorial assembly. And we’d probably have some kind of shrine where people would leave pictures of Krista with flowers and little teddy bears and stuff like that. Out front somewhere where the TV news cameras could see it clearly, and give it lots of attention, and call it a “makeshift memorial” fifteen times a freakin’ day. Like you’ve got to spend $5000 on a friggin’ stone pillar or fountain with an engraved placard on it because anything else is just “makeshift”.

  But I digress.

  Maybe we’d have grief counseling to talk about how she was just ripped from our lives, and we would never be able to say goodbye. We’d talk about how we felt that she’d never told us about this horrible disease she had, and if we’d known we would have been nicer to her, and now we’d never have the chance.

  Because really, Krista was never coming back. And what she had was a lot like a disease. Something she was born with, something that couldn’t be cured, something very, very bad.

  What Krista Pace had was a Talent.

  * * *

  Joss

  God save us from guidance counselors…

  I swiped my sweaty palm down the front of the vintage army field jacket I always wore before grabbing the doorknob and letting myself into the guidance department office. I handed my hall pass to the woman at the desk inside the door whose name I’d never bothered to learn.

  I absolutely hated it here.

  “Jocelyn. Yes, Mr. Dobbs is waiting for you. Go on in.”

  I turned away and moved to the door, thinking belatedly that I should have said thank you. Eye contact, a smile, thank you. But I never was any good at that politeness stuff. I was a lot better at the being quiet and melting into the background stuff. Having someone call up my Math teacher, being singled out and told to report to the guidance office while the rest of the class waited to get on with the being bored—er, educated? It really messed with my whole don’t notice me program.

  I was already on edge from that morning—because of the whole Krista thing—and this just made me twitchy. It didn’t help that I knew exactly why Dobbs had called me in here.

  I did not want to talk about it.

  “Joss.” He shuffled some papers into a folder, closed it. “Come on in. Have a seat.”

  I took the seat across from the desk without speaking, keeping my messenger bag on my shoulder and my notebook to my chest. I kept my expression blank, rather than overtly sullen, but Dobbs prided himself on the whole reading the body language thing and my message should be clear.

  He took off his glasses and drew the side of his hand along the bridge of his nose as he set them down on the desk. In a moment he would pick them back up and put them on again, because he needed them to see. But his ritual of taking them off, setting them down… that was his way of saying he was serious, yet caring, concerned, and open-minded.

  See, I could do body language too.

  “So….how’s it going?” he asked, dragging out the question.

  “Ok.”

  He picked up his glasses and put them back on. “You’ve heard abou
t Krista.”

  I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a question, and what was I supposed to say anyway? It wasn’t like the school had any kind of official stance on this stuff. They must cooperate in whatever investigations went on, but they never made, like, statements to the press or anything. There was nothing for me to quote or agree with.

  “I thought you might have some feelings you’d like to talk about.”

  You thought that? Really? Are you new here? “No, not really.”

  “Joss, I know this must bring up some issues for you, feelings I don’t think you’ve ever really dealt with. About Emily.”

  The name was like an execute command, automatically flashing a series of images across my brain that started out like a real estate or life insurance commercial. Little girls playing, laughing, holding hands, dancing in sprinklers, birthday parties, sharing secrets, fire, screaming, end of reel.

  I jammed the playback to a stop before it could loop, forced my eyes from the stupid cartoon character on Dobbs’s tie, and actually met his eyes. I shoved the discomfort at the personal contact aside with the rest of my feelings and made myself cold. “Emily moved away. Lots of kids have childhood friends who move away. It’s sad at the time, but it’s not, like, traumatic or anything.”

  Dobbs waited for me to say more. I figured it was safer to let him steer the conversation rather than take the lead and risk saying the wrong thing. These counselor types could be so tricksy. It wasn’t my first time in his office and I knew he liked to try to read into things people said.

  “But Emily didn’t just move away. A child’s parent might get a job in another town, they break the news, and there’s weeks, maybe months, of house-hunting, packing—a period to adjust before the actual move. It wasn’t like that with Emily. One day the two of you were joined at the hip, running up and down the block, picking the dandelions from everyone’s yards…Then all of a sudden she was just…gone.”