VECTOR (The Weaver Series Book 3)

by Vaun Murphrey

When my vision settled I noticed the empty hall in between the dojo and the huge open area designated for elliptical machines, stationary bikes, treadmills and other weight lifting apparatus. Since the coast was clear I disengaged our light field. If anyone had seen us, I imagine it would have appeared to them that we materialized out of nowhere instantly.

  I turned us toward the doorway that led to the two still furiously engaged fighters and strode up to the ropes to casually rest our forearms against the lowest one. It was a struggle to remain calm but Silver had mercy on me and tinkered with something physically to make our body relax. So far so good. No one on the edge watching Malcolm and James spar had raised an alarm about us being here. Then again I didn’t actually recognize anyone in the small audience.

  Malcolm pivoted to avoid a hit to his chest which brought his body around to face our side of the ropes and forced James to turn giving us a view of his broad back. Everything happened in slow motion, Malcolm’s eyes registered our presence and he hesitated for just a split second. That was all James needed to line up a strike at Malcolm’s, head which he fully anticipated the bigger man to block or evade, only it wasn’t going to be fast enough. My decision was made in seconds and Silver, who could read the situation just as well as I could, ‘ported us right next to the two men as I reached out to knock James’ fist aside with an extra push of energy in our arm to compensate for the difference in strength.

  Both men pulled back immediately and their arms went to their sides as they stood, breathing heavily, sweating and staring at us blankly. There were a couple of gasps and a whispered, “Did you see that?” and a “Where did she come from?” from the peanut gallery but we all ignored them.

  Malcolm snapped out of it first. “Dynamite, is that you?”

  I plastered on a weak smile before I replied, “In the flesh.” Honestly, we should be fairly easy to recognize to anyone who had known us before since our height of five foot one inches remained unchanged, and beyond the maturation of our female attributes, our appearance was much the same. I still hadn’t been able to convince Silver that being taller was better so she refused to manipulate our growth artificially. It had become a nervous tick of mine to tug on our gloves and make sure they were securely covering any exposed skin that our sleeves didn’t conceal.

  Kal had gifted us with our current clothing before our return since Axsa’s subterranean attire didn’t account for the Earth’s weather. Silver and I had been pleasantly surprised just this morning when we awoke to find our mentor sitting at the end of our bed patiently waiting for us with two big boxes sitting on the cavern floor at his feet. Kal had presented the boxes with a small half smile, a nudge of his foot and a simple, “For you.” Then, with no further acknowledgment of what the cardboard containers held, he disappeared from our sight.

  Silver had been so excited she’d jumped in control of our body and bounced us to our feet to grab both packages and toss them onto the bed with gleeful enthusiasm. The first box contained a pair of brand new black leather cowboy boots—the pull on kind with no laces. Silver brought the boots to our nose and inhaled the scent of cowhide with obvious satisfaction, then turned toward the other box with mounting curiosity.

  My twin pulled the other lid open to reveal carefully folded black leather gloves on top of a black coat of some kind. I urged her to try on the leather gloves - they felt soft and smooth as they slid like the finest silk against the skin on the back of our hands. We recognized Kal’s sister Jaz’s fine craftsmanship immediately as my twin flexed our fingers and tested out how they felt in between our digits. Silver’s attention was pulled back to the heavy black coat still neatly folded and awaiting our inspection.

  It turned out to be a long leather duster that fit us perfectly. Silver ran the pads of our gloved fingers over Jaz’s familiar tight stitches—she must have copied a mental picture from Kal to make this beautiful piece of art, and it was a masterpiece. Underneath the coat we found socks, underwear, a bra, (amazingly in the right size which I tried not to think about as Silver held it against the outside of our nightshift), a plaid button up collared shirt and a dark blue pair of women’s Wranglers. My big bald mentor had taken to Western attire with zealousness and still occasionally wore his boots and jeans on his home planet, no matter how many strange looks it earned him.

  I thought for a moment and then sent to my sister in barely contained hopefulness, “You know what this means right? If he’s giving us Earth clothing we’re being sent home.”

  Silver froze in the action of laying all of our newly acquired accoutrements on the disturbed covers of our bed as the realization hit her that we might never see Axsa, or anyone on our host planet again. She’d whispered a quiet painful name into the still air of our cool cavernous room: “Mez.”

  Silver nudged me away from the bittersweet recollection with a bad tempered thought. “Wake up, daydreamer. Malcolm just asked when we got back.”

  I yanked my attention back into the here and now to focus on Malcolm’s face, all the while studiously avoiding any eye contact with James. “We just got back this evening. Gerome and Maggie don’t know yet.” I hadn’t shared with the big man about Silver before we left but Gerome had informed me during one of our Web visits that he had, so I felt safe using the plural.

  Malcolm frowned. “Why not? Never mind, let’s not have this conversation here. Why don’t you let us get cleaned up and we’ll walk over to my place?”

  Although Malcolm was actually making a suggestion it came out as more of a command, but Silver and I were used to being surrounded by strong personalities, so his ready assumption that we would just accede to his wishes rolled off our back. I shrugged our shoulders. “Sure, sounds fine.”

  I could feel James’ eyes on us and Silver nudged me out of the driver’s seat in annoyance to turn our head in his direction.

  Silver snarled in her slightly deeper voice, “Take a picture, Romeo, it’ll last longer.”

  His irises were the same light green that I remembered and his eyebrows were just as finely arched which drew my attention to his aquiline nose and then down to his firmly full lips over his square chin. Silver threw up her mental ‘hands’ at me and released control of our body back to me abruptly.

  “I’m off to explore the Web. Maybe I’ll search out Kara. Anything is better than being here for this, Sister.”

  I sent back a distracted, “Uh huh,” and then my sister’s presence was gone.

  Malcolm gave a deep bark of laughter at Silver’s smart remark incorporating his nickname for James. I wondered if he even realized that had been my twin talking; admittedly we could be hard to keep up with.

  From outside the ring I heard a female voice say, “James, are you done yet?”

  When I turned it was to see a vaguely familiar face surrounded by bright red hair. My mind raced frantically through all of my memories and settled on the one class I’d observed Malcolm teach on the mats I could see in the background behind the tall shapely redhead.

  The name Swindell popped into the front of my mind and I realized this was one of the girls I’d watched spar during Malcolm’s Kenpo session. A lot had changed in five years. She was no longer overweight but extremely voluptuous with womanly flesh on all the right parts of her body. My head turned back toward James and I noticed his cheeks were a bright flaming crimson, not, I suspected, from his workout. Malcolm interrupted the tense moment with a hard slap on my former Web lover’s back.

  Voice loud and jovial he said, “I guess James won’t be coming. C’mon, Dynamite.”

  The big man, who still qualified as a human freight train of muscle, walked over to the ropes in two long strides then held them apart for me to duck in between. I was halfway tempted to teleport out or engage a light field but I decided to act unfazed by the fact that James was seeing someone and walked over to the considerately parted ropes to bend at the waist and jump down to the floor with a loud clap as the soles of my new boots slapped the hard surface. Malcolm landed beside me a
s we walked together, naturally compensating for one another’s stride, toward the double doors that led to the other workout room and the short halls that divided the two cavernous areas leading to the locker rooms on the left and right.

  I felt a mammoth hand pat me firmly in between the shoulder blades.

  His deep voice rumbled, “Gimme fifteen minutes and I’ll be back out.”

  I nodded wordlessly and leaned against the wall next to the open double doors. My mind was picking through all of my conversations with James in the Web trying to remember if this was covered in our ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy or if I should be mad.

  Before I could really make up my mind James walked through the doorway with the tall redhead, noticed me standing propped against the wall then murmured to her that she should go ahead and he would meet her later. Swindell turned around to leave and saw me, gave a dismissive glance then turned back to James to lay an intentionally sensual kiss right on his mouth. It lasted so long his hands came up to grab her biceps and push her away. I saw a small pleased smile on Swindell’s lips before she sauntered off into the adjoining workout room with a lot of exaggerated hip swaying.

  James turned awkwardly then cleared his throat, absently rubbing one of his flaming cheeks with his right hand before saying, “I didn’t know you were coming back or I would have ended things already. I’m sorry, Cass. This isn’t how I imagined us meeting again.”

  I cooled my gaze and stilled all of the features on my face before I answered, “Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? You better go get cleaned up. You wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

  His eyes were pleading and soulful as one of his hands slowly rose to reach out and cup the side of my face. The tingling electric feel of his touch was just as powerful as I remembered it and James gave an audible gasp as the sensation coursed through him as well. When he started to lean forward I prepared to ‘port out of his reach but he pinned me with his eyes.

  James stopped just short of lip on lip contact to whisper, “I told you already that I don’t give up easy. Let me make this up to you later. I’ll break it off with Annie tonight. Will you come see me when you’re done at Malcolm’s?”

  His features blurred in my vision as I simultaneously engaged a light field and teleported two feet away. James almost lost his balance as the hand he’d been firmly resting against my cheek suddenly met empty air and he looked around wildly trying to search me out with his senses. I walked over to stand behind him but I couldn’t whisper in his ear since he was more than a foot taller so I did the next best thing and touched my gloved fingers lightly to the back of his neck, saying in a husky, teasing voice, “We’ll see.”

  James turned slowly trying not to hit me since he didn’t know my exact location, but I was already far enough away that even if he had swung in startlement the blow would’ve missed. He had no idea what kind of games we’d learned to play on Axsa. Were I so inclined, I could lead him on a merry chase more skillfully than the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. He continued to wait but when the minutes ticked by and I didn’t reappear he smiled knowingly, then strode toward the men’s locker room.

  I watched him hungrily until he disappeared from my line of sight. Silver suddenly popped back into our head just in time to catch my train of thought and remark, “That boy needs to be taken down a peg or two. You should see to that.”

  I muttered out loud into the still hallway, “I intend to.”

  Chapter Two: Interrogations and Reunions

  Silver and I cooled our heels uneventfully in the hall with our light field still engaged until Malcolm came around the corner fully clothed and freshly showered, carrying a duffle bag in his left hand. He must have been in a hurry because his t-shirt clung to his chest with wet spots showing through as if he hadn’t bothered to dry off before he dressed. I continued to assess the big man as he walked toward us, trying to detect any obvious changes that five years had imprinted on his body or dark, nearly blue black skin, and could find none. Before Malcolm could wonder where we were I disengaged our light field and popped into sight in roughly the same location he had left us.

  Malcolm’s stride paused slightly as if I had startled him and as he drew even with me he muttered, “That’s gonna be hard to get used to.”

  I pushed away from the wall and then Silver took over long enough to say sarcastically, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Big Man.”

  He frowned in my direction and I apologized immediately. “I’m sorry that was Silver being her usual…self. Are you ready to head out?” We could actually empathize with his response since Silver and I hadn’t been able to ‘port or engage a light field on Axsa for almost a full year. Being the oddball on a planet full of teleporting invisible ninja aliens hadn’t been easy, especially when they were curious about you.

  Malcolm gave me a long look which I returned in the unfazed manner I had adopted during my time away. It had been a bit before we made any friends on our host planet and I’d learned to get more comfortable with being stared at or considered an object of curious debate. Melody and Malcolm’s eyes were the same dark brown almost black color and it was hard to distinguish his iris from his pupil. We noticed the whites of his eyes were bloodshot and wondered idly if he suffered from the same allergies as his sister.

  I won the staring contest as Malcolm turned his head to jerk it in the direction of the opposite doorway and ask, “You hungry? I don’t have much at the house right now besides protein bars, water and Gatorade.”

  Our mouth began to water as we realized all of the foods we had been deprived of were suddenly back on the menu. Silver launched an image of Maggie’s moist rich chocolate cake while I enjoyed a mental mirage of pancakes slathered in butter and syrup. Now we were really regretting not going to see our aunt first.

  Silver remarked, “We could always tell him we want to go to their house instead?”

  I thought back as our stomach growled, “You have a point, Sister.”

  Taking that as all the agreement she needed Silver grabbed control of our body again to say in her slightly deeper voice, “We are hungry and since nothing you just named sounds appetizing what do you say we head over to see our family and hope that Maggie has some leftovers?”

  Full lips stretched over big white teeth in an anticipatory grin. “I was hoping you’d see things that way. If the twins are already asleep we have to be really quiet or Maggie will rip our heads off.”

  Silver laughed in a throaty bawdy way. “Ha! Maggie told us about that one. She said she made you lay down with them until they fell back asleep.”

  I pictured the memory our aunt had shared of the big man lying in between my two little curly headed cousins on a double bed that was just barely big enough in width for all three of them but too short for his length. Malcolm’s huge feet had hung off the end of the bed exposing yet another pair of raggedy looking socks.

  He harrumphed. “Yeah…I’m not doing that again. I fell asleep first and when I started to snore they put Legos up my nose.”

  I laughed simultaneously with my sister creating a stereo sound in our mind as she guffawed out loud in time to my mental mirth. It had been a good idea to come see Malcolm first, even with the James drama. The big man brought out something in Silver and I that made us feel more a part of the world.

  Malcolm placed a hand that could have palmed a bowling ball in between our shoulder blades again and gave a playful push forward before grousing, “Laugh it up. You’ll get yours.”

  I let the momentum of his shove carry us forward into a walk and he settled in beside us as we strode down the aisle that divided the weight equipment from the exercise machines. A few people were here and there walking on treadmills or using the stationary bikes in their own little worlds with headphones in their ears. The huge digital wall clock over the open double doors showed the time to be eight thirty p.m.

  Silver took over to momentarily to ask a question. “How are things with the Council?” Gerome had spoken with u
s about the state of things politically, but I had a feeling his natural inclination to keep secrets had probably acted as a filter for any information we received from our uncle.

  Malcolm’s dark eyes met ours momentarily as we began to ascend with heavy footfalls on the concrete steps and then he replied in a steady growl, “Things are better, but still not what we would like them to be. The ban against involving ourselves in the outside world was lifted, mainly because of what happened with Calvin Harris and the girls he murdered. I’m sure Gerome told you I joined the Texas Department of Public Safety. That was a major step, but we need more. Officially, it still hasn’t been decided if we’ll start searching out spontaneous Weavers in the regular population again or not. Unofficially, since we’ve started participating in local charity work again we keep an eye out for any runaways or ‘disturbed’ youth at the shelters. It’s not much but it’s the most Gerome has been able to force through.”

  This time I asked a question instead of Silver. “What explanation has the Council been given for your sudden development of Prana and the way you and Melody pass on the ability to move in short bursts of strength or speed? How do you have time to teach the younger group self-defense if you work an Outsider job?”

  We stopped at the top of the wide concrete staircase as I took in the familiar long rectangular mudroom that held benches all around the sides for people to remove their soiled footwear during the soggy months of the year. No shoes awaited retrieval under any of the benches since the weather seemed to be pleasant, without the blowing rain and dirt that had accompanied our prior time at the compound. Then again, it was May and the ever mercurial weather here could take a turn in any direction at any time.

  Malcolm sighed and started toward the door marked ‘EXIT’ and we followed, silently awaiting an answer. The big man opened the heavy metal door and looked around outside before indicating with a jerk of his head that he wanted us to cross the threshold first.