“Yeah, that’s what we call ourselves, though the men in black probably call us something else. Something less flattering. It started off as The Kinetics—short for Telekinetics—but then we kept feeling as though we were some old band from the eighties, so we shortened it even more to the Kin.”
“Oh, right.”
He shrugged. “The Kin actually suits us better. Our abilities bring us close, so we’re more like family than anything else.”
The separate spaces were connected with glass rather than brick, so I was able to see people inside, and, in turn, they were able to see me. Some appeared to be practicing a kind of hand-to-hand combat—throwing punches and kicks at each other, while others were sitting in chairs, undergoing what seemed to be tests. My eyes popped even farther as I watched a young man sitting in a chair several feet away from a table which held a number of objects on top. As I watched, a tennis ball lifted into the air and hovered momentarily before dropping back to the surface. It rolled off and hit the floor. The man punched his thigh with his fist in exasperation.
Hunter must have noticed me watching. “The ball is light,” he said, “so that should have been easy. They’re building him up to heavier objects as his strength increases.”
I noticed one of the other items was a kettle bell. I guessed that was what he meant by heavier items. I thought of something and frowned. “But you said I moved that huge trashcan when I first met you.”
He studied my face. “Yes, you did.”
“But I haven’t been trained yet. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“We all have different strengths. Some people are good with controlling electricity, others, like me, with natural forces.”
“Like the wind and fog,” I joined in.
“Exactly. Some other people work with controlling emotion, others have an affinity with animals.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yep. Our world is in constant flux. Nothing ever stays the same. Energy can be changed, but it can’t be destroyed, it just becomes something else. That’s where we come in. We use our own energy to change something else into what we want. Inertia to motion.”
I thought of everything that had happened with me—taps and showers turning on and off by themselves, lights exploding, alarms going off, doors shutting on their own. Water, light, electricity, as well as being able to move heavy objects. Maybe moving things was my skill, but I wondered, silently for the moment, if it was more. I guessed I’d find out soon enough.
“How is this all even possible?” I said instead.
Hunter shrugged. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
I looked around at my surroundings again. At a guess, I figured there were about fifteen to twenty other people here—all about the same age, early twenties. A couple of walkways branched off the main room, but I couldn’t see where they led.
The longer we stood there, the more we were starting to get noticed. People stopped what they were doing and stared at us. Others nudged each other and whispered from the sides of their mouths. I’d never felt under such scrutiny, my breath growing shallow, my mouth running dry. I was thankful to have Hunter by my side.
A large man—taller than Hunter by at least a couple of inches and burly with muscle—approached. He had sandy hair and equally sandy stubble on his jaw. He appraised me with a cool, light blue gaze.
“So, this is the girl,” he said as he stopped in front of us.
Hunter nodded. “I told you I’d get her here.”
“No problems?”
“No more than normal,” Hunter replied.
I heard a girlish squeal then a petite woman with short dark hair who I’d never seen before threw herself at me. Her arms wound around my neck and she squeezed me tight, taking the breath out of me. I didn’t know how to react, so I just stood, frozen, until she released me.
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “I’ve been feeling you ever since you woke up.”
I blinked. “Feeling me?”
“This is Dixie,” Hunter introduced. “Dixie, this is Ari.” He turned to me to explain. “Some of us can sense others more keenly. As soon as you woke up after the explosion, Dixie felt you.”
“Oh, right.” I still didn’t understand, but I figured there was going to be a lot I didn’t.
“Are you not going to introduce me, Hunter?” said the big guy.
Hunter lifted his eyebrows at the name, but said, “Ari, this is Kit. Kit, this is Ari. Happy now?”
The sandy-haired man, Kit, grinned. “Very.” He stuck out his hand to shake mine, and I obliged.
“Welcome to our secret lair.”
“Thanks,” I said, not sure what the etiquette was in this situation.
Other people began to filter over—a black guy with a decent looking afro, who slipped his arm around Dixie’s waist and stuck out his hand to me.
“I’m Sledge,” he told me, in the deepest voice I’d ever heard.
An identical looking blond guy and girl introduced themselves as Lisa and Lyle. I knew without asking that they were twins.
A number of other people held back. I guessed they weren’t very trusting of strangers. I smiled at anyone who caught my eye. Some smiled back and turned away, while others pretended they hadn’t noticed. I wondered what the stories were behind all these people. Had they thought they were normal until something had happened to make them realize their lives weren’t as regular as they’d thought, or had they grown up knowing they had these … talents?
I guessed from the way things weren’t going crazy around us that they were all able to control their abilities—unlike me, though surprisingly I hadn’t done anything since I’d been down here. Perhaps there was some way of safeguarding against uncontrollable new recruits who were capable of making every piece of technology down here stop working.
“Come on,” said Hunter, jerking his head toward one of the passageways that led away from the main hall. “Let me show you the rest of the place.”
The others drifted away, leaving Hunter and me alone. I noticed him exchanging glances with Kit and wondered if they’d all left us for a reason. Was Hunter in charge of giving me some kind of rundown about the situation?
“So, what’s above here?” I asked, glancing up at the very solid rock ceiling.
“It’s Battery Spenser,” he said, naming the old military fort which looked out across San Francisco Bay.
“But don’t people know you’re down here?”
“Nope. That tunnel we came through is the only way in or out.”
I shivered. “Isn’t that dangerous? What if something happened to it? A rock fall or something. We could all be trapped in here.”
“Our collective strength, mentally, would be enough to move any stones out of the way. It’s better that there are as few entryways as possible. It means there’s less chance of us ever being discovered.”
“By who?”
His lifted his eyebrows and gave me a look that told me I was exasperating him by continuing to ask, but he hadn’t really told me anything yet. Men in dark suits chasing us on public transport. Someone who might have been connected to the death of both of our mothers, though I was yet to understand how or why.
It didn’t look like I was going to find out about that just yet.
Hunter continued to walk, stopping to gesture through to various rooms.
As well as the training rooms, there was a communal area, where several people lounged around, relaxed and chatting. They lifted a hand in a wave to both me and Hunter as we poked our heads in. There was a large kitchen with industrial, stainless steel appliances and a number of separate bedrooms containing bunks. From the clothes and personal items around most of the beds, I could tell the bedrooms were already inhabited, I guessed by the same people who had been in the training area.
“People live down here?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. We can train, and besides, we know it
’s safe down here.”
“Safe from the men like the one on the bus?”
He nodded.
“Do you live down here?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What about your family?”
His eyes narrowed, a muscle in his jaw tightening. “I only have my dad, and like I said earlier, I wasn’t as lucky in the fatherly parenting area as you were.”
“Oh, right.”
Something twisted inside me at the idea of Hunter being as good as alone in this world. I missed my sister as though someone had reached inside me and carved a piece out of my soul, but I was thankful I’d had the short time with her that I had. Yes, we’d both lost our mom, but we’d had each other. She’d taken care of me in many ways that I guessed our mom would have done if she’d survived, and though I hated she was gone, I knew I’d been blessed to have had her.
My eyes filled with tears.
Hunter noticed. He stopped and caught my hand. “Hey, are you all right?”
I sniffed. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking about home.”
I was suddenly aware of his proximity and the way he was looking at me. He took a step closer and his arm went up to rest of the window behind my head, which looked onto another empty bedroom.
“Hunter—” I started to say, though I had no idea what I was going to finish the sentence with.
He just gave his head a slight shake to tell me to shut up, and then his mouth pressed firmly against mine. My heart thumped. His lips teased mine open and our tongues met. He moved in closer, pressing the length of his body against mine, sandwiching me between him and the glass behind. A thrill raced through me, but with it came awkwardness and uncertainty.
I tried to act like a woman of the world, but the truth was I’d only had one real boyfriend, and we’d been together for a year before we’d slept together. That hadn’t lasted, and I’d followed it up with a couple of drunken make-out sessions with strangers, but nothing more.
But there was no denying Hunter was hot, and for some crazy reason he seemed to like me. I was melting in his arms, and almost turned into a puddle when the hand that had been holding mine pulled my arm up above my head and pinned it to the glass behind me. I actually whimpered then tried not to die of embarrassment. But the noise only seemed to drive him on, and his other hand skirted down the side of my body.
Someone cleared their throat nearby and we sprang apart.
Kit was standing in the doorway, glaring at us. “Sorry,” he snapped, sounding anything but sorry, “did I interrupt something?”
Hunter glared back. “Clearly, you did.”
“Sticking your tongue down the new recruit’s throat isn’t part of your job description, Hunter. Now get on with what you’re supposed to be doing.”
We waited until he’d moved away, my cheeks burning hot.
“Why does he get to tell you what do to?” I whispered, once Kit was out of ear shot.
“He was the first,” Hunter replied. “He’s the reason this place even exists.”
“How?” The place was massive, and Kit must have been around the same age as us. How was such a thing even possible?
“Have you heard of the Myriad Group?”
“Of course.” The Myriad Group was a multinational technology company which sold computer software, electronics, and licenses. Everyone had heard of them.
“Kit is the son of the man who started up the corporation.”
My mouth dropped. “He’s Philip Middleton’s son?”
“Yep. His father thinks he’s a total dropout, though a dropout with a stupidly huge trust fund, which he now has full access to. This center already existed from when the company was doing testing of some kind. When they eventually gave up, they abandoned this place, but Kit knew about it and took over.”
“Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Years ago, there was another entrance from the observatory, but it’s since been filled in, so all we have is the tunnel now. The people from the Myriad group think this place has been buried under several tons of rubble.”
I didn’t know what else to say. My mind was reeling from all this new information, and I could barely start to process it all.
My lips still tingled from the kiss, my skin buzzing from where he’d touched me. I wanted everyone else to vanish so we could continue where we’d left off, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“So, what’s the rest of the job?” I asked, referring to what Kit had said. He was staring at my mouth, as though he was thinking exactly the same as I was, but then he dragged his gaze away.
“We want you to stay and train here with us, Ari. You can eat here and sleep here, and train your skills to the very best of your ability. You have no idea what you’re able to achieve yet.”
The thought of living down here filled me with claustrophobia, but I had to admit I was curious. I wanted to see if I was able to do all the things Hunter claimed I could do, if I could learn to control them. Plus, I liked the idea of being around him more.
“But what about my father? He’s going to notice if I’m gone for weeks in a row.”
“You’ll have to tell him you’re away for work, or perhaps visiting someone? Obviously, you can’t tell him the truth.”
“Because he’ll think I’m crazy and have me committed,” I confirmed.
“Exactly.”
I chewed on a snag on my thumbnail. “I don’t know. I feel horrible leaving him now. He’ll be all on his own, and now my sister …” I trailed off.
“The trouble is, Ari, you don’t have much choice. There will be more men like the one who chased us here. You need to learn how to defend yourself.”
“Why? What are they going to do to me?”
“They’ll take you for research, if you’re lucky,” he said.
“And if I’m unlucky?” I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.
“They’ll eliminate you.”
Chapter Nine
A rush of cold flooded over me.
“Why would they want to … eliminate me? And who are these people, anyway?”
“Not just you. All of us who have this talent. And they don’t want us around because we’re not supposed to exist. And they can’t control us, and the government doesn’t like things it can’t control.”
My eyebrows lifted. “The government?”
He glanced over his shoulder, toward the open doorway. “Look, we have a lot to discuss, and I promised you breakfast. How about we do this over coffee?”
“Here?”
“Yeah, and I’m afraid we don’t have a Starbucks.”
I laughed. “I can live without Starbucks.”
Truth was, I was starving, and the only thing I’d had that morning was a gulp from the glass of water I always kept at my bedside. That had been hours ago now, and we’d been running as well. I needed food, water, and coffee, though not necessarily in that order.
I followed Hunter back out of the bedroom, down the corridor, and into the kitchen he’d already shown me.
“Sit,” he instructed, and I slid myself onto a stool at a stainless steel breakfast bar which ran along the wall closest to the door.
I asked for a glass of water and a cup of coffee, and he busied himself pouring them for me.
“We don’t have anything fancy to eat,” he said. “But I can rustle up some toast and peanut butter.”
My stomach gurgled appreciatively. I’d have been happy with anything by that point.
Hunter made the toast for both of us, slid a plate in front of me, then took the stool beside me, so our knees were almost touching. I picked up my slice and took a big bite, too hungry to care about being self-conscious eating in front of him. I let him take a few chomps of his breakfast before waving my hand in the space between us.
“Come on, then,” I said. “Talk.”
He chewed and swallowed, and dropped his remaining toast on the plate in front of him. “Okay. In the nineties, the government gave an experimental
drug to thousands of women. It was touted as being some sort of miracle cure for extreme morning sickness—hyperemesis gravidarum—but in fact it was changing the fetuses.”
“Changing the fetuses?” I parroted back. “And let me guess—we were the fetuses?”
“Exactly.”
“Changed us into what?”
“From what we have figured out so far, the only thing it affected was our brain waves. It seems we’re able to interact with the energies surrounding us on a profound level.”
“But why would the government do that?”
“Who knows? Maybe they thought they’d be able to create people they’d be able to use in war or secret service.”
“If the government was doing this knowingly, wouldn’t they have kept better track of the women it was given to?”
“They did, at first. But then the babies were born and appeared completely normal. They grew and went on to have regular lives. There was nothing to study.”
“But you said our mothers died the same way?”
He nodded. “A small handful of these women suffered the same effects of the drug that your mother and mine did.”
“The brain aneurysm?”
“Exactly. After that happened, and with the children appearing normal, with nothing special about them that they could discern, the government distanced themselves from it all. I guess they didn’t want to be linked to the women dying, probably afraid some massive lawsuit would be brought against them.”
“There weren’t many women who died, then?”
“Out of thousands, there were only a few. It was enough to be significant, but the government did what they do best and buried it.”
“And those same women, were they all our mothers? All the people who are here now?”
He nodded again. “Yes. There’s seventeen of us so far, eighteen now, including you.”
“And we all have these … talents?”
“Exactly. The thing the government wasn’t looking for when they were observing us was the possibility that our skills would lie dormant until something happened that brought them to the surface.”
“Wasn’t our mothers’ dying enough to reveal them? Surely that’s one hell of a trauma to go through.”
Flux (The Flux Series Book 1) Page 6
