“Gone? Where did he go? Is that why you went to the High Barrens? Did you follow him there?” Royce sputtered incredulously. Sam sighed.
“You could say that. Never mind Francis. He’s not coming back,” the Finder replied solemnly.
Royce frowned a little, puzzled at first, but then the look in his eyes changed to that of sudden comprehension.
“How did it happen?” he asked, his customary sneer having long vanished.
“I’m not sure exactly, but Sarah claimed that he was broken and that he wouldn’t let her fix him. There was an incident, involving Fiona, and Nathan would have throttled the life out of him if he’d had the chance, but Francis left instead. I would suggest that you not bring up Francis at all once we get back to the house. He’s a sore point with everyone right now.”
They were getting closer to the house and Sam was just hoping that his strength would hold out until they got there. Royce struggled to make things easier on him, but he was not being very successful. The larger boy went quiet for a few moments; all that could be heard was their laboured breathing and peeper frogs.
“Were you trying to tell me that all this is happening because I got too close to the house?” he inquired.
Sam nodded.
“Not the house per se, but the device Elliot brought with him from the mainland, the Languorite, which happens to be inside the house right now.”
“Then there’s a possibility that I won’t be alone in this,” Royce suggested with dejection.
“What do you mean?” Sam grunted, the sweat trickling down his face.
“I told you, I was scared of Nathan. I brought back-up with me in case he did decide that he wanted me dead. They were waiting in the woods, but they got fairly close to the house. They ran off when I started freaking out. We have to track them down. They could be going through this, too.”
There was legitimate concern in the Control’s voice. He may not have gotten along with his house-family, but he clearly cared about the other Control rebels.
“We have to help them,” Royce said.
“What we have to do is get you to Sarah. We have enough to handle with your situation for the moment, and I don’t know how many people I can shield from the connection at one time anyway. I’ve only ever blocked for one other person at a time before. You have what, four friends? I don’t think that I can do it. We’ll go after them, but not until Sarah’s helped you deal with some of the pain, and we’ve shown you how to set up your walls. Then she and I can go find the others one at a time,” Sam thought.
They were now in view of the silhouette of the house and he was anxious to get there, finding it difficult to half drag the larger boy through the woods with what little light that still remained for them.
“Maybe you can tell me their names and describe them for me a little while she fixes you. It will help me to find them.”
The front steps were not that far away now, but before they could reach them, Royce suddenly jerked and stumbled to his knees, his arm locking solidly around Sam’s neck as he was wracked by a rather intense pain. Sam was not able to escape the choking grip, and he realised that part of the problem was that his walls were not being as effective to shield the Control as they had been initially. That was partially because Royce’s presence in the connection kept shifting and growing slightly, like trying to wrap a handkerchief around a balloon that someone was still in the process of inflating. Sam was worried, in addition to the pain from the physical changes that Royce was going through, he had the psychological strain of being introduced to the connection for the first time. Experiencing one was shock enough to a person’s system, but both at the same time? Sam grabbed at Royce’s tensed and trembling arm, trying to free himself from its strangling hold in order to breathe again. Unsuccessful, he called out for Sarah through the connection.
Sarah picked up on his discomfort immediately and came rushing out of the house, concerned that Sam was injured in some way. When she saw Royce there, she immediately jumped to the faulty conclusion that for some reason the Control had chosen to assault Sam, despite months of avoiding one another. She cried out Sam’s name and rushed forward.
“No, Sarah, no!” Sam insisted, as she grabbed Royce’s arm and tried to pull him off the Finder. “He needs your help.”
Sam also needed to breathe, but thankfully, Royce’s choking grip had started to ease off as the spasm from the sudden pain subsided.
The three sat on the steps and Sarah worked at bringing the Control some relief while Sam re-established the walls that shielded Royce from the rest of the connection. Sam was a little worried at first, wondering if Royce was at risk of the same devastating results as the Bigs’ parents because of the combined effects of the Languorite, but Royce was a fighter and seemed to be holding his own. Sam was also aware that there was gratitude there, and a display of trust that the Control had never demonstrated towards Sam or Sarah before. Any resentment that Royce had ever held towards them was gone.
Sam heard the door open.
“What’s he doing here? He knows that he’s not welcome here.”
It was Nathan, and his reaction to the Control’s presence was instantly a hostile one.
“I brought him here,” Sam admitted, facing the Watcher. “I found him in the woods. He had been exposed to the Languorite, and he was having twice the problems that any of the rest of us had. The stasis has dropped for him and he’s part of the connection now.”
“Part of the connection?”
Nathan was surprised at that revelation, and Sam could feel him prodding at his walls tentatively, wanting to sense Royce there for himself to confirm the fact.
“So Elliot was right. The Languorite removed that suppression as well. That still doesn’t answer my question though. He wouldn’t have been exposed to the Languorite if he hadn’t been hanging around here. What was he doing here?”
Sam could already see the irritation in Nathan’s face in the light shining through the open door. He did not want to aggravate the situation, so he recognized that he had to choose his words carefully. It was true that Royce had specifically come to spy on Fiona, something that would surely rile Nathan, but Sam was aware that part of that could be attributed to something that he and Royce had in common.
“He knew what was going on, because he had run into me, Sarah, and Elliot at the school. He was curious to know more. He was supposed to be a Finder, and he has Finder instincts just like me, Nathan – not the same compulsions with the same strengths as having the gift, but a driving force nonetheless. He wanted to see more, to see some of the changes for himself. I know what that’s like. I can’t fault him for it,” Sam pointed out.
“You seem pretty forgiving, considering how badly he treated you in the past,” the young man retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. “I would have expected you to be the least willing to see him come back here.”
Nathan apparently was not going to be as quick to accept the explanations and excuse past behaviours. Sarah looked up at him with sad eyes.
“It hasn’t been that long since you went through this, Nathan. Have a heart. He’s suffering, and it’s worse in some ways because he has two things to contend with, not just the rapid aging. We’re all victims here. He just didn’t handle it as well as the rest of us. It will be different now that he’s a part of the connection. He won’t be able to hide behind some tough exterior or some false bravado. I think that he probably knows that, too, or he wouldn’t have been willing to let Sam help him, to let the person he considered his biggest rival see him at his most vulnerable. I’m willing to give him a second chance. We’ve lost enough already – they’ve beaten us down and stolen something from each of us. Why throw away the opportunity to gain something for a change?”
The two Littles stared at the Watcher expectantly, but Nathan did not offer any sort of response, still contemplating their circumstances. Royce groaned, trying to follow the conversation, but unpleasantly distracted.
“There’s more,” Sam added. “Royce wasn’t sure how safe he would be, so he didn’t come alone. Others have been exposed to the Languorite as well, the Controls that he always hung around with. When we’re done helping Royce to whatever extent we can, Sarah and I have to go find them, too. It would probably be best if we bring them back here when we find them.”
“So what you are telling me is that not only are you asking me to let him back into the house, you want me to make allowances for the other trouble-makers in his little band. Are you both out of your minds?” Nathan exclaimed, never having anticipated these kinds of demands from Sam and Sarah.
Elliot appeared in the doorway beside him. He had picked up on the conversation and glanced down at the three on the steps with a slight frown. He recognized Royce from their encounter at the school.
“So your wayward Control’s come home, has he? In more ways than one, too, I see. Perhaps the latest events have not been a complete loss then.”
Sam suspected the technician was referring to what had happened with Francis. Did Elliot actually feel bad about that? Perhaps even partially to blame by showing up in the first place?
“Bringing in his friends is not exactly a bad idea. They’ve proven their willingness to rebel against the Directives. I would think that we can recruit them safely to our cause. I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. The more we have willing to join us, the more we can uproot what the scholars have put in place. I had thought I would just have to satisfy myself with assisting your house-family, but if I have others who are willing, and more resources than I was expecting...”
Sarah did not allow the burly man to finish his thought.
“I’m going with Sam to find them, with or without your approval, Nathan. I have to fix what I can. It will be less risky for all of us if we can bring them back here. They’ve probably all headed back to their own spaces by this point, and if the effects have set in, they may be sprawled somewhere in the dark, just like Royce was. We need to find them as quickly as possible, or who knows what will happen to them. Royce and his friends are the first ones to go through both things at the same time. It could be bad.”
Royce was huddled against her at this point, relishing the relief her touch was bringing, no matter how insignificant. He was also listening as attentively as he could to Sam’s instructions on constructing his own walls. The Control would need something in place before Sam and Sarah could set off to retrieve the others, and he wanted to facilitate that as quickly as possible, worried about how his companions were faring in the face of their agony and their chaos.
Nathan relaxed a little and his look softened, his resistance beginning to subside.
“Well, if you are going, I insist that you take me with you. Poor Sam here has endured enough, trekking out to the High Barrens and back, and then dragging that great lout back here when he was probably exhausted. Sam can find them, you can start fixing them, and I’ll bring them back. My only problem is leaving him here in the house without me being here.” He gestured towards Royce. “Fiona still hasn’t gotten over what hap-pened with Francis yet. She’ll probably get upset and lock herself in her room again, and we can’t afford to spend several days trying to convince her to come out. We’ve wasted enough time already. We should be long gone from this wretched island by now.”
“Get him up into my room...his room. I guess it doesn’t really matter whose it is now,” Elliot muttered. “I’ll keep an eye on him, keep him away from Fiona, and it will give us a chance to chat. Your old Control here suggested he knew more than I might have suspected when we ran into him at the school, I think we have a great deal to discuss.”
Sam was not sure, but from this statement alone, he got the hunch that Elliot had been more annoyed with the Finder heading off to the High Barrens, not because it had delayed their departure, but more because Elliot hadn’t been invited to accompany him. He was searching for something, Sam guessed, and not just a means of getting some of the children of Fervor off of the island; he was already in the process of doing that.
“Besides,” Elliot continued, “it’s not like he’ll be going anywhere fast, or be able to cause us any real trouble in his current condition.”
Nathan seemed agreeable to that. He jogged down the stairs and grasped Royce by the shoulders. Yanking him gracelessly to his feet, the Watcher manoeuvred into a position of support and helped Royce hobble up into the house. The others followed the pair into Elliot’s room.
“I never thought I’d come back here,” Royce said, as Nathan lowered him to the bed. He stared at Sam as he thought this, and the Finder figured that this was as close to an apology or a thank you as he would ever be getting from the Control. Sam was fairly certain that that had been Royce’s intention, and that was good enough to settle things. It wouldn’t make up for what had happened – Sam wasn’t sure anything would – but it would allow them a truce for whatever length of time one would be needed.
Sam spent a few more moments making sure Royce’s walls were secure. They were stronger than Elliot’s were from the very beginning. In fact Royce was stronger overall in the connection at this point, possibly rivalling Nathan. There was not that much of a difference in telepathic ability between Sam and the Control, but apparently it had been enough to justify the scholars’ efforts in creating the Littles.
“You can rest now. We’ll go fetch your friends, but we need names and descriptions…something to help Sam locate them,” Nathan stated.
Still cringing and trembling from time to time, despite the fixing that Sarah had provided, Royce started going through the list of the other four Controls. There were the two other boys, Paul and Anthony, who had both been intended to be Finders like Royce. He related their physical descriptions and the location of their House-Families. Paul, from the sounds of things, was the Control of the boy, Julius, whom they had met on their first trip to the school.
Royce followed with the description of the two girls, Angela and Katrina, both slated originally to be Fixers. Sam noticed that Royce lingered on the description of Katrina, offering greater detail than he had with the others.
“Can you find her first, Sam?” he asked softly. “Please?”
Sam glanced at him with some curiosity. It made no difference to him which of the four that they looked for first, but if it would further increase Royce’s gratitude, then he could see some benefit in complying with his wishes.
“Sure, Katrina first,” Sam agreed.
And with that, Sam, Sarah and Nathan departed to retrieve the other Controls, leaving Royce and Elliot to their discussions.
Insurrection
Sam, Sarah, and Nathan did manage to recover the other four Controls before any real damage appeared to have been done. Sam gave up his room to the two girls, bunking in with Sarah instead, and the two boys took Francis’s room, which was now vacant. Royce remained with Elliot, and the two seemed to be very friendly, spending a lot of time in exclusive conversation. It made Sam a little nervous, and he desperately wanted to know what they were saying. He had learned his lesson with Francis, however, and he did not pry. It would have been easy for him, but it certainly would not have felt right.
They spent the next day further dealing with their transitions with Sarah’s assistance. They seemed to be coping sufficiently, and Sam stopped worrying about consequences similar to what had happened with the Bigs’ parents. The Finder wondered if the Bigs’ parents had had someone who could understand how to shield them and to help them construct their walls, could that tragedy have been avoided – or would there still have been those who would have ended up like Francis? They would never know. The theory was long past testing.
Elliot, Nathan, and Fiona went out for another round of lessons on how to activate and guide the hover. Elliot felt that with one more day of instruction, and a quick outing the following day, they would be ready to go. They were all excited by this notion, looking forward to the opportunity to escape the island and discover the real world of the mainlan
d. In the meantime, the technician was also hopeful that the Controls would start adapting better to their changes.
As usual, Sam could not fend off the compulsion to find, but Sarah and Royce asked him if he could make proper use of the inclination and go to gather a list of items that Royce and the Controls had left behind at the school. That told him that Royce and the Controls had no intention of returning there – they had come back to the house to stay. Not that it made any difference. Sam’s house-family would be leaving soon enough anyway, and abandoning the house to disuse if no one else were to live in it. It meant that Royce and the others would have to handle any scholars or their lackeys who happened to come snooping around because of the loss of Nathan as their eyes, or because Francis failed to report in to the next Teller meeting. Chaos would be erupting soon enough on this part of Fervor. It likely did not matter where the Controls chose to call home.
Sam made it to the school without interruption and scrambled about gathering everything on the list. It was a lengthy one, and in a way, Sam felt as though he were salvaging the last year of Royce’s life. In amongst the requested items were things that had obviously not come from the school, including items of clothing that Royce had not left his old home with. There were even a couple of items Sam was fairly certain had come from their own house, even though Nathan had tossed the Control out empty handed. It made Sam feel justified that he had never believed himself safe after Royce had left, but now...
Sam paused in his finding, shaken by how much things had changed in the last couple of weeks. The thought hung heavy in his heart and he found himself sitting down quickly. First there was Elliot’s arrival, and then all of the changes, followed by the hope of eventual escape, and then the loss of Francis. And now there was the entire affair with the Controls. He sat for a moment with his head on his knees, breathing deeply and trying to wish everything away. It did not work, and gradually he managed to steady himself again, returning to his list.
Fervor Page 27
