The Search for Artemis

Chapter SIX

GREAT

EXPECTATIONS


Landon woke at 7:15 in the morning, feeling completely unrested. He wasn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, but he was certain it had been early. But throughout the night, images of Landon’s mother and his apocratusis flashed through his dreams, startling him awake over and over again. He had killed his parents, and he couldn’t shake that fact from his mind, no matter how much he wanted.

As Landon moved about the room and got his things together to take a shower down the hall, he realized he had yet to meet his roommate. Landon expected some shaky introduction and awkward tension to occur the night before when Brock came in, but he never did, and every time he woke up, he looked over to Brock’s bed, worried he might have woken him too, but Brock was never there. Landon found it strange that on his first night in this foreign place, his roommate was missing in action.

After getting ready but before leaving for breakfast, Landon stood in the middle of his room, staring at the floor, mentally searching for anything he’d forgotten, but he soon realized he had no idea what to expect on his first day of training, and he didn’t have a clue what, if anything, he needed. He left the room still a bit anxious and headed to the cafeteria to meet Riley.

Landon’s heart fluttered in his chest when the smell of bacon and warm maple syrup floated down the hall and into his nose. He couldn’t wait to eat his favorite meal of the day, but the moment he walked through the door, he realized he wasn’t going to enjoy his morning. As the door closed behind him, everyone’s gaze in the cafeteria turned to him. He tried not to pay attention, keeping his eyes on the floor and lankily moving to the back of the breakfast line, but before he even got a single pancake on his plate, Riley was sprinting over to him.

“Landon! Why didn’t you tell me?” Riley blurted out. “Quick, come with me. You have to tell us everything.”

Landon was yanked out of the line and was dragged behind Riley as he made his way to a large group of people circled around a small section of a table.

“Riley? What are you talking about?”

Riley never responded. He just continued to hold Landon by the arm and pull him closer and closer to the crowd.

“All right, guys, I got him!” Riley yelled as they reached the group.

The crowd divided, revealing a small section of available bench, and Riley plopped Landon onto it.

“Okay, Landon, we have to know. . . . Is this really you?”

Riley grabbed a sheet of paper from off the table behind Landon and placed it in front of him, but it took Landon a moment to focus. The number of people surrounding him made him claustrophobic, and he couldn’t figure out anything he had done to warrant such an exuberant audience.

Landon honed in on the sheet of paper, attempting to discern what was on it amid the distracting bombardment of inquiring and affirmative voices. He realized, once he’d gathered himself, that it was a poorly-printed photograph—but it wasn’t any random photograph. It was a photo of him crouched down in the middle of the street wearing his dirty yellow shirt and grimy old jeans with a fully occupied city bus floating ten feet overhead. If he squinted, he could see the scared, screaming faces of people through the bus’ tinted glass.

“Where did you get this?” Landon asked, freaked out and blindsided. His pulse raced as he erratically searched the faces around him, hoping for someone to answer.

“So this is you?”

Landon recognized Katie Leigh’s voice, but he couldn’t find her anywhere around him. Before he could answer, the crowd roared with another deafening phase of incomprehensible curiosities. Still reeling, Landon sat on the bench with his forehead pressed into his hands, wondering how he didn’t realize one of the tourists at the museum had captured a snapshot of him that day. But now, he was having a crisis of conscience. He had hoped not to draw any extra attention to himself, to live in the background as he figured this whole psychokinesis thing out, and this photo of him was obviously enough to insight a near riot. He feared he might have already given himself away by his reaction moments earlier, and he could hardly guess what might happen if he affirmed his identity outright.

“Come on, Landon. . . . Tell us. Is that you in the picture? Was that your debut?” Riley egged on.

“Yeah, is it you?” someone hidden in the crowd screamed.

“Seriously, stop stalling and tell us already,” an unknown girl yelled from behind him.

The berating questions and forceful commands continued incessantly for what Landon thought was a lifetime. He was made. There was no denying he was the one in the picture, and unable to withstand the pressures of the mob any longer, he begrudgingly nodded. It was a small gesture, but served as more than enough to confirm the crowd’s suspicions. Instantly, the entire group erupted in a cacophony of conversations, but no one spoke directly to Landon. They became too engrossed in their own speculations surrounding Landon to even contemplate interrogating him further.

Even so, Landon breathed heavily and sweat dripped down the side of his face. He nervously played with his hands and neurotically wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve, trying to block out the oppressive weight of the crowd closing in around him.

He searched for a break in the mass of bodies, but there was no exit in sight. He was like the ring-bearer on Weathertop, dark riders closing in, but just as all hope of getting away seemed lost, a mysterious ranger appeared.

Without as much as a word, the man grabbed Landon by the forearm and led him out of the riotous crowd, dragging him like luggage when rushing to catch a flight.

“Wait. What’s going on?” Landon asked as he struggled to remain on his feet. “I didn’t do anything. I swear I don’t know where that picture came from.”

His rescuer, or kidnapper, was noticeably older than the students. He had a tall and lean, but muscular, build, like a soccer player, and wavy dark hair that wisped behind him. It looked just long enough for a ponytail.

It wasn’t until he pulled Landon well away from the cafeteria that he spoke. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. I’m Dr. Aldous Brighton. I teach Telekinetics here. I’m sorry for the forceful removal, but I could see they were getting a bit out of control and thought you needed to get away. You’ve managed to make quite an impression on your first official day at the Gymnasium.”

“Thanks.” Landon let out a sigh of relief. “I guess my hope to go unnoticed is totally shot.”

“You could say that.” Dr. Brighton smirked. “Anyways, I believe your first training session is with me in just about a half hour, . . . and I was heading over to the training room. You can join me if you want. I can’t imagine you wanting to rejoin the vultures back there.”

Landon looked back for a brief moment before replying, “I think I’ll come with you.”

“Sounds good,” Dr. Brighton said as he motioned for Landon to walk beside him.

Landon hoped that since he left the cafeteria and was being escorted by a professor that the attention would cease, but the journey from the cafeteria to the training room provided no respite. Every bystander’s gaze remained fixed on him as they whispered with their companion. Some of them had the courage to walk straight up to him and tell him how excited they were to hear about what he would do in his first training session and that they never would have guessed from his appearance that he’d be capable of such lifting ability. One somewhat attractive girl even came up and simply whispered her dormitory room number in his ear and left, skipping flirtatiously down the hallway.

As the girl turned the corner, Dr. Brighton laughed to himself when he saw Landon’s perplexed expression.

“Sorry about all of this. Not many get to capture moments like the one you had in the street on camera. It has turned you into somewhat of a celebrity overnight. The whole Gymnasium has been talking about it all morning.”

“How did they even get that picture though?” Landon asked.

“I’d imagine Katie Leigh found it online,” Dr. Brighton answered. “Students aren’t supposed have access the Internet. It’s just a precaution. I hope you understand that we can’t run the risk of a student accidentally giving the location of the Gymnasium away by harmlessly chatting and posting to websites. But Katie’s got a knack for bypassing the permissions. What you did when that photo was taken is quite impressive, you know?”

“But I don’t even know how I did that,” Landon returned. “I still don’t know how any of this works.”

“Don’t worry. ‘Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength, which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.’ Marcus Aurelius.” Dr. Brighton turned toward Landon only to see a confused, blank expression. “You’ll be able to feel it,” he continued. “You have unbelievable potential; you just have to find it.”

“You are all that is holding you back from your full potential,” Landon recited while trying to deepen his voice to sound like Dr. Wells. But how can I meet my potential if I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

“Please tell me I’m not sounding like him,” Dr. Brighton said, sounding genuinely concerned.

Landon turned to him to find Dr. Brighton smiling. Landon couldn’t help but smile back. I think I’m going to like this class, Landon thought.

The two walked silently for the remainder of their trip to the training room. Right outside the door, Dr. Brighton turned to Landon and grabbed him by the shoulders, crouching down to look him directly in the eyes. His sudden severity caught Landon off-guard. He felt an off-putting wave of heat surge through is body.

“Landon, I know what you went through before Sofia brought you here. . . . And I can imagine that you are probably a bit overwhelmed and still somewhat confused,” Dr. Brighton said. Landon’s mouth suddenly became very dry. “This place can really help you if you let it. There’s nothing for you to be afraid of. Just do your best and the rest will come with time. You have to remember, you aren’t alone here.”

As Dr. Brighton uttered his sincere words, the door beside them creaked open. Landon’s eyes shifted at the sound. Dr. Brighton was also a psychokinetic. Based on the students he met so far, Landon expected only people around his age to have this Prometheus gene that gave them their abilities. The notion of someone older like Dr. Brighton having the same abilities was bewildering. Dr. Brighton stood up and nudged Landon toward the open door.

Landon walked hesitantly into the room. It was long, but narrow, and filled with rows of medium-sized wooden tables with a metal desk at its head.

He walked down the center aisle. It felt oddly normal to Landon. As he passed each row, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d been transported back to high school chemistry, waiting for lab to start, but in place of posters of periodic tables, cabinets of beakers, and three-dimensional models of chemicals, there were diagrams of different hand motions lining the walls, glass cases of human and animal skulls on the shelves, jars stuffed with random items, and a cabinet filled with oddities in the back.

“Sit wherever you like,” Dr. Brighton said from behind his desk. He was shuffling around in his drawers, and he slowly began pulling things out, arranging them on the desk, and adjusting some stacks of papers.

Landon decided on a table toward the back and sat down on a wooden stool, waiting silently for others to join him.

As the nine o’clock start time drew nearer, other students began to file in, each one whispering under their breath when they saw Landon already settled in the room. None of them seemed to want to sit anywhere near him. Perhaps they were afraid of what he might do. As more and more students came in, his stool became more and more uncomfortable. He shifted around on it, trying to find some relief, but none really came.

Riley and Katie Leigh walked in about five minutes before the start time and smiled when they saw Landon sitting by himself. They immediately walked over and sat around him. Riley took the second seat at Landon’s table and Katie Leigh sat at the table in front of him, but turned around as soon as she got settled.

“Dude, how could you have kept this a secret?” Riley asked. His eyes were so big they seemed on the verge of popping right out of his skull. “Your debut was lifting a city bus off the ground!”

“I don’t even think Brock could do that,” Katie Leigh interjected soft enough so only the three of them could hear.

“Turn around, Katie, and mind your own business,” Riley commanded as he tried to shoo her away with his hand. Katie Leigh ignored him. Riley turned his attention back to Landon. “I cannot believe I get to be in the same Telekinetics training where you’ll show everyone what it means to be psy-kin. It’s going to be epic!”

Riley looked at Landon like Midas to gold. He was beside himself with excitement knowing he had befriended the new guy at the Gymnasium who might be able to vie for the top position among the students.

“So what exactly happened?” Riley asked.

“It was nothing really,” Landon began softly as he tried to hide his face behind his hand. There was no avoiding the conversation. “I was messing around with some guys on the sidewalk and accidentally slipped off the curb into the street. When I looked up a bus was headed straight for me. I thought I was done for, but then right before it hit me, the bus just lifted off the ground and floated there. When I realized what had happened, I ran off. Then that woman, Sofia, found me and brought me here. That’s it.”

Landon didn’t like lying, but he knew the truth would only make him more of a target for gossip. This way he could avoid talking about the chase through the city, his time living on the streets, or the tragic death of his parents.

All the people in the room silently stared at him. He couldn’t tell if he’d managed to shock them with the horror of his story or if they were underwhelmed by its mediocrity, but Landon didn’t really mind either way. He just hoped the story would put an end to the conversation.

Just as Landon wondered if the training session would ever start, Dr. Brighton began from behind his desk.

“All right, students, today we are going to—”

The door opened and Celia bolted into the room. She crouched awkwardly as she attempted to shut the door softly behind her.

“Welcome! Welcome to Telekinetics. You must be Celia Jackson, correct?” Dr. Brighton asked. With each word, Celia’s face became redder and redder with embarrassment.

“Yes, sir,” Celia meekly replied.

“Go on . . . Take a seat anywhere that’s open.”

Celia moved down the center aisle and took a seat at an empty stool two rows ahead of Landon. He felt bad for her, but also a bit relieved, because her late entrance seemed to shift the class’ attention away from him, if only momentarily.

“So back to where I was. As you all know, we have acquired a few new students today, so to help get them started, we are going to go back to the basics. This is going to be easy for some of you, but revisiting the fundamentals is never a bad thing.”

Dr. Brighton was comfortable at the front of the room; his demeanor was authoritative but familiar, commanding the respect and attention of everyone in the room, without sounding like a dictator. As he continued, he directed everyone to three small pedestals standing up on his desk. They were tall and slender, resembling candlesticks, but much thinner. The top couldn’t have been larger than a pencil eraser, and the base was barely big enough to hold the stick upright. He then pulled out three marbles from his pocket and displayed them in the palm of his hand.

“Telekinetics is a dangerous field of study. If you are too eager and attempt to lift too much, you could die as the pressure of the object will force your body to collapse in upon itself. Your bodies are limited in what they can manage.” Dr. Brighton walked across the front of the classroom as he spoke. “Like an ant, you can lift multiple times your body weight—far more than any normal human—but don’t think that just by getting fatter you can lift more. It doesn’t work that way.” The class chuckled. “It requires training, discipline and mental acuity. As far as we know, the maximum weight one can telekinetically lift without passing out is around thirty-five times one’s body weight.

“But strength is not the most important aspect of your training. If you want to be a master of telekinesis, you must pair that strength with control. Many an accident has occurred in this facility because students fail to recognize that without control of their abilities, they are dangerous.

“So today we will focus on control. The exercise is simple. You’re to lift the marbles and place them on the pedestals. It seems easy, but it will require a great amount of concentration and finesse. You’ll need precision to place the marbles on the small pedestal, and these stands will tip over if you set the marble down the slightest bit too hard or off-center.”

Hoping to glean some added insight into how to use his powers, Landon watched intently as Dr. Brighton demonstrated the exercise. The doctor’s movements were effortless. The marbles in his palm floated into the air, hovering at eye level, and then descended onto the top of each pedestal. The doctor made it look instinctual; there didn’t seem to be anything special or unique about using one’s abilities. No physical cues seemed to be involved, like a squinting of the eyes or a subtle hand gesture, not even as much as a twitch. Dr. Brighton just continued to speak.

“So we’ll start with this and see how the day goes. If we need to, we can move to something else later in the morning, but I don’t know if we’ll get there. Now, everyone please go to the cabinets at the back of the room, get three stands and three marbles, and get started. I’ll come around once everyone has started.”

Now that his explanation had concluded, every student moved from behind their tables to the back of the room. Landon followed close behind Riley. As he reached the cabinets, he realized he was standing beside Celia.

“So . . . I saw that picture of you this morning in the cafeteria,” Celia started.

Landon looked down and replied, “Oh.”

“No, don’t be modest, bus boy. You’ve won the first round of ‘Most Awesome New Student,’ but that won’t last for long,” she returned with a grin. “You just wait. I always win in the end.”

Landon smiled as he returned to his seat. He set up his equipment as he thought through his brief conversation with Celia. He was competitive and now he realized this whole situation might be fun. She laid down the gauntlet and he didn’t want to disappoint.

Determined to succeed, Landon pushed the stool back with his foot and stood in front of the table, pressing both hands on the edge of its surface. He leaned in over the three marbles that sat on the table in a random formation. Concentrating solely on the little glass balls, Landon stared at them, squinting slightly. I can do this, he told himself. Landon clenched his jaw, held his breath, and tightened all of the muscles in his face. Move you little marble. I need you to move.

Nothing happened. Landon stood there with his face scrunched, staring at a set of marbles on the table, but as he fought to use his abilities, the tingling pang on the back of his neck made him suddenly aware of the silence in the room. When he looked up, everyone was staring at him again. Riley had his eager face focused on Landon while his three marbles orbited an invisible center a few inches above his open hand. As he looked around, he started to hear the low whispers of people conversing with their desk partners.

Landon felt exposed, like a statue at a museum exhibit. That is, if a statue could be alive to overhear his audiences. Everyone was waiting with bated breath, anticipating Landon to effortlessly lift his marbles off the tabletop and set them on his thin stands.

“All right, everyone, focus on your own work,” Dr. Brighton commanded, breaking the silence and causing everyone to turn back to his or her own set of marbles.

The next hour passed slowly as Landon attempted to move a single marble to no avail. He tried everything. He stared at it, willed it to move, talked to it, waved his hand over it, and even attempted to use “magic” words. Nothing did the trick. With each failed attempt, he scanned the room, searching for some secret or special technique to unlocking the ability. He watched as Celia appeared to easily lift her marbles into the air and set them on their pedestals ten minutes into the exercise and couldn’t help but watch as Riley seemed to play with his, juggling them in the air, making them orbit his head, and causing them to collide with one another in flight.

“How do you do this?” Landon whispered inconspicuously to Riley, who at the moment was making his marbles chase each other across the table.

“You just have to feel it,” he replied. “It’s like when making a fist, you tell your hand to close. That’s what you do with the marbles; tell them to go where you want them to go.”

“But I have been telling them, and they don’t do anything.”

“You’re trying too hard. You need to relax and not think about it. Just do it.”

Landon nodded and began to stare at his marbles again.

“Don’t think about it. Relax. Just do it.” Landon spoke to himself as he concentrated. “Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

Landon continued to stare intently at his three tiny glass balls. With each passing minute, the frustration built up within him, making him more and more antsy, causing him to shift his weight from one side of his body to the other, and triggering every muscle in his body to get tenser and tenser. As it became more and more aggravating, the frustration overpowered his thoughts and he burst out, “Move!”

The entire class stopped dead and turned to look at him. His face was red with anger and his hands clutched the edge of the table so hard his knuckles had turned white. Then, all three marbles began to shake violently, clicking loudly as they began to dance on the table. Landon looked down at them, holding his breath. He was still fuming, but a tinge of hope flooded in. Suddenly, the marbles stopped, filling the room with palpable silence, and then blasted into the air without warning. Everyone in the class let out an audible gasped and looked up in unison. Above Landon’s table were three small holes in the roof tile and no marbles in sight.

“Landon, please come speak with me outside.” Dr. Brighton’s voice resonated above all of the gasps and gossiping.

When he heard his name, Landon looked fearfully at the stunned Riley, whose marbles now rolled off the edge of the table. Landon rose from his stool and proceeded toward the door. Whispers and glares followed him the entire way out of the room.

“So what exactly is going on, Landon?” Dr. Brighton said the instant the door shut behind them.

“What’s going on? I don’t know what I’m doing! That’s what’s going on!” Landon’s tone was short, and he started to pace manically beside the wall. He was still irritated from his less than ideal first exercise in Telekinetics.

“What do you mean, you don’t know what’s going on?” Dr. Brighton asked. Obviously not fazed by Landon’s current attitude, he stood with his hands clasped casually behind his back.

“How else do I put it? I—don’t—know—what—I’m—doing. Everyone in there is looking at me as the guy who lifted a bus. They expect me to be great, but I still don’t even know how I did what I did.” He appeared to be talking more to himself than Dr. Brighton. “You said I’ll be able to feel it, but I don’t even know what it is.”

“Landon, stop.” Dr. Brighton put his arm out and grabbed Landon gently by the shoulder, arresting his incessant pacing. “No one expects you to be great in the beginning. We’ve all been in the same situation. This entire thing is new and foreign to you. There’s a learning curve involved here.”

“Learning curve? . . . Yeah, you can say that again. How are you supposed to learn when you don’t even understand what it is you’re learning. I mean this isn’t like high school bio. There don’t seem to be textbooks or anything that says, ‘This is how you lift.’ Or, ‘Hey, you’re psychokinetic, and here’s how your body works.’ . . . Do you realize I’ve spent the last hour staring at marbles? I’ve even talked to them. . . . I’ve talked to marbles! It’s making me insane.”

“You have to be patient. These gifts, . . . they are ‘like the seed put in the soil—the more one sows, the greater the harvest.’”

“What are you talking about?” Landon asked, exasperated.

“Your gifts—they are as a seed, dormant within you until they’re ready to spring forth and grow. In your case, that seed has but germinated into a tiny sprout, searching for the light of the sun. Once it finds it, the sprout will grow into a magnificent tree. With water, proper care and patience, that sprout will take root and thrive. You just have to help it get there.”

Landon stood there without as much as a sound, his head downturned toward the floor. Dr. Brighton walked to him and rested his hand upon Landon’s shoulder again.

“Don’t worry. This is your first day. You’ll get it in time.”

• • • • •

“So, you’re the great Landon Wicker.”

Following his training, Landon returned to his room, hoping to be alone with his thoughts, only to find Brock had returned. He rested on his disheveled bed, leaning against the headboard with his hands cupped behind his head and his legs casually crossed on the mattress.

“Landon Wicker? . . . Yes. Great? . . . Far from it.”

Landon drifted over to his desk and flopped languidly into his chair. He then proceeded to stare at the wall and shift the copy of Treasure Island back and forth on the desk with his hand.

“Oh, so modest,” retorted Brock, who sat up and leaned off the edge of the bed. “I saw the photo. Looks like you could almost be as good as me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not a threat to you in the least,” Landon moped. “If today was any indication, I’m sure they’ll be throwing my useless butt to the curb in no time.”

“Oh, trust me,”—Brock chuckled—“you aren’t a threat.”

The mattress squeaked as Brock stood up and walked with his chest up over to Landon’s desk. He leaned over it with one arm on the desk. The book Landon fiddled with shot up from the table and into Brock’s outstretched hand.

“Okay, Landon,” Brock said after examining the book and setting it back onto the desk. He intentionally made it clap on the surface on impact to garner Landon’s full attention. “Right now, we’re cool, and we’ll stay cool until the day when you wake up forgetting that I’m Brock Holbrooke. . . . And you? . . . You’re just a temporary fad. You feel me?”

Landon stared at Brock, mentally piecing together the subtle threat hidden behind his calm demeanor, but he soon realized Brock was still holding out for a response, so he replied.

“Yeah . . . I got it.”

“Awesome.” Brock pushed lightly off the desk and walked over to the door, and with one foot in the hallway, he continued, “Welcome to the Gymnasium, roomie.”

Once the door closed, Landon let out a deep sigh. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath. As he leaned back in his chair, he thought to himself, And this is only my first day!