Kyle Aarons

Adventure Quest

Chapters 18-20

Oliver looked more than a bit disappointed as he all but tossed his pack into his wall locker and fell back on his bed.

Fairfax looked over, "Hey, we were told it was all a matter of luck. Next time you'll do better."

"Luck has nothing to do with it." Oliver sighed as he looked with distain at the pouch given to him to put gold into. "I let more flakes get away than I got. I just can't figure out how to do this!"

Robin glanced up, somewhat happy his own achievement had been left out of the chatter of camp successes. The last thing he wanted was to have his name close to the top of the gold panning leader board several of the others had set up. The fact everyone knew he had gone with Mrs. Anderson allowed him to brush off the questions about what he had or had not found. "I was having the same problem, Oliver. When we go back out, get your pan down to sand only, and then take it over to Mrs. Anderson. She'll show you what you are doing wrong."

Gavin put his own pack down and used some of the wood they had gathered to light a fire in the small fire stove. "I just want to get warm! My hands are still freezing."

Ajax rolled his eyes, "Gavin, are you sure you are warm blooded?"

Fairfax snickered as Gavin tossed a pillow at Ajax. "You better take the wood chopping certification so you can carry an axe as part of your gear."

"Why?" Gavin asked.

Oliver grinned, "Cause, if we lose power to our laser cutters you will need a way to cut wood so you don't chip your teeth. I have never heard teeth chatter so loudly as yours do! I don't know how you would make it on Mars. The average temperature of my camp at night hovers around three degrees and we are close to the equator. Those in the northern and southern settlements end up with frost four to five days a week. Also, solar heaters start to cool down a couple of hours before the sun comes up, so it is not uncommon for buildings to be just a few degrees above freezing when we wake up."

"Oh, screw that!" Gavin shuddered at the thought.

All four of the others started laughing at Gavin's reaction. As the giggles died down, Oliver let out a long breath. "My dad's next project is to figure out a way to increase temperature so more plants can survive and so we can start bringing some animals to Mars. Until we can get the planet capable of supporting outdoor animal life and more plants we are still dependent on Earth, and dad says Earth has enough problems of its own!"

"Yeah, it sure does." Ajax agreed. "Live down at street level for a few days, and you will see just how bad it really is."

Fairfax frowned. "Can we talk about something else, guys? I really don't want to go to bed thinking about being at street level or freezing on Mars."

"Hey, my mind talk power is not as strong as it was this morning." Gavin glanced over to Robin, "Any chance of a boost? Can you show us what you found with Mrs. Anderson?"

"Do we have enough food for all of us?" Robin forced a friendly grin, not really wanting to deny his friends but realizing another vision would really wipe him out.

Ajax's grin was all Robin had to see to change the forced smile into a real one. "I'm game, but I want to try something new this time."

Oliver rolled off his bed and moved to sit next to Robin. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure, exactly," Robin sighed. "But I'm kind of where Fairfax is. I don't want to go to bed seeing anything bad. I sure don't want to know if one of Mrs. Anderson's friends died or anything along those lines."

Fairfax stood and paced back and forth for a few seconds, "Um, well, we could test how far away this thing of yours works."

"How far away?" Gavin's head cocked to the side in bewilderment. "Like what?"

Fairfax paused and held up a finger as he fully formulated the idea. "Robin, maybe you could let us use what your folks are going to do tomorrow or something."

Robin didn't look or sound too excited. "Problem is, they do the same thing every day, except their one day off a week. Mom goes twenty one floors up and does something with bank records and dad goes to whatever spot in the building needs plumbing fixed. He is also on call all the time for emergencies, so he gets called out all the time. I have gone over a week without seeing him and he sleeps most of his mandatory day off each week."

"Maybe you'll get to see what an emergency is or something, Robin," Gavin spoke up. "He never talks about it, even when we have asked him."

Gavin took over and tried to talk Robin into seeing what his dad was doing for several minutes with no success. He talked about plumbing, going up into the maintenance sections of the building and even tried to talk about Robin's dad using some of the tools the two boys had seen. Finally he gave up and shrugged, "Guess not."

"Not even a flicker," Robin agreed, clearly disappointed over the failure. "Any of you all have any other ideas?"

Fairfax let out a long nervous breath, "I do, but I don't know if it will be a bad thing or not."

"What do you have in mind?" Robin asked intrigued to see Fairfax act uncomfortable about something.

Fairfax stood and dug into the bottom of his pack. After almost three minutes he pulled out something wrapped in cloth. Before he unwrapped it he explained, "When we dug around at street level for stuff, once in a while we would find pretty valuable stuff. When we did, my brother would find a way into one of the buildings and try to sell it for hard credits since he had a legal credit account. We would save up until things were looking really bad, or we really needed something and he would go buy it. Usually it was medicine or freeze dried food packs.

"A few days before I ended up in the orphanage, I found this…" He took another long breath. "I should have given to my brother, but I just wanted it… I told the people at intake it was my great grandmother's and it was all I had left, so they let me keep it, but they locked it up so I didn't have to keep it hidden from all the other kids. They almost didn't let me take it to AQ, but I didn't want to leave it behind. So, old lady Gertrude relented and got it so I could take it with me…"

Ajax looked at the dirty looking cloth with growing interest. "I'm amazed; she never bends on anything. What is it?"

Fairfax carefully spun the cloth off of a small silver box with a very tiny lock. Even though the silver was badly tarnished and had a couple of dents in it, a six pointed star could be seen in the lid and on each side was a weird looking candle holder which held nine candles. He set it down on the center table and glanced up as the other four boys moved closer. "I did a scan of the symbols and it came back as stuff to do with the Jewish religion, the national religion of the Israel CHZ. But since Chi-Troit does not look kindly on church goers of any type and the orphanage separates kids who are known to belong to any church, I figured they would take it from me if I did more study, so I stopped. I was kind of hoping to link with the space station computer when I go out on ISTaZ to see if I can find out more, since I could then erase the download and there would be no trace."

"I bet someone would still know your note-puter did a religious download. Mom says the government is paranoid about big religions, even though we are free to practice by law," Gavin stated. "Philli-York's government is really bad. My dad and mom only teach us the bible in our home and we get together with a few other Christian families when we can, but mom has to be real careful or she could lose here high security clearance. I don't even know why the CHZ government is so paranoid about it, since Christianity is all about peace, love and forgiveness."

Robin cringed, "My folks would have never allowed your folks to adopt me if they had known you are Christians! Dad says more people have died in religious wars than all other fighting combined. He says the second Civil War was more about religion than land and food. He says no more of his kin are going go to war over stupid beliefs. He was kind of mad when I got laser rifle trained, but mom pointed out I could join the police and get out of our lower class tower if I kept getting all the training scouts offered. Neither one likes any kind of religion, though."

"We'll never try to push it on you, Robin." Gavin responded defensively.

Robin held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not mad; just make sure to tell everyone in your family to keep my folks out of the loop. I actually think it would be kind of cool to find out what it is all about. All I know is someone let a group of people torture him to death or something like that. The one time I tried to find out more, dad beat my butt with a thin plaststeel pipe when he found out. He said no kid of his was going to become one of them."

Fairfax cringed, "Sounds painful!"

"It could have been worse," Ajax teased, "It could have been made of the much harder metalplast."

"Pipes can't be made out of metalplast." Oliver countered. "Metalplast is used to make buildings because it is stronger, more metal-like, but it is too ridged for pipes. Plaststeel can be heated and bent into shapes to fit places too; like regular plastic. Besides, metalplast is designed to flex like plastic, but unless it is thick it would crack with the expansion and contraction of hot and cold going through it all the time since it is more metal-like than plastic."

Seeing the others looking at him oddly, he shrugged. "My dad has been trying to find something better than plaststeel for pipes on Mars. Plaststeel is tuff stuff to be sure, but with ice asteroid fragments being dropped on us as part of the terraforming, they break all the time."

"Break?" Gavin frowned in confusion. "Do you have pipes getting hit by chucks of asteroids?"

Oliver nodded. "Ice asteroids still contain some rocks and junk so there is always hard stuff hitting the planet. My dad and the other terraformers make sure to bring in the asteroids away from settlements so no major damage occurs; as a matter of fact, there are huge fields which are nothing more than creator fields since they try to aim the asteroids into the same areas. The problem is some of the settlements are not in areas where fresh water can be stored so massive aqueduct pipes send them what they need. No matter how hard they try to avoid it, some fragments hit those pipes and cut off water to those settlements for days at a time."

"Why not build big water storage tanks?" Robin wondered aloud.

"Mars does not have the same mineral content as Earth, so we can't build massive reservoirs out of Metalplast like Earth can. Besides, dad says some of the ones on Earth are showing some damage and no one has a clue how to repair them since there is billions of liters of water in them and if they empty them to do repairs, the walls will cave in since the pressure of the water is part of what keeps them structurally sound or something along those lines. I really don't get it."

Oliver shrugged, "Still, I'd bawl my eyes out if I got beat with a hunk of either metalpast or plaststeel."

"Yeah, it was awful…" Robin quickly changed the subject, not really wanting to talk about the only time he could remember being beaten with anything other than an open hand. He glanced back down at the small box then back to Fairfax. "What's inside?"

"I don't know." Fairfax shrugged. "I don't think there is anything cause nothing rattles… Still, I have thought about breaking it open hundreds of times, but I don't want to ruin it." He then lowered his head and spoke a much softer, "Besides, breaking it just feels wrong."

"Nothing wrong with not wanting to break it." Oliver finally showed some serious interest in the item by sticking his head real close to the box. "It sure looks old!"

Robin nodded then glanced over to Fairfax, "So you want me to see who it belonged to or something?"

"I don't know." Fairfax shrugged. "Whatever you can get… It would be really nice to know how it ended up in a trash pit at street level though."

Ajax knelt and looked at it closely. "Yeah, I bet it is worth a good fifty credits, even at a fence shop."

"What's a fence shop?" Oliver asked while frowning.

"It's a street level shop, normally run by some CHZ military guys." Fairfax spat with a level of disgust. "They sell things for trade or hard currency from anyone. Normally they sell worn out military clothing, army knives, and army rations, but I have heard some of them sell guns, ammo, power packs, and even explosives if you have enough valuables."

"They do." Ajax confirmed. "Dad bought a ballistic pistol from them, and a couple of clips of bullets once, when the gang activity in our area got real heavy. Problem was the same store was selling guns and stuff to the gangs they were supposed to be fighting. It got real bad for a few months, then a military sweep came through and took out the gangs. My sister and me watched from under a rusted out car as the same guys who sold dad the pistol came through after the fighting and picked the bodies of the dead gang members clean. They set up a new shop selling the same guns, clothing, and gear all over again."

Oliver looked sickened, "They took clothing off of the dead and sold it?"

"Happens all the time." Fairfax shrugged, showing some confusion over why Oliver was so appalled. "It's not like the dead need clothing and if it isn't grabbed quickly the rats and bugs eat it when they eat the bodies, then it doesn't do anyone any good. Besides, those killed by military sweeps don't leave blood on the clothing since the military uses energy weapons. When I was picked up, half my stuff had at least one burn mark, and my coat had three. At least one was a clear laser burn."

"Oh, GROSS!" Gavin shouted.

Oliver took a couple of deep breaths and a swig from his canteen, "OK, I'll be good if I never go to Earth. Robin, let's um…"

Robin quickly nodded while eyeing both Ajax and Fairfax with a great deal of sadness. The fact neither seemed even slightly disturbed by the turn of the conversation showed how unfair life was. Hearing the Chi-Troit CHZ military sold the clothing of the dead was even more disturbing. Yet, Robin could find no fault with either Ajax or Fairfax for wearing the clothing of those who died at street level. Still, it was extremely disturbing. Another thought occurred to Robin as he thought over what he was hearing. If they had worn clothing of those killed by a military sweep, the people must have been close to their size, which meant the military didn't care if they killed kids. It was truly a revolting notion. "Let's form a circle so I can see what I can read off the box, otherwise none of us are going to get a good night's sleep."

Robin waited until everyone was holding hands. He had Fairfax hold onto his upper arm so he could pick up the box. For several seconds he got nothing. He let out a sigh, "I think it helps to know something about it. Maybe I could work back from where you found it, Fairfax."

Oliver glanced over, "Try to talk him into it. Where did you find it? What were you doing?"

Fairfax kind of cringed. "Um, you all might end up seeing what street level is like if I go there."

Gavin gripped Fairfax's hand a bit tighter. "You had to live it and we have all heard you talk about it, but I still don't really get it. Maybe it would be good if the rest of us did get a real glimpse."

"Gavin's right." Robin responded with a hint of nervousness in his voice. "Just take me there and I will see if I can backtrack from there or something."

Fairfax took a deep breath, glanced up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes. Finally he started talking. "It was winter and real cold. We had been inside a building for the prior few days, but were totally out of food. Mom figured the cold would keep the rats and the gangs down so we headed out as a large group with two other families.

"Our first stop was the main trash chute coming out of the building we had bedded down in. My youngest sister, Gerri was sick and one of her rat bites was infected. Dad was carrying her on his back. We had to hold up between an old truck and a crumbling stone wall as a few gang members forced six people to dig through the trash. They finally called them back and tied them together when it started to snow.

"The snow was worse than normal. It was brown and had a real nasty smell to it. I remember dad saying it must not have snowed much so what was coming out of the sky was more polluted than normal. He also made sure we didn't eat any, not like we would have anyway…" Fairfax lightly quivered. "We all saw one kid from another family get sick and die the year before from eating polluted snow, so we knew better."

Fairfax let out a long breath. "Since we knew there were gang members around, dad and my brother pulled out their ballistic pistols and kept guard as the rest of us moved into the pit. Mom was right about one thing; it was too cold for the rats, so we were able to move in deeper than normal. I found a note-puter with a cracked screen, but it was still working and a pair of pants with thirty hard credits in a pocket someone had forgotten to take out before tossing them. I also found half a dozen school lunch squeeze cheese packets which were still sealed. I tossed two to Gerri and sat down to eat the others. When I did, the mound I sat on shifted.

"I jumped up thinking I hit a rat's nest and was getting ready to run, but when nothing else happened I knelt down and pulled on what I had sat on. It turned out to be part of an old wooden desk. All around it was old clothing. None of us had ever seen anything like it, but it was mostly girls and women stuff, even a few dresses like they have in the museums. It was made out of stuff none of us had seen before, too. Dad said he thought it was real wool, which I didn't know was sheep fur until I looked it up at the orphanage… Anyway, it was really warm and in great shape. The more I dug the more I found. The rest of my family came over and we really tore into the area after I showed them.

"While everyone was talking about all the clothing and even some old pictures that didn't even have color in them I found the bottom of the desk. I pulled out a drawer. I think it had been locked but when it was tossed out the trash chute it broke open when it hit the trash pile. Whatever happened let me get into it; it was full of stuff including books, a really old gun with a bunch of bullets, a large knife with lightning bolt looking marks which looked kind of like two S's, and a whole bunch of some weird looking paper; Dad said it was old money from some other country.

"While my dad and brother talked about where they might sell it all, I went back out and continued to dig through the desk and some of the other stuff around it. I found a book with lots more pictures with no colors. They were kind of weird looking. They had people in them, but they were way too skinny, even skinnier than I was down on street level. Some of the pictures showed men with round helmets, they had stripes or bars on their clothing, kind of like rank or something and hand packs with balls and pouches hanging off them. Many of them carried really big and bulky looking ballistic guns and were carrying some of the real skinny people. Some of them even looked like they were crying. There were other pictures of the real skinny people smiling and other pictures showed the skinny people, including small kids… It was weird; they had their arms out, there were numbers and letters written on their arms. One picture had a gate with a bunch of the men with the round helmets standing in a large room. Some of the pictures showed pipes with round things coming off them and there were even some which showed marks on the walls that kind of looked like scratch marks from fingers. It was really creepy.

"Mom took the book and pictures away, tossed them off to the side, and told me to keep looking." Fairfax's head dropped some as did his voice. "I got kind of mad since I kind of wanted to keep the pictures in the book, but knew better than to argue. But then I found the silver box…" Fairfax let out a long uneasy breath. "As soon as I saw it, I wanted it and I was mad so I shoved it in my pack. I then held up a really strange looking hand clock. It was coated in silver and had a latch to open it. Inside was another no color picture of a boy with a cross necklace on and it was on a silver chain and a ball thing on top."

Fairfax let go of Robin and dug into his pack again. He pulled out a pouch with a small round picture of a boy's face. Even as old as it was it was in remarkably good shape and since it was now in a vacuum sealed plastic pack it was well protected. On the back was the name 'Yishai Gal Weinstein' and 'Sent to Monastery of San Quirico 27 January, 1943'. Underneath was a small note with the date 29 January, 1943. It simply said 'Died in allied air attack'. "Maybe this will help. Since we got five hundred credits for the clock mom let me keep the picture inside and the guy we sold it to even sealed it for me. The note was behind the picture, but I had him put it on the back so it could still be seen."

As Fairfax grabbed Robin's arm again, Robin reached out and touched the picture. Suddenly everything changed. The smells, sights, and sounds of the small team building they were sitting in seemed to vanish. In its place, the five boys found themselves on a cobble stone street just outside of a small village, a cold wind blew and icy sleet slashed into their faces. Off to the side was an extremely small single level building with smoke curling out of a square pipe coming out of the roof made out of bricks. Around the tiny structure was a pile of fire wood, a pair of cows and a strange looking water faucet with a huge handle. Off of the faucet a small icicle hung and under the icicle was a large wooden bucket. It was as if Robin and his friends had stepped through a doorway in time.

While Robin, and those with him, tried to understand what they were seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling, a group of people, many carrying suitcases, scurried down the road past them. Most of them had the six pointed stars, like what was on the lid of the silver box, sewed on their coats. The group suddenly stopped and all but a few dove into some bushes off the side of the road while others started to run across the open field. The rest moved a bit further down and stopped on the opposite side of the road from where the others had hidden themselves.

Robin watched in some puzzlement for a moment before the sounds of an engine and metal on stone clanking caught his attention. The boy from the photo was one of the people in the group who did not dive off to the side or run. Instead he was stopped by one of the adults. Another adult stopped a couple of others from joining those hiding. It took Robin a few seconds to realize the boy was one of half a dozen kids not wearing a star. Next to the boy were three others boys, two girls and two men. Both men wore heavy winter clothing of some kind, but both also had a strange white collar under their tightly buttoned up black shirts. The man, holding tightly onto the boy's shoulder, frowned and spoke in a language Robin did not know but for some reason understood.

"Those fools will be shot! They need to get down!"

The other man let out a long breath. "There is nothing we can do for them now. We have to protect those they gave to us and get them hidden."

The man holding onto the boy from the picture blinked out a couple of tears from his eyes and mouthed a short silent prayer. He then spoke so all the kids could hear him. "God will get his justice in the end. I hope it will be enough. Until such time, do nothing, say noting and keep moving." He then pulled the boy into him. "Jessie, if you act afraid the soldiers will see it. Your actions will kill all of us."

The boy glanced up, "My name is Yishai…"

The man holding the boy flipped the boy hard with his index finger. It was so hard Robin heard the 'thunk' sound and saw the tears well in the boy's eyes. "If you are to live and continue your family line, you will accept the Christian name given you, Jessie. At least the good Bishop has let you keep a Christian name with the same meaning as your Jewish name. Now, keep moving and wave as they go by or you will doom us all! If they shoot at those running, do nothing!"

A couple minutes passed as the other five children were given similar instructions by the man and his friend. Suddenly, a very strange vehicle rounded the corner and sped up as the passenger saw the running figures. The vehicle crashed through a wooden fence and quickly closed on the fleeing people. A man on the back pulled up a ballistic weapon and fired it on full automatic fire at those still running across the field. All seven fell screaming. The driver and passenger scanned the field while the man in the back reloaded and finished off those still moving, this time taking his time to fire single shots. Once satisfied, the passenger motioned the driver to continue back to the road. This changed as the passenger saw the group of eight people making their way down the far side of the road.

Even as shocked and sickened as Robin was over the cold blooded murder of seven men, women, and children, his mind managed to take in the strangeness of the vehicle. The front had wheels, but the back was not tires, instead it was long bands of metal plates that spun on gear-like wheels. On the top was some kind of very big ballistic gun with a bunch of huge bullets connected by odd looking chain links that led down into a side box. On the side of the metal vehicle were big black plus marks. There was a man behind the big gun too, the one who had shot the seven trying to escape.

The man in the passenger seat held up his hand, which in turn caused the driver to bring the massive contraption to a stop right next to the two men and six children. As the machine stopped the man behind the big gun turned it on the group. His eyes seemed to glint with the anticipation of pulling the trigger.

Robin felt his own heart speed up as the man behind the gun pulled back on some lever on the gun. At the same time the man who had held up his hand stood and looked over the small group. The man brushed some of the snow off his nice coat and straightened his collar, showing twin lightning bolts on both sides in the shape of twin S's. The man's hand went down to rest on some kind of ballistic pistol held in a belt holster. "Priest, where are you taking these filthy urchins and why did you not do anything to stop the Jew scum?"

The man holding Yishai dug his fingernails into the boy's shoulders a bit deeper to keep the boy standing straight and mouth clamped shut. At the same time the man lowered his head to show deference to the man speaking. "The bombing of Wilhelmshaven has left more homeless than our bomb damaged local orphanage can hold, and now there are even more for us to care for good Captain. I am leading this group south to hand them off to the Church at Oldenburg. As for the Jews, I do not know what you want me to do. Should I throw rocks at them from here? Besides, my task is the safety of these children, and they are too weak and hungry for me to do anything but try to get them to their destination."

The man with the lightning bolts on his collar snickered as he hopped down and looked over the children then moved up to the priest. "You have almost forty kilometers in this weather, you travel with almost nothing and these six are not exactly dressed for this."

"There was no clothing to spare. We fed them this morning, and with God's will we will find shelter and at least something to go with the few pieces of bread we brought with us. Otherwise we push on. I see no other choice."

The captain once again looked over at the kids before finally grabbing Yishai. "What is your name boy?"

Yishai burst into tears, not saying anything.

"This is a German?" The man mocked, "Are you sure he is not a Jew? He sure looks and acts like one."

The priest made a show of rolling his eyes. At the same time his hand crashed down into the back of Yishai's head getting a loud yelp of pain. "He is a bed wetter, good captain, nothing more. None of the others will sleep with him so his bed is colder than most."

The priest once again cuffed Yishai on the back of the head, "This is a German SS officer, and has asked you a question. Speak up boy!"

Tears now openly pouring down the boy's cheeks he managed to stammer out a few words, "My name… is… Jessie…"

"Jessie?" The German officer asked with a degree of disgust. "What fine German would name a boy Jessie?"

The priest kept his head down. "His mother was English, sir. It has a good Christian basis meaning God is gracious." He then pointed to a girl a year or two younger than Yishia. "His sister is Helga, named by her German father."

The German officer reached down and grabbed the boy's chin in a tight grip and forced his head upward so he could stare into the teary eyes. "I see you got way too much English and too little German, too bad for you."

This got chuckles from both the driver and gunner of the armored halftrack.

The officer seemed to take great pleasure out of the seeing more tears come from Yishai. After nearly a minute he picked the boy up by his chin and tossed him into the brush off the side of the road. He then pulled his pistol and fired a couple of shots, purposefully missing, but causing a wet spot to appear on the now balling boy's pants. He laughed hard, "It seems your little Jessie does not need to be asleep to wet himself!"

The priest stood still, making no attempt to help. Instead he let out a sigh as he spoke, "I do not see him joining the German Army, Captain."

This got a new round of laughter from all three German soldiers. After a few seconds, the driver spoke up. "The others are certainly braver, even the girls!"

The SS officer looked over at the other children, noting all five of them showed some fear but not a single one had a tear in their eyes. It never occurred to the man they were too tired, weak, and hungry and had seen too much. Nor did it occur to him most had just seen a family member getting gunned down and were in shock. He smiled. "We are headed past Oldenburg with new orders. Load these five real Germans in the back and I will take them. One of you can stay with Jessie, or leave him; he has too much English in him and too little German for me to waist any resources on him. I can delay no longer!"

The priest looked over to his partner. "I will take care of the bed wetter. At least this way the food I have will be enough for the two of us."

The officer moved around to the back and helped the other five into the back of the halftrack. The oldest boy was even allowed to move up and was shown how to use the big gun in the back and got to fire a few rounds.

The priest waited until the halftrack had disappeared down the winding road before he moved over to Jessie and picked him up. He ignored the wet spot on the boy's pants and he wrapped the boy in a hug and kissed his forehead tenderly. "I know you feel shamed boy, but you just saved the lives of the others and by keeping them distracted those who hid on the other side of the road were not noticed. You did well. Now let's see if we can get you cleaned up. I happen to know the owners of the farm house. They are good people, but will expect you to say a Christian prayer, as the new visitor. Keep it short and end it with 'In Jesus' name' and you will be fine."

As the pair moved over toward the farmhouse, a pair of aircraft with spinning propellers in the front dove out of the clouds. On the wings were white stars with blue and red lines coming off the star. They angled in the direction of where the vehicle had gone. A few seconds later tracers streaked down from both craft while return fire arced upward. An explosion followed.

Yishai burst out into tears and said something about his sister in the truck. At the same time a woman hiding in the bushes way up the road burst into tears and softly said a prayer mentioning Yishai and his sister. The woman then moved out into the field and cradled a dead man riddled with bullet holes. She finally had her hands pried off the dead man by one of the others with her, but not before taking his pocket watch with the picture of Yishai in the lid. Robin could stand it no longer; he let go of the vision and fell back, but even as he did so a few more images came to him. "Holy Crap! His mom thought he died, but he wasn't on the weird truck!"

Gavin shook his head, staggered out the front of the building and puked, followed shortly after by Oliver who didn't throw up, but definitely looked shaken. He glanced over at his friend and involuntarily hugged him. "Those people… they killed them… shot them and smiled… Oh my God, how could anyone do that?"

Back inside, Fairfax looked over with wide, tear filled eyes, "Robin I'm sorry! I didn't know…"

Ajax moved over to Robin and held him while stroking his hair, "Hey, this isn't your fault! This isn't even what you wanted him to see. It just happened, but as much feeling as there is attached to the picture… Do you really think we were seeing something way back in 1943?"

Robin held on to Ajax for several seconds before managing to calm down enough to speak. He looked down at his hands as he remembered seeing the blood on the woman's hands as she grabbed the watch out of the dead man's bullet ridden body. "As I broke contact with you all, I got a bit more. I saw a glimpse of her writing down the date and slipping the paper behind the picture. She thought Yishai died. The note you have behind the picture was written by her, so yeah, I think it really was back in the mid twentieth century. She pulled the pen out of the silver box; the key to it was in a hidden compartment underneath. The left front foot spins to the left."

Ajax continued to hold onto Robin as Fairfax reached out and secured the box. He glanced over at Robin and turned the left front foot. Just like Robin said, it rotated and caused a click. At the same time a tiny compartment on the bottom slid open and a silver key dropped to the floor.

Fairfax looked at the key and stared to insert it into the box, but Robin's hand stopped him. "I… I can't see any more. Please don't… at least not tonight."

Fairfax held the key to the lock for a couple of seconds before reluctantly nodding. As he put the key back into the hidden compartment, he took a deep breath. "Robin, I didn't want you to have to…"

Robin managed a nod while still holding onto Ajax, "How could anyone do such horrible things? The man… the captain… He looked happy… He picked up Yishai and threw him by his face and liked it! He laughed as those people were murdered… How could a man like him end up in charge of the other two?"

Ajax continued to hold Robin, "The patrols of soldier at street level are led by such people. They kill and scavenge the dead with no care for who they kill or those they leave behind. I have even heard they get bonuses for number of kills. They can do whatever they want cause they have the biggest guns."

"But at least those they kill are shooting back or trying to resist." Fairfax countered. "Those people did nothing but run. I don't understand what they could have done that was so wrong. One of those kids was like five or six!"

"I have seen kids that young get caught in the cross fire between gangs." Ajax sighed, "but your right; they were not targeted."

Robin shivered in Ajax's arms. "I can't believe you have any kindness left in you…"

"You've given us a reason to be nicer than normal." Fairfax admitted. "Even though I'm a bit disgusted by where your vision led, I'm by no means as freaked out by it as you are."

Oliver reentered the small building still holding on to a lightly crying Gavin. He helped him sit on the bed before taking a seat next to him. "I have never even dreamed of something so terrible!"

"I've seen some of it at street level," Fairfax grunted with a great amount of distain in his voice, "but I don't think I've ever seen something close to being that cold. To kill people trying to run away… not even the Chi-Troit military sweeps shoot people in the back!"

"Not on purpose." Ajax agreed with a sad shake of his head. "Normally I can sleep after seeing almost anything, but I'm not sure about tonight."

Robin closed his eyes and saw the seven people as they fell under the rain of bullets. "Even as hungry as I am, I don't know if I can even eat, let alone sleep."

Ajax dug into his pack and pulled out some food. "Your stomach is rumbling again. Eat this… Maybe we should sleep on the floor as a group like me and my family used to do in the CHZ." He suddenly blushed badly as he realized how what he said must have sounded.

As Robin took a few bites of food, Gavin surprised everyone. "Um, if you don't mind, I would kind of like to sleep close to the rest of you tonight. If I don't, I will have nightmares real bad and can't run to my parent's bed."

Robin quickly finished the first pack of food before joining the conversation. "There is no way I am going to sleep without some extra comfort, not after seeing seven people gunned down! Our bags are designed to zip together so we can keep each other warm…"

Oliver gulped and lowered his head, "I don't…"

Ajax glanced over, "Sleep next to me. I don't mind and won't bite too hard if your hand wanders some."

This, at least, got a laugh out of Robin and Oliver; which helped to break the tension some. Still, all five boys stayed close and had to hold each other a few times while they set everything to sleep as a group on the floor. Nothing more was spoken, but more than a few thoughts were exchanged as they ate and then slipped into the massive bag made out of five individual ones. Gavin was the last to fall into an uneasy sleep, but to do so he had to snuggle right up against Robin, who didn't fully wake but did tenderly put his hand on his best friend's chest as if he knew the extra support was needed.

Robin blinked a couple of times as he heard the sound of a ship switch over to magnetic drives and take to the sky. He let out a long yawn as he stretched. He cringed briefly as he felt Gavin shift on his left side and Fairfax on his right. The light coming in through one of the windows told him it was well past normal camp wake up time. He glanced over to where his note-puter was on the end table next to his bed and frowned. Robin mumbled, "Oh, yeah, no power." He chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds in thought before speaking aloud again. "How'd they get a ship up?"

He frowned deeply as he slid out of the big bag. The warmth inside the bag with the others made the cold morning air even colder. He glanced down and realized he was the first of his team to wake. As he dressed hurriedly, because of the chill in the air, he once again found himself wondering what kids his age used to do. How did they tell what time it was when there was no power? The longer he was without any technology, the more he wanted to know how it used to be done. It was one thing to go to museums and see displays and hear about how things used to be. It was an entirely different thing to have to live it, even for a short period of time.

His eyes wandered over to the silver box and he shuddered at the memory of the vision. He almost moved up to touch it but stopped himself. He knew he would need the support of the others on his team if another vision, even a hundredth as bad as the one the night before, came out.

Deciding to let the others continue to sleep, he slipped out the door and let the sunlight beat down on his face as he looked up. The warmth felt pretty good, considering it was clearly a chilly day. After several seconds of just enjoying the feel of the day, he rolled his neck and looked around. There were a few kids out, but like him, most of them looked like they had just woken up.

He moved over to a couple of kids from Team Seventeen as he heard them talking about panning for gold the night before. From the sounds of their voices, both were a bit disappointed they didn't get much, but wanted to try again. It seemed like a great distraction, so he eagerly went over.

The instant Jeff saw him, the boy grinned, "Hey, Commander Montgomery says we have to go into the trees to use the bathroom, since the storm knocked out the power for the water pumps. We also have to cook over a fire if we want warm food."

Robin smiled widely, happy to have something totally different to take his mind off the vision of the night before. "Looks like part of ISTaZ started even before we get out into the field!"

"Yup." Jay responded with an excited grin. "So I hear Fairfax came up huge on the gold last night!"

"Big time," Robin nodded. "He bagged almost two hundred and fifty grams. We had to all but drag him away from the steam." He couldn't help but snicker at the memory of both Gavin and Ajax pulling on him to get him to leave the edge of the water. "How'd you two do?"

Jay patted an all but empty pouch on his side, "Like fifteen grams of flakes, but I hear we get to go back out again a couple of times and Commander Montgomery said he will provide us all maps of where in our zones we can pan while we are out! Even better, if we can find enough of the missing kids, he will stick us in zones known for high gold content!"

Jeff let out a sigh, "I think I got like five grams is all." He shook his head in some disgust. "I was only like ten meters from Gavin and he bagged over thirty. It's crazy how hit and miss it can get. But Mrs. Anderson said she would take us out again after dinner if we wanted. How about you?"

Robin pulled out the pouch given to him. On the side of it there was the Explorer Corps insignia along with the letters 'Au', the periodic table abbreviation for gold. He dug out one of the actual nuggets and held it up. "Not too bad."

"Wow!" Jeff looked at the nugget with a bit of awe and a tinge of jealousy. "You have ten times more in one rock than I have in flakes!"

Robin dropped the nugget back in his pouch, deciding not to show them one of the others or his other pouch with the flakes. Instead he smiled as warmly as he could. "When we go back out, there is a big round boulder in the middle of the stream, go out and pull your first pan or two from under it. You'll both be happy you did."

Jay frowned slightly, "I don't want to steal your spot!"

"I am going to try to help out Oliver," Robin responded rather dismissively. "He had all sorts of problems trying to separate the flakes last night. He only came in with like two grams."

"Ouch." Jeff cringed. "He was really into the class too."

"He's still all about trying it again." Robin assured the other two, "Between Fairfax and me, we'll get him up close to camp average, even if we have to slide him some of what we find." He glanced around, "Um, so what about classes and testing?"

Jeff shook his head. "Commander Montgomery and a couple of others are going to give us some kind of overview class this afternoon and let us pick what other classes we are going to select. He said they needed to tweak the classes some and we can't test because there are not enough instructors around."

"Really?" Robin glanced skyward with a perplexed look, clearly wondering how it had gotten off the ground in the middle of such a massive star storm. "Did some of them leave in the flier I heard a few minutes ago?"

Jay nodded. "Yeah, most of the instructors left with Colonel McKnight in a really weird looking, heavily gold shielded ship with several academy cadets just before you came outside. It didn't even have any external sensor arrays or nothin'!"

Jared came over, having heard the conversation. "I heard Commander Montgomery talking to a couple of the other instructors. It sounds like one of the smaller general intake AdventureQuest camps was hit hard by the star storm, or something, and needed emergency help. They lost all contact with it, even with the power dampeners and shielded communications units they installed in all the camps. They also are going to make runs to all the kids already out on advanced ISTaZ and make sure they all weathered the initial wave."

"A gold plated ship?" Robin whistled in amazement, only half hearing the rest. "I wish I could have seen it!"

"It was pretty cool." Jeff admitted. "I bet we would all have to pan for a decade to get enough to plate a full ship. The weird part is there is no way it could leave the atmosphere, since gold would melt right off on re-entry, so they must have brought it here in a larger ship or something!"

Robin glanced skyward, wishing he could have caught a glimpse. "They might have felt they needed a few after what happened to the kids from San-San. This way they can do some moving around during a star storm." He shrugged it off, still hoping he would be able to see the ship when it came back.

Jared quickly agreed. "It must cost a fortune to run AdventureQuest. One of those fliers probably cost more than my whole eighteen hundred floor building."

"Only eighteen hundred?" Jay asked in some surprise, "I live three hundred stories above your whole building and I am nowhere close to the top."

"Mine is thirty-eight hundred." Robin sighed. "But the top twenty are mostly for running things. I was able to take a tour once. It was kind of creepy going up to the top and realizing there were buildings even taller in the distance. It didn't help my mood to see some cracks running down the side of the metalplast edges either."

"I saw the same thing on mine," Jeff shuttered. "But our guide said they were superficial and normal. I didn't really buy it though, since I saw dozens of spots where crews had done patching of other cracks."

Jasper moved up to the small group of boys. "Cracks are normal, and they have to be repaired before they get too deep. You all do realize almost all the really tall buildings in the CHZ's actually wobble some, even yours, Jared. The movement of the Earth and the winds mean the top floors are almost constantly in motion. The bases of the buildings have built in shock absorbers which actually increase the movement some, but reduce damage. Still, crews have to make repairs all the time. Otherwise, the cracks would grow and the buildings would crumble.

"I am sure what you saw were superficial or were expansion joints where designers put in spots where the buildings can expand and contract for heat, cold, high wind, and even Earth tremors. Have any of you wondered why you felt so weird when you first set foot on Zong?"

Robin frowned, "Sir, I was too amazed with this world to notice anything."

Jeff quickly concurred. "I didn't notice, sir."

Jasper grinned, "Because you are ISTaZ cadets. You were too caught up in what you were coming here to do to notice one thing most kids who come here really freak out over. The dome at Dal-Houston helps prepare, since it has only minimal movement, but did any of you notice how many kids stuck right next to the ships once they got to Dal-Houston intake?"

"Yeah!" Jay all but shouted. "They were all gripping at the ship… Come to think of it, I had to grab onto the ship rail for a few seconds because it didn't feel right…"

"Yeah, because for the first time in your life you were standing on ground that was not moving under you." Jasper chuckled. "Some time over the next few years I'll take you all to general intake. When I do, watch how kids walk. It is un-natural for them to not have some sway to the ground so they look rather wobbly. We, in the Corps, actually think one of the things leading to Open Space Sickness is the very major adjustment humans have to make in perception and even walking when leaving the towers. When we did a study of people who didn't get OSS, one thing we did note is the higher up in a tower a person lives and works is directly in line with how quickly they get OSS.

"Street level and close to street level people still get OSS, but it tends to take a lot longer. Even animals we raise in the towers then release here, or on other worlds, have a major problem and some signs of OSS. We think part of it is re-learning how to walk or even fly, since where birds land moves back and forth some in the towers and doesn't here. Also natural wind moving the braches is hard for birds to get used to. Over sixty percent of the flying animals we released here didn't survive the first few days because of it."

Jared took a deep breath, "Sixty billion people on Earth and only a fraction of them know how to walk on solid ground. How sad can you get?"

"Sixty Billion is the number of counted people, Jared." Jasper stated, "The real number is much higher. Just look at Ajax and Fairfax. There are millions of street level people in the US alone, maybe as many as a few hundred million. We don't have anything more than a guess, and it is far worse in other parts of the world. We think China tops out at over 10 billion if we count street level, and Europe is probably close to double the 15 billion on the records, since we know France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, Spain, and several other countries have gone bankrupt a couple of times and records are fractured at best. There are rumors of some of the ancient underground networks in many European cities being lived in by mass numbers of street level people."

Ajax came over and joined the growing group, "No way… No one can live below ground in a CHZ, the sewage pours out of the towers into huge grates and it all goes underground. Anyone down there would drown in liquid waste!"

Jasper noticeably shuddered at the thought as he moved and patted Ajax on the back. "Like I said, son, those are only rumors. However, there are more than a few much higher up than me who firmly believe it and have access to information I don't. All I do know, is there is considerably more than sixty billion humans on Earth. All I can say, with any certainty, you and Fairfax are quite incredible young men to have lived at street level then to come here and proven yourselves the way you have."

Ajax rolled his eyes. "You realize I came here knowing more about survival than some of your classes teach, right?"

"Really?" Jay asked.

"Yeah." Ajax glanced over with a hint of annoyance in his eyes. "I had to live on the streets, find food, water, and shelter. I learned how to protect myself from rats, street level gangs, and lots of other things before I was like three years old. We have to keep clear of those who are sick too, since there is no medicine, and avoid getting cut or at least find a way to clean and bandage cuts fast since there is so much nasty stuff at street level everything can get infected real quick like.

"I have seen people have to cut off fingers, hands, feet or even arms and legs because they get nasty, bloated and start smelling bad…" seeing everyone looking at him oddly he took a deep breath, "When an infection gets bad, it gets a different smell to it. The only thing to do is to cut it off, or out, once it gets the smell, then burn the area around it. There are hundreds, probably thousands at street level with missing body parts and burned where the cut off part was sealed off. It is the only way to not get the fever and die."

While the kids looked almost green after hearing this Jasper knelt and pulled Ajax closer as the boy started to tear up. "It is called gangrene. It starts when part of the body tissue dies then festers. If any of you want to know more about it, there are lots of accounts of it during the first US Civil War. Modern medicine has all but eliminated it, but for those without access, it can kill if not treated. To be honest, I have never thought about how common such problems must be at street level."

Jasper couldn't help but pull Ajax a little closer and give him a quick kiss on the top of his head. "You are right, by the way; you probably do have survival skills above what we teach. However, some of the things we incorporate into our classes are certainly better and safer than what you learned down on the streets of Chi-Troit."

"I have learned a lot, but some of it is beyond the reach of those at street level." Ajax took a few deep breaths to calm himself some. "At least here you can drink rain water. By the time rain hits the streets of Chi-Troit the water has hit the buildings and it is nasty and dangerous. If it hasn't rained for a while the water actually burns when it hits skin. If it rains too hard, the rats move up and it gets even more dangerous.

"Breaking into buildings can be dangerous because being hit with a zap camera all but means certain death since the rats will get to you, and if they don't the armed street gangs will. At least once we got in, the sonic devices tend to keep the rats away, especially if you sleep right next to one. Still, some rats and roaches are not pushed back by them. Those have to be killed before you can sleep safely. Those also tend to be what is most eaten. Rats can be cooked over the main steam pipes coming out of the fusion generators…"

Seeing most of the others were starting to look physically ill, Ajax stopped. "Sorry, guys."

Jay swallowed hard. "Hey, not your fault… But still… Yuck!"

Jeff forced a smile, "Um, so much for me eating breakfast. Anyone up for a hike or something?"

"Good idea." Jared stated while clearly cringing. "I'm in."

The morning went quickly, and as lunch was finished and announcements were called, Jasper moved into the mess building with the other instructors. "OK cadets, I have a trio of landers coming in with extra instructors. Tonight will be the first night of testing on Wilderness Night Operations. If you want an outstanding grade, you need to settle on teams and get your gear ready. Each lander will take one team and no more than eight members to a night op test. You all have two hours."

"No warning?" Dillon gasped as he looked around at the shocked looks of others around him.

Jasper snickered, "What, two hours not enough for you, cadet?"

"We'll be fine." Robin stated as he stood. "Most of us are taking night ops and each team will need a leader. I'll lead one if it's OK with everyone."

This only got a laugh, so Robin smiled and looked over to the table with Team Nineteen, "Steve, you should lead one of the others. I have worked with you on night ops classes and you're great at it."

Steve nodded without hesitation. "As long as I get Dena… Whatever I miss she tends to pick up on."

"You two do work great in classes," Robin admitted with a bit of a cringe, but I was going to suggest she takes the third team."

"I'm no leader." Dana spoke with a shake of her head. "If you want another Night Operations test leader, it should either be Tasha or Timothy."

Robin let out a slight sigh, knowing Dana was selling herself short, but quickly turned to glance over at Tasha, "You're already a team leader and would make a good test leader…"

"Tim's better than me at seeing things at night, but I'll take second spot with him." The girl responded with no hesitation."

Robin thought about using rank to set testing teams around each group but stopped himself. This was going to be hard enough without people being stuck with others they may not want to test along side of. Still, he decided to make one call about team organization. "OK, we have team leaders and I want one of the SanSan Near Ocean Seven guys with each team, since it will give all of us a better chance to see how they think and will point out things we couldn't even guess at. I'll take Saul." He looked over at the kid, determined to show the kid he was not quite the leader he thought he was. Judging by the look he got in return, he realized Saul was dead set on upstaging him.

Robin turned away and grinned while looking over at the others on his team, "break up and go with the other teams. I don't want Saul saying I'm stacking the deck."

Oliver snorted, "Take him down a peg and he'll probably make Team Eleven a good team member."

"Such is the plan." Robin nodded in agreement.

Several hours later, Robin moved up into the wood line and knelt. He scanned the surroundings while he held up his hand stopping the others in the small testing group. As deep as they were into the test, the last thing he wanted to do was to screw up.

Dillon frowned as he tried to see what Robin had noticed. After nearly thirty seconds he gave up and simply waited for Robin to do something. Several of the others displayed the same trust in Robin as they also kept up their guard, but simply waited.

Saul, on the other hand, moved up next to Dillon and spoke softly, "What are we waiting for?"

Jason gave Saul a bit of a dirty look and even though he was whispering everyone around him could hear the annoyance in his voice. "Dude, I know you were out there without support for months, and you kicked some serious butt to be able to handle it. You may have a great grasp on Wilderness Night Operations, and could probably teach us crap we haven't even dreamed up. However…" Jason's eyes narrowed and his voice got even more angry sounding, "one thing you need to get into your skull is when Robin says something the rest of us listen, as should you. Now keep your eyes open and mouth shut. We all want an Outstanding on this test."

Saul started to reply only to get a light elbow from Teri. He frowned deeply at the younger girl but stopped himself from doing more as he realized the others were all eyeing him. After a few tense seconds he held up both hands and nodded. The loyalty Robin was getting from the others was total and, if he wanted to be part of the rescue effort, he realized he would have to play along. Sooner, rather than later, he was sure he could upstage the camp golden boy and could show the others he was better at all types of wilderness survival than some kid who had not even set foot out on ISTaZ yet.

Before Saul could fully take his mind off wanting to upstage Robin, he noticed a weird shadow move across the very bright polar lights up and to his right. He glanced around, realizing Robin was the only other one who seemed to be looking in the direction of the movement, and had been for several seconds.

Robin stayed perfectly still, ignoring the back and forth whispers of those below him. Wilderness Night Operations was supposed to be the most difficult of all the courses according to the information back at Dal-Houston. To show the importance the Explorer Corps placed on it, every team had to have three members who took it and two had to pass before the team could go out on ISTaZ. In addition, the testing for Wilderness Night Operations could not be taken until three other tests had been passed by those wanting to test for it. Although the reason for this was not given in the sign-up, Robin now correctly guessed more kids were injured or ended up lost at night than any other time. There were so many dangers out in the wilderness already, dealing with them at night only made it worse. Night also happened to be when some of the more dangerous wild animals looked for prey, which only compounded the potential for injury or worse. With those thoughts in his mind Robin took a few moments to review everything they had done since they arrived at the testing site.

In all truth, the background for the test had been pretty straight forward. They arrived in one of the gold plated flyers just after mid day, hiked around to find a good spot to settle down and finally established a camp for the night. They fished for their dinner out of a nearby pond, and got to look over the area since they had all been told there was a chance they were going to be close to where two of the missing San-San kids had last been seen.

According to Jasper, who assigned where the tests were given, the area was the best guess as to where the kids from San-San Forest Sixteen lost two of its members. The reports from the rescued kids from San-San Forest Sixteen were pretty consistent. They saw a lander fly over eighty-four days after the Star Storm took out their equipment. The second they spotted the low flying craft, a couple of them dropped their packs and ran up the hill. A few of the kids noted one of those who dropped his pack hadn't really lost much since he had been carrying the emergency communications unit and it had exploded in the pack the first day of the star storm. This had left the fourteen year old with almost nothing.

The rest followed, but kept their packs with them and moved as quickly as they could. By the time the five with packs got to the top of the hill, the lander had already disappeared from view. Totally disappointed, the kids moved back to their camp and decided to light a big fire in hopes the lander would fly over again and see the glow in the forest below, but once they got back to camp they realized two of their teammates were not there, even though their packs were.

They split up and searched for the two boys for several hours, but as darkness fell, they decided to move the camp to the top of the hill, light the planned big fire hoping for rescue, while also hoping the two missing teammates would spot the fire and find their way back to the team, neither happened. The kids from San-San forest Sixteen spent an additional two weeks searching the area, but with no sign of their friends and natural food running low, the packed up. In a last ditch effort to help their missing buddies, they decided to put a red cloth on the boys' pack and tie them high enough into the trees to where they might be spotted but safe from animals. They even added a few extras like a battery charger and a stun rifle.

The rest of the kids then moved to the south since they knew there were some small semi-wilderness AdventureQuest camps along the coast because they had spotted them on way to their ISTaZ zone. Fortunately for the other five members of the team, they did find one of the wilderness camps almost a month later. Once they told their story, rescue teams were sent back out in an attempt to locate their missing comrades, but nothing was found, not even the two packs.

Of course this didn't mean much, since the area was thickly forested and there was no way to pinpoint exactly where they had lost the other two team members. At the same time, finding two packs in the wilds of Zong was more about chance than anything else. Still, Jasper felt it was worth another shot, and since he wanted the kids to get into an area that was in a non-mountain forest, and three of the gold plated landers were available, it seemed like a good idea.

The whole setup of the test seemed kind of strange to all the kids. They had set up the camp well before dark, and done everything needed including get enough food to feed themselves and the two instructors. The whole outing had nothing to do with night operations. Within minutes of when Robin started to cook the fish, however, the test quickly changed. Much to their surprise, a black bear with a pair of cubs came out of the thick underbrush toward the smell of food. Upon seeing them, Robin had everyone back off, let the bears eat the fish left over the campfire, and waited till they wandered off. He was extremely happy they hadn't messed with the tents, but they did tear up the collapsible fresh water containers the group had kept near the fire.

As Robin watched the bear cubs use the ten liter containers as play toys, he realized why the resupply points had everything imaginable stashed in them. Had the animals wanted to investigate the tents, a great deal of gear would have been badly damaged. As it was, the group was down to one fresh water container. Even as unnerving as it was to see how quickly gear could be lost or damaged, Robin couldn't help but join in the quiet discussion as the cubs batted the light blue water storage jugs all over the place and even pounced on them as they started to roll down the hill. Once again he wished the star storm had not taken away the ability to take pictures. He would have loved to have had a video clip of the two cubs at play.

Even though Robin wanted to use his weird mental abilities to see how the instructors had managed to get bears to come to the campsite, he forced himself to stay focused on the task of getting everyone safely to a new site. The first thing he settled on was to use the last water jug to make sure the fire was out then to get clear of the area while moving in the opposite direction of where the three beasts had gone. As soon as he found a clearing, he had everyone stop so they could make sure they weren't being followed while giving them a place to discuss options. He then made sure everyone in the group ate a ration pack before finalizing plans. By this time, the last rays of Zong's star were fading on the horizon and the polar lights started to take over the sky, so as one side faded in a fiery orange, the opposite side started turning a mixture of yellow, blue, and violet. The contrast was rather stunning so conversation stopped as nature put on the battling light show. Even the instructors watched in awestruck silence.

Once everyone managed to tear their eyes off the heavens, the discussion on what to do started. Opinions were varied. The real problem was the note-puters were still down so they could not upload information on bears to get more information about them. At the same time, they had no electronic maps. Fortunately, Jason pointed out the moon and the fact some of the stars could still be seen so they could use them for direction. Dillon was quick to join the discussion, as he remembered there had been a fresh water stream they had passed when hiking to the camp set-up site and it was well away from where the bears had been.

The hike back toward the stream was slow going. There were lots of loose rocks, roots, and other things to trip on, and Robin guessed, almost instantly, one of the things the instructors would want to see was everyone being careful not to twist an ankle or slip and fall because of carelessness. In an attempt to help others get an Outstanding Grade, Robin gave enough hints to where Teri picked up on it and made the actual suggestion.

While the going was difficult, at least the polar lights, combined with one of the moons being mostly full, allowed for some extra light which allowed them to see where they were walking most of the time. The other thing Robin saw in the back of his mind was the instructors wanting them to stay off of game trails since nocturnal animals would also use them and would be able to see much better than the kids could. This he pointed out to everyone to prevent anyone from suggesting it and getting knocked down a grade.

The down side of not using a game trial was it meant an overland trip with Jason using his knowledge of the stars to guide them in the proper direction. After nearly an hour and a half, something told him to stop. He hadn't seen anything, hadn't heard anything, but the feeling was there and he went with it. He held up a waning hand and took a knee to give himself time to figure out why he suddenly felt like there was danger close by.

It took almost forty five seconds before he noticed what Saul, slightly below him, had seen fifteen seconds prior. It was movement in the form of shadows backlit on the ridgeline by the polar lights. Slowly, he pulled out his ballistic rifle and started to assemble it.

Most of those below Robin glanced around nervously, clearly not knowing what was going on. A few of the kids started to mutter about not having weapons since they all had energy weapons and were not allowed to use them during the height of the star storm. As they started looking around more wildly with each passing second, Saul finally spoke up softly but forcefully, "Knock it off guys! There is something moving along the top of the hill and I don't think we want whatever it is to come this direction because we are all making noise. Besides, after living out here for as long as we did, I can tell you, some of the critters out here can smell fear. Now settle down. He's got us covered and our instructors both have ballistic weapons as well."

Mr. Dietrich slowly scanned the ridge before he spotted what both Robin and Saul were seeing. He glanced over to Mrs. Reid with a roll of his eyes. "Did you notice it?"

"No." Mrs. Reid admitted. "To be honest, I was starting to wonder what the heck Robin was doing myself."

Jason glanced over to the two instructors, both of whom were unslinging their own ballistic rifles. "There is a reason we have compete trust in Robin."

Robin glanced back and noticed both the instructors had their own weapons at the ready. Satisfied the others were well protected, he pulled out a small optic scope from his pack and attached it to the top of his rifle. He then used it to take a better look. It took a few moments for him to find one of the figures, but when he did he once again wished he could take a picture. It was a grey wolf, actually a pack of them. He kept the largest of them fixed in his scope for a few seconds then moved it slightly so he could spy on one of the cubs. A smile crossed his face as he wished he could go get it and keep it for a pet. Unfortunately, not even Gavin's social status rated the ownership of anything that could be kept outside of a cage, so he just as quickly dismissed the idea. On the other hand, he couldn't tear his eyes off it. The small canine just was so cute and beautiful he felt a little sad as, after a few more seconds, it moved behind some trees and out of his line of sight.

Finally, he carefully moved back down to the others. "It's a wolf pack! Man, those are the coolest things I have ever seen!"

Mrs. Reid kept her rifle at the ready but did glance over at Robin and grin. "I saw my first wolf last year. They are truly majestic animals."

Robin felt a shiver go up his spine as he glanced up to the top of the hill and watched as the last member of the pack moved down the other side of the ridge and out of everyone's view. A moment later, one of them let out a long howl. "Every time I think Zong couldn't get any better, it does!"

Saul chewed on his lip for a moment before glancing over, "You picked up on them like a full minute before the rest of us did!"

Robin shrugged, "And you saw them before our teachers. We worked as a team and we are all better off for it." He then looked over at Jason, "They are moving down the other side of the hill away from where we want to go, but I think we should give them some time before we continue."

Dillon licked his finger and held it up. He then looked at the others. "From what I read, wolves have great noses, so we should angle back to the east, so we stay up wind, then we can cut back toward the stream."

Two hours later, with the new camp set at the base of a rocky outcropping with only one way to easily access the new campground, Dillon glanced over to Mr. Dietrich, "So, did we pass?"

Mrs. Reid snickered, "What do you think?"

"I'm hoping I got an Outstanding." Dillon stated with a wide grin.

"We'll send you all up for review for one." Mr. Dietrich sighed, "I saw nothing you could have done better. To be honest, you all picked up on a few things we didn't even have on our list to consider. Your idea of keeping upwind of the wolves was an extremely good one."

Robin forced himself not to pump his fist upon hearing he may have helped two more from the camp get outstanding grades. As a distraction, both for himself as well as the instructors, he pulled out his gold panning stuff, "So can we try for gold here?"

Mrs. Reid shrugged, "To be honest, I don't really know if there is gold in this stream or not. We are directly down stream from the mountains, though, so it can't hurt to try. Just remember, you all have a long hike back to the pick-up location tomorrow and you all still have your first round testing to deal with while we work to finalize the new classes."

Jason shook his head, "Robin and I don't. We all have taken all our tests, and if we passed then we are good."

"Same with me, and Dillon, Mrs. Reid," Teri spoke up. "We only have laser rifle testing and can't take it until tomorrow evening or the next day, after the first wave of the star storm passes."

Saul glanced over, "I just came out on this 'cause Robin said… But it's good I did since it gives me another shot at it. Besides," Saul sighed," it's the only test I didn't pass…" He let out another long breath, "Man did my whole testing group look like a bunch of screw-ups. I am amazed any of us passed it."

Robin moved over to the stream with Jason and Dillon, each getting a healthy amount of sand from the bottom of the stream. "So what did you all do wrong?"

Saul sighed, "Well, the first time we got a radio message of a large fast moving storm, so we had to move since we were on the beach and the waves and wind would have ripped up the camp. The message said we only had thirty to forty minutes…" He then shook his head in total disgust. "They failed all of us twenty minutes in."

"Why?" Teri almost demanded to know.

Robin couldn't help it, he snickered as he saw the answer in the middle of his head.

"What's so funny?" Saul demanded to know with more than a little anger.

"You forgot to totally put out the fire." Even as he said it, he instantly regretted it. The last thing he wanted to do was look like a freak to the others.

Saul gasped so loudly it almost sounded like he had been punched in the gut. He also had to scramble and finally dive into the water to prevent his gold pan from floating down steam since he had dropped it. As he pulled himself out of the cold water and shivered he stared at Robin for several seconds before finding any words. "How… How did you…"

Jason also eyed Robin with some astonishment but spoke up. "Probably because it is the only thing I can think of that would get you all an auto-fail right out the gate. Of course I would not have guessed it, but now, after Robin mentioned it… well, it makes total sense. I can't see any other instant failures so early into a test like this."

"There are a few others." Mr. Dietrich admitted, "such as not checking the camp for safety, which in their case meant not setting it up below the high tide mark, but yeah, the fire is a pretty much instant failure thing, especially considering the backdrop was a storm warning and as you have all been repeatedly told, wind can fan embers back into a fire in no time."

He then turned to Robin, "Still, mighty fine guess. You could make a fine instructor for us here one of these years."

"He sure would." Mrs. Reid agreed. "Not many could guess at an instant failure point of a test he was not even at. To be honest, we don't have many, but fire safety is a huge key to all ISTaZ training and testing. To not put one fully out after getting a storm warning is pretty bad."

Dillon nodded as he suddenly understood, "And with a storm comes wind. You could have started a wild fire!"

Saul moved back to the fire, tossed his gold pan off to the side and pulled out some dry clothing. He totally stripped, toweled off, and changed, not really caring who was watching. "Yeah, we were total idiots. I still can't believe none of us caught it before we started hiking up the hill away from the beach."

"What about the second and third time you tested?" Dillon asked.

"After the fire thing, we had to retake the whole course, so we only got one more shot." Saul grunted as he pulled a dry heavy warm shirt on and started to hang his wet stuff close to the fire so it would dry. "As far as what I screwed up on the second time, I have no idea. But only half of the others passed and only passed. I know we did stay on a game trail for a while, but got off after one of the others spotted cougar tracks. We also decided to set up camp right after it started raining, and one of the e-domes was damaged by a falling branch. To be honest, I was just so glad Dwight passed to give us our second team member with a passing grade; I didn't worry about it too much. Besides, it was the last night before we shipped out to our zone, so we didn't have much time. Once we got back we did a gear check and hopped in our shuttles for zone drop off. Both Dwight and I were so tired the first day we went to sleep while the others set up our first camp."

A bit of a grin passed over Saul's features as he thought back to those first few days. "By the time we woke up, Robby and Ricky were about done with one of the coolest sand castles ever and Ryan was busy fishing. It was so awesome… the only sounds were birds and waves hitting the beach."

Saul wiped a tear out of his eyes, "God, I can't believe I may never see those guys again!"

Teri gulped, "We'll do everything we can to find them…"

Saul managed to give her a weak smile but it quickly faded, "So will I, but…" He choked back a sob and moved up next to the stream feeling all eyes were on him. He took a few seconds to fill his gold pan with sand then swirled out some of the lighter easy to get out stuff. Finally he started talking again, knowing the others were waiting on him. "Ricky… he's the one who fell off the cliff… I would have never even thought about ISTaZ without him…" Tears started pouring down Saul's cheeks as he spoke between sobs. "He came up to me at Dal-Houston and asked why I was alone and if I wanted to join him… without him there would have been no team… He recruited all of us… even Dwight… Now he's dead and I… I was too scared to go to the edge of the cliff to help… All I did was watch, then at the end I helped hold the rope… I didn't even try to do anything else… all because I'm afraid of heights… even after living on the 987th floor of my tower!"

Dillon put his pan down and moved up behind the distraught boy. He knelt and gently wrapped his arms around the now bawling boy, "Looking out over a cliff with no walls or windows for support is way more scary then looking out a tower window. You did what you could. It might not seem like much, but from what I have heard, if someone hadn't held onto the rope and pulled, you would have lost others. Your whole team did everything it could…"

"It wasn't enough!" Saul managed to shout out between crying and trying to take in air. At the same time he grabbed onto Dillon's arms and gripped them so tightly Dillon had to fight the desire to pull him loose.

Mrs. Reid moved up and knelt. She gently used her left hand to push up on Saul's chin so she could look into his tear and snot smeared face. "You don't have to do this… no one is going to think less of you for going back up to the space station once the star storm is over."

Dillon sent a sharp look at Mrs. Reid before speaking, "But, if you want to do this, need to do this, then you have a spot on the team who took me in and we will be here for you. We don't care what CHZ you are from, or what social caste you are part of back on Earth. You are an ISTaZ kid and that is something way more important than what CHZ you are from or what your community status was or is. You are my teammate!"

Robin nodded it total agreement. "Saul, what Dillon just said is right on the mark. You did what you could. Someone had to do what you did, and someone had to do what Dwight did. You worked as a team to try to save his life."

Robin paused and let out a long breath before continuing. "You know, there is a chance he didn't die."

"He fell…" Saul shook his head. "The cliff was like fifty meters high, and Dwight said he hit an outcropping about twenty meters down and then slammed onto the beach… he was moving, but there is… there was no way… the tide was starting to come in and he was below the high water line."

Saul continued to use Dillon for support as he forced himself to calm some. "I'm sure he washed out to sea otherwise we would have found him when we searched the beach. If he could have somehow managed to crawl up to the base of the cliff we would have found him. We searched the whole thing for like a week!"

Mr. Dietrich shook his head slowly, "Both of you have valid points. Should you all come up with enough missing kids I'll take the whole lot of you down to the beach in question so you can all look and see what you can find. In the mean time we have kids out there right now who need your help, including the other two from Saul's team. You should focus on ways to find those and then we can look at the long shots."

Saul kept hold of Dillon's arms as he looked up at the polar lights and took a few calming deep breaths. "If we ever do go back there, I'm going to cry even worse than this, and no matter what we can't take Ben."

Mrs. Reid nodded her understanding, "It looks like you will have all the support you could ever need, Saul. For now, let's change subjects, see if there are any gold flakes around here and enjoy the rest of the night. It is not often you can see the kind of polar lights we are having tonight, nor can most humans say they did so while camping out underneath them with friends."

After several hours and very limited success on gold panning, the kids retired. Once the adults were sure the kids were settled they moved a bit away so they could talk. Mrs. Reid glanced back over her shoulder the back over to Mr. Dietrich. "Did you see anything any of them did wrong? We can't send them all up for an Outstanding!"

"I got nothing," Mr. Dietrich snorted. "They all contributed with ideas far beyond what we would normally give Outstanding Grades for and Robin is just plain scary with his ability to pick up on every detail and pitfall we set up. The wolves were not in the plan, but they handled it well."

Mrs. Reid shook her head with some amazement. "I still don't know how Robin picked up on them so quickly. I mean, Saul spotting them before I did. I realize he lived out here and survived for months. I am sure he learned to look for small details, but Robin had the problems pegged well before Saul. I have never seen anything like what the kid has done and continues to do!"

"He did way better than I ever could dream of." Mr. Dietrich admitted. "Look, I know we are not used to this, but they deserve Outstanding Marks. By now, Command will all but expect it out of anyone with Robin, so don't worry about it."

Mrs. Reid glanced skyward and watched the ribbons of polar light dance across the sky for a few seconds, "About the only thing he didn't do was find a lead on the two missing kids from San-San Forest Sixteen." She sighed, "Which is too bad, because finding those who split off from their teams, even by accident, are low priority and with limited resources they are probably in the most danger."

"It's a tough decision, to be sure." Mr. Dietrich nodded in agreement, "But if we are going to find enough kids to prevent San-San from demanding we scrap part of AdventureQuest and start colonization here, we have to focus on finding the full teams… At least I hope they're still in full teams. After all this time there is a good chance of arguments leading to bad blood. I wouldn't be surprised if several of them split off from each other."

Mrs. Reid cringed at the thought. "For their sakes, and the future of Zong, I hope not."

While the adults were talking, Robin was in the weird place between being awake and going completely to sleep. Beside him in the tent Dillon and Saul chatted quietly, neither one wanting to go to sleep, and both wanting to talk about the team which had 'adopted' them.

As conversations between boys often do, the subjects being discussed started to bounce around some. Within twenty minutes Dillon asked if Saul or any members of his team ever saw a rescue flyer.

Saul let out a long breath. "No… In some ways I'm glad we didn't though." He rolled over to prop his head up with his head in his hand and his elbow on the floor of the tent. "If we had been that close to a rescue and it missed us, it would have killed what little hope we had left. I'd have kept running in the direction the flyer went until I fell over!"

With these words a new vision exploded in the middle of Robin's brain. Robin blinked as the he found himself in a very small clearing with a fairly steep hill off to his left, in the direction of the sun. Looking around he realized the open hole in the dense forest showed some signs of charring, but it was pretty old and in the middle of the area a single dead, partial burned, tree stood. A closer look revealed it had its bark split and the ground around its roots appeared to be badly disturbed.

Suddenly a voice of a very muscular boy of about fourteen, who was starting to show signs of facial hair development moved up to stand next to Robin. "Man, it must have been a powerful lightning bolt to have blasted up the ground like it did!"

Robin looked at the tree then glanced up, letting him know the vision he was having was from a boy much smaller than the teen talking. "How come the ground blew up?"

A long haired girl, wearing a badly torn shirt joined the discussion. "Maybe the lightning superheated the water in it and the roots shattered like the bark on the parts we can see did."

Another boy, very skinny, with his arm in a sling, winced as he shrugged, "Doesn't really matter. But this sure looks like a good place to stop. Besides, my pack is really starting to rub me raw!"

The muscular boy glanced around and nodded. "Yeah, we have plenty of food for a few days since we took down the deer and both you and Foster need a good rest." He then glanced over to the girl with the badly ripped shirt. "This would be a good place to test trying to make clothing out of the deer skin since it is open and we could better get is decently sized for you"

"What about water?" A blond girl wondered as she shook her half empty canteen for emphasis.

The muscular boy glanced skyward, "As humid and hazy as it is, we'll probably get rain, so let's be ready to catch some. If it doesn't rain, we'll spiral out from camp and find water in the morning."

The boy with the sling turned to look at Robin, "Hey Foster, can you help get my pack off?"

Robin quickly dropped his own pack and moved to help the taller boy. As he moved behind the kid, another boy tossed his pack next to the one Robin had just dropped. "Be careful Foster. I am out of stuff to re-bandage Lenny's arm."

Lenny started to kneel as he spoke, "Marlin, let it go. You did the best you could with what was left of your pack. It doesn't even hurt any more. I just wish I could move it and use my hand better."

"I just hope they can fix it when we get rescued." The muscular boy stated with serious concern. "The break didn't heal right at all."

Lenny started to respond with the unmistakable sound of a magnetic drive came from overhead. As all eyes turned in the direction of the sound, a low flying lander appeared, but its flight path took it just far enough away from the small clearing to where those inside never got a chance to see the kids below. It then continued off in the direction of the sun.

Foster watched the other boy, who had thrown down his pack, turn and run up the hill. A moment later the muscular boy shouted out, "Foster, stick with Marlin since you already dropped your pack too!"

Robin turned and sprinted trying to catch up to the older, stronger, and faster kid. He didn't even look behind him to see what the others were doing.

By the time he got up to the top of the small hill, he couldn't see the lander, but did see Marlin still running in the direction it went. Without a second thought, he took off after the boy. After nearly fifteen more minutes of running, he finally caught up to Marlin, who was looking down a steep embankment with a pretty fast moving river in it. On the other side he could see the lander well off in the distance circling a spot. Marlin knelt and eyed the craft. "We have to get over there!"

"How?" Robin found himself asking.

Marlin looked around as he started to move down the steep embankment. Suddenly the dirt gave out from under him and he tumbled the rest of the way, landing in the river with a loud splash.

Robin shouted for help, while sliding on his butt to move more safely to get down to the river. Unfortunately, he ran into the same problem as Marlin. The ground gave out and sent him down much faster than he wanted. Within moment he too was in the swiftly flowing river. He gasped and forced his head above water so he could take in a deep breath of air before going under again. This happened several times, until he started to lose strength.

Just as he was about ready to give up, however, the river turned and left him in a calmer area. Marlin was right there to help him get to shore. The two exhausted boys ended up on the muddy bank panting and hugging each other. It took over an hour to regain enough strength to really take a look at where they were at.

Marlin glanced up, noting the sun could still be seen, but was behind a bank of building clouds. "We're on the other side of the river."

Robin gulped, "How are we going to get back to the others… we don't even have our packs!"

"Let's get up hill and go back up stream, then see if we can go in the direction of the lander we saw. Maybe they were setting up a field camp or something."

"What if we don't find em?" Robin felt the boy he was looking through start to panic.

"We still have our vests and I have a battery charger and rifle. We'll hunt and fish for food until we find a way back over the river and then catch up to the others."

Robin knew the small boy could hear the hollow sound to the words, but with no other options he got up and followed Marlin.

For nearly two and a half days, the boys trudged through the thick forest. Much of the time it was in heavy rain, which made navigation difficult and footing treacherous. They stopped twice to pick some edible berries, but other than short rest periods they didn't stop and didn't sleep.

Finally, they came to a large clearing with a lake below. Night was just starting to fall, but there was enough sunlight to see something reflecting close to the water. The boys moved to investigate.

What they found was both horribly disappointing and extremely welcome. There was a camp site with a lightly damaged E-dome still standing along with a quartet of field packs. A deep indentation in the ground close to the lake clearly marked where a lander had come in, parked for a while then left. There was also several bandages, some still crusty with old blood, right next to the spot where the lander had been parked.

Marlin called out a few times hoping there was someone at the camp, all the while knowing it had been abandoned. With a few tear in his eyes, he moved up to one of the discarded packs and picked it up. His eyes locked onto the tag, "Foster… This is Jacquelyn's pack form Forest Team One!"

Robin moved up to one of the other packs and kicked it over. "His eyes instantly saw the large blood stain around the shredded left shoulder strap. "This is Keb's! He joined Forest One to give them their second Wilderness Night Operations guy. Looks like his communication unit blew up too!"

Marlin came over and looked at the pack. "Yeah… and it was right over his shoulder when it went." He glanced around at the remains of the camp site. "We aren't the only ones who got lost after the star storm. I bet they have all sort of people looking for teams!"

Robin found himself sitting on a large rock next to where the campfire pit had been built. "So now what? They aren't coming back here!"

Marlin started digging around. "Well, their equipment looks to be in about the same shape ours was, so they just left it. We got all sorts of gear here." Marlin lifted up a laser rifle out of one of the smaller tents and looked it over. "They even left their weapons." He handed it over to Robin, "Might as well take it Foster."

"I'm not certified…"

"Like I care at this point. Look, with both of us armed with laser rifles we'll both be able to hunt, and the next time we see a bear, you will not just piss it off by shooting a stunner at it."

Robin finally accepted the rifle and put it over his shoulder. At the same time he started digging through a couple of the other packs, scrounging what he could. A quick glance over to Marlin told him the older boy was doing the exact same thing with the other packs. After nearly two hours the boys had assembled enough gear to fill up two packs and had each caught a pair of fish for their first real meal in a couple of days.

As Marlin lit the fire he looked over, "You know, Foster, there are only five packs, sleeping mats, and bags here. Didn't Team One have seven members?"

Robin, who now realized he was looking through Foster's eyes, responded, "Yeah, I almost joined them, but you guys needed another spelunker, so I went with you instead." He looked around at the five packs. "Um, we don't have Rachel's or Paige's pack here. Paige was part of my team to start with. She joined Team One to give them their second Wilderness First Aid person and Rachel went with her."

Marlin stuck a stick through one of the fish they had caught earlier and stuck it over the fire cooking it the quickest way he could think of. "Do you think all the ISTaZ kids from our forest training camp are lost out here?"

Robin shrugged, "Maybe… At least most of Team One got found and we know they are looking for us. The real question is, what do we do now? There is no way the rest of our team is going to be able to find us, and we won't be able to find them."

Marlin nodded slowly and looked around. "What if we just stay here?"

"Huh?"

Marlin made a wide sweep with his hand, "Look, we have high ground here to camp, a lake to fish out of, there are lots of berries around here, and I bet deer and stuff come here to drink, so we can hunt them. We'll build a big fire every night and have a really big one ready to go if we ever see or hear a magnetic drive. Surely they'll find us sooner or later, or at least come back for some of this stuff!"

Robin jerked out of his vision and sat straight up. His stomach rumbled as he looked over at the other two in his tent, both of whom were sound asleep, albeit muttering about fishing out of a lake and finding an abandoned camp ground.

Robin tore open a pair of emergency ration packs and downed them with astonishing speed; he then glanced over at Dillon and Saul again. He realized his weird ability had transferred to them, but since both were sleeping it had done so like a dream. He briefly wondered if he should wake them, but decided against it. The less who knew what a freak he was, the better.

He carefully pulled on his pants, grabbed a jacket and slipped out of the tent. The cold air of the pre-dawn caused him to shiver lightly.

Off to the side Mrs. Reid glanced over from where she had positioned herself to watch over the area and guard the kids. "You OK, Corporal?"

Robin glanced over, somewhat surprised anyone else was up. He shook his head to clear it and get rid of the last of the vision. He then moved around the back side of a few larger rocks to relieve himself which gave him a few precious seconds to think. With a great deal of nervousness, he moved back around and looked down as he spoke softly, "Ma'am I know this is going to sound really strange, but do you know where five of the seven kids from San-San Forest One were found?"

Mrs. Reid's eyebrows shot up, "Um, yeah… How did you know we only found five of them?

Robin ignored the question. "How far away is the lake from where we are now?"

Mrs. Reid's eyes went wide as she cocked her head to the side. "Who said anything about a lake?"

Robin let out a long breath, "Ma'am, please… how far from the lake are we, and are we on the same side of the river or the opposite side."

The twenty eight year old woman started to say something but she simply couldn't find the right words. Instead her jaw dropped open as she eyed the slender red haired lad with total confusion.

Robin rubbed his hand through his hair and spoke with a bit of desperation in his voice, "Sometimes I get these gut feelings… and sometimes they're right. I just need to know how far away from the lake we are."

Mrs. Reid shook her head vigorously like she wanted to wake up. When this didn't help she frowned deeply, "From where we are, only about twelve kilometers, but it's in the wrong direction from the pick-up point… It'll put us over 17 kilometers from where we are supposed to meet the shuttle."

"OK," Robin shrugged then spoke with a great deal more force, "So we'll need to get moving fast. The real question is, can you get us there?"

This time her eyes narrowed, as she studied Robin for any sign of this being some kind of joke. She certainly wouldn't put it past Jasper to give a kid some extra information to play some kind of sick prank. The man's sense of humor was well known to be somewhat twisted. However, as she looked into Robin's eyes, all she saw was desperation. "I have some non electronic maps… So between Mr. Dietrich and me, we can get you there…"

"Then get him up. I'll get the others."

Mrs. Reid held up her hand to stop Robin, "First off, you realize if we head out in the dark, your test will not be considered done, right?"

"I don't care. All it will do is give you more reasons to give the others an Outstanding. There are kids from the San-San ISTaZ there, I know it." Robin fired back. "If we have twelve kilometers to get there then have to hike back to the extraction point, we are looking at thirty kilometers… We can do it if we really push!"

Mrs. Reid slowly nodded, "Yeah, we probably could, but if you happen to be right and there are kids there, kids who have been out on their own for months, do you think they will?"

Robin cringed and looked down at the ground, "Probably not…"

The concern and dejection in Robin's voice was enough for the instructor to take a bit of a leap of faith. "OK, I'll tell you what. You try to get a few more hours of sleep so you are well rested. We will then head to the extraction point. Before we head back to camp, I'll pull rank and have them fly us to the lake for a quick look around."

Robin's shoulders slumped as he managed to nod.

Mrs. Reid patted the boy on the back, "even if we don't find them, it will let you see how they were living. It may give you some ideas."

"They're there." Robin stated with absolute certainty. "I know it."

Mrs. Reid gently turned Robin around by his shoulders and gave him a light shove back toward his tent. "In the long run we will get there only a couple of hours later than if we left now, and if you are right, we'll have transport to get them safely back to camp. Now, go get some sleep before I add this to the report and you miss your Outstanding Mark for being too eager."

Robin tossed and turned the rest of the night, getting a little rest but no sleep. By the time they broke down the camp and started hiking to the pick-up site, Robin was seriously regretting the limited sleep he managed to get. Seeing the gold shielded shuttle waiting for them was a giant relief. Still, as he climbed the ramp he turned to Mrs. Reid. "We go to the lake, right?"

She nodded and moved up into the pilot compartment. A few minutes later the craft took off and banked hard to the east. Fifteen minutes later the craft did a loop around a large lake and set down at the water's edge.

Robin was at the door before the craft came to a full stop with his pack slung over one shoulder. He hit the panel to open the door and jumped out, not waiting for the ramp to come out. He then moved toward the ring of stones marking where the camp fire was and called out as loudly as he could, "Marlin! Foster!"

Jason quickly followed and made his way to the circle of stones. He put his hand over the pit and pulled it back. "It's still real hot! How in the world did you know?"

Saul was next out. He paused as he saw a tent tucked just into the trees; only it was not a normal one. Instead it was made out of animal hide. As he moved toward it, a girl appeared. She was very skinny and her eyes were wide. Saul's jaw dropped in astonishment as he ran up to the girl, "Guys, over here!"

Before anyone else could so much as make a move, two boys came out from behind a similar animal hide tent. The taller boy was limping badly, but doing his best to run. The younger, smaller one shouted, "We're here! We're here! Don't leave!"

Robin quickly moved up to the older boy. "Hey, we aren't going anywhere…" he then grabbed the stumbling older boy. "I got ya, Marlin! Let me help you. Are both Rachel and Paige here?"

Foster came over with tears of joy in his eyes, "Paige was taking a bath." He pointed down to a spot mostly sheltered by tall reeds. "Rachel is over there." He quickly turned and pointed to the girl Saul was handing an emergency rations pack to.

At the shuttle door, Mrs. Reid and Mr. Dietrich exchanged stunned glances while the shuttle crew rushed passed with medical supplies and food. Mr. Dietrich was the first to find his voice, "This has to be some sort of a trick!"

Mrs. Reid moved slowly down the ramp and listened as Robin talked to the two boys. "Well, if it is, it sure as hell is a good one! Somehow, Robin even knows the kids' names and identified one on sight… I'm pretty sure names were not in the reports, and I'm certain photo's weren't!" She let out a long breath as she watched Robin talking to all four of the now crying survivors. "I didn't even know names other than the kids from the Mountain-Forest Camp, all I knew was what their ID numbers were!"

While the shuttle's medic looked over the four kids Robin broke away from the group and walked around the camp. It was as astonishing as it was primitive. All the kids had managed to make clothing out of deer skin and two of the tents were also made from deer. A third, larger one, was made out of bear hide. As he moved up he noticed one of the tents had actually been sewn together by using a long piece of hide as string and had been looped into holes punched into the skin. It wasn't exactly pretty, but it sure worked.

Once again, he wondered about how people used to do things. Did they make clothing and shelters out of animals? Looking around, he bet they did. Finally, he moved back to the group. "You guys are amazing! How come the animal skins don't stink?"

Marlin looked over doing his best to force himself not to cry, but still failing, "I read about it once in an old history book my mom has on her bookshelf." Seeing the looks he managed a smile, "Yeah, real books. My mom collects them… anyway, it took some trial and error…"

"More error than trail," Foster said between bites of his first taste of candy in months while wiping his eyes to clear tears.

Paige giggled with a high pitched sound showing she was beyond giddy at finally being found. She fingered her crude shirt made out of deer skin as she started speaking. "It has to be scraped and cured over a fire, along with some other stuff. Once we figured out the basics we started getting better at it. We screwed up a lot at first, though. Until we smoked them, they attracted bugs and started smelling bad real fast like. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago we realized the younger ones made softer clothing than the bigger ones."

Conversation continued as Robin and the others helped the kids into the shuttle. Robin moved back to sit next to Marlin who was on a medical cot. "How did you find Paige and Rachel?"

"They found us. They saw the fire we built every night. Paige said they saw it for like three nights before they finally stumbled across the camp. That was like months ago. We talked about hiking south, but I would have never made it with my ankle. I tried to tell them to leave me, but they wouldn't."

Robin almost asked how he hurt his ankle, since he had made it to the lake fine, but quickly dismissed the idea. Word had already spread about it being his idea to check out the old camp. He didn't want to give away just how much he actually knew.

The moment Robin felt the lander start to descend, he cringed. There was no way he could explain this one away, and unlike the short hike with Mrs. Anderson, this time there were several kids and adults who all knew about his gut feeling.

Foster glanced over as he noticed, "What's wrong?"

Robin tried to brush off the question, "Just tired."

"I think he's worried about people thinking how creepy it was to be right about you guys." Saul responded. "It even trips me out some."

"Who cares!" Jason jumped in. "The important thing is, Robin was right!"

"Amen!" Paige stated. "I don't care how you did it, Robin. You are awesome and if you ever want to come tour San-San you can stay with me and my folks. We'll take you around to see some pretty cool stuff. My dad is a department head in the Historical Bureau and can get you in to all sorts of our museums."

Robin managed a weak smile. "Sounds neat, but I just want to crash for a while. I really am beat."

Foster slid over and grabbed Robin's pack. "I can carry it for you…"

Robin managed a grin, "Thanks, but rule one is to keep your gear with you." Robin stood and yanked the pack over his left shoulder then struggled to get his arm through the other strap.

"Man, you really do looked wiped!" Marlin stated as he forced himself to sit up from the medical bed and help Robin secure the pack properly.

Mrs. Reid glanced over and nodded. "He was up trying to convince me to lead a hike to the lake you were at, hours before sun up. I bet he didn't get any sleep the rest of the night."

"Just some rest." Robin admitted with a yawn.

"We'll make sure you have the rest of the day off. The critique of the test and resupply can wait." Mr. Dietrich smiled while ruffling Marlin's hair. "Besides, it'll be a few days before the next star storm wave passes and we can get a transport up to the space station. Until then, we have four new camp members to tend to and get settled.

Jason quickly agreed, "We'll handle clean up and find places for everyone, Robin, go crash for a while."

Robin quickly exited the lander and made his way to his team's building. Even as word spread of the finding of four of the missing kids, his exhaustion and worry over what others would think of him became too much. He didn't even bother to undress or stow his pack. He simply dropped his pack at the side of the bed and kicked off his boots. He was sound asleep before his head hit the pillow.

As night fell over the camp and surrounding forest, Jasper made the rounds to each of the team buildings. He knocked, poked his head in, and called out, "Forget lights out guys. A window just opened between waves of the star storms. Those who need laser testing need to get to weapon lock-up and grab a rifle."

The second the door closed Robin rolled over and wiped his eyes and felt his stomach rumble. "Did I just sleep through the whole day?"

"Yeah," Gavin snickered, "but we're ready for you. He pointed to an end table someone had put next to Robin's bed.

Robin grinned as he saw a plate with several sandwiches waiting on him. Before he even sat up he grabbed one and took a bite. "Awesome, guys, thanks!"

"Didn't even have to steal it this time," Ajax sighed with some annoyance. "It was way more fun to have to do it the hard way. I still can't believe you found four of them already!"

Oliver snickered at his friend's clear disappointment, but still took a nervous breath as he pulled his pack out of his foot locker. Even though he was facing his final test, he looked over to Robin with a great deal of awe in his eyes, "Yeah, four found and we haven't even started all our extra classes yet. You are amazing!"

"Couldn't have gotten this far without the rest of you," Robin reminded the others. "You all helped to really unlock this thing, but now everyone knows…"

"It's being whispered, but it's not what you think." Oliver did a quick double check of his gear before he continued, "Almost everyone thinks your ability is about the coolest thing ever, but no one other than us really knows just how tuned in you can get. Most see it as some kind of hunch, or feeling, nothing more. Right now, I'd take a tenth of what you have, cause even though you all say this is an easy test, it scares the tar out of me. I don't want to be the only one on the team with a stunner…"

Gavin glanced over to Oliver. "It's your last test, I'm sure you'll make it a good one!"

"This should be a cakewalk after last night," Oliver agreed, but still sounded a bit worried. "Man, night ops testing sucked."

"You passed with an Above Average," Ajax grinned, "so don't worry about it. Jay, Allen, Rhonda, and Brandi all have to retake and they are the only ones so they'll have to do it on their own."

"Sara warned both Jay and Brandi to stay clear of where the water was bubbling out of the ground." Fairfax snickered as he remembered the looks on their faces after the two slipped and fell on the icy rocks around the edge of the natural spring then slid into the very cold water.

Gavin grinned as well seeing talking about how others had messed up seemed to be calming Oliver some, "I'm glad it was them instead of me, because I could have used a drink of fresh water after they did something to make our canteen water taste funny. I really thought about trying even after the warning not to… I'm still trying to figure out how I got an Outstanding when Lynn only got a Good. Her and I did pretty much the same things."

Fairfax shrugged, "You recommended no one drink water after we all got our first taste. I caught her taking a couple of sips, so I bet so did one of the instructors."

Robin took another bite of food and glanced over to Oliver as the boy grabbed his pack and moved toward the door, "Remember to check your weapon for damage and keep everyone focused on not pointing their weapons at anyone else. You'll be fine."

"Also remember, accuracy is nothing when compared to safety." Fairfax reminded Oliver as he headed out the door.

Ajax watched the door close and let out a breath, "If he passes we all made it through first year with at least a passing on every class we signed up for. I wonder how many teams can say that?"

"I'd bet very few," Gavin grinned as he spoke. "From what I have heard from Mr. Campbell, we may be the first new ISTaZ team he has ever worked with to ever have every member certified to carry a laser."

"I'm sure he'll do great." Robin stated with complete confidence. "How are the four we found doing?"

Gavin shrugged. "They were all still in medical as of dinner. I heard their camp was like Stone Aged or something…"

Robin sat up nodding as he finished his second sandwich. He grabbed a third before responding, "It was pretty amazing. They made tents and clothing out of animal hides, made needles to sew with out of bone, and even had a fish net made out of some kind of plant. Their tents were pretty crazy too… I'm not sure how they did it, but they made them into domes with a bunch of curved branches tied together with strips of hide. The domes had a hole in the top so they could have a fire inside and they built rain flies above the holes so rain couldn't come in. To be honest I think what they came up with was every bit as good, if not better, than an e-dome. It was actually kind of weird to see all of the stuff they had made while all of them had laser rifles and some other high tech stuff, it didn't match at all."

Robin polished off the third sandwich and reached for a forth. "I'm hoping they can show all of us how they did some of it before they get transported up to the station to evac back to Earth."

Gavin eyed Robin as he wondered why anyone would want to learn how to make things from animals and plants.

Ajax caught the looked and even the thought behind it and snickered, "Come on Gavin, what if we get stuck out there like they were. Don't you want to know how to survive like they did?"

"Not really." Gavin stated flatly. "What we learned already is great, but I have no desire to wear dead animals, let alone sleep inside of their skins. It kind of grosses me out."

"Wimp!" Fairfax teased, then turned back to Robin. "From what I heard, one of the boys was hurt and his foot is all screwed up. I also overheard one of the girls has some kind of other medical problems, so they are going up as soon as they can get clearance to get them up to the space station. The other two want to stay and help and will be here for a while as the Corps sends a message to SanSan to see if their parents will allow them to stay and assist in the search. Explorer Corps Command wants to keep a close eye on them for possible medical problems and the like so if they do stay, it will only be as part of the back-up teams that will check out promising areas."

Robin took a deep drink from his canteen and finally stood. He grabbed his shower stuff and a fresh change of clothing while he spoke. "Make's since, but it sounded like Marlin was the one behind figuring out how to make the tents and clothing, so I want to talk to him before they ship him out."

"Careful, warm water is still under restriction." Gavin warned, "Five minutes max since the main power converters are still down."

Robin shrugged, "We best all get used to cold baths and only warm showers, because warm water is not going to be easy to find, or make, once colder weather moves in. The solar heaters will not be able to heat the water inside the camp showers like we are used to, so getting a luke-warm to cold shower is something we'll just have to deal with."

Gavin shuttered noticeably and growled.

"Yup, cold blooded," Fairfax teased, only to get a pillow in the side of the face.

Robin laughed hard as he grabbed the final sandwich and headed out the door. Before the door shut behind him, the sounds of a three way pillow fight erupted from inside the team building.

Robin entered the shower and noticed steam rolling out. His eyes arched up as Colonel McKnight came out of the back shower.

The Colonel shot Robin a big smile, "Well, if it isn't our ISTaZ all-star!" The man then moved up and patted Robin on the back so hard it actually hurt a little. "I'd never believe any ISTaZ trainee would ace every test, let alone get every kid in the camp an outstanding, but here you are. You have set the bar so high no one can top you, and it would be all but impossible to tie your accomplishments! Then, even before we can start you on your advanced classes you have a stunning success and found four of those the entire Corps couldn't!"

Biting back a wince, Robin stood as tall as he could and forced a smile. "It was an entire testing team effort, sir."

"Bull," the huge man boomed, then laughed almost as loudly, "Still, Commander Montgomery warned me you would try to move the credit away from yourself, so I'm ready. I got a team mission leader ribbon for you and a rescue ribbon for everyone in your testing team. You keep this up, son, and you will have some of the highest decorations the Corps has to offer."

Not really wanting the praise, but liking the fact his uniform would now have real ribbons, Robin decided to change the subject. "So, I guess there is no hot water left?"

Once again the massive Colonel burst out laughing and clapped his hands on Robin's slender shoulders, clearly not realizing the discomfort his strength was causing. "No, no, Corporal, with the main wave of the first half of this star storm past and the next one still hours away, we were able to bring up one of the main power converters tonight. Take as long and as hot of a shower as you like. Once you're done, I'd like you to come to my pod so I can debrief you on your stunning success, but take your time, and feel free to raid the mess supplies if you are hungry. You deserve no less."

Robin decided to take full advantage of Colonel McKnight's offer, first taking a long and very hot shower, then followed it up with some rummaging around in the mess supplies. Finding a partial pan of chocolate cake and milk, he downed a huge piece then took the rest back for the others in his team to enjoy before heading over to talk to the colonel.

The conversation went way better than Robin expected. The colonel didn't push on how he knew about the missing kids, nor did he focus on the rumors of Robin's 'gut feeling'. Instead the meeting was mostly on what Robin wanted to add to the training after seeing the camp the four kids had made for themselves.

Robin spent most of the time talking about how he would like to have classes on making animal tools, clothing, shelters, and even stuff out of plants. He was not sure any of the others would figure out how to do half of what the four he had just found did, but there was a chance and knowing what to look for and how to do it all might allow him to find similar camp sites.

The big man made notes and promised he would offer all the needed classes once he found people to give them, which he admitted would be the hard part.

Robin simply grinned and suggested the four they rescued would be good class resources.

Nodding in begrudging agreement, Colonel McKnight finished the meeting by simply adding, "If your gut speaks up again, you don't have to get one of us to pull rank. You tell us where to go and we'll find a safe way to get you there."

Robin exited the colonel's private building and noticed the hovercraft with those taking rifle testing had pulled in and everyone was piling out. He made his way over and instantly noticed most of the kids, including Oliver, looked happy. However, Shannon looked totally dejected and Jeff looked beyond pissed off.

Robin started to move up to see what had happened but was cut off as Jasper's voice stopped him in his tracks. "Let the instructors do a debrief first, corporal. I bet if you concentrate for a minute you'll figure out what happened."

Robin turned with a bit of a jump and finally noticed Jasper sitting in a chair. The man was leaning back with only the back two legs on the ground while his back rested on the backside of the barracks where the Academy kids stayed. "I just…"

"You want to know what went wrong, which is fine, but let them unwind and hear whatever Mr. O'Mally has to tell them first. Remember, most of them didn't sleep all day and are probably pretty tired. Besides, you have it in you to find out without asking. If I got it, so can you. "

Robin frowned as he realized part of the laser rifle test had been to add the extra pressure of being tired into the equation to see if it would cause mistakes. He frowned, "Not nice, sir. You wouldn't have ever pulled kids out of bed if we hadn't passed so many tests on you…" He stopped as the rest of what Jasper had said registered.

"True, but you all did and you teamed up on us. Part of the pressure of testing was taken away so we had to add in new ones. It's your fault we had to revamp so much and find new and interesting ways to increase difficulty while still making it fair. Since only two of nine didn't pass, you're still well ahead of the averages, and I know this was Jeff's first time and he'll get another shot at carrying a laser. Shannon… well she's relegated to a stunner, but she did it to herself."

Robin eyed Jasper carefully as he suddenly realized Jasper had similar abilities, it was the only thing that made sense. It wasn't like he had seen Jasper guess at things before, it just hadn't clicked. Yet, as Robin glanced back over at the group, he saw a quick glimpse of Shannon shooting at a shadow, not knowing what it was. It turned out it was a moving cut-out of a person. Jeff reacted by grabbing the barrel of the weapon, which in turn caused his fingers to get a light burn. Robin cringed and muttered, "How careless can you get?"

Jasper stood raised an eyebrow at the comment, and then gave Robin a strange, satisfied looking grin. "Careless is an understatement, Corporal. She could have killed someone, Jeff did the right thing, and will even get a total redo since his actions prevented the target from getting hit. But, his fingertips blistered so we want them to heal before he has to live-fire. If he does nothing wrong when he goes out with me, he'll get on Outstanding because of what he did tonight."

Robin stood and nodded while his brain worked to wrap itself around the fact he was not the only one with weird powers. The next question, which only took seconds to form, was how many others were there?

Jasper let Robin think things over while he waited a couple of minutes until Mr. O'Mally finished talking to those who had just tested. As soon as the kids were dismissed, Jasper moved forward and spoke up. "Those of you who passed make sure your rifles are serviced and properly cared for; you can add them to your gear. Keep in mind, they are not toys, and your certification to carry a laser rifle, just like any other weapon, can be revoked at any time for any safety violation.

"Also, remember the first wave of the storm has passed so your laser rifles are good. However, we are not totally clear of power disruptions. Make sure to keep the battery packs at under seventy five percent power, so they don't overload when the next wave hits Zong's already buckled EM field."

Jasper paused and turned to face Jeff, "Young man, you did good and your reaction was awesome. I know you're beyond angry right now, but take heart in the fact your actions have been noted and I am going to use my authority to bump you up to a Senior Private. Great work out there."

Jeff gave a slight nod, "Thanks Commander, but I still failed tonight."

"No, son, you didn't. This is a case of no harm, no foul. I'm going to give you a full redo with no down-grade. Whatever mark you get when you retake is what you get. Get to medical and have them fix those burns so you can test with me tomorrow."

Seeing Jeff look up with fading anger and some hope in his eyes Jasper nodded at the kid. "Just you and me tomorrow, son. Come get me whenever you're ready and feel free to grab your new rank from one of the other instructors in the staff barracks before you go to bed."

Jasper then took a step back and pointed to Robin. "I think your Corporal wants to get with you all, so hold up. Robin, I need to talk to you over at the staff barracks as soon as you are through."

Robin nodded and moved up to talk to everyone. He found he had to stare down a few of the others who were giving Shannon a really hard time. He finally moved up to the sobbing girl and put his arm around her. "Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is not to repeat them. You're still one of us, and I'm betting we will be able to get you a retest once we find enough SanSan kids."

"If that had been real, and Jeff hadn't messed up my aim, I could have killed someone!" The girl shook as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

"What's important is you didn't." Robin whispered as comfortingly as he possible could. While Shannon continued to cry on him, he motioned for Oliver to go get some of her team members to help settle her down.

While Meghan and Curtis came out to help deal with Shannon, Robin looked over the others. "Nice work and I know you are all tired, but I'm hoping a few of you can all help me with something before you go to bed."

Diane quickly spoke up, "Whatever you need, Robin."

Seeing a couple of the others nodding, Robin smiled with a great deal of thanks in his eyes, "From what I was told, two of those we just rescued want to stay. I need packs set up for them and I would like a couple of you, preferable one boy and one girl to take them over to medical and see if you can convince all four to give us some pointers. Let them know we could really use them for some classes I want to add before we all head out."

"More classes…" Jose sighed. "Great…"

Robin snickered at the reaction. "These will be totally optional, but if we can get them set up, I'll be taking them. What those four managed to do out there was incredible."

"Jason said pretty much the same thing," Troy nodded. "So I know he'd be up for learning stuff from them, and if he does, so will I. I'll go talk to them."

Diane nodded in total agreement. "I'll go to, the rest of you get a couple of packs set for the two who want to help search for the others."

Robin stood and waited while the group broke up. Most of the talk was about how bad Shannon had messed up. Fortunately, Shannon had already been taken to her team's building so she didn't hear the remarks, some of which were quite cruel. After several seconds of thought he made the rounds to talk to all the others and gently, but firmly, told them to chill out. He pointed out Shannon realized her mistake and there was nothing more she could do about it. Once he was pretty sure the whole thing would be dropped, or at least toned down several notches, he made his way over to the staff barracks.

Before he got there, he found Jasper waiting for him. The man directed him toward a visitor's barracks that had been constructed to house anyone rescued until they could transport them up to one of the space stations. Noticing some light coming from one of the small windows he felt his heart speed up, "What's up, sir?"

Jasper led Robin around to the back side door. "Robin, there is something a few of us want you to see. I think it will help you, but even if it doesn't you have to promise me, you will leave whatever you see and hear at the door. This cannot get out, at least not yet."

Robin gulped as he looked up at Jasper, "Um, sure… But…" Robin stopped as he got close to the door and heard five others talking, only it was the same kind of talking he and the others of his group could do; it was in the middle of his mind and it was pretty strong. He cringed slightly and shook his head as he heard his name mentioned more than once. Just before he got to the door he heard a young sounding thought-voice joke about the new kid joining the secret freak show. Anger flared and his mind sent out a sharp mental shout, 'Stop talking about me! I already know I am a freak!'

Next to Robin, Jasper grabbed the side of the building with one hand while his other pushed into his left temple. At the same time Jasper both heard and felt four sharp gasps and knew at least one of those on the other side had fallen. He also saw a small circular dent appear in the center of the metalplast door right at eye level to Robin.

Robin quickly moved to Jasper, "I'm sorry!"

Jasper dropped to a knee, and shook his head. "Damn, boy, you are not a freak, but please… whatever you do… don't do another one of those!"

A moment later the door opened and Mrs. Anderson appeared with a pale face. Her knees shook slightly and she looked down while rubbing her temples. She spoke out loud in a quivering voice. "Clean through a metalplast door, even." She shook her head and winced, "Ouch!"

Inside the room, two men and one other woman were trying to help another figure to a bed, but all of them looked badly shook up. Each of them wore Explorer Corp uniforms, but the one being helped to the bed was still a teen and in a cadet officer uniform. A trickle of blood oozed out of his nose and onto his cadet shirt.

Before Jasper could even push Robin into the room he noticed Gavin, Oliver, Ajax and Fairfax racing to Robin, all of them with rifles in hand. Fairfax was still wearing only boxers and Gavin, although basically dressed, was in bare feet. Fairfax got there first, 'Robin, you OK?'

Jasper moved his hand away from Robin's back as he heard the unspoken words and saw the rifles. 'What the hell?'

Gavin's eyes went wide, 'Whoa! Commander Montgomery can think-speak too!'

'Did Robin give you the mind-speak power too?' Oliver asked as Fairfax lowered his laser rifle to a more defensive position.

Mrs. Anderson's jaw fell open. She shot a quick look over to Jasper who was clearly still trying to recover from Robin's psionic scream coupled with the fact all the others in Robin's team were openly using telepathy. When she spoke her voice trembled, "There is no way…"

Oliver glanced around realizing the few others in the camp who were still awake had all heard the commotion and were starting to wonder what was going on. Most were moving up to see what was going on. He gulped and shouted. "Guys, Mr. Montgomery spotted a mountain lion just outside the camp perimeter! Get your weapons and make sure everyone is accounted for!"

Steve, leader of Team Nineteen, quickly shouted for others to grab their weapons. At the same time Ellen, leader of Team Two, ordered everyone to pair up and get a full head count.

Jasper took a couple of deep breaths and massaged his temples. After a few more seconds he glanced over at Robin and the four others now surrounding him, all of them armed with at least a stunning weapon. He blinked a few more times as his eyes narrowed. 'All five of you, get in here, now!'

Ajax shot Robin a look, 'So there are more like you!'

'So it seems…' Robin glanced around and spotted Dwight. Seeing a way to take charge and still deal with what had just happened he called out to the boy from San-San Near Ocean Seven. "Hey, you probably know more about wild animals than all of us put together. Round up everyone and help get a head count. Make sure to check on the academy cadets too. Then make rounds of all the buildings to make sure it didn't get into any of them. We can't chance anyone being out there alone, especially with the power fences down. We do have one power converter up, so get some of the cadets to tie it into the power fences and get it up once we are sure the grounds are clear. All of Team five is good."

Dwight nodded and moved off to help Ellen.

Once everyone was out of earshot, Robin glanced over to Fairfax and Gavin, "Go get dressed and back over here, guys. It seems like we are about to find out more about what I am."

Gavin and Fairfax turned but were stopped by a thought from Jasper. 'Forget about getting dressed, in here, now!'

Both boys eyed Jasper suspiciously but did as instructed.

Jasper help up a hand and sent a thought over to Oliver and Ajax, who both had laser rifles out. 'Let's keep with the wild animal in camp for now. Go ahead and act like you are guarding us until things settle down. Just stand at the door so we can thought share without much effort because Robin just about knocked all of us out.'

Ajax nodded and lowered the rife into a safe but ready position while Oliver moved around to get a better view of the camp before doing the same thing.

The moment Gavin and Fairfax entered the barracks room, Mrs. Anderson moved so she could look over all five boys. 'There is no way all five of you are Psionics!'

'I don't know what a psi-thingy is, but if it means being able to think-talk…' Fairfax paused as he looked over to Robin before speaking aloud, "Robin?"

Robin frowned deeply as he felt his heart sped up. "Um, you can blame me, ma'am…"

'Think to us, Robin. We can't talk about this in the open… Once the door closes we can talk." Jasper thought over, noticing as he did so all the others in Robin's team clearly understood him.

A moment later Mrs. Anderson eyed Robin and asked, "what do you mean by blame you?' She frowned as his confusion grew. 'But you can all hear me…'

Gavin looked over at the befuddled instructor, 'When Robin started showing us visions he did something to us. We felt it in the middle of our heads and the front part tingled. Each time he did it, we have gotten stronger and it lasts longer. The more we use it, the better we seem to get too.'

'So you really have some kind of full vision ability, Robin?' the other woman asked.

As Robin started to think a response he got a brief glimpse of another vision, this one was of Jasper as a young boy, just a year or two older than Robin, the weird part was it wasn't from the perspective of Jasper. Instead it was from someone watching him: Robin focused in and grabbed it. It quickly became as clear, if not more so, than the vision from World War Two. A moment later everyone saw it as if they too were there as Robin decided it would be easier to just show everyone.

Jasper ducked back around the corner as a trio of older teens pushed a boy about Jasper's age into the bathroom just outside the doors leading to the school inside Jasper's tower. This tower was badly run down, way worse than the one Robin lived in. Several of the light strips in the ceiling were out and wires hung down from a pair of older model zap cameras.

At first Robin had a hard time getting a feel for some of the technology he was seeing like push button key security pads, door knobs with keyholes, and a cleaning-bot with wheels that sat in a power track. This was a bit confusing, but Jasper was quite a bit older than he was, so the technology was older. Getting a handle on this allowed the rest of the vision to explode into full clarity. Nothing was left out of this one.

Jasper once again chanced a glance around the corner before bolting toward the door to the school room. Just as he yanked open the door he heard the voice of the one who had been grabbed cry out. He was torn between the safety of the school section and the sound of his friend crying for help. Jasper clenched his fist, looked up and took a deep breath. After another couple of seconds and a couple more cries, he finally released his hold on the door and moved to the door to the bathroom. He pulled open the door, slipped in and kneed the oldest of the three tormenters in the groin from behind and shoved him with everything he had. The boy's head hit the wall hard and he fell clutching his crotch and balling. The antiseptic smell of cleaning solution didn't hide the musty urine smell that permeated the room. Nor did all the cleaning chemicals stop the roaches. Masses of them scurried out of the wall as the boy's face smashed into it.

The next older kid released his grip on Jasper's friend, which allowed the young boy to pull his head out of the toilet and knock some roaches off. The boy was crying and coughing, having had his head held under the water more than a few times. All of the kid's pockets were turned inside out and his school pack was empty, its contents spread all over the bathroom floor.

The biggest kid glanced back at his buddy, who was the one most of the vision seemed to come from, "Don't let him go yet, he didn't pay us for protection this week."

Jasper's eyes went wide as the kid then dug into his rather dirty looking pants and pulled out a knife. The thug hit the clicker on the side to make the blade click out but nothing happened. "Damn knife!" The punk grumbled as he smacked it against the wall. Still nothing happened. The boy spit out a long stream of curses and started shaking the weapon. When this didn't help he glanced down at it in puzzlement and held it up to get a closer look at what was wrong.

A moment later Jasper's hand made a weird motion with is index finger flipping up like it was the blade of the knife. The instant he did so, the blade snapped open, cutting a nasty gash across the kid's face just under his eye. The kid screamed and pulled the blade away from his face clutching it tightly with one hand while his other covered the horrid gash.

Jasper stared at the knife for a second before his index finger flipped down like it was the blade closing. Once again the blade seemed to obey. It snapped shut, cutting off two of the boy's fingers as it did so. The kid screamed as the knife and his fingers fell to the ground. While the floor turned crimson with blood, Jasper moved up to the last of the three. The second the kid turned and tossed the other boy further into the stall Jasper shook his head.

The boy charged.

Jasper pulled up his hand and made a motion of closing a door. The metal door to the stall reacted the same way the knife had. It was as if Jasper had slammed it, only from a distance. It slammed into the boy, denting the door, breaking the kids' nose and jaw, while sending the now unconscious ruffian back into the wall. Another wave of roaches poured out of the wall, coving the helpless kid.

The younger boy stood, still crying and looked at Jasper with wide eyes, "You really are a freak!"

Before Jasper could say anything the other kid darted out of the bathroom and disappeared back in the direction of the mag lift, leaving everything the kids had taken out of his pockets and pack scattered all over the bathroom floor.

A tear slid down Jasper's face as he glared at the knife. With a jerk of his head he sent it flying through the air and into the trash shoot. A smirk of satisfaction crossed his face as he heard it clattering down until the sound disappeared. Jasper moved up to the kid who was still out cold in the bathroom stall, brushed off some roaches, and pulled a necklace off from around the boy's head. He glanced at the gold eagle head and pocketed it.

The boy with the missing fingers glanced up with fear and pain in his eyes and started to say something while doing his best to get some of the roaches off himself.

Before the words could come out, Jasper looked at the sink and it seemed to buckle. A moment later the faucet broke off and sent a stream of very hot water into the kid with the missing fingers. Jasper stepped out of the way as the boy screamed with a new round of pain. "You should thank me for getting the bugs off," Jasper snarled.

As the kid spit at him, Jasper glared at the thrashing kid and held up the necklace. "I saw you take this from Mikey before he ran away last year… or did you three finally kill him and toss him out with the trash?"

Jasper's brow crinkled slightly as he realized his thought had been right. Anger flashed in his eyes and the water pipe bent slightly spraying the kid again. Jasper snorted as the kid struggled to get out of the stream of water. "You ever come around here again I'll kill you all!"

This time the kid didn't do anything but get to his feet and run dripping blood and roaches as he went.

Before Jasper could make it to the door to the school section, and while he dug into his school pack for his lunch, a woman in an Explorer Corps uniform stepped up blocking his path. His heart skipped a beat and he started to raise his hand in an attempt to open the door from a distance so he could run past.

Before his hand got even half way up he heard a voice in the middle of his head. 'Nice control, but reckless.' She glanced down at a larger and older style note-puter in her hand. 'LO-KGY9821Z-E872BW… Jasper Timothy Montgomery… you can come with me or you find out what will happen when everyone tells the Linc-Omaha CHZ authorities what you did.'

"How…"

The woman shook her head. 'Think to me Jasper. A thought can't be recorded, a voice can.'

'Am I under arrest?'

'Not if you come with me… You will just disappear… your family will be told you got an offer to the corps academy, which you are getting right now… You do this for us, we will move your family to a better building and find a promotion for your father. We will let you contact them once you are settled and know what you are.'

'Which is what?'

'You are one of an estimated point zero one seven percent of the population with mental abilities called psionics.'

'What about those who saw…'

'It almost never happens, Jasper, and if it does we have people in places to make sure it doesn't go far. Besides, if you are right and those three murdered a boy, they will never speak of it.'

Jasper eyed the woman with some confusion. 'How did you know about me?'

She chuckled and then smiled as she tossed him a food pack. 'We have had our eyes on you since cameras on Zong picked up what you did… More will become clear in short order, young man. In the mean time, look at the up side.'

'What up side?"

The woman extended her hand and patted Jasper on the back as she somewhat forcefully lead him to a restricted access service lift. 'You get two extra years at AdventureQuest if you come with me.'

Robin forced it to stop and pulled back. He cringed and looked over to Gavin, "Got any food packs?"

Ajax pulled one out of the top of his pack as he whistled, "Man, your stuff keeps getting better Robin, I even smelled the bathroom in this one!"

Oliver also pulled out a ration pack and broke it open, knowing it would only take Robin seconds to finish the first one. He glanced over to Jasper, "You really had to live in the building with all those bugs we saw?"

"Low labor farming workers buildings are always bad, even today with the sonic roach and rat suppressors." Jasper sighed as he looked around and realized everyone in the room had seen the vision Robin had somehow pulled out of his mind, "Almost everyone who lived in it worked in the adjacent Farming domes and bugs always seemed to catch a ride. So yeah, it was pretty bad. The worst part was, I only got to leave it on field trips and my one stint on AdventureQuest until the day I was taken to the secondary academy in Colorado Springs, which is now formally linked with Denver CHZ."

He let out an uneasy breath and forced a slight grin. "You know the nice part about Den-Springs is the altitude is so high, they can't build the towers as tall. Since it actually causes some oxygen deprivation if you go too high, the towers are smaller and tend to be better maintained. It is probably one of the three nicest CHZs we have in the US. The other two are also mountain CHZ's, also because of oxygen levels."

Robin downed the two ration packs and drank half a canteen of water offered to him by Mrs. Anderson as he listened. Finally he spoke up, "So now what?"

Jasper rubbed his head and let out a long breath. "Well, to be honest, we wanted to see if you could do half of what Mrs. Reid told us you did the other night… so um, other than to recruit you… um… yeah…" Jasper motioned for all five boys to grab a seat around a large table while he tossed Robin another ration pack.

The second everyone was seated the other man stood and extended his hand. As he did so he sent Robin a thought. 'Well met, Robin. I am Senor Commander of the Psi-Watch, a secret branch of the Explorer Corps.'

One of the women nodded as she also thought to Robin. 'Yes, well met, but next time drop your telepathic shout down a few notches, and put the thrust in your back pocket until you need to blow up something! Your psionics are so far off the known charts I have no idea how to rate you and you all but took out Cadet Colonel Kramer.'

Robin glanced over at the sixteen year old boy and spoke out loud. "Sorry…"

Cadet Kramer groaned. His head pounded so badly he decided it was easier to talk than think. "So much for me being the strongest psionic in the academy. I thought my class eight rating was impressive. You actually gave me a bloody nose!"

Jasper glanced over his shoulder and spoke out loud since his head was still throbbing after being so close to Robin's mental outburst. "Saying the word freak was not a very good idea, Taylor. He sent a telekinetic thrust with his shout; it was directed at the person who said he was a freak, even if you meant it in a friendly way. You are very lucky there was a door between you and Robin or we very well might be scraping you off the wall right now. He even slightly dented the door!"

The man who identified himself as the Psi-Watch Commander quickly moved up to the door and gazed at it in clear shock. "A telekinetic thrust which was only partially manifested… the rest manifested in here where he could not see his target… I have only seen this a pair of times. Once was the Chinese agent they sent to infiltrate us, and the other is my Russian counterpart. And although powerful, neither of them could have hoped to damage metalplast let alone do so, very impressive!"

Robin shook his head and moved up to the door and rubbed his hand down it. Sure enough there was a dent, but it was so small, it was almost impossible to see unless the light hit it just right. It kind of reminded Robin of the types of dents he had seen in the back of the batting cages at the baseball park, but those were in aluminum and were way deeper, this one was no more than a millimeter or two deep.

He came back inside and closed the door, "You know I didn't do it on purpose…"

"Which scares the crap out of me," Taylor whispered while pressing up a cloth to his bloody nose. "Because once you're trained you'll be able to fully direct what you just did to me."

Oliver glanced over and sent a thought to Robin, 'Is this for real?'

"Boy…" Mrs. Anderson managed a smile, "you ain't seen nothing yet!"

The End?