“Why did she leave?” I sat on the edge of my seat hanging on every word.
“No one knows. It was about a year ago, she was just gone one night.” He looked devastated.
Sam returned with Kenny and swapped him for Rachel. Before long he had brought her back and with the help of a male nurse, carried Ronnie out of the room.
“He seems nice enough.” He sat with Sandy, who would be next.
“Acumen is like a father to a lot of us.” Silence smiled.
We all sat quietly and waited for the next step. Ronnie looked like a million bucks when he came back and Sam brought a shirt for Rachel to change into, hers being covered in blood.
Sandy didn’t take long. Lastly Sam took the twins together.
Sam came back to the room after a short while; the twins however didn’t return.
“Where are Mike and Mary?” Rachel demanded.
“They are on a flight to New York City. There is a family there that wanted to adopt a child and they were ecstatic to be able to adopt twins.” Sam looked sorry, but confident.
“Wait, you just sent them away?” I protested.
“Don’t worry; they will be taken care of. If we hadn’t sent them now it would have been just that much longer before we can leave for a warmer climate.”
“But we didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Rachel was very upset.
“Don’t worry Rachel, this is not goodbye. They are in good hands and you will see them again. I promise.” He stopped and took a breath.
“But!” Rachel pleaded.
“I’m sorry. I am very sorry that it had to be this way. I promise that you will see them again, soon.” he looked genuinely sorry.
Sam paced, gathering his thoughts for a few moments.
“Care to explain what’s going on?” I started.
He took a deep breath. "Well, let me start by saying that it’s nice to meet all of you. We call ourselves The Last Line. As far back as the Salem Witch Trials we have been here to protect users from humans and humans from users in one form or another.”
“Are you with the government or what?” Kenny, the ever paranoid, asked.
“No, we are affiliated with the government and we do get some funding from them, but otherwise no. We found that with the government, no matter how hard they try, there always seems to be a few corrupted politicians. After a few incidents where they tried to use us as an end to their means, we decided that it would not have a place in our organization.”
“We work together trying to make the world a safer place for people like us. Look, I’ll be honest with you; we have never rescued more than two people at one time. We are not really prepared. We didn’t get a whole lot of notice from Zach.”
“What is going to happen to us?” Rachel asked.
“We have a complex in North America where we have set up a small community. There we will train you to properly control your abilities and meld into a social environment. We also think that education is very important so we will make sure that you have a strong foundation. We will also provide you with pathways to pursue higher education.” Sam explained.
“Sounds great.” I wasn’t really excited but I wanted to get some sleep that wasn’t medicinally induced.
“When can we get a meal?” Ronnie rubbed his stomach.
“There are a couple cooks working right now.”
“Well, alright then.” Ronnie sat down.
“We aren’t staying here in Alaska?” I asked.
“Oh no, no it’s far too cold here.” Sam acted like he was shivering.
“Good to hear.” Sandy said.
Sam’s phone chirped. He took it from his pocket and looked at the screen. "The food is ready. So let’s go get something to eat.” he motioning for us to follow him.
I didn’t know how to react to what was happening. These people went from soldiers to normal people in the blink of an eye. Like someone had flipped a switch.
The dining room wasn’t big; one long table ran down the center. The five of us, Sam, and Silence all took a tray and filled them with the different foods that the cooks prepared. We had a Thanksgiving Day feast on each of our plates.
For the first few minutes everyone just ate. Silence finally broke the silence, "You’ll like Eastcroft, it’s a good place to live.”
“Where is it?” I asked between bites.
“It’s in the mountains of Colorado. Twenty years ago the town was built as support for an observatory. We found that it was a great spot for us to set up shop.” Sam explained.
“How many people live there?” Ronnie asked.
“A few hundred; it’s about a three hour drive to any large city. Most of the people that live in Eastcroft work for us, or run one of the shops in the town, or teach in the school.” Sam explained.
“When are we going to leave?” Ronnie asked mouth full of mashed potatoes.
“In the morning.”
I never wanted to fly in a small one engine plane again. It was the most terrifying experience in my life. Every little bit of chop made me dig my fingernails into Ronnie’s leg and then he would hiss in pain.
“Sorry.”
“Its alright.” he grunted through clenched teeth.
The plane was so small we could only fit five people besides the pilot in the thing. Rachel had to catch the next flight which I could look out the window and see it bobbing around behind us.
We passed over miles of towns, mountains, and fields. The fifteen hour flight seemed like it took far longer. We had to land twice to fuel.
“There it is.” Sam pointed to the left side of the plane to a crescent shaped mountain formation.
The first thing that I could see was the observatory. It sat on top of the mountain and we had to look up out of the windows to see it. The landing on top of the mountain was very rundown. One of the two large satellite dishes had collapsed and damaged one of the two buildings that rested on the landing.
The town itself was small and tucked back into the base of the mountain itself. Outside of the edge of the mountain was a small airport, or dirt strip anyway, that had zero traffic. There was one road leading out of the town, and I would barely call it a paved road. It merged into a better two lane road that curved back around to the other side of the mountain.
Trees were thick in all directions and there was a small lake centered in the woods on the opposite side of the mountain.
The whole place almost looked man made.
“What is so special about this place?” Ronnie asked.
“Well besides being for sale when we were looking and very cheap. The mountains are perfect for a device that is designed to mask Kinetic brain waves from Aurora tracking systems.” Sam grinned with pride at the sight of the rundown town.
The pilot swung the plane around and lined us up with the runway for a landing, "Eastcroft, this is LL01 requesting clearance for landing.” the pilot said into his radio.
He pushed on the steering wheel forcing the nose of the plane down and I couldn’t help but dig my nails in more as the plane thrashed around in the wind.
“First thing we are going to do is get your nails cut.” Ronnie grabbed the back of his leg.
I couldn’t ease up at all.
The wheels touched down and rocked violently on the uneven ground beneath us, "I’m so sorry Ronnie.” I pried my fingers from his flesh.
Chapter 10: ATN
“I hope you guys are ready for this.” Sam opened his door and climbed out of the passenger seat.
The pilot remained.