***
Holly ran faster than Joss. After three blocks she stopped to wait for him.
He caught up, bent over, and put hands on knees while panting. “I think we’re safe now.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But this is still weird. How is it possible you aren’t hurt?”
Joss straightened back up, still breathing hard. “Like I said, the ladder must have slowed down at the end.”
“Okay, but why don’t you remember what happened. That doesn’t make sense.” She walked down the sidewalk.
He followed her. “I don’t know. Everything’s just blank.”
“The ladder’s demolished. How did you end up without even a scratch?”
“I have no clue. And I feel like a vandal breaking the ladder.”
“You didn’t mean to destroy it.”
“Hey, Holly. Why don’t we put this whole ‘facing your fears’ thing on hold for a while?”
“Why? You survived didn’t you?”
He glared at her and then kicked a small rock down the sidewalk.”
“We can take a break if you want,” she said. “It was my turn next anyway. You know, fear-of-clowns?”
“You go next and then we take a break,” he said.
Holly walked closer to Joss. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, “but there’s been a squirrel following us for the last couple of blocks.”
Joss turned around.
Holly smacked him in the arm. “I said don’t look.”
“It’s not a squirrel,” Joss said. “It’s a ferret.”
Half a block behind them the ferret stood on its hind feet, watched them for a few moments, and bounded off into somebody’s yard.
***
Avery fiddled with the buttons on his chair and a life-size hologram of Joss appeared above the table.
From a pocket inside his robe Avery retrieved a pointer and pressed the end to extend it. He pointed at the hologram. “This is Joss Thistle. I will be approaching him to offer an apprenticeship within our order.”
“Why would we care about your recruitment policies?” Germaine asked.
“Please bear with me and the reason will become evident,” Avery said. “Joss first came to our attention eleven years ago, two days after his birth. His nanro threshold rating was 9.4.”
Several people at the table gasped.
“Impossible,” Germaine said. “Not even Giavanni had such a high threshold.”
“Exactly,” Avery said. “That is why we decided to let him develop naturally. We placed a watcher with him to monitor his activities.”
One of the people standing against the wall was a short bald man with thick glasses and furry eyebrows. When Avery mentioned ‘watcher’ this man smiled, looking around, trying to see who noticed him.
Avery nodded at the grinning man and continued. “Now, here’s a car accident when Joss was a infant.”
Joss’s image changed to a snowy hillside and zoomed in on a sharp curve in the road at the top. A small red car came around the corner, flew off the road and sailed through the air. Avery paused the scene and pointed at a baby fastened in a carrier in the car’s back seat.
“Notice Joss, as a baby, is visible in the back.”
Avery pressed a button, unpausing the holographic scene. The car continued through the air, landed on its tires, slid forward a dozen feet before flipping up and over and skidding, upside-down, to a stop. Once again Avery paused the scene. This time he pointed off to one side of the car. A baby in its car seat rested on a tree stump.
“Now Joss is safe and secure on a stump.”
Everyone in the room, those standing against the wall and those seated at the table, stared at the image of the smiling baby with thick black hair. Nobody spoke for a long minute.
Finally the African woman broke the silence. “Where did you get this video?”
“The watcher assigned to Joss recorded it,” Avery said.
“Impossible,” the Asian woman said. “Spontaneous teleportation? I do not believe this.”
“It’s true,” Avery said. He sat back down.
“I cannot believe it,” she said. “We have worked on teleportation for years with no success.”
“I know,” Avery said. “Even more amazing is that this is instinctual, not taught, performed by an infant.”
“There has to be another explanation,” Germaine said.
“The car windows, although broken, remained intact,” Avery said. “The only two explanations are teleportation, or he traveled through solid matter, both theoretically possible.”
The head of the European Chapter, a tall skinny man spoke with a velvety voice. “Could this boy be the one prophesied? I’m not saying I believe he is. I’m just tossing the idea out for discussion.”
Nobody around the table showed any emotion. They looked at each other, as if measuring how much weight this topic should receive.
Except for Germaine. “What a bunch of religious hooey. I don’t pay attention to any antiquated–”
“Regardless,” Avery said, cutting Germaine off. “I have a feeling Joss Thistle is very important.”
“I think,” Germaine said. “With Vanderhoak and the missing agents, it may not be the best time to bring this boy into our fold and begin training.”
“I agree one hundred percent,” Avery said. “Which is why I’ve decided to train Joss remotely. We’ll keep him apart from our group for now. I’m approaching him, personally, tonight.”
***
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Check back in a few days for Part 5.
