Part 15
[You take the link.] You tell John quickly. [You have more experience in these things than I do.]
John doesn't waste time arguing. You feel his mind reaching out to the boy's and are pulled along with it. Concentrating hard you lend John all your strength.
[Frankie, listen to us. You have to reach out and join your mind with ours. You must break out.]
[Break out!] You hear the murmers from Paul and Elena add your voice to them.
[Frankie, you have to trust us.] John urges. [You have to open to us. Free your mind. Break down the barriers, break out!]
Even now you can't get any sense of the boy's mind. He might not be hearing you at all, you might be deafening him with your call. On the bio-bed Frankie's vital signs are weakoning despite TIM's valient efforts.
For just a moment, Frankie's agonised and tortured mind brushes your own. You know, too late, that you made the wrong decision. You should have focused this link. John's calls have battered Frankie's already vulnerable mind and now he retreats in desperation.
You don't feel Frankie as he slips away but you know the instant it happens nonetheless.
*
Frankie's death traumatises all four of you. For several hours none of you are sure how to begin to react. You stay in the Lab with the others, and agonise over what you could have done to change what happened. TIM tries to console you all. He reminds you that without the active Tomorrow People many more would have slipped away over the years. He reminds you that Frankie was already seriously ill and weak before you found him. None of it helps. Elena cries, Paul has a helpless and frustrated air about him, John just goes hard and cold.
[How many more children?] You hear him think in a quiet moment when your mental shields are low. [How many more must I watch die, or send to their deaths?]
You don't know what to say. You don't know how to comfort the close-minded man your friend has become.
*
It's two days later that you ask Paul what has made John so closed in and secretive. You are looking for a distraction and looking for some way to make up for what you see as your role in young Frankie's death. You want to know if you can find any way to help John, now your only link to your old life on Earth. Paul looks uncertain and unhappy. When he speaks his voice is grave.
"Right, I keep forgetting that you knew John and the others when they were kids. They were the first, of course. They're still the ones who represent us all to the Trig but...." He hesitates, "Jay, someone's going to have to tell you and I suppose it had better be me. It ought to be John but with the way he's been lately...well."
"Tell me what?" You ask, scared by the tension in Paul's pale eyes.
"Things aren't all rosy on the Trig either. They're are these aliens called Sorsons...."
"Yes, I've heard of them." You interrupt.
"Yeah, well. They came back, didn't they? The Federation is at war with them and from what I'm hearing it's not going well. Jay," He pauses looking at you anxiously. "Jay, the Sorsons've done some terrible things. We Tomorrow People, well we're stronger than the average telepath, aren't we? The Federation is sending those of us it can out on all kinds of missions and, well, not everyone has come through."
You feel the ice gripping your chest as if in a fist.
"Tell me." You say quietly.
"Hsui Tai and Kenny were killed. Jay, they forced Stephen to do it. They've driven him to the end of sanity and beyond. Andrew's been captured too."
Outwardly you don't react but inside you feel like something within you is breaking. Kenny was away for much of the time you spent with the other Tomorrow People but you felt you'd got to know Stephen well and, of course, you find it almost impossible to imagine the tall and beautiful Hsui Tai gone forever. It's been barely a week since you were beside her, laughing and joking with Andrew while she watched. On top of your grief for Frankie you feel that this added weight is pressing down on you, squeezing the light and colour from your life.
"How?" You whisper, not expecting an answer. "Why?"
Paul puts an awkward hand on your arm. His eyes are sympathetic.
"Hey," He says softly. "I'm sorry. I know they were your friends."
"They were." You say numbly. "And more than that. We're Tomorrow People, Paul. This isn't meant to happen to us."
"I know, Jay." Paul says and his eyes are angry now as if he does understand more than you thought he could. "I know but we're still human too. I know John feels responsible for what's happened to all the people he's trained over all the years but we can only do our best. John has done that all his life. One day we'll take the fight back to the Sorsons and so something about stopping this pointless war. One day we'll put the Earth to rights, too. And then no kids are going to have to die because we just didn't find them until it was too late."
"One day." You repeat hollowly. "Can we wait for `One day'?"
Paul looks at you with sad eyes.
"Yeah, well. We don't have any choice, do we?"
*
It's the day after that that you tell John, TIM and the others your decision. You're leaving the Lab. You're going traveling around the world for a few months, perhaps a few years, as long as it takes for you to get some handle on this new world and the complications that go with it. You'll always be open to their calls but you can't deal with the day to day life of a full Tomorrow Person, not yet anyway. You'll work your way around the world doing temperary jobs here and there. You'll look too for the other Tomorrow People who have broken out over the years but chosen not to develop their powers and for those groups that have broken out completely independently of John and the others.
John is reluctant to let you go. After all, you are still not quite sixteen years old and have not finished school. TIM though is a little more understanding.
"Tomorrow People mature more rapidly than Sap children, John." He says as you tighten the straps on the small holdall which contains your life's total of belongings. "And Jay is unable to reenter the education system in this country, anyway. I'm sure he and I can work out some kind of correspondance course to complete his education."
"Jay, are you sure about this?" Elena asks gently.
"One hundred per cent." You confirm.
"Good Luck, Jay." Paul tells you, shaking your hand formally.
John sighs and offers his hand too.
"We'll always be here when you need us, Jay. We'll always be here when you call."
*
You look around one last time before nodding up to TIM. You've asked him to set your belt for an initial location that even you don't know. The other Tomorrow People watch you, unhappy but understanding your decision. You smile.
"Jaunt me out, TIM."
To return to the start click here.
To skip this storyline and start another click here.
You are currently on Path 6.
Click here to return to my homepage.
Email me on tiylaya@yahoo.com with comments or suggestions.