I walked upstairs and entered the barracks room. Carrie and Thomas were preparing for bed.
"What did Agent Ross want?" Carrie asked as she slipped into her pajamas.
I sat on my bed, kicked off my boots, and peeled off my dirty black jumpsuit. "I've been chosen to undergo some special training or something."
"Special training, I'll bet. I think he fancies you, Eliza." Thomas said.
I slipped into my night wear. "Please, get real, Thomas. He's a member of the Ross Family. Do you know how many girls he could have? You should see the way they throw themselves at him."
Carrie sat on her bed and closed her eyes. "The time streams say differently. Your destinies are intertwined, Eliza. I know this to be true."
I sat up on my bed and turned to face Carrie. "What do you see?"
Thomas set down his bathroom kit. "Yeah, Carrie, spill it. Tell us everything about the future of David Ross and Eliza Grant."
Carrie raised her hand to interrupt him. "I'm having trouble seeing everything, but it is a definite future. You will be involved with David Ross in some way. This is inescapable. It is your destiny to be with him." she said and opened her eyes.
"Oh, its fated love. How bloody romantic. Well, Eliza please let me know if Carrie and I can come to the wedding." Thomas playfully mocked.
I jumped up and grabbed my pillow. "Come on, Carrie!" I shouted and sprang towards Thomas. Carrie grabbed her pillow and we took turns pummeling Thomas. Thomas protested, threw up his arms, and dodged the storm of blows as best as he could.
Later after lights out, I lay awake in my bed thinking about David. Why would he and Colonel Nash pick me for special training? Training one on one with David, my heart started beating faster when I thought of being alone with him in a beamship, alone with him and his gentle brown eyes, flawless skin, and curly black hair. I pictured him operating the controls, his hands guiding mine.
No! I stopped my fantasy and remind myself of my mission. David was a member of the Ross Family and the Families were the enemy. Mary had prepared me since I was a little girl for the sole purpose of ending their rule over the Earth. I didn't know how I was going to deal with my feelings. They always got in the way. Mary always cautioned me about emotions. A Keeper of the Wend must be warm and cold at the same time. There is a time for compassion and a time for ruthlessness. A Keeper must decide the appropriate time.
I shook my head. A Keeper was expected to walk the line between the worlds. Somehow, I was expected to manage. My last thought before sleep was of David and his gentle smile.
I swam down through dark, murky, water of the lake. The water was cold and stung at my skin like a thousand prickling fingers. I couldn't hold my breath much longer, but I kicked furiously for the bottom. The lake was deep and I felt like I'd been swimming for hours but I promised Mary that I would touch the bottom.
There, I touched the silty, muddy bottom and kicked for the surface. My lungs were burning and felt like they were on fire. I kept kicking and straining for the surface. I could see the light of the surface. It was so close and yet it was so far. I could feel myself wanting to give in. I had to breath, but I kept swimming.
I broke though the surface like a missile taking flight and I took deep breaths of the sweet precious air. I treaded water and kicked back onto my back, enjoying the warm sun of the Summerland that was shining on my face.
"Congratulations, Little Star."
I spun around and treaded water. Mary approached in her little canoe. She paddled next to me and stopped. "You've been trying to reach the bottom of the lake for years now and today you accomplished your goal. How do you feel?"
I treaded water and thought about her question. "I don't know, Mary. I feel kind of empty."
"Empty?" Mary raised her eyebrow.
I jumped into Fast Time, sprang to the surface of the lake and walked to the rowboat and stepped inside, dropping back Into Time just as I stepped off the lake.
Mary nodded with approval at my command of Time/Space.
Completely dried off because of my jump into Fast Time, I settled into the back of the little canoe. "Is this what happens after you get what you want?" I asked Mary.
Mary smiled and paddled back to shore. "Sometimes. When your life is about constantly striving for something better then you are bound to feel disappointment when you arrive where you are going."
"I'd been telling myself it was impossible to swim to the bottom of the lake without going into Fast Time, but I just did it."
"Indeed, your skills have improved to a very significant degree. Your time training with me has almost come to an end. Soon, you will be able to start your mission in the Middle world." Mary said as we neared the small wooden dock.
"Mary, how will I know what to do in the Middle World? It sounds too big for me."
Mary patted me on the leg. "Don't be afraid, Little Star. Every new Keeper of the Wend always has fears." She tied off the little canoe and we climbed out.
As we walked up the small path towards her cottage, I reflected on my time spent in the Summerland. I'd been coming here since I was 3 years old and it was hard to believe that I wouldn't be coming back to this idyllic lake to train with Mary.
"Is this really my last time, coming here?" I asked Mary as we neared the little cabin in the woods.
Mary paused outside the cabin door. She turned to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "The Summerland will always be part of you. I will always be near you, although there are times when I can't interfere with your mission. A Keeper of the Wend must walk alone."
A hand tapped me on the shoulder. I snapped awake from sleep. Mary had taught me to awaken instantly and it was a skill that I found useful from time to time.
David stood over me. He smiled when he saw me waken. "Ready to go?"
I sat up in my bed and looked around. Carrie and Thomas slumbered unawares and dark shadows still draped the world outside the window. "What times is it?"
"It's 0500. I thought we'd get an early start. Now get dressed because we've got a lot of work to do." David said.
"What happened to 0600?" I asked as I pulled on my black jumpsuit and adjusted my photon belt.
"Slight change of plan. I want to see how you fly in the dark. What's the matter? Are you scared?"
I adjusted my jump suit and checked my razor phone. "No, of course not. I just like to know what I'm getting into."
"A Blackstone Ranger has to be prepared to adapt to any circumstance. Things don't always go as planned in the real world and that goes double for when the Grimm get involved." David said. He saw that I was ready and turned and left my room.
I followed David down the stairs and out of the barracks. We passed MechaNects out preparing for their various duties around the school.
"The MechaNects are they robots or what? They seem almost human," I asked David as we passed a MechaNect gardener tending to a flower bed.
"They are very lifelike, aren't they," David said, "They're a very advanced mechanical species. Think of them as robots with a soul. They were originally created as foot soldiers for the Orion Empire but since the Great Peace 3,000 years ago they've been granted their independence. Many of them have chosen to work with humans.
"You mean with the families," I said.
"Yes, that's right. The Commoners aren't ready yet for the responsibilities that come with the Great Revelation."
We approached a large white building that looked like a stable. David flipped open his razor phone and coded in a sequence of numbers. A large door slid open and we walked inside.
Inside, was a large hanger full of beamships of various colors being worked on by MechaNects. David walked past several beamships until he came to the familiar black car that was the beamship known as Cassie.
"Good Morning, Cassie," he said cheerfully, "Are you ready for a little morning workout?"
"Hello, David and good morning, Ms. Grant. I hope you've been enjoying your stay here at Blackstone." Cassie said.
"Hello, Cassie. Please, call me Eliza." I said. I was amazed at how quickly I had adapted to talking to machines, but after a few weeks of Blackstone, where you were surrounded by nothing but machines, you quickly got used to it.
David opened the driver side door for me.
"Such a gentlemen," I said.
David performed a graceful bow. He got in on the passenger's side.
I slipped behind the wheel and saw that the normal dashboard readouts that I had seen in New York when David and Nicole had picked me up had been replaced by a sophisticated display of futuristic screens and readouts.
I raised my hands up into the air. "Look, I just got my driver's license last year and they didn't road test me on beamships."
David smiled. "Don't worry. I'll be here with you every step of the way and Cassie is very understanding. She won't let you do anything that will harm us."
"I promise you, Eliza. This will be both safe and fun. I've personally helped David train over a hundred Blackstone students in proper beamship piloting," Cassie said.
David pressed a button and the beamship vibrated with a subtle hum and rose off the ground.
"Hold on," he said.
Suddenly the beamship shot straight up, raced through an opening in the hangar's roof and rocketed into the sky. In the blink of an eye, we went from ground level in the hangar to floating hundreds of feet above the Blackstone grounds.
I looked out over the expanse of the Inner Earth known as the Ark. The first rays of the morning sun were coming up and beyond the Blackstone Grounds, I saw a wide prairie with bison grazing on it. Further in the distance, a dense green ribbon lay which must be the jungle where we went to study knife fighting with Romano. Looming in the distance was the great mountain with its snow capped peak and beyond that was a hazy blue line which I assumed was the ocean.
"How big is the Ark?" I asked as I marveled at the incredible level of detail outside the window.
"It's around one thousandth the size of the real Earth," David adjusting a control on the main console,"An amazing piece of engineering isn't it? This will ensure humanity's survival from a global extinction event. We'll never have to suffer what we did 10,000 years ago."
"The Fall," I said solemnly.
"That's right. How did you know?"
"My Uncle Paul told me. He said a previous highly advanced civilization that Plato called Atlantis had been wiped out by a catastrophic astronomical event in our solar system."
"The Destroyer. Remnants of a nearby Star that went SuperNova. It almost set our people back to the stone age. If it wasn't for the great Vallonian Initiates the knowledge of our ancestors would have been totally lost," David said, "All right enough of this. We're here for beamship training not Earth History. Cassie, take us out over the ocean."
The beamship raced forward and the landscape streaked by underneath us. The majestic mountain sped by. I saw Dragons swooping and diving around it.
I pointed to the mountain. "That's where the Dragons live?"
"DragonMountain. Yes, that's their domain. Only on special occasions do we visit. Usually, if a new dragon is born or the passing of an elder happens. Other than that we are sworn to stay away."
I frowned. "You're sworn to stay away? It sounds like these Dragons are almost another intelligent species."
"They are. They've been around longer than we have, since the time of the great Dinosaurs. They are a unique and precious race and we are sworn to protect and defend them. They are the last of their kind and because Dragons only have one offspring per breeding cycle, they must be protected." David explained pointing out the amazing creatures.
I looked out my window and tried to spot the green and gold Dragon that had saved me. Emmanual, B'Zide had called him, but I couldn't see him, and soon the beamship put DragonMountain behind us.
The jungle raced beneath us and soon we were out over the great blue ocean.
"This is good, Cassie. Right here." David said.
The beamship came to an abrupt halt and hovered in the air a thousand feet over the blue ocean.
David pointed to the steering wheel. "All right, Grant, it's your turn. Show me what you've got."
To Be Continued
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