Interlude: La Perdita
The morning sun was hidden behind a vale of grey clouds in the skies above La Perdita. The streets, every road and alleyway, were virtually deserted of all people. Instinctively, everyone stayed indoors and home from work, glued to their television for sporadic news updates on the situation in Antarctica, though nothing had been mentioned. There was simply no news about it anywhere. Still, people stayed home and gathered around their loved ones as if there was no tomorrow. It was the same almost everywhere in the world, but moreso in La Perdita due to the uproar caused by the strange flying crafts controlled by an organization identifying itself as the E.P.S.
Thus, Axel found himself wandering about on a street empty of nearly all. It was literally a ghost town, the only Perditians visible walking anywhere around the streets being the actual spirits of the dead. Had Axel gained the ability to see the spirits of the dead in adulthood, it would likely have frightened him out of his wits. As it was, though, he was conditioned by the sightings ever since he was a small child to believe it normal. When he realized that no one else could see the things he saw, he wondered why everyone was so blind to the "superreality" around them. There was the tangible, the physical plane of existence -- the reality -- but alongside that in a symbiotic relationship was the spiritual. When his friends at the orphanage suddenly gained the same abilities he'd had all along, and they became the PSI-Unit, it was as if he'd finally found a real home for himself.
Now that all that was gone, and the last year and more was little more than an abstract nightmare in his mind -- the horrific memories having been repressed into his subconscious for his own protection -- he was once again thrust into the world to find his way. Doctor Quantos seemed to genuinely care about him as a father for a child, and Axel was sure that he could trust him completely. However, the team of Vanguard International was a different story. It was true that they were strange -- like he was -- but unlike his PSI-Unit there did not seem to be any true closeness between its members. There was little "family" atmosphere in the walls of that cold Dawson Complex. Each of the Vanguardians were so independent of each other, leading separate lives which coincided only in their work. There was precious little trust between them, and virtually no affection whatsoever. Perhaps that was a result of all the changes in the membership of late, but Axel didn't think so. From what he had learned of the team when they'd first arrived in La Perdita, they were a band of fugitives on the run from various authorities. Axel had met his share of fugitives in his three-year career as a PSI-Unit member, and if there was one thing that unified every fugitive he came across, it was a lack of trust. Somehow, the Vanguardians had never learned to truly trust each other -- their guard was always up, which was why they could only seem to foster friendships outside of the actual team. Could that change? Maybe. Maybe...
Axel found himself thinking a great deal about this lately. He had found a father in Dr. Quantos, it was true, but to the other Vanguardians he knew he looked like a nuisance, a child in a world meant only for grown-ups of their own kind. He wanted desperately to make friends with this new group, but he wondered if there was anything at all that could make that possible. After all, he was just a 12-year-old kid -- well, almost 12, and not really an ordinary kid after all -- and the others were all so different, both from him and from each other. It wasn't the age difference so much -- after all, before he'd met Denyce Piper he had never had a friend his own age or younger than him -- it was the difference in life experience, or lack thereof.
His musings brought him back to the front door of the Complex. Dr. Quantos had given him a visitor's authorization code which he now entered in order to gain entry. From outside the Complex looked imposing and solid, impenetrable -- kind of like a prison. Not at all like the homey apartment building it had been during all the years Axel grew up on the island. It looked somewhat futuristic but cold.
The Complex was built in a circular radius at the base around the original Dawson Apartments which was wider at that base and became narrower a few floors up. The apartment building itself, which had apparently sustained a great deal of structural damage, had been reinforced and painted white like the rest of the building rather than the old brick look that Axel had liked. While the base was circular and rounded -- which was, in an engineering sense, more stable and able to withstand and equally distribute greater pressure than a square could -- the top of the building was generally in the same cubic shape as the old apartment building had been. The builders had taken great pains to keep the essentials of the old apartment building intact while adding on to it as a greater whole. Axel had no doubt that the older part of the building was now just as reinforced as the rest of it was.
Behind the Complex on its eastern side was a large courtyard built from the remains of two warehouses bought up by the company. The courtyard was larger than a football field and was used for exercise and training purposes. It, too, was walled in, giving it the look of a prison. Vanguard may have been paranoid, but they had good reason to be. Still, on a quiet-though-unusual island like La Perdita, it was strange to have such a fortress built upon it. What in the world were they defending themselves against?
Axel entered the building and felt that he should have felt safe within, given all the security systems and such, but strangely enough he didn't. For all its vaunted security, the Vanguard Complex was, essentially, a big white target in the middle of Puerta Mibela. Yet that wasn't exactly why he didn't feel safe. It was something else.
The boy walked along the outer circular corridor towards the rear of the building where Dr. Quantos had his laboratory and infirmary rooms. He shivered suddenly as he felt a draft coming through one of the rooms. Peering through the open door, and sensing someone in there, he stuck his head into the room and said, "Hello?"
His voice was cut off suddenly by the sound of a power-tool, and he jumped back.
"Whoa, there, kiddo," a female voice said from behind him as he knocked into her.
"Sorry," Axel replied, looking up at the pretty face of a young woman wearing dusty work-clothes, her dark hair pulled back under her cap. Though she had a slight smile on her face, Axel could sense pain coming from her. She had lost someone... Kristofer? That was the first name of the former leader of the team, Axel remembered. The one who had... died.
"You're Axel, aren't you?" Charley Montoya said as she brushed a bit of dust out of the boy's brown hair. "Hank's young prodigy."
Axel almost smiled as he realized she was referring to Dr. Henry Quantos, but he replied seriously, "Yep. I'm just looking for him now."
"I haven't seen him for a couple of hours, kiddo," the Vanguard maintenance person replied. "Maybe he's taking the dog for a walk or something?"
"Okay, thanks," Axel said, walking away from her and waving briefly. He had to get away from her. Though she was hiding it through her calm demeanor and throwing herself into work by supervising and taking part in the reconstruction of the damaged wall, she was in deep, almost deadening pain. Fresh, raw pain which radiated from her mind like a scream. It was excruciating to one with an empathic nature.
Axel walked down the corridor and reached the laboratory. As he expected from his brief conversation with Charley, Dr. Quantos wasn't there. It was very quiet in the lab, the only sounds that could be heard being the construction workers where he had come from. It was very, very empty. The Complex itself seemed so much quieter since the team had left. Only the support staff had remained behind.
The boy jumped suddenly, then, as if spooked by something. He turned around and saw nothing, but he was beginning to think that the Complex wasn't as empty as he had believed. Was there an intruder somewhere?
End Interlude
