Present Matters

“Welcome to Choice. I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.” Toby said to the group of men standing before him. They were all older than him – twenty, or thirty years old. All of them well built. Toby really, really wished that Ari was not off somewhere halfway across the world. He kind of needed her to deal with this with him.

“Thanks. What kind of place is this?”

“We offer residential apartments for those gifted wishing to stay only with their own kind, or those attending full time class. We offer classes to help control your powers. We offer classes to help discover your power.”

“Well we don’t need help discovering our powers, and we have them under control just fine, so if you’ll just give us directions to the cafeteria, we’ll be on our way.” The ring leader winked at him and nudged one of his friends. Toby struggled to remember what had been this man’s power, but he could not.

“Well, Alexander, we know where to find you, and you are welcome – all of you – to stay here, if you would like.” Toby decided on using the man’s name before he had introduced himself. The look of surprise on his face faded quickly.

“Thank you.” He decided to ignore the pointed superior knowledge of the young man and Alexander turned on his heel, motioning for the eight or nine other gifted followers to follow him out the door. Toby removed his hand from Katrina’s shoulder, realizing he had been gripping it rather hard.

“Sorry.” He apologized to her, cracking the knuckles on his now cramped hand. She looked up at him and shrugged.

“I don’t think my shoulder is broken. Those guys were definitely not a group that I wanted to deal with. I’m glad you were here when they came in.” Katrina confided in him. “You should probably call Ari.”

“I’m going to have to. Those were the troublemakers that her and I visited the other night. And even though they came here, they aren’t here to do anything but cause trouble.” Toby admitted to her worriedly.

“What did they do that made them so horrible?” Katrina asked, motioning for Toby to take a seat for a moment.

“Remember that California forest fire last year?”

“That was them?”

“Yeah. Apparently they had a grudge against the people in that church that all died.”

“Ouch. Why didn’t they get arrested?”

“One of them has the ability to set fires with his mind. You can’t exactly pin arson on someone when there’s no evidence to suggest that they were the cause of something that happens on a normal basis, anyway.” Toby explained to her. “I’m not sure what the other peoples’ powers are. Ari didn’t really explain to me.”

“You’ve seen these guys before. Were they frightened by Ari?” Katrina asked, amused. “It doesn’t seem like she’s very intimidating on a good day.”

“She was amazing. If I wasn’t with her, I would have been scared shitless. She grew a few inches and got some serious Viking look to her.”

“Awesome. I love working here.” Katrina announced. She turned around in her rotating chair. “It never gets boring. Really!” “Alright, I’m going to go... make my rounds.” Toby decided. Ari

had dropped him off with the express purpose of him making examinations of the facilities and coming up with a list of any changes that were required.

“Okay. If you need help with anything, let me know.” Katrina smiled and turned back to her computer.

“No problem.” Toby told her. He took a right and found himself entering through the hall of the Goddesses. Well, he needed to have a conversation with Ari about Alexander, anyway.

Toby entered the room to find it dark, and moments later, Ari’s temple was lit up with soft light. He had liked hers best because it was so simple. In the far wall, there was a piece of glass that led to a small picture, set behind it and lit. It was by Athena, and featured the entire life cycle of on of Zeus’ half god children.

Toby looked around and then took a seat in the center of the room. He felt silly, waiting for someone that he normally spoke to three times a day.

“Ari? I kind of need you here.”

“Well, that was amazingly humble.” Ari appeared before him, clad in Greek attire from head to foot. “What do you need? Did you finish your inspection already?”

“No. Alexander and his crew are here, wandering around somewhere.” Toby said, watching Ari move and her robes, forget to. She wasn’t fully on the plane that he was, yet.

“I know. Is that all?”

“Well, yeah. Hey, how do you know?”

“A signal gets sent to me every time someone enters or leaves campus. That way, I know when you’re here. I also know when an intruder is here, or when someone hasn’t moved in a while.”

“I think they mean trouble for us.” Toby told her, and her shimmering form nodded.

“I know. Don’t worry about it though, I’ll handle it. And if not, you’re perfectly equipped to handle them.”

“How? What if they set fire to this building?”

“Buildings are all fireproof. They’ll have to be more creative than that.” Ari said to him. “Are we done?”

“Sure.” Toby said. “Why, you on a date?”

“I’m with Zeus and Hera. We’re playing a game. Well, Arkonel too.”

“Go have fun.” Toby said, and she waved good bye to him as she disappeared.

Toby stood up from the carpet and headed for the door. She was right. They were in a place with more innate power than anywhere else on earth. There was no way that that particular gang could cause trouble for them. Toby opened the door and headed down the hallway and towards the back meditation rooms. He had to make sure that the people inside were all still alive, and all of the areas were clean and not getting worn down or damaged already. The one thing that the gods couldn’t do was repair furniture automatically. They had to know what needed to be fixed in order to fix it.

Toby knocked on the first door, and receiving no response from inside, opened the door to reveal an empty room. This room had a little bit of an earthy theme to it, featuring brown and beige coloring throughout. No damage or spilled wax that Toby could see. Good.

Toby moved to the next room, but it was locked, and someone was inside, working. He went for the next one, and discovered the same thing. Maybe it would be better to do this on a weekend when there weren’t any classes going on.

Toby shut the door and decided another day would be better for this particular adventure in this building. He would go check on the status of the hotel/apartments, and then on the pool facilities, which he hadn’t even seen yet. Ari had built them, but he and his father had begun making small trips out to the stores to buy what he needed for college. Toby walked back towards the front desk, and upon opening the door he realized that trouble was brewing.

Alexander had Katrina nearly cornered, shouting something in her face, Toby couldn’t understand what. He slammed the door shut behind him and strode over to the man.

“Do you have a problem?”

“Yes, yes I do!” Alexander turned his fury onto Toby. “I’d like to speak to whoever is in charge here. The clerk in the apartment building will not let me examine a room.” Alexander’s yell softened a bit with Toby’s stony eyes, ruthless and cold. Toby looked at him.

“We don’t give room tours without an appointment. Would you like to sign up for one?” Toby said calmly. He really wished Zeus had given him more of a height gene. Alexander towered over him, and although Toby wasn’t scared, it was not exactly easy to look up at someone and be calm when they were shouting in your face.

“An appointment? Isn’t there someone that can get me in there now? I just want to look. I don’t want to have to fly back here tomorrow.” Alexander was not shouting now, but Toby could still tell he wanted to aggravate him.

“I’m afraid not. Perhaps later today, if you’d like to wait around.” Toby asserted to the older man. The man bent down to come eye to eye with Toby.

“Isn’t there a grown up or an adult you can direct me to, young man?” Alexander sneered at Toby.

“I’m in charge.” He replied, crossing his arms and refusing to budge. The man and Toby stared coldly at each other for a few seconds. Alexander lowered his gaze, not necessarily in submission.

“Well then, hook me up for sometime this evening. We’re looking at renting.”

“The apartments are only one bedroom apartments.” Toby replied. “I know you came in earlier with a large group. We don’t offer more than that.”

“I didn’t plan to room with all of them. There aren’t any two bedroom apartments available?”

“No, not at this time.” Toby motioned for Katrina to sit down. She had been making suicidal motions and rolling her eyes out of the older man’s view. Toby was struggling to maintain his composure.

“Fine. When’s the next flight out?”

“Helicopter leaves in two hours.” Toby offered, checking his watch. Alexander nodded.

“Fine.” The man strode off aggressively, obviously not satisfied. When the door clicked behind him, Toby turned to Katrina and smiled.

“Sorry about that. Why didn’t you page me?”

“His nostrils flare. It was kind of funny.”

“He is dangerous, Katrina. Just call one of us next time. That’s not in your job description.”

“Absolutely.” Katrina winked at him, and Toby laughed.

“I’m going to go check on the Aqua Complex. I’ll be back in a little while. My cell is on and ready.”

“Yes, sir.” Katrina saluted at him, and shooed him out the door.

Toby breathed a small sigh of relief that it had been her working the desk, and not an immortal. Alexander would have died.

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