“Go.” Ben spoke the word softly, but with command. The next minute he was running to the elevator, the strange woman close on his heels. I knew beforehand, that he didn't want me to follow him down the shaft, since he needed the doors to close before the woman got inside.
My eyes scanned the floor of the hotel for a likely escape route. Funny, it was the “escape” sign that clued me in to the stair case. But I needed to get down fast. I took a good flying leap over to the railing. Yes flying leap. I have an ability to sort of float. It's not flying, and if I'm not concentrating, I sink, but otherwise I can hover a good foot and a half off the ground.
I didn't even look down, instead I focused on the far railing, and vaulted over the edge. My ability doesn't exactly slow me down, but it does cushion my fall. I did a free fall down the middle of the stairs, letting my hands grab each rail as I fell, sort of like climbing down a very large ladder at high-speed.
I held on at one floor and saw that I was on a balcony overlooking the lobby, and that Ben had just reached it with the elevator. He stepped out and the woman materialized in front of him! She hit him hard in the face.
I was so filled with rage that anyone would hurt him that I threw myself down the last flight of stairs, and tore across the lobby to retaliate. I was right behind her when she just went POOF! I was staring at Ben whose eyes were mirroring my surprise.
“Huh.”
I started giggling at his eloquence, then I let out a full-belly laugh, and nearly couldn't stop. I got only a chuckle or two out of him. He wasn't comfortable with laughing. Not as loudly as I was used to.
“She was a Program.” His words snapped me back.
“ A program? That can't be. The Academy is the only one who can initiate programs. How could they have known we were together?”
“Maybe they found out.”
“If they had found out, we would be in a lot worse trouble right now...and we wouldn't still be on this field trip!”
Ben shrugged it off...how very Ben-like. We walked out the doors together into the cool night. I gave a tiny jump that put me in the air and sent me forward at a walking pace. I liked doing this to annoy Ben who was limited to moving his gravitationally-pulled feet on the ground.
