The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp: Novice

by Morgan Feldman

The park was absolutely gorgeous. Two metallic trees marked the entrance, their branches intertwined in an arch six feet above my head, sparkling like fairy dust. Once we passed under the threshold, the ground immediately changed to soft rubber and the smell of fresh mint filled the air.

  Six rows of identical skinny trees fanned out before us, creating paths between them. We choose one and followed it to a miniature garden of blue and purple flowers interspersed with silver sculptures positioned in an expanding spiral at our feet. The sound of running water floated up from hidden speakers. Small benches had been sculpted to look like part of the landscape, and the moment my hand brushed against the soft surface of one, I desperately wished I were an Artist, so I could come sit there for hours and take pictures or paint.

  Next we entered into an open area, with an ice-skating rink, various venders, and a large circular coffee shop.

  “Who’s up for a drink?” Altus asked rubbing his hands together. He didn’t wait for us to answer before heading towards the dark brown awning where he bought a decaf chocolate mocha for Clint, an iced soy double vanilla latte with extra foam for me, and a cup of tea for himself.

  “He doesn’t drink coffee,” Clint explained, shaking his head, “but he stops in coffee shops every chance he gets.”

  “Sometimes the best treasure isn’t what’s called attention too, but what’s overlooked.” Altus said, pressing his cup to the liquid sugar dispenser. “Besides, coffee is bitter.”

  We walked around the field, enjoying our drinks in the cool simulated breeze until I tripped, spilling coffee all over my sleek pleated skirt. Thankfully, the fabric was stain-proof, but that didn’t keep the uncomfortable feeling of damp clothes away. Leaving Clint and Altus to admire an imitation orchard, I ran back to grab a few napkins.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Vallanie Sharp,” I turned at the sound of my name to find the only person who I considered running into worse than spilling coffee on myself.

  “Luci,” I growled, dropping the napkins and spinning towards her, “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on vacation,” she replied with a grin, tossing her thick, perfectly straightened hair over her shoulder. Its new dark color perfectly matched the shade of her heart.

  “Good. The world’s still safe; you’re not a perceiver yet.” I reached for the napkins, turning my back to her.

  “Actually, I am. Jessica Septus choose me as her apprentice last week." Leaning against the counter next to me, she twirled a long sparkling necklace around her index finger. "She was just too busy winning the annual Elite award and everything to start training me then, so it got pushed back to Monday.”

  “Yeah,” I tried not to let my jealousy show, “she must have been too busy to pick a decent apprentice too.”

  Luci glared, taking a small step forward. “We’ll just see how decent I am when I take the tests before you.”

  I stepped up to meet her. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “Val!” I heard Clint’s voice call out my name and turned to see him walking towards us. He gave Luci a curious look. “Is everything all right?”

  Luci looked at him like he was as welcome as an electrical shortage, but her gaze quickly warmed and, much to my surprise, she threw her arms around him in a hug. “Oh, Clint, it’s such a pleasant surprise to see you!”

  Clint seemed to find the change unexpected as well, giving her a gentle awkward pat on the back before pulling quickly away.

  “Your mom told me you were coming to Central soon, but I didn’t think you’d be here already.” She clapped her hands together in excitement, “Tell me, how do you like being a healer?”

  “He’s a perceiver,” I said, glaring at her. Then turning to Clint, I added with a hint of sarcasm, “I didn’t know you two were such great friends.”

  “Oh, yes,” Luci looked back to me as if I was stain on the carpet she had forgotten about. “My mom works with his mom. As Researchers, they have actual jobs that make a difference, you know,” she said, condescendingly.

  I turned away from her in anger. “Whatever. Have fun catching up.”

  Storming to the outskirts of the field, I ended up on the edge of Pastel Garden, which is pretty much summed up by the name. Less than a minute later, Clint was at my side.

  “Hey,” he said, casually.

  I continued walking, refusing to acknowledge him.

  He watched me carefully, matching my pace in silence. At last, he stopped walking and turned to me. “I’m not really her friend, you know.”

  I didn’t stop. “Could have fooled me.”

  He moved in front of me, blocking my way. “Look, Val, the girl is practically crying for attention. Don’t give it to her. By letting her upset you, you’re giving her what she wants.”

  “Oh, really?” He had a point, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I didn’t see you doing anything to prevent her from getting exactly what she wanted.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I sighed. “Nothing.” I looked down at the coffee stain and frowned. It seemed everything I looked forward to ended in complete disappointment. “Let’s just meet back up with Altus and forget about this, OK?”

  Clint looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it, nodding slowly. We didn’t talk much to each other for a while, but as the afternoon drew on, the hostility lessened.

  “Well, today was fun.” Altus announced at dinner, remaining oblivious to our encounter. “What was everyone’s favorite part?”

  “Midnight Garden,” I answered immediately. Covered from high above with a ceiling made to look like the night sky, the plants and sculptures of Midnight Garden never saw the Light, but gleamed and sparkled in the false moonlight. It was beautiful. The ground sloped up to a white gazebo, with eighty thin columns supporting a rounded top, that revolved so slowly you hardly noticed until you sat down for ten minutes and walked out only to realize you’d stepped out in a completely different part of the garden than you’d entered. The view from there was spectacular. It felt like I was dreaming.

  Clint frowned, saying he didn’t appreciate it much. When I asked him why, he thought a moment, then answered, “It was too dark and too still. It’s what I’d imagine it would be like to fall asleep in a casket.”

  The thought was somewhat haunting. It kept me awake that night, worried that I’d close my eyes and open them to find a lid above me. I scolded myself for being afraid of something that didn’t exist anymore. Besides, I reasoned, Clint was wrong: It wasn’t like waking up in a casket, but more like falling asleep in a familiar room.

  It wasn’t long until our outings became a weekly ritual. We went to various parks, cafes, arcades, movie theaters, and museums. Once, we even went the Beach, a large complex at the edge of the city, with a wave pool and sandy shores. I was surprised to see Mr. Prime, of all people, manning a snack stand behind two large palm trees. He smiled at me as I typed in my order and waited for the cold drink to appear on the conveyor, but it was in the same way he smiled at the other customers, without any hint of recognition or even full consciousness, as if he were half asleep.

  I knew the trips weren’t a very productive use of time, but they were by far the highlight of my week every time, and I looked forward to them every minute my mind wasn’t preoccupied with an examination.

  We went to the Civitis Wildlife Museum once, which was a beautiful sight. I’d never been there before and I was half expecting it to be as boring as the history museum back home, with virtual models of old historic buildings and landmarks, and only one interesting simulation that you had to wait for half an hour in line just to play for ten minutes.

  It was nothing like that. There were living plants and animals of all shapes and sizes in various recreated habitats of the outside world.

  We started in the Room of Trees, which reminded me of the natural park back home, only the trees were a hundred times bigger. Some of them were encased in large bubbles of glass unde
r soft aqua illumination. Their trunks were so large, even if I could have touched them, I wouldn’t have been able to wrap my hands around them; their branches were so long, they scrapped against the edge of the glass.

  Next, we went to the aquarium, which was a giant underwater maze. It was fun to try and find our way out while watching fish and sharks and stingrays soar above, around, and below us, behind thick glass. The exit was highlighted by a case of multi-colored jellyfish that looked so cute as they scrunched themselves up, I thought about buying one.

  Clint refused to go in the reptile section, so our time there was short. I found it fascinating to watch lizards scurry up tiny bushes and snakes coil themselves around sturdy branches. My favorite was the chameleon, which blended in to its surroundings so well I could hardly see it. I watched one crawl from a nest of brown pines to the base of a pink flower, its skin slowly shifting hue. I wondered how they recognized each other when they were always changing.

  The historical section was my least favorite, because it was only old movies of species that went extinct long before I was born. I tried to hurry through it, but Altus and Clint lagged behind, listening to monotonous information I pretended to absorb while tracing patterns with my fingers in the glowing carpet.

  Before we knew it, it was lunchtime. Altus remembered work he had to do, and rushed off to Central for ‘ten minutes’ that turned into two hours.

  “He does this,” Clint said, when I started to worry. “He’ll be back before Lights Out.”

  I frowned, not liking his mentor’s blatant disregard for time, but unable to do anything about it, and afraid to say anything about it, in case Clint would take offence. It reminded me that, even though Scia was annoying at times, there were some things I loved about her.

  After waiting almost an hour, we continued to follow the digital map we’d been handed at the entrance, which led us to the feline section. Large furry cats roared ferociously, while tiny scruffy ones purred and rolled over, exposing their soft bellies to the world. I liked them, because they reminded me of Dali.

  I looked down at a lion through the holographic projection of jagged fan-shaped jungle leaves. He was so clear from this distance, I could see each individual hair in his mane from ten feet up and twenty feet away. I wondered what he would see if he looked up just then. I knew he wouldn’t see us, because that was the whole point of the hologram: to trick the lion to stay in a certain area by making it believe there was no way to escape.

  But I wondered what he did see, and even more, if he ever got bored of it.

  “Clint,” I moved my gaze to where the ground sloped upwards about two hundred feet away. I watched two lion cubs wrestled playfully. “What do you think the lion sees when it looks at us?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. A mountain? A crevice or something of the sort.”

  I nodded. That made sense. “What if it decides it wants to try and climb it, or jump it?”

  “Why?” He rested a hand on the dark railing in front of us. “It’s not going to go anywhere it thinks is treacherous without a reason, and I’m sure that hologram doesn’t provide one.”

  I gave another nod and continued to watch the lions paw at one another. One of the cubs tackled the other. Before he could pin her down, she jumped up and ran. She ran straight towards us and skidded to a stop, blinking furiously directly in our direction.

  “She’s looking at us.” I said excitedly, “Do you think she can see us?”

  “She shouldn’t,” he said with uncertainty. “It’s impossible.”

  “Maybe she sensed us.” Her brother pouched on her tail, and she turned from us, once again enthralled in her skirmish with her former enthusiasm, as if she had never stopped. “Do you ever get the feeling that there are people outside, watching us?”

  “What?” Clint turned to me with a look of shock, almost frightened that I would mention such a thing. He asked cautiously, “Why would you say that?”

  “I know it’s impossible.” I wanted to make sure he didn’t think that I was crazy. “I didn’t mean that I think there are. No one could survive the air. But… do you ever imagine that maybe there are? Do you ever get that feeling that someone is watching you, but you can’t see them?”

  He turned back to the lions, leaning his arms against the rail. “Yeah,” he glanced at me without turning his head, “I get that feeling sometimes.”

  “Me too.” I couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to know other people had similar thoughts. Other people who weren’t crazy. I got the courage to continue. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be something else.”

  “Like a lion?” He fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt, rolling it up from his wrist like he was annoyed with the clingy material.

  “Sure like a lion. But I was thinking more like a stylist. Or a technician, or something.” He gave me a curious look, and I was prodded to continue, “I know they’re Workers, and I wouldn’t be good at it, but it would still be fun to try, you know?” I turned back to the lions, which had resumed their playfulness and were tackling each other once more. “Sometimes, I wish I was an artist so I could paint like Mom. It’s stupid, I know, but it just looks like it would be so much fun.”

  He smiled. “You can paint with out being an artist.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean ‘how’?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have the right genes.”

  “There are no genes for painting. You just need to be able to hold the brush.” He turned to me and I felt him dissecting my expression, before his eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve never painted before?”

  I was offended. I felt I had to defend myself. “It’s expensive. I took art in school, and they never let us paint.”

  Clint stood up tall and looked around. “Where can we buy canvas and paint?”

  I stared at him a moment and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Not that kind of painting,” I said through a dying stream of laughter, “We’ve done that in primary school. I meant real painting, you know, on a computer. Digital Art.”

  “Of course. I was only kidding.” He smiled. A stroke of burgundy appeared on the base of his neck, and he pulled his sleeve back down. He took a step back and turned, both from the lion and me. “Let’s go look at the birds.”

  The bird section was impressive, and I think it would have been more enjoyable if Clint had been in a better mood. He retreated into silence, and I was left to watch the kaleidoscope of wings drift overhead. A small red one landed on a branch inches from me. I was tempted to reach out and pet it. It was neat how someone had decided the birds were harmless enough for us to be in the same space as them. Unlike the lions, we could touch the birds, if the animals let us. There was no force field, no holographic projection: just a room molded from the same material as the dome, which was permeable only to the smallest oxygen particles, serving as an air filter while keeping out rain, or, in the bird’s case, water from window washing.

  It was dinnertime before Altus met back up with us, and I was tired from having walked around all day. The three of us ate at a local diner with black and purple checkered tiles, decent food, and the most delicious chocolate cake ever.

  When we were finishing our desert, Altus asked Clint and me what our favorite part of the zoo was. “The chameleons,” I answered at once.

  Clint thought a moment before slowly answering, “The lions.”

  Altus gave a small nod and, when the conversation lagged so the sounds of nearby voices and scraping silverware could be heard over the hum of machines, he leaned back in his chair. “Doesn’t anyone want to know what my favorite part was?”

  Clint looked to him raising an eyebrow, the edge of his mouth inching towards a smile. “What was your favorite part?”

  Altus knew he had our attention and savored it, reaching out for his mug and taking a long gulp, and then another, before he placed it back down. “The people.”

  I w
atched Clint nod slowly, as if he was thinking the words over and slowly coming to an understanding.

  I turned from him and frowned. “How can the people be your favorite?” I asked. It didn’t make any sense to me. “They’re never the same.”

  “And that,” he said, swiping his wrist to pay as he stood to leave, “is precisely why.”

  Chapter 8: Zack Septus