by Janna Ruth
That should be easy enough. I put on the headphones and wait for the first sound to play. First, there is some static, then a sound like gravel sliding down a slope. It takes me a moment to concentrate on what is being said.
Apparently, it’s too long because Wulf speaks up. “Rika?”
“Sorry. Can I listen to it again?” This is harder than I thought.
“Sure. Did you hear anything?” he asks.
I nod quickly, not wanting him to think I’m a total dud. “Yeah, sure. There’s two… I think it’s only two gnomes discussing the rock quality and lichen?” I’m not sure if I understood it correctly. Gnomes always gnash they’re teeth so hard, it’s difficult to understand them.
Wulf stares at me flatly. “You’re making this up, right?”
Meanwhile, I play the sound again. I shake my head at Wulf then gasp when it all clicks into place. “I got it now. Sorry. So, one of them is pregnant, and she’s craving lichen. You know those spots that grow on the rock? Her friend thinks it’s disgusting and ruining a perfectly good rock, but well, the baby wants what the baby wants.”
I thought I did pretty good on this task, but Wulf buries his head in his hands, and Miriam pats his back to comfort him.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Miriam shakes her head. “Don’t be. You’re doing fine. Next one?”
We go through a couple more, though it looks to me like Wulf has already given up on me. The last sound file plays a sizzling sound like an egg in the pan or a sausage on a barbecue. I listen to it three times, and each time, I tear up a little more.
After a while, Wulf cocks his head. “What is it now?”
“Nothing.” I wipe my cheek and blink the tears away. “It just reminded me of another salamander.” The one on file had been happy, cooing about how nice and warm her rock was.
Wulf checks with Miriam, who comes to my assistance. “Oh, she’s probably referring to the one she caught with Camille.”
“He just wanted to be warm.” I’m still not over how I tricked him into the tracking tube.
“Rika managed to lure it into the tracking tube without weakening the salamander or activate the tube, making sure it stayed in perfect condition,” Miriam explains, still in awe about that particular feat.
“He,” I correct her automatically. Then I add, “I didn’t lure him. I thought he would be brought to Iceland. That he would be able to enjoy the heat in peace there.”
Wulf scratches his chin as he processes both of our accounts. “Most salamanders are brought to Iceland.”
It makes me feel a tiny bit better, though I can’t shake off the memory of Miriam’s initial excitement about potentially studying such a perfect individual. “Anyway, this one is a salamander, and she’s enjoying the heat of a warm summer day.”
Wulf still seems to be unhappy with how the test is going so far. He turns around the scoring sheet with a big sigh and says, “All right. Next up is a reaction test.”
“What does that mean?” I take off the headphones and give them to Miriam.
She puts them away and gets up to retrieve another piece of equipment, explaining. “We’ll fit you with some VR glasses. You’re gonna stand over there, where you have some space, and then there’s a simulation that will basically take you on a walk. Some spirits will appear only by sound, some by video. What we’re measuring is how quickly you become aware of them.”
To that purpose, Wulf puts down a stopwatch. Meanwhile, Miriam leads me to the mentioned spot and fits the VR headset on me. “Just say gnome or nymph as soon as you become aware. You don’t need to tell us any details. If you happen to know which direction they are in, you can point towards it. The program will register it.
The headset shuts out the lab, making me stumble in response. Luckily, the darkness is soon replaced by bright images. If you haven’t tried it for yourself, it’s really hard to explain. I know for a fact that I’m still standing in a room in the citadel, but my brain seems to think that we’re out in the forest. It seriously messes with my sense of balance because I expect the floor to be soft, yet it is ungiving. The sounds make it worse. There is the rustle of leaves and a bird singing in the distance, but I can also hear the ventilators of Miriam’s computers running. The only things that are missing are touch and smell. This virtual world looks right but feels so wrong.
“We’re starting the simulation now,” Wulf announces, and I spin around because I can hear his voice, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
I want to tell him that I’m not ready since I still feel so disoriented, but there’s already a dryad moving between trees. Raising my arm in her direction, I say. “Uhm, pine dryad over there, and… Woah.” I duck just in time to escape a sylph that was flying towards me. Instead of catching myself on the moss, I feel dust and the cold floor.
My stomach turns. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” I swallow down the bile before saying, “There was a sylph. They’re gone now, but they came from there.” Gosh, Rika, get your act together, or you gonna blow this.
I can hear a creaking behind me and look around. It’s just a deer. Holding my breath, I wait with getting up until it turns around and jumps away. Carefully, I get back to my feet, arms stretched out for balance. “Sorry, this is weird.”
“Can you see any other spirits?” Wulf’s calm voice centres me.
I hold on to it like a balance bar and twist around. “There’s another dryad in that tree, but she’s resting, so you can’t really see much.” A rustle to my left. “And a salamander down here.” I crouch down and stretch out my hand, but the salamander has no interest in making my acquaintance. He scuttles through my fingers and vanishes under a rock, which reminds me sharply that he isn’t real.
“Don’t be scared,” Miriam announces. “I’m just going to switch up the program. We’re now entering the scenario test.” The world around me goes dark. The only thing I can hear are her steps. “Steady.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m handing you two controllers. They will look like a staff in virtual reality. It’s basically like a game: you have to try to defeat all spirits. But don’t worry, they’re not real. While it might feel like it, they can’t hurt you.” She steps away again.
Great, now I need to show off my non-existing fighting abilities. When the screen turns back on, it looks like they just reused some of the images from the previous tests. I hesitate with hitting the dryad that crosses my path, remembering how she just visited one of her trees. As she runs past me, I point to her. “There’s a dryad.”
“Use the staff, Rika.” Wulf’s voice sounds a bit strained.
The scenario changes, and I ‘walk’ along a river. Something splashes from the water next to me, making me spin around, my heart racing in my chest. Because of my sudden movement, the staff hits the nymph accidentally. It seems to be enough to see her splash to water. When the sylph from before swoops down on me, I hit her squarely in the face.
The riverside turns into a mountain scenario. Someone shoots small pebbles at me. I duck under them and look around to find a gnome. She’s snarling at me, the quartz veins in her face tightening. I take some distance, and she sticks to her spot, gnashing her molars. Carefully, I approach again, only for the shower of rocks to begin.
Quickly, I step back and all but throw down my staff, but of course, the controllers remain in my hand, and now the staff hangs weirdly in my knees. “You want me to kill a gnome mum protecting her nest?”
I want to take off the VR glasses, but the staff in my hands continues to confuse me. Annoyed, I try to let go of it, only to realise that I just need to slip the controllers out of my hands. The staff simulation has a severe defect when I put both controllers into the left hand and rip off the headset with my right.
I blink at the sudden change of scenery as my brain readjusts to reality. Somehow, I’m standing two metres away from where I started, facing the back wall of the lab. Turning to the side, I can see Wulf and Miriam engaged in a lively discussion over my test papers.
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“Did I fail?” I ask, a little aggressively. I’m still upset about the virtual gnome mum I was supposed to attack. The one that they must have filmed or at least studied to incorporate her in their little test.
Wulf turns to me, seeming annoyed. “You can’t fail an NAV.”
“But…” I just want him to spit it out.
He lifts the test papers off the table, then lets them drop back, clearly agitated. “The entire test is about your perception regarding spirits. The scenario test is scored by a range of model reactions. Some spirit seekers never notice the attacks. Some are wary, others afraid. The good ones move quickly to address the danger. There is no scenario for refusing to attack while being clearly aware of the spirit.”
The hairs on my forearms stand up as I cross my arms in careful defiance. I will not defend my choice not to be a mindless robot. “What’s the problem?”
Wulf kneads his forehead before looking up at me. “I don’t know if I should give you full points for it or zero.”
“I’d go with full points,” Miriam argues. “Her eye movement shows that she clearly perceived the spirits as soon as they appeared. The NAV is all about your perceptive abilities. She’s flawless in that regard.”
Frustrated, Wulf throws down the pen and leans back, crossing his arms. “I’m not sure how representative your score will be.”
“Does it matter if it’s not 100% accurate?” In my opinion, the spirit seekers are putting too much weight into this value, anyway. “You know what I can do. So, what if the score is a little off?”
For a moment, he looks stunned. Then he sits up straight again. “It matters. The entire SSA is built upon the NAV. But never mind. We’re gonna score it as it is, wait for the medical results, and take a large error into account.” He tries for a smile, but it comes off as a tired exercise.
“You did well, Rika,” Miriam assures me, already tidying up.
Apparently, I can go now. A few hours have passed, and I’m starving. Though Miriam claims I’ve done well, I feel like I’ve failed in Wulf’s eyes. And for some reason, that bothers me.
CHAPTER FIVE
WAITING FOR THE results is the worst, and I don’t even know why. The results won’t change anything. I won’t be able to see more or fewer spirits. They won’t make me stronger or faster. I still have to do the training. Yet somehow, it feels like a weight is hanging over me. As if those results will tell me whether I really belong here or not.
In the meantime, I’ve gone back to physical training, though now that her time has freed up a little, it’s with Camille rather than Lukas, and I think we’re both glad for it. Wulf joins us occasionally, and I catch myself watching him more than I watch myself during the exercises we run in the training centre.
Compared to Lukas, Wulf has this easy confidence, as if he were born to be a leader. Though Lukas is three years older than me, he still looks very much like a boy, clean-shaven and rosy-cheeked. With his thirty-one years, Wulf is a man. His face is more angular, with a few early lines giving him character. He looks like he’s been through some battles and come out victorious. Don’t I know that for a fact?
“Let’s move on,” Camille says. We’ve been warming up on the treadmill for the last twenty minutes or so.
“What?” I snap my head around to her. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
She frowns a little. “Let’s move on to the next exercise. Core strength.”
I really want to listen to her, but Wulf and Lukas have switched to weights now. Wulf is wearing a tight shirt that tightens even more when he flexes his muscles.
Camille lowers her voice. “Unless you want to stay here and watch, that is.”
Blushing hard, I tear my gaze from the commander and shake my head. “No, let’s go.”
I follow Camille to one of the other gym rooms. This one has less equipment and is more of a wide-open space with mats covering most of the floor, perfect for stretching, and I guess, indoor sparring. Camille gets two big gym balls out of an adjacent room and rolls one of them over to me.
Following Camille’s training regime makes me feel a bit more accomplished than the cardio and weight training Lukas forced me to do. Camille is all about core strength, and while I can’t compete with her, I feel like I’m actually making some progress.
As we plank balance opposite to each other, she smirks at me. “So, do you fancy him?”
“Who?” I ask, fighting hard to keep my balance. The blushing of my cheeks has nothing to do with the exercise.
Camille laughs. “Let’s call him Mr X.”
“Not X,” I groan. Leon has taken it upon himself to teach me maths, and I’ve already had enough of the variable x. Initially, he wanted to teach me the maths behind trapping, but we quickly noticed that I didn’t even understand systems of equations.
“You rather want to use W?” Camille asks.
“I don’t fancy anyone,” I reply tersely. “Never have, never will.”
For some reason, that amuses Camille. “You never had a crush on anyone? You never…?” She leaves the end of the sentence for me to imagine.
“I’m not a virgin if that’s what you’re asking.” And no, spirits be thanked, I’ve always managed to avoid physical contact on the streets. I actually lost my virginity relatively young to a boy with dark locks and even darker eyes. But that was a summer night’s dream in the grass that belongs to another time long, long ago. “I have enough on my plate without adding some relationship drama.”
Camille changes position, now planking on the side. “I guess it’s difficult when you’ve lived on the streets for so long.”
I’m still uncomfortable with talking about my life on the streets, or any life before that. Never look back, never ahead. The past doesn’t matter; the future will happen when it does. There’s only now. Only today, and maybe the next day. Everything else is either too painful or too fragile. But relationships don’t work that way. Those are for people with futures.
“I’m sorry,” Camille says, now a lot more serious. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”
“No, it’s okay. You asked whether I enjoyed watching… a certain someone.” That someone comes straight to my mind, showing off his pretty biceps and deltoid muscle. “And sure, he’s a handsome man.” With a huff, I lower myself onto my knees for a break.
Camille turns back to the middle, still holding her perfect shape. “He is. You should see the looks we get on patrol. Tall, dark, handsome. I prefer women, but if I didn’t, and if he weren’t a good friend of mine, I would certainly give him a second look.”
“Fine! I wouldn’t exactly say no if he…” If he what? Do I really think that Wulf would make a move on me? He doesn’t even like me. I’m the intruder, the rusty spot in his well-oiled team. Judging from the little I know about him, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy that would date someone in his team, even if he looked twice at me. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
Still holding her balance, Camille moves to the other side. “Why not? He’s not all work, you know?”
“He’s not?” Gosh, cut it out, Rika. There’s no reason for your stomach to feel like this. It doesn’t change a thing.
“He’s dating,” Camille says slowly, savouring each word. “Not that there’s anyone at the moment. He’s very much single as far as I know. You know, just in case that makes a difference.”
I hate how casual she makes it sound. “It doesn’t. You know how complicated it is, or you wouldn’t have sneaked around Miriam for so long.” Yes, topic change.
Camille’s balance falters, and she falls to her knees, looking wide-eyed at me. “You know?”
“The boys might be blind, but it was pretty obvious to me.” A little quieter, I ask, “Are you together now? I saw you on Teufelsberg.”
She lowers her eyes and takes a deep breath, then lifts her core again. “We’re taking it slow, but... yes,” she says, no longer able to fight off a smile.
&n
bsp; “That’s great!” I lift my body again, ready to give it another try.
I can see that Camille wants to talk more about it, but at that moment, the guys enter the room, and we stop our conversation. At least, verbally. With her eyes, Camille makes it very clear that I’m welcome to sneak some more looks at Wulf.
I am twenty-three years old, and I’ve never had a relationship that went beyond a week or two. I had my first kiss and sex when I was thirteen years old, but that was one summer night. There have been other boys, but we were always on the move. Then, when I went to live on the streets, I preferred to keep to myself. Like with alcohol and drugs, I had heard too many horror stories. Who would want a boyfriend that overdosed next week? Or got caught in a knife fight? And those were the good options.
These thoughts are running through my head as I stand naked in front of my mirror and look at myself.
My life has changed, I’m trying to tell myself. I no longer live on the streets. The people I meet aren’t ticking time bombs. I might even have a future, though I have no idea how to handle that yet. The thing is, I could have a relationship now. It’s a possibility, even if it’s not with him. Definitely not with him.
I mean, look at me. You can take the girl from the streets, but can you take the streets from the girl? My ribs are poking out under my skin. Even the nurse made a note of it. There is a rash on my stomach that hasn’t gone away for two years, and there are ugly scars on my calf from when I got tangled up with some barbed wire. Though it soaked my pants with blood, I’d never seen a doctor about it. The wound healed eventually, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. And speaking of scars…
Twisting in front of the mirror, I look at the prominent scars running down both of my arms. Lichtenberg figures, the nurse called them, marks left by lightning. Their resemblance to tree roots or ferns would make them somehow pretty if it weren’t for the angry red of my skin.
A sudden knock jolts me out of my thoughts. Quickly, I grab a towel and wrap it around my naked body. “Coming!”