by RMGilmour
As I walked down the hallway and into the empty front room, a million images of Earth, news stories and magazine articles began to materialize in my mind and I realized I had a lot to write about. It would keep me busy in the evenings. And Grid, lately, was gone most mornings, busy no doubt, with Hammond and his charges. Here, I found an opportunity to distance myself from him, and I wondered if he had intentionally set this up. If he had, I was grateful, but curious as to why, when he’d previously seemed to give every indication of the opposite.
As I walked through the room, I half expected the window to come alive with images, thoughts and feelings of the girl from Heart. I stared at it as I passed, keeping my steps at a steady pace, but the window was silent today. No doubt the boy was giving her time to adjust back to how it felt without him. I already knew what that outcome would be. She would give in. The feeling was too strong to resist, even for someone from Heart.
I sprinted down the stairs, two at a time, determined not to be drawn back should the window come to life, and raced across the courtyard to the food hall. Though upon seeing the giant window in that room, I didn’t want to stay there either, and I headed straight for the back stairwell.
“Hey,” I heard call behind me. “What’s your hurry?”
I turned half expecting Haize, but was relieved to see Lena.
“Just eager to get back outside.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” I answered, looking back at the window.
“You need to eat and I promise to drag you from the room if anything should happen,” she said, clearly understanding my hesitation.
I reluctantly followed her back into the hall, taking her suggestion of extra protein for breakfast. And as we left the room, the tension left my chest, and I breathed freely once more.
I was glad to be out of the Colony, and as we crossed the hills and the fields, I filled my lungs with the fresh, earthy air, and Jordan. His presence mingled with mine once more.
Some of the Rathe were already fixated on their crops, others were gathered in the hut along with Aleric and Haize, and immediately my thoughts turned to the reason why I went to the Arena in the first place. I hadn’t even thought to ask her last evening.
“Haize, how was your meeting yesterday? Are they still planning war?” I whispered.
“No, not yet anyway.”
“But it’s coming,” Lena finished.
“You don’t know that,” Haize argued.
“Yes, I do, and if you spent more time around your own you would know it too.”
“What’s been said?” Aleric interjected.
“Nothing needs to be said,” Lena told him. “All training levels are at maximum. Haize we could really use your help out there, Mason’s too,” though she only mouthed his name.
“He can’t make it today,” Aleric informed her, then lowering his voice, he looked at me. “And neither can Jordan. Mason has plans of his own it seems and needs his help.”
I tried not to let the news lower my spirits, I didn’t want my happiness to be so completely dependent upon being with him. But I couldn’t stop the sinking feeling within.
“I thought you wanted to be strong like a warrior?” Lena asked me. Not quite catching her meaning, I could only stare back up at her. “Lose the pouty face,” she sneered. A faint line of disappointment, or maybe it was disgust, creased across her forehead.
I hadn’t realized I was pouting, but I wasn’t surprised. Two days without him was going to be unbearable. Though I would need to work on not making it unbearable for everyone around me. I stifled an apology that tried to bubble its way out of me, knowing it would only annoy her more, and instead I cast my gaze out across the fields toward the Arena.
I lost myself in his image, and the warmth within me stirred, sensing his presence as it called to me. I barely heard the discussion that ensued between Haize and Lena, but as their tone intensified, I tried to catch some of what they were saying. Haize didn’t want to help them if they were going to act rashly, the last time they tried too many were lost. But Lena reminded her of her duty to Heart, as a warrior’s healer first and foremost, she should want to help her people.
The end of their discussion however, puzzled me. Haize always seemed to be the one in charge, making the decisions, but in this instance, Lena spoke as though she was superior. I forced away Jordan’s image and focused more on what they were saying.
“They may not utter a sound when injured, but they feel the pain just the same. Would you see them suffer when they fall? Even through training?” Lena argued. “There are not enough healers for the number of warriors out there. Haize, you’re needed, don’t turn away from us now.”
Haize briefly nodded, conceding to Lena’s request.
“You’re right,” she sighed.
“You should go,” Aleric agreed, hugging her briefly. “They need you.”
∞
Haize ran on ahead at full speed, but Lena kept pace with me. She was silent the whole way. Occasionally, I would catch her glancing at me as though there was something she needed to say, or ask. Several times, I almost broke my own silence in an attempt to get her to talk, but I figured she would say whatever it was, when she was ready.
The trip seemed to take less time than yesterday, though that was most likely due to the fact that the closer we came to the dome, the more vivid the memories became of the previous day’s fight. I was not looking forward to it at all, and I hoped I would not be fighting Lena again.
Inside the great room, I began level three, and it took me through a series of twists and turns, which I’d managed to reproduce without too much help from the warrior suit. Level four was the same as three only faster. The speed at which I approached the ceiling and then plummeted toward the ground left me shaking, even after eight tries.
“Four is much harder than three,” Lena advised. “The first three are really learning how to move. Four is where the speed and force really pick up.”
I didn’t want to say anything, but I was sure I would remain at level four for some time to come.
Task two was the center of the room again and the return of the red rocket. I wasn’t sure if that was indeed what it was, but that was how I thought of it. Though Lena still hadn’t told me how to defeat it, and I knew I was going to feel its pain again. I flew faster, twisted sooner, tried everything I could to get it to smash itself into the wall or burn itself out, but it remained steadfast upon my trail.
During its chase, I remembered the actions Lena had taught me in the underground room, and I realized the pulse, or the frequency from one of my hands would stop it, or at least slow it down. I turned to face it, but before I could make my move I felt its sting pierce my left thigh. The pain ceased all flying motion and I fell, barely stopping myself from crashing. I sat in a heap cradling my leg and waited for the million, pointed needles to dissipate.
Lena was not waiting and watching me this time. She was across the room punching, kicking, and wrestling with a ferocity that I didn’t think she was capable of. Her target was a giant of a man I was sure I’d never seen before. He moved impossibly fast, but she still bested him. However, when they both rose from the ground, he disappeared, and I realized it was a simulation.
I gaped at her condition as she approached me; red patches spattered one side of her face and finger marks made a clear impression around the top of her neck. But she didn’t seem to feel any of it. She grinned at my still open-mouthed expression, and reached down with both of her hands, yanking me up.
“Don’t worry, you’re not ready for that yet,” she chuckled, and led me to the final mat.
After almost a half hour of the flexing and stretching movements, I could feel the ache in my muscles even within the suit, and I hoped Lena would bring out one of Castor’s serums as she’d done the previous day, but no such luck.
And at the Arena, we didn’t stop upon the landing at the top, instead we went straight
down the hole to the fight rooms below.
“Are you going to teach me how to defend myself today, or are you just going to knock me around again?” I asked as we stepped into the room.
“You mean it wasn’t fun for you yesterday?” she teased. “Move fast, aim straight.”
I had but a second to try to remember which hand did what, but instead of thinking about it, I rose my right arm and emitted a pulse toward her. But she ducked away, laughing, and raising her own hands at me. I twisted away, but the green light seared my right shoulder, and I rose my left hand at her, followed by my right, but with every attempt, my strikes only managed to beat up the walls behind her.
And once again, it didn’t take long before I was in a crumpled heap, covered in dust and pieces of the wall after slamming into it. But I couldn’t move; I was sure every bone in my body was broken. Tactfully, Lena gave me a moment to get my emotions under control before briefly inspecting me. She handed me a thick, brown serum, and pulled me one handed, to my feet. Her other arm hung stiff at her side.
“Come on,” she said. “I need to really fight, and you’ve had enough already. I’ll take you to Haize.”
“You’re going into the stadium?” I mumbled around the blood that I could still taste in my mouth, despite the muddy serum.
“Of course,” she chuckled.
“Can I watch?” I was sure the answer was no. Grid had already told me there were no spectators at the Arena. But if I was fighting, or at least learning to, then I couldn’t be considered a mere spectator anymore.
“I doubt Haize will be done with you before I’m finished.”
I stumbled beside her, down a long corridor in the opposite direction from which we’d entered the room, thankful that the suit was absorbing most of what I should have been feeling. I was sure that without it, I’d be stifling a scream.
The corridor though seemed endless, perhaps because I needed it to end quickly, and we exited into a well-lighted, pale-grey room filled with sweaty, bleeding warriors. None were complaining, nor seemed injured very much, though all studied Lena as we passed them. A wide doorway at the end opened up to a larger room, filled with exam tables and not much of anything else. And Haize’s jaw dropped as she looked up to see us entering.
If that was her reaction, I didn’t want to know what I looked like. But it wasn’t me she initially pulled onto a table, it was Lena. She only indicated for me to take up residence on the empty one beside it.
It was then that I realized that Lena didn’t look right. She was holding her arm at a wrong angle, and her shoulder was misshapen, out of joint. Haize pulled from the air beside the table, a lighted square and entered her commands onto the air-screen. A moment later, a green light emitted from the ceiling above Lena and scanned her body. And then in one painful intake of air, she was pulled back into shape, her shoulder corrected.
“Thank you,” she breathed. Haize continued on with programming her screen while Lena flexed her arm out, up and down, and nodded to Haize as she slid off the table.
Haize turned to me and pulled a similar air-screen from beside my table.
Though before proceeding with the scan, she gave me a tube of the same murky fluid Lena had given me the day before.
I only looked at her questioning, my nose turning up at the smell.
“You don’t want to feel what is about to happen,” she told me.
Once my limbs were numbed, the scan ran the length of my body, and I closed my eyes against the pale light.
“If you can heal her in time, send her out to watch,” Lena laughed, on her way out.
“I hardly think that’s wise,” Haize said to me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Lena is training you. She did this to you,” and waved her hand across my body, indicating the damage. “It would not help you to see her fight, at least not yet.”
“But I already saw her fight the simulation at the dome.”
She snorted, “Nowhere near the same thing.”
Again, I felt a need to ask her why she wouldn’t want me to watch her, but she didn’t give me a chance to respond.
“What I’d like to know,” she asked. “Is how you dislocated her shoulder?”
I caught her meaning, me specifically, a beginner, maiming someone as advanced as Lena, and a brief moment of pride filled me, but I let it go, hoping it didn’t mean harder training tomorrow. However, I thought back over each moment since entering the Arena, trying to pinpoint the moment I’d hurt her.
“Actually, I don’t know. I don’t even remember when it happened,” I told her, which was true. I couldn’t even remember seeing her fall.
I kept my eyes closed while feeling my insides pulled and clamped. There was no pain, thanks to the foul fluid, it was just… weird and uncomfortable.
And I wasn’t keeping track of time, although I may have fallen asleep, for it didn’t seem very long before Lena was back with a large slice across her forehead, one arm held tight to her chest, and she was trying to walk straight, but her ankle wouldn’t cooperate.
I wanted to jump up and run to her, but she only grinned and lay upon the table beside me.
“You should see the other guy,” she joked.
Haize pulled the air-screen once more, to float before her, and immediately began the scan, bringing her screen to life with numbers, letters and lines that I couldn’t read, and I didn’t even want to try to understand.
Shortly after, a huge bulk under a grey sheet, floated into the room, guided by a smaller man I hadn’t met before. He had tiny, barely discernible scars, that crisscrossed his face and other exposed areas of his skin. I glanced at Lena, but she was grinning as they passed, and I figured that was the poor guy that went up against her.
The healer moved the injured warrior to an empty table at the other end of the room, where he set about performing similar functions as Haize.
“Is he ok?” I asked Lena.
“I’ve no idea, but I’m sure he will be.”
“What did you do to him?”
“What I do to them all,” she scoffed. “Defeat them.”
I wanted to question her further, but decided another time might be better after the warning look Haize threw my way. I was glad then, that I hadn’t seen her fight. I’m quite sure Haize knew me well enough by now, to know that I most likely wouldn’t have the nerve to train with her again, if I knew what she was capable of. But a small part of me was still curious to see.
∞
“Let’s go, you,” Lena poked me with the arm I’d earlier dislocated, and I feared what that might mean for our next round of training. Though I didn’t know how many days in a row I was going to be able to take being slammed into walls.
Once we were at the cliff top, she turned to me, grinning.
“Race you!” she said, but then stopped, as she stared back in the direction of the Colony.
She took several small steps forward, studying the horizon. I scanned what I could in that general direction, but I could not see what had affected her.
“The signals are out,” she whispered.
“What signals?” I questioned, but she only turned back, grabbed my arm and leapt off the cliff. My initial reaction was to scream, but the moment I looked down I saw the river bunch up below us, providing a soft, wide landing space. And the moment we stepped onto the sidewalk, it resumed its streamlined shape.
Lena then pulled me through the dome wall, and left me in the initial long room, urging me to stay, as she raced on ahead.
Minutes later she was back, followed by a hoard of warriors. Each stepped into a cubicle to remove their suits before charging through the dome wall. She waited until the bulk of them were through, then pulled me to the side.
“Follow us back, but slowly. You hang back,” she urged. “And go straight to the Colony.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, fearing Jordan had been caught out of the city.
“
The wards have disrupted our signals around the fields,” she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. “The signals protect us while we are out during the day.”
“The wards are out now?” Understanding slowly sinking in. “And the Rathe are in the fields.”
Thankfully, Haize was in the Arena, but Aleric and Castor would have been outside. And Jordan…
Lena followed the warriors through the wall, leaving me to stare at the blank space she’d just passed through. I wanted to find my way back down to Haize, but I was sure she would be on her way up, and I didn’t want to get lost within the dome.
I took a deep steadying breath, trying not to fear the worst, and followed Lena’s path back up the cliff wall. But I couldn’t sense him. Not even a faint trace of him remained.
He and Mason had better be back in the city.
“Be brave,” I whispered to myself, and ran toward the Colony.
14
Beyond the City
I took Lena’s advice and decided against trying to catch up to her; I had no idea who the wards were, or what they were capable of.
“Stay with me,” Haize urged, pulling ahead of me. I glanced back to see more warriors behind us, spread out in a long line before the dome, like a guard protecting their kingdom.
Upon approaching the Colony, Haize ushered me toward the entrance, telling me to stay inside, while she rushed toward the fields. The strain in her voice, stopped me from arguing, and I hurried down the darkened stairway and out into the food hall. But it was empty.
I paced the length of the hallway not sure if I should try to help, or do as I was told. Instead, I ran to the apartment, hoping to find Grid, but he was nowhere inside, nor was he with Hammond or Rebecca, and they couldn’t tell me where to find him either. Giving up that search, I reluctantly trudged back to the food hall. And waited.
It wasn’t long though, before they poured in from both entrances - Rathe, Heart and Grid. Most were silent as they carried the injured, laying them out upon the food hall floor. I helped push the tables and chairs against the walls, to make room.