Thirteen Forgotten Worlds (Seam Wardens Book 1)

by Brant Williams

  Bright, sharp pain cut through my shoulder, ripping muscles and tendons. Apparently, my protective shirt had been strained to its literal breaking point.

  My speed was so great that I bounced off the Bryling and careened into a wall, breaking my nose and right arm that I had reflexively thrown up to brace myself. I tumbled to a stop in a heap on the ground.

  Alexa knocked the Bryling I had dodged into a wall with a compression wave. It slumped to the ground, unmoving. The other Bryling suddenly found itself besieged by the silver Bryling that appeared to be on our side.

  I diverted all my enhancers into healing. There was no way I was going to be able to defeat Marcus while I was all beat up. I would only need a few seconds to heal the damage with all my enhancers focused on healing, but with the speed Marcus was traveling, I doubted I would get that luxury.

  In the first third of a second, I felt the muscles and tendons in my shoulder start to mend.

  Marcus now ran so fast he was running sideways along the walls.

  In the next third of a second, the bones in my arm knit together and healed.

  Marcus turned the corner and was now heading straight at me. He ran past Spencer’s cage – and fell.

  Marcus rolled, end over end, tumbling out of control, until he crashed into the wall not far from where I lay.

  Spencer let out a horrific scream of pain. His leg stuck out of the cage, bent in several places that it shouldn't have been. He had stuck his leg out and tripped Marcus as he ran past. In physics class, I had learned that Force equals Mass times Velocity, and Marcus was a big guy running really, really fast. Spencer's leg had taken on way more force than a human limb had ever been designed to withstand.

  In that final third of a second that Marcus tumbled into the wall, my shoulder wound sealed up, and once again I was fully functioning.

  There was no time to check on Spencer. I had only a couple of seconds to incapacitate or kill Marcus before he healed and came back at me. I leaped to my feet and ran straight at Marcus.

  He held his arms up defensively in an attempt to ward off my attack. Which would have been a smart idea if I had been trying to attack him.

  But I wasn’t.

  I grabbed the aerosol can off his belt and sprayed him in the face with the enhancement neutralizer. There was the briefest moment before the convulsions started where I saw the look of disbelief on Marcus’ face that he had been outwitted by a kid.

  I grinned wide as his eyes rolled back into his head and he twitched spasmodically on the floor.

  There was no time to waste. I knew from firsthand experience that this was only a temporary solution to stop him. Soon, he would regain consciousness and eventually his access to his enhancers would return.

  He was completely unbalanced from taking in too many enhancers and would either have to be killed or somehow locked up forever.

  Unless there was something I could do about it.

  I could still take on other enhancers.

  Without consciously making the decision, I bent over Marcus, pulled his mouth open, bent my head close to him and breathed in deeply.

  At first, nothing happened. Then, something small flew into my mouth and down my throat. But it was not the familiar sensation of taking on another enhancer like I had felt when helping Amy. This felt… wrong.

  I jerked back reflexively and gagged on what I had just inhaled. A burning sensation began spreading out through my chest and into my arms. The pain was excruciating. I felt as if my entire chest were pressed against a hot stove. I diverted all my enhancers to healing, but the pain didn't go away.

  The last thing I saw before passing out was the silver Bryling looming over me. Then, walls of blackness around my peripheral vision closed in and everything went dark.

  20

  First Assignments

  I woke up in a bed that was not my own. The walls around me were white and institutional-looking. The room spun as I tried to focus, so I closed my eyes and waited for the sensation to pass.

  My mouth felt like it was stuffed with dirty socks and my throat was coated with thorns. I needed a drink pretty badly.

  I risked opening my eyes again and saw that I was in what appeared to be a hospital room. I lay in a big bed with rails on either side. The bed was raised at an angle, so I was propped up about twenty degrees. Various machines and measurement devices lined the walls and beeped, whirred, or hummed in a strangely relaxing cacophony of sound.

  A small table sat a few feet away from my bed with a large glass of water and a straw resting on it. I reached for the water, but it was just agonizingly out of reach. If I were going to get this feeling out of my mouth, I would have to get out of bed and pull the table to me.

  I sat up and immediately regretted it. Everything started spinning again, and some of the monitors began beeping angrily at me.

  The door opened, and a lady dressed in a white coat barged in followed by two men in full Seam Warden tactical gear. All three looked solemn. When the lady saw me sitting up in bed, she ran over and began pushing me back down.

  “No. No. No,” she said. “You can’t get up yet. You need a lot more rest.”

  I reached a hand out and pointed towards the table. “Water,” I managed to whisper.

  The lady's face relaxed, and she smiled at me. "Of course," she said and held the glass close enough for me to sip from the straw. I almost objected to being treated like a baby, but just then a wave of dizziness overtook me.

  I took a long sip instead.

  The cool water felt amazing as it cut through the fuzz in my mouth and down my throat, making me feel almost human again. I sighed contentedly and took several more long drinks before the lady put the empty glass back on the table.

  Seeing there was no immediate threat that needed shooting, the two armed men left the room, leaving the woman – who had to be some sort of health care provider – and me alone.

  “Where am I?” I finally asked. Now that I was hydrated once again, I could speak more normally.

  “You are in the Seam Warden medical center,” the lady said. “I am Dr. Anderson, and those two gentlemen are your security detail.”

  “Security detail? Why do I need a security detail?”

  Dr. Anderson shrugged. “I don’t ask a lot of questions here. I treat people who need it and let the council sort out politics.”

  Fantastic. That didn’t sound ominous or creepy at all. “I don’t remember coming here.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Dr. Anderson said with a smile. “You were unconscious when they brought you in three days ago.”

  “Three days?” It took me a moment to process that. It felt like I had just closed my eyes and woke up here a few seconds later.

  “That’s right,” she said. “The first two of those days, I thought you were going to die, to be perfectly honest.”

  That didn’t make any sense to me. “Why would I have died?”

  “Because of this.” She pulled out a glass bottle from her jacket pocket and held it out so I could see it. In the bottle was a white stringy…thing. It looked like a rice noodle that had been soaking in water for too long.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The doctor shrugged. “It’s kind of out of my area of expertise, but apparently this is a dead enhancer. I believe you sucked it out of someone?”

  Oh yeah, that. “It was dead?”

  "That's what Elias told me. You can thank him for removing it. I tried for two days to figure out what was wrong with you and got nowhere. From the speed at which your body was shutting down, I think you were only a few hours away from death. Then, Elias came in and brought one of the Uchima Monks with him. He waved a small stone over you, and this nasty thing flew out of your mouth. I thought you might want it, so I bottled it for you."

  She set the bottle on the table next to me.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Reid and Abby stood in the doorway. “Can we have a few minutes with him?” Abby asked.r />
  I wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide. Having the two of them show up couldn’t be good. I was pretty sure there would be yelling involved in this conversation.

  “He still needs more rest,” said Dr. Anderson.

  I worked very hard to keep my expression blank, but inside I wanted to high-five Dr. Anderson. This would give me some time to speak to Alexa and get our story straight.

  “We won’t be long,” said Abby.

  “Five minutes,” said Dr. Anderson. My elated good mood popped and evaporated away. She had totally rolled over at the first sign of pressure. What kind of doctor let people come in and bully their patients?

  Before I could gather my thoughts enough to protest that I did indeed need more sleep, Dr. Anderson left the room and closed the door behind her.

  This wouldn’t end well.

  Reid and Abby each pulled up a chair and sat down next to my bed.

  “How are you feeling?” Abby asked.

  “I’m ok,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. I was waiting for the yelling to begin.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Reid, his voice still calm and level. “You gave us quite a scare there,” he said.

  I looked down at the sheets covering me and said nothing.

  “You do remember me telling you to leave the investigation alone and not to go looking into who had been selling the enhancers, right?”

  I nodded and slowly looked up. Reid’s expression was very serious. I looked over at Abby for help, but she looked just the same.

  No help there.

  “Part of being a Seam Warden is trusting in the system to get things done,” Reid said.

  “The system wasn’t working,” I said.

  “How do you know?” asked Abby.

  “Because nothing was being done to stop Marcus Booking from selling our technology to normals.”

  “And you think that the Head Warden and his entire leadership team don’t do anything unless they tell you about it?” Reid asked.

  “Well, no,” I said. When he said it like that it sounded stupid.

  “We already had someone on the inside who was watching Marcus’ operation,” Reid said. “We knew who was buying the technology and selling it to normals. That was the easy part. What we didn’t know was who the traitor was that sold the technology to Marcus in the first place. We had to find that out before we tried to shut down his operation or someone else would have just taken Marcus Booking’s place once he was gone.”

  I looked at the floor and said nothing. I had done what I thought had been right, but it looked like I had screwed up pretty badly.

  “Our operative was forced to break his cover to protect you and Alexa when Marcus tried to kill you.”

  “The silver Bryling?” I asked.

  Reid nodded. “His name is Owen. Fortunately for everyone involved – but especially fortunate for you – your actions resulted in us discovering that Spencer was the traitor, so Owen no longer needed his cover.”

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  "He'll live," Abby said. "We dropped him off with his local healer, and she said he would fully recover."

  “What about Spencer?” I asked.

  "His leg is still pretty mangled. The impact shattered his bones. Even with his enhancers, it will take a while to heal," Abby said. "Right now he’s in isolation and awaiting trial. To be honest, he’s probably glad he can’t have any visitors. I wouldn’t want to be Spencer when my sister, Tamara, gets a hold of him. She’s not taking the news very well.”

  I could only imagine what Tamara would do when she saw him again. It would probably involve a lot of pain and yelling.

  “What’s going to happen to him? He was just trying to save his sister.”

  "I don't know for sure," Reid said. "He came forward and confessed to everything. He'll go to trial and get sentenced for sure. I get that his motives were somewhat altruistic, but how much more pain and suffering did he cause by selling the technology? Were those people’s lives worth any less than his sister’s? In trying to save one person, he put hundreds, if not thousands, of lives at risk.”

  I could understand and even agree. All I had to do was think about the condition I found Amy in and what the enhancer had done to her. Was any single life worth the pain of dozens or even hundreds of others? That was a deep thought that I had a feeling would keep me up at night for years to come as I wrestled with it.

  “And Marcus Booking?” I asked. “What happened when I sucked out the enhancer?”

  Reid looked at Abby, and the two of them exchanged a look. "He survived. Maybe, a little less crazy, but not by much. He still has several more illegal enhancers he has taken, and after what we saw happen to you, no one is in a hurry to try and remove the others."

  “So, where is he now?” I asked.

  “He’s back in Rund,” Reid said.

  Abby and Reid exchanged a significant look. “Let’s hope he stays there this time,” she said. “He’s the only one to ever escape.”

  The thought of Marcus Booking escaping was enough to make my stomach clench with anxiety. He and I were too evenly matched for my comfort. If Spencer hadn’t interfered, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have made it out of there alive.

  What if he did get out? Would he come after me? Try to kill me? Or would he go after Alexa or our families? I prayed I would never find out.

  Reid saw the look of discomfort on my face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We know how he escaped last time and have put protocols in place to prevent that from ever happening again. I can promise you that he’s not going anywhere.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I trusted Reid, and his assessment put me at ease. I would sleep better knowing that Marcus Booking was safely contained in Rund.

  There was an awkward pause as we uncomfortably looked at one another. The pleasantries were out of the way, and it was time for the topic we all knew needed to be discussed.

  “So, what now?" I asked. "I disobeyed the orders you gave me. I assume there will be a punishment?"

  Reid nodded.

  “Oh, you bet there will be punishment,” Abby said. “If you had been a full Seam Warden and had done this, you would have been arrested and tried like Spencer will be. Since you are still a Cadet, Reid and I have full jurisdiction over you and your consequences.”

  I listened intently, trying not to let it show how scared I was. I still desperately wanted to be a Seam Warden, and my biggest fear was that I would be kicked out.

  “Here is your punishment,” Abby said. “You will have one month of cleaning duty. To be carried out with Alexa.”

  At first, I wasn't sure I had heard correctly. Cleaning duty? That had to be the lightest possible punishment I could get. And to be assigned with Alexa was the best possible scenario.

  With their message now delivered, Abby and Reid both stood up. Abby winked at me, and Reid gave me a brief nod. Then, without another word, they walked out and left me to enjoy my feeling of relief.

  The next two months went by in a blur. Alexa and I were welcomed back to the cadets with a mixture of awe and jealousy. I must have told the story of how we tracked down the illegal enhancers at least a dozen times the first few days I was back.

  Zach, Caleb, and Gabriel kept asking me to retell the part where we fought the Brylings and started calling me “The Exterminator,” a nickname I hoped would be short-lived.

  During those times, Logan became annoyed by the attention I was getting and would pull out his guitar and decide it was time to practice, loudly, in our common room. I still didn't understand why he stayed around, but it looked as if he wasn't going to quit in the near future.

  Kevin’s reaction was different from everyone else’s. He liked to hear the stories, but he was disappointed that I had used mostly non-lethal methods of taking on the Brylings and Stoki. Man, that guy knew how to hold on to his hate.

  Alexa got pretty much the same level of reaction from the female cadets. We lost any chance
of being alone to talk at lunch as there were always one or two, if not more, of the cadets sitting with us, but we made up for it while cleaning. Since I could use that time to talk with Alexa, it became my favorite part of the day. A way to wind down and relax after a hard day in class or practice.

  And the hard work continued. As we approached the end of our Cadet training, Abby and Reid pushed us harder and harder. Not because they were cruel task masters who enjoyed inflicting pain on us as Logan liked to speculate, but because they understood that this was their last chance to make sure we were as prepared for our three rotational assignments as possible.

  Once we started our first rotation, Reid and Abby would no longer be our instructors. Instead, we would learn from the Seam Wardens we were assigned to as we participated in the actual work of the Seam Wardens. The expectation was that we would have the foundation and basics mastered and that our new trainers would teach us the specifics of the Branch we were assigned to, as well as continue to hone our combat and weapons skills.

  Getting matched with a good trainer was critical to a Cadet’s continued growth and development, which is why we were all so scared about what our first assignments would be.

  On our last day, Reid and Abby assembled us in the main training area. We had been instructed to arrive dressed in full Seam Warden attire, something we typically didn’t do for our practices.

  As we lined up and stood at attention, I had a vivid flashback to that first day we had met and introduced ourselves. Everyone had felt like a stranger to me then. Now, after countless hours of training, practicing, and learning together, these once-strangers now felt like my second family.

  Reid and Abby stood before us, hands clasped behind their backs, their posture formal and rigid. From how stiff they held themselves, I would have thought something was wrong if it weren't for the large smiles they were both unable to hide.

  A door on the far side of the room opened and in walked Nathan Franklin, the First Warden. He was tall and muscular – built a lot like I was. He had red, wavy hair that was somewhat longer than most Seam Wardens' I had seen. His face had the weathered, excessively-freckled look of a redhead who has spent a lot of time outdoors. His bright, blue eyes were intense, and his overall demeanor gave the impression that this was a man whom you would love to fight for and never want to fight against.