The Eighth Guardian (Annum Guard)

by Meredith McCardle

  “It’s Blue!” he spits. “Blue! Don’t ever call me by that name again. Tyler is dead. Do you understand me?”

  He’s holding me all wrong. He has the front of my shoulders pinned and nothing else, so I could easily drop down, punch him where the sun don’t shine, and spin away before he falls. But instead I nod my head.

  Blue gives me one last push into the bookshelf, then unhands me. I stare at him. Long and hard. I look right into his eyes, and he stares back at me with a hollow glare. And then it hits me. It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Blue is sad.

  I don’t mean sadness in the sense that your dog just died or your girlfriend dumped you. I mean sadness that never ends. Sadness that wraps over you like a blanket, consuming you with its darkness. Sadness that holds you tight and won’t let you go. I know it well. It’s the sadness that I’ve watched overtake my mom, watched battle with the manic episodes for control. I see her depression in Blue’s eyes, looking back at me, pleading with me, begging me not to go; and I look away.

  “You don’t belong here,” Blue whispers. “This place is going to kill you just like it does everyone else, and you don’t have to be here.”

  An image of Blue as Tyler pops into my head. Tyler strutting into the dining hall at Peel two years ago, months before Testing Day. He was smiling and laughing, and his arm was thrown around Deanna Verster. Heads turned to watch him walk, because you had no choice but to admire his confidence. And then I think of him the following year, when he was a senior. He kept his head down, never said much. I watched his friends move to the other side of the table, then find a new table. Deanna Verster started hanging out with someone else. Tyler sat with freshmen but stared at his food the entire time and never talked. To anyone. It was like he knew what was coming after graduation. He knew about Annum Guard. But how?

  “What happened on Testing Day, Blue?” I whisper. “Junior year. What happened?”

  Blue stares past me to the bookshelf. Then he whispers, “They lied to me.”

  “Who lied to you, Blue? About what?”

  “They told me if I did well enough, I could go someplace else. I wouldn’t have to follow the path. I could be free. They lied.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Vaughn. All of them.”

  The headmaster? Headmaster Vaughn knows about Annum Guard? I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. It seemed like Vaughn knew about me, too.

  I shake my head. “I still don’t understand. What path are you talking about, Ty—”

  Shit.

  I cut myself off, praying he won’t notice, but Blue’s enraged eyes are back. I hold up my hands. “I’m sorry. Please. I’m sorry.”

  Blue pushes past me, heading toward the door. But he turns back to me at the last second. “You should start praying at night that they don’t let you in. You’ll be better off in solitary than you will be in here. It wasn’t right for them to take you like they did. You don’t belong here.”

  He opens the door.

  “Blue!” I call, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already gone. In more ways than one.

  Blue doesn’t show up for dinner. I stare at the empty chair between Yellow and Violet. I’m glad Zeta sits on the same side of the table as I do, but all the way down by Alpha. It means Zeta is completely hidden from view, and I don’t have to see his face and remember how he nodded his head at me when I handed in my second essay. I basically just copied what Alpha told me word for word, and Zeta looked pleased, which of course made me feel like crap, because technically I was cheating. And really, I still have no idea how altering differs from enhancing. You can slap whatever label you want on it, but tweaking the past is still changing it in my book.

  I don’t know what I should do. A sour taste lingers on my tongue following my run-in with Blue. I’ve known that they weren’t telling me much, but now I can see that the truth is much more than that. There are things that they intentionally aren’t telling me.

  I glance around the table and try to find the weakest link, the person who will tell me what I need to know. Alpha and Zeta are out, obviously. And I’ll just go ahead and count Red out, too. He’s a member of the office club, and I don’t trust anyone who has an office. Next is Orange. I don’t really know anything about Orange, except that he looks to be way older than everyone else, like Red. Midtwenties, maybe. He’s also never spoken to me, and I get the feeling that he resents my presence here. Yellow is a definite no. Green presents the same problem as Orange; while he’s about my age, I don’t know where to start. That leaves Indigo and Violet.

  That leaves Indigo.

  After dinner everyone piles out of the dining room except Green and Indigo, who are deep in a conversation about some battle Indigo fought in today in the Civil War. I pretend I have to tie my shoe, even though I’ve been slipping my feet into these sneakers for so long that I couldn’t untie the laces with a pair of pliers.

  Finally Green and Indigo wrap up, and Green leaves. Indigo turns to me. “Something I can help you with?”

  I sit up. “No. Why would you say that?”

  “Um, because it’s very clear you’ve been sitting here waiting for me to finish my conversation. So unless you’d just like to gaze longingly into my eyes”—he bats his baby blues at me—“I’m going to assume you want me for something.”

  No on the eyes thing. Although he is right. I do want something. I want the full story. But I’m not going to be dumb about it and come out and ask. These things take time; I know that from reconnaissance lessons. First you have to track the subject and learn his every move. Human beings are creatures of habit. Once you learn those habits, you know the weaknesses. Same thing here. I have to learn Indigo’s weaknesses by watching him, by befriending him. Get him to let down his guard and trust me.

  I just hope I have enough time.

  “Fine,” I say. “I do want you for something.”

  Indigo raises an eyebrow and grins.

  “I was hoping you could help me with this essay I’m working on for Zeta.”

  Indigo smiles. “That guy’s a dick.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m still having a few problems understanding the difference between altering and enhancing, and I was hoping—”

  “I’m not really supposed to,” Indigo interrupts. “You have to figure it out on your own. That’s what they told us.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Alpha. Zeta. Red. You’ll figure it out.”

  Everyone seems so sure of that except for me. I sigh and push my chair back to stand. I hate being shot down. It makes me feel like such an ass for asking in the first place.

  “Hey.” Indigo puts his hand on my back, and for one brief second I’m surprised to discover that I don’t want him to move it. “I can imagine this is very frustrating for you.”

  I crane my head left to look at him.

  “And I really can’t tell you about the difference between enhancing and altering. Zeta specifically told us not to. But—” He looks out the door into the living room, then back at me. “I can tell you some other things if you’d like.” He pulls his hand away, and I scoot the chair back in.

  My brain tells me to slow down and go for the important questions first. But my mouth has other plans. I start vomiting out questions faster than I can think of them. “So how were you all chosen for this? Is there some sort of path you’re following? Why is Alpha in charge? What happened to the rest of Annum Guard Two? Or Annum Guard One for that matter? Why the hell does Red have an office? And—”

  Indigo holds up both hands. “Whoa. Simmer down there. I said I could tell you some things; I didn’t say I could tell you everything I’ve ever learned in my entire life.”

  My mouth snaps shut, and deep within the bowels of my imagination, my brain locks my tongue in a basement and starts beating it with a baseball bat. Way to blow it,
genius.

  Indigo looks at the door one more time. “I can tell you this. Chronometric Augmentation—all the projecting—is really, really hard on the body. The first generation didn’t last very long. At all. There’s only one member left. Seven. And he’s only around because he didn’t project that often. He sort of ran the missions.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Indigo shrugs. “I guess technically he’s still ‘in charge of the Guard’ since he’s the most senior living member.” I ignore that Indigo just used finger quotes. “But he doesn’t really want much to do with us anymore. He rarely comes around. I don’t think I’ve seen him in at least a year. Alpha’s in charge now. Has been for a really, really long time. Like, since before we were born.”

  “How come Zeta’s still alive?”

  “Wow, you really don’t like him, huh?” Indigo says with a laugh.

  “I didn’t mean that. I mean, how come he doesn’t seem to be fazed by the projecting?”

  “The gravity chamber,” Indigo says. “Zeta invented it. Look, I know you don’t like him, but he’s really smart. He figured out that gravity lets us project without all the physical trauma. He used himself as a guinea pig while he was testing the chamber, and it turned out to be a really good call. Everyone else is dead or . . . on their way out.”

  I think of Epsilon in the wheelchair. Talk about dying for your country in the slowest, most agonizing way possible. But thinking about death makes me think about my dad, which makes clearance codes flash before my eyes. I turn back to Indigo. I stare him right in the eye as if daring him not to answer my next question.

  “So why were you all chosen for this? Huh? Why am I considered an outsider?”

  Indigo’s eyes drop to his lap, and he deliberately ignores the question. “Red has an office because Alpha is grooming him to take over leadership someday. The end.” He scoots his chair back and stands.

  Dammit. This isn’t the first time I’ve come on too strong. And it won’t be the last time it all blows up in my face either, I’m sure.

  “That’s really all I can tell you, Iris. I hope it helped clear up a few things.” His voice is distant, reserved. Time to backpedal.

  I pat his hand for one quick half second. “It did.” Even though he didn’t answer the questions I wanted to know the most. “Thank you. Can I ask you one more?”

  Indigo looks pained. “Um, okay?”

  I lob him a softball to get him back on my good side. “Who came up with the term ‘Chronometric Augmentation’ anyway? Didn’t they realize that sounds like we’re giving time a boob job?”

  Indigo’s head falls to his chin and he laughs. Really laughs. Then he pushes in his chair and squeezes my shoulder as he walks past me and out the doorway.

  No one speaks to me much over the next few days. They sure as hell don’t take me on any missions. I spend my days in the library, reading book after book on American history, taking enough notes to fill an entire three-ring binder. Essays. All essays for Zeta. Each time, I pick an event and only make one minor little change. I still have no idea what the difference between enhancing and altering is, but I have to do something to win back his trust.

  I’m in the library, hunched over a desk writing, when Alpha walks in. I look up, and he shuts the door behind him.

  “Hello,” he says. He’s a very tall man standing over me, looking down as I sit at my desk. It makes me feel small and powerless.

  “Hi.” I drag out the word. Alpha has a troubled look in his eyes. It’s unsettling.

  “What are you working on?”

  I hold up my essay. Zeta wasn’t kidding when he said he’d make me write so many essays it would feel as if my hand is about to fall off. My right hand is numb, and I’m not entirely sure I can straighten out my fingers.

  “May I see?”

  I hand Alpha my essay. It’s on Prohibition. I argued that I would alter the past if I’d tossed a bomb onto the Congressional floor and stopped the vote that would kick-start the whole thing. I’d enhance the past if I prevented a whole bunch of Congressmen from making it to the vote.

  Alpha sighs and puts down the paper. “Really? This is the same damned example I gave you four days ago, and it’s not even right. What else do you have?”

  I look down at the myriad of papers strewn about my desk and pick up one I started on Pearl Harbor.

  Alpha holds out his hand. “Let me see it.”

  I hand it over. It only takes him a few seconds to scan it. I don’t have that much written. Just a background paragraph explaining how the Japanese launched an attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which killed more than twenty-four hundred people and led directly to the United States’s entry into World War II. And then the essay stops because I have no idea whether I’m supposed to try to stop the bombing and save all those people or let it happen so that the US enters the war. Alpha hands back the essay.

  “Pick up your pen,” he orders.

  I do.

  “I want you to copy this down exactly.”

  I put the pen to the paper.

  “An Annum Guardian would engage in alteration if he infiltrated the naval headquarters at Pearl Harbor and warned the commanding officers of the impending attack. However, if that Guardian were to arrange for the battleship USS Arizona to remain moored at the quays along Ford Island rather than move it to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941, thereby saving the lives of more than a thousand men and ensuring the Arizona could be used in the Battle of Wake Island, that Guardian would engage in enhancement.”

  I’m scribbling furiously, even though there is no way that Zeta is going to think I wrote this myself. It’s leaps and bounds above anything I’ve given him before.

  “Did you get all of that?” Alpha asks after I stop and set down the pen.

  I nod.

  He holds out his hand again, and I hesitate. Because, really, if I was to change the past so that the USS Arizona could help America win a victory at Wake Island, how is that not altering the past?

  Maybe I really don’t belong here. Maybe I’m not nearly as bright as I always thought I was.

  I pass the paper over. Alpha scans it, then reaches and takes my pen. He marks a big A+ on top of the essay and gives it back.

  “Congratulations. You demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the difference between enhancing and altering, and I think we can skip the rest of these essays and throw you back into the field. I trust you’ve learned to utilize some better self-control?”

  I sit up straight. Back into the field? No more essays? Finally!

  “Of course,” I say.

  “You will follow orders exactly and not make a move until told to do so?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will not question what it is you’re asked to do but rather accept your mission and perform it to the best of your abilities?”

  “Yes,” I say without hesitation, even though a little warning bell is going off inside my head. Why would I question a mission? What exactly are they going to ask me to do?

  “I will trust your word,” Alpha says. “And I will give you this.” He reaches into a pocket on the inside of his suit jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He hands it to me, and I turn it over. There’s another red wax seal holding it closed. The scary-looking owl stares up at me, and my heart skips a beat as I remember that day at Peel. It feels like a lifetime ago. I can’t believe it’s been just over a week.

  It dawns on me that I haven’t really thought about Abe at all today. I know I told myself I had to forget about him, but I didn’t think my mind would obey quite so quickly. . . .

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Open it.”

  I hesitate for a second before sliding my index finger under the crease and breaking the seal. I unfold the paper and read.

  874ZEPHYR%0%

  “
Memorize it,” Alpha says.

  I look at it again. Zephyr. That’s easy to remember. %0%. So’s that. It’s the numbers to worry about. I repeat 874 in my head a few times—874 874 874 874—and look up. “Okay, I did, but—”

  Alpha holds out his hand. “Give it back.”

  I fold the paper over and hand it to him, repeating the code in my head once more. This is it. My security clearance password. It has to be.

  “I passed along the progress report I filled out on you to the folks in Washington,” Alpha says. “They sent that.”

  “So I have a new clearance level.”

  Alpha purses his lips together and doesn’t respond, probably because I just stated the obvious.

  I feel weightless for the first time since Headmaster Vaughn dimmed the lights at dinner and announced it was Testing Day.

  “You and I got off to a rocky start, Iris. But I have your back in this. I want you to stay.”

  He stands and heads toward the door but then turns around again. He tilts his head toward the computer on the far wall.

  “Use it wisely.”

  As soon as the door shuts, I spring up and race to the computer. I start it up, and the log-in screen appears. I type in Iris as my user name and enter the password that Alpha just gave me. For a second I worry that I remembered the number wrong and that I’ll get the black screen of death, but then a plain white screen appears with the United States seal in the top left corner. There’s a search box; and I click on it, type in my father’s name, and hit ENTER. I hold my breath as the screen flashes.

  This could be it. I realize I’m not breathing and exhale.

  The search results are up, and there it is. A file in an unspecified personnel directory.

  Obermann, Mitchell Thomas

  I stop breathing again as the mouse hovers over my father’s name. Am I ready for this? Ready to know the truth? There’s only one way to find out. I click on it.

  The screen flashes away, and a new one pops up.

  Mitchell Thomas Obermann. Born Natick, Massachusetts. Died [XXXXXXXX]