by Matt Ryan
Harris sat at a table with his back to them. He put his Panavice on the table as they approached. The chair screeched across the white floor and Harris stood to face them.
“Everyone sleep okay?” he asked, lingering on Joey as they nodded. “Good, we have an interesting day planned.” He turned his attention to Compry. “But let’s eat and get some fuel for what’s ahead.”
Compry scowled at Harris as she pushed the metal tray cart and let it smack against the table. The plates clattered and slid about on the top of the cart. “Breakfast is served.”
Joey sat at the far end of the white table, away from Compry and avoided her cold gaze as she surveyed them.
“Eggs, milk, and some ham.” Compry picked up a glass of orange juice and placed it next to Harris. “Orange for you, Harris.” He tapped his finger on the table as he stared at the orange beverage. He grasped it, swirled it in his glass, and slammed it down his gullet.
“Eggs and ham? Sounds good,” Poly said.
Joey knew what she was doing, trying to put a brighter light on the situation. Compry eyed Poly with curiosity, before returning her attention to the cart. She slapped the first plate down on the table next to Lucas. “Pass the plate down . . . please.”
Lucas complied without a comment and passed the plate down.
After the plates were out, Joey looked at the slice of ham and scrambled eggs. How did they get stuff like this here? He forked a piece of ham and inspected it. It looked fine, so he popped it in his mouth. It was all right. He shoveled the remaining food down and picked up his empty plate, looking around for what to do with his dishes. “Where should I put this?”
“Compry will handle the dishes.” Harris smirked.
She pursed her lips, but held her tongue. Joey avoided her eyes and held his plate in his hands. He’d rather throw it away than have Compry looking at him like that. Maybe he could take it to his room and wash it in that laundry-cleaning thing. He’d probably be able to fit everyone’s plate.
Harris stared at him.
Joey gave up on his plate and set it back on the table. “You said last night you wanted us to consider training here, what kind of training do you have in mind?” he asked.
“That’s up to you. We have people with varied skills here.”
“I want one of those Panavice things. I want to learn everything about them,” Julie spouted out.
“Almadon is the best tech person on the planet, in my opinion. She’d be happy to train you.”
Julie almost fell out of her chair with excitement.
“You’re telling me you have an archer in this place?” Lucas asked.
“Sure do. His name is Nathen. I’ll let him know about you.”
“I take it you can train me with guns?” Joey asked looking at Harris.
“I can.” He nodded. “What about you, Poly?”
“My mom trained me. I don’t need any other teacher, but her.”
“What if it was the person who trained your mom?” Harris glanced at Compry.
Compry looked at Poly and raised an eyebrow.
“You serious? You taught my mom about blades?”
“I sure did. I’m glad to hear she passed it down to you.”
“Do you have any gorilla handlers for Hank?” Lucas smirked. “Or anyone with a zookeeper background?”
“Oh, you’re so funny, Lucas,” Hank said. He stood from his chair and stepped toward him.
Lucas laughed and hid behind Julie. “Mommy, help. The rhino’s getting too close to the car.”
Hank smiled, but grabbed for Lucas. He darted under the table and exited out the end, moving to the opposite side of the table from Hank.
“Those toothpicks you shoot won’t help when I come running for you.”
“If you could run, I’d be worried.”
Hank ran to one side of the table, but Lucas matched his moves and kept away from him.
“Can you two stop it?” Julie asked, exasperated.
Lucas stood straight and pulled at the end of his shirt. “Hank started it.”
“Oh, you’re dead, funny man,” Hank warned.
“Enough,” Compry slammed a plate against the table. It rattled and spun to a stop.
Harris filled the silence. “We should get to training. Lucas, I want you to take Hank and go see Nathen over on floor twenty-three. I sent him notification. He will be waiting for you.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “You better not try anything, Hank. I was just messin’ around.”
Harris continued, “Julie, you’ll find Almadon waiting for you in the medical wing. Joey, you’ll come with me.”
“That’s just leaves me and you,” Compry said to Poly.
THE IDEA OF TRAINING WAS exciting to Joey, but the realization of why they were training, brought about thoughts of his family. He’d learn as much as he could from Harris and take it with him back to Preston. If he could learn to control his slow-mo stuff, he’d be unstoppable.
Following Harris through a few elevator stops and two hallways, they made it to a white room.
Joey had been in gun ranges before, but this room didn’t look like any gun range he’d ever seen. It was a long white room, with white walls, floor, and ceiling. It was completely stark white, except for the black line on the floor at the start of the room.
“Stay behind the black line,” Harris said. “Get ready.”
“For what?”
The whole room changed to look like a Wild West version of a town. Wood buildings were on each side of the street, with horses hitched to a post in front of the Dusty Saloon. A few dingy-looking people walked around, and one old man threw Joey a sneer. A man in a cowboy outfit hitched his horse and stepped into the saloon. Joey shook his head and squinted at the movement in the saloon windows. Was he missing something?
A gunshot cracked through the dirt-ball town and in the same instant, an electrical shock hit his shoulder. Joey grabbed at the pain in his shoulder and searched the town for the shooter. Then he saw an out of place movement; a man standing on the roof of the general store, with a rifle pointed at him. The end of the barrel flashed and another crack echoed through the town.
Joey stumbled backward at the second electrical shock, this time in the middle of his chest. He raised his gun to the man, took aim, and pulled the trigger—striking his target in the chest. The man froze like a still picture, then melted into a white goo, and disappeared. Everything in the town froze and dissolved into white.
“Whoa,” Joey said. His heart pounded in his chest. It felt as if he were there, in the town. It was so real. He rubbed the shoulder the electrical shock hit, a reminder of how real it was. “That was crazy. What is this place?”
“It’s a training room. We can create almost any scene we want within these walls.”
Joey stared at said walls, questioning their reality. “How’s this possible?”
“Better to ask Almadon, but let’s get back to your training. What do you think happened there?”
“I don’t know. Some guy just shot me from the roof?”
“The people in the open are not always the dangers, you have to look beyond the obvious and find the true danger,” Harris said. “Let’s try again.”
“Did you train my dad here?” Joey turned to him and asked.
Harris’s expression didn’t change, but he paused. “Yes.”
“How was he?”
“Good. He was your age. Young and enthusiastic,” Harris stated. “We don’t have much time, let’s continue.”
Joey readied himself, this time with gun in hand. A new scene popped up in front of him—a park. He scanned the grass fields, oak trees, a man selling balloons with a smile, a weird kid walking toward him, and a group of emo kids giving him looks from a picnic table they were carving into with a screwdriver. A man glided by on a set of roller blades. He couldn’t find anything.
Glancing over at Harris, he shrugged. Then, Joey felt an electrical shock in his back and lurched forward. He spun aroun
d and saw the guy on rollerblades holding a knife.
“Near is important as well. The bad guys aren’t always obvious. Sometimes he/she/it is right in front of you before you know it.”
“I don’t know, just seemed like regular people.”
“The brain is an amazing thing. Your subconscious takes in way more information than can be processed consciously. Everyone’s brain cleans out the clutter and presents only what we think is important. Think again about that guy.”
Closing his eyes, all he could remember was the guy stabbing him with black eyes staring at him.
“Black eyes, his pupils were all crazy looking.”
“Good, let’s do some more.”
The next scene appeared. An indoor two-story mall. He was on the bottom floor. Everything looked different from any malls he’d been in. The men wore suits and the women wore dresses, but the styles and colors were wild like a futuristic version of the fifties. The hats on the women were large and curved in all shapes, and many wore glasses with only one pane of glass in them. Most were holding a Panavice like Harris’s in their hands as they walked.
He couldn’t begin to think of a single strange thing in this scene. Everything was strange to him. Even the stores were strange, with interactive holograms projecting in front of them, selling to passersby. Then a man stuck out. He sat with a newspaper folded out in front of him, blocking his face. A big newspaper didn’t seem likely in this world of digital. He narrowed his vision on the man and the woman walking next to him. The man lowered his newspaper, looking straight at him. Joey didn’t hesitate and shot the man. He dropped the newspaper to reveal a gun pointed at him. The scene went white.
“Why him?”
“He was reading a paper in this digital world, and when the woman who walked by him, looked scared, I knew it was him. He confirmed it when he lowered his paper, and was looking directly at me.”
“Good, let’s do some more.”
Harris had him run through more scenes and he began to spot the ones who didn’t quite fit into the scene much quicker. In one scene, Joey shot a guy driving a car and Harris asked him why.
“There is a broken window on the passenger side and a dead body in the back. He was the killer; I saw blood on his hands.”
“Wrong, the person in the back of the car was injured at a nearby construction site. His friend was driving him to the hospital.”
Joey felt the heat in his face. He’d been shooting people like in a video game. “I don’t think I can do this in the real world. How do you know when you have to shoot?”
Harris sighed. “I’m glad you asked that question. It’s the right question and the answer is simple. When the time comes, you’ll know. Trust me. When it’s time to end another’s life, it’s because they intend on ending yours or those around you.”
Joey sheathed his gun and looked at the blank room.
“Why don’t we do some target drills for a while, work on that aim.” Harris pushed the screen on the Panavice.
Joey wondered about the others training, but he didn’t have much time to think as an open gun range appeared in front of him. Paper targets floated in the air.
Is that Simon’s face on one?
POLY STARED AT COMPRY AS she explained to her about knife throwing. She patiently waited for her to finish and for her to turn on this machine she kept talking about. Her fingers tapped the hilts of her new throwing knives on the sides of her hips.
“Do you follow?” Compry asked.
Poly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She gave a small nod, yanked two knives from their sheaths, and spun them in her hands. Compry watched on with that curious look again. She’d give her a show.
The white walls morphed into targets and Poly took a step back in confusion. The whole room changed in a nanosecond. It reminded her of a carnival game with wheels spinning, rectangles rocking back and forth, objects popping up from the floor, and each target had several colors on them.
“Yellow,” Compry said.
Poly threw a knife through a hole in the wall and hit a yellow spinning target, then the yellow floating circle and finally the yellow rectangle metronome.
“Green,” Compry said.
A green rectangle popped up from the ground and she hit it with her knife before it retreated below. Then she spotted a green dot on the far side of the room. She reached back and threw hard, not waiting to see if it hit, she drew another knife from her side and threw it at the floating green target. The target retreated into the floor and the room returned to white.
“Well, you’ve got some skill I see.”
“My mom’s a good teacher.”
“Opal was a natural.” Compry smiled warmly. It fit her face nicely.
Poly thought it was the first time she’d seen the woman express a positive emotion. Maybe it was the mention of her mom. Knowing her mom trained in the same place she was training, made her well up with pride. She’d grown even closer to her over the summer, as she learned how to handle all kinds of bladed weapons. “Yeah, she’s amazing with blades,” Poly said, relaxing as the room went white.
“Even when she was pregnant with you, she insisted on learning blades,” Compry said.
“Who taught you?”
With eyebrows raised, Compry pulled out a dagger from the sheath at her side, a black blade with a dragon etched into it. “My father.”
“Really? That’s so cool. I love training with Mom. Is he part of your group with Harris?” A little bit of jealousy crept in when anyone spoke about their dad.
“No, he runs a city. He doesn’t approve of what I’m doing.” Compry sheathed her knife.
“I’m sorry.” Poly had trouble imagining not having her dad’s approval. If he were still alive, he’d be calling her his little princess and embarrassing her in front of all her friends. At least that’s what she pictured in her mind.
“Don’t be.”
Poly fidgeted with her fingers, avoiding eye contact.
Compry smiled. “You’re the real deal, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Poly forced her hands to stop touching and looked into Compry’s friendly face.
“People here may look young, but we are old. Moreover, when you’ve lived for hundreds of years, you lose innocence. But you, you’re like a beam of light . . . just like your mom.” Her gaze passed over Poly. “I almost forgot what true youth was like.”
“I’m not some china doll,” Poly said, annoyed at her making her sound like some child.
Compry laughed. “I know. You’re a kickass woman. Now let me show you how to be a little more badass.” She pushed a button on her Panavice. A human dummy appeared. She showed the vital areas to slice or hit if you wanted a kill, and the places to target to incapacitate someone.
Poly spun her blades around the dummy, slicing it in the areas marked with red for kill.
“Only kill blows?”
“No one tried to incapacitate my dad,” Poly said.
“Fair enough, but there will be situations where a kill isn’t necessary.”
If she could get closer to the people responsible for killing her dad, she wouldn’t need to know how to incapacitate them. She gave Compry a smile and nodded her head, but they could skip the lesson on wounding a person.
“I think you’re ready for some more intimate simulations.”
The scene changed and there stood a man with a gun pointed at her. Poly, with knife in hand, sneered at the digital man. He shot her in the gut. Poly winced and grabbed at her stomach. It felt like the time she walked into her neighbor’s stupid electrical fence. She flung her knife and hit the man in the eye. He dissolved into white and spread into nothing on the floor. The knife lay on the white floor where the man once stood.
“Guns win in a duel. However, most cannot shoot worth a damn. Give them a moving target next time, okay?”
The room changed to a man with a sword, moving toward her. Poly threw her knife, striking him in the head. The whole scene dissolved
back to the white room.
“You’re quick to kill.”
“Better them than me.” Didn’t she get it? What was the use of learning how to wound a person when you could kill them?
“Yes it is. But when you grossly overmatch a person, mercy can be shown.”
“Mercy . . . really?” Poly huffed air through her nose and spun the blades into the sheaths on her hips. “Can I expect mercy from them?”
“Yes. All humans can make the choice. When you stop making the choice is when you become less than human.”
Compry seemed like she had a question, but didn’t ask it until after practice. “Is everything okay with you and your friends?”
“Yeah, they’re my best friends.” Poly scrunched her brow in. What was she after?
“So I’ve heard.” Compry pulled back her hair.
Was she really hundreds of years old? She looked to be in her late twenties. Poly would’ve asked if her mom hadn’t always told her it was rude to ask a woman’s age.
“But maybe one of them is more than a friend? I saw you checking out Joey more than once.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Poly fiddled with her knives.
“He’s super cute, so I can’t blame you.”
It was as bad as her mom trying to have the ‘talk.’
“But if I may make a suggestion. . . .”
Oh God, when is she going to stop?
Compry bulldozed ahead. “It’s okay to give a boy a push in the right direction.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Poly said between her teeth, a blush rising up her neck.
Compry laughed, as they left the room. “I see him sneaking looks at you as well.”
Do we really have to talk about this? Maybe silence will get her to stop.
Poly glanced at the high fashion, beautiful woman walking next to her. She’d probably have any man she wanted with just a single look of her fierce eyes. She couldn’t possibly understand watching a man from the sidelines—for years.
Compry smiled and looked over. “I’ll say one more thing and then stop. If I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that time is a gift, but by the time you learn that lesson, it can be too late. You wait too long for something, and it may never happen. Sometimes, you need to act. Sometimes . . . fate needs a gentle nudge.”