Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 13

  “So,” Kenneth said with a smirk, cradling the Glory Cup in one arm as he ate his breakfast. “Last place ain’t so bad. Coulda been worse, right?”

  “It’s true, Paul,” Parker chimed in, grinning. “It could be so much worse. The first time I ran the Glory Run, I got knocked over by so many twigs and pebbles I only made it to like half a dozen trees.” Pausing with a thoughtful look on his face, he said, “Oh, wait—you only made it to four!”

  The whole commons room erupted in good-natured laughter and Paul couldn’t help but join in.

  He’d found the first tree after falling two more times from stray branches in his path. It turned out there were over two dozen cards attached to every tree, making it very unlikely that any Walkers would choose the same ones.

  After getting directions and memorizing what ended up being a number sequence at the bottom of the first card, he’d taken it more slowly on his way to the second tree, thinking that if he could stay on his feet he’d make it faster than if he ran and was constantly knocked over. Unfortunately his second tree was four miles away from the first one and his third tree was two and a half miles away from the second one, so by the time he began making his way toward the fourth tree it was already four hours into the race which left him less than an hour until sunrise.

  “Points for remembering all your codes and phrases, though,” Liz added. “Most of us retain about three-quarters of our Target from missions, but you hit a hundred percent on your first Glory Run. Not bad at all.”

  Paul’s gift of memory was turning out to be a real blessing.

  “It was only four trees,” Hodge stated flatly, and left the room.

  “So,” Juliet said, “you think you were tortured yesterday with Hodge’s star maps, wait until you see what’s in store for you today.”

  “I can’t wait…” Paul said, distractedly looking out through the doors into the hallway.

  “What’s up?” Parker asked. “You expecting someone?”

  “Yeah,” Paul answered. “Steven. I haven’t seen him yet this morning and I feel awful knowing that he hasn’t had a chance to get any sleep. Especially since it’s my fault.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Lisa said, walking up to their table. “It took me months to figure out how to harness my ability and even now, after knowing my trigger, I still can’t do it every time.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t really have the option of not being able to figure it out. Not if I don’t want Steven to drop dead from exhaustion.”

  “I think that’s pretty much the idea,” said Kenneth drily, hastily adding, “Not that they want him to drop dead, but Abrams wants you to figure out your trigger as fast as possible.”

  “Nothing like some good, old-fashioned motivation,” Lisa said sympathetically.

  “So!” Liz spoke up brightly in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “Word retention: ready to have your mind blown by more monotonous work?”

  Paul groaned in reply. “Great!” Liz said. “Follow Juliet and me and we’ll get you started.”

  They went down to the training area, making idle chitchat about last night’s Glory Run and how funny it had been to watch Paul fall the first few times. As it turned out, most of them had climbed the first tree and watched from a distance to see how he did. He hadn’t realized that anyone might have seen him doing his crash and burn act. He’d just assumed they would have been busy with their own run and not paid any attention. The odd thing was that talking about a humiliating situation like the night before normally would have left his face burning in embarrassment. He would have stewed on being the butt of everyone’s jokes for days, but he was actually able to laugh along with Liz and Juliet and see the humor in the situation. Recognizing how close he was becoming to most of the people at Astralis and how far he had come in changing his perspective, he put an arm around each of the girls as they laughed their way to the training room.

  “So what’s up with all the Sentinels?” Paul asked as they entered into the room.

  “What do you mean?” Juliet asked.

  “Well, I pretty much never see them. I mean, sometimes… but mostly it’s just all of us. If their job is to protect us, why aren’t they ever around?”

  “Oh, they’re around, trust me,” answered Liz as she booted up a computer and began pulling pages out of a file folder. “A lot of the time during the day they’re sleeping. You’ve got to remember, their prime time is at night while we’re in bed. That’s why they’re taking shifts for Steven’s training. He works with half of them until lunch. Then the other half gets out of bed and works him over for the rest of the day.”

  “But if they sleep during the day, wouldn’t we actually need two Sentinels if we’re going to always have protection.”

  “It’s a little different when we’re at home, here,” Juliet said, helping Liz get everything sorted out on the desk. “I guess there could be some danger here at Astralis, but generally we feel pretty safe in this place. When we’re out on a mission, that’s when the Sentinels stay at our side twenty-four-seven. Which is why one of the first things Steven is being put through is sleep deprivation.”

  “By the way,” she continued. “Pretty cool that your best friend will probably end up your Sentinel.”

  “Yeah, it is,” smiled Paul.

  “Most of us never actually know our Sentinels before they get the gig. I mean, for the most part, we all like our Sentinels and some of us have even gotten to the point that we could call them our best friend, but none of us started out that way. You’re lucky.”

  “I guess I didn’t know that,” answered Paul. “When Abrams told me I would need one, I just assumed that I would be picking who it was. I didn’t really give him a chance to suggest anyone else.”

  “Well, why didn’t I try that when I got here?” laughed Liz.

  “So,” Paul said. “You said Steven will probably end up my Sentinel. That’s a bit of a change from everyone’s opinion just a couple days ago.”

  “Yeah, well,” Liz answered after a short pause. “That was before he kicked Rodrigo and Kate’s asses.”

  “Rodrigo and Kate?”

  “Our Sentinels.”

  “Oh. Whoops.” The room got quiet until Paul noticed that both the girls were smirking down at the pages they were arranging, and then they all erupted into laughter again.

  Finally appearing to have finished setting up the desk, Liz said, “Ok Paul, have a seat. I think we’re ready to get started.”

  Sitting down at the desk, Paul looked down in confusion. “Jigsaws and crossword puzzles? What is this?”

  “They are exactly what they look like. You need to begin paying attention to everything around you, all the time. The report that was done on you said that you have a remarkable memory. The way you remembered everything from last night’s Glory Run was impressive, too, but there is more to what we do than that.”

  Sitting down on the edge of table, she continued, “Right now, you remember the things you feel are most important. But for us, sometimes we don’t know what might be important, so we have to remember absolutely everything, or at least as much of it as we possibly can.

  “You know what our job is all about—it is about relaying information. We can’t write it down or record it. It has to all be from memory. One of the hardest parts is that sometimes we acquire our Target information early in the evening and we’re forced to wait for hours, until morning, to report it. Sometimes the information is complex and hard to remember completely, so we constantly do exercises that will keep our brains used to storing and retrieving memories.

  “We’re going to start with an hour of jigsaws and crossword puzzles in order to get your brain exercising. Doing these kinds of exercises promotes memory in your mind. The more you exercise it, the faster you’re able to retrieve those memories.”

  “Could be worse, I suppose,” Paul replied. “Even though this seems a little elementary.”

  “It is, and that is the point. M
emory is one of the most basic functions of your mind but sometimes we rely too much on things like the internet, our phones, books, or other people to remind us instead of just remembering the things we see and hear on our own. All of us here have a heightened perception with regard to memory because we constantly exercise that part of our brain. You will too.”

  “Ok…”

  “Paul, we sat together at the table for breakfast. What did I have to eat this morning?”

  “A bagel with cream cheese and a parfait, looked like blueberries and strawberries in there with vanilla yogurt. Oh, and a glass of orange juice,” he replied without hesitation.

  Both girls pulled their heads back in surprise. Raising an eyebrow, Liz said, “Not bad. That’s exactly right.”

  “Well thank goodness for that.”

  Juliet grunted. “Well then, okay,” she said, either missing the sarcasm in Paul’s reply or deciding to ignore it. She held up a slim folder. “So we’ll start with the puzzles and then in two hours we’re going to give you these. There are five pages of one-line sentences in this folder—twenty on each page for a total of one hundred lines. You are going to read them as many times as you like and then after lunch you are going to input them into the computer from memory.”

  Paul’s eyes grew wide with the realization of what kind of mental work that was in store for him.

  “Better get to your elementary puzzles,” smiled Liz.

  And so he did. Working hard on every puzzle, he was amazed that whenever he was stuck for an answer, there was never a time both girls didn’t know the solution. In fact, they raced each other to give the answer. And then, every single time, they laughingly chided him for having to rely on them to ‘finish his homework.’ None of the questions or hints was hard. It was all stuff he knew, but just needed reminding. They were right—he wasn’t used to using this part of his brain enough.

  After two hours, they stayed true to the plan and handed him the folder with the five pages. Opening it, he read a few of the lines and looked up. “Alan Barnes went to the chiropractor at 8:32 p.m. on the third of March? It is almost always below thirty degrees in November in Vermont so be sure to bring a down jacket? These don’t make any sense. None of these lines have anything to do with the other.”

  Taking the folder from his hand, Liz closed it. “What time did Alan Farnsworth go to the doctor?”

  “8:32,” Paul answered, “p.m.”

  “Wrong,” replied Liz. “His last name was Barnes and he went to the chiropractor, not the doctor. Details mean everything for us. And that, Paul, is the reason none of these make any sense or have anything to do with the other. You never know what you’re going to see or hear out there. You have to be able to remember as much as possible with as much detail as possible.”

  Nodding his understanding and accepting the folder back, Paul took the pages and began reading each line one at a time. When he’d read them all he looked up, but Juliet encouraged him to read it again.

  By lunch time, he’d read through the pages multiple times and felt like he had a good grasp of what each one said.

  “Okay,” Juliet told him. “We’ll go get some food and then come back in an hour. Good progress today.”

  “I don’t feel like I’ve really done anything, to be honest,” Paul answered. This was their ‘training’? Star maps and crossword puzzles? When they first told him he’d be training, he pictured super-hero body suits with guns and rocket ships and … things more action-ish. “I thought my training would be more physical.”

  “Most of that kind of training happens at night,” Juliet replied. “Remember, you can’t do most of what you need to do for missions during the day.”

  “Trust us,” Liz said. “You’ve done plenty today. The real test comes when you start entering in what you’ve read. I can tell you this—you have some pretty great recall going on. You’ve already finished more training crosswords than anyone who’s come previously. We always use the same ones so that we can compare new Walkers to each other, and you blew away the record by far.”

  “Seriously,” Juliet interjected. “That was some pretty amazing stuff in there.”

  A little shocked, Paul didn’t really know how to respond to the praise of being good at crosswords. It just didn’t seem that important compared to the kinds of things he thought would make him valuable to Astralis. Just the same, he was feeling pretty good about the day as they small-talked their way up to the commons room until he caught sight of Steven alone at the same table as the day before.

  Stopping in mid-conversation, he fast-walked over and looked down at his friend, whose eyes were sunken into a pale face blotched by heavy bruising.

  “Don’t bother saying it, man,” Steven croaked in greeting. “I already know I look like crap.”

  “I really think it is time for me to have a talk with Dr. Abrams, Steven. I know he wouldn’t allow this kind of thing if he knew it was going on. No one here thinks you can hack it, so they’re pushing you twice as hard to make sure they’re right. And if Rex is in charge, there’s no way he’s playing fair.”

  Shaking his head tiredly, Steven closed his eyes slowly. “Abrams was there today. He watched my training. Sat there with a clipboard taking notes.”

  Stunned that Abrams would not only condone what was happening to Steven, but go actually sit and watch it, Paul realized then that he was putting his friend through something he didn’t deserve. The only reason Steven was there was because Paul had selfishly nominated him. Paul had never even thought to ask about the job in any detail. If he hadn’t insisted on having Steven, some other Army commando-type would probably be doing what he’d already been trained to do and that would be that.

  Sitting down at the table and putting his head in his hands, Paul said miserably, “You don’t have to do this, Steven. I brought you here for my own comfort. Because I was afraid to be alone. I had no idea you would have to go through all of this. I’m so sorry. Let’s fix this. Let’s go down to Abrams’ office right now and get you home.”

  Staring down at the table, Paul waited for Steven’s reply but none came. Looking up, Paul saw Steven smirking at him. Confused, Paul started to ask what could possibly be funny.

  “Man,” Steven said, “this is nothing. My pop used to bounce me around worse than those little ladies in the training area.”

  “But you’re all banged up, you’re exhausted—you haven’t slept in two days!”

  Steven grunted. “I never had it so easy. You ever try and party your way through a weekend without sleeping?” He gave a short, tired chuckle. “’Course you haven’t. Stupid question. Well, trust me—the beer drags you down, man. If they were smart, they’d have a keg in that training area all tapped and waiting just for me. Then I’d be curled up in a corner and they could kick me out. But this? This is cake.”

  Paul let out an exasperated sigh, knowing full well that it was not easy for Steven at all. “Steven, that’s just…”

  “Look,” Steven said sharply, staring hard at Paul. “I already hear what a waste I am from everyone at home. But I ain’t a waste. I don’t want to talk about this again. I got this.”

  Slumping in his chair, Paul watched as Steven got to his feet. “I got to get back to the grind, buddy. But no worries.” He slapped Paul on the back as he walked away and said, “Besides, I know you got my back. I heard all you got to do is ghost-push me over.”

  Flabbergasted, Paul didn’t know what to say. Great. No pressure, there.