Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 24

  The next thirty-six hours were very tense for both Paul and Steven. They spent their meals trying not to let their paranoia show, but it had to be obvious to anyone who took the time to notice. Juliet even went as far as asking at one point if Steven was feeling well.

  Training went on as it had for the past six days with one exception; because of the lock-down status that existed, all night-time training was conducted indoors, so Paul spent all day and all night in the training rooms except when taking meals or for the couple hours of free time everyone had between dinner and sunset.

  He learned how to spot other Walkers, which was a staple skill as far as Dr. Abrams was concerned. Whether you were on the most important mission of your life or just visiting your Aunt Flo, part of your duty as a member of Astralis was to reach out to other Walkers, or at least report their existence to Dr. Abrams.. The rationale behind this was two-fold. More Walkers at Astralis meant strength in numbers and greater options for them as an organization. And, just as Liz had said, almost every Walker started out thinking there was something wrong with them; extending a hand to them people could literally wind up saving their lives.

  He spent a day with James going over facial and vocal recognition. The entire time, Paul kept waiting for James to bring up what they’d discussed on their run, but it never happened. James kept to the training program that he’d put together, and although his personality was too dry and mistrustful to ever be called fun or friendly, the day was not unenjoyable and the information was very interesting, particularly the parts that dealt with vocal recognition.

  On his seventh day of training, Paul was informed by Dittrich that his second real life training mission was to be moved up to the following day. It had originally been scheduled for day 10 of his training, but Paul’s ability to recall in such detail nullified the need for a good portion of the program. And, with the current state of unrest, they had a greater chance of facing any threat that may exist to Astralis if Paul moved forward.

  If all went well on this second mission, Dittrich explained, Paul would have only three more days of training followed by a third and final mission which was the equivalent to a final exam. If he made it through the final mission without any mistakes, he could officially consider himself a member of the Astralis team.

  There was a little muttering from Allen and James with regard to the new timetable, their objection being that it would be their ass if they were on a mission with him and he hadn’t been fully trained, but Dittrich took the two of them aside. Whatever it was that he said seemed to do the trick, and Paul didn’t hear any more griping.

  He spent that evening with Kenneth, learning pattern recognition theories and how they applied to using them for acquiring the Target on missions. Very often, missions required weeks of preparation before they could be carried out and many of those missions required several nights of waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. On those missions, it was essential to have patience and the ability to wait and watch for patterns in behavior and routines. Using those patterns allowed for planning what was normally the optimum time to carry out the mission. Paul’s first training run had obviously been set up and carried out by Astralis; there was no need to try and establish where or when the phone call would be coming. It was rarely that easy, though. Normally, finding that kind of information—and knowing that it was reliable—was the hardest part of every mission.

  When Paul told Kenneth that he would be heading out the next day for his second mission, Kenneth was shocked.

  “Already? That seems way too soon. Who made that decision?”

  “Apparently Dr. Abrams did. I guess I don’t really know, but I would assume so. Dittrich told me.”

  “You think you’re ready?”

  “I wish I could say yes or no,” Paul answered, “but I don’t even know what the mission is, where I’m going, who I’ll be buddied with, or… any of it. I just know I’m going.”

  “Things seem like they’re unraveling here a little,” Kenneth said quietly. “I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Getting a bad feeling in his stomach, Paul looked up sharply. “We? We who? What did you mean by that?”

  Looking around through the glass walls of the training area to make sure no one was in hearing distance, Kenneth said, “Relax, Paul. Dr. Abrams told me he spoke with you about what’s been going on here.”

  Paul let out a breath of relief. “Oh thank God. The only person I can talk to about this is Steven and Dr. Abrams, and you know how hard it is to actually get any time to speak with Dr. Abrams.”

  “There are a few of us that know, but we don’t ever talk about it because we constantly worry that people might be listening.”

  “Who? Who else knows?”

  “Parker, Liz, and Juliet. We’ve thought about trying to talk to Lisa, but she’s with Hodge and we think he might be the source of it all. It has to be Hodge or Dittrich. We know James and Allen are a part of it because those two have tried pushing the whole ‘we’re getting screwed because we aren’t rich’ agenda on every one of us.”

  “So why doesn’t Dr. Abrams just make those two leave?” Paul asked.

  “Because they could get back in any time they wanted. Doors are always open, remember? And besides, it’d be a shock to everyone if either one of them really was the leader. Dr. Abrams subscribes to the ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’ philosophy. When they finally make their move, he doesn’t want to be surprised by it.”

  “This is such a mess,” Paul lamented. “Maybe I should be the one who leaves. If they’re just waiting for me to pick a side, maybe I should just take myself out of the equation.”

  “They were going to do this anyway. This has been something they were talking about long before you got here. If anything, the fact that they want you on their side is what has kept them from taking action yet.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Paul said. “It doesn’t seem right to just wait for something to happen.”

  Reaching a hand over and patting Paul on the shoulder, Kenneth said, “We’ll be fine, I know it. The fact that you just said ‘we’ and ‘us’ tells me that they’re not going to get what they want. Don’t worry; Dr. Abrams will always watch over us.”

  Smiling, Paul replied, “I’m so glad you’re not on the other side of this, Kenneth. You’ve become a great friend.”

  “Back at ya.”