by Dawn Jansen
When I arrive at the Test Chamber Delta locker room to get ready for my next class, I snicker as I walk past the Arm, who’s in his boxers when I walk in. He looks ugly as hell with his pasty, fat-powerlifter physique and wildly disproportionate arm (the one responsible for his namesake). He gives me a dirty look, but ever since the fight at Epsilon, their crew hasn’t dared mess with any of us. I’m sure it’s in part because Paul put MacCready into a coma, and what are lackeys without their boss, after all?
I’m just glad I won’t ever have to be on the receiving end of one of Paul’s punches. Ever since we fought together in Epsilon—and ever since I showed I care about Mazzy—both Paul and Tristan have shown me a lot of respect.
Once I get my combat gear on, I head out to join everybody else and find out what today’s simulation is going to be. These are the coolest classes at the Academy. Test Chamber Delta is a lot like Alpha—a huge room designed for us to train our powers—but Delta is equipped with technology that lets us run simulations of missions. There’s all sorts of wild shit, like holograms and robots for us to destroy, and I’m sure at least half of it is top-secret technology. This room is where we all have to take the Test eventually too.
Once I get in line with everybody, my scar starts throbbing slightly. Frowning, I look down the line and see Mazzy. That’s weird—she wasn’t in this class before. I dip out of my spot in line and position myself beside her.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“They switched up my schedule. Getting ready for the Test,” she says, looking at me with a confident smile.
This is the first time I’ve seen her in this kind of tactical gear. Her hair is in a ponytail and she’s in a form-fitting turtleneck that clings to her body, accentuating all of her curves. As I take in her beauty, my scar twinges in response, reminding me of the link her and I share. This twinge, however, is echoed by a throbbing in my cock, reminding me of how badly I want her. There’s been some serious sexual tension between us since I helped her remember her past that night, but I haven’t been able to find any alone time with her since then to progress things further—and not for lack of trying.
“She’s training to become Rambo,” says somebody next to Mazzy.
As tall as he is, I somehow didn’t notice Tristan standing next to Mazzy, which just goes to show how hopelessly I’ve fallen for her, I guess.
“Might need to dye your hair,” I say, unsure of how to read the situation. I suddenly feel like we’re fighting for Mazzy’s attention, which makes me feel like a dweeb.
“Alright, crew, listen up,” Mr. Hill’s voice breaks my concentration. “We’re dealing with illusions today. How to prepare for them, identify them, fight them... Everything you’ve learned in class put to the test.”
Each Delta simulation covers something that we’ve gone over in class. Mr. Hill’s power lets him conjure and control illusions—basically hallucinations that look incredibly realistic—so it’s natural that he’s the one leading our simulation today.
“Go check the board for your teams and then go over the briefing. Simulation starts in ten minutes.”
Hoping I’ll get placed in a team with Mazzy, I head over to the board where our team listings for today are posted.
Chapter 18
Tristan
Me, Mazzy, Damion, and Crash—that’s our team for the simulation today. It’s rare to have two girls in one four-person squad, but I guess they factored in my close friendship with Crash. Each time there’s a simulation, they run their relationship algorithms to figure out the best combination of students to put in each team.
That’s why I’m a little surprised they put Damion with us, and I feel a tinge of jealousy as I wonder just how close he and Mazzy really are. I know Mazzy likes him, and Damion obviously cares enough to put his life in danger for her, but I still don’t know what they’ve gotten up to on their own.
Paul’s presence I can tolerate because the love he and Mazzy share is obvious. Like I’ve told Mazzy before, I respect her too much to get in the way of her life, but at the same time I love her too much to let her go over something like her relationship with Paul. If you would have told me two months I’d not only be solely dedicated to one woman, but even sharing her with another lover, I wouldn’t have believed it, but that was before Mazzy walked into my life.
We’ve already gone over the mission briefing together. Our team composition isn’t bad, but dealing with illusions is a whole different beast. As the most senior student in our team, I probably have the most experience, so I know what to expect from the simulation today. Since illusions are just that—illusory visions that we can perceive but can’t touch—the danger is not in any damage they might do, but in how they affect your ability to react to the environment.
“So all we have to do is press that button over there?” Damion says nonchalantly. “Sounds easy.”
There’s a red button on a pedestal about 300 yards away. We beat the simulation if we press that within ten minutes once the simulation begins.
“That’s because the simulation hasn’t started yet, newbie,” Crash tells him. She’s been at the Academy the longest after me. “Once they get everything up and running, there’s going to be lots of annoying crap getting in the way of us and the button.”
“Environmental hazards, mostly,” I add on. “The illusions are going to make you run one way, and then there will be a trap waiting for you right when you get there, so you have to stay on your toes. Look for the outline that means it’s an illusion, just like we learned in class.”
“Easier said than done,” Crash says. “It’s one thing when we’re looking at slides in class, but quite the other in the middle of a simulation with real hazards.”
“What kind of hazards are there?” asks Mazzy.
Before anyone can answer her, however, huge metal walls shoot up from the ground all around us, separating the four of us from all of the other groups. The partitioning walls have turned the wide-open test chamber into one long hallway, about twenty feet wide, that leads us right to the red button.
“You’ll know soon enough,” I tell her. “Let’s go—the longer we stay in one spot, the more they’ll keep throwing traps at us. We gotta hightail it to the other side!”
We all start jogging in the direction of the button, which seems impossibly far away now that we’re trapped here between the looming metal walls. We figured out our formation during the briefing: Mazzy is in front so that she can user her power to stop anything that comes flying at us—if she’s fast enough. Damion and I are in the middle, ready to provide backup in case anything gets past Mazzy; and Crash is in the back so she can lob explosive projectiles from long range.
We don’t get more than two dozen feet before we encounter our first trap: two metal beams detach from the walls on either side suddenly and careen down toward Mazzy. Fortunately, Mazzy wasn’t caught off guard; she calls upon her power to stop the beams in midair, where they stay suspended for a moment before crashing to the ground loudly.
“What the shit!” yells Damion. “That would have killed her!”
“Welcome to the Academy, rookie,” Crash says from behind us. “Hey, Maz, toss me one of those beams. That’s good ammo!”
Mazzy flings one of the beams toward Crash, who grabs it. It’s a little unwieldy, but it will be a formidable weapon for Crash, who can turn anything into a ticking time bomb that explodes after she throws it.
“I thought those were god-damned illusions,” Mazzy says, looking back at us.
“Nine minutes!” I remind everyone. “There’s no time for chatting; let’s move!”
Soon after we start moving again, however, an alcove on the right wall opens up and a test robot—a kind of automaton the Architect designed for test chamber simulations that looks like a T-1 robot from The Terminator—jumps out.
I notice immediately it has that shimmering outline around it indicating it’s an illusion, but Crash apparently doesn’t.
; “Look out!” she yells.
Before I can tell her it’s an illusion, she chucks the beam she picked up from the last trap at it. In a blast of purple energy, it explodes in mid-air—way too close to us. For a split second, the heat singes my skin and I instinctively recoil.
Mazzy cries out in pain—she was closer than any of us to the blast—as the test robot illusion harmlessly dissipates, and I feel a sudden urge to strangle Crash. For one thing, she should know better than to act so recklessly during a simulation that’s going to be filled with illusions, and on top of that she just hurt the one person I care more about in this world than anyone.
“Shit! My bad!” Crash says.
“Are you okay?” Damion has swooped over to Mazzy’s side to check on her.
So now, not only am I pissed at Crash, but I’m seething with jealousy toward Damion. I’m that one that should be my Mazzy’s side, not this brash new guy.
“I’m fine,” Mazzy says, though the slight burn marks on her sweater say otherwise. “Be a little more careful next time, will you?” she then says to Crash, who gives a peace sign in response.
We get by the next few obstacles successfully, but they’re ramping up in both frequency and difficulty.
When we’re about 100 yards from the button, the floor in front of us suddenly drops out from underneath, revealing a pit of spikes underneath. Everybody gasps in shock, but I notice immediately that it’s another illusion, and if the simulation wants us to look down at the spikes, that means it’s going to send something nasty at us from above.
“Eyes to the sky!” I yell, and sure enough we all look up just in time to see a trio of test robots flying down at us from an opening in the ceiling. They’re coming in too fast to tell if they’re illusions or real, so I dive into a nearby shadow. From my vantage point in the shadow realm, I plan to find a better angle of attack if they turn out to be real.
But as soon as I plunge into the shadow realm, a chill runs down my spine as I realize... I am not alone.
The shadow realm has always been my sanctuary, and now it’s been defiled by the presence of somebody else—another shadow walker like me.
I see her gliding toward me from far away. It’s a woman I’ve never seen before, dressed in a leather jumpsuit. She’s blond, almost like Mazzy, but that’s where the similarities end, because there’s something sinister and vicious about this woman.
Judging from how deftly she’s gliding through the shadow realm, she’s obviously very well trained, and I find myself paralyzed—either in shock or perhaps even as a result of this woman’s power—as she drifts past me, leaving an odd trail of inky blackness through the otherwise dark-purple haze of the shadow realm.
That’s when I realize it isn’t shock that’s keeping me in place, it’s these bizarre tendrils made of that same inky black energy that are binding me like shackles, making it so I can’t move an inch.
“Stay, boy,” she says to me as she swerves past. Her voice is icy cold with some kind of accent that I can’t place.
As I struggle against the energetic shackles binding me, I make out the thin, long blade in her hand just before she passes through the tear.
Unable to react, I watch helplessly as she dives through the tear and into the real world, headed straight for Mazzy!
“No!” I scream, still fighting against the tendrils holding me in place.
All I can do is watch through the tear as the woman exits the shadow realm at great speed and flies toward Mazzy. Mazzy and the others are still dealing with the three test robots, who turned out to not be illusions after all, and the only one quick enough to notice this crazy woman flying out of the shadow is Damion. Just before she’s about to plunge her blade into Mazzy’s spine, Damion tackles her from the side with all his energy. A splatter of blood shoots out from Damion as he dives to the floor with the woman—he just saved Mazzy’s life.
Mazzy turns around, realizing quickly there’s another assailant in the room. She has this look on her face that sends a chill down my spine; some mixture of hatred, determination, and disdain. Then, with greater power than I’ve ever seen her wield before, she causes the metallic floor panels beneath the woman to warp and twist around her, crushing the woman’s ribs and surely her other internal organs in the process as the metal panels bend impossibly in on her. The only parts of the woman that remain visible are her lower body and face, which is distorted in agony as she dies a screaming death.
Pretty unsuccessful as far as assassinations go, but Damion is on the ground beside her, and the pool of blood under him is growing larger. Fortunately, with the assassin’s death, the shackles of dark energy around me immediately dissipate, and I’m free to return to the real world.
I warp through the tear, coming out of the same shadow that the assassin went through. Mazzy is on the ground next to Damion and Crash has just disposed of the other two test robots that came out of the ceiling. Her and I run over to Mazzy and Damion.
Mazzy has turned Damion over onto his back. There’s a huge gash across his chest that looks pretty deep. I immediately take my shirt off, rip it down the neckline so it can cover a greater area, and start wrapping it around Damion’s chest.
He may be a cocky punk, but he just saved the life of the woman I love—I owe him a lot.
“You’re gonna be alright, newbie,” I tell him.
He’s dazed, but still conscious for now.
“Damion...” Mazzy whispers, still on her knees and holding on to him. I see tears welling up in her eyes.
It’s hard, but I tell myself not to be jealous. I should be happy Mazzy is still alive.
“I’m fine...” Damion says in a raspy, weakened voice. “Who the hell was that?” he asks, looking at me now.
“I don’t know,” I say, “but she knew how to use the shadow realm even better than me.”
“She was trying to kill me...” Mazzy says, looking over at the assassin’s corpse encased in twisted metal.
Suddenly, Mazzy gasps and runs over to the woman’s body. Now I see it too—something glittering around her neck. Slowly, with her hand trembling, Mazzy reaches down and, with a little clinking noise, rips the woman’s necklace off. Damion, Crash, and I are all staring at Mazzy, whose back is turned to us, wondering what the necklace is.
Just then, Mr. Hills voice comes in over the loudspeaker. “What the hell is going on in there?” he barks. “All of the monitoring equipment went blank just now. Get your asses back here!”
“Dibs on not explaining what just happened to Mr. Hill,” Damion says as Crash and I help him up.
“You’ll be fine, new kid,” Crash asks. “After all, you’re the one that saved Mazzy, right Maz?”
Mazzy’s back has been facing us this whole time, and when she finally turns around, still gripping the pendant necklace in her hand, she has this thousand-yard stare that looks like she’s just seen a ghost.
“Mazzy?”
Chapter 19
Damion
There are some weird questions on the form I have to fill out to officially check myself out of the medical ward. I’ve been here for two days recovering from the knife wound in my chest. I don’t know why everybody calls it the “medical ward,” since that makes it sound more legit than it really is. In actuality, it’s just the mansion’s old solarium that got repurposed into a partitioned room with beds and some medical supplies.
Have you experienced any psychic intrusions during your time in the medical ward?
I check the “No” box.
Have you noticed any fluctuations in your powers during your recovery?
That’s another “No” from me. How would I even know, anyway? The only people that came to see my while I was here were Crash and Mazzy. Crash brought some flowers she picked from the school grounds, but Mazzy came by herself in the middle of the night last night.
She seemed just as spooked out as she did when she first picked up the assassin’s necklace in the test chamber two days ago, and she said she nee
ded to see me in my room as soon as I got out of the medical ward. I told her I’d be planning on getting out today and I wanted to ask her about the pendant, but she left before I could.
As far as I know, nobody has been able to talk to Mazzy about the pendant since that incident, though I wonder if she’s told Paul or Tristan, her de facto boyfriends. Right after she picked it up, we all had to report to Mr. Hill to explain what the hell had happened with the assassin.
That wasn’t the end of the interrogations, either. Academy faculty came to me a few times during my stay in the medical ward asking about what happened, but there wasn’t much I could tell them. All I know is that I saw some psycho bitch coming at Mazzy with a knife, and I didn’t even think twice before putting myself in the line of fire for Mazzy. Jeez—what’s gotten into me?
Crash told me they’d been putting a lot of pressure on all of them—her, Tristan, and Mazzy—but none of them mentioned the pendant, so I didn’t bring it up either when they asked me about what happened. Apparently they were especially interested in questioning Tristan, since the woman was the only other “shadow walker” the Academy has encountered besides him.
I place the form down on the marble table and wait for Mr. Crane, the teacher who oversees the medical ward, to come back from his office. It was nice to be able to rest for the past two days, but oddly enough I’m itching to get back into my routine, mostly because I hate being out of the loop with things at the Academy.
After Mr. Crane comes back and clears me to leave, I change into my school clothes and set my course for the cafeteria. They’ve been totally shafting me on portions while I’ve been in the medical ward, and I can also catch up with some of the losers in this place before I meet with Mazzy tonight.