by Sophie Davis
“I don’t think that you should be pushing her so hard,” Janet whispered angrily.
“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Mac snapped.
“Are you not the slightest bit concerned about her condition?” Janet’s voice raised an octave, her words laced with venom.
“You know what I am concerned with, Janet? I am concerned about the traitor – the spy – that we have in our Agency.” I could almost hear Mac’s teeth grinding together with the effort of keeping his voice to an audible whisper. “Natalia is the best chance that I have of finding that person. But don’t you think for a second that I don’t care about her well-being. I brought her in to my home, I raised her, and you, of all people, know the lengths that I would go to protect her. So don’t you dare accuse me of not caring. She is every bit as much a daughter to me as Donavon is a son.” Mac was furious. Tension rolled through the closed door. The air was thick with the vibrations emanating off both of them.
I loudly opened the door to my room and stepped out in to the hallway. Both Janet and Mac turned quickly. “I’m ready,” I said quietly, effectively putting an end to their bickering.
Mac, Janet, and I set off across the campus. Neither of them looked at the other nor uttered a single word. Both were lost in their own angry thoughts.
Our destination was a small non-descript building on the very outskirts of the compound. I’d never actually been inside the building, but had wandered past it on many occasions. Truthfully, I hadn’t been exactly sure what purpose the structure served – apparently interrogations.
My head was still fuzzy from all the drugs that Dr. Thistler had used to sedate me. My body ached with every step I took, making me regret my eagerness to jump out of bed. Janet was right; I wasn’t ready for this.
A dimly-lit guard booth materialized in the dark night. I could make out three individuals – two standing outside, and one inside. Penny’s flaming red hair was starkly illuminated by the light from the guard booth. Donavon stood next to her, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, eyes intently studying the blades of grass beneath.
“Hi, there,” I mentally called to him. His head shot up and our eyes met across the great distance. He turned and said something to Penny, who turned and looked in our direction. Donavon began closing the gap between us.
“I’m glad that you’re here,” I sent. Donavon smiled, and I felt relief flood through him. He’d been worried that I’d rethought my earlier feelings of camaraderie. I hadn’t. I really had missed him, and I was resigned to making the best of our current situation. After all, it wasn’t Donavon’s fault that he’d been sprung on me.
“Tal!” he exclaimed, wrapping me in his arms. “Are you sure that you’re up for this?”
I glanced at Mac; the hard set of his jaw and coldness of his eyes told me that I’d better be.
“Of course,” I lied. No, I wasn’t ready for this, but it needed to be done. If nothing else, my interrogation would prove Ernest’s innocence. Granted, that would not put me any closer to identifying the actual culprit, but at least I could rest assured that another person I counted among my friends hadn’t deceived me.
The four of us made our way to the guard station where Penny waited.
“How did you know that it was us standing here? You had to be like a hundred yards away!” she exclaimed, hugging me.
“Penny, I think the people manning the satellites can spot your hair from space,” I replied, only half-joking. My point was valid; Penny’s bright red-orange locks were like a lighthouse beckoning to ships in the night.
“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes.
“Natalia has work to do. So if social hour is over, we should really get this over with,” Mac interjected. I nodded in response to him, then glanced conspiratorially at Penny and Donavon. Mac was being a little dramatic. Janet kept shooting him dirty looks when he was sure to notice. It felt good to have somebody like her in my corner.
The four of us followed Mac to the front of the building. There was another guard stationed inside, who exchanged a nod with Mac as we passed. We followed Mac to an elevator bank, then waited in silence for the ping that signaled the elevator’s arrival. The doors slid soundlessly open, and we filed in. Mac pressed his thumb to a scanner on the front-right panel of the elevator, and a green light flashed, confirming Mac’s identity. He entered a two-digit number on to the touch pad and the car sped downward.
The elevator gave another soft ping, indicating our arrival on the designated floor.
The hallway was cool and impersonal, with dreary, gray walls. I shuddered, hugging myself as we followed Mac to a door marked 5B. Inside was a waiting room with a long rectangular table, sitting underneath a one-way mirror. On the table sat several monitors, each displaying a different set of data, and three plastic chairs sat in front of it, facing the mirror. On the other side of the glass was Ernest.
“Let’s get this over with,” Mac said to me. I nodded and took a deep breath. Janet gave me a tight-lipped smile and nodded encouragingly. Exhaling slowly, I opened the door to the adjoining room.
Ernest was staring nervously at his hands folded in his lap, but looked up when I entered. His hazels eyes darted nervously between me and his reflection. The air was thick with the stench of body odor and anxiety. I fought the urge to wrinkle my nose in disgust.
“Talia?” he said uncertainly. “What’s going? Why am I here?”
“I just want to ask you some questions,” I said soothingly.
His eyes darted left, right, up, and down. “Did you have to drag me here just to ask me a couple of questions?” He laughed nervously as he wiped sweaty palms on his shirt, leaving damp handprints in their wake.
“I’m sorry. This is just a formality.” I tried to keep my voice light. The smell of his sweat, sweet and pungent, consumed the small room. Forcing back the bile rising in my throat, I focused on his face. Beads of moisture glistened just below his hairline. I didn’t need the monitors on the other side of the mirror to tell me that his heart was beating much more quickly than normal; I could hear the soft thump-thump with my own ears.
Slowly, I moved to sit across from Ernest. I began with the easy questions: name, place of birth, parents. I read the answers as they popped into his head. Every answer that he spoke aloud matched the one that I read from his mind. Finding my rhythm, I moved on to more personal questions – those that Donavon’s mental voice fed me from the other side of the glass. I asked questions about his family in California, and his father’s reputed communications with them. I delved into his own personal relationship with his extended relatives.
Hours passed as I dissected every detail of Ernest’s life. Finally, when my mental and physical exhaustion peaked, I turned to the mirror and spoke aloud.
“It’s not him, Mac.”
Donavon’s mental voice answered me. “Search deeper,” it responded.
I glared at the mirror and thought unspeakable words in Mac’s direction.
“We need to be sure, Natalia,” Mac’s mental voice responded. Scowling, I turned back to face Ernest.
“Give me your hands, Ernest,” I commanded in a low voice. He obeyed without hesitation. “Look into my eyes,” I ordered. He raised his hazel eyes, the pupils so dilated that they appeared black, and reflected a distorted image of my face. Locking our gazes, I concentrated as hard as I could, and opened my mind to Ernest’s. Wading through his most recent memories of teaching here at the School, I saw nothing of use. I systematically moved backwards, pulling every memory and experience that Ernest had ever had from his mind. I felt the last vestiges of Ernest’s willpower leave him, and every thought that he’d ever had crashed over me in a tidal wave of memories.
No longer able to distinguish where my mind ended and Ernest’s began, I started shaking and gulping air. It was quickly becoming hard to breathe. I truly felt as if I was drowning in Ernest’s mind.
“Natalia,” a sharp voice snapped in my head. “Natalia, pull back!” the
voice – Donavon’s – screamed. But it was so far away, sounding like a distant echo in a long hallway, and I couldn’t pull back. I was in too deep.
“Tal, listen to my voice. Pull back,” Donavon frantically ordered. I tried to concentrate on his words, but it was next to impossible with Ernest’s memories swirling like a funnel cloud inside of my mind. The interrogation room ceased to exist. I was floating, becoming part of Ernest as I pulled more and more of his life into me.
“Tal, please. Follow the sound of my voice. You need to come back to me,” Donavon urged. The intensity of his words, coupled with the strength of his will, brought me back to reality. I was still entrenched in Ernest’s thoughts, but it was becoming easier to separate our minds.
Summoning all of my willpower, I yanked my hands from Ernest, who was now clinging to me with a death grip. I ripped my eyes away, and felt the imaginary rope that had connected us snap. Severing the bond hurt. I collapsed against the chair, feeling disoriented and shaking. I took deep breaths, and tried to calm the trembling in my hands. Donavon burst through the door, but stayed several feet back, scared to come any closer.
“Talia,” he said tentatively. I turned to look up at him; his face was blurry, and I blinked several times in an attempt to sharpen the image. All of my senses felt dull and sluggish, like I’d just woken from a dream. He quickly knelt down beside my chair, taking my hands in his.
“Are you okay? What happened?” he asked.
I shook my head, my tongue felt thick and too big for my mouth. “Can I leave now?” I asked him mentally. The need to get out of the room consumed me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Dizziness filled my head as bile made its way up my throat. I needed fresh air, now.
“Aloud,” he answered. I looked at him, confused. “You need to speak out loud right now. I don’t think that you should be communicating mentally – you’re too vulnerable.”
I looked back across the table at Ernest. His head was slumped against his chest and he was drooling. The scene cut through my haze like a knife piercing my heart.
“Is he going to be okay,” I whispered, close to tears.
“Get her out of here.” Mac’s voice came from the doorway before Donavon could answer.
Behind Mac stood two Medics, and all three entered the tiny room. The Medics each took one of Ernest’s arms, lifting him out of his seat and in to a waiting wheelchair. I stared blankly after the trio.
“Get her out of here,” Mac repeated.
“Still think that this was such a good idea?” Donavon demanded, rounding on his father.
“She will be fine. She just needs to rest,” Mac replied shortly.
“What about Ernest? Will he be okay?” I asked, looking up at Mac.
“In time,” Mac answered without meeting my eyes.
Donavon rose to his full height and faced his father. Their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills, eerily similar to the one that had transpired between myself and Mac just hours before. Neither spoke, both men standing rigid, electricity crackling in the air around their bodies. Donavon’s hands were tightly fisted at his sides and a low growl sounded in his chest.
“Take Natalia back to her room,” Mac ordered his son, his words holding so much authority that I flinched. Donavon sagged under the weight of his father’s command as he backed down. He never could stand up to his father, not that I blamed him. Mac was not the kind of person that most dared to challenge. Even Janet stood silently in the corner of the crowded room, too intimidated to make so much as a peep.
Donavon gently pulled me to my feet. He wrapped one of his long arms around my shoulders and silently led me from the suffocating interrogation room. Penny quickly fell in step with us as we made our way to the elevator. She looked as tired and drained as I felt. Her eyes were bloodshot, and dark circles colored the hollows beneath.
No one spoke as we made our way back up the elevator and out into the night. I let them lead me back across campus to my room. My mind was so numb that I barely registered my surroundings, and was surprised to find the three of us standing in my bedroom sooner rather than later.
“Why don’t I take it from here?” Penny said quietly to Donavon. He looked at me questioningly. I managed to nod my head, indicating that he should go.
“You should sleep in. The first people won’t be arriving until lunchtime,” he replied.
“Huh?” People? Lunchtime? What was he talking about?
“Career fair starts tomorrow,” Penny said tiredly, sensing my confusion.
“Right. Career fair,” I mumbled. My medically-induced hibernation period had thrown my sense of time out of whack.
“I have to help set up in the morning, but I’ll come check on you afterward,” Donavon said as he bent down to place a gentle kiss on the top of my head. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around him, craving the physical comfort of his familiar body against mine. An overwhelming urge to hold him tighter consumed me, making me hesitate before I pulled back and said goodnight.
Once he was gone, Penny set about finding my pajamas and helping me get ready for bed. I changed and climbed under the covers. Every muscle in my body relaxed as I lay on the now familiar mattress. Penny pulled the chair from my desk over and sat next to my bed.
“Want to talk about what happened?” she asked quietly. Her green eyes were so full of concern that my frozen insides began to thaw.
“Not really,” I mumbled. Reliving what had just happened with Ernest so soon might send me over the edge of sanity, on which I was currently teetering. My hands were still shaking slightly. The view from the other side of the glass must have been pretty horrific too because I noticed that, in addition to the bloodshot eyes and dark circles, Penny was also extremely pale. Her hands twitched uneasily in her lap.
“Want to talk about Erik?” she countered mischievously.
“Erik?” I asked, startled. “What does he have to do with anything?” I’d thought about Erik constantly over the past couple of months, but besides initial inquiries into his well-being, I hadn’t talked to Penny about him.
“Both Erik and Henri will be here tomorrow for the career fair......” she replied. “I assumed that Erik had messaged you,” she added hastily.
“No, he hasn’t,” I said wistfully, glancing at my silent communicator. Erik’s purposeful refusal to call me stung. If nothing else, wasn’t he wondering if I’d read his letter? Oh, God, Erik’s letter. His words had fueled my animosity towards Mac during my recovery, yet I still wasn’t sure that I truly believed him. Not that I thought Erik was lying. I just thought that maybe Erik had misunderstood the encounter. Or maybe I just hoped that was the case.
“Wait, did he call you?” I asked accusingly. The miserable look on Penny’s face told me that he had. “What did he say?” I demanded.
“Erik didn’t call me, Harris did,” she clarified. I sighed with relief and instantly felt bad for jumping down her throat. “We talk every so often, and he just mentioned that Erik was one of the Operatives chosen to represent the Hunters at the fair.”
“Oh, I see,” I replied in a small voice. “So, do you think that he might want to see me?” Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as I waited for Penny to give me some sort of confirmation, to reassure me that Erik would want to see me.
“I’m sure that he does,” Penny said softly, wrapping her arms around me. Despite the fact that she’d told me exactly what I wanted to hear, I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. The full emotional impact of the day finally hit me, and I sobbed against Penny’s shoulder. She rubbed my back soothingly. “I know he’ll be happy to see you tomorrow,” she promised.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I laughed shakily as I pulled back from Penny’s embrace.
“You’ve had a really long day. It’s a lot for anyone to handle. Why don’t you get some sleep? We can talk about stuff tomorrow,” Penny offered.
“Do you mind staying until I fall asleep?” I sniffed. Part of me wanted to be alone,
but part of me feared that, left to my own devices, I might start weeping again.
“Of course, not, I’ll be right here,” Penny replied kindly as she settled back into my less-than-comfortable desk chair. Her voice was strained and tired, and I knew that I should insist she go back to her own room; watching such an intense interrogation hadn’t been easy on her. But I needed her, needed her strength, and I was too selfish to tell her to go rest. Tomorrow, I was sure that I’d hate myself for being so weak and self-centered, but not tonight.
Chapter Thirteen
Taking Donavon’s suggestion, I slept late the next morning. For someone who’d slept for the better part of the past five days, I sure was exhausted. My head throbbed, and thinking of the upcoming day’s events did nothing to alleviate my misery: career fair.
Every year representatives from the major divisions of Toxic came to campus and set-up booths shortly before the students chose which Placement Exams to take. The event afforded them the opportunity to speak with representatives, decide what career path they wanted to pursue, and, subsequently, which tests they would sit for. Each student would be allowed to select up to three Divisions for which he or she could attempt placement. The students were encouraged to sign-up for demonstrations and get one-on-one advice and assistance from Operatives currently working in the sector they wished to join.
When I was still a student, I’d loved the career fair. I’d loved getting out of classes and seeing the Operatives’ demonstrations. In retrospect, it all seemed rather pointless since, in most cases, students’ Talents and Rankings dictated their placement. Many students hoping for coveted positions began training as young as twelve, the age when students were allowed to start taking electives.
Toxic identified strong physical Talents early, and began training them in combat to develop the necessary skills to become a Hunter. Students with strong Higher Reasoning Talents, like Penny, were often pulled from physical training to focus solely on honing and refining their computer skills. Ordinarily, higher-level mental Talents like me were marked for psychic interrogation and took specialized investigative techniques classes. Mac had insisted that I take several interrogation classes, but had fully encouraged my pursuit of the physical ones as well. He’d never doubted that I would become a Hunter, at least not back then.
