TRAVELLER (Book 1 in the Brass Pendant Trilogy)

by Amanda May Bell

  I walked slowly through the door and I ran my fingers reverently across the doors of the metal lockers before I turned back to Morgan.

  “This is amazing……just like the quester’s locker room in Aldiris. I love this,” I said slowly, as I breathed in the smell which was a combination of wood, polished metal, bow string resin, wax and leather. Morgan leant against the door frame and he smiled as he watched me smooth my hand across the wooden sword racks before he walked into the room too. The lockers doors were all slightly ajar and he opened one. There was a pair of heavy duty quester’s boots on the bottom shelf and a woven, dark coloured, waterproof back pack on the middle shelf. The top shelf was bare except for a small metal cylinder.

  “That locker will be mine,” said Dominic arrogantly. He entered the room followed by the others, including Caspian, who was fitting the same wad of bound parchments into his inside jacket pocket again as he hurried into the room behind everyone else.

  Morgan looked at Dominic and stepped away from the locker.

  “It’s yours if you want it, but those boots look like they’re sized to fit one of the girls,” Morgan said dryly, and I could clearly hear the undertone of amusement in his voice.

  “That could be your locker then, Dom,” said Seth, and he laughed as he slapped Dominic good naturedly on the back. Morgan grinned and Dominic glared at him just as Zurina marched into the room.

  “Your lockers have been assigned to you, so there’s no point claiming one,” said Zurina briskly, and we stepped back while she read out our names from a small parchment. She pointed out which locker belonged to each of us and we stood in front of them eagerly.

  We spent the next couple of clock turns being fitted for our weapons and sorting through our gear. I was in heaven. My locker was on the end closest to the door, and Morgan’s was against the back of mine, facing in the opposite direction. I sat on the wooden bench beside Erin, whose locker was beside mine, and we went through our packs as Zurina explained our tools and equipment.

  “You won’t always take a pack with you on quests. They’re generally only used for overnight stays or to take to markers located in harsh conditions. Discovery quests, for example, will always require you take your pack, while Denborite ambush quests, on the other hand, will always require your weapons only. In your packs, you’ll notice you have a rolled, rain shield which can also double as a rain shelter, and you have a thickly woven vest to be used in cold temperatures. There is also an emergency, healing kit and inside this you should find antiseptic pastes, a needle, thread, and some bandages. The females amongst you will find a hooded cloak in your pack as well. There are some time segments where you’ll find it necessary to hide the fact that you are female and the hooded cloak is for this purpose. I tend to avoid these time segments during finals but, unfortunately, you may find it necessary to visit them eventually,” she added dryly, before she continued. “You’ll see you have a small water flask and a four length rope also. The rope will take the weight of one person only and you would be wise to remember this,” she said, and she paused while we delved into the bottom of our waterproof back packs to find our rope. “These are your emergency cylinders,” she continued in her brisk, commanding voice and she showed us one of the small, thin metal cylinders. We had one of these in front of us in our lockers and it lay on the top shelf. “Turn it to activate the yellow, short spectrum energy light. This cylinder lights fires, cuts through textile, metal, flesh and wood, and it can also be used on the weakest setting to adequately light a small area. Where you go, it goes, and I don’t expect to have to remind you of this again. It will save your life at least once when you join the Quest, and possibly once or twice during the challenges too, so I expect you to view it as being inseparable from you on a quest in much the same manner as your pendants,” said Zurina, as she walked back and forth around the room with her arms folded.

  When we’d gone through maintenance of our packs and discussed situations which might require the use of one or more of the pack items, we were told to code our lockers to our palm prints, and we pressed our palms against the rectangular, crystal panels set into the top right hand corners of the metal doors. Morgan’s was on the left because he was left handed. The crystal panel recorded our prints with a series of blue light flashes and Zurina sealed this into the panel memory with a bright blue, light key.

  While we repacked our packs, Zurina fitted us one at a time for swords and she was obviously an expert at this as she almost immediately picked out the perfect sword for us in length and weight after glancing at our height and build for only a moment. She then sent us around the room to pick out our own bow and sword belt, and when we were done, she labelled the racks with our names. We placed our selected weapons neatly in the appropriate places. By the time we were done, the locker room was ready for us to leave at a moment’s notice and it would be ready for any and all of our final challenges when we returned here next week. There was an air of excitement and anticipation about the room now and even Caspian had replaced his serious expression with a surprisingly enthusiastic grin. Zurina almost smiled herself as she declared that we were now ready to face what lay ahead…………well, she almost smiled, but not quite, before she launched straight into a lecture about keeping our packs in order and maintaining our weapons at all times…….

  After we were done in the locker room, we followed Zurina into the dining room. I could smell the evening meal as it cooked slowly somewhere behind the folded partition at the end of the room and, almost on cue, a man appeared from behind the partition. He was short and stocky and Zurina introduced him to us as Marko. Marko was the quest house cook but he was also a fully qualified healer. He had dead straight, golden hair and it was cut bluntly around his face. His eyes were an intense, turquoise colour and he bowed slightly at Zurina’s introduction before he asked us to follow him in a brisk voice. His voice had the same commanding tone to it as Zurina’s, and it was obvious both of them were used to giving orders and being obeyed without question. Marko showed us into the room beside the locker room and it was set up as a first aid room with a narrow bed for diagnosis in its centre. Shelves lined the room on three sides and these shelves held a vast array of herbs and spices, salts, solutions and ointments, which were all stored in labelled glass jars. There were buckets and bandages and wooden splints, as well as sound cut needles of various sizes and thicknesses, and textile poultices ready to be soaked and applied. There were magnets and light therapy cartridges, and a nerve chart was printed on a parchment and attached with a wooden frame to the wall.

  Marko gave us a quick run through of basic first aid procedures which we’d all studied extensively over the past six turns but which all of us had yet to apply in the field. He reminded us that a real situation was going to require us to have to both think on our feet, and keep a cool head, and he suggested that these two things alone could often be enough to save another quester’s life. When he was done, Zurina glanced at her pendant and she informed us that we had a clock turn now to prepare for the evening meal before she and Marko left us to return upstairs to our rooms.

  Morgan and I followed the others.

  “Are you excited?” Morgan asked me, and I knew he was referring to the finals.

  “That’s part of how I feel……I can’t explain it exactly. I’ve trained for so long and studied so hard, and it’s almost upon me. Now that I’m here though, I have a feeling it will be nothing like I’ve imagined,” I said slowly. Morgan nodded.

  “I know what you mean,” he said just as slowly, as we climbed the stairs to follow the others into our dorm rooms.

  I’d never had to share a room before, or anything else for that matter and I admitted to myself that the thought of living in the same room as these girls was a little daunting. But, I guessed it was just a matter of minding your own business and staying out of everyone else’s way. When we entered our room, Evangeline commanded the attention of Erin straight away by asking her to take the braids out of her
hair for her, which Erin began doing without complaint. Evangeline spoke quietly to her and Erin giggled. Imogen narrowed her eyes at them, and I could tell she thought she had three choices. She could join them, sit alone on her bed, or talk to me. She chose to join them and she sat on Evangeline’s bed too.

  Fortunately, I had thought of a fourth choice and I opened my travelling bag. We only had a clock turn until the evening meal, and there were four of us and only one bathroom.

  “I’m going to bathe unless anyone has an objection,” I said to no one in particular, and I took my clean clothes with me and marched into the bathroom, before shutting the door firmly behind me.

  The bathroom was beautifully tiled in tiny, turquoise coloured tiles. It was a twenty first century bathroom with a twenty first century water flushing toilet, and a large, egg shaped bath with a shower head suspended over it. There were hot and cold water taps, a clear glass basin with a large mirror, and there was a wooden stool upon which sat a basket of Aldirite towels and a glass jar of hair cleaning paste. Small, roughly cut slivers of Aldirite soap were arranged beside the sink and I could smell their distinctive aroma of olive oil and sea minerals. I could clearly hear Imogen’s voice from the dorm room too and I wondered how long it would take these girls to realise sound travelled straight through the bathroom door.

  “Her Royal Highness is not as I expected.”

  Imogen spoke scornfully as I lay my clean clothes on the edge of the stool.

  “In what way?” asked Evangeline, and I paused for a moment as I undressed quickly.

  “She likes to be called by her name only and she went to fetch a servant quester as if she were a servant herself. She’s not very Royal is she?” asked Imogen, with amusement. “I’ve heard rumours of the Queen’s behaviour and it’s decidedly Royal,” she added, and she sounded much more impressed by my mother than she was by me. There was a slight pause before Evangeline spoke again.

  “Livia says and does exactly what she wants to, with little regard to what you or anyone else might think of it. I’d challenge either of you to make her do otherwise, and that, as far as I’m concerned, makes her the very essence of Royalty,” Evangeline said dryly, and I half smiled and shook my head as I turned the twenty first century taps so the running water drowned out the rest of their conversation……

  I left plenty of time for the other girls to bathe, but it didn’t surprise me when Evangeline claimed the bathroom when I was done. When I’d combed and braided my hair again; rather than remain in the uncomfortable atmosphere of the dorm room, I wandered out into the hall. I was going to go downstairs, but I found Morgan sitting on the top step and I sat down beside him.

  “Hey,” he said in Synthetic Era language. I smiled. He was breaking Zurina’s rules already, but somehow, I didn’t think she’d be surprised by this.

  “Have they thrown you out already?” I asked him, and he grinned.

  “I threw myself out to save them the trouble,” he said. “What are you doing out here?” he asked me and I shrugged. He looked at me thoughtfully before he looked at his pendant and glanced at me. “We have three quarters of a clock turn. Do you want to see where we are? I didn’t hear any rules forbidding us to go outside, did you?” he asked me, and I smiled again.

  “Okay,” I said in Synthetic Era language, and he laughed as we stood up and headed down the stairs to the front door.

  When we reached the door though, there was no door handle on it and I knew what that meant. I’d lived in a house in a time segment close to this one before and I knew this door wouldn’t have been programmed yet to respond to our voices. I turned to Morgan.

  “Voice activated,” I said, and I knew I sounded disappointed, but Morgan grinned and he dropped his pendant beneath his shirt before he slid his fingers along the side of the house control panel which was attached to the wall beside the door. In future time segments, house control panels would become three dimensional, virtual screens that sent signals wirelessly throughout the house, but this panel was a thin, flat screen hard wired into the wall.

  Morgan removed the screen itself from the wall and he raised his eyebrows and grinned at me as I folded my arms and watched him. The panel was still attached to the wires which protruded from the wall cavity and he held the panel with one hand as he adjusted a dial on the back. He frowned slightly then before tapping options on a multi coloured flow chart which displayed suddenly on the screen. He glanced up and grinned again as the double front doors swung open silently and I dropped my pendant down inside my shirt too as Morgan put the control panel back on the wall.

  “Manual voice override,” Morgan said smugly and he closed the doors firmly behind him as we stepped outside.

  “How or where did you learn to do that?” I asked him, as we walked through a paved front courtyard which was almost identical to the one at the back of the house.

  “Virtual school,” he said, and I looked at him in surprise. He grinned. “I know they were only popular for a short time, but when I was in group training, I had to attend a virtual school once and there was one class that was actually interesting. The class was only held once a turn but it was called personal safety through system control,” he said cheerfully. “In the class they showed us how to override the voice activation component on house control panels if they malfunctioned, and they showed us how to manually exit auto controlled cars in the event of a system failure, and they also showed us how to shut down a system error that was failing to add oxygen to the air in the house,” he said. I frowned and glanced back at the Quest house.

  “Well, I’m glad you know how to do that,” I said, as Morgan unlatched a tall wooden gate.

  “I don’t, I’m sorry. I was ejected from the classroom link before I could learn how to do that one. Unfortunately, when the tutor asked me what I’d try first if I was faced with that error, I told him I’d open a window,” he said, and he shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but the tutor wasn’t impressed………and my quest training tutor wasn’t impressed either when she had to write an apology to the school administrator,” he added, and when I glanced at him, Morgan shrugged innocently. I smiled before I looked around us at the +2059 street.

  We were in a wealthy gated community. This community was nestled against the edge of a forest and I could see the same tall, evergreen trees I’d seen from the back courtyard of the Quest house rising behind the houses all the way along the street. The street itself was wide and clean, and it was edged with slightly fake looking, genetically manufactured grass. There were more houses behind high walls and, as we walked along the spongy grass, a large van drove by silently and stopped automatically outside a house further up the street. An automated control arm deposited a large, plastic wrapped package over the fence before the arm retracted and the car drove itself towards its next delivery.

  The suburb was very quiet and the light was beginning to fade. It was impossible to see the exact location of the sun through the pale, neon haze but I could tell it was low in the sky. The haze had a pinkish hue to it near the horizon, and it was getting cold. We walked past a house with an ornamental tree growing just behind its fence. The leaves of the tree were gold and red, and one of them had blown from the branches and now lay on the fake looking grass. The four pointed leaf lay in all its crimson glory against the unnatural, uniform greenery and it was a welcome touch of disorder in the ‘too perfect’ streetscape. I wondered if anyone was at home behind the high, rendered fences, but I guessed, if they were, they were busy living their isolated lives in their voice and oxygen controlled houses. Another silent car drove by and I noticed pale, unsmiling children sitting in the back seat. They stared at us as they pressed their faces against the rear window glass and Morgan said he felt sorry for them. A middle aged couple passed us on the other side of the street and they walked very quickly and didn’t speak at all. They didn’t smile either as they walked their debarked, pure bred dog on its short, plastic coated lead. I shook my head when they
disappeared into a gate in one of the high rendered fences. Even the dog didn’t look happy.

  “Who were your previous finals partners?” I asked Morgan, as we wandered slowly down the edge of the street.

  “Dominic, Imogen and Erin,” he said, and I nodded slowly.

  “They don’t like you,” I said, and Morgan glanced at me and shrugged.

  “That’s not my fault,” he said smoothly, and I looked at him carefully.

  “That’s not true,” I said, and he glanced at me with a mixture of annoyance and surprise. “Did you deliberately provoked them?” I asked him, and he glanced at me again.

  “Do I deliberately provoke you?” he asked me innocently, and I grinned. “You do when you answer my questions with another question,” I said. He rolled his eyes.

  “Alright, you’re right. I didn’t like them either,” he said, and he shook his head. I nodded slowly.

  “Fair enough,” I said slowly, and this time, when he glanced at me, he smiled.

  A baby cried and we heard it faintly from somewhere behind a fence. It was nice to hear that the sounds of real human life hadn’t completely disappeared from this neighbourhood…..although it may have been a televised baby; it was hard to tell.

  “How did you know Zurina’s Titanic question was a test?” I asked Morgan curiously.

  “Because everything here will be a test and Zurina’s in charge of testing us. Now, thanks to her open question, she knows Dominic will lie to gain her approval, Caz is more interested in science than quests, Evangeline is calculating and self-serving, and you’re stubborn, but kind hearted,” he said.

  “Thanks……I think,” I said dryly. “And, she also knows you’ll try and outsmart her whenever you can because you like a challenge,” I added. Morgan glanced at me with the same mixture of annoyance and surprise again before he nodded reluctantly.