The ARC 02: Talented

by Alexandra Moody

  ‘What do you mean by dangerous?’

  ‘Just trust me. Even if you could go there, you wouldn’t want to. Besides, what could be worse than going to a place and being surrounded by people who can do things you can only dream of?’

  If only she knew how close her last sentence hits home for me. I want to tell her the truth about me, but she’s acting so strangely and completely different to the girl I was once so close to in the ARC. I’m not certain if I can trust her now.

  ‘Where do you think Sebastian is?’ I ask.

  She shrugs like she doesn’t care. ‘He could be anywhere.’

  ‘I don’t understand why they didn’t put him with you. They said the only reason I’m fostered out is because I don’t have family here.’

  ‘I… I don’t…’ She stands up. ‘Listen, I think I’ve answered enough of your questions. We should head back before Mum gets worried.’ She stalks off down the alley without another word.

  ‘But she’s not your mum…’ I say, under my breath, before jogging to catch up with her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I stare out over the city from my rooftop vantage point. The sun is high overhead and the light sparkles as it dances across the city below me. Cathy hasn’t let me leave the building since we went to the refuse centre this morning, so I’m grateful I’ve at least found a place in this complex where I can be outside.

  It was exciting going to the refuse centre, where most people in the east go to get their clothes. Set in this big, ancient looking warehouse, it was huge compared to the handful of clothing boutiques I’d walked past yesterday, where only the highly successful have enough credits to shop.

  The place was filled with racks of clothing that extended as far as the eye could see. The clothes weren’t nearly as fancy as the dresses I used to borrow from the costume room in the ARC but, like the ARC, everything there had been previously worn.

  I found myself nervous yet eager as we picked through the clothes racks. I’d never had the freedom to pick what clothes I would like to wear each day and it was overwhelming trying to decide what to get. I still can’t believe I’ll never have to wear my greys again.

  I lean my arms down on the outer ledge of the building and peer over the edge. It’s such a long way down from up here, but I have no problem with the height. The surrounding structures, which looked so tall from the ground, are like children next to the Mason’s towering apartment building.

  I can easily see over the neighbouring rooftops and off to the horizon. From up here you can even make out the snow and ice that still grips the far edge of the city. My eyes drop quickly from the sight. I don’t want to think about the impact winter anymore.

  I turn away from the view to look back across the rooftop. There’s a small garden up here that is completely wild, with plants that have taken over the fenced off area. There are strange leafy bushes that stick out at all angles, and weeds growing throughout the planter beds. Then, there are these incredible soft pink roses, that tumble and cascade over the ground and up around an archway that marks the entrance to the space. It’s beautiful despite its untamed growth, or maybe because of it. Gemma would love it up here. She broke into the plantation in the ARC about as many times as I did.

  I lean my head back to the sky and relish the feeling of the sun’s rays against my skin. It almost tingles across it. If I was forced underground for another fifteen years, I’m certain I’d never again forget the amazing feeling of it cocooning my body in its warmth.

  As I lower my head and turn to look back at the view of the city, a wave of homesickness hits me. The surface is amazing, but I miss the gentle, droning hum of the ARC. The comfort that comes with knowing there’s a schedule, that every day follows the same routine. I miss the safety and security of knowing the people around me.

  Most of all I miss Quinn. Is it really only a day since I saw her face? I shake my head trying to clear the thoughts of Quinn from my mind. I’ll completely lose it if I think about her.

  When I turn back to look at the view, I feel slightly overwhelmed by the enormity of the city. There are so many buildings, with so many people. Where are you Sebastian?

  I don’t even know where to begin to look and I doubt Cathy and Paul will be able to help me. I asked Paul last night how I could find my friend, hoping he could provide some insight since he works for the government, but he said there was nothing he could do. April almost fell off her seat, choking on her mouthful of chicken, when I’d brought that subject up at dinner.

  Sorry, not April, Beth. She’s changed so much since being taken. The young girl I had known in the ARC had been an adventurous, fun, free-spirited person. This ‘Beth’ is so distant I worry the April I knew is gone.

  I just wish I could understand what she’s been through, what happened to change her so drastically. She hasn’t talked to me since our walk though and appears to be avoiding me.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ Speak of the devil. It’s hard to mistake Beth’s voice from behind me. I’d been so caught up in my musings I hadn’t even heard the elevator ding on her arrival. I continue looking out over the city as she comes to stand next to me.

  ‘Just getting some air and enjoying the view. How about you, April?’ I ask, already feeling apprehensive about her response. I don’t want to fight with her and, from the sound of her bristling tone of voice, she’s raring for a confrontation.

  ‘Beth.’ She corrects me angrily. I turn to her and can almost see the tension rolling off her shoulders.

  ‘Sorry. I keep forgetting.’ I sigh and look back at the view. ‘Have you had any thoughts about where Sebastian could be? How we could try to find him?’

  ‘No,’ she responds. She doesn’t sound like she’s given it a moment’s thought, but I find that hard to believe.

  ‘I was thinking about going back to the reintegration centre to see if they had any information on him. Do you think they’d help me?’

  Beth laughs. ‘Yeah, I’m sure they’d love to help you. Gosh, why hadn’t I thought of that?’

  I take a step back from the ledge and frown at her. ‘Why wouldn’t they want to help?’

  ‘They won’t even let you through the front doors of the reintegration centre, let alone give you information on someone.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Beth shrugs. ‘I don’t even want to help you, and he’s my brother. Why would they?’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘Seriously April, what’s happened to you? We were once best friends and I can’t understand why you won’t talk to me. Why you want nothing to do with me, why you don’t want to find your brother. What’s happened to change you so much?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand. And it’s Beth,’ she says, her voice dropping low.

  I wait for her to continue, hoping she will open up, but she doesn’t say a word.

  ‘If you ever want to talk … I’m here,’ I tell her.

  She opens her mouth, but then shuts it tightly and turns away. I sadly turn away myself and walk towards the elevator. I shove the down button hard when I reach it and the doors slide open. I enter and turn to press the button for our floor, but my fingers hover over it for a moment before I push. Beth stands at the edge of the building, facing away from me with her shoulders slouched forward and her dark hair draped over her face. She looks so alone.

  The lift doors close and I rub my fingers in a gentle circle around my temples. I’d always hoped I’d one day see April again, but I can’t bear to see her this way. She seems so lost and I hate she won’t let me in to help her—even if there was nothing I could do, I just want her to know she has someone she can talk to.

  When the doors open at level 12, my feet don’t move. Instead, I hit the ground floor button. I can’t face another second in that apartment right now. I don’t care what Cathy said about staying in the building, I didn’t go through hell to get out of the ARC and find Sebastian only to be imprisoned in an ap
artment on the surface.

  I walk out through the big glass doors in the foyer and let my feet guide me away from the apartment building in the direction of the reintegration centre. Well, where I think it is, seeing as I don’t have the address keyed into my cuff. April is wrong about them not wanting to help. She has to be.

  After twenty minutes of walking past identical buildings my resolve begins to waver. The buildings extend tirelessly into the distance and the reintegration centre is nowhere in sight. It hadn’t taken long to travel between there and the Mason’s by car yesterday, but walking is taking ages.

  I stop walking and step into one of the building’s doorways. I can’t even be certain I’m going in the right direction to get to the reintegration centre so instead I comm Faye. Maybe I can convince her to let me know where he is? She said I could comm her about anything, so I’m sure she won’t mind.

  ‘Hello,’ she answers, after one ring.

  ‘Hi Faye, this is Elle Winters. We met yesterday for reintegration—’

  ‘Is everything okay?’ she interrupts.

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine.’

  ‘Then why are you comming me?’

  ‘It’s about the friend I mentioned yesterday. I’m still trying to find him and he’s not at my school. Can you please tell me how to get in touch with him?’

  ‘I’m sorry Elle, as I already told you, I can only give that information to immediate family. If your friend is not in East Hope then there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Please only comm me if you have a real problem.’ It takes me a second to realise she’s already disconnected the comm, and another moment to grasp the fact that it wasn’t an accident.

  I slowly lower my arm down to my side and move back onto the sidewalk. She didn’t even consider helping me with Sebastian? Can the rules on giving out that information really be so strict?

  April would be able to get the details, but she’s pretending to be someone else and has already refused to help me find Sebastian.

  I continue walking down the road, strolling slower now as I feel my sense of purpose weaken. I can’t understand why it’s such a big deal. Would I get the same frosty reception if I went to the reintegration centre? I want to believe they’d help me, but if my assigned contact person there won’t help, why would anyone else?

  I consider returning to the Mason’s, but a part of me still hopes I’ll find the reintegration centre, so I continue slowly walking down the road.

  More people spill out onto the sidewalk as I continue, and I try to ignore my building anxiety at being surrounded by a mass of strangers. In the ARC you would usually have at least some faint recognition of people you passed in the hallways, or the Atrium. It was rare you didn’t recognise them at all.

  I search every face I pass for Sebastian. It’s probably a lost cause, hoping I’ll simply bump into him on the street, but I’m not sure what else to try. Every time I look at a face, and it’s not him, I lose a small ounce of hope I’ll ever find him again.

  I try not to stare too much at the people I pass, but I find it hard to stop myself when I notice a woman walking towards me with a dress that changes colour as she moves. As the skirt gently ripples in the wind, the colours shift from the lightest hint of pink to a deep rich emerald green colour, and then on to a startling, brilliant hue of blue.

  What I would do for an outfit like that! My jeans and sweater, which were so exciting when I’d picked them this morning, now feel nearly as dull as my greys. I focus in on the morphing colours and try to figure out how the dress can change the way it does. The woman notices me and the dress abruptly shifts to a plain white colour. I drop my eyes and focus intently on the concrete ground. I must look like such an idiot, staring at her with my eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  Once I pass the woman, I look back over my shoulder at her and the dress changes colour again. It dawns on me the dress couldn’t possibly change colours in that way and the woman must be doing it; her talent must somehow be allowing her to change the colour of the material.

  I shake my head with disbelief. I’ve finally seen one in real life. I’d expected my first interaction with a talent to be something spectacular or, at the very least, useful. Maybe she could use her talent as some form of camouflage?

  The way the Masons go on about them, I thought I’d be interacting with Gods. They’d been all the news had broadcasted about last night, and there was even this show that aired after called, ‘Talented’. Apparently Paul and Cathy watch it religiously. They act like having a high-level talent is the best thing that could possibly happen to you.

  I’m not so sure. I want to know more about it all before I make up my mind. Maybe I just have to get used to the idea?

  On Talented, they featured a man who was unbelievably strong. He could lift a car up over his head without even breaking a sweat. Then, there was this little boy who could remember everything he’d ever read. He stood there and recited the exact wording from any page of any book that was thrown at him. He was barely old enough to read, let alone have the ability to recount page 26 of ‘Lord of the Flies’.

  I guess it would be cool to be able to do that sort of thing, but it’s not something I have to worry about anytime soon. If anything, I have to focus on not appearing completely normal.

  When I turn back to watch where I’m walking I notice trees up ahead. As I get closer it’s clear the greenery extends far into the distance and I’m looking at a park. My pace quickens as I hurry to get to it. It’s so lush and alive compared to the rigid glass towers I associate with the surface.

  I step onto the road to cross over to it, excitement urging me onwards. A bell rings out a small chime in the distance. Ding, ding. The entrance to the park is a dirt pathway that disappears into the thick foliage. The chiming of the bell dings louder and more urgently. I turn to the sound and a bike is hurtling straight for me. I squeal and jump back onto the curb.

  ‘Idiot!’ the man yells, as he whooshes past. I hold my hand to my throat, breathless. I am such an idiot. I nearly got run down. Cathy warned me about checking before crossing the road. I’d been excited about the park though and hadn’t thought.

  Once I catch my breath I make my way across the road again, this time checking very carefully in each direction before crossing. I wander onto the pathway and follow it into the beautiful greenery.

  I can’t have been close to finding the reintegration centre, I would’ve remembered passing a place like this yesterday.

  The pathway is lined with trees and it’s cool under the canopy created by the branches that fan overhead. Light flickers through the leaves, creating a mosaic of shadows across the hard dirt I walk on. I breathe in and relish the taste of the fresh, crisp air. This is exactly what I imagined the surface would’ve been like before impact. I never dared to imagine it could be like this in my lifetime.

  There’s an outburst of laughter and yelling in the distance. I look up and out over the grass field that lies ahead. There are people laying out on grassy knolls soaking in the sunshine and beyond them a group of boys playing with a football. They look like they’re about my age and when I get closer I stop and watch them curiously. They’re standing in a circle bouncing the ball around, trying to make sure it doesn’t touch the ground.

  They yell and laugh and shove each other around playfully whenever someone drops the ball. The sight makes me miss my friends so much. It will be strange starting school again tomorrow and not knowing anyone. Anyone besides Beth, that is, whom I probably can’t count on to show me around.

  I shouldn’t even be going to school. It feels like a waste of time when April has already told me Sebastian won’t be there. I don’t have much choice though if I don’t want to draw attention to myself.

  The boys lose control of the ball they are playing with and it rolls towards me, stopping right in front of my feet. I bend down and pick it up. As I stand there one of the boys from the group runs over to get it. He has
ruffled dark blonde hair that sits just above his blue eyes. As he nears he grins at me. It’s one of those contagious smiles, and I can feel myself smiling in response.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, when he gets close.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, my voice breaks and I quickly clear my throat. This is the first stranger I’ve talked to in Hope and the first boy my age I’ve ever met who I haven’t known since I was five. He tilts his head slightly as he looks at me.

  ‘Oh, your ball.’ I laugh awkwardly as I throw it to him and he catches it easily.

  ‘Thanks.’ He looks at me for a moment longer.

  ‘No problem,’ I reply. Why is he still looking at me that way?

  One of the boys from the game calls him back over.

  ‘See you around,’ he says, before running back to his friends. I stand watching them for a moment then quickly move on, as I’m staring—and that’s totally creepy.

  The cover of leaves overhead begins to thin out and I reach a railing that acts as a barrier to a lake that lies on the other side of it. I stand for a while, leaning on the rusty wrought iron rail looking at the surface, which is dark and reflective in the afternoon light.

  As I watch the water slowly meander along I notice it’s not a lake, but the river Beth was talking about. Realising this, the tall buildings that line the other side of it become more intriguing. North Hope, I remember, where all the talents live.

  There’s a bridge that crosses to the other side of the river a little further down. What would happen if I walked across it? I know untalents aren’t allowed on the northern side of the river, but I feel curious about it. How strict are they about enforcing the rule?

  Lights on the other bank begin to turn on and twinkle, and the sky beyond the bridge becomes an array of burnt orange and deep purple streaks. It’s a beautiful sunset; the colours splashed across the horizon are so strong and unique. When the colours fade and the sky turns to a deep blue I turn to head back. The coolness of evening has begun to descend and I feel grateful I’m wearing a sweater, even if it is a loose weave.