“I’m a Communicator,” I told him plainly. Hilly smiled wider, her eyes bulging as I said the words. “Hilly is… I… okay.” I took a breath. “I talk to stuff. That’s my power. And the stuff I talk to, when I was out of options while we were sparring, they asked me if I wanted their help. And what happened to you, as far as I can tell, that’s what they do.”
“What?” Tristan was quiet for a few moments, seeming as though he were thinking to himself. “Cool!” he shouted, immediately wincing at the sound of his own voice. He put his hand up to his temple and closed one of his eyes. “Cool,” he said again much softer. “So, what is it you’re talking to?”
I exhaled. “I don’t actually know.” Hilly’s smile faded, and she got up from the bed she was sitting on, then walked back onto the treadmill. She pushed a few buttons, the machine quickly speeding up, and casually ran at what looked like at least fifteen miles an hour. It was almost unsettling to watch, her limbs moving quickly and easily, her head staying stationary and her breathing the opposite of labored. She looked like a chicken, the way their head will stay in the same spot when you lift them up, even if you move their body every which way.
“You found out that you’re a Communicator?” Hilly asked.
“Oh… Uh, yea. I guess I didn’t really get a chance to tell you earlier.”
“Hm. And you’re talking to, ghosts or something? I have never seen you talk to anything.”
“I forgot you guys went back that far,” Tristan broke in. “Guess you came to check on her because you’re old friends. You knew she could talk to stuff?” he asked Hilly.
“Well,” I said. “I’ve always talked to… something. Although it’s more like somethings, as in plural. But I didn’t know until recently that it wasn’t… you know…”
“You thought whoever you were talking to was just in your head?” he asked.
“Basically.” I felt my face grow hot. “Everyone who knew, that’s kind of what we all thought growing up. Hilly is the only person here that knew about it, but I guess it doesn’t matter so much now. I mean, we know I’m talking to something organic.”
“Honestly, Ivy, that is fascinating,” he said, almost whispering the phrase as he leaned forward. “I’m sure you’ve tried a lot of different things, but I think I could build something that would help you figure it out.”
Hiltrude stopped the treadmill, then reached over to grab three protein bars from a pile nearby. She unwrapped the first one and shoved it in her mouth, then grabbed two more and rammed them in her pockets before turning around. I had thought she was going to get back on the treadmill, so I looked back over at Tristan. I started to speak just as Hilly walked in front of me and out of the room.
“Wow,” Tristan said a few seconds later. He peered his head to make sure Hilly was out of earshot before he continued. “What’s eating her, right?”
“I don’t know. We used to be close, but she’s been pretty mean to me since we both met back up here.”
“Yea, she wasn’t the best company before you walked in. Also, sorry for sounding like I was upset with you. I get this way when I don’t feel good–just ignore it if it flares up again. Anyway, I’m serious. I’m having one of those moments right now. I’m getting some real divine inspiration, talking to you about these voices. Since they’re real, I think I can help you figure out where they’re coming from. Just as soon as this headache goes away. I need something really great to replace that last suit with.”
“Alright, sure. If you want to try to help, that would be cool. And actually, I think I saw some aspirin on my way in.”
The aspirin won’t help. He needs to sleep.
It’s a nice gesture anyway.
“You should try to get some sleep, too,” I said. I got up to look for the aspirin just as the nurse walked in.
“Hey, did either of you tell Hiltrude that she could leave? She’s supposed to be on bed-rest,” the nurse said angrily. That’s the kind of nurse we had. The woman seemed as though she were born to wear a scowl. I almost snickered thinking that maybe Hilly had gotten her dour expression from the nurse through osmosis or something.
We shook our heads in unison to answer the nurse’s question.
“Ugh. Fast Ones…” the nurse said, sounding at her wits end as she walked over to Tristan with a tiny cup, two little red aspirin pills inside. She handed him a slightly larger cup of water and he quickly swallowed everything. “People who can run that fast are all the same. None of them ever finish their bed-rest. I really don’t even know why we bother…” she trailed as she walked out of the room. We could hear her still taking, her voice getting smaller and smaller the farther away she got, still complaining about one type of cadet or another to herself. Tristan and I chuckled when we thought she was far enough.
“Alright,” he said. “A nap does sound nice right now. When I get up, I’ll get to work. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something useful.”
“Cool,” I said. “I’m open to anything at this point.”
I left Tristan and went back to my room, determined to comb through a few old, somewhat-famous mission reports before eating dinner. When I walked in, I realized that not cleaning the shower was catching up with me all over again, and wound up grabbing a bottle of cleaner and going to work.
Definitely not what we would have done.
Right, because you all hate cleaning.
It took so long before I felt like the smell was finally gone that by the time I was finished and had washed the cleaner off of my hands, I had to go to dinner. I was really looking forward to the meal that night. As we came closer to leaving the academy, the food options had gotten progressively more appetizing. The night’s menu of pulled pork sandwiches with Cajun curly fries made me feel like a little girl again, waiting to eat the one “fun meal” we had a month while I was growing up as a ward of the World Government. Those had stopped when I got to the house I lived in as a teenager. The blend of nostalgia and aromas quickly caused me to salivate enough to nearly drown.
When I walked into the dining area, I could see a huge mound of pulled pork sitting at the start of our chow line. The steam rising from the meat seemed to float directly into my nostrils, pulling me closer as I wasted no time in getting a tray and standing at the back of the line. I had managed to show up somewhere in the middle of the crowd, thankfully in front of many of the recruits who needed ten or twenty times the amount of calories a day that I do. I walked down the line, grabbing some buns, a pound or so of steaming meat, a small cup of barbecue sauce, and some fries before making my way out into the sea of tables and chairs. The cadets who had already gotten their food all seemed perfectly content to simply eat across from each other, not bothering to utter more than a few words here or there. The cafeteria quieter than I think I had ever heard it before. I decided to sit in the middle of an empty chain of tables, my thought at the time being that it would be nice to just sit and eat and let everything fall out of my head for a little while. I’d tried to take the time to process things, and that had helped, but for the rest of the day I just wanted to relax. I’d have to get back to sparring, and finishing up whatever training was left before we all tried our best to get our badges, and I wanted to be in the zone from there on out. I scooped some of the meat on my plate with my spork, then dipped it gingerly in a bit of the sauce before smearing it across the bread and biting slowly into the food. It was juicy and tender and delicious with light, buttery flavors that swept across the back of my tongue. I pushed the button on the table for a drink and continued to chew as a plastic cup full of water rose from the space in front of me, the cup’s base filling with water before the bottom was sealed. The bite washed down beautifully, the clump of food and water hitting my stomach in a way that made me excited that there was so much more of it left.
Before long, other cadets began to sit, littering themselves all around the table. The bench I was on shifted and popped from the bodyweight being thrown on top of it as they took their se
ats, the wood and metal underneath eventually groaning when Qek plopped down at the far end of the same bench I was sitting on. The sound was loud enough that the other cadets nearby perked up their ears, and all of us looked down at Qek to recognize him as the source, each of us laughing as he gave a knowing smile before digging in to the first of the five plates of meat he had carried over with him. I looked back over to the cart of pork to see how much of a dent the Strongman had made in the tiny hill of meat, and was surprised to see that the mound looked nearly unchanged. At almost the same time, one of the contracted workers emerging from the corner that led to the kitchen with another tray of pork to be added back to the pile.
After the chuckles had ended, each of the cadets let themselves fall back into eating their food, myself included. Everything that had been happening inside my brain worked itself into a sort of flatness, the only objects within focus being those right in front of me. The bench continued to rattle as others took their seats, but I stopped noticing. Even the voices in my head had stopped talking.
You seemed like you needed a break.
I sat back from my plate as my hands finished clearing the food from its surface. Then, I took one more swig of water, wiping any sauce away that I’d gotten on my face. I looked over my left shoulder, back to where the food was, and saw that there was more than enough left, with workers continuing to carry out even more. I decided to grab seconds, turning to my right to get up, and realized someone had sat down directly next to me.
It was Hilly.
“Oh, hey! I didn’t see you,” I said.
“Yes, you seemed to be paying very close attention to your food. Do you know you were giggling?”
“Was I really? I didn’t realize.”
Hilly had seven plates of food in front of her, though she was no doubt already planning to do the same thing I was and work her way toward seconds.
“Go ahead and grab some more food,” she said between bites. “I wanted to talk to you about something, though, if that’s alright.”
“Sure,” I said, turning away to go and grab another plate. I looked over at Hilly in between stations, wondering what she would want to talk about, silently hoping that maybe she had come over to apologize. I sat back down as quickly as possible, pressing the button for juice on the table. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Does anyone else know what happened with Sink?”
“Outside of Fibre and Hunter, no, I don’t think so. Unless you or Tristan told someone, I guess.”
“I’ve already asked Tristan,” Hilly said. “You haven’t spoken to anyone about it?”
“I have been kind of doing my own thing since it happened. I’m going to jump back into training in the morning. But I guess I wasn’t going to keep it secret… why do you ask?”
“I don’t think you should tell anyone.” Hilly said it to me very plainly as she shoveled some pork onto a bun and dipped it into the water in front of her before slurping it all down.
“Oh… uh, why is that?” I asked. She dipped some more food into her water before answering, and I managed to sneak in a follow-up question. “I haven’t seen you eat like that in a while. You’re planning on spending some pretty serious calories soon, huh?”
Hilly looked at me as I asked her about the food, her face seeming to convey that I had asked something out of line in a sort of cold, you’re an idiot, sort of way. “I’m still healing,” she said. “And I don’t think you should tell anyone because then they’ll ask questions, and you’ll end up answering them.”
“That happens when people ask you a question, yes.” I kind of giggled. It was tough not to wonder where she could possibly be going with the whole thing.
“And then you’ll tell them about… the voices,” she said, leaning in as she finished her statement.
“I guess I would…” Whatever Hilly was getting at, she had completely pulled me away from my second plate of food. I looked back at the pork, but the previous bites I’d eaten had managed to finish working their way through to my stomach, and I was starting to not feel hungry at all. I munched on a fry rather than continue eating in any meaningful way. “What exactly are you trying to get at, Hilly? I’m really not following you here.”
“If you tell them,” she continued to whisper, not looking as she dunked more food into a fresh cup of water, “they’re going to think you’re weak. You won’t get onto a good team.”
I giggled again as Hilly slurped on more wet pork and bread. “I’m pretty sure that won’t happen either way. I’m not worried about what the other cadets think, Hilly. I just wanted to know for myself. I mean, I do want to be on a good team, but I’d rather just be on the right team. I don’t want to wind up in a bad spot and wind up being the reason someone else gets killed.” And just like that, I’d managed to sort out my inner turmoil. Must have been something in the pork.
“The right team is the best team, Ivy.”
“I mean, I guess? Why are you suddenly so concerned with people finding out I hear voices in my head, anyway? You’ve been super mean the last few weeks.”
Hilly’s eyebrows scrunched up. “What? I have not.”
“Uh, you totally have,” I said. “You’ve been pretty mean ever since we got here. And really negative, too.”
“Whatever. If I’ve been mean to you, it’s because I want you to do well. You need to be less sensitive.” Hilly had managed to finish working her way through the seventh plate of food, and stacked the empty dishes on top of each other. “Do you want any more? I’m going to get more.”
“No, I’m-” And before I had even finished talking, Hilly was already up and grabbing more food. She was walking at a normal speed, obviously intent on saving the calories she was banking until later—whenever it was she planned on exerting herself. I looked back again at the plate of food in front of me, wondering why I thought I’d be able to eat an entire additional helping, and felt bad as I got up to throw it away. I looked over to Hilly and saw she had grabbed a cart to carry another seven plates, four of them piled high with meat alone. She had in her hands an entire package of bread, as well, one of the workers walking from the back with two more and placing them onto the cart underneath the rest of her food. It looked like she planned on being there a while. I thought briefly about continuing to sit with her, but what was the point? I had a little while left before I needed to get to bed so I could be up early enough for a full day of training. Going back and reading reports seemed like it’d be more productive than trying to convince Hilly of anything. I especially didn’t want her to tell me some more about how sensitive I was being.
We think she was just being mean.
Yea, maybe.
I made my way back to my room through a much emptier couple of hallways than normal, with most of the other cadets either still eating or, as was more likely, sleepy in their rooms from the meal itself. I did some squats when I got inside to get my blood moving, then sat down at the table, happy to crack open the report I’d left off on when I’d found Hunter outside of my room. I struggled to find my place in the pages, closing the report to double check that I was reading the same one as the night before I’d met with Sink. The title was the same, but I noticed the casing was slightly different, as if I’d gotten a completely different copy. I started back at the beginning, able to note the differences between the narrative I had in my hands and the one I’d read before.
Previously, in the version Hunter had pointed out had missing parts, the narrative had begun at the start of whatever altercation had occurred. Most of Hunter’s reports left out the smaller details, I had noticed, and talked little of what he did leading up to missions. Many other Capes, like Fibre, began their narrative with where they were when the call came in. I figured Hunter was simply someone who preferred not to do that. The style was actually discussed in one of our classes at the academy as, “Beginning with The First Punch.” We were taught that it was what the GHS preferred in most cases.
In the new copy that I had, th
ough, the narrative started much further back than what I had read previously. Rather than the story beginning with first blow that Hunter had landed, I read as the much younger version of the Senior Cape described receiving a call about a team of Freelancers he had been chasing; the fuller version was filled with colorful description in comparison to the other copy. The team he received the call about was called Totem, and I had actually heard about them before. They eventually went on to be known as Shame, after one of their founding members escaped from a maximum-security Freelancer holding facility and took over anew.
Hunter beautifully described his frustration with receiving the call, going into detail about how he had been looking forward to having the night off to spend it with his wife and daughter. Headquarters was pulling Hunter away from dinner with his family so that he and his teammates could go and stop Totem from getting away with some highly valuable technology. Hunter wasn’t told what Totem was stealing, and from the way his report was written it didn’t seem to me that he ever found out.
Back then, Hunter had just achieved Senior Cape status, having been out on more than a hundred different missions. He described meeting up with his team back at their GHS housing as, “rallying the neophytes.” There were only two other Capes on his team then, Chip and Chop, a pair of childhood friends who learned around age twelve they were actually brothers. They were specialized Elementalists–Chip had the ability to control smaller pieces of metal, and Chop could manipulate dead wood. Both of them carried a sack of marbles made of either metal or wood on their hip to be used while out in the field, the GHS very concerned back then about Capes preserving the landscape while out on missions. Hunter’s home was across the street from the GHS housing his team lived in, so gathering Chip and Chop didn’t take long. They had gotten the call as well and were ready by the time he arrived. Hunter’s description of Chip’s driving ability made me chuckle a bit, with Hunter saying it was, “like a lizard when it runs, weaving to each side. Chip would have gone straighter if he’d taken his hands off the wheel entirely.” Cape-issued vehicles drove themselves back then, of course, but even now I don’t know anyone who lets the computer drive for them when they’re in a hurry. Hunter said he was almost glad he hadn’t gotten a chance to eat, or he might have gotten carsick.
Ivy Page 14
