Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

Chapter 11

  The conversation in the welcome office ended up much shorter than any of them had originally anticipated. Paul didn’t know if Dr. Abrams knew that Steven agreed to complete Sentinel training in two weeks both out of a combination of friendship for Paul, and a desire for revenge against Hodge and Rex. If Abrams did know, he didn’t mention it.

  It was agreed that training would begin the following day and last for exactly two weeks. So long as Steven passed to the satisfaction of the rest of the Sentinels and their Walkers, he would be made a permanent resident of Astralis.

  With regard to Paul, there wasn’t as much emphasis placed on the timeframe as there was on the quality of his training and a focus on his unique ability. It was expected that Paul would finish in the same two weeks as Steven, but it was more or less assumed he would have no trouble doing so.

  Whether Steven actually believed or understood what Astralis’ primary function was didn’t seem to matter to him. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. He just listened as Abrams and Dittrich gave him their speeches. When they finished and it was time for Steven to ask questions, he remained expectantly silent.

  Abrams smirked, slapped the palms of his hands on his desk and stood up to officially welcome Steven to Astralis. Dittrich shook Steven’s hand as well, although his welcome seemed a little less sincere.

  And so it was that Paul found himself walking into the orange room of the training area the next morning. Steven would train in another area, separate from Paul, until it was deemed that he had learned the basic skills necessary to protect Paul. Realizing there was no one else but Hodge waiting in the room for him, Paul stutter-stepped briefly before entering fully into the room.

  “New guy,” said Hodge through a stubbly-faced grin. “Glad you could make it. Next time you show up late for training, you get taken in front of the crew. Rule number one—time is something you have to learn to control.”

  Paul groaned inwardly. “And rule number two?”

  “Keep your eyes open,” Hodge answered immediately.

  Not sure if he was being toyed with or if Hodge actually thought that telling him to keep his eyes open was imparting some sort of wisdom, Paul just nodded. “So where is everyone else?”

  “I’m it,” replied Hodge with a smirk. “Must be your lucky day.”

  Looking around through the glass walls, Paul could see a few of the others busy with projects of their own. Juliet noticed him looking and smiled, giving him a wave with a double thumbs-up. Returning her smile with something closer to a grimace, he gave her a double thumbs-up in return, but his was much less confident.

  Walking over to the far wall, Hodge pulled down a star map from its hanging place near the ceiling. Paul had seen the map a few days before, when Hodge was standing in front of the rest of the Walkers, reinforcing their knowledge in nighttime navigation.

  “This should all be review for you,” Hodge began, “so let’s see if we can get through this fast so I can spend some alone time with Lisa before lunch. She gets real needy if I’m gone for too long, if you know what I mean.”

  Paul shook his head in disgust. “Let’s get on with it then.”

  “Can you tell me which three stars you use to tell time?”

  “One is the Pole Star…” Paul tried to remember what had been talked about when he was in this room last, but couldn’t. “Something about a bear…?”

  Breathing out a heavy, frustrated breath, Hodge looked down at the floor. “This is basic stuff. You should already know this. The fact that none of us can go on assignments for two weeks just to babysit your sorry ass is bad enough. But if you turn out to be stupid, as well as a pain in the ass…”

  “Good morning!” Dr. Abrams’ cheery voice came from the doorway, interrupting Hodge’s tirade. “I see you two have already begun—that’s absolutely wonderful!”

  “Good morning, Dr. Abrams,” Paul answered, trying not to show his relief at the doctor’s good timing. Hodge gave the director a nod.

  “Pay very close attention to what Mr. Hodgins has to teach you, Paul. He is one of our best nighttime trackers. He’s never lost his way and has led quite a few of your peers to their Target, at times when they would almost certainly have failed to find their way.”

  “I will, absolutely,” Paul assured him.

  “Two weeks,” Abrams reminded him. “This is shorter than our usual training time by more than half, but I am determined to get you through it and out on your first assignment. You see everyone else in the other rooms?” Paul nodded. “They’re all working on getting their portion of your training prepared. They’re sacrificing a fair amount of their personal time in order to get you where you’ll need to be. Don’t forget to thank them.”

  “I won’t. And I appreciate you stopping by this morning.”

  “It is my pleasure. Remember—two weeks. This means your first real-world training exercise will be in five days. Pay attention!”

  Abrams gave a brief nod of farewell to Hodge and left the room.

  “What does he mean about a first real-world exercise?” Paul asked.

  “He means exactly what it sounds like. You go on a training mission. It’s a mission, set up by us, that gauges how effective you are in real-life life situations using the training we’ve given you. We wouldn’t just train you and send you out on a real mission and hope for the best.”

  “And I do the first one in five days?” Paul fretted. “Nothing like a little pressure.”

  “Just pay attention, don’t be a dumb-ass, and you’ll do fine.”

  Pausing, Paul wondered for a moment if Hodge had just been moderately kind to him. Did he just say that he thought Paul would do fine?

  But of course, true to form, Hodge immediately dispelled any illusions Paul may have had. “Now, new guy—your ‘something about a bear’ … it’s actually something about two bears. If you’d been listening at all when you were in here last time you’d have caught information as basic as that.

  “Information retrieval, that’s what this whole thing is about. It is what we do here and now that you’re here, it is what you do, too. The fact that you don’t remember something you just heard a few days ago tells me you’re not used to paying attention. You need to start remembering everything you see and everything you hear and you need to start remembering it right now. Nothing is unimportant, nothing is trivial.”

  “I understand,” Paul replied.

  “Good.” Hodge walked over to a metal desk and sat down on it. “The two bears are The Great Bear and the Little Bear. They’re constellations. Each contains a star you need. The Little Bear contains the Pole star, which is at the tail end of the Little Bear. The star inside of the Great Bear called Megrez is found at the root of the bear’s tail. The third and final star you need is called Caph. It is part of the constellation Cassiopeia. It’s the western-most star in the ‘W’ that Cassiopeia makes in the sky.”

  A little amazed at Hodge’s clarity and skill in teaching, Paul nodded.

  “Repeat all of that to me.”

  Paul repeated it back in abbreviated form.

  “Good enough,” Hodge said when Paul was done. “Don’t forget that.” He went to the map again and began pointing. “This is the Little Bear, see it? And this is the Pole Star. Here is the Big Bear, or Big Dipper, and here is Megrez where his tail starts. And over here is Cassiopeia with Caph right here at the end. You with me?”

  “I’m with you.”

  “Good. Now point them out yourself, including the constellations.”

  Paul got up and pointed them all out without trouble.

  “Alright, new guy. That’ll do. Now tell me why those three stars are so important.”

  “Because you use them to tell time.”

  “You think, dumb-ass? We’ve established that. But why those stars? In what way do we use them to tell the time?”

  Paul had no idea. When he’d been sitting in this room the first time, he’d only been at Astralis for a couple of days and his mind
had been focused on sorting out all that had changed in his life. He looked back at the map and the three stars, seeing that they all lined up straight. “Because they point in a direction?” he guessed.

  “Right,” Hodge replied, surprising Paul. “The important thing to remember is that those three stars point directly north on March 21st every year.”

  “That’s the day after spring begins,” Paul supplied.

  “Yeah. I know.” Hodge replied acidly. “So on March 21st, you have to think of those three stars as a clock hand pointing at twelve.”

  “I think I got it so far,” Paul said.

  “But this clock has twenty-four numbers, not twelve. So it is twelve p.m. at the top and twelve a.m. at the bottom. To the right you count down starting at eleven, to the left you start over at one and count back up, or down, I guess you could say, to twelve. After the 21st, the clock hand moves counter-clockwise. Every day equals four minutes, every month equals two days. As long as you’re facing north and can do simple math, you’ll always know the time. You do know how to find north at night, don’t you?”

  “The North Star?”

  “Polaris. Yes, the North Star. So if you’re facing north and it is September 21st and the clock hand is at nine am, you take twelve hours because of the date—”

  Getting a little excited, Paul interrupted, “I get it—you get twelve hours out of September 21st because that’s exactly six months from March 21st and each month is equal to two hours.”

  Hodge gave Paul a withering look. “Think we can do this without you jumping in like you already know it?” Not waiting for a reply, he continued, “So you’re at nine a.m., all you got to do is back away the twelve hours you got from the date and you get nine p.m. as the correct time of night.”

  “Man, that’s so much easier than I thought it would be,” marveled Paul.

  “I’m glad you think so,” Hodge said. He walked back to his desk and grabbed a thick stack of pages from it. “Because each one of these two hundred pages is a star map with a date at the bottom. I want you to write the time of night that it is on each one, and nothing more. Do not use any paper in this room for scrap. It has to all be done in your head. And you won’t find a calculator here because there isn’t one when you’re Walking.”

  Paul’s heart sank as he realized the day that was in store for him. Seeing Paul’s expression, Hodge smirked and slapped the pages down on a classroom-style desk.

  “I’m going to go to see what Lisa’s wearing, new guy. I’ll be back right before lunch to see if you have any questions.”

  Paul looked down at the pile of papers, realizing that Hodge had probably added twice as much work as was normal. “Why are you such a prick, Hodge? I get that you think I’m after your girl, but are you really that insecure? Do you really think she’d dump you for me? Because if you do, then she probably will.”

  Ignoring the question, Hodge scratched at one sideburn. “You think I’m being unfair? You think you’re being picked on? Take it up with Abrams if you want, but it won’t do you any good. His instructions were explicit—make sure the new guy knows what you teach him clearly and completely, without error, and use any method deemed necessary to make that happen. I deem it necessary that you learn this skill through repetition. A lot of repetition. And I’m sure Abrams will agree that for learning this skill, that’s a damn fine way to learn it quick.”

  “Whatever,” Paul mumbled back.

  “Whatever?” Hodge leaned toward him aggressively. “Look, New Guy—this is one of the most basic skill sets you will need out there. Almost every mission we’re sent on requires that we be in a specific place at a specific time. Unlike you, most of us can’t open a door or a window to get to where we need to go, so we plan our missions down to the minute. Sometimes there’s a clock nearby and we can just read it, but usually there isn’t. The long missions, the ones that last more than a day, we don’t get dropped in the middle of town for those. We get dropped in a junk yard or at a dockyard where our safe rooms can blend in. Getting to the Target at a specific time isn’t always easy, even with us being invisible.”

  Paul realized that Hodge might actually have put the lesson plan together in a way that he truly felt was Paul’s best chance of learning it quickly. Certainly, by helping Paul learn these things, Hodge was helping himself as well by making sure he wasn’t sent out on a mission with someone unprepared, but in an odd way it was the first favor that Hodge had done for Paul since he’d arrived.

  “Hey, it’s cool. Thanks, Hodge. I’ll get on these maps.”

  Hodge paused, narrowing his eyes in mistrust, and then turned and left the room without a word.

  Paul worked through the morning on the star maps. At first, each and every one took him a long time to figure out. Hodge’s first example had been an easy one because it fell on the 21st of a month, but most of the other two hundred star maps had odd dates. The math of adding the four minutes per day and two hours per month was a little confusing without writing it down.

  But by the time he got through twenty or thirty of them, he’d established a good pace and was getting to the point where he could figure out everything except the minutes at a glance and a couple moments of mental computation.

  When Hodge finally slapped the doorframe to the room a few hours later, Paul was so engrossed in what he was doing that he jumped.

  “Time for lunch, New Guy.”

  Shaking the fog from his head, Paul stood up. “You know, Hodge, the ‘New Guy’ thing is starting to get really annoying.”

  Hodge gave him a look that was a cross between a smirk and sneer. “I know,” he said, and walked away.

  Walking back through the maze of glass halls to get out of the training area, Paul was joined by Parker, who was also heading to the commons room for lunch.

  “So how’s it going so far, Paul?”

  “Could be better. I’m paired with Hodge and the guy has given me a stack of star maps the size of a dictionary. I don’t think I’m even half way through.”

  Parker grinned. “Half way done already? Not bad! Hey, it could be worse. You should’ve seen Kenneth and Allen during their star training. It must have taken them a week to get just the basic concept down.”

  Happily surprised that he was progressing faster than some, Paul’s spirits lifted.

  “Day time training is always the boring part. It’s at night that you get to have a little fun, and we’re all looking forward to seeing how far you can go with your ability, so don’t get too bogged down by the Waking busy work. And, you know, Hodge may be Hodge,” Parker said, “but…”

  “He is the one that most of us would prefer as a buddy on an assignment.” Paul finished in unison with Parker.

  “I know!” Paul said, laughing along with Parker.