Awoken (The Lucidites Book 1) (7 page)

I don’t hesitate for a second. I’ve been repeating it in my mind so I don’t forget it. “Shuman said, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy.’”

Amber records this with no reaction of confirmation. “Thank you,” she says, tapping one last key. “You’re all done.”

“When will I know my results?” I ask as she removes the sensors.

“After dinner.” Amber hastens opening the door, causing the startling bright light from the waiting room to slice into my eyeballs.

Chapter Seven

W
ith half an hour to kill before the next task, I decide to explore the Institute. Oddly, everything’s spread out in this place. The Institute must take up an entire city block. It also seems we’re pretty free to go wherever we want. Even so, numerous doors don’t open when I push the button beside them. Arrogant key card scanners stare back at me, snobbishly blocking my way. Still I explore multiple passageways, all with brushed stainless steel walls and blue carpet. Something about this place is strange, besides the fact I almost killed myself to get here. Each floor goes on for miles. And the numbering isn’t always consistent.

I somehow end up on the fifth floor, which is colder than all the rest. A voice behind me calls out, “Umm, miss, are you lost?”

I wheel around. An older woman is poking her head through an open door. Her loose curls are pinched in barrettes. The lavender scrubs hang loosely off her bony frame.

“No, I’m just exploring.”

“Hmm,” she says, bristling with quiet disapproval. “Well, I’m not sure if this is the right place for that. Are you a contender?”

I hesitate, trying to figure out what she means. Then it dawns on me. “Yes.”

“Well,” she says, her withered hands fidgeting. The wrinkles in her face are deep, but her hair and eyes give the impression she’s just a girl. “You see, the thing is, this level is really to be kept without disturbances.”

She’s trying to be polite. It seems to hurt her to even say what she’s said so far. For this reason, I simply agree and retreat to the elevators.

The doors open and I walk forward without looking up, running straight into Trey.

“Excuse me,” he says, stepping back. “I didn’t expect anyone.” Hesitation muddies his expression for a second before he recovers. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just leaving,” I say, stepping into the elevator.

A worried look passes across his turquoise eyes. “Did you have business down here?”

“No.” I bite my lip, embarrassed.
If we aren’t supposed to be down here then why don’t they block it off with the ample security devices they have?
Trey nods and walks down the hallway.

The button is under my fingertips when something registers. I step back out of the elevator and stride after Trey. He’s halfway down the hall by the time I catch up with him.

“I’m sorry, but did you say ‘down’ here?” I ask when I’m a couple feet away.

He turns, looking startled. “Why yes, I did.”

My eyes catch the yellow and blue medallion he wears around his neck. It looks like curly-yin-yang-type waves. “But we’re on the fifth floor?”

“Level,” he corrects.

The woman in the lavender scrubs returns to the door, looking at me with disapproval. A beeping sounds off behind her.

“Mr. Underwood,” she calls urgently. “I think you should get in here.”

He turns to me. “Roya, I believe your second task is about to begin. We’ll talk later.”

As I head for the second task, I mull over what has happened over the last few minutes.
What did Trey mean by level? How’s that any different than floor? And what’s that lady protecting? What was the beeping?
One thing I’m certain of is this place is full of secrets. Intrigued, I make a silent plan to explore more if given the opportunity. For now though, I have to focus on the upcoming tasks.

♦

I thought the second and third tasks were jokes. Apparently, they weren’t. My performance was. The second task, PK Party, named for a fad created in the eighties, was administered by James, the tallest scientist I’ve ever met. His curly brown hair piled high atop his head overshadowed his prominent canine teeth. He thought it was fascinating that in the eighties people would have parties where they tried to “awaken” their abilities to manipulate metal. The people of this generation sounded dumb and lame, but no one asked me. Since bending metal was apparently quite advanced as far as telekinesis went, we were asked to move a nutshell. He called us into a room individually and placed a single peanut shell at the far end of a table. With all our mental strength we were expected to move the casing. My nutshell sat quite still for a good two minutes. I was then dismissed.

After eating a sack lunch in a remote hallway I head to the third task. The gymnasium is filled with multiple athletic stations. I should have turned around immediately. During P.E., I spent many solitary hours hanging out on bleachers. My gym coaches had given up on trying to force me to play volleyball or walk around the track. But now in this strange metal box of a compound, I’ll be forced to perform endurance and strength tests in front of a bunch of strangers.

We’re issued a pair of shorts and T-shirt. I’d decline, but I’m afraid I might sweat in my only set of clothes. Once I change, I line up in front of one of four stations. I’m to perform at each one of them in rotation.

The only thing that makes me feel any better is that most of the other kids are really quite wimpy too. Most everyone in my line can hardly do more than one pull-up. There are a couple of kids who perform fine, but the rest of us are beet red and exhausted by the end of it.

“Why is this even a task?” the girl named Samara says between gasps for breath.

I shrug, guessing she’s probably talking to me.

“I can’t even lift that bar by itself,” she half laughs, “and the guy asked me how much weight I wanted to add to it.”

I suppress a snicker. I’d been in the same predicament.

The next task is kung fu. I shockingly find myself excited. The room for this task is large, with a cushioned floor. Mirrors line one wall. We’re asked to file into four lines. At the front of each line is a person wearing a long-sleeved white top and black pants. One by one we’re called from our line and asked to block assaults.

I don’t know what to expect when I step in front of the man in the white suit. He bows and then begins throwing punches at me. It all happens too fast. I find the man’s attacks to be obtrusive. Invasive. They strike me, not hard, but in a manner that suggests they can. With every part of my being I try to deflect the assaults but each time one comes at me I miss it. My arms move aimlessly around as I just hope by luck I’ll block something. Completely out of breath after only thirty seconds of this, I ask him to stop and give me a minute.

I take this time to gather myself. Everyone stares. I do my best to block them out and focus the way Bruce Lee suggested. After I catch my breath, I open my eyes with a renewed energy. It courses through me like blood in my veins, like the DNA in my being. I step back up and beckon the man forward.

This time things are different. I see the man’s hands before they move. I sense them seconds before they push the air in front of me. Allowing my mind to follow this blueprint I throw block after block, always in perfect timing. Again my reflexes are heightened. The man raises an eyebrow at me after I block three rapid attempts. Then he straightens and dismisses me with a bow. I file to the end of the line.

Attacks are the next part of the task. The guys in white suits retrieve boards from the shelves. We’re supposed to break the thin, yet solid pieces of wood. Short, unfulfilling breaths shoot through my chest as the panic takes over. My mind races through my training from the night before trying to find a strategy.

The first person in my line, a lanky boy, steps up and is instructed to strike the board in any way necessary to break it. With an uncertain jerk he throws a punch into the wood. It doesn’t break, but one of his fingers does. Nervous tension constricts my chest as I watch him cradle his hand with his opposite arm.

My fists, like stones, hold tight as each person attempts and fails the task. I should be relieved each time another competitor slumps off defeated by a one-inch piece of pinewood. I’m not. This is a million times worse than any gym class. My humiliation is a tethered ball I’ll be unable to retrieve. It wraps around and around the pole, too high above my head for me to send back the other way.

Samara, the girl with hair like sun-bleached straw, towers in front of me. She’s up next. In a whisper she asks the guy in white to hold the board down low. He does. I’m confused by this request and watch with new interest. Slowly she backs up, seeming to count the paces between her and the board. I take note of her precision, her focus, her confidence. Then in a flash she steps, pulls her foot in, sending her hip back and then launches forward. This is all one movement and the ax kick that follows is a blur. It drives down sharply. The board splits evenly. I take a gulp of air.

My turn. I decide to try a hammer fist. The guy in white holds the board down low, a few feet off the ground. I position myself on top of it with my fist up high. I take a deep breath. I’m just about to give it everything I have when I hear it. Bruce Lee’s words, like an ingrained track on the inside of my consciousness, echo, “Be water.” I open my eyes, which I realize were tightly closed, and step back. Holding up one finger I indicate I need a minute.

Loosening up my fist takes the tension out of my arm and then it follows suit in my shoulder. I need to be water. Fluid, like a waterfall plummeting to earth, past the board, past the earth. Unstoppable. I need to be a force. Quickly I draw up this visual in my mind and feel it. When I’m ready I step back into position and give the man holding the board a nod. My arm floats into position. I tell the muscles to relax, to be fluid. Then, like a waterfall being let loose, I shoot my fist downward and only allow the muscles to tense when they’re extended. This, to my surprise, is just past the point that I break through the board.

“Very good,” the man booms as he tosses the boards to the side. He bows, dismissing me.

Chapter Eight

I’
ve never needed to shower so desperately. The pungent smell of sweat assaults my senses as I stride through the stainless steel hallways. Once in the shower, the hot water soothes my muscles, which already ache from the strain of physical endurance. Afterwards I dress in my dirty clothes, which are stiff against my skin, but not bad enough to force me into the awful uniform.

Surprisingly, as I comb my hair, I have an odd sense of pride. My performance today hadn’t been atrocious. It wasn’t stellar, but I broke the board and that was more than I could have wished. At least I had done what I set out to do: maintain some dignity. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, I’d be scored as an average contender with some praise and then sent back to Bob and Steve’s house. That’s the arrangement I hoped the Lucidites would set up for me until my family drama was sorted out.

I’d fantasized about spending the rest of the summer curled up on their patio furniture, reading a book from their library and watching the sun rise over the lake. In this fantasy, we’d all go out to dinner on Friday nights. They’d ask me about my day, and listen with sincerity. They’d tell me about their day trading antiques and I would ask thoughtful and curious questions. We would laugh and decide to stay late to dance to mariachi music.

I make my way to the main hall for dinner, fantasizing about future conversations with Bob and Steve. The elevator stops at level two and a few people file into the compartment.

“So how’d you do it?” a girl asks her friend.

“Oh, it wasn’t hard,” another replies. “I just pictured I was a waterfall and my only purpose was to fall and fall. No board can stop a waterfall.”

My attention is assaulted by these babbling girls. I want to ignore them, but I’m curious. I steal a glance and realize, to my horror, it’s the girl obsessed with a specific type of cheese—Goat Girl. How can anyone be irritating on so many levels? Her long thin brown hair hangs in pieces around her face. She’s skinny, devoid of curves, like a street sign. Fat, round freckles fleck her button nose. I have no idea where she came up with this technique for breaking the board, but it sounds eerily like the one I used. Suddenly I have the urge to break her pretty little nose.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” her friend gushes. “You were so amazing at all that stuff.”

“Well, that’s what a well-rounded education will do for you,” Goat Girl admits as we step off the elevator. I can’t stand to be anywhere next to that group. I hang back a little and wait until they move down the buffet line.

It’s the same spread as the night before. I load up, my reserves depleted from all the exercise. Once I have my plate in hand, Joseph waves me over. He’s sitting at a table with Samara and a few other people from our group. I pretend I don’t notice him. I even pretend to drop my napkin and hope he’ll forget about me when I stand up again. He doesn’t. He waves so frantically that even a blind cat would notice him.

I sigh and walk over to their table, where I find a seat beside the guy who apparently moves stuff with his mind, Trent. Maybe he’ll give me a demonstration of his abilities and pass me the salt. Aiden materializes on the far side of the hall at the end of the buffet line with his plates, searching for a place to sit. I’m hyperaware of his every move as he strides through the crowd and sits down at a table with a bunch of white coats. I wish I was at a table alone with him, staring at his brown spiky hair and listening to his prodigious stories.

“So, good job with the board today,” Samara says.

“Thanks,” I reply as I chew on a grape. “You too.”

“How’d you guys do with the first task?” a boy asks anyone who’s listening.

A few people chime in about different messages they received. I keep my head down and listen. Most people seemed to have understood something and everyone’s message was apparently different.