Luminosity (8 page)

The Games have begun.

As both teams filter into the arena, we are amazed by what we see. The space has been transformed into the City’s streets, and there are holo projections of Citizens walking around. They don’t move out of our way or even look at us, but wander about as if we aren’t there at all.

Just as soon as the three minutes are up and both teams have completely set up in the arena, the heavy doors locking behind us, a shot rings out. The first shot.

The first death.

Someone on my team is screaming. As I try to find the source of the manic shouting, I notice globs of deep-purple blood on my sleeve. I hear something hit the ground. Gabe stops walking, and I stumble into him. Only then do I realize that he has stopped to avoid walking in the puddle of blood that is pooling by his feet. But it’s not his blood.

No, it belongs to the girl who now lies flat on the ground, her limbs sprawled every which way. Some members of Team A huddle around her, and I squint to get a better look. There is too much blood for her to be alive. And then I realize…

“Connie,” I whisper and turn with my gun raised to see who did this.

Rachelle stands with her gun trained on the lot of us. “It came from that way. You should have been paying attention.”

I narrow my eyes at Rachelle and her failure to protect her fellow Seers. “You mean you saw them and you didn’t even bother to shoot at them?”

“She’s not on my team. She’s not my problem.” And Rachelle sprints off.

I want to go after her and wring her neck until it snaps, but there’s blood gathering by my feet, blood that once ran through my friend…my friend who used to be alive. Leaning down, I push my fingers to her wrist to check for a pulse, but shots zoom by over my head, and Gabe grabs me by the back of my jumpsuit and starts to drag me off. “Come on, Beatrice! They are still out there!”

Team A scatters down the streets, heading in any direction, most of them paired together as I suggested. I try and follow Gabe, but he turns a corner too soon, and a mousy, dirty girl pops out from an alleyway and opens fire at me. I stumble backward and duck behind a Dumpster. Hiking the gun up into a good position to shoot, I wait for her to come by, but she never does.

Somewhere in the distance, more shots echo through the streets. Is that Gabe? I can’t catch my breath. Neither can Connie. Poor Connie…the game had hardly even started and she’s already gone. What will Mae think? Or Brandon? What do I even think? I’m paralyzed here behind this Dumpster, and I don’t want to move.

Someone pulls my jumpsuit from behind, and I fall backward on my butt. I twist around and point my gun in that direction, and notice just before pulling the trigger that it’s the boy with the ears, Elan. He puts his palms up in surrender, gun hanging around his neck, and when he realizes that I won’t shoot, he gestures down the side street for me to follow.

I have no idea where he is taking me, but I also have no idea what I am going to do sitting behind a Dumpster, so I follow him. He is moving fast so I break into a jog in order to catch up. As we run, building fronts turn into blurs, and I don’t pay attention to whether they correlate with the real streets of the City or not. If so, I could maybe take him to the Widow’s home, and we could hide out there, but that’s assuming that these doors even open into the buildings at all.

Elan instead leads me into the Central Park and our feet fall unheard on the thick grass. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward a small creek that cuts through the middle of the park. Just like at the real Central Park, multiple bridges span different parts of the stream, all made of beautiful masonry with figures of lions’ heads and victorious women.

He picks the bridge with the cover over it, which seems an all too obvious place to hide. He lifts a finger to his lips to “shush” me and we both climb under the small space between the creek bed and the supporting structure of the bridge. My gun pokes me in my side as I wedge in and try to catch my breath.

“We can stay here,” he suggests, and I can hear him wheezing. It’s then I realize that he is bleeding. “Stupid Keeper and her stupid ideas.”

“You’ve been hit!” I pull at his jumpsuit to try and get a better look at how bad it might be. There’s a lot of blood, but not as much as there was around Connie. “When?”

“When we all started to run. Someone caught me with a shot, I guess.” He lifts a hand and we both stare at his red fingers. Had this been the normal Training Games, Elan would be suffering from only a shock…not something so real. “This is stupid. Sometimes, this place makes no sense.”

“I don’t think we can hide here for too long.” It’s then that I realize that I have no idea how long this game will be. Usually, games end once one of the teams is eliminated. Would it still be that way now? Would we have to kill all the convicts for the game to end? Or will they have to eliminate all of us? I can’t hide here, not with Gabe out there somewhere. “We should move.”

“But I can’t.” Elan sounds so small now, and I can’t help but feel bad.

“But you have to. Come on.” I don’t give him time to rest, and I tug on his arm until he realizes that we really aren’t staying there. He groans, and we make a run for it. Because the park is open and mostly flat, it is a dangerous place to be. Anyone could shoot at us from anywhere.

Elan whimpers and makes all sorts of pathetic noises as I hightail it back toward the City. Spats of gunfire illuminate the streets, lighting up the faces of buildings for brief spasms of time. It kind of looks like a deadly light show, or like fireworks that never made it off the ground. Shadows run down streets and into the small spaces between buildings, but I can’t tell if they are convicts or Seers.

We finally make it to an unnamed street. I pull Elan along with more urgency, and we turn and disappear between the buildings. Sprawled in the middle of the street is someone from Team B. Her helmet is cracked, and blood is running from somewhere around her neck, matting her hair together into ugly clumps. Around her are dispatched bodies of convicts, just as lifeless.

Elan makes another noise before pulling up his helmet and retching all over the asphalt.

“Come on.” I continue to run. He is just going to have to pull himself together.

I want to find Gabe since I have no idea if he is still alive. I have no idea if anyone is still alive, because for all I know, it could be down to just me and Elan, and we are keeping the games from ending.

But as we move around a storefront, Rachelle and two other members of Team B point their guns into our chests.

“I should kill you,” she growls, her violet eyes narrowed. “You’re the reason all this stupidity is happening.”

“You should.” I look into her eyes, which no longer glow.

“And I would. If I didn’t have a Vision.”

“What does your Vision have to do with me?” I step in front of Elan, hoping that in the dark, none of them can see that he is bleeding.

“Everything. Just wait until the Keeper sees you.” Rachelle laughs, her gaze flickering to Elan. “But this one wasn’t in my Vision at all.” Her hips move and she points her gun at the boy with the sticky-out ears.

“The object of this training session isn’t to shoot each other, you moron.” Before I can go on, Elan kicks Rachelle in the leg and she drops her gun in surprise. The other two lackeys behind her look at each other, shocked that someone would strike out against Rachelle.

“You little brat,” she calls out and reaches for her gun. I wouldn’t put it past Rachelle to retaliate, so I kick the gun out of her grasp.

The lights of the arena flicker on.

“This game is over.” The Keeper’s voice bounces off the City walls, but I can hardly hear it over Rachelle.

Medics rush in wearing white with red crosses on their backs. They disappear down the alleyways, fanning out in every direction. Elan whimpers behind me, and his leg hasn’t stopped bleeding.

Rachelle is still cursing on the ground, holding her knee in her hands. A medic eventually gets to us, surveys the scene and radios over his radio for two stretchers and some body bags.

I see Gabe running toward us, gun in hand. He doesn’t look hurt, though there are some stains on his jumpsuit. His hair is shaggy and damp from sweat, matted to his face around his temples and above his brow.

“Gabe, thank the Maker.” I step around Rachelle as two newly-arrived medics load her up on a stretcher. Another set of medics tries to get Elan up on his own stretcher, but he insists that he’s not hurt that much. Mae and Brandon pull off their helmets and stand by us, quiet. Mournful.

Gabe takes me by my arms and looks me over, genuinely concerned. “Are you hurt?”

“No, but Rachelle is.”

He looks back at Rachelle as she’s hauled away. “How’d that happen?”

“Elan kicked her for being an idiot. She could have saved Connie, Gabe.” I pull my helmet off and brush my fingers through my hair.

Gabe smirks, though it’s not his typical smirk. It’s heavy, filled with the weight of what we had just gone through.

“She pointed her gun at Elan. Said something about how he wasn’t in her Vision. In fact, she said something about how I
was
in her Vision, and she couldn’t wait until the Keeper saw me.” I still don’t know what this means, and judging by Gabe’s confused look, he hasn’t any idea either.

“Will she be okay?” Gabe asks.

“Who cares?” I look back up at Gabe and see he is frowning. “What matters is that you weren’t killed. Or Brandon or Mae.”

“Elan shouldn’t have held back. She practically killed Connie.”

“And if he didn’t hold back, we would be no better than her, Gabe. It’s better this way. Let her live with what she’s done. What she could have done.” I have no sympathy for her. She let our friend die.

The stretchers are wheeled off. Other medics load the two bodies into their black bags and leave without saying a word.

“Let’s get to the debriefing.” I turn on my heel and start out of the arena, with Gabe following behind me. I try to concentrate on the lecture to come, but my thoughts are everywhere and anywhere at once.

Chapter Eleven

Echo is back. This time, he sits under a tree with wiry limbs that stretch outward, umbrellaing over him. He still wears all white, his clothing a stark contrast to the deep brown tree trunk behind him.

I walk toward him through a field of tall grass. I don’t even know how I got here, but I know when I reach him, I am where I need to be.

“Is that what you needed to
save me from? The Training Games? Did you know they were going to do that?” The sky above us is an eerie light purple, the color of my eyes. The clouds move too quickly, racing across the horizon, trying to get to where they are supposed to go.

Echo looks up at me and smiles. He lifts a hand, gesturing for me to sit beside him under the tree. “That is just a little part of it, Beatrice.”

I sit cross-legged and run my hands down my robe to flatten it out. “So why won’t you tell me the whole of it?”

“Because I can’t.”

Looking to his hands, I wonder if he could seize me here and kill me like they do the Citizens. But his hands seem so soft and gentle, incapable of doing anything so violent and senseless.

“You’re afraid of me.” Echo notices my stare, then reaches out and lifts my chin with a bent finger. I don’t immediately die, so he must be safe.

I also don’t move away from him. “I’m afraid of what you can do.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“I mean…” What do I mean by that? I mean everything that we’ve been told about the Dreamcatchers. I mean that they are on their way to kill us all and take over the City, and that I’ve seen it in my Visions. I mean that Echo is the enemy, and that he’s not supposed to be in my dreams, but here he is, having a conversation with me under a creepy tree.

Echo’s finger drops and he looks away and over the long grass. “I know what you mean.”

“How…how are you even in my dreams, Echo? Do you know I could be run out of the Institution for this if anyone found out? They might even kill me now with all of the new rules.”

“Then they can’t find out.” Echo plucks a blade of grass out of the dirt and twists it between his fingers.

“But why are you here?”

“I told you why already. I’m here to save you, and you are here to save me.”

I am growing tired of these cryptic responses. I grab Echo by his arms and shake him as I speak. “Echo! Now is not the time for riddles and puzzles! My friend is dead, and so are six other Seers, and none of us know why we are being put through this. The Keeper tells us it is our duty, and we have to be prepared, but you know what?” I stop shaking him, exasperated.

Echo doesn’t even flinch at what I’ve done or said. “What?”

“We don’t even know what we are. We don’t know what we are preparing for past the invasion of the Dreamcatchers. Our only mission in life is to protect the Citizens, and that is all we know.”

“It’s because you are not supposed to know, Beatrice.”

“Well, I want to know, and I want to know how you know and I don’t.”

Echo smiles an easy smile then flicks the balled-up blade of grass off one of his knees. “Because I am the Dreamcatcher. I know what’s in your mind and the minds of many others. It’s because we can know this that we are dangerous to your Keeper. It’s because we do not hide our past or try to pretend that it never happened.” He points a finger at my chest. “But you, you are the Seer. You know what will happen tomorrow and the days after. And that is how you are dangerous to us.”

“Us? Dangerous?” I laugh at this as I think of lazy Brandon and too-talkative Mae. “We’re hardly that.”

“Are you?” Echo pushes back some of his hair when it falls in his eyes. “How many Seers did you say died today?”

“Seven.”

“And how many convicts did the Seers kill?”

I pause. “I don’t know…maybe around twenty?”

Echo only nods his head and goes back to staring across the never-ending field. The number is my answer. We are dangerous. The Keeper has turned us into weapons, ready to shoot and kill at her command.

“Beatrice. In a short while, the Dreamcatchers will come. This you already know. We will come because we are running out of Citizens. The plague is spreading and killing all of us, and we have no way to heal.” He pauses, bringing his blue eyes to stare directly into mine. “But what you don’t know is that I will be one of them, and I’ll be forced to kill you, just as you are being forced to kill us.” He doesn’t look at me anymore. He’s looking far away at something I can’t see.

“And?”

“And you will have to find me, Beatrice. You’ll have to find me and save me, just as I will have to find you and save you before we kill each other in this war. I will take you away from here. Take you with me.”

I shake my head, not understanding. “What do you mean? How will you save me and yet be trying to kill me?”

“Exactly what I said, Beatrice. We will have to save each other before we kill each other. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when or where, but I know it will have to happen.” Echo stops looking off into nothingness and stares at me instead. “We’ll set each other free. You won’t be a Seer anymore, bound to an unknown service governed by the Keeper, and I won’t be bound to the service of the Dreamcatchers anymore.”

“Free.” I don’t quite understand what it means to be free. I live a life that other Seers have lived before me. This is simply how things are when you are born with this gift. There is no being “free.” Do even the Citizens know freedom? They too are corralled behind barbed-wire fences and watchtowers, tucked away under a faulty dome with the promise that they are protected. And for what reason? What are they trying to keep us from? Or rather, what are they trying to keep from us?

Echo reaches out and touches my lips after I speak the word. He smiles, and the air between us becomes tense. Before I can say anything else, he stands up. “I must go.”

And then I’m awake.

…

The debriefing for the Training Games happens today. They postponed for a day due to the accumulated shock shared among everyone in the Institution. Yesterday, by the end of the games, we lost eight Seers. One more of them died in the infirmary, bled out on the table. Thankfully, it wasn’t Elan, but he has problems of a whole different sort.

They’ve put him in a holding cell, a quarantine room, if you will. But, it isn’t because he is being quarantined from anything at all. Rather, it’s because he won’t function. Elan won’t talk, he won’t eat, he won’t sleep. And his eyes? They keep glowing, as if he’s in a constant Vision, but has yet to snap out of it. No one has seen anything like it before, and to keep us from witnessing any more, they’ve swept him under the rug.

We are in the Meeting Room. The stage is empty so far. I sit next to Gabe, and beside Gabe, there is an empty chair. Mae and Brandon came up with the idea to keep the chair empty to honor Connie’s memory. Brandon and Mae sit on the opposite side of it, staring ahead at the stage like everyone else. All I can think about is Connie, and the lack of her presence in our lives now. And why? All because we have to fight in these stupid Training Games? Killing convicts who were told that if they survived they would be set free? But this is just the rumor. And I don’t like it. I put my hand on Gabe’s, glad that I don’t have to leave a chair empty for him as well.

If it weren’t for the nagging grief that tugs at my heart, I’d find it mildly amusing that we all look like zombies. But, I also know that as soon as this meeting starts, it will turn all too serious.

I turn and look behind me, and back a few rows I spot Rachelle, sitting there with her leg bandaged and crutches leaned up against the poor person sitting next to her. She doesn’t look very well, but I don’t care. Had Rachelle bothered to even try firing back at the convicts that she saw aiming at Connie, then maybe Connie would still be alive now. If she even just
tried
. All she had to do was
try
.

For some reason, I think about what Echo said. I think about his touch against my lips and how in that meadow with the strange tree, we were both alone and free. It was peaceful, and there wasn’t any grieving or anger.

Free. I still can’t figure out the concept of this word and how it applies to me. But being herded like sheep into this pasture of a Meeting Room, I’m beginning to learn what the concept
doesn’t
mean.

I bar the thought from my mind, slightly guilty that I am thinking about Echo when Gabe is sitting right next to me. He still has no idea about my dreams, and I still don’t have any idea how to tell him about them. If I even can. For my own safety it would be better if I don’t say anything, but it’s hard to keep everything to myself. Especially something like this.

The speakers vibrate as the microphone turns on, and the sound draws the attention of everyone in the Meeting Room. Mae leans over and whispers something to Brandon, and whatever is said makes him giggle before he puts a hand over his mouth to stop the embarrassing sounds from spilling out. A few people look in their direction, but it isn’t long before they are focused on the stage once more.

The Keeper steps out, dressed in red, flowing robes—a new color for her. A daunting one that is probably worn to remind us all of blood and war. Her hair is pulled up into a neat twist that belies her age. She looks severe, as always, and stands rigid behind the microphone.

“Seers. Yesterday was the first day of our new Training Games. They went well, but not well enough. As you all know, we lost eight Seers yesterday, and this is eight too many.” The Keeper’s violet eyes sweep over the crowd as she pauses to let the number sink in. Eight people. Connie is one of them.

“I suspect that it will only get worse before it gets better. You will be more scared and hesitant. You will shoot at shadows and sometimes they won’t be shadows at all. But the point of this is…you will get better.”

Gabe harrumphs and blows his bangs from over his eyes. He needs a haircut, and will probably be ordered to get one soon enough, even if I like his hair when it’s a bit long. “Easy for her to say. She’s not the one doing it.”

“I know that it is easy for me to say. But I am also the Keeper, and I can See things that not even you can See.” It is as if she is talking to only Gabe, though she is looking at all of us.

“I’m sure you can,” Gabe mutters.

“Shh.” I slap Gabe’s knee to get him to shut up. Talking like that could get you in trouble for treason against the Institution, and everyone is already on high alert. Now, after the Dreamcatchers started to sneak into the City, it only takes one jittery person to report you before you’re in trouble. And “trouble” nowadays meant your life. The Keeper is not taking any chances. To her, the threat is better off dead.

Gabe reluctantly stops talking and continues to listen to the Keeper. She lists the names of those who have fallen, and it becomes uncomfortably quiet. I shift in my seat, remembering how Connie died, remembering the sound of her lifeless body as it crumpled onto the arena floor. She didn’t deserve that. Not for something we aren’t even sure of yet.

“The Games will continue tomorrow. For today, you will have a break to meet with your teams and strategize. Remember, Seers, the Dreamcatchers can be anywhere. They could be here with us right now, in fact. We must always be prepared and ready to fight them.”

Just when I think she is going to dismiss us, the Keeper takes the microphone out of the stand and steps to the front of the stage. “Now. Onto another important matter.” Her voice drops an octave lower into a serious and firm tone. “A Vision has been reported that is of some concern. It specifically focused on a particular Seer who is seated amongst us, but it wasn’t clear enough to pinpoint exactly who that person is.”

At this, everyone looks at one another, already suspicious. I lean over to whisper to Gabe. “I bet this has to do with what Rachelle said.”

“What did she say?” Gabriel’s attention flutters away from the Keeper and to me instead.

“She said she had a Vision, and that I was in it and that she couldn’t wait until the Keeper saw me.” I still have no idea what she meant by what she said. But maybe the Keeper already does.

Gabe purses his mouth in concern. I can’t quite bring myself to stop looking at his mouth, but somehow, I do.

The Keeper continued. “In the Vision, the Seer was Seen speaking to a Dreamcatcher. He or she was in league with the enemy, plotting alongside them. Again, we do not know the absolute validity of this, as the Vision was not clear, as most of your Visions aren’t. But, this overall concern is still present: someone here will betray us.”

Gasps of surprise roll over the audience. Everyone scrutinizes the person next to them, wary and cautious. I can feel the collective tension in the air pull into a taught film that settles over us all. The Keeper has managed to catch us in her net like defenseless butterflies.

Mae leans over and looks down the line of chairs to where Gabe and I sit. “Do you hear this?”

“I think everyone does, Mae.” Gabe is grumpy and crosses his arms over his chest.

Mae frowns. “Right.”

“Stay alert, Seers. Always stay alert, and report anything suspicious to the Watch or myself.” The Keeper puts her closed left hand over the violet eye emblem sewn onto the right breast of her robe. We all return the salute, which also serves as our dismissal.

Gabe pushes back his chair and rises. “Now we’re all going to be judging everyone. I think she does this stuff on purpose.”

“Why would she do it on purpose?” I ask. Brandon and Mae follow behind us as we filter out of the row.

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling.”

I have the same feeling, but I don’t vocalize it. When I look around, I notice the other Seers whispering and casting nervous glances at one another.