Luminosity (6 page)

“Fair enough.” Gabe follows my gaze to the tables. “Come on, let’s eat.”

We push our way through the crowd, and eventually people begin to break off and go their separate ways. I look to the stage where Brandon clutches the sides of his chair and grits his teeth while the artist tattoos the raven’s wings on his face. The Keeper is still standing there and watching me. A chill runs up my spine and sends shivers through my body.

“Do you think he’ll pass out?” Mae’s voice breaks into my thoughts. She’s holding a small plate with a half-eaten chocolate glazed donut on it. Because Mae is so tiny, it looks like her dress is swallowing her up. She’s practically swimming in it.

“Nah.” Connie grins and points at Brandon. “He’s doing great. Look at him.”

We all look at the same time. Brandon is still where he was before, eyes squinting shut, then releasing. The tattoo artist is probably telling him to stop squinting, but just as soon as Brandon does, he goes right back to it.

We laugh, or at least the others do. I make a noise that is akin to laughter, but it’s forced and obvious.

“What’s wrong?” Mae puts her little hand on my arm. Her touch is warm, her skin so soft. You’d never think that she is one of the best fighters we have on Team A. But she’s small and crafty. I’m glad she’s on my team.

“Nothing. Just some business that happened out on the floor. No one is going to let it go.” I don’t mean to be accusatory, but I do shoot a glance to Gabe, who hasn’t bothered to touch any of the food yet. Then again, neither have I.

“Maybe if you tried to let it go, it wouldn’t bother you so much, Bea.” Mae’s advice, though offered nicely, seems like something Gabe would say. I frown at her. She frowns back, though it’s more confused than angry.

“She’s right.” Gabe nudges me, elbow to elbow. “Just let it go. We’re supposed to be celebrating.”

I lift my chin, gesturing to the others who have chosen to remain behind on the floor, talking in their groups and shooting sidelong glances in my direction. “They aren’t celebrating. They’re talking about us.”

“So let them talk, Bea.” Connie forces a plate with a piece of chocolate cake on it toward my middle. I have no choice but to take it, or risk getting the icing on my gown. “Eat up.”

I carefully pick up the piece of cake and take a bite. It’s not often the Institution gives us anything so rich and delicious, and I sincerely try to enjoy it. As I chew, though, I notice the Keeper approaching the microphone. On the projectors, the cameras have zoomed in on her face, which is stern and sharp.

“Something is wrong,” I note, and after one more bite of savory cake, I ditch the plate on the table.

“What?” Gabe looks up at the screen, hair falling in front of his eyes. “Oh.”

The Keeper taps on the microphone, and the muffled noise loudly echoes through the room, catching everyone’s attention. We quiet as we are trained to do when the Keeper is present, and once the room is silent, she stands up straight and begins to speak.

“As our new, full Seers are finishing their tattoos, the Institution has a very important announcement to make. To some, it might be upsetting, but we’ve entered a new era in our fight against the Dreamcatchers.”

There hasn’t been an actual fight just yet. That’s the first thought that comes to my mind. We’ve only been preparing to fight. But to say we’ve been fighting all the time makes the message that much more urgent. It makes it more real, more now.

“Our training exercises will change.” The Keeper looks at all of us, speaking in a tone that one would use when trying to inspire their troops before they go out into battle. “There will be no more room for the weak. A great threat has been detected, and I am sure you’ve noticed that we’ve upped our security as a precaution.”

Again, eyes are on me. This time, I don’t bother to look.

“In order to stay prepared, we will be introducing live rounds to the training games.”

The collective breathing in the room stops.

Did I hear her correctly?

“We will be using Citizen convicts as our targets, and they will be armed.” The Keeper pauses as the tension in the air becomes crisper and more taut. “We have, up until this point, kept our Seers under protection for the good of the City. But what good is it if we are protecting Seers who aren’t strong enough to protect in return? You need to be able to take a life. To kill. To protect the Citizens.”

“Is she serious?” Connie whispers, a waver in her words.

“It is a new day! We are at war, and now, more than ever, we need to be strong! We will begin to use live rounds tomorrow. Get a good night’s rest, and remember, it is for the good of the City.” The microphone clicks off and the Meeting Room is silent.

The wave of whispers starts somewhere in the back, and by the time it reaches us, everyone is talking. Connie is freaking out and has reduced herself to tears. Mae is trying to keep Connie calm with reassuring pats on the back. Gabe reaches for my hand and when he finds it, he holds it without saying a word about anything.

Chapter Nine

With nothing else on my mind but the upcoming Training Games and our new mandate to use live rounds, I find it hard to believe that Mae is so excited about our journey off our bunk floor.

Mae, Connie, and I are packed into an elevator that speeds down its shaft, passing floor after floor at a high speed that makes my stomach feel like it is in my throat.

“So, has Gabe stopped being ornery?” Connie leans against the metal walls that box us in.

“Somewhat, I guess. It’s definitely better than it was before.” I shrug a shoulder, not quite content with my observation. “But who knows? I was pretty angry with him after that whole thing at the Ceremony. Maybe he’s annoyed with me again.”

Connie picks at a scratch on her arm. “Boys forget pretty quickly.”

“Yeah. Brandon forgets every day that I like him.” Mae laughs and playfully pushes my arm. “Sometimes, their skulls are so thick that nothing gets to their brains.”

I grin and nudge Mae back. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Ooh! I can hear them already!” Mae suddenly squeals as the elevator slows and comes to a stop.

Today is our turn to visit the lower levels of the Institution, where the young Seers are kept. It is a requirement for all girls over the age of fifteen to help at least once a month in the children’s wards. We don’t interact much with the young Seers, as there’s such a gap between what they know and what we know, and sometimes it becomes frustrating when communicating. It’s not one of my favorite things to do, but today is important because when Mae, Connie and I are done with our visit, we need to come up with a report on how the younger Seers can be better integrated with the rest of the Institution.

The doors slide open and the three of us step out and just barely miss being run over by a gaggle of Seer children who run full speed down the hallway and turn a corner, laughing and screaming. It’s far too noisy for my liking, and I cast one of the Caretakers a sympathetic glance. In return, the Caretaker bows her head. “Seer Beatrice.”

Maker, how I hate how they all know me.

I nod and ask over my shoulder, “So, where are we going to go?”

“I want to visit the nursery,” Mae blurts before Connie can get anything out.

“The nursery seems fine.” Connie shrugs without much conviction either way.

“Fine. We’ll go there, even if I don’t understand why you are so obsessed with the nursery, Mae.” I start down the hall in the direction of the highly-guarded nursery. Watchmen have been placed down the perimeter of the hallway, about every twenty feet or so. I feel like the infants are better protected than any of us in the Institution, and I suppose it makes sense when they are so helpless…and useless.

“Because they are just so cute! I wish that I could have a baby of my own when I grow up.” Mae’s words lilt at the end.

“That’s just stupid to think about. It’ll never happen. You know we can’t have babies. Only the Keeper has babies, until she has a girl, and even then, no one has any idea who the baby is until she is told herself.” Connie proudly puffs her chest up. “For all you two know, I could be the next Keeper.”

I laugh at the notion. Connie would be the worst Keeper, only focused on when her next snack would be, or the next game of marbles. Nothing would ever get done in the Institution. “Okay, Connie.”

Connie frowns. “What? Don’t you think I could be the Keeper?”

“I think the conversation is kind of ridiculous myself. The Keeper isn’t going anywhere any time soon. It’s not like she’s that old or something,” I say. But who knows? Seers don’t live all too long. Most Seers lose their sanity and expire somewhere near their sixties because of the strain on their minds. The Keeper is thought to live longer than the rest because her powers are more controlled, but no one has ever really been clear about that. We know little about the deaths of Keepers in the past, as it doesn’t seem to be information that the Institution gives out willingly.

“Yeah, she’s not old.” We get to the main doors of the nursery and are stopped by the Watchmen. Mae waves. “Hello! We’re here to see the little babies!”

The Watchmen take out their identification devices and each one of us has to confirm our IDs with a fingerprint and retina scan. I place my thumb on the datapad’s screen and watch as a blue line runs down the length of it and bends over the shape of my thumb. A beep signals that it is done, and the Watchman holds the device up to scan my eyes next. When both precautions are done, my name and picture flicker to life on the datapad, identifying me as “Seer Beatrice, Bunk 34A.”

Connie and Mae undergo the same routine, and while I wait, I peek into the hallway beyond, spotting only more guards, their guns, and bright halogen lights. I think about Mae’s wish for a baby of her own, and I can’t quite understand where a thought like that would come from. Seers don’t have children—we can’t. Each of us is sterilized in infancy to protect us.

In history class, we learned that when Seers were first created, no one thought reproduction might be a problem. Fairly quickly everyone realized that most Seer’s offspring never lived past the age of ten. The children’s gift of Sight would go horribly wrong, and their Visions would break them down, filling them with pain and destroying a part of their minds in the process. This happened to everyone’s offspring except for the Keeper’s. Once it was realized, the Keeper decided that no Seer should be born into such conditions, except for a child of her own—one who could bear the advanced gift.

But no one ever knows who that child is until the child is told herself, as Connie mentioned. Sometimes, people have their guesses based off how advanced someone’s Visions can actually be, and I’m more than aware that there are many who have their bets hedged on me, though I can’t stand for an instant of thinking that the Keeper might be my mother. The woman doesn’t seem to have a heart of her own, let alone a part of it to give to a child.

Mae and Connie pass security, and the Watchmen step aside to let us continue into the nursery. We pass a couple of staffing rooms, filled with chattering Caretakers who are on their breaks. They fall silent as we walk by, but then go right back to talking once we are past them. I smirk and look back at the other girls. “I wonder what they are talking about?”

“Probably how cute the babies are!” Mae beams and claps her hands together twice. “We’re almost there!”

We pass by a section of the ward that is mostly quiet. The Receiving Room. This is where the Seer babies are brought after they are delivered in the City’s hospitals and their violet eyes are noticed, the sign of their gift.

Then they are brought here, into a new family, their new home: the Institution.

I shudder, the silence creeping through my body like a parasite.

In that same history class, we learned what happens to the Dreamcatcher babies when they are born. They are also born with violet eyes, but they lose the color in a few days. After that, they are quite simply snuffed out, like a little flickering candle flame that never had the chance to burn. Sometimes, it even takes a couple of years before they’re identified as Dreamcatchers, years of bonding, memories and love shared between parent and child before the Watchmen come and put an end to it. And anyone caught harboring one of these children is subject to the pain of death. For their whole family. The consequences are severe, and no one has ever tested it that I have heard of. There are rumors, though, of an underground group of Citizens with Seer or Dreamcatcher babies that they have kept or, in the case of the Dreamcatchers, smuggled out of the City and to Aura.

But those are just rumors.

Finally, we reach the nursery doors, and the two Watchmen who flank them step aside to let us through. Inside, there are about three rows of ten infants, each swaddled in their own cradles. They vary in age, some of them newer than others, some of them close to their first year, soon to be transferred out into the children’s wards.

Mae rushes over to the newer ones, who are at the front of the lines, and she bounces on her toes, waiting for a Caretaker to come over and help her. “Can I hold this one?” She asks this as if the child is more like a pet, and it occurs to me that to Mae that is what these babies are—pets.

“So, for our report, what do you suggest that we write about?” Connie gets right to the point, which is fine with me. The sooner we can figure out what to write, the sooner we can get out of here.

“What was the assignment again?” Mae asks as the Caretaker places the infant into her arms. Mae cradles the baby with extreme care, then turns and walks over to us as if she were walking on a tightrope without a safety net under it.

Connie pulls a folded up paper out of her robes and unwrinkles it. “The assignment says that we must think of one way we can improve a part of the children’s wards that would not only benefit the children but the Institution as a whole.”

“Hmm. That sounds a little rough.” Mae looks up at the other caretakers to see what they are doing with their babies, and then tries to emulate them by bouncing the tiny bundle in her arms. “Maybe if they let us take care of the babies in our bunks!”

“
No!
” I blurt almost immediately, imagining how it would be if we had a baby crammed into our small, personal space along with us. A crying, wriggling little baby that we had to care for all on our own? “That’s a horrible idea.”

“Something tells me that you don’t really like babies, do you, Bea?” Mae grins.

I smirk in return. “It’s not the babies I don’t like, it’s the idea of being up all night caring for one. You
do
know that they cry all night, right?”

Mae looks to a Caretaker to confirm this, and the one that overhears nods her head. “It’s true. They do. But, if you love them so much, Seer Mae, you can always ask to become a Caretaker.”

“True!” Mae coos down at her baby. “Wouldn’t you like that, little, bitty Seer baby?”

“I think this place is a madhouse, to be honest. I think the children should be in classes sooner, so they can learn more. We do a lot of our learning at the end of our schooling. It feels like we find things out all at one time,” Connie interjects and sits down, avoiding the opportunity to interact with the babies at all.

I walk over to one of the cradles and peek down inside at the sleeping baby contained in it and wonder how it can sleep so soundly with the other babies crying. “So, you think that their learning should start earlier?”

“Yep. Like, with history stuff, I suppose. At least the things that they’d be able to understand. We deserve to know more.”

“I like that idea,” Mae agrees after she’s done cooing at the baby in her arms.

“Okay. So, we came up with something to write about.” I say this hoping that Mae will get the hint that Connie and I want to get out of here.

Thankfully, she does pick it up, and Mae puts the baby back into its cradle. “Okay, okay. Well, I guess we can get out of here and start our projects, then. Maybe we can even get it done before the Training Games tonight.”

“Maybe.” I smile at Mae and then to Connie. “Though, I wouldn’t mind going back and playing some marbles first.”

Connie and Mae laugh and we turn to get off this floor and back to the sanity of the quieter levels, the ones without the dozens of wailing Seer children. When we reach the lift again, the three of us step in, and I push the button for the doors to close. Just before I do, though, a dark-haired little girl stops in front of the elevator and stares up at us with her glowing, violet eyes. I smile at her, but the girl doesn’t smile back.

She’s Seeing.

The doors start to shut, but I strike out and wave my hand in front of the sensor, and they jerk back open. By the time the doors are open again, the girl’s Vision is over, and her eyes dim to a more subtle glow. She looks frightened, her face reading of horror and things she cannot unSee.

“What do you think she saw?” Mae asks, as if the girl isn’t standing right there in front of her.

“I don’t know, but we could ask her.” I watch as the girl puts her hands to her head, holding it and shaking it as if trying to erase the images from her mind.

“But we aren’t supposed to ask before the Keeper gets here.” Connie reminds us of the rule that we both already know. I knew it before I suggested we ask; I just don’t care.

“She’s obviously upset. There’s no harm in trying to calm her down.” I step out of the elevator, then crouch down in front of the child and try to take one of her hands. How do the Caretakers do this? It seems so awkward interacting with something so small and so innocent. “What’s wrong?”

I can feel the girl trembling through her fingers, and when she looks at me, it is like she’s looking through me, as if I were made of glass and she could see everything under my skin. “I Saw horrible things.”

“What sort of horrible things?” I ask.

Even at her age, she hesitates. She knows I am not who she is supposed to be telling this to. Surely, the Keeper is somewhere on her way, though. Surely she knows that someone down on this level has had a Vision. Somehow, she always knows these things. “The City. It was burning. There were flames that reached way up into the sky, disappearing into the clouds which were black and thick and grey.” She pauses. “Maybe it was smoke and not clouds.”

“Maybe.” The Vision worries me, but not all too much. She’s so young, and her Visions are still inaccurate. They can’t be trusted any more than the next under-developed Vision can be. “Was that all you saw?”

“There were burning people too. Their arms…they were flailing their arms, and it looked like they were screaming, but nothing was coming out of their mouths.” The girl’s eyes fill with tears, her resolve breaking down.

That is how the Keeper finds us as she steps out of the lift and between Connie and Mae. “What is going on here?” She puts a hand on her hip, cradling the digipad against her side with her other arm. The raven on her shoulders spreads its wings and folds them back again, making small honking noises as it moves closer to the Keeper’s neck.

Now we have to explain ourselves. Connie and Mae look at me expectantly. Of course, since it was my idea to speak to the little girl, it’s my responsibility to explain myself to the Keeper.