Chapter 5

Chapter 5

               Ellie was amazed at the compound. She had only ever seen it from the outside when they had gone with David to release him to their custody two years ago. From the outside it looked like one would think an army barracks would look with white shuttered buildings and a fence that was meant to discourage people from climbing in or out. Inside it was much the same until they made it further inside, the carriage drawing them towards what accounted to a town with shops and stalls. It turned out much of the capital could come and go as they pleased from the other side, away from the city itself. The houses in the area closest to the barracks were for the soldiers. Most of those soldiers were those with gifts as they were treated better than voluntary soldiers. Ellie had also been correct, the silver lining was part of the rank, but it was meant to detail that someone had a gift. The more silver along the jacket meant their rank.

               When they had arrived everyone had been exhausted. Rafe had lead them to a barrack that was split up into two sections, male and female. Rhapsody and Ellie had been escorted to an area with no one else and allowed to sleep. Sloane and Jacen had been taken elsewhere, presumably to sleep as well.

               Ellie had been nervous, but had slept through the entire night almost without interruption. She had only stirred once, when her sister had crawled into the same bed next to her. Ellie had curled into her sister and fallen back asleep. When she awoke there was a woman staring over them who handed them gray clothing to change into. The gray clothing was terribly unflattering, but at least it was clean. They were lead to a bathroom that had several shower stalls and allowed to wash up.

               After they were changed into the gray outfits the woman came back and lead them somewhere they would have breakfast. Breakfast was a buffet, of sorts. It was not more appetizing than the chicken breakfast place in Grange, but it was food all the same. The girls found Sloane and Jacen and sat with them with their plates full of food.

               “Well, we are still alive,” Sloane said through a mouthful of toast. “And they are not watching us terribly hard, so they either know we can’t escape or know they are stronger than us.”

               “Both, Sloane.” Rafe slapped his own plate down and joined them at the head of the table the four of them were sitting at. His plate contained nothing more than oatmeal and toast. Ellie wondered if it was a preference or if she should not have been munching on the sausages that she had grabbed. Considering how slender Rafe was she took it as a preference and continued to eat.

               “Are you our new babysitter?” Sloane asked of Rafe.

               “I am,” Rafe said. “I am paid exorbitant amounts of money so I can babysit children like you when they first show up. And test you to see how much you can do without being trained. And decide where you will go for further training.”

               “That’s a lot riding on you,” Ellie said.

               Rafe seemed to not know how to take her comment at first, but realizing she meant no harm and she was more questioning how things worked he nodded. “There are not many of us that the president trusts to do this sort of thing. I am among the few. General Loqi is one of the others, though Loqi is more disciplinary. I’ll warn you now, do not cross the general. He enjoys discipline, especially if it causes pain. He’s also very good at interrogation.”

               “Does he actually cause pain, or does he do that illusion thing?” Ellie asked. “I mean, what he did to Rhapsody and Jacen was abhorrent, but… amazing.” Rhapsody gave her sister a horrified look and Ellie threw up her hands. “He made you believe you were shot in the head. You had no brain activity, no thoughts, nothing. You went from being shot to awaking outside of the train. That’s horrible, but amazing.”

               “It depends,” Rafe admitted. “But we are not sitting here right now to talk about Loqi.”

               “I’m sorry,” Ellie apologized.

               “Do not be sorry,” Rafe said. “Inquisitive minds are a good thing, it means you are assessing the situation. As you can probably tell, they have accepted you into the compound, despite your trying to run before. The president can not afford to lose anyone with a gift, especially since less and less are being born every year. You three,” he pointed at Rhapsody, Jacen, and Sloane, “are the only ones this year. Period.”

               “What happens to me?” Ellie asked. “Am I going to be sent home?”

               “We have decided to test you as well,” Rafe said. “You are here, and there are some questions about you, so you will be tested. If it turns out we are wrong, and you do have no gift at all, you will be sent home.”

               “And by sent home you mean…?”

               “I mean you will be sent home, Eleanore,” he said. “No one means you harm. Despite what everyone seems to think, being here is not so horrible.”

               “What about David?” Rhapsody snapped. “I’m sure you know our brother, since there are so few with gifts that come through here, and you are in charge of testing everyone. He lost his eye here. That’s not normal.”

               “It’s not,” Rafe agreed. “What David does is between him and President Gentile. They are working on a project of the president’s choosing, and it did leave David disfigured.”

               “You say that so flatly,” Rhapsody snapped, “but my brother is not the same brother he was before he came here. That’s why we didn’t want to come here.”

               “That, and you two figured that the only chance you two had of being together was escaping,” Rafe said, biting into his toast. Rhapsody and Jacen both blushed and Rafe continued. “Having loved ones is not illegal. It might be difficult if you are assigned to different areas, but it’s very unlikely, and marriage is taken into consideration.”

               Sloane narrowed his eyes and said, “My father said that a marriage between her and an Aronian would be illegal.”

               “Only if he passes the law he’s been trying to push,” Rafe said. “Apparently, Councilman Rafferty is not terribly fond of us from Aroni.”

               “You just called my father a racist without batting an eye,” Sloane pointed out.

               “It’s true.”

               “I know, I just don’t think anyone’s ever said it before. It’s part of why I began a friendship with Jacen.”

               Jacen made a face, but it was not something Sloane had lied about. Perhaps at first, when they had first found each other and become friends, but months later Sloane had admitted that he had begun hanging out with Jacen because his father hated Aronians and he knew it would irritate him. Sloane stopped inviting Jacen to the house and the two would meet down the street, or at Rhapsody and Ellie’s house. Mr. Rafferty ignored they were still friends, hoping his plans to eradicate Aronians from the country would work in his favor one day.

               “He hates that I have a seat on the council,” Rafe admitted. “But that’s neither here nor there. It is not, in fact, a law at this time, and will likely never be passed. The president much prefers to have every person with a gift here, and if it means accepting Aronians into society he will see past the skin color.”

               “Are you telling us this in hopes of assuaging our fears, or were we truly that ignorant?” Jacen asked.

               Rafe sat back and looked at the four of them and then simply said, “I guess you will see. It’s not so bad here.”

               “What is your title?” Ellie asked. “I want to be able to call you the right thing.”

               “I am also a general, but you can call me Rafe. There’s not need for an official title.” Rafe stood, barely having touched his breakfast. “Why don’t you all follow me? We will head towards the testing center.”

               The testing center was a barracks building much like the rest of the buildings, except there was far more around the rooms, including machines that Ellie would never have believed existed. Two men met them at the entrance and lead them in.

               “I’m Dr. Torrow and this is my colleague, Dr. Meridion,” the taller man said. “We will be helping you through these tests. We’ll do the simple one first, the one that all of you are familiar with. You will recognize the flowers here.”

               They had a planter lined up with the large flowers that looked out of place in the facility. Each person stepped forward and the flowers changed, or didn’t change, depending on the person. Rhapsody’s flower crumpled and regenerated. Jacen’s flower burst into flames. Sloane’s flower grew the red target around it. The doctors were nodding then glanced at Ellie and her flower, which had done nothing.

               “Think of turning it blue,” Dr. Meridion suggested. Ellie thought about it and nothing happened. “We can cross illusion off of the list.”

               Rafe simply nodded and told Ellie to follow the doctors. He stepped back with her as she followed behind her. “Just because nothing happened with the flower does not mean there’s nothing.”

               “Isn’t that the surefire way to know?” Ellie asked. “Isn’t that the point of the flowers? To know?”

               “Not everything is cut and dry,” Rafe said. “You should know that by now.”

               “I’m just…”

               “Disappointed,” Rafe said. “Are you disappointed because you were hoping to be special or are you disappointed because you wanted to stay with your sister.”

               “I feel left out,” Ellie admitted. “My brother and sister are special and I ended up just… just me.”

               “You aren’t something to be disappointed in, Eleanore.” Rafe patted her back and walked ahead again to a small room that was surrounded by glass. The doctors were leading Jacen into the room, which had absolutely nothing within it.

               “Now, Jacen,” Dr. Torrow was saying, “some of these experiments will feel frightening, but we are here to help at all times. If you are too scared to move ahead with any experiment, though, please let us know. This is just to see how far you’ve come on your own. Honestly, with you having fire power, we wish we could have taken you on sooner. We would love to have taught you sooner how to control it better. Sometimes the law of 20 is restricting to those who need practice.” Dr. Torrow’s face seemed sorrowful.

               “There was a fifteen-year-old girl,” Dr. Meridion explained, “this was years ago. She had powers over water, but only to control it. She tried to control too much, she drowned herself within it. We made a deal, though, not to take children on.”

               “Why?” Ellie asked.

               “Everyone should be a willing, capable adult for experiments,” Dr. Torrow explained. “Children can not consent. And unfortunately, to gauge powers, you must be an adult.”

               “That’s reasonable,” Ellie said, “and yet frightening and sad all at the same time.”

               “It was not an easy decision,” Rafe admitted. “Jacen, just tell us when you are ready to stop.”

               Jacen nodded and watched the door close him into the glass chamber. One of the doctors pressed a button and said, “Turn on your flames whenever you are ready.”

               Jacen’s fingers started on fire. He let the fire spread over him, cover his skin, over his hair, burning away the clothing he was wearing until he was nothing but fire. The doctors seemed impressed with how easily he manipulated the fire around him.

               “Please extinguish the fire,” Dr. Meridion said.

               It took him longer to put out the flames than it had to ignite them, but he was there standing naked with no fires to speak of. Ellie turned away politely, but they did not offer him more clothes when they opened the door. Jacen did not seem embarrassed to be naked, which Ellie found odd for such a quiet guy. Perhaps he was not as shy as she assumed him to be.

               The doctor handed Jacen several candles and several stacks of paper before locking him in the room again. The doctor went back to the microphone and said, “Can you set a wick on fire without any flames showing on your person?”

               Jacen did not seem as sure about this one. He concentrated and the wick did nothing. After several long minutes of nothing Dr. Torrow said into the microphone, “Can you light the wick of the candle without going over to it? You can use your visible fire, but without stepping to it.”

               Jacen lit his fingers on fire and watched the candle from afar. He concentrated on throwing the flame and missed widely. The flame hit the glass harmlessly. He tried again, but it missed again. Jacen huffed in frustration, missing continuously.

               “Don’t worry, Jacen, you are not failing a test because you can not light a candle,” Dr. Torrow assured him. “Will you step over to the candle and light it on fire with as little flame as possible?”

               Jacen walked over to the candle and simply touched the wick. The wick lit up and came to life.

               “One more test in the glass box and then we are going to give you a break,” Dr. Meridion told him. “This one will be the hardest. We are going to drain the oxygen out of the room for 30 seconds. With no oxygen in the room, we want you to try to maintain your flames. Can you hold your breath for 30 seconds?”

               “I have no idea,” Jacen admitted.

               “Make it 20,” Dr. Torrow suggested.

               Dr. Meridion did not look happy, but he gave a few clicks of the buttons and the display went from 30 to 20. Ellie tried to concentrate on watching the digital monitor than on Jacen’s naked figure.

               Jacen started his flames as the oxygen was drained out of the room. When it was completely gone the clock began to tick down. Ellie could not help it, she looked directly at Jacen, who was surrounded by flames, but his face was visible, and he was suffering trying to keep the flames burning. Then he was screaming in a room with no oxygen. Something was going wrong and they were only five seconds into the experiment.

               “Let him out!” Ellie screamed, seeing the pain in his eyes.

               Dr. Meridion reached out and pounded his hand on a button that opened the door. Oxygen wooshed in and Jacen could breathe. The flames went out as it hit him, but his face burned from his own flames. Rhapsody was in there with him in moments, rushing to him and putting her hands on his face. He tried to fight her off, not wanting her to heal him, but she was not going to listen to him. The burns went from an angry red to bright pink, to making his olive skin whole once more. It did not take her long to heal all of his burns, a feeling Ellie was sure he had never felt before.

               Rafe and the doctors were exchanging a look over her head and she glanced up at them, mistaking the look and snapping, “That was dangerous.”

               “It was,” Dr. Meridion said. “I am also a healer, but it seems she healed him just fine. I guess we can go with her experiment next. Eleanore, there is clothing in the other room, will you grab some for Jacen please?”

               Eleanore went to the room they had sent her to. It was a small room that was full of more gray clothing. There were shelves of it that she guessed were sorted by size. She looked for something that she thought would fit Jacen and returned. When she returned Dr. Torrow, Dr. Meridion, and Rafe were all watching her carefully. She raised an eyebrow, but went to Rhapsody who was holding out her hands to give Jacen the clothing. Eleanore shoved the clothes are her and stepped back as Jacen changed.

               “Eleanore,” Dr. Torrow said with a smile, “Why don’t you come with me? I have a different test for you while we test your sister.”

               “We were all here for Jacen’s…” Ellie trailed, wanting to be there for her sister.

               “Don’t worry, it will just go faster if we can get the two of you done at the same time.” Dr. Torrow lead Ellie away from her sibling and friends. Rhapsody was going into the boxed room again that had been emptied of candles and paper. Ellie was lead to a locked room and given a piece of paper with designs on it.

               “Ellie, sit at one of the desks,” Dr. Torrow said. “I want you to draw beneath each design a design, any design that you can think of.” Rafe entered the room behind Dr. Torrow and Ellie looked up at him with confusion.

               “It’s all right, Ellie,” Rafe said. “Just do your best.”

               “Is there a right or wrong answer?” Ellie asked, looking at the paper. She hated being handed tests she had not studied for.

               “Not technically, no,” Dr. Torrow told her. “Just draw whatever you think is best.”

               For about fifteen minutes Ellie sat at the desk with a pencil and drew. The designs were just basic circles or squares, and octagon, it was all simple designs. She was nervous and mostly just drew the same design, or the next design. At the end she was subtracting a corner, or adding corners, just to do something different. She knew she was being tested, she just was unsure what she was being tested for exactly.

               “Time is up,” Dr. Torrow said. He walked over and took the paper from Ellie and smiled. He turned to Rafe and said, “Why don’t you go see how Rhapsody is doing?”

               “Happily,” Rafe said. “Good luck, Eleanore.”

               Eleanore tapped her foot and found another piece of paper being slid in front of her by Dr. Torrow. It was the exact same thing she had just done.

               “Now, Eleanore, I would like you to try again,” he said. “Draw anything you wish.”

               “There is a right or wrong answer, isn’t there?” Ellie asked him.

               “This time, yes,” Dr. Torrow said. He walked to the other side of the room and turned over an hourglass to set the timer.

               Ellie, panicked, looked down at the paper, begging to know what the right answers were. She looked at the paper with a sickened feeling in her gut, but her pencil moved to the paper and she began to draw. This time she was drawing without thought, she just drew what she knew had to be the answer. The answers were 3D versions of the picture. A circle was meant to look more like a sphere, a square had lines added to it to give it a box feel. She tried it with all of the objects, though she found some harder than others, especially with her limited drawing ability.

               “All right, time is up,” Dr. Torrow said. Ellie pulled herself away from the paper and blinked her eyes. What was that? Before she had seen that paper she had no idea how to even make something more three dimensional. Why had instinct kicked in and allowed her to draw like that? Her lines were not perfect, but they were there.

               Dr. Torrow picked up the paper and held it up to another one he had been looking at.

               “Did I pass?” she asked.

               “You are amazing, Eleanore,” he told her. “Come on, let us rejoin your friends. I am sure they are ready for Sloane’s test now.”

               “You separated my sister and I on purpose, didn’t you?” Ellie asked, following Dr. Torrow.

               “Yes, we did,” Dr. Torrow said with a kind smile. “Siblings and loved ones can often change the way a test is taken. Some hold back, some try too hard, like Jacen did. With that in mind we decided splitting the two of you up would be safer.”

               “Safer,” Ellie repeated. “It’s not like her power is going to hurt anyone.”

               “It hurts her, doesn’t it?” Dr. Torrow asked.

               “You know about that?” Ellie asked.

               “Most healers pay a price,” Dr. Torrow said and lead Ellie out the back of the building. Outside Sloane was being given a sling shot. He was laughing about being given a slingshot and Rafe was saying something about how he did not trust the man with a gun after his poor display at the train.

               Sloane saw Ellie come out and gave her a smile. “I’m supposed to hit targets with a slingshot,” he told her.

               “That should be a breeze for you,” Ellie called back, pulling her hand up to shield her eyes from the sunlight. “You don’t need to look cool for testing, Sloane.”

               “I always need to look cool,” Sloane said and turned towards the targets. The sun was directly in his eyes, but he armed the slingshot with the powdered pellets they gave him and he aimed. The pellets left a dust of color behind when they struck the targets, letting them know where he had struck. They gave him 20 of the pellets, and five targets.

               After he worked the slingshots the doctors went out to check the targets. Yes, of course, he hit the bullseye on every target, not even a little off from dead center. Despite it being a gift, Sloane looked impressed with himself and he winked at Rhapsody, Jacen, and Ellie. Ellie just rolled her eyes but she was glad to see he was in good spirits. Ellie found it hard to ask Rhapsody how her testing went while Sloane was being tested, but she knew she would speak with her later in private again.

               “All right,” Dr. Torrow said, handing over 20 more pellets to Sloane, “now, do it all again.”

               Sloane rolled his eyes and proceeded to do just that, but this time the pellets went wide.

               Rafe let out a small smirk and asked, “Are you even aiming for the target?”

               “You are killing my powers, aren’t you?” Sloane asked him.

               “Yes, I am,” Rafe said. “Because as I said, you need to know how to do things without your gift, especially if you are going to be a soldier, because you and Jacen are obviously candidates for just that. You do not even try to aim, you just do things. You won’t always have your powers.”

               “How many people are like you?” Sloane retorted.

               “I am the only one as far as I know,” Rafe admitted. “But what if I am your enemy?”

               Sloane asked for 20 more pellets from the good doctors. They handed him more pellets and this time he concentrated. It took him longer to shoot while concentrating, but when he was actually aiming he was not far off. He was not dead center, he was in fact never center, but he was close enough.

               “Good,” Rafe said. “I think that’s enough testing for you right now.”

               “You made everyone else go through far more hoops than I just did,” Sloane stated.

               “Yes, but you will be under me for years to come, yours was simple to test your ability,” Rafe stated. “Jacen’s was to see if he would come with me or go elsewhere, and I think he has enough control to come with me. Rhapsody, unfortunately, you will not be up to me. Healers are needed everywhere, but if you would like to try to stay with your friends, I will happily put in that recommendation for you.”

               “What about Ellie?” Rhapsody asked, reaching out to grab her sister’s hands.

               “I’m sorry,” Dr. Torrow said kindly. “She is not gifted and will be sent home.”

               Why had she been given that odd test if there was nothing? They seemed to have thought she had something, but perhaps whatever it was had just been a fluke. She truly was not gifted, even after the testing.

               Rhapsody wrapped her arms tightly around her sister and Ellie clung back to her. Rhapsody was crying, as was Ellie, but more just because after all of that they would be separated.

               “Eleanore, you can stay one more night,” Rafe said, “so all of you can say goodbye properly. Tomorrow we’ll send you back. They are having a bonfire tonight, you can join in with the festivities. All of you. Enjoy it, for tomorrow starts real training for the rest of you.”