Estranged (15 page)

She knew she should be mingling with
the other recruits, gleaning what information she could from casual
conversations and so forth. That was what spies were supposed to
do. But it was more peaceful upstairs. And some of the rooms,
although incredibly dusty and rotted, were still intact. Kalei
enjoyed the opportunity to peer into the untouched world of almost
twenty years ago. The faded grandeur spoke so much to what was lost
on E-day.

In one room, on a brown
metal desk, sat a crumbling notepad in which few words were still
legible:
million-, aeroscience stock se-,
Friday afternoon, 3:30 pm
. In another
room, spoiled cosmetics on the bathroom counter sat beside a short
stack of black and white photos that held a beautiful, smiling
woman showing off a flowing ball gown. Several of the pictures had
already been signed with the fat black marker that sat beside
it.

On her fourth excursion into the
hotel, Shenaia had jumped up and asked to go with her. Kalei had
allowed it, and as they walked, Shenaia apologized about the fight.
The girl sounded sincere, but Kalei wasn’t sure what to think of
the apology. She saw the way Erit watched Shenaia warily. Whether
it was because Shenaia was a former member of Tusic or because he
simply didn’t trust Shenaia not to jump after one of the recruits
for a high, Kalei couldn’t tell. Common sense told her this girl
was trouble, but Kalei’s gut said Shenaia was someone she wanted to
be close to. Kalei wasn’t sure which to trust.

So Kalei didn’t say anything in
response to Shenaia’s apology, and the girl seemed to take the
silence as “Apology accepted.” Shenaia then went on at length to
tell Kalei all about a new gun she recently bought off a Warden,
and how it would go nicely with the rest of her collection of
vintage revolvers, but how she really wanted to start getting more
guns for her rifle collection because she only had six of those...
Kalei quickly tuned her out.

When Kalei went back to her lessons,
she started to focus on bending the tip of the line in her nails,
twisting it in on itself until it ended with a simple whirl.
Satisfied with the design, Kalei stopped tinkering and left it at
that. At first, she focused simply on holding that shape. Then she
began to let it tighten and flex with the pulse of her darker
emotions. Slowly, it began to take a mind of its own, thrashing and
undulating when she became frustrated, or calmly tightening when
she regained her composure.

Erit moved Kalei on to multitasking
while she tried to hold the pattern. At first, he would try to
carry a conversation with her. Then he made her solve simple math
problems.

Once everyone had progressed to
Kalei's level – for somehow, she had passed both Mar and Shenaia
just a couple days in – they moved on to physical activities. A
walk around the room turned into a routine of jumping jacks. Then,
finally, a game of dodgeball. Mar had a wicked arm. She had floored
Erit with the ball more than once. Kalei was quick enough to dodge
the worst of them. Shenaia, on the other hand, kept taking hits
from Mar as she struggled to explain to the old woman that the game
was not free for all. When that didn’t work, she left the old
woman’s team and started throwing balls back at her
attacker.

Going shooting for the first time was
Kalei’s favorite part of training, although she didn’t enjoy it
nearly as much as Shenaia did. The girl not only brought her own
gun to the indoor range, but she brought her collection. A dozen
suitcases and briefcases held at least two dozen weapons from every
manufacturer Kalei had ever seen, and then some. And according to
the grinning teen, this wasn’t even a tenth of what she
owned.

“
Aren’t they the
shit
!” Shenaia squealed
as she opened up the eighth gun case.

“
Yup, shit pretty well
sums it up,” Mar mumbled as she looked over a double-barreled
shotgun from case number three.

Shenaia reached into case six and
pulled out a long-barreled revolver, swinging it around to point at
Mar. “Hey! Don’t patronize my babies!”

“
Ho there!” Kalei tried to
smooth things over. “No need to point that at anyone.”

“
What?” Shenaia’s wrist
flopped to the side, the barrel casually aimed in Erit’s direction.
“It’s not like I’m going to shoot her.”

“
Rule number one about gun
safety, Shenaia,” Erit said as he eyed the revolver. “Never point a
gun at anything, or anyone, you do not intend to shoot.”

Thankfully, Shenaia’s arm and the gun
dropped to her side. “Who needs gun safety? It’s not like a bullet
is going to kill any of us anyway.” In one swift motion, she raised
the gun back up, swung around, and without even taking a moment to
aim, she let off six bullets at the nearest target. From what Kalei
could tell, Shenaia had given the paper man two eyes, something of
a mouth, and a small hole where any manly parts would
be.

Over the severe ringing in her ears,
Kalei heard Erit say, “As a Warden, you will be working among
Untouched as well as Estranged, and they will not recover from an
accidental bullet wound as well as you or I. In order to become a
Warden, you must learn to respect gun safety, Shenaia.”

Shenaia tossed the revolver onto the
table. “Yeah, yeah...”

This time, Kalei got her earplugs in
before Shenaia could reach for the shotgun.

Sitting at a poker table in the hotel
lounge – aka: the rec room – Kalei and Erit faced off. The table
sat in the back corner of the room, and Kalei could see the whole
lounge spread out behind Erit. Two more poker tables lined the hall
to the right, a couple pool tables sat in the middle of the room,
and at the far end sat two couches back to back, each facing a TV.
The room was full, and the sound of movies, pool cues, and general
conversation filled the lounge, but Kalei ignored it all as she
studied her opponent over her small mountain of poker
chips.

Erit had a fair-sized pile himself.
The two players each had split the chips nearly in half over the
course of the game. Mar, who had been knocked out early, dealt the
cards. The game was Texas Hold ‘Em. House rules stated you had to
play with at least one hand exposed on the table. That was what
killed Mar. She might have had a poker face, but her nails sure
didn’t. Mar had chosen a smiley for her emblem. As they played, she
had tried her best to maintain a neutral line for the mouth, but
the occasional twitch at the edges gave her away every
time.

Shenaia had chosen a steering wheel
for her nails. It was supposed to turn different directions, but
for most of the night, it had taken her entire focus to maintain
the outline. Her poker chips hadn’t kept her company for very long
either.

Kalei still had her simple swirl with
its long stem anchoring it to the base of her nail. She had
developed a subtle pattern throughout the night: a slight squeeze
of the swirl for bad hands, a slight loosening for good ones. Erit
had picked up on the pattern, but now was time for the end game.
She planned to use the pattern to her advantage.

Mar dealt the cards. As
Kalei reached out to look at her own, she mentally prepared to give
her swirls a slight squeeze when she lifted the cards. As she
lifted the edges, she saw a pair of aces.
Sweet!
Belatedly, she remembered to
look at her nails. Not only had she remembered to squeeze the
swirls, but she had squeezed them so tight that they were now black
circles on her fingers. Casually, she flexed the lines back open
again and looked up to see Erit’s reaction. He watched her, one
eyebrow raised.

She didn’t even bother to look at his
nails. The damn books were useless.

Kalei tried to downplay her excitement
at seeing a pair of aces in the pocket. When Mar prompted her, she
casually checked. Erit, testing the waters, raised her with a
couple red chips. Kalei moved quickly to give off the appearance of
being anxious, and called. Mar drew the next set of
cards.

A Queen of Spades, a six of Hearts,
and a Jack of Spades.

Hoo, that’s
dangerous.
A queen and a jack of the same
suit meant it was possible for Erit to get a straight flush. If he
had the King and Ace of Spades, he could get a royal flush, the
best hand in the game. But that wasn’t likely. Her partner Marley
had once told her the odds of getting a straight flush were one in
650,000. Kalei only remembered because they had argued about it at
length on one of their patrols.

Kalei checked. When Erit raised again,
she feigned a slight squeeze before calling.

Then came the flop: the King of
Spades.

Three cards of the same suit, all in a
row. Even if Erit just got a flush or a straight, he would beat her
pair of aces. Unless... was one of her aces a spade? She didn’t
dare look. Instead, she looked at Erit. He looked at her. Kalei
checked. Erit raised again; this time, he doubled his last two
bets. Kalei called.

The turn came and both players watched
Mar as she reached for the next card. The old woman lifted it from
the deck, took a peek for herself, showed it to Shenaia, who was
now watching over Mar’s shoulder, and then grinned as she set it on
the table.

A ten of spades. Without even checking
her cards, Kalei went all in. She’d done it. Somehow, she had hit
those one in 650,000 odds and landed a royal flush. All spades! She
was grinning so wide her cheeks hurt.

Erit smiled too, although his grin was
more composed. “Nice try. But I shall call your bluff and take the
pot.” He flipped over his cards. A pair of nines, one of which was
a spade. That gave him a straight flush, king high.

“
Nope.” Kalei smiled
triumphantly and turned over her own pair. “Royal
Flush!”

She began to reach for the chips when
Erit said, “You may want to check again.” Kalei looked down at the
red and black inked aces. Hearts and clubs. She had two aces, but
neither was the right one.

“
I’ll take these off your
hands,” Erit said as he cleaned her out. Luckily, they hadn’t been
playing for anything more than pride.

After neatly stacking his
prize on the table before him, Erit addressed his defeated
students. “Now, it seems that you have all come a long way in these
last few weeks, and Terin has noted your progress. While I feel
that
some
still
need work,” he glanced at Shenaia, “Terin feels that you are all
ready for the more practical levels of training, such as fighting,
combat tactics, etcetera, etcetera.” Mar grunted her approval.
Shenaia returned to her seat on Kalei’s right and glowered openly
at Erit. Kalei, formerly slouched and recovering from her defeat,
now leaned forward with renewed interest.

“
Does ‘etcetera’ mean
killing Estranged?” she asked.

“
That will come
after
you become a
Warden.” Kalei sat back in her seat again, dejected. Erit
continued, “Now, before you can fight an Estranged, you must first
understand the mechanics of what happens the moment one Estranged
touches another. In that instant, the darkness from each Estranged
reaches forth and rips a piece from the other individual’s
darkness. Then, it returns to its original body where it devours
the new piece. In Estranged, this results in a high. In Untouched,
this foreign entity ripping at their dormant darkness is the
trigger that releases their darkness and begins the process that
can either kill them or turn them into Estranged.”

Erit paused to evaluate the effect of
his explanation on his students. After a moment’s silence, Mar’s
jaw flopped open to spout, “What?”

Shenaia took it upon herself to
explain, holding out her hands as she said, “I have a chocolate
cookie, and you have a chocolate cookie. We hold out our hands and
I take yours while you take mine. Then we eat them.”

“
Oh, I get it,” Mar
rumbled.

Shenaia turned to Kalei and said,
“Y’know, cookies sound really good right now.”

Kalei agreed, then asked Erit, “Can we
even eat cookies?” She couldn’t recall eating anything since
becoming an Estranged.

Erit sighed. “Yes, you can eat. But
you don’t need to. And if you do, your body will process the food
as normal and you will have to use the facilities. Which I strongly
advise against.”

“
Why is that?”

Shenaia answered, “Because they don’t
have any fucking toilet paper in this entire Goddamn district!” She
turned an accusing eye to Erit. “How could you let me eat an entire
fucking plate of burritos and not tell me that we don’t have any
Goddamn toilet paper?”

“
I told you not to eat
it.”

“
That doesn’t mean jack!
Out-of-toilet-paper is need-to-know! Dammit!”

Erit turned away from Shenaia’s
ranting. “It seems we have drifted off topic. Let us proceed to the
fitness room to commence our combat training, shall we?”

On their way up to the third floor,
Erit explained how several rooms had been converted into fitness
rooms. Walls had been knocked out, wrestling mats added to the
floors, padding installed along the walls, but no weights or
treadmills. Estranged were pretty much frozen in the bodies they
were converted in, so no amount of exercise would make them
stronger. Instead, the fitness rooms were primarily intended for
training reflexes and combat skills.