The Phylum

Chapter Eight: The Silent Audience

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months.

I didn't sleep.

I didn't want to. At times, it was easy staying awake. My Calico-inflicted wounds aided my consciousness. They stung, they burned, they swelled and I welcomed it, but then they healed. The healing process was especially quickened with the advanced healing balms from the hospital rooms. I hated them, and I did my best to avoid them but sometimes I couldn't, particularly when Calico was involved. My weak, made-up excuses made no sense to the hardened, female fighter.

My dreams didn't make much sense, and when they did they were unwanted. They were uncomfortable, blurry visions of violence usually involving Calico. The dream of finding her with her neck sliced in the dusty, unknown room was my subconscious's favorite. That was the dream that truly kept me awake. The others were unclear and dull, I couldn't figure them out. However, every detail of the blood trickling down Calico's neck wound was astonishingly clear. The dream was a prison of my mind, inescapable and always the same.

I thought about telling someone, telling her, but I couldn't. Calico would react in scorn, she'd refer to me as "weak baby", the despised nickname frequently used for me now. She'd tell me to sleep it off, that there were others with real problems. Or worse, Calico would take my dreams as some sort of sign of my "skills" breaking through. She'd train me harder than ever, making it more difficult for me to stay awake. It was something I couldn't afford. I considered telling someone else, but I was quickly reminded that that "someone else" didn't exist. Telling Peter was a laughable idea. Since Peter had developed his powers his ideas of enjoyment included telekinetically shoving me against walls and hiding my clothes. However, he wasn't doing it as often since he realized that every student wore the same black ensemble and I could just as easily take his.

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I panicked as I felt my eyelids grow heavy. The days of sleep deprivation were starting to catch up to me and I had felt it long before now. Before I knew what I was doing, I carefully swung my legs over my bed, careful not to jostle Peter's bed above me, and slid onto the cold ground. The hair on my legs stood on end when my feet met the chilled, damp ground. I shivered and blindly searched for my battle boots. Once they were found, I roughly pulled them on and stumbled toward the door. I thumbed the pad on the door, but instead of the door opening immediately like usual, a cool voice emitted from the thumb pad, "15 minutes for bathroom break, 15 minutes." After a moment, the door popped open, and I slipped through. The door closed behind me, and the thumb pad on the front of the door glowed with a duplicate timer. I watched the count down of a few seconds, the timer lit up the tall "66" painted sleekly across my dorm's door. The other numbers on the other dorms were illuminated by the bright timer, I was able to see all the way to 68 before the doors faded into darkness.

After many adjustments to my course, I realized I was going to the only place I truly knew: the Training Center. I could have gotten there with my eyes closed, the darkness proved more of an ally than a problem. When I had lived in Central, darkness was the enemy. . TKs robbed, murdered, and abducted in the night. Darkness was a monster to be afraid of. Each dirty apartment had silhouettes of frightened civilians peering carefully from behind their torn curtains. Every presidential election, a member from the Outer Ring promised to help cure the poverty of Central. "All of United will experience a continual prosperity under my term, but it will take time!" A candidate would yell powerfully from his lavish podium. Citizens of Central would watch this broadcast from the peeling screens attached to the sides of dirty buildings with hope shining in their eyes. This hope would always be replaced with disappointment when the candidate was elected and then became too absorbed in improving the already improved Outer or Secondary Rings. Central did receive crime attention, especially as of late. I suspected it was because crime had trickled into the Rings and society had cried out for the villainy to be stopped at the source. I wasn't sure, though.

I heard the Training Center before I got there. At first, I thought it was my sluggish, tired mind playing tricks on me. An endless wave of people, many of whom I recognized as TK mentors, others who I had never seen before, were sitting cross-legged on the floor staring intently at an enormous screen that took the place of a Training Center wall. They were all arranged in neat rows, none of them slouched or lounging. The discipline that had been drilled into their head (and was currently being drilled into our heads) never leaving their bodies. They really did look like a trained army, despite their various young ages. I searched for Calico's black head in vain, after a while my eyes wandered to the bright screen. A groomed reporter in a red suit was talking, a lot. Her face looked relieved and happy, why shouldn't she be happy? She lived in Outer. She was human and no one questioned it. Her worst problems most likely included which feast she'd have her cooks prepare. The soundproof glass kept me from hearing exactly what she was saying, so the words in bold that were slowly scrolling across the bottom of the screen stole my attention.

Law against TK violence passes! ATK Bill finally approved!

I squinted my at the words, wondering what the bill included. After reading the same sentence over and over, I looked back at the audience in front of it. I peered closer, my hand pressed up against the glass. Suddenly, I realized that their backs weren't tense with discipline, but with fear. They were scared. They no longer looked like an intimidating army, but nervous teenagers clad in silly black clothes. No matter what powers they possessed or how tough they taught, they were teenagers. And moments like these is when it showed.

Whatever bill had passed, it wasn't good. Before I turned away I noticed a small yellow box, a box that was in every broadcast I had ever seen. I hadn't taken any notice of it before, but now the blue words inside of it mattered:

If anyone has any information on the crime syndicate known as "The Phylum" please pick up the phone and call the TKCrimeline: 1066. Our communities depends on you.