Audacious

Chapter 4: Decide

Kiera POV
The skinny, pale man pushes aside the table holding the computer, revealing a tiny door similar to the one behind me. He yanks my elbow and his cold hands startle me. He drags me through the door and turns on a lamp lighting up a very claustrophobic room. Quietly, he close the door behind him. His long arm gestures to a small chair. I sit.
"My name is Allan River." Definitely a Sector 1 name. "You qualified as more than one Sector for every question answered. It is normal to answer with more than one Sector for 1 or 2 questions, quite rare for 3, let alone 4!" What have I done. "People that do this are a danger to the government and should be kept in a safe Sector. The safest Sector to be placed in is Sector 9 because they forbid any kind of harmful, physical activity and cruel punishment so the worse thing that could happen is that they put you in a house separated from a village to prevent violence. However, you chose Sector 5. People like you who go to Sector 5, almost always end up...you know....but anyways, only 1 person has survived in Sector 5 like you."
"Who is that?"
"Jason Kingston." My lip starts to quiver again. Kingston. Jason Kingston is the brother of Jeffrey Kingston. "That said, I don't know if I can bring myself into escorting you to the Sector 5 transfer room. I don't want to live in guilt letting myself know that I allowed you to get yourself killed." Killed? Really?
"Where am I?" I ask, looking at a portrait of our country's King. His name is King Raven Trenton III. We don't talk about him much in school so I know very little, but I do know that Jeffrey and Jason Kingston were his nephews. I don't know why our Sectors haven't decided to with-throw him from his throne yet. Perhaps they are too afraid.
"We are in TRN69's vault. If a tester has a problem with testing the child, they're required to talk to them in private so that no one is disturbed during other tests and also for the sake of your private information." He slaps his hand on the concrete wall and says, "Soundproof." I nod. "Now stop trying to change the subject. Are you 100% in your heart about Sector 5? Even Sector 3 would have been better." I can see in his eyes that he really cares. Did someone he know go to Sector 5 and not come back? Has he sent one of me to Sector 5 before? "Listen kid. My daughter, Abigail was like you and transferred to Sector 5. I could never let anyone have that happen to them again, no matter how long I've known them."
"I am sure, Allan." He swallows hard and his Adam's Apple bobs in his throat.
"I'll let you go. On one condition."
"And what might that be?"
"You have to promise me you'll live." I can't guarantee that but how else will he believe me?
"I promise." He sighs, but takes me out of the room and through the mahogany door, down the orangey-cream hallway towards 10 doors. Sector 1 Transfers, Sector 2 Transfers, Sector 3 Transfers, etcetera. We finally reach the Sector 5 Transfers door and he opens the door for me.
"Ladies first." I step through and see a room filled with people from Sector 7, from Sector 3, from Sector 6. Pretty much from every Sector except Sector 9 and Sector 2. In the corner of eye I see the girl who sat next me when the man from Sector 3 was speaking. She looks less queasy now. "Just find a seat. Soon the leader of Fortitude will come in and tell everyone what to do. Ok?" I have never heard anyone call a by what they are recognized for. I like it.
"Yes. Thank you Allan. See you soon."
"I better." He points his index finger at me and smirks. His dimples carve down deep in his face and his mustache flies up, now the tips are facing his wide blue eyes. I turn and look for a seat but instead notice the handsome man that I saw leaning against the wall earlier. I turn back around to ask Allan who he is but he is already gone. There aren't many seats available and they are all in the front row but I don't want to sit right in the "talk to me" zone so the only seat I see available is one right beside the mysterious man. I quietly walk over to the row and stare at my feet as I get closer to him. When I sit I face the back of my head toward him, focusing on a group of Sector 4 girls playing a game by the door. Don't turn. Don't turn. Don't turn.
I turn.
The man is facing the front of the room but when he sees that I have turned to look at him he glances his eyes at me. I quickly turn back around. I don't know if he scares me or interests me. I want to know who he is. Should I ask for his name? Say hello? Look at him again? Before I can decide, A woman with bright red hair and a piercing in her lip walks to the front of the room and speaks.
"Excuse me." She says. She has a microphone around her ear that she is speaking into. Her eyes are bright green and look as if they're popping out of her head. "Everyone please take a seat and quiet down." She doesn't seem afraid to be forceful. That's a very common trait for a leader. Everyone sits and within a few seconds everyone has looked her way and stopped communicating. "Today, 55 of you have transferred into a new home in the hands of Sector 5. We welcome you with open arms but warn you that our standards are high. You will each be assigned a group, there will be 5 groups. Each group is assigned a coach who will train you, test you and push you until you have no more. Any transfer who decides they have no more effort, physical strength, or mental will before the end of training will be put back in either their home Sector, if your family even wants you back, or thrown on the streets to defend yourselves. Understood?" The woman searches the crowd for any complaints and continues. "If each row could please make a line and one at a time approach me and I will assign you your coach and name of group." I stand up slowly and wait for the man beside to get up and I watch him walk away from the crowd. He is definitely not 15, as I assumed. He stands by a wall and watches the children line up. I stand behind a tall girl with long pink hair. She backs up with the rest of the line- the woman probably asked for space or something -and she steps on my toes. I wince a little but the pain heals quickly, she is light.
"Oh I'm sorry! Are you ok?" Her voice is soothing and high.
"I'm fine, thank you." She holds out her hand and I grasp it firmly.
"My name is Lacoria. Lacey for short. What's yours?" She is obviously from Sector 2. The pink hair, soothing voice, soft handshake, the name Lacoria and the politeness suggest it strongly.
"My name's Kiera. Kiera for short." She laughs and pulls her hair behind her ear. Just where her hair used to be I see a scar down the side of her face. I decide it would be rude to ask what happened but I didn't need to ask anyways.
"Oh sorry, I usually don't show that. It's pretty ugly, I know." She pulls her hair back from her ear and drops it back down the side of her face. "When I was little my brother and I were fighting near a well. He playfully pushed me and I fell down the side but grabbed the wall in time. He called for my mother and father and as father was pulling me up, his watch scraped against the side of my face. I had to get stitches but the doctor couldn't do much to hide it, so I'm stuck with this ugly line down my face." I frown. I feel bad but I don't know what to say.
I hesitate and finally say,"I think you look just fine. You really shouldn't hide it, it shows strength and courage and it will scare the other transfers to the bone." She smiles with gratefulness.
"Thanks." She blushes. The line moves forward and to make time fly, Lacey and I talk about our old Sectors. I can tell it's a soft spot for both of us but this line isn't moving any faster.
Finally, it's Lacey's turn. The lady hands her a paper and I look over her shoulder to see what it says, "Fortitude Army". The lady tells her,"Your coaches name is Lance Tarring." Then she points to a man with shaggy dark brown hair that is laughing at another 15 year old boy transfer. His dimples curve up into his freckles that compliment his light brown eyes. She turns and winks at me and whispers,
"Good luck." I walk up to the woman and she hands me a note that says "Fortitude Army". Yes.
"Your coaches name is Lance Tarring." She points to the same man who is now standing side by side with Lacey talking to her and laughing every 3 seconds. She makes a great first impression. I walk over and smile a little at Lacey.
"Lance, this is Kiera. Kiera this is Lance." She pats hers hands on each of our backs and Lance offers his hand.
I grab it, hesitantly.
"Nice to meet you, Kiera." His smile makes me shiver a little. I can tell he will not be easy on us during training. "I'm sure we will get along well."
"Yes I'm sure we will." I try to smile but something doesn't feel right. Soon, Lance calls over his eleven boys and girls. From what I can see there are six girls and five guys.
We follow Lance down a navy blue hallway and walk out of an automatic glass door. I stand behind tall Lacey and can't see what's in front of me or hear either because some kind of jet is landing near us. Uh oh. I know what that means. Fortitude travels by jet.
Lance nears the grey jet as it lowers and I lightly push Lacy aside and see on the side of the jet, letters embarked LTJ. It stands for Lance Tarrings Jet.
I look at Lacey and her bright green eyes have turned dull and are wide now that she is aware of what she is expected to do. Her long pink hair flows in her face and gets caught in her mouth and eyes. I take my hair out of the bun and try not to look at the ribbon that my mother put in my hair, and now has to find out that I have left her when I do not return into her arms after all of the students have left. I pull my hair back in a ponytail and start walking towards Lance.
"Hey, Kiera! You wanna go first?" Lance shouts over the roaring jet that's standing four feet away from us.
"What I want to do is ask you how we're supposed to get on this thing! It's not landing and it's seven feet off the ground! What are we supposed to do? Fly! I'm five foot four not six foot four!" My anger and confusion can be heard over the jets roaring thunder and Lance gives me a questionable look.
He jumps, still looking at me, and grabs a bar on the outside of the jet. He places his left foot on a step under the door and throws himself in. I look at him, not impressed. He's a show off and I bet I'm gonna rip my hair out before the end of training.
I leap into the air and firmly grasp the bar. As my grip tightens, I grit my teeth, the texture of the bar is rugged that it leaves an indent in my hand.
Stupidly, I swing my leg around to the ledge, skipping the step, and throw myself into the jet, stumbling like a tumbleweed. I quickly hop up, repositioning myself in a lady-like manner and patting down my dress. I give him a I'm-just-as-good-as-you smile and he laughs.
"What?" I ask. Honestly confused that he wasn't impressed with my undercover-spy-roll.
"Kiera. That was only the beginning."