The Mantis Effect

Chapter Five

A year had passed already and training away from designated areas had become a regular thing. It was almost like we were hiding but I knew it was for good reason. Ward had become a recluse but diligent in training me. We began early and ended late and when she dismissed me she tended to slink to a quiet corner where she could be alone. She hardly slept or ate, Hap usually had to intervene.

Rodriguez had advanced in his training as a Vector and was quickly becoming the talk on the base and the gossip of many of the female personnel as he was often at Hap's side.

We had all had the AI chip implanted but those of us in training to become Olympians had gone through the operation to implant the ports. Writing that letter to my parents beforehand was difficult and I had gone through four sheets of paper as the sweat from my palms and occasional tear persistently ruined the letter every time. I was terrified. After seeing what was becoming of Ward, what was happening to Titus, I wasn't so blind to what it was to be an Olympian anymore.

I feared becoming Ward and I only thought of what my mother had said to me the day I passed the exam to be an Elite.

I always found Ward in my dreams. The Ward in my dreams revealed truths not to scare me but to warn me. It was the only place safe to talk which is why we didn't speak of the matters when we were conscious.

"Be wary, Mei," She said.

"Events you couldn't hope to control are nearly upon you and you must be ready."

When the day came Ward remained at my side. As I lay on the bed she bent down over me and whispered in my ear.

"No fear, I'll protect you,"

I believed her. She would not let what happened to her happen to me. It was her unspoked ambition to preserve me, to guard me. I trusted Ward. She remained at my side when I faded into the blackness of sleep and had not seemed to have moved when I awoke.

It was painful, I felt deep throbbing in my neck that radiated through the other muscles in my body and so I ached. I dared not move and Ward advised me against it. She remained at my side day and night, never moving. She reminded me of a Foo dog; the guardian lions that stood vigilant to protect. I was glad to have her with me but I worried at the same time. This place, this infirmary held traumatic memories for her and I feared that her Post Traumatic Stress would be triggered by something as slight as a needle. My angst wasn't unfounded, every time someone came with a syringe she stiffened and when she could hear the clickety clacking of shoe heals on the floor her breathing would become erratic. It occurred to me that that noise was the reason she did not wear shoes.

As edgy as the whole place made her, she remained.

It was night and I could not sleep. There was no one to be seen or heard. I looked over at Ward in the seat next to me, she stared at the wall as there was nothing else to occupy her time.

"Why did you become an Olympian?" I asked her quietly.

She turned her head and looked at me. Her eyes were all-demanding and fixed like a bird. She was stiff in the way she shifted in the seat but at the same time she was very regal and composed.

"I thought you were asleep," she said.

"I can't it's too quiet," I replied.

I was sure I sounded just like a child to her.

"Then you are already an Olympian", she remarked.

Though it was dim near dark in the space we occupied quietly I knew she was staring down at me. She then leaned forward resting her elbows on her knees as if settling in to a position to give me a lengthy explanation. She began to regale.

Ward grew up hungry and alone, an urchin in a shanty city made of tarp and rubble. There were more rats than people and certainly more rats than food so rat was always on the menu. Places like that weren't fit for any living thing and so many people got sick and died there and she was no different.
I listened intently as I knew she would never tell the story again.

She was from the western region of the country. It was a hot place, dryer than dead bone. Water was a luxury, the kind you'd commit crimes for-as she often had. She had been orphaned by the time she was seven and came to survive on her own with a pack of street kids. In that pack she met and befriended someone who would later become her best friend, Chitsa.

Together they were able to endure the streets and it was enough because they had each other. She was fourteen when she first met Titus. He was a young twenty something just enrolled into the newly established Elite class training and assigned to patrol the streets to discourage any ideas of civil riots. He saved her when an officer was taking disciplinary action against Chitsa for stealing a few overly ripened figs.

Chitsa had gotten caught and was being publicly flogged with a baton and Ward had attacked the officer in her defense.

Titus had pealed her off the officer and both girls had been detained. Titus had seen something in Ward and suggested he mentor her. It wasn't long before she had trained under him to become an Olympian. They were close.

That surprised me. The way they were towards each other now hardly supported the idea that they could have been close at any point, but they were.

A door opened and closed and Ward looked around looking for the person responsible for the sound.

I wanted to ask her more about Chitsa. What happened to her? I wanted more to the story but I couldn't ask her that, I couldn't ask her to relive that. I couldn't delve too deeply into Ward but I wanted to know more about her.

"Have you ever thought of leaving here? Just escaping here and running away?" I whispered.

It was daring and dumb to utter such a thing. The mention of it could get us both locked up. Daring and dumb indeed but it pulled an equally daring and dumb answer from Ward's very bones.

"Of course," she whispered back in the dark.

She turned back to look at me.

"And I know if I did they would never find me again, but people would suffer for it: Hap, you, Rodriguez... I even think about Titus and his wellbeing".

She cared so much for someone who should only have cared for herself.

"However, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try to", Ward suggested.

AWOL, how did she think I could get away with that? I didn't have the nerve to even think of it let alone try.

"Ward, ten years from now do you think I'll be you?" I asked.

She stared down at me with a most befuddled look. Why did I ask her that?

"I hope not. If you are you'll be less of yourself than you are today and something else will be more of you than you will ever be again," she said quietly.

What did she mean? There was something more to what she was saying. What did she know that seemed to plague her so much? Ward knew the darkest reaches of the Elite class's secrets and they shook her to her core.

She was done talking. We sat in silence until I decided to roll over andpretend as though I had fallen asleep. I could hear the sound of her incessantitching and oddly enough the familiar scratchy noise put me to sleep.