Brianna Acero and the Second One's Return

14. We meet the Elites

We follow Jayson down a familiar hallway and stop at the large door Mara pointed out to me when I first arrived, the one with the Hydra head staring back at us. To my surprise he doesn't scan his finger like Kalen did, he just pushes, and the door starts to open. It looks like it weighs a ton with how thick it is, but Jayson only seems to make the minimum amount of effort, the door swinging open to reveal the room beyond it. I guess this is one of the places in the compound without a lock, so everyone can access it easily. Or maybe they've just disabled it for today so that the new trainees who still don't have access, can enter. I wonder who gets clearance for the rooms that are locked.

We step inside, and I'm immediately floored by the size of it. It's probably as big as a soccer field, if not a bit bigger. Young Elites are walking around, looking at the weapons hanging from one of the walls and the large blue mat that occupies the center of the room. Giant pillars seem to stretch to the glass ceiling above, which bathes the entire room in sunlight.

"That's actually not the sky," says Jayson, pointing to what I'm looking at.

"They are lighting panels, disguised to look like the sky. No matter what time it is, this room always feels like its daytime. Its surreal when we come here for late night training."

That makes it even more impressive. I had never seen lighting panels that size before! I had one in my bedroom, but it was about the size of a TekPad. These were huge in comparison!

Two older trainees are stepping off the mat, exiting the room when they see all of us entering. My attention is immediately drawn to the large blue expanse of padding that stretches across the floor.

"That's for practice fights," says Jayson, coming to stand behind me, waving at the two trainees that leave the room. "It's how we train for close combat situations, learning to use our Gifts at close range and how to fight without them, if we ever find ourselves unable to use them."

"How would someone be unable to use their Gift?" Asks Cassie, puzzled.

"Yeah, isn't that physically impossible?" I add.

He shakes his head, gesturing toward the wall with all the weapons.

"Not anymore, you'd be surprised by all the tech that's out there nowadays. People have created machines that can temporarily  turn off, a persons Gift."

He walks towards the wall, Cassie and I following closely behind, and he picks up one of the practice weapons. It looks like a regular old taser, but it has a rounded end connected to a long wire that's tangled around it.

"That's what these are for," he says. "They attack the mutated sequence of DNA, incapacitating it, leaving the affected Giftless for about an hour or so. The scientific term is THV's, but when pronounced it sounds like 'thieves', so that's what we've taken to calling them. It's a fitting name if you ask me."

Wow, I didn't know something like this existed, I never heard about it. I wonder if this was one of the many secrets they kept here, I could only imagine the uproar if the public found out about something like this. But Jayson made it sound like criminals also possessed this sort of weapon, so someone must have learned about them at some point and decided to create their own.

More trainees start to enter the training hall, and Jayson looks up from the little gadget to hang it back up on the wall with the rest of them.

"I should let you to it then," he says, giving us one final trademark smile. "Alexa will be here shortly, so you won't have to wait long. And who knows, maybe we'll see each other soon."

I feel like his words have a hidden meaning, but before I can ask him what he means about that he starts walking towards the door, throwing a 'have fun' over his shoulder before disappearing from sight.