Field Investigations

Chapter 26:

"So, do you always have lunch this early?" I asked. I'd been in the cafeteria for a half hour, and I was starting to get the hang of talking to Andrea. She was sarcastic, but she wasn't mean like I'd thought earlier. Her friends didn't say much, either because they were shy or because they thought I was annoying. Probably door number two.

"Early? You call eleven at night early for lunch? What kind of schedule have you been on?"

"Wait - I thought it was eleven in the morning," I laughed. Andrea sighed, appalled by my ignorance. There were a few questions preying on my mind (the least important of which being why we were eating lunch at eleven at night anyway), but I wasn't sure how she would respond to them. Would she just laugh at me, sending me back to square one, or would she take my questions seriously? Judging by our conversation so far, maybe she wasn't the best person to ask them to.

We chatted for another ten minutes or so before a loud alarm sent me jumping out of my seat.

"That's the ring," Andrea explained. "It's pretty much the same thing as a bell at school. Tells you when you need to go to your next class, that sort of thing."

"So," I started nervously. "Is this some sort of... some sort of school?"

"You could call it that, yeah," she said. I sighed, relieved that she was taking my question seriously. "Well, over all, this place is a sort of organization. Where we are within the organization right now, though, is called the Academy. At the Academy, you learn different skills that you'll need to be successful in the organization."

I frowned. "But why am I here? I don't remember much. Did I choose to be a part of this... organization?"

She tilted her head back. "Well, not exactly. I'm not the best person to be telling you about all of this. You'll learn more once you get to your classes."

A few hours later as I looked around the large lecture hall I sat in, I hoped she was right. The room had a domed ceiling like a planetarium, with chairs sloping down to the front of the room like in the movie theater my brother and I used to go to. The room was packed; I had barely been able to find a seat. My eyes were starting to adjust to the lack of shadow in the building, but it still felt off, like something was missing.

There was still so much I didn't understand about this place. Really, I knew no more than I had earlier. I didn't know why I was here, how I'd gotten on the bus, how long I'd be here for...

That last question... I had a home, my brother, my mom, and I couldn't remember saying goodbye. Would I go back? If I did, how would this all be explained? Where would my family be told I'd been for the last two days?

A darker thought occurred to me. My mom... she had mentioned sending me to a boarding school a few times, if I didn't get my grades up. Did she - would she - send me here without even telling me that I was going? She'd been so distant the last few years, as long as I could remember, really. It wouldn't make sense for her to do this. Not if she really didn't care.

I was brought back from my thoughts when the teacher, a tall man with short blond hair who stood at the front of the room, started talking. He called me up to the front of the classroom.

"Everyone, this is Isabel Vega." I couldn't correct him. Not in front of all these other students. From the front of the room, I had a good view of everyone else in the class. Most of them seemed to be fifteen or sixteen, my age, but there were a few adults scattered around the room.

"Isabel is a new member here," he continued. "I'm sure she'll be a useful addition to the study."

His choice of words... useful addition? The study? I twisted my hair around my finger. Nobody else in the room seemed to find what he said off putting. They all just stared ahead to the front of the room, not talking or even moving.

"Now, each and every one of you should introduce yourself to Isabel before the end of the day," he said, staring pointedly at a blonde-haired guy sitting in the fourth row, who grinned and whispered something to the girl sitting next to him. It was relieving to know that the people in this class still had the ability to smile. "Remember, you all had your first days here. Be welcoming."

Once I was back in my seat, he started the lesson. I couldn't understand a word he said, but there were a few phrases he kept repeating. He mentioned the AFS, which I thought I might have heard about on the bus, a few times, but he didn't explain what it was. He also mentioned something called the Field, but again he offered no explanation for the term. At the end of the class, though, as I walked out of the room, he pulled me aside for a minute and told me I could ask him any questions I had during dinner that night.

It wasn't until my next class that day that I really started to understand what was going on.

The classroom was a lot more normal looking this time, with a few rows of desks and one larger desk at the front. At the larger desk sat the teacher, a tall, brown-haired woman who didn't look much older than me.

"Hi, everyone," she greeted once a few more people had walked in. "My name is Abigail Gardener, but you can call me Abby. Now, all of you just arrived here, right?" Everyone nodded. "You must have a lot of questions, then. This class will hopefully answer all of them. So, I'll start with a sort of introduction to this place. Where you are right now is a place, an organization, really, called the AFS, or the Association of Field Studies. We recruit teenagers from around the world, transporting them to one of our headquarters and teaching them the necessary skills to continue our mission."

"And what is your mission?" the girl sitting in front of me asked.

"You know about dimensions, right? Like how objects can be one dimensional, like lines, two dimensional, like shapes, and three dimensional, like the real things we interact with? Some of you might have even learned about time being a fourth dimension. Well, there are more dimensions than just those four, and some of those dimensions belong in a category called the Field. The Field is really a term used for any dimensions in which objects or beings cannot be seen and can only be heard by others in the Field. And then there are other dimensions that belong to a category called the Green, in which objects can be seen and heard only by objects or beings in the Green or the Field. Makes sense?"

Everyone nodded. I was still pretty confused, but I thought I followed what she was saying and I didn't want to be the odd one out, so I nodded too and she continued with her explanations.

"So-" she started.

A girl sitting in front of me, the same girl who asked the question earlier, sat up straight. "Wait - what is there to study? Don't we already know enough about these dimensions?"

"There is a lot more to learn, even with all the research we've already done. But primarily..." Ms. Gardener - no, Abby - looked around, uncomfortable. "Well, primarily, we're not exactly studying the Field. No, we're studying its... uses."

"And what uses would those be?" The girl ahead of me was undeterred by Abby's vagueness. If anything, it inspired her to ask even more questions. I wished I was less scared. I was always fine with talking with one or two people, but in front of an entire classroom?

"You'll... find out, once you've learned a bit more about-"

"You said you'd answer all our questions," the girl reminded her.

"Your name is Melanie, right? Listen, Melanie, I said hopefully. I'm sorry. I know how stressful getting here can be, but there are some questions I'm not allowed to answer just yet."

"I'm not in kindergarten," Melanie shot back. "I don't need your "I'm sorry"s. I need answers. What are the uses? You know what," she stood up. "I don't need you to tell me the answer. I can figure it out myself. Hmm, let's think. What would you do if you could turn invisible. Oh, I don't know, spy on people?"

Abby wasn't even listening anymore. She was typing something into some sort of... holographic display? And as I watched her fingers flying, my head started to feel heavy...

I was tired, that was it. Just tired, from all of this craziness. Yeah, that was...