“Where exactly are we going?” I asked, pushing open the classroom door and holding it for everyone else. Even though Olivia and Amelia only took a second to slip through, Hairy took his time, leaving me standing there waiting for him. Once he stepped out, I had to rush to catch up.

  “To the training hall, supposedly,” Olivia frowned, staring at her tracker. She tapped it a couple of times, scrolling through the different displays until she returned to the first one. “Why isn’t this thing giving me directions? It usually has a GPS-like function.”

  “The trackers are useful to find your way to a new building, but they’re not precise enough to direct you inside,” Amelia explained. “Follow me.”

  As we descended the closest set of stairs, Tyberius and Angelica, who had been waiting outside the room, slowly followed behind us. When we got back to the first floor, Amelia led us past the cafeteria and through a large set of double doors in the back of the atrium. Just beyond was a large room chock full of oversized square lockers. I caught sight of a couple of our classmates shoving their backpacks into the oversized storage areas before running out a set of doors in the far side of the room.

  “No showers?” Oliva asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  “Self-defense is always the last class of the day so that we can go straight home and shower,” Amelia explained.

  “It’s still gross, it’s like they’re going out of their way to inconvenience us,” Olivia muttered.

  The lockers didn’t seem to have keys or any sort of locking mechanism, just a black square next to the handle. When I reached out and pulled on one, I found it stuck fast, so I passed my tracker over the square experimentally. Something beeped, and the door slowly swung open.

  “How did you know how to do that?” Olivia asked.

  “It seems like almost everything is tried on the trackers, so I thought I’d just give it a try,” I explained. “Looks like it worked.”

  I shucked my bag and slid it into the space before pushing it closed. My tracker and the locker beeped simultaneously, and the same red number appeared on both the black plate and the face of my watch. I pulled on the door experimentally, found it locked again, then passed my tracker in front of the plate again. It popped open.

  “Stop playing with the lockers,” Amelia grumbled as she stepped up behind me. “The locks automatically sync to whoever opens them. As long as your stuff is in there, no one else will be able to access it.”

  “It would have been easier just to install regular lockers. Why bother going to these lengths?” Olivia grumbled.

  “They want to make it as difficult as possible for us to remove the trackers,” Amelia muttered.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, turning to look at the girl.

  “Think about it. Not only are the trackers locked to our wrists, but they’re also used to access buildings, transportation, and most technology in the area. If anyone wanted to try and escape the campus, you’d either have to abandon the tracke, and lose access to all the convenient tech, or carry it until the last moment, and leave the authorities a convenient trail for you to follow,” Amelia explained.

  “Huh… it sounds like you’ve really put some thought into the situation,” Oliva said, as she closed her own locker. “Thought about running away?”

  Amelia smiled warily. “I’d be lying to say I hadn’t. I’m sure most people have. We’re stuck in a place where Ruptures occur regularly, and each day may be our last. Tell me honestly, do you feel safe here?”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “No, not really,” Olivia admitted. “Especially without some sort of power to defend myself.”

  “Exactly. I have powers, and I still don’t feel safe here. Everyone sticks around because they know they have nowhere else to go. They’ll become fugitives,” Amelia explained. “All we can do is endure until we get out of here.”

  “And go to the enclaves,” I grumbled. “Who knows if that’ll be better, or worse?”

  Amelia grimaced and nodded.

  Olivia must have noticed the mood had taken a nosedive, because she came bouncing over. “Say… I noticed that no one seemed welcoming or even interested when Tamera and I showed up this morning. What’s that about?”

  “Oh, that’s because there’s always someone rotating in or out of the class every few weeks. People are brought in as soon as they’re found, kept long enough to do the required BEI training, and then moved on to the enclaves. There’s no standard intake, just a constantly rotating roster of students. A lot of people don’t like to get super close, because they know everyone will be leaving again sooner or later,” Amelia explained.

  “That’s a pretty pessimistic way to look at things. I’ve made friends with kids that I’ve met during a weekend retreat,” Olivia huffed. “Just because you’re only with someone for a short time doesn't mean you shouldn’t try to make friends.”

  When she was done ranting, she turned and looked at Amelia. “How long have you been here anyway?”

  “Not that long, a couple of weeks, less than a month,” Amelia replied with a smile. “So we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

  “Good! The more the merrier,” Olivia exclaimed happily.

  I glanced between the two girls, giving them enough time to have a moment before clearing my throat. “I hate to break this up, but aren’t we supposed to be going to class right now?”

  “You’re right!” Amelia exclaimed. “We'd better hurry too, Mr. Flores isn’t exactly the most patient person.”

  Before we could stop her, she took off, disappearing around the corner of the lockers and through the doors at the back before we could catch up. Olivia and I burst through the back doors and nearly barreled intoan large, intimidating man.

  He was well over six feet tall and incredibly jacked. He glared down at us, fuming. “I assume you two are the new students.”

  “Yessir,” I managed to squeak out, shying away from his glare.

  “I’m Mr. Flores, your self-defense teacher. I know you both have protected status, but that doesn’t mean much in my class. I expect you to put the same effort as your classmates, do you understand?” he growled.

  “Yessir!” We both answered at the same time.

  “Good. Now, I’ve seen both your files, and one of you has early-warning power, and the other,” he grunted, glancing at me, “has something a little more unusual. Do you think you could use your power in a combat situation?”

  “Depends on what you mean by a conflict situation,” I said cautiously. “I seem to be able to interact with the… aliens? Dimensional invaders? I don’t know what they’re actually called…”

  “Outsiders,” the man snapped.

  “Right, I seem to be able to affect outsiders, but nothing physical. Honesty, I have trouble telling what’s part of my power, and what isn’t,” I explained. I’d been gushing, I didn’t mean to, but I really found Mr. Flores’ glare was unnerving, and I just wanted to get the information out there as soon as possible.

  “Fine,” he finally grunted. “You two can join the runners for now. If you do figure out your powers, come let me know immediately.”

  “Uhhh… the runners?” Olivia asked.

  The big man stepped aside and pointed at the far side of space, finally letting us get a good look at the area. It looked like a titanic gym, with an Olympic-sized track around the outside, and an astroturf field in the middle. Most of our class was lined up to perform something that looked like a combination of sprints and an obstacle course. At the same time, a smaller group, including Amelia, was gathered around another man in the middle of the astroturf area.

  “If you can’t defend yourself, then you'd better be prepared to evacuate the area as quickly as possible. You’ll find that those who fall behind, get left behind, and those that get left behind, usually end up dead,” Mr. Flores growled. “So you better do your best to keep up, and if you can’t, you better do your best to get faster. You can’t always rely upon anyone else to save you, so do the best to save yourself.”

  I glanced at the man. That sounded like good advice, but the way he delivered it…

  “Get going!” he shouted, causing the two of us to jump and sprint across the area.

  Even though I was already winded by the time I was halfway across the gym, I didn’t dare stop. It took everything I had not to collapse once I reached our classmates; A couple of people looked over and scoffed as I struggled to catch my breath. Olivia arrived a step behind me and grasped my shoulder to support herself, breathing just as heavily as I was.

  It took her a second to calm down enough to spit out a single sentence. “I hate this place already.”

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