Luminosity (21 page)

“Oh, little boy, there’s so much truth you don’t know.” Enigma holds both of her hands out by her sides, and from out of the shadows cast about the Meeting Room by the brightness of the sun, Dreamcatchers walk toward her, stopping in a semi-circle behind her. “For example, there was a time when we cohabitated. A time where we walked side by side and respected one another’s powers. But the Keeper at that time grew paranoid, sensing our powers were getting stronger, and she sent us away, casting us out of the protection of the City and into the broken, fragile world.”

“Why would she cast you out if you weren’t doing something that you weren’t supposed to be doing?” Brandon speaks up this time, but his gaze is on the Dreamcatchers who stand behind Enigma. I follow his gaze, and that’s when I realize that Echo is standing there with about eight other Dreamcatchers. He isn’t holding a weapon, and is still wearing his white and scarlet-trimmed robe from earlier. I notice that not every robe has that scarlet band.

“Because she was afraid. We are two halves, child. You are the half who can see ahead, and we are the half that recalls the past, harvests the Dreams so that we never forget what has happened. But now, we won’t ever function together again. Now, we are two cities, two people who stand on our own, fighting for survival.”

I listen to her, but my attention is mostly on Echo, who, for once, is looking back at me. I swallow and glance to Gabe, and I’m relieved to know that now is not the time I will lose him. This is not the place in my Vision where he stands screaming at me.

Enigma continues her story, which has us entranced enough that even I forget I am standing in a room filled with dead Seers. “Together, we were strong…but apart, we are weak. The Keeper has to keep the Seers together in one place so that they can thrive and she can watch over them and use their gifts…and the Dreamcatchers need to harvest the Citizens to keep our powers balanced, and to heal us when we are sick. Like now.”

“What do you mean, sick?” Brandon asks.

“A virus has started to spread through Aura. First among the Citizens, and now it has spread to the Dreamcatchers.” Enigma shoots a sad, fleeting look to the half-moon of her kind behind her.

“And the Citizens? Why do you bother to kill them, then?” Gabe catches me staring at Echo, and I look down at my feet. Hopefully he hasn’t realized that there’s a familiarity between me and the Dreamcatcher.

“And take them. We saw you take them in nets into your ships,” Elan blurts, making sure we don’t forget that small detail.

“Because they are our only hope to stop the plague. You only keep them as your slaves anyway…”

“We do not,” Elan protests with a deep frown. “We protect them.”

“You
think
you protect them.” Enigma shakes her head, her long hair falling around her pale face. She looks like an angel.

The four of us are quiet. What she’s suggesting takes all of us off guard. All of this time, the Keeper has been deceiving us, leading us to believe that we were the good guys and the Dreamcatchers were the enemy. For all we know, they still could be, and Enigma could be lying to us. But the thought that the Institution has been harvesting the Citizens as slaves is a little too much, especially when those Citizens include the families we’ve never known.

I look back to Echo, hoping he’ll give me some sign not to believe in this woman. He stands so regally, his hands folded in front of him, that he’s hardly recognizable as the young man in my dreams. He returns my glance, but there’s nothing there telling me to disregard Enigma’s story.

“This is stupid,” Gabe mutters.

“It’s your history, boy.” Enigma’s tone turns into something agitated.

“According to you, our enemy. Why do you think we’d trust you?”

Enigma’s eyes shift to where I stand and she says, “She does.”

Echo’s stance stiffens.

I immediately shake my head. I don’t trust Enigma any more than the others do. “This is all nonsense.”

Gabe moves to reach for his weapon, and one of the other robed Dreamcatchers extends his hand. Gabe screams out and puts his hands back over his ears. “Ah! Make it stop!”

I panic and shoot a glare to Echo. “Stop this! You are hurting him!”

Echo says nothing, but there’s a tiny glimmer of pity in his eyes.

The Dreamcatcher drops his hand and at the same time, Gabe drops to the ground, still screaming in pain. I rush over to where he is and fall to my knees, collecting him in my arms. He pulls his helmet off and throws it, forgetting about any threat of noxious gasses. Blood drips down his neck from the inside of his ears. I brush his hair back and hold him close to my chest as he continues to groan and claw at his lobes.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Your friend was reaching for his weapon. We are having a civil conversation here, Beatrice,” the offending Dreamcatcher replies.

“Don’t use my name,” I hiss and hold Gabe closer, as if my mere presence will somehow protect him. I’m weaponless as well, so what can I really do?

“She’s feisty.” The Dreamcatcher laughs and some of the others laugh with him. Echo doesn’t, though, and only continues to watch me as I hold Gabe. When I look back up at him, he doesn’t seem very moved, nor does he seem happy that I’m with Gabe.

“So now what?” I ask them all, but eventually my question and attention returns to Enigma.

“We are the Guardians of the royal Dreamcatchers. As you have a Keeper of Visions, we have the Harvesters of Dreams. They are a family, and their position is passed down through the ages. It is our duty to destroy the Beacon before it destroys us….possibly all of us. The scientists made it a long time ago in their quest to find a way to reverse the serum. In the Keeper’s hands, it is a misused and dangerous power, and we can’t risk seeing it wipe out either the Dreamcatchers or the Seers. It is bad enough that you harvest its power and use it as ammunition.” Enigma walks toward Gabe and I, and my first reaction is to grab the gun that’s not too far out of arm’s reach—but if I do, I’ll end up like Gabe, and I’m not even sure if he can hear anything anymore. He rocks back and forth, hands over his ears, whimpering pathetically.

“Get away,” I warn.

“Trust her.” Echo finally speaks up. I narrow my eyes, and despite Elan and Brandon’s obvious surprise and discomfort, I listen to Echo, since he’s the only other person here whom I can trust besides Gabe and the other Seers. Enigma kneels down in front of Gabe and reaches out to take him by the hand.

“Don’t let her touch him!” Brandon blurts and makes a step toward us, but the “tsk tsk” from the Dreamcatcher who incapacitated Gabe stops Brandon in his tracks.

Enigma reaches out and puts her hands on Gabe’s, pulling them away from his ears. She closes her eyes, absorbing the pain that is clearly written across his face. Gabe’s body begins to heal, and eventually he stops moaning as loudly as he was before. His ears clearly bother him still, as he cups his hands over them, protecting them from whatever is making them ache. As Enigma gets closer to me, I feel that pain which has been present the whole time, now so familiar that I’ve hardly noticed it.

“Find the Beacon and destroy it if you want to save your Institution and those inside it,” Enigma whispers to Gabe and I, as if this operation has everything to do with us and nothing to do with anyone else. “If not for humanity, do it for yourselves.”

Enigma stands, her robes falling around her tiny form, the folds rippling like waves on the water. She’s so majestic that I have a hard time looking away from her. The nine of them turn and head out of the Meeting Room, but it’s Echo who looks back at me and mouths the words, “Save us.”

Save us?

I hug Gabe close to me again, and he quietly mumbles, “Where’s the Beacon?”

We let the Dreamcatchers go, and we know that somewhere, someone is watching us do it. Gabe, Elan, Brandon, and I stand in the middle of the Meeting Room and all the dead bodies, speechless and confused. So much bumbles through my mind—it is all too much to digest at the same time.

Maybe I shouldn’t, but I’ve decided to trust the Dreamcatchers. To trust Echo. We now have a new goal, despite the Keeper’s orders. If she’s watching us, she already knows what we know, but if by some chance she isn’t then we still have an opportunity to destroy the Beacon before it can hurt us and kill all the Dreamcatchers, including Echo.

But what will happen after we destroy the Beacon? Will they still harvest our Citizens?

I think about the options given to us. Keep fighting the Dreamcatchers and eliminate one cause of this war, or destroy a Beacon that can very well eliminate all of us.

“We are going to find the Beacon,” I decide for the group.

“Why? Why are you trusting them? What if destroying the Beacon destroys
us
?” Elan picks his gun up off the ground and checks it to make sure everything is working properly. He shoots some rounds of beacon bullets off in the direction of the side of the Meeting Room, and Brandon startles when they hit the wall and burst in little flashes of glowing light.

“Stop, Elan,” Gabe scolds the boy.

“Fine, whatever. Let’s go find the stupid Beacon, then, if it will make everyone else happy. I think we’re walking into a trap. We have no reason to trust those people, and yet here we are, buying into everything they are saying and walking straight into disaster.”

“If you don’t want to come, you can always stay here,” I offer as I pick up my weapon. “But I figure, we don’t really have the option.”

“And what if it is meant to protect us?” Elan retorts.

“We learned in class that its power is great and can affect us all. What if the Keeper uses it to only save herself? I mean…where is she anyway? I haven’t seen her fighting to protect the Institution.”

Elan snorts.

I sling my gun over my shoulder and start for the double doors leading out of the Meeting Room. “That’s what I thought. Come on, we’re finding this Beacon and putting it out of its misery.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Institution is still in lockdown, which we
are quickly reminded of when we try to push open the door to the stairwell and it won’t budge. We know we somehow have to get to the center of the building where the Beacon’s red light shoots up into the sky, destroying anything that touches it. But how can we do that when we’re stuck on the sixteenth floor with no way out?

And for that matter, where did the Dreamcatchers go after they left us?

The four of us walk up and down the hall, checking into rooms, re-clearing them, and then we walk to the next one to do it all over again. Each one of us is quiet, lost in our own thoughts as we try to figure the puzzle out. The Dreamcatchers are getting in and out, so there has to be a way for us to do the same.

That’s when Elan makes himself useful again. The brainy kid points up at the vents. “There. We have to go in there.” I’m not quite sure this is the way the Dreamcatchers are getting around, but it will have to be good enough for us if we want to get to the Beacon in time, before it destroys us all.

Brandon helps drag some things out of a nearby room that was being used as an office. Most importantly, he pushes out a heavy, metal desk and stacks a filing cabinet tipped on its side on top of it. I climb up the pile of office supplies and push the vent grate up into the metal shaft.

“All right. Let’s just follow these down and toward the middle of the building, since that’s where the Beacon’s light seems to be coming from.” I climb up into the vent and push my gun behind my shoulders so I can crawl on my hands and knees.

“I’d suggest heading down to the observatory garden. That’s the only outside place I can think of that’s near the middle of the Institution. It’d make sense if it was down there. You can hardly get to the garden from the outside of the building.” Gabe speaks quietly, probably due to the fact that his ears are still visibly hurting him. He tugs and scratches at them over and over again to try and relieve the pain, then pulls his helmet over his head.

I help Elan up into the vent, and Gabe and Brandon follow up after him. “Sounds like a good plan, mostly because it’s the only plan we have. Now, let’s go,” I say.

We quietly crawl through the ventilation shaft, knees and hands shuffling against the sometimes flimsy and unsupported metal. We keep some distance between us so it won’t collapse and send us all down onto the next floor, or Maker forbid, down in between the walls.

As we descend floor by floor, we catch morbid glimpses of spattered blood and strewn bodies through the slits of the vents. Sometimes there are more dead Dreamcatchers than Seers, and sometimes it is the other way around. We continue on our way, even though I feel like I am going to get sick.

The intercom crackles on, and we can barely hear it through the walls. Still, the message is clear enough. “Seers. We’ve been watching your progress and are pleased to announce that most of the Dreamcatcher threat has been eliminated. We ask that you find a safe room to barricade yourself in, as soon the Beacon will be activated, and you will have to take cover in order to avoid its overwhelming power.”

“Funny that she doesn’t mention what it’s going to do, isn’t it?” Gabe’s words are a bit too loud. Brandon shushes Gabe by putting a finger to his lips and “shhh’ing” almost louder than Gabe was talking in the first place.

“We don’t even know what it’s going to do. Unless you are trusting those awful Dreamcatchers,” Elan responds.

The intercom continues to relay the Keeper’s transmission. “It’s also come to my attention that we have some Seers who may have betrayed our cause. If you come across Seer Gabriel, Seer Elan, or Seer Brandon, you are to shoot and destroy them on sight. That is all.” The speakers switch off.

“How come they didn’t mention you?” Elan is the first to point this out, and I, of course, don’t have an answer for him. I have no idea why the Keeper didn’t mention me, but I do know that she’s always been strange about my existence in the first place.

“I don’t know, but no one is going to be shooting any of us. It’s not what we are trained to do. Do you actually think the Seers would turn against other Seers just because the Keeper ordered it?” But, as soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize that is exactly what will happen. Who am I kidding? Of course another Seer would shoot us if the Keeper ordered it.

“Yes.” Elan’s disappointment is clear, and it tugs at my heart and makes me feel guiltier than ever.

“I don’t know why she didn’t say my name…but I’m going to do everything I possibly can in order to keep you guys safe. And once we get to the Beacon and disable it, it hopefully won’t be much of a problem anyway.” Or at least I hope this is the case, but we have no way of knowing what will happen if the Beacon goes off or doesn’t go off.

“Let’s keep moving. We’re almost there.” Gabe urges us all to continue, but an awkward silence lingers between us. Why was the Keeper protecting me, I wonder? I am the one who let the Dreamcatcher get near Gabe. I am the one Enigma spoke to and told me to destroy the Beacon. Shouldn’t I be the one that everyone should be going after and killing?

And then I remember why I’m not being killed. I remember why I’ve hardly ever been disciplined, despite the Keeper’s sense of threat when it came to me. I’m much too valuable to them. I’ve the clearest Sight of anyone here, maybe including the Keeper herself. I’m the only one worth anything to her. The only one she can use.

I keep all of this to myself, though. Gabe, Brandon, and Elan won’t understand. Well, maybe Gabe would, but he’s much too disoriented right now to get everything I want to say to him. It will have to wait until later, if there even is a later.

We make it down to the observatory floor, but before we kick the vent open to slide out of the shafts, we notice that the group of nine Dreamcatchers has also made it down to the Beacon as well. They move slowly, as if every step toward the light is breaking them down. Echo is there, in his red-trimmed white robes. He looks toward the vent, maybe sensing that I’m there with him, even if he can’t see me. Elan pulls on my shoulder from behind.

“They know we are here.”

“Who cares? We’re both trying to do the same thing.” This time, I snap quietly at Elan. “Listen. You barely have your wings. You are new to all of this and…”

“So are you! When’s the last time you’ve heard of the Beacon, and the Harvesters, and Aura, and whatever else it is that crazy Dreamcatcher woman told us? Don’t act like you knew of all of this ahead of time, Beatrice. You’re no more informed than any of us are.”

I hesitate, and it’s enough for Elan to latch onto. “Unless you did know something…”

Quickly, I shake my head. “I don’t know any more than you do, Elan. But I do know that if we don’t make our move soon, we might all be lying dead in this vent, and all of our arguing will be for naught. Is that what you want?”

“No,” he huffs.

“Me either. So let’s go.” By the time our conversation is done, the Dreamcatchers are no longer in the hall. I kick the vent out and slide through, hanging to the end until I can safely drop myself onto the ground. I land on the balls of my feet, and a shock of pain sears up my ankles and into my legs. Elan, Brandon and Gabe each jump out after me, and we all pull our guns up, ready to fire.

The humming of the Beacon is loud, like thousands of economy-sized fans all turned on “high” and running at once. Gabe doesn’t seem too bothered by the noise, but the rest of us would cover our ears if it weren’t for the helmets on our heads. We go the way the Dreamcatchers went, since it’s the only way into the garden and observatory beyond.

As I get closer to the Beacon, there’s a serene sense of comfort that wraps itself around me, and I turn back to the others. “Do you feel that?” I want to laugh and cry, it feels so good.

They nod their heads and we keep trekking toward the calming sensation. I realize that the Dreamcatchers are not only no longer in the hall, they have disappeared altogether. There are only so many places to hide in this section of the Institution. Where could they have gone?

When I round the corner into the garden, I’m met by a rather strange sight. The Beacon, an extremely bright spotlight encased in what looks to be a large, metal bowl, hums and thrives, spitting a red beam up into the sky. Where did it come from? How have we never noticed it before?

The Keeper stands with a couple of her officials, about five Watchmen and some choice Seers, all highly-ranked. They stand in a line, as if they have been waiting for our arrival this whole time. Her raven is perched on her shoulder, as always, but seems ruffled and frightened.

“Beatrice. We were beginning to give up on you.” The Keeper smiles at me, her lips twisted up at the corners like something from a bad dream. Her black robe is caught by the wind, and if I listen closely enough, I can still hear the sound of gunfire somewhere in the Institution. Seers are still fighting for their lives, and here we are, standing beside the very thing that could possibly wipe out all of us.

The Watchmen raise their guns and aim them at Brandon, Elan, and Gabe. I sidestep in front of them all, blocking the shot before it can ever go off. “Leave them alone.”

“My child, it’s time you say good-bye to your friends. If you want to save the City, this is the only way we are going to be able to get it back.” The Keeper’s words are soft and comforting, like a mother’s lullaby to her fussy child.

“It isn’t the only way. They told us about you, you know.” I level my gaze with the Keeper’s violet stare. I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin to feign confidence. Inside, though, I’m terrified that this is when I will lose Gabe and Echo both.

The Keeper laughs, and as her shoulders jostle up and down, the raven takes off to the sky and starts to fly in circles, watching all of us. “I’m sure they did tell you some sort of silly thing, Seer Beatrice, but you’ve never been one to believe in such tales before, I’m sure.” The Keeper doesn’t move from where she stands with her choice guard, but she extends a hand out toward me as she continues to speak. “I will tell you a truth. You, Seer Beatrice, will be the next Keeper. You are my daughter. My blood. You are the one who will ascend to my position when I am gone, and I don’t want to lose you before that can happen, or the Institution will have no one to guide it.”

I am stunned into silence.

“Beatrice is your daughter?” Gabe looks at me in a new way now, a strange way, as if I’m no longer on the same level he is.

I have little time to react to this revelation before the Keeper—my mother—is speaking again. “The Beacon will be activated to save our people, Beatrice. It is necessary, and sometimes there are sacrifices that must come when the necessary must happen.” The Keeper’s smile fades away altogether. “And in this case, the sacrifice is that of our people. You will come with us, to ensure that the next generation of Seers grows with a strong sense of Sight. But the others will be left behind.”

Elan barks out, “
You
killed all those Seers in the Meeting Room, didn’t you?”

The Keeper smiles. “This conversation is over. Activate the Beacon.”

Gabe breaks out of line and runs toward the intercom. At the same time, the nine Dreamcatchers come through the door, guns in hand. Their distraction is the only thing that keeps the Watchmen from shooting Gabe down. He hits the “all call” button and quickly screams into the interface, “All available Seers, report to the Observatory Garden if you don’t want to die. Hurry!” As the speakers crackle off, the Watchmen open fire, and bullets not only tear through two of the Dreamcatchers standing at the end of their line, but Gabe also falls onto the console and then drops limp to the floor.

“Gabe!” I hear myself scream, but I don’t remember my mouth moving. I feel numb, and before I can run over to him, two people grab me from behind and start to carry me backward, dragging me across the ground. “Echo! Echo, help me!”

He hears me, and while the other Dreamcatchers open fire and try to eliminate the Beacon and the Keeper’s Seers, officials, and Watchmen, Echo ducks through the chaos and runs my way. Other Seers start to trickle into the garden, one by one, guns ready, but confusion is written all over their faces.

Brandon stands over Gabe’s body and points at the Beacon. “Destroy it! It’s going to kill all of us!”

The Keeper dials a number in on the keypad attached to the Beacon and the red light switches off and turns a blinding white color. A high-pitched ring accompanies the change of light, and it startles all of us, even the Dreamcatchers, who have to cover their ears. In this quick moment, another one of them falls victim to the gunshots, leaving six of the nine white-robed Dreamcatchers left.

Luckily, though, as I’m kicking and screaming, trying to break free, I notice that other Dreamcatchers have made it to the garden as well. They stand beside the Seers and shoot at the light, which buzzes and flickers on and off with each hit. The metal surrounding it is like armor, and bullets ricochet off the basin and zip across the room in different directions. They change their target when they realize their efforts have amounted to nothing and shoot at the keypad instead.

“Kill the Dreamcatchers!” the Keeper yells, but no one seems to be paying attention to her. The light hisses angrily and struggles to stay alive under its assault. The longer it is allowed to keep glowing, the louder the piercing noise gets, and it physically starts to hurt our ears. Everyone is shooting out of desperation to get it to stop before our heads explode. The Keeper pulls a small pistol out of her robes and holds it to my temple. “If that light dies, so do you.”

“I didn’t do anything!” I yell at her, still kicking my legs in a futile attempt to somehow escape the hold the Watchmen have on me.

“You betrayed us.” The Keeper pulls the hammer back on the gun, locking it.

Just as her finger pulls back on the trigger, Echo grabs onto the Keeper’s hand and she seizes up, dropping the gun. Whatever is going on between the two, it seems to be hurting Echo too, and the agony of his face causes me to panic. “Echo! Echo, let go! Let go!”