A Watcher’s task may be simple, but it is deceptively so. Watchers never make mistakes. Their judgement is final, and their decision is irrevocable. This is not because they themselves are perfect. But it is because they have trained and practiced until an error is impossible.
(Elite Watcher Training Manual, 51st edition, page 101)
The secret meeting place turns out to be somewhere in a food processing warehouse. We’re greeted at the door by the warehouse manager, an older man with a wisp of greying hair across the top of his head.
“Ah, the Watchers in Training are here.” He smiles, though he wrings his hands nervously. “Come in, come in. I’m Lover Benz. I’ll be conducting your tour this morning. It is a great honor to have you with us.”
He ushers us into a packing room, where tubes of protein food are boxed by robotic arms along a conveyor belt. A few workers hustle around, supervising the machinery and moving boxes into larger containers for transport.
“You’ll be wanting to learn about our food production processes, wouldn’t you?” he asks in a voice that’s just a touch too loud.
“Yes,” Wil says.
The old man’s obvious acting makes me cringe. Anyone feeling suspicious would see through him in a heartbeat. But the rest of the workers go on as if nothing has been said. If anything, they appear too nervous to make eye contact with us.
After a long and tedious tour of every production line, office and storage facility in the building, the manager leads us down to a dim basement area. When I think we can’t go any further. Benz stops beside a large stainless steel wall. The area is deserted and smells of damp timber and metal. Opposite the steel wall, a row of thick, warm jackets hangs from a series of hooks.
Lover Benz’s smile disappears. He lifts a jacket from one of the hooks and holds it out to Wil. His eyes flicker to the thick, insulated door set into the steel wall.
“This is one of our food storage rooms,” he says quietly, glancing up and down the corridor. “I think you’ll learn some interesting facts in here. You’ll need these, though.”
Wil takes the jacket from Benz’s hands. A doubtful look crosses his face, but he pulls the thick coat on anyway. Benz picks out a slightly smaller one for me. The jacket is so thick that I begin sweating almost immediately. A bulge in one of the pockets turns out to be a snug pair of warm gloves. I fit them over my hands.
When Benz has donned his jacket, he pulls on a solid steel lever built into the door. With a crackling noise and a rush of cool air, the thick door breaks from its seal. We step over the threshold into a vast chilled room and make our way between rows of steel shelving that are illuminated by dim blue lights.
The air is so cold my breath comes out in misty clouds. All around me, thick insulated boxes bulge with vegetables and fruits, some of which I have never seen before.
“Wow.” I lift a bulbous green vegetable from one box.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Benz lets me know. “We often have to arrest workers who try and steal the food from here.”
I instantly drop the vegetable. “Sorry.”
“No harm done. But if anyone asks, we came in here to discuss the problem of worker theft, not what we’re really about to do,” he says. I feel a brief flash of alarm. Then his fingers curl into Lyric’s tree signal, and my shoulders relax.
“Down here,” he says, nodding over his shoulder to a section of the cool room hidden behind a wall of boxes. Long plastic strips hanging from the ceiling form a kind of doorway, and we push through into a small square of concrete that contains two wooden chairs.
“Zed tells me you can remember things,” Lover Benz says to me.
Wil nods. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I don’t know about that.” I blush.
“Could you share something with me?” Lover Benz’s question is almost shy. “It’s been so long since I—”
“If we have time,” Wil interrupts. “I think we’d better hear your fragments first.”
“I would love to.” I intentionally ignore Wil’s impatience.
“No, he’s right,” Lover Benz says reluctantly. “We haven’t much time. Take a seat. If we’re here too long, you’ll end up with frostbite. Or they’ll send someone down to check on us.”
Wil and I sit, and Benz leans against one of the rows of cardboard boxes. In a soft tenor voice, he begins to sing. Notes echo off the cool room walls. My memory records the words and the melody, and the Muse begins to stir my heart in response. It’s a story of Lyric. As odd as our surroundings may be, hearing this music feels like the most natural thing in the world to be doing right now.
Lyric, though in nature the Composer himself
Did not snatch at his rank, nor use it for gain.
But reduced himself to nothing for us
Walked as we walked, Composer sung into flesh.
Though he sang stars into existence,
He let men hang him on the tree.
Loving those who hated him
Though the blind could not see.
Fully Composer, Fully Song in harmony
Opening our eyes to love,
From death to set us free.
When Lover Benz finishes, my toes are numb with cold. But my eagerness to hear more is stronger.
“I-is t-there a-any m-more?” My hopeful voice comes through chattering teeth.
“Not now,” Benz says with a quick smile. “We have to get you out of here before the cold gets to you. Also, if we stay here too long, the security team might get suspicious and wonder why the cool room cameras are switched off.”
“B-better get m-moving then,” Wil says briskly. We maneuver back through the rows of vegetables, and Lover Benz pushes the heavy door open again, letting us out into the warm air of the basement corridor. We take off our jackets and leave them back on the hooks. Then we go back up into the main warehouse upstairs. I pause and turn to our guide.
“Thank you for teaching us that,” I say, then stop in shock. A quick glance tells me I’ve blurted out in front of at least two different cameras. Lover Benz’s face pales.
“Ah, yes . . . yes,” Wil says loudly. “We will be sure to watch out for vegetable thieves more carefully in the future.”
“I would never have known about the concealment techniques until you told us,” I add with a nervously forced laugh.
Lover Benz frowns. “It’s no laughing matter. The Love Collective cannot afford to lose such precious commodities to the black market,” he says stiffly. “Love all, be all.”
With stilted steps, he turns and marches away from us. I salute at his back, feeling miserable.
“Come on.” Wil pulls at me. I let him guide me out of the warehouse and into the open air. The sunshine is almost mocking in its brightness. I want to apologize to Wil, but black camera eyes stare down at us from almost every building. There’s nothing for it but to pretend I didn’t just nearly expose our whole operation. Time to make-believe that I’m a loyal and hardworking Watcher Apprentice, not a failure who is desperately wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
I’m so caught up in my own self-accusations that I become a passenger to Wil’s direction, letting him walk us through the streets without question. Only when a shadow falls across my path do I surface from my reverie.
“Where are we?” I stare at a wall of unfamiliar warehouses. Somehow we have ended up in a narrow four-way intersection, surrounded by identical concrete blocks and beaten-up garbage disposal units. There’s an acrid smell of urine and refuse. The only signs nearby are the green glowing Exit labels above the occasional door. The whole place looks eerie and deserted.
“This is our next stop.” Wil heads toward an empty loading dock.
“What—?”
Wil waves me silent with his hand. “Shh.”
He stops and turns to me. “I almost forgot.” And with a slow and enticing smile, he leans into me. I’m so startled that I freeze. His hand rests on the back of my neck, and his green eyes fix me in place like I’m cemented to the pavement. Then he pulls me to his chest. Once again I feel the solid warmth of his ribs, hear his heartbeat thumping slowly and calmly. When he pushes me away, I’m left gaping like a dying fish.
“What was—?” I stammer. My heartbeat pounds thunderously in my ears. He’s already turned away.
The loading dock spreads before us. The interior is dark and shadowy. A Love Squad detail could be hiding in there, and we wouldn’t know until they pounced on us.
Already feeling tense, I nearly scream when someone steps toward us from a dark corner. Clad in a brown uniform, his face is pockmarked and red. A sheen of sweat covers his forehead, and his hair is receding. He squints over Wil’s shoulder, shooting suspicious glares in my direction. I shrink back.
“You were supposed to be alone,” he snarls at Wil and spits on the ground as if to reinforce his point.
Wil just shrugs, looking calm and confident. “What have you got for me?” he asks.
The man stares me up and down. I hold my breath. Then he cocks his head toward the shadows behind him. Wil steps forward. I make a move to follow. The man nearly hisses.
“Not her.”
Wil turns to me with a wide smile that I’m sure is meant to be comforting.
I look from him to the scowling man and back again. “Wil? What is going on?” I thought I was supposed to be learning Song fragments, so why am I not allowed to be a part of this?
Wil’s voice is soft and soothing. “It’s okay, Apprentice. I won’t be long. Wait for me.”
I nod speechlessly. They disappear into the darkness, and I hear a soft rumble as they discuss something that’s obviously too important for me to know. After it’s clear that I won’t be able to hear anything, I wander back out into the light, leaning against the factory wall. The scent of garbage is pungent.
Wil’s behavior has sent me on another tailspin. The more I try and think my way through his actions, the less sense they make. But the memory of his hug still lingers down my body. My neck still feels the touch of his fingers. My cheeks still remember the soft press of his uniform against my face. I keep that memory in the forefront of my mind, and it comforts me. We might be out here in a strange part of Love City, but he will protect me.
After a few more minutes of hushed murmurs and urgent whispers, Wil strolls out. He flashes a tense smile when he spots me, running his finger around the inside of his indigo collar. I let him walk all the way over to me. The Elite uniform shows off just a hint of his muscular frame.
“Shall we go?” he says brightly. Feeling embarrassed about my private thoughts, I don’t say anything, fearful he might accidentally be able to read my mind. His smile doesn’t waver. “It’s okay. There’s no reason to worry. We should probably get back to our ride, though.”
“What’s going on? Who was that guy?”
Wil closes his eyes, looking pained. “Why do you not trust me?”
I rush to reassure him. “No, I do, really I do. It’s just that—”
“Thanks. At least I know where I stand.” Wil turns away from me.
“Wait,” I call as he widens the distance between us. “I didn’t mean to—”
Wil ignores me and continues to walk away down the road toward a distant intersection. His pace is so fast that I have to trot along to keep up with him.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Forget it, Flick.”
The way his face has shut down fills me with dread.
I try and explain again, but he gives me the silent treatment. He doesn’t speak all the way back to the waiting silver bullet of an overcar. He sits silent and tense, staring away from me for the entire trip home. And when we arrive back at the Academy, he goes off to his sleeping quarters without even so much as a backward glance.
Completely miserable and confused, I throw myself onto my own bunk, letting the hopelessness blossom into a dark cloud. I reach inside my uniform, searching for the familiar silver chain, but then jerk upright.
Wil’s locket has gone missing, which just seems to top off an already stinking end to the day.
“Figures,” I moan.