Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Inside my house, I headed straight for the sink and poured myself a glass of water.
I drank it slowly while leaning against the wall and staring out the window.
I still had several hours before I had to leave for Founders’ Fortress.
I ought to get some rest. I had slept badly last night due to worry for my parents, and Anna’s “pre-screening” this morning had exhausted me.
A flash of auburn hair caught my eye outside the window.
I moved closer to the glass. Jessie walked briskly along the opposite sidewalk.
A tall, thickset, brown-haired man accompanied her.
In contrast to her brown uniform, he wore deep red—the same color I had spotted several people wearing within the fortress during my brief visit there earlier.
I wasn’t sure which department it denoted.
Who was he? What was Jessie doing back here in the middle of the workday?
They were heading toward her house.
I leaned over the sink to watch as they reached her front gate. The man opened it for her in a gentlemanly manner. She mounted the porch steps, then turned around, and I got a full view of her face for the first time.
Even from this distance, she looked pale, her mouth tight. She gave the man a brief smile, though it seemed polite and forced.
I couldn’t make out the man’s expression, since his back faced me, but he reached into his backpack and rummaged for something.
A few seconds later, he’d pulled out a black, flat package.
He handed it to Jessie, saying something.
She took the package and nodded. The man said one last word to her, and then he moved back to the gate, closed it behind him, and walked back the way he had come.
I got a better view of him this time when he passed my window. To my surprise, his features looked familiar, as if I’d seen him before. Yet I was quite certain I hadn’t.
Feeling unsettled, I waited the few moments it took for him to exit our street. Then I hurried outside and along the road to Jessie’s house. By the time I reached it, she had already closed the door.
I rang the doorbell tentatively.
The door swung open barely ten seconds later. Jessie’s amber eyes bugged in surprise when she saw me standing there, and in any other circumstance I would have laughed at the cute expression. But now my face was mirthless.
“Tani! What are you doing here?” Her gaze then fell to my blue uniform and she frowned.
“I could ask the same of you,” I replied, pulling her into a ferocious hug.
I breathed in, inhaling her scent. It felt like it had been ages since I’d spent quality time with my best friend, though, in reality it had only been a couple of weeks.
Still, I was out of touch with what she had been up to recently.
I knew she had managed to break through the job funnel by nabbing a mining assistant gig, which allowed her a greater variety of jobs, but I hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about what her life had been like since then—what other types of jobs she had taken on and what she thought of them.
She clung to me like a baby monkey would cling to its mother, hugging me back with equal intensity. Then she slowly pulled away and murmured, “Come in. Let’s sit down.”
I stepped into the house and made my way through to the sitting area while she closed the door. She shared the house with her family, so it was one of the larger buildings, like the one my aunt, uncle, Zina and Nico inhabited.
On my way to the sofa, I noticed the package the man had given her sitting on the dining table. She had already half unwrapped it.
I stalled in my tracks, staring at it.
It was a folded-up blue uniform.
I spun to look at Jessie, my heart in my throat. “Who was that guy who was with you just now?” I pressed.
She hesitated, that anxious expression on her face returning, as her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip.
“He… He works as a programmer here on Fairwell. He’s a ‘computer engineer’.”
I stared at her, and as I summoned a picture of the man again in my mind’s eye, remembering how he had seemed strangely familiar, something suddenly clicked.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
She furrowed her brow at me. “Gerard,” she replied slowly.
“What’s his surname?” I asked.
“Springs.”
My breath hitched. The guy was related to Anna.
It was why his broad facial features, thickset physique and russet brown hair had all seemed familiar.
Since his gender was different, my brain hadn’t made the connection immediately.
Anna had not mentioned having siblings, but my guess was that he was her brother, given his age—late twenties or early thirties—and sheer likeness to her.
“How do you know him?” I pressed, my heart pumping harder. “Where did you just come from?”
She hesitated, her face growing paler. “Tani, I… I think I…”
“Can’t tell me,” I concluded softly, as my mind reached a chilling conclusion.
She nodded, gulping.
I paused, staring at her, and was tempted to just spill the beans and ask her outright if she had been recruited by him, too.
I wasn’t sure what someone from the computer department would be doing recruiting a settler for the Course.
I had assumed that the Course would solely involve managers from the outreach department.
According to what Anna had told me, the Course’s very purpose was to prepare us to go out into the Old World and help people, while navigating any dangers we might face out there.
But maybe that assumption had been incorrect.
Maybe any manager could participate if they were high-ranking enough.
Jessie had followed an almost identical route as me, albeit a little later.
She had distinguished herself from the crowd by accepting a more dangerous job before the recommended time frame, so maybe Gerard had noticed her on the leaderboard, just like Anna had noticed me, and selected her as a mentee.
Why else would we both suddenly be returning home during the day with blue uniforms? Anna had mentioned that managers would finish choosing their new mentees over the next few days.
Did that mean Jessie had already gone through the pre-screening, too? It would explain why she looked so on edge.
My heart ached at the thought of my friend undergoing that ordeal.
“Jessie,” I said quietly, reaching out to grip her hand. I brought it closer to me and squeezed it as I considered what to say next.
She looked over my blue uniform again, and from the expression on her face, I just knew we were both thinking the same thing: Can we talk to each other about this?
There was, I supposed, a chance that there were multiple initiatives running on Fairwell simultaneously, available to founders and settlers, and in theory she could have signed up for a different one than me. Which would mean sharing information would be in definite breach of contract.
But somehow, that just didn’t feel likely to me. The connection to Anna and the shared blue uniform—which denoted the outreach department—made me believe that it had to be the same one.
And we couldn’t just not talk about this.
I exhaled, frustrated as I tried to find the right words to start the conversation.
Then Jessie blurted, “Let’s go for a walk.”
I frowned at the random suggestion, not sure why outside would be better than inside, unless she felt claustrophobic and needed more space to think.
Whatever the case, I nodded. I followed her back out the door and we stepped onto the quiet road outside.
She looped one arm through mine and marched me to the end of the road, then to the edge of the dock, where we stopped.
We leaned against the barrier, the ocean lapping against the base of the island about ten feet beneath us.
My eyes noted the bold “DO NOT SWIM” signs stamped all along the ledge.
Jessie faced me head on, her fingers fidgeting with a lock of her short red hair.
I arched an eyebrow in question, and she blew out. “I just feel more comfortable talking out here,” she said in a quiet tone, her eyes darting toward the loud waves beneath us, “than in that small house surrounded by all that… electronic equipment.”
I nodded, though I hadn’t considered that any of the technology in our houses could have been there for eavesdropping purposes. If it was, that would bring about a whole new slew of questions—which my mind wasn’t ready to deal with at the moment.
“Now, do the letters OWI mean anything to you?” Jessie practically whispered.
It took a moment for me to think about, and then I realized what she meant.
“Old World Isle,” I replied also in a low tone, as if I feared for a moment the wind would catch my voice and carry it up to Anna in the fortress.
Even outside, Jessie was cautious, which I supposed was wise.
And it was a clever way to start the conversation.
A tactic I might steal, for when I next managed to see Hayden.
If he really had gone through the Course before, he most likely wouldn’t be able to give me actual details about what it involved without breaking his contract, but there might be at least some general advice he could offer me.
Jessie nodded, giving me a conspiratorial look. “So, we’re both in this together,” she murmured.
“Yes,” I replied, a grimace setting in on my face.
Now that I had confirmation, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, honestly.
On the one hand, I couldn’t deny that I felt relief knowing that I wasn’t in this alone—that there would be another familiar face on this path I was about to embark on.
But on the other hand, I was more than a little nervous that, just like me, she would have to go through whatever that mysterious island ended up throwing at us.