Jamie stopped the SUV in front of one of the two apartment buildings. “This is the building where team members live, and that building over there is for the trainees.”
“What? You’re going to make her walk?” Eliza chimed in.
Cadence and Jamie exchanged glances before he responded. “No,” he replied, “not any further than you are. Cadence is on ou
Eliza decided not to join them on their jaunt around campus. She said she was worn out from shopping and needed to take a nap. Jamie showed Cadence that there were some food options in the basement of their building, including a smaller grocery store and a couple of restaurants. He also walked her over to the debrief building and let her see the meeting rooms there. She noted they had a lot of technology, which wasn’t surprising considering every single one of them had a computer in his or her eye. He didn’t take her to Aaron’s office because he probably wasn’t actually there, and as Jamie put it, he hoped she’d never have to go there. It was never a pleasant situation when you got called into the office. It was kind of like going to see the principal in school.
“Why is the hill last if it’s the hardest?” Cadence couldn’t help but think this was Aaron’s own special form of torture.“Because you’re tired, probably more than a little angry with me for pushing you so hard, and I want to see what you’ve got when there’s not much left in the reserves.”“Have I been acting like I’m an
After Cadence took a shower and had a bite to eat from the fully stocked kitchen, she felt a lot better. Even though her muscles were sore, and she expected them to be so for quite some time, she still felt like her body was beginning to recover from the most arduous workout she had ever experienced by far.While she was in the shower, she finally had a few moments to think, and she spent most of them trying to decide whether or not she should try to find Aaron and ask him to go with her. She felt better knowing Jamie was going to be there, but she felt a little weird about what had happened i
The short walk over to Christian’s lab in one of the office buildings was relatively quiet. Cadence hadn’t realized that, by inviting both of them, she kind of did herself a disservice. She had intended to use Jamie for physical support and Aaron for emotional support, but now everything just seemed odd.A man who appeared to be a little older than her with dark blond hair was hunched over a computer, his back to them when they came in. She assumed this must be Christian. He must have been working hard on something when they entered because he didn’t even hear them at first.
Cadence jerked backward in the chair, almost causing him to poke her eye with the tweezers. The second the chip hit her eye, she was suddenly flooded with streams of data, both voice and visual. It was as if she were instantaneously trapped in the mainframe of a computer database. The unending waves of information were overwhelming.Jamie had no way of knowing what had happened, but he rushed over and immediately grabbed her head Aaron also hurried to her side.
Cadence had received a text message that morning from Aaron, checking to see how she was doing and asking if she felt up to meeting him at 10:00 for training. Thoughts of how her night had ended had her feeling just fine, and she was out the door by 9:30. This morning was a little different than the day before, however. They were joined by another Hunter, Meagan, and her trainer, Shane, the guy Aaron had been talking to in the gym the day before. Meagan, a shorter brunette with wavy hair and an infectious smile, had been at LIGHTS for almost six weeks, and she was preparing for her first observation hunt the next night. Aaron explained that, if Meagan could successfully spar with Cadence, there was a possibility that she might be ready to go on an observation. This in spite of the fact that Cade
Cadence laughed aloud and concluded that the IAC might be a great way to mess with people.“There are a few other things that you need to be aware of. You’re going to need to know how to do a Full Pause, which is the same as a Full Off, only you’re going to think Pause instead of Off. However, that’s going to be problematic for you because I can’t push you out of Pause the way that I can everyone else. I can’t push you out of Off either,” Aaron explain
Watching the hunt had been extremely valuable to Cadence. She was able to observe how the other Hunters and Guardians talked to each other, how they accessed each other’s visuals to determine where they needed to go and to coordinate their plan of attack. Aaron had allowed her full access to his communication screen, and she was actually able to see him firing off directives to his team members like a rapid-fire machine gun. He was sending out orders faster than she could read them. Of course, no one was actually reading most of the messages; they were sent directly into the receivers’ brains, including her own, but it was still incredibly impressive to see how fast they came.