The Gemini Age: Book One

[10-2] Rippled Reflections - Part Two

    Living in the guard uniform made Skye more aware than ever of her physical form. The dark grey fatigues conformed to the shape of her body, and the sleeves snaked under the cuff of her matching rubber and polyester gloves. As soon as the gear landed on her body, Skye began to curse the short-sightedness that led the Nomads to impose a uniform crafted from hefty materials that dampened the wearer's natural magical potential. Her frustration relented after several petulant bursts of air and fire down an empty corridor reassured her of her potency.

    It was no doubt Trigger's idea to disguise her in a uniform, for her father believed outward dress manifested inward power. It was a subject of annual discussion throughout Skye's childhood, as both Taylor and Cole often expressed a distaste for their expensive, privileged school's inclination towards dress codes rather than uniforms for both lessons and sports activities. Both boys wished to blend in with their cohorts as their peers at their school's nearest rivals did, albeit for very different reasons, and when they were old enough to argue but too young to know better, they collaborated to insist Byron consent to their transfer. 

    Their father never budged from his position. Uniforms implied equality where there was none, he believed. When Taylor argued that his teachers looked down on their family's unremarkable heritage, Byron challenged him to express pride in his name. When Cole wished to get along with his classmates, their father reiterated that successful men sought connections, not friends. To Skye's resistance to attending a girls' school, Byron disappeared behind the untouchable door of his office.

    Much to Skye's annoyance, Trigger himself wore no uniform beyond his usual Nomad accessories. As surprising was the fact that, after their descent into the sublevel of the facility, Skye had hardly seen her prime pesterer in the flesh. As she wandered the facility, she heard his voice crackling orders through the transceivers of several other guards, his accent somehow thicker when imbued with authority. Her own handset jostled on her belt, and with each passing hour she baffled herself further with a growing impatience to feel it shudder into life, to hear a voice address her, to receive some indication that she really existed.

    The freedom of isolation led Skye away from the buzz of activity that revolved around the area ahead of the long, narrow staircase up to the surface. Soon, she was alone in silence in the area designated the Western Cluster, the marching of rubber-soled feet little more than a patter on the verge of fading away beneath the tapping of her own boots on the tiled floor. Light was a welcome relief, yet after several hours spent staring through the darkness it was far from a necessity. Chains and wooden barricades discouraged entry to most of the larger rooms Skye spotted from the corridors, and the smaller rooms interspersed between the pairs of double doors held little to capture her passing eye. 

    After a long period of dogged exploration, however, she found a sizeable room that remained accessible to her, and without hesitation she ground both heavy composite doors along their disused hinges and passed into the darkness that lay behind them.

    Dust flocked to Skye's shape as she stepped into the room. It clung to her boots, her arms, and it threatened to settle on her face before she tugged her scarf over her mouth and nose to fend it off. Whether due to the dust or its sheer size, the shadows inside the room were more difficult to penetrate than any others in the facility, even with the fire Skye lit and raised in her hand. The walls by the entrances contained shelves that, bar a stray dried-out marker pen, had been cleared. White floor tiles wore occasional burn marks or cracks on their surfaces, though none were too damaged to break underfoot, and a single tile registered a scrape of complaint at the sudden burden of Skye's weight. Her eyes scanned the vast room for any hint as to its function, or at least an end to the choking darkness that resided within its confines.