Never Fade

CHAPTER FIVE

Mae Jackson P.O.V

For whatever reason, Jude had nominated himself to serve as the team's one-man welcoming committee. Where ever I went his lanky pacing shape had always followed close behind me or waiting for me at the end of the entry hall, torpedoing toward me burying me under an avalanche of questions. A month later, he was still the only one who was waiting there for us, rewarding our safe return with a smile that split his face.

Ruby, Zu, Jude and I walked the long white entry hall. The agents left a trail celebratory noise behind them. It shrank with every step they took, until the only thing I could hear was my own breathing, and the only thing that I could see was the empty space at the end of the hallway where Jude should have been.

"M!" he called, waving me over. "I'm so sorry! So sorry I totally lost trace of time. Did everything go okay? Did you just get back now? Where's Vida? Is she--?"

I wasn't a good enough person to say that no part of me eaten to turn and run out before he could come up and loop my arm through his, dragging me across the room with him.

Ruby, Zu, and I entered the training room with Jude leading us, There were teams of kids all over the training, training with their trainers, fighting each other, and fighting dummies.

As we walked further into the room I noticed Nico was there, sitting alone on the opposite end of the training room.One of the cement pillars had blocked at the sight of him from the door. but it also didn't help that the kid didn't seem to be moving. At all. I followed his stony gaze down to the little device in his lap. A Chatter.

It was the size of a phone and could easily have doubled for one if you weren't casting too careful of an eye on it. They'd salvaged an older generation of phones- the kind with a actual keypad, rather than a sleek touch screen. The new shells they'd created for them were oval and thin enough to slide into a back pocket or up a sleeve during a lesson.

          A couple of the Greens had developed this little gem with the idea that agents could relay digital messages, photos, and short videos back home without needing to ditch burner phone after burner phone. The tech behind them was mostly a mystery to me, but I understood they communicated on some unhackable network the Green had developed. They could only be used to contract other Chatters on the network, and only then if you had the other Chatter's secret PIN number. They were useless if you needed to send large images or video files longer than thirty seconds; Alban had rejected sending them out in a deli for that reason, dismissing the as some bored kid's project. As far as I knew, the Greens usually just used them now to chat with one another in HQ when they were in different training sessions or at night after lights out.

I walked Zu to a trainer who was training 3 other young children. I signed Zu goodbye before walking over to where Nico was seated, along side Jude.

"Really come back? Did you get to meet the agent? Was he as bad*$$ as everyone says? Can we?"

"What's going on?" I asked, taking a seat next to Jude looking between Nico and a nearby the TV screen. The league had come up with its own channels showing the weather, current new, and broadcasted old television shows. People around us, were training with one another, in the ring, and on mats.

It was like I'd sucked the words straight out of him. Jude tensed in that wide-eyed way of this before flashing the king of smile that was trying took hard.

"What's going on?" I repeated.

Jude swallowed, glancing at Nice before leaning down to my ear, His eyes were scanning the training room like the were looking for dark corner that didn't exist.