Death's Twilight Read online

  ****

  "Flick the wrist and release. Like so."

  The instructor flicked her wrist and a bolt of energy shot across the room to find the dummy attached to the metal grounding platform. The base of the platform crackled with energy, and we all kept our distance.

  Slade was seventeen, and this was Beta school. It was his second day of training. The first day was easy – it involved lots and lots of running, which he was good at. This was completely different. There were twenty-eight Betas in this class, one for each day of the month of February, their birth month. Herbert Hoover had done away with the Leap Year system in the second year of his term as a way of making the Emissary program easy to track and fill with candidates.

  Their instructor was a short, blonde lady with a no-nonsense demeanor. She had attained Alpha status over a decade ago, but had had an accident that left her legs damaged. While she waited for her transplants to be grown, she had been assigned this class of first year recruits. As she walked down the line of recruits, she came upon a young man who was clearly having troubles.

  "No! If you do it like that, you'll get yourself, not your target!" 

  She firmly took the young man's wrist and locked her hand around it, and then mimicked the flicking action for all to see. Slade copied the motion, determined to get it right. When his turn came six students later, Slade mustered up all the bravado he could, grabbed the boom stick, and flicked his wrist.

  A sizzling bolt of blue energy shot forth from the end of the Boom Stick and reduced the dummy to pieces of stuffing and cloth no bigger than packing peanuts. The room fell silent. Slade could hear the individual breaths of the students as they looked on, some in amazement, and some in fear.

  "Beta 0247893, step forward." The instructor spoke quietly, but firmly. Slade wasted no time, and separated himself from the line of recruits. The instructor made her way slowly down the line, drawing out the silence to its maximum point.

  "0247893 how did you do that?" She asked when she reached him.

  "I just followed your instructions, ma'am. That's all."

  "Do it again." She commanded.

  A new dummy replaced the one he had destroyed, and she stepped out of the way.  Slade raised the Boom Stick, flicked his wrist and watched as another bolt flew from the stick straight at the target.  The second dummy fared no better than the first, and there were small fragments littered around the base. The other students erupted in cheers, and then immediately quieted when the instructor shot them a glare that was hotter than the energy from the Boom Stick.

  "Impressive, 0247893. Impressive. The rest of you, if he can do it, you can. NOW!"

  They jumped to the task, leaving Slade with a sense of wonder and fear all rolled into one. This was the beginning of his time as a Beta, and it was not the first time Slade would impress an instructor.

  After class had finished, the Betas changed, and were released for lunch. As Slade exited the change room, a pixie-like girl with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail fell into step beside him.

  "That was some demonstration, Slade." She said, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

  She was dressed in the female equivalent of his uniform, a tan tunic over dark brown pants, with black boots and a black belt. A holographic nametag in the tunic identified her as Sarah Ellwood, with her number - Beta 0248912 underneath.

  "I just did what she told us to do."

  "Just? You destroyed two practice dummies! Most of us couldn't even get them to move!"

  "Sarah, it wasn't anything special. I..." Slade trailed off, embarrassed.

  "You are going to be the best one day, Slade. I can see you being an Alpha."

  "An Alpha? Please, Sarah. Don't make me out to be anything I'm not. It's our second day. I'm not some amazing officer destined to bring down the bad guy. I'm just like you, and all the other Betas in our class - learning new skills, and doing the best I can."

  She smiled at this, grabbing his hand as they headed toward the cafeteria.

  "I know you'll be an Alpha. Let's go eat."