The Changelings (War of the Fae: Book 1) (9 page)

I saw the crew look around at each other and then at Jared.
 
He just stared at the guy in gray.
 
Tony leaned in towards me and said, "Do we have any questions?"

I decided not to wait for anyone else to break the ice.
 
"Where is your company from and what is the purpose of this test?"
 
There.
 
That'll get the ball rolling.
 

"And your name is, Miss ... ?"

"Jayne."

"Thank you, Jayne, for your question.
 
One Eleven Group is a think tank of sorts, located overseas, mainly in France, but we have locations elsewhere as well.
 
Its purpose is to study humans ... people ... in their environments and through our tests we seek to identify those who have certain qualities so that we can better understand our possible futures."

Well that's about as clear as mud.
 
"Thank you, mister ... sorry, I don't remember your name."

"Oh, no, my apologies, Jayne, I should have introduced myself already.
 
My name is Anton Dardennes."
 
He said it with some kind of accent ... maybe French, I don't know.
 
It sounded cool though.
 
I don't think I could ever learn to say it the way he did – there was something going on with that 'r' of his.
 
It almost sounded like he said 'Doll-den'.

I noticed Finn and Becky looking over at me.
 
I caught their eyes and they both nodded slightly.
 
I guess I had done well with my questions.
 
I waited to see who else was going to get to the bottom of this mysterious test.
 

Chase leaned over to whisper in Becky's ear.
 
As soon as he sat back up straight, she raised her hand.
 

Mr. Dardennes gestured to her raised hand.
 
"Yes?"

"I ... I mean,
we
... we were wondering, where is the test location?"

"The test location is confidential.
 
We will bring you there and back, but we cannot reveal its exact location because we do not wish to compromise the validity of our test results."

Another clear as mud answer.
 
Normally when someone doesn't give me information I think I should have, I am instantly on my guard.
 
But for some reason this particular secret didn't seem like that big of a deal to me.
 
I couldn't see how it would hurt us not knowing where we were going.
 
I decided to let that one slide.
 
I looked at Tony and he gave me a slight nod, as if he agreed.
 
Maybe this mind reading stuff isn't all bad
, I thought.

"If there are no more questions, we can commence with the battery of tests.
 
For those of you not interested in participating, we ask that you leave now.
 
The next phase of this meeting will take approximately one hour.
 
There will be a written exam and then an interview."

We waited to see if anyone was going to get up, but everyone stayed.
 
I guess no one else was feeling too concerned about the lack of specific information either.
 

The door opened and another man came in, carrying a stack of papers.
 
I almost laughed when I saw him because this guy was the last person you'd expect to see being some kind of secretary.
 
He was super buff – even with a suit on you could see it.
 
His neck was thick, his hair short.
 
He looked like a combat guy dressed up in his Sunday best.
 
He spoke quietly with Mr. Dardennes for a minute before Mr. Dardennes left the room.

The buff guy walked past our tables, giving each of us a packet of papers.
 
He didn't look at anyone, keeping his eyes focused on the papers in his hand and where he was walking.
 

On the top of the papers he handed us was a basic application form, asking for our name, address, phone number and other similar stuff.
 
There were also some health questions like you'd answer on a doctor's office form.

 
Buff guy stood at the front of the room and began speaking in a deep, gravelly voice that was slightly accented.
 
He had a different type of accent than Mr. Dardennes did – possibly Slavic or Russian or something.
 
"Please fill out the forms on top.
 
After you have completed your papers, put them on the table up here.
 
When everyone has finished that part, we will begin the written test.
 
It will be timed – you will have thirty minutes to complete it."
 
He turned and left the room.

Everyone began filling out the forms.
 
I looked at Tony and gestured towards the name and address section.
 
He gave a very slight shake of his head, agreeing with me that we shouldn't put our real information down.
 
I remembered the ad said we had to be eighteen to participate.
 
Tony and I are both still seventeen.
 
I nudged him and pointed to the birthday question on the form.
 
I subtracted a year off my date to qualify myself, watching as Tony did the same.
 
For our addresses, we both used a street near our high school.
 
It was more like a fib than an outright lie – I mean, it was in the same neighborhood anyway.
 
If they asked me for identification, I decided I'd say that I didn't have any.
 
It's not so strange to not have a driver's license in Miami ... the public transportation was pretty good.
 
Hopefully, since the One Eleven guys weren't from Florida, they wouldn't know any better about West Palm.
 
Without a driver's license there, you would be stranded most of the time.
 
It's not that the city doesn't have public transportation, it's just that I normally wouldn't be caught dead on it.
 
There are some serious weirdoes on those buses, which Tony and I found out firsthand when we took the bus to the Tri-Rail station just yesterday.
 
One guy was sitting in his seat, yelling at no one in particular.
 
He seemed to be hearing an invisible person talking back, too, the way he was one minute shouting and the next minute listening to a response that neither Tony nor I could hear.
 
It seemed like a lot more time than just one day had passed since Tony and I had been on that weird little adventure.
 

Tony elbowed me out of my daydream.
 
"You done?" he asked me, standing to go up to the front with his form.

I signed at the bottom of the form, under some disclaimer I didn't bother reading.
 
"Yep.
 
Here ... "
 
I gave him my paper, and he left to deliver both of our forms to the table in front.
 
My dad is a lawyer and would have flipped his wig over me signing a form before reading the legal stuff.
 
That's part of the reason why I made it a policy not to.
 
My dad's a real dickwad, so doing things that get under his skin makes me happy.

After just a few more seconds, everyone else finished their forms and stacked them on the table in the front of the room.
 
I wondered what Jared's crew was going to use as addresses and birthdays.
 
I'd bet Becky wasn't eighteen yet ... probably not Finn either.
 
The others probably were, though.
 
They looked older, especially Jared.

Mr. Dardennes walked back into the meeting room with Buff Guy.
 
"Anyone need more time?" Mr. Dardennes asked, looking around.
 
"Good, then let's begin with the timed test."
 
He picked up the forms we had just completed from the table and handed them to his assistant, who turned and left the room.

"Please break the seal on your packet.
 
You will find an answer sheet under the first page.
 
Please take it out and fill in your names at the top.
 
Don't bother filling out the other information."
 
He waited two minutes while we did that.
 
I felt like I was getting ready to take the pre-S.A.T. test in school again.

"This test is timed.
 
You will have thirty minutes to complete it.
 
Please read the instructions carefully before answering the questions.
 
Good luck ... you may now begin."

I turned the page on the test to reach the first question.
 
'How many hours per day do you sleep?'
 
Hmmm.
 
That's a tough one.
 
It depends on whether there's anything interesting going on.
 
I marked an answer and moved on.
 

'Do you ever have a sense of déjà vu?'
 
Of course, doesn't everyone?
 
Next question ...
'Do you ever hear voices telling you to do things?'
 
Oh, come on ... who's going to say yes to that?
 
Next ...
'If you were going to take a vacation of your choice, would you go to: (a) the mountains, (b) the plains, (c) the desert, (d) the ocean
.
 

Hmmm.
 
That one was harder.
 
Definitely 'no' for the desert and ocean options; I live in Florida because I'm forced to, not because it's my choice.
 
Maybe if I lived somewhere else, I'd pick '(d) ocean', but living in Florida, the ocean was no big deal to me.
 
I chose '(a) Mountains'.
 
I loved the mountains, especially the forest part.
 
I'd only gone to the mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, but they were magically awesome.
 
It was a long time ago, but I still remembered it fondly.
 
I had to shake my head to get it back into the test.

The next section was similar to one I'd seen in school before.
 
There were a series of shapes and I had to pick the next shape in the sequence.
 
I was good at those.

The last section was weird as hell.
 
I'd never seen anything like it before.
 
The instructions said specifically that we were not to guess answers, and each question had the same letter (d) response:
 
'I don't know.'

I looked over at Tony who was already on that section.
 
He had a lost look on his face, so I knew he was thinking the same thing as me.
 
The first question was
'What color are Mr. Dardennes' eyes?'
 
(c) Gray, but what the ... ?
 
The next question was
'What is the weather outside like right now?'
 

We were in a windowless room on the inside of a hotel, on the bottom floor.
 
Chances are it was sunny outside – it was Miami after all.
 
But what the heck kind of question was that?
 
The instructions said I wasn't supposed to guess, so I was getting ready to answer with letter (d), but then I thought about it for a second, looking over my answer choices: (a) It is sunny and dry; (b) It is rainy and warm; (c) It is snowing; (d) I don't know.
 
Snowing
?
 
Ha.
 
That's funny.
 
I was thinking about marking it just for the hell of it, but I stopped, reminding myself that we really needed this money.
 
This wasn't school where I would mark '(c)' without thinking about it.
 
Memories of the hard concrete floor of the warehouse trickled through my mind.

I inhaled deeply, thinking about the outside of the hotel.
 
As I inhaled, I smelled something funny
.
 
What is that smell?
 
I'd smelled it before, I know I had.
 
I couldn't put my finger on it though.
 
Oh well, no time to ponder.
 
I wanted to get the test over with.
 
I marked (d) on the weather question.
 
It felt wrong, but I was running out of time.

I continued taking the strange test, answering more strange questions.
 
The last one was my favorite though.
 
It wasn't a multiple choice; it was an essay question with ten blank lines under it.
 
The question was:
 
'If you could be a superhero, which one would you be and why?
 
Fill in the lines below with your answer.'

Superhero?
 
Good guy or bad guy?
 
Did I have to stick to female superheroes or could I pick a male one?
 
So far, their instructions had been pretty specific.
 
I decided there were no limits since they didn't give any.
 
I looked at the clock; I had five minutes left.
 
I gazed around the room and saw that some people had already started filling out their answer and some still hadn't gotten there yet.
 
Tony was already done.
 
He was always faster than me on tests.

My favorite superheroes were of the X-Men variety.
 
I loved the one with wings, but only because I'd always wondered what it would be like to fly.
 
I'm not sure that having wings would be very useful or practical in reality, so I scratched that one off my mental list.
 
The laser vision thing would be cool – until you accidentally lasered your house or your best friend.
 
I thought about several other superpowers and it seemed like most of them had super shitty side effects that I would never want to have to deal with.
 
What powers would I like?
 
Hmmmm
...
 
I liked the ability to control the minds of others; that would be cool.
 
I think I would like to see through things, like with x-ray vision.
 
Superhuman strength would come in handy, no matter where I was.
 
The problem is, none of these powers added up to one particular superhero, man or woman.
 
Did Superman have x-ray vision?
 
I couldn't remember.
 
He was kind of old-school anyway, plus he had to wear tights and a cape.
 
I sure wasn't going to be any superhero wearing tights or some trampy negligee like Wonderwoman did.
 
Who made those costumes anyway?
 
They were totally impractical for fighting crime.