Transformation: The Clandestine Saga Book 1 (18 page)

              “Let’s get her back to her apartment,” Aaron said to Jamie.

              “Do you need any help?” Christian asked, feeling as if this was his fault.

              “I think we can manage,” Jamie replied.

              Cadence was aware that they were lifting her and suddenly snapped back to reality. “I’m okay,” she said struggling to be put down. With her feet on the ground and Aaron’s arm still wrapped around her waist, she steadied herself on their shoulders for just a moment to get her balance before fully opening her eyes. Her vision looked completely clear, just as it had when she came in. The voices and videos were gone, much to her relief, and she was beginning to regain her sense of self.

              “Are you sure you’re okay?  Can you walk?” Aaron asked after giving her a moment.

              “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.” She took her coat from him, and Jamie helped her slide it on.  “Thank you Christian. I hope you know that this wasn’t your fault. Clearly, this has something to do with my brain,” she stated.

              “Well, if there’s anything I can do, please come back in, and I’ll check it, alright?”

              She nodded and started to walk toward the door.  She had Jamie on one side and Aaron on the other, but she knew she would be just fine. “Guess I don’t need those eye drops then, if you healed me,” she said to Jamie.

              “No, I don’t think so,” he said, his arms out and on the ready in case she should happen to get dizzy.

              “I really am fine, I promise,” she said and they both relaxed a little bit.

              Upon reaching the apartment building, Jamie rode the elevator up with them to the fourth floor, but that’s where his apartment was and Cadence insisted that he get off there. She really was fine so long as she didn’t accidentally turn her IAC back on before she felt confident in her ability to control it.

              Once he was out of the elevator, she wrapped her arms around Aaron’s waist and just let him hold her. It had been a long day, and she really didn’t care at this point what was appropriate and what wasn’t.

              When they reached their floor, he took her hand and led her over to her door. “Why don’t you let me come in for a few minutes and make sure you’re alright?” he asked.

              She hesitated only because she knew he had to leave soon, and she was afraid that, once he came inside, she would be reluctant to let him go. But she agreed, and he took her key and let her into the apartment. 

              Cadence dropped onto the end of the sofa, sinking into the cushion.  She finally felt like she could relax and completely let the terrifying sensation of not being able to control her own brain release.

              “Can I get you anything?” Aaron asked.

              She patted the couch next to her, indicating that she wanted him to sit down, which he did, and she rested her head on his shoulder.  She didn’t say anything for a moment, just rested, trying to reorganize her thoughts. She could feel his hand running through her hair and was aware of how nice it felt.  She seemed very conscious of just how good he smelled as well. It was as if her senses were trying to reclaim their own territory. “Thank you for coming with me,” she said quietly into his neck.

              Aaron was very mindful of the warmth of her breath on his neck, her lips hovering just beyond his flesh.  “You’re welcome,” he said just above a whisper.

              “If you hadn’t been there . . .”

              “Mmm, but I was. That’s all that matters.”

              She was starting to drift off to sleep, the adrenaline leaving her bloodstream causing her to suddenly become very drowsy.

              “Cadence?” he asked. He felt her eyelids flutter against him and knew she was almost asleep.  “Do you want me to carry you to your bed?”

              She mumbled something and he took it to be a yes.  He carefully scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. She hadn’t even taken off her coat so he carefully pulled that off of her, removed her boots, and slid her between the covers. She opened her eyes a few times, but she didn’t say anything and he knew she was mentally and physically exhausted.

              He sat down next to her on the bed and gently brushed the hair away from her face.  “I’m going to go, okay?”

              “Okay,” she whispered without opening her eyes.

              “Sweet dreams,” he said softly kissing the top of her head. As much as he wanted to stay with her, he had a Rogue Vampire to catch.

Chapter Ten

              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. She was feeling just fine and 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.  Meagan had been there for almost six weeks and she was preparing for her first Observation Hunt the next night.  Aaron thought 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 Cadence had never sparred with anyone before, and Meagan had been doing so almost daily for the last several weeks.

              The type of sparing these ladies would be performing did not involve boxing gloves, however. It involved full-on hand-to-hand combat.  Aaron had already seen Cadence in action and was aware that she knew how to trust her instincts. With Meagan, they weren’t quite sure. The opponents she had practiced against previously were all either newbies or Guardians sent back for remediation. Now, with Cadence, they would be able to tell if she were anywhere near ready for combat with an actual Vampire.

              Aaron gave Cadence fairly general directions. “Pretend she’s a Vampire. Act as if you are trying kill her, but don’t really hurt her. Understand?”

              She had understood. Meagan and Shane did have one small advantage, however, they were able to communicate via IAC whereas Cadence had not attempted to turn hers back on yet.  Nevertheless, Aaron was confident in her ability to defeat Meagan with minimal coaching from him.

              The first round was not even close.  Meagan was nowhere near as fast as Cadence was. Cadence had her pinned in less than ten seconds.  The second round it took her a bit longer but only because Cadence decided to let Meagan move first.  After that, the trainers tried various tactics to make it more even and to hinder Cadence, such as only allowing her to use one arm or tying a blindfold around her eyes. Despite all of these obstructions, Cadence was still successful every single time.

              And yet Aaron and Shane were also very impressed with what Meagan showed them in the ring. For an average Hunter, she was doing great against a formidable opponent. Time and again they watched her make moves that would have most like been effective if Cadence hadn’t been quite so fast or quite so agile.

              After a few hours in the ring, Aaron left Cadence to work on the drills they had covered the day before. He let her know that he would be coming by that evening to work on her IAC.  As always, he had an insurmountable amount of work to do but he trusted her to do the exercises she was told to complete and do them to the best of her ability.  She had had only one question.  “When do I get to learn how to use the guns?”

“Tomorrow,” Aaron had replied, amused at her enthusiasm.

Cadence stayed at the gym most of the afternoon.  She was able to get in several reps of the exercises she had learned the day before, and since her endurance seemed to last a lot longer than it used to, she continued to work out. At one point, Jamie came in while she was on the treadmill and checked on her. He was relieved to see she had fully recovered from the incident with the IAC, and he gave her a few pointers for improving her endurance. Cadence was glad things were not as awkward as they had been the night before.  She really cared about Jamie, even if she wasn’t interested in dating him, and hated to think he might have his feelings hurt because of something she did.

              Overall, Cadence felt like it was an extremely productive day. By the time Aaron knocked on her door at 8:30, she had showered, eaten dinner, and taken a few minutes to relax with her copy of
Cosmo
.

              “Hey,” she said as she opened the door. He was dressed in his hunting attire, all black, so she knew he was on his way out.

              “Hi, how was the rest of your day?”  he asked as he entered the apartment.

              “Great! How was yours?” She offered him a seat on the couch and sat down next to him.

              “Busy,” he replied, honestly. “And not over yet.  I’m about to catch a flight to Denver in just a bit so I can’t stay too long,” he explained.

              “What’s going on there?” she asked out of curiosity.

              “It’s a long story,” he began, “But basically it’s a Rogue attempting to track down a specific Hunter and destroy him. Sort of like your situation, only this Rogue is angry because the Hunter killed his Vampirling and he believes it was without cause.”

              “Sounds interesting,” Cadence replied. 

              “Yeah, we think we have a location on him, but they called me in to help track him because he keeps slipping away. They think it’s poor coordination on the part of the Hunters. Anyway, we have got to get your IAC up and running so you know what the hell is going on.”

              “Okay,” Cadence said hesitantly.  As much as she wanted to be on the same wavelength as everyone else, she was frightened to try the implant again. 

              “Are you ready?” he asked.

              “Yes,” she said though she wasn’t sure if that was truly the case.

              “Good, alright. So the first thing we are going to do is activate just my feed through your IAC. Okay, so just like you did last night when you went to turn it off, you’re just going to concentrate on giving the command that I tell you, and then that will activate the chip. Okay? “ She closed her eyes, thinking that might help, and nodded her head. She was ready.  “Alright, so the first command is “
IAC Aaron On
.’”

              Cadence took a deep breath and mentally repeated those words.
“IAC Aaron On.”

             
There was a small glitch at first, like when an older model television set has to warm up, but then suddenly, there he was--in her brain. When her eyes were closed, she could simply see a star in the corner of her right eye with a small “A” next to it.

              “
You did it!”

             
“Did you get that message I just sent you?” he asked.

              “Yes,” she replied. Next to the A, his message popped up, but it wasn’t as if she had to read it. The words were being read to her in his voice. It was like he had implanted his voice directly into her brain.

              “Good, now I’ll teach you the commands to respond. Any time you want to talk to anyone else, whether it’s me, Eliza, Meagan, whoever you think their name first, the message and then send.  Any time you think the word send, you can be sure a message is going to that person unless you’re in
Full Off
or
Full Pause
mode, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Alright? So, think of something you might want to tell me and see if you can send it.”

              “Will I get some sort of opportunity to check it before I hit send? Like, can I see it?”

              “Yes, you can. We don’t usually have time to check every message we send since we send so many messages a day. It becomes second nature. But you can actually read it first if you want.  The box where your messages appear is right above my line. Regardless of who else you have open, I’ll always be in the same place. My messages will always be louder and faster than anyone else’s because mine have top priority.”

              “Alright, here goes.” She wanted to think of something clever to say, but since she was also limited on time, she simply said:

“I beat your Hill record by 11 seconds.”

“I’m aware. Congratulations.

“How does it feel to know you got beat by a girl?

              “Alright,” he said, “moving right along . . .”

              She laughed aloud and concluded that this 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.”

              “Why not?” Cadence asked.

              “I have no idea, but I think it has something to do with whatever activated in your brain last night.  So, any time you’re on
Full Pause
you can see who is trying to contact you, but they can’t actually access you until you allow them in by ending the
Pause
or by activating them one at a time. So let’s try putting it on
Full Pause
first.

“IAC Full Pause”

“Good,” he said aloud, seeing her flip from
On
to
Pause
on his IAC.  Then she saw his name light up in her eye and she knew he was trying to contact her.  “See that? Just give it the same command as you did before to turn my feed on, okay?

“IAC Aaron On”

“Nice work! You’re a fast learner.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Ah, extra credit,” he laughed. “You can also use the
Resume
command there instead of
On
to come out of a
Pause
but it really makes no difference. So
Pause
is good if you’re going to sleep, or the bathroom, or something where you don’t want others accessing your visuals.”

“Got it.”

“So if you want to see what someone else is seeing, you have to turn them on first and then just say their name and
Add Visuals
. That’s it. And you get full audio with that, too, like a video camera. So, you’ve got me on and there you go.”

Suddenly, Cadence’s field off vision was fragmented. Her left eye stayed completely as it was before, but now on the top half of her right eye, she was seeing what Aaron was looking at, which was even more odd since it was herself. “Woe!” she said, “That’s crazy!”

“It does take some getting used to. But you’ve got time to practice, and you’ll catch on.  So, to turn it off, it’s just the reverse.”

“If I don’t turn it off, can you force me off?”

“Yes, and in fact I had to allow you in. Now, with everyone else, I can over-ride his or her decision to keep someone out. So, if we’re out on a hunt and you need to access Elliott but he’s being an ass and won’t let you on, I can see that denial pop up and turn it on for you. “

Even as he was speaking, he was sending her a request to access her visuals so she could see what it looked like.  “Do you see that?” he asked.

“Yes, what’s the command?”

“You can speak while we’re sitting right next to each other, you know.”

“But this is more fun.”

“Visuals Aaron Allow”

The request had been illuminated and once the access was allowed, it faded into the background so she could see who had access but it wasn’t drawing her attention away from the visuals themselves.

“Cadence, you haven’t turned my visuals off yet.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t make me do it for you. You get a nasty error signal.”

“Fine, but how am I going to practice this visual thingy if I can’t see what anyone else is doing?”

“I just want to see that you can give the command. I’ll let you have access again if you want it,” he said. She turned it off. “Thank you. One of the easiest ways to make sure you’re covered on a hunt is to turn on everyone’s and then just turn off the ones you don’t need. So, if you went out with ten members of the team, you could just turn the entire team on and then start turning the people who aren’t present off. It’s the best bet for making sure you don’t miss anyone.”

“What’s the command for that?

“Make sure you’re ready for it because it’s going to be a lot of chatter, just like last night.”

“Okay, I’m ready.”

IAC Full On

Cadence wasn’t sure but she may have sent him a few expletives. When the full team came on, it was unbelievably noisy. Her right eye was flooded with teeny tiny pictures as the other members of the team allowed her access to their visuals. “Good Lord!” she said as she soon had over thirty open screens on her right eye.

“I know it’s a lot. There are a couple of things you can do to make it easier, if you need to have everyone open. You won’t need to very often. Unfortunately, that’s what I’m looking at most of the time.”

“Really? How do you even function?”

“It took a lot of practice. First of all, if you put on these glasses, it will automatically split the field into your left eye as well, leaving you a window at the top to see what is in front of you. However, you get used to looking through everyone else’s visuals at your own, and your brain really is wired to be able to do so after a bit of practice.”
              Cadence slid the glasses on. It took her left eye a moment to adjust. “Unbelievable. I’m not sure that’s any better,” she admitted. “What else can I do?”