Chapter #12

   New panic welled inside her as she realized this. Why hadn't she recognized her own image in a mirror? What was going on? Those deep set tired eyes were hers, as well as the bruise. How long had she been here? The bruise was fresh, so not too long. Oh, if only she could remember what had happened...

   She heard herself take in a deep ragged breath. He throat was parched. She had to get out, but how? There was another iron door on the wall with the mirror. A few painful steps and she was there, examining the handle. The door was locked of course. Bluren shuddered with the thought that someone had locked her in here. That was one of her biggest fears, not being in control of herself or her safety. 

   The lock was had a small electric handprint lock. When it rejected her own print, she decided to try something else. She crossed the room again to where the medical supplies were set neatly on a table. When she got there, however, she realized they weren't medical supplies at all. Laid out on a tray, were six screwdrivers in several different sizes, screws, and a small pile of bendable scrap metal. 

   Taking the top sheet of metal, she rolled it into a thin cord. The biggest screwdriver she used to roll the metal flat, then she folded it again, and did the same thing until she had a nice hairpin-like object. She repeated this with every piece of metal, until she had a pile of little chords. Then she punched the sharp screws into two of the chords to connect them, doing the same until she had a long strand. Now for the light. The light that was shining on the bed thankfully had wheels, and she soon assembled the her cord of metal to be touching the lock, light, and also resting on the table to keep it from falling without her having to touch it. 

   Now came the tricky part. She was going to try to break the light, cause a spark, which would travel through the cord, fry the handprint sensor, and unlock the door. The chance of her plan working wasn't very high, but it was all she had. Just as she looked up, she noticed a small circle on the wall. As she came closer, it suddenly dawned on her. A camera. She was being watched. Thinking fast, she grabbed a screwdriver and smashed the camera with it. Now she had to work quickly. She smashed the light bulb with screwdriver as well, which sent sparks flying everywhere, the room smelling like smoke, and ending with a loud sizzling sound. 

  Bluren had been covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut, so when she opened them, she found herself in complete darkness. Standing up, she felt her way to the door, moving aside things she had used to fry the lock. She could feel a burning hope in her chest that it had worked. She felt the door knob, and it turned! A wave of sweet relief washed over her as she pushed the heavy door open. 

   Outside she was alone in a long hallway with fluorescent lights. There were doors like hers on each side. She thoughtlessly ran and looked in windows on the walls of the rooms. That's was it. A window on the outside, and a mirror on the inside. Most of the rooms were dark, but at the far end of the hall, there was a light. She ran, every step full of pain. She pressed her face to the cold glass, like a child looking eagerly into a bakery. 

   Inside was Tara, with her unruly orange hair fanned out on the hospital bed. She was still asleep- or unconscious -with the same light beating down on her tanned skin. The same table, with the same objects, were also there by her bedside. Was this a test? Just as she was about to call out to Tara, a sweaty hand clamped down on her mouth. 

                                                    Chapter #11

   Bluren's eyes were closed, but she could feel the scorching light behind her lids. Her hands were laying flat on some sort of table, with stiff parchment underneath. She clenched her hands into fists, crumpling the paper with that satisfying crunching sound. Bluren focused on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. She thought. What position was she in? She wasn't sitting. Slowly she opened her eyes. The light burned down on her. Just now had she realized the smell of antiseptic with a trace of mint in the air.

   And then she remembered.

Bluren's first instinct was to strike, at anything, but she held herself back and strained to remember more. She didn't open the door. She must have fainted instead. It felt as if she had to pull the thoughts out of the air and insert them back into her brain. As if they were floating slowly away from her head. Then she remembered something else.

   Tara.

   She had to get out of this room and find Tara. A thousand possibilities of things that could have happened to her ran through her mind. Did they taker her? She could be outlawed. That one sent a tingling shudder down her spine. She shakily sat up on the table she found she was laying on. Her whole body ached like she had been stung several times at every joint. Bluren looked around. She was, indeed, surrounded by medical supplies. There was a long window on the wall Bluren faced as she sat on the hospital bed.

   When she came out of the sleepy daze she was in, she realized there was someone observing her on the the other side of the window. This someone had big eyes, a matching lilac colored tunic, and was sitting on her own hospital bed. It was understandable why this someone was in a hospital room. She had handprint bruise on her arm, that looked like it came from someone big lifting her up by only her arm. The girl had old eyes, even though she could be no more the thirteen. Her eyes told of knowledge and sorrow and change, all at once, which proved to be taking its toll. The girls mousy hair was in a tight french braided rope that led all the way down her back.

   Bluren gave the girl what she hoped was a sympathetic smile. The girl smiled, too. Now it was time to go. Bluren slowly let herself down from the bed, but so did the girl. That was weird. She raised her arm in the air, and the girl did the same. The girl was copying her every move, but why? Wait. Bluren took a deep breath and looked down at her own arm. There it was, the imprinted hand bruise. That wasn't a fellow patient. It was her reflection. 

                                      Chapter #10

   That night after her first day working for the masters, Bluren's feet were heavy with exhaustion. As 700 had escorted her back to her quarters that night, she had said that The Masters would give her her first task to complete the following morning. Bluren wondered what they would assign her to do. She lay over her bed with her eyes closed, mentally turning over the events of the day. The food had both pleased her then disturbed her. The freedom to freely invent all day was wonderful. This whole place was strange, unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

   Bluren was pulled from her mind by soft knocking on her door. She jumped up to peer through the peeping latch. Through the slit in the door, she saw two strikingly blue eyes smiling intently at her. Startled, Bluren jumped and slammed the peeping latch. Her heart was pounding, and her mind was bouncing around trying to figure out who that was. Not 700, she couldn't look into the latch. Who else? The mechanical boy? No, his eyes were two different shades of blue.

   Cautiously, Bluren opened the spiraling door. A second later she was engulfed in a huge fuzzy embrace. What made it fuzzy, was the curly mop of hair that surrounded the beaming face of none other than Tara. "Tara!" Bluren exclaimed "How did you get here?" She was grinning at the sight of her friend. "Well, it took quite a bit of persuasion." Tara explained "But I finally convinced the entrance guards to let me bring you your mail in person." She dug through her lumpy mail bag, and handed her a stack of advertisements.

   "Tell me everything!" Tara said, sitting on the bed and patting the spot next to her for Bluren to sit down. "Well" Said Bluren, and continued to tell Tara about the events that took place since she got the invitation.

   "Wow.... And they just gave you all this stuff?" Tara said, gesturing to Bluren's spacious room. "I guess." Replied Bluren "But I still don't know exactly what I'm doing here. 700 said that I am to build things for the masters. I'm not sure if I have any choice in what I build for them, if I can eventually go back to the beach, or what..." They sat in silence for several seconds, before Bluren spoke again "700 also said that I have some sort of appointment this week, in the medical apartment this week." Tara suddenly jerked her head up and exclaimed "Do you have any idea what the appointment is for?" In a strained, suddenly worried, voice. Bluren was caught off guard by Taras sudden alarm. "Why, no, not really. I can't remember why I didn't ask 700." She really was racking her brain to think of the reason... It all seemed fuzzy.

   Tara gripped Bluren's wrist, and forced her to look into her eyes. "Wait. Bluren-" but she was cut off by a light tapping on the door of Bluren's room. Tara's eyes darted from the door and back, but she ignored the tapping, which grew louder and more impatient with each tap. Tara was talking fast now "Bluren, how long do you think you have been here?" What? Why was Tara asking this? Bluren had told her that she had been working for... For... A day? Three? With sudden realization, Bluren's eyes filled with tears caused by panic and confusion. The tapping was pounding now, and someone on the other side of the door was yelling something, a voice to deep to be 700's. "Tara," Bluren choked "What's going on? I can't remember how long I've been here." Tara spoke in a low whisper "Bluren, this is bad. You have been here for a little over a week, and I'm sure I'm not mistaken that that scheduled appointment in the medical apartment already happened."

   There was a huge bang, and when Bluren and Tara looked up at door a long crack had formed down the middle. "Tara, you have to get out!" Bluren yelled as the next deafening bang came splitting through the air "How?!" Tara yelled. Another crack brought down a corner of the door. Through the hole in the door, could be seen the enraged face of a front door sentinel. "Bluren Steelman." He said with frightening calm "Open this door."

                                                      Chapter 9#

   Bluren waited in her inventors office for no more than ten minutes before her projects and tools were delivered at her door. The strange part was that they were delivered by the same messenger who gave her the letter from the Masters. She knew him right away from his half-steel half-human face and hands. She hadn't known what to say, so she didn't say anything other than a small thank you. The boy had stared at her as if he recognized her, too.

   The next half hour was spent unpacking musty boxes of hard drives, her own personal tools, and other various parts of potential inventions. While rummaging through, she happened to find the small wooden chest that she had packed Bethany's project in. She carefully handled the small iron diamond and set it on the table. Also inside the box, was a leather bag, about as big as the palm of her hand. Bluren undid the drawstring and took out the tiny chrome cylinder.

   This was supposed to bring down the dome connection. What was the dome connection, and why did it need to be brought down? Bethany had said that the masters were banishing people who tried to defy their intelligence. Bluren had been personally invited to work for the masters. Was she out of danger? Bluren felt a pang of guilt about what Bethany's note had said about the masters becoming too powerful. Was she just contributing? No. She was determined not to do that. Bluren would get to the bottom of whatever was going on, and find her sister in the process.

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   At around one o'clock, Bluren was interrupted from her work mapping out a blueprint, by an announcement on the loudspeaker. "Attention Masters. The hour of eating has come!" It was the voice of the boy that called her on the stage at her initiation. She still didn't know his name. "Please join in the cafeteria for a lovely meal. Please return to your offices after eating, and thank you for your work."

   The cafeteria was almost as noisy as the experimentation facility hallway, only with voices instead of machinery. People were lined up along the food counter. There were mounds of food. Everything from breakfast cereal to meat, such as chicken. This much startled Bluren, meat animals were almost never seen and seldom eaten by people of Bluren's class. She had tasted sausage once on a Christmas, and lunch meat once when she had volunteered at a Grocery and they were throwing it out. Bluren loaded her plate with anything that looked appealing. Noodles in a cheese sauce, thickly buttered rolls, a boiling onion soup with herbs and spices, and fresh cows milk, all of which were great luxuries.

   She said her prayer, and as she started to eat, she thought of the expensive breakfast rolls she used to make each morning. She thought of the people of outside The Beach that lived without home or work. She was eating enough for maybe three of those people to have a good meal. There were people she knew that thought it a delicacy to have hot soaked oats with a sprinkle of home-ground cinnamon. Bluren suddenly felt sick. How could this all be free? Where was all this food coming from? She looked around at the others in their nice clothes and smiling faces. Did they ever wonder or think of the food they might be stealing from those outside?

   Bluren ate her milk and buttered roll, but returned the rest to the counter before heading back to her work.