Whisper (Whisper #1)(33)
“It takes some getting used to,” Falon says, seeing my pallid expression. “We’ve reinforced the walls to compensate for the biometric pressure this far below sea level, but you’ll need a moment to acclimatize. Even with the air filtration system in place.”
I’m already beginning to feel better, at least physically. Psychologically, I’m a wreck.
“We’re almost there,” Falon says.
He leads the way down a now completely black-walled hallway. The overhead fluorescent lights cast eerie shadows on our path, and while I’m no fan of the unrelenting whitewashed misery up on the higher levels, this strange blackness is disconcerting.
We soon reach the end of the hallway, and Falon raises a palm to rest it against the wall. An unseen sensor scans his hand again, and the wall slides open to reveal yet another secret doorway. He moves into the room beyond and beckons me to follow. I step forward and …
And I gape. It’s all I can do not to gasp out loud.
We’re standing at the entrance to a room so huge that thick stone pillars are in place to keep the tons of rock above us from caving in. The space is easily the size of a football field, but that’s not what has caused my stunned reaction.
It’s the people.
They’re everywhere. Clustered in twos, threes, fours and more. It’s clear this is some kind of training room, like a giant underground gymnasium. The space is bright and well lit, with a combination of luminous white and blue lights bouncing off the walls and pillars. It’s like something out of a science fiction movie. But that might also be because of the specific kind of training these people are doing.
They’re … Speaking.
They’re saying things, and things are happening.
Their words are creating responses.
And just like when Ward guided me into making the people on Market Street forget the incident, I can see light flowing from people all around the room.
A girl to my left yells out, “Hover!” and light bursts out of her, hitting the chest of a man twice her age, three times her size. I recognize him — he was one of my rotating evaluators before Ward, poking and prodding me for a response I never yielded. Despite his bulk, the moment her word … touches him, his body rises from the ground and he begins to levitate.
The man barks out a laugh and crosses his legs and arms, assuming the comical pose of a genie. His eyes glint with amusement, and he calls back, “Hiccups!”
The girl makes a groaning sound, but it’s cut off when his light reaches her, swallowed by the hiccups she can’t stop from bubbling up from inside her.
I don’t know what I feel as I watch this play out before me. Wonder, mostly, and disbelief. Hope, too, at my sudden knowledge: I am not alone.
I also feel the sting of resentment. For over two and a half years I’ve been locked away, with no idea there were other Speakers in the hidden depths of Lengard. These people … my people …
How did I not know they were here?
… Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Heart pounding, I turn to look at the next group demanding my attention, a set of six people around my age, each person holding what appears to be an imaginary gun. Three of them wear green armbands, three wear blue and all of them are running, ducking, hiding from what I understand to be the opposing teams. They use the pillars, they use other people, but mostly they use the invisible weapons in their hands.
“Bang!” one of the green-banded girls cries out, aiming around a pillar at one of the blue-banded boys.
The boy is caught by surprise, and he lets out a grunt as the light that poured from the invisible gun touches his stomach. I rock backward in amazement when a bright splatter of green paint appears across the front of his T-shirt.
In response, he raises his hands — or, rather, his “weapon” — and takes aim back at her, calling out, “Bang, bang!”
Two wisps of light burst forth, and the green-banded girl ducks behind the pillar just in time for them to soar right into the path of a blue-banded Asian girl. The new girl jerks her shoulder at the impact of the light and stumbles backward as splashes of blue paint burst across her collarbone and her upper thigh. Two shots, two points of contact.
“Hey! I’m on your team, you ass!” she cries out.
The guy raises his hands in the air, one still gripping what looks like nothing. “My bad, Keeda! I didn’t see you!”
“Yeah, yeah, because I’m invisible, right?” The girl — Keeda — rolls her eyes and swipes at her paint-splattered clothes, only smearing the color further. Meanwhile, the green-banded girl has already taken off and is now engaged in an imaginary-gun battle with another blue-banded opponent farther into the room.
“I just used the last of my ammo on you,” the boy says, shaking the empty air between his hands as if listening for something. “I need to go get another infusion if I want to stay in the game. Cover me?”
Keeda nods and runs off with him, shooting green-banded opponents as they go along, disappearing deeper into the training room.
I don’t know what I’m more surprised about: people using intangible weapons for a paintball skirmish match and discharging them with words, or Keeda and the other blue-banded boy saying normal sentences to each other among the rest and those words having no consequences. If I had repeated just two of Keeda’s words — “I’m invisible” — no one would have ever seen me again. And I don’t even want to think about the result that “you ass” could have produced. So how …