Tempus

As I walked out to go down the stairs I looked back out of the window as snow fell lightly on the ground.
“Momma, no!” I felt the words escape my mouth. I watched a woman who looked almost identical to my mother be dragged away by men in funny coats.
“Princess Olivia, you mustn’t yell.” An older woman reprimanded me. I looked up at her, she was wearing a yellow gown, and she gave me a stern look, we were in a room with lots of books, I looked down at what I was wearing, a pink ballgown with long gloves.
“Now if you don’t get back to the ball your suitors will miss you!” the woman then smiled at me as a wooden door slip open, a boy who looked vaguely familiar walked in and smiled at the sight of me, his face contorted into a frown when he saw the older woman.
“Sir William,” she curtsied. “How may we help you?” she asked him.
“I’ve come to see the princess in private, I understand there has been a situation,” he told her but his eyes never left mine.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she said. “Everything is taken care of.”
He looked sternly at her now, “I insist on council with the princess.”

She looked to me for an answer, I swallowed hard but I nodded and her lips became a thin line but she walked out giving me one last look before she closed the doors.
“Olivia,” he said breathlessly. “What happened? Where did they take her?” He asked coming toward me. I didn’t have any answers for him. I could barely make out his face anymore.

I was looking out of the window again when Kay passed by me. “Come on.” and I snapped out of my daze as she walked down the stairs and the door opened automatically to her touch.
Taylor and Leo were talking, she was using her hands in some dramatic way and Leo was laughing. He didn’t look like the type who laughed very often, his eyes turned into slits and he threw his head back.
I felt someone touch my arm and I jumped. It was Oliver.
“Hey,” I said to him.
“Hey,” he said back softly. He looked down at me and I immediately ran a hand through my hair, stray strands of blonde escaped but I flicked them to the floor.
“Who would’ve thought we’d end up here,” he said to me with a slight smile.
He didn’t look surprised, he didn’t look happy either.
“Our parents are probably discussing it over coffee right as we speak,” I told him and he chuckled a bit.
“We will make it work,” he told me and my stomach clenched at the word we.
“Now that everybody is here we will go this way!” Taylor yelled and Leo smirked a bit as she did. They led us through the common area and down a flight of marble stairs, the walls were stone and we passed by an area closed off by a cell door.
“You will be visiting out information rooms and each of your life chips will be examined. We all get ours checked once a month but since you are now in training your chips will be checked once a week.” Leo said. “We check chips so frequently because we want an update on your progress and your health.”
“This is not a place for the week,” Taylor yelled at us as we walked to a door that Leo put his hand on and opened us into a room busy with people on their airborne keypads. People moved quickly, dragging their information in the air. In the middle of the room looked like a funnel of video footage, a worker in all blue with an eyebrow piercing walked over to the funnel and touched on a video and it became the only one present.
“Security cameras,” Leo said to me as he watched me gape.
“I didn’t know you guys had video footage or anything,” I told him.
“Every occupation has their secrets.”
I looked up at him as he moved to a woman wearing an all blue jumpsuit, she had the ‘T’ tattooed on her wrist and smiled welcomingly to us.
“Hello, I’m Eve,” she told us. “I’ll be taking you guys to test your life chips and we will go from there to help you get a jumpstart on your training!” she said cheerfully. She led us past and onto a metal ramp that went up into another level. “If you aren’t placed on the frontlines, some of you may be asked to come here and work in our Intelligence Center.”
“How is that determined?” The boy who became known as Peter asked.
“Through a series of testing, also your life chips,” she said as we reached a glass door, she put her hand on it and it opened. “Here we are.”
The room was made of mostly glass, the chairs were clear, and the walls had flowers carved into them. A woman behind a glass desk looked at us and smiled, she touched the information in front of her, it opened a file with all of our pictures.
“Ladies first!” she said excitedly. “Kay and Meredith, follow me this way!” she said as she led us down a long hallways to a door that you couldn’t see through.
“We pride ourselves in privacy when it comes to life chips!”
In the room, there were two chairs, it resembled my examining room yesterday. There was a control room beyond the mirrored wall and a man in a white coat emerged. He smiled at us, wrinkles next to his eyes and thin veiny hands, we still put our hands out to shake his.
“Welcome to Hunter Headquarters, I am Doctor Brown.” he said cheerfully.
“First one to say it,” Kay said under her breath.
He laughed lightly, as did the woman who led us here. “Ah- it can be a bit stuffy here, nonetheless you belong,” he smiled and she scowled and walked toward a chair without being told to do so.
“You must be Meredith Porter,” he told me. “I’m a fan of your father’s reports on the psyche.”
I couldn’t smile because Kay was glaring at me from behind it.
“Thank you, he works very hard,” I told him.
“I’ll leave you to it, doctor!” the woman said as she left. Doctor Brown led me to a chair and put a tube on my arm that connected with my life chip under my skin. The chip wasn’t visible and most of them were inserted immediately after birth. Some people never got chips though, their bodies rejected it. Those people were disposed of immediately.
“Don’t touch it,” he told me. “It will be just a few moments.”
He went over to Kay and did the same thing before he went into the control room.
“Thank God we weren’t put into one of the building colonies, I’m so afraid of heights,” Kay said. “My brother got placed there, he’s always been handy and stuff. But one of his friends died falling from one of the skyscrapers they were doing work in The Center.”
She started again “SPLAT! And he was dead.”
“That’s terrible,” I said thinking of the men I’ve seen do construction in my house, the men who would go on the room without any second thought.
“I mean I guess, but this can’t be much better. I heard that the builders control all of the buildings in the Tempus,” she said and looked at me. “I’ve never seen a camera around anywhere.”
I thought back to the Information Center and realized I’ve never seen one either.
“Ladies!” Doctor Brown came back. “Your information is up to date, I will see you in a week,” he told us as he unhinged us to the machines. “Best of luck with your training.” He smiled at us before we left the room.
Taylor wasn’t in the waiting room, the boys headed back as soon as we did and Kay slid right next to Leo and started talking, some giggles in between. I was mesmerized with the glass wall of flowers.
“How scary,” I laughed lightly to myself.
“What is?” Leo asked me.
I nodded toward the wall, “It’s almost too beautiful,” I told him as I couldn’t take my eyes off of it but I didn’t feel his eyes leave my face.