Destination Unknown (Lumen Academy Book 1) Read online

  Destination Unknown

  Lumen Academy Book One

  Penelope Wright

  Copyright © 2020 by Penelope Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieved system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to print in a magazine, newspaper, or blog post.

  Cover design by Nicole Conway

  Created with Vellum

  For my Family

  Contents

  1. Heidi

  2. Heidi

  3. The Studio

  4. Heidi

  5. The Studio

  6. Marston

  7. The Studio

  8. Heidi

  9. Marston

  10. The Studio

  11. Heidi

  12. The Studio

  13. Heidi

  14. Heidi

  15. Marston

  16. Heidi

  17. Marston

  18. Heidi

  19. The Studio

  20. Heidi

  21. Marston

  22. Heidi

  23. Heidi

  Sneak Peek of Time Bomb - Book 1 in The Collapse Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Penelope Wright

  1

  Heidi

  I had to take three different buses to get here, but I’ve finally arrived at the Mediterranean restaurant John suggested, a bit rumpled but nothing insurmountable. I straighten my charcoal gray pencil skirt and tuck in my best gray blouse. I know I shouldn’t be frustrated by the length of my commute, I should be grateful – at least I live in a city that still has public transportation at all. I’m glad I’m not important enough to merit a Minder, or I could really be in trouble for my negative thoughts.

  I pull open the door and step through into a cozy little enclave that smells like spices I’ve never tried. I inhale deeply. I can’t even imagine how long it must have taken John to save up the chits to afford to eat out at all, let alone at a place like this. Even though he’s only one caste above me, we’re from two different worlds. But somehow, he still loves me.

  The hostess comes around the corner, her tight pants whispering softly as she walks. She’s wearing a blue blouse, and I swallow involuntarily. As a blue, she’s three degrees of separation – or less – from one of The Gifted. I shudder inwardly. This is so weird, being waited on by someone who is clearly my superior, and everyone knows it. My gray top automatically identifies me as a rebel. Of course I’m not a rebel. But a hundred years ago, my great-great-grandparents actively fought against the ascension of the Lumens. I’ll never stop paying the price for their treachery.

  But I’m here to meet John, who will be dressed in tan, so I have to assume it’ll be okay. Tan indicates John’s ancestors were neutral; they refused to choose sides. I wish my forebears had been a little more bland, like John’s. But there’s nothing to be done about it now. I smooth the sides of my gray tunic, which, despite its drabness, fails to hide my curves. I’m under no illusion that my body is what attracted John’s eye in the first place. But I’m not one of those gray caste girls whose body is available for the right amount of chits, so I know that while my body might be what caught John’s attention, it’s my mind that kept it. It’s me he fell in love with.

  The hostess in blue smiles broadly, like she’s not at all put out by my presence, and as I return her grin, I remind myself that not everybody is as severe about the caste system as the government thinks they should be. “I’m meeting somebody?” I say, lifting the last word like a question. “My boyfriend should be here already. Do you have anyone waiting for someone?”

  The young woman glances down at her crisp blue shirt and undoes a button, revealing an impressive couple of inches of cleavage. My gray tunic has no buttons, but if it did, I would win this contest. It doesn’t matter, though. Why would I even try to compete with a blue? “Yes, right this way,” she says, motioning for me to follow her. She leads me toward the back of the restaurant, where John sits at a table with his chin on his hand, his blond hair falling in a center part, long bangs like drapes on either side of his forehead. When he notices me coming, he smiles, not the “come here” grin I usually get, but something different. A little nervous, a little excited. His leg starts bouncing up and down, his foot literally leaving the floor, tapping out a staccato rhythm on the laminate. He’s too jumpy to stand up and pull out my chair when I reach the table, and anyway, even though we’re dating, it would be weird for a tan to act that way with a gray in public, so I pull my own chair out and slide gracefully into my seat.

  The hostess pours my water and I take the menu she hands me. John is so jumpy. I’ve never seen him this wound up, not even the time he thought about trying to sneak me into his living quarters. My heart rams itself into my throat, then drops to my feet, then goes back up again. Is this it? It is, isn’t it? John’s twenty, and I’ll be eighteen in three months, old enough to get married. Is this a celebration? Did he get permission to propose a union with me? If we marry, I’ll leave my rebel ancestors in the past. No one would ever know, by looking at me, that I came from dissident stock. I’d dress in tan and receive a much less mind-numbing work assignment than winding fiberglass bobbins at the factory.

  My breathing speeds up and my lips part. I’m excited but also oddly terrified. I can’t believe this is happening. My mother will be so proud. Maybe she can move back to the sector if the government gives us a spacious enough housing allotment.

  John takes a deep breath and puts his forearms on the table, then leans toward me.

  My heart flips faster than a kursaal dealer flipping over cards and I start blinking in double time.

  “Ow!” John snaps, then he leans over and expels a quick puff of air. “Stupid tealight candles.”

  The offending flame is snuffed out, a tiny curl of black smoke coiling up from the withered wick. I stare at it for a second, then focus on John again when he clears his throat. “Heidi?”

  The next breath I take feels like four quick little breaths in a row. “Yes?”

  “We need to talk.”

  I don’t exhale. I hold the breath I just took, as well as the word that hovers on the edge of my lips. Finally, I choke back the “Yes!” I’d queued up and replace it with a two-word sentence. “I’m sorry?” I finally say stupidly.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” John says. He clasps his hands loosely in front of himself on the tabletop and I notice that his leg has stopped shaking.

  “I… Um… We don’t have to eat here. I don’t even know if I like this kind of food. I passed a Mexican place a couple of blocks back on the bus.” I’m babbling now, anything to fill the airspace around us so that John can’t say another word. I’m filibustering our conversation, listing all the various culinary alternatives when John grabs my wrist and squeezes.

  “I’m not talking about the food.” He releases my wrist and folds his hands together on top of the tablecloth.

  “I know,” I mumble, and I bite my lip. “John…” I reach out to try to take his hands, but he snatches them away, pushing the back of my hand into the still-hot tealight. Melted wax sloshes over the metal holder, coating my pinkie, and I yelp.

  “Oh dammit.” He grabs his linen napkin off the table, dips it in my water, and then thrusts it at me, but the wax cooled almost instantly and the only thing really burnt is my pride. John picks at the spilled wax on the table, smearing it around more than anything.

  “It’s just that,
” he says as he ruins the tablecloth, “I don’t feel like this is really going anywhere. I mean, you know it can’t.”

  My stomach convulses and I press my fist hard into the top of my right thigh. “You told me you loved me. For the last month, you’ve said that. And I love you too.”

  “I’m not sure either of us knows what love is, Heidi.”

  “Excuse me? Don’t tell me how I feel, John.”

  “Okay then,” he says, his voice losing sympathy and gaining strength. “Then I didn’t know what love was. I’m not in love with you. I know that now.”

  “And you learned that when? Yesterday?”

  John huffs a puff of air like he does when he’s annoyed. “Don’t be like that, Heidi.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sarcastic.”

  “What am I supposed to be like?”

  “I don’t know. This isn’t going the way I planned it.”

  He planned this? Of course he did, him and his stupid engineering job track, he plans everything. He probably figured I wouldn’t make a scene in a restaurant.

  And he’s basically right. My words are all whispers, forced through gritted teeth. Other patrons might even think I’m smiling at him. I glance around the room, and no one’s paying us any special attention, no more than they would normally at the sight of a tan and a gray sitting at a table together. So I’m not making a spectacle of myself. Only the hostess watches me from her desk station, probably wondering if she needs to bring me a new glass of water or a fresh napkin after the wax incident.

  “John, we’ve both been under a lot of stress with quarter change and new job assignments and everything. I know I haven’t been the world’s best girlfriend these last few days. I should have been more attentive. I should have snuck into your living quarters like you wanted me to, but I’m not a rebel, not like my ancestors were. I was afraid. And I thought we were stronger than that. And John, I believe we are stronger than that,” I say firmly, a new steel sliver of resolve making its way into my voice. “I’ll fight for us.”

  John’s face slides through a kaleidoscope of expressions, finally settling on a mixture of embarrassment and pride, and he shakes his head. “It’s not our job assignments or our castes, or the fact that you wouldn’t enter my quarters.” Now his eyes harden with resolve and truth. “There’s someone else. Her name is Pilar. She started working out in the gym in my dormitory while hers is in retrofit.”

  My elbow jerks spasmodically and my knife and fork clatter to the floor. A passing server scoops them up without breaking his stride. “I don’t want to know where you met her,” I say tightly.

  Sitting there with the white linen tablecloth brushing my knees, the trifold menu lying forgotten in front of me, I soar through the first two stages of grief, denial and anger, and move straight into bargaining. I’m not going to let John give up on us that easily.

  I laugh, trying to make it sound cavalier, understanding, and not at all worried. “So your head got turned by a pretty girl. It’s a story that’s launched a thousand ships, and you don’t need to feel bad about it. Guys look at other women. It’s totally normal.”

  John tries but fails to keep a smug, self-satisfied look from crossing his features. “I did more than look, Heidi.”

  My face feels like John must have just tossed the rest of his ice water directly in it. My cheeks go cold and tears spill out of my eyes.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t do that,” he says, his voice slightly panicked. He hates it when I cry and I try hard not to do it around him.

  Blinded by tears, I leap from my chair, knocking it over. I race toward the exit and yank on the door, but it won’t budge.

  “It’s a push,” the hostess says behind me, and I shove it hard, step across the threshold, and snap off the right heel of the gorgeous turquoise stilettos I found at a secondhand store. I may have to dress in gray clothing, but there are no rules about what I’m allowed to put on my feet. I bought these especially for tonight. They cost me a fortune in chits I never should have spent. I try to kick my broken shoe off, but the strappy tie around my ankle prevents that, so I hobble along, limping and dragging the shoe after me like an obstinate pet on a short leash.

  A few yards away from the restaurant, I trip over a coil of some sort of metal and go down hard. I struggle back up and when I put weight on my bare foot, I yelp in pain and my knee buckles. I hop as far as I can, putting distance between myself and the restaurant. The heel on my other shoe snaps off.

  A block away, I flop onto a bench in a bus shelter and pick at the knots securing my shoes to my ankles until I’m able to free myself of them. Then I sit there with my ruined shoes in my lap, shivering, even though it isn’t cold out at all.

  Go back, my mind whispers. Don’t let him walk away from what you have. He had a temporary bout of insanity and screwed up. So what? Nobody’s perfect. At least he didn’t lie to me. We can rebuild from this, establish a new kind of trust. Maybe even come out stronger on the other end. If I let John get away, I may never get another chance to climb out of my station.

  After five minutes, my breathing is calm. I try to stand up, but my right foot howls at me. As delicately as I can while wearing a skirt, I cross my right leg over my left knee and examine the bottom of my foot. Oh, no. A sliver of the metal I tripped over protrudes from the ball of my foot. I grab a hold of the exposed tip, and, wincing, I pull. About an inch slides painfully out of my foot, then the nub breaks off. I’ll need to work the rest out with tweezers.

  I stand up and test my weight on my foot. It still hurts, but the pain is bearable. I hook my strappy, ruined heels in my fingers and walk gingerly back to the restaurant. I catch a glimpse of myself in the front window. My hair is disheveled and my legs are dirty, but I have a determined expression on my face. I am not going to let John torpedo what we had over some fleeting fascination with a girl at the gym.

  I pull on the door and step inside, barefoot but hopeful. And then I see them. That young woman, the hostess in blue who seated me, has taken over my chair. I stare at the back of her head, her long, mahogany hair cascading in waves down her back. Her right hand reaches for my water glass, which is full now. She takes a sip. A waiter approaches. She puts her hand on his arm, turns her head, and speaks to him with a flirtatious twinkle in the one eye I can see.

  The waiter says something and she leans forward and laughs, and I can see John’s face as well. He’s laughing too. All three of them are. John reaches across the table and tugs playfully on a lock of her hair. “Pay attention to me,” his expression says, and she must turn back to him with a dazzling smile and extra cleavage on full display because his eyes go round and glassy.

  It’s Pilar. It has to be. Here I thought I’d be climbing out of my gray caste, when it’s John who’ll soon be dressing in blue if he plays his cards right. Pilar picks up my menu, and, I assume, orders what I was planning to have. I mean why not? She’s taken everything else that belonged to me.

  2

  Heidi

  I know I go to my work assignment every day, where from 0500 to 1730 hours I operate machinery to coil fiberglass thread on bobbins. For three days I perform my work in a haze, clock out, and then I guess I must trudge to my dormitory at the end of each shift, because I fall face-first into bed and the next thing I know, it’s daytime and I’m back at work. My new coworker, Clarissa, has been really nice, making sure I take a lunch tray every day, which I appreciate because I wouldn’t eat otherwise.

  My whole life has fallen apart. I thought John was going to propose. Lift me out of my gray obscurity. It happens from time to time in our society, and I’d foolishly though it was going to happen to me. John loved me. He told me he did.

  When I clock out at the end of my twelve-hour shift on the fourth day post-breakup, Clarissa is waiting at the time clock, her thin, freckled arms crossed, one skinny hip cocked. “What are you doing tonight?”

  I stare dully at her drab gray blouse, the same ugly color as mine. “Going b
ack to the dorm and sleeping.”

  “Who broke your heart?” she asks, lifting a strawberry blonde eyebrow.

  “Is it that obvious?” I turn my face up to the fluorescent lights and squint so that if my eyes tear up, I’ll be able to blame it on that.

  “Blatantly,” she says mildly. “Want to go somewhere with me instead?”

  I eye her up and down. She’s new to this job assignment; I barely know her. Of course, with job changes often coming once a quarter and a lot of us grays out there, I suppose you could say I barely know anyone. “Where?” I ask, somewhat surprised that’s the word that popped out of my mouth instead of a flat “no.”

  “The south end of the sector. My floor supervisor gave me two passes to this meditation center.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. A job well done? I wasn’t going to question it. I just took the passes and ran before he could change his mind and give them to a more devoted worker.”

  Clarissa’s smile is so charming that something happens that is completely out of character for me. I say yes.

  “Is this the place?” I stop outside the door in the strip mall marked The Healing Well and try to peer through the dingy window, but the glare from the late afternoon sun is overwhelming. Everything gives me a headache these days.

  Clarissa squints at the storefront and blows a sweaty blonde curl out of her eyes. “It’s the right address. Kind of a letdown, huh? Sorry.”