We didn't take the car as I'd expected. Instead, we walked into Vianney, the town, and went down into the one subway station they had. "How can we get to Manhattan from the subway? We're on an island."
He smiled, a bit of boyish charm shining through the soldier. "You'll see. It's pretty incredible."
Incredible was an understatement.
We didn't have subways in Montana, but I remembered going on one before the war, when I was little and my parents took me to New York for a family vacation. This was in a class all its own.
We crammed into the train with several other students and some faculty and with a rumbling and jerk, headed underground.
But we soon found ourselves not just underground, but underwater.
Jax pointed to something and I followed his finger. "They built a tube from Manhattan to the island, all underwater, and created the world's most advanced underwater subway." The walls of the train turned transparent, allowing us to see the underwater world around us. Fish swam by, ignoring the giant sea monster of humanity, but what most surprised me were the larger-than-life sculptures that lined the bottom of the lake. It was an entire scene, humans and Zeniths and some Nephilim and Lycans, a re-creation of a battle during the Nephilim War, all made of stone.
"That's amazing!"
"A local artist created this to encourage coral reef growth once they got permission from U.F.I. It certainly makes the commute interesting."
We arrived in Manhattan faster than I would have thought, and I followed Jax out of the subway tunnel. I noticed lines of soldiers at the entrance and exit of the tunnels, checking the IDs of all who went in, and asked Jax about it.
"Only students, staff and those who live on the island as support are allowed to come, unless they are on a special guest list. Everyone who wants to ride this particular train has to be cleared first."
My first thought upon stepping out of the subway was holy crap, New York had changed since I was a kid. My second thought was mostly wasted on gawking at the fashions I saw on everyone. "Is she wearing a tree?" I asked, my eyes glued to a beautiful woman covered in leaves of reds and greens, the branches contouring to her body in such an organic way she looked part tree herself. She touched something behind her ear and suddenly her hair went from brown to green!
"It's the latest in fashion," Jax said. "Eden Wearables. Once scientists figured out how to grow living plants into predetermined arrangements, architects, fashion designers and artists of all kinds jumped on it. It's pricey, but it's out there."
"And that hair color, I've heard of it. Instant hair dye, what's the brand? Easy-Dye." In a weird way, I kind of loved it. A lot. New York had changed. With Eden Wearables and Eden Architecture, the city now had a very “return to nature” vibe. Mixed with that were Zeniths walking around, tagged with their color coded ear pieces. Not something we saw often in Montana, though of course I'd seen more on the news. What shook me the most were all the Inquisition Officers policing the streets in full armor, their faces covered, looking part future, part medieval, and kind of scary. I knew their Order attracted the bad seeds. The sociopaths who wanted to exert control over others. Their history wasn't stellar and only after the Nephilim War were they allowed into the Orders of Knights at all. My parents spoke often of their abuse of power.
Every Zenith who didn't work for U.F.I. in some capacity had to register with the Zenith Registration Directive (Z.R.D.). I'd never had to because I never had powers. But I did now. Would I still be tested? I thought I was done with testing when I turned 18, but I had no idea what they'd want to do to me at Castle V. Would they be able to tell something had happened to me? I considered letting them figure it out. Maybe then I would know why I was changing. Why I was becoming something different.
I could feel it, this shift inside me. I couldn't eat breakfast. Just like last night, the food tasted like ash in my mouth, but the Life Force was like Blue Ice to an addict. The best drug. My senses were sharper, my healing faster, my body growing stronger. I tried to hide it—to keep the truth from Jax, especially. Something had changed me last night. Something to do with the weapon, but I didn't know what, and I didn't know if I could trust the Orders yet.
As we walked down the street, I noticed the man in front of us had an earpiece marking him as a Zenith. An Inquisition Officer and his partner noticed too and stopped the man. "Random inspection," the first Officer said through his helmet.
The guy didn't argue, but didn't look happy either as they patted him down. No one around us even paused, which told me plenty about how common this was.
The second Officer checked out his ID while the first one inspected his possessions and checked his pockets.
Helmet 1 showed his partner. "Elemental. Fire."
Helmet 2 pulled something out of the poor guy's pocket. "And lookie what I found. A lighter. That's an Unauthorized Item for a Fire Elemental."
"I'm on my way to register it," the guy said. "Please…"