Hunter training took place in the woods a few miles from the Last City. First, they had to run two miles with a backpack full of rocks, which simulated the weight of combat gear. When they finished and were groaning and gulping water, the trainer pointed at a hill rising above them - almost a mountain.
"There's a beacon at the top," the trainer said. "First one to tap the beacon with their ghost's ID tag is the winner. Go!"
There were four other new Hunters, besides Nell. All of them were a different skin color, all of them had the same bewildered look, and all of them had ghosts who could talk.
Still panting from the two-mile run, Nell took off up the mountainside. As she scrambled and labored to climb the steep slope, two of her opponents leaped lightly over her, jumping like grasshoppers up the mountain.
"How do you do that?" she panted to Hadrian. She tried to jump, but her muscles could only carry her so far. Besides, they were doing it differently, somehow. She paused to catch her breath and think. Could it be that warm Light feeling she used to make her fire gun? Maybe that let Guardians jump.
Pulling on that warmth, she jumped again. This time she sailed straight up in the air for ten feet. She jumped a second time in midair, propelling herself off the Light itself. For a second, her head cleared the trees.
"This is more like it," she told Hadrian. "Let's smoke these losers."
Nell began leaping from tree to tree, barely giving each branch time to bend under her weight. It was so much easier to leap up a mountainside than to walk. She'd spent two days climbing winding mountain roads when she could have flown.
She passed one hunter, then another. They weren't using the trees as stepping stones like Nell was. Her heart soaring with her feet, she arrived on the mountaintop.
A peg stuck out of the ground with a glowing green light on top. Nell ran to it and beckoned to her ghost. He scanned it with his beam. Nothing happened. He gave her an anxious look.
"You can't talk to it, can you?" Nell panted.
As she stood there, wondering what to do, another hunter arrived - a young woman with a medium brown complexion. Panting, she nodded to Nell and let her ghost scan the beacon.
"Signal transmitted," said her ghost. "Wait. It says we're the first ones."
The Hunter girl and her ghost stared at Nell and Hadrian.
"We couldn't get it to work," Nell said lamely.
She waited in growing frustration as the other four hunters arrived and scanned the beacon. They stood around and waited for Nell to take her turn. When her ghost again tried to communicate and failed, one of them submitted her tag for her.
Last place.
Humiliated, she followed the others along a winding path down the hillside. Hadrian simply disappeared rather than face condemning looks from the other ghosts.
The girl who had arrived second slowed down and matched strides with Nell. "I'm Juno. What's wrong with your ghost?"
"He can't talk," Nell said in a low voice. "They say he's damaged, but he won't let anyone close enough to fix him."
Juno winced. "Sorry about that. I'll explain to the trainer. Surely he can correct the scores."
"Maybe." Nell was starting to realize what a crippling handicap it was to have a mute ghost. "Thanks for not rubbing my nose in it. I just don't know what to do."
When they reached the bottom of the hill, their trainer was waiting for them, a burly human wrapped in a Hunter's cloak. "You all performed at baseline standards," he observed. "But you! Guardian Nell! What happened? You had the lead!"
"I tripped, sir," Nell said, meeting his eye steadily. "Guardian Juno won fair and square."
The other students gave her surprised looks.
"Being clumsy is no excuse!" the trainer bellowed. "If you'd had Cabal on your tail, you'd be dead! Guardians don't trip, understand?"
"Yes sir," Nell said, unmoved. No way was she letting her poor ghost take the heat for this.
"All right, Hunters!" the trainer said, turning to the rest of them. "Quick step back to the city walls! Live fire training in ten! Move!"
Nell and the others broke into a jog back toward town. Their trainer jumped on a sparrow and zipped ahead.
"You're very brave," said one of the young men Nell hadn't met yet. "But if your ghost doesn't work, your scores will stay low."
"So what?" Nell said fiercely. "It's not his fault. I'll work extra hard on things that don't involve ghosts. I'll pass, you'll see."
That night, Nell was so tired, she fell asleep with her head on the table in the cafeteria. Her fellow hunters woke her up and helped her to her room.
Nell pulled off her boots, stretched out on the bed, and went back to sleep in her clothes.
Hadrian materialized in the quiet room. He gazed at his sleeping Guardian for a long time. Then he swept her with a healing beam, erasing the bruises and tired muscles that she had earned over the course of the day.
"You protected me," he whispered. His voice was set to the wrong frequency for human brains, and he didn't know how to change it. "You took poor scores and extra work because of me. My dear, brave Guardian." He healed her again, even though she didn't need it. "I wish I could talk to you, Nell. I wish I could tell you how my spark burns with yours. I wish I could tell you what happened to me. But ... but if anyone knew ..." He pulled his segments together tightly, glancing at the walls as if afraid of being overheard. "I'm scared of what they'd do. And I can't lose you. Not now that I've found you."
He dared float down beside her, and gently touched her face with his shell. Then he zipped backward, amazed at his own daring. He phased to rest, and kept watch over his Guardian from there. "You mean the world to me, Nell," he whispered to her mind. "If nothing else, I hope that gets through. And I'm so sorry about ruining your scores."
Nell sighed and slept on. Hadrian stood guard the rest of the night.
Hunter training continued, day after day. Nell excelled at anything that didn't involve ghost interactions. She learned to handle and care for weapons, aced all kinds of wilderness survival, and trained to drive a sparrow. But when it came to speed-hacking enemy consoles, she failed entirely.
"What is wrong with you?" her trainer snarled, drawing her aside from the other students. "You had above average scores across the board - and now, zeros! Won't your ghost do what you ask? What is wrong with you two?"
"Nothing's wrong," Nell said through her teeth. "Sir."
"Is your ghost broken? This is a simple hack! Summon your ghost."
The last thing Nell wanted to do was summon Hadrian and subject him to the trainer's scrutiny. But it was a direct order, and she faced punishment if she disobeyed. So she held out a hand and said, "Hadrian, come on."
Her ghost appeared, his eye a tiny dot of terror.
The trainer stared at the ghost for a long second in dismayed silence. Then he yelled in Nell's face, "This ghost is damaged! Don't you care for your own ghost? His shell is rusted, for the Traveler's sake! How long do you think you'd last in the field if you let your ghost die?"
"He won't let me touch him, sir," Nell said. She made a slight gesture with her wrist, telling Hadrian to disappear. He did.
"That's between the two of you, isn't it?" snarled the trainer. "You get that ghost a new shell by Monday, or I'm reporting you to the Vanguard Commander for ghost neglect."
He stamped away, leaving Nell trembling with rage and apprehension. She followed the other students to their next lesson, head down, fists clenched. She worried about it the rest of the day - how to give a new shell to a ghost reluctant to be touched?
As soon as they were dismissed from class, she made a beeline for her room. Once inside, she summoned her ghost. "Hadrian," she whispered as the robot appeared. "You heard my trainer, right? You need a new shell."
The robot nodded, wearing his sad expression.
She leaned toward him a little. "You'll have to let me touch you. Just to change your shell. Please?"
Hadrian backed away, shaking his head no.
"They're going to report me for neglecting you!" Nell exclaimed. "Do you want your Guardian to get court-martialed?"
Hadrian did a fair impression of hanging his head in shame.
"So, please, just let me-" Nell stretched out one hand.
Hadrian vanished.
"Hadrian!" she yelled, stamping her foot. "Light's sake, I'm trying to help you!"
The robot didn't reappear.
Muttering about bratty ghosts, Nell stashed her pistol in her desk drawer and went down to the Tower cafeteria. But inside, her stomach curled into a knot.
Nell worked hard the rest of the week, but as a trainee Guardian, she only had Saturday to rest.
After pleading with Hadrian all week, by Saturday she was so disgusted with him, she spent the whole day buried in a digital book on her new tablet, pointedly ignoring him. She'd just have to take the court-martial or whatever the Vanguard did to Guardians who neglected their ghosts.
Dark thoughts crept into the edges of her mind. What if Hadrian actually hated her, and that was why he refused to speak or work properly? Just because he made sad faces didn't mean he was actually sad. If he actually cared about her, he'd let her change his stupid shell.
But as Monday dawned, Nell found that she was terrified of being punished one more time. What sort of awful prisons might they have here? Would they chain her up? And what if they confiscated Hadrian? He may be an annoying little creep, but he was still her friend.
She dressed warmly, sneaked some food out of the cafeteria, and crept out of the Tower as the sun was climbing above the mountains beyond the walls. She leaped off the wall and used her Light-powered jump to soften her landing. Then she fled toward the woods in the distance, calling upon her newfound speed.
She didn't slow until she was two miles beyond the City's borders. By that time she was following a narrow valley between two mountains, picking her way around huge rock outcroppings and trees with trunks thicker than cars.
Hadrian phased into sight and made a questioning beep.
"Look," Nell said. "I could either accept whatever beating they were going to dish out, or take you and get out of dodge. So, we're running away."
Hadrian made the saddest sound she'd ever heard.
"Like you have room to talk," she snapped. "If you'd let me change your shell, we wouldn't be in this mess."
Wearing his sad expression, Hadrian took his place over her shoulder and accompanied her on her flight into the wild.
Nell's wilderness survival training came in handy. She kept to a dry, stony riverbed, where she left no trail. It was too rough to bring a sparrow through, so any pursuit would follow on foot. Of course, it was logical to another hunter that she'd follow the stream bed. So after a while, she leaped into the treetops and traveled from tree to tree.
She paused at noon to rest and eat. Perched on a thick limb halfway up a huge oak, she remarked, "If you can't talk to the Vanguard, they can't talk to you, right? Which means they can't track you."
Hadrian flew back and forth in front of her, pacing in midair. He gave a brief nod and kept pacing.
"What's wrong?" Nell asked.
The ghost looked at her and halted. He made a scratchy beeping noise that sounded painful.
"Are you okay?" Nell said, wrinkling her nose.
Hadrian's eye flicked off and he made the sound again, a little different this time - more focused.
"You're trying to talk," Nell said, comprehending. "Say it again. Slowly."
Hadrian looked at her imploringly and again made the sound. It sounded like he was dying, computer sounds turned to screeches. But this time Nell made out the word.
"Guaaarrrr diiiiii aaaaan."
"Guardian," she repeated. "Very good!"
Hadrian nodded, making his smile eye. Now he tried to say a different word, shorter this time.
Nell listened, her head turned sideways. "Sounds like ... oh ... say it again."
"Faaaaaah aaaalllll eeeeen."
"Fallen?"
Hadrian nodded until he bobbed up and down in the air.
"Fallen," Nell muttered, pulling out her pistol and scanning the ground below the tree. "Where?"
Hadrian gazed steadily northeast, further up the valley.
"Right," Nell whispered. "We won't go that way, then." She studied the mountain slope she had been climbing. The top rose into a sheer cliff devoid of vegetation, so she couldn't make it to the top. The far side of the valley had a more gradual slope and more trees, but she'd have to cross the stream bed to get there. An easy target for any Fallen snipers.
"Stay invisible," she told her ghost. "I'm going to sneak that way, east. If I get spotted, I can fight."
He nodded and disappeared.
