Efferent

Chapter 52

He stalked off, and abruptly changed direction, so we would not have to walk past Amelia's grave. I sighed and trailed behind slowly him as he turned, walked backwards, retracted, and redirected our path multiple times, until he came to a halt, staring at the tree cover with a stern expression. I just stared at him as he attempted weakly to lead us back towards the house.

"We are lost." I say blandly, and he growled.

"This is all your fault!" He burst out violently, throwing his arms out wide and spreading his stance, and my eyes immediately narrowed upon his figure.

"My fault?" I asked, placing a hand on my chest with an incredulous scoff. "No, I do not think it is. You were the one who refused to talk to me, you were the one who led us into this forest, you were the one who lead us to walk in here in the first place! And you dare to blame it on me?"

Blaise huffed, knowing I was right but would never say it. "Fine then." I said, with a note of finality. "If you will not talk to me, then I should just leave." He opened his mouth, but I turned quickly around to spurn his words and I disappeared into the woods, the branches cracking under my feet in loud snaps. I did not look back.

Instead, I had remembered those crazy turns Blaise had made and retraced my steps to the house. I had bent twigs along our path to help me remember. It did help, putting markers along the 'trail' we had walked on. Soon the house came into view and I saw James, who was pacing on the lawn. He crossed his arms tightly when I caught his eyes.

"Where were you?" He asked furiously, lips pursed tight.

"No greeting?" I drawled out, putting my hands in my back pockets. I did not feel like putting up with James's irrationality and his temper today. I had caught him off guard, and he blinked before he steadied his gaze into a glare.

"Where is Blaise?" He switched the topic, questioning me further. I did not answer verbally, just waved my hand vaguely at the forest. I half expected Blaise to have followed me back at a distance, but he did not. Whatever. "Where is he?" He repeated. When repeated the same gesture, this time a bit more hurried, he grit his teeth. "This is not a time for fun and games, Ardyn."

I sighed. "His exact location, I do not know. But he is inside the forest."

James made a sound between a growl and a huff. "What is he thinking?" He shook his head, as though he could not comprehend his actions. "The competition is about to start, and I can not very well start if I do not have enough support just in case something goes wrong!"

I turned to look at him, spinning on my heel quickly, "Something went wrong?" I asked urgently.

"No, but I want backup in case something does go wrong." James explained stubbornly and I rolled my eyes at the alarm I had felt earlier.

"We do not need Blaise." I state. "I am here, and that is enough. With you, Travis, and I, we will be fine. Besides, it is not like all of the Afferent are going at the same time. There is no need for too many Efferent. In fact, too many of us may just intimidate them. Like Blaise."

"You are right." James agreed. "I will go with Travis to get the Afferent prepared for the competition. Please bring a table outside, with three chairs, and I have clipboards with the score sheet on them." He paused. "On second thought, also bring a microphone, or something that can project your voice."

"Okay." Honestly, I felt uneasy at the thought of Blaise not being here, but my anger towards him just would not want him here. I did not need him. I would not chase after him. I just glared at the forest again and walked off inside the house to bring out the foldable chairs.

Once the preparations were ready, Travis and I sat down on the chairs while James walked up to the 'stage'. "Good afternoon, Afferent!" They choroused a 'good afternoon' back, and James smiled. "Today, as you all know, is the day you have been waiting for and preparing for. Today is the first day of the competition!"

I looked at Clark, whose smile looked a bit unsure. When he looked my way, I have him a thumbs-up and his smile grew, as he distanced his legs into a wider stance.

James continued his short speech. "Please line up in alphabetical order, and we will call you and the person behind you. Two of you will demonstrate your powers to me, we will write down your score, and determine the average. The top twenty will move on to the next round."

Anticipation and anxiety filled the air, and I bristled as I watched the Afferent excitedly file into a long and narrow line. I was not sure about what had rubbed me the wrong way, but I felt uncomfortable. I shifted in my seat, and Travis pushed a clipboard towards me with the scoring chart.

There were three categories: how useful your Afference is, how controlled, and, of course, the demonstration. They were out of ten points each, and we were allowed to write comments on how they could improve and our thoughts. I picked up my pen and shakily positioned it to the top of the paper.

James was busily organizing the Afferent, a task which looked like it would take at least another ten minutes to do.
"Travis." I whispered, looking at him from the corner of my eye, but kept observing the masses.

"Hm?" He answered, staring at the score sheet. "What?"

"Do you think that J-" I started my question but then decided to change it. "I mean, who are you placing your bet on that will move to the next round?" Travis raised his eyebrows at me but I just shrugged in response.

"Well, I have trained some that were pretty impressive. The girl in the white? Over there? She seems like a shoo-in, and the boy standing behind her, he will probably get in too." He offered simply before furrowing his brow in question. "Wait, where is Blaise?" Travis asked, scanning the crowd and then at me.

I coughed. "Erm, he is in the forest?" My statement came out like more of a question. "He is in the forest. Still." I reiterated.

Travis frowned. "What is he doing in there? What could he possibly be doing in there?"

"Nothing, really. Nothing too important." I muttered, waving it off, "We should focus on the task at hand. Do you think that this is a fair system?"

If Travis noticed my sudden topic change, he did not comment, and instead looked at the papers again. "I do not know... I mean, let's say someone really powerful just is not trained that well and we give him or her a bad score, but then there is someone who is not as powerful but trained much better. He will probably get picked."

"It is not that fair, then." I realized, and Travis nodded. "I think one possibility is to test all of their Percentages, but that would be incredibly hard. I would change the scoring rubric, but I am not sure what else to score them on. Besides, this is only the first test. We can make improvements later on."

"Definitely." Travis agreed. "I just do not know why we must hold these miniature competitions. James says it is 'to find the strongest Afferent first'. But I ask, why can we not just train them all at the same time? We are doing fine as it is, and we are cutting down on our the maximum forces by excluding the rest."

"True..." I waved my hands around. "But James is in authority right now, despite our questions, and I think we can go with his methods for right now. Trust me, Travis." He turned towards me. "I am not necessarily happy about this either. But the minute something happens-"

"We will act accordingly." Travis said grimly. And at that moment, James chose to shout.

"Let the games begin!"