Just when Genie and I finished our ballet training, someone called me.

“Hi, you’re talking to Wu Ying Jie,” I answered the phone.

“Hello, Wu Ying Jie. I need to speak to you.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

***

“Who is it?” I asked.

“I will tell you when we meet,” the mysterious person said. I could only hear that it was a man.

I soundlessly made Genie follow me into an empty classroom and set the phone on loudspeaker.

“How did you get my number?” I asked the person.

“That doesn’t matter. You are now in an empty classroom, right? Good. Now follow my instructions.”

“What do you need to speak to me about?” I asked, slightly worried. How could he know where I was?

“Have some patience, Miss Wu. As I said, I will explain everything when we meet. Miss Cho is allowed to come with you.” He sounded like he smirked.

Genie and I looked anxiously at each other. Then I took a fast decision.

“Okay, I will follow your instructions, but promise you won’t hurt me,” I quickly whispered in the phone. The man laughed.

“Hurt you? No, you can think safe of your fair, pretty skin. Actually, hurting you would be bad for us.”

As I didn’t answer, he continued.

“Go to the front gate at the school, and ignore everything and everyone you walk by...”

 

When we reached the gate, I tried not to look at Aaron and his group, even though they pointed at us.

“Now go to the right and follow the street until you reach the supermarket.”

We followed the instructions as he gave them, and were soon in another part of the town.

“Go inside the shoe store. And do not waste time on looking at stilettos,” he said, as if he knew Genie just had pointed some out for me.

“Go to the back of the store and wait by the silver lamp.”

We did as he said, and looked nervously at each other. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea at all.

We stood there for a minute before he talked again.

“When I’ve counted down to one, quickly go through the door on your left. Three... two... one!”

A sudden, loud sound made everyone turn the other way, while we ran though the door.

It led out to a very dark corridor. I couldn’t see anything.

“What now?” I desperately asked in the phone.

“Go straight forward.”

Even though I most of all wanted to run back and home, I did as he said. Genie held my arm and walked with me.

If we just had some light...

Suddenly, it was like a small lamp lit up the corridor. When I looked around to see where it came from, Genie whispered:

“The ring!”

I looked down at my hand; Genie was right. My ring shined like a little sun.

Before I could manage to wonder about it, a door was opened in front of us.

And in the door opening stood...

Rainie.

“Wha...?”

She hushed me and made us follow her through the door.

The corridors we now walked were lit up like the walls shined. I couldn’t see any lamps.

I looked down at my phone to see that the mysterious person had hung up.

I nearly bumped into Rainie when she suddenly stopped in front of me.

She loudly said:

“Rainie Yang, Code Z10, with the guests Even Wu and Genie Cho. To the conference room.”

How did she – they – know my English name? I very rarely used it, only when my father had some foreign costumers that wanted to meet me.

At first, nothing happened. Then suddenly, it was like the floor disappeared, and Genie and I screaming slid down a huge pipe after Rainie. It was like a roller coaster, and not only did we fall down, we could also slide up the pipes.

 

Finally, I could see the tunnel ending. Rainie elegantly landed on the rug, while Genie and I clumsily fell out and hit each other.

The room was huge and had the same kind of weird light from the walls as the corridors. These walls had a deep, red colour along with the wall-to-wall rug on the floor, while the ceiling had golden patterns.

In the middle of the room stood a long table. It seemed small at first, but when we came closer, I realized how many people that were sitting around it. The size of the room had just made it seem smaller.

I would guess that about ten people were sitting around the table, and there were even more empty seats.

A few of them looked up when we reached the end of the table.

“Thank you, Miss Z10.” I could recognize the voice as the mysterious person who had called me.

A man with black hair and moustache and beard sat in a big chair at the other end of the table. He looked like he was in his late 30’s.

His strong appearance alone could get respect, but the look in his eyes directly demanded it.

I felt smaller than ever when he examined my appearance, and I could feel Genie shutter a bit when he turned to her.

 

Meanwhile, Rainie had sat down. She coldly looked at the men around the table. Of some reason, she was the only woman amongst them.

Her eyes stopped at a skinny man, who didn’t seem to be all comfy with the situation.

“Mr. Z8? How come you’re here, when I would expect you to be on a mission with Z21 and Z23?” she asked him without blinking.

“Oh yes, about that,” the man at the end of the table said and stopped looking at me and Genie.

“Z8 isn’t capable of fulfilling the mission. If you can get Z12, Z13 and Z14 ready within a quarter, you four can still safe the situation.”

Rainie smirked.

“You could’ve given me the mission as the first, and it could’ve been solved already. Well, we will be ready in ten minutes and bring all our girl power with us.”

With a wry smirk to the skinny man, who was now cold sweating, she stood up and walked out.

The man at the end now turned back to us. He asked us to sit down at two empty spots next to him, and made sure that I sat nearest.

When we stepped in, I had wanted to ask a lot of questions, but not one of them could reach my lips now.

“So, Miss Wu. As I remember, you had a lot of questions?” He looked like he was slightly amused, but I was mute.

“Well, I also got quite a few questions for you, so why don’t I start?” he continued, and leaned back in the chair.

“You are Miss Even Wu Ying Jie, by friends known as Gui Gui. Is that correct?”

I nodded. How did he know all this?

He turned to Genie.

“And you are Miss Genie Cho Wen Xuan?”

Genie nervously nodded too.

He looked down at his papers.

“And you don’t know why you’re here?”

We both shook our heads and looked down.

“Well, you’re not quite the type I would have expected either,” he said, and nearly sounded disappointed.

Expected? What did he mean?

“Show me the ring.”

“What?”

“Your silver ring.”

I carefully laid my hand on the table. Several people gasped.

The man nodded and leaned back in the chair again.

“My name is Jack Na, also known as Z1. You can call me Master Na or Mr. Z1,” he said.

So Jack was his name. I had never heard of him.

“Excuse me, but I still don’t...” I started, but he cut me off.

“...understand? It would also surprise me. We wouldn’t even know about you if it wasn’t for Miss Z10 – Miss Yang. Following her explanation, you met at a coincidence, am I right?” he asked. I nodded.

“Yes, it was at a dinner party.”

“And of course, as the wonderful girl she is, she immediately sensed and saw the Silver Ring.”

I still didn’t understand, and sneaked a look at Genie. She looked just as confused as I felt.

“She... sensed it?” I asked with a tiny voice. Had she been following me around the last weeks? Was that the reason why I met her everywhere?

 “Weird things have been happening to you, right?”

I had now come to the point where I just really, really wished to go home. Even if I had to marry Alien, or even Jiro, I would do it just to sit and eat dinner with my parents, right at this moment.

When I didn’t answer, Jack continued.

“How exactly did you find the ring?”

I told him the short story, and he nodded interested.

“But I want to know why all this is relevant?” Genie suddenly asked.

Jack smiled, and explained:

“Well, as you might have noticed, this isn’t a normal ring. Of course you can’t control it yet, even a Coder wouldn’t be able to without training. The point is that all the ‘strange’ things that have happened to you lately haven’t just been coincidences. It is because of the Silver Ring on your finger.” He pointed at my hand, which was still on the table.

I tried to understand what he had just said. It was because of the ring?

I had somehow known it all along, but it was just too weird for me to admit it.

Control it? What was a coder?

“But I might have to start from the beginning,” Jack continued, “as things already are like this.

You see, right now you’re in the middle of the head quarter of the Blazing Soldiers, an organisation of Coders. Secret, you may call it, as the normal society doesn’t know of our existence.

Coders are people like me, Miss Yang and all the people you see here.”

I looked around at the other men around the table. They all looked a bit frightening to me.

“...which means people with special powers.”

“You mean, like magic?” it burst out of me. A few of the men laughed silently.

“No, not magic. We normally just call it Skills. But only a very few people are blessed with these from birth, and you are not one of them.” He looked seriously at me.

I kept silent.

“Since you’re not Skilled from birth, there’s only one way to get Skills. And that is to possess one of the five Blazing Rings.”

 

There was now dead silent in the room. Everybody stared at me.

“You have found the Silver Ring, as far as we know the only one that won’t leave its owner once it has found one. And probably the only one that could work for an Unskilled. When it has found its owner, the owner gets power like he or she was Skilled from birth, but not the ability to control it.”

Jack took a pause from talking.

“But... I don’t want to own it! Ever since I found out I couldn’t get it off, I’ve just wanted to...”

Jack made a hand move to make me silent.

“That also means,” he continued like I hadn’t said anything, “that only the owner of the Silver Ring can collect all the Rings.”

I thought it over a bit.

“Why would one want to collect all the rings?” I asked.

“That’s not the question. The question is; why do YOU, Miss Wu, HAVE to collect all the rings,” he smiled friendly.

“Why me? Can’t I just... give it to someone else?” I desperately said, but somehow already knew the answer.

“Even though we also would have preferred someone of another... type than you, it is – unfortunately – impossible.”

I sighed.

“Look, I don’t have time, reason or ability to collect all these rings. Seriously, even if I can’t get this ring off, I don’t intent to find more trouble,” I said as calmly as I could.

Jack smiled calmly too.

“We will see. Until now, there is one thing that you definitely have no choice about. You have to learn to control your Skills. If not, you will be in danger to both yourself and your surroundings.”

“What does this – training – include?” I had already given up. Hopefully, I would soon wake up to realize it had all been a bad dream...

“You start as an X Coder. X Coders are still in training to become real Coders, or Soldiers you may call it. When you have learned the basics, you move up to be a Y Coder. We have most of those, actually more than the half. Only the best makes it to be a Z Coder, like us here.”

“When can I leave, then?”

He looked surprised at me.

“There’s no leaving.”

“That’s not fair! I didn’t even want this from the beginning!” I suddenly exclaimed. Even Genie looked a bit frightened at me, as I normally controlled myself.

Jack ignored me again.

“You have to get a trainer. He or she can be a Z Coder or a top five Y Coder. But we don’t have many free at this moment...” He looked around, but nobody said anything.

“Mr. Z8, give me the list. Oh, and write Miss Wu in as X32.” Jack took a bunch of papers from the skinny man from before, who quickly wrote something down.

Jack looked through the first few papers before he turned back to me.

“Z9, Z20 and Z24 are free. But, oh – Z24 is hospitalized, I had forgotten that. And Z20 is on vacation, that’s probably why he isn’t training anyone at the moment. That leaves you with Z9, which isn’t bad at all,” he smirked. “He still goes to school, but Miss Z10 tells me that you already know each other...”

He handed me a paper with a name and a picture under the headline ‘Z9’.

And the picture showed the only person that could make this a ten times worse.

 

***

Preview:

-

“But WHY does it have to be him?!” I was in despair. Of all people…

-

“Seriously, Gui Gui? HIM?! Oh my Gucci, and I thought you were decent...”

“Shut up, Angela. Gui Gui can like whoever she wants, okay?”

“Yeah, but... haven’t you heard what happened yesterday?”

***

My computer is broken :’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’(

I’m now relying on my little sister’s mercy for me. I find it a bit funny that I borrow a computer 15 times better than mine from my six year old sister Ô__ô

But as long as I can write, it’s okay ^__^

And this computer is also much faster. The only minus is... I’ve lost all my stuff *cries*

Your comments are what keep me going :]

I really need some comfort before I can manage to write more *heartbroken*

So *sniffle* please *my dear computer* please write a comment, it would really brighten up my (sad) day(s) [:

- Blitz

P.S. Sorry if the English in this chapter . My computer dictionary went down along with it, so... :(