Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) by Sophie Davis Page A

prelude to the main course
Victoria had come to serve up, which I was betting would be more
unappetizing than the kelp cookies the Eden natives seemed so fond
of.
    “ This display of
recklessness is inexcusable. Particularly now, with the vote fast
approaching. For the first time in decades, the council is truly
concerned about the Coexistence Treaty being overturned. As you all
know, should that occur, our kind will no longer be afforded the
little protection that we have enjoyed these last seventy-five
years,” Victoria said, her voice carrying over the whispered
conversations and swooshing of beanbags.
    All noise in the room ceased,
Victoria’s words hung heavy in the silence. Her golden eyes glowed
with an unreadable emotion as they traveled from one member of the
group to the next for a second time.
    “ Of the seven islands that
make up the Isle of Exile, only three are residential: Eden,
Paradise, and Babylon. All of which are nearing maximum capacity.
Currently, Vault is serving a dual purpose, as both a penal island
and a containment facility. Oceanic is a research facility, it
isn’t set up to house anyone. The remaining two, Hope and Newhaven,
are currently unoccupied, and have been for some time. As we speak,
construction crews are arriving at both to begin the necessary
repair work before those islands can be fully functional. Should
the need arise, those islands will be vital to our survival as a
race. Even if we get those ready in time, only a small portion of
the world’s Talented population can fit in the space available on
the Isle.”
    The Coexistence Treaty. It was
something every student at the McDonough School learned about
during their early years, and then promptly forgot as we moved on
to more interesting subjects, like weapons training and offensive
maneuvers. It was easy to forget about it when you grew up in the
US, because we’d been the most progressive nation, with a high
density of Talented. From the little I remembered, the treaty had
been drawn up not long after the first generation of talented
children reached adulthood.
    Many nations had refused to grant our
kind equal rights when Talents were first discovered. They didn’t
consider us human. In some places the Talented were imprisoned
simply for being who they were, what they’d been born. And, in a
lot of cases, incarceration was the lesser of the evils. Lynch
mobs, scared of what they didn’t understand, hunted and killed
Talents. Geneticists, desperate to learn about this new breed, a
new species that possessed abilities that had previously only been
the stuff of fiction, preyed on my kind in the name of
science.
    The newly-formed UNITED had proposed
the treaty as a way to ensure our safety. The treaty detailed stiff
penalties for any Talent who used his or her gifts on another
without explicit authorization from a governing body. In exchange,
all member nations who adopted the treaty agreed to grant the
Talented basic human rights.
    Generous, weren’t they?
    Recently, I had learned that the seven
islands that make up the Isle of Exile were originally built as a
precautionary measure, in the event the treaty wasn’t ratified.
Even after it eventually was accepted, UNITED feared that it would
not be honored for long. So they kept the islands, just in case. As
it turned out, that was a necessary safeguard. Because not all
nations had signed the original treaty. And many who did were very
liberal in their interpretations of the language. As a result, many
Talents had relocated to the islands over the ensuing years to
escape persecution. At this point, the islands were a choice. Soon,
they might be a necessity.
    For a brief moment, while Victoria’s
words sunk in, there was absolute silence in the room.
    And then I was assaulted.
    In such a confined space, with
emotions running higher than Kilimanjaro, it was impossible to
block the barrage of disjointed thoughts and feelings of everyone
around me. Inside my head, all I heard was