The Academy (16 page)

For a few minutes he surfed at random, plowing through news and video-sharing sites without paying much attention to their contents. It was comforting in of itself, to be able to connect. It made him feel a bit like he was in the real world. He closed the laptop and reached for his headphones, turning the player on at random. To his surprise, it was still on the same song from the other night, when he’d been attacked. He hit skip, and in the interval of silence, realized that someone was knocking at his door. Pulling out his headphones, he got up and answered it.

“Um, hello.”

If he had to guess, Alex would have guessed that the kid standing there was roughly the same age he was. He was a few inches taller than Alex, with dark brown skin and bulky, plastic-framed glasses. He wore some kind of black turban on his head, which made Alex wondered if he was a Muslim, but he decided it would be impolite to ask.

“You are Alex, right? My name is Vivik,” he said in perfect, American-accented English, offering his hand. “I’m in the next room over. Michael asked me to check in on you.”

Alex shook his hand and then stepped aside to allow him to enter, doing his best to mask his confusion. Alex sat down on his bed, while Vivik pulled out his desk chair and sat down backwards on it, facing Alex.

Vivik looked at him knowingly, and then smiled.

“It’s pretty strange, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah it is,” Alex admitted. “Up until a few days ago, I had no idea any of this even existed, hadn’t a clue. And now they tell me that I start class tomorrow.”

“Same here,” Vivik nodded.

“Really? You’re new here, too?”

Vivik waved his hand, obviously embarrassed.

“Well, actually, this is the beginning of my second session. But, I showed up a week after the first session started, earlier this year, so I was just as clueless as you are. Don’t let it worry you, Alex, most of the people here found themselves in your shoes at one point or another.”

“I figured that all these people were, you know, raised knowing about this stuff,” he said hesitantly, running a hand through his disheveled hair, and wishing in a vague way that he was not in his pajamas. Not that the t-shirt and sweats he had on were particularly ratty or anything, but still, it was a bit uncomfortable, meeting someone while dressed that way.

“Nope,” Vivik said, shaking his head. “It’s fairly unusual for a family to pass the affinity down like that. Most of the students here had normal parents, came from normal families, that sort of thing. Up until whatever point they were activated, and then, like you, they ended up here.”

“Weird.” Alex wasn’t sure what else to say, though he felt a little bit better knowing he wouldn’t be quite as out of place as he’d imagined. After a moment of awkward silence, he asked, “So, were you attacked by monsters, too?”

Vivik laughed jovially.

“Thank God, no. Nothing of the kind. They do screenings, apparently, at public schools and institutions, when they do all those hearing and vision tests. They flagged me right at the start of the school year, pulled me aside, and explained it all to me.” Vivik looked around the empty dorm room cheerfully, seemingly nonplussed. “About a week later, I was enrolled here.”

“So you have a family back at home? Aren’t they worried? About all this?” Alex gestured toward the window and the school outside.

“Sure, I’ve got a big family,” Vivik said, nodding. “But to them, when I received an offer to attend a prestigious private boarding school, all expenses paid, they were so delighted that I didn’t even have to come up with an explanation. I heard that they have the telepaths smooth things over with some parents, but in my case, it wasn’t even necessary.” Vivik shrugged, and looked a little embarrassed. “My parents are kind of fixated on the whole college thing, you see.”

Alex looked at Vivik for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Vivik looked at him, a little puzzled, and then joined in.

“Actually,” he admitted, removing his glasses to wipe his eyes, “my parents probably wouldn’t even care if they knew what this place actually was. I mean, they wouldn’t like the guns and the fighting and all that stuff, but it is a very demanding school.”

“That’s not good,” Alex said grimly.

“School isn’t your favorite thing, huh?”

Alex nodded. He had a long list of things he didn’t care for, and school was on it, but not at the top. It had been his home, at first, and then the Youth Institution, for a while, but lately ‘being eaten by werewolves’ had taken the top spot.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew he was at a school. Alex had figured that with all the talk about monsters and fighting, that the classes wouldn’t be, well, hard. Not academically, anyway.

“Who do you have for homeroom?”

Alex grabbed his schedule from where he had tossed it on the desk, and then unfolded it.

“Mr. Windsor?” He read aloud uncertainly, as if he were afraid to mispronounce the name.

“Thought so,” said Vivik, nodding. “Me too. Don’t worry, you’ll like him. It’s a pretty nice class, too. Not too many fanatics.”

“What?”

Vivik looked embarrassed.

“Right, I keep forgetting you are so new,” Vivik muttered. “Well, you’ll find out for yourself eventually anyway, so I may as well tell you – do you know anything about the cartels?”

Alex shook his head, staring at Vivik.

“They’re the factions, here in Central. And almost everyone at the Academy will, at some point, commit to joining one of them. It’s against the rules to declare for a cartel until you complete your second year, unless you were born into it, but a lot of the students voluntarily associate themselves with one long before that,” Vivik explained, looking uncomfortable. “A lot of what goes on here revolves around the politics between them.”

“Hmm…” Alex said, mulling it over. “Do you belong to one of them, Vivik?”

“Me?” Vivik asked, amused. “Not a chance. I’m doing the science track, and I’m going to join the staff here at the Academy as a researcher, after I graduate. I’m not interested in picking sides, or eventually having to fight the people I go to school with. It’s just too petty.”

Alex nodded.

“It does seem that way. Is it really such a big deal?”

“Can I see your schedule?”

Vivik held out his hand. Alex felt some reluctance, but decided to hand it over anyway. Vivik read it carefully, and looked thoughtful as he folded it and handed it back.

“I’m afraid it’s going to be a matter of life and death, for you, Alex,” he said sadly.

“Why?” Alex looked at Vivik suspiciously, wondering if there was some kind of implied threat in his statement.

“Well, for one thing, the classes that they’ve picked for you – you’re doing basic, Alex. You’re going to be an Operator. The Academy shares most of its research pretty freely, so it’s not a big deal to the cartels when some scientist decides not to join up, and stays on with the faculty here instead. But an Operator? No way they’d let that slide,” Vivik said reluctantly. “And then there’s another thing…”

“What’s that?”

“Forgive me, Alex,” Vivik hung his head. “I can’t help it. I’m going into Analytics, specifically remote viewing. I didn’t mean to pry, but no one’s taught you to mask your Etheric signature, yet. I scanned it before you even opened the door, Alex, to make sure you were awake.”

“And you found out what?”

Alex had to suppress a yawn, not because he was bored, but genuinely exhausted.

“Alex, did they explain the classification system to you?

“No,” Alex said shortly. “Michael mentioned it…”

“Classes A through F, Alex,” Vivik said matter-of-factly. “Class-A’s are so weak that they don’t even activate them. For all intents and purposes they’re still regular people, who have dreams that come true occasionally, or a talent for dealing with other people. F-Class, that’s at the other under end of the spectrum. They’re very powerful. I’m a B-Class, Alex, with C-Class potential, if I work hard and I’m lucky.”

“And I am?” Alex motioned impatiently, stifling another yawn.

“M-Class, Alex. Not potentially. Already.”

Alex was unnerved by the frank sympathy he could see on his face. Was it really such a bad thing?

“That doesn’t fit in the alphabetical order,” Alex objected.

“Because it doesn’t relate directly,” Vivik sighed. “I guess that’s why they skipped all those letters. The thing is, no matter how powerful the ability, A-Class or F-Class, Operators are limited by the amount of power their bodies can generate. It’s like, it doesn’t matter how fast you are, if you’re already very tired, you could lose a race to a much slower runner, right? Even the most powerful F-Class Operators will wear out if they use too much power in a short period of time. And that’s the thing, Alex.” Vivik tapped his feet nervously against the chair leg as he spoke. “Being M-Class doesn’t necessarily make you more powerful – usually, not necessarily – but whatever degree of power you have, you can use it almost endlessly.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Alex complained, clearly frustrated.

“You can’t use up your power, Alex, no matter how much you use, there will always be more,” Vivik explained curtly. “Because you aren’t drawing it from yourself. Somehow, you can pull power from outside, from the Ether. No limitations. That’s what M-Class means.”

“And that’s rare?”

“Extremely,” Vivik said, nodding. “None of the other students at the Academy right now are M-Class, to the best of my knowledge.”

“But that’s stupid,” Alex said, staring at his hands. “I don’t even know how to do anything.”

“Alex, you’re in a different world now. Central isn’t concerned with what you don’t know at the moment – there are people here who can read probability threads, Alex, and make determinations about the future. They already know exactly how powerful you’ll become. They don’t have to guess. They know.”

Alex and Vivik sat in silence. After a few minutes, Vivik cleared his throat and pushed in his chair.

“Well, you are probably tired,” he said, smiling. “I’ll let you rest. Nice meeting you, Alex. Goodnight.”

“G’night,” Alex muttered. He walked Vivik out of the dorm room, and then lay back down on the bed.

His bed. His room. His school.

Alex rolled over and closed his eyes. It would take some getting used to.

The more Gaul looked at it,
the less he liked it.

He was still fuming from his interview with North, whom he had found to be insufferably arrogant, and far from forthcoming regarding the reasons for his presence in the area. He’d invoked the Committee-at-Large, however, and that meant Gaul couldn’t demand anything more until he either got the approval of the Committee, or opened an Audit. Beyond that, he was still angry that someone, anyone, would have the temerity to attack one of his Operators, even if it was Mitsuru. Most of all, though, he was furious with his Chief Auditor, who was currently sitting in front of him and smiling politely.

It seemed like everything that day had conspired to infuriate him. And, Gaul thought soberly, that was an actual possibility that had to be taken into account. He had walked a razor’s edge since he’d wrested control of the Academy away almost forty years ago, and a single mistake on his part could still ruin everything.

This did seem like a long way to go just to ruin his day, though, he had to admit.