E1… He was still a far cry behind even the average assignee rank of D0, but he’d managed to pull his CAD-Rank up three whole levels in less than the same number of weeks. His specs were climbing steadily, and he could feel his body adjusting little by little to the new neuroline the Device would be laying down in his brain and spine, along with all the other changes going on. He bent his right leg—feeling the ache that had been developing in his hip slowly for the last couple of weeks, and was pleased to note that the discomfort hadn’t gotten any worse since the day before.
“Oh shit. Viv.”
Rei rolled back up to sit with one arm draped over his bent knee, pulling up his NOED again. Usually the girl would have been there by his side—she’d quit the combat team the same day as him to allow for a couple hours additional training in the evenings—but one of the two Duelist specialists the Arada family had hired for her instruction had had to reschedule their session that day. As a result, Rei was on his own, but he’d promised Viv he would let her know if he managed to break through on Endurance.
Got it! he spelled out with one hand over the projected keyboard the neuro-optic pulled up for him on request. I’ll be caught up with you by next Friday, at this rate!
He sent it with a chuckle, and only a few seconds later received a reply back in the form of a digital cut-out of an extended middle finger next to a face that looked to be laughing so hard it was crying. It was immediately followed up with a thumbs up, and Rei smirked.
He was about to pull up the combat simulations again—considering pushing his martial arts opponent up another level to see what kind of challenge he was expected to overcome next—when he happened to glance at the timestamp of Viv’s last communication.
19… 1920?!
Swearing, Rei leapt up and sprinted for the door of the classroom he’d dragged the mat into. The main gym had been in use by the combat team, like every weekday evening, but he and Viv had never had trouble finding an empty corner to get a couple hours of conditioning in. Now, though, Rei’s enthusiasm and chasing of that elusive F2 Endurance had caused him to be more than a quarter-hour late to clocking in for his work shift.
“Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn,” he muttered over and over again as he bolted down the hall, his bare feet almost slipping when he rounded a corner and took the stairs leading down two at a time. As he did, he clocked in on his NOED, fully expecting a notification from his supervisor—Mr. Alib—asking what the hell he had been doing to be so late.
Fortunately, by the time Rei reached the custodial closet, no such condemnation had pinged him. He opened the door with a quick slap of his palm, rushing for the tiny locker at the back of the long room. In seconds he was out of the sweaty workout clothes that had doubled as his “combat suit” since quitting the team. Deciding that a run to the team locker room for even a quick ion shower wasn’t worth the risk of incurring additional ire, Rei started pulling on the custodial uniform. It wasn’t like he was known for tardiness or anything, but he still had to work the next 2 months through Grandcrest’s summer school programs to make sure his tuition was paid off. The headmaster had already done him a favor of promising his diploma when they graduated at the end of the week—and even then only after Rei had been logged as a CAD-User in the ISCM database—but he doubted the old bastard would be forgiving of unpaid dues by the time the new term started.
Rei needed this job. More than 20 minutes of extra training, he definitely needed this job.
Once the clean brown of the jumpsuit was zipped up around his neck—complete with “Grandcrest Preparatory Staff” stitched over his left breast—Rei wrenched on his shoes and finally breathed easier. He was late, but if he got everything done before calling it a night, Mr. Alib might be content with warning him to keep an eye on the clock next time. Satisfied with committing to a little extra effort for the evening, Rei grabbed a couple of clean towels and the fullest bottle of sanitizer he could find, slapping several sterilization drones waiting in sleep mode on the closet shelves into activity as he hurried out of the room.
While a lot of the cleaning process of a space as large as the combat gym could be handled through automation, there were still some aspects that required a human touch. Letting the drones zip around for a time—treating every surface with heavy doses of intense UV-light—Rei set about wiping down the mats that had been left out, spraying particularly sweaty—and occasionally bloody—spaces when needed, then pulling all the padding into the storage room off the main gym. This done, he started to repeat the whole process with the floor, letting his mind wander as he watched the machines buzz about, completing their sweeps of the circular building with mechanical efficiency. Some 15 days prior, this room had been made into a ceremonial assignment hall, suspended in the wonders of space. Unbidden, Rei’s eyes drifted to the place Major Albert Connelly had shaken his hand, welcoming him to the Intersytem Collective Military.
It seemed… a dream. Not the CAD around his wrist. Shido’s weight had steadily become a comfortable presence, the blue vystetrium against black-and-white steel a familiar glow he had taken to falling asleep staring at every night. More so, it was the time since that felt like it had passed in half a daze, the last weeks of Rei’s final months at the Academy sometimes trickling by, sometimes vanishing in a rush.
E1… In 2 weeks he hadn’t just managed to pull himself out of the F-Ranks, but climbed a whole level more than that. It blew his mind even then, considering it for the hundredth time since passing out of E0 the day before yesterday with a jump to F4 in his Speed spec. It hadn’t been easy, of course—Rei had given up more than a few nights of good sleep and solid studying for a late evening or early morning of training—but it was still astonishing. He knew Viv’s specs had started significantly higher than his, but despite the conditioning she did with him being only in addition to the two sessions a day she had with professional trainers, the girl had only managed to bump her Defense, Offense, and Endurance specs a level, and her overall Rank not at all. To be fair it had only been 2 weeks, but Viv had always been something of a prodigy at pretty much anything she set her mind to, so Rei couldn’t help but feel like even those meager changes were probably impressive in their own right.
He knew, of course, what the variable was.
A day hadn’t gone by since Shido had been assigned to him that Rei hadn’t spent at least some time staring at the letter “S” beside his CAD’s Growth spec. He had yet to wrap his mind around it—and got the feeling he probably never would—but the disbelief and confusion had slowly started to shift into a sort of resigned understanding that he very likely wasn’t meant to know anything more. It was his job to be a good little test subject, he knew, and every time one of the school security cameras flashed in his direction, or someone passed him on a NOED-call, he was reminded that the party in charge of this experiment was not only everywhere, but very, very watchful.
He shivered at the thought as the sterilization drones finished their loop of the gym floor and started moving into the stands. That the MIND was all around was the sort of understood fact everyone knew and no one talked about, but to know he was specifically being monitored was somehow… disquieting. And yet—despite that discomfort—the ISC’s AI was also the only reason he had been given a chance, an opportunity—thin as it was—to climb the mountain Rei had been eyeing for as long as he could remember.
With a sigh he picked up his bottle and rags again, heading for the center of the floor to check for anything the bots hadn’t managed to clean up.
“Ward.”
Rei nearly jumped out of his uniform, his combined distraction and the fact that he’d been very much under the assumption he was the only living soul left in the building lending themselves to his surprise. He turned around, expecting to find Mr. Alib thundering towards him in a mood, ready to chew him out for being late to his shift.
He had to stop himself making a face, therefore, when he found four figures he knew all too we
ll approaching him from under the overhang of the south lobby entrance.
Lee Jackson and his teammates—Mason, Suresh, and Silva, the only girl of the group—hadn’t changed out of their grey training suits, leading Rei to believe they’d probably been waiting for him after practice, which meant they’d been watching him for some time. While Lee approached him with a cocky sort of swagger, the other three seemed less certain, Mason and Suresh even eyeing Rei warily.
“Gotta say, man, that uniform fits you a lot better than this one.” Lee stopped some 5 feet away, taking in the brown custodial jumpsuit with mock approval. “Wish I’d taken the time to see it before now.”
With his towels in one hand and the spray bottle in the other, Rei watched the others move to surround him too casually. He let them, seeing no easy way of getting out of the situation other than making a run for it.
And he’d never been much good at running.
Ding. Rei’s NOED notified him that “Viviana Arada” was attempting to call him. He declined it, suspecting now wasn’t the time to talk about the day’s progress.
“Someone told me the team colors didn’t make my eyes pop,” Rei finally answered sarcastically, looking slowly around at each of the fighters in turn. “What do you want, Lee?”
The taller boy smirked. “Just to see the famous new ‘User’ on campus. Can’t say I really believe it.” He glanced down at Shido’s two bands peeking out from beneath the brown sleeves. “The military giving a scarred-up freak like you a Device? I’ll bet a hundred credits those are fake.”
“If that’s all you wanted to know, you could have just searched my name on the feeds. I’m registered in the ISCM database, along with most of my general CAD info.” Rei cocked his head to the side. “But you knew that already.”
Lee’s grin broadened a little. “Maybe. Maybe I did check. Maybe I checked, and saw that you were a nothing F-Rank assigned what basically amounts to a pair of shiny bracelets.”
So you checked as soon as you found out weeks ago, and haven’t bothered to since, Rei translated in his head.
In reply, though, he shrugged. “Then you’ve got all the data I’m about to tell you. So I ask again: what do you want?”
Lee’s expression faltered, shifting into a scowl for a moment before he managed to plaster the smirk back on his face. “Actually, I’m just here to lend a hand, man! Word on the mats is you and Arada quit so you could have more time training. Given your… uh… situation—” he stared pointedly at the “Grandcrest Preparatory Staff” stitching on Rei’s uniform “—I figured you might be lacking in decent sparring partners.” He waved around at himself and the three others now pinning Rei in on every side. “We talked it over, and thought it was the least we could do for our school’s new military man.”
Rei didn’t take the bait. “Sparring? Sure. I can pull the weighted gloves out of storage, but I should warn you: my Device comes with a full-body reactive field now. Not just the neck-up shield the combat collars would give you. Might be a little one-sided.”
That made them sweat a bit. To Rei’s right and left Mason and Silva glanced nervously at Lee, who—to his credit—didn’t even blink.
“No,” he said slowly, his smile fading as his patience obviously started to fail him. “Not with gloves, Ward. We want to see what your trash ‘Device’ can do. As for your energy field… Might be interesting to make a study of how much punishment it can take before it gives out.”
DING. Viv tried calling him again.
Not. Now. Rei thought privately, declining a second time.
“Calling a CAD on non-Users is a criminal infringement outside of self-defense.” Rei grit his teeth, feeling some of the confidence come back to the others at Lee’s lack of hesitation. “But again, you knew that. I’m not going to play this stupid game, Lee. You want me to call, so you can say I threw the first punch. I don’t know what your damn problem is, but either get this shit over with, or get out of my way and let me do my job.”
He took a step forward, and this time Lee moved back, away from him. The retreat had obviously been reflexive, because the boys face flushed with embarrassment beneath his dark hair, and he closed the distance between them again in an instant, bringing himself nose-to-nose with Rei—or as close as was possible with their 7 inches of height differentiation.
“Even if you don’t bring it out first, I doubt anyone is gonna care. You think you’re hot stuff, huh, ‘User’? With your F-Rank garbage jewelry? I’ve beaten your ass enough times in practice. Maybe you’ll actually make me break a sweat this time.”
Rei glared up at the boy, thinking fast. There was a time where he and Lee would have made an off match. He was the more skilled fighter—Rei doubted even Coach Kat would have argued that—but Lee’s significant advantage in size had almost always been too much of a gap to close. Rei had lost nearly every pairing they’d had in practice, and usually quickly.
Now, though… Even ignoring calling on Shido, Rei’s F2-and-above specs probably made him close to a fairer rival. He was pretty sure he could bring Lee down, in fact. The problem would be the other three… If they managed to pin him, Rei didn’t have the Strength numbers to fight them all off. They probably wouldn’t have too much trouble holding him down, and while Shido’s energy shield would help a lot, an F2 spec in Defense didn’t lend itself to a lasting barrier…
He decided, then. He would have to take Lee out, and fast. Lean into his best spec, his F4 Speed Rank. If he could down the ringleader, Mason, Suresh, and Silva had all already shown they weren’t as keen on kicking his teeth in as the asshat who’d obviously talked them into it.
Rei set his feet, feeling the muscles of his legs knot in preparation as Lee continued to stare down at him from bare inches away, daring him to make the first move.
“Reidon Ward?”
Immediately there was a scrambling of surprised movement as all five of them started, Lee whirling around. From the south lobby—the same entrance the group had approached Rei from—a lithe woman was crossing the empty floor of the gym quickly. Rei blinked, taking her in, at first confused by the figure’s presence in the middle of the mess he had found himself in.
Then he registered the uniform.
Black trimmed with gold, the unmistakable colors of ISCM regulars gleamed in the gym lights suspended high above them. Her leather boots clicked as she neared, and her hair—brown and cropped shorter on one side than the other—was mostly hidden under the iconic, brimmed military cap. As she got closer, Rei made out bright eyes undercut by narrow lips that were almost too red, set against oddly tanned skin. He had just a moment to think that something was a little off about her face, but the consideration was barreled aside in a heartbeat when he took note of two other facts:
The first: she was holding a smaller, rectangular envelope in one hand.
The second: around her left arm, a white band of cloth was emblazoned with the distinct shape of a red griffin holding onto the four sides of a tilted square.
“Galens,” Rei choked out, not hearing himself. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.
But the woman—a captain, he saw from her insignia once she was close enough—kept moving towards them with a purpose. When she was 5 feet away she finally came to a halt, eyeing the four uniformed fighters with a level of such complete disinterest, Rei was convinced any person subject to a similar look would shrivel into themselves in shame.
At last, her pale eyes fell on him.
“Are you Cadet Reidon Ward?”
Numbly, Rei nodded, unable to form the words to respond.
A twitch at the corner of her lip might have been the hint of a smile, but it vanished in a strange way.
There was definitely something odd about her face…
“Your supervisor informed me you would be here.” The woman’s quick words swept the notion away again. “My name is Captain Kana Loren. I’m an A-Type combat instructor at the Galens Instit
ute, where you applied for enrollment thirteen days ago.”
No way. No way.
“I’m pleased to inform you, cadet, that your application has been approved by our board of admissions.” She brought up the envelop she’d been holding, presenting it to him formally with both hands. “I’m here to welcome you to the Institute, should it still be your intention to attend.”
For a long time Rei could only look down at the object in Loren’s hands with such dumb fascination, he suspected later to have appeared nothing short of a star-struck idiot. From an empty void of sheer astonishment he took in the pale paper fold-over of the envelope, sealed by hand in the ancient fashion of melted red wax pressed with the symbol of the school. After a solid 5 seconds of silence, Rei was finally able to bring his hands up to accept it, only to discover he still held the towels and spray bottle.
They fell to the ground together.
“I… I got in?” he asked quietly, not looking up from the winged griffin in its square as he finally took the envelop.
“You did.” The captain’s voice was a little gentler, now, clearly registering his shock. “Congratulations.”
Rei was just able to lift his eyes to meet hers.
“How did I… I mean… How could I have…?” He trailed off, not sure if he wanted to open that line of questioning for any present party to pursue.
Fortunately, Loren seemed to follow his train of thought.
“If Galens accepts you, then you earned it somehow, even if you don’t think you deserved it.” Her face grew suddenly hard. “Am I to assume, then, that you intend to enroll in the Institute, cadet?”
Rei—who had looked down at the wax seal once more—started to nod again, then caught himself.
“Yes!” he said quickly. “I-I mean—Yes, ma’am!” He gave the captain a stiff salute, right hand opened and fingers brought to his brow with palm out, hoping the small amount of time he and Viv had put into practicing the movement paid off.
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 12