I take a huge, arching dive off the edge of the pool and plunge into the water. It’s immediate, powerful relief. I remember how much I used to love to swim. At the Academy, I was the longest to hold my breath underwater. Without opening my eyes, I jet to the opposite end of the pool in a matter of seconds and resurface with a big breath.
“Oh, heavens,” I gasp as water streams off of my head and shoulders. “I forgot how good that feels.”
Vega stares at me, her lips pressed tightly together. She crosses her arms. Her black swimsuit is nearly dry again.
“Are you getting back in?” I ask, floating on my back.
“Not until you answer my question,” she says. “Why would your father give you a piece of paper with the Veritas insignia drawn on it?”
I lift myself out of the water, walk back to her, and wipe my face on her towel. “I have no earthly idea.”
“You must know something—”
I push her into the pool.
I’m excused from IA duties on my first day on Harmonia. According to Vega, my mother wanted to allow me the time to readjust. She and Claudia don’t come home that night, but Laertes does. He claims my mother and sister both got caught up at work then cooks dinner for me and Vega. We all eat together on the pool deck as the sun sets over the ocean. It’s enjoyable as long as I pretend I’m not being held against my will.
Vega sleeps soundly that night while I toss and turn. My brain cycles through twenty different ways to get out of this house, but every escape plan ends at the port. Knowing my mother, she stationed IA Defense officers there to ensure I don’t make another break for it. In the middle of the night, I hear Claudia return home. She warms up something to eat in the kitchen before retiring to her room next door. Half of me wants to get up and go to her. I used to be able to ask her for advice whenever I needed it, but that bridge has long since burned.
As soon as I finally drift off to sleep, Vega wakes me again. She lifts the shades on the window, letting the sunlight pour in. My eyes water, and I groan and roll over, pulling the blankets over my head.
“Get up,” Vega orders. She stands at the foot of my bed and yanks the blankets off me. “It’s your first day of training, Holmes.”
“Bite me.”
“Maybe if you’re on your best behavior. If you’re late, it’s ten extra laps around the track.”
She drops an outfit on my sheets and leaves. I yank the shades back into place and let my eyes adjust gradually. The outfit is my size. It’s the classic white undershirt, gray protective vest, and matching athletic pants of a Defense officer-in-training. I don’t get a colored vest until I graduate from the Academy’s program. With a moan, I pull on the clothes and lace up the combat boots that go with it. When I look in the mirror, I see eighteen-year-old Ophelia, except this version of myself is fed up with IA’s bullshit rather than terrified of it.
Vega’s downstairs making breakfast. She sets a smoothie in front of me, but the muddy brown color doesn’t look any kind of appetizing.
“No, thanks,” I say.
“It’s chocolate and peanut butter,” she replies, pouring the rest of the mixture into a thermos for herself. “That’s your favorite, right? Don’t eat it if you don’t want it, but don’t blame me when you pass out during the first hour of basic training.”
Grudgingly, I take a sip of the smoothie. It’s delicious, and Vega remembered correctly. Chocolate and peanut butter is my favorite flavor. Vega swings a duffel bag over her back and claps me on the shoulder.
“Ready for your first day, kiddo?”
“Shut up.”
Outside, Vega throws her duffel into the trunk of the automated car then gets into the back seat. I join her, and we trundle off through the shrubbery on our way to the Academy. Vega consults a checklist on her tablet.
“First things first, you need a physical,” she reports. “We’ll do that first and get you cleared for training. Then we’ll head over to the Defense gym and join Claudia’s class—”
I sputter, spraying chocolate and peanut butter smoothie across the smooth leather seats. “Claudia’s class?”
Vega wipes the smoothie from her pants with a disgusted expression. “Yes. She’s teaching the senior Defense class this year. You’ll be taking her class for the remainder of the semester. If you pass the end-of-year exams, you can graduate with everyone else.”
“Forget the humiliation of being the oldest Academy student,” I say. “I can’t be in my sister’s class. She wants to kill me.”
“Then you have the motivation to do well and move on.”
“I thought I was supposed to be cross-training,” I argue. “Why can’t I start in Intelligence first? I already know everything about Defense, and I actually have a chance at surviving if I train with Laertes.”
“I said we’d cross-train you if you’re lucky,” Vega replies. “We’re starting you with Defense because you’re familiar with it. I gotta warn you. The structure of the classes has changed. If you thought the Academy was strict before, you’re in for a surprise now. I suggest you toe the line.”
“I have poor balance.”
“No, you don’t.” Vega taps away on her tablet. “If you listen to directions, everything will be just fine.”
I puke after the first five warm-up laps around the track, spewing chocolate-peanut-butter smoothie across the perfect lawn of the outdoor training field. The other students—scrawny kids who look better suited to Intelligence than Defense—snicker as they pass me. I give them the IA salute before I remember it doesn’t have the same derogatory connotation as it did on Saint Rita’s ship.
Vega walks up and offers me a cup of water and a smirk. “Not in great shape anymore, are we?”
I take a swig and toss the rest of the water in her direction. She sidesteps the splash.
“We didn’t run much on The Impossible,” I say, panting on all fours. My gray uniform is already soaked in sweat. “Wait until we get to combat.”
“Half of combat is cardio,” Vega reminds me. “Plus IA’s updated its combat protocol. Your moves are outdated, Holmes.” She nudges my ribs with her boots. “Get up. You got five more laps.”
Five laps later, my legs are jelly and my lungs are on fire, but the class hasn’t even begun yet. We return to the air-conditioned training gym and wait for my sister to show up and teach the class. The students break off into the usual cliques. Bulky show-offs, lanky speedsters, and miscellaneous body types. They mill about in groups of four or five, stretching and eating protein bars. They all have one thing in common: they can’t stop staring at me.
“That’s her.”
“Ophelia Holmes.”
“Didn’t she defect?”
“I heard she died.”
“I’m alive,” I announce loudly when I get tired of the whispered mutters and gossip. “Deal with it, tiny people.”
The door to the gym bangs open, and the students scatter. They fall into lines, spaced apart from each other in equal distances. My sister enters. Dressed in shorts and a tank top, she doesn’t look particularly intimidating, but the students quiver in her presence. Claudia looks them over one by one, occasionally instructing someone to wipe their brow or tuck in their shirt. When she reaches the end of the last line, she pauses.
“Holmes!” she shouts.
I look around. “Me?”
“Are you Holmes?”
“Uh, yeah. You know I am, Claudia.”
She strolls over to where I’m sitting on the gym floor. Vega backs away as Claudia kneels next to me. “You will address me as Instructor or Ma’am,” she says. “Understood?”
I snicker. “Seriously? Claudia, what is this—?”
She smacks the side of my head with her flat palm. My eardrum rings, and I clap my hands to my head and try not to topple over.
“You’ll speak when spoken to,” Claudia says. “Fall in, Holmes.”
I don’t mess with Claudia for the rest of the class. I don’t even look at her if I
can help it. I follow along with the other students as we go through a series of combat exercises. Some of them I remember from my own training. Muscle memory takes over, and I perform them near perfection. Other exercises are brand new. Those are harder for me to get the hang of, and I feel clumsy compared to the rest of the class. When we finally pair off to spar, I feel like I’m made of gelatin.
Claudia picks the partners. She puts me with the biggest guy in the class. He’s over six feet tall and probably weighs about two hundred pounds. His plump baby face doesn’t match his muscular stature.
“Doug,” he says, grinning as we face off. “Don’t worry, Holmes. I’ll go easy on you.”
Somehow, I doubt it.
Claudia blows a whistle, and we’re off. I circle around my partner, my feet dragging across the mats. I watch his head and his feet. One of them should reveal his first move. Unfortunately, he’s not the type of guy to rely on the element of surprise. He rushes me instead.
I step to the side, but all the running this morning has made me slow, and Doug is shockingly quick for a kid of his size. He turns on his heel and swings his left arm at the same time. I duck, but it’s no use. He clips my jaw, and my head spins.
“Put your hands up,” he advises. “Block with your elbows.”
“I know how to fight,” I snarl.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
He attacks again. This time, I manage to fend off his incoming blow, but as soon as I block the first hit, a second one comes around from the opposite. His meaty fist plunges into my rib cage.
“You’re using the old moves,” Doug says, circling around me. “We changed them because they were too predictable. Your sister came up with this new style of martial art. She calls it Holmes-style. It’s a pretty bad pun, but I kinda like it.”
The fact he can carry on a solid conversation says something about his excellent breath control. Meanwhile, I can barely breathe.
“Watch,” Doug instructs.
He goes through an attack move in slow motion, and I notice the difference in angle between this style and the previous one. When he gets closer, Doug positions my arms to defend his hit.
“Since you blocked me there, Holmes-style says go here.” Doug switches his stance and does a slow-motion punch to an unprotected part of my body. “If you’d been training with us from the beginning, you’d already know I’d aim there next. It’s a flow, you see? You never stop moving in circular patterns. It’s a lot of elbow work too. Holmes-style is all about preserving energy and using your opponent's strength against them so you can come out on top.”
He gradually speeds up his movements, waiting for me to learn them at a slower pace. Eventually, we’re at the same speed as the rest of the class. I’m getting the hang of it now that I know the basic methodology of the style. Claudia would come up with something like this. She was always all about efficiency and progress. As we move through another mock fight, I realize I quite like this style of fighting. It’s quick and lethal, perfect for living beyond the laws in Pavo.
All of a sudden, I pop Doug right in the chin. His head snaps up and back before his whole body spins. He staggers away, cradling his head between his palms. Then, unable to keep upright, he trips and falls to the floor. The thud echoes through the training gym.
I rush to Doug’s side and prod his shoulder. “Doug. Doug! Are you okay? I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to do that—”
“Holmes!” Claudia barks.
The entire class stares at me as I try to wake Doug from his knockout. It’s no use. He moans and rolls over, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to need the hospital wing.
“Get up, Holmes,” Claudia says. She beckons me to her. “Center circle.”
I leave Doug and join my sister in the middle of the gym, where a chalk circle is outlined on the floor to indicate a sparring zone. I remember the exercise from my time at the Academy. The goal is to knock your partner beyond the chalk outline. Step outside the circle, you lose.
“De Silva.” Claudia points to another girl in the class. “You’re up.”
De Silva steps forward. She’s short and thin, the complete opposite of Doug, but it doesn’t mean she won’t be a decent match. She walks into the circle on the balls of her feet, ready to go.
“Everyone gather round,” Claudia says, and the class closes in around the chalk circle as De Silva and I take our places. “Take notes. Trainees, whenever you’re ready.”
De Silva’s light on her feet as she bounces around the circle and darts in and out. She’s baiting me, waiting for me to take a swing. I don’t bite. I let her keep up her game, watching her footwork develop into a pattern. When I’ve memorized her rhythm, I wait for her to dart in again. When she does, I jab at her jaw. The hit lands, and she steps out of balance, toward the outer edge of the circle. With the same hand, I wind up again and throw a left hook. It knocks De Silva out of consciousness and out of the circle. She lands on her side beyond the chalk outline.
“Next!” Claudia calls, pointing to another student. She radiates no concern about the two trainees already unconscious on the gym floor. “Astra, you’re up.”
On and on it goes, the trainee class dwindling down as I make my way through them. Each fight deepens my knowledge of Holmes-style until I can execute each move with perfect precision. My predisposition for fighting, my background in Defense, and the dirty combat moves I picked up during my time on The Impossible make me the best fighter in the room. All I needed to defeat everyone here was Doug’s lesson on Holmes-style.
By the time I force the last trainee out of the chalk circle, I’m dripping with sweat and my whole body is shaking. Doug and De Silva have recovered from their knockouts. They’re nursing their wounds with a few other students in the corner of the gym. Everyone else watches the final moments of my last match. As soon as it’s over, I stagger out of the circle, but I’m not out of the woods yet. My sister grabs me by the collar of my soaking shirt and drags me out of the gym. In the hallway, I shake her off.
“What the hell is your problem?” I say, stepping out of range. From the look of pure loathing on Claudia’s face, she’s ready to clock me.
She steps in, keeping the distance between us close. “My problem is my sister is a traitor, and the IA isn’t doing anything about it. No justice, just excuses. You’re a plight to this program, and you don’t deserve a second chance.”
“If I’m such a plight, then why did you agree to teach me?” I demand, angry too now. “Why put me up against all those kids? You knew as soon as I got the hang of your dumb new style, I’d put them all out. What was the point of that?”
“So I could do this.”
When she swings, I’m too tired to stop the oncoming blow. I lean away from her fist, so the hit doesn’t land as hard as she wants, but it still tweaks my jaw. I roll under her next attack and aim an uppercut at her torso. She blocks it easily and jabs my nose with the same hand. Eyes stinging and watering, I can’t see what comes next, so I punch blindly. She catches one of my hands and yanks me over her hip. I go flying and hit the floor on my back. Claudia leans over me.
“This is my place now,” she says. “You don’t belong here anymore.”
She punches me right between the eyes, and everything goes black.
5
I wake up in a familiar place: the Academy’s hospital wing. I remember the minty-green walls, the identical twin-sized cots, and the abstract artwork that lines the walls from my childhood. I landed here a lot when I was a student. I’d either blown something up in chemistry class or gotten into a fight with another Defense initiate. That or I’d done something reckless and stupid, like the one time someone dared me to jump off the watchtower and I actually did it. The landing broke my left leg in three places, but injuries at the Academy are never very serious. Harmonia has the most advanced medical resources in Pavo, so my leg only took three weeks to heal. Then I was back in training.
My head’s a little fuzzy, but not from Claudia�
�s fists. It’s the familiar fuzz of painkillers circulating through my system. I roll over and pull up the Monitor built into the bedside table. All of my private information is displayed on the screen, including the nature of my injury and what was used to treat it. From what I can see, the medics gave me hydration fluids and a common drug to treat concussions. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Footsteps echo through the wing, and a door slams down the hall. I hurriedly shut off the Monitor. Back in my day, the medics weren’t happy when you were smart enough to check on your own symptoms. Voices emanate from a back room. I recognize the first one. It’s my mother.
“What happened?” she says. “I couldn’t get anything out of my other daughter.”
“She took a punch to the face,” the doctor replies. “Right between the eyes. She fractured her nose, but we took care of it. Nothing to worry about.”
“She’s experienced worse,” Gertrude says. “Anyway, I’m not here for her. How’s the vaccine coming along?”
“We’re making progress,” the doctor answers. “Finally discovered a chemical formula that can be used successfully in humans. We’ll develop a testing procedure. If everything goes well, we can deliver it to all of Pavo in a matter of weeks.”
“This is time-sensitive, Doctor Park,” my mother says. “We need this vaccine ready to distribute sooner rather than later.”
“I’m doing my best, Commander,” Doctor Park says. “I can’t promise any sooner than the end of the month.”
My mother sighs. “It’ll have to do.”
I lose track of the conversation when Vega comes through the door of the wing and marches up to my bed. Her eyes are red, like she’s been crying. She taps the Monitor to bring it to life and hits the large button that says “discharge.” The font goes green with a satisfying ding.
“Let’s go,” Vega says, collecting my sweaty clothes from beneath the cot and tossing a fresh outfit onto the bed for me to wear. “The nurse says you’re fine, and we’ve got more to do today. I guess I should’ve warned you not to piss off Claudia.”
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