The Apollo Academy

by Kimberly P. Chase

  “Yeah, but Aurora, this is your life. And he doesn’t exactly have that kind of control anymore.”

  “If I were normal, sure. But he has a financial stake in the Academy. And you’re right, this is my life. We’ll find out what’s going on and put a stop to it. I am not leaving the Academy.” She chucked off her shoes and looked down at her glitter toenail polish as she tried to connect the dots. She felt certain that Zane held the key to those answers.

  “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Zane says.”

  Kaylana’s eyebrows shot up as a knock on their door interrupted any further conversation. “And speaking of Zane …”

  Aurora jumped off her bed and scrambled to open the door. Zane was casually propped up against the doorway with his arms folded across his chest, the picture of calm. He was dressed in his usual black attire and combat boots. He made no move to enter.

  She felt awkward standing barefoot at the open door, so she whispered, “Aren’t you going to come in?”

  Zane’s gaze traveled the length of her body, causing her to remember their earlier exchange. How sexy Zane had looked in only his boxers, his long lean body. How she thought he was going to tackle her right there in the locker room and have his way with her.

  And she would have let him.

  After a few seconds of strained silence Zane seemed to gather himself. As he brushed by her into the room, their shoulders briefly touched.

  A shiver ran down her spine.

  Aurora closed the door and turned back into the room only to see he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the bookcases that now covered most of the open wall space. Her dad had sent a large portion of her vintage books over to her room the first week of school, in an attempt to apologize for allowing the media into their building.

  Zane walked to one of the bookshelves and carefully slid his finger down a thick binding. “Whose are these? I didn’t think anyone actually read paper anymore.”

  Several decades ago printing anything on paper became illegal because trees were so rare and the few left were protected. Besides, printing on paper no longer made sense. Everything anyone ever wanted to look at could be accessed on the Grid, and any words that needed to be written down could be done so electronically without wasting such valuable resources.

  Somewhere along the way she had developed an infatuation for the old written words, and her father, once he realized how much she adored them, presented them to her every time he felt guilty.

  Aurora stood next to Zane, and they both looked over the stacked books.

  “They’re mine,” she finally said. “I’ve always been fascinated with the way people used to write down such expressive and passionate words that could be kept around forever. They’re so rich in history that you can smell it—” She blushed. She shouldn’t have said all of that. Most people didn’t understand her obsession with them.

  But Zane nodded. “I get it. I learned a lot from books like these growing up.”

  Surprise flickered across Aurora’s face. She had never heard him speak to anyone of his past. “Really? Where did you find your books? They’re hard to come by—”

  Zane’s carefully blank face closed down even further. “It doesn’t matter.” He turned his back on the books. “Let’s get to what’s really important.”

  Evidently, the subject was an extremely sensitive one. She didn’t try to push for any more information. She already knew that he had a troubled past, and she understood wanting to be private.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, hiding her hurt that he still wouldn’t open up. She tried to tell herself that it was because they weren’t alone. Maybe he didn’t want Kaylana to hear.

  “What’s that?” Kaylana asked, finally joining their conversation.

  From his jean pocket, Zane had pulled out a small metal object with long, thin sticks surrounding it. Puzzled, she held her hand out, and Zane placed the object on her palm.

  It was the second time he’d placed a bug in her hands. She stifled the urge to drop it and stomp on it because, unlike her cute little ladybug, this one was a spider.

  “I don’t know what its official name is, but I call it a techspider. It’s the second of its kind I’ve found. This one came out of your life-support unit today.”

  Aurora had never seen or heard of a techspider, but his name for the tech was appropriate. The tech was anatomically built to look like a gray house spider but was more silver than gray. Eww.

  “What’s it supposed to do?” Kaylana moved beside her and looked closely at the spider.

  “It’s a very basic automation that seems to be able to only do one thing. Its legs, once spread over electrical components, will inhibit electrical current from properly flowing as it should. Whatever the parasite attaches itself to will stop functioning properly, until it eventually stops working at all.”

  It was hard to imagine that this little tiny bug had caused all of her major problems.

  Zane took the spider out of her hand and walked over to her desk where he flipped it over so that it lay on its back. He motioned for them to come over as he pulled a magnifying glass out of his pocket.

  She fought the urge to ask him what else he was carrying in his pockets. Luckily Kaylana, for once, was still focused enough for both of them. “Where exactly did you get the first one?”

  “I pulled the first one out of Aurora’s XT-101 head unit.”

  Aurora’s head whipped over to look at Zane. He said that like it was no big deal that this was the first time she was hearing of this. It took her a moment to gather her stunned thoughts. “Wait, what? How did you get my headset?”

  “Yeah, what’s going on?” Kaylana asked.

  Aurora couldn’t tell what Zane was thinking as he looked at the two of them. She wanted to yell at him to drop the facade.

  “Well, I obviously found the first one by looking through the XT-101. Sky helped me get access to it.” He said it with such nonchalance, like it wasn’t a big deal that he had not only taken the initiative to look for the problem himself, but that he had also kept the information he found a secret.

  “Sky helped you? He knows about all of this?” She gestured her hands wildly in the air.

  Zane shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, we both were able to agree that something weird was going on, enough that we thought looking around for answers might not be such a bad idea. Everyone else was just going to forget about it.”

  Kaylana jabbed her finger at Zane. “So you’ve both known that someone was targeting Aurora this whole time?”

  Zane pursed his lips and gave Kaylana an icy stare. He carefully enunciated his words as if he were holding back an angry retort. “No, I didn’t know anyone was trying to specifically hurt Aurora. I just knew that Aurora’s failures on her flight should have been virtually impossible. When my suspicions were confirmed—” His shoulders sagged. “I was worried that it could be directly related to you, but I just didn’t know for sure. I haven’t even had the chance to tell Sky what I found.”

  Aurora almost stopped breathing at the emotion building in his eyes. They were churning like dark cumulonimbus clouds as the pressure of his emotions built up, just like a severe summer storm. She read them clearly. He was scared for her but didn’t know what to do about it.

  “You’re right, though. I should have warned you. I would never want anyone to harm you.” As soon as the words were out, the emotion in his eyes cleared, just like the storm it reminded her of, leaving so quickly that she wondered if it had ever been there.

  “Zane, you saved my life. You took my broken unit. You couldn’t have done more for me if you tried.” She waved her hands in the air. “We’re getting off topic.” The small spider still lay belly-up on her desk, and Zane still held the unused magnifying glass in his hands. “What were you going to show us?”

  “Oh, right.” Zane moved the magnifying glass so that it was focused on where one of the spider’s middle right legs attached to the body. “It
took me awhile to find any sort of markings.” He gestured for Aurora to take a look. “Tell me what you think.”

  Aurora leaned over and saw the minuscule markings. Without the magnifying glass and being shown exactly where to look, she would have never seen the small indentations. She was already shaking her head in understanding when she stepped back away from the glass, allowing an impatient Kaylana a chance to see.

  “What is it?” Zane asked.

  “Well, it’s not exactly the same, but my dad uses a combination of letters and numbers to identify his products.”

  Aurora walked to her bookshelf and pulled out Meteorology Today. The title was practically illegible, but she would recognize its cover anywhere. To anyone else it looked like any other vintage paperbound book, but she knew better. Her dad had taken one of her books, turned the inside of the rotten pages into a locked safe, and reattached the old cover, effectively hiding its true identity. When her dad had first given it to her, she thought it was like all of her other collected books, but to her surprise it had been another one of his genius ideas. No one would ever think to look in an old book for her hidden treasures. And if they did, how would they know which one when she had hundreds?

  With a quick swipe of her finger across the book binding, the safe released. She opened the heavy book and reached inside to pull out her pilot tablet. It was an older piece of tech candy and one of the few she used, but this kind was beneficial.

  Zane stood behind her, trying to see what she was doing. She resealed the book and placed it randomly on one of her bookshelves, then handed Zane the tablet screen that held all of her approach plates and procedures.

  “I use this when I’m flying,” she explained. “Actually, all pilots have one, but my dad gave me this one. It’s designed by Titon Technologies. It’s not his main area of focus, but—”

  “What else does he focus on?”

  “Well, he spends most of his time and resources in the medical research department—” she trailed off as Zane’s face completely shut down.

  Aurora needed to steer the conversation away from her dad’s growing obsession with genetic medical testing and alteration. She didn’t want to have to talk about her mother’s sad story.

  She waved her hands in the air. “Anyway, that’s getting off the point. Turn it over.”

  Zane flipped the tablet over and went completely still. “I see it’s been stamped with an identification number, similar to the techspider. I suppose the TT means Titon Technologies?”

  Kaylana gasped. “Oh, no.” That one simple question made it clear to them all where the spider was produced.

  Zane sighed. “I can’t believe I didn’t get that,” and muttered something like “So much for superior genes,” but Aurora didn’t have time to worry about what he meant.

  Aurora went to stand next to Kaylana who was tapping the spider’s identification code into the Grid to see what she could find, but Aurora didn’t need to look. She already knew that the FS5509, barely discernible on the techspider, stood for Frontier Solutions.

  Zane was ahead of both of them. “Just because Frontier Solutions designed the tech doesn’t mean that they are behind the attacks.”

  What Zane said made sense. Anyone could take one of the products her dad created and use it for some nefarious purpose. That didn’t mean he was the one to blame. Aurora stopped herself from the urge to call her father and exclaim to him that Frontier Solutions was trying to kill her.

  “You’re right, that could be the case. But my dad was frantic Frontier Solutions was behind my airplane malfunction. I thought he was crazy. Going through bankruptcy wouldn’t be a justified reason to kill me.” She sat down on the bed, pulled her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on top. Kaylana sat beside her as they tried to figure things out.

  “So, Zane, you’re saying it doesn’t matter that her dad’s biggest competitor created that techspider or that it just so happened to make its way to Aurora Titon?”

  “Anyone can buy tech candy. It could have just as easily had a TT in its identifier. Who would we blame then?”

  They both nodded.

  “But I don’t think the idea should be discarded either,” Zane said. “It is a possibility.”

  “Okay, so who else would want to kill Aurora?”

  “Anyone. She’s the daughter of Collin Titon and a well-known student of the Apollo Academy. It could even be a TerraRists’ plot.”

  “Where did that name come from anyway? I thought they called themselves TerraUnited.” Kaylana asked like it was no big deal that so many people could be plotting to kill her. “It’s kind of catchy,” she admitted.

  “Technically they’re called TerraUnited, but they’re acting more like a terrorist group, so TerraRists is more fitting.”

  Aurora chucked a pillow at Kaylana. “That is so not important right now. Someone could not possibly want to kill me just because of my last name. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”

  She instantly muttered an apology for her outburst, but Kaylana and Zane were too busy staring with their mouths open in shock. She sheepishly shrugged and tried to calm down. “Sorry. This is just crazy. What would anyone gain from harming me? I mean, there are only a certain number of people who would have such close access to me, and quite frankly they are all suspects I don’t even want to consider.”

  “No, but I think you’re starting to ask the right questions. Who’s to gain from harming you?” Zane paused. “That could actually be a lot of people. We already considered anyone from Frontier Solutions. Maybe a jealous student? You’re one of the Apollo Academy’s most well known students. Maybe you’re an easy target for an organization like the TerraRists, and hurting you stops the training they are so against.”

  Zane walked over to Aurora’s desk and linked into the Grid with the touch of his fingertip. “Have you ever looked at their Gridlink?”

  Aurora followed Zane. The TerraUnited Gridlink looked exactly how she thought a hate group’s link would look, scribbled with hateful messages and propaganda. Aurora watched the rotating pictures of the Apollo Alliance moon mines and lunar bulldozers as they moved regolith and various lunar rocks out of their way. Beside these pictures were TerraUnited theories on how destroying our moon would only lead to further destruction of our planet.

  “They seem to be the kind of people who would want to take credit for any attacks they were behind.”

  “You’re right.” Zane sighed and closed out of the link

  “Let’s look at what we do know.” Aurora sat down behind her desk. It was easier to think about someone trying to kill her if she only focused on solving the problem.

  Zane kneeled down by her bed. “I know it’s hard to think of anyone trying to harm you, especially if it is over something as silly as your last name. I know I didn’t handle finding out who you were very well either, but I’ve learned there’s way more to you than just that.”

  Kaylana broke up the moment with a sigh. “Really. Now you want to tell her this?”

  Aurora had forgotten that Kaylana was still in the room with them when he started to say exactly what she longed to hear from him. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly the best time to bring the subject up, but better late than never. Maybe he couldn’t resist a damsel in distress no matter who the girl was. Not wanting to be the usual damsel in distress who did nothing but wait for someone else to rescue her, she got down to business.

  “Whoever planted that spider has to be associated closely with the Apollo Academy, most likely a fellow cadet or teacher.” As soon as she said it, she realized her words were true. Someone close to her had done this.

  Aurora tapped the desk’s glass surface and selected a new screen that she could make a list on. A virtual keypad appeared, and she began to type the names of people who were near during each incidence.

  When she was done, she waved Zane and Kaylana over. They both peered down at the list of names.

  “Well, Akemi definitely didn’t do i
t!” Kaylana threw her hands in the air.

  Aurora had expected that response and nodded. She didn’t like to think that anyone on her list could have been responsible. “I don’t want to think any of them are responsible, but it only makes sense to compile a list of everyone who was around the XT-101 and the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator.”

  Zane moved his fingers across the list, separating the longer group of names into two separate groups. He pointed to the much smaller list. “These are the people who were near both times.”

  Sky, Jean-Pierre, Rick, Ms. Lovell, Dr. Stevenson.

  “Though, now that I’m looking at their names, I’m not sure that really helps. I only added Dr. Stevenson and Ms. Lovell because they have access anywhere at any time. And Sky helped me find the evidence.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That only leaves Jean-Pierre and Rick. Do you trust them?”

  “Honestly, I would have trusted everyone on both lists. Well, maybe not Hailen,” she joked.

  Zane and Kaylana looked at each other, like that was actually a possibility. She only mentioned Hailen’s name as a joke. Just because she was openly mean to her didn’t mean that Hailen had a reason to kill her. If that was the only motive they needed then more names should be added to the list. “Are you sure about Sky?”

  “Well, Sky helped me find the first spider, so I don’t think he’s behind it,” Zane said, launching them into an hour-long conversation over who could be removed from their suspect list and eventually agreed that only Zane, Kaylana, and Akemi should come off the list. Everyone else they argued over, so they decided to leave them all there.

  “So we’re not going to tell your dad?” Kaylana asked.

  “Absolutely not. We’re not telling Ms. Lovell either.” Aurora clenched her fists. Just thinking about what they would do made her feel dizzy. “I’m not leaving the Academy. That would just be giving whoever is targeting me what they want.”

  “Touché,” Kaylana agreed.

  “I still think we can trust Dr. Stevenson,” Zane piped in.

  “Well I said the same thing about Ms. Lovell,” Kaylana countered.

  “Let’s not get into this again. I have no idea who placed that freaky spider on me, but it could be anyone.” Aurora’s back slumped. Her earlier let’s-get-this-solved attitude vanished, and frustration took its place. If only she’d been able to change her last name when she applied for the Academy, but that probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Besides, she’d decided to be more involved with her dad’s company, and that also meant living with her last name.