by K A Riley
“I asked you here, Branwynne, because I need you.”
“I need you.” Three words that have to rank right up there with “I love you” in terms of pure, heart-swelling, life-changing, soul-surging magnificence.
“Need me?” I ask, willing myself not to blush and doing my best to stop my eyes from drifting around the room. “Haida didn’t tell me what for. Am I in trouble?”
“Yes.”
Gulp.
“But not with me.”
Whew.
“With everything that happened down there in the desert, what could have stayed a fragile but peaceful balance has been shattered. You might think that was the end. But it’s not. It’s barely the beginning. So, yes. You’re in trouble. And so are the rest of us.”
Looking around, I can sense she’s not exaggerating. I’ve been in Kress’s office dozens of times—usually to get yelled at for cutting class or for disappearing from the Academy for hours at a time without permission—and it’s usually pretty sparse. She doesn’t believe in flourishes or fanciness. Most of the time I’ve been in here, it’s been me, Kress, two chairs, and a desk. Now, it looks more like a war room.
Squaring myself up to face Kress doesn’t help much with my ability to focus since the spaces above her desk on either side of her are also cluttered with floating images, including more rolling green text, an inventory of weapons and medical supplies, and an array of slowly-rotating, 3D topographical holo-maps in a color palette of vivid reds, greens, yellows, browns, and blues.
Kress taps at one of the floating schematics, which enlarges and then collapses back down as she squeezes her fingers into a loose fist. Pulling her shoulder-length hair back into a ponytail with a synth-leather tie-back, she turns her laser-eyed focus to me.
“As you now know,” she says, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ears, “the talk about you being valuable to some pretty bad people is real.”
I roll my eyes and tell her how much I love being the pin in someone else’s hand grenade.
“Don’t be a twit,” she says through a restrained grin. “Listen. We stopped Krug. We’re working on bringing some of the country’s Survivalists over to our side. We drove the True Blues out of D.C., liberated nearly all of California, freed dozens of Emergents, shut down another Processor, and we’ve started to expose more and more of the truth about the Eastern Order.”
“I know,” I agree with a proud smile for my mentor. “It’s only a matter of time before you put that lie to rest once and for all.”
Kress nods but doesn’t seem to share my optimism. “Krug was dug in. He’s dangerous even after death.”
“How can he be—?”
“He brainwashed a lot of people before we took him down. Weak, insecure, and fearful people still look up to him as their god, their savior from a world full of invented enemies. He’s becoming a myth. And to some of the most desperate and depraved, he’s becoming a prophet and a martyr. The Wealthies in the arcologies still worship him. And why shouldn’t they? According to them, he saved them from all of us. And millions of the poor worship him as their ticket into the world of the Wealthies. Myths are more powerful than people. You can’t just throw a myth off a building and watch it go splat on the pavement. We have to keep telling the truth. Whether or not the people we tell it to are willing and able to accept it…Well, let’s just say there are a lot of steps between hearing the truth and finally deciding to believe it.”
It’s cold in Kress’s office, so I tug my jacket closed and draw my bare feet up onto the seat of the hovering mag-chair. “Someday you’ll have to tell me why so many people fell for the Eastern Order myth in the first place and why they refuse to see the truth when it’s sitting there slapping them right in the bloody face. I was a little kid, and even I knew something was dodgy.”
The corner of Kress’s lip does a smirky little twitch.
“Okay,” I admit with a light laugh. “Maybe I didn’t know they were a total invention. But I felt something was…off about the whole thing.”
“Not everyone has your insight.” Chuckling, Kress tilts her head backward toward Haida. “Or hers.”
“You think Haida is why I’ve always felt a little…different?”
“I think she’s why you’ve always felt there are more dimensions to the universe than our simple human senses would have us believe.”
“Too bad everyone can’t have access to her,” I mumble.
Kress’s muted grin expands, and she chuckles. “In my experience, it’s one of the hardest things in the world for people to have more faith in what they see than in what they’ve been brainwashed to believe. I promise to tell you why that is…as soon as I figure it out myself.”
I try to laugh at that, but it’s not easy. I don’t like hearing that there might be things Kress doesn’t know or can’t do. Maybe it’s because I grew up in such isolation in the Tower of London, but reading people—figuring out their mental blocks, motives, fears, and desires—has never been my strong suit.
If Kress can’t figure it out, what hope do I possibly have?
On top of being cold, I’m fidgety and uncomfortable in my seat. I’m used to having these intense philosophical conversations up on the Academy’s roof during my mentoring sessions, guided by Kress and surrounded by the school’s seven ravens.
(My training has been going well. I even asked Kress the other day if I was a Ravenmaster yet. She flicked her hand at me and said I still needed to become a “Branwynne-master” first. “And that’s coming along nicely,” she admitted. “You’ve made some good strides in the right direction. But don’t let the giant leaps come at the expense of all those important little steps in between.”)
Now, the focus isn’t on me or my training. It’s on what the world outside is going to look like when my classmates and I eventually leave the Academy and do what we’ve been training to do: Expose the corrupt. Defend the weak. Inspire the frightened.
Save the world.
“There are people out there,” Kress says, activating a holo-projection off to the side with one hand before turning back to drum her fingers on her desk, “people whose prejudices, fears, and ignorance run deep. They’ll do anything—up to and including acting against their own best interests—in order to pursue an agenda of selfishness, hate, and divisiveness.”
“This has to do with the Devoted, doesn’t it?”
Kress gives me a glare and what I hope is a smile, but it might be a slightly bitter smirk. She clears her throat and nods. “And Sara. With her in their ranks, they can bring more people into their Cult while getting everyone else to fight with each other. With Gwernna, they can wage war pretty much forever. Combined, the Cult of the Devoted now have the desire and the power to expand well past the point where we can do anything to stop them. After all the planning and jockeying for political position, they’re preparing to make their next move.”
“What move?”
Kress leans back in her chair and laces her fingers together in her lap. Behind her, Render blinks his coal black eyes and shudders himself alert. Leaving Haida, he hops from his perch at the window and flutters over to land on Kress’s shoulder. Outside, it’s become sort of normal to see him swoop down from the sky or from a tree or from one of the eaves of the Academy and alight on her shoulder or on her forearm. Sometimes, he’ll land at her feet and hop onto one of her boots, nuzzling her leg like a feathery black cat. In the confined space of Kress’s office, his small movement over a few feet feels like a nuclear blast of dusky, ruffled feathers.
I’m still not used to it, but Kress doesn’t flinch. She reaches into the small leather pouch she keeps on her belt and tosses a marbled, blood-red cube of pulpy meat up to Render, who gobbles it down with a backward head tilt and a quick snap of his powerful beak.
Kraa-ing his delight, he opens and closes his glossy black talons, readjusting himself on Kress’s shoulder.
Not to be left out, Haida gurgle-clacks her jealousy and flutters over
to land in the middle of Kress’s desk where she grumbles and struts through a cluster of hovering holo-projections. The dancing green and gold images bend, distort, and cast a patchwork of wonky shadows on Haida’s white feathers. Laughing, Kress tosses her a snack as well.
“It’s not just one move,” she sighs, reaching over to give Render’s hefty beak a delicate stroke with the tip of her finger. “The Devoted are prepping to make lots of moves, actually. Simultaneous ones. The kind that could make Krug look harmless by comparison. The communications infrastructure has been down for a long time.”
“Wasn’t that because of Krug?”
“He did everything he could to keep us in the dark. It turns out the Devoted have been working quietly and for several years now, to get the network up and running and completely under their control.” A stiffness seeps into Kress’s face. Her jaw tightens, and her eyes go narrow and dark. A few strands of hair have fallen out of her ponytail and dangle in loose curls along her cheeks. She doesn’t bother to brush them back behind her ear like she usually does. Instead, she locks her eyes onto mine and leans forward just enough so I know I’d better be paying careful attention. “They’re doing what they promised to do, Branwynne. They’ve taken over the Unsettled—the army and all of their vehicles—and have them building walls around their Independent Confederation. They call it the NARRA.”
“NARRA?”
“The National Autonomous Region of Rights for Americans.” Kress makes air-quotes with her fingers. “It’s their new nation, their Promised Land. It’s the supposed utopia they say history has been leading them to build.”
I expect her to roll her eyes at this. She’s famously impatient about random acts of stupidity. But she seems beyond deadly serious at the moment.
Maybe even a little scared?
“There are resistance coalitions still forming on the coasts,” she continues, pointing at the white and blue strips of the map on the smaller holo-projection to her side. “And we need to help them solidify their positions. With the Unsettled out of the picture, right now, they’re all that’s stopping the Devoted from a complete takeover with long term goals of expanding into the ultimate colonial empire.”
Haida must sense my tension, because she steps to the edge of Kress’s desk before hopping onto my forearm.
Her voice melts into my head but also seems to seep reassurance throughout my body.
~ Relax.
How can I relax? Kress is sitting here casually talking about the beginning of the end.
~ And you’ll need to fight harder and against greater odds than you’ve ever faced. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now, though, you’re safe, and worrying isn’t a solution. So relax.
“Don’t worry,” Kress says, snapping me back into my own head with a reassuring grin. “Only Brohn and I are going this time. We’ve made the mistake once before of not leaving enough people here to take care of you all. So this time, most of the Conspiracy will stay here at the Academy. They’ll keep teaching you and protecting you until it’s time to make a full-on move of our own.”
Making sure we have enough babysitters—that’s what she thinks I’m worried about?
I’m startled when the proximity sensor on the door pings. Behind me, the silver door whooshes open, and Brohn steps into the room.
Except for in our combat training classes, the teachers in the Academy rarely walk around armed. But Brohn has his bulky arbalest strapped to his back and a .50 Action Express Desert Eagle with a ten-inch barrel in a holster on his hip. He’s in the standard issue Academy battle kit: a blue and white compression top and his black tactical gear, complete with four military field knives tucked into pockets across his chest, one on each arm of his armor-plated combat jacket, and one larger knife strapped into a holster slung low on his thigh. Square-jawed, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and looking like he’s two seconds away from leaping from a plane onto a battlefield, he looms in the doorway, an intimidating presence but also a comforting one.
Even though he’s a head shorter than Terk and War—who are both pretty gigantic in their own right—he always seems to me like a mountain of a man. With his easy confidence, impossible good looks, and powerful protective instinct, he’s actually somehow more approachable than Kress and not nearly as scary.
Of course, I’ve seen him in action, in class and in combat out in the real world. (In those cases, he’s completely unapproachable and incredibly scary.)
“Wisp and Granden just got the word,” he announces, stepping into the room and planting himself in a wide-legged stance next to my chair.
“The Devoted?” Kress asks.
“Yes.”
“What about them?” My voice is quaking with an uncontrollable anxiety that feels like it has a mind of its own.
“Justin and Treva have been patient and planning,” Brohn says from just behind my shoulder. I turn and glance up to meet his dark, shaded eyes as they lock onto mine. “They’re more clever, more ambitious, and far more dangerous than we ever thought. They sided with Krug when he was alive, but that was for their own sake, not for his. With Krug gone, they knew there’d be a power vacuum. They’ve spent over five years preparing to fill it.” Running his hand over his stubbled jaw, he swallows hard, almost like this news has him worried.
But that can’t be. What could possibly be bad enough to worry Brohn?
Cradling Render on her forearm, Kress stands, comes around to my side of the desk, and leans back against its edge. Her eyes are sad. “It’s starting.”
“Starting?”
“The end,” she says. “Epic won’t stop until he’s solved the mystery of the Emergents. And Justin and Treva won’t stop until there’s no one left to challenge the Devoteds’ control.”
“They aren’t responsible for dividing the country,” Brohn cautions. “That happened a long time ago. But they are dedicated to making those divisions formal, controlled, and permanent.”
“Our country started out as a colony,” Kress reminds me. (Not that I need the reminder. After all, it was my country that colonized hers.) “After that,” she continues, “it became a collection of independent states. And then, it was a nation. A powerful nation.”
Brohn’s voice is a low rumble as he adds, “A powerful nation that, as of about an hour ago, doesn’t exist.”
I half-turn to squint up at him. “Doesn’t…?”
“The country’s coasts are being established as the East and West Republics. As you know, Granden’s people are running things out East. They’ve got headquarters fully set up in D.C. with another resistance base being set up in New York City. Wisp’s people and the Insubordinates have set up West Republic headquarters in San Francisco.”
“Thanks to Epic’s intervention,” Kress explains, “the Devoted control the vast interior of the country.” She stands and points to the chunky, red portion of the larger holo-map projected out from the wall. “They’ve established a government of their own, a provisional alliance with the Wealthies, a slave-class of the Unsettled, and a growing army to ensure their supremacy and to allow for them to expand their reach into our coastal Republics. We suffered through decades of Krug’s corruption and cruelty. We lived through the chaos of the aftermath, and we’ve had over five years of relative safety here in the Academy. We thought we could tip the scales in the direction of peace and unity. But the Devoted had other ideas. And they’re in the process of putting those ideas into very dangerous action.”
“And that’s bad, right?” I ask.
“A new era of global hierarchies and repression is here…and sooner than we thought. We weren’t kidding ourselves. We knew there’d be push-back against us trying to create a better world.”
“It’s just that that push-back happened harder and faster than we expected,” Brohn admits.
“It’s taken us all a long time to recover from Krug. The Devoted are determined to open old wounds and create some new ones, all in the name of securing their position at the t
op of a new world order.”
“And all this is happening now?” I ask through a shudder. “I mean, like, right now?”
“As we speak,” Kress assures me.
I know about repressive governments. I lived under one in London. Kress and her Conspiracy lived and almost died under one right here in the Divided States of America. I know what governments like that do and how they work. I’ve seen them practice policies designed to destroy the very people they claim to care about. I’ve seen them abandon their own cities, leaving them to rot and implode into pits of starvation, desperation, and violence. As a little girl, I saw survivors break off into their own warring factions and kill each other over food, water, territory, and sometimes, over nothing.
I’m only seventeen, but I’ve already seen dictatorships, aristocracies, monarchies, oligarchies, and ochlocracies of total mob rule masquerading as democracies. I’ve seen governments slaughter the innocent, swell with power, bloat with corruption, and spin lie after blatant lie.
And I’ve even seen those same corrupt governments—those empires, those cults of personality—end.
What I don’t know anything about, what I’ve never seen with my own eyes, and what Kress and Brohn are telling me is happening outside of the Academy right now, is the exact moment when one of those corrupt empires begins.
End of Army of the Unsettled, Book 3 of The Academy of the Apocalypse series
48
Kress Bonus Chapter - Arise
“We have to face facts, Kress,” Brohn says, his eyes locked onto mine. “The Devoted won the war.”
Sighing, I slump lower into my mag-chair behind my desk. “I know. I know.”
“And they did it in record time.”
“I know that, too.”
Brohn’s not wrong. In only five years, the Cult of the Devoted went from an outlying community of strange and moderately creepy but mostly pleasant people into unchallenged overlords of the entire middle expanse of the country.