Peter made a face. “So you wouldn’t know of any Wechselbalg near where you lived?”
Greta shook her head. “Only rumors of Arkhangelsk–Archangel, to the west. When I was young we were told stories about that place when the nights drew in.”
Peter nodded. “That’s okay. What about the man himself? How long did you look after him by yourself?”
She made a see-saw gesture with her hand. “Around a year or so, maybe?”
“Uh-huh, and did he ever say anything that gave you a clue about where he came from?”
Greta chewed thoughtfully. “Not while he was with me. It was when we got here that he became too much for me to handle. Before then he used to sit quietly on my porch watching the seasons pass. When we came up here, that was when things got interesting.”
“What do you mean, ‘interesting?’” Peter asked.
Greta shook her head sadly. “He’d always been withdrawn, but on the day we arrived he reacted to something and that was it. I’d never seen him so upset!” Her eyes misted over as she recalled the day.
Peter leaned in a touch, wanting to know more. “What happened next?”
“He ran off. I called for help, and the station computer sent a nice young man called Tim to restrain him while we waited for the paramedics to arrive.”
I am much more than just a computer, Meredith interjected.
I know that, Peter replied with a chuckle. Give her a break, she’s old. And pull the relevant records from that day and send them to my tablet, please.
Already done.
Greta didn’t notice Peter’s momentary distraction, still lost in her recollection. “I go and visit most days, but as you can see, I’m no devushka. I worry what will become of him after I’m gone if he does not remember who he is.” She sighed, dropping the remains of her roll into her bowl.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “He’s got me to look out for him now.”
Greta’s kind eyes crinkled as she broke into a smile and reached out with a liver-spotted hand to pinch his cheek. “You’re a good boy. He is lucky to have you.” She got up to take the bowls to the sink.
“Let me,” Peter told her, getting up. “It’s the least I can do after you shared your meal with me.”
When he left a short while later Greta pressed a package of homemade honey cakes into his hands as he said goodbye, extracting a promise of a return visit before she hugged him and sent him on his way.
The visit hadn’t given him much to go on. But he had a photo of the man on his tablet and he hoped now that he had an idea of where the man had come from he could zero in on the right community to begin his search.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Plants and Ecologies Level, Rabbit Habitat
Masha clung to the shadows in the passage between the rabbit and chicken habitats.
She smelled a familiar musky perfume.
“Get back! It’s Bernadette,” she whispered to Mischa She pushed her twin behind her as her sensitive ears picked up footsteps nearby.
They held their breath and pressed themselves against the wall as a silhouette crossed the mouth of the passage, only releasing it a few seconds later after Bernadette walked by without noticing anything amiss.
Mischa made a move but Masha held her back, her low voice muffled by the scarf around her face. “Not that way, Mish.” She turned and set off toward the other end of the passage, pulling her sister along by her sleeve.
“Where are you going?” Mischa hissed. “The entrance is this way.”
Masha shook her head. “We’re not going in through the front. There’s a camera.”
Mischa stamped her foot. “Why are you so bothered about the cameras? We would have been in and out already if you weren’t being so paranoid!”
“Because we don’t want to leave any evidence that we did this. Now come on!” She set off at a jog without waiting to see if her twin followed, stopping when she reached the chain-link gate at the far end of the wall that surrounded the grassy area at the back of the building.
She sprang up, grabbed the top bar, and hauled herself over, landing in a crouch and catching her breath while she waited for Mischa to join her on the other side.
“Ugh, my nail broke. That’s my manicure, ruined!” Mischa complained, landing beside her. She held the offending nail up in Masha’s face. “Why do I let you drag me into these things?”
Masha shrugged. “We’re going for a spa day, remember?”
“What about the rabbit? We can’t leave it in the dorm. Ksenia would squeal on us in a heartbeat if she found it.”
Masha set off toward the sunroom at the rear of the building. “We’ll have returned it by then. We can hide it in a cupboard; make it comfortable. I’ll sneak it back in when we come to groom them after lunch.” She hurried along the fence line, keeping her body low to stay out of sight until she reached the door.
Mischa was right behind her. “So how are we getting in? You planning on sneaking in through a window or climbing up to the roof?”
“I thought we’d just go in through the door.” Masha snickered. She shone her penlight on the keypad and pressed six numbers in quick succession, followed by the hash key.
The pad beeped and the door clicked.
Mischa’s face was priceless “How…?”
“I watched Bernadette while we were bringing the rabbits in after the class left,” Masha told her sister with a knowing wink. She pulled the door open. “We’re in. Let’s go hunt a wabbit...”
They tiptoed down the corridor toward the rabbit enclosure, hyper-aware of the slightest noise as they crept through the unlocked door into the place where the rabbits slept.
The enclosure had rows of hutches stacked three high. Earlier that week Bernadette had told the students that they adjoined to simulate a warren.
Masha took out her penlight and switched it on, indicating to Mischa to do the same. “Split up. We need to find where the rabbits are huddled. Let’s find one and get out of here before we get caught.”
They went in opposite directions and peered into the hutches.
“Over here,” Masha called softly. She bent down and reached inside the hutch to scoop up the nearest rabbit. Its fluff tickled her nose. She cradled it carefully before placing it in the kitty-carrier she had borrowed from Tina to keep the rabbit safe. “I’ve got one. Let’s get out of here.”
“Good, it’s getting late,” Mischa huffed. “Some of us get cranky without enough beauty sleep!”
As they turned to leave a noise from the corridor froze them in their tracks. It was followed by a roving flashlight beam hitting the glass panel in the door.
“Hide!” Masha grabbed her sister’s shoulder, dragging her behind a row of hutches.
The flashlight got brighter as its owner got closer. Mischa squirmed under Masha’s panicked grip. “Ow!”
“Shhh, they’ll hear us!” Masha peeped around the hutch as the door handle moved.
Crap, I left the hutch open! She left Mischa and dashed back to the hutch to close it as the door began to open.
With no time to make it back across the room, she had no choice but to crouch behind the hutch and hope that whoever was coming in hadn’t seen the movement.
The flashlight swung over the room, and Masha wrinkled her nose as the scent of musk hit her.
Bernadette grumbled as she left, “There’s nobody here. Busybody computer telling me how to run my rabbitry. I just forgot to lock up again...”
She thought Bernadette was somewhat ungrateful, although if it meant she would leave without examining the room too hard then who was Masha to argue?
The relief she felt when Bernadette shut the door was shattered when she heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the lock. She cursed softly.
“Are we trapped?” Mischa whispered. “Masha, I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“Me either,” Masha replied. “But I didn’t bring the right tools to open the door.” She surveyed the locked room, looking
for a way to get out that didn’t involve breaking down the door. “The window! We will have to escape through there.”
Mischa looked at the high window doubtfully. “How are we going to get all the way up there?”
Masha grinned. Her sister wasn’t going to like this one bit. “Time for a quick change. Do you think you can jump that high in your wolf form?”
Mischa shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “You know I can’t,” she wailed. “We’re going to get caught and expelled from the Academy and then where will we be, huh? Mom and Dad will murder us both!”
Masha comforted her sister the best way she knew how—she thumped her in the arm.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“To stop you from losing it,” Masha growled. “I can make the jump, so suck it up. We need to get back to the Academy before we’re missed.” She swiftly undressed, tying her clothing into a bundle that could be tossed through the window and went to stand under the opening with her hands laced together. “Come on, Mish. I’ll give you a boost and pass the rabbit and my stuff up to you, then I’ll change and jump.”
Mischa made a face but did as she was told.
A few minutes later they crept back to the gate and repeated the process, this time with Masha in her human form. They hopped the gate one at a time before scurrying back through the shadows to the maintenance tunnels.
“We made it!” Mischa leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
Masha checked on the rabbit in her bag. “Not yet. When we’re safely in our beds, then we’ve made it.”
She set off down the tunnel at a wary jog with Mischa close behind.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Etheric Academy, Delta Class Dormitory
Morning came far too soon for Masha.
She forced herself out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she walked into the communal area to check on the rabbit before Ksenia woke up and found it first.
Mischa was already there. “Masha, did you move the rabbit?”
“No,” Masha replied, confused. “It isn’t where we left it?” She noted that the room was messier than usual. All of the cushions were scattered and the sofa had been pulled away from the wall.
“The cupboard door was open and it’s gone.”
They searched high and low, under and around the furniture and in every nook and cranny of the dorm. The rabbit was nowhere to be seen.
Masha spotted a scrap of fluff sticking to the arch between the carved feet of the bookcase. She tugged the fluff out and sniffed it. “Yep, that’s our bunny.” She bent down to look, seeing something shiny at the back but no sign of the rabbit.
She pulled the bookcase out, letting out a low moan when she saw what was behind it. “Mish, you better come and see.”
The bookcase hid an air duct around two feet square. The vent cover was missing, and there was a small pile of rabbit droppings at the mouth of the duct, and a larger pile of discarded candy wrappers on the floor beneath.
She poked the empty candy wrappers on the floor with her toe, revealing the missing vent cover beneath them.
“What are we going to do?” Mischa lamented. “We can’t go in there!”
Ksenia came out from the sleeping area, stretching and yawning. She took in the mess, the hastily-shoved-aside furniture, and the twins trying to appear nonchalant, and treated them to an icy look. “What’s all this noise? Some of us are trying to sleep, you know. And why are you both staring at the wall?
Masha reddened. “It’s nothing. But if you see a rabbit in the dorm, don’t panic.”
Ksenia frowned. “What have you two gotten yourselves into this time? I swear, since you started hanging out with the Alpha Class you’ve both changed. Now you’ve brought a rodent into the school and let it escape?”
Mischa scowled at Ksenia. “At least we’re doing something! You just follow Tina’s mom around with your puppy eyes, hoping she’ll adopt you or something.”
Masha sucked in a breath. “Too far, sis,” she told Mischa. It wasn’t unlike her twin to turn bitch when she was scared or anxious. However, Ksenia really did have Cheryl Lynn’s ear and Masha wouldn’t put it past her classmate to drop news of them into it to gain favor. “I’m sorry for what Mischa said. She didn’t mean it.”
Ksenia’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, well, let’s see what the administrators think about you stealing a rabbit and letting it loose in the Academy, shall we?”
Masha wished her sister had kept her mouth shut. “Ksenia, you wouldn’t! We did it for Devi. We’ll find the rabbit, I swear.”
“Watch me,” Ksenia threatened. “But seeing as you were doing it for Devi, I’ll give you a break this time. Find that rabbit and take it back by the end of today or else I’m going to Dorene and telling her everything.” She turned on her heel and stomped off, stopping at the door to look back at them. “Have fun crawling around in the vents, Mischa.” With one final vicious look she slammed the door behind her.
Masha sighed and looked at Mischa. “Well, that tears it. You’re going to need your ninja suit again, Misch.”
Mischa scowled. “We’re not going to the salon today, are we?”
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Medical Level, Psychiatric Wing
Maxim left Doctor Dietrich’s office feeling worse than before he’d arrived. Today the ‘f’ word had come up, and Maxim had been low enough that he’d told the doc everything—how he felt about his father, his future, and all the things that had happened to him in the last year. It had all come pouring out like bile, and now he had everything churning at the front of his mind.
How was this supposed to help?
He regretted talking to the doctor today. Opening up had laid him bare, broken down the walls he’d built to barricade his broken heart. It had left him defenseless. His heart pounded against his ribs, completely at odds with his calm exterior.
He bent at the waist, bracing his hands on his knees as the pangs of emotion tore at him. His head throbbed and his stomach churned with the onslaught.
He needed to get out of there. His footfalls echoed along the corridor as he ran, ignoring the elevator in favor of the stairs so he didn’t have to wait.
He didn’t know where he was headed. All he knew was that he didn’t want to go to his uncle’s quarters or to the Academy dorm.
He wanted to go home.
It was too much. Maxim was in no shape to regain control. His eyes turned yellow unnoticed as he reached the bottom of the stairs and threw open the stairwell door.
He caught sight of his hand as he let go of the handle. It didn’t look quite right, but the thought was lost as he crashed into the long corridor leading from the psych wing to the lobby. He scanned the corridor, wondering briefly where all the people were running to.
Maybe they were hurting inside, just like him. Maybe they needed to run, too.
He roared his anguish, picking up speed as he exited the corridor into the lobby. The people here were running too. What was making everyone scream?
The scent of fear in the air snapped him out of his blind run and he skidded to a halt, looking around in confusion as his Guardian instincts kicked in. He forgot his pain in the face of a threat to the innocent.
He turned in a circle to look for the threat, but he saw nothing.
“What’s wroooong with everyooone?” His voice sounded unfamiliar to his ears, but he had no time to consider why. A monster shot across the lobby toward him, moving so fast Maxim couldn’t make out what it was. It was bigger than him; he was sure of that much. Was this the threat?
Then nothing mattered.
“Leave these people alooone!” Maxim roared. “They are miiine to proooteeect!”
He sprang at the monster, determined to safeguard the terrified people. He ducked the oncoming beast’s swipe, delivering a double-punch to its stomach that would have killed a human.
“Maaaxim,” it demanded, skipping back and cuffing his head. “Stand doooown.”
Was this a trap? How did the monster kn
ow his name?
He shook his head in confusion and launched himself at the trickster. The intruder easily deflected Maxim’s teeth and claws and Maxim snarled, his rage at his opponent fueling his determination as he attacked again.
Again he was repelled. A voice called from the side, distracting him.
“It’s no good, Commander, he won’t quit. He’s too damn stubborn. You’ll have to knock him out.”
Something smashed into the side of Maxim’s face and the last thing he saw was the floor rushing up to meet him.
His next recollection was waking up on the lobby floor with Craig and Commander Silvers standing over him.
He blinked to clear his vision. The unexpected angle of the room jarred him. “What happened?”
Craig held a hand out. “You okay, buddy? You took a pretty good punch to the jaw there.”
“Was that what it was?” Maxim accepted Craig’s offered hand and pulled himself up. He rubbed the side of his face, feeling the tenderness where he’d taken the hit. It wasn’t broken, or if it had been it was already healing. His head swam.
Peter guided him to a nearby bench. “Sit down for a minute. How do you feel?”
Maxim assessed himself gingerly. “I’m uninjured, but hungry and tired. Did I shift?”
Craig let out a low whistle. “Did you!”
Peter shushed him. “What do you remember, Maxim?”
“The people; they were screaming.”
“They do that when there’s an angry Pricolici running around,” Peter told him solemnly.
Maxim nodded, remembering the monster before it laid him out. “I fought it, I remember that much.”
Craig gaped. “Dude, you were the Pricolici! The one you fought was Commander Silvers.”
“What?” Maxim was dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.” He remembered how the Pricolici had known his name and how everything had seemed different as he fought. “Oh. Oh… I had no idea that was even...”
“I know you’re going through some heavy stuff right now.” Peter patted his shoulder in sympathy. “You must have been feeling something pretty extreme to trigger the dormant programming in your nanocytes.” He looked Maxim over. “The question is how? You went into the Pod-doc when you first got here, right?”
Alpha Class - Graduation: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Etheric Academy Book 4) Page 8