Uncle was standing at a huge window that took up the whole wall, with his back to us and his hands clasped behind him, but he turned as we entered. It was a little disconcerting to finally see the man I’d only seen in vids all this time, to be in the same room with him.
He was taller in person than you’d think from vids: about six foot four. He wore a modified police uniform, blue and gray and tailored, with gold stuff where the police had silver, and a little gold braid at the shoulders. He was going bald on top and gray on the sides, and had a mustache. Basically, he looked like someone who should be running a butcher shop or a bakery, not the Prefecture. He smiled when he saw me, and it was a real smile; it reached up into his eyes.
“Joy, at last.” Josh moved back a couple of steps as my uncle stepped forward and took my shoulders in his hands, kind of holding me at arm’s length so he could study my face. “You have your father’s face, and your mother’s eyes.”
I have to say that if I had not been holding myself completely in Hunter discipline, what happened next would have startled me so much I probably would have jumped and yelped. Because one finger of his right hand moved on my shoulder, pressing it in something I recognized almost at the level of instinct. The tap code we Hunters use when Hunting together and keeping silence. Just like Kedo and I had, down in that mine.
Love to hug you, little one, but dangerous for both. Vidding here. Show you understand.
Vidding? In Uncle’s own office? But—why? And why was he afraid of it? Never mind, I could try to find out later. Right then I just needed to follow his lead. But this was the first time I had any idea that there was something seriously amiss.
Then I scolded myself. Because I had studied The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, and Master Price, who was in charge of the Hunters’ schooling, had insisted I read Machiavelli’s The Prince. So I knew where there were people, there were politics, and politics could get dangerous. All I could think was they’d gotten dangerous for my uncle.
“So I understand, Uncle Charmand,” I said steadily, and put my own hands just under his elbows, tapping understood. “Or—I beg your pardon, sir. Prefect Charmand.”
“I can be Uncle for an hour or so,” he said, tapping Good on my shoulder before letting go. “You understand, of course, that once you leave this office, you are only Hunter Joyeaux to me. I cannot and will not countenance favoritism among the Hunters, especially not my niece.”
So…if there was vidding going on, maybe he was trying to send a message that doing favors for me wouldn’t buy favors with him? Or…was it the other way around? That hurting me would leave him unmoved?
“Sir,” I replied truthfully, “I would not want favoritism. Being made a favorite spoils a Hunter, and a spoiled Hunter is pretty quickly a dead Hunter.”
“Well said.” He took my elbow and steered me to the window. “I thought I might be the one to give you your welcome and a little tour of Apex City before you went on to Hunter HQ. Given your unexpectedly exciting trip here, I thought you might appreciate the breathing space.”
“I do, sir,” I said, and then I realized that it was not a window we stood at—or rather, it might be a window, but it was also a giant vid-screen, one that was giving us a chopper-eye view over the city.
Uncle kept his hand on my elbow, and as he pointed out each of the City Center buildings, Hunter HQ, then the vast expanse of hydroponic and fish farms, then the acres of vat-meat, vat-veg, and algae farms, his finger kept tapping, warning me that it was not safe to talk openly. I was glad that all I had to do was nod and murmur politely, because that made it easier to concentrate on what he was saying.
“The Psimon was kind enough to let me know that you are—” He paused.
“Not quite a turnip,” I said truthfully. “But I don’t understand so much of what’s been thrown at me. Vid channels? For Hunters? And—”
He nodded. “The Hunters need to work to reassure the citizens of Apex that they are safe. We can’t rebuild the world if people are constantly looking over their shoulders.” But his fingers tapped something different. Hear what I don’t say. “We found that allowing the citizens to see what the Hunters were doing reassured them that there was nothing inside the Barriers to fear.” Hunters are as much entertainment as protectors. “As a consequence, they became very popular, and there seems no harm in allowing that to continue.” Ask the armorer.
“I…I think I understand, Uncle,” I replied. I didn’t, not yet, but maybe when I had a chance to think everything through and remember what he was saying and what he was tapping, I would. Or maybe this armorer would actually explain everything. I hoped so.
“You’re a very intelligent young lady, Joy.” He laughed. “I’ll be egotistical and claim that the only reason your part of the Territories ever produced such a good Hunter is because of your genes. Eh?”
I laughed dutifully. This part, I got. So I reinforced it for whatever was recording. “I have to admit, most people back home haven’t got a lot of interest outside of their sheep and goats. Half the time they sleep through the vids from Apex.” Was that what Uncle wanted?
Good girl, he tapped. Keep your head.
“Obviously, then, there’s no need for a search.”
“Search? Nothing to find. Unless you’re talking about our homemade whiskey. The fumes alone would probably knock an Othersider sideways.” He laughed with me.
My blood ran a little colder when he said that, though I laughed as though the very idea was ridiculous. The Masters were right; he had just confirmed it. If I hadn’t turned up, a search would have been scheduled. And a search would almost certainly have turned up the Monastery and all the Hunters we trained there. And all those Hunters would almost certainly have been sent back to Apex, stripping my village and all the rest around the Mountain of their protectors.
Now he was pointing out the schools. One for Meds, one for Techs, one for Psimons, one for scientists, and one for all the other Cits, who might become anything that wasn’t one of those. Be like the others. Blend in, he tapped.
He pointed out how all the roofs were green—algae-based solar-cells, so if the grid went down there would still be enough power for a building to seal itself and hold out against attack. I nodded as if we didn’t have those at home.
Why would he want me to blend in? I didn’t know, not yet, but it had to be important or he wouldn’t have said to do it.
He also pointed out the anti-flyer guns on all the roofs. “We haven’t had an incursion by flyers since before you were born, but even if a Wyvern somehow got past the bounds, he’d be lacework before he got a hundred yards. Between our defenses and the Hunters, our Cits are as safe as they think they are.”
Camouflage safer for us both, he told me silently.
Understood, I tapped back, feeling hollow and forlorn. Don’t take what I look like on the outside for what’s going on inside. Outside is Hunter discipline, which isn’t how I feel. Somewhere along the way I had gotten the idea I would be living with Uncle, that I might finally have something like a blood family again. I’d been unconsciously assuming at that no matter what, at least I’d have some family again with Uncle.
Evidently not. It took all my will not to show what I was feeling. The Masters all said Uncle was a kind, smart, and honorable man, and that he cared about me. Master Kedo had said the one thing I need not worry about was my uncle. They had never lied to me about anything, and I didn’t think that was a lie, either.
Well, he was important. And if people thought he was fond of me, maybe they’d use me to work against him. Now maybe that was just a manipulative sort of thing—or maybe it was uglier than that. It could be—give me presents so I’d say good things about them to Uncle. Or it could be—tell Uncle they’d make things hard for me if he didn’t do something they wanted. As prefect of police he could overturn arrests, lessen charges, all sorts of things. Or maybe—politics again!—maybe there were even stresses between the Hunters and the Prefecture, and there were peop
le who were thinking he’d brought me in, his blood kin, so he’d have a Hunter on his side if the stresses turned into a break.
I’ll be careful, I signaled back. And that was when the whole room rang with a soft chime and he made a gesture with his free hand and the window became a window, looking down on City Center. “And I am afraid that is all the time I can give you, Hunter Joyeaux,” he said formally. “I am proud of you. Your parents would be prouder.” We’ll talk again the next time it is safe. “Before you go, I have a welcome gift for you.”
Then he let go of my elbow and turned to reach for a little box on the top of his desk. He opened it and handed me what looked like something I knew very well. It was a Perscom, a very fine version of a wrist device that did just about everything a micro-comp could do, and although the one I’d used back at home was a chunky thing that was about half as long as my forearm, this one was no bigger than a watch. Basically, it’s a voice-controlled tablet computer that’s generally linked into a citywide network. Back home, our clunkier versions were still linked into the network hosted up at the Monastery, and that wireless net is one of the few things on the whole Mountain that gets 24/7 electricity from solar and wind. The ones back home were too big to take out Hunting, which was a pity because they’d be awfully useful. This little one was a jewel. That’s not just better Apex City design and engineering, because I had seen people on the train wearing ones almost as clunky as my old one. That’s money. He held out his hand, I gave him my nondominant wrist, and he strapped it on, and immediately I felt something else.
It’s hard to describe, but it felt as if my brain had been wrapped in a warm, soft blanket, and I knew what else that Perscom could do.
There wasn’t a word for it in Hunter code, so I improvised. Head-protector? I tapped.
Yes, he tapped back, and directed my fingers to a little stud on the underside before letting go of my hands. So…a Psi-shield. “Uncle, I can’t take this!” I said, sounding shocked. Well, I was. “It’s too expensive a gift!”
He snorted politely. “This is not favoritism, this is fifteen years of missed birthdays. And it’s not all that much better than the one you would have been issued at Hunter HQ.” He turned, and instinctively I turned to face the room and Josh, echoing his moves. “Psimon, if you could escort the Hunter to HQ, I would very much appreciate it.”
“Very good, sir.” Josh touched two fingers to his temple, and signaled to me to follow. I did. I didn’t look back.
As I had seen from Uncle’s “tour,” Hunter HQ was one enormous building out on the Edge, right up against the Boundary and the innermost layer of Barriers. The tall buildings of the City Center were like toy towers in the distance, and the HQ was a three-story tall sprawl of a place. Which made sense. Hunters needed a lot of real estate to train in.
Josh delivered me to a door—but before I got out of the pod, he stopped me. “If you need anything, my contact will be on the Perscom that Prefect Charmand gave you. I can probably help you, and if it’s more urgent than that, I can relay a message to the prefect. Just call.” Then he smiled again. “And I might just call you, once you’re not up to your eyebrows in training or working. Now hop, your CO is waiting.”
I hopped, because there was someone heading for the pod with an expression that promised impatience or worse if she was kept waiting. The door closed, and off the pod sped, leaving me and my little bag on the pavement. He might call me? I thought. But how would he know if—Then I remembered. Uncle had said cameras would be on me everywhere. Josh would probably know more about my schedule than I would.
By this time, the woman had reached me.
She was taller than me by about a head, and easily old enough to have been my mother, but there was nothing about her that was motherly. Her brown hair was aggressively short, there was a scar cutting through her right eyebrow and down the cheekbone, and her face was lean and chiseled and looked very Native, with prominent cheekbones and a jut of a nose. Actually she could have been a sister or a cousin to Master Kedo, except her hair was lighter. She wore black and silver leather with silver buckles and straps everywhere, and she looked at me hard, sizing me up.
So I stood to something that was nearly “attention,” and nodded my head respectfully, as I would have to one of my Masters. “Beg pardon for lateness, Senior Hunter,” I said, choosing a respectful-sounding title at random. “Prefect Charmand wished to interview me.”
Her eyes softened from that glare ever so slightly, and one corner of her mouth came up a little. “Good answer,” was all she said. “Follow me, and hop.”
She entered the building, and I grabbed my bag and followed at the same fast walk. The minute we came in the doors, I caught a flash of movement and turned like lightning, going into a protective stance.
It was a camera. I flushed. The Hunter had stopped, looking amused, but also just a bit approving. “Good reflexes,” she said shortly. “But get used to it. They’re everywhere.” Then she took off again, and I had to move fast to keep up.
This was just like the government building, same floor, walls, and ceiling, same doors. More army construction. Evidently this Hunter was not inclined to chatter. We had covered a lot of corridor before she finally said, “I’m Hunter Karly; I’ve been assigned as your mentor. Understand, we don’t take anything for granted here, we can’t afford to. People have died in the past because we accepted that someone from outside Apex was properly trained, and he wasn’t. Just because you stood up well at the train—well, sorry, girl. It could have been a fluke. You could have gotten lucky. We need to know your skill set, we need to know you’re sharp, and we need to know you can handle yourself solo all the time.”
“Yes, Senior Hunter,” I said. Really, this just made sense. I mean, I resented it, of course, because I had been Hunting solo for years, but I couldn’t exactly say that now, could I? So…I’d show them what I could do. It would just take time.
“I’ll be your mentor in the field until you prove yourself out. And right now, we’re going to your intake interview and orientation.”
I nodded as she glanced at me.
“And after that, you go to refitting with me. When you’re done, I’ll take you to quarters, or to the mess hall, whichever you’ll need first.” She glanced down at my arms and added, “I see the prefect gave you a Perscom. A floor plan of HQ will be on it—”
Aha! Before she continued, I twisted my wrist so I could look at the faceplate and said “Map.” Instantly the map came up, with the rooms we were passing labeled, a little dot representing me moving along the corridor.
“Good. You’re not a complete turnip,” she said with more amusement. I decided to test the waters with a little comeback.
“No, Senior Hunter,” I replied. “I fell off the truck a month or two ago, not yesterday.”
I got the reaction I was hoping for, a barked laugh. “We’ll get along,” she said, with enough warmth in her voice I felt able to relax a little. “And—here you are.”
She stopped beside a door with a nameplate beside it. Rikard Severn, Senior Analyst, Personnel and Human Resources. Ugh. It sounded like one of those pre-Diseray office things. She nodded at me. I reached for the doorknob and went in.
The office looked like that of my uncle’s receptionist, only smaller. Severn sat behind a similar desk with a single chair on my side of it. He looked like any of the office-dweller Cits I had seen on the train; relatively subdued suit in shades of muted blue, and a face that looked like it had been homogenized by software, with nondescript, mousy hair. I remained standing until he looked up and said, “You may sit down, Hunter Candidate.”
Hunter Candidate, hmm? That was interesting. I took the chair.
“This is mostly a formality, given your rather impressive impromptu display on the trip to the city,” he said, making notes on a cyberslate. “How long have you been Hunting?”
“With Powers or without, sir?” I answered politely. Time to repeat what I’d already told others.
“We’re all alone out there on the Mountain, sir,” I said politely. “We don’t have all this…” I waved my hand to indicate everything around me. Then I explained just as I had to the steward on the train. “So, with Powers…about a half yearish.”
“Everyone…Hunts…” He stared at me and shook his head. “And who taught you the use of your Powers?”
“Should be on your register, sir,” I said. This was a safe answer; the Hunter assigned to the region where the Monastery was. Of course, the truth was the poor beggar was as mad as they come; within days of showing up, one of the Folk had turned his brain inside out, so the monks never got a chance to convert him to the Mountain ways. He never even got as far as our village before they had to take him in and put him in a nice padded little room where he was drooling and playing with his toes even now. We send back his reports for him, of course. “Hunter Pieter Sanders.” I sighed. “He wasn’t…very good. I learned more on my own, once I had the basics.” Of course he wasn’t very good. That was why he’d been sent to us in the first place, and why the Folk had melted his melon for him. We knew that much out on the Mountain. When allotment quarterlies came, we always got the fourth-hand equipment, the stuff and people no one else wanted. Good thing we didn’t care, and really didn’t need it.
Severn’s lips twisted a little wryly, but he said nothing.
“We understand, sir,” I said humbly. “Apex City is a lot more important than we are, and the Othersiders can’t go above the snow line for long, so it isn’t often we have to worry about direct attacks.” Now I raised my chin a little. “After the attack on the train, I understand that even better, sir. I’m proud you sent for me, and I hope I can live up to your expectations.” That was truth. I didn’t like it here, I did want to go home, but home had a lot of Hunters and it had the monks and the Masters. I wasn’t at all sure why Apex needed to be the central location for all the best Hunters, if they hadn’t had an incursion in years, but…maybe Karly would answer that later. In the meantime, the best thing I could do for Uncle and the Mountain was play along. “I’m ready to serve and protect.”
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