The Academy

by Zachary Rawlins

  It took hold immediately, flashing through the front part of his skull like a migraine, the strange vertigo as his mind executed the implanted instructions, out of his control. He reached back without his hands, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, hidden in a place in his head that he had never thought to look before Rebecca had shown him how. Alex reached for the Black Door. It did not matter that he couldn’t move his body, that he couldn’t even blink. Even as the unrelenting horror beat down on him, peeling his soul away layer-by-layer, like an onion, he felt the Black Door creak open, frost crunching and tinkling as it slid wide.

  The cold light burned as he breathed it in like smoke. It filled him, and then worked its way up out from the core of him, rigid and strong, a luminescent sheen that extended a few millimeters beyond his skin, sheathing him in frigid incandescence. Around him, the air hissed and steamed, agitated by the heat above and the utter absence below. He managed to get one knee underneath him, still aware of the tremendous pressure from above, the tension as his whole body tried to tear itself apart. But he forced the door inside open wider, and the flood of cold light supported him, pressure flowing outwards from within.

  He made it to his feet, heedless of the blood the trickled down from his nose and the corners of his eyes. All along his skin, as the air passed through his lips, he soothed and slowed the air molecules, bleeding the heat off into the Ether. He pushed further, and reached outwards, stripping the surrounding atmosphere of its kinetic energy, siphoning it directly into the Ether, where it dissipated like steam. Alex couldn’t remember anyone teaching him how to do this, but he found it was surprisingly easy.

  Alex raised his arms to either side of him, surrounded by a bubble of cool, still air, the stone frozen solid beneath him; a glimmering, blue-white light radiating from his chest. Frost crawled across the roof, radiating out from where Alex stood, beneath the horror of the thing in the sky. There was a strange, tinkling sound as the water molecules in the air coalesced and froze, and then fell to the ground, shattering musically on the stained concrete.

  Alex was unaware of all this, as the horrible pressure from the thing above him beat down on his unprotected mind. Even though he was bleeding the heat and motion out of the surrounding area, he could not do anything about the crushing gravity the thing exuded, and Alex could feel his bones disintegrating under the strain with a sickening surety. His breath was a dense fog now, and it was impossible to see through the layer of superheated mist roiling at the edge of the bubble.

  Alex pushed even harder, then, until his mind was filled with a cold radiance.

  Then there was no more, or no further, and for a moment, he faltered. It was enough. The bubble collapsed around him and for a moment, he felt the full force of the thing’s scream again. He felt his legs crumple beneath him, and Alex collapsed backwards into Rebecca’s arms, who gathered him up like a child. The moment she touched him, the terrible pressure was gone, and the scream silenced, without as much as an echo, and he wanted to kiss her. Alex could see the illuminated script of the barrier protocol that Rebecca activated clearly, a copper dome of beautiful but unreadable words that arced over the both of them.

  “Shh… Alex, it’s okay…” Alex realized he was screaming, and stopped. Rebecca hugged him tightly to her chest, her arms hooked underneath his own, supporting him. “I’ve got you, now.”

  Her next words were louder, and clearly not directed at him.

  “I’ve collected Alex, whenever you less sociable types want to earn your pay,” Rebecca shouted. She then grinned down at Alex, who was still trying to get his legs to hold him up again. “I hope you had a nice party, anyway.”

  Alex discovered that, in Rebecca’s arms, he could look at the thing. It hovered in midair, writhing and amorphous, like a gigantic amoeba, extending tentacles and formless limbs in all directions. Some of them were elongated and ended in things that looked like mouths, if flowers had mouths – brilliant red and wet and on the inside, cellulose ridged with teeth hooked like thorns. Other limbs ended in strange, flower-like blooms, and at the center of each, there were a cluster of black eyes, like an insect. Around the periphery of the monster the air burnt and smoldered, disintegrating rather than come into contact with the horror. The entire world recoiled, Alex realized, and had he not activated the protocol, his body would have done the same.

  A cluster of arms drooped down from the thing’s misshapen bulk, stretching in a way that made Alex nauseous. He felt panic as the flower heads bloomed at the end of the tentacles, exposing terrible black eyes and toothy, gaping maws. Where it touched the building it left behind a viscous trail of yellow-tinted slime, and the stone crumbled and sizzled where it dripped. Alex wanted to scream, but then he felt Rebecca in his mind, her hand on his chest, and the fear began to dissipate. He watched the arms descend down toward the barrier with an odd feeling of curiosity, nothing like the fear of impending death.

  The limb was disintegrated before it made contact, dissipating into a mist of disconnected tissue, less like it hit a wall and more like it was hit with a wall.

  “What is this thing?”

  Michael asked the old man casually, as if he didn’t notice the tendril of smoke drifting lazily from the palm of his outstretched hand. Alex blinked his eyes, trying to clear his vision, which insisted that Michael’s strange tattoos were now radiating a deep blue light from underneath the skin, his whole upper body wrapped in mass of fluctuating indigo light.

  “It’s a Horror,” the old man standing next to him said conversationally, without looking up from the heavy leather bound book he carried open in front of him. To Alex’s eyes, he was orbited by several rings of words in a strange script that he could not identify, but seemed somehow familiar. The words spun around the old man, each ring moving at a different speed, their color one Alex could not recognize, though later he would remember it as similar to violet. “Or it was one, at any rate. This one is imminently near death. We are fortunate, in that sense, as the effective radius of the creature’s scream has been considerably reduced. While the other students appear to be caught in a stasis field, they have not been subjected to the brunt of its assault. I’m not sure about the nature of the stasis field, because it isn’t mentioned in the literature” Vladimir said, frowning, “but, it’s probably some sort of defense mechanism. Horrors are so rarely encountered…”

  “A defense mechanism besides the screaming, you mean? Thanks for the natural history lesson, Vladimir,” Michael said, shoving his fingers in his ears and shouting. “But, since we aren’t in class, can we skip to the part where you tell me how to kill it?”

  The thing’s mouths all opened simultaneously, gaping red, and Alex felt his headache began to return. Rebecca closed her eyes, and the barrier flared briefly. From Michael and Vladimir’s expressions, Alex figured the screaming had gotten louder again. Alex saw that the roof was starting to buckle, and realized that he was lying in a shallow pool of sand, as the building beneath him fractured and disintegrated into its base components.

  Vladimir waved one hand lazily at the thing, and for a moment, the rings of letters around him flashed and increased the speed of their rotation. Above them, the monster shrieked and wailed, and the sky burned. Vladimir looked disappointed, and then waved his hand at the creature once more.

  As far as Alex could tell, nothing happened.

  “Fuck,” Rebecca said quietly, slumping down against the retaining wall behind them, Alex sprawled in her arms, almost sitting in her lap. He felt languid and weak; he could barely even move his fingers, and worse, he was hearing the scream more and more clearly, despite the barrier. “That didn’t work at all. Vlad is getting feeble.”

  “Okay, asking nicely doesn’t do the trick,” Vladimir observed. “And Rebecca’s got her hands full. Guess it’s down to you, Michael.”

  “I hate doing this stuff, you see,” Michael said to no one in particular. “But, since I’m already up, I might as well put this to rest.”

  Mic
hael raised his hand again, the light around him gathering and pulsating up from inside, the air around him charged with static and rippling, his skin dark in contrast to the vivid lines that ran across it.

  At first nothing happened, and the Horror managed the first few dissonant notes of a new shriek. Then it’s body rippled, first expanding outward as the pressure swelled within warped the flesh, followed by a massive contraction that pulled everything back toward the center. For a moment, the amorphous body flexed and struggled, racked and twisted by the contrary momentum that pushed and pulled at it. Then it detonated, with a wet sound and a muffled but powerful explosion, one that rattled the roof of the building and resonated with Alex’s chest, the wind whipping around the barrier that surrounded him, held close to Rebecca’s chest. He could hear damp thuds as chunks of the monster battered the wall of golden light around them.

  “This is really fucking gross,” Rebecca observed, watching the amorphous pieces of undifferentiated tissue splash against the barrier. “You alright, Alex?”

  She smiled down at him, but the boy was fast asleep, his head curled up in her lap, his breathing slow and shallow. Rebecca looked worried for a moment, and then shook her head. She reached down to brush the hair away from his eyes, looking at Alex with a mixture of affection and pity.

  “Sleepyhead,” she said softly, as if it were a warning.

  Twenty

  “We’ve only had a couple sessions together,” Renton said, “because Michael keeps teaching him solo, or having one of the student instructors work with him one-on-one. I think he’s only been with the general class a couple of times. I don’t get it. Why are you asking me? You and Ed are in homeroom with him. Don’t you see him in class?”

  Anastasia and Edward shared a look, then Edward gave the smallest possible shake of his head and Anastasia shrugged helplessly.

  “It’s no good,” she said despairingly, “he hates the class, and he’s so far behind that no one can really do anything about it. He stares off into space during lectures, on the days where he doesn’t accidentally nod off. In breakout groups, he doesn’t say anything or he asks inane questions, over and over, and then complains that he doesn’t understand the answers. Trying to talk to him in homeroom is pointless.”

  Edward nodded, and then returned to attempting to feed scraps from his lunch to one of the tamed Weir that lay around Anastasia’s feet underneath the dining room table. Great black monsters wearing tooled metal collars designed to prevent transformation, she’d tamed them in Norway when she was twelve, back when she’d been more concerned with appearances. Capturing and taming a wild Weir had been something of a tradition a century or so earlier in the Black Sun’s history, and Anastasia had very concerned with tradition and symbolism when she was younger. She didn’t bother with such things anymore, but she’d since become devoted to the two wolves, respectively named Donner and Blitzen by her younger sister, and had insisted on bringing them to the Academy with her.

  As the future head of the Black Sun, Anastasia had her own small cottage reserved for her on campus, large enough to house the servants and the security staff that such a position entailed. The Weir were confined by Director’s orders to the cottage, or else Anastasia would have brought them everywhere with her. Edward seemed to love them, whereas Renton appeared to hold them in slightly greater distaste than he did everything else around him.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” Renton said, his forehead creased with effort, trying to recall anything of use, “he’s not too terrible, for someone who hasn’t done any of this stuff before. He has long arms, so he’s got decent reach, but he doesn’t hit very hard. Wrestles for crap. Gets tired quickly, takes lots of breaks.”

  Anastasia shook her head, motioning for the hovering maid to clear the table of the remains of lunch. Renton and Edward had eaten roast chicken and potatoes with salad, while Anastasia had picked at an appealing looking but ultimately disappointing vegan ratatouille that she vowed to later discuss with the chef. She was certain that it didn’t have to be so boring.

  “This isn’t what I’m after, Renton,” she said crossly. “I’m trying to get to know him, not trying to figure out how to beat him up.”

  “One day in class he had some trouble with sparring with a girl,” Renton said, after some thought. “There was kind of a scene, till Collette, that Algerian chick, she planted his ass a couple of times. He seemed to warm up to the idea after that.”

  “So he’s a boy who doesn’t like to hit girls,” Anastasia said softly, “what a revelation, Renton. That helps a great deal.”

  “I’m sorry, Ana, I said that I don’t know,” Renton objected, his face reddening, “what do you want me to say? It’s a combat class, for Christ’s sake! It’s not like we sit around chatting about our childhoods or something. Look, Ana, you want somebody to figure the kind out”

  For a moment, Anastasia and Renton glared at each other, like two children holding a staring contest. They were still that way when Edward unexpectedly broke in.

  “You should try Vivik or Emily,” he offered in his quiet, high-pitched voice that Anastasia still hadn’t gotten used to, since he’d spoken so rarely in the two years he’d worked for her, “they talk with him the most.”

  As Anastasia paused to consider. The Weir who wasn’t refusing to eat from Edward’s hand shoved its snout into her lap, whining, and she petted it absently while she thought out the various ramifications of the situation.

  “Okay,” she said slowly, as the wheels in her head turned, “I think I’ve got an idea. Edward, could you find Margot and bring her back here? She and Vivik have a class together this session, I’m fairly certain. Vivik might not be inclined to share with me, but I doubt he’ll be so reticent with Margot.”

  Edward nodded, dropped the scraps on the floor, gave Anastasia a quick bow and then was on his way.

  “What about Emily?” Renton asked, looking at her expectantly. “If you want, I could see…”

  Anastasia shook her head, staring into the eyes of the black wolf whose head lay in her lap.

  “No need. I have other errands for you to take care of. I’ll handle Emily myself.”

  --

  “Is it really so complicated?” Margot shook her head. “Okay, one more time – the Academy controls the source of the nanomachines, so if the cartels want to activate new Operators, then they have to abide by the Academy’s rules, hence, the Agreement. For any activation that doesn’t result in death, one student at the Academy.”

  “What is the source, anyway?”

  “Shit, Alex,” Margot said through gritted teeth, “do you really think they go around telling everyone their most closely held secret?”

  “Okay, I guess,” Alex allowed, “but then why all the infighting? Couldn’t the Academy just, you know, tell everybody to stop?”

  “It’s a two-way agreement. In return for almost total control of the students while they attend the Academy, the cartels have free reign over their own internal affairs. There’s only so much to go around, in terms of space, money and people. It’s usually easier to fight another cartel than the Witches, and often more rewarding. Plus,” Margot said, shrugging, “people sometimes disagree. Violently.”

  “Alright, but why don’t the cartels attack the Academy and take whatever it is they need? I mean, aren’t there a lot more Operators in the cartels than employed by the Academy?”

  “Sure, but look around you. How many cartels do you think would cooperate long enough to complete such an undertaking? And what do you think would happen after? They can’t trust each other, and as long as they are divided, the Academy holds the majority of the power.”

  “For now,” Anastasia added brightly. “Besides, the Black Sun would never condone an attack on the Academy.”

  “I don’t get it,” Alex said lazily, staring up into the sky.

  Sitting cross-legged in a pool of afternoon sunlight, Margot looked over at Emily despairingly.

  “I will never under
stand. What do you see in him, Emily?”

  “Hey!” Alex objected, lying on his back in the grass. “I can hear you, you know.”

  “She sees the same thing everybody else does,” Anastasia said absently from where she sat in the shade of the nearby tree, reading. “A great deal of power attached to not so much brain.”

  “Hey!” Alex said again, weakly. He had been lying in the sun for a while now, and it had lulled him into a state of complacence. He wasn’t about to rise to the bait and mess up his potential afternoon nap, no matter what the girls said.

  “Power,” Emily agreed, smiling, but not looking up from the notes she was bent over. “That’s part of it. But Alex does have some good qualities, once you get to know him. Besides,” Emily said cheerfully, “he’s just so pathetic, who wouldn't feel moved to help him?”

  Anastasia laughed but didn’t say anything. Alex reddened, and wondered how the conversation had gone in this unfortunate direction. As if homeroom hadn’t been enough of a nightmare today, with the lecture going right over his head, then Emily’s suggestion that they go sit out on the grass in the quad and relax had turned into this. Alex wasn’t even sure how Anastasia and her cohorts had gotten invited to join them. Anastasia and Emily, despite their frequent tiffs, seemed to get along awfully well for two people destined for opposite sides in a conflict, to Alex’s eyes.

  “She has a point,” Anastasia acknowledged, removing a Tupperware container from her bag, and carefully selecting a carrot stick from it. “He does have this lost puppy feel to him.”

  Alex opened his eyes and turned his head, so he could glare at Anastasia. This meant she’d won their little game, as usual. But this really was unprecedented, Alex had to admit – when had Anastasia taken Emily’s side in anything?

  “Why always carrots?” he demanded, a bit more testily than he intended to. “Are you a vegetarian or something?”