Subterfuge: A Cultivation Academy Series (Bastion Academy Book 3)

by J D Astra

  “That you have,” he said. His hand still gripped my shoulder—not hard enough to be a threat, but firm enough to tell me he was in charge.

  “Jobu-ke, we’re ready for our tour,” I said, dipping my head in respect.

  He nodded. “Very good. Let’s start with the Enjiho, shall we?”

  When he released my shoulder, the zo I’d suppressed surged through my body. It took everything I had not to tremble, as all eyes were still lingering on me.

  One of our schoolmates approached me. She had long dark hair that melted into crimson at the tips. He name was Jaya, or Raya, I couldn’t remember.

  She smiled, whispering, “Why didn’t you tell us you had rich family across the sea! Tae-do wouldn’t have messed with you last year if he’d known.”

  “I don’t like to brag,” I said with a single chuckle, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt.

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced over my shoulder at Hana. “Well, let me know if you ever want to go to the beach. My family has a great stretch of the northwest all to ourselves. I’m not sure an Unnamed can promise as much.”

  Hana’s grip tightened ever so slightly on my hand, but the zo heat radiating off her intensified two-fold.

  “There’s no beach I’d want to be at with you,” I said, snubbing the request. I wanted to make it clear to both Hana and Jaya-Raya-whatever-her-name-was that there was not a single chance here or beyond the gates of Eodune, that I would spend an intimate moment with her.

  “Your loss,” she said with a sly shrug, then followed after the others.

  Hana and I took up the end of the train out to the hall. The Enjiho at the door—controlled by Dokun—followed closely behind us.

  Hana leaned in and whispered to me. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

  “It’s nice to not have to fight for myself all the time.”

  I squeezed her hand. “I’ll always fight for you.”

  A zap of ryzo slipped between our palms, and the comforting sensation of being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold night filled me up. But this wasn’t time for getting distracted. I reversed the flow of munje, rejecting her spell and sending back the sensation of calm alertness. I was sure she would understand.

  Dokun led us through a wide-open space that seemed to be mainly for leisure. There were couches at the center of the room, refreshments at a sink with plumbing and a few machina I didn’t recognize, and some single-human-shaped boxes labeled “Relaxation Zone.”

  A few average-looking citizens sat on the couches sipping their hot tea or chilled munje boosters. They bowed at Dokun’s approach, genuine joy in their faces.

  “Hi, Daichi, how are you today?” Dokun asked as he gave the man a shallow bow in return.

  The older man, Daichi, grinned up at Dokun. “I rescued a man from falling in the lake today.”

  Dokun placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, just as he’d done to me. “That’s great work. You’ll be Jido Machina of the Month if you don’t slow down.”

  He greeted the other employees by their first names and chatted with them briefly. It was interesting to note that every employee seemed to be older, from parents to great-grandparents. If the Enjiho were controlled exclusively with munje, it would make sense that older operators would have better control. Dokun gestured to us—the group of obvious outsiders—and mentioned the tour, snapping me back to the present.

  One grandma’s eyes lit up, and she grinned. “A tour for students? Can we show them our workstations?”

  Dokun turned to the tour with a surprised smile. “What do you think? Would you like to see the Enjiho in action?”

  The group replied with great exuberance, aside from myself and Hana. Even Shin-soo, Cho, and Yuri seemed to have forgotten the great danger they were in. Woong-ji didn’t look at me, but I could see the tension in her stance. She favored her machina leg when she thought a battle wasn’t far off.

  Dokun turned to me. “Joka-yi, would you like to see where I pilot from?”

  My voice caught in my throat, and my eyes flickered between Woong-ji and Sung-ki. This was exactly what we needed, if only Mae was operational. I sought her out, but felt her pushing my presence away. She was definitely working hard to keep herself under control, and keep me out of the way. I hoped she was okay.

  “That would be an honor beyond my deserving, jobu-ke Dokun,” I said, bowing low once more.

  “Nonsense. It’s important for heirs to understand their inheritance. Come with me,” he urged. My mouth dropped open like the rest of the students around me. Had he just told me I would inherit his company? Dokun stepped through the crowd, his unwavering smile hypnotizing. Hana moved closer, pressing her shoulder to mine.

  Dokun nodded to Hana. “You can come, too, of course. I can see how inseparable you are,” he said with a wink aimed at me. I wanted to recoil from what that gesture might mean, but kept myself placid.

  “Master, would it be all right for us to separate from the group?” I asked, looking to Woong-ji.

  Dokun chortled. “You’re his master?”

  The emphasis gave the impression that he knew her. I looked to Woong-ji. To most, she would appear pleasant and calm, but I could see the tiny indications of fear in her face. Her nostrils were flared wide, allowing her to breath deeper, cycle faster. She was preparing herself for battle.

  “Come with us,” he said and waved a hand to Woong-ji. Then his voice turned playful. “I’ll show all three of you my power.”

  “This is an unprecedented opportunity,” Woong-ji said with a gracious smile and approached us. “Your hospitality knows no bounds.”

  Cho’s eyes were as wide as tea saucers when he realized we were being split up, exactly what we’d said we wouldn’t do. It seemed the wiles of fate had stepped in. If this was part of Woong-ji’s mission, we’d have to be prepared for whatever came next, no matter the consequences.

  Sung-ki and Woong-ji agreed to meet back up at the bottom level in half an hour, and then we were off.

  Dokun made idle chatter as we walked through the labyrinth of his company. “I founded the company two winters before the reign of Il-suk in Busa-nan, but we didn’t make any real headway until ten years ago—when your father returned to me. I was so sorry to hear about your mother Moon’s uncontrollable illness, and the child, what was its name?”

  “Minjee,” I said through gritted teeth. “How did my father’s arrival help?”

  “Minjee, cute name,” he said with a chuckle and a twinkle in his eyes. He cleared his throat and went on. “Right, your father. Well, we went diving for machina that would make a difference. Something no one had ever seen before, or tamed,” he said half turning as he walked to express with his hands. At the puzzlement on my face, he laughed. “Oh yes, some machina need to be tamed, Jiyong. Much like to ascend to higher levels of munje use, you must tame your core—which is also machina, if you didn’t know.”

  “We learn Machina Core theory in school,” Hana said.

  He dipped his head to her. “Good, it’s very important. To understand the core is to understand all what we call magic, which is truly science.”

  “And the core crystal? I’ve heard no scientific explanation exists for it yet,” I spouted, then cursed myself. Why would I give away anything I knew?

  “All in good time.”

  Dokun led us under a metal archway into the underbelly of the building. A vertical metal tunnel, at least thirty meters across and so far down I couldn’t see the bottom, stretched out before us.

  I approached the railing and looked on in awe as a machina spire that ran through the center operated several different arms. The arms grabbed or deposited different machina. There were some Enjiho, some of the smaller nimble bots that ran information, and some larger things I didn’t recognize.

  With a great whoosh of air, a train machina zipped up between the rotating arms and blasted out through the top of the building. Then another detail caught my eye. A ma
ssive image of a human figure was engraved in the wall, pointing up toward the opening above. Where the train had departed at the top was a grouping of four pointed stars with another shape—what Mae had called a rocket in my first year—blasting into the sky.

  This wasn’t just any deep, dark tunnel into the earth.

  This was an ancient’s foundry.

  For a moment, I forgot the danger, feeling only wonder. Dokun had created something no one had ever seen. He’d burrowed into the depths and not just harvested the entombed power of the ancients, but revived it. I’d thought it strange for his business to be so far removed from the city, even though transport wasn’t an issue for him anymore. Now I understood why.

  “Come along, it’s not far,” Dokun said with a jovial chuckle.

  Woong-ji’s machina leg clopped against the metal walkway as we moved toward one of the rotating arms. At the end of the arm was a small elevator that just barely fit the four of us. Obviously, it was for transporting bots or single occupants, but we made it work.

  Dokun interfaced with a digital panel, sending a burst of his ma into it. Then he placed his hand against a glass box that sparkled blue, then beeped. The doors to the elevator shut, and we were trapped inside with him, plummeting into the deepest reaches of the building from which there was very little chance of escape.

  “I’m sure you’re all feeling very nervous,” Dokun remarked casually.

  Hana was quick to fire back. “Why would we?”

  He smirked, the white hairs in his tamed moustache shimmering in the artificial light. “Because, you’re here to kill me.”

  Chapter 21

  “WE’RE NOT—” I STARTED with a stammer, and Dokun raised a hand.

  “Not you.” He smirked and looked to Woong-ji. “You.”

  My jaw flexed, but I kept all emotion from my face. I had assumed they were here for that purpose, but hadn’t been told outright, making it easier to lie. But now the jig was up. I cycled my zo down through my fists, and I could see Hana do the same from the corner of my vision.

  “Stop,” Woong-ji ordered, and I ceased my rhythmic cycling of breath.

  She laced her fingers together in front of her. “Set aside the past for a moment. We’re not simple, Yamamotto-sama. We know what happened. We’re here to recover information about Hiroto Law—the man who poisoned our school and our kingdom right under our very noses.”

  Dokun raised an incredulous brow, but still had not made a move to protect himself or prepare for combat. He was either very confident that this wasn’t about to turn to blows or completely unconcerned with any of us being a threat. My bet was on the latter.

  Woong-ji went on. “Oh yes, rumors do travel that far. We know Hiroto was operating well outside your commands—something you allowed to continue because he was your blood and too blinded by love to be stopped. We also know he has not returned to you and is still rampaging the oceans in your stolen machina, two very sensitive bits of information that could damage your reputation in Kokyu. We want these wars to be over as much as anyone—it’s been horrible for trade with Chi-ganya—and you’re on the path to making that happen.”

  Dokun tutted. “You’re much better informed than I thought.”

  Was I wrong? Woong-ji’s silent pain in the shared dream state seemed to point toward Dokun’s assassination as the real plot, but she said this with such ease and confidence that it sounded like honesty. Or was it? She didn’t experience any effects of her Silent Pact, so it couldn’t have been the truth, just another lie to cover her real objective.

  My pounding heart made it difficult to discern, and I didn’t understand all the intricacies of the Silent Pact or if Woong-ji could suppress the pain. When she’d tried to tell us the truth in her mind, we’d all collapsed under the agony, but Woong-ji had been the only one left on her imaginary feet.

  “We want information on the underwater machina he uses, what it’s operated by, how we can stop it. He’s a terror to our convoys, pilfering from our expeditions to the Great Sunken City.”

  “The what?” I asked in awe.

  Dokun hummed. “The Great Sunken City of Edo. Don’t they teach you anything when you become government operatives?”

  Woong-ji cleared her throat. “These are students on a school trip. They have nothing to do with my assignment.”

  He looked to me with amusement. “We’ll see.”

  The elevator settled on the bottom level, and the doors opened. Dokun was first to step out onto a metal platform. The construction was unlike anything I’d ever seen, except in images from the time of the ancients. The metal grate floor had long since lost its shine, and I could peer through the gaps to look down deeper into the abyss.

  A whirring caught my attention as a bridge extended from the other end of the platform. If anything were to go wrong, we would be trapped here. Who was to say we weren’t trapped already? The platform jostled as the bridge connected, then locked in place.

  Dokun waved us forward. “We’re nearly there.”

  We followed him down the hall in silence. My jaw burned from clenching it shut against a million questions. I wanted to ask Woong-ji about the city of Edo and our true purpose here, but this wasn’t the time. She seemed to have a relative handle on the situation, as terrifying as it was, and as her apprentice it was not my place to be in control, but to support her.

  I sought out Mae again, trying to find someone to confide in, but she pushed me from her disc. It was as if there was a black void in my chest where my munje and my thoughts could not go. Whatever she was dealing with, I knew she was doing this to protect me or herself. I had to let her work through it until she needed me.

  “It’s not well known, but this used to be one of the ancient’s laboratories,” Dokun said, his voice echoing between the far-off ceiling and metal walls.

  “What were they studying here?” I asked, my curiosity piqued enough to risk the question.

  He glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Space flight.”

  “The mural on the tunnel,” I said, pointing back toward the elevator.

  He hummed. “You recognized it?”

  My heart leapt into my throat. “I’d seen something like that before at school.”

  Dokun let out one loud, “Ha!” as if he couldn’t believe a school would teach about the ancients—or know anything about their technology.

  Strips of light in the wall illuminated our path deeper into the facility.

  “We’ve all heard stories of the ancients leaving Jigu behind, but is it true?” Hana asked.

  Dokun bobbed his head from side to side. “There’s truth in many tales. We’re still deciphering messages left by the ones before us. It’s been so long that many of them have degraded past the point of recovery, so it’s difficult to tell.”

  “And you’ve kept that for yourself?” I asked, feeling outrage at his secrecy. Messages from the ancient ones! Such an important discovery should’ve been shared with every historian at the least, if not everyone.

  Dokun paused and turned to face me. “The world is too cruel a place. Man is too greedy, selfish, and dishonorable. We as a species are not ready for the knowledge the ancients have to share.”

  I scowled. “Who are you to make that assessment?”

  “Jiyong,” Woong-ji said my name with a whipcrack in her voice and seized my arm. I shriveled under her gaze and nodded, dropping it.

  “He’s a curious boy, just as I’d expect of a Yamamotto,” Dokun said.

  The hairs on my arms prickled and a shiver went down my spine. To be called his nephew was one thing, but one of his own was something else. Mother had told me how the head of household controlled the family in Kokyu... Did he think he owned me?

  Dokun turned back to the long hall, but didn’t move forward. He lifted one gold-glowing fist to the emptiness, then splayed his fingers wide. The gold munje fired out in a burst and drifted forward as if pulled by an invisible force. His munje poured from his fingertips until the way forwa
rd was just a wall of gold.

  Then zips of blue ran through his magic like Mae’s thoughts moving through her disc. There was an audible beep, and a crack appeared in the gold before us. The gold munje faded, revealing a solid metal door. It split down the middle and opened to a grand room filled with light and machina.

  “How?” Woong-ji asked breathily.

  I thought it had been some trick of ry, but when I peered around the edges of the door that had appeared from nowhere, there was more hall. I stuck my hand past the door’s edge and felt the air. Hana released my hand, and I stepped around the back of the door, seeing nothing but gold light. It was no trick I’d ever seen.

  I flicked my fingers, sending a burst of golden munje sailing toward the back of the door. It disappeared into the mass of twisting magic, and a second later, I felt a wealth of confusing and complicated data flowing through me. I directed that flow toward Mae’s disc, and it slipped into her device, but she still refused my requests to speak. I moved on quickly, not wanting to seem suspicious.

  Dokun beamed when I came back around front. “I could’ve opened the door from my office or from the elevator or from anywhere on this complex. The door to this room exists everywhere and nowhere, and only I can open it. This is but a fraction of the power of the ancients.” He paused, locking me in his gaze. “The world is not ready.”

  “Of that we can be certain,” Woong-ji said with a nod. “May I analyze it?”

  Dokun nodded. “Of course, Ji-chan.”

  What did that mean?

  I looked to my master. She was locked in a tense silence with Dokun for only a second before she smiled and bowed. She gathered ma munje in the palm of her hand and approached the glowing barrier.

  “Let me show the children the rest of the wonders in store?” Dokun asked, then rested his hand on my shoulder. Icy fear dripped down my spine at the thought of Hana and me being separated from my master in such a dangerous place.

  Woong-ji looked to me with a wary wrinkle between her eyebrows.