Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

Then she realized that Alistair had somehow stepped behind her, without her noticing. He swept her up in his arms and ran on. He’d telepathically erased himself from the minds of everyone in the area, doubtless, even her. He held her effortlessly in his arms, his eyes sad and angry and relieved all at the same time as he looked down at her.

“Mitzi,” he said, breathing hard. “We are out.”

It was only then that noticed that not all of the blood was hers, and how drained Alistair actually was. She wondered what had happened.

Alistair dropped to his knees, cradling Mitsuru with one arm, his other hand palm down on the head of the target’s corpse. Then Mitsuru felt the terrible dislocation of an apport, but she had no time to wonder where Alistair found the strength, as they hit the Ether like a wall, and her consciousness disintegrated against it.

Alex lay on his bed, exhausted, and tried to wrap his mind around the idea — his bed, his room, his school. That wasn’t really sinking in.

Michael had led him around the campus for hours, but he hadn’t seen anything like the whole campus. He didn’t understand how the Academy could be so big, and yet he’d never heard of it — but then again, why would he? Up until a few days ago, he had only been dimly aware that there was more to the world than rural California.

He’d seen a handful of students — most were home, Michael had explained, finishing out a break that would end tomorrow. He’d been surprised by the range of ages — apparently the Academy taught everything from kindergarten through college, or some approximation of it. Alex still didn’t have a clear idea what was going on.

Only part of what he’d seen looked like a school, and that bothered Alex. Parts of it looked more like a boot camp. There was even a firing range in the basement of the science building, which Michael had proudly described as state of the art, as if to reassure him.

The clothes, too; that had been weird. Michael had taken him by the commissary, and after a few private words with the staff, a flustered young woman had come out to take his measurements. She was both hurried and excessively polite, and that had made Alex tremendously nervous. He’d left the building with a couple new uniforms in his actual size, some workout clothes, and several pairs of fatigues. He was too tired to ask questions by that point, something that Michael must have noticed, as he had led him directly to his dorm.

It was a mixed dorm, Michael explained, with alternating floors of girls and boys. The building was one of the older ones, and therefore close to the center of campus, which would allow him to get to class more easily, while he was still learning his way around the grounds. Michael had led him to the fourth floor, down a silent, brightly lit hallway, and then to his door.

Alex was surprised that he had merited a single room — it was small, but he’d lived in smaller spaces. The room was nice enough, and Alex was surprised to find that the wardrobe had already been filled — someone had apparently returned to the trailer, and collected his clothes and few belongings. When he saw his MP3 player sitting on the old writing desk in the corner, he was so overwhelmed he almost cried. Michael showed him where the bathrooms were, gave him the password for the wireless network, handed him a plastic swipe key for the door, and then left, bidding Alex a good night.

He’d expected to fall asleep immediately, given all that had happened that day, but the moment he lay down he felt restless, unnerved somehow. The dorms were nicer than any he’d ever seen — wood paneled walls, clean beige carpeting, and lots of windows — but it was, in the end, institutional living, and that didn’t have positive associations for Alex.

He tossed aside the covers of his newly acquired double bed, and walked over to the laptop that had been thoughtfully provided. He wasn’t sure what had happened to his old one, back at the trailer, but he wasn’t actually worried — he hadn’t kept anything important on it, because he didn’t have anything important to keep. Anyway this one was obviously quite a bit better than his ancient machine, a silver Sony with an LED lit keyboard. He plugged in the password Michael had given him, and accessed the Internet.

For a few minutes he surfed at random, plowing through news and video-sharing sites without paying much attention to their contents. It was comforting in of itself, to be able to connect. It made him feel a bit like he was in the real world. He closed the laptop and reached for his headphones, turning the player on at random. To his surprise, it was still on the same song from the other night, when he’d been attacked. He hit skip, and in the interval of silence, realized that someone was knocking at his door. Pulling out his headphones, he got up and answered it.

“Um, hello.”

If he had to guess, Alex would have guessed that the kid standing there was roughly the same age he was. He was a few inches taller than Alex, with dark brown skin and bulky, plastic-framed glasses. He wore some kind of black turban on his head, which made Alex wondered if he was a Muslim, but he decided it would be impolite to ask.

“You are Alex, right? My name is Vivik,” he said in perfect, American-accented English, offering his hand. “I’m in the next room over. Michael asked me to check in on you.”

Alex shook his hand and then stepped aside to allow him to enter, doing his best to mask his confusion. Alex sat down on his bed, while Vivik pulled out his desk chair and sat down backwards on it, facing Alex.

Vivik looked at him knowingly, and then smiled.

“It’s pretty strange, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah it is,” Alex admitted. “Up until a few days ago, I had no idea any of this even existed, hadn’t a clue. And now they tell me that I start class tomorrow.”

“Same here,” Vivik nodded.

“Really? You’re new here, too?”

Vivik waved his hand, obviously embarrassed.

“Well, actually, this is the beginning of my second session. But, I showed up a week after the first session started, earlier this year, so I was just as clueless as you are. Don’t let it worry you, Alex, most of the people here found themselves in your shoes at one point or another.”

“I figured that all these people were, you know, raised knowing about this stuff,” he said hesitantly, running a hand through his disheveled hair, and wishing in a vague way that he was not in his pajamas. Not that the t-shirt and sweats he had on were particularly ratty or anything, but still, it was a bit uncomfortable, meeting someone while dressed that way.

“Nope,” Vivik said, shaking his head. “It’s fairly unusual for a family to pass the affinity down like that. Most of the students here had normal parents, came from normal families, that sort of thing. Up until whatever point they were activated, and then, like you, they ended up here.”

“Weird.” Alex wasn’t sure what else to say, though he felt a little bit better knowing he wouldn’t be quite as out of place as he’d imagined. After a moment of awkward silence, he asked, “So, were you attacked by monsters, too?”

Vivik laughed jovially.

“Thank God, no. Nothing of the kind. They do screenings, apparently, at public schools and institutions, when they do all those hearing and vision tests. They flagged me right at the start of the school year, pulled me aside, and explained it all to me.” Vivik looked around the empty dorm room cheerfully, seemingly nonplussed. “About a week later, I was enrolled here.”

“So you have a family back at home? Aren’t they worried? About all this?” Alex gestured toward the window and the school outside.

“Sure, I’ve got a big family,” Vivik said, nodding. “But to them, when I received an offer to attend a prestigious private boarding school, all expenses paid, they were so delighted that I didn’t even have to come up with an explanation. I heard that they have the telepaths smooth things over with some parents, but in my case, it wasn’t even necessary.” Vivik shrugged, and looked a little embarrassed. “My parents are kind of fixated on the whole college thing, you see.”