Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

After a while, the structures gradually got larger, and then started to fuse together. At first they grew closer to each other, but they rapidly started to include points of interconnection, and by the time they descended into the city proper, the buildings began to meld into gigantic structures. They grew taller as well, some five or six stories tall, though Alex was starting to notice the proportions issue that Emily had mentioned — the stories appear to be a bit too tall, as did the windows and the stairs.

“People live here in apartments they carved out for themselves,” Emily explained. “They knock out walls and put in dividers and create some sort of congruent living space, then build in kitchens and bathrooms. Even though the walls are old, it takes some effort to bore through them so you can install chimneys, plumbing, and the like. But the advantage of the big buildings is that they have central heating and a sewer system to plug into. If you live in the outlying areas, you’re on your own, so to speak.”

The buildings they passed continued to grow larger and denser, with more ornate detail work and filigree appearing on the buildings as they drew closer to the city center. The road was no longer singular; a number of different roadways, all paved in the same ubiquitous grey stone, intersected and then separated again in what Alex could only describe as a downtown. Their own route was circuitous, passing by buildings which were now almost level with each other at around ten stories, forming solid urban walls that the road wound around and through, sometimes in the form of brief mossy tunnels, at other times using crude breaches in the structures that clearly had been created with explosives.

Alex found the whole scene oppressive — the monotony of the stone, the lack of sun in between the walls of buildings, damp and cold under the weak light that filtered through the fog. If he hadn’t had Emily with him to point out the sights, Alex wasn’t sure he would have known that there were any, every structure appeared so monolithically uniform. They passed the main business offices for Central, set on a rare open plaza, each great building surrounded by an interconnected warren of smaller sub-buildings. It was bleak, under the perpetual fog, and Alex found himself unsure of this strange city and of his own place in it, amongst the great grey stone buildings that seemed so foreign to anything human. It appeared to have been built to hold hundreds of thousands, maybe more, but he barely saw anyone at all.

But then, as they passed through the center of town and on to the western tip of the crescent that Central described, he discovered that people did in fact live there. It started with a few lone pedestrians, and gradually expanded until there were crowds of people, and even rudimentary traffic made up of bicycles and motorcycles. The area had been selected for inhabitation by the first cartels to arrive in Central, and as Emily explained, it remained the choicest and most exclusive area. Only those connected to the larger and more powerful cartels could afford to keep offices and accommodations in this neighborhood, locally referred to as the Ring, for the circular edifice that towered over the rest of the neighborhood, almost a third higher than any other structure in the area.

The bus ground to a halt just outside the Ring, and Emily led him out on to the street besides the giant round building. Up close, it was almost impossible to tell how large it was, as it simply appeared to be a gradually curving exterior wall, encompassing whole blocks in its bulk. It’s most striking feature was not its size, however, but rather that it had been painted — a white lacquer had been applied to the surface of the stone in a thick, moderately uniform coat, and in contrast to the grey buildings that they had passed, it practically gleamed. The buildings that surrounded the Ring on the three sides that Alex could see were similarly coated in varying shades of cream and brown, as well as a scattering of more brilliant blues and greens. The scene was practically cheerful in contrast to the depressing monotone vastness of the rest of Central, and Alex had little trouble understanding why anyone who could afford to lived here.

“This way,” Emily said, taking his hand gently in her own and leading him along, around part of the Ring and then a few blocks further west, down a side street where the buildings had been subdivided into smaller living quarters, each painted a different Easter egg pastel.

“I know,” Emily said, seeing his look, “it isn’t exactly the most tasteful street. But, we are — I mean to say, that the Raleigh cartel — well, it’s just that,” Emily gestured haphazardly, and blushed furiously, paused on the lower steps of a baby-blue staircase, “we aren’t exactly wealthy. Not anymore.”

“Seems like you’re doing okay.”

“Well, I suppose it’s all relative. Never mind. Why don’t you come up?”

Alex followed her up the stairs, which seemed unreasonably steep and high to Alex. The ironwork that bordered the stairs was a later addition and clearly handmade. The apartment door was made from a red wood that Alex did not recognize, with tarnished brass fixtures and knobs that looked ancient to him. Emily fished in her purse briefly, then used a bulky set of keys to open the door, ushering Alex through and then closing it behind him. This left them almost face-to-face in the cramped quarters of the entry, under a flickering light, surrounded by a jumble of coats and umbrellas. For an instant, looking at her freckled cheeks and small, coy smile, he was certain that their faces did not actually need to be so close together, that the space was not as small as that. Then she stood up on her tiptoes to tap the light bulb, fixing the lighting and ending the moment. She hung up her sweater and he found a hook for his hoodie, full of regret and confusion.

Following her up the stairs into the apartment, Alex couldn’t help but watch her perfectly shaped calves flex underneath the fringe of her white dress — and then, for some reason, he remembered what Rebecca had told him about how he would be received here. He somehow managed to be simultaneously hopeful and embarrassed.

“So, you live here?” he asked, as they emerged into what was clearly the living room, a fairly large space with white stucco walls and an unusually high ceiling. The room was crowded with a table and a number of wooden chairs, a couple of couches, a large entertainment center, and a number of bookshelves. It looked homey and oddly approachable to Alex, like he hadn’t really expected for Cartel families to have books lying all over the kitchen table, or half-dead houseplants, or a sink filled with unwashed dishes. “I mean, I know you live at the Academy right now, but this is where you grew up, right?”

“Mostly,” Emily said, as if she was admitting to something, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the disarray. “Right now, only my sister lives here full-time. Which explains the mess, I suppose.”

Emily sighed and marched toward the kitchen.

“Go ahead and grab a seat, Alex. I just want to straighten up a bit. It won’t take a minute.”

Alex glanced around skeptically, thinking that it might take quite a bit longer than a minute, then looked around for some place to sit, eventually settling on an uncomfortably high chair, set on the other side of the long kitchen counter, opposite the sink. On the other side, Emily made a face at the accumulated dishes, then turned on the hot water and reached for the dish soap. It took Alex a moment to realize that she was furious.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a few minutes later, after she’d managed to clear enough room to get to work. “My sister can be quite… inconsiderate. She’s lived here a long time now while the rest of us haven’t been around quite as much as she’s made herself very much,” Emily grimaced, “at home. As you can see.”