Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

Then he’d called Renton into his office. Renton walked in and stood nervously in front of her, obviously uncomfortable in his formal attire, his posture stiff, and his bow deep and clumsy. Renton Vidor, her father explained, would be her bodyguard for the next few years. The second-eldest son of one of the minor cartels in the Black Sun’s orbit, he had been pledged into their service as a sign of his cartel’s loyalty, and therefore Anastasia’s father was obligated to find a function for him. If she was satisfied with his performance, he said, she could elect to continue his employment in this capacity when she left for the Academy. Then her father had motioned for them to leave, and Renton had offered her his hand, his smiling face then exactly the same as the one that she saw now.

It was like that, sometimes, after activation. The nanites affected the aging process in inconsistent and unpredictable ways — some Operators appeared to age normally, while others aged only until a certain point, and then simply stopped, seemingly not aging a day until they died. Some Operators had lived for more than a hundred years, according to the Black Sun’s archives, while others had died in their teens of what appeared to be old age. Renton had been a young-looking twenty when he had been assigned to guard her, and only his hairstyle had changed since then.

The subject worried Anastasia more than she would have cared to admit. As far as she could tell, she hadn’t grown at all since she was thirteen, more than three years ago. She knew that happened to girls, sometimes, and that it didn’t necessarily mean anything — she could have been a late bloomer, after all. But Anastasia didn’t find the thought of going through life appearing to be a flat-chested teenager to be an attractive one. It was a horrible thought, actually, the only one that ever kept her up at night. And though nothing was certain yet, she knew that it was a very real possibility. Alice Gallow appeared to be in her late twenties, after all, but the archives said that she was much, much older. Maybe even the oldest Operator on record, having first come to the Black Sun’s notice during the Spanish Civil War.

Then again, there was a big difference, Anastasia thought grimly, between being young forever, and being in puberty forever.

“Ana, what’s our next move?”

Renton looked worried, but his question broke the cycle of her own worries. He was good for that, at least. He might have been insolent and disrespectful, perverted and low minded, but Renton knew her better than anybody else did, and he when it mattered, he always seemed to do the right thing, without even thinking about it.

It was that quality, above all others, even loyalty, that had made Renton rise in rank, to become her lieutenant. It was his effectiveness, however, that kept him there.

“Wait and see,” Anastasia said, leaning back to look at the starless sky. “I have some ideas, but the picture as a whole is still unclear. Something about this situation is very wrong, and I will not make any dramatic moves, not until I know for certain who is responsible.”

“Are you sure? We have resources in this area. I can call O’Brien at the Marin compound, and arrange an exit. For all of us, if necessary. Even Alex.”

“Not yet. Not until the trap is sprung.”

Renton ploughed through the rest of the marshy area in a straight line, making no attempt to avoid the puddles, his feet squelching and sinking into the mud with every step. It did not appear to bother him, though it was hell on the suit she’d had tailored.

“You think this was all a setup?”

“Yes. Only gross incompetence or deliberate planning could have put us in this mess, and I am not inclined to think that Central is incompetent.”

Anastasia frowned.

“At least, not this incompetent.”

“Then, who do you think…”

Anastasia cut him off with a look.

“Shush, Renton,” she scolded. “This isn’t the time or the place.”

She looked around them significantly.

“And you can put me down, now. It is much drier, here.”

Renton grinned, and set her down delicately on her feet. The ground was indeed much drier, and the brush had started to open up to pine trees surrounded by patches of brown grass.

“There is going to be a fight,” she said moodily, walking beside Renton. “Central would not bring us this whole way, so Mitsuru could sneak us out the back door. The Weir will find us first.”

Renton looked over at her, his eyes sharp and worried.

“Who is their target? All of us? You? The new kid?”

“I’m not sure,” Anastasia said, shrugging. “But, I think we will find out soon. Don’t worry so much, Renton — that is my job. You focus on getting us back to Central, safely.”

“Milady,” he said, nodding.

“And try not to be so forward in the future. Even when we are alone.”

“As you say.”

His face was absolutely, utterly somber. She was genuinely tempted to smack him.

“Renton!”

“Up here,” Mitsuru’s voice rang out in the dark, from somewhere in the clearing up ahead. “This is where we’ll do it.”

Anastasia was fretting over the damaged hem of her dress, her skirt spread out across her legs in front of her, when Alex sat down heavily beside her. She was a bit surprised, as he had lapsed into sullen silence after Margot had smacked him around earlier, and hadn’t said a word during the hour or so of preparations that followed their arrival.

“Uh, Anastasia?”

He spoke quietly, leaning forward and trying to catch her eye.

“Can I ask you something?”

Anastasia carefully threaded a needle with black silk, not bothering to look over at him. She wasn’t too good at this sort of thing, but not because she wasn’t interested. Having too many servants and lacking in basic domestic skills was a kind of occupational hazard.

“Ask away,” she said, a touch crossly.

“Okay,” Alex said, sounding a bit puzzled. “What exactly are we doing here?”

Anastasia made a first few clumsy stitches, then held the hem of the skirt up to examine the torn fringe critically.

“We are going home, Alex, back to Central.” Anastasia glared at the offending lace. “Mitsuru brought a beacon with her, a piece of stone from Central, so that they can lock on to us. Once she activates it, Central can start opening a way between here and there, through the Ether. It takes a little while, though, and the minute that beacon activates, every Witch and Weir within a hundred miles is going to know where we are, and what we are doing.”

“And you think that they’ll get here in time to try and stop us? It seems like we are kinda out of the way, here.”

Anastasia resumed her repairs, trying to reaffix the fringe to the hem of her skirt.

“I’m certain at least some of them will be nearby,” she said firmly, still engrossed her work. “They have a sort of precognition, as well. They must have anticipated this.”

Anastasia felt a sharp pain in her index finger, and dropped the needle and thread, immediately losing them in the grass beneath her in the dark. She stuck her wounded finger in her mouth, fuming.

“So… couldn’t we go somewhere further away? I mean, we could rent a car or something, and drive out to the middle of nowhere, right? Then they couldn’t possibly get to us, not in time to stop us from going home.”

Anastasia looked moodily at Alex. She was mainly annoyed about the dress, but she still had to curb the urge to bite his head off. Even when he was trying, and he was clearly trying right now, the boy aggravated her to no end.

“Alex, the protocol Mitsuru used to hide our Etheric signatures will dissipate in a few hours,” she explained, sighing. “That aside, it is only a matter of time until they track us down. We don’t have any resources here, any allies, or a real chance of defending ourselves against a determined attack. And if we were to try and run, don’t you think their precognitives might anticipate that as well? We would step out of the car, and walk straight into a Weir’s mouth. Understand?”