“Well, as a matter of fact,” Vivik said, smiling nervously, “it seems that pretty much everyone knows that you are starting class tomorrow, Alex. Most of them heard about it a couple weeks ago, after you were evaluated and graded. That you spent the last three weeks in seclusion, training one-on-one with Michael just added to the mystique, I think.”
Alex groaned.
“It’s not so bad, Alex. A bunch of the girls want to meet you,” Vivik offered helpfully.
“Yeah?” Alex tried to make sure his voice sounded nonchalant, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was, based on Vivik’s sly smile. “Why would that be?”
“Please. You can’t be serious.” Vivik did a double-take. “Wait. Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, nodding as best he could. “I don’t get it. Whatever it is.”
Vivik sat back in the chair and crossed his legs, looking very much like he was planning on staying. Alex was a little annoyed at this, but he’d realized a few days before that knowing Vivik meant putting up with his somewhat deficient respect for personal space, so he let it go.
“I heard about you the first time while you were still in the infirmary,” Vivik said, clearly relishing the opportunity to tell the story. Alex got the distinct feeling that Vivik didn’t get the chance to talk to people much. “Some guys were saying that they’d found you in L.A. somewhere, that Mitsuru brought you back after a big fight with the Weir. They also said that you were some sort of anomaly, an M-class, and that you were capable of some kind of unique protocol, something that no one had been able to do before — and that all the cartels were interested in you. And that you were going to be in our class.”
Alex perked up a bit, despite himself. It couldn’t hurt to know a bit more about what he was getting into.
“Of course, they also said you were big and tough and cool-looking,” Vivik said, smirking. “So they got that part wrong. But things had been quiet around here for a while, and when things get quiet, people start to tell stories. I figured that this was more of the same, and that you’d show up in class eventually and turn out to be just like everyone else here. But when I walked into the cafeteria that morning, Alex, half the empaths and Anastasia had rushed back home!”
Vivik paused for reaction, and then shook his head when Alex continued to stare blankly.
“God, you still don’t know anything? What is Michael teaching you, anyway?”
“How to hit stuff.”
“Great. That should come in handy when you run out of things to say,” Vivik said, rolling his eyes. “They were the important people, Alex, the whole future leadership of the various cartels. They’d been brought back home in a hurry, to get instructions — instructions about you.”
“Am I in some kind of danger?” Alex asked, puzzled.
Vivik gave Alex a pitying look.
“Only of being wined and dined,” Vivik said with a hint of scorn. “They don’t want to hurt you, Alex, they want to recruit you. They brought back all those kids because they knew they would be your classmates, and therefore the people who would have the most contact with you, and the most likely to be your friends.”
“That’s kind of creepy,” Alex observed, stretching out a yawn in the hopes it would serve as a polite suggestion.
“You should get used to it,” Vivik said sternly. “Because it’s going to be that way until you give in and join one of them. Then everything is reversed.”
“Wait, what?”
Vivik sighed and stood up.
“Everyone will love you as long as you are a free agent. As long as you stay undecided, everyone in Central will fall all over themselves to help you out. So you had better be prepared for that,” Vivik admonished. “But you need to be ready for what happens after you commit. Because as desperate as the cartels are to get their hands on you, Alex, they will be even more desperate to make sure that no one else does. You need to be ready for it, because it’s going to be weird. At first everyone will be your ally, your confidant, your friend and potential lover, but you won’t be able to trust any of them. And then one day, inevitably, the tables will turn on you, and then suddenly all of these people who have cared for you and been close to you, well, they will turn on you. I see things, Alex. I’m a remote viewer. Does that make any sense?”
Vivik waited for a response, but Alex said nothing, his eyes hidden behind his folded hands. After a moment, Vivik stood up, pushed the chair in quietly, shook his head at the sleeping boy, and left the room, closing the door silently behind him.
Fourteen
“You seem disappointed,” Vivik observed, leading him along a cement path through spindly birch trees, a small creek gurgling beside the walkway.
Alex blinked uncomfortably as the sun broke the through the leaves. It was bright out, and no one had thought to grab his sunglasses from the trailer. Alex walked with his hands balled up in his pockets, shoulders hunched in the unfamiliar blazer. The uniform still felt weird to him, even if everyone around him was wearing a variation on it.
“I was hoping the skirts would be shorter,” Alex mumbled, staring at a group of teenage girls sitting by the creek side. The wind carried the muffled sounds of their conversation and fragments of their laughter.
“You watch too much anime,” Vivik grinned at him. “I think all uniform skirts are around the knee, no matter where you go. I did the British boarding school thing for a while, you know. Much worse. All guys.”
Despite the sun, Alex was enjoying the walk. The campus was beautiful, and the Indian kid was friendly, something that Alex was still trying to adjust to. Michael had told him that his record had been wiped completely when he was admitted to the Academy — a fresh start, as he had put it. He’d even offered Alex the opportunity to change his name, and he entertained the thought briefly, but couldn’t see learning to respond to something else. Michael had warned him that the wipe wasn’t absolute, that if someone had the time, inclination and resources that they could dig it up — but he’d also assured him that no one would care.
That had seemed to be true, at least so far. Vivik hadn’t asked him any questions at all about his past. Rebecca had asked a few questions here and there, but she was the school councilor or something, so that was only natural. Anyway, Alex had to admit that Rebecca was almost impossible not to trust by her very nature, empathy be damned. Alex even felt like maybe Michael was someone he could trust a bit, that he was probably even learning to like. Alex smiled to himself. So that was three, already. Three potential friends. Three times the number that he’d had before… or, wait, did that make sense? If he’d had no friends before, then…
Alex was so caught up thinking about this that he didn’t notice Vivik’s friendly chatter, pointing out interesting sites along their walk, and he didn’t notice when it stopped, either. Or that he was abruptly walking alone, Vivik having stopped in his tracks several feet back, with the rest of the people who were paying attention to what was going on around them. He didn’t even see Mitsuru until he’d practically walked into her.
He managed to stop in time, a step away from colliding with her. She stood in the sidewalk, arms folded in front of her. The uniform she wore was superficially similar to his, but with a black blazer, rather than blue, and with a completely different patch on her breast pocket. The last time he’d seen her, her hair had been tied back, and now that it was down, he was surprised at how long it was, hanging almost to her waist, silken black and utterly straight. She looked at him emotionlessly with her unnerving red eyes.
“Boy,” she said softly, “you should learn to watch where you are going. It seems to be a reoccurring problem.”
Alex recognized her immediately, of course — the list of people who’d saved his life recently was pretty short, and there weren’t too many attractive ladies with crimson eyes on it.
“Oh,” he managed, trying to collect himself, “I think that, um, I think I owe you a thank you, for, well, you know.”
Panicked at her blank expression, his stuck his hand out.
“My name is Alex,” he said, his voice suddenly ridiculously small and squeaky. “Thank you for helping me.”
