Sunday, and I’ll fix them back up for you.”
Alex rubbed the back of his head and sat up.
“How long till I can build them myself?” he asked, blinking his eyes and trying to regain his equilibrium.
“Not long. We’ll teach you that soon. A couple of weeks, on the outside,” Rebecca said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it right now. You need to start with the fundamentals, and then learn the applications, you know? That’s what Michael is waiting out on the practice ground to show you.”
Alex looked down at himself oddly, then back up at Rebecca.
“So this is it, huh? I’m actually going to do this. Be an Operator, I mean.” Alex’s voice was filled with wonder and doubt. “I’m a little bit scared.”
“Don’t be.” Rebecca beamed at him, her brown eyes warm. “Trust me, Alex. You’re going to be more than fine. You’re going to be amazing. You are going to be better at this than you’ve ever been at anything.”
Alex stood up. Despite himself, he found that he was smiling.
“Thanks, Rebecca. I guess I’m ready. Where do I go?”
Alex was again awed by how huge the Academy was — he followed the map Rebecca had drawn through a number of green practice fields, a handful of low stone buildings, and one long stretch of what appeared to be rolling, forested hills. It took him a quarter hour to find Michael.
The gap cut crudely into the side of a hill had obviously been a quarry at some point in the past, though it looked to have been abandoned years before. Alex walked along the ridge on one side and then down a hand-carved path into a deep depression that narrowed by long, circular steps, with one narrow, uncut ridge rising in the center of the quarry, about half the height of the depression. Michael stood on the edge of that ridge.
The path so narrow that Alex didn’t feel comfortable walking up it. He didn’t think he’d actually fall off of it, but he felt as if he might, and it was a long way down to the still water at the bottom of the quarry. The rough- hewn walls of rock all around blocked out the sun, and it was quite cool. The pebbles that rolled away from Alex’s feet rang musically against the limestone ridge, falling eventually into the dark water below.
Michael stood at the edge of the ridge, his arms crossed, smiling companionably. Alex was grateful to find that the path widened out in front of him, and sat down with obvious relief on a large rock next to Michael.
“How’s it going, Alex?” Michael’s voice was hushed, but the sound still echoed within the old quarry. “How was your first day?”
“It isn’t over yet, so it’s too early to say,” Alex shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
“Fair enough,” Michael agreed. “Let’s talk a bit about that altercation at the cafeteria. Did that work out the way you wanted?”
“What do you think? I mean, I knew something like that would happen eventually, with all the stories everyone has apparently heard about me. But, I didn’t want it to happen before I had a chance to talk with most of my classmates.”
“Uh huh.” Michael nodded and waited for him to continue.
“And yes, alright.” Alex waved his hands agitatedly. “I didn’t expect him to turn to stone. And that’s obviously going to be a problem, since he’s probably thinking about ways to kill me, right now. Unless,” he said hopefully, looking up at Michael, “you were planning on teach me how to fight a living statue today?”
Michael looked at Alex oddly for a moment, and then laughed.
“Not exactly what I had planned today, no. You have anything else you’d like to say about it?”
“Well, actually, I do,” Alex said softly. “Why did you pick Vivik to introduce me to everyone?”
“You don’t like Vivik?” Michael looked surprised.
“He’s a nice enough guy,” Alex allowed. “But that isn’t the point. He’s clearly the least popular kid in the class, not counting the two who apparently aren’t even human. So why pick someone that everybody already hates to introduce me to everyone? Are you trying to set me up for this shit? Or is this some kind of test?”
Michael looked at Alex for a long moment, and then had another laughing fit.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Michael wiped his eyes and composed himself. “It’s good that you’re thinking that way, Alex. A little paranoia will take you a long way at the Academy. But that’s a bit petty, for me. I like to think my plots are a bit more elegant.”
“So why Vivik, then?” Alex demanded.
“I thought you’d like Vivik.” Michael spread his hands innocently. “He’s a smart kid. He has some ideas you might find interesting. Plus, it had to be an orphan, right? Otherwise I really would have been setting you up.”
“Emily seems nice enough…” Alex said resentfully.
“I warned you about this, Alex.” Michael’s voice turned grim. “Emily is nice enough. I’ve been her teacher since she came to the Academy, and she’s a wonderful student and delightful person. She’s also an empath, Alex, and she was born into the Raleigh Cartel. They are one of the Hegemony’s oldest and most important cartels, as I’m sure you are aware. Did Rebecca tell you much about empaths?”
“She said that they tend to be in charge of things.” Alex kicked at the ground nervously. “Because people can’t help but like them.”
“That’s right. Even a moderately powerful empath is pretty much guaranteed to end up in leadership role in their cartel — empaths are rare, so there are more openings than empaths to fill them. Moreover, they’re inspirational and charming by nature, and like you said, pretty much impossible not to like. Born leaders, most of them.”
Michael reached absently for a pebble, and then tossed it out into the quarry, bouncing it off the rock face and down, into the water.
“Yes, empaths tend to rise to the top. Except for when they’re class-B empaths, that is. Like, say,” Michael rolled his eyes, “your new friend, Emily.”
“So? Doesn’t that make her even less of a threat?” Alex brushed his bangs nervously back from his eyes. He’d needed a haircut before he’d come to the Academy, and he hadn’t had time to ask about getting one, yet. “If she’s so weak, then I don’t see what the problem is.”
“Emily’s future, as a class-B empath in the Hegemony, is to be a housekeeper and plaything for some middling-important cartel functionary. Most empaths don’t have much in the way of combat potential, and she’s no good with the sciences — though she is an accomplished humanities student,” Michael added positively, “and she has excellent taste in literature. But good qualities aside, Emily has a long, mundane lifetime to look forward to. Keep in mind, too, that her father is an important man in the Raleigh cartel, and she’s been raised as part of the upper crust — a position, as an adult, that she cannot maintain without consenting to an arranged marriage.”
“That is,” Michael added slyly, tapping his forehead, “unless she figures out a way to become a much more powerful empath. The kind of empath who can’t help but rise to the top. What do you figure the best way to do that might be, Alex?”
Alex felt ill in the pit of his stomach. His interactions with Emily flashed before him in rapid sequence, as he reinterpreted them all, with newly suspicious eyes. She had seemed, in a vaguely haughty way, quite friendly. Could he really have misread her so badly?
“Keep in mind that doesn’t make her bad person, Alex,” Michael said gently, “or that she doesn’t have your interests in mind, too. Actually,” Michael added speculatively, “an empath might make a very good partner for you, down the road. Their abilities would be complementary…”
“I don’t want to talk about this stuff,” Alex said, troubled. He didn’t accept Michael’s interpretation — not wholeheartedly. But he didn’t like it, or the implications.
“Fair enough. Can I remind you to be careful, then, Alex? You’ve got to exercise restraint if you want to make it here. You have tremendous potential, son, but right now you can’t even defend yourself,” Michael said, straightening up and yawning. “Try and only pick the fights you can win, if you must pick fights.”
“That’s it? That’s the whole lecture?”
Michael grinned at him evilly.
“I already arranged for the consequences,” he said, shaking out his dreadlocks and then tying them back again. “You’ll know them when you see them. I guarantee you won’t be so cavalier about knocking people’s teeth out in the future. Particularly not when the Academy’s kindergarten class could probably take you in a fight.”
“Maybe we should do something about that,” Alex suggested. “Why are we in a quarry, anyway?”
“To limit damage to the surroundings. I think,” Michael said, his face lighting up, “that you’re going to like this part, Alex.”
