“When Emily was manipulating you, do you remember how hard she he had to work? How close she had to stay to you, and how much she followed you around? Do you remember how much… contact she had to make with you?”
Alex nodded again. She decided not to notice the blush openly, but in a way, she was a little bit glad for Alex, that he had done something worth blushing about. It was another connection in the web of connections she was building around the boy, tying him to the people around him and the place he was in.
“Well, if I wanted to control your feelings to any great degree, all the time, then I would pretty much have to do the same thing. So you see why that’s impossible, right? I see ninety students in a slow month, Alex. No empath is that powerful.”
“But, then, why did it get so weird? When you were…”
She didn’t make him finish the sentence, but she was touched by the genuineness of the pain she felt radiating from him. Even if Alex had mixed feelings about trusting her, he obviously still wanted to. So all it would take was a little nudge…
“I didn’t say I wasn’t doing anything at all, either,” Rebecca said, grinding out her cigarette. “I do smooth out the occasional wrinkle, and I do my best to improve my student’s general mood and outlook. And yes, for some of our problem students, I do tend to try to limit their own destructive tendencies. However, before you ask — no, you aren’t one of those kids. When I have used empathy with you, Alex, it has always been to help — to limit your suffering, to ease your shyness, to help facilitate your transition to the Academy. I never once tried to make you do anything, or feel anything that you already didn’t. I’ve tried to make things easier for you. Moreover, if you want, I won’t even do that anymore. We can just talk and pretend we are still normal people, Alex, if that’s what you want to do. We can pretend that the rules they made up apply in the circumstances we find ourselves in. On the other hand, you can accept that we are both very different from what we used to be, and in a different world than the one we used to live in — and you could try giving me credit for having good intentions. Up to you.”
Alex considered it.
“They made me see a bunch of different shrinks, psychologists and psychiatrists, I never could figure out the difference. You know that?”
“Nope,” Rebecca said, getting up to pace the room restlessly. “I don’t know anything about you, other than what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen since you arrived.”
Alex didn’t look skeptical. He looked like someone was trying to play a bad joke on him.
“How is that possible? You must have access to that sort of thing. There must be records…”
“Sure, but that shit doesn’t mean anything to me,” Rebecca said, leaning against the corner of her desk. “It wouldn’t be relevant to my job, anyway. Those shrinks — whoever they were, whatever the reasons you had to see them, they had a different job than mine. They were trying to make you better, make you healthier, a better person, a better citizen, right? Well, that’s not me. I’m not out to confront your innermost demons, Alex, not unless you want to. I’m just here to try to be a friend to you during a very difficult experience. Because the Program is a traumatic experience, a deliberately designed one, and we have studied it thoroughly. Candidates who have someone to turn to, someone to trust and someone to care for them — well, they tend to make it through more often. And I want to be that person for you, Alex, for a whole host of reasons, some professional, and some personal.”
“Ah… that. Um, I just… well, thanks for that,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in a long time, as absurd as that was. “Thanks for being honest with me.”
“And I am fond of you, smartass. Don’t get me wrong. I really am pulling for you. I think it’s important that you know this: you aren’t there yet, but there will be some critical work very soon, and there won’t be many people who will be able to do it. It will need to be done, Alex. The kind of work that I used to do,” Rebecca said, trying out the past tense and not very sure how she felt it about it. “It isn’t healthy, or nice, or even right, Alex. But it is necessary. And I need you to know that I believe in you, and your ability to do this work, better than anyone else at the Academy.”
He didn’t say anything. He seemed to be staring at the ground, so she gave him space. She almost missed it, when he patted the couch cushion beside him, her accustomed spot during their sessions. Her movements were slow and placid, designed not to startle him, but she needn’t have bothered. She sat down and he put his head on her shoulder and then started sobbing, and she threw her arms around him and held him close, until long after he had stopped, until she had gently made all right within his little world.
Rebecca always tried to stretch it out, the first time they cried with her. It was amazing, cathartic experience. Actually, she thought with a trace of bitterness, it was the closest thing to an orgasm she had experienced in months.
“We need to talk, Anastasia Martynova,” Gaul said firmly, approaching where she was currently holding court: on a picnic blanket, underneath a tree, near the creek and in view of the partially burnt roof of her home, already back in use despite the ongoing repairs. The dress she wore was dark blue to match the ribbon in her hair. “Right now.”
A number of people eyed him from the expansive, red-and-white pattered blanket. He had mixed feelings about all of them. Svetlana was mild and servile to the extent that she attracted his derision, which perhaps was unmerited, as she sat quiet and meek beneath a parasol. Renton Vidor was one of his least favorite students at the Academy, and not only because he was the only student to fail the final class so many times. Renton was much older than the savage looking youth he appeared to be, and his smile was oily and unpleasant. Timor Zharov’s eyes held a flat acknowledgement — one precognitive recognized another. In addition, he was a trained killer. For the Black Sun, and particularly, for Anastasia, from childhood. Another potential problem.
His sister, Katya Zharova, was something of an enigma to him. She’d done sessions with Rebecca, as all students were required to, and Rebecca reported her to be of above-average intelligence, with no learning disabilities or social defects. Yet she had failed enough to be held back twice already, ending up in her younger brother’s class. Moreover, his spies inside the Black Sun reported that she had similar issues in their private assassin camp, showing exceptional aptitude but no motivation. She had transferred back to the Academy from the Black Sun’s camp two years before, to avoid expulsion for a baffling series of incidents that had occurred there, culminating in an equally baffling assault and hostage taking. Since Katya’s return to the Academy, however, she had been agreeable and accommodating to the point of inviting suspicion, as long as he overlooked her habitual violations of the substance abuse policy. As with Renton and Timor, he suspected her actions to have been orchestrated by Anastasia Martynova, for her own inscrutable reasons.
“You heard him,” the object of his suspicions said cheerfully, dismissing her hangers-on with a wave. “Really, Director, it isn’t like you to make our affairs so public.”
Renton snickered and left, with Timor and a grinning and tipsy Katya trailing behind him. Svetlana gathered a few things hastily and then trotted after them. All the while Anastasia smiled benevolently at him, as beatific as a pope granting an audience, flanked by two black wolves, one of which whined as she scratched its exposed belly. He gritted his teeth and stood when she offered him the blanket to sit on with a gesture.
Her dress reminded him of the Tenniel illustrations from Alice in Wonderland, except her knee socks were black. The composure on her face was constantly at odds with its own immaturity. It was appalling. No child should have such self-assurance, such cold and calculating ambition.
“We are alone,” she observed. “My people will not observe or intrude. Please understand,” she said, taking up a china teacup in between her thin white fingers, “my time is at a premium at the moment. My cartel needs me. So, with that in mind, what can I do for you, Director?”
Gaul shelved his anger. When he spoke, he could hear the appropriate iciness in his words, and felt satisfied.
“There are a number of people facing a reckoning due to recent events. You are among them. I came here to give you the opportunity to try and make an accounting for yourself, and for your actions.”
“Surely you don’t mean to imply that I had some role in this attack?” she asked mildly, looking surprised. “Why, Director, my people suffered more than any others.”
“It seems that way, on the face of it,” Gaul said grimly. “But when I look closely at the data, the soldiers that the Black Sun lost were primarily affiliated with the old guard, with your father. The Black Sun members who died included many of those most inclined and capable to resist your future ascension.”
“I am not the heir,” Anastasia objected mildly. “I have an elder brother, Director. And I have no forces loyal
