‘He was shooting at you with a fully automatic combat shotgun. If that doesn’t make him an enemy, what does?’
Nava regarded the man in the bed. His name was Enrique Tapia Espanola. He was a first-year student in the combat stream, an unremarkable member of the student body who had, apparently, elected to go hog-wild with a shotgun in the school’s first-year refectory. ‘When he wakes up, he’s going to have a ridiculous story about a waking dream of some form. He’ll say he was trapped in his body and unable to stop himself. All he could do was watch as he gunned down his fellow students.’
‘Insanity plea?’
‘I should listen to what he has to say. Have you ever heard of the Puppetry spell?’
Mitsuko swore under her breath, her eyes flashing. Courtney’s eyes widened and then narrowed. Melissa and Rochester just looked confused. ‘I haven’t,’ Melissa said.
‘It’s illegal on every one of the Clan Worlds,’ Mitsuko said. ‘For good reason.’
Nava shrugged. ‘As a policing tool, it would actually be quite effective and entirely non-lethal. It allows a magician to take control of a subject’s voluntary nervous system, Mel. It’s not mind control. The subject is fully aware but can’t control their muscles. If you’re skilled in its use, you can make your puppet appear almost normal, but it’s very hard to animate everything and the eyes suffer the worst. They tend not to focus properly because the magician can’t look through them. For the same reason, the eyes are often a little off in their aim, so to speak. In this case, the puppeteer was not bothering with facial animation at all.’
‘You’ve seen it used before?’ Mitsuko asked.
‘I’ve… seen it before, yes.’
‘Can you use it?’ Courtney asked, her voice hard.
‘I can’t.’
‘But we’ve only your word for that.’
‘Courtney,’ Mitsuko snapped.
The captain of the SSF dipped her eyes away. ‘I apologise. That was… uncalled for.’ Her eyes lifted to look once again at Nava. ‘You don’t actually care, do you?’
‘I care that you’re wasting your time attempting to find some reason to dislike me when there’s a killer wandering around our campus,’ Nava replied evenly. The corners of her lips shifted slightly upward. ‘Another killer.’
‘Nava, you’re not–’ Mitsuko began.
‘I killed Devin Girard. However, I was not just referring to me. There are a number of students and teachers here with blood on their hands. That includes Courtney Martell. The problem we have is that someone on the campus is perfectly happy to use mass murder as a cover for whatever scheme they have in mind. I don’t believe they’re a student.’
‘Someone from outside?’ Mitsuko asked, frowning. ‘It’s difficult to believe anyone could infiltrate the school’s security and go unnoticed for this long.’
‘The skillset suggests a particular type of terrorist. A certain… faction.’
Courtney jumped as though she had been shot. ‘You’re not serious!’
‘Emotion Control, Puppetry, Invisibility. It suggests one of their operatives.’
‘Emotion Control? You’re lumping that fight at the judo demonstration into this?’
Nava nodded. ‘I am. They like to cause chaos. Their aim is to destabilise the clan system and destroy the Clan Worlds.’
‘Who?!’ Rochester almost yelled. Frustration was making him assertive; he really seemed to hate not knowing something.
Courtney glowered at the floor and lowered her voice. ‘The Redwing Faction. No one is to repeat that to anyone in the school. I’m telling you now so you won’t bug Nava Ward about it and end up spreading the rumour.’
‘They’re supposed to be extinct,’ Rochester said. ‘Didn’t the ASF wipe out the last of them last year?’
Melissa nodded. ‘It was all over the news last April. They had some sort of base on Earth, of all places, and it was raided and destroyed.’
‘Anyone who thought that was their only operating base was a fool,’ Nava replied. ‘It was foolish of the Clan Council to suggest the Redwings were finished after that operation. I don’t believe they’ll want it blabbed about that a Redwing operative is here causing trouble.’
‘No,’ Mitsuko said. ‘They won’t.’ She sighed. ‘Now I’m going to have to call my family.’ She turned to Nava. ‘You’re quite sure that this is them?’
‘No. I can’t be absolutely sure. But this is the kind of operation they run, using the kind of magic they use.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Courtney asked.
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that.’ Nava regarded Courtney’s exasperated expression and shrugged. ‘Everyone has their secrets, Courtney Martell. If you wish to find out what mine are, you’ll need to ask someone other than me.’
‘Who?’
Nava’s lips twitched again. ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that.’
~~~
‘Courtney’s not going to let it go,’ Mitsuko said. She was speaking quickly, between moans, gasps, and the occasional whimper. ‘She’ll dig.’
Nava lifted her head briefly. ‘I’m aware. And you won’t?’
There were some unrecognisable sounds and then, ‘Maybe. Maybe I’ll find a… way to get it out of you.’
‘Torture? That doesn’t work, you know.’
‘There’s more than o-one way to t-torture someone. What you’re d-doing now c-could be c-considered– Ah!’
235/2/7.
‘Quintessence. Can someone explain to me what it is?’ Pause. ‘Anyone other than Rochester Hunt?’
The speaker was Lambert Stenger Mendel, metaphysics teacher to class 12C. He was an adequate metaphysics teacher, maybe even a quite good one. He was an older man with an academic background, though his age barely showed thanks to modern medicine. His brown hair had no grey in it, his body was moderately fit for someone who spent his life in classrooms and labs, and his blue eyes were clear. He hated it when the only person willing to answer his questions was Rochester. Nava put her hand up.
‘Nava Ward?’
‘Quintessence is the fifth fundamental force, the other four being gravitation, electromagnetic, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. At its most basic level, quintessence is responsible for the phenomena formerly known as dark energy and dark matter. It moderates the force of gravity depending upon its energy density in a particular location. A peculiarity of quintessence is that it can both affect and be affected by sentient minds. It is
