‘I see.’ She had hurt his feelings. Or, more likely, she had rubbed an unpleasant truth in his face and he did not want to hear it. ‘Then I suppose I should concentrate on those who do wish to represent their school.’ Turning, he set off toward one of the aerobatics training areas.
Melissa, who had been watching from a distance, walked over. ‘Well, you finally told him. I wondered how long it would take before you got angry.’
‘I’m not angry about that.’
‘You’re not? You sounded angry. Uh, well, no you didn’t. But there was a definite aura of angry about you. Or, well…’
‘I’m not angry about him asking, yet again. I’m angry that he’ll do it again next week.’
‘Oh.’
‘Really, why won’t anyone in this school accept that some people don’t want to perform like a pet monkey just because they’re asked to?’
‘I really don’t know. No one’s ever asked me to do anything monkey-like.’
‘Want to swap lives?’
~~~
Mitsuko’s muscles tightened. Her back arched off the bed in an almost frightening display of flexibility. She let out a shriek of release that might have woken the neighbours even through the superior soundproofing. Nava did not relent, however, until her lover collapsed back onto the bed, sated. Then she crawled up from between Mitsuko’s thighs to lie beside her.
‘Your stamina has improved,’ Mitsuko said when her breathing was back to normal. ‘You used to call for a break before I did.’
Nava’s shoulders shifted under Mitsuko’s arm; a tiny shrug, hampered by her posture. ‘Sex is good exercise.’
‘And we’ve been doing it nonstop since February.’
‘I wouldn’t say nonstop. Consistently, perhaps. You’ve been more eager again recently.’
‘Stress. Getting everything ready for the dance. Between that and lessons, I need the stress relief. Is Naomi really being a pain?’
There was a brief pause before Nava gave her answer. ‘I want to punch him. I’m not entirely sure I can reach his nose, so I think I’d aim lower, but I want to punch him somewhere painful.’
‘Violence is not the answer to every problem.’
‘I am sadly aware of that.’
Mitsuko chuckled. ‘I’m not sure whether that “sadly” was sarcastic or not.’
‘Life would be simpler if every problem could be disintegrated. However, I’ll refrain from punching Naomi since it’s likely to just complicate things.’
‘I’d appreciate it. He’s been trying to get me to push you into both competitions, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t, because you didn’t say anything. He doesn’t know about us, does he?’
‘He knows we’re good friends. If he knows we’re lovers, he’s never let anything slip. He believes that I can influence you. He wishes me to use that influence to get you into the war games and the Shinden Aerobatics Festival. I’ve told him that you’re clearly not interested, but he still pushes.’
‘Huh. What I need is a good excuse for not doing them. I think I have perfectly good excuses: safety and not wanting to. Apparently, I’m supposed to submit to the desires of my “betters” in order to increase the reputation of SAS-squared.’
‘Ah, well, aside from the fact that that was said in a far more bitter way than I’d expect from you, I have some sympathy for Naomi there. I’m quite sure that, with your talents, you would do well in the competitions and that would raise the school’s reputation. That’s one of the goals of the student council and therefore one of mine. Obviously, a slaughter would be bad, so I can grasp your issue with the war games, but the aerobatics…’
‘I think you’re neglecting the fact that I’m a total amateur and people who watch events like that would know. They’d know I was just good at aerobatics due to natural talent and they’d know that the school had little or nothing to do with it.’
‘Plenty of people would just look at the results… But I see where you’re going. I’ll mention it to Naomi when he tries to persuade me again.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Are you up for round four?’
Nava glanced over at Mitsuko’s ketcom which was plugged into a stand beside the bed. ‘It’s after midnight and we have lessons in the morning.’
‘I know…’
‘In the shower then. We’re already going to have to change the sheets before we can sleep.’
Mitsuko’s smile was all triumph. ‘I can get behind that.’ She could influence Nava when she wanted to. She just preferred to save it for things that really mattered.
235/7/28.
It was Wednesday morning, and that meant metaphysics. Today, it seemed, that meant that Lambert Stenger had made it in to do the teaching. Class 12C never knew who would be taking the lectern for any given theory class until the teacher arrived.
Most of the students knew that something bad had happened to the man back in May, but few of them knew the details. The school had invoked personal privacy to keep the full story under wraps. They had been unable to silence it entirely because someone had died, but exactly what had happened to Lambert and his family was known only to those directly involved.
Nava, Melissa, and Rochester knew that their teacher had lost pretty much everything. His wife was still unable to look at him without either bursting into tears or screaming. His daughter understood, perhaps more than anyone, that her father had not done anything to her mother, but Bethany was sticking to her mother’s side at the moment and Lambert rarely saw either of them. To add insult to injury, Lambert was increasingly unable to focus on his work. With the Harbinger destroyed, Lambert had delegated all his research work to his subordinates and rarely went near the lab. Just looking at the broken artefact sank him into days of depression. He muddled through, barely keeping his life ticking over. Rumour had it that the school wanted him to take a sabbatical to sort himself out, which was a polite way of saying, ‘We can’t fire you, so please resign.’
‘All right,’ Lambert said. The class had already settled and grown silent.
