“One day in class he had some trouble with sparring with a girl,” Renton said, after some thought. “There was kind of a scene, till Collette, that Algerian chick, she planted his ass a couple of times. He seemed to warm up to the idea after that.”
“So he’s a boy who doesn’t like to hit girls,” Anastasia said softly, “what a revelation, Renton. That helps a great deal.”
“I’m sorry, Ana, I said that I don’t know,” Renton objected, his face reddening, “what do you want me to say? It’s a combat class, for Christ’s sake! It’s not like we sit around chatting about our childhoods or something. Look, Ana, you want somebody to figure the kind out”
For a moment, Anastasia and Renton glared at each other, like two children holding a staring contest. They were still that way when Edward unexpectedly broke in.
“You should try Vivik or Emily,” he offered in his quiet, high-pitched voice that Anastasia still hadn’t gotten used to, since he’d spoken so rarely in the two years he’d worked for her, “they talk with him the most.”
As Anastasia paused to consider. The Weir who wasn’t refusing to eat from Edward’s hand shoved its snout into her lap, whining, and she petted it absently while she thought out the various ramifications of the situation.
“Okay,” she said slowly, as the wheels in her head turned, “I think I’ve got an idea. Edward, could you find Margot and bring her back here? She and Vivik have a class together this session, I’m fairly certain. Vivik might not be inclined to share with me, but I doubt he’ll be so reticent with Margot.”
Edward nodded, dropped the scraps on the floor, gave Anastasia a quick bow and then was on his way.
“What about Emily?” Renton asked, looking at her expectantly. “If you want, I could see…”
Anastasia shook her head, staring into the eyes of the black wolf whose head lay in her lap.
“No need. I have other errands for you to take care of. I’ll handle Emily myself.”
“Is it really so complicated?” Margot shook her head. “Okay, one more time — the Academy controls the source of the nanomachines, so if the cartels want to activate new Operators, then they have to abide by the Academy’s rules, hence, the Agreement. For any activation that doesn’t result in death, one student at the Academy.”
“What is the source, anyway?”
“Shit, Alex,” Margot said through gritted teeth, “do you really think they go around telling everyone their most closely held secret?”
“Okay, I guess,” Alex allowed, “but then why all the infighting? Couldn’t the Academy just, you know, tell everybody to stop?”
“It’s a two-way agreement. In return for almost total control of the students while they attend the Academy, the cartels have free reign over their own internal affairs. There’s only so much to go around, in terms of space, money and people. It’s usually easier to fight another cartel than the Witches, and often more rewarding. Plus,” Margot said, shrugging, “people sometimes disagree. Violently.”
“Alright, but why don’t the cartels attack the Academy and take whatever it is they need? I mean, aren’t there a lot more Operators in the cartels than employed by the Academy?”
“Sure, but look around you. How many cartels do you think would cooperate long enough to complete such an undertaking? And what do you think would happen after? They can’t trust each other, and as long as they are divided, the Academy holds the majority of the power.”
“For now,” Anastasia added brightly. “Besides, the Black Sun would never condone an attack on the Academy.”
“I don’t get it,” Alex said lazily, staring up into the sky.
Sitting cross-legged in a pool of afternoon sunlight, Margot looked over at Emily despairingly.
“I will never understand. What do you see in him, Emily?”
“Hey!” Alex objected, lying on his back in the grass. “I can hear you, you know.”
“She sees the same thing everybody else does,” Anastasia said absently from where she sat in the shade of the nearby tree, reading. “A great deal of power attached to not so much brain.”
“Hey!” Alex said again, weakly. He had been lying in the sun for a while now, and it had lulled him into a state of complacence. He wasn’t about to rise to the bait and mess up his potential afternoon nap, no matter what the girls said.
“Power,” Emily agreed, smiling, but not looking up from the notes she was bent over. “That’s part of it. But Alex does have some good qualities, once you get to know him. Besides,” Emily said cheerfully, “he’s just so pathetic, who wouldn't feel moved to help him?”
Anastasia laughed but didn’t say anything. Alex reddened, and wondered how the conversation had gone in this unfortunate direction. As if homeroom hadn’t been enough of a nightmare today, with the lecture going right over his head, then Emily’s suggestion that they go sit out on the grass in the quad and relax had turned into this. Alex wasn’t even sure how Anastasia and her cohorts had gotten invited to join them. Anastasia and Emily, despite their frequent tiffs, seemed to get along awfully well for two people destined for opposite sides in a conflict, to Alex’s eyes.
“She has a point,” Anastasia acknowledged, removing a Tupperware container from her bag, and carefully selecting a carrot stick from it. “He does have this lost puppy feel to him.”
Alex opened his eyes and turned his head, so he could glare at Anastasia. This meant she’d won their little game, as usual. But this really was unprecedented, Alex had to admit — when had Anastasia taken Emily’s side in anything?
“Why always carrots?” he demanded, a bit more testily than he intended to. “Are you a vegetarian or something?”
Anastasia looked back at him with cold eyes, taking a bite from her carrot and then chewing it slowly, deliberately, before answering him.
“My lunch did not work out. Neither did my last cook, for that matter. Or, maybe I just like carrots,” she said finally, her expression blank and ominous. “What is it to you, exactly?”
Vivik looked up at the two of them, and smiled tiredly, and then looked back down at his book.
“She’s a vegan, Alex,” Vivik said. “A vegan who is going to have serious trouble on the test this week if she keeps skipping study session to focus on her evil plots and schemes.”
“My plots aren’t evil,” Anastasia corrected, “Mostly. They are mostly not evil plots. And I’ve got that test under control, thank you very much, Vivik. It’s not like you’re working on it either,” she added accusatorially. “That’s Alex’s textbook you’re annotating, right?”
Vivik sighed and put down the highlighter.
“It’s not really the time I’d pick to do this,” Vivik allowed. “But whenever I come by his dorm room he’s asleep, or so he says. He won’t answer his door, anyway.”
“Very suspicious,” Emily said gleefully. “What is that you get up to in the evenings, anyway?”
Alex wasn’t entirely sure how to answer her question. He had been falling asleep early most nights, ever since he’d come to the Academy, often waking in the morning without have changed out of his clothes, without any memory of going to bed in the first place. Alex had always been a light sleeper, and he found this change worrisome, more so since the strange conversation with Eerie that he couldn’t fully remember.
“I wish it was something cool,” Alex said, sitting up reluctantly. “But there’s nothing to it. I keep crashing out early, that’s all. It’s not like a deliberate thing, it just kind of happens.”
Emily look at him pityingly, her golden hair curled into tight, perfect ringlets. She wore a plain grey sweater with a maroon skirt, her legs folded beneath her, effortlessly beautiful. Alex remembered their ‘arrangement’, and then tried to find something else to pay attention to.
“That’s sad, Alex,” Emily teased. “You should find better things to do with your evenings.”
Anastasia’s expression was poisonous.
“I think I’m going to pass on commenting on that,” she said, gathering her books and shoving them into her backpack. “I have class soon, and I have some things I need to take care of before that.”