“This is getting a little personal…” Windsor interrupted half-heartedly.
“It is fine,” Anastasia said curtly. “Yes, some of them were here to kill me. Some of them were not. I took care of the ones who were. Whatever members of the cartel remain after the attack are dead, or they will be soon. There will not be a reoccurrence of such behavior.”
“But you can’t guarantee that, can you? Or there wouldn’t have been one in the first place, right?” Vivik said emphatically, half standing. “And if you can’t maintain discipline, then how will anyone? How will the Hegemony?”
“Watch yourself, boy,” Grigori said darkly from the other side of the class. “We would never do something like this.”
“No? The Terrie Cartel turned already, everybody knows it,” Vivik shouted back. “You don’t have control. None of you do. The system was always insane; it was always going to get some of us killed. Now you’ve all lost control of it, and unless someone does something, it’s going to kill all of us. While you, Mr. Windsor, you and the rest of the Academy, you train us and then you stand by disapprovingly while we kill each other. Are we just going to pretend that this didn’t happen?”
The class was silent. Emily had turned bright red, and was staring over at Vivik, while Katya looked delighted and impressed with him. Grigori and Hope were looking at Vivik too, but without the approval. Even Eerie looked surprised. Only Anastasia continued as if nothing was happening.
“Maybe not the most civil delivery, but Vivik has some excellent questions, class. Would anyone care to try and answer them, or shall I take a shot at it?”
Mr. Windsor smiled pleasantly, as if they were having a normal class discussion.
“I will answer,” Anastasia said icily. Mr. Windsor nodded at her benignly, but she didn’t look up to see it. “I maintain order, Vivik, because it must be maintained, because I can, and because I like it that way. I have no other reasons. I’m not devoted to the system, but it works better than anything else we’ve tried so far. Tell me, Vivik, because I do know how very intelligent you are, do you have anything better?”
“Not yet,” Vivik said defiantly, folding his arms across his chest. “But, I have some ideas I’m working on.”
Anastasia looked up at him, her face composed and haughty.
“Then when you’ve worked them out, come and talk to me. You know I’ll listen,” she said through what sounded a clenched jaw. “And, Vivik, since you seem to have forgotten, my enemies,” she said, pointing back at the Hegemony side of the class, “are right there. The next time you want to talk politics, you come see me in private. Do not,” she snarled, slamming her notebook closed, startling everyone, “put me in this position again.”
Anastasia gathered her notebook and stomped out of the class, letting the door slam behind her. Timor nodded politely at Mr. Windsor, grabbed her books and his things, and hurried after her. The entire class watched, helpless in shock at the outburst.
“Alright,” Mr. Windsor said, cleaning his glasses. “Maybe we should take a moment to compose ourselves? Five-minute break, people. Back in your seats in five minutes.”
Katya leaned over the row of seats to tap Vivik on the shoulder.
“Well, well,” Katya exclaimed, beaming. “Who’d have thought it? I totally misread you, Vivik. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone call Ana out like that. You’re awesome, man.”
“I think I might actually be stupid,” Vivik said, burying his face in his hands. “Why did I do that? What possessed me?”
“Well, there go all my questions,” Alex said softly.
“You poor thing,” Emily said, patting Vivik on the back, looking appalled. “What got in to you?”
“I don’t know,” Vivik said miserably. “I feel weird.”
“I bet I know,” Katya said smugly. “You go see Rebecca a lot?”
“Once a month, same as everybody else,” Vivik said without lifting his head.
“Yeah? Well, you know, whatever protocols she was operating, keeping everything running smooth and everybody happy around here?” Katya smiled and leaned back, her hands behind her head, her feet up on top of the row of seats in front of her. “Well, they stopped working a day or so ago. And it can’t only be you. Anastasia seemed a bit emotional herself. Betcha almost everybody at the Academy has been subjected to a little tweaking courtesy of Rebecca at one time or another. I think things around here are about to get a lot more interesting. Tell me,” she said, kicking the back of Alex’s chair, “how you feeling lately, son?”
Alex couldn’t sleep.
Calling that rare didn’t do it justice, particularly since he’d come to the Academy. Alex had been falling asleep before ten most nights, and woke up only when his alarm clock got insistent about things. Since the attack two days before, he hadn’t been sleeping well, and last night, he’d only gotten a few restless hours before giving up around four in the morning and heading to the gym, hoping to dispel some of the nervous tension that had been plaguing him. While he forced his stiff body through a very abbreviated Yoga routine on the deserted mats, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if Katya had been right, if Rebecca had really been manipulating everyone in the school, and if his current worries were the result of her injury.
He tried not to think any more about that.
Remembering things at random made it even more difficult to rest. Alex would drift part way to sleep, feel his body start to relax, his mind begin to wander… and then he would snap back to attention while a memory emerged from nowhere, blurry and indistinct, the details jumbled and impossible, and he would spend hours worrying over it.
He recalled the ocean, placid as a bathtub, warm as it lapped against his calves. His legs aching from the effort of climbing the foothills behind him, up to his shoulders in bare red Manzanita, the air around him smelling of the sage plants he crushed underfoot. He remembered turning the pages in a very old book, too young to read, sitting on a thick Persian carpet in a library that seemed almost as ancient as the book in front of him, smelling wood polish, coffee, and tobacco. For some reason, in the middle of the night, he remembered that Monarch butterflies return to the same trees along the California coast every year.
For some reason, he realized with a fair amount of surprise and confusion, at one point he had been very concerned with this particular butterfly migration, though he couldn’t imagine why.
None of the memories seemed to hold any special significance. Alex wasn’t sure why a memory of attending a formal dinner party and being confused over the forks had kept him awake a significant portion of last night. Of course, he must have fallen asleep at some point without realizing it, because in a muddled version of the memory, it was a childish but unmistakable Anastasia Martynova who helped him figure out which fork to use, scolding him as she explained. Dream logic caused him to accept this until he woke up in confusion.
The sun was barely up by the time he got to the track. He didn’t even have to run today, but after several weeks of being forced along by Michael, the strangest thing happened — he started to like running, just a little bit. He wasn’t fast, not at all, but over long distances, that tended to average out, and it wasn’t like anyone was racing anyway. Moving at a steady jog, he could comfortably cover several miles, and he found himself wanting to, some days, when his head was too weighed down, when he started to feel smothered by all the people and the attention. The track was cold and still damp from the night mist, but not deserted, despite his expectations.
“Good morning, Ms. Aoki,” he called out, descending the row of concrete steps that led down to the track and the playing fields. She looked up from where she sat by the side of the track, damp with sweat, messing with one of her running shoes.
“Alex,” Mitsuru said flatly, not expressing any surprise. “You are up early.”