Pride X Familiar ReVamp (Pride X ReVamp Book 1) (11 page)

Five little red dots appeared inside a number of the buildings.

Severin waved the remote. “Each breach happened at a different facility within the Academy. Accounting studies, computing, physics and chemistry laboratories, and the library. All were used at one point or another to access the secure levels of our school’s information network. All happened within the span of a month. But they stopped as soon as the school year came to an end.”

I asked, “Any idea why?”

Severing glanced at Simone. “We have an idea, but we’ll get to that shortly.”

I gave Simone a quick look. The serenity on her face conflicted with the tension in her eyes.

Maya asked softly, “Do we know what they are after? Do we know what is being protected by those security layers?”

Severin was quiet for a moment. “I cannot answer that question at this time.” He raised a hand to forestall a protest from the girl. “Maya, please. Later, you will understand why this is so. There are some matters I need to confirm before I can even attempt to answer your question.”

Simone slipped off the desk, and walked closer to the holovid image representing the Academy grounds. She cleared away the image with her own pen remote, then quietly addressed all of us in the room.

“I’d like all of you to listen carefully. Bringing you all together, and revealing this to you carries a degree of risk for us. To that end, I’m asking you all to keep this a secret. Caprice isn’t here, but she does understand the situation. So please, do not discuss this with anyone else. Is that clear?”

She gave each of us a measured look, favoring none over the other.

I gave her a nod. “My lips are sealed.”

Maya said, “I understand. My lips are sealed as well.”

The other girl replied in a like manner.

Simone swept her gaze over all of us again, and I saw relief and gratitude in her eyes.

She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

Severin stepped up beside her. “You have my sincere thanks as well.”

I felt a little embarrassed from the sincere feelings of appreciation they were bestowing upon us.

I wasn’t used to that from an Aventis.

When I glanced at Maya and the other girl, they looked troubled and a touch embarrassed as well.

The Student Council President and the Vice-President shared a quiet look, before Severin spoke again.

“There’s something else we need to show you.”

Simone took a couple of steps back from the center of the room. Severin fiddled with his pen remote and after a while a holovid security recording began to play. It showed a library terminal being operated as though by an invisible user. Then I narrowed my eyes when I noticed the user wasn’t quite invisible.

“Thermoptic camouflage,” I said.

Severin shook his head tightly. “No, it’s better. Every thermoptic camouflage system we know of has one flaw. It cannot hide the user’s shadow. This one is nearly perfect. Almost no shadow. The only give away is the fact the terminal is in use. I think it’s safe to say, this is another Fragment.”

I looked at him. “You’re saying it’s possible for them to be inside a crowded room, and no one would know they were there?”

“I’m saying that’s exactly what happened.”

I glanced at the other girls, then turned back to Severin. “What do you mean?”

“Each attack was carried out against our network during school hours, from inside a crowded, occupied room.”

I swallowed and voiced an awful conclusion. “So that’s why they stopped attacking the network during summer break.”

He nodded dejectedly. “No crowded classrooms or laboratories. No students or teachers to use as unwitting hostages while the breach was in progress.”

Maya’s voice was low and guarded. “Would Crescent really go that far?”

Simone answered her. “I have it on good authority that Crimson Crescent is willing to go much, much further.”

I felt her words foreshadowed a dire future for the Academy – for the school I really didn’t care for.

But if I didn’t care for it, why was I wondering what I could do to help?

I didn’t understand my feelings at all.

Severin cut across my confused thoughts.

“Let’s bring this meeting to an end. I think we all need some time to think this through on our own.”

I gave him a shallow nod, feeling relieved he was bringing the briefing to a close.

I was late, and there was somewhere I urgently needed to be.

#

(Haruka)

I gave him another few minutes, then hefted the straps of my school carry-bag onto my shoulder. Somehow I managed to hold back sighing in disappointed as I stared through the glass doors at the rows of lockers inside the lobby of the building.

I decided to call it quits for today, and try again tomorrow.

Why was I in such a rush?

The school year was just starting, but somehow I felt that if I didn’t confront him now, I’d never gather the courage again.

I was being stupid.

Hefting the straps on my shoulder a little higher, I started walking down the steps to the paved path that led all the way to the school’s north gate.

I walked with my head bowed down.

Siobhan walked beside me, and patted my back in an attempt to encourage me. She pointed out, “There’s always tomorrow.”

I gave her a nod I didn’t agree with. “Yeah, I guess you’re right….”

Then I heard his voice.

“I can’t stand that guy. We’re late because of him.”

Then I heard ‘her’ voice.

“I called ahead. We’re fine on time.”

I walked off the path and came to a stop on the grass bordering it.

“Caprice, just let me blame him for something,” he demanded in an irritated tone. “And what’s the deal with him and Maya? They were acting like a couple of ex’s.”

I could hear their footsteps behind us on the path.

Caprice
said, “Maya? You’re calling her Maya already?”

“Huh? What’s wrong with calling her Maya?”

“I find that a little too familiar. Please refer to her as Khayman from now on. Better still, refer to her as Cave Woman.”

They were going to walk right by us.

“What? I can’t do that?” he complained. He sounded confused by her request.

“Of course you can. It’s entirely fitting.”

“You don’t like Maya, do you?”

Their footsteps drew nearer. I glimpsed Siobhan giving me a concerned look as if to say ‘this is your chance’.

“I’d prefer to having nothing to do with her,” Caprice retorted.

“Is that why you didn’t attend the meeting? Does Simone know about the two of you not getting along?”

“The Vice-President is a prudent woman. Did you just refer to her as Simone?”

“You really have a problem with me using people’s first names, don’t you?”

“And you’re asking too many questions.”

They drew abreast of us, and a moment later I watched them walk by. Their shoulders weren’t quite touching but there was a degree of familiarity between them that wasn’t close to intimacy.

They were like sportsmen, or tennis partners.

Yes, that’s right. Like a mixed doubles pair that had been playing together for a long time.

For a little while I studied them as they walked down the path.

Who was I kidding? They were definitely closer than sporting comrades. Just look at the way she’s holding her head high as she walks beside him.

And look at the way he appears concerned for offending her sensibilities.

Damn, I was simply kidding myself.

Siobhan stabbed through my melancholy thoughts. “Haruka! Snap out of it! He’s getting away.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay.”

Siobhan cursed. “I had to wait half an hour with you. No way this is okay!” She stepped onto the path, and cried out, “Caelum Desanto.”

“Siobhan, don’t—”

Too late. Caelum and Caprice both stopped simultaneously. They both turned quickly in perfect unison. They both shared matching expressions.

Ugh…this was too much to take.

They’re in perfect harmony with each other, like a pair of champion ice-skaters.

There I go again with the sporting analogies.

Siobhan didn’t let up. “Hey, Desanto. Pay attention to your surroundings.”

He gave her a confused look, until his gaze fell on me. I turned away but not before I saw his expression fall.

Siobhan almost screamed. “Hey, don’t you walk away from her!”

What? He’s leaving?

I turned to look down the path in his direction.

He had come to a stop again, but he was looking in the direction of the open gate and thus with his back to me. A couple of feet away, Caprice was watching him with a bemused expression.

He slowly turned around and our eyes met.

His mouth opened. I saw his lips move. But no words came out.

He struggled for a long while, a pained look in his eyes, an almost tortured expression on his face.

Then he turned around in a hurry and resumed walking down the path.

Siobhan yelled out, “Hey—”

“Stop it,” I begged her. “Please, Siobhan. Let him go, please.”

My legs turned rubbery. I had to sit down quickly on the edge of the path or I’d have collapsed hard to the ground.

Siobhan rushed toward me in concern. “Haruka?”

“I’m okay. I’m just feeling faint.”

I rubbed my eyes and my fingers came away moist.

Damn. I’m losing it. Please, please don’t let him see me like this. Please dear gods.

I wiped at my eyes but it only seemed to make things worse.

There was nothing I could do to stop the tears.

I felt Siobhan wrap her arms around me as she knelt behind me.

“Haruka…you’re not fine. You’re very, very far from fine.”

I nodded and gave up trying to stop my tears altogether.

I didn’t bawl, but I came close.

Really, really close.

Reflections – 4.

The Symbiote can be classified into eight distinct strains.

These eight strains form the basis for the eight Prides that Aventis fall into.

The known Prides are as follows.

The Avenir Pride, known for its prominence in the domain of finance and business.

The Sora Pride, known for its prominence in the domain of business and entertainment, recently dabbling here and there in deep space mining.

The Sanreal Pride, known for its presence in the world of shipbuilding, shipping, salvaging and surveying.

The Irulan Pride, known for its interests in construction and deep-space colonization.

The Fenrir Pride, recognized for its interests in research and development of new technologies – as well as very
old
ones.

The Lorian Pride, with deep widespread connections to the learning institutions and academies across the colonized systems.

The Raynar Pride, known for its ties to the military and covert organizations.

And last, but not least, the Lanfear Pride – known as the black sheep Pride.

Courtesy of my bonding to Arisa Imreh’s blood – actually to the Symbiote inside her blood – I was bonded to the Lanfears.

As such, my affiliation to them wasn’t viewed with much pride by the Aventis of our academy. As mentioned before, the Lanfears weren’t very well received. This stemmed from the fact that the Lanfears had a habit of going against the flow. They would frequently paddle upstream when everyone else paddled down. This didn’t always work out in their favor, but on the occasions that it did, the Lanfears would profit greatly.

Also, the Lanfears had their fingers in
everything
, whether legitimate or illegal.

Elements of the other Prides were guilty of crimes as well.

However, it wasn’t nearly as much news as when members of the Lanfear Pride got into trouble.

Personally, I felt the other Prides simply had a grudge to bear against the Lanfears. After all, when it came to Fragments, the pieces possessed by the Lanfear Pride were by far the coolest, yet hardly the most dangerous of them all.

Chapter 4
.

(Caelum)

It wasn’t the most auspicious start to my Academy life.

It wasn’t the best of weeks either.

First Semester, Week One.

Let me describe it.

After class, I would travel with Caprice to the training center where both our performance and that of our Fragments was studied and measured by Lanfear Pride’s researchers.

Locations in Pharos were identified as follows: by Island, by habitat, then by district.

Galatea Academy resided in Island Three, Habitat One, District Four.

The training center where Caprice and I worked out at was located in Island Three, Habitat Two, District Two, which happened to be an entertainment district.

I say ‘entertainment’ not ‘red-light’ district.

The region was full of clubs, gaming centers, drinking establishments, and VR houses providing a plethora of virtual experiences.

The training center was situated underground, beneath a nightclub that hosted a healthy patronage even on school nights.

To arrive at the club, Caprice and I travelled by mag-lev. Not only could the trains travel at high speed through tunnels connecting the habitats, but they were pressurized and designed to travel between the Islands. In other words, they could handle the extreme vacuum of space. Running on flexible mag-lev rails, the trains were like rocket powered caterpillars running along vines between trees. They would exit one asteroid island, run along the mag-lev track and then enter a second asteroid island.

Even if they were pressurized, there was always the uncomfortable sensation in a person’s ears upon exit and entry of an Island.

It was only a little less bothersome when exiting and entering a habitat.

Caprice and I would enter the club through a side alley. A big, metal door resembling a fire escape exit intersected the permacrete wall of the club building. But it wasn’t a fire escape and the only way to open it was press one’s palm against the metal.

A smart door.

Very smart, indeed.

After recognizing either myself or Caprice, the ‘smart’ door would unlock for us.

From there we walked down a stairwell to the underground levels. The doors that greeted us at each level were
dumb
doors and were kept unlocked. Even if they were locked, Caprice and I had a key for them.

The training center was much like a gymnasium or fitness center, except built under a nightclub. However, this ‘fitness center’ came complete with medical scanning equipment and our very own researcher. I felt like a lab rat whenever I came here, which was to say almost every day for the past seven months since my Awakening.

For two hours we would perform physical training, then spend a good thirty minutes sparring with each other. Most days we trained without the use of Fragments. Most days, Caprice received training from a personal instructor or a holovid program who put her through a regimen of either capoeira or Jun Fan kickboxing. This suited her Fragment, the Valkyrie Legs, quite well. I had tried to follow along with her during these sessions, but found myself many, many months behind her. As a result, I didn’t get nearly as much benefit out of them as she did.

To me, it felt like there wasn’t a fighting style suited for using a shield-blade like my Gauntlet. I had the suspicion I would have to develop my own fighting style; a style that wasn’t found in the books. But was I good enough to do that?

The last fifteen to twenty minutes of our sessions were spent having a researcher or medical technician scan our bodies and analyze the results before allowing us to venture back into the outside world.

I felt our researcher had an appearance at odds with the image presented by the other Lanfear researchers I had encountered. Sure, he wore a white lab coat with the freshness of having been dry-cleaned every day, but everything else about him contrasted sharply with that coat.

Allow me to explain.

After I was ‘diagnosed’ as a Familiar, Arisa arranged new accommodations for me. I was allocated an apartment in the same complex Caprice lived in. In fact, Arisa made sure our apartments were next door to each other. A short while after I moved in, Caprice began making it a habit to watch old ‘movies’ at my place rather than hers. These were recordings made pre-Cataclysm.

At this point I will state for the record that at no point in time did I ‘invite’ her into my apartment. She had key to my apartment given to her by Arisa, courtesy of building management. As such, I was helpless to stop her.

One such recording I was forced to watch was a fictitious account of a Terran vampire by the name of Count Dracula who went to a land known as England in search of a worthy mate.

The point I’m trying to make is that the actor who portrayed the Count bore an uncanny resemblance to our resident researcher, from the long straight hair down to the round glasses he wore. I had a sneaky suspicion he had modeled his look after that actor from a bygone era.

As a side note, I should point out that Caprice’s fascination with vampires and vampire movies was one of the reasons I picked up on Simone’s name – Alucard spells Dracula in reverse.

Dr. Van Deeman – whom I ‘affectionately’ called Van Demon behind his back – supervised our training regimen. By this I refer to the physical training, not the combat training. Whatever insights he gained into us Familiars he kept to himself. I wasn’t privy to the data, except when he chose to comment on our development.

That’s the part that worried me.

Our ‘development’, as he put it.

To me it felt like a word with hidden connotations whenever he used it within the context of Familiars.

However, every night he would nod approvingly and successfully sidestep most of my questions.

Caprice rarely spoke to him. It seemed she’d given up trying to get a straight answer from Van
Demon
. Instead, she would confront Arisa whenever she needed an answer.

Speaking of Arisa, I hadn’t seen her in weeks. She attended the university in Island Three, Habitat One, and was majoring in business. Needless to say, her absence troubled me a little, but I did my best to shelve away my concern.

I had enough problems to deal with.

Let me turn back the clock a few days….

#

(Caelum)

Lunch break.

First week, day two – Tuesday.

I sat across from Caprice at a table in the cafeteria on the second level.

First level was allocated to the first year high schoolers.

Second level to the second year students.

Third level to the white uniformed seniors.

The good thing was the table was beside the panoramic windows overlooking the sporting fields of Galatea Academy. I was munching on fries while admiring the girls from the Track-and-Field team running laps during the break.

I found their dedication admirable.

Their skin glistening with sweat.

Their running clothes moist and clinging tightly to their young nubile bodies.

Their firm, bouncing breasts held securely by the latest in sports bra design.

I reached out for my drink and found it missing.

Unable to tear my gaze away from the sight of so many well developed female bodies, my right hand was forced to fend for itself, searching about blindly for the drink cup.

Then a sharp pain stabbed it.

“What the—?”

I cradled my hand with my left, studying the puncture wounds that were quickly healing. I looked sharply at Caprice.

The fork in her hand was tipped in red.

“What was that for?” I asked in astonishment.

“Your hand was wandering over my tray,” she replied flatly while wiping the fork clean.

“Oh…I’m sorry.”

Spotting my drink cup I reached for it and took a long sip through the straw. I dare anyone to allege real men don’t drink through a straw. Anyway, I turned back to the view out the window. “I’m surprised they’re training so early into the year. School started only yesterday.”

Caprice didn’t bother looking up from her tray. “Most of them would have been first years that are now on the team as second years. Galatea has won the Pharos Inter-Island Championship four years running. They’re favorites to win this year too.”

“You ever compete?”

“That’s a stupid question. The sports teams are dominated by Aventis. The Regulars play too, but when it comes to competition time there is simply no place for them. All they can do is cheer and keep the benches warm.”

She sounded bitter.

I knew what she meant.

A Regular human teenager possessed far less than half the physical prowess of a teenage Aventis. There was no point in competing against one. As a result, the Regulars that joined sporting clubs did so without any intention of competing in the various championships. They played sports for the fun of it, and more often than not teamed up with other Regular humans. You could say there was no fun playing against a ‘superior’ species and getting your ass handed to you in a ‘friendly’ match.

Everyone had a place in society as governed by the Prides. For Regulars, that place was one long step below the Aventis.

For Familiars like Caprice and I, our place was somewhere in between the two benchmarks.

When compared to a Regular teenage male of my height and body build, I was clearly stronger and faster by more than half – perhaps as much as three quarters. This was courtesy of the changes my body had undergone at a genetic level.

But in comparison to an Aventis of near age, height and weight, Dr. Van
Demon
was prone to point out I fell well shy of what the weakest male in that category could achieve.

In other words, I was stronger than a Regular, but weaker than an Aventis.

Looking at Caprice, a girl with exceptional stamina, strength and co-ordination, I wondered how she would fair against someone like Haruka whom I knew was a complete klutz. At least, that was before she joined a Pride and left the lowly ranks of being a Regular.

I had no idea if her co-ordination had improved.

Thinking of Haruka made me sigh inwardly.

I had no idea how I was going to deal with her, and my lack of a plan was killing me slowly.

Suppressing a second sigh, I rephrased my question. “Sorry, I meant to ask, did you ever hope to compete?”

“Yes. Even after I became a Familiar, I still had hopes of competing.” She shook her head slowly. “Then I learnt about Fragments and Artifacts and what we could do with them. Arisa hijacked my school life.”

I glanced around. I didn’t feel comfortable talking of Fragments and Artifacts with so many Aventis around.

I sipped the remainder of my drink through the straw, then placed the empty cup on my tray.

I’d eaten very little of my food.

I just wasn’t hungry.

You could say I had too much food for thought.

No, that analogy didn’t sound right.

I looked out the window again but a few moments later I saw the reflection of someone step up to our table. Turning to face them, I saw it was a slender girl with long brown hair. She wore the white uniform of a third year senior, and she looked familiar.

Caprice was staring at her like a wolf eyeing a tiger.

I asked the girl, “Is something the matter?”

“Caelum Desanto?” she asked.

I nodded politely. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a message for you.”

“From whom?”

“Would you please stand for me?” she asked.

“Huh? Ah…sure.”

I ignored the sight of Caprice narrowing her eyes. Pushing back my chair, I stood up smoothly beside the table. I noticed I was a few inches taller than the girl.

The girl took a couple of steps back and indicated where I should stand.

Frowning a little, I stepped up to her as requested. “You said you had a message?”

She nodded.

Whap!

There’s really no other way to describe the sound of her palm striking my face.

Of course, being an Aventis she hit me with enough force to knock me off my feet. I thought my neck would snap from the blow. However, my head managed to stay on.

Rising to one knee I stared up at the girl in abject shock. My ears rang a little and my face burned.

“What was that for?” I cried out, rubbing my cheek and jaw with a hand.

“That was the message,” the girl replied.

My hand stopped moving. “Huh?”

“I have delivered the Princess’s message.”

She bowed politely, spun on her heels and quickly walked away. She cast a few glances at me over her shoulder, probably worried I’d chase after her. However, I was too busy kneeling on the floor to make any attempt to pursue her.

I stood up slowly and followed the girl’s progress with my eyes. She climbed up to the third level and sat down at a table with three other girls in white uniforms. Their table was next to the balcony so they had a clear view of me, and I of them.