Authors: Zachary Rawlins
He managed to stop in time, a step away from colliding with her. She stood in the sidewalk, arms folded in front of her. The uniform she wore was superficially similar to his, but with a black blazer, rather than blue, and with a completely different patch on her breast pocket. The last time he’d seen her, her hair had been tied back, and now that it was down, he was surprised at how long it was, hanging almost to her waist, silken black and utterly straight. She looked at him emotionlessly with her unnerving red eyes.
“Boy,” she said softly, “you should learn to watch where you are going. It seems to be a reoccurring problem.”
Alex recognized her immediately, of course – the list of people who’d saved his life recently was pretty short, and there weren’t too many attractive ladies with crimson eyes on it.
“Oh,” he managed, trying to collect himself, “I think that, um, I think I owe you a thank you, for, well, you know.”
Panicked at her blank expression, his stuck his hand out.
“My name is Alex,” he said, his voice suddenly ridiculously small and squeaky. “Thank you for helping me.”
If Mitsuru had any opinions on the matter, her face gave Alex no clue of it. She continued to stare placidly at him. Eventually, he let his hand drop to his side. As Alex tried desperately to think of something to say, his cheeks reddened under Mitsuru’s impassive eyes. When he heard Vivik hurry up next to him, he felt profound gratitude for the intervention.
“Miss Aoki,” Vivik said apologetically, “good morning. Have you met Alex already? Today is his first day.”
Mitsuru gave Vivik a small nod, her eyes never leaving Alex.
“I’ll see you on the seventeenth, boy,” she said, abruptly striding past them, heading back the way they’d come. Alex couldn’t help but watch her walk away. She looked better in a skirt.
“What the hell was that?” Vivik wondered. “You already know her, Alex?”
“Sort of,” Alex admitted, shakily resuming his walk to class, trying not to notice that people were staring and whispering.
“And what’s with seventeenth?” Vivik asked with a huge, mischievous grin. “You haven’t even been to class yet and you already have faculty asking you out?”
Alex felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He dragged the repeatedly folded class schedule from his jacket pocket, and looked at it grimly.
“Oh man,” he said softly. “Fuck me. The seventeenth is the first day of the ‘Applied Combat Fundamentals’ workshop, seven in the A.M. I am so dead.”
Vivik nodded, and slapped Alex companionably on the shoulder.
“’Fraid so,” he said cheerfully. “Miss Aoki has quite the reputation…”
“For what?”
Vivik lowered his voice, and looked seriously at Alex.
“I heard she’s a psycho,” Vivik confided, glancing around suspiciously to make sure no one was walking near enough to them to hear. “I heard that she killed another Operator, a while ago, and so they kept her locked up or something for a long time. She’s supposed to be like a hundred years old…”
Alex looked at Vivik skeptically.
“She’s supposed to be what?” he scoffed. “There is no way she’s a hundred years old.”
“You can’t rely on looks to make that kind of determination here, Alex. Lots of Operators can control their appearance, or slow down their aging process,” Vivik explained patiently. “It’s probably a bit much to try and absorb all at once.”
Alex just shook his head.
“Man, she’s not a hundred years old…”
“Yeah, okay,” Vivik admitted. “You’re probably right about that.”
“Here we are,” Vivik said, pointing to a four story building made from the same monotonous slate grey stone is everything else, set back in a stand of middle-aged oak trees. The creek burbled nearby, detailing a gentle curve around one side of the building, and then disappeared into an underground channel. On the other side of the building there was a large grassy field, vivid green under the bright sun.
“This is much nicer than Bakersfield,” Alex said to Vivik, grinning.
“I’d hope so. I’ve been to Bakersfield once,” Vivik said, with a laugh. “Come on, let’s get moving, we’re gonna be late.”
Vivik used his swipe card to open the door, and then led Alex up a flight of stairs to the second story. The interior of the building was cool and airy, with polarized glass in the windows and buff-colored tile flooring. There seemed to be four classrooms on the floor, but Alex only saw students crowded at the doors of two of them. Inside the nearer one, it was a typical lecture hall – three rows of seats with attached writing desks in a half-circle around a raised dais and podium, with muted grey carpeting and a bank of fluorescent lights overhead. Behind the podium, there was a chalkboard and white board, flanked by a table with a laptop, projector and a tangled mass of cables.
Most of the class had already arrived, and Alex seemed to feel every eye in the room migrate to him as he and Vivik entered. The students were lounging around the room in small groups, talking in low voices – clearly cliques had already been formed and social rankings established. Alex knew with an iron-clad certainty that he was going to be a very-odd man out.
As Vivik led him to a seat near the center of the room, Alex’s anxiety worsened. Vivik had greeted a couple of students with nods on the way in, but no one had spoken to either of them, and Vivik clearly intended for them to sit by themselves. It dawned on Alex that it was very likely that the person Michael had picked to help Alex assimilate had not, in fact, made any friends himself. Alex resolved to have a serious discussion with Michael on this issue, as soon as he got enough nerve to.
Alex was so gloomy over his social prospects, sitting beside the now silent Vivik in the padded plastic seats, that he almost didn’t notice the blond girl until she was standing directly in front of them.
She was slender and tall, almost as tall as Alex, with long blond hair teased into curls and brilliant green eyes. She wore the same uniform as everyone else, but she it looked nicer on her, Alex thought. Quite a bit better.
“Are you going to introduce me to your friend, Vivik, or are you planning on keeping him all to yourself?” She leaned down as she talked, looking at Alex with a playful smile. “So unfair.”
“Not at all,” Vivik sputtered. “I simply haven’t had an opportunity to introduce you, yet.”
“You have one now,” she said sweetly, still looking at Alex.
“Alex, this is Emily Muir. Emily, this is Alex Warner.”
“Pleased to meet you, Alex,” Emily said, holding out one hand to him.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Muir,” Alex said, wincing. He hadn’t ever, in his memory, referred to a girl his own age as ‘Miss’, and couldn’t imagine why he’d picked now to start. The hand he shook was smooth-skinned, soft, and recently manicured. Alex wondered if she was wealthy or just very concerned with appearances.
“Emily,” she corrected, her smile revealing perfect teeth. “I have to admit that I’d heard you were joining our class today. I think most people here have already heard some version of the story.”
“What story is that?” Alex asked.
Emily’s grin widened, and she sat down next to Alex.
“Well, one version I’ve heard is that you helped Mitsuru fight a whole pack of Weir,” she offered cheerfully, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger.
“W-What?” Alex gasped. “You’ve got to be kidding me! That definitely did not happen.”
“I didn’t think it was very likely,” she said, winking at him from beneath immaculately styled bangs. “You don’t look the type. Another version I heard was that Mitsuru saved you from being eaten by the Weir.”
“I think that’s probably closer to the truth,” Vivik offered.
“Whose side are you on, here?” Alex complained. “Seriously, though, she did save me. It was a one-woman show. I didn’t do anything except fall down and bleed.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” Emily laughed. “So, what was scarier – the Weir, or Mitsuru?”
“Well…” Alex began doubtfully, only to be cut off by the arrival at the podium of what could only be the professor.
He was older, grey haired and slightly disheveled, with several days’ worth of stubble on his chin and a somewhat outdated wool jacket, the same insignia on his breast pocket that Alex had seen on Mitsuru’s blazer. He had a gigantic stack of books that he carried piled precariously on his outstretched arms, while the corners of even more jutted out from the leather messenger’s bag he had slung over one shoulder. As he passed by Alex, he left a wake of pipe tobacco.
“Come to order, people,” he said in a crisp British accent, piling the books on a table to one side of the podium. “Let’s find seats. We have much to do today…”
Emily put down her shoulder bag and started digging through it.
“You don’t mind if I sit here?” She asked innocently.
Alex shook his head more emphatically than he had intended.
“Please, by all means…” he said, ignoring Vivik’s amused snort.
“Alright, alright,” said the teacher, motioning for the class to be quiet. “That’s enough people. We have a new student, today – Alex Warner, could you stand up please?”
Alex stood up hurriedly, bashing his shin against the seatback in front of him in the process. He did his best to act like it didn’t hurt.
“Thank you,” the teacher nodded at him. “I am Mr. Windsor. These sixteen fine young men and women will be your classmates for the duration of this lecture course. Duration defined, of course, by your own individual performance.”
Windsor motioned for Alex to sit down.
“Very well,” he continued on, “we have much to cover this session, in order to keep this class on pace, and we must find some way to accommodate our newest member as well. Mr. Warner is some weeks behind, and will need assistance to get caught up. I believe, ah, yes... Ms. Muir?”
“Yes, Mr. Windsor?” Emily asked demurely, still looking down at the notebook in front of her.
“Would you mind helping our new student for today?” Mr. Windsor powered up the projector next to him. “If you could introduce him to his classmates, during break, and help him through the material, that would be very helpful. I would imagine he would need to share your textbook…”
“Of course, Mr. Windsor,” Emily said cheerfully, sliding her textbook over so that Alex could see it, too.
A general muttering spread through the class, but it was quieted by a glance from Mr. Windsor. Alex noticed a black-haired girl looking back at them, one row down and several seats over, glowering at Emily, and looking a bit too young to be in the same class as him. When she noticed Alex looking at her, she shook her head solemnly, and then turned her attention to the notebook in front of her.
--
“Well, I am totally fucking screwed,” Alex said glumly, piling lettuce from the salad bar into a bowl. “What the hell was Windsor talking about, anyway?”
“Yeah, I felt that way at first too,” Vivik agreed cheerfully, using tongs to pull hot rolls from a basket. “Just be glad you didn’t join mid-session. I hear Windsor made some kid take a midterm last year a week after he enrolled.”
“Vivik!” Emily protested. “That did not happen.”
“This cafeteria is alright, though,” Alex allowed, puzzling over a variety of pasta.
He wasn’t kidding. The cafeteria was actually nicer than most of the restaurants Alex had been to. The dining hall itself was huge, easily capable of seating a couple hundred, though there were only thirty or forty students eating at the moment. One whole wall was nothing but windows, and the afternoon sun filtered pleasantly through the trees.