“And I am?” Alex motioned impatiently, stifling another yawn.
“M-Class, Alex. Not potentially. Already.”
Alex was unnerved by the frank sympathy he could see on his face. Was it really such a bad thing?
“That doesn’t fit in the alphabetical order,” Alex objected.
“Because it doesn’t relate directly,” Vivik sighed. “I guess that’s why they skipped all those letters. The thing is, no matter how powerful the ability, A-Class or F-Class, Operators are limited by the amount of power their bodies can generate. It’s like, it doesn’t matter how fast you are, if you’re already very tired, you could lose a race to a much slower runner, right? Even the most powerful F-Class Operators will wear out if they use too much power in a short period of time. And that’s the thing, Alex.” Vivik tapped his feet nervously against the chair leg as he spoke. “Being M-Class doesn’t necessarily make you more powerful — usually, not necessarily — but whatever degree of power you have, you can use it almost endlessly.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” Alex complained, clearly frustrated.
“You can’t use up your power, Alex, no matter how much you use, there will always be more,” Vivik explained curtly. “Because you aren’t drawing it from yourself. Somehow, you can pull power from outside, from the Ether. No limitations. That’s what M-Class means.”
“And that’s rare?”
“Extremely,” Vivik said, nodding. “None of the other students at the Academy right now are M-Class, to the best of my knowledge.”
“But that’s stupid,” Alex said, staring at his hands. “I don’t even know how to do anything.”
“Alex, you’re in a different world now. Central isn’t concerned with what you don’t know at the moment — there are people here who can read probability threads, Alex, and make determinations about the future. They already know exactly how powerful you’ll become. They don’t have to guess. They know.”
Alex and Vivik sat in silence. After a few minutes, Vivik cleared his throat and pushed in his chair.
“Well, you are probably tired,” he said, smiling. “I’ll let you rest. Nice meeting you, Alex. Goodnight.”
“G’night,” Alex muttered. He walked Vivik out of the dorm room, and then lay back down on the bed.
His bed. His room. His school.
Alex rolled over and closed his eyes. It would take some getting used to.
Twelve
The more Gaul looked at it, the less he liked it.
He was still fuming from his interview with North, whom he had found to be insufferably arrogant, and far from forthcoming regarding the reasons for his presence in the area. He’d invoked the Committee-at-Large, however, and that meant Gaul couldn’t demand anything more until he either got the approval of the Committee, or opened an Audit. Beyond that, he was still angry that someone, anyone, would have the temerity to attack one of his Operators, even if it was Mitsuru. Most of all, though, he was furious with his Chief Auditor, who was currently sitting in front of him and smiling politely.
It seemed like everything that day had conspired to infuriate him. And, Gaul thought soberly, that was an actual possibility that had to be taken into account. He had walked a razor’s edge since he’d wrested control of the Academy away almost forty years ago, and a single mistake on his part could still ruin everything.
This did seem like a long way to go just to ruin his day, though, he had to admit.
“We have a leak. A leak inside Audits. How is that possible?” he wondered aloud, his tone indicating that an answer from Alistair was expected.
Alistair rolled his eyes.
“I’ve handpicked every single member of the Audits department, Gaul,” he said, his voice profoundly tired. “You know that. If there is someone on the inside, they got past all our screenings, the background checks, everything. You know how powerful an Operator they would have to be to lie to my face?”
“Nonetheless,” Gaul said, shuffling paperwork on his desk, “unless you are suggesting that I am leaking operational information to outside agencies, there is no other way to account for two such debacles in such a short period of time.”
“That’s a bit unfair,” Alistair objected. “It’s not like we failed, in either case. Mitsuru saved that kid, and she killed that target, what’s-his-name…”
“Estelle,” Gaul said coldly. “Have you reviewed the recordings, yet?”
Alistair lowered his head.
“I have,” he said, reluctantly.
“Then I’m certain that you noticed, near the start of the encounter, that Mitsuru allows herself to receive a very serious gunshot wound?”
“I’ve double-checked the probabilities lines,” Alistair said guiltily. “It is as she said. She had no time to take other action.”
“We are talking about a few seconds difference,” Gaul complained. “What exactly did she expect to happen in that time?”
“Perhaps she intuited exactly what did happen, Gaul. You know, if Mitzi hadn’t done what she did, this operation would have failed.”
“I do know that, and I agree with you, actually. Mitsuru’s actions saved the operation. It’s her reasons that bother me.” Gaul came as close to shouting as he ever did — he raised his voice. “She is clearly still using Black Protocols. Her obsession with suffering has cost us all in the past, Alistair.”
Alistair let it pass. He simply smiled and waited. After a few moments silence, Gaul sighed.
“Moving on, then.” He shuffled more papers on his desk. “The other two Operators, Walsh and Young, what about them?”
“They never had a chance,” said Alistair, shaking his head regretfully. “They were too close to the center of the temporal warp when those Witches hit us. I turned around as soon as I felt them porting in, knew they had to be flanking us, knew they’d hit our backup first. Walsh was dead before I could get there — I assume they used balefire, with the sulfur and the charring.”
To Gaul’s eyes, Alistair looked strange. Tired, yes, and battered, but given the circumstances, it was to be expected. Still, something about this operation seemed to have taken something out of Alistair. Gaul wondered what could have thrown his usually unflappable Chief Auditor. After all, it wasn’t as if this was the first time Alistair had lost men under his command.
“But Young, that was the weird part.” Alistair hesitated before continuing, appearing to steel himself. “I saw him get hit, right when I turned the corner. He was cut into a million pieces. It had to have been the Shining Cloud Protocol. I could still see the traces of it, lingering in the Ether.”
Gaul paused for a moment, his head cocked to the side. Alistair stared at his shoes while Gaul consulted the Ether.
“Leaving aside the more important issue, then,” Gaul said, adjusting his glasses, “finish off the encounter for me.”
“I knew at that point that my chances of getting out of there were slim,” Alistair sighed. “And I had to get back to Mitzi, before they got to her. I didn’t have any time for subtlety.”
“You turned their minds off,” Gaul said, with a trace of sympathy.
“No other choice,” Alistair said, shaking his head. “Believe me; I had questions I wanted to ask them, maybe even more than you. But anything that only incapacitated them would have taken more finesse, and more power, than I had to spare at that point. I still had to activate an apport protocol, and that always takes it out of me.”
The two men were silent for a moment while Gaul consulted his uplink.
“You’re right,” Gaul said, robotically. “Preliminary analysis confirms it. Shining Cloud. I will have to inform Young’s wife, later. I see no records of Walsh having any close family.”
Alistair continued to stare at the ground. Gaul wondered how long it had been since his Chief last slept, but couldn’t summon much pity. Gaul’s own sleep cycle had been modified when the uplink was installed, and now he slept for an hour or two every night, at most. When he dreamed, he could feel the vast currents of the Ether, flowing through him, from everywhere and through everywhere. It was not restful.