“I’m sorry, Alex, but I don’t have a lot of time today. Do you mind if we move on?”
“Sure,” Alex said agreeably. “I was wondering why you were here, and where Michael was. I thought I was going to get lectured.”
Rebecca frowned.
“I think you’ll find the consequences for today to be bit more severe than a lecture.” She leaned back against the cracked leather couch, clearly very tired. “But I’ll leave that for Michael. We have something we need to do.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s nothing bad,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Do you remember last time? When I built those shields in your head?”
“Yeah. I can still feel them,” Alex gestured vaguely around his head. “It’s a little weird.”
“You get used to it after a while,” Rebecca said, nodding. “Has anyone explained protocols to you, Alex?”
He shook his head.
“Have you ever heard of a hypnotic trigger?”
“Sure, I think so,” Alex said uncertainly. “It’s like, once a person has been hypnotized, if they here a certain word or something, it makes them do stuff, right?”
“Sort of. Close enough,” Rebecca shrugged. “That’s basically what protocols are, Alex. Implanted behaviors and routines, just like on TV where they make people think they’re a chicken or dance around or whatever. Except we teach our students to trigger the behaviors themselves, consciously. You follow?”
Alex nodded.
“I think so.”
“Good. Well, Michael plans on showing you how to use the Absolute Protocol. We already know from your activation that you have the affinity for it. So, he asked me to set up the routine to help you operate it. We call the process implanting,” Rebecca explained patiently.
Alex thought about it for a while, and then nodded.
“Okay, Rebecca. I trust you. Let’s do it.”
Alex smiled at her, and was rewarded by an even bigger smile in return. Rebecca leaned next to him on the couch, resting her head on his shoulder.
“That’s good, Alex. And I know that it’s the truth, too, I can tell,” she softly, her shoulder pressing against his own, her hair in his face. Alex felt almost as if he were melting. “It feels good. There’s nothing an empath values more than genuine trust and affection. May I use your power, Alex?”
Alex nodded, his eyes fluttering and his breathing growing deep, regular. Rebecca put the palm of her hand on his chest and pressed lightly.
“Oh my…” she said, after a moment, sounding surprised. “Alright. I’m going to implant the protocol now. It’ll sting a little bit, and you might get dizzy for a minute, but that will pass quickly, and I’ll be right here with you. Is that okay?”
Alex nodded slightly, his eyes fully closed.
“Okay, Alex. This is the Absolute Protocol. In three, two…”
Perhaps there was a ‘one’, but Alex never heard it. He was only aware of where Rebecca’s palm met his chest, and the copper-toned light that emanated from there. It shown so brightly that he could see it through his eyelids, through Rebecca’s hand. The radiance grew slowly, gradually encompassing his whole body, then both of their bodies, illuminating the room with a dazzling array of sparks and metallic light. Alex shook and writhed and moaned like a child in the throes of a nightmare. Rebecca increased the pressure on his chest, and for a moment the light flared and became entirely white, with only a hint of crimson in the blinding, all-encompassing luminescence. Alex could see nothing else, could feel nothing else but the searing radiance.
And then it was over. Alex’s head hurt a bit, and he felt a little dizzy, but not bad. He took several deep breaths, and then opened his eyes.
Rebecca smiled at him, patted him on the leg, and then walked back to the desk. When she tapped a cigarette from the pack, Alex noticed her hands shook slightly.
“Damn, kiddo…” she said after a moment, blowing smoke at the ceiling. “Okay, the protocol is implanted. I also reinforced those shields we built the other day — you should be good ‘til next week. Come back and see me on Sunday, and I’ll fix them back up for you.”
Alex rubbed the back of his head and sat up.
“How long till I can build them myself?” he asked, blinking his eyes and trying to regain his equilibrium.
“Not long. We’ll teach you that soon. A couple of weeks, on the outside,” Rebecca said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it right now. You need to start with the fundamentals, and then learn the applications, you know? That’s what Michael is waiting out on the practice ground to show you.”
Alex looked down at himself oddly, then back up at Rebecca.
“So this is it, huh? I’m actually going to do this. Be an Operator, I mean.” Alex’s voice was filled with wonder and doubt. “I’m a little bit scared.”
“Don’t be.” Rebecca beamed at him, her brown eyes warm. “Trust me, Alex. You’re going to be more than fine. You’re going to be amazing. You are going to be better at this than you’ve ever been at anything.”
Alex stood up. Despite himself, he found that he was smiling.
“Thanks, Rebecca. I guess I’m ready. Where do I go?”
Alex was again awed by how huge the Academy was — he followed the map Rebecca had drawn through a number of green practice fields, a handful of low stone buildings, and one long stretch of what appeared to be rolling, forested hills. It took him a quarter hour to find Michael.
The gap cut crudely into the side of a hill had obviously been a quarry at some point in the past, though it looked to have been abandoned years before. Alex walked along the ridge on one side and then down a hand-carved path into a deep depression that narrowed by long, circular steps, with one narrow, uncut ridge rising in the center of the quarry, about half the height of the depression. Michael stood on the edge of that ridge.
The path so narrow that Alex didn’t feel comfortable walking up it. He didn’t think he’d actually fall off of it, but he felt as if he might, and it was a long way down to the still water at the bottom of the quarry. The rough-hewn walls of rock all around blocked out the sun, and it was quite cool. The pebbles that rolled away from Alex’s feet rang musically against the limestone ridge, falling eventually into the dark water below.
Michael stood at the edge of the ridge, his arms crossed, smiling companionably. Alex was grateful to find that the path widened out in front of him, and sat down with obvious relief on a large rock next to Michael.
“How’s it going, Alex?” Michael’s voice was hushed, but the sound still echoed within the old quarry. “How was your first day?”
“It isn’t over yet, so it’s too early to say,” Alex shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
“Fair enough,” Michael agreed. “Let’s talk a bit about that altercation at the cafeteria. Did that work out the way you wanted?”
“What do you think? I mean, I knew something like that would happen eventually, with all the stories everyone has apparently heard about me. But, I didn’t want it to happen before I had a chance to talk with most of my classmates.”
“Uh huh.” Michael nodded and waited for him to continue.
“And yes, alright.” Alex waved his hands agitatedly. “I didn’t expect him to turn to stone. And that’s obviously going to be a problem, since he’s probably thinking about ways to kill me, right now. Unless,” he said hopefully, looking up at Michael, “you were planning on teach me how to fight a living statue today?”
Michael looked at Alex oddly for a moment, and then laughed.
“Not exactly what I had planned today, no. You have anything else you’d like to say about it?”
“Well, actually, I do,” Alex said softly. “Why did you pick Vivik to introduce me to everyone?”
“You don’t like Vivik?” Michael looked surprised.
“He’s a nice enough guy,” Alex allowed. “But that isn’t the point. He’s clearly the least popular kid in the class, not counting the two who apparently aren’t even human. So why pick someone that everybody already hates to introduce me to everyone? Are you trying to set me up for this shit? Or is this some kind of test?”