Emily laughed and patted him on the back comfortingly.
“Don’t worry,” she said reassuringly. “It’s not like you can fail homeroom, no matter how bad you do.”
“What’s the point, then?”
“Evaluation,” Anastasia said, working her nails over with an emery board. “To gauge our interests, our aptitude, and most importantly, our sanity and durability. They throw everything at us, not because we need to know it, but because knowing it might help us not turn into lunatics. Where do you think Eerie learned about knitting, anyway? They do it for the same reason that everyone has to go see Rebecca once a month — because as badly as Central needs us, they are even more frightened of us.”
“Why?”
“Because of people like you,” Anastasia said, shrugging. “Unpredictable students with combat-grade protocols that exceed their own ability to control or understand them. At best, you are a wild card. At worse, you’re a threat to everybody around you.”
“Some days I really hate you,” Alex said, putting his head back down on the desk. “Does everybody go to see Rebecca?”
“Everyone except for her,” Emily said, pointing at Anastasia. “But, nobody goes as often as you do, Alex.”
“Why don’t you have to go?”
Alex seemed more impressed by this than by anything else he had learned about Anastasia. She held up her nails to the light, inspecting them critically.
“Because they are even more afraid of me than they are of you,” Anastasia said, without a trace of modesty or sarcasm. “Furthermore, I simply don’t want to.”
Mitsuru was battering a heavy bag when Rebecca came into the staff gym. There was no way for anyone to mistake what was going on for a workout. Mitsuru had left bloody knuckle marks all over the leather of the bag.
Rebecca suppressed a sigh at her friend’s self-centered display of melodrama, and went to go pay her the attention she obviously needed. It was why she’d come to the gym, after all.
Like hell she was doing the stupid cardio-kickboxing class.
“Hey, Mitsuru, sweetie, what’s wrong?” Rebecca was careful, putting her hand on Mitsuru’s shoulder, slick with sweat. Even a tame dog can be dangerous. “What’s got you so worked up? Did something happen in the field?”
Mitsuru stopped her assault, her shoulders heaving as she caught her breath.
“You saw the report?”
The question was rhetorical. Rebecca saw every report, even the ones that were marked for Gaul’s eyes only. That was her job. Everyone knew that.
“Sure. It went well. Alice even gave you a few compliments, and that means something, coming from her. What do you have to be so upset over?”
Mitsuru finally turned around, her red eyes wet with intermingled sweat and tears. Rebecca was taken back despite herself.
“I saw Alice’s protocol.”
“So? She ports. She’s an apport technician, M-Class, the very best. What’s the problem?”
Of course, Rebecca already knew what the problem was. She’d known from the moment she’d read Mitsuru’s field report, before she’d had a chance to edit it. After all, she had to make sure that everyone who came saw Alice’s Black Protocol firsthand received her personal attention. Otherwise, they would notice it didn’t make any sense.
They had nothing to talk about, at least, nothing that Rebecca hadn’t heard a dozen times before. Everyone knew what a protocol looked like, after all. And Alice’s little displays looked nothing at all like one.
“What did she do to Tung? What was that?”
Mitsuru’s voice shook, but Rebecca was already inside her head, soothing, reinforcing. Creating little spaces for doubt to erode away.
“I’m not sure, hon,” Rebecca said with a tired smile. She was actually glad to have the opportunity to tell the truth, for once, since Mitsuru wouldn’t remember a thing. “Nobody knows. Alice Gallow has been here longer than we have. Whatever Alice Gallow does is a secret, even to her. Even to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No one does.”
“I don’t like it. It makes me nervous.”
“It made you nervous,” Rebecca corrected cheerfully. “It doesn’t anymore.”
“But, it could be dangerous…”
Mitsuru barely managed that, in a dreamy, half-removed voice. Rebecca pushed a little harder.
“That’s what everyone thinks. But, it’s not. Not while I’m here. You see, I know something about Alice Gallow that no one else does.”
Mitsuru’s eyes fluttered closed. She barely moved her lips when she spoke.
“What?”
“It’s our secret, silly. I can’t even tell you. She’s my best friend, after all. Now,” Rebecca encouraged, patting Mitsuru on the arm, “you go wash up, and go back to feeling good about the operation, okay?”
She stood there in silence, her eyes fluttering, before she was animated by a sudden internal signal. Mitsuru stretched like she was waking up, and smiled at Rebecca as if she hadn’t seen her in some time.
“Hey ‘Becca,” she said fondly. “Are you here for cardio-kickboxing?”
“I never understand the point of his lectures,” Alex complained. “I tried to take notes today, but how the hell can I take notes when I’m hearing all of this stuff for first time? I don’t even know what the important parts are. This is the dumbest class I’ve ever taken.”
Vivik laughed, peeling his orange in the shade of one of the massive HVAC units that had been crudely grafted onto the stone building. It was warm today, up on the grey slate of the roof, and Alex was glad to be outside. The three-hour long class had felt endless.
“It’s only been a few days, Alex. Did you take a look at the study guide I made you?” Vivik squinted up at Alex, half-blinded by the afternoon sun. “And do you have to keep pacing like that?”
Alex stopped, and realized that Vivik was right. He had been pacing since they’d come up to the roof for lunch. He sighed, and then sat down next to Vivik in the shade.
“Sorry — and no, I, um, haven’t had time yet,” Alex said guiltily. He’d tried looking over the guide the night before last, and he’d ended up falling asleep before he finished the first page. It wasn’t that Vivik’s study guide was bad, or even that the subject matter was boring. Rather, since arriving at the Academy, Alex had been extraordinarily tired, falling asleep not long after sunset most evenings.
“It’s not a big thing.” Vivik popped a section of orange into his mouth. “I think it might help you get up to speed…”
“Ha. You are worried about homeroom, when you should be worried about next Friday,” Anastasia smirked at him, around her the straw from her juice box. She was flanked, as always, by Edward and Renton, who were not eating. “Mitsuru is going to make hamburger out of you.”
“That isn’t helpful, Anastasia.” Alex grimaced at the reminder of ‘Applied Combat Fundamentals’. “I’m not exactly overflowing with confidence right now.”
“Well, you seem like a nice enough guy, Alex, so I’m sorry to see you go.” Renton gave him a toothy grin. “But, you had a good run.”
“What was good about it? I must have missed that part.”
Emily produced a number of sealed plastic containers from her purse, divvying them up between her and Alex.
“What did he ever do,” Vivik complained, looking enviously at Emily’s cloth lunch sack, “to deserve you making him lunch? I’ve been helping you with your biology homework since I got here, Emily.”
“And I fixed it so that Steve and Charles can’t seem to remember that you are in our class,” Emily said cheerfully, peeling a hard-boiled egg. “We are square. Alex is new here, and anyway, the poor thing is an orphan. It would be irresponsible of me not to look after him a bit.”
“There is a cafeteria, you know. He doesn’t need you to make him lunch.”
Anastasia scowled, looking angrily at her own lunch, which as far as Alex could see was made up entirely of raw vegetable slices.
“I was at my sister’s last night, so I had a kitchen available. And you brought your own cook to the Academy with you. When did you start eating up here with us, anyway, Anastasia?”