CHAPTER 22
I don’t know what normal college is like, but the first week at the Academy is a shock to the system. Four-plus hours of powers classes every morning, then lunch, then regular classes, then homework, until your brain hurts just as much as your body. The only thing that makes it bearable is the weekend drawing closer and with it, that next chance to breathe.
By Thursday, most of us were feeling the strain. Three days of Control (two for those of us who missed Monday), a day of swinging sticks in Jessica Strich’s weapons class, more schoolwork than I knew what to do with, and we still had two full days to go before it was over. There were a lot of tired faces and slumped shoulders as we exited the cafeteria and headed off to the first class of the day.
Our destination might have had something to do with it. Nikolai’s concrete shithouse looked even more ominous than it had on Monday. Maybe because we all knew what was waiting for us inside. Three days later, I was still bruised and battered.
Down in the observation room, Nikolai was waiting for us, looming like a blocky, unfinished statue. He motioned us to the rows of benches set against the far wall, and waited until everyone was seated.
“You’re all still here. Good. Becoming a Cape takes many things; ability, intelligence, ambition, and even creativity. But most of all, it takes perseverance and dedication. All the talent in the world can’t teach heart. At least you have that much.” His deep voice filled the chamber. “Every year, this class begins with battle. Why?”
“Sadism?” That was Caleb. His broken nose had been healed, but the black eyes resulting from it hadn’t, making him look like a particularly feral breed of animal.
“Ha!” Nikolai shook his head. “Sadism would be letting you graduate untested, sending you off to join hero teams without knowing what it’s like to be beaten or bloodied. That was what this school did the first few years. Rainbows up every student’s ass, and a sequence of dance steps to be memorized. Step here. Dodge that. Strike there. And what happened when those newly graduated Capes found real battle?”
“They froze.” That was Paladin, up in the front and looking as fresh as he had before the school week started.
“Damn right they froze. They froze and they died. Worse, they got their teammates killed, veteran Capes relying on them to cover their backs.” This time, Nikolai’s head shake was sharp and savage. “Not all of you will stand on the front lines when you leave this school. But combat doesn’t obey rules, and it doesn’t play nice. Whether you’re a Healer or a Siren or a Gods-fucked Crow, you will someday find yourself in a position where you must fight. That is why I’m here.” Beady eyes sought out Olympia, one row in front of me. “That is why I will not accept excuses or cowardice. If you make it through the Academy, lives will depend on you, and not just civilian lives, but those of your fellow Capes. No student of mine will meet that responsibility unprepared.”
He paced back and forth in front of us. “You are all a very, very long way from that day. You aren’t Capes. You aren’t even Capes-in-training. Not yet. You’re first-years, the lowest of the low, and judging by what I saw on Monday, we have our work cut out for us.”
He stopped in front of Erik Thorsson. “A Titan who collapses after less than twenty minutes of combat. So much for going all night long.” Next was Silt. “An Earthshaker who drops like a stone.” Ishmae got a respectful nod and no commentary, and then he was in front of Paladin. “And a Stalwart who can’t defeat a Crow in hand-to-hand combat.”
Matthew sat stiff, cheeks flushed, and said nothing.
“Who here knows what Paladin did wrong?” Nikolai finally asked the class.
“He lost?” suggested Winter.
“Just like you did?” The teacher shook his head. “Everyone loses. No shame in that.”
Winter scowled. I hadn’t seen her match with Erin Pearson, a Wind Dancer who was only saved from ginger-ness by her less than pasty skin, but suddenly I really, really wanted to. With all that silky white hair, Winter could have been almost cute, even with the nose—after all, who I was to talk about noses?—but so far, she’d been every bit as cold as her namesake.
“Anyone else have an answer?” asked Nikolai.
“He quit.” Those were the first words I’d heard Alan Jackson speak, his voice harsh and cold.
“Damn straight he quit.” Nikolai let the words fall like an executioner’s axe.
“Oh come on! You saw what happened!” protested London, who looked as good from behind and above as she had outside Control on Monday. “The Crow wasn’t going to stop.”
The Crow was getting sick of being called that. And of being treated like a fucking plague victim, for that matter. After four days of cold shoulders and silence from literally every attractive woman in my class—not to mention a surprising lack of progress in my campaign to win Ms. Stein’s heart and body—that old Healer in the med ward was looking better and better.
The Academy was supposed to be keeping me sane, not driving me in the other direction.
“You’re right. He wasn’t going to stop,” agreed Nikolai. “Sixteen fractures, and the Crow kept fighting. Why do you think that is?”
“Because he’s a psycho zombie just pretending to be alive?” suggested Santiago.
“Could be, El Bosque,” agreed Nikolai. “Maybe the dampeners don’t work on his kind. Thing is… desperate, unwavering defiance is the sort of shit you’ll be facing when you graduate, and not just from Crows. When it’s life and death, some people choose not to roll over just because they’re facing a Cape. And quitting sure as hell isn’t an option then. So what should Mr. Strich have done?”
“Decapitate the fucker.” Alan’s word count had now reached five, and I was liking him less with every syllable.
“Surprisingly ineffective against Walkers,” countered Nikolai, using the popular term for zombies, “and a quick pass to a lifetime stay in the Hole if it happens in my class, but not a bad suggestion otherwise. Anyone else?”
Shane raised his hand. “He could’ve choked him out, maybe?”
“Like Phoenix did to you, you mean?” Nikolai’s grin widened as he looked from the little ginger to the even smaller Ishmae seated next to him. “After your little dirt nap, I guess it’s no surprise that you’d think of it… but sure, that could work. No oxygen to the brain means no motor control means the opponent goes down. Unless he really is a Walker, of course. Anything else?”
The class gave a collective shrug, so Nikolai nodded and kept going. “Sometimes, killing is the best solution. Other times, you’ll need to be use nonlethal means. Chokes. Immobilizations. Even the old stand-by of handcuffs and shackles.”
“Sounds like some of my dates,” laughed Caleb.
“Sounds like we have a volunteer when we get to those classes,” responded Nikolai cheerfully. That humor vanished as he addressed us as a whole. “We don’t hold these matches because I want to watch you bleed. Not even that mouthy Jitterbug over there. And I didn’t call anyone out today to humiliate them.” He dropped a massive hand onto Matthew’s shoulder. “Fact is, Paladin ran into a situation he wasn’t prepared for. That’s what happens in this class. That’s what this class is about. We fight and then, win or lose, we review what happened. We identify what went wrong, and we train to do better in the future.”
“But all the fight experience in the world is useless if you lack the strength, the speed, or—” and here he looked directly at the Viking again, “—the endurance to capitalize on it. So now that I’ve gotten the measure of your class, we’ll be tabling combat for a little while.”
In front of me, Olympia not only perked up, she actually started glowing again.
“Instead, we’re going to focus on conditioning. In a month or two, you’ll be begging to hit someone and if you’ve trained hard enough, I may even let you. In the meantime, get ready for some real pain. We’ll start with something simple before we get into strength training. A pleasant jog, for example.” That sadistic smile reappeared.
“I’m thinking five miles?”
Olympia’s glow went right back out.
•—•—•
There’s a special place in hell for people who schedule classes on Friday afternoon, when all anyone wants is an early end to the school week and a merciful start to the weekend. And at the center of that special place, deep within its disgusting, blood-soaked, shivering heart, there’s an even more special place, reserved for people who schedule Ethics classes on Friday afternoons.
Not everyone minded, of course, because Isabel Ferra was young, pretty, and had a way of chewing on her pencil as she waited for answers that was borderline phallic. People like Paladin, Ishmae, and Winter even seemed to enjoy the discussion topics, which was enough to convince me that Crows weren’t the only insane Powers in the world.
I hated it. Didn’t care for Ms. Ferra, and she sure as fuck didn’t care for me either, given the way she loved to bring up examples of Crow atrocities as models of unethical behavior. Because first-years really needed her expert instruction to understand that attacking someone with zombie rats was bad.
Even when the conversation wasn’t Crow-related, Ethics class sucked. I’d never spent much time thinking about the subject growing up. Dad killing Mom was bad. Older kids picking on the little ones at Mama Rawlins? Also bad. Most everything else was a big fucking grey area and I was more than happy to leave it that way.
Turned out Ethics was all about digging into that grey area and carefully classifying it as good or bad, something that seemed to me to depend entirely on the situation, the people involved, and the end result. By the end of that first class, I had Her Majesty’s words rattling around in my brain:
Capes tend to have a black and white view of the world. Don’t take kindly to those of us who see it otherwise.
I was starting to think she might be right.
CHAPTER 23
On Saturday, while most of the class was sleeping in, I was up and heading to meet again with my tutors. By the time I made it back to the dorm, with a massive headache and a half-dozen new assignments to reinforce my regular schoolwork, Jeremiah was dressed to head out for the night. His dark pants and green button-down were a far cry from the sweats I was yet again wearing.
My roommate and I had barely spoken since that first night, but as I settled onto the bed with my Glass, a stylus, and way too much shit to do, he paused at the doorway. I thought for just a moment he was going to break the streak. Instead, he shook his head and then he and his beard both went out into the hall.
I didn’t hear him come back that night, but he was hungover and miserable when I woke up on Sunday. Not sure if that made me feel better or not. I’d slept like shit, so it’s not like I was feeling great either. I’d heard a few of my classmates complain about having to share rooms instead of having space to themselves, but I had the opposite problem. At Mama Rawlins’ all the boys had slept in one room, and all the girls in another. Having only a single roommate, even one as oversized as mine, was weirdly hard to adjust to.
The persistent silence didn’t help much either.
As a special treat, I swapped out Saturday’s sweatshirt for one of my only remaining tees. Then I dumped the armful of dirty sweats into the basket we’d each been provided, and set out to look for the laundry room. I eventually found it on the far side of the same building that housed the cafeteria. Seemed kind of unsanitary to me, but what the hell did I know?
The campus was dead-quiet, with only a few people—most of them older students—out and about. I made it to the laundry building without anyone screaming or running in terror, pushed open the door, and came to a halt. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
There were two people inside, folding clothes at one of the tables separating the giant rows of washing machines and dyers. The first was a slightly older Indian guy I’d never met… as big as my roommate and a shit-ton more muscular. But the second? Matthew-mother-fucking-Strich. Guy being my arch-nemesis was bad enough, but it felt like I was tripping over the asshole everywhere I went. And why would he have to do laundry anyway? Way most people treated him, even his shit smelled like roses… I couldn’t imagine his sweat was any worse.
Both of them turned to the door, and Matthew’s smile gave way to an immediate frown. The other guy looked at me and then back to Matthew. “Who’s this?”
“Damian Banach,” said Paladin, biting the words off. “Class of 76. Crow.”
The other guy whistled. “You’re the Crow? I’ve wondered where you were.”
“Just been trying to get a handle on my homework.”
“I wish I could say it gets easier,” he said, “but easy isn’t what this place is about.” He clasped his hands in front of him and offered an odd little bow. “I’m a third-year. High-Three Stalwart. Call me WarChild.”
“Damian. Low-Three devil spawn, looking for a better codename than Baron Boner.”
WarChild winced. “Definitely keep looking.”
“What the hell are you wearing that for?” That was Paladin, stomping all over what was only the second borderline-friendly conversation I’d had all week. He was pointing at my shirt.
“You’ve got something against t-shirts, Matthew?” I shot back.
“That one, I do.”
I frowned for a moment, looking down at the logo and image of a Cape kicking Black Hat ass before it all clicked. “Right. Crow like me doesn’t get to wear Cape merchandise, is that it? Or is it this particular Cape that bugs you? You have a problem with the real Paladin? Because I’m telling you, that fucker’s three times the hero you could ever be, and you have no fucking right to steal his name.”
The third-year winced again for some reason, and Matthew went quiet. When he spoke, his words were cold and sharp. “That fucker is my father. And it’s his choice to gift me the name, not yours.”
“Oh.” Dominion was, without question, the strongest Cape in the Free States, but Paladin had once been my favorite. It wasn’t until I hit puberty and started noticing women that he’d been nudged down to second place by Tempest. How had someone like that given birth to Matthew? “Well… your father’s way cooler than mine,” I finally managed.
“Whatever.” He piled his folded laundry back into his own basket and turned to WarChild. “Thanks for the chat and the advice, Vikram. Talk to you later?”
“Sure thing. I start my internship next month, but while I’m still here, stop by if you need anything.” The third-year waited for Matthew to leave, and then nodded to me. “That goes for you too, first-year, assuming you can keep your ass out of trouble.”
“Have to get it out of trouble first before I can worry about keeping it out,” I pointed out.
“True enough.” He shook his head. “Baron Boner. What is this world coming to?”
Looking back, I probably should’ve taken WarChild up on his offer. A third-year who didn’t automatically hate me? It was like finding a diamond in the Bakersfield mud. But part of me saw the offer as some kind of trap, and part of me saw it as nothing but pity, and I wasn’t going to risk either possibility.
Wasn’t the first time I screwed myself over out of pride. Wouldn’t be the last either.
•—•—•
A few other people piled into the laundry room as I was waiting for my load to finish, but I don’t think any were Capes-in-training… or, if they were, they didn’t know who I was. I did recognize one of them from Amos’ History of Powers class. Pretty damn cute too, or she might have been if she weren’t wrapped around some guy, trying to send her tongue down his throat.
Anyway, nobody paid me much attention, but I got out as soon as my laundry was done, tossing the clothes back into the basket without bothering to fold them. It was a quick trip back to the dorm to dump the clothes on my bed, and then I was back out the door with my Glass, headed to the cafeteria for breakfast before the next round of tutoring and the one meeting I was really dreading.
Almost time to meet my counselor. The person tasked with making
sure I stayed sane. Assuming I wasn’t already nuts. Assuming he didn’t hate me on sight and conspire to get my ass thrown out from the start.
So much potential for things to go to hell in a hurry.
But that’s life in a nutshell, isn’t it?
CHAPTER 24
Do you remember those Junior Cape vids they used to air for children? Not the good ones, like Paladin’s fight with the Demonsouled or Tempest and the pirates… I’m talking about the early-morning vids, all fake and cheesy, starring made-up Capes in mock battles with absurdly incompetent Black Hats. Pretty sure I’ve mentioned them before. They only ran for a few years before they were replaced. Turned out the public wasn’t buying the candy-colored, saccharine bullshit being peddled.
Anyway, after every episode, the Junior Cape of the day would look straight at the camera and offer some sort of lame fortune-cookie wisdom that had nothing to do with the plot of the actual vid. You know the sort: “An apple a day keeps Professor Inferno away”, or “The early bird knows better than to stay out after dark”, or my personal favorite: “What you don’t know could possibly hurt you.”
I don’t think they ever had one about the danger of expectations. Maybe they should have.
After Mom’s death, the government sent me to speak with a shrink… because that’s the sort of thing a five-year old orphan should have to deal with. He was ancient; probably thirty or older, stuffed like a package of synth-meat into a threadbare suit and smelling vaguely of alcohol and moldy cheese. We went around in circles for a grand total of three sessions—slightly less than a month—before he pronounced me healthy, sane, and well on the way to recovery from my tragic event. I remember that phrase in particular; tragic event. Guess it beats intentional de-parentification.
Thirteen years and one ever-cheerful ghost later, I was more open to the idea of counseling, but I still went in expecting something similar to that guy from Bakersfield. Hopefully without the cheese smell, and maybe a bit younger—although at eighteen, thirty didn’t seem quite so old anymore—but otherwise a white, wrinkled fucker, with wire-framed glasses and a protruding belly full of gin and superiority.
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